LITMIR.BIZ

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nodded, then jerked his head toward a door behind him. “She’s back there.”

      I crossed the room, heavy with the smell of onions and Italian spices, rounded the take-out counter and entered the office at the back.

      Steve Johnson, the patrolman who had responded to the 911 call, stood beside a woman who huddled in a desk chair and was trying to light a cigarette with trembling fingers. Johnson, big and beefy with a paunch that didn’t need supplementing, stuffed the last of a slice of cold pizza into his mouth. “Hey, Maggie. Thith ith Maria Ridoletthi, th’owner.”

      “Maria Ridoletti?” I clarified. Johnson’s full mouth had made me guess at the correct pronunciation.

      Johnson swallowed hard. “Yeah. I’ll be out front if you need me.”

      “Keep your hands in your pockets and your mouth closed. For all I know, you just consumed evidence.” I smiled to take the bite out of my criticism. Johnson wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but his heart was in the right place. However, with the department under siege by a city council lobbying to shut us down and save taxpayer money by contracting with the county sheriff to take over policing Pelican Bay, we couldn’t afford any screw-ups.

      His pudgy face flushed with embarrassment, Johnson slid past me to the door and left me alone with Mama Mia.

      “You want to tell me what happened?” I asked.

      Maria Ridoletti was far from my image of an Italian mother. Midthirties, rake thin with stringy dark hair, narrow face and a body that looked as if she’d never eaten pizza or much of anything else, she stared up at me with dazed, black-lined eyes. “I was robbed.”

      “By a customer?”

      She shook her head. “I’d already closed and locked up for the night. I was just beginning to count the day’s receipts for the night deposit when I looked up and found him standing right where you are now. When he saw me, he jumped, like he hadn’t expected anyone to be here.”

      “Was he someone you recognized?”

      Maria nodded.

      I dug deep for patience and asked, “Who was he?”

      “Bill Clinton.”

      “Who?” Somewhere in my sleep-deprived brain, Bill Clinton’s appearance at a pizza parlor made perfect sense. Especially since Mickey D’s had closed for the night.

      “You know,” Maria said. “Bill Clinton, the former president.”

      I was about to call the CSU tech to bag what she was smoking when she explained.

      “It was a mask, like on Halloween.”

      “A big man?”

      She shook her head. “A runt, no bigger than me. But he kept one hand in his pocket and acted like he had a gun. So I didn’t argue when he ordered me to hand over the cash.”

      “You’re sure it was a man?”

      She closed her eyes a moment, as if trying to remember, then nodded. “Yeah. No boobs, no butt. Scrawny neck with a big Adam’s apple.”

      “Deep voice?”

      “No, sort of squeaky.”

      “As if he was trying to disguise it?”

      Maria shrugged. “Maybe.”

      “Did you see any identifying marks? Scars? Tattoos?”

      “Except for his neck, he was pretty much covered up. Even wore gloves.”

      “What else was he wearing?”

      “Jeans. A Buccaneer ball cap and sweatshirt. Black Nikes.”

      I couldn’t help sighing. She’d just described the wardrobe of choice of almost half the men in the Tampa Bay area. “You said you locked the front door. Was the back locked, too?”

      She nodded. “I always double check the doors before I count the money.”

      “So how did Mr. Clinton get in? You have any employees with keys?”

      “No way. I can’t pay much, so the turnover here’s pretty high. Don’t have anyone I’d trust with keys.” She took a long pull on her cigarette and exhaled.

      I waved away the smoke. “Security system?”

      She grimaced. “Never thought I needed one till now.”

      “How much did Clinton steal?”

      “I hadn’t finished counting. Most of our business is credit cards, but we sell a lot of pizza during Sunday football games. Had to be somewhere between six hundred and a thousand dollars.” Her black-lined eyes misted with tears. “Times are tight, Detective. Will I get it back?”

      Probably not. “We’ll do our best.”

      “Detective Skerritt.” Adler stood in the doorway. “Come look at this.”

      “You okay?” I asked Maria.

      She swiped at her eyes with the back of one hand, smearing her eyeliner, then nodded and took another drag. I didn’t have the heart to remind her about the state law that banned smoking in restaurants.

      “Sit tight. I’ll be right back.” I left the room and followed Adler down a hallway that branched to the kitchen on the right, restrooms on the left. He shone his Maglite at the ceiling. Where the grate for the air-conditioning duct should have been was a gaping hole.

      I groaned. “We’ve got ourselves a rooftop burglar.”

      I continued down the hall, pushed the panic bar on the rear exit and stepped outside. A gust of wind blew a tattered newspaper across the rear parking lot, empty except for a car I later learned was Ridoletti’s. A dog barked in the distance. In the harsh glow of security lights, I scanned the back of the building. A Dumpster stood along the rear wall with a wooden pallet leaning against it. Another pallet atop the Dumpster rested against the wall like a ladder.

      “There’s your access,” I said. “Make sure the techs process this area.”

      Fresh skid marks from a single narrow tire indicated the perp might have made his getaway by bike. Or it could have been a track left earlier in the day by a kid just passing through.

      I nodded to the row of mobile homes in the trailer park that backed up to the strip mall. “We’ll start a canvass. Maybe the neighbors saw something.”

      “Now?” Adler lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “It’s almost 2:00 a.m.”

      “Most of those folks are in their late seventies and eighties,” I reminded him. “They won’t remember squat by daybreak.”

      “That’s cold, Maggie.”

      “We’re in a cold business, Adler.”

      Eight hours and an equal number of cups of coffee later, I sat at my desk in CID and typed my report. None of the neighbors behind Mama Mia’s had seen or heard anything. Unlike the popular television crime dramas that have the culprit in custody within an hour—including commercial breaks—our crime lab techs had found zip, but not for lack of trying. To make matters worse, Maria Ridoletti was already proclaiming to all who would listen that if the sheriff’s department had been handling the case, she’d probably have her money back by now.

      I finished the report and tried to ignore the foreboding in my gut. Examining the strip mall, I’d noted that Bloomberg’s Jewelers was next door to Mama Mia’s. Maria had stated that the robber had been startled to encounter her. Apparently not expecting to confront anyone, however, he’d worn a mask, even though business hours were long over. That fact suggested he’d prepared for surveillance cameras, which were prevalent in Bloomberg’s. My guess was that the thief had intended to hit the jewelry store but had become disoriented on the roof and picked the wrong air duct for entry.

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