Killer Calories (14 page)

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Authors: G. A. McKevett

Tags: #Mystery

BOOK: Killer Calories
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“That isn't the only question,” she said. “There's another: Why do
you
want to know?”
“If you'll answer mine, I'll answer yours,” he replied with a sly grin.
I'd rather play, You Show Me Yours, I'll Show You Mine,
she thought. But she resolved to stick to business. At least for the moment.
“Okay,” she said, “but you won't believe me when I tell you.”
“Try me.”
She donned her most innocent, convincing look, meant to instill confidence and trust. “I don't know who hired me.”
His smile evaporated. “You're right. I don't believe you.”
“You don't have to. But it's true. They hired me anonymously, and they haven't bothered to identify themselves yet.”
He mulled that over for several moments, then said, “Who do you think it is?”
“I haven't a clue. In fact, I sorta hoped it might be you.”
“Sorry. I'm innocent.”
“Are you?”
His grin returned. “Absolutely. Can't you tell?”
“No. I have a hard time reading you. I'll bet you're good at poker.”
“Good? I'm excellent.”
“And modest.” She chuckled with him, then fixed him with a blue laser stare. “Now it's your turn. Why do you care who I am or why I'm here?”
“Because, in spite of what I told you the other day, I don't think Kat's death was an accident. I think she might have been murdered. And if she was, the cops are going to figure that out sooner or later. When they do, I think they're going to come after me.”
“You? Why you?”
“Because I had an excellent motive.”
Savannah could feel her pulse rate crank up a notch. “And that was ... ?”
“I loved her. And I couldn't have her,” he said with a sigh. “Isn't that the best motive of all?”
Savannah shrugged. “I don't know if it's the best one. But I'd say it's in the top ten.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“
W
hen did you finally get in last night?” Tammy demanded, as she and Savannah sat in the dining hall, eating their nutritious, cleansing breakfast of miso soup. “I tried my best to stay awake, but I eventually nodded off.”
“When did you go to sleep?” Savannah took a bite of the bland concoction and grimaced.
“Just after eleven, I think.”
“Hmm ... I came in about eleven-thirty.”
Tammy looked across the table at an elderly gentleman who was devouring his soup with a gusto that must have been born of acute starvation. She fixed Savannah with a suspicious eye, and whispered, “You weren't
eating,
were you?”
“You say that like it was a crime.”
“Around here, it is.”
“Well, I wasn't eating. I was indulging other appetites by developing a long, deeply satisfying, intimate relationship.”
Tammy's eyes widened. “With Dr. Ross?”
“No. To be perfectly honest ... it was with one of the spa jets. But Dr. Ross and his teeny-tiny bathing suit were my inspiration.”
Tammy gasped and looked around, obviously mortified that someone else might have overheard this vulgarity. But the old fellow was miso-absorbed, and the other five guests were too far away to eavesdrop.
“That's disgusting,” she said, taking a quick sip of her protein drink, followed by a green-gunk chaser.
“Yeah, well ... you spend half an hour in the close proximity of a spa with a man as gorgeous as Freeman Ross and then tell me that you don't feel like sitting on an air jet.”
“Savannah, for heaven's sake! I don't want to hear what you ... sat on!”
The fellow across the table looked up from his bowl, his eyes aglow with sudden interest. “I do!”
“Oh, hush and eat your gruel,” Savannah told him before turning back to Tammy. “You know, kiddo. You used to remind me of my younger brothers and sisters. But lately, you've been coming across more like my mother.”
“Well, somebody needs to. I swear, you're out of control.”
“You don't know what out of control is. You ought to see me at a Ben & Jerry's ice-cream parlor. Mrs. Fields and See's candies are good places to lose it, too.”
Tammy shuddered. “Oh, yuck. All that sugar, the chocolate, the cream and butter.”
“Mmmmm ... exactly.” She took another spoonful of her soup and nearly gagged. “Oops. Here comes trouble,” she said, nodding toward the door.
Louis Hanks had just entered the room. And judging from the stormy look on his face and the way he was striding straight for their table, he had direct confrontation on his mind.
“Looks like I'm in the doghouse again,” Savannah whispered.
“If you ask me,” Tammy replied smugly, “I think you might as well fill out a change-of-address card.”
 
“This had better be important,” Savannah said as she faced off with Lou Hanks across a massage table. “I was right in the middle of a bowl of scrumptious miso soup.”
He had practically dragged her from the dining room, down the hall, and into this eight-by-eight-foot cubicle, which contained nothing but a padded table, a tray of oils, and a stack of towels, and now ... the angry owner of Royal Palms Spa and the apparent recipient of that rage.
“To hell with you and your miso,” he said, his face scarlet and eyes bugged. “The cops are accusing me and my employees of murdering my wife!”
“Murdering her? Really ... ?”
“Don't ‘Really' me, as if you don't know anything about it.”
Savannah mentally rehearsed a few karate moves, just in case he decided to vault over the table and go for her throat. He certainly looked mad enough to try it.
Though she doubted that the chubby Lou was accustomed to vaulting from place to place. He seemed more of a plodder, but you couldn't always tell. Some plodders became athletes when they were furious.
“I probably don't know as much as you think I do,” she said. “Which cops and which employees?”
“Your old partner and Dr. Ross.”
“That's only
one
cop and
one
employee. Besides, Dirk isn't all that old, he's just a lousy dresser who's going prematurely bald.”
Lou's scowl deepened. “Do you think my wife's death is a joke, Miss Reid?”
“Not at all. But when I feel threatened, I tend to resort to sarcasm. And I don't like your aggressive tone.”
“And I don't like you coming to my spa, pretending to be a guest, and snooping around.”
“Snooping? Is that what you think I'm doing?”
“That's exactly what I think you're doing. Are you going to deny it?”
Savannah thought for a moment, then shook her head. “No. I'd say ‘snooping' about covers it.”
“Then you lied to me. You told me you weren't here to investigate my wife's death.”
“I told you I wasn't here on behalf of your life-insurance company. And that's still true.”
“Then you're working for the cops.”
Savannah laughed. “No danger of that, I'm afraid. The San Carmelita Police Department and I parted ways long ago.”
“But you've been reporting back to that Detective Coulter guy.”
“I don't report to Dirk or anybody else anymore. That's the nice thing about being self-employed.”
“But you've been telling him what's going on around here.”
“Dirk is a friend of mine. We talk about a lot of things. Besides, I wasn't aware there was anything ‘going on around here.' Have I missed something?”
Lou gave her a searching, hostile look. “I don't think you miss anything, Miss Reid.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hanks. I'll take that as a compliment.”
“I didn't mean it to be. My wife's death was a sad and unfortunate accident. Your poking around here only makes the tragedy that much worse.”
“I can understand why you feel that way. But what if your wife
didn't
have an accident?”
“She didn't kill herself! I told you that before! Kat didn't commit suicide!”
“What if it wasn't an accident
or
suicide? What if she was murdered?”
His face went a sick shade of white that reminded her of some kind of chalky antidiarrhea medicine.
“Murdered? You think somebody actually killed her. Deliberately?”
“I don't know yet. But I think Kat deserves to have it checked out. If there's any possibility it might be homicide, you would want that person caught and punished. Wouldn't you?”
He sputtered and stuttered for a moment, then said, “Well, I ... I guess so. I mean, yeah, sure I would.”
“Then it's a good thing that I'm a guest here at this particular time,” she said smoothly, giving him her most conciliatory smile. “I'll keep my eyes open to possibilities. And that way, if anything does ‘pop up,' I'd be the first to know. Probably even before the police, right?”
“And would you tell me if anything ‘popped up,' that is?”
“You're Kat's ex-husband, her closest living relative, the owner of the spa.”
“Is that a ‘yes'?”
She shrugged and gave him a grin. “It's a ‘maybe.' ”
Looking only a little mollified, he turned to leave the room. At the door she stopped him.
“By the way, Lou,” she said as he waited, hand on the doorknob. “Kat's life-insurance policy ... you said it wouldn't pay off if she committed suicide. Let me guess ... an accident or homicide would fly, right?”
He left. And slammed the door so hard behind him that Savannah could swear her teeth rattled.
“Bingo,” she said.
 
“You asked to see me?” Savannah said as she stuck her head into the spa's office, where Bernadette sat at her desk, phone in hand.
“Oh, yes. Please come in, Ms. Reid,” she said, slamming the receiver down without saying good-bye to the person on the other end.
Savannah steeled herself, figuring she had been called on the carpet to receive her walking papers. Lou Hanks probably didn't have the gonads to do it himself, so she was expecting the edict to be handed down by his secretary/pool buddy.
The skinny young redhead jumped up from her desk and ushered Savannah to a comfortable chair. “May I get you some sparkling water or a protein drink?” she offered.
“No thanks. I suppose a double-malted chocolate and peanut butter milk shake would be out of the question.”
Bernadette gave her a nervous chuckle, as though she had just overheard some blatant blasphemy while standing in a church and wasn't sure how to react.
“So, why did you ask me to come to the office?” Savannah said, wanting to get her eviction over with as soon as possible. There was no point in prolonging the humiliation.
“I realized that when you registered with us the other day, I forgot to have you sign one of the release forms. It's a very important one. I hope you don't mind.”
Savannah studied the form that the redhead thrust at her. “I signed one of these already. I'm sure of it.”
“I'm sorry, but I don't have it in my files. So, if you would sign another ...”
As Bernadette returned to her own chair behind her desk, Savannah studied her face. The young woman was lying through her nicely capped teeth. Unlike Dr. Freeman Ross, Bernadette was easy to read.
“You know very well that I've already signed one of these forms,” Savannah told her. “Why don't you just tell me the real reason why you asked me to come by?”
Bernadette blushed so brilliantly that Savannah decided maybe she
was
a real redhead after all. Her freckles practically stood out on stems. She picked up a pencil and began to fidget with it.
“Well ... I ...”
Savannah gave her one of her best, comforting, “big-sister” looks. “It's all right. You can tell me. Just spit it out.”
“Ah ... okay ... mmmm ... I ... ” Nervously, she began to doodle on a notepad in front of her. Savannah glanced down to see what she was sketching. It was a simple cartoon cat—a couple of circles with ears, eyes, a tail, and whiskers.
Whether this was some sort of cryptic clue or great Freudian symbolism, Savannah didn't know. But either way, she was losing her patience.
“Bernadette, unless you're going to draw some sort of treasure map there, put that pencil down, look me straight in the eye, and tell me what's on your mind.”
“Okay.” She drew a deep breath. “Dion killed Kat.”
Savannah had to do a quick facial adjustment to keep her jaw from dropping onto her chest. Talk about candor!
“Dion murdered Kat? Are you sure?”
Bernadette nodded, red curls bobbing. “Yeah, I'm pretty sure.”
“When we're talking homicide, you've got to do better than pretty sure. Is this something you know for a fact, or not?”
“Yeah, kinda.”
Savannah sighed. “Let me rephrase my question: Why do you think Dion killed Kat?”
“I heard them arguing right before she died.”
“They had an argument in front of you?”
“Not exactly in front of me. They were in Dion's cottage, and I was standing outside the window. I wasn't, like, peeking in or anything. I was just walking by on my way to the pool when I heard them. So, I stopped and, you know, listened a little.”
“It's a good thing you only listened a little, otherwise someone might have accused you of eavesdropping.”
Bernadette nodded vigorously. “That's right. But I wasn't. It's just that, when he told her he was going to kill her, my ears perked up.”
Savannah could feel her own ears standing to attention. “He said he was going to kill her?”
“Yeah. He told her that if she told what he had told her, he was gonna kill her.”
Experiencing a bit of mental vertigo, Savannah said, “Would you mind explaining that? No, wait a minute. Can you just tell me, as best you recall, exactly what he said?”
Bernadette concentrated, brow furrowed from the effort. “Okay, I've got it. He said, ‘You don't have to tell anyone anything, Kat. You're just threatening to expose me out of spite.' And then she said, ‘Can you blame me, considering how you've treated me?' And he said, ‘If you tell anyone—anybody at all—I swear, I'll kill you' ”
“And what did Kat say to that?”
“She laughed at him.”
Savannah experienced a nice adrenaline jolt that was better than a hit of double Dutch chocolate. “A man tells her he's going to kill her, and she laughs at him?”
“Yeah, Kat could be really irritating when she wanted to be. I'm not surprised she was killed. Kat was that way to everybody. It was just a matter of time until somebody knocked her off.”

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