Murder Sweetly Served

by Morgana Best

  I nodded. “Anyway, we were just speaking to Craig Cooper. In fact, we’ve come straight from his office. He didn’t have any idea who could have possibly killed Stan, but he said you had a very good business brain and we should ask you.”

  Carl’s eyebrows nearly shot off his face at my outrageous lie.

  “It was that terrible lying housekeeper,” Peaches said. “I’d bet my life on it. Did you see her that night, bursting in with her terrible lies that she and Stan were having an affair? As if he’d ever look at anyone like that!”

  “Yes, it was a terrible scene, ruining his retirement party like that,” I said, trying to inject sympathy into my voice. “Why do you think she did it?”

  “I have no idea about the workings of that awful woman’s mind. I asked Stan to fire her many times, but he wouldn’t.”

  Carl and I exchanged glances. I was about to say something, when Peaches continued. “If I tell you something, can you keep it to yourselves and not let it go any further?”

  We both hurried to assure her that we would not say a word.

  “Stan told me that Daphne had a huge crush on him. He said he wanted to fire her, but she was blackmailing him.”

  “Did Stan say what she was blackmailing him over?”

  Peaches very carefully dabbed a tissue under her eyes. “I know Stan wasn’t any clean potato. I’m not a fool. I knew he was an aggressive businessman, but that was one of the things I admired about him. I knew some of his business dealings weren’t quite above board, and it seems that Daphne found evidence of it. She’d been blackmailing him for some time.”

  “What sums of money were involved?” Carl asked her.

  Peaches frowned, or at least she did the best imitation of frowning that anyone who’d had so much Botox could. “I don’t think money was involved as such—she just wanted to stay on as his housekeeper. Because she had a huge crush on him, you see.”

  “Oh yes,” I said, as if her words made perfect sense. “Can you think of anyone else who might have wanted to kill Stan?”

  “Daphne did it,” Peaches spat. “Mark my words, that awful Daphne did it.”

  On our way out, Carl booked in for fillers and Botox the following week. When we were safely out of earshot, Carl asked me, “Why didn’t you go with the jewellery ruse?”

  “It was going so well that I didn’t have to,” I said. “What do you think?”

  “Yes, I agree. You did the right thing for sure. I thought that might be the reason. Now, this morning I researched Jake.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “The only Jake I could find is a personal trainer at the gym. I mean, there could be plenty of Jakes in town, but he’s the only one I’ve found so far. I’ve arranged it so we can spy on him tonight.”

  A horrible sinking feeling lodged itself in the pit of my stomach. “What do you mean, Carl?” I asked through clenched teeth. “What have you done?”

  “I haven’t done anything,” Carl said innocently, “but we have to be at the gym at seven tonight.”

  “The gym?” I said in horror. “Out with it, Carl!”

  Carl stopped, and shifted nervously from one foot to the other. “We’re going to do a cardio class at the gym tonight at seven.”

  “Cardio? You’re kidding, right?”

  Carl continued to fidget. “I looked at the gym program, and it seemed to be the easiest. It said it was for beginners. I thought it couldn’t be too bad, because there was a meditation and relaxation section at the end.”

  “How about we share it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if you do the cardio part, and I do the meditation and relaxation section at the end?”

  Carl laughed. “Oh Narel, you’re too much.”

  “I’m not joking,” I said. “You know I don’t like exercise.”

  “Narel, you’re always saying you want to get fit and healthy. You don’t do any exercise, only an occasional walk. That’s not good enough. Have you ever been inside a gym in your whole entire life?”

  I had to admit that I hadn’t.

  “Good. Okay, then we can multitask. We can both get fit, and we can check out this Jake.”

  “What if he isn’t the right Jake?” I asked him.

  “I’m pretty sure he is,” Carl said.

  I sure hoped he was right. I didn’t want to have to suffer through a cardio class for nothing.

  Chapter 14

  Five minutes into the class, I was certain going to die. Carl wasn’t faring much better, but at least he didn’t have to stop moving and catch his breath from time to time like I was doing.

  “Grab a drink of water,” the overly energetic Jake called out. “Now you’ve all finished your warm up, and we can get into the real fun stuff.”

  “That was just a warm up?” I managed to squeak, to nobody in particular. I waddled over to my drink bottle and reached for it. “Ouch!” My shoulder hurt. In fact, everything hurt. “Can we leave now, Carl?”

  Carl’s face was bright red. “No,…try…to… focus… Narel,” he said very slowly and painfully. “The… relaxation… and… meditation… part… will… come… soon.” He broke into a fit of coughing

  “Not soon enough,” I muttered.

  I staggered back to my position and eyed Jake warily. He was bulked up, with huge shoulders and enormous musclebound legs. His manner was quite aggressive, but since I had never been in a gym before, I didn’t know if that was usual or not.

  “And now we’ll have some more fun,” Jake yelled at us. Clearly, Jake and I had very different ideas of fun. “Put some effort into it! You’re not cheating me; you’re only cheating yourselves! No pain, no gain!”

  Jake then proceeded to lead us all in a series of movements that involved sliding at a rapid pace across the room while punching the air, and then sliding back across the room doing the same thing. Although it was supposed to be a class for beginners, the others seemed to have it all down pat. Carl and I were the only ones who didn’t have a clue what we were doing.

  At one point, I didn’t quite get the choreography and was punched in the stomach by a woman coming the other way. I fell to the ground and just lay there, enjoying the rest, while the woman bent over me loudly voicing her apologies.

  “Get up!” Jake yelled. “You, the skinny-fat woman!”

  I struggled to my feet and found that my little rest had given me enough energy to speak. “Who are you calling fat?” I said to him.

  “You’re a fat person in a skinny person’s body!” he yelled at me. “Come on now, put some effort into it! You need to get fit! Do you want to stay in that sorry state for the rest of your life?”

  I shook my head, mainly because I had used all my available oxygen on my previous sentence. He was right—I did want to get fit, but I thought perhaps that a cardiac arrest might not be the right way to attain that goal. I wondered if there was a crash cart in the next room, because I sure as eggs thought I was going to need it.

  I shot a look at Carl, but he avoided eye contact, probably because it would take too much energy for him. My breath was coming in ragged bursts and my throat burned. This was torture, pure and simple. Forget sleep deprivation; forget bamboo shoots under the fingernails. Cardio had to be the most effective form of torture in the world.

  At first I was embarrassed to be performing so badly in front of everyone. Carl and I had chosen the spot at the back of the class, only that didn’t help because Jake had everyone moving in all directions, and sometimes in circles around the room. That meant everybody could see my utter lack of ability. However, I soon stopped caring about how others saw me, and simply wanted to survive the session. It didn’t help that Jake kept barking at me.

  Just when I thought I was going to pass out, Jake announced that we had just finished our cool down. Now was the part I had been waiting for—the relaxation and meditation session. Jake yelled at us to lie on our mats. I didn’t have to be told twice. I was the first one to lie flat out, foll
owed soon after by Carl.

  Jake yelled at us to relax and said he would put on relaxing music for five minutes. To my great relief, he then stopped talking, his loud, screeching voice replaced by the sound of soothing music.

  I lay there, wondering why my toes hurt. I was sure even my toenails hurt. Muscles I didn’t even know I had screamed in protest at the workout. All I wanted to do was get into a hot bubble bath. I wondered how many months it would take me to recover.

  I didn’t think I could meditate or relax, because my muscles were cramping and sore. My legs and arms were burning, particularly my triceps. They were on fire.

  There was a strange shift in the music, a strange sound like a loud pig grunting. At first, I figured it was some kind of bizarre experimental music. I wondered if Jake was still on the platform, but my eyelids hurt too much for me to open them.

  The pig grunting noise grew louder and I heard some giggles. I opened my eyes. Carl was lying on the mat beside me, his mouth wide open, and omitting the most horrible snoring I had ever heard in my life.

  “Time’s up,” Jake yelled, although not as loudly as usual. I figured he thought that was his soothing voice. “Remember, you’re not cheating me, you’re only cheating yourselves. I hope to see you all here next time. And you!” He pointed at Carl, who was blissfully unaware of his surroundings, as he was still snoring. “You! You’re supposed to be relaxing and meditating, not sleeping!”

  With that, he marched out of the room. Everyone else was on their feet, putting their mats away. I managed to roll over to my knees and crawl the short distance to Carl. I gently shook him awake. “It’s over now, Carl. We can go.”

  “Over?” Carl said hopefully. “Are you sure?”

  “The instructor’s gone.”

  Carl groaned and he, too, rolled over onto his knees. We both tried to get to our feet, clutching each other for support, but it was very difficult to stand upright. Two kind and horribly fit looking ladies hurried over to help us. “I was like that the first time I came here,” one of them said in what was an obvious lie. I mentally thanked her for her kindness.

  “I don’t think I’m cut out for this sort of thing,” I said.

  “Nonsense,” the other lady said. “You did fine.” She did, however, appear to be doing her best not to laugh.

  “Everything hurts,” Carl said. “I’m not sure I’m going to live.”

  The two ladies laughed uproariously at his remark, but it was clear to me that they were simply releasing their pent up laughter. We must have been a highly amusing spectacle throughout the whole class. “The instructor, Jake,” I said. “Are all the other instructors like him?”

  The first lady shook her head. “No, he’s the hardest instructor by far.”

  “Well then, why do you do his class?” Carl asked in bewilderment.

  “Because my husband only minds the kids at this time of night, and I can’t get here at weekends.”

  “So Jake doesn’t do weekends?” I asked them.

  “No, he does the seven o’clock class and the eight-fifteen class on Friday nights.”

  The second lady interrupted her. “He works here Monday to Friday, but the only nights he works are Friday nights.”

  I nodded. “A friend of mine said she did a class last Friday night with a very hard instructor,” I said. “Would that have been Jake?”

  “Yes, I was here last Friday night doing that seven o’clock class,” the second lady said. “I didn’t see anyone new doing the class, though.”

  “Maybe she did the next class,” I said. “Did Jake take them both?”

  “I did the next class,” the other lady said, “but I didn’t see anyone new in that class, either.”

  “Did Jake take both classes?” I asked them. They both nodded. “Perhaps I got mixed up. Perhaps I don’t have enough oxygen left to remember clearly,” I added.

  The ladies laughed and then said their goodbyes.

  Carl clutched my arm. “Ouch, you’re hurting me!” I said. “In fact, I think even the air is hurting me.”

  “I was just going to say that you did a very good job finding out about Jake,” Carl said feebly. “Oh look, Narel. We have to go.”

  People were starting to file in for Jake’s next class and were eyeing us strangely. Carl and I managed to get to the wall, but we both had trouble leaning down to grab our gym bags. My back couldn’t quite bend that far. After we retrieved our bags, we walked out slowly, keeping one hand against the wall for support. When we were in the foyer, I went to sit down on the plush sofa, but Carl stopped me.

  “No, Narel. You have to keep going. If you sit down, you won’t be able to move again.”

  I thought that was good advice. The two of us managed to make it across the foyer while clutching each other. People looked at us strangely, but I was way past caring. Luckily, it wasn’t far to Carl’s car, but then neither of us could get in. “Narel, I’ll crawl in first and move across your seat and then turn around and wedge myself into position, and then you crawl in,” Carl said.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” I said weakly.

  “What did you say?”

  “I don’t have the energy to repeat it,” I said. “I think I need an energy drink, or maybe an IV glucose drip.”

  “I think I might have to stay at your place overnight until I recover,” Carl said.

  “Will Louis the Fourteenth be all right?” I asked him.

  “Yes, there’s plenty of water and food in his bowls.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I managed to say. Even speaking was an effort. It took us a full five minutes to climb into Carl’s car. I was better off than Carl, because I was able to put the seat the whole way back and lie down, while Carl had to sit in a stooped position over his steering wheel. He let out cries of, “Ouch!” as well as other words that I am too polite to repeat, all the way back to my place.

  Carl parked the car in my driveway and turned off the engine. We both looked at each other. “How do we get out?” he asked me.

  “Maybe pretend Jake’s in the back seat?” I said. That made us both laugh, but laughing hurt my abs so much that tears rolled down my face. “I’m in terrible pain,” I managed to say when I could breathe again.

  “Let’s just get out of the car, no matter how much it hurts,” Carl said. “On the count of five.” I steeled myself. “One, two, three, four, five…”

  I lifted my left leg out of the car and then lifted my right leg, and stood up carefully while hanging onto the car door. I waited until Carl came around to me, and then we both staggered to my front door.

  Once inside, I collapsed on my sofa, and Carl dropped to my floor. “Oh, that feels good,” he said. “Can you throw a few blankets over me, Narel? I won’t be able to move until morning.”

  “Don’t you want a hot bath?” I asked him.

  “I would dearly love a hot bath, only I don’t think I could make it to the bathroom quite yet. We need to hydrate.”

  “Good idea. I’ll see how I feel in a few minutes, and I might be able to make us a hot chocolate.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of water.”

  “Don’t we need some sports drink? Jake did say we had to carb up. I have plenty of chocolates in the fridge. If we drink water and eat chocolates, wouldn’t that be the same as a sports drink?”

  Carl simply groaned.

  “At least we know Jake isn’t the murderer,” I said. “He has an iron clad alibi. He couldn’t put the poison in the fly agaric chocolates because he was at the gym the whole time.”

  I expected Carl to agree, but he was already fast asleep, evidenced by the horrible snoring sound coming from him, a sound so horrendous that it even drew Mongrel’s attention.

  Mongrel carefully walked out of his basket and pitter pattered over to Carl. He seemed intrigued by the sound. Mongrel bent over and looked at Carl’s face.

  At that inopportune time, Carl awoke. I figure the first thing he saw was Mongrel’s face close to
his own. He screamed, a bloodcurdling scream that made Mongrel run out of the room, his tail fluffed up like a toilet brush.

  “Oh you scared him, the poor thing,” I said.

  Carl rolled over on his side and then managed to sit up. “All the oxygen has left your brain, Narel.”

  I lowered myself from the sofa, and got onto my hands and knees. “Quite possibly,” I said. I crawled towards my kitchen, the thought of water and chocolates beckoning me. Carl crawled after me and somehow caught up with me. “You know, we’re quite comical. I’d laugh, only it would kill my stomach muscles.”

  I had to agree. We both managed to fetch water and chocolates, but when we tried to sit at the table, our backs went into spasms. “Let’s just stand here and eat the chocolates, and then we can go back and lie down in the living room,” Carl said.

  I agreed, but didn’t have the strength to say it out loud.

  After we had rehydrated, and carbed up on assorted chocolates, I was able to speak. “You know, Carl, I don’t like Jake.”

  Carl snorted rudely, but then clutched his stomach. “Ouch, that hurts. No kidding! I don’t like him either.”

  “I’m not just saying this because I don’t like him—I think,” I added. “I know Jake has an iron clad alibi, but what if he was in it with someone else?”

  “But who?” Carl asked me.

  I made to shrug, but my shoulder muscles locked up. “No idea,” I said, and then broke into a coughing fit. It hurt my abs and every last one of my ribs. Who knew bones could ache?

  “We should have asked more about him when we were at the gym,” Carl said. “Only we were too oxygen deprived for our minds to work properly.”

  “Never mind, we can ask around town. I’m never going back to that gym again, Carl, and you can’t make me.”

  Carl weakly held up one hand. “You’ll get no argument from me.”

  “We suffered through that dreadful gym class and all we found out was that Jake had an alibi,” I pointed out. “Hang on a minute, didn’t you say he might be in it with someone else?”