“Well, they were face on, a little bit above and to the left of the jewelry counter.”
“Did you ever see Kirby in the store with a camera?”
“No, but I wouldn’t’ve noticed him if we were busy.”
“Would you have taken something while the store was busy?”
“Sure. That’s the best time,” Lee seemed to hear her own words, because she hung her head, cheeks coloring. “God, those pictures! I looked like a
Which of course, she was. I thought about Kirby and his corps of teenage thieves. What if he’d tried to hit on the wrong person? Homicides committed by teenagers, like all other categories, were on the upswing…
“Lee,” I said, “you’re going to have to tell the cops investigating Kirby’s murder about this.”
She nodded numbly, hands clenching.
The phrase, “shit hitting the fan” isn’t a favorite of mine, but that was exactly what was about to happen, and a lot of perfectly nice parents were going to be splattered, to say nothing of their foolish, but otherwise nice children. Parents like Donna Conway. Children like Adrian.
I pictured the pretty redhead in the photo Donna had given me-her quirky smile and the gleam in her eyes that told of a zest for living and an offbeat sense of humor. I pictured her quiet, concerned, sad mother-a lonely woman clinging to her stacks of self-help books for cold comfort. Maybe I could still find Adrian, reunite the two so they could lean on each other in the tough times ahead; if Adrian was still alive, there had to be a way.
And if she was dead? I didn’t want to think about that.
VII
Lee and I went back to All Souls, where the rest of the kids were standing around the foyer wondering what to do next, and while she escaped to my office to call her father, I thanked them and showed them out. Tom Chu hung back, looking worried and throwing glances at my office door. Since he was the one who had put this together for me, I filled him in on some of what Lee had told me, after first swearing him to secrecy.
Tom didn’t look too surprised. “I kind of suspected Lee was in trouble,” he said. “And you now what? I think Del might’ve been mixed up with Kirby, too. He got real quiet when Lee ran out on us, and he left in a hurry right afterwards.”
“Those’re pretty shaky grounds to accuse him on.”
“Maybe, but Del…I told you he’s basically just hanging out this fall? Well, where he’s hanging out is Ocean Park Plaza.”
Ocean Park Plaza-the focus of the whole case. I thanked Tom and gently chased him out the door so Lee wouldn’t have to deal with him when she finished calling her dad.
Her father arrived some fifteen minutes later, all upset but full of comforting words, and agreed to take Lee down to the Hall of Justice to talk to Adah Joslyn. I called Joslyn to let her know a witness was on her way. “Adah,” I added, “did Sharon ask you what was in Adrian Conway’s backpack?”
“Yeah. I’ve got the property list right here.” There was a rustling noise. “Some raunchy-smelling yogurt, makeup, a golden Gate Transit schedule, a couple of paperbacks-romance variety-and an envelope with the phone number of the Ocean Park Plaza’s security office scribbled on it.”
“Security office? You check with them?”
“Talked to a man named Waterson. He said she’d lost her i.d. badge the week before she disappeared and called in about getting it replaced. What is this-you trying to work my homicide, Kelleher?”
“Just trying to find a missing girl. I’ll turn over anything relevant.”
When I got off the phone, Lee and her father were sitting on the lumpy old couch in the front room, his arm protectively around her narrow shoulders. He didn’t look like much of a teenager-killer to me; in fact, his main concern was that she hadn’t come to him and admitted about the shoplifting as soon as “that little bastard”- meaning Kirby -had started hassling her. “I’d’ve put his ass in a sling,” he kept saying. I offered to go down to the Hall with them, but he said he thought it would be better if they went alone. As soon as they left, I decided to head over to Ocean Park Plaza, check out a couple of things, then talk with Ben Waterson again.
The mall wasn’t very crowded that night, but it was only Thursday, and the merchants were still gearing up for a big, weekend sales push designed to lure in all those consumers who weren’t suffering too much from the recession-getting started early on the Christmas season by urging everybody to spend, spend, spend, in order to stimulate the economy. The sale banners were red, white, and blue and, really, they were making it sound like it was our patriotic duty to blow every last dime on frivolous things that-by God!-had better be American-made if Americans made them at all. Even I, much as I love to max out my credit cards, am getting totally sick of the misguided economists’ notion that excess is not only good for the individual but for the nation. Anyway, the appeals from the politicians and the business community probably wouldn’t meet with any more success with patrons of the Ocean Park Plaza this coming weekend than they had with downtown shoppers the previous one, and tonight they were having no affect at all.
When I got to Paper Fantasy I found I was the only browser-a decided disadvantage for checking out the possible angles from which Kirby might have taken the photographs of Lee. I checked anyway, under the suspicious eyes of the lone clerk. Over there was the counter where Lee had been standing when she’d five-fingered the jewelry, and from the way she’d described the pictures, Kirby would have had to be standing not only in front of it, but some three feet in the air. Impossible, unless…
Ahah! There it was-a surveillance camera mounted on the wall above and to the left of the counter. One look at that and I recalled the banks of screens in the security office upstairs, closed-circuit TV that allowed you to video tape and photograph.
I hurried out of Paper Fantasy-possibly provoking a call to security by the clerk-and headed for Left Coast Casuals.
Only two salesclerks manned the store, and there were no customers. I wandered up and down the aisles, scanning for the cameras. There were four, with a range that covered the entire sales floor. While stealing jewelry, Adrian would have had to stand around here, in plain sight of that one. For lingerie, camera number two would have done the observing. Stupid. How could the kids
Of course I knew the answer to that-anybody who’s ever shoplifted does. The cameras are there, sure, but you just assume they’re not recording your particular store at the time, or being monitored. And you’re certain that you’re being oh-so-subtle when actually you’re about as discreet as a moose picking its way through a bed of pansies. And then there’s the urge that just washes over you -ooh, that irresistible impulse, that heady pulse- quickening temptation to commit the act that will bring on that delicious soaring high.
Yeah, the kids were stupid. Like I’d been stupid. Like a drug addict, an alcoholic, a binge-eater is stupid.
“Ms. Kelleher?” the voice was Sue Hanford’s. “Can I help you?”
I swung around. She’d come out of the stock room and stood a few feet away from me, near the fake angora sweaters. “I was just looking the store over once more, before going up to see Ben Waterson.”
Her face became pinched, two white spots appearing at the corners of her mouth. “You won’t find him in the office. I know, because I just called up there. I’ll tell you, I’ve about had it with him not being available when I need him.”
”This happens a lot?”
“Well, yesterday morning around eleven-thirty. He said he’d come and talk about the problem I’ve been having with a gang of girls who are creating disturbances outside and intimidating my customers, but then he never showed up. I called and called, but he’d taken off without saying why. He didn’t come back until six.”
But yesterday morning around eleven-thirty I’d seen him just outside the store, arguing with Kirby Dalson. Waterson had claimed Sue Hanford was the one who was away, leaving him in charge. “Were you in the store all day yesterday?” I asked.
She nodded. “I worked a fourteen-hour shift.”
“And today?” I asked. “Waterson wasn’t available again?”
