by Elaine Viets
Helen kneed Bullet Head in the groin, and he doubled over, yowling in pain.
“Hey,” Mr. Beefy said. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Sorry,” Helen said, though she wasn’t. “There’s been an emergency. The gym is closed.”
“When can we come back?” Mr. Beefy wasn’t quite so belligerent now that his bullet-headed friend couldn’t stand up straight.
Officer Dorsey stood behind him, looking like a rescuing angel—to Helen, anyway. “When we say so. I already told you: Get outta my crime scene.”
Suddenly, the doorway was deserted.
“I liked that hurricane-safety procedure you performed on the idiot who tried to push his way in. I’m Officer McNamara Dorsey,” she told Helen. “I go by Mac.”
“What hurricane procedure?” Helen asked.
“You clipped his coconuts,” she said. “That’s the first thing you do when a big wind is on the way.”
“My manager won’t be happy that I kneed a client,” Helen said.
“I didn’t see anything,” Officer Mac Dorsey said. “I wasn’t officially in the building. You see anything, Pickard?”
Her partner shook his head. “I was getting the yellow tape.” He held up the roll.
“Thank you,” Helen said. “The dead woman is in the locker room. This way.”
The two officers followed her through the ranks of bikes and treadmills to the women’s locker room.
“Nice setup here,” Officer Dorsey said.
“Don’t let Logan hear you,” Helen said. “He’ll sell you a membership.”
“I already have a gym,” she said. “Let’s see the victim.”
“She’s in there,” Helen said. She stopped at the entrance to the locker room and pointed toward Debbi’s shoe.
The room’s silence seemed to suck out the air. Helen didn’t want to get near Debbi. Officers Pickard and Dorsey walked closer to examine the body.
“Look at those pecs,” Dorsey said. “She was ripped. EMS can’t help her. She’s DRT.”
“That means dead right there,” Officer Pickard told Helen. “Officer Dorsey will call Ever Ready. That’s Evarts Redding, West Hills homicide detective. He’s always ready for a case—and to nail a suspect. Don’t ever mention his nickname to his face.”
His partner glared at him. “Are you a cop or a color commentator?”
“Can I call our manager?” Helen asked. “Derek needs to know we have a problem.”
“We’ll do the contacting,” Dorsey said.
The two police officers studied the body without touching it. Poor Debbi, Helen thought. She’d sweated, starved, sacrificed and ended up like this.
Finally, she broke the deadly silence. “Debbi had high hopes of getting her picture and trophies in the Fantastic Fitness Hall of Fame,” Helen said. “She was training for the Women’s Novice Muscle title in the upcoming East Coast Physique Championships. Some here thought she was taking steroids.”
“Looks like it. Major acne on her face,” Dorsey said. “And a better mustache than you have, Pickard. And what’s this on the floor?” Officer Dorsey bent down to examine a white pill.
“An aspirin?” Helen guessed.
“Nope. Looks like oxycodone. Hillbilly heroin. Same thing that got Rush Limbaugh busted, except he was no bodybuilder. Better get CSI to bag that. Where I work out, I see some older bodybuilders who push themselves so hard they take pain meds.”
“Do you think she OD’d on steroids?” Helen asked.
“It’s harder to overdose on steroids than you’d suspect,” Dorsey said. “We won’t know how she died until we hear from the ME—and he needs a tox screen. But it looks like she was taking oxy. Add that to fat burners—gonadotropins—and ’roids, and you got sort of a steroid-laced speedball. Was her death suicide or murder? That’s a question for the medical examiner. Glad I don’t have to answer it.”
“She was definitely upset yesterday,” Helen said. “Debbi planned to walk off with a trophy. Practically had the spot picked out for it in our trophy case. She was all set to win. Then she showed up here with acne so bad it looked like smallpox, a mustache like a seventies disco dude and these odd craters under her skin.”
“Overdid it,” Dorsey said. “Wrong dose of steroids, not enough carbs or water.”
“She was crazed when she first realized she couldn’t compete,” Helen said. “Started screaming, threatening, throwing weights at people.”
“Homicide will want the names and numbers for everyone who was here yesterday when she went ballistic.”
“Those are in the computer at the reception desk,” Helen said.
“We’ll wait till CSI prints that area,” Dorsey said. “Then you can get the contact information. Someone’s rattling the door now. Looks like the party is about to start.”
The two cops followed Helen toward the front door. Yesterday, Derek the manager had brought in a crew to clean up the shattered glass after Debbi’s ’roid-rage tantrum. Now the window overlooking the inside of the gym was boarded up. The free weights had been moved to an empty workout studio. The weight machines were off limits until the glass was replaced. The former weight-room door was strung with yellow CAUTION tape.
“Whoa!” Officer Dorsey said. “What happened upstairs?”
“Someone threw a thirty-pound weight at the glass, and it shattered.”
“Someone with anger issues,” the cop said. “Who?”
“Debbi, the dead woman.”
“Who was she aiming for?”
“Me,” Helen said.
CHAPTER 15
Helen hated Homicide Detective Evarts Redding from his first comment about Debbi Dhosset.
“Did she want to look like that? On purpose?” he asked.
What? Helen thought. Dead? Of course she didn’t want to be dead. Then she realized the detective was talking about Debbi’s sinewy carcass, all muscle and gristle.
Detective Ever Ready’s funereal gray suit was perfect for viewing a dead woman. Helen wondered how he could stand a suit and tie in the swampy South Florida summer.
He looked down on Debbi. The sneer on his face seemed permanent. His white flyaway hair and age-spotted hands marked him ready for retirement, but Helen suspected that was one conclusion he wasn’t going to jump to anytime soon.
“Debbi was a bodybuilder,” Helen said. “She devoted her life to stripping every last ounce of fat off her muscles.”
“Mother Nature will do that now,” Ever Ready said. “No one’s thinner than a skeleton.”
Helen felt a weird urge to defend Debbi. “Competition bodybuilding is not my world. But she supposedly had a real chance to be a champion.”
Poor Debbi did look grotesque. Her washboard abs were hard knobs under her black suit. Her biceps were croquet balls. A dragon ridge of muscle ran along her shoulders. The bodybuilder looked inhuman in death. Even her mustache seemed thicker. Was the old wives’ tale true? Did hair grow after death?
“That girl needs a shave,” the detective said, and rubbed his own smooth chin. “You sure this Debbi wasn’t one of those he-shes? Looks kinda tiny on top for a girl. Guess you can’t develop those chest muscles or surgeons wouldn’t be selling implants. She sure overworked everything else.”
Detective Ever Ready gave his own gut a self-satisfied pat and said, “Granted, I could lose a few pounds myself.”
You could lose more than a few, Helen thought. You’re on the express train to Fat City.
She made a superhuman effort to keep her mouth shut. The last thing Helen needed was to attract the fury—and curiosity—of a homicide detective. There’s a body buried in a St. Louis basement, she reminded herself. It has to stay that way for the sake of your sister and your innocent nephew, Tommy Junior. Be cooperative. Don’t confront Ever Ready.
She forced herself to smile. “None of the women in the locker room complained that Debbi wasn’t a woman,” Helen said, “and they would know when she undressed. Looks like she didn’t change o
ut of her clothes from yesterday. She’s still wearing the same workout suit.”
“What was her race? Was she black, white, Mexican, or mutt? Her skin color doesn’t look right. It’s got a shine like a rotten fish,” Ever Ready said.
“That’s a spray-on tan,” Helen said. “Many bodybuilders prefer to spray on several coats of color rather than risk a sunburn. It looked better when she was alive.”
“Anyone here at this gym have a reason to kill Miss Dhosset? I’m assuming she’s not married. Not the way she looks.”
“I don’t know her marital status,” Helen said. “I’ve only worked here a short time. She wasn’t popular. Debbi got in fights with gym members, but I don’t think someone would kill her over a TV clicker.”
“You’d be amazed what people kill each other over,” Ever Ready said. “Athletic shoes, pocket change, video games. Just tell me what you know. It’s my job to think. I need to sit down. Let’s use one of those empty desks over there.”
Crime scene techs were at work, crawling on the floor, measuring, videotaping, dusting for prints. They’d finished the reception desk, then moved to the women’s locker room.
A uniformed officer stood at the Fantastic Fitness door, keeping out gym members and delivery people. So far as she could figure, Helen was the only non–law enforcement person in the gym. She followed Ever Ready on his march to the sales area.
The detective flopped down at Logan’s desk, his belly vibrating a bit. Helen was secretly gleeful that he’d commandeered the salesman’s desk. She wondered if Logan could sell the fathead a fitness package. Would Ever Ready slap the cuffs on Logan for daring to suggest it? The thought made her smile.
“Something funny, Miss Hawthorne?” Ever Ready asked.
“No, no,” she said. “Must be hysteria.” She figured he’d like that excuse. This man believed women were the weaker sex, no matter how many muscles they had.
“Nothing to be worried about now.” Ever Ready gave her a condescending smile. “I know you girls get scared when you see a body, but I’m used to it.” He straightened his tie and tried to smooth down his flyaway hair.
Was he preening for her? Helen twisted her gold wedding band, hoping he’d notice she was married.
“Now, tell me what happened with Miss Dhosset,” he said.
Helen told him about the bodybuilder’s fight with the creamskinned Heather over the TV channel and yesterday’s battle with her would-be trainers, Tansi and Kristi.
“Our manager, Derek, barred Debbi from the gym for her abusive behavior,” Helen said. “That practically made her an orphan, she spent so much time here. I don’t know where Debbi lived, but this was her real home.”
“Doesn’t sound like a happy family,” Ever Ready said.
“It had good and bad moments,” Helen said, “like any family.”
“But these family members liked to feud,” Ever Ready said.
“She got in fights,” Helen said. “But she felt bad about it later. She and Heather made up yesterday.”
“Who started the fence-mending?” Ever Ready asked.
“Heather. She brought Debbi a fruit smoothie and they shook hands.”
“And Miss Dhosset didn’t have any more fights after the one with Heather?”
“Well, no,” Helen said. She really didn’t want to say this, but he’d find out anyway. “Debbi ticked off Evie.”
Ever Ready sat up, a glint of interest in his eye. “Think Evie killed her?”
“Evie isn’t strong enough to swat a fly,” Helen said. “She works out with weights the size of toothpicks.”
“Size doesn’t make any difference,” Ever Ready said. “I had a wife kill her husband because he said, ‘What, meatloaf again?’ when she served him dinner. She was a little bitty thing, weighed seventy pounds soaking wet. She put antifreeze in his beer while he watched TV that night and murdered him.
“I’ve been a homicide detective for going on thirty years, up north in Wisconsin and now down here in Florida. I know more about murder than you ever will, Miss Hawthorne. Here’s the most important fact: Watch the quiet ones. They take it and take it, and then one day that rage busts loose and they start killing. Sometimes the little ones are deadlier than the big guys. Sneakier, too.
“You don’t need muscles to poison someone,” Ever Ready said. “When I see funny-looking pills at a murder scene, I naturally start wondering if the death was suicide or murder.”
“Suicide,” Helen said. “I think it was suicide.”
“There you go thinking again,” he said. “That’s my job. I’m the murder expert.” Another condescending smile.
“I know that,” Helen said. “But I saw Debbi yesterday. She was so disappointed when she couldn’t compete. She carried on like her life was over.”
Maybe she was laying it on a little thick, but Helen was frightened. She couldn’t have Ever Ready go after poor little Evie. Was he ready to jump to one of his conclusions?
“But if you’re right”—the detective said that as if he was sure Helen was wrong—“Miss Dhosset would consider herself a work of art. She wouldn’t destroy the body she was so proud of building. She was still young. She had lots of chances to win competitions.”
“She did say something like that,” Helen said. “Debbi seemed in a better mood after the reconciliation with Heather. Heather gave her a drink. Maybe there was poison in it. The cup is still in the trash.”
“I know how to do my job, Miss. Hawthorne,” he said. “It will be bagged and tagged, along with all the other evidence. Sounds like Miss Dhosset had a real gift for stirring up people. She was asking for it.”
“You think she caused her own death?” Helen didn’t try to hide her disbelief.
“In a way, yes. She chose her killer, too. Vics like Debbi have a sixth sense for choosing their killer. I want to talk to this Evie. What’s her full name? How old is she?”
“Evie Roddick,” Helen said. “I don’t know her exact age. She’s fiftysomething.”
“Women that age are unstable,” Ever Ready said. “They get jealous of younger women when they go through the change of life.”
Helen had her mouth clamped so tightly she could feel her jaw muscles cramp. She was afraid to say a word while Ever Ready leaped from one crazy conclusion to another, like a madman skipping across the rocks on a creek.
“You got a contact number?” he asked.
Finally, a question she could answer safely. “I can look it up on the computer at the reception desk,” she said.
“CSI is finished over there. Get me Evie’s contact information and everyone else the vic had a fight with. I want all the major players at this gym.”
“Major how?” Helen asked.
“Managers, salespeople, trainers, all the gym personnel. And the gym members she had fights with.”
It was a long list. Helen delivered the first page with Evie’s name at the top, then returned with another batch of printouts.
An angry Ever Ready thumbed his cell phone shut as she handed him the second pile. “I thought you gave me the phone number for Evie Roddick.”
“I did,” Helen said.
“Some guy answered and said she doesn’t live there. Moved out weeks ago. You got a cell phone for her?”
“Sorry,” Helen said. “That’s the only number we have. Guess she didn’t update her contact information.”
“She’s hiding something,” Ever Ready said.
“Could be she’s going through a bad divorce and doesn’t want her husband to know where she’s living now,” Helen said. She’d been in that situation herself, but she wasn’t about to tell the detective.
Too late. Ever Ready had already made his leap.
“Mark my words,” Ever Ready said. “She’s guilty.”
CHAPTER 16
After her day with Detective Ever Ready, Helen felt like she’d been run over by a trash truck. She trudged home from the gym, limp hair straggling down her sweat-damp neck. Her clothes were wrink
led and her makeup was gone, except for the raccoon eyes created by her smudged liner.
At the Coronado apartments, she ran into Margery hosing the pool deck. Actually, her landlady was hosing down her feet in their purple flip-flops. She reminded Helen of a kid playing in a lawn sprinkler. A cynical kid with gray hair who smoked Marlboros.
Helen waved and called her name.
Margery turned off the hose and said, “You look like hell. Get in my apartment and cool off. Get yourself a drink.”
Helen obeyed. She fixed herself a tall ice water and collapsed at Margery’s kitchen table.
Her landlady nuked a brownie the size of a potholder. Margery kept an endless supply in the freezer for emotional emergencies. When Phil joined them, their landlady nuked another, then fixed herself a screwdriver that was short on orange juice and long on liquor.
Margery sat at her kitchen table, smoking, sipping and watching Helen and Phil demolish their brownies. Helen turned down the offer of the screwdriver, then tore into her warm brownie and wished she could make Detective Ever Ready disappear as fast.
As she revived, she told Margery and Phil about Debbi’s death, the angry mob of gym members and the West Hills detective who jumped to conclusions.
“Ever Ready has decided—on no evidence at all—that Evie poisoned Debbi,” Helen said. “When I told him that Heather had given Debbi a fruit smoothie, he wasn’t interested. It seems to me, Heather had the easiest way to poison Debbi—if she even died that way.”
“And you think this Heather woman would poison Debbi over a fight about a television channel?” Margery said.
“People kill for stupider reasons than that,” Phil said.
“That’s exactly what Ever Ready said,” Helen told him. Her tone made it clear she didn’t appreciate Phil’s conclusion.
“Sounds like you need a drink after the day you had,” Phil said.
“I’d rather work on Gus’s case,” Helen said.
“If you’re sure,” Phil said. “You look like you’ve spent the day in a cement mixer.”
“I’ve spent the day with an idiot,” Helen said. “I want to spend time with a smart man.”