Killer Pancake

I gratefully took a fragrant golden-brown muffin. I bit into it The orange flecks turned out to be carrot and the spice ginger. I truthfully told her the muffin was wonderful and asked for the recipe, always the most sincere form of thanks. While we were talking about the virtues of using sorghum versus honey for sweetener, the ceiling—or something nearby—cracked. Actually, there was a loud cracking sound. I glanced up at the security blind but could see nothing.

“What in the world …?” I demanded as Harriet offered me another muffin.

“Well, you know,” she said with a wise smile, “there is a fault line that runs right through Golden. We may be in for an earthquake yet!”

I finished the muffin, licked my fingertips, and brought out my list. As I started to tick off the items, Harriet’s eyes gleamed.

“Wait, wait,” she commanded me excitedly. “Let me get your client card. That’s the only way we’ll be able to keep track of all these products!”

I didn’t want to enlighten her that all this stuff was for someone else. If I did, we would have to start a client card for Frances, or at least amend the one she had, and on and on. As Harriet expertly assembled the lovely glass jars filled with creams and lotions, the ceiling, or wall, or whatever it was, made another ominous creak.

“Goodness!” she said, and looked up. “Maybe there’s a plumbing problem. Honestly!”

I handed over the money, feeling nervous, feeling that I wanted to get out of the store. But not quite yet. While she was making the change, I asked quickly, “So what do you think happened to Claire Satterfield?”

Harriet shook her head and sighed. “I think she was run down by a member of that horrible group. Those awful people saying”—she made a face—“spare the tares. They’ve bothered us before.”

“Really? How?”

“Oh! They come in here and yell at us. They say, ‘How can you sell cosmetics that are tested on poor, innocent animals?’ They make a scene and drive the customers away. It’s pathetic. Why don’t they just go out into the wild with the animals if they love them so much? Why bother us?” She showed me the receipt and made a perfunctory gesture to show the products and receipt to the camera. Then she ducked down and brought out my bag. I tucked it in the zip bag with the change and turned to leave.

Crea-eak! Craa-a-ack! went the wall of the security blind.

“For heaven’s sake!” exclaimed Harriet. We were standing not two feet away from each other. I felt another shiver of fear.

“You’d better call security,” I said.

Security came. It came in the form of Nick Gentileschi. Above the store entrance, the security blind floor broke open with a splintering crash. Gentileschi’s heavy body plummeted from overhead. Oh my God, I thought as his bulk in its dark polyester suit fell and fell. Oh my God, please, no … His body would have hit me if I hadn’t jumped out of the way. Instead, his weight landed hard on the glass-and-chrome Mignon counter. Metal shattered, glass crumpled, shards flew. At the last moment I thought to cover my eyes. Harriet Wells leapt back and screamed. She kept screaming like a woman possessed. When I uncovered my eyes, glass was everywhere. Gentileschi’s body had landed in an impossibly contorted position. I knew he was dead. In fact, from the stiffness of his body atop the shattered makeup counter, I guessed he’d been dead for several hours before his weight sent him tumbling out of the blind. A gaping hole above the store entrance was jagged with splintered wood. Inside the craggy hole was blackness. Harriet Wells screamed on.

“Oh, no, please,” I said as I backed up, away from the mess. “Please let this not be happening….”

Harriet’s screams turned into a sirenlike screech for help. Curious customers sidled up to the scene, like filings to a magnet. I was about to turn away, when a flash of paper caught my eye. Something slipped out of Nick Gentileschi’s pocket and rested next to the place where the linoleum met the plush gray carpeting.

The slip was actually two pieces of … what? I looked more closely. Photographs.

I leaned in and stared incredulously at two photographs taken at very close range. A large woman was half-naked, caught by the camera in the act of undressing. A dark skirt hung from the woman’s ample hips. A dark-and-light jacket was draped on a wall hook behind her. The top of her body was completely exposed; her breasts hung pendulously as the camera caught her action of slipping off her bra.

Even slightly out of focus, the woman was recognizable. It was Babs Braithwaite.