Weapons of Mass Distraction (10 page)

Lorena had a younger brother, Marco, whom she’d been working with part-time for a year. She was divorced and had one daughter, Marnie, currently away at college. Lorena’s house was paid off and she lived within her means. Judging by her credit history, she made just enough money to support herself and her daughter. I typed the daughter’s name into a search engine and found her immediately in a puff piece for the
Montgomery Gazette
. She was a classic case of small town girl makes good, having won a partial scholarship. She majored in pre-law, and was currently in her sophomore year. Mother and daughter shared the same beautiful, wide, brown eyes and thick, glossy hair. I didn’t find anything on the ex-husband so I added a question mark to the form I was filling out.

It took a few seconds of internet searching to find the phone number of Lorena’s workplace. I dialed it and asked to speak to Marco, but the assistant told me he was out of town for a few days on bereavement and unreachable. I declined to leave a message.

Next, I called his cell phone, easily finding it on Lorena’s phone bill. I called but no one picked up. Hanging up, I redialed, and this time, it clicked through to his answering service so I left a message. I told him who I was, and asked him to call me back.

When I logged onto a photo-sharing site that Lorena had introduced me to only a week before, in order to print a recent photo of her, I saw it. Tucked away, a few dozen thumbnails down the page, was the photo that changed everything and made the big question mark hanging over the case even more intriguing.

Jim, Karen, and Lorena all knew each other.

Clicking on the thumbnail, it opened to full size. Filling the screen were the three recently deceased. Lorena stood in the middle, wearing a knee-length, floral shift and a boxy, white jacket. Jim and Karen both leaned in from each side, cheesy grins on their faces, glasses of wine in their hands. All three wore an employee identification badge, clipped to some part of their attire, with a photo and name. The caption read “Simonstech annual party,” and was dated approximately two years ago.

I rummaged through my research notes, looking for information, and finding it, which really made my heart race. I leaned back in my chair, steepling my fingers under my chin as the pieces clicked together. Each one of the happy trio had taken new jobs within the last fourteen months. Two years ago, they looked carefree and friendly at Simonstech, their previous employer. Did something happen to make all three leave within months of each other? And did that mysterious something have anything to do with why they all died in the past week?

I grabbed the photo from the printer and knocked on Solomon’s open door. He had his phone pressed to his ear as he waved me in, continuing to listen while I sat. After “yes,” “no” and “keep me informed,” he put the phone down, giving me his full attention.

“I’ve got something,” I told him.

“Me too.” He gave me a nod as he waved his forefinger. “You first.”

“You look pleased with yourself.”

“Tell you in a minute. What’ve you got?”

“Michael may have been onto something. Jim Schwarz, Karen Doyle, and Lorena Vasquez knew each other.” I slid the print across the desk and Solomon picked it up, his eyes running over it. “They all worked at the same firm two years ago. Then, within the last fourteen months, they all took new jobs,” I explained.

“This is good.”

“I know!” I grinned. So shoot me. I was practically bursting from potentially breaking the case wide open. Not a murder, my ass! Take that, Detective Maddox!

Solomon lay the photo on his desk and folded his hands over the top. He leaned forward. “I just got off the phone with the ME. She ran a tox panel on Jim and it came back with elevated levels of something that gave her cause for concern.”

“Such as?”

“She needs to run more tests to identity it. All she could say was it was a poison. When the results come back from the tests on the evidence you collected, I suspect we’ll find trace evidence on the bike’s handlebars as the entry point. Based on that result, the ME ran the same test on Karen Doyle.”

“Same thing?” I asked, with a hopeful expression.

“Nope,” he said and I deflated, my shoulders sagging at the news. “But, she was concerned enough to run a few more tests when I suggested it. Karen Doyle died of a severe allergic reaction to peanut oil. The ME was prepared to write that off as natural because Karen wore a medical bracelet, declaring her allergy. However, her water bottle tested positive for peanut oil too, which leads us to believe she didn’t take it knowingly or intentionally. We’re not looking at one murder, Lexi, we’re looking at three, and you just found the connection that suggests one person might be responsible.”

“That’s…” I started to say, great, but as the gravity of the situation sunk in, I couldn’t help gulping. Someone wanted those three people dead. “That’s… bad,” I finished.

“Very bad,” agreed Solomon.

~

Before my shift started the following day, I had to tell Michael what happened in his gym was not at all his fault, as far as I could see; and actually, a helluva lot worse. It really wasn’t a conversation that I looked forward to having, but he was paying the agency to get to the bottom of the deaths, and this major breakthrough was exactly the kind of news he needed to hear. Needed, but perhaps, not wanted.

I doubted he wanted to hear what I had to say at all.

“They’ve been murdered,” Michael repeated, taking a deep breath and blinking. We were sealed up tightly in his office, far away from prying ears, but he still kept his voice low. Finally, he looked up and gave a shake of his head. “That’s great!”

I squeezed my eyes shut and winced. “Not really.”

“It’s great that the gym isn’t responsible.”

“Even though they knew each other, it doesn’t change the fact that all three victims were your clients and someone targeted them. No matter why, we can’t escape
where
.” I circled a finger in the air, indicating the whole gym.

Michael’s shoulders slumped. “You’re right. This sucks. Why would someone want to murder my clients?”

“Could be a crime of opportunity,” I suggested. “We only know for sure that Jim Schwarz was targeted here. We don’t know how or where Karen Doyle was poisoned, only that she probably was. It could be coincidental that she collapsed and died here.”

“And Lorena?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t fit that she wasn’t poisoned, but it’s early in the investigation yet.”

“So what now?” Michael wanted to know.

I thought back to the conversation I had with Solomon before leaving the agency in search of a hot shower and a warm bed, when I asked the same question. I gave Michael the condensed version. “The ME will make the report to the homicide division and they’ll open murder investigations into Jim and Karen. The inquiry into Lorena’s death is already underway.”

“And you? The agency?”

“If you want to end our investigation, we’ll turn over our report to them, plus, any evidence we collected, and they can take it from there.”

Michael ran a hand over his closely cropped hair and leaned back. He looked tired all of a sudden, like he hadn’t been sleeping well. I concluded he probably hadn’t. “What about the gym? The spin studio got cleaned already, and the treadmills get wiped down every night, along with all the other equipment.”

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” I assured him. “Detective Maddox was here right after Jim died, and he said it wasn’t a murder and cleared the studio. Of course, you were going to clean it. What else could you do? Wait for him to change his mind? If it makes you feel any better, at least, you called the agency in to check things over. Plus, if it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have started investigating, and Solomon wouldn’t have called the ME and suggested running a tox panel. The homicide squad will probably thank you!”

Michael brightened. “You think they’ll thank me?”

“Not likely, but there’s always that small possibility.” I held my thumb and forefinger an inch apart. On second thought, I moved them closer together, until there was barely a gap. I figured Maddox would probably be furious to learn he cleared a murder scene right after his boss finished chewing him out. “Listen, here’s the thing, Michael. Montgomery PD is going to take over the investigation very soon. We can turn our evidence over and leave them to it. You pay the agency fees and we’re done. Or…” I hesitated, letting him fill in the blanks.

Michael stayed quiet for several long minutes. Finally, he looked up and fixed his eyes on me, just when I stopped pacing his room and began to stroke one of his many trophies. “No,” he said, “I want you to stay undercover. The police are only interested in catching the killer. As self-preserving and callous as it sounds, I’m interested in preserving the good name of the gym and I don’t want a serial killer targeting my members. The minute that idea gets out, the members are gone and we’re through. There’re too many jobs at stake for that when you consider my employees too.” I gave him a nod to show that I understood, and waited for him to continue, “Lexi, I want you to keep investigating and remain my liaison with the police. I’m grateful for everything you’ve discovered so far. Now you just need to find the killer.”

I reluctantly left the trophy alone and took the chair opposite Michael. “What makes you so sure I’ll find the killer here?” I asked, interested in any theory that supported the gym being a target, as much as the victims.

“Thanks to the poison on the spin bike, we know that at least Jim’s death was set up to happen here. How did the killer get in, Lexi? When did he or she have an opportunity to plant it? We went to ‘members only’ two weeks ago so not just anyone could walk in. Only a client or a staff member could have had access to set up the trap for Jim. And,” Michael continued, leaning forward excitedly, “someone also knew Jim’s routine. I mean, which bike he used and when. I asked Anton. He said Jim always took that same bike and always on the same day.”

Privately, I disagreed. There were probably a bunch of ways someone could sneak into the gym, and lucky me, I was probably going to have to discover them all. There was another thing that niggled at me though. Despite finding a connection between the three victims, it was only conjecture that they were all killed by the same person for the same reason. For that to be true, the Simonstech angle had to work out. Until we knew a motive, we just had a lot of questions.

“Okay,” I agreed, “Solomon and I discussed this and we’re happy to keep working the case. There’s a few more things I’ll need from you now that I have my bearings as an employee.”

“Name it.”

“A full client list, including anyone who left over the past year. Any records pertaining to the victims. They all filled out a member questionnaire, like I did, right? And I’ll need copies of the security feeds from every camera you have for the twenty-four hours prior to the spin studio being used at the session when Jim died. Maybe we can catch someone on tape. Oh, and I need the security feeds from the day Karen Doyle was in the gym. Maybe we can see something there too.”

“I’ll have it all ready for you by the time you leave. What are you going to do now?”

“Find out if anyone saw the killer,” I said, feeling glad he didn’t ask me how. I hated to sound unsure, but I hadn’t exactly worked out how I would do that yet.

Chapter Seven

So much for anyone seeing the killer. Despite all my subtle snooping while wearing the Fairmount Gym t-shirt, no one saw anything. Well, they saw a bunch of stuff, but nothing that pertained to my case. I did receive three complaints about gym equipment, the suggestion of Legionnaire’s disease being transmitted through the air ducts, some gossip about two of the instructors secretly getting it on, plus, the offer of a luncheon date from a very bendy octogenarian. So, you know, excluding my secret relationship with my boss… I still had it!

Speaking of bosses, mine was strolling towards me at that very moment and it was all I could do not to sigh. There was something about him that made my stomach do the flippity-flip, while my fingers curled my hair and I giggled. Fortunately, I managed to muster some self-restraint as I was twenty years too old for that kind of stuff. I noticed a couple of women on the treadmills following Solomon over toward me and tried not to feel smug. I didn’t try too hard because that defeated the object of having a hot guy.

“How’s it going?” asked Solomon, his lips pursing ever so slightly as he blew a secret kiss only I could catch.

“Nothing yet,” I told him, “though I now know a bunch of stuff I didn’t need to know.”

“Sometimes even the smallest, most inconsequential things can mean something later,” he told me.

I waved to Mr. Ahearne as he ambled by the instructors’ station, his knee-length shorts hitched up on one side to reveal surprisingly toned quads. He winked at me.

“He asked me out earlier,” I told Solomon.

Solomon watched the older man shuffling out the door. “Want me to fight him for your honor?”

I laughed. “No, but thanks for offering. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

“Just came by to see how you were doing and if you needed any help?”

“Do you drop in on the guys and see if they need any help too?” I asked jokingly.

However, the jovial air disappeared as Solomon frowned and simply said, “No.”

“Just me, huh?” I asked, wondering if Solomon knew my training wheels had come off a while back. Several corpses (not mine), bullets and stabbings (both mine), and a bunch of solved cases surely gave me some gravitas in the agency? Didn’t it? Then again, I hadn’t racked up as many cases as the other guys, who were all seasoned law enforcement professionals of some description or other. Except Lucas. He was a seasoned criminal-turned-good-guy that Solomon employed for his amazing computer skills.

In contrast, I fell into the job after literally falling over a former boss’s body and getting sucked into his murder investigation. After the murderer was caught, Solomon offered me the best job I’ve ever had. “What if they notice the extra visits and conclude that we’re having a relationship? I thought we were keeping this, us, secret until we were ready…” I trailed off, waiting for Solomon to get the hint and confirm our status as a couple. Somehow, asking outright seemed feeble, desperate even. I was neither. I could run in high heels, fight drug smugglers, and take on international fraudsters. That all took guts and perseverance.