by Joan Hess
“No.” I closed my purse. The resultant click reminded me of an earlier thought, and I tried to recall why my purse seemed significant. It had had a hard day, along with the rest of us. Thrown about in my car, squeezed under the seat of Joanie’s car, bloated with the potassium bottle, abandoned on the desk when we’d heard Bobbi in the back room, and clutched to my chest when I’d gone to warn Jody. Busy, busy.
I examined it for signs of ravage. Unlike its owner, who was scarred and sore, it was unscathed. In deference to its loyalty in sticking with me through all the gruesomeness, I decided to give it a vacation on the top shelf of my closet.
Then it hit me, and I said to no one in particular, “It’s odd that Bobbi had a copy of Maribeth’s key. When did she have it made? Bobbi couldn’t have taken the key during a consultation at Ultima. Maribeth didn’t leave her purse in the reception room; she took it with her. She did leave it in the dressing room during the aerobics class, and also when she worked out on the weight machines. But Bobbi was occupied next door until six o’clock, so she couldn’t have slipped into the dressing room, snitched the key, and returned it later.”
“Somebody else was snooping in the back?” Jody laughed nervously. “I’m going to have to beef up security around this place. You think Marcus was in the ladies’ dressing room, pawing through purses?”
“You threw him out several weeks ago. He’s not a gossamer sort who can flit around unnoticed during an aerobics class. He didn’t even have the nerve to park out in front. The other night when you came out for a cigarette, he was parked way at the end of the row, by the dental clinic.”
Jody rubbed the back of his head. “This is creepy,” he said to Peter. “I hope you guys get him quick. In the meantime, how about you put a guard in Maribeth’s hospital room? I don’t want him getting to her.”
“I think she’s safe,” I said, still talking aloud to myself. “There’s something else that puzzles me, though. She admitted she kept the rheumatic fever a secret from the Ultima staff, which meant she had to lie on the medical history form. We all thought she lied about the potassium, but she didn’t: she was taking caplets faithfully. The problem is that they were steroids, but that wasn’t her fault. After a while, they caused her to gain weight, and again we assumed she was lying when she claimed she was steadily losing.”
“She was real ashamed about it,” Jody said. “I felt bad for her, but all I could do was keep encouraging her.”
Peter was watching me, and a few layers of frost had melted. “But what if Mrs. Malloy is correct and Maribeth wasn’t lying? There had to be some reason she could ignore the scales at the Ultima Diet Center. Someone had to have convinced her that those scales were wrong, and another set was more accurate.”
“Caron Malloy lost three pounds in an hour,” I said, nodding. “Inez lost three, too. Maribeth was off by three pounds; she claimed to have lost seventeen pounds, but the Ultima record indicated fourteen. Quite a coincidence, isn’t it? I didn’t ask the girls where they’d made the discovery, but I think they may have weighed themselves here. Shall I call and ask?”
“That rusty piece of junk in the weight room?” Jody said, his lip curled. “I just keep it to impress the yuppies with how fully equipped the gym is. Trust me, nobody in her right mind would think it’s better than the shiny new ones next door.”
I blinked at him. “But not one of them was in her right mind. One had not only a severe potassium deficiency that caused her to be flighty and forgetful, but also enough steroids in her system to keep her in a highly agitated state. As for the other two, they’re fifteen years old and therefore are controlled solely by hormones and phases of the moon.”
“Maybe the scales are off,” Jody muttered.
“But Maribeth trusted them, perhaps with encouragement to do so. She’s a very trusting person, isn’t she? Vulnerable because of her weight problem, and as eager as a puppy to trust people who profess to cherish her despite it. She was desperate for attention, for any display of kindness—such as steamy kisses or long-stemmed roses. When someone wrote a message asking her to trust him, she did. She went so far as to imply it was from her husband, who wanted her to trust him while he busily committed her to a psychiatric ward so he could enjoy her money at his leisure.”
“Her husband hadn’t even been by to visit when I was there,” Jody said, his lip curling higher to expose stained teeth.
“He’s incapacitated at the moment,” I said. Peter twitched, but I ignored it and continued. “Maribeth was so trusting that she was willing to believe a cockeyed story about an undercover cop and try to include me in the secret. She kept insisting she and I were in the same boat, but I didn’t make the connection. She mentioned it minutes before her accident and again in her hospital room.”
Jody lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, but it’s a leaky rowboat and you’re using one oar.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Maribeth believed the undercover story, and she also believed the scales here were more accurate than the ones at the Ultima Center. She might have become suspicious if she dieted diligently yet began to gain weight. She might have examined the vitamins and supplements more carefully, and realized someone had made a substitution, perhaps someone who knew about her heart condition and was aware how steroids would aggravate it. When she told you she’d gained weight, you reset the scales here and convinced her yours were correct.”
“You’re crazier than a crack addict,” Jody said. “Tell me how I asked her real nicely to give me a house key so I could sneak into her house.”
“She wasn’t that feather-brained. I’ve already explained a woman doesn’t leave her purse lying around just anywhere, but she does have to set it down to pedal a stationary bicycle or leap around the room to music. If she’d been next door at the Ultima Center for a consultation first, at least once a week she’d have a plastic bag of vitamins, protein supplements, and potassium caplets with her. It’s rather logical to assume she’d leave the bag beside her purse.”
Jody turned to Peter and made a face. “This girlfriend of yours is something, isn’t she? No offense, but she’s got a wild imagination. She ought to be selling her stories to some Hollywood producer in a leisure suit and sunglasses. I hope you’re not buying this, Lieutenant.”
“As odd as she is,” said lieutenant said, “she often meddles with uncanny accuracy. While Maribeth was occupied in the sauna after the class, you could have switched the potassium caplets for steroids. While she was pedaling, you could have borrowed the house key and had a copy made so that you could make the exchange should the necessity arise.”
“I could have been a contender, too, but that doesn’t make it true,” he retorted angrily. “I love Maribeth. When she divorces that husband of hers, I’m going to ask her to marry me so I can take care of her and make sure she maintains her goal. Why would I do all that dumb stuff to hurt her?”
Peter raised his eyebrows at me. “Mrs. Malloy?”
“Well,” I murmured, “let’s presume for a moment that Bobbi and her dear Shelly weren’t involved in the sale of steroids to local athletes. Instead, let’s presume that Jody didn’t refuse to deal with the distasteful Marcus. After the football player died, it seemed prudent to avoid any association. That left the problem of transporting the illegal substances from here to the campus. Maribeth was absolutely delighted to run little errands for you, and no one could have ever imagined her in the role of dope runner. When did she first become suspicious about the contents of the packages?”
“She didn’t deliver nothing.”
“I think she did, and also began asking questions—awkward questions without acceptable answers. Suddenly it became vital to win her trust by lavishing attention on her. Roses, naughty suggestions to make her feel desirable, little picnics in the office, a fabricated undercover cop—whatever it took to keep her from wondering about her clandestine meetings with Marcus near the campus.”
“That’s a bunch of shit
. I haven’t had anything to do with Marcus for a couple of weeks. You heard me telling him to keep out of the center. He may have hung around the parking lot out front, but it was because he was waiting for Bobbi to bring out a bag of goodies.”
Sighing, I turned to Peter. “A couple of nights ago Marcus parked at the far end of the lot-not to pick up Bobbi after class, but to pick up a package from Jody since Maribeth was no longer available. I was sitting on the hood of my car when Jody appeared on the sidewalk and said he’d stepped out for a cigarette. If he’d stepped out through the front door, I definitely would have noticed. When he ducked back in to get matches, the music nearly blew me off the car.”
“Mrs. Malloy’s taste is somewhat antiquated,” Peter explained to the group. “Concertos, sonatas, etudes, but not hard rock.”
Jody took out a cigarette and stuck it between his lips. “So sometimes I go out the back door and come around the side. What’s the big deal?”
“Marcus probably figured the police were getting suspicious, and said as much to you,” I continued. “Then Bobbi discovered that a real live policeman had been working out in the weight room, and that the two new members of the teen class seemed to be pals of his. She bounced over to the hospital and quizzed Maribeth about the potassium and some of the other symptoms. As a physical education major, she was familiar with the signs of steroids and was aware of the athletic department scandal. Maribeth was the link. Did Bobbi finally put the pieces together and come back here to confront you? Is that why you shot her and dumped her in the Jacuzzi?”
“She attacked me. You were there.”
“Not in the sense Edward R. Murrow meant, no offense intended,” I said, shaking my head. “You said you heard something and went off to investigate. You claimed to have been hit on the head, but I didn’t see or hear anyone. But you wanted a witness to back up your story, so you insisted on going to the office, where you conveniently discovered the telephone was dead. You emphasized what danger you would be in, then went storming into the dark with a gun. You caught my attention in the weight room and made sure I came to warn you. You darted through the door that led to the men’s dressing room, fired the gun, and came back to relate how Bobbi had grabbed your wrist and caused the gun to go off. Maybe you thought the hot water might prevent the coroner from determining the time of death. It might have worked, but there was too much blood in the Jacuzzi, Jody. Too much blood.”
Peter said to Jorgeson, “Have all the men search for a bullet hole in the wall of one of the rooms. Also, have the fingerprint guy dust the handles of this bag for prints. I’m sure our friend was careful not to leave any prints on the drug paraphernalia or on the key, but he was in a bit of a hurry this time and he might have been careless.”
“You don’t have anything on me,” Jody said. “So I held Bobbi’s bag for her one time, and maybe somebody fired a shot before I even leased the building. Maribeth’s the one who killed someone, not Joseph Delano.”
“Maribeth did lose control of her car at an unfortunate moment,” I said, thinking of one of Peter’s many smartass remarks. “By that evening she was having a difficult time because of the steroids. She went into what’s been called a roid rage, drove off, and then stopped at the red light. It was six o’clock, time for the news. If we could get a transcript of the radio broadcast, I think we’d hear the story about the scandal at the college athletic department, about the athlete whose heart attack was caused by steroid abuse. Something clicked, and she came back not to confront Candice or me, but to confront you and to demand an explanation. Her heightened agitation provoked the heart attack.”
Peter gave me a facetiously wondering look. “Malloy strikes again. I’ll interview Maribeth in the morning. Once she learns that Jody was dosing her with steroids, she may have things to tell us about his transactions with the campus liaison. Jorgeson, escort our friend out to the car, read him his rights, and take him to the station so he can contact a lawyer. He most definitely will need one.”
Jorgeson, Jody, and the doorman departed. I sat down behind the desk and allowed myself a smile.
“Pleased with yourself?” Peter murmured.
“How long have you suspected the steroids were coming from here?” I countered sweetly. “If you’d bothered to tell me the truth a few days ago, I’d have been discreet. But you insisted Maribeth’s crash was an accident, and I felt obliged to prove otherwise.”
“While nearly getting yourself killed. Has it occurred to you that Jody might not have been finished setting the stage for the police? He had another bullet in the gun, and we might have found two bodies in the Jacuzzi and heard a story about Bobbi shooting you before her struggle with Jody.”
I was in too good a mood to entertain silly hypothetical remarks. “What did Gerald have to say about the ladder?”
“Nothing. The last I heard he was still curled up on the braided rug in the foyer, snoring like a hippo with a sinus infection. I have someone watching the house.”
“The little old lady with the German shepherd?”
“Officers Vonna Montgomery and Killer Instinct strolled up to the house after you left.” He sat down across from me, crossed his legs, folded his hands in his lap, and produced a smile of such honied benevolence that I wanted to duck under the desk. “We would have gotten to Delano within a week, you know. We’re plodders, but we and the feds and the NCAA investigators were all plodding in the right direction—when you stirred things up with your mulish insistence and meddlesome questions. If you’d behaved yourself, the Rodriquez girl wouldn’t have become involved to the point that she wanted to be paid for her silence.”
“She was upset when she came out of the office at seven-thirty,” I said frowning.
“Jody was gone at the time. Marcus was in there, and must have told her what he’d done to your car.”
“Someone peeked through the window of the Book Depot that morning. I presumed it was a customer, but he might have wanted to ascertain I was occupied elsewhere. If Bobbi wasn’t involved with the drug racket, then why would he tell her what he did?”
“She was getting suspicious, and he wanted to scare her. We picked him up earlier in the evening.”
“Why?”
“I had someone plod over to your garage. The cotter pin was lying on the floor, doing its best to look as if it fell out of its own accord. We found a partial print, and ran it. It seems Marcus has a record, mostly juvenile, but with a few more mature incidents. We plodded over to the athletic dorm and invited him to visit with us for a spell. He wanted to sing all night, but I had to disappoint him by coming here to find out what the feisty, foolhardy heroine was doing in a dark building with a suspected drug dealer.”
“Whatever sent you on such a wild-goose chase?”
“Joanie Powell called me and told me you were acting very strange. She was sure you were lying about something.”
I sighed. “There goes my exquisite hand-built vase for the mantel.”
“Perhaps she’ll give it to me so that I can put it on my mantel,” Peter said. “The mantel above the fireplace, that is. The fireplace that could provide a flickering fire to be admired from the sofa over the rim of a wineglass. I would like to think you might live long enough to share the scenario, but you do seem determined to plunge yourself into trouble, don’t you?”
“Oh, dear, are you angry with me? I was just trying to help, Lieutenant.”
“And I was just trying to—” He stopped and rubbed his eyes, then said, “Never mind. It’s after midnight. Leave Joanie’s car here and I’ll drive you home. That way I can be sure you won’t stop at a convenience store in the middle of a holdup, or pick up a hitchhiker who turns out to be an escaped felon with a machine gun and a yen to see Mexico.”
“I warned Caron that I might not be home until dawn.”
“Did you?”
“I did.”
“That was clever.”
I smiled modestly. “I thought so, but I’m keenly aware of my brilli
ant deductive prowess.”
“Perhaps if I saw more of you, I would be, too.”
“An interesting hypothesis, and worthy of further exploration. Shall we go?”
ALSO BY JOAN HESS
A Really Cute Corpse
A Diet to Die For
A Conventional Corpse
Dear Miss Demeanor
The Murder at the Murder at the Mimosa Inn
Strangled Prose
Roll Over and Play Dead
AVAILABLE FROM ST. MARTIN’S / MINOTAUR PAPERBACKS
PRAISE FOR JOAN HESS AND HER CLAIRE MALLOY NOVELS
“Witty, ironic, and biting … Joan Hess has an unerring comedic instinct.”
—Bookpage
“Joan Hess fans will find a winning blend of soft-core
feminism, trendy subplots, and a completely irreverent
style that characterizes both series and the sleuth,
all nicely onstage.”
—Houston Chronicle
“Breezy and delightful … Claire Malloy is one of the
most engaging narrators in mystery.”
—The Drood Review
“Whether she’s hammering my funny bone or merely
passing a feather beneath my nose, Joan Hess always
makes me laugh. Murder only raises Joan Hess’s
wicked sense of humor. Enjoy!”
—Margaret Maron, author of Storm Track
“Definitely entertaining. Hess deftly sprinkles red
herrings and odd characters throughout.”
—Library journal on
The Murder at the Murder at the Mimosa Inn
“Dear Miss Demeanor is great fun … Hess’s poniard
is tipped with subtle wit.”