Black Thursday (5 page)

four

The next few seconds
sped by in a panicked, terrifying blur.

Alan Bader rushed over with a group of emergency personnel in tow. A paramedic beelined over to Mrs. Piggledy's side. A fireman went into the crowd to tend to those with cuts and scrapes. The rest of the shoppers—including Frank, who'd materialized right after the rest of the family—moved in to lend the tools and brute strength necessary to free the trapped woman.

I tried not to think about what shape she'd be in when they did.

“They'll have her out in no time,” I said to a weeping Eloise, who was suddenly behind me with the rest of the Michaels clan, minus Craig, who'd texted to say he was being kept back on the other side of the store.

Joyce shook her head. “Is she a member of your Frugarmy?”

I nodded. “Everyone in that line was. I met her,” I said, watching in transfixed horror as the emergency workers cut away rope and shrink wrap, freeing the upper row of boxes from the upper pallet. “I can't believe I didn't ask her name.”

“She mentioned it,” Mr. Piggledy said, “but with everything that's happened, I'm afraid I can't—”

“Katrina,” Mrs. Piggledy said with a wince as the paramedic began to feel along the length of her shin.

“Katrina?” I repeated, trying to put a name to the woman with whom I'd so recently enjoyed a perfectly pleasant conversation. Was there any possible chance she could still be—

“Such a beautiful ballerina,” Mrs. Piggledy said.

“She was a ballerina?” Barb asked.

“My wife's gone into shock,” Mr. Piggledy said. “She's remembering the day she broke her foot back when we were with the circus. She was helping Katrina, the Fat Lady, out of the clown car.”

“She was so incredibly lithe for her size,” Mrs. Piggledy said as the EMT began to take her vitals. “And she always wore those beautiful pink toe shoes.”

I couldn't bring myself to glance down at the neon tennis shoes jutting out from below the double-stacked pallet.

Just as the emergency personnel and helpers kneeled in preparation to lift, my eyes met Frank's for the first time in months.

“On three,” one of the firemen said.

“Dear Lord,” Joyce said. “Please let her be okay.”

“With all the weight that fell on her?” Barb asked with a hint of her old tone and inflection. “No way she isn't toast.”

five

The gray-green pallor of
Alan's horror-stricken face said it all.

“Absolutely flattened,” someone said in a whisper, as though there were need for further confirmation.

Some of the stunned, shocked crowd averted their eyes and hugged loved ones. Those who couldn't look away inched closer to watch the emergency workers attempt to check for a pulse.

“Who is she?” I asked a shaken Frank, who'd returned to comfort his family.

“Don't know yet.” He shook his head. “Her purse was just as squashed as—”

“It's my ankle, not my neck,” Mrs. Piggledy said as the EMT proceeded to slide a backboard beneath her shoulders.

“I just can't believe this is happening,” I said, kneeling to grasp Mrs. Piggledy's hand.

“Can't say we weren't warned,” Mrs. Piggledy mumbled.

“Warned?” Mr. Piggledy asked, kissing his wife gently on the forehead.

“By Zelda, that new fortuneteller.”

“Still thinks she's at the circus,” Mr. Piggledy whispered from above her, looking that much more concerned. “Honey, are you sure you didn't hit your head when you fell?”

“I'm sure Katrina shouldn't have ignored what was in the cards.”

“Which was?” I asked, now adding Mrs. Piggledy's possible head injury to my growing list of concerns.

“Be wary of too much of a good thing, or—”

“Kathy?” Rang out from behind us and hung heavily in the air.

I swallowed a sick wave of dread.

“Kathy?” The voice, male and plaintive, shouted again.

Again, there was no answer.

I was jostled as the crowd compressed to allow a man to push through and rush past.

He stopped abruptly beside the overturned pallet and glanced at the body, which was already covered except for a hint of sneaker and an inch or two of cuffed blue jean.

He crumpled to his knees. “Kathy … ”

six

Kathy
echoed down the
aisles and
hung in the impossibly heavy air.
Her husband, I presumed, given the wedding band on his left hand, covered his horror-stricken face.

Looking anything but awesome, Alan knelt beside him and whispered words I didn't have to hear to know were heartbreakingly unbearable to receive.

“Back it up, folks,” a police officer said, heading in our direction. “We're going to need to clear this area.”

“I'm with her,” I said, still holding Mrs. Piggledy's hand.

“And we're with her,” Barb said pointing to me.

“You're all relatives of this victim?”

“I'm Frank Michaels from Channel Three,” Frank said. “This is my mother, father, sister, daughter, and Maddie here happens to be my—”

“Whoever you are, I'll need you to take a step back so the stretcher can get through,” he said to me before Frank could accurately quantify the current status of our relationship. “You too, sir,” he said, offering a hand so Mr. Piggledy could hoist himself upright beside me. “You are the husband, right?”

“Forty-eight years, come June.”

The officer nodded and directed his attention to me. “And you are?”

“Maddie?” A voice, familiar but definitely not anyone from the Michaels family, answered from behind me.

I turned and found myself looking into the familiar hazel eyes of another police officer.

Not just any officer, but South Metro rookie cop Griff Watson.

Griff Watson, the former mall security guard who had been with me when the manager of Eternally 21 collapsed, setting off a chain of events I still couldn't quite fathom. Griff Watson, the man responsible for saving me from my near-fatal brush with an unlikely, but decidedly homicidal, maniac. Griff, my friend, whom I hadn't seen since he was hired on the force.

The current circumstances more than marred what would have been a pleasant reunion, but his stocky, imposing presence—in official uniform no less—was definitely a comfort.

“Griff! I'm so glad they sent you.”

“I told my partner we had to high-tail it over here as soon as the call came in,” he said, with a slight nod in the direction of the other officer.

“Thank you,” I said, in lieu of the hug I wanted give him—I couldn't exactly embrace an on-duty, on-scene policeman. Not even gruff but sweet Griff Watson.

“Thank L'Raine,” he said. “Good thing she was right nearby when the incident happened.”

“L'Raine?” I repeated, as blond, brash, bosomy massage therapist L'Raine appeared from the crowd and stood next to him. Although she didn't strike me as Griff's type per se, she certainly had his number handy, which I could only assume meant their relationship had blossomed since she'd begged me to introduce them a few months back. “Great thinking.”

Griff nodded in agreement, confirming my suspicions with the vaguest hint of his dimpled smile.

At the same moment, Alan helped the shaken husband to his feet and led him over to the body. Neither were particularly tall, but the poor man looked a good six inches shorter with his shoulders crumpled and head down.

Joyce dabbed her wide-open eyes and hugged a teary Barb.

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from crying.

Frank, who already had one arm around a sobbing Eloise, slipped the other around my shoulder.

Griff simply shook his head.

As we stood, numb and in stunned silence, Alan left the husband in the care of a fellow polo-shirted employee and made his way over to the linens aisle, where Anastasia Chastain and (more important) the camera had a nearly unobstructed view of the accident. Following a brief conversation, Anastasia and the cameraman, who had to already have enough footage for an Emmy-worthy report, packed up and relocated.

Alan stood dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief from his pocket as the stretcher made its way toward Mrs. Piggledy. With none of his trademark salesman-swagger, he followed behind, stopping beside us.

“Sir,” he said, offering his hand to Mr. Piggledy. “I can't tell you how sorry I am.”

“Accidents happen,” Mr. Piggledy said.

“Not in my store.” Alan shook his head. “Not like this.”

Griff's walkie-talkie blipped and a scratchy voice announced: “Coroner's here.”

Alan rubbed his temples. “This is just getting worse and worse.”

“Why did they call in a coroner?” Joyce asked. “On the
CSI
shows they—”

“Call in a coroner on all fatalities to make a determination as to cause of death,” Griff recounted, undoubtedly from his rookie manual. “Standard procedure.”

L'Raine smiled like he'd recited one of Shakespeare's love sonnets.

The stretcher pulled up beside Mrs. Piggledy.

“Ready?” the EMT asked.

“I'll need to lead everyone out of here along with Mrs. Piggledy,” Griff said, clipping his still squawking radio back onto his utility belt. “So the area can be secured.”

“And I need to get back over there,” Alan said, looking like he'd rather be headed anywhere else. He handed Mr. Piggledy a business card. “Please keep me posted on your wife's condition.”

“No worries,” Mrs. Piggledy said. “I'll be back on the trick horses in no time.”

“But, honey,” Mr. Piggledy rubbed her cheek, “you've never ridden the horses.”

“Details,” she winced, as she was loaded onto the stretcher. “Please come to Higgledy's wedding Saturday night,” she announced to the crowd. “All of you!”

With the glimmer of his wife's usual sparkle, Mr. Piggledy looked ever so slightly relieved. “Everything's going to be okay.”

Alan simply shook his head.

I felt almost as awful for him as I did for kind-faced Kathy and her grieving husband.

When he'd first contacted me about advertising on my blog, Alan spent our initial phone call proudly recounting the history of Bader's Bargain Barn, starting with its humble beginnings as his grandfather's five-and-dime. He talked about how his father had expanded into a small local department store. How he himself had worked beside his dad all the way through high school, growing the company into a discount retailer during his college years, and even getting an MBA to help keep his beloved family enterprise competitive in the cutthroat world of franchises, chains, and superstores—all of which not only anticipated but depended on Black Friday for their highest traffic and sales receipts of the entire holiday season. Including Bargain Barn.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked.

“I don't know that there's anything anyone can do.” Alan's shoulders sagged that much more. “Not sure how we can survive a hit like this.”

Before I could think of anything else to say, Alan turned and seemed to be forcing his legs to move.

A few seconds later, I was following Mrs. Piggledy's stretcher down the central aisle. Making our way toward the awaiting ambulance, I couldn't help but feel like we were on a maudlin parade route. But instead of ticker tape, there were gasps, tears, and comments filling the air.

Oh God, is it her
neck?

How bloody is she?

She doesn't look nearly as bad as you might have expected
…

“Everything's under control, folks,” Frank announced in his most dulcet newscaster voice. “If you'll all just step back, we need to let the paramedics get this lady off to the hospital so she can be fixed up as quickly as possible.”

Somehow he managed to maintain an air of gravitas and still seem living-room-familiar as conjecture about the accident and the nature of the injuries died down and the inevitable whispers about spotting local celebrity Frank Finance began to swirl around him.

He's better looking in person than I expected.

Shorter though, huh?

They usually are.

Isn't that the wife he
…
?

Mrs. Frugalicious!

“This is horrifying,”
Joyce said.

I couldn't have agreed more. “What are people going to say when they wheel out—”

“They're going to have to take her out a side entrance,” Barb said.

“That, or close down the store,” Griff said.

Craig appeared at the juncture of the middle aisle and the main corridor.

“Honey!” Joyce threw her arms around him. “Thank God, you're safe!”

“Mom, I'm fine,” he said eyeballing L'Raine, who, with a healthy extra thirty pounds in a lot of the right places, struck me as definitely more his type than Griff's.

“Do you really think they're going to close down Bargain Barn?” I finally asked, after Joyce decided she was satisfied by her visual scan of Craig.

“How can they not?” Eloise said. “There's a dead body totally lying over there.”

We watched together in a kind of morbid silent agreement as the EMTs navigated Mrs. Piggledy's stretcher out the door and into an ambulance. Still, I couldn't help but think about Alan and the seemingly fatal collateral damage to his beloved family business.

“Isn't the accident scene pretty much contained now?” I finally asked, once Mrs. Piggledy was well on her way to the hospital.

“Yes, or it will be soon,” Griff said.

“I don't mean to be indelicate or anything,” Craig said, “but if they do close, how am I going to get the TV or any of the other stuff I was hoping to buy tonight?”

“Most people, at least in the Frugarmy line, didn't get to make any of their purchases at all,” L'Raine added.

Despite how close L'Raine stood to Griff—or, more accurately, to his holster—Craig flashed a smile that said
concerned agreement
but meant
I like 'em blond and buxom.

I watched as a group of women in telltale bargain shopping garb
13
rushed past us and disappeared into the crowd-free aisles on the west side of the store.

“It is the biggest shopping night of the year, and people have been gearing up for it for months.” I glanced over at the register lines, where the cashiers looked downright confused about what to do next. “Not to mention the stores.”

It wasn't even officially Black Friday yet and not only had a member of my Frugarmy died at an event I'd encouraged her to attend, in a line made up entirely of devotees to Mrs. Frugalicious, but my best sponsor might well have suffered a fatal blow in the process. To top it off, the ripple effect was sure to cause financial mourning in the form of lost jobs throughout the community. Bargain Barn employed a lot of local people.

“Do you think there's any possible way to keep the store open?” L'Raine asked.

“That will likely depend on how long they think it will take the coroner to assess the scene and how much manpower they need to keep things up and running while she does,” Griff said like the old pro he'd eventually be. “I suspect they're mulling that over right now.”

“I mean, if Bargain Barn dies, so do the jobs of a lot of innocent employees,” I said.

“It's not like there's anything we can do about it,” Eloise said.

Frank glanced at Anastasia and the Channel Three camera, now relocated just outside the main entrance door, and then over at a small cluster of women who happened to be pointing at me. “I'm not sure I agree.”

History told me I had good reason to be both encouraged and concerned about the odd but enthusiastic twinkle in my soon-to-be-ex-husband's baby blues.

“We may not have manpower, but we definitely have media and Mrs. Frugalicious power,” he said.

“Meaning what?” I asked.

Frank turned to the Customer Service counter behind us and picked up the store phone. “Meaning I really think we may be able to help keep a terrible tragedy from turning into total disaster.”