letters, smaller repetition of it tailed down like the funnel of a cyclone. My eyes followed them, they were caught hypnotically in the whorls of a thumb-print on a plain white index card.
On top of all these were Adrian’s final offerings. Now that I’d discovered a pattern, I could tell which things had been added last. FREEDOM! Broken gold chain. A WAY OUT. Egret feather and silhouette of a soaring bird. She was about to break loose, fly away. I wasn’t sure from what, not exactly. But guilt was a major component, and I thought I knew why.
I started searching the room. Nothing under the lingerie or sweaters or socks in the bureau drawers. Nothing pushed to the back of the closet or hidden in the suitcases. Nothing under the mattress or the bed. Nothing but school supplies in the desk.
Damn! I was sure I’d figured out that part of it. I had shameful personal experience to guide me.
The room was so cold that the joints of my fingers ached. I tucked my hands into my armpits to warm them. The heat register was one of those metal jobs set into the floor under a window, and its louvers were closed. I squatted next to it and tried to push the opener. Jammed.
The register lifted easily out of its hole. I peered through the opening in the floor and saw that the sheet metal furnace duct was twisted and pushed aside. A nail had been hammered into the floor joist, and something hung down from it into the crawl space. I reached in and unhooked it-a big cloth laundry bag with a drawstring. I pulled the bag up through the hole and dumped its contents on the carpet.
Costume jewelry-rings, bracelets, earring, necklaces-with the price tags still attached. Silk scarves. Pantyhose. Gloves, bikini underpants, leather belts, hair ornaments. They were all from Left Coast Casuals.
Although the items were tagged, the tags were not the plastic kind that trip the sensors at the door. Left Coast Casuals reserved the plastic tags for big-ticket items. All of the merchandise was brand new, had never been worn. No individual item was expensive, but taken together, they added up to a hell of a lot of money.
This told me a lot about Adrian, but it didn’t explain her disappearance. Or her boyfriend’s murder. I replaced the things in the bag, and the bag beneath the flooring. Then I got out of there and went to bounce this one off Sharon.
Sharon was all dressed up today, probably either for a meeting with one of our tonier clients or a court appearance. The teal blue suit and silk blouse looked terrific on her, but I could tell she wasn’t all that comfortable in them. Sharon’s more at home in her jeans and sweater and sneakers. The only time she really likes getting gussied up is for a fancy party, and then she goes at it with the excitement of a kid putting on her Halloween costume.
She said she had some time on her hands, so I suggested we stop down at the Remedy Lounge, our favorite bar-and-grill on Mission Street, for burgers. She hesitated. They serve a great burger at the Remedy, but for some reason Sharon-who’s usually not fastidious when it comes to food-is convinced they’re made of all sorts of disgusting animal parts. Finally she gave in, and we wandered down the hill.
The Remedy is a creaky local tavern, owned by the O’Flanagan family for longer than anybody can remember. Brian, the middle son and nighttime bartender, wasn’t on yet, so we had to fetch our own food and drinks. Brian’s my buddy, and when he’s working, I get table service-something that drives everybody else from All Souls crazy because they can’t figure out how I manage that. I just let them keep guessing. Truth is, I remind Brian of his favorite sister, who died back in ’76. Would you refuse table service to a family member?
While we waited for the burgers, I laid out the Adrian Conway situation for Sharon. When I was done, she went and got our food, then looked critically at her burger, taking off the top half of the bun and poking suspiciously at the meat patty. Finally she shrugged, bit into it, and looked relieved at finding it tasted like burger instead of entrail of monkey-or whatever she thinks they make them from. She swallowed and asked, “All the stuff was lifted from Left coast Casuals?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Employee pilferage.” She shook her head. “Do you know that over forty-three percent of shrinkage is due to insiders?”
I didn’t, but Sharon a former department-store security guard and she keeps up on statistics. I just nodded.
“A lot of it’s the employers’ fault,” she added. “They don’t treat their people well, so they don’t have a real commitment to the company. The clerks see it as a way of getting ever for low wages and skimpy benefits.”
“Well, whatever Adrian’s reasons were,” I said, “she dealt with the loot in the usual way. Once she got it home, it wasn’t any good to her. Her mother would notice if she wore a lot of new things and ask where she got the money to buy them. Plus she felt guilty. So she hid the loot away were Donna wouldn’t find it and-more important- where she couldn’t see it and be reminded of what she’d done. Out of sight, out of mind. Only it doesn’t work that way. She was probably aware of that bag of stuff hanging between the floor joists every minute she was in that room. She probably even dreamed about it.”
My voice had risen as I spoke, and I couldn’t keep an emotional quaver out of it. When I finished, Sharon didn’t say anything, just watched me with her little analytical frown. I ate some of my burger. It tasted like cardboard. I drank some Coke. My hand shook when I set the glass down.
“Anyway,” I said, “Adrian being a shoplifter doesn’t explain the important things. Did you ask Adah Joslyn what was in the backpack, like I asked you to?”
She was still watching me. After a moment I gave it up. “All right,” I said, “I used to shoplift.”
“I suspected as much.”
“Thanks a lot!”
“Well, you did get pretty worked up for a moment there. You want to tell me about it?”
“No! Well, maybe.” I took a deep breath, wishing I’d ordered a beer instead of a Coke. “Okay, it started one day when I was trying to buy some nail polish. The clerk was off yapping with one of the other clerks and wouldn’t stop long enough to notice me. So I got pissed, stuck the bottle in my purse, and walked out. Nobody even looked at me. I couldn’t believe I’d gotten away with it. It was like…a high. The best high I’d ever felt. And I told myself the clerk had goaded me into it, that it was a one-shot thing and would never happen again.”
“But of course it did.”
“The second time it was a scarf, and expensive scarf. I had a job interview and I wanted to look nice, but I couldn’t afford to because I didn’t have a job-the old vicious circle. I felt deprived, really angry. So I took the scarf. But what I didn’t count on was the guilt. By the day of the interview, I knew I couldn’t wear the scarf-then or ever. I just tucked it away where I wouldn’t have to see it and be reminded of what I’d done. And where my husband wouldn’t find it.”
“But you kept stealing.”
“Yeah. I never deliberately set out to do it, never left the apartment thinking, today I’m going to rip some store off. But…the high. It was something else.” Even now, years after the fact, I could feel aftershocks from it-my blood coursing faster, my heart pounding a little. “I was careful, I only took little things, always went to different stores. And then, just when I thought I was untouchable, I got caught.”
Sharon nodded. She’d heard it all before, working in retail security.
I looked down at my half-eaten burger. Shame washed over me, negating the memory of the high. My cheeks went hot, just thinking about the day. “God, it was awful! The security guy nabbed me on the sidewalk, made me go back inside to the store office. What I’d taken was another scarf. I’d stuffed it into a bag with some underpants I’d bought at K-Mart. He dragged it out of there. It was still tagged, and of course I didn’t have the receipt.”
“So he threatened you.”
“Scared the hell out of me. I felt like…you know those old crime movies where they’re sweating a confession out of some guy in a back room? Well, it wasn’t like that at all, he was very careful not to do or say anything that might provoke a lawsuit. But I still felt like some sleazy criminal. Or maybe that was what I thought I deserved to feel like. Anyway, he threatened to call my employer.” I laughed-a hollow sound. “That would really have torn it. My employer was another security firm.”
“So what’d you do-sign a confession?”
“Yes, and promised never to set foot in their store again. And I’ve never stolen so much as a stick of gum since. Hell, I can’t even bring myself to take the free matchbooks from restaurants!”
