Free A Christmas Killing by Richard Montanari Page A

customer, come in all the time. Every night.”
    “Every night?”
    “Mostly.”
    “What does she buy?”
    “Cigarettes.”
    “What brand?”
    The question was a hip shot. So was the answer. Marko was not new at this.
    “Virginia Slims. Menthol,” Marko said. “I say they are bad for her—all cigarettes are bad, I usually not tell most customer this—but she always smile and tell me she got to die of something, yes? She buy—you buy—I sell. This is job.”
    “Does she ever come in with anyone?”
    “No,” he said. “Always alone.”
    “What about credit cards?” Byrne asked. “Does she ever use a credit card?”
    Marko shook his head. “No card. Cash only.”
    Byrne nodded, paused. “Is that all she ever gets when she comes in here?”
    “Sometimes she buy gum. Mints, maybe. Mentos, Life Savers, like this. For the breath. Other times she buy, you know…”
    Marko trailed off. Byrne gave it a few seconds. When the man did not continue, he did. “No, I don’t know. What else does she buy?”
    “You know,” Marko repeated. “The ladies’ things.”
    “Tampons?”
    Full blush. Another figure eight on the counter. “Yeah. Those. Like that.”
    At that moment a customer came into the store. White guy, forties, little-dog nervous, junk skinny. He dialed both Byrne and Sheehan as cops, got interested in the Tastykakes, reconsidered, and pushed out the door.
    Byrne figured the man had come in for the holy trinity of crack addiction: individual roses for the glass tube, Chore Boy scouring pads to use as a filter, disposable lighters.
    This store, like every independent food mart in the city, sold them all.
    As the man left Byrne looked at his hands, his clothes. No blood. No visible bruising. Byrne turned back to Marko.
    “Was there anyone else in the store when this woman came in for the first time tonight?” he asked.
    Marko thought for a few moments. “Yes. There was other woman in store. Old.”
    “How old?”
    “Hard to tell,” Marko said. “Fifty, maybe.”
    “Fifty is old?” Sheehan asked.
    Marko just stared, as if the question was rhetorical. In your twenties, it is, Byrne thought.
    “Is this older woman a regular?” Byrne asked.
    “Not so much, her,” Marko said. “No.”
    “So, you don’t know her name either, or where she lives?”
    “Sorry.”
    “When the victim left, was there anyone on the sidewalk in front of the store?”
    Marko looked out the window, at the street, as if the person might still be there. He looked back. “I don’t see. I watch register, mirrors.”
    Marko was talking about the half-dozen convex mirrors attached to the water-stained ceiling at the end of each aisle.
    “So, you thought this other woman—this older woman—might be stealing from you?”
    Blush two. More figure eights.
    “No,” Marko said. “Habit.”
    So far, Marko Tarasenko had not provided them with anything they could use. Byrne didn’t even bother to ask the man about the so-called security camera over the register. The cable was dangling off the back.
    “And that’s all she bought tonight?” Byrne asked. “A pack of Virginia Slims?”
    Marko reached under the counter, came up with a shoebox full of register receipts, rummaged through them. “No,” he said. “She also buy a can of STP.”
    “The oil treatment?”
    “Brake fluid.”
    Byrne looked at Sheehan, back. “You sell brake fluid here?”
    “Oh, yes. We sell everything.”
    Byrne made the note, underlined it.
    “When she left, did you see if she got into a car, a cab maybe?”
    “No. I don’t see.”
    “And you didn’t see her again until she walked back in here five minutes later.”
    “Yes,” Marko said. “No. Not until then.
    Unless and until the young woman died, this case would be logged and investigated as an aggravated assault, and would be a job for South Detectives, not the homicide unit.
    For the time being, the assigned detectives were Francis Sheehan and Kevin Byrne.
    While the Crime Scene