Fit to Die

by J. B. Stanley

  “Bored?” the woman next to James huffed. “I’m too busy tryin’ to stay alive to fret over bein’ bored.”

  James nodded in agreement. “Besides,” he added, “I’d rather have more variety in regard to these Witness to Fitness meals.” He frowned as he looked over the menu for the upcoming week. “This is hardly different from last week’s menu.”

  Phoebe held up her own copy of the menu and studied it. “I noticed that, too,” she said in a kind, but slightly distracted manner, running her long fingers through her blue-black hair. “I’ll talk to Miss Levitt about spicing things up a bit. Still, I’m glad to see that both of you made progress this week. Congratulations.”

  James and the woman smiled shyly at one another as they shared a moment of dieting kinship, and then James entered the exercise room in order to catch up with the other members of the Flab Five. The ladies had already been weighed in by Dylan and were now feverishly stretching as they sat on their blue plastic floor mats.

  “Did you lose anything, James?” Lindy called out as she reached her hands out over her knees and attempted to grab the shoelaces of her left sneaker.

  “Yes. And how about you?”

  “Everyone did!” Gillian announced happily. “Our whole supper club has had success. Oh, the stars must have been perfectly aligned the day you and Lindy ran into the wonderful Ronnie at that superstore. I believe we were meant to have been guided to good health by her and Dylan and Phoebe.” Gillian clasped her hands together and sighed loudly with contentment. She then began to arc her body sideways with her arms held aloft over her head as if she were exhibiting some kind of awkward ballet move.

  Lucy cast James a look that said I told you so and again, he doubted whether he had completely misjudged the spunky fitness guru from the first. Before he could dwell on the idea that he had totally lost his ability to read people’s characters, Dylan bounded enthusiastically into the room and for the next forty-five minutes, all James could think about was the shortness of his breath and the splintering cramp dominating the whole of his right flank.

  Throughout the routine, Ronnie leapt around in the back row, encouraging those who wanted to give up by letting out energetic whoops whenever Dylan asked the class to pick up the pace. She continuously winked and smiled at Dylan when she wasn’t motivating her clients. He acted as though he didn’t notice her flirtatious expressions. After twenty minutes of Ronnie’s clapping, whooping, and backslapping, James, on the other hand, was ready to smother her with one of the blue exercise mats.

  Once class was over, James joined his friends outside as they limped over to Gillian’s compact hybrid. She wanted to show them all her newly printed catalogue featuring photos of the complete Pet Palace line.

  As the foursome praised Gillian on the brochure, she waved off their compliments with a flick of her hand. “We would never have had such a professional layout without Willy’s help. He’s really got an eye for graphic design. A man with many gifts indeed.”

  “I’m glad to hear he’s doing well,” Lucy said. “And speaking of Willy, I’ll fill y’all in on what the deputies found when they searched Pete’s house this morning for signs of any drug use.”

  Lindy’s eyes flew open. “That’s right—the Valium. Oh, do tell! What did they find?”

  Lucy shrugged and frowned. “That’s the thing. They found absolutely nothing suspicious at his place. Donovan even went to Goodbee’s afterward and they looked up Pete’s prescription record. The man never ordered any medications other than a high-powered hydrocortisone cream. Apparently he had eczema, but that’s it.”

  “So he never ordered any Valium?”

  “Well, he could have gotten it at a pharmacy out of town,” Lucy suggested.

  A thought suddenly occurred to James. “Lucy, did the report mention whether or not the deputies found any signs of cigarette smoking at Pete’s—ashtrays or empty packs or anything?”

  Lucy stared at James in confusion. “I doubt it. They were looking for drugs and for the brand of booze he drank.”

  “Was it Wild Turkey?” Lindy asked. “You and James said that was his brand of choice.”

  “Yes, they found two bottles of it, partially full. One in the living room and one in the bedroom.”

  “But no Jack Daniels?” Bennett queried.

  Lucy shrugged again. “No. Just the Wild Turkey.”

  “That’s two things out of place at the scene then,” James insisted. “Pete didn’t smoke and he probably didn’t buy that bottle of Jack Daniels.”

  “I don’t know. This feels a little weird to me.” Gillian looked at her friends. “It just doesn’t add up correctly.”

  “Let’s not get bent into pretzels over nothin’,” Bennett advised. “The man could have bought the drugs elsewhere and might have gotten some Jack Daniels just for the heck of it. What do we know?”

  The five friends grew silent. A hesitant breeze tickled the treetops lining the parking lot and a dog barked from one of the houses in the newer development tucked behind the strip mall. Low stars gathered on the lip of the darkening horizon and a weak moon, blurred by a striping of gossamer clouds, hung low in the sky like a pendulum.

  “Despite these new findings,” Lucy began, breaking the silence. “I think something is amiss with this whole fire. I agree with you, Gillian. Something feels odd. If it was just a feeling, I might be able to let it pass, but the sheriff himself said something to me that let me know that, in his mind at least, this case is not closed.”

  “He said something to you or to the deputies and you just happened to overhear?” James asked, seeking clarification.

  Lucy scowled. “Directly to me. He was leaving for lunch and he looked … really distracted. I asked him if everything was all right and he barely heard me. Then he kind of sat on the corner of my desk and told me that he couldn’t believe Pete would have chosen to kill himself. He said that if Pete had ever planned to do that, he would have used a gun and he would have done it years ago. Apparently, he and Sheriff Huckabee grew up on the same street over in Lacey Spring. Said Pete was an easygoing, fun-lovin’ guy when he was young. Married right out of high school, but his wife died before they even reached their first anniversary.”

  Lindy gasped. “How awful! What happened?”

  “Some kind of boating accident in the Rappahannock River. She was with a bunch of friends and their boat hit someone else’s. I think the girl who was driving their boat was pretty sloshed at the time. When Pete headed out to the Bay to identify her body, the local coroner informed him that his wife had been pregnant. According to Huckabee, she was going to surprise him with the news the very next day. She had made dinner reservations at a place they couldn’t really afford and had a pair of knit booties in her purse.”

  “Pete had a wife.” James felt remorseful. “I never saw him in that kind of light. He was so hostile—muttering angrily to himself while he cleaned the school. No wonder!”

  “I guess some folks have the right to be angry. Pete was certainly mad at the world for a long time,” Lucy mused as she looked up at the rising moon. “Thing is, Huckabee believes that if Pete didn’t kill himself the day he identified his wife’s body, then he was never going to. Why now? It makes no sense. He even asked me to keep my ears open regarding the whole affair. He’s never asked me anything like that before. I feel like this is my chance to prove to him that I can be a more valuable part of the Sheriff’s Department than I am now.”

  “We’ll help you!” Gillian laid a hand on Lucy’s arm. “We know you’ve got tons to offer that rooster house you work in, and we don’t want Pete to pass on having folks believe he killed himself if he didn’t.”

  “Then that means someone else killed him,” Bennett pointed out. “But who?”

  “Someone who recently bought a pack of cigarettes,” James suggested.

  Bennett nodded. “Yeah, and a bottle of Jack Daniels.”

  “And there’s still the little matter of motive,” Lucy reminded them.
“Sure, he was a grumpy old man, but we’d have a high pile of bodies if all the town’s geezers who hang out at Dolly’s counter were suddenly murdered.”

  “We’ll just have to dig deeper into Pete’s past. There’s got to be some clue there that could point us to a motive,” Lindy insisted. “And I’d say his recent past, too. No one’s bothered with him until he started working for Willy.”

  At the sound of a pair of clicking heels, they all fell silent and turned to see Phoebe heading their way. She took out her car keys and unlocked the creaking door of an old, sad-looking Chevy Malibu. The driver’s side door was light blue while the rest of the car was a shade of lackluster silver.

  “Parking lot powwow?” she asked them.

  “We’re drinking bottled water around the car instead of glasses of margaritas at Nacho House,” Lindy answered lightly. “Plus, Gillian’s new Pet Palace brochure is hot off the presses. You should see how gorgeous it is.”

  Phoebe peered at the open brochure. “Those are the coolest doghouses I’ve ever seen.” She flipped to the back page where the price list was written. “I could never afford one of these for my pooch, however.” She indicated her car door. “As soon as I can save a little money I’m going to have two silver doors on my car again. ’Night all!”

  “Good night!” the five friends echoed in return. As Phoebe drove off, each supper club member promised to delve into Pete’s past as well as all of the town’s recent events leading up to the night of the fire. Lucy promised to sneak copies of the sheriff’s reports on both the fire and the search of Pete’s house to show them at their next supper club meeting.

  “I’m starting the detective work right now,” James pronounced.

  “By doing what?” one of the others asked as they turned toward their own vehicles.

  “I’m heading for the liquor store. It’s the closest one in twenty-five miles and Danny has a mind for faces like a minnow trap. Nothing escapes him!” James opened his car door and called out, “Besides, my pop is fresh out of Cutty Sark and he likes to sip on it during Jeopardy!”

  As James opened the door to his Bronco, he felt that he had forgotten something.

  “My meals!” he yelped and headed back inside Witness to Fitness. The cubicle area was still lit but the exercise room was dark and empty as James entered and called out, “It’s just me, James Henry. I forgot my food for the week.”

  No one answered so James flicked on the lights and gathered his shopping bag full of entrées. As he turned to leave, Ronnie came out of the kitchen area, a fuchsia towel draped around her neck. She put her hands over her heart as if startled and then broke out into a giggle.

  “Oh my! You made me jump!”

  James forced himself to look abashed, not believing for a second that she had been the slightest bit frightened. “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, you can make it up to me. My silly little car won’t start and I’m sure it’s the battery acting up again. I’ve got an appointment to get it fixed on Friday, but I could certainly use a sweet hero to get me home tonight.”

  “Sure,” James replied without much chivalric enthusiasm. “Where do you live?”

  “In that group of townhouses behind the post office. You know, the darling yellow ones with the green shutters and flower boxes?”

  James nodded. The quaint townhouse block had caused quite a stir during the town planning meetings. The builder of the three-story town homes had promised to paint them a delicate shade of buttery yellow. Instead, he had gotten a deal on a different hue and the grouping of buildings had been covered by three thick coats of an orange-yellow so blindingly bright that groups of bees and other flower-friendly insects were constantly swarming around the area. The poor bugs apparently thought that the wooden structures were actually gigantic marigolds loaded with nectar. The fact that all the residents overloaded their window boxes with every variety of flowers during the growing season didn’t help matters, either. James had heard Bennett complain more than once about having to douse himself with bug repellent before venturing out to deliver mail at the Cozy Valley Town Homes.

  “I’ve got to swing by the liquor store on the way, if that’s all right with you,” James said, holding the front door open for Ronnie.

  A cloud passed over her face as she locked the door to her business. “Alcohol is just empty calories, James.”

  Her patronizing tone instantly grated on him. “It’s for my pop.”

  Ronnie smiled her false smile, clearly doubting James at his word. “Well, of course it is.”

  James gritted his teeth and opened the passenger door without speaking. He had always hated that derisive sarcasm.

  As he parked in front of the town’s only liquor store, Ronnie pulled a fitness magazine out of her cavernous gym bag. “I’ll just sit tight. That’s not a business I frequent.”

  A bell tinkled out a greeting as James entered the store. Danny Leary looked up from a book of word puzzles and issued a friendly nod. James located a bottle of Cutty Sark and placed it gently on the counter.

  “You any good at word scrambles, Professor?” Danny asked, pointing at a grouping of letters. I can’t figure this one out at all. The clue is that all the words are capitals of foreign countries.” He made a cough-like sound. “Shoot, I haven’t been farther away than Kentucky, so it’s not like I recognize too many of these, but I’ve got ’em all except for this one. I’ve been staring at this clue for almost an hour.”

  James turned the book so that it was facing him. He examined the letters.

  ihleniks

  Danny rang up the Cutty Sark and placed the brown bag to the side of the word puzzle book. James had the answer right away, but he stalled so as not to hurt Danny’s feelings.

  “This is a tough one, Danny. Give me a minute to stare at it some more.”

  Danny seemed pleased that James was stumped as well. He settled back on the stool he had sat in for over twenty years. He had long white hair pulled back into a neat ponytail and he occasionally twisted the end of it around his finger when he was working one of his puzzles. He wore steel-rimmed reading glasses low on his nose and with his open, wide face, he often reminded people of Ben Franklin.

  “Nasty business about that ice cream store,” James said, hoping to ease his way into getting some answers out of Danny.

  “Sure was.” Danny unwrapped a piece of gum and popped it in his mouth.

  “Heard a rumor that old Pete Vandercamp was inside with both a bottle of Wild Turkey and a bottle of Jack Daniels.”

  Danny shook his head. “No chance. Ole Pete has drunk Wild Turkey all his life. He wouldn’t touch another brand. Said it was a favorite of his father-in-law’s and Pete admired that man to no end. Too bad the guy got cancer at such a young age. Pete could have used a friend back then.”

  “Was that when his wife was killed?” James asked, not daring to look up from the puzzle book.

  “Just a year or two after that. Left Pete all alone in this world. Still, he never drank another whiskey in all the years I’ve known him. Ah, I mean, knew him.” Danny cleared his throat. “It’d seem disloyal to his father-in-law’s memory.”

  James nodded. “Well, my pop’s like that with his Cutty Sark. I guess someone must have given Pete that bottle of Jack Daniels then.”

  Danny seemed disinterested. “Yeah, reckon so. We sell quite a lot of Jack in here, so there’s no tellin’. Never to Pete though and that’s all I’ve got to say about that. How’s your daddy doin’ these days?”

  “Oh, he’s doing just fine, thanks for asking. I think the answer to this clue is Helsinki, but you’d better double-check.”

  Danny squinted at the clue and then smiled happily. “Darned if you’re not right. Thanks, Professor.” Danny looked beyond James toward the parking lot. “You got a lady friend with you?”

  James controlled his feeling of revulsion so that it was not mirrored on his face. “She owns Witness to Fitness, that new weight-loss business. Her car battery is dead so I
’m just giving her a lift home.”

  Danny removed his glasses and gave the woman in the Bronco a good look, but Ronnie had her face practically buried in her magazine. Another car pulled alongside James’s truck on the driver’s side and a group of young men jumped noisily out of each of the four doors. Ronnie looked up from her magazine momentarily as Danny watched the men make their way to the front door.

  “Oh, I recognize her now,” he stated matter-of-factly. “She’s a pretty thing, if you like ’em skinny.”

  “You seen her around town?” James inquired. “She said she’s never been in here.”

  Danny looked wounded. “Well, sure she has. Just once, a few weeks ago. I don’t remember what she bought, but I remember her. You know I never forget a face and hers is a new one ’round here.”

  “She must just not want to come in,” James said hurriedly.

  “Well, shoot. Tell the gal I don’t bite,” Danny replied and then turned his attention to his other customers. James cast a glance back outside to see that Ronnie’s visage was again obscured by her magazine. “So she was in here once,” he mumbled to himself and then bid Danny a good night.

  Ronnie chattered on about how much she adored Quincy’s Gap as James pondered over his discovery at the liquor store. Before he knew it, they were pulling into the road leading to Ronnie’s town house. Beneath the Victorian lampposts, a man slowly walked a dog on what appeared to be a very long leash. He wore a hooded sweatshirt, dark pants, and a baseball cap. He seemed to be the only person outside and in no hurry to return to his home.

  “Him again,” Ronnie said lowly, sinking down a tad in her seat as they passed by the man.

  “You know him?” James asked, his curiosity alerted by the lack of peppiness that was customarily injected into every word Ronnie uttered.

  Ronnie stuffed her magazine back into her gym bag. “He’s my creepy mailman.”

  “Oh yeah? Why creepy?”

  Ronnie gestured to one of the units on the right. “The next one’s mine. I don’t know why he bothers me. Whenever he has to hand me a package too big for the mail slot he stares at me.” She laughed lightly. “It’s not like most men don’t look at me. I’m used to that. He just looks in a funny kind of way. I’m sure it’s nothing. Still,” she glanced backward out of the side mirror. “He doesn’t live in one of these townhouses, so why is he walking his dog here?”