Fit To Be Dead (An Aggie Mundeen Mystery Book 1)

by Nancy G. West

  A Japanese man, Shirechiyo Izumi, reached one hundred twenty years before he died. I could work with that: I’d have two-thirds of my life yet to go. I closed my eyes and assimilated Debussy. If Izumi hadn’t died from pneumonia, could he have lived even longer? I popped up, leaned over the notebook and scanned the text: scientists debating his longevity used two separate theories of aging. This looked like technical reading, which made me antsy to escape my nest.

  I plumped my sofa pillows and traipsed across the living room to peer out the window. The sun was shining. I wished I were younger and enjoyed the love of a good man, but except for being alone, my horizon looked promising.

  I felt so good, I even wanted to exercise. If I went to the weight room, I might meet somebody who knew Holly. I could also check out dating prospects. I jumped into workout clothes, hopped into Albatross and sailed down Burr Road to Harry Wurzbach to maneuver my way toward the Austin Highway.

  After squeezing into a parking slot in Fit and Firm’s garage, I bounced into the club wearing my snappy new waist-length T-shirt. The shoulders had small pads sewn in—a ploy to visually narrow my hips. Why should workout clothes look frumpy? Guilt slipped over me for advising Miserable in Milwaukee to throw on whatever she had. I planned to appear appetizing in case I got the chance to quiz Mickey Shannon.

  I checked in, aimed for the stairs and climbed the first step. I was admiring my clingy tights when my right quadriceps went into spasm. A wave of nausea passed through me from peanut butter I’d scarfed down for breakfast. The next shock came when my right calf muscle cramped. Climbing one measly step had hardened it to stone. Gritting my teeth, I drew my left foot onto the step. My left quad muscle shrieked. At least the quad burn balanced the pain soaring through my right calf. I ground upward, step by miserable step. Club members sprang past me. I was too old for this torture.

  I staggered to the second-floor landing, spread my palms and leaned on the wall to stretch my calves. When the knots loosened to rubbery globs, I tottered around the edge of the basketball court and peered into the weight room, looking for Mickey. A bank of metal and rubber machines lined the room’s periphery. More odd-looking devices crisscrossed the center. For a mechanically challenged person like me, this room crammed with equipment was scary.

  Off the main room in the far right corner was a smaller room with a sign on the door that read, “Pilates.” I had no clue what the word meant. Maybe the manager hired a Greek instructor. When I peeked in, two women lay face down on thick mats with their knees drawn up under them in fetal positions and their noses pressed into the mats. The female instructor leering over them, arms crossed, looked more German than Greek. Was she Mrs. Pilates? Mr. Pilates’ assistant? I couldn’t tell if the women on the mats were praying or cringing from the trainer. The class did not look appealing.

  I returned to the main room and studied the first machine near the entrance. The chair looked sturdy, and the handgrips were immobile. A metal roller covered with spongy material jutted out eighteen inches below the seat. I eased down and squinted at obtuse instructions pasted on the contraption. “Leg extension. Place feet under roller. Straighten legs, keeping feet flexed. Do two sets of ten repetitions. Weight: 50 pounds.” I slipped my ankles under the roller and strained to lift my feet. My legs didn’t budge, but my back kinked.

  “Ouch.”

  The man on the adjacent thingamabob was sympathetic. “Each machine has to be set to your height and the weights to your strength before you can use it. Let me help you.”

  His smile made me want to know more. His mother had probably hated to cut those brown curls. I stood quietly while he adjusted my machine. He reeked of potential. He was a couple of inches taller than me and had probably just used the leg lift. He adjusted the bar only a single notch. That was okay by me. His height seemed dictated by a short knee-to-foot bone, which positioned the trunk of his body lower than usual. I didn’t want to stare. I could research leg bones online. He wore red socks like the club trainers.

  I didn’t intend to flirt with every man at the health club. But after Lester ran off when I told him I was pregnant, and I stumbled through umpteen miserable years of not dating anybody, I found the male species newly interesting.

  “I’m Ned Barclay. I work out here all the time, mostly weights. I can show you how to use every machine. Go ahead. Try it.”

  Noting his delectable muscles, I perched as he instructed with my stomach muscles tight and back glued to the chair. I hefted the rubber-covered bar up and down with my legs until the fronts of my thighs burned. People entering the room circled wide around my legs as if they expected the bar to fly off and hit them. I know I have a strange effect on mechanical equipment, but geez.

  “Shall we try a couple more leg muscle machines?”

  “Sure.” I loved his encouraging smile. Maybe he knew Holly Holmgreen.

  The second machine had an identical extension. You placed your feet above the bar and pressed your legs downward. With ten repetitions, you could cause equal injury to the backs of both thighs.

  “Do you know Holly Holmgreen?”

  “Let’s try the leg press.”

  This apparatus looked safe enough. The seat had a back support and large footrest. I relaxed and gazed at Ned’s liquid brown eyes. “I met Holly yesterday at the pool, on my first day here.”

  “Let’s move the seat back farther from the foot-rest so your legs are nearly straight. Put your feet on the platform, bend your knees and ease the platform toward you. Now, push your legs straight out.”

  I pushed. This footrest was not designed for relaxing. Ned told me to shove the torture tray out twelve times, at which point my thighs began to spasm. Oblivious to my quivering hams, he enumerated the benefits of the machine. “The leg press works your quadriceps, hamstrings, gluteus maximus...”

  I didn’t know the names of my body parts, but I’d discovered where they were. It was difficult to concentrate on Ned’s anatomical treatise with my legs twitching.

  “I know Holly Holmgreen. In fact, I used to date her.” He squeezed his words through thin lips, but he had a good vocabulary and great diction. I’m a sucker for men who speak well. Even my Aspects of Aging professor probably couldn’t rattle off muscles extemporaneously the way Ned did. I decided not to press him about Holly. Their relationship must be over.

  “Let’s move to the inner and outer thigh machine.” He took my hand and pulled me off the seat. I wobbled to the next chair and plopped down. “For outer thighs, put the pads outside your legs and push out.”

  After ten repetitions, he repositioned my legs outside the pads and said to squeeze my legs together umpteen times, which successfully damaged my thighs all the way around. How many women, too weak to remove their quivering thighs from this vise, had perished here?

  “Let’s give your legs a rest and work on your upper body. We’ll try ‘the row.’”

  Since the row worked every fiber in my arm muscles, Ned had me do two sets of ten repetitions. His knowledge of anatomy impressed me, but he apparently didn’t realize how inactive I’d been. I was determined to get in shape and wanted to be agreeable, but my muscles were sprung. If we ever completed this tortuous circuit, it would be afternoon, and Ned would have to summon a caretaker to wheel me from the facility.

  Fortunately, Mickey sauntered in, ablaze with red attire and a boyish smile. He walked toward us. Ned peered up at him, about two feet up, and understood that he was not Alpha Male. Weight rooms resurrected animal instincts. Ned slinked away, as though Mickey had thrashed him and I’d rejected him. Ned Barclay was a super guy. I resolved to find him later.

  “Did you hear anything about what happened at the pool?” I whispered to Mickey.

  “They conducted a quiet investigation of the electrical circuitry. It’s on a separate system from the rest of the place.” He leaned close, smirking. “Talkin’ about water, did you hear about the Aggie who drove his pickup into the lake? While he was trying to get the tailgate down, hi
s dog drowned.”

  He exploded with laughter before I could get him back on track. “Mickey, what about the radio?”

  “Nobody’s talking about it.”

  “Is the pool open?”

  “Yeah. They must have fixed the problem.”

  Harry Thorne had managed to keep the incident quiet. Mickey, focused on working out, seemed totally disinterested in the pool’s electrical system. I’d try to learn more later. He led me from one machine to the next, talking and laughing. When we got to arm-strengthening devices, I discovered my rare medical condition: muscle fiber deficiency. Twenty reps on the row had critically stressed my arms. I tried to ignore my misery by focusing on which one of Mickey’s muscles would bulge next.

  From across the room, Patricia Drexel eyeballed Mickey. I had to admit her legs looked great, even in the stupid red socks worn by club regulars. Red socks spoke volumes: “Unlike you, I work out regularly and am in really good shape.” When she wasn’t gaping at Mickey, she shot daggers at me, apparently convinced that her bump-and-smile routine indicated ownership. I stared back. Without thinking, I wrinkled my nose. If Patricia were seriously jealous, she might be capable of violence.

  We’d nearly completed the machine circuit. I’d startled every muscle in my hibernating body when I realized it was time to meet Meredith. I’d gotten her a two-week guest pass, although I doubted she’d join the club because of her time crunch. Since we’d registered for different classes at the university, exercising together would give us a chance to compare notes. We’d agreed to do a quick cardio workout before lunch. I wanted her opinion about what had happened to Holly.

  “Got to go,” I said. “I’m meeting a friend.”

  Mickey looked stricken.

  “Girl friend.”

  He pumped iron, gazing around for a lucky woman who needed help, and spotted Patricia Drexel basking in Pete Reeves’s electric eyes. He straightened to the top centimeter of six foot three, clenched his fists and strode toward them with a Neanderthal gait. He stopped with his face three inches from Pete. Blue Eyes shrugged and shuffled away, relinquishing Patricia.

  Weight room protocol mimicked the law of the jungle. Health clubs were supposed to enhance everybody’s life, but I sensed that beneath this veneer of healthy living, repressed fury was biding its time.

  I hadn’t retrieved a shred of data from Mickey about the club’s investigation. Ned was obviously reluctant to talk about Holly. If Mickey hadn’t chased him off, I might have learned more. Conversing with Patricia did not appear promising.

  I had to devise a better way to obtain information.

  Seven

  On my way out of Machine Mecca, I glanced toward Mr. Pilate’s room to check on the women crouched on mats. They were gone, but two others were flopped over gigantic two-foot-diameter balls. The women looked like enormous bugs that had captured mountains of food too huge to eat. What kind of exercise was that? Hopefully, Mr. Pilates would appear and show them what to do. I wished I had time to watch.

  When I reached the third floor, Meredith was already on a treadmill. During our first semester of graduate school, we took Shakespeare’s Tragedies and Abnormal Psychology—courses that intrigued me like accounting never had. I thought Aspects of Aging would prove riveting.

  Tall, elegantly slim and blonde, Meredith had sad eyes. Grief over Conrad’s tragedy still plagued her. I tried to acknowledge her loss without naming him.

  “How’s everything going?” I climbed on the adjacent machine.

  “All right, I guess. Losing Conrad hits me off and on. Keeping busy helps.” She pushed a button to increase her speed.

  I thought about Lester the Louse. Although it was painful at the time, sometimes it was better when people parted ways. Some guys weren’t worth the trauma. They left you with a tendency to mistrust men.

  I pushed “Slow Start,” 2 mph. “Aspects of Aging looks interesting. How are your classes?”

  “I love American and British Lit, but the profs assign a pile of reading.”

  I couldn’t hold back my news another second. “You’ll never guess what happened my first day here.” I told her about the pool, Holly, Sarah, the radio and Mickey’s take on the electricity, throwing in his likeness to Tom Selleck.

  She seemed excited, but not about Selleck. She walked faster.

  “Did Holly intend to electrocute herself? Could she have put the radio in the pool, thinking she’d have a quick, painless death?”

  Meredith read too many novels. I increased my speed to 2.5 mph. “She was depressed, but I doubt she was trying to kill herself. She was very grateful when Sarah and I got her out.”

  “Thank God you didn’t get in sooner. Was it a dumb accident, or did somebody purposely submerge the radio?”

  While I considered what she’d said, I peered over to check the settings on her machine. She’d sped up to 3.5 mph.

  Meredith’s logical mind pursued all possibilities, but I couldn’t imagine who could want to kill Holly. She radiated sweetness and seemed too young to have collected many enemies. The question of timing nagged me. I’d overheard somebody say swimmers waited impatiently for water aerobics to end so they could swim laps. Slipping in to submerge a radio during the brief interval between aerobics and lap swimming would be risky, although someone coming through the locker rooms or equipment room could accomplish it.

  “Probably an accident.” I tried to ignore my itching feet.

  “She’s lucky you arrived when you did.”

  I had supported Meredith after her husband disappeared. I could help because I’d just met her and wasn’t emotionally involved in her dilemma. This situation was different: Holly Holmgreen had given up her child.

  When I looked over again, Meredith had increased her treadmill speed to 3.7 and started jogging. “Why don’t you call Sam? We could get him a guest pass and tell him what happened. Let him check around.”

  I nodded noncommittally. When he came to San Antonio, Sam had to apply to SAPD like a newbie, even though he’d been a Chicago homicide detective. After going through the San Antonio Police Academy, riding with field training officers and working a patrol beat, he scored high enough on the detective investigation test to request a slot on the murder team in the Homicide Division.

  He’d led the search for Meredith’s missing husband. That was a whole other story.

  Once Meredith’s crisis ended, we rarely saw Sam. Back in Chicago, he and his wife Katy had been my best friends. He was the only man I’d trusted for years. Reconnecting with me in San Antonio probably reminded him of Chicago. He needed time to heal before I could even begin to gauge how he felt about me.

  He was the last person I wanted around Holly Holmgreen. Being a detective, he would automatically suspect attempted murder. When he learned Holly had relinquished her child, he’d research the adoption. Having lost his adopted daughter along with his wife, this case would be painful for him to investigate. My right foot slipped off the conveyer belt. I grabbed the rail.

  “Are you okay?”

  I blinked back tears. “My muscles are tight from walking yesterday. I’ve had enough of this treadmill. Let’s try lunch at Tofu Temptations Grill. Maybe you’ll meet the people I told you about.”

  We showered and dressed, me for afternoon class and Meredith for Conrad’s office, where she would help his ex-patients find other doctors. With the morning rush over, I secured my favorite primping station in the dressing area where the angle of triple mirrors provided privacy. I felt pampered using the club’s luxurious facilities. My station was stocked with a hair dryer, curling iron, Q-tips, and cotton balls. Deodorant, hair spray and body lotion filled the club’s signature opaque pump bottles. Tiny elegant script labeled each bottle’s contents. I inhaled the lemony scent. Showers and toilets were located in a secluded alcove with lockers standing off to one side. A plush place.

  “Yuck,” Meredith blurted. “I almost sprayed hair spray under my arms.” We pondered how many women had confused the
bottles and spent the rest of the day with their arms stuck to their sides.

  On our way to Tofu Temptations, Meredith said she’d asked Sam to join us. Sure enough, he sat at a chrome table on a red and orange vinyl chair, frowning at the sandwich on his plate. He looked up and grinned. Tufts of hair bounced toward his glasses. We motioned for him to stay seated and got in line to order.

  Behind me, a lanky fellow with a ruddy face and bug eyes peered over me at the oversized menu on the wall. “Vegetable Sauté,” he read reverently, “served over brown rice...” He gazed down at us. “I’m an anti-fat, anti-sugar vegetarian,” he announced, as though his revelation ranked right up there with a call to the priesthood. Meredith flashed him a definitely-not-interested glance, so he concentrated on me. “I’m Sheldon Snodgrass.”

  Gad. His name was worse than mine. “Aggie Mundeen. Pleased to meet you.” That was apparently enough chitchat for Sheldon.

  “They sauté vegetables in soy sauce, mustard vinaigrette, olive oil or water.” He eyed me expectantly, waiting to see which delicacy I’d choose.

  If they ruined vegetables by nesting them in brown rice, I didn’t think any kind of liquid would help. If I wanted soy sauce, I’d find a Chinese restaurant. I felt obliged to make a healthy choice and scoured the menu for something edible.

  “How about the Garden Vegetable Sandwich?” Underneath, he read, “Vegan,” which seemed to please him immensely.

  Wasn’t that some character in Star Wars? The description of the sandwich read “with carrots, red onion, sprouts, avocado and a peanut butter miso spread on whole wheat bread.” What a horrible way to ruin peanut butter. I kept searching until I found a chicken salad sandwich with actual mustard and mayonnaise. “Sandwiches look good.”

  “Yes. I’m going for the tofu eggless salad sandwich on whole wheat with sprouts.” He looked ecstatic.

  I ordered tuna and cheese with light mayonnaise on Parmesan bread and chose fruit instead of fries. Their fries were probably brown rice spliced with tofu. Sheldon didn’t appear impressed with my selection, but he padded behind me toward our table. We introduced him to Sam, who had a ham and cheese sandwich on his plate. He wore civvies, his usual khaki pants and shirt, and a brown tie splotched with a Rorschach orange-and-purple pattern. For undercover work, I hoped he stashed it.