Lizzy Gardner #2_Dead Weight (2 page)

With few leads and little evidence, Lizzy igured this could very well be her first and last cold case.

She tapped the rubber end of her pencil against her chin and glanced outside. It was so hot she could see the heat coming off the asphalt in waves. The streets of downtown Sacramento were empty.

Whenever it hit triple digits, the crowds ran to local waterways to cool off. Many schools would not be in session for a few more weeks, which told her the American River was probably teeming with rafts and rowdy kids today.

The moment she looked back at her notes, the door opened.

Lizzy looked up. Ever since being credited with putting away Spiderman, a notorious serial killer, business had picked up.

The woman who walked through the door was tall and slender. She looked like a movie star—a young Sharon Stone. She wore a body-hugging sheath dress with a black and white graphic design.

Suddenly Lizzy felt underdressed in her T-shirt and jeans. “What can I do for you?”

“My name is Andrea Kramer,” the woman said. “I want to hire you to find my sister.”

Lizzy gestured toward the chair facing her desk and then dropped her pencil into the old mayo jar her niece had paper-mâchéd.

Andrea stepped closer, leaving the door to click shut behind her.

The woman’s cheeks, Lizzy noticed, looked a little too hollow, her arms a little too bony. Glancing at the pastry wrapped in waxed paper next to her iced vanilla latte, Lizzy had to stop herself from offering the woman her lunch. “When was the last time you saw your sister?”

After taking the offered seat, Andrea looked at the ground before opting to keep her giant leather purse on her lap. Smart woman.

Lizzy didn’t take offense. She had her priorities and cleaning the carpets wasn’t one of them.

“It’s been more than six months since I saw my sister,” Andrea said.

“Have you gone to the police?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“After much harassment on my part, and waiting a ridiculous number of days, they inally wrote a report. It took them three months to talk to Diane’s co-workers, shuf le through the drawers in her apartment, talk to one elderly neighbor, and conclude that my sister is a runaway.”

“What have you been doing in the meantime?”

The woman snorted, a dainty little noise. “A better question would be what
haven’t
I done?” Andrea reached into her purse, pulled out a plastic three-ring binder, and set it on Lizzy’s desk. “I have been gathering information: phone numbers of family and friends, recent photographs of Diane, anything and everything that might help
you
find her.”

Lizzy took the binder. It was divided by colored sheets, complete with color-coded tabs. Neat and orderly. Lizzy couldn’t help but wonder if the woman needed a filing job.

The irst section consisted of a ive-by-seven color picture of Diane Kramer, age twenty-eight, ive foot ive, 255 pounds. Without the round face and chipmunk cheeks, she and Andrea could be twins.

The next page described Diane’s personality: happy, funny, and caring. Diane adored kids and worked many hours with special needs children at The Helping Hand, a K-12 school in Sacramento.

Diane was also smart: BS in Biological Science, summa cum laude, graduating in the top one percent at CSU, Chico.

There were sections in Andrea’s binder titled Description, Hobbies, Education, Police, Friends, Family, and Miscellaneous.

The green section labeled Police was the thinnest. That didn’t surprise Lizzy. Often times police enforcement agencies only looked for missing persons in speci ic cases. They had limited resources and sadly, only a very few cases got the media attention they needed.

As Lizzy flipped through the pages, Andrea talked.

“As you can see, my sister is obese. She’s had a weight problem her entire life.”

The word ‘obese’ had not entered Lizzy’s mind. Although she could only see her face, Diane looked healthy and happy. “Did the extra weight bother your sister?”

Andrea nodded. “Gaining weight. .losing weight. .it’s all Diane talked about. She tried every diet on the planet: Weight Watchers, Nutri-system, Medifast, Jenny Craig, Atkins, Dr. Sears’ Zone, South Beach, and then all of the crazier diets, too, like ear stapling, the Cotton Ball Diet and the Chewing Diet, to name a few.”

“The Chewing Diet?”

“You chew each bite of food at least forty times or for thirty seconds, I forget. Then you tilt your head back and swallow any liquid you’ve generated from all that chewing. Everything else has to be spit out.”

Gross. “Did any of these diets work?”

“No, which is why the police determined my sister gave up and ran away. But that’s ridiculous. Diane would never leave without telling me where she was going. Never. She loved her job at the school where she works. The kids at The Helping Hand adore my sister.”

“It says here that she talked of suicide.”

“Only once. Diane and I had a pact and she never would have broken it.”

Lizzy lifted a questioning brow.

“We agreed she had to call me if she ever had suicidal thoughts again. I always igured that would give me a chance to talk her out of it.”

“Did she ever call you?”

“No, not for that reason. We did talk on the phone nearly every day. I have three kids and a husband and she has dozens of kids in her classes, which provides us with endless conversational material.”

The binder, Lizzy decided, was impressive. “Looks like you’ve interviewed her friends.”

“And acquaintances,” Andrea said. “Ever heard of Anthony Melbourne?”

Lizzy shook her head.

“Flip over to the last red tab,” Andrea instructed. “He’s a motivational speaker. Some call him a itness guru. He’s been compared to Jack LaLanne and Tony Little.”

That explained why Lizzy had never heard of Anthony Melbourne.

Lizzy wouldn’t know a treadmill if it bit her in the ass. She lipped to the red tab titled Anthony Melbourne.

“In the beginning of his career as a itness guru he traveled around the world,” Andrea explained, “but now he’s concentrating on his seminars and retreats so he stays close to home. He also runs a very popular gym, which happens to be right here in Sacramento. He’s been on PBS and the Home Shopping Network more than a few times selling his products.”

Lizzy nodded, waited.

“Diane used to talk about this guy as if he was God.”

Andrea’s sarcasm was not lost on Lizzy. The woman was not pleased with Anthony Melbourne.

“My sister thought he was the most caring, sensitive man in the world and she spent a lot of money listening to Melbourne’s. .umm—”

“Bullshit?”

“Yes.”

“Are you saying you think this Melbourne guy had something to do with your sister’s disappearance?”

Andrea thought about that for a moment. “Yes, I guess that’s what I’m saying. In my other life before marriage and kids, I was a manager of a large retail outlet. I did the hiring and I interviewed a lot of people. I could tell if they were lying. I’ve always been a big proponent of following my gut. People have instincts for a reason. I don’t trust Melbourne and I didn’t believe him when he told me he hadn’t seen my sister in months.”

Lizzy lipped back to the Police section where Andrea had provided a copy of the full police report. “The police report says that Diane cleaned out her savings a few days before she disappeared and that her I.D., wallet, and personal effects were never found, which would point to someone leaving on their own terms.”

“I understand,” Andrea said. “But hear me out. What if Diane was going somewhere to lose weight? What if she had taken that large sum of money and paid Melbourne in return for some. .I don’t know. .magical pill or crazy diet program that she thought might work once and for all?”

“Did you insinuate as much to Melbourne when you talked to him?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“He laughed. But for a millisecond he looked away. Anthony Melbourne was de initely lying: looking away, stammering, and talking in a defensive tone. You name it, he did it. I’m not saying he killed my sister, although I wouldn’t put it past him. I’m just telling you that my gut tells me he knows something.”

“Did the police talk to Melbourne?”

“Twice. They said Melbourne was more than cooperative, even turned over his records which showed that my sister had purchased his DVD’s, Tshirts, and every book he’s ever put on the market. They also con irmed that Diane attended two of his workshops: one in San Francisco and one right here in Sacramento only a few weeks before she disappeared.”

“What about boyfriends?”

“Diane never had a boyfriend.”

“Never went on a date?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Girlfriends?”

Andrea pointed to the binder. “Under the yellow tab labeled Friends. Her best friend is Lori Mulcher. They met at Chico where they attended college together. After they graduated they both landed jobs at The Helping Hand in Sacramento.”

“So, everything you know about your sister is in this binder?”

“That’s right.”

“You feel one hundred percent certain that there was nothing your sister wouldn’t tell you. For instance, did she have any unusual hobbies?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Drugs, men, gambling?”

Andrea shook her head. “She would have told me.”

“Or so you think. You have doubts. I can see it in your eyes.”

Andrea looked to her lap and seemed to be thinking hard about something. .or maybe about how much she should say.

Lizzy felt like the bad guy, like the Grinch or one of the bratty kids who wouldn’t let the rabbit eat some Trix, and she didn’t like it one bit. She and her therapist had jumped many hurdles over the past fourteen years, but guilt in all forms still hovered over Lizzy like a thick black cloud.

“I did recently learn that there was a man—” Andrea used her chin to gesture toward the binder, “under Miscellaneous—a man named Michael Denton who sometimes visited my sister on the weekends.”

“Why would you hold back that critical piece of information?”

“I wasn’t exactly holding back. I’m telling you now and it’s all in the binder, but it’s embarrassing. He’s not her boyfriend. The police told me that Michael Denton is what’s known as a Feeder.” She sighed.

“He likes to feed people, especially fat women. I’ve done some research and there’s something known as feederism where sexual grati ication is attained by the mere process of someone gaining weight.” She shook her head.

“And your sister never mentioned Michael in any of your conversations?”

“Never. The police tell me he’s harmless. But my sister is missing.

He’s definitely on my radar.”

“Anything else? Did your sister get any new piercings or tattoos recently?”

“No.”

Andrea Kramer was overly con ident, Lizzy decided. Nobody could possibly know everything about someone. .even a family member. “It looks like you’ve not only done your homework,” Lizzy said, “but you’ve done all of my work, too.”

“Then I haven’t made myself clear. I came here today because I want you to follow Anthony Melbourne.”

Lizzy pulled another pencil from her jar and tapped the rubber end against her desk. “You’re convinced he has something to do with this.”

“I’m convinced he knows something, yes. He’s holding a seminar in San Francisco this weekend.”

Lizzy flipped back to the section of the binder titled Melbourne. “You want me to attend his seminar?”

Andrea nodded. “I also think it would be bene icial for you to take his personal training class.”

Taking this job would be like taking candy from a baby and it just didn’t seem right. Lizzy leaned over the desk and looked Andrea in the eyes, making sure the woman listened closely. “I charge an hourly rate for surveillance and that’s not counting mileage or other investigative procedures which would all be add-ons. Anthony Melbourne travels, which means you would be paying an overnight rate if I stay the night. It could cost you a lot of money. And all because you think Melbourne is acting a little strange? I would love to help you, Andrea, but I don’t think it would be wise of you to hire me.”

Andrea leaned over the other side of the desk, mirroring Lizzy’s every move as she looked back, unblinking, into Lizzy’s eyes.

Lizzy couldn’t help but feel envious of the woman’s big blue eyes, high cheekbones, and perfectly sculpted lips. Some girls had all the luck.

“I’ve been married for ifteen years,” Andrea told her. “We have three children; one is a teenager. I know when they aren’t telling me the truth. I like to think of it as woman’s intuition. Anthony Melbourne is hiding something and I want to know what it is.”

Hard to believe Andrea had been married for ifteen years and had three kids. The woman didn’t look a day over twenty-nine.

“Diane is my only sibling,” Andrea went on. “Despite our nine-year age difference, most people think we’re twins. Well, at least they did before she gained all of that weight. She’s my other half. We inish each other’s sentences more often than not. She loves my children as if they were her own. She still mourns the death of our mother and she blames herself for the accident that took our mother’s life. I believe Diane’s food obsession can be traced back to that tragic day. It’s true that I knew nothing about this Michael guy until I started investigating, but you must believe me when I tell you that I know Diane better than I know myself. She did not run away. She’s in trouble. When Diane irst disappeared, I heard her calling for me. I would wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, thinking she was in the room, but she was never there.”

Lizzy knew all about waking up in a cold sweat. “Are you still having nightmares?”

“About three months after Diane disappeared, I stopped hearing her voice. I still have a hard time sleeping, but no, I no longer feel her breath against my face as she whispers into my ear, trying to tell me something.”

Andrea Kramer appeared credible and her story was certainly compelling. Lizzy had never met Diane Kramer, but she, too, was convinced the young woman was in trouble.

“I need your help, Ms. Gardner.”