by Elaine Viets
They walked down a white-tiled corridor where the air reeked of warm chlorine. “That’s our pool. Over on that side is our Kiddy Kare room. Some women get a membership just for the free babysitting. They’re allowed to drop the kids off for five hours at a time. You’ll get used to the cries of abandoned babies.”
Helen shuddered.
“Treadmills are on the first floor. Stationary bikes are next to them. Weight and exercise rooms are upstairs, along with the basketball and racquetball courts. That’s the short tour. Now we’d better get back to the reception desk because Derek has work to do in his office.”
“Thank you, Derek,” Carla said as they rejoined Derek at the front desk. “I’ll take over here again.”
“No problem,” Derek said. His accent was an island vacation.
Carla and Helen slid behind the reception desk, and Carla swung the computer screen so Helen could see it.
“The check-in routine is simple,” she said. “Members show their cards. You run the cards through the computer. A red box comes up on your screen if the members are three months behind on their payments. If that happens, you have to tell them their membership is frozen until they pay up. Some get embarrassed. A few turn nasty. If they get abusive, press that red button under the counter here and Derek will come running. The sales boys are right over there, but they’re usually trapping anyone who comes in wearing civilian clothes.”
“I know,” Helen said. “I ran into Logan.”
“That scumbag,” Carla said. “Stay away from him.”
Before she could explain why, a perky brunette interrupted them. “Hey there,” she said. “It’s Beth.” She cocked her brown head to one side, like a sparrow.
Beth had a cheerleader’s compact, muscular body and a soccer mom haircut. Her red workout suit seemed to be a series of holes. The interconnected fabric barely covered the vital spots.
“Could you check the computer and see if Jon is here yet?” She put a twenty on the counter.
“Sorry,” Carla said. “We’re not allowed to do that.”
“Oh.” Beth looked sweetly confused. “I thought—”
“Helen here is a trainee,” Carla said.
Beth fumbled in her purse, found another twenty and put it in front of Helen.
“We’re both risking our jobs,” Carla said.
Two more twenties appeared. Carla clicked the computer keys and said, “Jon arrived ten minutes ago. He’s probably in the weight room now.”
“There he is!” Beth said, running upstairs to the weight room.
“If she sneezes in that workout suit, she’ll be arrested for indecent exposure,” Helen said. “How does she exercise in that thing?”
“She’ll get quite a workout—in the towel closet with Jon,” Carla said. “Those holes are artistically arranged to make a quickie quicker.”
“Why don’t Beth and Jon get a motel room?” Helen asked.
“Most couples do,” Carla said. “But not those two. Jon’s splitting with his wife. He’s afraid she has detectives sneaking around watching him.”
Helen hoped she wasn’t blushing.
“Is Beth going to marry him once he’s divorced?” Helen asked.
“No way,” Carla said. “Jon doesn’t make enough money as a car salesman. Beth’s husband is an anesthesiologist, and she doesn’t want to lose her meal ticket.
“What I told Beth was true. We are not supposed to give out that information. When a couple is having an affair, they’ll ask if their lover is at the gym now or was in earlier for a workout. You can see the full day’s check-ins and check-outs by hitting this key.”
“May I?” Helen said. She checked the names. Their client’s husband—Bryan Minars—had come in at seven ten, about the same time his wife hired Helen to watch her possibly wayward husband. He’d left ten minutes before Helen arrived at the gym.
“Hitting that key is the best way I know to boost your income,” Carla said. “The going rate for adultery information is twenty bucks, but if they’re desperate you can milk them for forty. That’s your split. Don’t let Derek see you. Taking bribes is a firing offense.”
“You keep it.” Helen slid the cash toward Carla.
The receptionist flushed with surprise and pocketed the eighty dollars. “Thanks. Just keep it quiet.”
“I won’t tell,” Helen said. “I need this job.”
“Me, too,” Carla said. “I can’t afford Fantastic Fitness’s high ethics.”
A scream split the air, a sound louder than the pounding music. “Listen! I want to watch Fox News. Give me the clicker.” A woman’s voice, low and rumbling.
“Oh, no, you don’t, Debbi. It’s my week. I get to watch my station.” This voice was higher and lighter, like a yappy Yorkie.
“You’re full of it, Heather. And you’re fat.” Debbi said the F word as the ultimate insult.
“You could use some fat,” Heather said. “You might look like a human instead of a freak.”
Two women were scuffling over a TV clicker. Debbi, the taller one, had a body like a strip of beef jerky—long, thin and dried out. Her hair was short yellow tufts, like a dandelion plopped on her head. Heather, the short redhead, was a wet dream of creamy skin, curves and curls. She made a jump for the black clicker and missed.
“Oh, lordy,” Carla whispered to Helen. “Debbi is in another ’roid rage. She’s in training for a bodybuilding competition. These last days are making her crazy. Watch how I break up this fight. It may be your turn tomorrow.”
Carla marched out onto the floor. Stick-thin Debbi towered over the curvaceous Heather.
“Debbi, put down that clicker,” Carla commanded. “You know this is CNN week. Switch the station.”
Debbi glared at Carla. Her chest heaved. Muscles rippled up and down her abdomen.
“We agreed in November that we would alternate weeks on the television in the stationary bike room,” Carla said. “Switch it back now or I’ll revoke your membership.”
Debbi raised her arm and slammed the clicker on the floor. The black case popped open, and the batteries rolled under a bike.
“Change it yourself,” Debbi said, storming off toward the locker room.
CHAPTER 4
Helen didn’t bother trimming calories after seeing Debbi’s stylized starvation. She ate her chicken sandwich with relish—plus mayonnaise, a fat bun and a pile of potato chips.
Thumbs, Helen’s six-toed cat, sat at her feet, staring hopefully at her dinner.
Phil had already put his plate in the dishwasher. “The meeting with our second client, Gus Behr, is at seven tonight,” he said. “We have to leave in ten minutes.”
Thumbs sprang up on the table and streaked toward the last bite of Helen’s sandwich. She caught the cat and dropped him on the floor. “You know better, Thumbs.”
The cat slunk off to his food bowl and crunched resentfully on his dry dinner. Helen finished her sandwich and dashed into the bedroom to freshen up.
“Don’t do anything fancy,” Phil said. “We’re going to a car repair shop.”
At six fifty-five, Phil’s Jeep bumped across the railroad tracks that ran along Dixie Highway. Boy Toys Restoration and Car Repair was straight ahead, a showy hot pink and turquoise building surrounded by a gleaming metal fence.
“Look at that,” Phil said, and gave a whistle. “That is purely beautiful.”
Helen saw a stocky man with grease up to his elbows bent under the hood of a needle-nosed car.
“He is?” Helen said.
“Not the guy, the car,” Phil said. “That looks like a 1965 Jaguar XKE, the most beautiful sports car ever made. I’m in love.”
“Should I be jealous?” Helen asked.
“No,” Phil said. “I can’t afford her. She costs more than a hundred grand.”
“Thanks a lot,” Helen said. “Glad I’m cheap.”
Phil swung his beat-up black Jeep next to the sleek red Jaguar, jumped out and said, “Hi. Gorgeous Jag.”
Gus Behr wiped his hands on an oily rag. “Isn’t she? You’re looking at two years of restoration. Too bad she’s going to sit in some doctor’s garage.”
Phil peeked in the driver’s window. He looked at the black leather interior and wood steering wheel like a starving man in a bakery shop.
“My husband, Phil, was struck speechless by that car,” Helen said. “I’m Helen Hawthorne. We’re the co-owners of Coronado Investigations.”
“I figured,” Gus said. “Let’s go in my office and cool off.” Sweat cascaded down his forehead.
Helen and Phil followed Gus through an open garage that smelled pleasantly of engine oil. The gray painted floor was clean and shiny. Tools were neatly hung on a pegboard or stowed in metal cabinets. Inside Gus’s office, it was thirty degrees cooler—and frozen in the 1980s. Gus sighed with relief as he sat behind a black lacquer desk piled with papers and parts catalogues. A framed autographed photo of Don Johnson as Sonny Crockett took up one corner. The actor stood next to the black Ferrari from Miami Vice.
Gus opened a water bottle for himself and drank thirstily. Helen and Phil said no thanks and opened their notebooks.
“We can talk prices and stuff when I finish,” Gus said. “If I don’t tell my story now, I’ll lose my nerve. This goes way back to the eighties, when my brother Mark died. I’m fifty-seven now. Mark was two years younger. In ’eighty-six, Mark had just turned thirty. He died of a gunshot wound to the head. The police said it was suicide, but I know he was murdered.”
He paused for another drink. Helen said nothing. Phil nodded at him to continue.
“My family is from Fostoria, Ohio,” Gus said.
“Where they made the glassware?” Phil asked.
“Right. Fostoria is about ninety miles from Columbus,” Gus said. “Lot of Germans, Irish, Italians and Belgians did the grunt work at the glass plants. The powers that be looked down on us because we were blue-collar Catholic. My dad, Frederick, saved up enough to start a gas station. He pumped gas and fixed cars. My mom, Roseanna, took care of us three kids. The Three Behrs, they called us. We were all redheads. You see what’s left of mine.” He ran a greasestained hand through his rusty fringe.
“Mom named my sister Bernadette for the humble French saint who saw Jesus’s mother. Bernie hated the name. She was no saint and she sure wasn’t humble. She and Mom had some complicated mother-daughter thing and fought a lot. Bernie didn’t like leaving her friends in high school. My brother Mark and I got along fine with Dad. We loved cars.
“Back in Ohio, we were the perfect Catholic family, right down to the concrete Virgin in the yard. When Dad got older, he got sick of working in the Midwest winters. He said the cold would kill him. He moved the family to Fort Lauderdale in 1980 and opened Fred’s Garage. Mark and I worked at the garage, lived in a bachelor dive and had a great time.
“Mom acted like she never left Ohio. She had her Fort Lauderdale volunteer groups and went to church every Sunday. Even had the same damn concrete Virgin in the yard. Mom insisted we kids show up for Sunday dinner. Bernie gave her a hard time, but Mark and I never missed a meal.”
Gus patted his gut as if it were a prize pumpkin.
“Dad was a good mechanic, but he struggled to stay in business. Winter didn’t kill him. The Florida heat got him. He died of a heart attack in July ’eighty-five.
“Dad’s death was a shock. Mom wanted to sell the garage, but Mark and I talked her into letting us run it. It was Mark’s idea to change the name and redo this building. He made the business upscale. We were no longer a neighborhood garage.
“When Dad died, our family lost its anchor. Mom quit cooking Sunday dinners. Bernie started coming home late, then staying out all night. Mom didn’t say anything. I think she was tired of fighting. Bernie was seventeen, a real looker, with long red hair. Guys would stop and stare, she was that beautiful.
“I should have kept an eye on my little sister, but I was working ten-hour days at the garage. I’d also met my wife, Jeannie, and was wrapped up in her. I was doing the work of two men. Mark showed up when he felt like it, which wasn’t often.
“Mark and Bernie started running with a wild crowd. Bernie was dating a rich Turk named Ahmet Yavuz. Ahmet was Hollywood handsome. Mom didn’t like my sister hanging around with him. The more she objected, the more Bernie said she loved him.”
“What did you think of this Ahmet?” Phil asked.
“He was bad news. Ahmet had an import-export business, but I thought it was a cover for drug dealing.
“Mom wanted Bernie to date a nice Catholic boy. She insisted I lay down the law. I told Bernie if she kept going out with Ahmet, she couldn’t live at home with Mom. Bernie said fine and moved in with the drug dealer.”
Phil and Helen said nothing, but Gus read their disapproval. “I know, I know. That’s not a smart way to treat a headstrong young woman. I was head of the family and I had a lot of worries. Mark was throwing money around. He tried to help, even if he didn’t work much. He sent customers with flashy cars—Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Bentleys. The customers paid cash and never questioned the bills. I suspected they had drug money, but I didn’t look too close. Cash was rolling in.
“Worse, Mark’s mental problems surfaced again. In his early twenties, he’d been diagnosed as manic-depressive. I guess they use ‘bipolar’ now. Mark was fine if he took his medication. When he ran with the party crowd, he stopped. Six months after Dad died, I found Mark walking naked down Dixie Highway, babbling that he could save the world. I hauled him off to a mental hospital. Later, I learned Mark used coke to make the voices in his head go away.”
“What happened after you committed Mark?” Phil asked.
“Mom wasn’t happy with me. I tried to explain my brother needed professional help—a naked man wandering the streets could get shot.
“After Mark got out of the hospital, he worked even less, but he sent me new business. He and Bernie partied harder than ever. One night I came home from work and found Bernie had moved in with us. She said she’d left Ahmet, but she wasn’t going home to Mom. She didn’t want to hear Mom say, ‘I told you so.’ ”
Gus took another gulp of water. “I—He—This next part is hard to say.” He took a deep breath. “That was a Monday. A week later, Mark was shot. My sister said the accident happened in Plantation.
“I was here at the shop when Bernie called. She said Mark was in Broward Hospital in bad shape. I ran over there. He was in a coma.
“I got the rest of the story in bits and pieces. Ahmet told the police that Mark came to his import-export business talking crazy and waving a gun. He said my brother shot himself in the head before Ahmet could take the gun away.
“I know Ahmet lied. He hated my brother. Ahmet wouldn’t lift a finger to help Mark. My brother never came out of the coma. He died in the hospital two days later. The police said Mark committed suicide.”
“I’m sorry,” Helen said.
Mark’s death was twenty-five years ago, but his brother’s grief still seemed raw.
“I know Mark didn’t kill himself,” Gus said. “Our family is Catholic. Suicide is a mortal sin.”
“But Mark quit going to church,” Phil said. “He used coke. Your sister lived with a drug dealer.”
“Everyone was wild back then,” Gus said. “Most of Mark’s friends straightened out. Mark and Bernie had good values. They lost their way for a while.
“I know what really happened, but I can’t prove it: The police hushed up Mark’s murder. I need you to get the evidence.”
Gus’s heavy shoulders seemed bowed by the weight of his story.
“I don’t know if we can help, Gus,” Phil said. “The mid-eighties were the heyday of the cocaine cowboys. There were definitely corrupt cops. But it will be hard to prove Mark was murdered. Why investigate your brother’s death now?”
“I make a good living restoring classic cars,” Gus said. “I got my start thanks to Mark. My son, Gus Junior, is in business with me. I’m a gr
andfather.”
Gus pointed proudly to photos of a red-haired boy ranging from newborn to about age four. In the latest, his curls were covered by a fire hat. “That’s Gustav Behr the Third. He likes cars as much as his dad.”
“What a cutie,” Helen said. “He inherited your red hair.”
“I’m worried he inherited something worse,” Gus said. “My wife’s grandfather killed himself. Jeannie’s mom hung herself after her fourth kid. I don’t want my grandson thinking we’re a family of suicides. I want you to prove Mark’s death was murder.”
“How does Bernie feel about this investigation?” Phil asked.
“My sister turned into Mrs. Solid Citizen. She’s completely changed. Bernie was real depressed after Mark died. She kept saying it was ‘all her fault.’ I guess she felt guilty she’d taken up with a drug dealer. She had her own drug problem. Bernie went into rehab and spent six months in a mental institution.
“Once she recovered, Bernie went to med tech school and became a phlebotomist—she draws blood at a hospital. She married Kevin Bennett, some big executive. They live in Weston and have a kid in college. To look at her, you’d never guess my sister had a wild past. My poor mom died of cancer about a year after Mark’s death.”
“Is Ahmet still alive?” Phil asked.
“He’s even more respectable than Bernie. Ahmet is a big-time real estate dealer. Belongs to the chamber of commerce, serves on a bunch of charity boards. Makes me sick to see him grinning in the society pages.”
Gus seemed to run out of steam. A heavy silence fell over the room.
“Do you have any paperwork?” Phil asked. “Your brother’s death certificate, the police reports, his autopsy?”
“Mom and Bernie had those,” Gus said. “I couldn’t face Mark’s death for a long time. I couldn’t even think about it. I never believed he killed himself. I know I’m right. It’s only since little Gus came along that I knew I had to find out what really happened. I need you to find the facts.”