Killer Pancake

“Thanks, Dusty.”

She tilted her head and gave me a sweet smile. “Come back soon. It’s fun to have somebody to talk to.”

Time to leave the store, time to find Julian, time to go see Marla. Time to see if I could get my friend-who’d- just-had-a-heart-attack to smile at my freshly minted face. And yet something was holding me back. I couldn’t go just yet, and besides, Julian was still doing the chamber brunch. The paper bag crackled in my hand as I surveyed the store, the store that twinkled with bright lights and glittering decor and mirrors I hated to look in. Mirrors. I looked up to the second story. Not an hour ago I had seen Babs Braithwaite leaning half-dressed over the escalator and claiming somebody was back there, Nick had talked about surveillance from the blinds-that-were-like-duck-blinds. Claire had been helping Nick; Claire thought she was being watched. Now Babs thought she was being watched. I dashed up the moving steps. Back where? Behind the dressing room mirrors? Was there somebody back there?

On the second floor, I knew better than to look up to locate the camera or glance back and forth to check on the presence of security people, called “hawking” by Nick Gentileschi. That would alert them to my attentions, and I certainly didn’t want to have them watching me again. Even a paranoid has real enemies, Henry Kissinger was reputed to have said. I lifted a hanger with a hot-pink and yellow bikini and headed confidently in the direction of the dressing room.

In the recessed entry, a short hallway to the right led to the mirrored rooms. I walked along the row of dressing rooms. One was occupied by a woman trying on a suit while attempting to calm her recalcitrant toddler. The rest were empty. Was this just more evidence of Babs acting hysterical? She’d seemed so convinced that someone was watching her. And not just a camera either. But where could you watch someone from?

At the end of the hallway of dressing rooms was one of those expensive imitation rubber plants and a rack of bathing suits apparently waiting to be returned to the sales floor. Behind the rack and almost invisible because it was painted the same color as the walls was a door. Without hesitation I dropped the suit, pulled the rack out of the way, and tried the door handle: locked. Now, where would Nick Gentileschi, that cliche of a dime-store cop, put the spare key, if there was such a thing?

I thought back to my visit to his office. He had been wearing a keyring. But there had to be more than one key. Where would the department store keep a key to an area behind the ladies’ dressing room?

Wait. I had seen something the day before, when I was trying to find the right person with my check. There had been a key box on the aquamarine office wall belonging to Lisa, the lady perplexed by the notion of accounts payable. I veered off toward the offices. What would Tom say if he knew I intended to filch a key? Well, I would see if I could get the key and find out what Babs was talking about with somebody back there. Then I would worry about Tom.

The store offices were virtually deserted, probably because of the food fair. To the one young woman in accounts receivable, I asked knowledgeably, “Is Lisa here? I talked to her yesterday about accounts payable.” I touched my Food Fair badge, as if that made me official. “She told me to come back today.”

The young woman shrugged. “You can check her office.”

Well, now, I would just do that. I knocked and walked into Lisa’s office. She was gone. Hallelujah. I stuck my head out and announced to the young woman, “She’s not here. I’m just going to leave her a note.”

The woman shrugged. Instead of writing a note, of course, I stepped over the pile of computer print-outs, crossed to the key box, and pulled on it. It wasn’t locked, but one corner was painted closed. I needed something like a blade to cut through the aquamarine muck. Lisa’s desk yielded a nail file and I levered it in. My next tug brought the cabinet open and I stared at what must have been forty keys, of which only about half were labeled with ancient, corroded masking tape. I scanned them. In barely visible ball-point pen, one scrap of tape said, SECOND FLOOR—LADIES’ DRESSING ROOM. My fingers closed around the key and I slipped it into my shirt pocket. Thanks, Lisa.

Not wanting to attract the attention of the cameras, I walked calmly back to the dressing room. I moved the plant out of the way, fumbled with the lock, and then pushed into the blackness of the space beyond the door. The odors of dust, concrete, and cardboard containers were almost overwhelming. I slipped the key back into my pocket and groped along the wall for a light. There was no way I was going into this area, whatever it was, and risk breaking my neck tripping over a box of lingerie. Eureka. My hand closed on a switch. When dim fluorescent light flooded the room, I saw that I stood in a huge, tall rectangle. Stripped of all the cameras, concealed piping, lighting, and other electrical wiring of the main store, this ceiling went up what looked like two full stories, past enormous steel shelves and a metal ladder going up to the roof. There was a door on the left. It couldn’t lead to the dressing rooms. I turned. The dressing rooms should be located on the right beyond the back wall where I stood.

Boxes, plastic bags full of merchandise, and carts impeded my progress as I advanced parallel to the wall. My feet scraped across the concrete. My uniform was getting filthy from all the dust I was kicking up. But I was rewarded. Two boxes had been moved haphazardly—and hastily, it appeared—to make a narrow pathway to a door in the wall. I wiggled through and tried the door: it was open. On the other side was a very dimly lit passageway that appeared to be horseshoe-shaped. I tiptoed along and gasped. I was behind one-way mirrors. In front of me, a thin woman was trying on a pink bikini. I felt myself blush. I held my breath, averted my eyes from the mirrors, and walked quickly around the U-shape. Along both rows of mirrors, there were chairs, a half-empty paper coffee cup, and several crumpled fast-food wrappers. If there had been someone here earlier, he or she was gone now.

A plump woman appeared behind the revealing mirrors, her arms loaded with swim suits. In the dressing room beside her, the thin woman, now clad in the pink bikini, swiveled her hips and frowningly scrutinized her cleavage. I beat a hasty retreat. Pushing past the clutter of the storage space, I closed the door behind me. Then I hightailed it out of the store grasping my bag with its jar of cream for Marla. Tom would, no doubt, be extremely interested to know that the security/peeping-tom area was accessible. He’d also be intrigued by what Dusty had told me of Claire, the infatuated Charles Braithwaite, and Braithwaite’s horticultural experimentation. But frustration ruled as I rushed along the mall looking for an available pay phone. The kiosks were full. Waiting lines for every pay phone snaked in front of the boutiques. I cursed under my breath; my stomach growled in response. Half past one with no lunch and two small muffins for breakfast—typical meal schedule for a caterer. I decided to zip up to the food fair for my share of the free samples, then find Julian and hurry over to the Coronary Care Unit to see Marla. I’d call Tom from the hospital.

Out on the roof, a refreshing breeze stirred the air. A nearby bank thermometer announced a digital neon temperature that blinked from eighty-one to eighty-two and back again. I scanned the rows of booths, trying to decide where to indulge my hunger. Despite the maze of roads, fast-food spots, and housing developments spreading as far as the foot of the mountains, here on the roof the food tents, flowers, streamers, and music had transformed the expanse of concrete into a completely credible fair. Marvelous scents mingled and wafted through the air. So did laughter, happy voices, and a band playing jazz. As I stood underneath the flapping Playhouse Southwest banner, I smiled and took a deep breath of the delectable aromas: pizza, barbecue, coffee … and something else.

Cigarette smoke? No. I looked around. Yes.

Perched on a small raised platform on a roof adjoining the parking structure, and utterly heedless of the dirty looks she was attracting, Frances Markasian, eyes closed, face set in bliss, was relaxing and indulging in her nicotine habit. Her chin tilted skyward while her mouth opened and closed like a guppy’s. Unlike a fish, however, Frances was blowing perfect smoke rings. Her dark mass of curly hair lay wild and undone over her shoulders. Her red heels and bags of cosmetic purchases lay scattered in disarray on the concrete. To cool off, or maybe just to catch a few rays, she had pulled the flouncy red skirt up to reveal knobby knees and calf-high stockings. I wondered where she’d stashed the smokes this time.

I skirted the garage wall, hopped onto the adjoining roof, and walked up to Frances. I was quite sure being where we were was illegal, but that had never stopped Frances before. I cleared my throat She opened one eye, then both. “Don’t tell me. Bathsheba as a chef.”

“Don’t tell me,” I replied evenly. “Bob Woodward as Elizabeth Taylor. In a Marlboro ad. No, wait. Doing the roof scene from Mary Poppins. Except you don’t look like Julie Andrews, either.”

She blew a smoke ring and gestured for me to have a seat. The two-foot-square platform contained litter that could only be hers: an M&M bag, a Snickers wrapper, an empty can of Jolt cola. Of course, Frances was too much of a skinflint to spring for a ticket to the food fair. Which made her enthusiastic cream/rouge/lipstick/concealer/foundation/mascara shopping spree this morning all the more intriguing. I brushed