Naked Came The Phoenix (13 page)

"She thought you were a producer," Rollins objected while Phyllis Talmadge nodded furiously. "She thought you were there to interview her…"

Vince smiled. "I
was
interviewing her," he said.

"… for an appearance on
The Today Show
," Rollins finished. "She thought this was something that had been set up by her publicist."

Vince looked past the attorney. "Why are you here, Ms. Talmadge?"

She blinked. "Because you said I had to be. Like everybody else."

"No, I don't mean why are you here in this room. Why are you at Phoenix Spa?"

Phyllis shrugged. "For the same reason everybody else is, I suppose. I have a cover shoot in a few weeks, and I want to look my best. So I thought I'd come here and shed a few pounds. Get in touch with my core being, you know. That kind of thing. In my line of work, centering is very important. Otherwise I can't tune in to the universe and learn what I need to know."

"What is the universe telling you about Claudia de Vries?"

"Really, Detective Toscana, you can't expect my client to answer…"

But Vince had hit Phyllis Talmadge where she lived, in her ability to see deep into other people's hidden lives. "Shut up, Marsha," Phyllis told her attorney. "I want to answer this question. It's important. Claudia de Vries was an evil woman. She preyed on other people her whole life. It's hardly surprising that she finally got what she deserved. In fact, what I can't figure out is why it took someone so long to come after her."

"Did she ever prey on you?" Vince asked.

"Phyllis, please," the attorney objected. "You don't have to say anything."

"She tried to," Phyllis Talmadge said, as her eyes narrowed dangerously. "But I didn't let her get away with it. I told her to back off, and she did."

"When you say prey, what do you mean?"

"Blackmail," Phyllis said simply.

"She was blackmailing you? How and why?"

Phyllis shrugged. "She knew I had had a bit of a drinking problem, years ago. Then my first book came out and she went to my publisher and tried to convince them that I was a fraud, that I had become a psychic by taking a correspondence course when I was locked up at home with three little kids. That was a lie, of course. I only had two."

"And it worked?" Vince asked. "The correspondence course, I mean."

"Sure it worked," Phyllis Talmadge replied. "It turned out I already knew how to do it, it's just that I didn't know I knew. It's like radio waves, you see. As long as the station is on the air, the waves are there. The only reason you don't hear them is you haven't turned on your receiver."

"I see," Vince said. "So do you ever help with criminal cases?"

"Detective Toscana, this is utterly uncalled for…" Marsha Rollins began.

"Do you?" Vince asked.

"Sometimes," Phyllis Talmadge said. "Not very often, mind you. But sometimes."

"Would you be willing to help us on this case?"

"You mean professionally? Not as a suspect?"

"Absolutely," Vince said. "As one professional to another."

"I'd have to think about that for a little while," Phyllis Talmadge said. "I'd have to go outside by myself. Maybe down by the lake and think about it."

"Why don't you do that," Vince said, nodding sagely. "You go think about this case. Tune in to whatever radio waves you need to in order to be able to tell me what's going on here, then you come back and tell me what you learned."

"You mean in less than eight weeks," Phyllis said. "Eight weeks is usually my limit. Any longer than that, and the results may not be reliable."

"You take as long as you need, but I'd appreciate something sooner than eight weeks. That's a little longer than I had in mind." Phyllis was nodding, and Vince knew he had her. He had appealed to her professional ego. If she knew something-incriminating or not-the woman would be stumbling all over herself and her bullheaded attorney to spill the beans.

Then, just when he should have been asking Phyllis for her verbal agreement to go along with his plan, there was a knock on the door. Damn.

"What is it, Mikey?" Vince demanded as the door opened a crack. "Don't you know I'm busy in here? I thought I told you I wasn't to be interrupted."

"Yes, sir. I know, sir, but I thought this was important."

Vince sighed. "All right. What is it?"

"There's someone out here demanding to see you."

"That's a switch," Vince Toscana said. "Somebody actually wants to see me for a change? Sure it isn't another one of them damn lawyers?"

"It's that Finch woman. She says she's come to turn herself in."

Vince turned back to Phyllis Talmadge. "I'm sorry about the interruption," he said. "There's another door over here. If you wouldn't mind, you can go out the back way. And then, after you've spent some time down by the lake, you can come back and tell me what you've learned."

She shook her head. "No, that won't be necessary."

"What won't be necessary?"

"My going to the lake. I've already tuned in. Your assistant here is absolutely right. The Finch woman-I believe her name is Hilda-is the one you want."

"You're saying she killed Claudia de Vries?" Vince asked.

Phyllis frowned. "That's still a little fuzzy. The message isn't quite coming through, but the person you're looking for is Hilda Finch. I'm quite sure."

Mike was standing in the doorway with the door half open behind him. Now someone knocked on it hard enough that it bounced off his back and the doorknob whacked him in the hip.

"Well," Hilda Finch demanded loudly, "is he going to see me or not? If he can't be bothered, I suppose I could always go outside the gate to where all those television cameras are stationed and tell the reporters there that I tried to turn myself in but Detective Toscana was too busy doing other things to be bothered with arresting me."

Toscana turned back to Phyllis Talmadge and her fuming attorney. "If you ladies would please excuse me," he said, ushering them to the back door. "This sounds important. I'd better handle it."

The detective let them out, closed the door, and then turned back to the other door in time to see a limping Mike let Hilda Finch into the room. At the crime scene, Hilda hadn't looked her best, but now she did. With a daughter in her midtwenties, Hilda had to be somewhere in the mid-fifty range, but she didn't look it. In fact, the broad looked as though she was a high-powered CEO ready to make a speech in front of a corporate board of directors.

"What can I do for you, Mrs. Finch?" Vince asked politely.

"You can arrest me for the murder of Claudia de Vries. The woman was a blackmailing bitch, and I'm glad she's dead."

"Being glad isn't the same as being guilty."

"Maybe not, but you need to arrest me anyway."

"Does that mean you're confessing?"

"Not exactly. But surely I'm under suspicion."

"Everybody here is under suspicion," Vince told her. "The problem is, at this time, I don't have enough evidence to arrest anyone, including you. Have you been advised of your rights?"

"I'm not some little wimp, Detective Toscana. I don't need my rights read to me, and I don't need an attorney present, either. I'm entirely capable of talking to you on my own."

"Why did you do it?" Vince asked.

"Do what?"

"Kill her?"

"Claudia was a very annoying woman," Hilda answered.

"You killed her because she was annoying?"

"And did you know she'd had a face-lift?" Hilda continued. "Here she is, spouting the age-reversing benefits of all these natural herbs and supplements, but she's gone out behind all her clients' backs and gone under some plastic surgeon's knife to smooth out the wrinkles. If that isn't flying under false pretenses, I don't know what is. In fact, I'd be surprised if someone didn't file suit against Phoenix Spa for false advertising practices."

"How long had you known Mrs. de Vries?" Vince asked.

"Long enough," Hilda Finch answered. "Since college."

"And how many years would that be?"

"I refuse to answer that question," Hilda answered. "It's rude to ask a woman her age like that. Didn't your mother ever teach you any manners? Anyway, it doesn't matter. I plead the fifth."

"So you'd been friends since college."

"I said we'd known one another since then. That doesn't mean we were friends."

"But you've been in business together."

"I've been in business with her," Hilda agreed. "But Claudia didn't know she was in business with me. She thought her silent partner was an attorney from Atlanta. I can give you his name and number if you like." She reached into her purse, pulled out a business card, and handed it over to Detective Toscana. He took it without looking at it.

"And now you own the business?" Vince asked.

"Something like that," Hilda replied.

"Don't you think Dr. de Vries would have something to say about it?"

"Raoul has nothing whatever to do with it," Hilda said. "Talk to my attorney. You'll see that there's an ironclad survivorship agreement. As spa physician, Raoul has been an employee here, nothing more. He's never had any ownership in the spa. I don't think Claudia thought him entirely trustworthy."

"You're aware that he's a convicted felon?"

Hilda raised an eyebrow. "No," she said. "But it's not too surprising. It also might make his continuing on here problematic. I wouldn't want Phoenix Spa's physician to have a blemished record. He might have kept it quiet up till now, but after this the world will know. That will make it difficult to attract and keep the kind of clientele we need to keep the bills paid. As you can well imagine, this isn't an inexpensive operation."

"Funny you should mention that," Vince said casually, tapping the stack of file folders he had laid out on the tabletop in front of him. "I've pulled everyone's folders, yours included. My plan is to take them back to the department to go over them one at a time. I would imagine they'll turn out to be some pretty interesting reading, wouldn't you?"

For the first time, Hilda Finch seemed to falter. Her eyes darted from Vince's face to the stack of folders and back again.

"Aren't you interested to see what is in your folder?" Vince asked.

"I have no interest whatsoever. I suppose it's all about what treatments are used and what kinds of results the client has over the course of a stay here."

"You might say that," Vince agreed. "So as a partner, even as a silent partner, you'd be aware of monies paid out over the course of time."

"I receive quarterly reports, if that's what you mean," Hilda replied. "At least, my attorney receives them, and he forwards them to me."

Vince thumbed through the folders and picked up Ondine's. "Would you happen to know why Claudia de Vries gave Ondine over a million bucks the last time she was here?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Maybe it was just a trick-or-treat gimmick, since Ondine checked in on October thirty-first. She received a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars that day and another hundred thousand every day for the remainder of her ten-day stay. You know anything about that, Madame Silent Partner?"

"Why that low-down bitch! You mean to tell me she was skimming that much off the top and giving it to somebody else? If I'd known that, I really would have killed her-with my own bare hands."

"But you didn't."

"No," Hilda admitted. "I suppose not."

"So what's all this charade, then? What's with this I want him to arrest me crap?"

"I did want you to," Hilda told him. "I still do. So I'd be safe."

"Safe from what? What do you mean?"

"I'm afraid that now, as the new owner, I may become a target, too. I thought the best way to be protected would be for you to put me in jail."

"Sorry," Vince told her. "No can do."

"Well, then," Hilda said with a sigh, "I suppose I could just as well go back to my cabin and change into my sweat suit since there won't be any photographers after all."

Just then, they heard a scream. Vince Toscana leaped from his chair and ran to the back door. He pulled it open just as Marsha Rollins came careening up onto the deck. "Come quick," she yelped. "I can't swim, and somebody's got to help her."

"What is it?" Vince demanded. "What's wrong?"

"It's Phyllis," Marsha answered, gasping for breath. "I came back from using the rest room and found her floating facedown in the lake. I think she's dead!"

THE DETECTIVE HAD TURNED THE conference area into a makeshift squad room. Several maps of the spa had been tacked onto the back wall, along with a half dozen postmortem photographs of poor Claudia. Loose scraps of paper had been posted scattershot, certain items underlined in red, but Caroline couldn't read the words from where she was standing. Mounds of what looked to be notes and official documents hid the top of the circular black table he was working on. He smiled at her with watery eyes, pointed to an empty chair. But Caroline elected to stand.

"You actually revived her," Caroline stated. She was in awe. He had shown himself to be a man of action. Passivity, the mainstay of her personality, was probably not in his vocabulary.

Toscana shrugged. Revived her? Not exactly. But he did get the old lady breathing. The psychic was still unconscious.

Caroline said, "Do you think she'll make it?"

Again, Toscana was less than forthcoming. "I'm not a doctor, so I can't answer that. Is something on your mind, Mrs. Blessing?"

Caroline couldn't get the words out. Her eyes were fixed on the grisly photos of Claudia, face caked in mud, a sick parody of a vaudeville minstrel.

Toscana blew out air. "Your mother isn't here, if that's what you wanted to know."

"Did you arrest her?"