An oldwoman dies mysteriously at the world's largest shopping and entertainmentcomplex. Another drops seven stories to a grisly death inside the amusement park. WhenKiyomi Nagata and Mike Foreman discover a coordinated coverup they unwittingly putthemselves on a trajectory todanger; Senior VP Carolyn Batch dies during the cover up,and her successor, Karl LeVander, is a ruthless man who will stop atnothing to protect his gains.

Drop Dead

By Robert Imrie

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 Robert Imrie
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-1784-2

Chapter One

On the morning of Thursday, November 15th at just past seven o'clock, 77-year old Greta Turnblad strode purposefully into MightyMall, the world's largest shopping and entertainment complex, located in Saint Commercia, Minnesota.

Outside, the wind blew cold amid a slushy snowstorm. Greta had left home earlier than usual because she knew traffic would be slow going. Thick, wet flakes had been falling since midnight, with several inches expected by noon. Cloud cover kept the morning sunlight to a minimum. The temperature was 28 degrees; the dampness made it feel colder.

Greta stopped just inside the entrance, waiting for the door behind her to close. The difference in air pressure inside the building and outside created a faint moaning sound. A final stomp! stomp! stomp! and the remaining snow and salt fell from her boots.

The first floor of MightyMall felt like the inside of a 21st-Century techno-cathedral with its hundred-foot ceiling and galaxy of wall colors blinking like CGI-generated stained glass windows. Space above the store fronts was dominated by endless 30-foot video screens announcing special sales, upcoming celebrity appearances and testimonials by aging actors insisting that they shopped at MightyMall or they shopped nowhere at all. Public service announcements reminded everyone that MightyMall Gift Cards were "the ideal way to show you care."

Some of the video screens periodically flipped open, allowing futuristic robots to jut out above the passing crowds to sing and dance like corporate Hummel figures, spouting the name and web address of their sponsor, before returning silently to the bowels of the mall like high-tech butlers.

Greta enjoyed the shows as much as the next person but felt vaguely guilty: weren't there better things to spend money on than the myriad products they advertised? But then she remembered how much she enjoyed the climate-controlled comfort of MightyMall, or an advertisement she'd seen for something available only at MightyMall, erasing the guilt from her mind like an invisible Handi Wipe. Follow the light, the light!

Greta's cheeks burned slightly from the sudden warmth after the stinging combination of cold wind and snow outside. She was wearing a long, red, hooded parka with a flannel-lined nylon sweat suit and snow boots. She had a small frame, despite her Scandinavian heritage, barely over five feet and one hundred ten pounds. These old bones freeze up quicker than they used to, she thought to herself.

Greta walked over to a wooden bench in front of the Welcome Desk and pulled off the boots she always wore outside during the cold Minnesota winters. She put on a pair of white sneakers she had bought at The Sports Authority on the sixth floor, carefully tying the laces. The pink swoosh on the sides matched perfectly with her pink sweats.

Greta came to MightyMall to meet her best friend, Char Goblirsch, three times a week to walk and chat for an hour or so. They visited more frequently between October and April when it was just too cold and slippery to stroll outside. Lake Harriet, she thought, beautiful as it was to amble around in the summer, sailboats bobbing in the background, was darned unpleasant in the winter. Once the autumn leaves were gone there was nothing to stop the arctic winds that raced down from Winnipeg from rubbing your skin raw.

It never snowed inside MightyMall, was never windy, never too cold nor too warm. Greta never got lost, though the two-mile circumference could be challenging when her arthritis acted up. From a few miles away it looked like a giant, glowing piston; Greta wouldn't want a monstrosity like this in her back yard, but twenty minutes away by car was fine. She and Char used to take their walks at that other Twin Cities mega mall over in Bloomington but got tired of the confusing parking ramps named after states and fruits. Finding her car at MightyMall was a snap since that nice young man at the Welcome Desk had given her a credit-card-sized medallion with a viewing screen and metallic strip to put on her dashboard. It showed the location of her car inside the mall parking ramp and gave her step-by-step instructions to get to it from any point in the mall. No need for one of those confusing mobile phones.

"MightyMall is plenty good enough for walks," she used to tell her husband, Hank, before he succumbed to heart disease four years ago. "As long as you're safe and warm," he would say in return.

Greta liked to start early in the morning while the hallways circling the mall were still relatively people-free. Storekeepers didn't arrive for another couple of hours. Except for the coffee shops, which she never bothered with anyway; coffee gave her the runs. She and Char occasionally completed a once-around in the morning without seeing another soul, especially if they were done by eight o'clock. That was when most of the mall walkers began trickling in. The storm will probably keep people away until 8:30 or 9 today, she thought, as she stood up from the bench.

Greta had considered moving to a warmer climate after Hank died. They had no children and most of her friends were living in Florida or Arizona at least part of the year. But Greta liked her old house and so did her two cats. She loved her garden in the spring, and the fall colors, and all the lakes with paved walkways. And Minnesota winters were gosh darned pretty, the blankets of snow making everything look clean, quiet and peaceful. She wondered what she would do in a place like Florida that looked and felt the same year-round and was always getting washed out to sea.

The MightyMall Welcome Desk sat just inside the entrance, next to a bank of coin-operated lockers. Greta had her pick of the lot at this time of day. She walked over to one and set her handbag down on the floor. She chose a locker at eye level-no point straining her back if she didn't have to-and swung the small door open.

Greta removed her parka, carefully folded it and pushed it to the back of locker #501. She inserted her boots, careful to face the heels away from her parka; the parka was new and she didn't want to soil it. Satisfied that she had loaded all nonessential items, Greta took the four quarters she had brought specifically for the locker out of her sweatpants pocket and dropped them into the proper slot and swung the door shut. She turned the orange locker key, heard the lock click and the quarters fall as if in a slot machine, removed the key and dropped it into her pocket.

Still facing the locker, Greta paused to wonder where Char was. Char was always so punctual. Stuck in the storm? Greta began turning around when her foot struck something on the floor below: her handbag. She had forgotten to put her handbag in the locker!

"Uffda," she said. "You forgetful old biddy." She smacked herself lightly on her forehead with the palm of her hand.

Greta wondered if maybe one of those nice MightyMall security officers would open the locker for her. She wasn't trying to cheat anyone-she'd paid her dollar-but if she reopened the locker now she wouldn't be able to close it again without another dollar, which she didn't have. Surely the officer would understand her predicament and be sympathetic.

Greta looked down the great hall, hoping to catch an officer on patrol, or rounds, or whatever they called it. No one in sight.

"Well, there's a phone at the Welcome Desk," Greta said to no one in...