Pumped for Murder (11 page)

More silence.

“Good,” Derek said. “Because I don’t have time to name them all. Debbi even picked a fight with little Evie, the most harmless person here.

“Get out of my sight. Both of you.You disgust me.”

Helen left before the two trainers, eager to be away from the gym. She dreaded coming back tomorrow morning.

A
t five forty-five, the morning air felt like warm soup. Helen kissed Phil good-bye in the parking lot at Fantastic Fitness and slid out of his Jeep, gym keys in her hand. Even the sun isn’t up yet, she thought as she made her way to the front door.

But the gym members were. The door was blocked by bodies. Some were thick with muscle, others larded with fat. The fat ones wanted to punish themselves for their excesses. The fit ones were anxious to keep their glow of sweaty grace.

“Excuse me,” Helen said, pushing her way through the spandexed throng. “The gym will open in fifteen minutes. Give me fifteen minutes, please.”

She tapped in the security code on the pad and turned the key in the lock, then opened the doors just wide enough to slide in. Disappointed gym members pounded on the doors, their paradise denied.

Helen flipped on the lights and savored the cool, still air, then turned on the pounding workout music. That made her move faster. To the relentless techno-beat, she booted up the reception desk computers and took the phones off the automatic answering system.

She opened the men’s locker room. All the showers were clean, their white curtains uniformly pushed back. Not so much as a damp towel marred the dressing room benches. She refilled the water dispensers and sliced lemons for the garnish and crossed toward the women’s locker room.

Helen checked the clock. Two minutes to go. She refilled the water pitchers in the women’s lounge and set out a new stack of plastic cups and another plate of sliced lemons.Then she checked the women’s locker room.

All of the shower curtains were pushed back, except the curtain on the shower in the far corner. It hung oddly. Derek must have been in a hurry last night and missed it when he checked the gym. Helen went into the locker room to push it back. There was a black gym shoe on the floor near the showers. Someone must have forgotten her shoe. Helen moved closer and saw the shoe was still on a foot. Which was attached to a leg. A muscular leg that ended in cratered skin where it joined a ripped body. A body where every muscle was stripped of fat. Debbi, now gray-green under the acne bumps, lay faceup inside the shower.

“Oh, no! Oh, please, no. Don’t be dead,” Helen begged.

But she knew this prayer would not be answered.

The gym’s most promising bodybuilder would not be competing anymore.

H
elen fumbled with the gym phone for almost a full minute before she could dial 911.

“Help!” she cried when the 911 operator answered. Her shrill, scared voice seemed to belong to someone else. “There’s a dead woman here. At Fantastic Fitness. In West Hills. In the locker room. No, I don’t think the paramedics can help her. But you can send them. I’m not a doctor.”

She knew she was babbling. As she talked, Helen began to absorb the 911 operator’s calm strength and speak more slowly.

She sat down at the registration desk, took a deep breath and said, “Yes, ma’am, I’m here alone. There’s no one else in the building with me. I don’t think so, anyway. I don’t know if the woman was killed. There’s no blood or bruises. I can’t step outside to wait for the police. There’s a crowd by the door, and they want to kill me.”

Helen could see an angry mob of gym members, shouting and smacking the locked doors.

“Get off the phone and open up!”
screamed a bullet-headed man. Bullet Head slammed a meaty fist against the metal doorframe. Helen hoped he’d bruise his hand.

“It’s six twelve,”
his beefy sidekick yelled. He kicked the door so hard the glass rattled, but it didn’t break. The gym building was stronger than the members—so far.

“No, I’m not in that kind of danger,” Helen tried to explain over the cries of the furious rabble. “The members are angry because I didn’t open the gym on time. Wait! The police are here. I see their car in the parking lot. I’m going to hang up and unlock the doors for them. No, I won’t open until the officers are at the doors.”

Helen was relieved when two muscular West Hills cops in their mid-twenties climbed out of a patrol car in front of the building. The woman officer looked strong enough to rescue an entire orphanage. She was so close that Helen could read her name tag—M. DORSEY.

“Get the yellow tape,” Officer Dorsey told the other cop. His name tag said N. PICKARD. He jogged back to the patrol car, elbowing protestors out of his way.

“I got a right!” shrieked a well-toned woman in navy shorts.

“This is
my
gym,” a man in baggy orange shorts yelled.

“This is
my
crime scene,” Officer Dorsey said. The sturdy woman cop grabbed Baggy Shorts by his stretched-out shirt and said, “Get out of here, you idiot.”

“Get your hands off me,” he shouted. “I’m a lawyer. I’ll sue.”

“I love lawyers,” Officer Dorsey said. “How much do you make an hour?”

“Five hundred dollars.” He puffed out his narrow chest, proud of his earning prowess.

“How about if I slap the cuffs on you and arrest you for failure to obey the lawful order of a police officer? That could take several thousand dollars of your valuable time.”

The lawyer slunk off, trailed by Ms. Toned. The rest of the throng refused to move.

“Crime scene?” a man in green Nike shorts asked. “Was there a murder?”

The word “murder” bounced through the crowd like a loose balloon on a windy day. A man in a faded black T-shirt shouted, “Who died?” The crowd was growing larger.

“Is Carla safe?” a man called out. That was Bryan Minars, hunky husband of Coronado Investigations’ client Shelby. When did he join the party? Helen wondered. And why was he asking about the curly-haired receptionist?

“Is Carla safe? She’s such a sweetie.” “What a Waste” Will stood next to Bryan, a frown creasing his smooth brow.

Logan pushed his way to the front. “It’s not Heather? Is Heather dead?” Since when was the salesman worried about the cute, creamy redhead?

“Please tell me it wasn’t pretty Paula,” one of her suckers begged. Helen recognized him as one of the treadmill runners fixated on her fabulous body. Helen wondered if the chubby older man would bother holding in his gut for anyone else.

She saw several women gym members in the crowd.Why weren’t they asking about Derek? Didn’t they care about the men? What about the less spectacular women? Did only the beautiful deserve to live?

“We aren’t telling you anything until we know something,” the fearless Officer Dorsey said.

“Even if somebody was killed, you wouldn’t have to close the whole gym,” Logan said. “They didn’t die in the sales area, did they? I can still sell memberships. Look at this crowd.” The gym’s number one salesman was prowling for prospects. Even death didn’t stop him.

“Out!” the woman cop commanded. “Leave. All of you.”

Camera phones flashed and photographed the police officer shooing away the crowd. This time, they scattered like spandexed chickens. Helen heard engines start as the stragglers trickled across the parking lot.

Officer Pickard, the male cop with the burred blond head, ran back with a roll of yellow tape.

“What took you so long?” Officer Dorsey asked.

“You can open that door now,” she told Helen.

Helen flipped the door lock open for the two West Hills cops and discovered that at least two gym members had stayed behind. Bullet Head and his beefy friend tried to shove Helen aside and enter the gym.

“You should have opened at six,” Bullet Head said as he pushed Helen against the doorframe. His faded red shirt stank of old sweat. Helen couldn’t breathe.

“Move!” she gasped.

He didn’t budge.

Helen kneed Bullet Head in the groin, and he doubled over, yowling in pain.

“Hey,” Mr. Beefy said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Sorry,” Helen said, though she wasn’t. “There’s been an emergency. The gym is closed.”

“When can we come back?” Mr. Beefy wasn’t quite so belligerent now that his bullet-headed friend couldn’t stand up straight.

Officer Dorsey stood behind him, looking like a rescuing angel—to Helen, anyway. “When we say so. I already told you: Get outta
my
crime scene.”

Suddenly, the doorway was deserted.

“I liked that hurricane-safety procedure you performed on the idiot who tried to push his way in. I’m Officer McNamara Dorsey,” she told Helen. “I go by Mac.”

“What hurricane procedure?” Helen asked.

“You clipped his coconuts,” she said. “That’s the first thing you do when a big wind is on the way.”

“My manager won’t be happy that I kneed a client,” Helen said.

“I didn’t see anything,” Officer Mac Dorsey said. “I wasn’t officially in the building.You see anything, Pickard?”

Her partner shook his head. “I was getting the yellow tape.” He held up the roll.

“Thank you,” Helen said. “The dead woman is in the locker room. This way.”

The two officers followed her through the ranks of bikes and treadmills to the women’s locker room.

“Nice setup here,” Officer Dorsey said.

“Don’t let Logan hear you,” Helen said. “He’ll sell you a membership.”

“I already have a gym,” she said. “Let’s see the victim.”

“She’s in there,” Helen said. She stopped at the entrance to the locker room and pointed toward Debbi’s shoe.

The room’s silence seemed to suck out the air. Helen didn’t want to get near Debbi. Officers Pickard and Dorsey walked closer to examine the body.

“Look at those pecs,” Dorsey said. “She was ripped. EMS can’t help her. She’s DRT.”

“That means dead right there,” Officer Pickard told Helen. “Officer Dorsey will call Ever Ready. That’s Evarts Redding, West Hills homicide detective. He’s always ready for a case—and to nail a suspect. Don’t ever mention his nickname to his face.”

His partner glared at him. “Are you a cop or a color commentator?”

“Can I call our manager?” Helen asked. “Derek needs to know we have a problem.”

“We’ll do the contacting,” Dorsey said.

The two police officers studied the body without touching it. Poor Debbi, Helen thought. She’d sweated, starved, sacrificed and ended up like this.

Finally, she broke the deadly silence. “Debbi had high hopes of getting her picture and trophies in the Fantastic Fitness Hall of Fame,” Helen said. “She was training for the Women’s Novice Muscle title in the upcoming East Coast Physique Championships. Some here thought she was taking steroids.”

“Looks like it. Major acne on her face,” Dorsey said. “And a better mustache than you have, Pickard. And what’s this on the floor?” Officer Dorsey bent down to examine a white pill.

“An aspirin?” Helen guessed.

“Nope. Looks like oxycodone. Hillbilly heroin. Same thing that got Rush Limbaugh busted, except he was no bodybuilder. Better get CSI to bag that. Where I work out, I see some older bodybuilders who push themselves so hard they take pain meds.”

“Do you think she OD’d on steroids?” Helen asked.

“It’s harder to overdose on steroids than you’d suspect,” Dorsey said. “We won’t know how she died until we hear from the ME—and he needs a tox screen. But it looks like she was taking oxy. Add that to fat burners—gonadotropins—and ’roids, and you got sort of a steroid-laced speedball. Was her death suicide or murder? That’s a question for the medical examiner. Glad I don’t have to answer it.”

“She was definitely upset yesterday,” Helen said. “Debbi planned to walk off with a trophy. Practically had the spot picked out for it in our trophy case. She was all set to win. Then she showed up here with acne so bad it looked like smallpox, a mustache like a seventies disco dude and these odd craters under her skin.”

“Overdid it,” Dorsey said. “Wrong dose of steroids, not enough carbs or water.”

“She was crazed when she first realized she couldn’t compete,” Helen said. “Started screaming, threatening, throwing weights at people.”

“Homicide will want the names and numbers for everyone who was here yesterday when she went ballistic.”

“Those are in the computer at the reception desk,” Helen said.

“We’ll wait till CSI prints that area,” Dorsey said. “Then you can get the contact information. Someone’s rattling the door now. Looks like the party is about to start.”

The two cops followed Helen toward the front door. Yesterday, Derek the manager had brought in a crew to clean up the shattered glass after Debbi’s ’roid-rage tantrum. Now the window overlooking the inside of the gym was boarded up. The free weights had been moved to an empty workout studio. The weight machines were off limits until the glass was replaced.The former weight-room door was strung with yellow CAUTION tape.

“Whoa!” Officer Dorsey said. “What happened upstairs?”

“Someone threw a thirty-pound weight at the glass, and it shattered.”

“Someone with anger issues,” the cop said. “Who?”

“Debbi, the dead woman.”

“Who was she aiming for?”

“Me,” Helen said.

H
elen hated Homicide Detective Evarts Redding from his first comment about Debbi Dhosset.

“Did she want to look like that? On purpose?” he asked.

What? Helen thought. Dead? Of course she didn’t want to be dead. Then she realized the detective was talking about Debbi’s sinewy carcass, all muscle and gristle.

Detective Ever Ready’s funereal gray suit was perfect for viewing a dead woman. Helen wondered how he could stand a suit and tie in the swampy South Florida summer.