Whose Number Is Up, Anyway?. Stevi Mittman

talking about.”

      “I ran because I was alone, which is scary,” I say.

      “Is that you-leave-me-before-I-leave-you?” Drew asks.

      I take a moment to figure out where that came from. He means running to Boca. I meant running to my car. I explain that because I was running, I couldn’t hear what the men were shouting about.

      “Right,” he says.

      Leave him before he left me? Is that what he thinks? Is that what he was going to do? “Were you going to leave me?” I ask.

      He has the file open on his desk. A picture of Joey—frozen—is on top and he fingers it and pulls out a report sheet from behind it. “Where?” he says.

      I figure we’re back to the investigation, so I say, “In front of the bagel place—you know, between L.I. Lanes and King Kullen. The one with the mini-everything bagels. Not too many places do the everythings in mini-size.”

      He grimaces. “Leave you where?” he asks.

      Is your head spinning yet? Because mine is. And while it’s been three months, I’m still not ready to talk about us. “What did he die of?” I ask instead of answering him.

      “Heart attack,” he says. “Guy had a history of heart disease. He was living on borrowed time.”

      I pick Dana’s old purse up off the floor and throw the strap over my shoulder. Bobbie would kill me if she saw the depths to which I’ve sunk, but Alyssa, my seven-year-old, painted my purse with magic marker. A new purse is not exactly in the budget at the moment, not even one from T.J.Maxx, which would pain Bobbie almost as much as Dana’s old one, I think. Nowadays you need to take out a second mortgage to buy a nice handbag. I can’t imagine what you’re left with to put inside it. You certainly don’t need a wallet cause there’d be nothing to keep in it.

      “So that’s it then,” I say, coming to my feet.

      “Looks like,” he says. “Only…”

      He’s baiting me, but I refuse to get hooked. Still, asking “Only what?” doesn’t seem like much of a risk.

      “Only the guy works in the deli, not the meat department. It’s after hours and he’s just had an argument with his buddies.”

      “So why was he in the freezer?” I ask.

      “And why was his shirt frozen?” he adds.

      “He was locked in?” I ask. “Like you see in old movies?”

      Drew shakes his head at me and smiles like it amuses him that I’m once again relating the world to some movie I’ve seen. “They don’t use that kind anymore. There are always latches on the inside to prevent accidental lock-ins.”

      “And so he goes into the freezer, maybe to steal some filets, and the door closes behind him—” I start.

      “One, they call it a cooler. The freezer’s where they keep the real frozen stuff—ice cream and the like. And two, there’s no reason he can’t just let himself out.”

      “But he doesn’t.” I sit back down. “He has a sudden pain in his chest.” I clutch my chest. “He knows it’s the big one. He gropes for the door in the dark—” I flail my arms with my eyes closed.

      “Light goes on automatically when you open the door.”

      I open my eyes and remind him that the door is closed behind him.

      “Stays on for thirty minutes,” Drew says. “And there’s an emergency button to push.”

      “His shirt was wet?” I ask. “From sweat?”

      Drew shakes his head. “Coroner says tap water.”

      “And you say?” I ask.

      Drew looks at the file. He leafs through a paper or two, studies the photograph of Joey. “Suspicious,” he says.

      He doesn’t have to ask what I’d say.

      Murder.

      CHAPTER 3

      Just like you can’t judge a book by its cover, you can’t judge a house by its appearance from the street. But you can provide a hint of what’s to be found inside so that the result doesn’t jar the senses. A Chinese umbrella stand on the porch, an arts and crafts mailbox, Victorian cornices—these all signal your style.

      —TipsFromTeddi.com

      I am not investigating anything, I tell myself. I am merely picking up some deli at Waldbaum’s for the kids’ lunches. Or just in case my father should happen to drop by. I mean, really, how can you not have some corned beef around, just in case?

      “And maybe some potato salad,” I tell Max, who seems a bit more flushed than usual.

      He hands me one of those white deli bags with some chocolate-covered raspberry Jell Rings for Alyssa. “No charge,” he says with a wink.

      I thank him and remark how funny it was to see him a few nights ago. He doesn’t seem to think there was anything odd about it.

      “I’m really sorry about your friend,” I say, lowering my voice as though at work he isn’t allowed to have friends.

      “Joey?” he asks, surprised that I know. “Damn shame. Just when things were looking up.”

      “Looking up?” I ask. Someone nudges my arm while reaching for the Turn-O-Matic machine.

      “We’re not taking numbers,” someone else informs her, which I take to mean that she was here first and didn’t take one.

      “Could have been looking up,” he hedges. “Who knows?”

      Why is he backtracking? I can’t help but wonder. Only it doesn’t seem like a line I can pursue, so I go back to how odd it was to see him at the alley. With the dead guy.

      “I mean seeing you there out of context,” I say. “At first I didn’t even recognize you.”

      “You think this is my whole life?” he asks, fanning his hands out to encompass his domain. The counters are full of twenty kinds of turkey, every manner of pastrami, salami, bologna and corned beef. There’s herring salad, white-fish salad, crab salad…He slaps his hand on the top of the counter. “God, no. I got a life outside of here.”

      “I know,” I say with a big smile, like bowling once a week is a whole life—and don’t I know it? “I saw last night.”

      He shakes his head.

      “I got a lot more in mind than bowling once a week with those losers,” he says. “A new car, a boat. Maybe even a house on some island. Hawaii, maybe. You think the houses are cheaper in Hawaii or Florida?”

      “I don’t know,” I tell him, putting a bag of onion rolls in my cart so that the women around me know I’m shopping and not just shooting the breeze. “But I do know you can live pretty cheaply in the Bahamas. I’ve got a brother who’s lived down there ever since college.” I don’t go into how the trip was a graduation present from my parents and David simply decided not to come back, even though my father’s store, Bayer Furniture (the home of headache-free buying and hassle-free finance), was waiting for him.

      Max asks if maybe I could give him David’s name and he might get in touch one day.

      Okay, by now, people around me are getting testy. I tell Max just a half pound of the potato salad and maybe a pound of coleslaw. He nods, but he doesn’t make a move to fill my order.

      “He like it in the Bahamas? Your brother?” he asks me.

      I nod and smile and gesture toward the potato salad without trying to appear rude. There are sounds of disgruntlement growing behind me.

      Bernie, another counter guy, comes over from the cheese portion