Dying in Style Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Josie’s Shopping Secrets

  Teaser chapter

  Praise for Elaine Viets’s novels

  “Elaine Viets has come up with all the ingredients for an irresistible mystery: a heroine with a sense of humor and a gift for snappy dialogue, an atmospheric South Florida backdrop . . . and some really nasty crimes.”

  —Jane Heller, author of An Ex to Grind

  “Wit, murder, and sunshine . . . it must be Florida. I LOVE THIS NEW SERIES BY ELAINE VIETS.”

  —Nancy Pickard, author of The Truth Hurts

  “Elaine Viets is fabulous.”

  —Jerrilyn Farmer, author of The Flaming Luau of Death

  “[An] intelligent heroine.”

  —Charlaine Harris, author of Dead as a Doornail

  “[An] entertaining new series with just the right touch of humor.”

  —The Miami Herald

  “It’s Janet Evanovich meets The Fugitive.”

  —Tim Dorsey, author of Torpedo Juice

  Dying to Call You

  “Viets writes a laugh-out-loud comedy with enough twists and turns to make it to the top. . . . In fact, she’s been nominated for a truckload of awards this year. . . . There is a good reason why Viets is taking the mystery genre by storm these days . . . she can keep you wondering whodunit while laughing all the way to the last page.”

  —Florida Today

  “Stars one of the liveliest, [most] audacious and entertaining heroines to grace an amateur sleuth tale. . . . Cleverly designed. . . . Elaine Viets is a talented storyteller.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  Murder Between the Covers

  “Wry sense of humor, appealing, realistic characters, and a briskly moving plot.”

  —Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

  “A great writer . . . simply superb.”

  —BookBrowser

  Shop Till You Drop

  “Fans of Janet Evanovich and Parnell Hall will appreciate Viets’s humor.”

  —Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

  “Elaine Viets’s debut is a live wire. . . . Helen Hawthorne takes Florida by storm. Shop no further—this is the one.”

  —Tim Dorsey

  “I loved this book. With a stubborn . . . heroine, a wonderful South Florida setting and a cast of more-or-less lethal bimbos, Shop Till You Drop provides tons of fun. Six-toed cats, expensive clothes, sexy guys on motorcycles—this book has it all.”

  —Charlaine Harris

  “Fresh, funny, and fiendishly constructed, Shop Till You Drop gleefully skewers cosmetic surgery, ultra-exclusive clothing boutiques, cheating ex-husbands, and the Florida dating game, as attractive newcomer Helen Hawthorne takes on the first of her deliciously awful dead-end jobs and finds herself enmeshed in drugs, embezzlement, and murder. A bright start to an exciting new series. This one is hard to beat.”

  —Parnell Hall, author of The Puzzle Lady crossword puzzle mysteries

  “A smashing success [that] contains wit [and] local color. . . . The heroine is a delightful mix of grit, determination and stubbornness. . . . Electrifying.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

  Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2,

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, October 2005

  Copyright © Elaine Viets, 2005

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  eISBN: 9781101462768

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  This book is dedicated to the American shopper—those brave women who line up at the Target stores in the chilly dawn the day after Thanksgiving, the veterans of the August White Sales, and the fearless souls who face their peers seminaked in the dressing rooms at Loehmann’s.

  Acknowledgments

  I live in Fort Lauderdale now, but setting my new series in my hometown of St. Louis gave me a terrific reason to visit my favorite friends and places.

  So many of you helped with this book. I hope I can remember everyone.

  Special thanks to Jinny Gender and Janet Smith, who gave me their valuable local expertise. Photographer Jennifer Snethen took detailed pictures of Maplewood and the surrounding areas.

  Thanks also to Susan Carlson, Karen Grace, Diane Earhart, Rita Scott, and Anne Watts for their help and advice. Also, thanks to Valerie Cannata, Colby Cox, and Kay Gordy.

  Special thanks to the law enforcement men and women who answered questions on police procedure and lie
detector tests. Particular thanks to Detective RC White, Fort Lauderdale Police Department (retired). Some of my police and medical sources had to remain nameless, but I want to thank them all the same. Any mistakes are mine, not theirs.

  Thanks to the librarians at the Broward County Library and the St. Louis Public Library who researched my questions, no matter how strange.

  Thanks to public relations expert Jack Klobnak, and to my friend, Carole Wantz, who loves books and bookselling.

  I also want to thank Emma, a special friend and expert on nine-year-olds, since she used to be one last year. Emma gave me deep background on what it’s like to be nine years old in St. Louis: what you wear, where you shop, what you eat and study in school. I wish I could use her name, but the world is a dangerous place these days for young women.

  I also wanted to thank the many moms who generously took time to answer my questions about their hopes, needs and fears for their children. Their replies were useful and touching. They include author Laura Burdette, romantic suspense writer Allison Brennan, Amy, Cindy Bokma, Stephanie Elliot, Jennifer, Kelly, Kristin Billerbeck, author of the Ashley Stockingdale books, Lisa, Chris Redding, author of The Drinking Game.

  Thanks also to Susan McBride, author of The Good Girl’s Guide to Murder.

  Special thanks to my agent, David Hendin, and Kara Cesare, one of the last of the real editors, as well as the Signet copy editor and production staff.

  Last but never least, I want to thank my husband, Don Crinklaw, for his extraordinary help and patience.

  Chapter 1

  “You’re going to kill me,” he said.

  He was young, maybe twenty-five. He’d followed her outside with a sensual swagger, his Armani suit clinging to him like a wicked woman.

  Fear wiped away the ugly sneer he’d had five minutes ago in the store. Now he was alone with Josie Marcus in a mall parking lot in suburban St. Louis. They were lost in a sea of empty cars baking in the fall sunshine. The auto audience didn’t care what happened to the man. Neither did Josie.

  “I’m begging you,” he said. “Don’t do it.” His full lips trembled. They were such nice lips when they pleaded for mercy.

  Josie tried to feel sorry for the man. But she remembered the way he’d scorned her in the store. His upper lip had curled like a salted slug when he’d noticed her cheap jeans. He’d made her feel sexless and unfashionable. He’d practically elbowed her out of the way to chase after a bottle blonde with jacked-up boobs.

  How many other women had he treated the same way? Josie wondered. He deserved what was going to happen to him. A quick, painless termination was too good for him.

  “I’m sorry,” Josie said. “You’ve made too many mistakes. I have my orders.”

  He grabbed her hand. He reeked of fear, sweat and cologne.

  Josie snatched her hand back, but not before she noticed his was softer and smoother. “Don’t touch me,” she said, “or it will be even worse.”

  “Wait!” he said. Sweat slid down his forehead. “I don’t know what they pay you, but I can pay you more. How much do you want? You want my next commission check? It’s yours. And the one after that. Please, please, don’t write that report. They’ll terminate me for sure.”

  She looked at his Save Chic name tag. “I’m sorry, Patrick,” she said, “but you know the rules. You are supposed to wait on every Save Chic customer, no matter what we wear. Save Chic knows that the modern jewelry buyer may not dress like a millionaire, but she could spend like one. I deliberately wore cheap jeans and a T-shirt, as the company instructed. But I had a Movado watch. That’s quality merchandise, Patrick. You should have noticed.”

  She continued his indictment. “I was supposed to be greeted at the door with ‘Welcome to the Save Chic Shop.’ Instead, you sneered at me. You made me feel inferior, Patrick. I couldn’t get you to wait on me, no matter how hard I tried.

  “Meanwhile, you fell all over that young blonde in the gaudy Versace. She didn’t buy a thing, did she? But I got the two-hundred-fifty-dollar sterling silver Heart Stopper necklace.”

  (The necklace was a rip-off of the famous Tiffany Heart Link necklace, fifty bucks cheaper than the original, but it wasn’t polite to mention that.)

  “I had to beg you to take my money, didn’t I, Patrick?” Josie looked him in the eye. Patrick cringed. He knew it was true.

  “At the cash register, you were supposed to tell me about the sale on eighteen-karat gold earrings, but you didn’t. You were supposed to say, ‘Do you have the Save Chic Discount Card? For only twenty-five dollars, you’ll get a ten percent discount on every purchase.’ You cut it short.”

  “There was a long line,” Patrick said. His languid boredom had turned to fast-talking desperation. “People hate that stupid spiel. They want to buy and get out.”

  “I’m sorry, Patrick,” Josie said. “My job is to make sure you follow corporate sales procedure. How did you know I was a mystery shopper?”

  “Only mystery shoppers want to hear the whole Save Chic Discount Card thing,” Patrick said. “Everyone else tries to shut us up as soon as we start.”

  Patrick dropped to his knees. Ugh, Josie thought, he’s going to grovel.

  “Please, I’m begging you,” he said. “Don’t turn in that report. You have absolute power. You can save me. I’ll be fired. I’m already on probation. The boss is looking for an excuse to get rid of me. She’s old and she hates me.”

  She’s thirty-five, you twit, Josie wanted to say. She’s only four years older than I am, but supervising people like you is aging her fast.

  “Please, my mother is sick,” he said. “She needs an operation. I’m all she has. If I’m out of work, I can’t help her.”

  “Get off your knees, Patrick,” she said. “You’ll ruin your suit. You’ll need it for your job interviews.”

  “Bitch!” Patrick said, brushing off his knees.

  “I bet you say that to all the girls,” Josie said.

  She watched him lope off toward the mall. Sick mother indeed. Josie had been busted only three times in nine years. Each time it was by a man, and each time he’d claimed to be the sole support of his sick old mother. Josie suspected Patrick was really supporting a fat old credit-card company. He was probably in debt up to those pretty ears for boy toys: a state-of-the-art sound system, plasma TV, hot car, cool clothes. Her report would put a crimp in Patrick’s style.

  He shouldn’t have dissed Josie Marcus, mystery shopper, she thought.

  The mystery shopper is the suburban spy. I make my living shopping. I get paid to do something other women do for fun. It beats my other choices. I’m an ordinary-looking woman with three years of college and no special training. I could work retail, shovel fries, or clean houses for a living.

  Mystery shopping is the most exciting job I could have. People think it’s so glamorous. That always makes me laugh, especially at the end of the day, when my feet hurt from walking ten miles in the malls, and my neck and eyes ache from hours on the road. I sometimes drive three hundred miles a day.

  So why do it?

  Josie loved the drama.

  Like any good spy, Josie could change her appearance. She had a closet full of disguises. One day she was a haughty lady in Prada, shopping the designer boutiques. The next day she was a hillbilly in a halter top, slouching through concrete-floored discount stores. She loved the disguises, even though some of them embarrassed her mom.

  Josie loved the danger.

  Store employees resented mystery shoppers. The last time Josie had been busted, she’d caught a cashier red-handed in a returned-goods scam. The crooked employee figured out Josie was a mystery shopper, followed her to the parking lot and threatened to beat her up. Josie dialed 911 on her cell phone and the clerk ran off. Neither the store nor Josie ever saw the guy again.

  Okay, she wasn’t James Bond, but her job had more thrills than working the cash register at Kmart. Mystery shoppers had been threatened, bribed and beaten up. Just the thought gave he
r a little thrill. She’d die of boredom in most other jobs.

  Besides, Josie had a strong sense of duty. She felt it was her job to protect and serve the average shopper.

  Like that one, Josie thought. She watched a woman about forty years old, struggling with her bulky shopping bags. She was nice looking, in neat khaki pants and a pink sweater, but salesclerks like Patrick wouldn’t give her a second look. The woman shoved the bags into her blue minivan, rearranging hockey sticks and baby car seats to make them fit.

  Mrs. Minivan was the unsung shopper, the backbone of the American economy, the butt of a thousand jokes. Mrs. Minivan got up at five the morning after Thanksgiving so she could be first in line for the Christmas toy bargains at Target. Mrs. Minivan braved the surly post-Christmas crowds to buy holiday decorations at 75 percent off. Then she stored them away for next year.

  This was the woman Josie mystery-shopped for. She thought Mrs. Minivan deserved the best. Usually she didn’t get it. In Josie’s nine years as a mystery shopper, she’d filled out enough paperwork to cover the Mall of America.

  What had become of her reports? Nothing, in most cases. She suspected many companies simply filed them away. But not always. Mystery shoppers were overworked, underpaid and despised by the stores they served. But sometimes they had absolute power. That’s when heads rolled. Incompetent managers lost their bonuses because of her reports. Rude clerks lost their jobs. If the stores were really serious about changing their ways, Josie’s report was final. There was no appeal.

  The Save Chic had a serious personnel problem. After being named in the Wall Street Journal as one of “America’s Ten Rudest Chain Stores,” its stock fell seven points. The chain hired mystery shoppers. Patrick the rude clerk was right. Corporate would hit the roof when they saw her report. He was one of the sales associates who’d ruined the chain’s reputation. He’d be fired.