“Mara –” Mitch began again but I kept right on talking.
“Still, that would stink, you investigating a member of Mr. Pierson’s family.”
“Mara, baby,” his arm gave me a squeeze, his voice coming at me carefully, gently, “that sketch is the sketch the artist drew from the description Bud gave him of the man that came to their house.”
My body locked.
Then I whispered, “What?”
“Fuck,” Mitch whispered back and his eyes drifted over my head.
“Mitch,” I called, putting my hand on his chest and pushing in lightly. “Are you serious? That’s the bad man Billie was talking about?”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Mitch clipped then lifted a hand, tore his fingers through his hair and looked down at the sketch.
“Mitch!” I cried, beginning to get freaked. “Talk to me!”
He looked at me and declared strangely, “The mattresses.”
I shook my head. “Honey, you aren’t making sense.”
His head dipped closer to mine and his other arm curled around me. “You say that man works for Bob Pierson?”
I nodded my head. “Yes. In the warehouse. He does a lot of the ordering, or he did until he kept messing it up.”
“Jesus, shit,” Mitch muttered, looking over my head again.
“Mitch!” I exclaimed, pressing into his chest again and his eyes came back to me.
“Sweetheart, when your place was tossed, it was tossed. But there was special attention paid to the mattresses. They were decimated, all the beds were.”
Oh God.
He was right. They were.
“Has this Otis guy been in your space at work? Giving you extra attention? Giving you any attention at all?” Mitch asked and I shook my head.
“No,” I added my negative answer verbally. “He doesn’t come to the showroom. Mr. Pierson doesn’t let him. He turns off the customers because he’s creepy.”
And he was.
Totally creepy.
Probably even creepier to two little kids.
God, how was this happening?
Mitch told me.
“He’s into something. He hid something in the mattresses. Made a mistake, lost it, whatever it was. Yours got delivered, he thought it was in them and he came looking for it. It either was or it wasn’t. My guess is it wasn’t seeing as he started with the mattresses, thought you found it and moved through the house to try to find where you hid it. If he hasn’t been in your space, he’s probably since found it. Would he have access to your home address either in employee databases or deliver records?”
“Yes,” I answered. “Not employee databases but he’s responsible for getting the product onto the trucks for delivery. He has access to all information pertaining to deliveries.”
“Shit, Jesus, fuck, I shoulda showed you that sketch,” Mitch muttered, looking back at the sketch.
I pressed my hand into his chest again and got his eyes back. “You couldn’t know. I didn’t know anything that was going down with Bill. How could you know this had any connection with where I worked? That’s crazy.”
“I should have shown it to you,” he kind of repeated.
“Mitch, I told you I didn’t know anything about Bill and his life but even if I didn’t tell you, you knew when you walked in his house with Bud, Billie and me. I was freaked and you notice everything. You couldn’t know I’d know who was visiting. It’s a one in a million connection.”
“Mara, honey, you dot all the i’s, you cross all the t’s. It’s basic police work. I should… have… shown you.”
His voice was growly and not in a good way so I decided to reply quietly, “Okay.”
“His last name is Pierson?” Mitch asked instantly and I nodded. “How long’s he been workin’ there?”
“Not as long as me. Three years. He moved to Denver from Kansas City, I think. Mr. Pierson helped him out, gave him a job. I don’t know why he moved. I just know that he didn’t have any marketable skills so Mr. Pierson took the hit of taking him on for the family.”
“Outside of him being creepy, you feel any bad vibes from this guy, see any bad guys hangin’ around him, see him actin’ strange, cagey, wrong?”
“No about the bad guys but he’s creepy because he’s always acting strange and cagey. I didn’t get bad vibes other than the sense that he’s clearly the fuck up of the family but I thought he was just kind of an idiot. Saying that, though, a while ago, he over-ordered a bunch of Spring Deluxes. Like, a bunch. Mr. Pierson was not pleased. They’re our highest end model. We don’t move a lot of them so it was more stupid than normal, him over-ordering Spring Deluxe. I could see him over-ordering the Dream Weaver, even the Slumber Excelsior, we move loads of those. The Spring Deluxe…?” I trailed off and shook my head.