My Favorite Suspects: Part 6
"A trap," Miller said. "Let's set one."
In this cozy noir, amateur sleuth Terry Perez revisits his first case in which he investigates a series of crimes at his supermarket. Can he solve the mystery before he loses his job at the store? Who in his circle will turn out to be the criminal?
Friday night blended into Saturday morning. Throughout the shift, my conversations with Luna and A.J. broke into my thoughts whenever my mind wandered off a task. Both had opportunity and motive. Luna, using cigarettes as part of her side hustle to sell to her fans in support of their fetishes. A.J. with his cigarette addiction and expensive hobbies and tastes, such as his watch and motorcycle. I thought back to all the weeks I'd spent trying to figure out the identity of Ghost. The past two days wore on me like two months of sleepless nights.
Miller said, "Seems like something's on your mind, bro."
Miller and I were on break near the end of our shift, watching highlights of the playoffs on a tablet, in the manager's office. The Sabers were out of the running. We didn't mind that much. We liked the game. Didn't really care who played. Miller positioned his monitor so he could watch the surveillance camera feeds. I sat at the other side of the desk, going through a printout. I didn't rate my own computer. Condensation ran down the sides of my bottle of cola and left wet rings on the printout.
"Trying to figure out Ghost," I said.
A.J. and Luna had left the store hours ago. Nothing seemed to have happened. On the cameras, two prostitutes ambled through the pharmacy aisle, enjoying the air conditioning. We watched the night crew stock shelves and clean at a leisurely pace but without the usual chatter and pranks. The heat sapped everyone of extra energy.
"Did you do something to the cameras?" he said, a hint of concern in his voice.
"I changed the settings so they only display movement. That way I don't waste time staring at empty aisles."
"I didn't know you could do that," Miller said.
"You said I'm good with computers."
"Better than I thought," he said with a hint of surprise.
"Really?"
He drummed his fingers on the desk, possibly at a loss for words. "Trying to give you a compliment. Sorry. I'm pissed because of Ghost."
"The cameras aren't helping. We really should hire a guard."
"I'm not adding more headcount." He abruptly went for the door. "Day manager's here," he said.
Through the office window, the neighborhood simmered under a steadily brightening sky. The day manager entered, her short-cropped blonde hair frizzled from humidity.
That was it. Only one day—today, Saturday—left to catch Ghost. I'm never getting on days. I'm never going to have a normal life. I thought about my mom and her last hours spent alone in hospice, while I was away working and my brother had barricaded himself in his bedroom, unwilling to accept her dying. I'd bought my mother a small TV, but is that how she wanted it to end, watching reruns by herself?
Is that how my life will end?
Miller and the day manager entered the break room and disappeared from the cams. They reappeared in the dairy section and walked down Aisle Four to the cash registers. They stopped at the cigarette case.
Miller unlocked the case. The wall of our tobacco shrine rattled and swung aside, revealing gaps among the columns where the Luxury Kings should be.
Ghost.
Miller glared at me through the camera above the case.
Saturday afternoon. Between shifts.
I spent the day on my couch, dozing and thinking of which person made the more likely Ghost. I kept at it through my afternoon routine and ride to the store for the Saturday shift.
Possibly my last shift.
The shift where we had to catch Ghost or I was out of a job.
I dragged myself off the bus and walked across the scorching asphalt parking lot. By the time I'd entered the store, I'd made up my mind.
When I got to the manager's office, I showed Luna's pack of Luxury Kings to Miller. He squinted at it, turning the pack over and over in his hands, as if it were an artifact from an ancient culture.
"Where'd you get this?" he said.
"Luna."
"You went to her club?" he said, surprised. "What's it like?"
He flipped the pack through the air and I bounced it between my hands before catching it. Good reflexes, bad eyesight. "I didn't go."
"It's cool, bro. I wouldn't admit it, either."
"Let's focus on the pack," I said. "It means—"
"What's the writing on the back?"
"It's her e-commerce site."
"Why's a stripper need an e-commerce site?" Miller's eyebrows curled upward, puzzled.
"Can we focus on what the pack means?" I said. "They're Luxury Kings. That's the brand that's most popular with Ghost. Keep in mind that Luna's here almost every night." I didn't want to say it. I blew out a lungful of air and ended with: "Luna might be Ghost."
Miller took a thoughtful sip from a bottle of RC cola.
"Why would she steal them?" he said.
"She sells personal items to her fans, like cigarettes, on her e-commerce site. It's for something called a fetish."
"A what-ish?"
"I looked it up on Wikipedia. It's—"
He held out his hands: Stop. "No way it's Luna. I'm telling you, she gets all the money she needs."
I felt a sense of relief that Miller didn't think she was a suspect.
"It's gotta be A.J.," Miller said with a finger snap. "I don't buy his holier-than-Jesus routine."
My relief turned to dread.
I thought about A.J.'s watch and the fact that he rode the bus every day, like myself. We couldn't afford cars on our paychecks. A watch was a luxury. If we needed the time, we checked our phones.
I thought about Luna and her side hustle. Could she make enough money to buy the cigarettes she needed, or would she shrewdly steal them to cut her operating expenses?
I didn't want Luna or A.J. to be the shoplifter. They were, along with Miller, the closest thing I had to friends.
All I could think of was what I stood to lose. On one hand, Luna and more smoky interludes and our strange affinity and being held captive by her eyes. On the other, A.J. and Friday afternoons spent eating free barbecued chicken and sitting at a picnic table with Vanessa and maybe learning how to ride a motorcycle.
Miller sat for a few minutes, crunching potato chips, thinking, his eyes moving back and forth.
"A trap," he said. "Let's set one. I'll leave the cigarette case unlocked. We'll try to catch Ghost on video."
At least Miller was thinking clearly. Maybe I was worrying too much about my suspects. Maybe I had a real friend right here, sitting right in front of me.
"What's the point?" I said. "We have all this technology. Why haven't we caught Ghost on video already?"
"That's a good question." Miller took another handful of chips. His forehead creased and he seemed puzzled, or concerned. "You're the computer guy," he said. "Any ideas?"
"Maybe Ghost is smarter than we think."
"Could he have tapped into the video and changed what we see?" Miller said. "The recordings, y'know, changed them?"
"It's possible. The video's encrypted, though. He'd have to know the password."
"Is it good?"
"You chose it," I said, frustration showing.
"Yeah, but is it a good one?"
"It's pretty good. It's long. It's got special characters."
We sat silently.
"I guess that's as good a plan as any." I took off my glasses and rubbed the bridge of my nose. I felt a headache brewing. "Leave the case unlocked."
Miller finished the bag and wiped grease from his fingers with a paper towel.
"Bro, you totally went to Luna's club, didn't you?"
"Gimme a break, Miller."
Considering everyone's drives made me think about my own. Looking back to my days in the supermarket, I wanted to belong somewhere. I know my brother wanted that too. Unlike me, he had perfect eyesight and, also unlike me, he had a spectrum of mental illnesses and he did his best at the group home with his psychiatrist and social worker.
For myself, I had invested in my job, hoping I'd find a home among the management team and all the un-aspirational screwups on the night crew. We spent our money on rusty Ford Mustangs, or tried to save money to buy rusty Ford Mustangs, and blow cash at concerts and buy warm Genny Cream to pass around at illegal overnight beach parties.
Maybe I would take Luna to Ontario one night. Maybe I would grit my teeth and put in my contact lenses. Maybe we could split off from the group and huddle together on the damp, cool sand. If the weather was right—and with the famous Rochester overcast, it happened rarely—you could see the Milky Way arching over the blackness of Lake Ontario and it felt like you were floating in space among the stars.
I could share that with her.
Maybe she would like it as much as I did.
I made a circuit of the store. I hit the lesser-traveled areas like the stationery and housewares aisle. It got quiet after hours. The night crew shut off the music and all that was left were the air-conditioning units and their low rumble, a calm reassuring sound, like the drone of the engines of a ship far out at sea.
I stopped at the cigarette case on my way back to the office. As we'd planned, Miller had left the door unlocked. I pulled the door aside and verified that each rack had a full allotment of cartons. I didn't check the cartons themselves because I didn't want to linger there, in case Ghost was nearby. In any event, I did look. There always was the possibility that I'd overlooked one of the employees. But the racks were full, so that drove the last nail into that theory.
Back inside the office. In front of the security camera monitors. I let the office door latch on its own. My thoughts returned again to drives. Drives are funny things. Sometimes drives cause people to do odd stuff like stare at the stars and imagine they are drifting along with them.
Luna and A.J. had drives, too. Luna was a theater major who wanted lots of money. A.J. was a soldier and addict who wanted to save souls.
The video feeds flickered and changed views.
Movement at the entrance: Luna. She flipped her hoodie up against the blast of cold air-conditioned air, took a basket from a stack near the carts, and headed to the pharmacy aisle. She picked up a box of those medicated wraps that stretch across your lower back.
More movement at the entrance: A.J. strutted past the carts and headed for the snack aisle. He kept the hood of his sweatshirt down.
On another camera, Miller pushed a cart loaded with olive jars toward the end cap on aisle three.
I'd set one of the feeds to stay locked on the case. So far, our shrine of cigarettes sat undisturbed. The door wobbled in the draft from the air conditioning. If you didn't know it was unlocked, you'd never notice.
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