BLACK in the Box (8 page)

“Yeah. That’s Paulina and Tanika. Always early. Not like Bethany…”

“Oh, she’s usually late?”

Henry rewarded Black with another shrug. “None of my business.”

“I gather there are time cards?”

“Yeah. Cops took ’em. But everyone was already here, if that’s your question.”

“That was it.” A thought occurred to Black. “Is Alec’s car still in the lot?”

Henry glanced at the darkened monitor. “I suppose so. I mean, unless Nancy picked it up or something.”

Black shook his head as he stood. “That’s pretty messed up, Nancy having to find Bethany and Alec, huh? Can you imagine?”

“Not really. But yeah, it’s hella messed up. Bethany took tonight off. I’m surprised Nancy showed.”

“People react differently.” Black sighed. “Any chance you can point me to Alec’s car?”

“I’m not supposed to leave my station.”

“I think you can make an exception.”

“It’s a piece of crap red Hyundai. Shouldn’t be that hard to find.”

Black nodded. “I’ll circle back around if I have any more questions.”

“Fair enough.”

Black retraced his steps to Mary’s area, where most of the staff was now gathered. Tanika and Paulina appeared a few seconds later, making the group complete. Matt Dresslin, the other supervisor, stood beside Mary expectantly.

Mary cleared her throat, obviously uncomfortable speaking to an assembly, and gestured toward Black.

“Everyone? This is Mr. Black. He’s working for Mr. Jacobs. He’ll be here for a little while tonight, asking questions. You’re to cooperate fully with him. He’s a private investigator.”

A tall African-American man at the back of the group raised his hand. “Didn’t we already do this last night? We’re way behind on stocking the shelves. No offense.”

“Mr. Jacobs felt it would be a good idea to get fresh eyes on the situation, Kyle.” Mary studied the staff for a moment, as if searching for the right words. “Everyone do the best you can. I appreciate how hard this is. Let’s just get through it, okay?”

There were a few grumbles, which Black ignored as he stepped forward.

“Like Mary said, I’m here to follow up on Mr. Jacobs’ behalf. I’m not here to make your job more difficult. But there’s been a murder, and everyone here’s a suspect – let’s not forget that.”

“I got an alibi,” Kyle said. “I was with Tanika. We were inventorying over in hardware. I’m not no suspect. I told the cops all that.”

“That’s fine. We’ll get to that. And ‘suspect’s’ a technical term, so no offense. But I still need to talk to every one of you. It’s routine.”

“It’s BS,” a young man Black recognized from the staff folders as Brent said in a low voice.

“Yes, it kind of is,” Black agreed. “Look, I’m just doing my job, okay? I know this has been rough on everyone. I’ll be out of your hair shortly. Humor me – Jacobs wants to ensure everything’s been done to protect you all.” Black let that sink in. There was a murderer among them. If Jacobs’ name wasn’t moral authority enough, that would get their full attention.

“Isn’t that the cops’ job?” a slight Asian woman asked. Black nodded. That would be Kristen Cho.

“Sure. Like I said, this is a formality. But a necessary one.”

“Merry frigging Christmas,” a stout woman with sandy-colored hair pulled into a ponytail said.

“Tabitha, please. You’re to behave with Mr. Black as though it was Mr. Jacobs, is that clear?” Mary warned.

Grudging nods ensued.

Mary turned to Black. “How would you like to do this? Maybe hold your meetings in the employee break room?”

“That’s fine. Although I might want to wander around some.”

“Of course. Who would you like to start with?”

Black eyed the group. “Let me think about that for a few minutes.”

“Very well. Just come to my desk when you’re ready. I have a radio and PA there.”

The group broke up and Black watched them go. Something about the whole situation was setting his internal alarms off, but he couldn’t put his finger on what. He reflexively tapped his jacket pocket. When he felt his phone, he sucked in a short breath.

Damn.

Sylvia.

He’d forgotten to call her.

Chapter 13

Black fished the phone out and eyed the screen. Two calls from Sylvia. Not good. He worked his way to the rear entrance and paused just inside the door as he dialed and listened to the line ring. It went to voice mail. Black hung up and tried again, and after three rings Sylvia answered.

“What?” she asked.

“Hello to you too. Sorry I didn’t pick up. I was…busy. With the case.”

“Of course you were. As usual.”

“I really was.” The conversation already wasn’t going well.

“What do you want, Black?”

“I’m going to be a while longer. I’m calling to see how you’re doing.”

“Take your time. Take all night. Take the rest of your life.”

Black closed his eyes. When he opened them, he struggled to keep his voice down. “Sylvia, I know how you feel, but it’s four thousand dollars for a night’s work.”

“Might as well be thirty pieces of silver.”

“You know I need the money.”

“You always need the money,” Sylvia snapped. “You have a lot of needs, and you’re good at making sure they’re met, Black. But you never seem to care about mine. So take your money and have a nice life. I won’t be here when you get back.”

“You don’t think that’s an overreaction?”

“To having a nonexistent boyfriend who’s conflict-avoidant and afraid to commit to doing anything that would make me happy? No. I’d say it’s the smartest thing I can do.”

“Honey, it’s almost Christmas…”

“I know. The first Christmas of my new life without you and your stinkpot cat.”

Black cursed silently. “I forgot all about Mugsy.”

“You ever notice you forget about most things that don’t involve you, you, you? You should be used to it by now. Anyone relying on you finds that out the hard way sooner or later.”

“Sylvia, come on. Let’s not do this over the phone…”

“Black, I’m flying home tomorrow. We’re done. It’s over.”

“What? Sylvia!”

“You heard me.”

She waited for him to say he was coming home, not to leave, that they could work it out.

“Don’t do this,” Black said. “I can’t leave right now, but sweetheart, please don’t do this. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

Black listened as the line clicked and his phone beeped. “She hung up on me,” he whispered to himself in disbelief. He pressed speed dial as he headed back to the front of the store to retrieve Mugsy from the car. The call went to voice mail.

He tried again with the same result. This time he left a message. “Sylvia, please. Calm down. Don’t do anything stupid. I mean, rash. Don’t do anything rash. Call me when you get this.” He paused as he neared Mary’s station. “I…I don’t want to lose you.”

Even as he disconnected, he shook his head at his inability to voice anything more meaningful than his fear of losing her. Maybe she was right to ditch him. Maybe she’d be better off without him.

Maybe she’d seen him accurately and didn’t like the image.

Mary looked up as he neared, startled. He took in again how anxious she seemed, but shook it off.

“Can you open the front door? My cat’s in the car. It’s way cooler in here.”

“Oh. Certainly,” Mary said, standing.

Black noticed she had sweat on her forehead in spite of the air-conditioning. “Are you feeling all right?”

“What? Why?”

“You look a little green.”

“To be honest, I haven’t slept a wink. I think it’s catching up to me.”

Mary led him to the front entrance and twisted the lock open. The twin glass doors slid aside with a whoosh, and Black marched out to the Cadillac, noting that it had gotten uncomfortably warm while he’d been inside, the Santa Ana wind now hot as a blast furnace.

Mugsy glared hate at him from the recesses of the cat carrier as he hoisted it with a grunt and carted it back to the store. When Mary saw Mugsy, she smiled for the first time since Black had met her and knelt to look into the crate.

“Oh, my goodness! Look at you, you handsome devil. Got an appetite, huh?” She looked up at Black. “What’s his name?”

“Mugsy. It’s probably a good thing there’s plenty of ventilation in here. One of his superpowers is the ability to silently clear a room in seconds flat,” Black said.

“Mugsy! That’s adorable. Well, if he wants company, he can stay with me,” Mary said, eyes locked on the feline’s bloated face.

“Forever?” Black asked hopefully.

“Oh, I wish my apartment allowed pets. He’s a handsome prince!”

“He’d eat you out of house and home in no time.”

Mary trailed Black to the office he was using, and he placed Mugsy on the floor. He turned to Mary, who was hovering just outside. “Don’t worry. He’ll be fine. Back to work for me.”

“Aren’t you going to give him some water and let him stretch his legs?”

“It was like wrestling a bear getting him into this thing.”

“I’m good with cats. I can water him and watch him while you’re working.”

“No, it’s better you don’t risk it. He’s like Hannibal – it’s not safe to get within ten feet of him.”

“He’s a butterball. Look at those eyes.”

“You’ve been warned. He’ll be fine in the carrier for a few hours. He’s obviously got enough resources stored to last a month without eating, easy.”

An odor like rotting corpses drifted from the crate and Black gasped at the stench. Mary smiled and cooed at the obese tabby, and Black left her to admire him. He’d never understand the filthy beast’s allure to the female of the species, but had long ago added it to the long list of things he didn’t grasp about the opposite sex.

He tried Sylvia one more time with no success as he pushed the rear employee exit open, and then focused on the business at hand. He’d give her another call later if she didn’t return his.

The Hyundai was parked near a darkened light pole, its lamp burned out. A high-rise silver Dodge Durango was the closest car, whose rack on the roof and the stickers on the back bumper made it obvious that whoever owned it identified as a surfer.

Black recalled what Henry Heung had said about Larry’s parsimonious nature as he walked toward Alec’s car. He slowed when the pavement glittered as he neared, and proceeded the rest of the way more cautiously.

Someone had broken the rear door window – safety glass littered the pavement, explaining what had caught Black’s eye. He peered into the rear of the sedan in the dim light, which appeared devoid of anything but a few empty soda cups tossed into the backseat area. He rounded the hood and moved to the passenger-side front door and tried the handle, using the folded handkerchief from his jacket breast pocket so as not to add his prints to the evidence. Open. A glance in the interior revealed that the glove compartment had been rifled through, its contents partially strewn on the passenger foot mat. After eyeing the stereo, Black straightened and returned to the building, the vague sense of unease that had plagued him for the last hour gathering strength with each step.

Henry was thumbing away on his phone, with his feet up on his desk and death metal pounding from a pair of cheap speakers at low volume, the singer sounding like a demon with a bad case of laryngitis over buzz-saw guitars and bombastic drums. As Black approached, he finished texting and turned the music down.

“Yeah, boss?” Henry said.

“I found Alec’s car.”

“Congratulations.”

“I’m calling the cops.”

“Yeah? Why? Hot lead?”

“Someone broke into it.”

Henry cursed and stood. “Damn. Probably local punks. It’s happened before. But the police won’t do anything but take a report. Let’s go look at the damage.”

They exited and moved to Alec’s car and surveyed the broken window. Henry scanned the lot and shook his head. “Must have just happened. I didn’t see anything when I came to work.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, it’s not like I do an inspection of every vehicle or anything, so it could have been earlier, I suppose.”

“Wonder why they’d pick this thing to break into?”

“Probably because it’s so dark over here. And fairly far from the door, so less likely they’d get nabbed.”

“The stereo’s still in it.”

“Maybe something scared them off. Could be someone arriving to work and they bolted. I’ll ask the crew whether anyone saw anything.”

“You mentioned it’s happened before?”

“Yeah. I mean, not weekly or anything, but look around. This ain’t Beverly Hills.” Henry paused. “Still. I have to write it up. Part of the job.”

“Will you take care of the police?”

“Sure. But like I said. They’re useless. Don’t expect CSI to show up.”

“I’ll try to keep my hopes in check.”

Something about Black’s tone stopped Henry. “You think this could have been something else?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. You’re the investigator.”

“Could be,” Black acceded. “No way of knowing. I’ll leave the speculations to the cops.”

“So, what – like the murderer might be breaking into cars now? Why?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Black followed the little Asian back to the building and stood by his desk as he phoned the police. He closed his eyes after being put on hold, and once he’d given the operator the information, slammed the handset back into place, opened them, and stared at Black. “Like I said. They’ll get here when they get here. Figure an hour, maybe more. Typical.”

Black checked the time and exhaled loudly. “Okay. Let me know if they want to talk to me.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

Black worked his way back to the front of the store, his mind working to pinpoint what it was that had him on edge. Henry was a jerk, but no more than most guys his age in dead-end jobs, so that didn’t necessarily mean anything. But something was rubbing Black the wrong way. He retrieved his phone and glanced at the screen as he passed the long row of hanging carpets and debated trying Sylvia again. Probably best to let her cool off, he thought. Although her threat to leave was a first in their relationship, he didn’t actually believe she’d do it.