Telling Lies (3 page)

“
What about Monica?” asked Aaron. “Did Jeff tell her anything about the deal?”

Laurel shook her head. “No. Nothing. She was questioned about it at great length by the police, the FBI, and Hammersmith’s people.” She shuddered at the memory of what her friend had gone through. “It was horrible for her. All that suspicion heaped on her, people impugning Jeff’s reputation. And of course, he was gone, vanished, with no one to defend him but Monica.” She looked directly at Aaron. “I’m sure she told them everything she knew about the deal. Why, what are you thinking?”

“
I don’t know.” Aaron was absorbing the information Laurel had provided, contemplating possible ways this deal could have played out. He was trying to assess how his next question would affect her. “Was Jeff’s body ever identified?” he asked gently.

“
Hammersmith’s was, through DNA. But no, Jeff’s was among the one thousand one hundred sixty one that weren’t. We put up posters at bus stops, train stations, and in the parks. We asked for information online, like so many people, but I don’t think his body will ever be identified.” She looked at Aaron again, this time her eyes flashing with a hard spark of anger. He was sure she was recalling the man she’d seen earlier. “How could it be?” she spat out bitterly. “There can’t be a body to identify when the person is still alive.”

“
Don’t get ahead of yourself here. We don’t know for sure that the man was Jeff Sargasso. We’d need a lot more evidence.” He removed his hand from hers. Laurel had planted a seed of doubt in his mind, but Aaron wasn’t sure he wanted to encourage her to pursue this matter. Maybe she
had
seen Sargasso. Let’s face it, if he’d gotten hold of the money, he had fifteen million really good reasons to do a runner. On the other hand, there really wasn’t anything concrete to go on.

“
Well, I have to find out.” Her voice evened out. “There’s Monica and all the real victims of that horrible day to think about. No one should get away with something like this.”

“
I understand that, but an investigation based on seeing some guy who looks familiar for two seconds isn’t going to happen.” He shrugged in resignation. “And with all that money involved, it’d be the Fed’s case anyway.” He lifted his hands skyward. “I can tell you, when they were asking all those questions, they were following the money. They must have thought about the possibility that Sargasso was out there somewhere. If the Feds gave up the chase, it means they didn’t have the smallest shred of a clue.” He shook his head with certainty. “If they did, they’d still be chasing Sargasso’s ghost. Believe me, there’s nothing we can do.”

“
You’re wrong.” Laurel was defiant. “There is something I can do.” She pulled out her cell phone and flipped it open. “I can call Helen. This is something she’d love to get her hands on, especially if it means outsmarting the Feds.”

Saks Fifth Avenue

New York City

“
Achoo! Achoo!” Helen couldn’t stop sneezing. It was all the damn perfume wafting around her head, annoying her sinuses. “Sorry,” she apologized to the woman she’d been spritzing with Adoreé Body Mist. “It’s just my allergies, not this lovely fragrance.” The woman gave her a strange look before moving off down the counter, feigning interest in several other fragrances, desperately searching for any non-sneezing salesperson to help her.

Helen couldn’t blame the customer. Her skills as a Fragrance Consultant left much to be desired. She sprayed too much. She rubbed too hard. And she didn’t know a flaçon from a factice. Worst of all, the big-spending, haute couture clad women who plunked down hundreds and hundreds of dollars on the store’s myriad selections of fragrances, scented creams, lotions, and potions seemed to know instinctively that beauty wasn’t her business.

Maybe selling isn’t my strong point
. Helen suppressed another sneeze,
but sleuthing is.
When Helen, a freelance private investigator, had accepted this assignment from Saks Fifth Avenue’s Loss Prevention Director, she thought that it would be interesting as well as challenging, a welcome change of pace from the murder and deceit she’d encountered on her last case.
What could be so bad? I’ll spend a few days in an elegant department store surreptitiously searching for signs of internal theft.
She’d figured she’d have lunchtime to indulge her passion for shopping and probably spend the fee she was earning on the much too expensive designer clothes the store sold. But she’d figured wrong. First of all, the thief or thieves proved to be much cleverer than she’d counted on. She’d narrowed the field down to a few possibilities but as yet hadn’t been able to positively identify who might be responsible for the recent heavy losses the fragrance department had been experiencing. Second, her feet were killing her. She’d love to meet the guy who invented marble floors. Probably some Ancient Roman or Greek architect who figured it would be a great new way to spend his rich client’s money. Anyway, eight hours a day standing on the hard, unforgiving surface wasn’t doing her Manolo shod feet any favors.

“
Hello. How are you today? May I treat you to a sample of our newest, Adoreé? It’s a light body mist that really captures the mood of this fresh, modern floral.” If she had to say that to one more person, she might actually throw up. As she smiled and spritzed, she tried to keep her eyes on the activity at the various cash registers, but it wasn’t easy. Saks had been renovated and modernized several times over the past eighty years. Yet, it retained the tasteful and elegant touches that had made it an instant success when it opened its doors in the 1920s. Among these details were beautiful wooden and glass counters that curved gracefully along the selling floor to unobtrusively yet pointedly control the flow of traffic. As charming as they were architecturally, their design made observation difficult. Mirrored back shelves were shimmering showcases for the store’s wares and concealed the registers, which were tucked behind in recessed alcoves. Helen was frustrated.
Anything can be happening back there, and I can’t see it
, she mused. She knew she couldn’t be too obvious about wandering over and checking out anyone else’s sales without arousing suspicion.

As Helen moved around the counters and greeted customers, she remembered how amazed she’d been at some of the schemes the store’s Loss Prevention Team had briefed her on. Besides out-and-out stealing from the register, crooked employees could be remarkably inventive in devising ways to scam the store. One disgruntled employee stole the credit card number of any customer who was rude to her, then used it to purchase gift cards for her friends. Some even had outside accomplices to help pull off their devious schemes. In one scenario, an accomplice would pose as a customer and pay with cash to purchase a bottle of the most expensive perfume at the counter. Her partner, the salesperson, would slip an extra bottle into her package. The next day the “customer” would return both bottles, with a state-of the-art forged receipt she’d created on her home computer, and ask for a refund. Not only would she get back her money for the original bottle, but also for the second, stolen one. Since it was the store’s policy to process any refund accompanied by a receipt, the “customer” and dishonest employee walked away with a nice profit—often upward of two hundred dollars—for a few minute’s work. And that was only one way the store was losing money.

Helen shook her head and snuck a peek at her watch. Ten more minutes to go until her break. Sighing inwardly, she let her mind jump ahead to the fifteen minutes when she’d be off her feet, sitting in the blissfully fragrance-free employee lounge relaxing over a cup of coffee.

Spraying customers liberally, although sneeze inducing, helped her use up the fragrance she was demonstrating and provided a legitimate reason for moving behind the counter to fetch another sample bottle of Adoreé. While she was rummaging around in the drawers that held the fragrance, she was able to take a quick glance at the cash register. One of the people whose too friendly behavior had aroused her suspicion, Antonio Felippe, was ringing up a sale. Tall, slender, and dressed completely in black Armani, he appeared to be the quintessential salesperson. But the furtive looks he’d been giving Helen made the back of her neck tingle—a sign she couldn’t ignore. His customer looked familiar to her as well. Helen was sure she’d seen the woman at least twice over the last few days, shopping when Antonio was working. The woman had changed her appearance slightly each time. Today she was wearing an oversize pair of designer sunglasses and had her hair pulled back in a low ponytail. Her roomy hobo shoulder bag, however, was the same one she’d used on the other two occasions—a dead giveaway as far as Helen, who was no slouch in the disguise department, was concerned.

Helen dawdled behind the counter, opening and closing drawers, pretending to be unable to find what she needed. Antonio glanced her way, acknowledged her presence with a phony smile, and continued ringing up his sale. Helen tried to see what items were included in the purchase but had a hard time viewing the register’s screen from where she was standing. Edging closer to Antonio, she tried to glimpse the sales receipt over his shoulder as he was placing the woman’s purchases in a shopping bag. If she could determine that the receipt and the items didn’t match, she had him.

Desperate to find a way to get close enough, she called to him sweetly, waving the bottle of Adoreé in front of her. “Antonio, sorry to bother you, but could you help me for a minute? I can’t seem to find the blotters I need.” She gestured to a shelf over the register. “I think they’re up there. Can you get them for me?” Unsuccessfully hiding his annoyance, he reached overhead for a box marked Adoreé fragrance blotters. In the few seconds he had his back to her, Helen peeked over his shoulder and glanced at the receipt, still next to the register. She noted that he’d rung up one bottle of eau de parfum but had placed two in a small Saks shopping bag. Just as she was about to give the store’s security guard, who’d been briefed on Helen’s assignment, a high sign, pandemonium broke out.

Another well-dressed customer who was in the midst of paying for her purchase at a counter across the aisle had placed the small Pomeranian dog she’d been carrying down on the floor next to her. While she was waiting for her credit card to go through, she glanced down and noticed the dog was gone. Noticing a woman striding toward the back of the store, she started screaming at the top of her lungs, “Stop that woman! She stole my dog.”

Helen didn’t hesitate. In one continuous motion, she leapt out from behind the counter, sped across the aisle, and tackled the woman, who had started moving away as fast as she could. Tumbling to the floor between the handbag and cosmetic counters, Helen pinned her down and heard the high-pitched yelping coming from beneath her. It was the Pomeranian, a little white fluff of a dog that the thief had managed to conceal under her coat. “Jake, Jake. Come to Mommy.” The dog’s owner, scooped him up in her arms and kissed him as though he’d been adrift at sea for days and had just been rescued by the Coast Guard.

Helen rolled her eyes heavenward, heaved herself off the thief, and waited for store security to escort the woman to their office. By now a crowd had gathered, all of whom were cooing over the dog, asking him if
he
were okay, while virtually ignoring Helen, the
person
who had rescued him. Remembering what she’d been doing when all this started, she brushed herself off, ran her fingers through her short blond hair, and hurried back to her counter. But it was too late. The woman Antonio had been helping was long gone, the shopping bag and receipt with her. Another phony smile was plastered on his face as she approached.

“
My God, Helen, are you okay? That was so brave of you. I’d never have gone after her, especially at your age.” He reached over and flicked a piece of lint from her jacket. “Oh, and don’t forget these, love.” He handed her the blotters she’d asked for a few minutes ago.

Helen smiled sweetly. “Thanks, Antonio.”
Oh, I won’t forget anything about today. You can count on that.
Groaning inwardly, she headed for the break room, realizing she’d have to spend at least one more day on her feet if she were going to catch the bastard.

The Danieli Hotel

Venice, Italy

Soft waves lapping against the
fondamenta
had finally lulled Laurel to sleep at two in the morning. Now, just hours later, she was awake again. The church bells of San Maggiore striking six o’clock intruded into her dream and nudged her into consciousness. The rude awakening was her own fault; she’d left the windows open. Their double panes were designed to keep the sounds of the city from disturbing the hotel’s guests. Laurel couldn’t resist the elemental pull of the water, and she had opened the windows to let in the ethereal spirit of this city of the sea. She rolled over in the enormous gilt-framed, antique bed, and realized that Aaron was gone. Sighing, she buried her face in a luxurious down pillow and snuggled deeper under the voluminous comforter. All she wanted was to fall back asleep and avoid the start of the day—and the resumption of last night’s discussion. Brushing her tousled hair away from her face, she realized that the bells had stopped ringing and the suite was quiet again.