Fatal Care by Leonard Goldberg

keep this quiet, Simon,” Joanna told him. “Sooner or later the news will surely leak out.”
    “We’ll see,” Murdock said, and hurried for the door.
     
7
     
    Jake and Lou Farelli entered the mini mart in south Santa Monica. The store was empty except for the cashier behind the counter. Jake opened his notepad and studied it. The cashier’s name was Freddie Foster. He had been on duty the night the Russian was murdered.
    Farelli leaned over to Jake and said in a low voice, “The cashier looks like death warmed over.”
    “The flu will do that to you,” Jake commented.
    “Let’s hope it didn’t affect his brain.”
    They walked over to the counter and flashed their badges. Up close, Freddie Foster looked even sicker. His face was pale, and he was sweating through the front of his Santa Monica College T-shirt.
    “Do you want to sit down?” Jake asked the young cashier.
    “I’ll be okay,” Freddie said. “But I’d sure like to get rid of this virus.”
    “Bad, huh?”
    Freddie coughed and swallowed back phlegm. “I couldn’t even walk across the bedroom. I swear to God, it was like a truck hit me.”
    Jake began flipping through pages in his notepad. “Freddie, we’ve been trying to reach you for the past couple of days, but you weren’t at your apartment. Most sick people stay home.”
    “I did,” Freddie said at once. “I went to my mom’s house in the Valley.”
    Jake nodded and briefly studied the young cashier. The kid was thin, in his early twenties, with long brown hair and silver earrings. “You work here every night?”
    Freddie nodded back. “From four to eleven.”
    “And you were here Monday?”
    “Right.”
    Jake showed the cashier a Polaroid photograph of the dead man found at the bottom of the excavation site. “Do you recognize him?”
    Freddie peered at the photograph. “The top of his head looks funny.”
    “That happens when somebody puts two slugs into it.”
    Freddie continued to stare at the picture. “His face is kind of familiar, but I can’t place it.”
    The front door swung open, and two Hispanic gangbangers walked in. They were heavily muscled and wore tight-fitting white T-shirts. Their arms and necks were covered with tattoos. “Hey,” the older one yelled out. “Where’s your beer?”
    Lou Farelli turned to the pair. “He’s busy. You’re going to have to wait.”
    “Yeah? For how long?”
    Farelli gave the pair an icy stare. “It might be best for you two assholes to come back later.”
    It took the gangbangers a moment to realize they were facing a cop. “Yeah, yeah,” the older one muttered. “We’ll be back later.”
    Farelli watched the pair leave and then turned back to the cashier. “You get that kind in here a lot?”
    “All the time,” Freddie said.
    “Do they pay in cash or credit cards?”
    “Always in cash,” Freddie answered. “They don’t buy that much. Usually beer and chips and stuff like that.”
    “If they start using credit cards, particularly ones that have funny-sounding European names, you let us know.”
    Jake grinned to himself. He hadn’t thought of that. The Hispanic gangbangers were probably stupid enough to use a credit card with a Russian-sounding name on it. He looked back at the cashier. “So you can’t place this guy?”
    Freddie studied the photograph again. “I think I served him in here, but I can’t be sure.”
    “What if I told you he had metal teeth and a tattoo of a cross on his forearm?”
    Freddie quickly tapped the photograph with his index finger. “Yeah. That’s him. I served him in here.”
    “When?”
    “At least three or four times.”
    “Do you remember the last time?”
    “Monday night,” Freddie said promptly. “It was late, like after eight.”
    “What’d he buy?”
    Freddie wrinkled his brow, concentrating. “I don’t remember.”
    Farelli asked, “Was he carrying anything?”
    “A shoe box,” Freddie recalled. “He always had a damn shoe box under his