Memory in Death (In Death #22)(55)

"Everyone does. You got to cut them apart, and who's got a knife or scissors handy when you want to wear your new socks?" Harvo snapped the gum in her mouth and circled a finger in the air. The nail was painted Christmas red with little green trees. "Freaking nobody. So you—" She fisted her hands together, twisted. "And half the time you snag the socks, or end up with a little bit of plastic inside that stabs you in the foot."

"Pisser."

"Yeah."

"How about the tag?"

"It's your lucky day—the sweepers were thorough and brought in the contents of the trash can. Came from the bathroom. I took it since I was doing the fibers anyway."

She scooted, showed Eve the tag.

"It was balled up, like you do, and a piece of it torn. Fibers stuck to the gummy side. Anyways, got it straightened out, put together, and you can see our handy bar code, and the type."

She tapped the protective shield over the evidence.

"Women's athletic socks, size seven to nine. Which is another pisser on my personal bitch list. See I wear a seven myself, and when I buy socks like this, I always got too much length in the foot. Why can't they just make them fit? We have the technology, we have the skill. We have the feet."

"That's a puzzler," Eve agreed. "Prints?"

"Vic's, tag and sock. Got another on the tag. Ran it." She bumped back to the screen. "Hitch, Jayne. Employed by Blossom Boutique on Seventh, sales clerk. I don't know, call me crazy, but I bet Jayne sold the vic a pair of socks recently."

"Nice job, Harvo."

"Yeah, I awe myself regular."

* * *

It was a simple matter to track down Jayne. She was behind the counter at the boutique ringing up sales with the focused determination of a soldier on the front lines.

The shop was jammed with customers, drawn, Eve imagined, by the big orange sale signs on every rack, table, and wall. The noise level, punched upward by incessent holiday music, was awesome.

You could shop online, Eve thought, if you were desperate to shop. Why people insisted on pushing into retail outlets with other people who probably wanted the same merchandise, where the lines roped around in endlessly confusing misery and torture, and where the sales clerks were bitter as raw spinach, was beyond her.

When she said the same to Peabody, her partner's answer was a chipper "Because it's fun!"

To various consumers' annoyance and objections, Eve cut the line and muscled her way up front.

"Hey! I'm next."

Eve turned to the woman all but buried under piles of clothing, and held up her badge. "This means I go first. Need to talk to you, Jayne."

"What? Why? I'm busy."

"Gee, me, too. Got a back room?"

"Man. Sol? Cover register two. Back here." She thumped her way on two-inch-thick airsoles down a short corridor. "What? Listen, we were having a damn party. Parties get loud. It's Christmas, for God's sake. My across-the-hall neighbor is a primo bitch."

"Next time ask her to the party," Peabody suggested. "Hard to complain if you're part of the noise."

"I'd rather eat worm shit."

The back room was loaded with stock, boxes, bags. Jayne sat down on a stack of underwear. "Anyway, I'm off my feet for a minute. It's lunacy out there. Christmas makes people insane. And that bit about goodwill toward men? It sure as hell doesn't apply to retail."

"You sold a pair of socks to a woman sometime between Thursday and Saturday," Eve began.

Jayne ground her fist into the small of her back. "Honey, I sold a hundred pairs of socks between Thursday and Saturday."

"Lieutenant," Eve said and tapped her badge. "White athletics, size seven to nine."

Jayne dug in her pocket. She seemed to have a dozen of them between her black shirt and black pants. She pulled out a piece of hard candy, unwrapped it. Her fingernails, Eve noted, were as long as ice picks and painted like candy canes.

Yeah, Christmas made people insane.

"Oh, white athletic socks," Jayne said sourly. "That's a real tip-off."

"Take a look at a picture, see if you remember."

"I can barely remember my own face after a day like this one." The candy made rattling noises against Jayne's teeth as she played with it. But she rolled tired eyes and took the photo.

"Jeez, what are the odds? Yeah, I remember her. Talk about primo bitch. Listen," she said and sucked air through her nose. "She comes in, grabs a pair of socks. One lousy pair, complains we don't have enough help after she gets to me, and demands the sale price. Now, it's clear the socks are on sale in lots of three. Says so right on the display. One pair's nine-ninety-nine. Buy three for twenty-five-fifty. But she's squawking that she wants the socks for eight-fifty. She's done the math, and that's what she'll pay. She's got a line clear to Sixth behind her, and she's busting on me for, like, chump change."

She crunched down hard on the candy. "I'm not authorized to cut a price, and she won't budge. People are going to riot any minute, so I've got to call over the manager. Manager caves because it's just not worth the aggravation."

"When did she come in?"

"Man, it blurs together." Jayne rubbed the back of her neck. "I've been on since Wednesday. Straight seven days from hell. I get two off starting tomorrow and I'm going to sit on my ass for most of it. It was after lunch, I remember, because I thought how this ass**le woman was going to make me lurch my gyro. Gyro!"