Dying for a Date (14 page)

"Oh, I love a good mystery,” she said. “What's the name of it?"

Stan and I looked at each other in dismay.

"Murder on the Orient Express,” I said while Stan said at the same time, “The Drowned Man."

Vivian looked confused. “What did you say the title was?"

I jumped in before we could make that mistake again. “Uh, the title is Murder of the Drowned Man On The Orient Express. It's a s-sequel to the original m-mystery,” I stammered.

Stan grabbed his coffee cup and avoiding our eyes, said a quick goodbye leaving me alone to deal with Vivian. I made a mental note to get him later.

Vivian reached into the cabinet for a mug. “Speaking of drowning, since you're so interested in murder mysteries, did you hear about that guy who drowned in the American River last weekend? Dr. Slater was my doctor. The paper said the sheriff doesn't think it was an accident."

I was anxious to move the conversation away from the murder aspect of Vivian's family physician. “Did you like him?"

Always anxious to share, Vivian didn't disappoint me. “He was terrific. You know I was upset because I gained so much weight this past year. Dr. Slater devised a diet and exercise plan to help me lose weight. He was very sympathetic about my condition."

I nodded in agreement. “He was so slim you probably just needed to follow his personal diet."

She moved closer and thrust both chins in my face. “How did you know Dr. Slater was slender?"

Note to self. Never have a conversation with Vivian before my first infusion of caffeine.

"I think someone in the office mentioned it yesterday.” Who did Stan say was also a patient of Jeremy's? “Rosa."

"What about Rosa?” she asked, her eyes narrowing into a squint. Someday I would have to tell her it was not an attractive look.

"She said he was her family physician as well. So, what was his helpful advice?” I said, hoping to distract her.

She sat down and elaborated her diet plan for me. “He prepared a chart of food groups to follow, told me to keep track of my carb and fiber grams, and recommended that I try a mild strength building exercise program. He said men are often attracted to large women. In fact last weekend he told me he was going on a date with a woman he described as pretty but pleasingly plump."

Pleasingly Plump? I hoped he was describing his date for Friday night. If Jeremy had called me that to my face, I probably
would
have pushed him in the river.

We needed to shift from the fat fighting conversation to something more constructive—like who done it.

"Can you think of a reason why anyone would want to murder him? Do you know anything about his family or friends?"

She shook her head. “I suppose I'll have to find a new doctor now. I saw his partner, Dr. Radovich, one time when Dr. Slater was unavailable. Dr. Radovich was really abrupt with me. No bedside manner at all.” She shoved back her chair and stood up.

"I've been looking for a new doctor. Maybe I should try this Dr. Radovich.” It couldn't hurt to talk to Jeremy's partner.

Vivian looked at me like I'd lost even more of my marbles.

"I like doctors that are abrupt. They're much more efficient with their time, and mine."

"If you say so. Speaking of which, time to get back to work.” She scurried out of the room, back on the prowl for more worthwhile sources of gossip.

Our conversation had lasted so long my coffee was now lukewarm. I placed my mug in the microwave and set the timer for thirty seconds, mulling over our recent conversation. The bell rang and I eased the cup out carefully. No point in scalding myself with overly hot coffee.

I'd already promised Liz I would visit the Love Club to see if I could find a tie between Garrett and Jeremy. My conversation with Vivian pointed me in another direction—Jeremy's medical practice. So I wasn't one of their patients. That could be rectified easily enough.

I didn't have a clue what kind of clues I would encounter at either location, but anything would be better than nothing. Especially something that would tie Garrett and Jeremy together. Something besides me.

So far all I had netted from my investigation was that Jeremy thought I was fat.

When I returned to my desk, I received a call from Anne in the HR department. We arranged for an interview on Thursday. She seemed pleased with all of my previous experience managing a branch.

My second interruption was from Mrs. Bingham, as she informed the receptionist who put through the call.

"Hello, Mother, how are you today?” I rested the receiver on my shoulder as I continued to review the loan file I was in the middle of underwriting.

"Hello, dear, I wanted to see how you were feeling after your dreadful weekend. Thank goodness your name wasn't mentioned in those newspaper articles about Dr. Slater's death. Can you imagine what would happen to my real estate business if word went out that you were his date that night?"

I personally didn't see how having a daughter as a murder suspect would have any bearing on her ability to sell real estate, but what did I know.

"Have the police contacted you regarding that evening?” she asked.

I pondered the advisability of telling my mother that a detective by the name of Bradford had informed me that I was his chief suspect. “We chatted yesterday. Nothing to worry about."

"Well, that is good news. Are you bringing Ben here on Halloween?"

A few years ago I had taken Ben trick or treating in her neighborhood so she could see how cute he looked in the costume she made for him. Yes, my mother can write up a real estate contract, cook a five-course dinner and sew a child's Halloween costume simultaneously. I still question whether I might be adopted.

"Sorry, not this year. Patti is taking Ben and Jimmy through her neighborhood then she'll drop them at my house."

Wait a minute. If his grandmother really wanted to see her grandson maybe she could pick him up from soccer practice today. I could run over to the Love Club and begin my investigation this evening.

"Mother, it would really help if I could work late tonight and catch up on my underwriting. Could you pick Ben up from practice?"

"I guess I could. But some clients are coming in to write up a contract tonight. Can you be at my office before seven?"

I eagerly assented and we said goodbye.

The majority of my workload was completed by four so I decided to devote the next half hour to perfecting my detecting. Having been an avid murder mystery fan since my first Nancy Drew novel at age nine, I must have developed some innate investigating skills from all the mysteries I'd read in the past thirty years.

Every self-respecting amateur detective always makes a list so I wrote down the potential questions I hoped to get answered from my visit to the Love Club.

Were Garrett and Jeremy acquaintances? Did they share something in common that could be determined from their biographies?

Was someone from the Love Club out to get male clients?

Was someone out to get my dates?

Was someone out to get me?

Were my children in any danger?

Those last two questions tied my stomach in multiple knots, but it only made me more determined to find the answer.

I arrived at the Love Club office shortly after five-thirty. Another young, perky blonde stood behind the front desk. We exchanged smiles as I walked past and into the main room that held all of the alphabetized member books.

An attractive brunette clad in a smart charcoal and pink striped suit, and a silver-haired, silver-goateed man sat at separate tables, books and DVDs piled high in front of each of them. They were so intent on reading the profiles that neither of them looked up as I entered the room.

First I would re-examine both Garrett's and Jeremy's biographies. The book labeled “G” was available, but I couldn't find the “J” book anywhere, even misfiled among the other alphabetized books. Several black notebooks were piled in front of the brunette so one of them might have the “J” entries.

I flipped through the pages of the book until I found Garrett's biography. By now his bio should have been removed. Instead I found a large red inactive banner stapled over his picture. When a member became seriously involved with someone else—regardless if they met them through the Love Club or not—they would notify the club and the inactive banner would be placed through their photo to discourage anyone from choosing them.

I agreed that death automatically made someone inactive, but it didn't seem like the most appropriate category to me. Maybe the police asked them to keep the profiles in the book for a while, hoping to retrieve some additional leads on the killer. Nothing startling jumped out in Garrett's biography but I wrote down his ID number—3377. What I really needed to get my hands on was the book with Jeremy's data.

I drifted over to the other woman's table to see if she had the “J” volume. She was adding a name to the selection list the club provided. The club advised its members to limit their picks to a maximum of eight at a time. Even though the odds were that less than fifty percent of your selections would respond, arranging meetings with four new members of the opposite sex could be quite time consuming, especially for a career woman.

I discreetly glanced down at her choices. I saw a James, Jared and, uh-oh, a Jeremy #4155 on the list. I couldn't remember what Jeremy Slater's ID number was but for her sake I hoped there was another current member in the book named Jeremy.

I tapped her on her shoulder. She looked at me quizzically, her brown hair swinging forward then falling back in place. Nice looking lady. She shouldn't have a problem meeting the man of her dreams as long as she didn't pick any of the men I had chosen.

"Sorry to bother you. I need to look up one of the members I selected a few weeks ago.

"Would you mind if I borrowed the ‘J’ book for a few minutes?"

"Oh, sure. I already have five candidates. That's probably enough for tonight. I usually have a one hundred percent positive response so I don't want to get too booked up."

One hundred percent response. Some women have all the luck. On second thought, it was a good thing I'd received only two positive responses. I couldn't handle any more dead bodies.

I skimmed through the pages and quickly located Jeremy. No inactive banner yet so he was still eligible from a Love Club perspective. I checked out his ID number—Jeremy, 4155.

Ms. Pinstriped suit wasn't going to get a perfect response rate this time.

I compared both men's bios carefully. Other than the fact that they were the same age, forty, and both childless, there were no other similarities I could discern. Garrett was divorced and Jeremy never married. Of course the biographies weren't that detailed. And not particularly original—over eighty percent of the male members said their idea of a romantic evening was to take a moonlight walk on the beach. My idea of a romantic evening was dinner with someone who was still alive the next day.

Since Jeremy's number would have been issued later than Garrett's number, Garrett could have been the one to recommend him to the Love Club. I thought of a way to find out and sauntered over to the front desk. The receptionist's nametag read “Sorrento.” Maybe she was conceived while her parents honeymooned in Italy.

"Sorrento, I was wondering if you could help me? I know the club pays a fee of fifty dollars for any referrals that end up joining. Is there a way to check your records that would show that my friend recommended me?"

"Oh, sure, yeah. The referrals are like listed by number.” She chomped on a piece of gum with the vigor of a cow masticating her cud. “What's your number with the club? I can see if her name is mentioned."

I rattled off Jeremy's number with the ease of an experienced liar. My ability to tell white lies has never been my strong suit, but if I kept up this investigation I could become an expert.

"Nope, no referrals listed under your number. Wait...that number belongs to Jeremy Slater. Are you sure that's the right one?” She crinkled her pert little nose and looked baffled.

"What did you type in? Oh, sorry. My ID number is five four nine eight."

She looked confused. “I thought you said four one five five. It doesn't sound much like five four nine eight."

"Sorry, I get my ID number here confused with my bank PIN. It's so hard to keep track of all of these PINS these days,” I said.

"Boy, that's for sure,” she said, nodding in agreement, “I like have to write my PINS on stickies everywhere or I can't remember them at all. Okay, under that number it shows Liz Somerville as the referral. So I'm like sure she should have received a check from us by now. Do you want me to see if a check went out?"

"No, thanks for looking it up for me."

Okay. That took care of question number one. Garrett didn't refer Jeremy to the Love Club, and Jeremy couldn't have referred Garrett, since Garrett joined first. As far as question number two, unless someone was systematically removing all the forty-year old males that enjoy taking romantic moonlight walks along the beach, there was no way I could tie their murders to the Love Club.

[Back to Table of Contents]

I zoomed out of the club managing to arrive at the Centurion office at exactly 6:59. Punctuality is not my strong suit and my mother is not very forgiving if you screw up her carefully structured schedule.

My parent stood in the reception area conversing with a middle-aged couple. Ben sat cross-legged on the floor, racing bright metal Matchbox cars across the parquet until they crashed into an unlikely obstacle. A large tasseled black cordovan loafer. I shot a glance at Ben's oversized buddy. A thick swatch of blond hair fell over one eye. He looked up at me and winced as a cherry red miniature fire truck rammed his knee.

"Okay, Ben. Your mother is here to pick you up.” He unfurled his long legs easily. Must hit the gym more than I do. But then who doesn't.

"Hi there, um...” I couldn't remember his name.

"Peter Tyler. We met last week."

Mother excused herself from her clients. “Laurel, you remember Peter, don't you?"