Fatally Flaky

by Diane Mott Davidson

  Boyd rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know. It’s a good thing I’m helping you, though. I don’t like that woman. Whenever we get somebody who’s real belligerent, we think he or she might have had something to do with the crime. And I’ll tell you what, she was like a pit bull when we questioned her after Jack Carmichael was attacked.”

  “Tell me about it. And where is Craig Miller? Sleeping in?” I didn’t really want to see either of the Millers, but I did have someone I wanted to talk to. I had the idea of checking the calendar of classes right outside the dining room. When I came back, I asked Boyd, “Any chance you and Julian could finish washing the dishes, and then set up for lunch? I need to go find someone named Isabelle. She works here, and is the only one who might have a key to the Smoothie Cabin, besides Victor,” I added.

  “I promised your husband I wouldn’t let you out of my sight,” said Boyd.

  “Then look out the front kitchen windows,” I said. “I’m going to pause out there, where Jack was attacked. Then I’ll be walking along a highly visible path to the gym, which is a highly visible structure, where Isabelle is.”

  “Boss,” said Julian, “we should really start fixing lunch as soon as we get breakfast cleanup done. Any chance you know what Yolanda wants us to make?”

  I showed him the kitchen computer, then booted it up, entered the password, and brought up the screen with monday lunch.

  “Thanks, guys,” I said. I removed my apron, and walked quietly outside, while behind me, Julian shrieked, “That’s it? That’s disgusting!”

  The area where Jack had been hit was surrounded by tattered yellow police ribbons. Since I’d already picked up my godfather’s Rolex and been bawled out for it by Tom, I knew better than to go into the cordoned-off section of lawn and garden, even though the absence of police probably meant they’d finished investigating this place. But … had they found anything out? I wondered if Tom would tell me. I took off for the gym.

  Isabelle was more energetic than I expected. She was not attractive. Her freckled complexion was blotchy, her brown hair was pulled back in a low ponytail, and her too-thin ankles and wrists all canceled out any femininity quotient. But she knew how to move to a beat, and maybe her lack of prettiness gave the guests confidence, in a perverse way. I was amazed when she convinced even the most recalcitrant of the bunch—always in the back row, just like elementary school—to step up and wiggle their behinds. Billie Miller was right in front of the room’s big mirror, so I ducked behind an exercise bike to avoid being seen by her.

  “What are you doing here?” Victor bellowed from in back of me. I was so startled I crashed over into the exercise bike, toppling it noisily to the floor. I tried to right it, but was too weak. Victor did it one-handed, all the while giving me a scalding look. I had to wonder: did this guy have an invisibility cloak that prevented me from seeing when he was sneaking up on me?

  “I, I need to talk to Isabelle?” I proffered, scuttling around to put the newly upright exercise bike between the spa owner and myself. If Boyd was bothered by Billie’s bellicosity, I was giving the Hostility Prize to Victor.

  “If you have so much time on your hands, away from the kitchen, that you need to sneak around my spa—”

  “I’m not sneaking around!” I protested. “I was waiting for Isabelle. She was practically the last person to see my godfather alive—”

  Victor smirked. “Then get into her class, Goldy! Look, there’s an empty spot right there in the front row—”

  “The hell you say,” I retorted.

  Victor pointed. “You want to talk to Isabelle? Go exercise with her.”

  Omigod, why was this spa so popular? It just had to be one of those cases where the owner was nice to the clients, but hell on the help. Still, I was in no position to argue, because truth to tell, I had been sneaking around. Problem was, wherever it was I was intent on sneaking, Victor always seemed to be a step ahead of me.

  Isabelle gave me a very sympathetic look. The class wasn’t half bad, moving as it did from the cha-cha to a kind of rock-and-roll step that I managed to keep up with. Of course, I looked ridiculous in my black catering pants and white shirt, which stood out painfully against all the brilliant hues spandex had to offer. But for the most part, the clients really were overweight, so it wasn’t as if we were at the Aspen Meadow Athletic Club, with its high-voltage classes and even higher-voltage clientele.

  “You wanted to see me?” Isabelle asked quietly, once we’d gone through a stretch routine that was so relaxing I almost fell asleep. “I don’t have a class for another hour.”

  “Yes, please.” I paused to take a drink of water from the conical cup Isabelle offered. “Thanks.” I tried to think of how to pose the questions I knew I needed to ask. “My godfather, Jack Carmichael—”

  “I heard he died. I’m sorry. He was a nice man. And funny, you know? Not funny peculiar, but funny ha-ha.”

  “Right. I saw you two in the Smoothie Cabin, and then dancing together at the reception.”

  Isabelle blushed. “I don’t know why he wanted me in the Smoothie Cabin. I mean, he said it was for ‘cover,’ whatever that meant. He was searching for something.”

  “What, do you know?”

  She shook her head. “He said the less I knew, the better. That’s what I told the cops when they talked to me.”

  “Please, Isabelle,” I begged. “He must have given you some idea of what he was up to.”

  Isabelle cast a furtive glance around. We were alone. “He did ask me—” She stopped. “I don’t want to lose my job. I mean, it’s a crap minimum-wage job, but I need it.”

  “If he didn’t ask you to do anything illegal, then you’re fine. You saw how well Victor Lane and I get along, which is to say that we don’t. So I’m not going to be talking to him about what you tell me.” Meanwhile, I was thinking, A crap minimum-wage job? If Victor didn’t buy high-quality foodstuffs, and he didn’t pay his people anything, what was he doing with all the money he made from the spa? Maybe those insurance costs he’d mentioned at the meeting Marla went to were particularly onerous.

  “Jack wanted to know about Doc Finn,” Isabelle whispered. “Jack knew Doc Finn had been out here last week. Jack wanted to know every single thing Finn had done while he was at Gold Gulch. How much time Finn had spent, with whom, and what had happened. I did tell the cops all this,” she concluded.

  I thought of Jack’s scribbled notes: “Fin.” I said, “I heard that when Finn was here, he had a big fight with Billie Attenborough.”

  “He did.” Isabelle’s voice was barely audible.

  “She told me Finn was mad at her for losing weight so fast.”

  Isabelle waited a moment and then shook her head. “Their argument,” she whispered, “had nothing to do with weight.”

  “What did it have to do with?”

  “Her wedding.”

  “Losing weight for her wedding?”

  Isabelle shook her head. “I don’t know, because at that point, they went into her room. That’s what I told Jack, and that’s what I told the cops. Jack asked me if Billie, in one of her many visits to the spa, had been seeing anyone else. Like a guy,” she added, embarrassed. “I told him Billie had been here once when Lucas, Jack’s son, was here. Jack shook his head, but I wasn’t sure if he was disappointed in Lucas or in Billie.”

  “Did Lucas enjoy being here?”

  “Hard to tell. He consults for Victor, but I don’t think Victor pays him much. Lucas complained that the spa was too expensive. But he’s back this week, so he must have found some money around somewhere.”

  No kidding. I said, “So go on about Jack.”

  “Well,” Isabelle said, “there just isn’t anything. Still, I figured Doc Finn must not have won the argument with Billie, because Billie and Craig Miller are here, enjoying one of the three suites. And talk about weird, Billie’s mother is here, too. They sat together at the intake meeting last night. Around the staff room? Our theory is that Billie’s m
other wants to know if the wedding’s been consummated.”

  I said, “I sort of wondered that same thing when Billie showed up in the dining room this morning, without her new husband.”

  “They brought food when they checked in,” said Isabelle. “Two coolers’ worth.”

  “Based on the menus I saw, I don’t blame them.” But I was puzzled. “What difference would it make if the wedding is consummated?”

  Isabelle grinned for the first time since we’d begun talking. “The staff is taking bets on it. Our theory is that if Billie and Craig have consummated their union, then Craig can’t give Billie back to Charlotte and say, ‘No thanks.’”

  “A wife is not something you can return to the store if you don’t like her,” I said.

  Isabelle’s lips quirked into a mischievous smile. “There’s a first for everything.”

  “How about a second for everything?”

  “What?” she asked, suddenly suspicious.

  “I need you to get me into that Smoothie Cabin.”

  Isabelle said, “Victor will fire me.”

  “Do you know how to disable the security cameras?”

  Isabelle looked at me as if I’d asked her to fix the transmission in a Korean sports car. “Uh, no way.”

  “Do you have any spray paint?” I asked. “We can do it the old-fashioned way.”

  22

  Julian and Boyd kept watch. I set up a ladder near the outside camera, the one that pointed into the Smoothie Cabin. Isabelle handed me a can of gold spray paint that they kept for when the clients made Christmas crafts. Then she buttoned a catering jacket onto my head, as a makeshift mask. When I said I could see through the front gap, I stepped up the ladder, pointed to the camera lens, and sprayed. Once Isabelle had let me into the Smoothie Cabin, I repeated the process. Then Isabelle joined Julian and Boyd in monitoring the door. Isabelle told me I probably had no more than five minutes, as Victor kept a close eye on the feed from the cameras in his office, near the reception area.

  “You need to be methodical,” Boyd had told me beforehand. “I wanted to go in with you, but I can’t. I don’t have a search warrant, so you’re going to have to take samples of everything you find. If I take anything out of there, Schulz will have my badge.”

  The room was really like a large closet, about eight feet by eight feet. There was a small, humming refrigerator filled with yogurt, ice, strawberries, blueberries, and three tall bottles of what looked and smelled like jam, except they were labeled smoothie mix. I extracted the plastic bags Boyd had given me and quickly spooned in samples of mango, strawberry, and pineapple. Across the two counters, bunches of bananas were carefully arrayed between three blenders. A sink, a bottle of dishwashing liquid, and a drain looked innocuous enough. The first cupboard I checked held plastic glasses and spoons. The second contained about two dozen plastic canisters with healthful-sounding labels like protein powder, ginseng, echinacea, vitamin powder, chamomile, and the like. Each canister contained powders of various colors.

  “Take samples of everything you find.” Boyd’s words echoed in my ears.

  I was about halfway through when Julian knocked quickly on the door. “Boss!” he whispered urgently through the door. “He’s coming!”

  “Have Isabelle waylay him,” I whispered back.

  “Give me the samples,” Boyd ordered me through the door. “I’ll make my way to the van out the back door of the kitchen. Meet me there.”

  I did as directed. I stuffed the bags into a large grocery bag I’d brought expressly for this purpose and handed them to Boyd. Then I walked quickly through the cabin door, raced across the kitchen, and hauled myself out the kitchen’s back door. There, I scooted around a half-full cart of dirty table linens and towels, and ran to where we had parked the van. Thank God Boyd had insisted we put the vehicle behind the spa’s garage, where it could not be seen.

  Boyd was already there. He’d placed the grocery bag in the back. He told me to walk calmly around the corner and start toward the dining room. He’d be right behind me.

  In front of the Smoothie Cabin door, Isabelle was explaining to Victor that she had no idea who could have picked the lock to the Smoothie Cabin and vandalized the cameras.

  When Victor saw me, he held up his hand for Isabelle to stop talking. He narrowed his eyes at me and said, “I don’t suppose you know anything about this.”

  I said, “Anything about what?”

  “If I find spray paint in that kitchen, you’re done here.”

  I said, “Spray paint? For what?”

  “Isabelle,” Victor said loudly, “give me back that key I gave you to the Smoothie Cabin.” When she sheepishly handed it over, Victor said she was done helping him with smoothies. Now, he concluded, he was on his way to the hardware store to get a padlock for the Smoothie Cabin door.

  Somehow, we got through the rest of the day. I didn’t discover anything else, and none of the food seemed to have anything odd about it. When Victor returned from the hardware store, he went straight to the Smoothie Cabin. I prayed that the clean-up job I’d done would convince Victor not to destroy any evidence, if indeed there was evidence to be had there. I hadn’t found any vials, which wasn’t encouraging. What was encouraging was that Victor hadn’t fired Isabelle on the spot, or thrown me out of the spa altogether. He must be desperate for cooks and aerobics instructors, I thought.

  I saw Lucas only briefly at lunch, and Charlotte, Billie, and Craig Miller for a moment at dinner. I didn’t have a chance to speak to any of them, which was probably just as well. Boyd, meanwhile, hovered over me, which made me feel crowded. But I’d agreed to his being there, so I was compliant. Plus, I simply could not wait for him to get those samples analyzed.

  The one time I saw Marla, Boyd instructed Julian to watch over me. Then Boyd sauntered off to go talk to Marla. Marla rummaged in her gym carrier and, as unobtrusively as possible—not easy if you were Marla—gave Boyd the plastic bags he’d given her that morning.

  I was so tired by the time we finished cooking dinner that I wanted to go have a soak in the hot springs pool before heading home. I knew if I did, Victor would fire me for sure. I was still worried about those broken plates, though, and thought we should check on the status of the cleanup.

  The spa servers were washing the dishes—their job, they insisted—while the clients were settling in for an evening of karaoke, which I’d always thought was a singularly foolish activity. But nobody was asking me.

  “Let’s go up and see if the hot pool has been reopened,” I suggested to Boyd. It was half past seven, and the twilight air smelled delicious. Shreds of sulfurous mist from the hot springs were unraveling overhead. There was a hint of fall in the breeze. Boyd, who was still tagging along beside me, lifted an expressive eyebrow.

  “I’m not propositioning you,” I insisted. “Don’t give me that look.”

  “I’m not allowing you to go into any body of water. If I did, I’d lose my job.”

  I laughed so hard that my fatigue abated a bit. By the time we reached the top of the path that led to the steaming pool, I’d told him in no uncertain terms I only wanted to see if the mess I’d made had been cleaned up. He was visibly relieved that there was still a no entry sign by the pool. I was disappointed, as ribbons of hot mist floated invitingly our way. But still. Presumably, the remains of a couple dozen broken cups and plates lurked on the slimy bottom. Once again, I wondered where Victor Lane was putting all his money from running the spa. Not into handymen and cleaning crews, clearly.

  “Tough luck,” I said, trying hard to sound sincere.

  “Yeah.” A man of few words, was our Boyd. We turned back down the path.

  “Can you help me?” asked a large, fleshy blond woman as she toiled up the path. She stopped to gasp for breath. “I … I followed you from the kitchen.”

  Boyd, ever watchful, stepped in front of me. “Help you with what?”

  “I’m starving.” She put her hands on her waist, bent over
, and panted. She was about sixty, and her thin blond hair had dark gray roots. “I … I’ve been here before, and … Yolanda always gave me”—here she blushed—“gave us, some of us, that is, extra food. After dinner, at the back door to the kitchen.” She straightened and wheezed. “We paid her,” she added, then reached into the copious pocket of even-more-copious pants and pulled out a wad of cash. “I can pay you.”

  Boyd turned to face me, so that his back was to the woman. He gave me a what-the-hell bug-eyed look.

  “It’s all right,” I said soothingly to the woman. “I don’t have anything right now, but I can bring you something tomorrow.”

  “Oh, thank God,” said the woman, who made her way back down the path while we waited behind.

  “Didn’t she come here to lose weight?” Boyd asked, once the woman was out of earshot. “Why sabotage yourself like that?”

  “It’s probably like being able to get drugs in rehab. Those clinics are one of the best places to score. So if she wants a dessert, I’ll bring her one.”

  “Kee-rist,” said Boyd. “And I thought cops were the most cynical guys in the world.”

  AT HOME, TOM was upstairs taking a shower. I checked our voice mail: there was nothing from Bogen the jeweler about Jack’s clock, and that irritated me. Finally I went upstairs, and on impulse, joined Tom in the shower. That proved more rejuvenating than any old hot springs pool.

  “I’m hungry,” Tom whispered in my ear, when we were embracing, afterward, in the steamy bathroom. “You?”

  I nodded assent. We put on pajamas and trekked down to the kitchen.

  “How was the spa?” Tom asked. He was ladling spoonfuls of Chilled Curried Chicken Salad onto glass plates.

  “Exhausting.” I opened bottles of imported beer—what I’d been told was the proper drink to go with curry—and placed cold glasses on our table. I told him about Isabelle’s revelations, which were more puzzling than eye opening. I then said I had gone into the Smoothie Cabin to hunt around.