Fit To Be Dead (An Aggie Mundeen Mystery Book 1) (4 page)

Five

I pried myself off the couch. Even though I’d managed to study, my mind kept wandering to Holly Holmgreen’s blue face. I needed the comfort of visiting Grace. I didn’t know a lot about her except that she’d been widowed several times. I sensed that experience had made her wise. After what had happened, I needed her wisdom. She was definitely an expert at enjoying life—a good study for my plan to avoid aging.

I wobbled to my front porch, eased sore legs down to round concrete stones that led to my driveway and walked across the asphalt to her yard. Grace had the only emerald green lawn on our street. She hated the sickly yellow grass that marked San Antonio’s winters and had her yardman throw out rye grass seed every fall. The instant I knocked on her door, Boffo started barking.

“Grace, it’s Aggie.”

“Come on in. I locked Boffo in the bathroom.”

I was glad she’d trapped the yippy mutt. A rat terrier/dachshund mix, Boffo was just tall enough to sniff my ankles and plop his body over my shoe so he could chew my laces. Grace needed him for a watchdog. Unfortunately, he viewed my feet as prey.

She stood in her kitchen over a wrought-iron table. Her cheeks were pink. White strands poked out from her graying hair. Her hands, which usually fluttered like hummingbirds, were encased in rubber gloves smeared with concrete the consistency of peanut butter. She held them up like a surgeon poised to operate.

“I’m going to grout this table. I mix the grout with water and have to let the mixture set for ten minutes. Boffo gets bored and tries to climb into the grout bucket. I’m afraid the concrete might dry on him before I can get him out.”

The cur yelped from the bathroom. I appreciated Muttface’s problem with boredom, but I enjoyed the thought of his being weighted down with concrete so he couldn’t jump on my feet. His short legs kept him from bounding very high.

I didn’t understand pets, never having owned one. They sensed my ineptitude. I considered boning up on dog handling. I could walk Boffo for Grace and loosen my derriere muscles. The mutt and I might even become friends.

She grabbed a float, scooped grout from the bucket and pressed the implement between tiles. Before she covered the whole surface, I examined her design. Concentrating on her work would keep me from thinking about Holly.

In the center of her table, she’d created a winsome dove with white tiles. Alongside the dove, she’d placed curving rows of creamier tiles, line after line, with each row darker than the last. Musky pewter tiles rimmed the outside of the table.

“It’s beautiful.”

“I intended to give this table to one of my daughters, but I’ll have a hard time giving it up.” She waved her glove toward a photo on the kitchen bar of two dark-haired girls who looked almost identical.

“They’re Charlie’s and my children. Linda was fourteen in that picture, in her dramatic period. She called herself Linda Lovelace, Linda Lamoure—some movie star name. She thought Linda Livermore sounded like a cut from the meat market. Kim, twelve, teased her, chanting, ‘Smelly Livermore, Smelly Livermore.’”

I giggled before I saw sadness skitter across Grace’s face. She pushed grout into crevices with a trowel and pressed hard. “They were happy then, before their dad died.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Charlie was thirty-nine. He was an alcoholic, but we weren’t ready to lose him.” She sighed and bent over her table. “Pull up a chair while I finish this.”

Grace was twenty years older than I was. Yet I felt comfortable sitting while she worked. She’d filled her house with tile tables. She’d probably tile the piano bench if she didn’t sit there so often.

The bathroom door squeaked. When Boffo poked his head through, his teeth were clamped on a cellophane bag of bath crystals.

“Uh-oh. I thought I locked the door. He drags out things I haven’t seen in years. I can’t grab him with these gloves on. Get a doggy treat from the counter and wag it to tempt him. Then pop it in his mouth so you can yank that bag away.”

I flipped him the treat, snatched the bag and got a whiff of his breath. That hybrid vigor could knock you over. I darted toward my chair, racing to sit and fold my feet up before the mutt could devour his treat and attack. I reached the chair, but that mongrel was fast. Before I could hoist my feet, he pounced on my tennis shoe and snapped his teeth on the laces. Grace laughed so hard, she stopped grouting. He chewed a while, then panted a dog grin.

“Meredith talked me into joining a health club.”

She smirked at me over metal-framed glasses. “Did a gorgeous hunk give you a tour?”

“Well, Pete Reeves, the guide for prospective members, is a bronze statue with ocean blue eyes who poses as a person. Another guy, Mickey Shannon, looks like Tom Selleck, but his drawl bothers me.”

“Those southern drawls come and go, depending on who they’re talking to.” She moved around her table.

“No kidding?”

“Yep. Welcome to Texas. The good-old-boy thing is used to advantage.”

Grace had lived in Texas most of her life, if you didn’t count working in New York and St. Louis as an advertising executive and traveling to Europe with three husbands, all of whom, I’d heard, had died.

I bent to pet Boffo, but he growled and kept slobbering on my shoe. I watched him chew my laces while Grace smoothed grout between her tiles.

“Some men are just too good-looking,” she said. “Girls flock around them like a covey of quail. When a man thinks he’s irreplaceable, the attention doesn’t take long to ruin him. He concludes he doesn’t need to talk or even think much. Charlie was like that—a real hunk. When we married, I was twenty and he was twenty-two.”

I was eighteen when I fell for Lester the Louse. Grace scooped grout from the bucket and studied the next section of her table. “Moderately handsome guys are better. Men forced to take stock of themselves are more worthy.”

Sam’s face flashed across my mind. I classified him as moderately handsome. His nose was ordinary. His mouth tripled in size when he laughed. If a thirty-five-dollar barber slicked his hair back, he might look distinguished. When his hair scattered haphazardly above his forehead, he looked genuine. Nothing was phony about him. When we met again in San Antonio after we’d both left Chicago, he seemed glad to see me.

Curious about Charlie Livermore, I inadvertently shifted to curl up my other leg. Boffo crouched to attack. I lowered my leg, and he resumed grinding my laces into soggy strings. I sighed. “What happened to Charlie?”

“He lived hard, partied hard, and drank hard. We had a great time, but he overdid everything. He drank too much one night, came home and parked in the garage. He was apparently listening to the radio and passed out. His cigarette caught fire and the car burned up.”

“How horrible.”

“I don’t think he knew what happened. The girls really suffered. I had taken Kim to a birthday party, so Charlie and Linda went out to dinner. We came home, parked in front like we always did, and found Linda inside talking on the phone. We smelled smoke, ran to the garage and found Charlie. I’ll say this for him: he squeezed seventy years of living into thirty-nine.” She looked up. “I guess I sound callous about his death. It’s just that he drank so much, I felt like we’d already lost him.” She resumed working on her table.

Imagine, Charlie dead at thirty-nine. Having lived for eons inside an emotionally sterile bank, I was way past thirty and just now poking out of my shell.

Grace had suffered real tragedy in her life, yet she seemed more hopeful than embittered. I sensed there was more to Charlie’s story than she revealed—pockets of her past she kept buried. I didn’t know what had happened to her other husbands, but I was astonished she’d lost all three. How sad and unusual. Like the incident at the pool.

She troweled grout over the remaining tiles, evaluated her work, swiped off excess grout and flipped rubbery globs into the garbage can. She picked up a moist sponge and began to caress residual grout off glowing tiles. It was like watching diamonds rise from ashes.

The beauty of her table moved me to blurt out what had happened. “A young girl named Holly Holmgreen almost drowned from being electrocuted in the health club’s swimming pool. Just before I got into the water.”

She stopped sponging and pinned me with steel blue eyes. “Did somebody try to kill that girl, and you got in the way?”

I hate it when people say things I don’t want to think about. “It’s possible.”

“Your detective friend, did you tell him about it?”

“I didn’t want to worry him over an accident.” Grace was apparently too distracted by her table to challenge me. I changed the subject to Aspects of Aging and told her about the man who had lived one hundred twenty years.

“That’s great news. I just bought ten sheets of piano music and my guitar lessons start next week. I could use sixty more years.” She washed her tools in a water-filled bucket. “I need to tile more tables for the back porch.”

She loved what I told her about biomarkers, how scientists might be able to pinpoint triggers of aging and disarm them. We joked about what sparked our triggers and forgot about everybody who’d died or almost died.

Grace hauled her rinse bucket outside and grabbed a hose to squirt concrete off her gloves. She left the back door open, and Boffo bounded after her, yipping at the water. His high-pitched bark set my teeth on edge. At least he detached himself from my shoelaces. I was liberated.

“Want a sandwich?” she called, peeling off her gloves. “Peanut butter and mayonnaise? With a pickle?” She ate strange food at odd intervals when she took a break from a project.

“No, thanks. Let’s go to Las Tapitas later this week.” I sneaked away from my chair, hoping Boffo wouldn’t notice.

“I’ll wear the broom skirt and serape I bought at the Mexican Market,” she said.

I knew Boffo would get bored with the water hose. He probably blamed me for his incarceration in the bathroom. Chatting time was over. I streaked toward Grace’s front door. “I’ll call you.”

Boffo drew a bead on me and lowered his head to charge. Before I flew halfway across the living room, he caught up and pounced. I limped to the front door, dragging one foot with Muttface sprawled over it. I reached the porch and was just about to high kick him through the nearest goal post, when Grace stopped chortling long enough to call him.

I yanked her door closed and heard him screech to a stop on the other side, yelping. That dog needed to run a thousand laps. If I wanted to visit Grace, I’d have to devise an exercise plan for the obstreperous mutt. Maybe I could sic him on the creep who put the radio by the pool or on the idiot who tried to break into my house.

I needed to concentrate. Tomorrow, I hoped Mickey would show up in the weight room so I could pump him for information about the electrical system. Why didn’t the current zap me when I entered the pool? If electricity had knocked Holly unconscious, what had neutralized the charge? Maybe the safety mechanism kicked in, like Mickey’d said it would. Or something else might have interrupted the current. My curiosity was hard-wired.

Walking home, I was still clutching Boffo’s bath crystals. I tossed them on the sofa and mulled over ways to harness the mutt’s aggression.

I hopped in my car and whipped down to Walgreen’s on Broadway to buy shoelaces and 409 to clean dog slobber off my shoes.

On the drive home, I mused about Mickey Shannon. What kind of man was he, this Tom Selleck clone who seemed more interested in Aggie jokes and in my less-than-perfect body than in a near-fatal electrocution?

If Grace’s instincts were right, and somebody had tried to kill Holly, I had to help this girl. I knew how she felt. She was like me. I couldn’t let her suffer more.

Six

When my feet hit Saltillo tile Tuesday morning, my body had petrified. Stiffness upon rising was a definite sign of aging. I clomped across the bedroom floor to reach my warm bathroom rug. At least the queasiness I’d felt sitting by the pool with Holly was gone. I chalked it up to trauma.

When I peered in the mirror, I was astonished how perky I looked. My eyes, clear and sharp, looked green from their proximity to Garfield’s emerald orbs on my sleep shirt. My hair was lopsided, so I re-parted it and blew upward to fluff the strands. I regretted missing Dr. Carmody’s Monday class. I might have missed important information.

I slipped into Mohair slides and ambled toward the kitchen. If I drank enough coffee, maybe I could go exercise before my body discovered what I was doing. I wanted to crack Mickey Shannon’s reticence. He knew more than he was saying.

On the other hand, I could enjoy the solitude of my suburban Alamo Heights bungalow soothed by strains of Debussy. The throbbing music at Fit and Firm combined with members’ obsessions with physicality wore a person out. How much trauma could I endure to get in shape? Did I really want to struggle through the rigors of exercise and flirting? It if kept me young and attractive, I could handle it.

I jumped when the mailman shoved mail through the brass slot. Did somebody need to share their pain with Dear Aggie? Sure enough, there was a letter.

Dear Aggie,

I started exercising at a club two days ago. Pain and inflammation rule my body. I’ve seen ads about Thermatone Pills that promote gentle healing with fifteen ingredients including antioxidants to flush toxins from my aching joints and muscles. What do you think?

Pained in Peoria.

Dear Pained,

Have you torn something or merely stretched a tendon beyond usefulness? If you’re not better in two days, call your doctor. Those Thermatone Pills could have been smuggled from Hongotovia. They probably cost more than your health club membership. I took something like that once. I was oblivious to pain but suffered mental confusion and peed a lot. Stick with aspirin.

Your partner in pain,

Aggie

I filled my coffee mug, smoothed a smidgen of peanut butter on dry toast and slipped back to the sofa. With great care, I set my mug on the mahogany table centered between my facing sofas so as not to spill coffee on my Tabriz rug. This masterpiece covered pockmarks in my wood plank floors, a unique condition that had helped me afford the house. I padded to the armoire I’d captured at Broadway Antique Auction, stuck a CD in the player perched on top and plopped on the sofa to absorb “Claire D’Lune.”

For the first time in my life, I was relieved of responsibility and financially secure enough to do what I wanted. When the conglomerate consumed the bank where I worked, and the stock I’d purchased annually from age eighteen multiplied a thousand fold, my security catapulted from zero to comfortable. I tongued peanut butter around my mouth. Naturally, I ditched my bank job, kept my columnist job, flew to San Antonio where the weather was warm, and embraced my new career as a graduate student.

I polished off the toast and smiled at the turquoise, orange and purple Serape-striped fabric on my sofas. My couches were oddly captivating, like people at Fit and Firm. Maybe—if the radio dropped in the pool turned out to be an isolated incident—I’d invite new friends from the club over to show off my Spanish-style bungalow.

I flopped lengthwise on the sofa. If I wasn’t going to exercise, I should study. Dr. Carmody’s class met at 3:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday, so I had the whole day free before class. I grabbed the binder and flipped to the section on average life spans.

I learned that from 1900 to 1990, U.S. life spans increased from forty-seven years to seventy-five years, thanks to antibiotics, better medical care, improved sanitation, and lifestyle changes. By making headway against cancer and heart disease, some scientists thought life span could be extended even further. Fantastic. I stretched my arms over my head, ready to live forever.

A Japanese man, Shirechiyo Izumi, reached one hundred twenty years before he died. I could work with that: I’d have two-thirds of my life yet to go. I closed my eyes and assimilated Debussy. If Izumi hadn’t died from pneumonia, could he have lived even longer? I popped up, leaned over the notebook and scanned the text: scientists debating his longevity used two separate theories of aging. This looked like technical reading, which made me antsy to escape my nest.

I plumped my sofa pillows and traipsed across the living room to peer out the window. The sun was shining. I wished I were younger and enjoyed the love of a good man, but except for being alone, my horizon looked promising.

I felt so good, I even wanted to exercise. If I went to the weight room, I might meet somebody who knew Holly. I could also check out dating prospects. I jumped into workout clothes, hopped into Albatross and sailed down Burr Road to Harry Wurzbach to maneuver my way toward the Austin Highway.

After squeezing into a parking slot in Fit and Firm’s garage, I bounced into the club wearing my snappy new waist-length T-shirt. The shoulders had small pads sewn in—a ploy to visually narrow my hips. Why should workout clothes look frumpy? Guilt slipped over me for advising
Miserable in Milwaukee
to throw on whatever she had. I planned to appear appetizing in case I got the chance to quiz Mickey Shannon.

I checked in, aimed for the stairs and climbed the first step. I was admiring my clingy tights when my right quadriceps went into spasm. A wave of nausea passed through me from peanut butter I’d scarfed down for breakfast. The next shock came when my right calf muscle cramped. Climbing one measly step had hardened it to stone. Gritting my teeth, I drew my left foot onto the step. My left quad muscle shrieked. At least the quad burn balanced the pain soaring through my right calf. I ground upward, step by miserable step. Club members sprang past me. I was too old for this torture.

I staggered to the second-floor landing, spread my palms and leaned on the wall to stretch my calves. When the knots loosened to rubbery globs, I tottered around the edge of the basketball court and peered into the weight room, looking for Mickey. A bank of metal and rubber machines lined the room’s periphery. More odd-looking devices crisscrossed the center. For a mechanically challenged person like me, this room crammed with equipment was scary.

Off the main room in the far right corner was a smaller room with a sign on the door that read, “Pilates.” I had no clue what the word meant. Maybe the manager hired a Greek instructor. When I peeked in, two women lay face down on thick mats with their knees drawn up under them in fetal positions and their noses pressed into the mats. The female instructor leering over them, arms crossed, looked more German than Greek. Was she Mrs. Pilates? Mr. Pilates’ assistant? I couldn’t tell if the women on the mats were praying or cringing from the trainer. The class did not look appealing.

I returned to the main room and studied the first machine near the entrance. The chair looked sturdy, and the handgrips were immobile. A metal roller covered with spongy material jutted out eighteen inches below the seat. I eased down and squinted at obtuse instructions pasted on the contraption. “Leg extension. Place feet under roller. Straighten legs, keeping feet flexed. Do two sets of ten repetitions. Weight: 50 pounds.” I slipped my ankles under the roller and strained to lift my feet. My legs didn’t budge, but my back kinked.

“Ouch.”

The man on the adjacent thingamabob was sympathetic. “Each machine has to be set to your height and the weights to your strength before you can use it. Let me help you.”

His smile made me want to know more. His mother had probably hated to cut those brown curls. I stood quietly while he adjusted my machine. He reeked of potential. He was a couple of inches taller than me and had probably just used the leg lift. He adjusted the bar only a single notch. That was okay by me. His height seemed dictated by a short knee-to-foot bone, which positioned the trunk of his body lower than usual. I didn’t want to stare. I could research leg bones online. He wore red socks like the club trainers.

I didn’t intend to flirt with every man at the health club. But after Lester ran off when I told him I was pregnant, and I stumbled through umpteen miserable years of not dating anybody, I found the male species newly interesting.

“I’m Ned Barclay. I work out here all the time, mostly weights. I can show you how to use every machine. Go ahead. Try it.”

Noting his delectable muscles, I perched as he instructed with my stomach muscles tight and back glued to the chair. I hefted the rubber-covered bar up and down with my legs until the fronts of my thighs burned. People entering the room circled wide around my legs as if they expected the bar to fly off and hit them. I know I have a strange effect on mechanical equipment, but geez.

“Shall we try a couple more leg muscle machines?”

“Sure.” I loved his encouraging smile. Maybe he knew Holly Holmgreen.

The second machine had an identical extension. You placed your feet above the bar and pressed your legs downward. With ten repetitions, you could cause equal injury to the backs of both thighs.

“Do you know Holly Holmgreen?”

“Let’s try the leg press.”

This apparatus looked safe enough. The seat had a back support and large footrest. I relaxed and gazed at Ned’s liquid brown eyes. “I met Holly yesterday at the pool, on my first day here.”

“Let’s move the seat back farther from the foot-rest so your legs are nearly straight. Put your feet on the platform, bend your knees and ease the platform toward you. Now, push your legs straight out.”

I pushed. This footrest was not designed for relaxing. Ned told me to shove the torture tray out twelve times, at which point my thighs began to spasm. Oblivious to my quivering hams, he enumerated the benefits of the machine. “The leg press works your quadriceps, hamstrings, gluteus maximus...”

I didn’t know the names of my body parts, but I’d discovered where they were. It was difficult to concentrate on Ned’s anatomical treatise with my legs twitching.

“I know Holly Holmgreen. In fact, I used to date her.” He squeezed his words through thin lips, but he had a good vocabulary and great diction. I’m a sucker for men who speak well. Even my Aspects of Aging professor probably couldn’t rattle off muscles extemporaneously the way Ned did. I decided not to press him about Holly. Their relationship must be over.

“Let’s move to the inner and outer thigh machine.” He took my hand and pulled me off the seat. I wobbled to the next chair and plopped down. “For outer thighs, put the pads outside your legs and push out.”

After ten repetitions, he repositioned my legs outside the pads and said to squeeze my legs together umpteen times, which successfully damaged my thighs all the way around. How many women, too weak to remove their quivering thighs from this vise, had perished here?

“Let’s give your legs a rest and work on your upper body. We’ll try ‘the row.’”

Since the row worked every fiber in my arm muscles, Ned had me do two sets of ten repetitions. His knowledge of anatomy impressed me, but he apparently didn’t realize how inactive I’d been. I was determined to get in shape and wanted to be agreeable, but my muscles were sprung. If we ever completed this tortuous circuit, it would be afternoon, and Ned would have to summon a caretaker to wheel me from the facility.

Fortunately, Mickey sauntered in, ablaze with red attire and a boyish smile. He walked toward us. Ned peered up at him, about two feet up, and understood that he was not Alpha Male. Weight rooms resurrected animal instincts. Ned slinked away, as though Mickey had thrashed him and I’d rejected him. Ned Barclay was a super guy. I resolved to find him later.

“Did you hear anything about what happened at the pool?” I whispered to Mickey.

“They conducted a quiet investigation of the electrical circuitry. It’s on a separate system from the rest of the place.” He leaned close, smirking. “Talkin’ about water, did you hear about the Aggie who drove his pickup into the lake? While he was trying to get the tailgate down, his dog drowned.”

He exploded with laughter before I could get him back on track. “Mickey, what about the radio?”

“Nobody’s talking about it.”

“Is the pool open?”

“Yeah. They must have fixed the problem.”

Harry Thorne had managed to keep the incident quiet. Mickey, focused on working out, seemed totally disinterested in the pool’s electrical system. I’d try to learn more later. He led me from one machine to the next, talking and laughing. When we got to arm-strengthening devices, I discovered my rare medical condition: muscle fiber deficiency. Twenty reps on the row had critically stressed my arms. I tried to ignore my misery by focusing on which one of Mickey’s muscles would bulge next.

From across the room, Patricia Drexel eyeballed Mickey. I had to admit her legs looked great, even in the stupid red socks worn by club regulars. Red socks spoke volumes: “Unlike you, I work out regularly and am in really good shape.” When she wasn’t gaping at Mickey, she shot daggers at me, apparently convinced that her bump-and-smile routine indicated ownership. I stared back. Without thinking, I wrinkled my nose. If Patricia were seriously jealous, she might be capable of violence.

We’d nearly completed the machine circuit. I’d startled every muscle in my hibernating body when I realized it was time to meet Meredith. I’d gotten her a two-week guest pass, although I doubted she’d join the club because of her time crunch. Since we’d registered for different classes at the university, exercising together would give us a chance to compare notes. We’d agreed to do a quick cardio workout before lunch. I wanted her opinion about what had happened to Holly.

“Got to go,” I said. “I’m meeting a friend.”

Mickey looked stricken.

“Girl friend.”