Pumped for Murder (12 page)

He looked down on Debbi.The sneer on his face seemed permanent. His white flyaway hair and age-spotted hands marked him ready for retirement, but Helen suspected that was one conclusion he wasn’t going to jump to anytime soon.

“Debbi was a bodybuilder,” Helen said. “She devoted her life to stripping every last ounce of fat off her muscles.”

“Mother Nature will do that now,” Ever Ready said. “No one’s thinner than a skeleton.”

Helen felt a weird urge to defend Debbi. “Competition bodybuilding is not my world. But she supposedly had a real chance to be a champion.”

Poor Debbi did look grotesque. Her washboard abs were hard knobs under her black suit. Her biceps were croquet balls. A dragon ridge of muscle ran along her shoulders. The bodybuilder looked inhuman in death. Even her mustache seemed thicker. Was the old wives’ tale true? Did hair grow after death?

“That girl needs a shave,” the detective said, and rubbed his own smooth chin. “You sure this Debbi wasn’t one of those he-shes? Looks kinda tiny on top for a girl. Guess you can’t develop
those
chest muscles or surgeons wouldn’t be selling implants. She sure overworked everything else.”

Detective Ever Ready gave his own gut a self-satisfied pat and said, “Granted, I could lose a few pounds myself.”

You could lose more than a few, Helen thought. You’re on the express train to Fat City.

She made a superhuman effort to keep her mouth shut. The last thing Helen needed was to attract the fury—and curiosity—of a homicide detective. There’s a body buried in a St. Louis basement, she reminded herself. It has to stay that way for the sake of your sister and your innocent nephew, Tommy Junior. Be cooperative. Don’t confront Ever Ready.

She forced herself to smile. “None of the women in the locker room complained that Debbi wasn’t a woman,” Helen said, “and they would know when she undressed. Looks like she didn’t change out of her clothes from yesterday. She’s still wearing the same workout suit.”

“What was her race? Was she black, white, Mexican, or mutt? Her skin color doesn’t look right. It’s got a shine like a rotten fish,” Ever Ready said.

“That’s a spray-on tan,” Helen said. “Many bodybuilders prefer to spray on several coats of color rather than risk a sunburn. It looked better when she was alive.”

“Anyone here at this gym have a reason to kill Miss Dhosset? I’m assuming she’s not married. Not the way she looks.”

“I don’t know her marital status,” Helen said. “I’ve only worked here a short time. She wasn’t popular. Debbi got in fights with gym members, but I don’t think someone would kill her over a TV clicker.”

“You’d be amazed what people kill each other over,” Ever Ready said. “Athletic shoes, pocket change, video games. Just tell me what you know. It’s my job to think. I need to sit down. Let’s use one of those empty desks over there.”

Crime scene techs were at work, crawling on the floor, measuring, videotaping, dusting for prints. They’d finished the reception desk, then moved to the women’s locker room.

A uniformed officer stood at the Fantastic Fitness door, keeping out gym members and delivery people. So far as she could figure, Helen was the only non–law enforcement person in the gym. She followed Ever Ready on his march to the sales area.

The detective flopped down at Logan’s desk, his belly vibrating a bit. Helen was secretly gleeful that he’d commandeered the salesman’s desk. She wondered if Logan could sell the fathead a fitness package. Would Ever Ready slap the cuffs on Logan for daring to suggest it? The thought made her smile.

“Something funny, Miss Hawthorne?” Ever Ready asked.

“No, no,” she said. “Must be hysteria.” She figured he’d like that excuse. This man believed women were the weaker sex, no matter how many muscles they had.

“Nothing to be worried about now.” Ever Ready gave her a condescending smile. “I know you girls get scared when you see a body, but I’m used to it.” He straightened his tie and tried to smooth down his flyaway hair.

Was he preening for her? Helen twisted her gold wedding band, hoping he’d notice she was married.

“Now, tell me what happened with Miss Dhosset,” he said.

Helen told him about the bodybuilder’s fight with the creamskinned Heather over the TV channel and yesterday’s battle with her would-be trainers, Tansi and Kristi.

“Our manager, Derek, barred Debbi from the gym for her abusive behavior,” Helen said. “That practically made her an orphan, she spent so much time here. I don’t know where Debbi lived, but this was her real home.”

“Doesn’t sound like a happy family,” Ever Ready said.

“It had good and bad moments,” Helen said, “like any family.”

“But these family members liked to feud,” Ever Ready said.

“She got in fights,” Helen said. “But she felt bad about it later. She and Heather made up yesterday.”

“Who started the fence-mending?” Ever Ready asked.

“Heather. She brought Debbi a fruit smoothie and they shook hands.”

“And Miss Dhosset didn’t have any more fights after the one with Heather?”

“Well, no,” Helen said. She really didn’t want to say this, but he’d find out anyway. “Debbi ticked off Evie.”

Ever Ready sat up, a glint of interest in his eye. “Think Evie killed her?”

“Evie isn’t strong enough to swat a fly,” Helen said. “She works out with weights the size of toothpicks.”

“Size doesn’t make any difference,” Ever Ready said. “I had a wife kill her husband because he said, ‘What, meatloaf again?’ when she served him dinner. She was a little bitty thing, weighed seventy pounds soaking wet. She put antifreeze in his beer while he watched TV that night and murdered him.

“I’ve been a homicide detective for going on thirty years, up north in Wisconsin and now down here in Florida. I know more about murder than you ever will, Miss Hawthorne. Here’s the most important fact: Watch the quiet ones. They take it and take it, and then one day that rage busts loose and they start killing. Sometimes the little ones are deadlier than the big guys. Sneakier, too.

“You don’t need muscles to poison someone,” Ever Ready said. “When I see funny-looking pills at a murder scene, I naturally start wondering if the death was suicide or murder.”

“Suicide,” Helen said. “I think it was suicide.”

“There you go thinking again,” he said. “That’s my job. I’m the murder expert.” Another condescending smile.

“I know that,” Helen said. “But I saw Debbi yesterday. She was so disappointed when she couldn’t compete. She carried on like her life was over.”

Maybe she was laying it on a little thick, but Helen was frightened. She couldn’t have Ever Ready go after poor little Evie. Was he ready to jump to one of his conclusions?

“But if you’re right”—the detective said that as if he was sure Helen was wrong—“Miss Dhosset would consider herself a work of art. She wouldn’t destroy the body she was so proud of building. She was still young. She had lots of chances to win competitions.”

“She did say something like that,” Helen said. “Debbi seemed in a better mood after the reconciliation with Heather. Heather gave her a drink. Maybe there was poison in it. The cup is still in the trash.”

“I know how to do my job, Miss. Hawthorne,” he said. “It will be bagged and tagged, along with all the other evidence. Sounds like Miss Dhosset had a real gift for stirring up people. She was asking for it.”

“You think she caused her own death?” Helen didn’t try to hide her disbelief.

“In a way, yes. She chose her killer, too. Vics like Debbi have a sixth sense for choosing their killer. I want to talk to this Evie. What’s her full name? How old is she?”

“Evie Roddick,” Helen said. “I don’t know her exact age. She’s fiftysomething.”

“Women that age are unstable,” Ever Ready said. “They get jealous of younger women when they go through the change of life.”

Helen had her mouth clamped so tightly she could feel her jaw muscles cramp. She was afraid to say a word while Ever Ready leaped from one crazy conclusion to another, like a madman skipping across the rocks on a creek.

“You got a contact number?” he asked.

Finally, a question she could answer safely. “I can look it up on the computer at the reception desk,” she said.

“CSI is finished over there. Get me Evie’s contact information and everyone else the vic had a fight with. I want all the major players at this gym.”

“Major how?” Helen asked.

“Managers, salespeople, trainers, all the gym personnel. And the gym members she had fights with.”

It was a long list. Helen delivered the first page with Evie’s name at the top, then returned with another batch of printouts.

An angry Ever Ready thumbed his cell phone shut as she handed him the second pile. “I thought you gave me the phone number for Evie Roddick.”

“I did,” Helen said.

“Some guy answered and said she doesn’t live there. Moved out weeks ago.You got a cell phone for her?”

“Sorry,” Helen said. “That’s the only number we have. Guess she didn’t update her contact information.”

“She’s hiding something,” Ever Ready said.

“Could be she’s going through a bad divorce and doesn’t want her husband to know where she’s living now,” Helen said. She’d been in that situation herself, but she wasn’t about to tell the detective.

Too late. Ever Ready had already made his leap.

“Mark my words,” Ever Ready said. “She’s guilty.”

A
fter her day with Detective Ever Ready, Helen felt like she’d been run over by a trash truck. She trudged home from the gym, limp hair straggling down her sweat-damp neck. Her clothes were wrinkled and her makeup was gone, except for the raccoon eyes created by her smudged liner.

At the Coronado apartments, she ran into Margery hosing the pool deck. Actually, her landlady was hosing down her feet in their purple flip-flops. She reminded Helen of a kid playing in a lawn sprinkler. A cynical kid with gray hair who smoked Marlboros.

Helen waved and called her name.

Margery turned off the hose and said, “You look like hell. Get in my apartment and cool off. Get yourself a drink.”

Helen obeyed. She fixed herself a tall ice water and collapsed at Margery’s kitchen table.

Her landlady nuked a brownie the size of a potholder. Margery kept an endless supply in the freezer for emotional emergencies.When Phil joined them, their landlady nuked another, then fixed herself a screwdriver that was short on orange juice and long on liquor.

Margery sat at her kitchen table, smoking, sipping and watching Helen and Phil demolish their brownies. Helen turned down the offer of the screwdriver, then tore into her warm brownie and wished she could make Detective Ever Ready disappear as fast.

As she revived, she told Margery and Phil about Debbi’s death, the angry mob of gym members and the West Hills detective who jumped to conclusions.

“Ever Ready has decided—on no evidence at all—that Evie poisoned Debbi,” Helen said. “When I told him that Heather had given Debbi a fruit smoothie, he wasn’t interested. It seems to me, Heather had the easiest way to poison Debbi—if she even died that way.”

“And you think this Heather woman would poison Debbi over a fight about a television channel?” Margery said.

“People kill for stupider reasons than that,” Phil said.

“That’s exactly what Ever Ready said,” Helen told him. Her tone made it clear she didn’t appreciate Phil’s conclusion.

“Sounds like you need a drink after the day you had,” Phil said.

“I’d rather work on Gus’s case,” Helen said.

“If you’re sure,” Phil said. “You look like you’ve spent the day in a cement mixer.”

“I’ve spent the day with an idiot,” Helen said. “I want to spend time with a smart man.”

“Glad you put me in that category,” Phil said. “The paperwork is at my place. I’ll make us coffee.”

Ten minutes later, Helen settled on Phil’s couch with a stapled pile of paper and a cup of strong coffee.

“This is a copy of Mark’s 1986 accident report from Sunset Palms.”

“How did you get that?”

“It’s public record,” Phil said. “Easy to find once I had the right city. I’ve made copies for both of us.”

Helen was surprised the report was so thick—twenty pages. The report reduced Mark’s fatal beauty to gray language, neat numbers and checkmark choices. Each small detail added to its chilling weight.

The report, numbered 86-3866, was signed by Officer Dolan Hayward. His clear writing was back-slanted, if as pointing backward in time.

“Florida Uniform Accident Report,” it began. “Agency Name: S.P.P.D.” That must be Sunset Palms Police Department, Helen decided. The location was Broward County, the street address 3868 Palmwood Boulevard. Hayward had recorded the accident time as 1:43 p.m. “Time notified” was the same.

“One injured,” Hayward had written. “Number of vehicles involved—three.” Not just cars were damaged—Mark also had crashed into a building, Ahmet’s Elegant Imports Co.

Mark had been driving a black ’85 Chevy Monte Carlo, sporty wheels for a single man. Helen could see the car in her mind—shiny, chromed, fast.

Officer Hayward had used a diagram on the form to show the accident damage to Mark’s Monte Carlo. The front end and fenders had been crushed. He must have hit the building hard.

Before Mark crashed into the building, he’d also smashed into Ahmet’s car—a parked red ’83 Mercedes registered to Ahmet’s Elegant Imports.After Mark damaged the front end of the Mercedes, he drove into the building. Ahmet’s wounded red Mercedes spun around and collided with a parked white Ford belonging to Lorraine Yavuz.

Black, white, red—cars the colors of death.

“Who is Lorraine Yavuz?” Helen asked. “A relative?”

“Ahmet’s mother,” Phil said. “His father is dead. I found that out myself.”