Murder in Store Read Free Page A

know was that I needed the company of another human being or this evening was going to be a repeat of the previous one. One night of a bottomless glass of scotch could be cathartic. More than that began to qualify you for a lost weekend.
    “Hi,” I said, approaching the counter. “Preparing for the big after-Christmas giveaways?”
    If I surprised her, she didn’t let on. She looked at me as though I had disturbed her reverie, then caught herself and laughed. “Yeah, some deal. Sixty dollars marked down from eighty-five.”
    “I’ll take two,” I countered. When she didn’t respond I said, “How’ve you been?”
    I noticed she wasn’t wearing her glasses anymore. She must have won the battle with her contact lenses. And there was something different about her hair. It was the same style she always wore, but seemed softer, fuller. The
    vivid blues and greens in her dress did nice things for the color of her eyes.
    “I’ve been okay.” She shrugged. “I hear you’ve been keeping busy.” She continued to move the scarves around as if there were only one perfect arrangement and she hadn’t quite found it yet.
    “Yeah, well, you know how those things go.”
    “Yes. I do.” Chilly?
    “How about lunch?”
    After a long pause she shook her head, then asked, “Where are you living?”
    “At the Lincoln. Nothing but the best.”
    “It beats a cardboard box on lower Wacker.”
    I nodded and turned to leave. This had been a bad idea. “Maybe some other time.”
    “Quint. When did you move to the Lincoln?”
    “Last night.”
    She nodded her understanding. “Ask me again in a couple weeks. Maybe then.” “Sure,” I said.
    I understood her reluctance and had, in fact, practiced my own style of self-preservation on occasion. Still, I sure wasn’t looking forward to another night with my silent partner.
    I met Fred Morison, one of my floor detectives, in the elevator. I’ve never been much of a stickler as far as a dress code for the floor detectives goes. I just tell them to dress so they blend in with the crowd at Hauser’s. I’m pretty lenient because I also understand that a floor detective at Hauser’s doesn’t have that much money to spend on clothes. Seeing Morison made me wonder if maybe it was time either to issue a memo or give everyone a raise.
    Left to his own devices Morison would undoubtedly wear something along the line of a green polyester suit and a canary yellow shirt As it was, his suit was rumpled and overdue
    for a trip to the cleaners, and his belly strained at the buttons on his shirt. Whenever it occurred to him he would hoist his vanishing waistband up over his stomach, suck it all in, then thrust his hands in his pants pockets so that within a minute he was back to where he started. He had a nervous way of addressing people, avoiding eye contact, that used to make me wonder if I’d forgotten to put my pants on or my tie had a gaping hole in it Morison had been at the store for seven years—a lot longer than I—and I had sensed some resentment ever since our first introduction. When I was introduced to Morison, the first thing he said to me was, “So, you’re the guy they gave my job to. Well, at least you’re not a woman.”
    This morning he glanced past me and said, “I hear you nabbed the Silver Fox last night.”
    There was something I didn’t like about his attitude. “Is that the title you’ve given her?”
    “Oh no, not me,” Morison was quick to point out. “That’s what’s going around though. Hard to figure. Woman with looks like that and money coming out the kazoo. She must get hot walking around with silk pants in her pockets.”
    The elevator doors opened at that moment and I was able to ignore his remark. Morison was either incredibly ignorant or a troublemaker. Either way I didn’t trust him.
    I was a few minutes later than usual getting to my office. There were already several phone messages waiting for me when I sat down with my mug of coffee. The