A Body to Die For (20 page)

At nine-thirty I headed toward Murray Hill, where the coffee shop was located. The conversation was going to be tricky. I
would have to discuss the possibility of a job with Nina, then work my way over to the topic of Anna. I would confide to her
that Anna seemed troubled by things in her past and see what Nina coughed up. Since it was clear from our conversation that
she was never going to win the Chick Chatter of the Year Award, I wasn’t too hopeful about what I’d come away with.

The restaurant turned out to be a weird cross between a coffee shop, a Tex-Mex restaurant, and
Blade Runner.
There was a stainless-steel counter and futuristic lights and then these turquoise-and-pink booths with cactus plants all
over. Since Nina had never given me a description of what she looked like, I was going to have to wait for her to pick me
out. I was the only person alone in the place, so it was obvious she wasn’t there yet. But then it was just three minutes
to ten.

The waitress showed me to a booth and handed me one of those menus you get in New York coffee shops that lists at least four
hundred dishes and tempts you to order the sole Veronique just to see if they can really turn it out. I asked for coffee and
opened my
New York Times.
When I finished a story and checked the clock, I was startled to see it was 10:12. I glanced around the diner, just to make
sure I hadn’t missed her. There were no solo women in the restaurant other than myself.

I knew at that moment that she wasn’t just late. She wasn’t going to show. There had been that weirdness on the phone. Something
wasn’t right about the whole thing. I gave it another twenty minutes and paid the bill. On the way out, I asked the man at
the cash register if he had ever heard of the Paradise Spa or any day spa in the area. Negative.

I wasn’t sure what to think, but I found myself leaning toward the idea that had crossed my mind yesterday. Nina had been
a fake reference for Anna. Maybe she’d lured me out to the coffee shop just to make herself laugh. But wouldn’t she wonder
why Anna had given me her number in the first place?

I took the IRT home and put myself in high gear. I looked over my piece one more time, tweaking it here and there. Then I
e-mailed it to my editor.

I’d planned to be on the road by two, but I was ahead of schedule. I called the garage, said I’d be picking up the Jeep earlier
than originally planned, and took my trash down to the incinerator. On the way back I bumped into Landon coming off the elevator.

“Got time for a cup of coffee?” he asked.

“A fast one,” I said. “Don’t shoot me, but I’m headed back to the Dead Body Spa.”

“Oh dear,
why?
”

I followed him into his apartment, my trash basket under my arm. His place was gorgeous—pale gray furniture, pickled floors,
and dark antique pieces. While he made coffee I took him through the most recent developments. I also quickly updated him
on the situation with Jack’s visit, since he’d been stuck listening to me moan about my broken heart most of the summer.

“You’re out of my sight for twenty minutes and look what happens,” he said.

“See, you should never have left me stranded on MacDougal Street,” I said.

“Well, I’m happy about the Jack thing—if
you
are.”

“Yes, I’m happy,” I said.

“You don’t sound it. In fact, you sound like someone whose new puppy’s been run over by a parade float.”

“It’s more that I’m confused. Everything seemed good last night, but right now my heart is overwhelmed by an urge to flee.
Let’s talk about something else before I have a panic attack.”

I related the strange conversation with Nina and her failure to show for our coffee klatch. Landon listened pensively.

“She asked what you
looked
like?” he said when I’d finished.

“Yeah, odd, huh? Do you think some spas really discriminate against ugly therapists?”

“Or maybe it’s not a spa at all,” Landon said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Sounds more like a brothel, for God’s sake.”

“A
brothel?
” But even as I was manifesting my surprise, my mind was ticking off all the reasons he was absolutely right: The spa hadn’t
been listed; Nina had been so circumspect on the phone; she hadn’t wanted to meet me at the spa. I’d naively asked at the
end of the conversation if the spa was near the coffee shop. That had been the tip-off to her that I didn’t know what I was
talking about.

Nina could very well be a hooker. And Anna had worked for her. Had I just discovered the naughty business that was being conducted
at the Cedar Inn?

Y
OU’RE NOT SAYING
anything,” Landon remarked. “Do you think I’m totally off base?”

“No, I’m speechless because I think you may be
right,
” I confessed. “This Nina chick was so closemouthed on the phone, so secretive, really. I feel stupid for not getting it.”

I stood up from the table and began circling his living room, as if being in motion could help me think faster.

“It’s not so obvious if you’re set up to view it totally differently,” Landon said. “You’re told it’s a spa, you know that
someone who worked at a spa used to work there. It’s not as if the word
brothel
should flash in your brain.”

“You’re nice to try to make me feel less like an idiot. It’s clear I should be demoted to writing items for
Gloss
on things like how to remove a toe beard.”

“What’s a toe beard?”

“I’ll tell you another time,” I said. “So does this mean that this Nina is simply a high-class call girl working out of an
apartment and the spa is a sham, or is there actually some massage component to all of this?”

“Well, I don’t know about
this
case, but I believe some massage parlors include sex
and
massage,” he said. “It’s possible she’s running some kind of X-rated spa.”

“Oh God, I just remembered,” I said, throwing my hands up. “She even used this one expression—‘We’re not full service.’ I
thought she meant they didn’t do extra stuff, but it’s obviously some hooker talk. I wonder what it means. That they don’t
do blow jobs?”

“Maybe it’s the kinky stuff they don’t get into. If you want a spanking or feel an urge to be peed on, you have to go someplace
else.”

“The bigger question, of course, is what does this mean about the Cedar Inn?” I said, still pacing. “If Nina’s a hooker and
she gave Anna a recommendation, does that mean Anna was a hooker as well? And since Anna was referred there by Piper, does
that mean Piper’s one? And does that mean they were working girls at the Cedar Inn?”

“Do you have any reason to suspect that this kind of thing
has
been going on there?”

“You mean other than the fact that Anna—
and
Piper—had a line of regular clients wrapping around the block? And neither apparently was brilliant at massage? That sort
of points to something, wouldn’t you say?”

“Your poor friend Danny,” Landon said, shaking his head.

“Oh, I know. This could totally wreck her business, couldn’t it?”

“Yes. If it got out.”

I sat back down, considering his remark. “It doesn’t seem possible, but I wonder if I’m the only one who
knows.
The police haven’t given any indication that they’re aware of this.”

“My guess would be that if they
are
aware of it, they wouldn’t share it with you.”

“But it might turn up in the kinds of questions they’ve been asking Danny. Right now, they seem to have their eye on George.”

“So what are you going to do with the information?” he asked. “You’ve got to report it to the police, right?” He took a sip
of coffee, peering at me over the rim of his coffee cup.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “For the time being, I think I’m going to keep my mouth shut.”

“But Bail—”

“Hear me out for a sec,” I said. “I have absolutely no proof this has been going on at the Cedar Inn. In fact, I have no proof
that it was even going on at the Paradise Spa. Until I
get
proof, I can’t take a chance of wrecking Danny’s business, and maybe her life, by running to the police with this. Besides,
even if it
is
going on, it might not have anything whatsoever to do with the murder. Once I have proof, I’d want to tell Danny so she can
give the boot to Josh and Piper and whoever else is involved, but it might not be necessary to let the police in on things.”

“I know you love to make my heart stop, so I’m a little afraid to ask this—but how do you intend to
get
proof?”

“Don’t worry.” I laughed. “I’m going to start by looking through some files at the inn. I’m
not
going undercover as a hooker, if that’s what you’re thinking. Though if I hadn’t finally had sex this week, I might have
considered it.”

I glanced at my watch. It was just after noon. “Oh, gosh, it’s later than I thought. I’d better split.”

I pecked him on the cheek as he began to clear the coffee stuff from the table and hurried out of his apartment, taking my
empty trash basket with me. Before I locked up, I spent five minutes digging out my pre-PalmPilot Rolodex to find the number
of a vice cop I’d once interviewed. Because what I wanted to do, even before going through the list of spa clients in Danny’s
computer, was to try to confirm if Landon’s theory about the Paradise Spa was actually right.

I’d talked to this cop only once, and that was over a year ago—he was the brother of a homicide detective I knew fairly well—but
he’d been generous with his time, and I was hoping that he’d be that way again. I was also praying that the number still worked
for him. Because he was the only vice cop I knew in all of New York City.

Ten minutes later I was in my Jeep, along with my overnight bag and my little Playmate cooler, packed with the day’s specialty:
mice on ice. At the first red light I hit, I put on my headset and placed the call. I was in luck—the message said, “This
is Barry, leave a number and I’ll call you back.” I left a message reminding him who I was and said that I was anxious to
ask him a few questions.

The trip this time was far less of a hassle than it had been last Friday. No smoldering car fires, no major traffic jams.
But my mood couldn’t have been more different. Though I had felt slightly frazzled last Friday, I knew that at the end of
the line someone was going to press their fingers into my rock-hard muscles and make me moan with pleasure. This time I knew
that nothing good awaited me at the end of the line. I felt again a little bit like Sigourney Weaver, but this time in
Aliens,
the sequel, returning to that big, bad planet and knowing that whatever was in store would surely be worse than some oversize
glowworm with bad teeth gnawing its way out of people’s tummies. There was a murderer up there, and quite possibly it was
someone who worked at the inn, maybe even Danny’s husband. Add to that the fact that the Cedar Inn might very well be the
House of the Rising Sun. It could only get uglier if I discovered people up there were practicing witchcraft and using the
hot tub to boil wool of bat and tongue of dog.

When my mind wasn’t roiling with thoughts of the Cedar Inn, it was all churned up over Jack—and Detective Jeffrey Beck. I
couldn’t deny that I was intrigued about the idea of possibly bumping into Beck again. So what did that say about my feelings
for Jack? My night with Jack had been nice, very nice, in fact, but I was still feeling ambivalent. The bottom line was that
I was attracted to Jack, I’d enjoyed having sex with him, and I wanted to see him again—but I didn’t totally trust him. He’d
disappeared this summer without a trace, only to reappear with a confession that he’d banged an old girlfriend just because
he’d had the blues. Maybe I
had
acted ambivalently toward Jack at times, but I didn’t deserve all the blame. I wondered if Cat had been right: The past belongs
in the past.

As for Beck, that seemed like mostly a physical thing on my part: that hair, those eyes, that body.

I’d driven for two hours when I tried Barry, the vice cop, again. Still his voice mail. I hated to be a pest, but I couldn’t
put a stopper on my need to know. As I pulled off the Massachusetts Turnpike at just after three, I made one more attempt.
This time he picked up.

“Sorry to be hounding you,” I said. “I’m pursuing a lead, and I could really use some information. I thought you’d be able
to help.”

“I can try. I had a guy in custody before, so I couldn’t talk.”

I ran through my phone conversation with Nina, asking if he thought it sounded suspicious.

“Sounds like a prostitute definitely,” he said. His voice was smooth and easy. “The fact that she said she didn’t do full
service—that’s the sure tip-off.”

“What does that mean, exactly?” I asked.

“It means that the place where she works just does manual release. A hand job, if you’ll excuse the expression, and that’s
it.”

“You mean, kind of prostitution lite?” I asked. “And men go for it?”