Corpse Pose

by Diana Killian

  At a noise outside the doorway, she looked up and jerked in a sharp breath. Michael Batz filled the door frame, gazing at her with an expression of horror. As their eyes locked, he grabbed for the phone. A.J. jumped back, dropping the paperwork she held.

  Batz slammed the receiver down and then lifted it back off the hook.

  “Wait a minute,” A.J. said quickly, backing away from him. “What good will that do? Think about it. The building is filled with people. Jake—Detective Oberlin—is going to hear that message. You’re just making it worse for yourself.”

  She was babbling as she tried to put some distance between them.

  Batz shoved the door closed, and turned to face her. He stood motionless, chest heaving, eyes never leaving her face.

  A.J. opened her mouth to scream, but hesitated. She was liable to trigger the very violence she feared. Maybe if she just kept talking…

  “I know you didn’t mean to hurt her….” Did she know any such thing? Administering bee venom pretty much excluded the possibility of heat of the moment.

  “I didn’t kill her!” Michael cried. “I know how it looks, but you’ve got to believe me. I’m not a killer. Di was helping me achieve my dream. I never would have hurt her.”

  “Okay. I do believe you.”

  “No, you don’t!”

  “Okay. I don’t,” A.J. said bravely. “We both know if Aunt Di had reported those test results you’d have been kicked out of the trials. You’d never have made the Olympic team.”

  His eyes seemed to start from his face. “She wouldn’t have turned me in!”

  “Then why—” A.J. gestured helplessly to the papers on the floor.

  “She didn’t believe me when I told her I’d quit. You know how she was: she was like a pit bull. She was going to get the proof and then force me to stop. But I knew that, I understood that. I was going to stop. I just needed…an edge. Di promised she’d find me another way.”

  A.J.’s cell phone began to chirp.

  They both stared at her purse as though it contained a bomb.

  “Please,” Batz said shakily, and A.J.’s eyes flew back to his face. “This is my last chance. You can’t tell anyone. If I lose this shot, I may as well be dead.”

  Nothing he had said so far reassured A.J. In fact, everything he had said seemed to reiterate that he had the strongest possible motive for having committed murder. Which meant her job was to reassure him. Or at least keep him talking.

  “It can’t be that bad.” She tried to sound soothing.

  “What the hell do you know about it?”

  Well…he had a point.

  “It was you at Deer Hollow, wasn’t it? You broke into the house and then knocked me down when I arrived.”

  “I didn’t break in. Di gave me a key.” He swallowed hard. “And I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I just had to get those test results back before anyone else saw them. I knew how it would look. I knew no one would understand.”

  “And that’s what you were looking for in the office the other day?”

  Another nod.

  “And when you couldn’t find the test results here, you tried the house again. You tried to break in because I’d changed the locks by then.”

  He said miserably, “I didn’t think you were home. I saw you having dinner with Detective Oberlin in town—”

  A.J.’s phone, which had gone silent, began to ring again.

  “Promise me you won’t tell anyone,” he begged.

  “I promise.”

  “I don’t believe you!” His eyes moved desperately around the room. Was he looking for something he could use as a weapon?

  The door opened behind Batz, bumping into him.

  “I didn’t realize you weren’t alone,” Lily said shortly. She started to close the door.

  “Wait!” A.J. shrieked.

  Batz grabbed the edge of the door, throwing it open, and pushing Lily out of the way as he ran down the hallway.

  “What is your problem, Michael?” yelled Lily. She turned back to A.J. “Has everyone in this place gone crazy?”

  “Stop him!” A.J. cried.

  “Stop him yourself.” Lily’s eyes fell on the papers on the floor. She stiffened and then knelt, starting to gather them up. Her eyes narrowed, reading the front page.

  Legs shaking, A.J. sat down, fumbling for the phone.

  Suze burst into the office, knocking Lily off balance.

  “Would you watch it?” Lily snarled on her hands and knees, gathering the papers again.

  Suze gasped, “A.J., the cops are here!”

  A.J. stared at the phone. “That was fast.”

  “What do you mean the cops are here?” Lily exclaimed, getting to her feet. “What is going on?”

  “I think Michael Batz might have killed Aunt Di,” A.J. said. She was still rattled from her close call.

  “Oh, this is going to be great for business!” Lily said. She turned to leave, still holding the medical report.

  A.J. reached for the papers Lily held, and Lily stopped in her tracks.

  For a long moment Lily stared at her. Suze gazed back and forth uneasily. Finally Lily shrugged, tossed the papers on A.J.’s desk, and walked out.

  “What do I tell the cops?” Suze breathed. “A.J., what’s going on?”

  A.J. rose. “It’s okay. I’ll talk to them.”

  She stepped out of her office to find two police officers making their way down the hallway toward her office.

  “Ms. Alexander?” The foremost officer was taller with slick black hair and a pencil-thin black mustache. “Are you okay, ma’am? We just got a call from Detective Oberlin saying you might be in trouble.”

  One thing about Jake, he wasn’t someone who wasted a lot of time second-guessing himself, A.J. reflected. Not that she was complaining. “I’m okay,” she told them. “I believe Michael Batz—the man who just walked out of here—might have been responsible for my aunt’s death.”

  A.J. became uncomfortably aware that she had an audience, the hall crowded with seniors and her staff.

  “Mike Batz?” The officer sounded shocked, and A.J. remembered what Jake had said about Batz being a hometown hero. “Did he make a statement to that effect?”

  “No. He denied it.”

  “But he attacked you?”

  She thought it over. Closing the office door was not exactly an attack. “Well, no. But…”

  “But he threatened you?”

  “Yes. Sort of. Not exactly.” She realized she had slid out onto some very thin ice.

  The other officer said, “Ma’am, did Batz verbally or physically threaten you?”

  “Not specifically,” she admitted. “We had a sort of confrontation. He wouldn’t let me out of my office.”

  “We need to pick him up,” the second officer said to the first one.

  The first one said unwillingly, “Maybe, but what’s a ‘sort of confrontation’?”

  The glass doors to the studio shoved open and Jake strode past the front desk making straight for A.J.’s office. She spotted him with relief. “Jake!”

  “You okay?” he asked, his hard face seeming to relax a fraction.

  “I’m fine. Thanks for sending the cavalry so fast.”

  “Where’s Batz?” Jake demanded of the uniformed officers.

  The two officers exchanged a look as though each suspected the other might have him in custody.

  The first one said, “There’s some question about—”

  The second one started, “We were just going to—”

  “I should hope to hell!” Jake said, disgusted. “Go bring him in.”

  The two uniformed officers departed hastily out the glass doors. Jake steered A.J. into her office and closed the door firmly on the crowd gathered in the hall.

  “What happened?” His voice was still level, but he exuded a cool, dangerous competency that she found incredibly attractive. “I heard you gasp and then drop the phone.”

  She explained everything that
had occurred between herself and Batz. Jake heard her out in silence.

  “He has an alibi,” he said at last, when she had wound to a stop. “He was at the track in view of witnesses.”

  “He must not think it will hold up.”

  Jake said, “I know you’ve had a shock, but let’s look at this logically. His panic seems to revolve around his test results getting out. He didn’t admit to killing your aunt. In fact, he repeatedly denied it.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” A.J. insisted. “Everything points to him. He has three motives: the money my aunt left him, their adulterous affair, and the fact that he’s using illegal drugs that would get him disqualified from the Olympic trials. What more do you need?”

  “Means, opportunity, physical evidence linking him to the crime. All we have is a motive.”

  “Three motives.”

  “I don’t care if it’s a baker’s dozen. Motive isn’t enough.”

  “He admitted to breaking into Deer Hollow to try and find the test results.”

  “He didn’t break in if he had a key.”

  “But he tried again after I changed the locks!”

  “If you want to press charges, we can get him for illegal entry and trespassing.”

  She stared at him. “I can’t believe you’re defending him!”

  “I’m not defending him. If you’ll notice, we’re going to haul him in for questioning. I’m just saying, this doesn’t necessarily prove anything.” He looked at the medical report on A.J.’s desk. “I’ll have to take this.”

  “Fine,” said A.J. “But if it wasn’t Batz, who was it?”

  “That’s the point of an investigation,” Jake said with irritating patience. “To try to find that out.”

  “What about his wife?”

  “Lorraine?” Jake got a funny look on his face. “We’re checking into Lorraine’s movements.” His face softened. “Look, I know this is rough on you. You want immediate answers, but it takes time to build a case. We don’t want to make a mistake and end up letting someone guilty walk.”

  She nodded wearily. All at once she was tired beyond belief, the surge of adrenaline draining away and leaving her feeling vulnerable and weak—a feeling she hated. She put her hand briefly over her eyes.

  “Are you okay?” Jake asked with unexpected gentleness.

  She lowered her hand. “Yes.”

  “Are you done here? Why don’t we go get a drink?”

  Three seconds before she’d been too tired to stand up; suddenly she had energy enough to carry her into next week.

  A.J. followed Jake to a nearby pub called the Cock and Bull. Inside it was dark and cozy in a secluded-leather-booth kind of way. They settled at a table in the back. Jake greeted several of the patrons as they passed crowded tables; A.J. felt curious gazes on her.

  “Hi, Jake!” said a perky little blonde waitress who arrived at their booth half a minute after they sat down.

  “Hey, Deede,” Jake returned.

  “How come we never see you anymore?”

  “I’m around,” he said easily.

  “Not often enough!”

  A.J. rolled her eyes. Deede and Jake exchanged a few more pleasantries, then Deede finally took their drink orders and walked away, wiggling her cute little behind.

  It looked as though A.J.’s earlier doubts had been completely unfounded; Jake appeared to be a perfectly healthy, precertified, red-blooded, heterosexual male. Which she was happy about—on behalf of womankind everywhere. A.J. resumed trying to come up with a way to question Jake about the case without antagonizing him, when, to her exasperation, Deede sauntered back with their drinks.

  “Give me a call sometime,” she said, placing A.J.’s drink in front of her without so much as the slightest glance.

  Jake smiled that wickedly attractive smile. “I just might do that,” he said easily.

  A.J. sipped her drink and told herself she really didn’t give a damn whether Jake dated every chick in town, she had no intention of getting seriously involved with anyone for a very long time.

  When Deede finally departed for real, she said, “Just out of curiosity, what was Michael Batz wearing while he was training at the track the morning Aunt Di was murdered?”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “It was a chilly morning, right? Was he wearing baggy sweats and maybe a hooded sweatshirt? These witnesses who saw him working out, did they talk to him? Did they see him up close? Or did they just see him running around the track from a distance?”

  “No one spoke to him, but he’s well-known there.”

  “If his wife is about the same height…She’s a runner, too, you know. From a distance…”

  To her surprise he actually seemed to briefly entertain her theory. “That would be a hell of a chance. They couldn’t guarantee that no one would speak to him that morning.”

  “Whoever killed Aunt Di took a hell of a chance attacking her in the studio. That place is like a civic center. People come and go all the time.”

  Jake’s cell phone rang. “Excuse me.”

  He slid out of the booth and walked away. A.J. waited, sipping her drink.

  Returning to the booth, Jake said, “I apologize, but I’ve got to go. They’ve brought Batz in for questioning.”

  She nodded. Jake threw some bills—too many, in A.J.’s opinion—on the table, and they walked out together.

  Jake waited while A.J. dug out her keys.

  “Are you free for dinner one night this week?” he asked as she unlocked her car door.

  Her heart did a little flutter as though it had dozed right through that self-lecture about not wanting to get involved for a very long time. She said, “I’ll have to check with Monster. He may have plans.”

  “Okay, let me know what he says.” He offered that crooked grin.

  A.J. was wondering why she had to be such a smart-ass, because now she would have to call him back and try to set up which evening—and in the middle of these confused thoughts, Jake reached over, tilted her face up to his, and kissed her.

  A warm pressure against her mouth, and her lips parted just the tiniest bit. He tasted warm, too, and kind of smoky-sweet from the bourbon he had drunk. Different from Andy. Very different. Nor was it a tentative kiss; it was an expert kiss: brief but to the point.

  He raised his head. She felt his breath on her face, blinked into eyes gazing curiously into her own. A.J.’s heart pounded as hard as if it were her first kiss. Her lips actually seemed to tingle.

  “That’s nice,” Jake said, letting her go. “Can Monster be bribed?”

  “Uh…sorry?”

  “I’ve got Wednesday night off. Do you think the mutt might give you the evening off in exchange for a couple of knuckle bones?”

  “I think so,” A.J. said.

  “Wherehave you been?”

  “Please tell me you’re not waiting up for me,” she said, startled to find Elysia pacing the floor after she soundlessly let herself into her mother’s house a short while after she had parted from Jake.

  Monster watched them interestedly from the rug in front of the fireplace.

  “We need to discuss the case,” Elysia said—which was not really an answer.

  “Whoa. We don’t have a case.” A.J. really didn’t have the energy for this. She just wanted to go to bed and think about the feel of Jake’s mouth on hers and what that meant. “And even if we did have a case, couldn’t it wait till the morning?”

  Elysia, wearing a pale pink penoir set more suited to the heroine of a romance novel than a former 221B Baker Street sleuth, stopped pacing, her gown frothing around her ankles. “Something came up at tonight’s AA meeting.”

  “What?”

  “I found out who the yoga tie belonged to.”

  “Yoga tie? I’m not…” She remembered then: the green tie that had been used to try and make it look like Diantha had been strangled. “Who?”

  Elysia bit her lip. “I can’t tell you. I can’t break the anonymity o
f the meeting.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re not a doctor. You’re not a priest. You were at AA.”

  “Everything said at the meetings is confidential. I can’t break that confidence.”

  “So it’s okay to let someone get away with murder?”

  “Of course not.”

  A.J. stared at her mother. “Do you think this person is Aunt Di’s killer?”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “But he knows who the killer is?”

  “She.” Elysia’s gaze met A.J.’s “I don’t know. It’s possible.”

  “It’s Chloe, isn’t it?”

  Elysia seemed to struggle inwardly.

  “I know it is. You convinced her to go to AA with you.” A.J. tried to put this new piece of information in context with what she now knew about Michael Batz. Was Batz seeking treatment for his drug use? Was THG addictive? A.J. didn’t think so, but she didn’t know. But if Chloe and Batz attended the same AA group perhaps Chloe had discovered something incriminating about Batz—and if the green yoga tie was his, surely that clinched it? “If she thinks she knows who killed Aunt Di, she needs to come forward.”

  “I don’t know that she really knows anything—beyond who the tie belongs to.”

  “How can she be sure it’s the same tie?”

  Elysia said awkwardly, “Because this person’s tie is missing and it sounds exactly like the one that was used on Di.”

  “Does she have any theory as to how the tie ended up knotted around Aunt Di’s throat?” A.J.’s voice shook.

  “Of course not,” Elysia said again.

  “If she suspects someone, that person may also suspect that Chloe knows enough to incriminate him.”

  Elysia didn’t say anything.

  “What possible reason could she have for withholding this information?”

  “She’s frightened,” Elysia said reluctantly.

  “She ought to be frightened! She’s withholding information in a murder case. Not only could she get herself arrested, she could get herself killed.”