me. I was so lost in thought, that I almost ran over the poor kid.
'Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?'
The girl standing in front of two cartons of cookies was around eleven or twelve years old. She had a mop of bright red curls that could have come straight from Little Orphan Annie. She also had an award-winning smile. I'm a sucker for a smile. I stopped and reached for my wallet.
'How much are they?'
'Two fifty a box.'
'And what kinds do you have?'
She gave me the complete rundown. I took two boxes of Mints and handed her a twenty. She rummaged in a ragged manila envelope for change.
'Do you sell here often?' I asked.
'I'm here every day after school. My mom brings me over. I earn my way to camp by selling cookies.'
I felt my heartbeat quicken. Adrenaline does that. It's got nothing to do with heart disease. 'Were you here last week?'
Handing me my change, she nodded. 'All last week and all this week. It's a good place.'
'You're serious about this, aren't you?'
'I've signed up to sell one thousand boxes. That way my mom doesn't have to pay to send me to camp.'
She finished speaking and turned away from me to ask someone else. I had already bought. She couldn't afford to waste time with me at the expense of other potential paying customers. She homed in on a little old lady coming out of the store, carrying a cloth shopping bag filled with groceries.
'Did you save me some?' the woman asked, handing over the correct change.
'Right here,' the girl replied, picking up an orange box and tucking it inside the woman's shopping bag. With the transaction complete, she turned back to me.
I took a wild stab in the dark. 'What's the most you've ever sold at one time?'
She never batted an eyelash. 'Fifteen boxes.'
My heart did another little flip. I don't believe in coincidences. It's an occupational hazard. 'No kidding. When?'
'Last week. A man and a woman bought fifteen boxes. They wrote a check.'
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a woman emerge from a parked car and walk in our direction. Her total focus was on me, but she spoke to the girl. 'Do you need anything, Jenny?' she asked.
'More Mints and some Carmel Delights,' the girl answered. 'And would you take this twenty?' Jenny handed over the twenty I had just given her and the woman returned to her car.
'Is that your mother?' I asked.
Jenny nodded. 'She stays with me every day while I sell cookies.'
The mother returned with four boxes of cookies cradled in her arms. She eyed me warily as she put them in the cartons at Jenny's feet.
'What are you, the hidden supply line?'
The woman gave me a half smile and nodded. 'It works better if people don't realize we have a full carload of cookies right here. That way they think they're buying the last Mint.'
'This is quite a little entrepreneur you have here,' I said.
'Jenny's a good kid, and she has a lot of spunk. I don't mind helping her. She's willing to help herself.'
Jenny was no lightweight salesperson. She had just finished nailing a woman with a baby in her grocery cart for four packages of cookies. She gave her mother the ten.
There was a quiet space, with no customers coming or going. The sun had dipped behind the roof of the Coliseum, and it was suddenly chill. Jenny gave a shiver.
'How many boxes in a carton?' I asked.
'Twelve,' Jenny answered.
'How would you like to sell two cartons all at once?'
'Really? You mean it? Plus the ones you already bought?'
'Sure. But it'll cost you. I'll need you to tell me everything you can remember about the man and woman who bought those fifteen boxes.'
Jenny's mother stiffened. 'Wait just a minute…'
I reached into my pocket and extracted my ID. 'It's okay,' I said. 'I'm a cop, working a case. I really will buy the cookies, though, if you're willing to help me.'
Jenny looked from me to her mother and back again. 'Is it okay, Mom?'
Her mother shrugged. 'I guess so. It's about time we left here anyway. It's starting to get cold.'
Jenny packed up her supplies. I wrote the Girl Scouts a check for sixty bucks, and we transferred twenty-four assorted boxes of cookies from their trunk to the backseat of the Porsche. I made arrangements to meet them at Dick's for a milkshake and hamburger. My treat.
While Jenny mowed through her hamburger and fries, I chatted with her mother, Sue Griffith. Sue and Jenny's father were divorced. Sue had custody, and she and Jenny were living in a small apartment on Lower Queen Anne while Sue finished up her last year of law school. There was no question in my mind where Jenny got her gumption.
Showing great restraint, I waited until Jenny had slurped up the very last of a strawberry shake from the bottom of her cup before I turned on the questions. 'Tell me about the man who bought the cookies,' I said.
'It wasn't just a man. It was a man and a woman.'
'Tell me about them.'
She paused. 'He was tall and black. He had a sort of purple shirt on. And high-topped shoes.'
'And the woman?'
'She was black, too. Very pretty. She's the one who wrote the check.'
'What was she wearing, did you notice?'
'One of those big funny sweatshirts. You know, the long kind.'
'Funny? What do you mean, funny?'
'It had an arrow on it that pointed. It said Baby.'
I had seen a sweatshirt just like that recently. At Darwin Ridley's house, on the back of his widow, who never went to his games, not even statewide tournaments.
'What color was her shirt?' I asked.
'Pink,' Jenny told me decisively. 'Bright pink.'
It was all I could do to sit still. 'What time was it, do you remember?'
'Sure. It was just before we left. Mom brings me over as soon as I get home from school and have a snack. We're at the store by about four-thirty or five, and we stay for a couple of hours. That way I catch people on their way home from work.'
'So what time would you say, six-thirty, seven?'
She nodded. 'About that.'
'Jenny,' I said. 'If I showed you a picture of those people, would you recognize them?'
Jenny nodded. 'They were nice. The nice ones are easy to remember.'
Across the table from me, Sue was looking more and more apprehensive. 'What's all this about?' she asked. 'This isn't that case that was on the news today, I hope.'
'I'm afraid so.'
'I don't think I want Jenny mixed up in this.'
'Jenny's already mixed up in it,' I said quietly. 'Aside from his basketball team, your daughter may have been one of the last people to see Darwin Ridley alive.'
Jenny had watched the exchange between her mother and me like someone watching a Ping-Pong game. 'Who's Darwin Ridley?' she asked.
'I believe he's the man you sold all those cookies to,' I told her.
'And now he's dead?' Her question was totally matter-of-fact.
'Somebody killed him. Late Friday night or Saturday morning.'
Kids have an uncanny way of going for the jugular. 'Was it the woman in the pink shirt? Did she kill him?'
I've suspected for years that kids watch too much television. That question corked it for me, convinced me I
