Too Rich and Too Dead (10 page)

She turned and saw Gordon Swig smiling at her.

“Hello, Gordon,” she replied, surprised by how pleased she was to see him again. “As soon as I heard the news, I rushed right over. I think I'm still in shock.”

He nodded. “The whole thing is pretty unbelievable, isn't it? It's hard to comprehend the fact that last night, you and I were in this very room, enjoying a pleasant dinner with Carly and Brett. And now…”

He let his voice trail off, and the two of them stood in silence for what seemed like a long time.

“I had a chance to talk to Brett,” Gordon finally commented. “He's beside himself, of course.”

“I haven't been able to get near him,” Mallory admitted. “And I'm really anxious to tell him how sorry I am.”

“I'm sure you'll have other chances to express your condolences. After things calm down, I mean.”

“Do you know any details?” Mallory asked anxiously. “All I found out from watching the news was that Carly was found at the spa.”

“That's right,” Gordon said somberly. “In one of the treatment rooms. A separate building, actually. The one that's used for mud baths.”

Killed at her own spa, a place she'd conceived of and designed. “How did she die?” Mallory asked, her voice wavering.

“Apparently she was drowned in one of the mud baths. Someone held her under until she asphyxiated.”

“Oh, my God!” Mallory cried. “How awful!”

“The scenario the cops constructed is that Carly went up to the spa late last night, after her gig at the opera house. No one seems to know why she would have gone up there.

“Very early this morning,” he continued, “Harriet discovered her. She went in first thing, apparently to check on some paperwork. She happened to notice that the door to the Mud Hut was ajar, so she went inside to see what was going on. That was when she found Carly.”

“Poor Harriet!” Mallory exclaimed. “What a shock!”

“I'm sure it wasn't a pretty sight,” Gordon commented grimly. “Not only finding Carly dead, but also finding her submerged in mud. Those in-ground tubs are three feet deep, filled nearly to the top with the stuff.”

Mallory shuddered. While she felt bad for Harriet, imagining what Carly had gone through positively made her heart break. The idea of being drowned—in mud, no less, mud that ironically was supposed to have a rejuvenating effect—was almost too horrific to contemplate.

“What will happen now?” she asked. “With the spa and Rejuva-Juice…?”

“All that should be pretty straightforward,” Gordon replied. With a little shrug, he added, “I'm sure Brett will inherit all of it.”

“And what about you? Will you be heading back to L.A. earlier than you planned?”

“I'm not sure what I'm going to do,” he said. “I suddenly have some major rethinking to do.”

Mallory was about to ask him what he meant when she heard loud voices from the kitchen.

“Impossible!” Brett yelled, his voice easily penetrating the thick wood of the door. “I'm telling you, you've got it all wrong!”

Who's he fighting with now? she wondered.

Mallory quickly realized she wasn't the only one who was listening. An uncomfortable hush had fallen over the room. Friends who had come to pay their respects now stood frozen, their eyes fixed on their coffee mugs or their shoes.

“I loved Carly!” they all heard Brett exclaim. “Why on earth would I have wanted anything bad to happen to her?”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Berman,” another male voice replied, “but we'd like you to come down to the station with us so we can ask you a few questions.”

Mallory's stomach lurched. Even though she felt as if she was listening to a radio play, she realized that what was happening in the kitchen wasn't just a figment of some writer's imagination.

Suddenly the kitchen door swung open. Brett stood just beyond the doorway, his expression one of extreme anguish. Behind him was a uniformed police officer, along with a craggy-faced man in a wrinkled suit. Given his fashion sense, or more accurately his lack of it, he had to be a detective.

“We only want to talk to you,” insisted the man, who was no stranger to polyester. “We won't take much of your time.”

“I demand to speak with a lawyer,” Brett insisted.

He turned, his distressed expression immediately morphing into one of surprise. It was as if he'd completely forgotten that his house was full of well-wishers. Either that or he suddenly realized that the people he was closest to, the ones who had rushed to his house to offer him their support, were instead witnessing what was undoubtedly one of the most horrifying moments of his life.

“This is crazy!” he exclaimed. “Juanita, get my attorney on the phone—pronto!”

Good luck with
that
, Mallory thought grimly.

“What's going on?” A high-pitched female voice cut through the chaos. From its distinctive accent, Mallory immediately knew who it belonged to.

“Who are you?” the detective asked Astrid Norland brusquely as she pushed her way through the crowd.

“I happen to be an extremely close friend of the
Bermans,” she replied haughtily. “I also work for the city of Aspen. May I ask what is happening here?”

“Nothing you need to be concerned with, miss,” the detective assured her. “We're just bringing Mr. Berman down to the station for questioning.”

“But I can assure you he had nothing to do with his wife's murder!” Astrid insisted.

“That's what we intend to find out.”

“But—but—”

The detective had clearly lost interest in explaining himself to Astrid. He took hold of Brett's arm and began escorting him through the crowd. The uniformed police officer followed closely behind.

“Wait!” Astrid called after them. “It's impossible that Brett had anything to do with Carly's murder!”

The police detective ignored her. In fact, he and his captive were just a few feet away from the front door when Astrid added, “Brett couldn't have killed Carly! He spent the entire night with me!”

S
ilence fell over the room as abruptly as if someone had just pressed the mute button on the remote. Mallory looked around and saw she wasn't the only person whose mouth had dropped open.

With one important exception: the police detective. He simply looked skeptical.

“I can prove it!” Astrid insisted. “Brett and I had… relations. I can even show you my bedroom. For goodness sake, the bed is still unmade! And there are other… things that would serve as evidence that we…

Too much information! Mallory thought, wishing she wasn't holding a pocketbook so she could cover her ears.

“Perhaps we'd better discuss this in private,” the
detective suggested to Brett and Astrid in a low, even voice. “Why don't we find a quiet room where we can talk?”

The three of them shuffled off to another part of the house, accompanied by the uniformed officer. By this point, he looked as if he couldn't wait to get home to tell his wife about this.

Almost immediately, the room erupted into excited chatter. And from the level of the buzz, Mallory suspected it wasn't the dearly departed that the crowd was discussing.

As she was wondering whether it was time to slip out the back, she noticed Harriet Vogel standing just a few feet away. The horrified look on her face told Mallory that Carly's loyal employee was just as surprised by this revelation as everyone else in the room.

Mallory sidled over, anxious to get Harriet's take on what had happened. While their interaction the night before hadn't been long, she felt drawn to someone who managed to remain so unassuming and so centered—even in a place like Aspen.

“It seems there were some secrets in your employer's house,” Mallory commented in a low voice.

“I can't say I didn't have my suspicions,” Harriet replied gravely.

“So you think it's true?” Mallory asked, surprised. “That Brett really was with Astrid all last night?”

Harriet cast her a look of shock. “Are you saying that Astrid might have been
lying?”

“People lie all the time, Harriet. Especially when a murder has been committed.”

“In other words, you think she could just be trying
to protect him.” From the dazed look on Harriet's face, Mallory wondered if this new development had elicited feelings other than surprise. Perhaps even some along the lines of jealousy.

“It's a possibility.” In Mallory's eyes, it was much more than just a possibility. As far as she was concerned, Astrid was simply doing what PR people did as a matter of course: putting a positive spin on anything and everything. Even if doing so required telling tall tales to the police.

Deciding she may have been wading into waters that were much too deep, she quickly added, “But of course I barely know Brett. Or Astrid. Or even Carly, for that matter. It's really not my place to speculate about any of this.”

Harriet suddenly shook her head hard. “I don't know about you,” she said, “but I think I've had enough. I've got to get out of here.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Mallory agreed.

“Actually,” Harriet said thoughtfully, “I should get over to Tavaci Springs to make sure the place hasn't disintegrated into total chaos. I contacted the manager, Daisy, and told her to cancel all appointments for the rest of the day and to call the staff to tell them not to come in. But I'd like to go over myself to make sure everything is okay.”

“That's probably not a bad idea,” Mallory said. Sighing, she added, “I suppose that when it comes to running a business, the responsibility never ends. And from what I've heard about Tavaci Springs, it caters to a pretty high-maintenance crowd, which
means it probably requires some pretty high maintenance itself.”

“Oh
, yeah,” Harriet agreed. Suddenly she brightened. “Mallory would you do me a huge favor and come with me? The idea of confronting the place now that Carly—now that this has happened—is a little overwhelming. It's just too strange. I'd really appreciate the company. That is, if you're not too busy.

“Besides,” she added, “this might be your only chance to see it, now that Carly's gone.”

That's funny, Mallory thought. I was just thinking the exact same thing.

Given the caliber of the vehicles she'd come into contact with so far, Mallory was surprised that Harriet drove a dark blue Ford Escort, the same model as the car she'd rented. Only Harriet's was at least six years old and had a large dent in the door.

As she backed it out of the Bermans’ driveway, Harriet was strangely quiet. She continued to remain silent as she maneuvered along a winding mountain road for what seemed like a very long time.

But Mallory's concern over her new friend's apparent distress paled beside her increasing nervous ness as the road got steeper, the drops more dramatic, and the curves more and more treacherous. When she finally mustered up the courage to take a good look out the window, she saw that right outside the car, only inches away from the tires, was a sheer drop of hundreds of feet.

“Tavaci Springs is all the way up here?” she asked, her voice cracking.

Harriet nodded. “Its remote location reflects Carly's philosophy. The idea is that being isolated enables the guests to focus only on themselves.”

Mallory suspected that people who were in the habit of spending fifteen hundred dollars a day to drink magical youth-inducing potions were pretty much in the habit of doing that anyway.

“In fact,” Harriet went on, “Tavaci Springs has very strict rules. Carly dubbed them Lifestyle Policies. No television or radios, no newspapers, no computers,
definitely
no cell phones.”

“I bet there's one modern convenience that's more than welcome,” Mallory commented wryly. “Credit cards.”

Harriet laughed. “You got me there.”

She rounded a curve in the road that was so terrifying that Mallory closed her eyes. She figured there was no point in witnessing what the director of
Thelma and Louise
had so tastefully omitted.

“Everyone at Tavaci Springs follows the same schedule,” Harriet continued. “Guests are awakened every morning at six with a soft knock at the door. They get a half hour to shower and dress before breakfast. Like all the meals, it's announced by a tinkling bell. In fact, bells are used throughout the day to move guests from one event to the next. Carly feels they're much more gentle than buzzers or even announcements made by the staff.”

Mallory noticed that Harriet continued to speak about her former boss as if she were still alive.

I guess it just hasn't sunk in yet, she thought sadly.

“Carly feels there are four aspects to keeping young: physical, mental, spiritual, and occupational,” Harriet went on. “She calls them The Elements, and each day at Tavaci Springs is specially planned to balance all four. The physical element is mainly addressed in the morning. Guests are led through a series of activities like mountain hikes, yoga classes, and Tai Chi. The mental element is rooted in meditation and lectures. Carly gives some of the lectures herself, but she also brings in experts in everything from meditation to colonics.”