Pumped for Murder (29 page)

The facilities were open again before the evening rush. Kristi and Tansi went quietly to the police car, possibly hoping to avoid unwanted attention.

When Helen left the gym, Valerie was doing a stand-up in front of the cameras in the parking lot. She’d thanked Helen for the story and asked for an interview. Helen had begged off until after the East Coast Physique Championships. They’d set an appointment for eight o’clock that night outside the auditorium.

It was seven thirty now. Helen made her way down the concrete stairs to congratulate Paula, who was surrounded by well-wishers and haloed with white-hot success.

Carla rushed up to her first, presented the roses and kissed her. “You were awesome!” she said. “You look incredible. You made us look fantastic. Sorry. I have to dash.”

The platinum blond Paula held her roses while cameras flashed. Helen saw tiny tears glitter on her cheeks. They went well with the sparkles on her white bikini.

Helen reached out and squeezed Paula’s hand. She was rewarded with a queenly nod. Helen slipped away while Bryan, Will and Jan pushed forward with their congratulations.

Helen wanted to check her hair and makeup in a mirror before her television interview with Valerie. She’d never been to this auditorium and couldn’t find the restrooms. She thought she’d followed the signs that said RESTROOMS THIS WAY, but after several minutes she wound up in a narrow, nearly deserted passageway with six doors painted dull green. None of the doors had signs.

The first door was a storage closet crammed with signs and easels. Helen shut it.

The second was another closet stacked to the ceiling with cases of soda and bottled water. Time was passing quickly. It was seven forty-two.

Helen opened the third door and stared into two surprised eyes. Carla’s eyes. They were peering over a muscular back. Carla gave a little shriek and untangled herself from Bryan Minars.

H
elen and Phil were awakened by loud pounding on the door to Helen’s apartment. A woman shouted, “Wake up! Open up! Hurry up! You’re on TV!”

Helen sat up and blinked at Phil. She was still stupid from sleep. Phil was more alert. He hopped out of bed, pulled on his jeans and ran to the front door.

“It’s Margery,” he called as their landlady swept past him in a purple chenille robe trimmed with whiffs of cigarette smoke.

Margery commandeered the clicker and flipped on Helen’s television. “I don’t have time to explain,” she said. “Watch this. Helen, get in here before you miss your fifteen minutes of fame. Why is this on Channel Ten? Your television should be permanently tuned to Channel Seventy-seven after what that reporter has done for you.”

Helen stumbled out of the bedroom in jeans and a white shirt, hair uncombed.

“Coffee!” she said.

“Your shirt’s buttoned crooked,” Margery said. “You can have coffee later. Right now, you need to see this special report. It’s on after this commercial.”

Margery took Helen by the shoulders and steered her to the turquoise couch next to Phil, then sat in the chair alongside them. Thumbs jumped in her lap, and Margery dumped the cat on the floor.

“Go shed on someone else,” she said. The offended cat settled himself in Phil’s lap.

They watched the last seconds of a fabric softener ad while Helen struggled to gather her scattered thoughts.

Carrie, the early-morning show anchor, said, “Lucky Double Seven brings you twice the hard-hitting local news of any other South Florida station. We’ve learned that a fifty-year-old Fort Lauderdale woman was jailed for a murder she didn’t commit. Reporter Valerie Cannata tells you about an innocent victim of misguided justice—and the private eye who saved her from death row.”

Valerie, wearing that eye-catching red workout suit, stood in front of Fantastic Fitness. She described the murder of Debbi Dhosset. “The twenty-two-year-old victim OD’d on a kind of bodybuilder’s speedball of oxycodone, fat burners and steroids.”

A photo of Debbi in her posing suit flashed on the screen, followed by the mug shot of Evie. The accused killer looked as harmless as a kitten.

“This woman, Evie Roddick, was arrested by West Hills homicide detective Evarts Redding for the murder of Debbi Dhosset. The homicide detective said her motive was revenge after Debbi threw a hand weight at her in a steroid rage while working out at the gym.

“This woman, a Fantastic Fitness employee, was convinced that Evie Roddick was innocent and proved it.” Helen was standing outside the Lauderdale City Auditorium.

Helen winced at herself on-screen. “My hair looks awful.”

“Shut up!” Margery and Phil said together.

Valerie was talking again. “Helen Hawthorne is a private eye with Coronado Investigations, a Fort Lauderdale agency owned by Hawthorne and her husband. Helen did the investigative work that helped free Evie Roddick, even visiting the woman at the Harriet Brackensieck Women’s Correction Facility of Broward County.”

The camera showed file footage of the grim jail, surrounded by razor wire.

“Coronado Investigations uncovered the true killers,” Helen said on camera. “But we couldn’t free Evie on our own. We needed you, Valerie.”

“Kiss up!” Margery said, and grinned.

“Clever move,” Phil said. “You mentioned our agency name, too.”

Now Valerie was standing in front of the gym again. “Yesterday, this reporter was at Fantastic Fitness when the actual alleged killers of Debbi Dhosset were in the women’s locker room. The victim’s two trainers came to retrieve their stash of illegal drugs, hidden in a shower rod. West Hills police officer McNamara Dorsey took them into custody at the gym. We caught the scene with the Channel Seventy-seven spy cam. Watch.”

Helen couldn’t take her eyes away as the slightly blurry footage unfolded.

Valerie continued to explain: “Officer Dorsey said steroids, a controlled substance used illegally by some bodybuilders, were discovered in a vehicle belonging to one trainer and parked on the Fantastic Fitness lot. Both women were arrested and charged with first-degree murder.”

Helen watched Tansi and Kristi being led to Officer Dorsey’s car on the gym lot amid a carnival of police lights. The scene made an unforgettable ending to Valerie’s story.

“I like that ‘actual alleged killers’ phrase,” Helen said.

“It’s awkward, but it makes the station lawyers happy,” Margery said.

“And I’m a trainee, not a full-fledged private eye,” Helen said.

“So you want a correction?” Phil asked.

Carrie, the news anchor, was back on-screen. “As of six o’clock this morning, Evie Roddick is still in jail,” she said, “but authorities promise she will be released as soon as the paperwork is completed. Ms. Roddick’s attorney, Nancie Hays, would not comment on whether her client will sue the city of West Hills for false arrest. We’ll have exclusive updates on the story as it unfolds.”

Her co-anchor, Jason, said, “That’s an amazing story.”

“There’s more,” Carrie said. “Tomorrow, reporter Valerie Cannata will tell us about the high-pressure tactics a Fantastic Fitness salesman uses to sign up new members. Here’s a preview from that special investigative piece, ‘Promises, Promises.’ ”

Helen watched a blurry spy-cam shot of the sales area and heard a man say, ‘You be nice to me and I’ll be nice to you. Extra nice. For a whole week.’ ”

“Logan!” Helen shouted. “That’s Logan, working his ‘one week free’ scam to score with Valerie. I’d recognize that scumbag’s voice anywhere.”

“That’s good, I guess,” Phil said.

“Good! It’s terrific. Logan should have been fired ages ago.”

Thumbs patted Phil’s face lightly with his big six-toed paw and meowed.

“Breakfast time, buddy?” Phil asked the cat. “Good. I need coffee.”

Thumbs crunched his dry food and his owners drank coffee in Helen’s kitchen. Phil spent a half pot of coffee praising Helen.

By her third cup, Helen said, “Today I have to tell Shelby I caught her husband with another woman. I had no idea that Bryan was having a fling with Carla. I was stunned when I opened that closet at the auditorium. So were they. I’d asked Carla if she ever got any bribe money from women asking about Bryan. She said, ‘No woman’s dropped twenties on me to find out if he’s at the gym. His wife works out here, too.’ She was the one who wanted to know when he was at the gym and she could check the computer herself. That liar.”

“Technically, she didn’t lie,” Phil said.

“She sure didn’t tell the truth,” Helen said. “Now I have to break the news to Shelby. I dread that.”

“It won’t be much of a surprise,” Phil said. “She already suspects. Shelby wants to know. That’s why she hired you.”

“I know she did,” Helen said. “I also know how much it hurts to hear that news. At least she won’t find out her husband was unfaithful the way I did. I surprised Rob in the act with our neighbor Sandy. I felt like a fool.”

“I know you did,” Phil said, folding Helen into his arms. “But you divorced him and then left St. Louis and drove until you found me here in Fort Lauderdale.”

“It wasn’t quite that simple, but I did find you and I’m glad,” Helen said. Her man smelled of cinnamon and morning coffee. She didn’t want to leave his embrace, but she pulled herself away.

“Might as well get it over with. How early can I call Shelby?”

“It’s almost seven o’clock,” Phil said, checking his watch. “That’s when she came to see us the first time.”

“Bryan’s usually at the gym around six,” Helen said. “I’ll call her now and set up an appointment for eight this morning.”

Shelby Minars refused to wait until eight o’clock for the final report. She stormed over to the Coronado Investigations office at seven thirty-five. Helen and Phil heard their client running upstairs to Apartment 2C.

This morning, Shelby was dressed for the office in a pink suit. The Red Hots toes were stashed inside black heels. Her hazel eyes burned with anger.

Shelby could barely sit still in the yellow client chair long enough to hear the news.

“He’s at the gym right now,” Shelby said. “What is that lying bastard doing? Or maybe I should say
who
is he doing?”

“Your husband appears to be having an affair with a woman who works at the gym as a receptionist,” Helen said. “Her name is Carla. I caught them together in a storage room at the Fort Lauderdale Civic Auditorium at seven fifty-two last night. I didn’t take photographs, but they were embracing. Carla’s blouse was unbuttoned and her pants were unzipped. So were your husband’s.”

“I don’t need photos of that cheating scum,” Shelby said. “I got the picture a long time ago. I wanted my suspicions confirmed.” She burst into tears. “I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him.”

“No, you won’t,” Phil said. He handed her a tissue. “We talked about this before. You can’t make threats like that. If anything happened to Bryan, we’d have to tell the police, and you could go to jail. He’s not worth it.”

“You’re right,” Shelby said, sniffling. “He’s not. I won’t kill him. I’ll strip him of every last nickel. Do you mind if I make a call?”

“Go right ahead,” Helen said.

Phil was right, Helen thought. Shelby had been expecting this news. She pulled out her cell phone and called a number in her directory. “I’m on hold,” she said. “I’m calling the toughest divorce lawyer in Lauderdale for an appointment.”

There was a pause, and then Shelby said, “Nine o’clock this morning will work for me.” She snapped her phone shut.

“Here’s our bill,” Helen said. “Might as well pay it now and save yourself a stamp.”

“Good idea,” Shelby said. She wrote the check without a complaint.

“Bryan will probably spend his usual five or six hours at the gym today. That will give me time to see the lawyer, change the locks and throw his stuff out on the lawn. He can go live with that Carla. We’ll see how much she likes him when he has no money.”

“D
erek wants to see you in his office right now,” Carla said when Helen arrived at the gym that morning.

The Fantastic Fitness phone was ringing wildly. Carla grabbed the receiver and said, “Yes, ma’am. The manager is busy now. I’ll have Derek get back to you. What’s your phone number ?” She wrote it down and hung up.

The phone rang again. Carla repeated her promise to have the manager return the call, then wrote down another number, and the phone rang for a third time.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Carla said. “May I put you on hold?”

Carla stopped juggling the phone long enough to tell Helen, “You’d better get upstairs fast.”

She didn’t mention their surprise meeting in the storage closet last night. Maybe she didn’t have time. The phone rang yet again, and Carla put that caller on hold, too. The phone’s red HOLD lights were blinking like demon eyes.

Carla’s own eyes were red, and she had an ugly zit on her not-soperky nose. She also had an annoying smirk on her face.

Helen ran upstairs to Derek’s office. She’d had enough of Fantastic Fitness. She couldn’t wait to say she was quitting.

Helen never got the chance.

“You’re fired!” Derek said before she even knocked on his door.

“Fired? Why?” Helen said.

Derek stood up, outrage etched in every muscle of his body. There was no music in his Caribbean lilt now, only anger. Each word was clipped and precise. “You brought an undercover police officer into this establishment. You sneaked in that TV bitch. She brought a hidden camera inside the women’s locker room without my permission. You got two gym members arrested on this property for drug dealing and murder.”

Derek paused for a breath. He was so angry, Helen feared he’d stroke out in his office.

“And if that wasn’t bad enough, that same TV reporter also investigated my best salesman. Tomorrow, she’s going to say Logan tried to coerce her into having sex with him for a week’s free membership. What do you have to say about that?”