Hidden Charges Read online

  A crowd began to develop around the accident. With its rides and side shows, the Green aimed to entertain patrons; the collapsed stairway proved to be yet another attraction. Jacobs walked over to two of his traffic guards and asked them to set up some barricades to reinforce the Day-Glo tape. He didn’t want any souvenir-taking before the insurance adjusters arrived.

  9

  The two teens began to laugh as they passed the pickles. Both had Afro combs sticking out of the back pockets of their jeans.

  “Good morning, Mr. Oreo,” one of them said, addressing Verne Greene, who was looking for sliced dills with no garlic. Greene stood as tall as these boys though he was two years younger. They teased him because he worked hard at school, because his mother cleaned the white people’s homes, and because his stepbrother had just become an attorney. “Don’t call me a lawyer,” his brother had said. “I’m an attorney.”

  Greene wouldn’t be baited; he said nothing as they passed. Sticks and stones, he thought to himself. He thumbed through the barrel-shaped glass jars, reading labels carefully.

  What he really wanted was to pop one of those guys right in the chin.

  The fight broke out as he was thinking about it.

  ***

  Their diversion worked like a charm. As the two boys began to fight, the butchers rushed to break it up. The other boys stepped up to the long expanse of meat coolers, leaned forward, and started slipping steaks inside their shirts.

  Carmichael, a plainclothes security guard who was pretending to shop the dairy cases, responded to the fight immediately; he depressed the walkie-talkie call button three times, signaling Dispatch that he had trouble.

  One of the shoplifters, a tough black kid named Frankie, managed to fit two New York Strips up his shirtfront. He turned around and shoved a lamb chop up his back, tucking in his shirt quickly. The fight was over.

  Heading down a long aisle toward the checkout lines, Frankie looked for something cheap to buy. Buying something created less suspicion.

  The steaks felt nice and cold against his skin. He decided to buy some A-1 sauce and a bag of frozen French fries.

  10

  Laura Haff’s husband, Tim, had been sixty-five feet above the Hailey tract about to resplice a 180,000-volt power line when the gust of wind hit.

  High-voltage tower workers wear a special grounding suit for such work that actually clips into the power line, allowing the huge amount of electricity to pass “through” them, dispelling any chance that contact with the line will electrocute them. Tim Haff had been just about to clip in when the gust hit. Equipment at a nearby weather station measured the same freak gust—a wind sheer—at seventy miles an hour. As the wind hit him, Tim accidentally clipped onto the tower, not the power line. His neck hit the 180,000 volts first.

  Laura had been told he had died of a heart attack from contact with the line, but it had been a closed casket, so she had assumed the worst: her husband had fried to a crisp at sixty-five feet, held aloft by a wire mesh suit designed to protect him. He wasn’t the first. “Part of the job is the risk,” he had told her. Tim Haff had been a risk taker, a brave man with a zest for life few others had.

  And Tim was gone.

  He had died one year, two months, and one week ago. Laura didn’t need a calendar to know that.

  Her two daughters had been too young to fully understand. Laura had simply told them that daddy had gone away and wasn’t coming back. Some day soon she would have to explain. Shelly would turn five next month. Someone was bound to tell her first if Laura didn’t get around to it; but Laura had spent the last year and two months trying to rebuild, not dwell on Tim’s death. “Done and gone,” is what he would have said about his own condition. Done and gone and buried.

  She reached down sadly and picked up the package of bacon. Tim had liked bacon with his eggs.

  Last September Laura had been rehired, after a six-year absence, as a third-grade teacher in East Hillsdale Elementary School. The life insurance had been paid out just after Thanksgiving. She had put nearly all of it into several certificates of deposit. The interest on the CDs had allowed her to place Keze, age three, and Shelly into a morning summer camp where they could learn arts and crafts, swim, and play with friends. In truth, the camp was not solely for the benefit of the girls. Laura had had a rough year. She needed some time alone in quiet. Time to get the house together. Time to have coffee with her friends and talk. Time to shop.

  The Safeway at Yankee Green was the single largest food market in the Northeast. Thousands of penny-conscious housewives like Laura made a special twenty-minute drive once a week from either Boston or Providence just to shop the market. The savings would pay for the gas and then some, or so read the full-page daily display ads in both cities’ newspapers. Nearly everyone in the greater Hillsdale area shopped the market.

  Pavilion A contained over twenty amusement rides for the kids’ enjoyment. While Mom shopped, the kids played. Each pavilion had its own day-care center—the Green employees called them Puppy Patrols—staffed by scores of trained and certified teenage girls, each of whom took charge of no more than two children at a time. Although the service was only provided full-time in the summer months (afternoons during the school calendar), an independent survey conducted by a marketing firm out of Boston had shown the day-care concept had resulted in a fifteen percent increase in mall attendance and a twenty-five percent jump in retail sales.

  Today was Laura’s second trip to Yankee Green. It was nice to shop without having to keep track of the girls. She felt a little pang of guilt as she dropped the package of bacon into her cart. Was it fair of her to put the kids in camp? She wasn’t sure they liked it. She had difficulty admitting that it might be more for herself than for the girls.

  Bent over, she looked at the reflection of her face in the mirror that doubled the impact of the meat in the long line of open refrigerator space. Twenty-seven years old going on thirty-five, she thought. More lines this year than before, lines that wouldn’t be there if Tim were still alive. Pale skin. Need more tennis, or maybe a bikini and some pool time. Dream on. Barely time to shop. No way for pool time. Soft green eyes. Lifeless. Hair still holding a two-month-old perm. Everyone always complimented her on her hair. She hated it. Decent cheekbones, thin little neck. Boobs sucked dry by two children. They looked better when she was pregnant. Tim had joked about how she should stay pregnant all the time. Jokes. Tim. Time. Too pale.

  Lifeless.

  The fight broke out to her right. Two black kids were really going at it. She took three brisk steps toward the commotion and stopped herself. Tim had always encouraged her to participate. “Don’t watch life go by, Laura. Get in there and do something.” But he had also warned her against her habit of biting off more than she could chew. Could she stop the fight? Or would she just find herself in the middle? Despite her small size, Laura Haff had unseen strength. She’d grown up with two older brothers, and she was tough. One year, two months, and eight days ago she would have charged right in there and taken her chances. But what if this time her efforts failed and one of the boys shoved her or even hit her? What about the girls? She stepped back to her cart, hands clenched at her sides.

  When Frankie and friends approached the meat counter and began stuffing their shirts with meat, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Good God, there were at least ten of them. She realized the two closest to her were meant to screen the others from view, and the fighting was no doubt an attempt to distract management.

  She looked around, her earlier reservations about becoming involved suddenly vanished. Through a small window in a swinging door she could see an aproned man signing for a delivery. She pushed through the doors and grabbed the man by the arm. His apron was sky blue and dirty. His bald head was sweating. His name tag listed him as produce manager. Good enough for Laura Haff. She pulled on his elbow, her teacher instincts emerging. “Come with me.”

  The man had no choice. Laura dragged him through the swinging doors
. “Lady,” he finally objected.

  “You won’t believe this,” she announced.

  “Lady! I’ve got a delivery.”

  “This is more important.” She steered him up an aisle. The shoplifters had dispersed from the meat counter. Frankie was searching for the A-1 sauce. She led the produce man up to this boy. “Young man,” she said, catching up to the young hoodlum.

  Frankie didn’t look over.

  Laura Haff reached out and yanked his shirttail out of his jeans. The packaged meat fell onto the floor. “See?” she asked.

  “Hold it,” the aproned man demanded as Frankie took off at a fast run down the aisle.

  The boy stuck out a long arm and raked a ten-foot run of bottles from the shelf. He grabbed a cart from a shopper and launched it down the aisle at the approaching man, who fell down and shouted again for the boy to stop.

  “Thief!” Laura Haff yelled at the top of her lungs, leaping over the downed manager and jigging her way through the fallen bottles in hot pursuit. “Stop him!”

  As she rounded the corner at the end of the aisle she ran smack into a security uniform.

  11

  Carmichael’s initial alert triggered a chain reaction by Dicky Brock in Dispatch that included notifying Toby Jacobs of the trouble. A three-pulse warning meant there was an engagement under way. At the very least, a “three-click” meant a fight; at worst, an armed robbery or a hostage situation.

  Jacobs left the scene of the truck accident immediately, choosing to jog outside along the sidewalk rather than inside, where he strictly enforced a no-running law.

  It took him several minutes to run the east perimeter of Pavilion C, and another few to go the length of Pavilion B. Over time, the facility seemed smaller and smaller, a deception brought on by familiarity. But at moments like this, the Plaza seemed gigantic.

  “You’re about to run into Captain Blow Dry,” Brock said into Toby’s earpiece as the Director of Security yanked open a door to Pavilion A. Brock had been monitoring his boss’s run via the Dispatch monitors responsible for parking lot surveillance. His warning came perfectly timed.

  Peter Knorpp, the mall’s general manager, wore a tailored suit that fit snug against his lean body. A thick gold-plated bracelet sparkled on his thin wrist, sliding under his tailored cuff. Knorpp’s blond hair held its shape perfectly, no doubt thanks to a hairspray or mousse. The California native’s teeth reminded Jacobs of a toothpaste ad; his artificially low voice, of a B actor long since forgotten. “What’s this about a bomb?”

  “Later, Peter,” Jacobs said, pushing through the swelling crowds. “Not the best place to talk about it.”

  Knorpp caught up to Jacobs and grabbed him by the arm. “If this Safeway thing is those damn niggers again, some heads are going to fly, and the first’ll be yours. I warned you about them.”

  Jacobs glared at the mall manager and shook his grip free. “One of these days that mouth of yours is going to get you into trouble you can’t get out of,” he warned sternly. “Why don’t you go upstairs, Peter, and let me handle this?”

  “Not a chance. I’ve seen the way you ‘handle’ these situations. You can’t play buddies with them forever, you know.”

  The automatic door whooshed open. Groceries lay strewn everywhere. Several security guards had bloodied faces, as did many of the youths they had collared.

  A few of the kids shouted at Jacobs. “Mr. Jacobs, they got the wrong guys.” “Mr. Jacobs, we didn’t mean nothing. Just having a little fun.”

  “I’m innocent,” Verne Greene yelled over the objections of the others. “I had nothing to do with this.”

  “Friends of yours?” Knorpp asked sarcastically.

  Carmichael approached Jacobs and Knorpp, reaching for his handkerchief to dab away some blood from his lips. “It came apart on us, Toby. We were ready and waiting, but the produce manager spotted one of them and started a chase. All hell broke loose.”

  “That much is obvious,” interjected Knorpp.

  “Why don’t you handle Atkinson?” Jacobs suggested strongly, gesturing to the frantic manager of the supermarket. “I’ve got this.”

  Knorpp swelled out his chest, ready with a comment, but trudged away instead.

  Carmichael described for Jacobs the series of events. The chase had led to food coming off the shelves. A collision and a fight broke out. In all they were holding seven of maybe ten or twelve kids. Only one had actually been seen with meat hidden on his person.

  Jacobs caught up to Knorpp and Chuck Atkinson, the bald, aging store manager. “We don’t have enough to hold them on,” Jacobs began.

  “Enough to hold them on? Are you out of your mind?” Atkinson pointed. “Look at this place. Look at the inventory I’ve lost. I’ll be closed the rest of the day. Maybe longer. Nothing to hold them on?” He turned to Knorpp. “I’ve been over this with you a dozen times. These hoods are nothing but trouble. They hassle every damn retailer in the mall. You know it. I know it. Christ, something has got to be done! This is ridiculous.” He took a deep breath and announced, “I demand something be done!”

  Knorpp looked at Jacobs. His black leather loafers reflected the overhead lights like two oddly shaped mirrors. “Call downtown. Arrest them,” Knorpp demanded of his head of security.

  “It’s about time.” Atkinson ran a hand across his head, a response from when he had once had hair.

  Jacobs pulled Knorpp aside and whispered harshly, “Do what?” He threw his jaw forward in disbelief. “One kid was caught with a steak. One out of seven. What are you going to do about that?”

  “Arrest them,” Knorpp hissed.

  “We can throw them out, Peter. We can put them on our shit list and keep them out. This mall is everything to those kids. Don’t you think that keeping them away is punishment enough? Why bring in the cops? Why give ’em a police record? We have bigger worries today, Peter. Think it over. Who needs the added hassle?”

  “Your Big Brother approach hasn’t worked, Jacobs. Face it. You keep trying to make peace with these kids. But they’re troublemakers, plain and simple. They’ll always be troublemakers.”

  “They’re bored unemployed youths, most from broken families. I agree they’ve worn out their welcome, but we’re not helping anyone by giving them criminal records.”

  “I want them arrested. Every last one of them.”

  Jacobs glared as Knorpp went over to console Atkinson. His attention fell on Verne Greene, who declared his innocence again. He moved over to the group of youths and addressed the leader, a tall black kid with a short Afro. “Who’s he, Earl?”

  “How should I know? He’s a sophomore.” Earl said, to the amusement of the others. “Sophomores don’t mean shit.”

  “I’m innocent. I had nothing to do with this,” Greene declared.

  “Is he with you?” Jacobs asked.

  “Him? Hell, no. You think we’d hang around with a sophomore?”

  “Pretty big for a sophomore,” Toby said suspiciously, eying Greene.

  “Cut him some slack, Mr. Jacobs. He didn’t do nothing. Honest.”

  “I swear,” Greene said hopefully.

  “Okay.” Toby nodded. He cocked his head. “You can go. But you stay away from the mall for a week. You got that? I see you in here, you won’t get a second chance.”

  “No sweat, mister. Who’d want to be in this place anyway? Good riddance.” Greene stepped out of the group.

  Jacobs paid him no mind. He said with anguish, “Why’d you do this to me, Earl? I thought you and I understood each other. You screwed up. Now I have to bring you all downtown.”

  “The cops?” The leader was clearly horrified.

  “Orders from management.”

  “Mr. Slick over there?”

  “He runs the show, Earl.”

  “Hey!” Knorpp shouted, seeing Greene at the door. “Stop him.” A guard stopped Greene. Knorpp hurried over to Jacobs. “Just where the hell is he going?”

  “He wasn’t a part of
this,” Jacobs said.

  “Says who?”

  “He wasn’t a part of it, Peter.”

  “Arrest him. The cops can decide who was and who wasn’t a part of this,” Knorpp instructed loudly. “Take them all out of here. We’re pressing charges. Him too.”

  “Peter—”

  “I’m overruling you on this one, Jacobs. You’re too soft on these kids. They all go downtown. It can be straightened out down there.”

  “You’ll be sorry about that, Slick,” Earl said.

  Knorpp bristled. Jacobs pushed Knorpp away from the bunch and whispered angrily, “You’re arresting that kid because he’s black, Peter. Think about it. How stupid is that? He had nothing to do with this. He’s not a part of their group.”

  Knorpp pushed past his Director of Security. “I want these kids out of here now!” he shouted.

  12

  The whitewashed Greek Deli occupied a retail space on the east concourse of Level 1, Pavilion A. Mediterranean-blue letters spelled out the name in over-sized pseudo-Greek typeface. Like most of the retail stores in the Green, there were no doors across the front of the deli. At closing, the shop owners rolled metal lattice cages down electronically and locked them shut. For the Greek Deli the open look worked especially well.

  Mhykloteus “Mykos” Popolov, the proprietor, short and round with a dark weathered face, wore a white apron at all times, his stumpy legs protruding from beneath it to reveal wide sandaled feet and his trademark white socks. His teeth twisted inside thick red lips. He had hairy ears, bushy eyebrows, and tufts of white hair escaping from the T-shirt he wore beneath the apron. His shoulders were strong and broad. His right arm stopped just above the elbow, the amputation a constant reminder of his service in Italy’s underground resistance during the Second World War.

  Rarely a day passed that Mykos did not recall that nightmarish experience. Even now, with the radio droning in the background, his attention was split between the guest on the talk show and his memories. Nineteen hundred and forty-three. The German patrol closed the gap quickly, the sharp barks of their dogs piercing the silence of dawn. Then the rumble of a train nearby. Popolov pushed through the woods and came face to face with a slowly moving freight train that seemed endless. He could sense the patrol was gaining on him despite the overpowering noise of the train. He had nowhere to go. No way to escape. He debated diving under the train as he ran along the clearing that edged the tracks. Then a gunshot from behind. He studied the gaps between the wheels and established a rhythmic count. Another gunshot. He distinctly remembered crossing himself as he stooped and dove under the clacking steel wheels. He landed face up, the underside of the train rushing only inches above him. The wheels roaring in his ears. Screaming in his ears. He counted and rolled out the other side, his right arm trailing behind him….