Midday Wednesday
DANIELLE
She was on duty when they came through the door. Everybody was—lunch was their heaviest time for traffic. People liked to buy jewelry in the middle of the day. Mostly office workers on their lunch break. Couples, single men—you got a good mix. If you wanted to make sales, you either ate early or you ate late or you didn’t eat at all.
But these two weren’t customers. She saw that right away. They weren’t even a couple, at least not the sort of couple who usually rolled into a jewelry shop. A middle-aged Black woman who looked like a high school principal accompanied by a white knucklehead who could have been the wrestling coach. The woman was a little on the heavy side but carried it well, her clothes spotless, not a hair out of place. The man had a body built of free weights and beer; his hair was shaped by electric razors and gel. No, they were definitely not here to buy an engagement ring. There were credentials dangling from their necks she couldn’t read from this distance. Tax people, she guessed. Steve would have seen them on the CCTV in his office. He was probably shredding documents already.
Tomi was closing a deal on what looked a half-carat solitaire, so that left Britt up. The little dummy thought they were customers, so she came at them with that shitshow she called charm. But her smile vanished the moment the woman explained herself. She turned and pointed to Danielle.
Here we go, she thought. Again. Eden had called last night, just after midnight, but Danielle missed it. She’d gone to bed early, turning her ringer off because of a recent spate of Scam Likely calls. So she didn’t see that her daughter had called until she woke this morning. She hadn’t left a message. Danielle tried to call back but there was no answer. Which meant she’d been unable to forestall whatever nonsense was about to be laid at her feet.
Danielle had no issues with the tax people and her daughter had no money, so maybe they were social services. Although they tended not to come in pairs. The snakes who served summonses and warrants tended to work alone as well. And then she saw the gold shields and that feeling of annoyance shifted to something deeper.
It was the woman who spoke.
“Danielle Perry?”
Her voice was surprisingly kind. In most situations you could say it was soothing. Just not in this one.
“What has she done now?”
“My name is Dorothy Gates. I’m a detective with the state police. This is Detective Procopio from Emerson.”
Gates looked around. Another couple had just been buzzed in. The showroom wasn’t that big. It was getting crowded.
“Is there somewhere we could talk?”
The fear was starting to come harder. Eden had been in trouble, God only knew, but it had never required two detectives and privacy to explain.
“Ms. Perry?”
There was the storage room, but that was just a walk-in safe with no seating. Which left the manager’s office. Steve wouldn’t be happy having cops in there.
“I’m not…”
And then, on cue, he appeared, Steve Slater himself, with his chest hair and loafers. His eyes were locked on the cops; his frown was so profound it looked like he was in the early stages of a stroke. He said nothing as he approached, as if already following his lawyer’s advice.
“These are Detectives Gates and Procopio,” Danielle, good at names, explained. “Could we use your office for a minute?”
“My office,” he repeated flatly.
Among the many things in Steve Slater’s office that he wouldn’t want the detectives to see was a gleaming Colt 1911 tucked in a holster he’d affixed to the well of his desk, an instrument of mayhem that may or may not be licensed with the Commonwealth. On the rare occasions he buzzed in suspicious characters, he had a charming habit of stuffing the pistol into the front of his action slacks.
“Yes, I would appreciate that,” Gates said.
Which put Slater on the spot. A refusal would get the cops wondering.
“Certainly,” he said, sounding like someone had superglued his molars together.
He unlocked the door with the key at the end of his elastic chain and held it open for them.
“Do you know how long this will take?” he asked as they passed by.
Gates turned and smiled sweetly, her face just inches away from his.
“We’ll take just as long we need.”
If honey were corrosive, that was her voice. The security door shut heavily behind them. There were two chairs facing his desk. Gates, immediately and fully in charge, motioned to one of them.
“Ms. Perry, I’d like you to take a seat.”
That’s when Danielle knew it was the worst kind of bad. She’d been asked to take a seat once before. Her grandmother after the heart attack.
“I’d prefer to stay standing,” she said, as if remaining on her feet could ward off what was coming.
“Please,” Gates said, her voice absolute in its kindness.
Copyright © 2022 by Stephen Amidon
