Slay Bells and Satchels (Haley Randolph Mystery Series) Read Free Page B

making it sound as if I’d actually done something wrong.
    “I didn’t kill her,” I insisted.
    Detective Madison narrowed his beady little eyes at me until they almost disappeared, and leaned closer.
    “We’ll find out,” he said. Madison jerked his thumb toward the door. “You can go now.”
    I was glad to leave, but a little miffed at being dismissed. Still, I didn’t want to hang around and see McKenna’s body when the investigators from the coroner’s office showed up and pulled her out of the bag.
    I brushed past the detectives.
    “Don’t leave town, Miss Randolph,” Detective Madison called.
    I pushed through the stockroom door without answering.
    I took a lap through the store just to burn off the negative energy Detective Madison had left me with. I was supposed to work in the Domestics Department today, but no way could I face that right now.
    The aisles were crowded with shoppers, a couple of babies were crying, some lady was yelling at her husband—why on earth do women take their husbands shopping with them?—and a group of teenage girls was swarming the lingerie department like locusts in a Kansas wheat field.
    Everybody seemed to be in the Christmas spirit—spending-wise, at least. Lots of people had full carts, others juggled items in their arms. I spotted several customers in Santa costumes.
    Apparently, public humiliation wasn’t too high a price for some people to pay when a huge discount was dangled in front of them.
    Nobody, it seemed, knew that an elf had been murdered in the stockroom. Hopefully, it wouldn’t make the news. Holt’s had a good PR department and knew how to handle this sort of thing—believe me, I know. I’d heard Ty talking to them often enough during one of our supposed dates.
    At the front of the store I spotted Sandy standing beside the fake fireplace wearing a Holt’s-issued Santa hat. Sandy was another of my Holt’s BFFs. She was in her early twenties, a white girl with red hair that she usually wore in a ponytail. Sandy was super nice—so nice that when her boyfriend—he’s a tattoo artist she met on the Internet—treated her like crap—which was almost all the time—she didn’t even notice.
    A few customers had gathered outside the red velvet ropes that cordoned off the fireplace and others were busy filling out contest entry forms at the little tables set up nearby. I circled around to the back of the display so the customers wouldn’t overhear.
    “What’s going on?” I asked Sandy. “Where are the elves?”
    “Jeanette told me to run the drawing,” Sandy said. “The elves were completely traumatized by the news. I guess they all know each other.”
    I wondered if they knew that girl who used to work here at Holt’s—I can never remember her name—the one who used to stink up the break room with her diet meals. She’d lost eighty pounds, or something, gone blonde, swapped her glasses for contacts, and gotten an agent. Last I heard she was doing really great, modeling for print ads.
    I hate her, of course.
    “So, anyway,” Sandy said, “Jeanette let them have the day off—with pay.”
    “With—what?”
    How come I didn’t get the day off—with pay? I’d found the dead elf. Didn’t she think I might be traumatized, too?
    More likely Jeanette figured the elves might sue Holt’s and I wouldn’t.
    Neither Ty nor I had ever come right out and told Jeanette we were dating, but I’m sure she knew—long story. Ty preferred to keep his personal life quiet, which was understandable, but I didn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t get some preferential treatment around here out of the deal.
    “Are the elves coming back tomorrow?” I asked Sandy.
    She shrugged. “I don’t know. Most of them were really upset about what happened. They were afraid.”
    I doubted some whack-job, psycho elf murderer was on the loose, but you never knew. This was, after all, L.A.
    “And you know what this means for our contest,” Sandy said.
    There was