Fit To Be Dead (An Aggie Mundeen Mystery Book 1) (15 page)

Twenty-Four

Sam’s colors were too much for a sick person.

At the sight of me, his brows shot up. “For God’s sake, Agatha, what happened this time?”

When he called me Agatha, my head throbbed. I obviously couldn’t tell him somebody pushed me down the gym’s stairs. If I did, he’d tell me not to return to Fit and Firm.

“I fell down the stairs at the club. It’s nothing. Just a little egg on my head. I’ll be okay.”

“You sure don’t look okay. Here, let me see. Get that mushroom off your head.”

He didn’t have to remind me I didn’t look my best. With my operational right arm, I gingerly removed the ice bag. Dampness had flattened the left side of my hair. He stepped closer, gently holding my shoulders as he leaned forward to evaluate my egg. When he peered through his bifocals, chin up, his lips nearly touched my nose. I would have liked a nose kiss, but he focused on my protrusion. “You could have a concussion. Are you having any trouble staying awake? Any sudden sleepiness? You should see a doctor.”

“For a little bump on the head? I slept well all night. I feel normal this morning except for being more sore than usual.” I wasn’t aware of any other sensations until Sam cradled my shoulders. He led me to the sofa, sat me down gently and handed me my ice bag. While I repositioned it, he inspected me. I considered falling against him.

“If you feel any sudden drowsiness, or if that egg doesn’t start shrinking real fast, you need a head x-ray.” He took my hand and gazed into my eyes. “I’ll drive you to the hospital.” For the first time ever, I sensed he viewed me as more than a friend.

Feeling tingly and mellow, I understood, for the first time in my life, what motivated hypochondriacs. I smiled. My puffy eye closed into a wink.

This might be the perfect time to find out how much he knew about Harry. “Meredith told me Harry Thorne went home sick on Tuesday.”

“That’s right. One of the men I stationed at the health club told me about it.”

I hoped he wasn’t referring to the police officer I sweet talked into letting me invade Harry’s office. If Sam found out about that little episode, he’d be furious.

“The officer said Thorne had a stomach bug,” he said.

What had compelled Harry to rise from his sick bed Tuesday night and follow Grace and me to Las Tapitas?

“Thorne came back Wednesday morning but left again the same day.”

Harry must have been desperate to get into Holly’s apartment. Sam let go of my hand and shifted around to study my contusion.

“Around midnight on Wednesday,” he said, “Harry’s neighbor had to drive him to the hospital.”

He leaned back to view my lump from a different angle. “They finally got his stomach settled down, but he was so dehydrated, they had to replace his fluids. He’s back at home resting. Do you know Harry Thorne?”

“I went to see him after Holly’s pool fiasco.”

He frowned at me. He probably thought I should have told him about the incident. I made light of it. “Harry was positive the event was an accident. I think he hates to be wrong. He must have been devastated when Holly was murdered. Plus, think what the publicity could do to the club. Membership could be decimated.”

It was difficult for me, the recent victim of a murder attempt, to be flippant, but I didn’t want Sam to dwell on poor Holly and her baby. And I didn’t want him considering the possibility that somebody had tried to kill me because of my link to Holly. To protect my past and to preserve Sam’s interest, I had to solve this crime fast.

I failed to mention how Harry had glowered at me after I left his office, and I wasn’t about to disclose that I’d spotted him near Holly’s apartment. No way could I mention the little matter of my lying to the police officer to get into Harry’s office and swipe the photograph. I was debating whether to tell him what I’d surmised about Harry and Holly’s relationship when he stood and eyed me suspiciously.

“What else do you know about Harry Thorne?”

“Nothing much.” I shrugged. “The day I went to his office, I glimpsed a photo of two guys boxing. A little girl among the spectators reminded me of Holly.”

“Holly Holmgreen? Harry has a picture of her as a child? What’s the connection between them?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Maybe the child wasn’t Holly.”

“Sounds like I need to pay Thorne another visit.”

“Maybe so.” I shrugged again. It was one shrug too many. Sam backed away and studied me. His eyes narrowed, causing a shock of peppered hair to flop onto his brow. I was afraid his considerable intelligence had kicked in.

“You fell down the steps? Yesterday? At the club? How did that happen?”

“I left something in my locker and returned Saturday to pick it up. My arms were overloaded and I tripped on the stairs.” I refrained from shrugging.

“You went to the club Saturday? After being so sick Thursday night at Sheldon’s house? What was so important that you felt compelled to retrieve it?”

“My curling iron.”

His bullet-brown eyes pierced mine. If only he weren’t a detective. Stalling for time to devise a more convincing answer, I gazed around the room and inadvertently glanced at my computer. Following my gaze, he snapped his eyes to the screen and marched toward it. The orange and black skull and crossbones were hard to miss.

“Poisons! You’re researching poisons!” He whipped around and glared at me, eyes blazing.

“Your nausea, vomiting, weakness...that wasn’t from Sheldon’s food. You’re being poisoned!” He turned white and stomped back to the sofa.

I was weak with relief that I’d turned Harry’s boxing photo face down by the computer and that Sam hadn’t picked it up. He tried not to jog me when he sat.

He grabbed both my hands. “What have you gotten yourself into, Aggie? You’ve got to tell me what’s going on. Look. I’ve already lost Katy and Lee. We both lost Katy and Lee. I can’t lose you, too.”

He cared for me. He didn’t want to lose me. If my body hadn’t been a solid, suffering mass, I’d have melted right there on the couch. He didn’t want me to die. I didn’t want to die, either. I didn’t even want to get old. Especially now that Sam cared.

My eyes filled. Actually, the large one got moist and the swollen one spilled over. He handed me a Kleenex.

“All right,” I said. “I wasn’t sure what was going on until Friday. Actually, I’m still not sure, but I think someone is putting poison in the club’s toiletries.”

His eyes widened to the edge of his tortoise frames as I proceeded to tell him how many times I’d been sick, where I thought the culprit had placed the poison, how anybody could have accessed the plastic bottles and how Sarah told me Holly had dated every guy at the club, including Mickey, Ned and Sheldon. I explained how I’d managed to infuriate all three of them, plus Patricia Drexel, Pete Reeves and probably Knobs and Mindy.

He seemed confused about Patricia, Pete, Knobs and Mindy. He stopped holding my hands, which was a shame. That was as close to him as I could get in my present condition.

“I need to check your locks.” He sprang up and strode to my front door. “You have a dead bolt. Good. And a peephole. Good. Don’t open the door to anybody you don’t know.”

“I never do.” I followed him around the living-dining room while he checked windows. “Sarah Savoy said Harry got upset whenever she or Holly dated club members and staff. I don’t think Sarah likes Harry very much.”

While he examined windows in my bedrooms and baths, I traipsed behind him and confessed to his back about snitching the club’s toiletries and washcloths and taking them to the San Antonio Testing Laboratory. I didn’t mention the bath crystals.

He inspected the door leading from the garage into the kitchen and my back door. “Your locks are secure, but you should lock your garage door, leave your car out and enter your house only from the front until we catch the bastard who’s trying to poison you.”

He returned to the living room and paced in a circle around the sofas. He paced faster and faster as though he feared being a step too late to prevent catastrophe. “I’ll obtain the results from the lab.” His face was red. “Then I will decide, with the department, what action to take.”

Our conversation had lasted long enough that my egg felt smaller when I touched it. I didn’t think the nasty bump would cause any serious trouble, except to remind me I was almost murdered.

Sam must have decided that scolding me wasn’t productive. Having concluded I was not only lucid but aggravating, he remained in investigative mode, crisp and efficient. I’d never witnessed his aggressive detective personality first hand. Having been single for so long, I was rusty dealing with male pride. Once he announced he’d follow up with the lab, he didn’t discuss poisons further.

He said he was researching Holly’s adoption process to glean clues to who might have killed her. That revelation made my head throb harder.

He also told me that in order to counter bad publicity, Fit and Firm would proceed with plans to celebrate its tenth anniversary on Monday. With extra people milling around the club, the event would be the perfect time for him to investigate without raising suspicion.

I kept quiet and let him talk. If he was going under cover, maybe he’d jettison his garish ties. He finally wound down and sat next to me. “We learned more from Grace’s elderly neighbor, Anna.”

My heart skipped. “The lady who said Charlie Livermore chased her granddaughter?”

“Yes. After Charlie died, Anna still lived next door to Grace when she married George Ball.”

My head pulsated. I didn’t want him to talk about Grace. It was pointless and cruel for SAPD to dig into her sad tragedies years after they happened. Couldn’t he just put his arm around me? After all, I had crashed down the stairs. I sidled closer and tried to listen.

“Anna was still helping to raise her granddaughters, Martha and Lettie. When Grace married George, Lettie was twenty, a college junior. Martha, eighteen, had finished high school.”

His eyes were liquid brown and luscious.

“Anna said that after Charlie Livermore tried to molest Martha, she developed problems. During her senior year in high school, she got pregnant.”

“How sad.” I removed my ice bag, sighed and leaned against him.

“Are you all right?” He put his arm around me, like a brother would sling an arm around a pesky sibling. Then he looked down and drew me closer.

“Um-hmm.” I leaned my side under his shoulder and looked up. I trusted him; I knew so much about him. He knew so little about me.

We were close enough to kiss. I tossed the ice bag to the coffee table so it wouldn’t drip on him, snuggled into the crevice of his arm and gazed up, inches from his face. “Does this information have something to do with my dear friend Grace?”

He shifted his position to accommodate the dead weight sagging against him. “That’s why I’m telling you about it. The two families were close, so when Martha’s baby arrived, Grace’s daughters couldn’t wait to babysit. Linda was a student at San Antonio Community College and Kim was a high school junior. They took care of Martha’s baby every chance they got.”

“Grace told me that.”

“Anna and her husband were getting old, and their son was weary of being a single parent for so long. So young Martha decided to place her baby for adoption.”

“I know.” I listened to his voice rumble in his chest. The soothing sound made me sleepy. If he’d just finish his long-winded story, he might kiss me.

“Martha made arrangements with a private adoption agency, but Linda and Kim begged their mother and George to adopt Martha’s child. Grace and George almost agreed to it. Then George reneged. He wasn’t the most energetic guy in the world, his health wasn’t great and his boys were nearly grown. He didn’t want to make new commitments. So, as she had originally planned, Martha placed her baby with Methodist Mission Home. Everybody was depressed over losing the infant. Shortly after that, George Ball suffered his fatal heart attack and everyone was devastated.

“Kim married her high school sweetheart and moved to Oklahoma. Linda shelved her pharmacy school plans, moved to California and opened a health food store near Patrick and Michael Ball’s university.”

I sat upright and stared. “Are you saying that because George Ball didn’t want to adopt the neighbor’s baby, Grace killed him?”

“No. That’s a stretch. But lots of people were angry with George before he died. Suddenly. At age forty-eight.”

I backed away from him. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. George Ball didn’t have any obligation to adopt Martha’s baby. He was too old. Would you adopt a baby now?”

“Probably not.”

“Well, see? This whole idea SAPD conceived about Grace Livermore being a killer is preposterous.”

“Maybe it’s preposterous, maybe not. Moseley will find out.”

I stiffened ramrod straight. “Moseley? Elmore Moseley?”

“Yes. The man dating Grace. He’s about to retire, but the captain talked him into taking one final case.”

I jumped up and stared at him with both eyes bulging and my head about to explode. “You mean Elmore Moseley is dating Grace just to get information? That’s despicable. The worst part is, she likes him. Grace actually likes him!”

He stood and reached for my arms. “He likes Grace, too. He said so. He’s not going to hurt her. He’s a perfect gentleman. If Grace had nothing to do with her husbands’ deaths, she has nothing to worry about. Moseley will retire, and she’ll never realize how they happened to meet.”

My hands flew up. “Of course she’ll know. Grace isn’t a fool. She’ll eventually find out. I’m not a fool, either.” I yanked my chin up, which rattled my head. “It’s time for you to leave.” I backed away.

He looked stunned. “I never said you were a fool. Or Grace, either. Moseley’s just doing his job. Like I’m doing mine.”

“Oh. Is that what I am? Your job?”

“No, I didn’t mean...You’re not my job. You’re...well, you’re Aggie.”