Killer Pancake

I backed away from the photographs, the shattered counter, and the sight of Nick Gentileschi contorted above fluorescent-lit displays. From the corner of my eye I could see Stan White hurtling down the escalator. Shoppers, surprised and morbidly curious, gathered on both ends of the aisle. My feet inched backward until I hit the table filled with zircons. The boxes tumbled. I fell on top of them. I realized that the gasping I heard was coming from me. I closed my mouth, rolled over, and saw Stan White display his badge to the onlookers.

“I’m from department store security!” he bellowed. “Please clear the store. Do not use this exit!” And with that, Stan White turned away from the hesitantly departing crowd and gazed dispassionately at Nick Gentileschi’s body. He felt for a pulse, then stepped into the aisle and loomed over me. In the background, I could hear Harriet sobbing.

“Are you all right?” he demanded.

“Yes,” I burbled from the floor, “I think so.” My hair was in my face and my skirt was tangled around my hips. I was having a hard time breathing.

“Did you see what happened?” When I nodded, Stan stabbed a stubby finger at me and barked, “Don’t leave.” He gulped and added, “Please.”

Leaving me sprawled amid the fake gems and their velvet boxes, he darted over to the remaining group of gaping spectators. Grimly, he herded them away from the area leading to the counter. Then he pulled displays into the aisles to isolate the area around the shattered glass, the destroyed merchandise, and Nick Gentileschi’s twisted corpse. I watched as he made call after call on the phone behind the cosmetics counter. Harriet sat on a low shelf, her knees to her chest, her back pressed against the cabinet that held the Frosted Cherries Jubilee lipsticks. She was whimpering uncontrollably. Her lovely, perfectly made-up face and manicured hands were streaked with blood from splinters of glass. Her blond twist of hair had fallen apart and hung in clumps and strands, like remnants of insulation.

I maneuvered myself behind the counter, carefully avoiding the mess, and asked if I could help. Her whimpers immediately turned to wails: “Twenty-eight years! Twenty-eight years in this business! And nothing, nothing has ever happened. Not like this. Why is this … why?” When I reached for some cotton balls to dab away the blood on her face, she made batting motions to get me away. “No, no, no!” she screamed. “Leave me alone! Go away!”

Fine, I thought, fine. Wait for the police, paramedics, whatever you want.

“Okay, please move back,” said Stan White once he was off the phone. “Please move away from the counter.” He scowled in my direction, apparently recognizing me for the first time. “You? What are you doing here again?”

“Nothing.” I squeezed past the mess again, in no mood for explanations.

He made an awkward move in my direction, then looked confused. When he caught shoplifters in the store, he knew what to do. When he had a corpse to deal with, however, he was less sure. “Don’t leave,” he ordered me again. “The police are coming. They want to know if anyone saw … if there were any witnesses.”

“I’m not going.” I stood, shaking, on the lush carpet I couldn’t bear to look at Nick Gentileschi’s corpse sprawled on the shattered Mignon counter. Nor could I listen to another moment of Harriet’s abject weeping. Dizziness swept over me. An empty seat in the shoe department beckoned. I sat down uneasily, making sure that I faced away from Nick Gentileschi’s body. The store’s overhead speakers crackled and the gentle background music stopped mid-bar. A female voice announced that owing to an emergency, Prince & Grogan was now closed. Apparently Stan White had called the office with the intercom. All shoppers should depart in an orderly fashion, the calm voice went on soothingly, either through the exit that went into the parking lot or via the elevator located next to Lingerie. This would take them down to the parking lot exit.

I glanced at the wall display of pumps, espadrilles, and walking shoes, and thought vaguely that the police wouldn’t want everyone dismissed. But the store had a reputation to uphold, and that reputation said the only excitement was in shopping. The dramatic loss of their security chief didn’t qualify as a good retail experience.