A Healthy Homicide (9 page)

“Ready to go?” I asked.

We left the kitchen together, Jason’s hand on the small of my back. As I walked, I could feel the locket in my pants pocket, a reminder that I needed to return it to Erin.

I wanted to spend more time with that girl. If she’d stab her mother’s boyfriend, who was to say she wouldn’t kill her aunt?

 

My trip to see Erin and return her locket would have to wait until my lunch break. Before Jason and I could slip out the front door the previous evening, Patricia had roped us into gathering with the few remaining attendees in the living room to reminisce about Carla, not that I had much to offer. By the time we left, it had been too late to stop by Erin’s place. Instead, I had gone home to bed, questions about Miguel, Erin, and Carla whirling around in my head.

Now, as I drove out to the farm the next morning, I thought about the coming workday. I’d seen Zennia in the garden recently, practically rubbing her hands in anticipation of the peppers, tomatoes, and zucchini that would soon be flourishing. Plenty of other people liked to garden, so I’d focus today’s blog on growing summer vegetables.

I pulled into the mostly empty parking lot and drove past the lobby. The flock of ducks basked in the early morning sunshine, while a trio waddled across the grass. I parked in my usual corner spot and took the long way past the cabins and along the back trail, stopping to say good morning to Wilbur and his pals. They snorted in reply.

In the kitchen Zennia was removing a container of her homemade yogurt from the refrigerator. She had an apron tied around her loose pants and dashiki top, and her long braid swished back and forth as she moved.

“Morning, Zennia. Need any help?” I grabbed a tangerine slice from the fruit tray and popped it in my mouth before she could stop me. I really needed to buy some fruit to eat at the apartment. Those Pop-Tarts had only so much filling, and I wasn’t even sure the goo was real fruit.

She set the container on the counter. “I think I’ve got it covered, but thanks.” She removed the lid from the yogurt and grabbed a spoon.

I sneaked another piece of tangerine as Esther bustled into the kitchen, her red-and-white-checkered blouse reminding me of the fabric that often covered the contents of a picnic basket. Her brown slacks, the same color as a basket, only enhanced the effect.

“Oh, good. You’re both here,” she said when she saw Zennia and me. “Gretchen called, and she won’t be coming to work.”

“Is she sick?” I asked.

“Sick with worry, maybe.” Esther fiddled with the hem of her shirt. “You were out yesterday, so you missed it, but she was acting strange the whole day. Forgetting appointments, mixing the wrong ingredients for the facials. One of the clients even complained Gretchen was too rough during her massage.”

I swallowed the tangerine slice. “That’s not like Gretchen.”

“Don’t I know it,” Esther agreed. “Gretchen is so dedicated to her work, but this spa owner’s murder has got her all worked up.”

“I suggested she try meditating,” Zennia said, “but I don’t know if she listened to me.”

I knew the questions from the police had rattled Gretchen, but I had never expected the interview to impact her work like this. Was there more to the story that I wasn’t aware of?

Esther turned to me, breaking into my thoughts. “Dana, would you be a dear and call all of Gretchen’s appointments for the day and reschedule?”

“Absolutely.” I glanced at the rooster clock on the wall. “Any idea when her first client is due?”

“She said someone has a facial at ten.”

“That gives me plenty of time to notify everyone. I’ll wait a bit to call so I don’t wake anyone up. Will she be back tomorrow, or should I reschedule for later in the week?”

“She seemed to think she’d be all right by the morning.” Esther tugged on her shirt. “I knew you’d take care of things. Heaven knows how I’d get anything done without all of you.” She smiled at Zennia and me.

I followed her out of the kitchen and turned into the office while she continued on toward the lobby. After booting up the computer, I drafted a blog about successful methods for growing tomatoes. By addressing a different vegetable each day, I’d have enough blogs for the next week or two. If those topics grew tiresome, I could move on to flowers.

By the time I finished editing and posting the blog, it was time to start calling Gretchen’s clients. I left the house and passed the pool area, nodding to an older couple playing backgammon at one of the picnic tables. I walked past the row of cabins and entered the spa tent.

Gretchen’s appointment book sat on the little shelf built into the hostess stand. I pulled it out and flipped it open, running my finger down the list of today’s clients. Thank goodness Gretchen was organized. She’d included everyone’s phone number next to their name. I picked up the cordless handset and the appointment book and carried them over to the waiting area to settle into one of the rattan chairs.

I spent the next twenty minutes leaving messages and rescheduling appointments. By the time I was finished, the muscles in my jaw were tight from the unexpected tension. Two of Gretchen’s regulars had asked if she was absent from work because she’d been arrested for Carla’s murder. Another had said, “Made a run for it, has she?” I had had to literally bite my tongue to keep from telling these people to take their business elsewhere. Who wanted them here at the farm with that kind of attitude?

Their thoughtless comments proved that the situation was far more serious than I’d realized. Brittany had mentioned last night that people were wondering about Gretchen’s involvement in Carla’s death, but I figured it was confined to her circle of gossipy, immature friends. I had never imagined others in town shared this belief.

I set the phone back in the cradle, returned the appointment book to the hostess stand, and walked out of the tent, rubbing my forehead. If people were willing to say these things to me, were other clients voicing their concerns directly to Gretchen? No wonder she’d called in sick. I would have, too.

Back at the office, Gordon sat in the desk chair, his head bent over his ever-present clipboard. I suppressed a groan and prayed he’d somehow missed all the chitchat about Gretchen over the past few days.

Just as I considered slipping out the door without speaking to him, he raised his head. “I’ll be done in a minute.” He returned to his clipboard and jotted down more notes.

I took a step backward toward the hall. “I can come back.”

“No, all finished.” He capped his pen and stood, straightening the lapels of his suit jacket. He gave me a long look. “What’s this I hear about Gretchen calling in sick?”

My stomach dropped. “Well, there is that bug going around. She must have caught it from one of her clients.”

He snorted, almost sounding like Wilbur. “Nonsense. She’s hiding out because everyone in town thinks she killed the other spa owner.”

“That’s another possibility,” I said.

He jammed his pen in the breast pocket of his jacket and twisted his pinkie ring. “This is bad for business. People won’t book sessions at the spa if they believe our masseuse is a killer. Our profits will be severely impacted.”

“Look, I rescheduled all of Gretchen’s appointments, and everyone I talked to agreed to come back another day. No one canceled.” Even the women who’d asked if Gretchen had been arrested couldn’t possibly think she’d killed anyone. No way would they let her put her hands so close to their necks during a massage otherwise.

“Mark my words,” Gordon said, “if the police don’t catch the killer soon, our spa is sunk. Perhaps we should take the initiative and think about hiring another masseuse.”

“What? You can’t get rid of Gretchen.”

“I don’t want to. Gretchen has been a real asset, but I have to think of the farm.” He held up his phone and touched the screen. “Look, I’d love to discuss this, but I have a meeting in town. A friend and I are setting up a business club for some of the high school students. I figure that not only will I be molding the minds of future businessmen, but it’s also a good way to get the farm’s name out there.”

While I liked the idea, I couldn’t allow myself to be distracted. “At least give Gretchen more time. She hasn’t done anything wrong,” I said.

“I’ll think about it. That’s all I can promise.” He brushed past me and walked out of the office.

I watched him go. Gordon often worried unnecessarily about the state of Esther’s place, but a tiny part of me, that part in the dark recesses of my mind that kept me awake at odd hours of the night, wondered if he was right this time. Would people stop coming to the spa if the police didn’t catch Carla’s killer?

All of a sudden, I was looking forward to my lunchtime errand. Maybe Erin knew more about her aunt’s death than she was letting on. Maybe a tidbit or two would slip out while we talked, information I could pass along to the police or at least to Jason.

Then we could get this whole thing wrapped up.

And Gretchen could stop looking over her shoulder.

 

I drove toward town, Erin’s locket on the passenger seat. Jason had given me Erin’s address the previous night, after only a little begging on my part. I recognized the street name and found Erin’s, or rather Carla’s, house in minutes. Painted white, with dark green eaves, it was a modest single-story house not unlike my mom’s place. The yard sported a small lawn and three rosebushes planted close to the house.

After parking at the curb, I locked the car door and stepped onto the sidewalk. A chain-link fence surrounded the yard, but I didn’t see any signs of a dog. I let myself in the gate and walked up the cement path to the front of the house. After a quick knock, I tried to peek through the diamond-shaped beveled glass set into the door while I waited for someone to answer. Behind me, birds chirped in the nearby trees, and I could hear the drone of a far-off lawn mower. After a minute I knocked again. There was no car in the driveway. Maybe she wasn’t home. I was about to give up when I saw a shadowy figure approaching through the glass.

The door flew open, and Erin squinted out at me. She wore a T-shirt and shorts. Her hair was hanging loose, and her face was bare of makeup. She rubbed her upper arms in the cool air.

“I’m Dana—,” I began, but she cut me off.

“Right. I remember you from last night. Come on back.”

“I’m just returning . . . ,” I said, trailing off when she disappeared down the hall. I hesitated before reminding myself I was on a fact-finding mission while I was here.

I went in the direction Erin had gone, noting the single nature print on the wall in the dimly lit hallway. At the end, I stepped into a large but sparsely furnished kitchen. A small wooden table sat in a breakfast nook, four chairs parked around it. The shelves of a hutch against one wall were empty, and a stack of boxes waited in the nearby corner. Jason had said that Carla bought the house about four months ago. Maybe she’d been so engrossed in opening her new spa that she hadn’t taken the time to unpack. Seeing this bit of unfinished business was another reminder that Carla would never complete a project again.

Erin stood at the island, in front of the sink. I sucked in my breath when I saw the large chef ’s knife she held in her hand. Light from an overhead bulb bounced off the blade as she moved around, and I felt myself swallow convulsively as I thought about Erin stabbing her mother’s boyfriend. What had possessed me to stop by alone after Patricia told me that story? Why hadn’t I taken up Jason’s offer to return the locket?

“Come over here,” Erin said, gesturing for me to join her. “We can’t talk with you standing all the way over by the door.”

I crossed the room slowly and stepped up to the island, making sure to stay on the opposite side of the tiled countertop. That would give me precious seconds to run if things turned ugly.

Erin grabbed a large red and green mango from the hanging fruit basket and set it on the cutting board. She used the knife to cut through the mango as easily as if she were cutting through melting ice cream. I jumped as the blade made a loud thwack against the wood.

“So what are you doing here?” Erin asked as she brought the knife down again. She seemed entirely too comfortable holding that thing.

I held up the locket. “You forgot this last night. I wanted to make sure you got it back.”

She stretched across the counter and snatched it out of my hand after I hurriedly uncurled my fingers so she didn’t break the delicate chain. “Thanks. I didn’t even notice I’d lost it.”

“Well, you left in a bit of a hurry.”

She began cutting up the mango with swift, powerful strokes. That poor mango didn’t stand a chance. “No thanks to that busybody Patricia.” She glared at me, and I felt a surge of panic in my chest. “I was nice to that lady because Aunt Carla liked her. Now that Aunt Carla is dead, don’t think I’m spending another minute with Patricia.”

“Why are you so angry with her?”

“She’s so phony-baloney, acting like she’s your best friend so she can try to run your life. And I know she talks about me behind my back.”

I tried to keep a neutral expression on my face, but something must have slipped through, because Erin noticed.

“I knew it.” She pointed the knife at me, and I took a half step back. “What did she say about me?”

“Nothing big. I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it,” I said. “She seems to want only what’s best for you.”

“You saw the way she tried to boss me around. Just because she and Carla were such good friends, Patricia acts like she owes it to Carla to make sure I become this poster kid for Middle America, Ms. Upstanding Citizen herself. Well, I know what she really thinks of me, and I won’t stand for it.” She grabbed a papaya from the basket.

I thought back to Stan’s remark about Carla and Patricia almost being partners. Maybe Erin knew about the situation and could fill me in. “It’s probably a good thing she didn’t go into business with Carla. Then she would have been around all the time,” I said, taking a wild guess that this was the deal Stan had been alluding to.

She gave me a smug smile, proving I’d hit the mark. “Heard about that, did you? Man, was Patricia steamed when it didn’t happen. It was all her idea, and Aunt Carla wanted nothing to do with it.”

“Patricia made it sound like they were both in favor of a partnership,” I said. I dared to lean on the counter, like we were two girlfriends sharing a little gossip.

Erin paused in her slicing. “That’s what Patricia wants to believe, but it’s not true. She gave Aunt Carla some decorating tips for the spa and somehow got it in her head that she needed to help run the place. She doesn’t have a business degree. She has no experience. She’s just some bored housewife with nothing better to do.”

“How did Carla get out of it?”

“Gave her some line about not wanting to risk all of Patricia’s money on a new business. Told Patricia that if the place went under, she’d never be able to forgive herself.”

While the answer sounded legitimate, it was still a pretty weak reason to turn down her best friend. I wondered if Patricia had recognized the excuse as the brush-off that it was. Had she gotten mad enough to kill Carla?

“How did Patricia take the news?”

“Pretended like everything was fine, but she was always making little comments under her breath like she wanted to run the show. And now she’s set her sights on me. Well, she can forget it.” Erin brought the knife down in a series of quick strokes until the papaya collapsed into a pile of mush, her breath coming out in short puffs. “Say, what are you asking for, anyway?” she demanded, eyeing me. “You spying for Patricia?”

Definitely my signal to leave.

“No, of course not. Stan talked about a possible deal last night, and Patricia seemed upset about it. I was only wondering.” I made a show of looking at my wrist, even though I wasn’t wearing a watch. “I should be getting back to work. My lunch break’s almost over.” I backed toward the door. “Maybe I’ll see you around sometime.”

“If I even stay in this stupid town.” Erin rammed the knife tip into the cutting board, leaving the blade quivering upright, like an exclamation point to her statement. “You can pass that along to Patricia.”

I didn’t respond as I hastened down the hall to the front door before she could pull the knife back out and hurl it at me. Once outside, I hurried down the walk but stopped at the gate when I saw a familiar muscle car parked across the street. Erin’s boyfriend, Ricky, sat behind the wheel. I winced at the ugly dent that marred the back panel of the driver’s side. As clean and waxed as he kept that car, that dent had to irritate him every time he looked at it. I didn’t remember the dent being there before, but then again, I wasn’t positive that I’d seen the driver’s side on previous occasions. Who knew how long it had been there?

As I opened the gate, Ricky climbed out of the car and walked across the street, his expression hard to read with his plastic-framed sunglasses covering his eyes. I tensed as I felt him studying me. He wasn’t a big guy, but sometimes the little ones were scrappy. I could only hope he was more even-tempered than Erin.

“You a friend of Erin’s?” he asked as he reached the gate.

“More like an acquaintance. I knew her aunt.”
Barely,
I added silently.

He removed his sunglasses. “Rough stuff. Carla was a nice lady.”

My nose twitched as I caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. “Did you know her well?”

“No, but she took good care of Erin.”

“That’s what I heard.”

He hooked the sunglasses onto his T-shirt. “’ Course, I was hoping we could be friends. I felt bad about the way things ended between us.” I’d swear he sounded hurt. Had Carla’s approval meant that much to him? He cleared his throat and jerked his head toward the door. “I should get up there.”

He stepped to the side so that I could move past him. As I unlocked my car door, I glanced back at the house and saw Erin open the door. When she saw Ricky, she threw her arms around him, and I felt a tug at my heart at her obvious adoration. Smiling in spite of myself, I got in my car and pulled away.

My smile drooped as I headed to the nearest fast-food restaurant with a drive-through. Erin obviously cared about Ricky, but at what cost? Had Carla insisted that Erin stop seeing Ricky, and had Erin killed her aunt rather than give up her true love, or had I been watching too many made-for-TV movies? I’d heard of cases in the news where a teenager killed her parents over a boyfriend, but Erin was a grown woman and Carla was her aunt, not her mom.

And what about Patricia’s assertion that Erin had stabbed her mom’s boyfriend? I’d learned nothing about that, other than Erin was handy with a knife. Had Carla been using that knowledge as leverage against Erin?

On the flip side, Erin had exposed a possible motive for Patricia. If she’d set her sights on owning half the spa or at least helping to manage it, she might have reacted badly when Carla turned her down. Erin had mentioned she was a control freak. Maybe she’d snapped.

And what of Ricky? Erin was clearly smitten, but Carla and Patricia both seemed to think he was nothing but trouble. I hadn’t gotten that vibe, but I’d spoken to him for only a few minutes.

I felt a headache coming on, no doubt from all this convoluted thinking. Nothing a chocolate milk shake couldn’t cure. I added one to my cheeseburger order, retrieved my lunch at the take-out window, and headed for the highway.

Back at Esther’s place, I pulled into my parking spot. The day had warmed considerably, and I decided to eat at one of the picnic tables, provided the guests weren’t already dining there. I grabbed my bag and followed the path that wound by the vegetable garden. I was about to turn past the cabins when movement over by the spa tent caught my attention.

I watched Gretchen enter the tent and frowned. Wasn’t she supposed to be sick? Why was she here, skulking around the farm? For one wild moment, I thought she might be robbing the place, cracking under the pressure from the police, but I immediately admonished myself. Entering the place where you worked could hardly be considered skulking. Gretchen was an employee at the farm and could come and go as she pleased. She’d probably recovered from whatever illness had kept her home this morning, and decided to come in.

While I stood there, waiting to see if Gretchen would emerge, I sucked on my straw and noticed the shake was already beginning to soften, even in this mild spring weather. I took one last drag on the straw and walked toward the spa tent, pausing at the doorway.

Gretchen was slouched in the same rattan chair I’d occupied that morning, when I’d called to shuffle her appointments around. Her legs were stretched out in front of her; one arm was draped over her eyes.

I coughed to announce my presence, and she lowered her arm, squinting against the light.
Hmm . . . pale skin, sensitivity to light.
I’d seen Ashlee with these exact symptoms last week, when she’d come home from an all-night party. Perhaps Gretchen’s mystery illness was a hangover.

“Feeling better?” I asked in a hushed tone, in case she
had
tied one on last night.

“Not really,” she said. She pushed against the armrests to raise herself in the chair. The wood creaked in protest. “But all I was doing at home was staring at the wall, feeling sorry for myself. I thought if I came here, I’d at least get some work done.”

I sat down in the other chair and set my lunch on the small table in between. “I’m afraid I canceled all your afternoon appointments. Esther didn’t think you’d be back today.”

“That’s okay. I’m not ready to face any clients yet.” She rubbed at her eyes. “I need to make sure we have enough supplies, put in some orders, and give the massage tables a good cleaning.”

Cleaning seemed to be an activity a lot of people did when they were upset, myself included. After my father passed away, my apartment down in the Bay Area had never been so clean. I’d spent hours scrubbing every square inch, as if I could wipe away my grief, or at least forget about it for a little while.

Gretchen groaned, dragging me from my memories. “What am I going to do? I’m in such a mess.”

She sounded even more morose than the last time we’d talked. Between the rumors from the townspeople and the questions from the police, I didn’t know how much more she could handle.

I leaned forward and laid my forearms on my thighs, my hands dangling between my knees. “Look, keep your head up. As soon as the police find the killer, people will stop gossiping about you. Try not to let the rumors get to you so much. These people don’t know you like I do.”

Gretchen sat up even straighter, her brow wrinkled in confusion. “People are talking about me? What are they saying?”

Now it was my turn to be perplexed. “Isn’t that what you’re upset about?”