Fit To Be Dead (An Aggie Mundeen Mystery Book 1) (18 page)

Twenty-Nine

By the time Sam left, it was late Tuesday afternoon. I bathed, watched TV for a while, gobbled a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and daydreamed about him. Did his talking about Holly and hugging me mean he’d learned I was Lee’s mother? He’d kissed me. Had he forgiven me? Maybe he was just apologizing for his anger when he caught me in Holly’s apartment. I’d have to wait and see.

I knew I should read material for Aspects of Aging. I absolutely had to attend Dr. Carmody’s Wednesday class, but now that I was home, I could hardly keep my eyes open.

I checked inside
An In-Depth History of the World
for Lee’s bracelet. My good-luck charm was still missing. Someone could have broken into my house while we attended Sheldon’s party. I never saw Mickey, Pete, Ned, Sarah, Mindy or Knobs there. Harry had been in the hospital. I had too many suspects to sort out. I crawled into bed, hoping to dream about Sam, and drifted off.

I dreamed about a second
Food, Fitness and Euphoria
party at Sheldon’s house. More people packed his lair than the number who’d attended the real party. Guests gyrated to rock music, vibrating the floor and blocking my view of the dining table. As if on cue, dancers jostled backward in a uniform circle, leaving me an unobstructed view of a shrunken dining table centered in the room with the mammoth hog perched on top.

Mickey Shannon, wearing a cut-off tank top and very tight jeans, bounced around the disgusting animal in perfect time to the music, like a fighter sizing up his competition. The hog, stiff as a statue, resembled Harry Thorne. Its feet pointed in different directions. Its head was twisted around so its face craned back over its own shoulder.

Sheldon sidled up to me. “It’s the first time I cooked a whole hog. I put it in my new trash can and stuffed ice around it. When I pulled the pig out, the creature was frozen with its feet sticking out. I worked for an hour just trying to straighten out the head.” Giggling, he bopped off, twirling a string of sausages to the beat.

Mickey circled the stiff hog, monitoring its legs while trying to look the oinker in the eye. The boar began to move. The porker came alive, stood on its hind legs, sprang off the table and charged Mickey. They jabbed at each other and wrestled. Mickey got off some good punches since his arms were longer. The hog connected with his snout a couple of times, which grossed Mickey out.

They had hit the floor when Patricia Drexel appeared in low-rise jeans and a midriff top. She circled them, switching her body in time to the beat. Had she come to claim the winner, or did she want to see if Mickey Shannon could wallop a hog? The circle of dancers surrounding them, dressed in tank tops and low risers, jigged in unison around the room.

I couldn’t believe I was wearing low risers. I sucked in my stomach and slapped my hand over my navel.

Mickey had a chokehold on the hog when the music stopped abruptly. He threw off the hog in a wild, aimless gesture. It hit Mindy and bounced off, crashed against Knobs and knocked her to the floor. Landing with its backside on her stomach, the hog returned to icy paralysis, its legs splayed skyward and its head swiveled back toward her terrified face.

Everyone froze. After seconds of silence, Professor Carmody glided in, a puff pastry on roller skates. He skidded to a stop and whipped his left skate sideways to the back of his right in perfect T-stop position. He held a baton high and directed invisible musicians who played tinkling strains of medieval music to cleanse the atmosphere.

Ned Barclay materialized at one side of the room. Dressed like a knight in gleaming armor, he parted the crowd. Holly Holmgreen floated in from the other side dressed like Guinevere. Pixie dust surrounded them and floated through the room’s inhabitants, clothing them in thirteenth-century splendor.

I glanced down, pleased to see my chest artfully lifted with a tight corset and my navel covered with gauzy fabric that draped to the floor.

The music changed to a dignified waltz. Ned and Holly led the dancing, gazing into each other’s eyes. A baby in antiquated swaddling clothes popped out between them, nestled on a tiny silk hassock. They smiled at their new attachment and kept on waltzing.

Sarah Savoy appeared at one side of the room, a snarl on her lips. A frighteningly beautiful medieval witch, wearing a cone hat with glittering streamers and a floor-length Prada coat, she raised a wand high above her head.

“Make sure,” she hissed, “you’re good parents. Bad parents will destroy the child!”

“Ohhhhhh,” the crowd murmured, slithering back en masse from the elegant, fearsome creature.

Sarah shrieked at Holly and Ned. “A hex on you! You will be skewered by King Arthur.” She flicked her wand and sprayed the room with evil black sparkle dust.

I woke up gasping for air.

Thirty

I was alone. The black night contributed to my fear. Then I remembered. Somewhere outside in the dark was the police officer Sam had assigned to watch my house. After the gas attack, Sam had instructed him to drive my car home. The clothes I’d put in a locker before the attack lay on top of my dresser. I’d throw them out later. After a while, I felt calm enough to drift to sleep without nightmares.

When I woke up Wednesday morning, I knew I had to get a grip. I must have sniffed too much oxygen up my nose, not to mention Albuterol. That stuff made me crazy. My brain cells were becoming senescent. I practiced deep breathing, brushed my teeth and drank water until I stopped coughing.

I tossed bacon in a skillet and beat three eggs with a fury. With my system free of camphor, ammonia and Clorox, I was starving. Brain food would help me hone in on the creep who was making my life miserable.

Sam and I had agreed that anyone could have substituted bottles filled with liquefied camphor for the club’s deodorant bottles. I’d seen the cleaning woman move bottles between locker rooms. Maybe the killer asked the unsuspecting housekeeper to deliver toiletries to the women’s dressing area. She’d probably re-supply the most accessible primping station first, which was the one I used. Members frequently asked her for refills. I remembered when Mason Jar obtained hair spray for Knobs.

I inhaled the odor of crackling bacon and salted my eggs.

If the murderer knew his victim’s workout schedule, he could have employed another method to deliver poisoned bottles. He could have told a female club member that his wife or friend was out of deodorant and asked the naïve pawn to deliver it to the station he designated. Later, the killer would watch his intended victim. If she looked sick, the killer would know the poisoned bottles had been well placed.

Several people had seen Holly and me appear ill. Pete Reeves probably overheard me say I felt nauseated when I lingered to talk to Holly at Tofu Temptations Grill. Everybody who attended Sheldon’s party certainly knew I was sick. Holly looked unhealthy the few times I saw her. Whoever wanted to kill Holly or me knew his poison was on target.

My eggs were superb. I’d forgotten how great food tasted. I consumed two pieces of toast, one with butter and one with apple butter. With my stomach full, I could study. Since I’d missed Carmody’s Monday and Tuesday classes for two weeks and didn’t want to be booted out, I had to get busy.

The syllabus said we would discuss heart disease. I recalled some scientists thought if they could eradicate heart disease, they could extend average life span by almost ten years. This was incredible news, yet Professor Carmody had haughtily dismissed it. In addition to reading my notebook, I researched the subject online.

I studied all day, stopping only to devour a small peanut butter sandwich before I showered and dressed for the professor’s Wednesday session of enlightenment.

I drove to University of the Holy Trinity and pranced into class smiling.

“How are you, Dr. Carmody?” I pronounced his name carefully. I was afraid I’d previously called him something else. His eyes widened. My reappearance apparently crushed his hopes.

“Flu bug.” I slipped to my seat, hoping he was too stunned to question my absence. Sitting ramrod straight, I displayed strict control of my faculties in case my demeanor during our last class together had been less than decorous. I flipped through my notebook with intense interest.

Carmody rolled his eyes and looked toward heaven for help. “Today, we’ll discuss heart disease, especially in women. Dr. Jenna Tranham, Director of the Women’s Heart Health Institute, Southern University Medical Center, says cardiovascular disease accounts for nearly fifty percent of deaths in developed and developing countries. The risk of dying from heart disease is greater than the risk from AIDS and all forms of cancer combined.”

He flicked me a sideways glance. I remembered Sam’s saying chlorine gas could have given me a heart attack.

“However, the doctor reports good news. Although more people in our aging population have heart disease, death rates from it are falling. In some cases, doctors can stop a heart attack in its tracks. They can treat heart rhythm problems and heart failure and give people with heart disease many more years of high quality life.” He smiled at everyone in the room, avoiding eye contact with me.

“Dr. Tranham says the number of men who die from heart attacks decreased every year since 1979. But over the same time period, fatal heart attacks among women increased. Nearly one in two women dies of cardiovascular disease.” He stared at me dead on.

That cinched it: I would resume exercising and adopt a healthy diet. I wasn’t about to thrill Professor Carmody by dying. He didn’t know my heart was strong enough to survive ingesting poison and careening down a flight of stairs. He covered some well-known facts and spent the remaining class time blah-blahing about statistics. By the time class ended, my mind had wandered to suspects at the health club.

I cranked up my Wagoneer and drove east on Hildebrand, thinking about my attempted murder in the shower. A woman could have tossed in balloons, but if the killer was a man, how did he enter the women’s locker room without being noticed?

For the club’s Ten Year Celebration, I remembered the staff had left locker room doors ajar so prospective customers could tour the entire facility. They partitioned off changing areas and showers for members by constructing flimsy corridors—standing wood frames with fabric stapled on them. I’d heard visitors speaking through the fabric and felt uneasy walking unclothed to the shower with strangers clomping around on the other side. If somebody wanted to peek around the barrier, he could easily peel back a section of material.

I pictured the killer lurking unnoticed in the foyer among members and visitors, waiting until he saw me enter the locker room. He could pretend to tour the women’s area, slip stealthily through the barrier and head for my shower.

I almost missed my turn onto Burr Road. I wheeled right at the last minute, thankful nobody was tailgating me.

If the culprit carried balloons, no one would notice. Balloons were everywhere. If someone saw him slip in or out of the partitioned area, he could say he got lost or was curious about the women’s facilities. Harry Thorne could go anywhere without raising suspicion.

When I arrived home, I bounded inside to get my Big Chief tablet. I wanted to make a list of pros and cons for every suspect who could have killed Holly, starting with Harry Thorne. I placed it on the dining table and began to write.

Harry Thorne

Pros

Embarrassed by Holly.

Devastated by Holly.

Wanted kids (Holly’s baby).

Had easy access.

Cons

Capable of killing niece?

Harry & car easy to identify.

Was sick when I was.

If caught, he disgraced his club.

Harry and Holly’s history was so bizarre anything was possible.

I peered at my living room photos. When I’d perused photographs in Holly’s apartment, I focused on the men I knew, but Holly had undoubtedly dated men I didn’t know. I should have studied more faces in her pictures. Somebody captured on film could have been waiting in line at the celebration or working out somewhere in the club. I should have been more observant. I doubted I could riffle through Holly’s apartment again. Sam had probably padlocked the door.

I thought about the men I knew. Holly had dated Mickey, Ned, Sheldon and probably Pete. I knew her involvement with the first three had ended in conflict. If Pete made her suffer using weight machines like he did me, she probably scratched him off her list as soon as she could grip her pencil. I didn’t know enough about Pete to list pros and cons, but I thought his ego paralleled Mickey’s. I knew he lacked patience. Maybe he was impatient with Holly, she flipped him off, and he killed her.

As for attempts on my life, I’d made all the men angry, so it was difficult to single one out. Since I believed Holly’s murder was linked to attacks against me, and we had both associated with Sheldon, I decided to hone in on him. I picked up my pencil.

Sheldon was painfully serious about the magazine he edited, his knowledge of cuisine and his food choices. When I embarrassed him in front of San Antonio’s culinary elite at a party he’d planned for a year, swarming with media, his hatred of me became intense. Not only did I ruin the most important event in his life by becoming ill at the sight of his delicacies, I might have hurt subscriptions to his prized magazine and jeopardized his livelihood.

Remembering his predatory attitude toward me in the elevator, I shivered. To comfort myself, I padded to the kitchen and ate a banana smeared with peanut butter. Did madness hide behind Sheldon’s food fetish?

I thought about Holly. She was basically a sweet little thing, but she didn’t strike me as a girl who had become serious until she was forced to make a life-altering decision. Before she got pregnant, I pictured her as a delightful little waif who loved to dress up, party and date every available man. She worked Harry over because he and Arnold gave her whatever she wanted. I remembered how her closet overflowed with clothes.

I opened the refrigerator and poured myself a glass of milk.

Holly and Sheldon might have used drugs together, judging from Sheldon’s supply. He would have hidden the bad stuff. If Sheldon were into drugs, he would have told Holly what to take, just like he told people what to eat. Once he became seriously controlling, I imagined Holly pirouetted out of the relationship. Sheldon, self-absorbed and positive he was always right, wouldn’t have appreciated her independence.

I thought about the note in Holly’s shoe. I’d assumed that Harry wrote it, but maybe it was Sheldon. Holly probably viewed her dates with him as a lark, whereas I doubted Sheldon took a light view of anything. Did he kill Holly for jilting him? Maybe she’d enraged him by dumping him at a previous Party of the Year. That could have done it.

I strode back to the dining table, reached for my Big Chief tablet and flipped to a clean page. Sheldon roared at me like an angry beast on the grassy slope outside Fit and Firm. Did he roar because I’d ruined his party or because he was shocked to see me alive?

Sheldon Snodgrass

Pros

Controlling food nut who failed to change Holly.

Holly probably ruined his party.

He gave Holly drugs. Did she threaten to tell?

Cons

Would he risk his magazine’s reputation by killing somebody?

Sheldon’s list was lopsided. I was suddenly exhausted from thinking about being murdered by the health club weirdo, assuming I didn’t die first from heart disease.

To rest my mind, I flipped back to Carmody’s notebook. For Thursday’s class, he had scheduled “The Importance of Exercise,” which wouldn’t require much study. Pete, Mickey and Ned could write a dissertation on that subject. Unfortunately, one of them might be trying to kill me.