to the day. There had been little enough so far.
Pretending to examine something else, Erica surveyed the store. As on other occasions when she had shoplifted, she felt a rising excitement, a heady, delicious combination of fear and daring.
There were three salespeople, she observed a girl and two men, one of the men older and presumably the manager. All were occupied with customers. Two or three other people in the store were, like Erica, browsing. One, a mousy grandmother-type, was examining luggage tags on a card.
By a roundabout route, pausing on the way, Erica sauntered to the display table where the briefcase lay. As if noticing it for the first time, she picked it up and turned it over for inspection. While doing so, a swift glance confirmed that the trio of salesclerks were still busy.
Continuing her inspection of the case, she opened it slightly and nudged two labels on the outside into the interior, out of view. Still casually, Erica lowered the case as if replacing it, but instead let it swing downward below the display table level, still in her hand. She looked boldly around the store. Two of the people who had been walking around were gone; one of the salesclerks had begun attending to another customer; otherwise, everything was the same.
Unhurriedly, swinging the briefcase slightly, she strolled toward the store doorway. Beyond it was the terraced indoor mall, connecting with other stores and protecting shoppers from the weather. She could see a fountain playing and hear its plash of water. Beyond the fountain, she noted, was a uniformed security guard, but he had his back toward the luggage store and was chatting with a child. Even if the guard saw Erica, once she had left the store there was no reason for him to be suspicious.
She reached the doorway. No one had stopped her, or even spoken.
Really! It was all too easy.
'Just a moment!'
The voice - sharp, uncompromising - came from immediately behind. Startled, Erica turned.
It was the mousy grandmother-type who had seemed to be engrossed with luggage tags. Except that now she was neither mousy nor grandmotherly, but with hard eyes and thin lips set in a firm line. She moved swiftly toward Erica, at the same time calling to the store manager, 'Mr. Yancy! Over here!' Then Erica found her wrist gripped firmly and when she tried to free it, the grip tightened like a clamp.
Panic flooded through Erica. She protested, flustered, 'Let me go!'
'Be quiet!' the other woman ordered. She was in her forties - not nearly as old as she had dressed herself to look. 'I'm a detective and you've been caught stealing.' As the manager hurried over, she informed him,
'This woman stole that case she's holding. I stopped her as she was leaving.'
'All right,' the manager said, 'we'll go in the back.' His manner, like the woman detective's was unemotional, as if he knew what to do and would carry a distasteful duty through. He had barely glanced at Erica so that already she felt faceless, like a criminal.
'You heard,' the woman detective said. She tugged at Erica's wrist, turning toward the rear of the store which presumably housed offices out of sight.
'No! No!' Erica set her feet firmly, refusing to move. 'You're making a mistake.'
'Your kind of people make the mistakes, sister,' the woman detective said. She asked the store manager cynically, 'Did you ever meet one who didn't say that?'
The manager looked uncomfortable. Erica had raised her voice; now heads had turned and several people in the store were watching. The manager, clearly wanting the scene removed from view, signaled urgently with his head.
It was at that moment Erica made her crucial mistake. Had she accompanied the other two as they demanded, the procedure following would almost certainly have fitted a pattern. First, she would have been interrogated - probably harshly, by the woman detective - after which, more than likely, Erica would have broken down, admitted her guilt and pleaded for leniency. During the interrogation she would have revealed that her husband was a senior auto executive.
After admitting guilt, she would have been urged to make a signed confession. She would have written this out, however reluctantly, in her own handwriting.
After that she would have been allowed to go home with - so far as Erica was concerned - the incident closed.
Erica's confession would have been sent by the store manager to an investigative bureau of the Retail Merchants Association. If a record of previous offenses was on file, prosecution might have been considered.
With a first offense - which, officially, Erica's was - no action would be taken.
Suburban Detroit stores, especially those near well-to-do areas like Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills, were unhappily familiar with women shoplifters who stole without need. It was not the store operators' business to be psychologists as well as retailers; nonetheless, most knew that reasons behind such stealing included sexual frustrations, loneliness, a need for attention - all of them conditions to which auto executives' wives were exceptionally vulnerable. Something else the stores knew was that prosecution, and publicity which the court appearance of an auto industry big name would bring, could harm their businesses more than aid them. Auto people were clannish, and a store which persecuted one of their number could easily suffer a general boycott.
Consequently, retail businesses used other methods. Where an offender was observed and known, she was billed for the items taken, and usually such bills were paid without question. At other times, when identity was established, a bill followed in the same way; also, the scare of being detained, plus hostile questioning, were often enough to deter further shoplifting for a lifetime. But whichever method was used, the Detroit stores' objective, overall, was quietness and discretion.
Erica, panicky and desperate, left none of the quieter compromises open.
Instead, she jerked her wrist free from the woman detective and - still clutching the stolen briefcase - turned and ran.
She ran from the luggage store into the mall, heading for the main outer door by which she had come in. The woman detective and the manager, taken by surprise, did nothing for a second or so. The woman recovered first. She sped after Erica, shouting, 'Stop her! Stop that woman! She's a thief!'
The uniformed security guard in the mall, who had been chatting with a child, swung around at the shouts. The woman detective saw him. She commanded, 'Catch that woman! The one running! Arrest her! She stole that case she's carrying.'
Moving quickly, the guard ran after Erica as shoppers in the mall stood gaping, craning for a view. Others, hearing the shouting, hurried out of stores. But none attempted to stop Erica as she continued running, her heels tap-tap-tapping on the terrazzo floor. She went on, heading toward the outer door, the security guard still pounding behind.
To Erica, the ghastly shouts, people staring as she passed, the pursuing feet, now drawing closer, all were a nightmare. Was this really happening? It couldn't be! In a moment she must wake. But instead of waking, she reached the heavy outer door. Though she pushed hard, it opened with maddening slowness. Then she was outside, in the rain, her car on the parking lot only yards, away.
Her heart was pounding, breath coming hard from the exertion of running and from fear. She remembered that fortunately she hadn't locked the car. Tucking the purloined briefcase under her arm, Erica fumbled open her handbag, scrabbling inside for car keys. A stream of objects fell from the handbag; she ignored them but located the keys. She had the ignition key ready as she reached the car, but could see that the security guard, a youngish, sturdily built man, was only yards away. The woman detective was following behind, but the guard was closest. Erica realized - she wouldn't make it! Not get inside the car, start the engine and pull away before he reached her. Terrified, realizing the consequences would be even greater now, despair engulfed her.
At that moment the security guard slipped on the rain-wet parking lot surface and fell. He went down fully, and lay a moment dazed and hurt before he scrambled up.
The guard's misfortune gave Erica the time she needed. Slipping into the car, she started the engine, which fired instantly, and drove away. But even as she left the shoppers' parking lot a new anxiety possessed her: Had her pursuers read the car license number?
They had. As well, they had the car's description - a current model convertible, candy apple red, distinctive as a blossom in winter.
And as if that were not enough, among the items spilted from Erica's handbag and left behind, was a
