by Jon F. Merz
Which is exactly what the good folks at Dow Chemical probably said about Bhopal, but whatever. “All right, so Amalfi had a fan club. Who was the president?”
“She’s not here anymore.”
“She quit?”
Chaz shook his head. “No, man, we had to ask her to leave, actually.”
“You threw her out? What for?”
“She and another woman member here started getting into it.”
“Fighting?”
Chaz held up his hand. “It didn’t get to that point, fortunately. But we felt it might. Two alpha females and all. You know one of them isn’t going to like the other. Just a matter of time before they have it out.”
“And what were they going to fight over?”
“You want my opinion?”
“If that’s the only choice, yes.”
“Richie,” said Chaz. “They both wanted the guy. And he never made a clear choice about who he preferred. I think he enjoyed having them fight over him. Ego trip, you know? I mean, what guy in his forties doesn’t like knowing he can still drive women wild?”
“If he was a confident man, then he wouldn’t need the constant reinforcement.”
“Oh, c’mon, Richie wasn’t some insecure type. He took care of himself and liked being recognized for that fact.”
“I’m going to need to talk to these two women,” I said.
Chaz nodded. “I can help with one of them. She’s here right now.”
10
Chaz led me out of the office and over to the corner of the gym relegated to weight lifting. I saw a gun rack full of forty-five and thirty-five pound barbells, stacks of plates, and then a rack of dumbbells that ran from fifteen pounders all the way up to eighty-five pounders. It wasn’t an awesome set-up, but it was better than I’d initially given them credit for having. There was also a rig for doing pull-ups or bar muscle-ups. I didn’t see any rings, but then again, I didn’t expect to.
A woman of about thirty was doing squat cleans with a hundred and forty-five pounds on the bar. She pulled high, got under and shot her elbows, before dropping into the squat and then rose up. The barbell dropped with a resounding clang on the floor. I noticed a few treadmillers looking over in disgust or abject terror. I smiled.
“Nice third pull,” I said. “Going for a PR?”
She eyed me as she sucked at her shaker bottle. I assumed it was protein, possibly some BCAAs in there as well. “Not sure yet. Feeling pretty good so far, but we’ll see.”
I nodded. “Looks like you’d have no trouble hitting one.”
She glanced at Chaz. “Who’s he?”
I stepped forward and extended my hand. “Name’s Lawson. I’d like to ask you a few questions about Richie Amalfi.”
She held out her hand that was coated with chalk dust and shook mine. “Cathy.”
“You work out a lot with Richie?”
“When I got the chance. He was a good spotter, you know? Those types are kinda rare in a place like this.”
“You mind me asking why you come here instead of going to another type of gym?”
She smirked. “Yeah, I get it. I hear it all the time about this place. And yeah, it’s kinda cheesy. But it’s close to my home and I can get in here at odd hours when it’s not so crowded. Plus, I don’t have a bunch of juicers eyeing me all the time.”
“Yeah, but I’m sure the guys on the treadmills ogle you.”
Cathy laughed. “Sure, but none of them have the balls to approach me, so it’s fine. Juicers, though? Those assholes get so warped on steroids that they’ll just get in your face. I don’t want to put up with that shit. I just want to lift.”
“Fair enough. So how long did you and Richie work out together?”
“A couple of months.”
“Until Eileen,” said Chaz.
Cathy’s face clouded instantly. “Really? We need to bring that bitch up?”
“Afraid so,” I said. “Tell me about her.”
“What’s to tell? Richie and I had a good thing going. We’d work out, sometimes we’d get together over at my place. No big deal, you know? I’m single, I can do what I want with whomever I choose.”
“You know he was married?”
Cathy shrugged. “Who cares? If he was on the prowl then maybe things weren’t so great on the home front. All I know is we had a good time. Nothing complex, no drama. Just hung out and had fun. I like things that way.”
“And then Eileen came into the picture.”
Cathy nodded. “She made it pretty clear from the outset that she was into Richie. At first, it was kind of a joke, you know?”
“Why?”
“Because she was older. In her forties. I mean, yeah she still looked decent and everything, but come on. Look at me. I’m way younger and look way better.”
“How did Richie react to her?”
“Same as me at first. It was comical. She’d come in and ask him all of these questions about lifting techniques. It wasn’t fooling anyone. We could tell she’d been lifting before. Her form was too good. She tried to mess it up so he could correct her, but we could see through that. You know. I can tell you lift. You’ve got the traps to prove it.”
“Yeah, I lift.”
“So, yeah, you know when you see it. It’s recognizable. But that didn’t stop her from trying to woo Richie any chance she got.”
“And did he go for it eventually?”
Cathy frowned and then pursed her lips. “Yeah. You could say that. A couple months back, Eileen comes in looking a lot better than she ever had before. I don’t know what the hell she did but she looked radiant. Younger. Like, a lot younger. The wrinkles at her eyes and the corners of her mouth were gone. She must have had a helluva doctor do some work on her. For the first time, I started seeing her as a real threat. And Richie noticed her then, too. He wasn’t all up on her, but he started responding more to her advances. He’d say things to her and she’d giggle. He started helping her with her technique more than he should have.”
“That piss you off?”
“Of course it pissed me off,” said Cathy. “We had a good thing going and then that bitch came and ruined it. I hated her for looking as good as she did. If she hadn’t changed her appearance then Richie never would have given a shit about her. But he liked her and I could tell they were getting closer.”
“So what happened?”
“I confronted her about it one day. Told her to back the fuck off. As far as I was concerned, Richie and I were good together and I didn’t need some cougar homing in on my turf.”
“Richie must have loved that. Two attractive women fighting over him?”
Cathy shrugged. “It didn’t matter if he did, because Eileen didn’t like the fact that I called her on her bullshit. She went nuts. Started attacking me. Even tried to club me over the head with a dumbbell.”
I raised my eyebrows and turned to Chaz. “I take it this is when you had to get involved?”
“And then some. We terminated her membership immediately.” Chaz shook his head. “A real shame, but then we had to protect our members. And the fact that she came at Cathy with a dumbbell, well we couldn’t let that stand.”
Cathy smiled at Chaz and I wondered if they had something going now that both Eileen and Amalfi were apparently gone. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d heard of coaches hooking up with members. One of the CrossFit boxes I’d attended in the past had a coach who was basically using the place to screw as many members as possible. He asked out at least half a dozen women, dated three of them, and had a few flings with some of the married women there.
But if Chaz and Cathy were an item, I wasn’t particularly interested in it. I definitely wanted to speak to Eileen, however.
“When the last time you saw Eileen?”
“The day we kicked her out,” said Chaz. “I made sure she got all of her gear, cleaned out her locker, and then I escorted her off the premises.”
“And that was that?”
�
��Richie wasn’t happy about it,” said Chaz. “But I was between a rock and a hard place. It was a business decision, after all.”
I nodded. “What did Richie do?”
“Ran after her, the bum,” said Cathy. “The two of them were outside on the sidewalk talking for fifteen minutes, then he hugged her really close for too long, came back inside, got his stuff and then left. I saw him a few times after that, but his attendance really started dropping off.”
Chaz agreed. “Like I said, I saw him last week. That was it. I don’t know if he found a new place or what.”
“Probably followed that bitch to wherever she turned up next,” said Cathy. “He sure as hell never called me again.”
I turned to Chaz. “You have Eileen’s information still on file?”
“Of course,” said Chaz. “We keep all our membership rolls in case anyone ever decides they want to come back and re-up.”
“Even for her?”
“I mean, yeah. We kicked her out and everything, but if enough time passed and if Cathy left, there’d be no need to keep her away anymore. Technically, she could probably come back as long as she behaved herself.”
“Like she would,” said Cathy. “She’d probably home in on another member and the same shit would kick back up again.”
“You think it was a pattern with her?” I asked.
Cathy thought about it for a moment. “Yeah, you know, probably. I’ve seen other bitches like her before. They reach an age where they get all weird. It’s like they want to still be sexy and young, but if someone treats them like that, they get outraged at being sexualized. It’s a bizarre contradiction if you ask me. Must be some menopause shit.”
I smirked. “If that’s true, then you might be hitting that one day yourself.”
Cathy nodded. “Yeah, and if I ever act that schizo, I hope someone actually does hit me in the head with a dumbbell.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Chaz. He nudged me. “You want to get that information on Eileen?”
“Yeah.” I looked at Cathy. “Thanks for the info and good luck on the lift.”
She grinned. “I’ll nail it now for sure. Just talking about her has gotten me all fired up. I’m gonna crush the shit out of this lift.”
I followed Chaz back to his office. He slid into his chair and started typing. I looked around and then sat back down. “How long have you two been hooking up?”
He paused for a second and then resumed typing. “It’s not illegal, is it?”
“Nah, but it’s not good for your business. You start sleeping around with the members, your whole place is going to fall apart. I’ve seen it happen before. Sure, it’s all fun right now, but it’ll blow up in your face if the other members ever find out.”
“We’ve kept it quiet so far,” said Chaz.
“You’d be amazed at what people notice. It doesn’t have to be much. Just a little touch here, a correction there, extra time spent with them on this day. Pretty soon, you’ll have the tongues in this place wagging. And once that happens, they’ll feed on the drama like sharks on a blood trail.”
Chaz frowned. “Yeah, you’re probably right. It probably isn’t the smartest thing to do, but she’s got an ass that just doesn’t quit.”
“Find another piece of ass some place else. Never shit where you eat, you get my drift?”
“Yeah.” Chaz turned back to his computer and nodded. “Here we go. You want me to print you out a copy of it or email it to you?”
“Printed would be great,” I said. “I always lose emails anyway and then I have to go back and search for them. It’s a pain in the ass.”
“If you say so,” said Chaz.
I heard the whine of the printer start up and then several sheets of paper slid out of it. Chaz gathered them up and handed them over to me. “There you go. You need anything else?”
I took the sheaf of papers and glanced at them quickly. Chaz had apparently included her entire file, including her attendance records. That might come in handy or it just might be a pile of useless garbage. I wasn’t sure which it was just yet.
“How about a copy of her photo ID badge?”
Chaz frowned. “We haven’t had those for years.”
“Why not?”
“Franchise headquarters thought that it put too much emphasis on vanity, so we use an ID chip instead that tracks attendance and membership fee payment.”
“But no visual identification.”
“Uh…no.”
Spectacular. I still had no idea what this woman looked like. “You’ve been great,” I said. “Thanks for all the help. I appreciate it.”
Chaz held out his hand and I shook it. “Always happy to help. For what it’s worth, Eileen wasn’t a bad lady as far as I know. I don’t think she could have killed Richie.”
“Why not?”
Chaz shrugged. “Just a feeling.”
“And what about Cathy? Richie basically spurned her for Eileen. You think she got upset enough to kill him?”
Chaz laughed. “Cathy? Nah. She’s certainly capable of it, but she’s a pussy cat when you get to know her.”
I wasn’t going to put much faith in Chaz’s assessments. As far as I was concerned, he had poor judgment anyway. “Thanks again.” And then I walked out.
11
“Her name’s Eileen Mazura. We have anything in the database on her?” I was back in my car in the garage rifling through the papers Chaz had given me. According to what I saw before me, Eileen had been a fairly regular gym goer during her time at Superfit Fitness. I didn’t need Amalfi’s attendance records to prove the fact that she had targeted him, either. Eileen’s attendance showed a general narrowing of her times that coincided with what Cathy had said about Eileen coming in whenever Amalfi was there. Eileen had clearly been on the hunt and once she defined her target, she narrowed in on him until she finally achieved her goal. The only question was: was her goal to actually kill him?
I heard Niles typing away. “Not that I can see. You have an address on her?”
I gave it to him but I didn’t think it was going necessarily pull anything up. If Eileen was as careful as she’d proven herself thus far, her address would probably trace back to some warehouse or some other easily fabricated front.
“Address is legit,” said Niles. “It’s a condo complex down by the waterfront.”
That surprised me. “I’ll check it out.”
“Any chance you got a picture of her? I can run that through our facial recognition software and see if she’s using an alias or something.”
“I wish. Apparently Superfit Fitness doesn’t want its members subjected to the horrors of a photo ID.”
Niles paused. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I wish I was. I’ve got a sheaf of papers showing Eileen’s attendance and it’s clear to me that she was casting a net and once she had Amalfi in her sights, she tailored her workout schedule to be there when he was in the gym.”
“A deliberate targeting you think?”
“I don’t know yet. Maybe she had an idea what she was looking for and when Amalfi met the criteria, she moved in. Otherwise, it could have been a gradual tightening of the noose. But I still don’t think this was a professional hit.”
“I don’t either,” said Niles. “There’s no established connection we can find from Cousins to Amalfi. I think she stalked them both and killed them for some other reason than just a simple gutting.”
“Agreed. We’ve seen enough pro hitters to know. And if it was, they’d be long gone by now.”
Niles paused again. “How do you know she hasn’t gone to ground?”
“I don’t. Just a feeling. I think she’s still here.”
“Planning her next victim’s demise?”
“Yeah. But for what reason?”
Niles sighed. “It’s possible she’s just a psychotic, right?”
“Always possible,” I said. “But is it probable? Someone who kills merely for the sake of killing d
oesn’t take the sort of steps to cover their tracks as we’ve seen with her. That could be telling us that she needs to remain concealed so she can continue. If her real identity is known within the community, then she’d do her best to protect that. If she didn’t care, we’d have her already.”
“Perhaps the compulsion to kill drives her to be extra cautious,” said Niles. “I’m sure we could dig up examples of psychos who killed with no purpose and were still difficult to track down.”
“No doubt, but I don’t think she fits that mold. I feel more like I’m on the trail of someone who knows exactly what she wants and narrows her victims down to those who will fit the profile. She’s not looking for easy targets. If she was, Superfit Fitness would be a bloodbath.”
“What do you want me to do?”
I sat there watching the bright cold sky of February and thought about everything I’d learned that morning. “You said Cousins was a cop?”
“That’s right.”
“Anything spectacular about his career? Aside from the MMA stuff?”
“Not particularly. Did a tour in the Marines, apparently worked SWAT. No dirt that we can find. Up-to-date on all of his bills. General letters of commendation in his work file, but that’s to be expected in a suburban cop outfit when nothing much happens except pulling over bad drivers.”
“He did MMA,” I said. “Where’d he work out?”
“Lemme check.” Niles clicked around for a minute as he pored over the report the Ferrets had drawn up for him. “Bob’s Gymnasium in Wrentham. Know it?”
“Nope, but I’ll check it out once I go visit this condo complex.”
“You want back up?”
I smiled. “You’re just dying to get back out into the field, aren’t you?”
“Not even remotely,” said Niles. “That’s why I’m a Control and you’re the Fixer. But I’ll be there if you need me to be, you know that.”
“I know it and I appreciate it. But I’m good. I’ll take a drive by, pop in and visit the security guard. Any chance the building belongs to one of our people?”
“No. Human owned. Some giant real estate conglomerate. Refurbished an old textile building and then sold the units as luxury lofts and made an absolute fortune doing so. Typical resident would be a financial district professional, lawyer, that sort of thing. They’ve got 24-hour dry cleaning and room service, so it’s high end. Bring a tie, would you?”