Florida Heatwave (39 page)

As her mother, the bitch, would say, Kit had a talent for looking good. It was one of the many things that Laura McCallum hated about her daughter. Lord, the woman had a list a mile long.

The dive took Kit deep into the crystal water, and she caught sight of a form that wavered in the dark depths. For one fantastic moment, she thought she’d found a mermaid, but the burning need for oxygen drove her to the surface before she could investigate.

She erupted into the air and a wail of noise. Water distorted her vision. The faces of the spectators were pulled into Os of dismay, and she spun in the water in the direction they were looking. The speedboat circled some of the skiers and finally came to a stop. Chuck, the driver, knifed his body over the side toward someone floating in the water.

One of the skiers was hurt.

Kit struck out across the lake for the huddle of skiers. She was the strongest swimmer in the group, though she was only four-eleven and a scant eighty-five pounds. Chuck called her Minnow, a name that both pleased and annoyed her.

She kicked strong, and when tendrils of grass caught around her ankle, she fluttered both feet. Instead of breaking free, her foot tangled more. Taking a breath, she dove.

She met the corpse face to face, the eyeless sockets huge and dark. Clumps of flesh clung to the skull, floating like pale cod fillets. Long hair wafted around the corpse’s head, undulating on the water, strands of it wrapped tight around Kit’s left ankle. She kicked. To her horror, the dead girl jerked violently but refused to release Kit’s foot. The corpse held her.

She screamed. Water rushed into her lungs, and she churned for the surface. As she burst into the air, she coughed and panicked, flailing in the water.

“Help! Help!” Her voice was too weak to carry, but the spectators heard and pointed in her direction. A small boat headed her way just as the tangle of hair and the weight of the body began to pull her down.

She shucked off the cold and clammy swimsuit and stepped under the hot spray of the shower. The red straps of the Catalina one-piece tangled around her feet and she kicked it against the shower wall with a wet splat. Outside the showers, locker doors slammed. The other girls spoke in hushed whispers, and twice she heard someone tiptoe to the stall where she hid.

“Kit, we’re ready to go,” Amy said. “Chuck said he’d take us to the hospital to check on Mel.”

“Go on. I’ll come later.” She wanted to be alone. The transport of Mel to the hospital in a neck brace, the recovery of the dead girl’s body, the clamor of the media—it had all been too much.

“Are you sure?” Amy sounded scared.

“Leave me the fuck alone.” Kit knew how to be hard.

Amy’s footsteps retreated on the tile floor.

Water trickled down Kit’s body, and it didn’t bother her until it sluiced down her calf, and the feel of it was like the tendrils of hair, floating like some cold, fine seaweed.

Had she not fallen during the ski show, Jess Livingston’s body might never have been found. Jess, formerly the best skier at the gardens, had left at the end of February, just as the ski team had begun to practice routines in Lake Eloise.

The water was cold and the work exhausting in February, but Jess had been Cypress Garden’s star for the past four years. She had her own publicity photos, and last year a talent scout from MGM had been to see her show more than eight times. There was talk that Jess had the potential of being another Ester Williams.

When Jess didn’t show up for practice one morning, Chuck and Kenny went to her place to check on her. They’d found a note that said she was heading to Tampa to work with dolphins. She’d had enough of skiing.

And that had been that.

Until today.

Jess Livingston had not left the show. At least not voluntarily. Whatever the coroner ruled as cause of death, Kit had seen the cement block tied to Jess’s feet. Heavy, but not heavy enough to keep her in one of the blue holes where she’d likely been dropped.

Leaning against the aqua tile wall of the shower, Kit swallowed her tears. Hell, why was she crying? She was fine. Mel had a serious injury, but he would recover. Jess Livingston had been no friend of hers. In fact, they’d been bitter rivals. It was Jess’s sudden departure that had given Kit the opening she needed to be top skier. Kit had wished the petite brunette dead on more than one occasion.

She turned the shower off.

There was no need for tears. She was fine. Totally fine. She grabbed a towel from the hook outside the shower, aware of the silence in the locker room beyond. Everyone had left, just as she’d dictated.

She dried, dressed, and walked out of the lady’s locker room. A man in gray slacks, white shirt, tie, and fedora rose from the bench outside the bathroom door. The locker room was hot, and his shirt stuck to him in places. He didn’t make a sound, and he spooked her, the way he stared.

“No one is allowed in here.” She spoke with authority. She’d learned the hard way that tentative conduct around men resulted in difficulty. Her diminutive size drew bullies to her like flies to a turd, as her mother often pointed out. Her mother, who had shoulders the size of an ox, took it as a personal insult that Kit had been born tiny and had never “filled out.”

“I was waiting for you, Miss McCallum.”

Something in the way he spoke made her uneasy. “Yeah, well keep waitin’, ‘cause I don’t know who you are and I don’t want to know.” She brushed past him, but he caught her elbow, not harshly, but firm enough to stop her.

“I’m Pete Paladin, with the
St. Pete Times.”

“Good for you, Pete from St. Pete.” But she didn’t leave. The St. Pete paper was big. A story there could lead to something national. It was possible he wanted to interview her. After all, she’d found the body.

“Could I buy you dinner, maybe ask a few questions, for a story for the paper?” He picked up his jacket from the bench and removed a narrow notepad. “Tomorrow, the newspaper is sending a photographer if they like the story I do. If that’s okay with you.”

She lifted her wet hair off her neck. “I need to fix up. Before dinner.”

He nodded. “I’ll pick you up at seven. What about Korbet’s Restaurant? I’ve heard that’s a good place to eat.”

She nodded. Korbet’s was nice. Expensive. “I’ll be ready.”

He stepped back to let her pass and followed her into the fading sunlight of the May evening. The perfume of gardenias floated to her from the gardens. The scent of twilight, they always smelled strongest just before the end of the day.

Kit applied a fresh coat of fingernail polish as she sat under the dryer. It would be better if the photographer would take her picture now instead of tomorrow. But they’d probably want an action shot. Her at the top of the pyramid. That would work. She held her right hand up by the hair dryer to hurry the process.

When her fingers and hair were dry, she removed the curlers and brushed out her auburn hair. She slipped into the red polka-dot dress and her strappy sandals. She’d just applied her lipstick when the doorbell buzzed. Her phone, too, began to ring.

“Just a minute,” she called to the door as she hurried to the small table in the hallway to pick up the phone. “Hello.”

The only sound on the other end was labored breathing.

“Hello.” Her grip tightened on the phone. “Who is this? Who’s calling?” She waited, hearing only the raspy sound of someone inhaling and exhaling. “Pervert!” She slammed the phone in the cradle.

“Hey, you okay?” Pete Paladin called from the other side of the door.

She opened it and let him in. “Some heavy breather on the phone.” She tried not to act rattled.

“Do you get those calls often?” Pete asked.

She thought about how that would look in a newspaper story. She’d come across as cheap. Someone that men felt they could toy with. “No. It must be because of … the body and all. My name was on the radio. Amy called and told me.”

Pete glanced around her apartment, taking a good look at her door. “You need a deadbolt and a chain. Never hurts to be safe.”

“Are you trying to scare me?” She didn’t like it when someone tried to make her feel unsafe. Her mother had ruled her life with fear for seventeen years, until she’d finished high school and took off.

“We have reservations at seven thirty.” He offered his arm.

She picked up her purse, taking care to lock the door behind her before they left the apartment building. “You didn’t answer my question,” she said as they walked to his Chevrolet.

“I don’t try to scare women,” Pete said. “Not even ones who might need to be a little afraid.”

“Why should I be afraid?” she asked.

“Because,” Pete said as he assisted her into the passenger seat, “Jess Livingston was murdered, and whoever did it had gotten away with it until you found her body. Doesn’t it make you wonder who killed her?”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with me,” Kit said.

“Maybe it didn’t when they offed her, but after today it surely does.”

The grilled pompano was delicious, and Kit was surprised when Pete asked her to dance. The four-piece combo kept the music lively, and Kit enjoyed the way Pete looked at her. There was none of the boyish adoration. Pete was a man, and he made her feel like a woman.

“What kind of name is Paladin?” she asked him when he seated her at the table. “It’s made up, isn’t it? Like on that TV show with the gunman.”

“No, it’s Spanish. It means knight.” He poured her another glass of wine. “My father always told me that our family descended from the Medieval court of Charlemagne. Knights of the court.”

She was intrigued despite herself. “Did he have any proof of that?”

“You’d make a good reporter,” Pete said. “My father would be insulted, but it’s exactly the right question to ask.”

“Men make up things all the time to tell women. It shouldn’t insult your father that I refuse to be a fool.”

Pete laughed out loud, and she felt the burn of a blush touch her cheeks. “Walk a mile in my shoes if you think that’s so damn funny.”

“Hey.” He touched her arm. “Take it easy. I was laughing because I enjoy you.”

She didn’t believe him. He was educated and smart and had a job writing. She knew the kind of men who pursued the girls at the Gardens. Most of them were married, and the rest were up to no good. Jess Livingston had let it be known that she had caught the eye of a politician, a man with power. Gossip was that he’d helped her move on to Tampa and bigger exposure.

“Ask your questions, I need to get home early. We’ll have a hard rehearsal ‘cause we have to figure out what to do with Mel injured.” She pushed her plate back and shook her head when the waiter offered dessert. Without asking, Pete ordered coffee for them both.

“So tell me about Jess Livingston,” Pete said. He pulled out his pen and notebook.

Kit told him how she’d originally been hired as Jess’s understudy. “The girl on the top of the pyramid has to be small. Think of this. My weight is on the shoulders of Amy and Carla, and then all of that is on top of the men below us. The whole thing is pulled through the water.”

“It’s impressive,” Pete agreed. “What kind of girl was Jess?”

Kit hesitated. Anything that made one Garden girl look bad reflected on all of them. “She was okay.”

“Did she date?”

“Why does that matter?” She braced her palms on the edge of the table, ready to get up.

“Look, she was a pretty girl. Like you. Someone killed her. Either she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got whacked accidentally, or she was killed because she saw or heard something she shouldn’t have.” He leaned forward. “I’m putting my money on the latter. And I want to know what information cost her her life.”

Kit studied his hazel eyes. He didn’t flinch. “She was dating a politician. She said he was very powerful.” She looked down. “Probably married, or else she would have said his name.”

“What did she say?”

“You’re going to put this in a story?” Kit thought it might not be smart.

“Not yet. Not until I get the goods on him. And I won’t use your name.”

“What about my story? The photographer is coming tomorrow …” His expression was a dead giveaway. She’d been had. At least she’d gotten a good dinner out of it, and she hadn’t said much at all. She pushed back her chair. “I don’t appreciate being played. Now I’d like to go home.”

“Sure thing.” Pete pulled a fat money clip from his pocket and dropped several bills on the table.

Kit floated in the crystal green of Lake Eloise. In her dream the water was smooth, like the top of a jewel. Indian stories told of an alternate world that could be seen beneath the surface on still days. Kit had never seen such things—had never looked—but she loved the way the water supported her without effort, cooled her from the oppressive heat. She drifted beneath the shade of a moss-covered limb that dipped almost to the water. On the shore, a cluster of brightly hued belles in the swinging skirts of antebellum days rocked past the beds of bearded irises, lantana, salvias, daisies, foxglove, and snapdragons. The colors were so vivid, Kit closed her eyes.

In the distance a phone rang. She struggled to place the sound in her dream, and when she finally awoke, she could still hear the ringing. She got up and went to the narrow hall and picked up the receiver.

“Hello.”

A long rasp of breath slithered down the line.

“Hello.” The last grip of sleep loosened, and she found her heart pounding. “Who is this?”

The breath came again. She’d never imagined that someone breathing could sound so intimidating.

“What do you want?”

There was no answer. Only the long, ragged breath.

She smashed the receiver down and stood with her hand holding it in the cradle as if it might fly up to her ear. When she felt she could walk without falling, she went into the kitchen. It was three thirty. Outside the open kitchen window, the frogs sang a low lullaby. The night was soft and quiet.

Her apartment had a small screened porch, and she went there and scrunched into an old wicker chair with faded floral cushions. No cars passed on the two-lane highway fifty yards from her door. The windows of her neighbor’s were dark. She’d chosen the apartment that had been cut from a large, older home because of the porch. Hugging her knees, she listened to the night.