Death of the Swami Schwartz (A Kate Kennedy Mystery Book 2) (14 page)

Th
irty

“Just how much do y
ou know about the Lazarus Society?”

It was Kate’s turn to spin around. “You startled me.”

Ballou, who’d been told the walk was
immin
ent, pulled on the leash and gave a half-bark, half-whine. An almost mournful sound, like a basset hound on a bleak moor.

With dancer-perfect posture, red hair blowing in the wind, and her hands on her hips, Mary Frances reminded Kate of Maureen O’Hara challenging John Wayne in
The Quiet Man
.

“Answer me, Kate.” Mary Frances’s raised voice caused several sunbathers on nearby chaises to sit up and listen.

Shrugging, Kate stole Dallas’ line. “Why do you ask?”

“Because the Lazarus Society may be connected to Swami Schwartz’s death.” She sounded frightened.

Kate softened her attitude and her tone. “Come on, Mary Frances, let’s take Ballou for a walk on the beach.” The Westie started off eagerly, but kept well away from Mary Frances.

They strolled along the shore, holding their sandals, the lukewarm ocean washing over their bare feet. It felt good. Almost sensuous. Mary Frances’s toenails were painted a pastel pink, matching her terrycloth sweat suit. And the rims on her sunglasses were the exact same shade of pink.

She’d have a pedicure. Sunburst Coral. Charlie would approve.

“Are you listening to me, Kate?”

Well, no. Some detective, daydreaming about nail polish colors.

“Sorry. My mind wandered. I’m tired, I guess, but please tell me what’s bothering you.”

“I met a blind date for brunch this morning.”

What in the world could Mary Frances’s love life have to do with the Lazarus Society? Unless? A flutter of excitement started in Kate’s stomach and rushed up to her throat. “Did you meet him on Last Romance?” The words flew out of her mouth. Not her usual laid-back style of wait and bait.

“How do you know that?”

Kate shifted to neutral. “Just a hunch. I
think
Marlene mentioned you’d tried computer dating. Sorry, go on, Mary Frances.”

“Ever since I decided Joe Sajak wasn’t for me—widowers think they’re ready to date, but they really aren’t—I’ve been looking. Then yesterday, I received the best email ever. I’ve memorized it: ‘I enjoy fine dining, French wine, and Italian films. You sound like a warm, witty woman, whom I would enjoy getting to know and to share my interests with.’”

Word for word. Harry Archer’s email to Marlene.

“At first, he seemed wonderful. Warm, funny, spiritual. He told me about the Lazarus Society—remember, that’s the group Dallas Dalton had been asking about on Friday night—whose members passionately believe in life after death. Since I believe in heaven, I thought, despite Dallas, the society sounded great.” She sighed. “But then, just as I had my first taste of strawberry shortcake, he started talking about Life Preserver, some medical research lab that freezes dead bodies, and then later revives the patients—that’s what he called them—giving the dead a new lease on life. Eternal life. I believe only God can grant us eternal life.” Mary Frances shivered in the warm sun. “I’m telling you, Kate, that charlatan took away my appetite.”

“Did he invite you to a meeting?”

“No. He realized I was horrified, so he kept trying to sell me on the society, rambling on and on, telling me how the members embrace death, resting assured they’ll be coming back to a far, far better place.”

Kate almost gagged. A snake oil salesman quoting the selfless hero of
A Tale of Two Cities
. She patted Mary Frances’ arm. “That’s awful, but tell me, why do you think the Lazarus Society might be connected to Swami’s death?”

“Because, today I learned that Swami Schwartz was a founding member of the society and, like the others, looked forward to his death, so that one day in the not-too-distant future, he would live again in a more technically advanced, more spiritually attuned world. It sounded to me as if some members of the Lazarus Society want to die before their time.”

Kate said, “Why hang around if, while your body’s frozen, you can work on your soul?”

Ballou tugged on his leash, veering left, away from children splashing water.

“Right. A few of the more devout want to be frozen as soon as possible, totally accepting that Life Preserver will come up with a cure for whatever kills them, that they’ll be defrosted, and will return as better people, living in a better world.”

Were the Lazarus Society’s members fanatics, putting their faith in mad scientists, willing to die for what they believed in? Oh God! Marlene would be up there at the Boca Raton Resort, mingling with them, watching
Death Takes a Holiday
, getting a price list.

“Your date’s name was Harry Archer, right?”

“Are you one of them, Kate?” Mary Frances’ shout must have carried to Cuba.

Twenty minutes later,
Mary Frances was sipping tea on Kate’s balcony.
The dancing ex-nun and Kate had formed an uneasy alliance, swapping information and sharing theories. Ballou had withdrawn to the bedroom.

“So, you, Marlene, and I will band together to ferret out the bad guys, sink Life Preserver, and expose Swami’s
killer. Like the Palmetto Beach version of
Charlie’s Angels
.” Mary Frances sounded annoyingly perky again.

“More like the geriatric version.”

Before she’d put the kettle on, Kate reached Marlene, who’d been waiting for valet parking. Not surprisingly, Marlene refused to abort her mission, pointing out that she’d be safe in the hotel, with its well-trained staff and well-heeled guests
milling
about, and saying, “No one can brainwash me, Kate.”

“Please be careful,” Kate had replied, sounding like Marlene’s mother. “And call 911 first, then me, if you get in trouble.”

“What do you mean trouble? They think I’m a hot—er—cold prospect. What I’ll get is a cryonics cost sheet. And be sure and let Mary Frances know that she’s not your Dr. Watson. She’s only a third banana, on temporary assignment. Ciao.”

Thirty-One

Addison Mizner had been at the top of his game when he’d designed the Boca Raton Resort and Club’s original structure in 1926, a monument to a fabled era that, like the white outfits on its fabulous tennis courts, had now become history.

Tunes and fashion changed, but Mizner’s coral-pink hotel, a mix of Spanish-Mediterranean, Moorish, and Gothic architecture remained a triumph and the resort’s centerpiece.

Today, the Boca Raton Resort and Club’s three hundred and fifty-six acres included the Cloister, Mizner’s original masterpiece, the Yacht Club, the Tower, the Boca Beach Club, the Golf Villas, the Boca Country Club, conferences facilities, two eighteen-hole golf courses, thirty tennis courts, a 50,000-square-foot spa, a golf clubhouse, six pools, an indoor basketball court, a twenty-seven-slip marina, and a half-mile of private beach. And a canopied boat transported guests from the pool, spa, and beach area across the waterway to the golf courses.

Awed, as always, Marlene admired the emerald lawns, tall palm trees, and brilliantly lush purple, magenta, and pink bougainvillea, with the odd jasmine adding scent. The resort smelled as wonderful as it looked.

If she could have afforded one of the villas that came equipped with every amenity known to modern money, plus a beach club membership, Marlene would have moved up here in a New York millisecond. Though Jack Weiss had left her more than comfortable, she’d never live like this, unless, of course, she stumbled over a multimillionaire on the loose in the lobby. From her mouth to God’s ears.

The hotel’s interior, lots of rich wood and inviting sofas and chairs, charmed her once again, sweeping her back in time to a romance with a tall Texan who’d favored ten-gallon hats and claimed he’d only felt at home in hotels with very high ceilings. The Cloister had more than met his criterion.

“Ah, Marlene, don’t you look smart? I love a woman in black.” Harry Archer, dressed in crisp khakis, navy blazer, and a school tie, approached her from the right and reached for her hand. For a moment, she thought he would kiss it, but he only gently squeezed her fingers. “Come along, lovely lady, we’re about to start the movie.”

She hated to think so much charm could be all con, but when they arrived in the small conference room where the screen had been set up, her basest suspicions were confirmed.
The other three members of the audience were, like herself, women of a certain age, whose eyes collectively lit up as Harry Archer entered the room. Each of them clearly believed Harry was interested in her—that he was her date—and the others only had been invited to watch an old movie and to learn about the Lazarus Society. Well, if Marlene hadn’t been helping Kate play detective, she might have believed that too.

“Show time!” Harry’s megawatt smile circumnavigated the room, lingering briefly but warmly on each of his guests. Marlene estimated his too-white implants must have run around fifty thousand. Selling life after death must be a good living.

Which of his four marks would Harry sit next to?

“Unfortunately, I’m a working host, ladies, so I’ll sit in the back and run the projector.” Harry seemed to have all the answers.

The lights went off, leaving them all in the dark.

Midway through the
movie—she’d seen it several times on cable—Marlene’s mind wandered. In grainy black and white, a handsome young Fredric March, starring as Death, actually looked like death until he took a holiday. Could that be a cryonics marketing ploy? Freeze-frame and rewind.

Sometimes she wished, no prayed, that she could rewind, even for a moment, just long enough to erase her adultery with Charlie. Adultery. Even today, in some countries, women were stoned to death for committing such a sin.

A four-martini one-night stand. Well, more like a four-martini fifteen minutes.

She’d take her secret, that terminal guilt, to the grave. Charlie had adored Kate. Marlene had loved her like a sister. Yet they had gotten drunk, flirted at a party, and wound up in bed, on top of the coats, in their hosts’ guest room.

Why would anyone want to come back from the dead, to live again, with all your sins intact? Marlene would rather take her chances on an afterlife, where, maybe, she could atone. Or on nothing, where, finally, she wouldn’t remember.

When the lights came on, Marlene went to the ladies room to repair the damage to her makeup. If only she could find a way to repair the damage to her soul.

Thirty-Two

Kate brushed on
taupe shadow, then decided to line her eyes before applying mascara. That required a magnifying mirror. For some reason, she felt it was important to make a good impression tonight and, when she was tired, soft gray liner opened up her eyes.

Charlie had believed that people paid more attention to well-dressed, well-groomed detectives, gave them more respect. So she’d started early and she’d fussed.

Mindless fussing. Kate always did her best thinking—solving family problems, drafting sympathy notes, planning party menus—while performing mundane tasks that required little or no concentration: brushing her teeth, shampooing her hair, loading the dishwasher, applying makeup.

During this makeup session, she focused on the past, on Swami Schwartz’s father’s boyhood friendship with Jack Gallagher and Danny Mancini, on Danny being Swami’s godfather. Not to mention, Nick Carbone’s.

Charlie also believed the past foreshadows the present. Could Swami Schwartz’s death be linked to something that had happened decades ago in Brooklyn?

If Danny Mancini were well enough to attend the rehearsal tonight, she’d ask him about his friendship with Swami’s father. And what Swami, himself, had been like as a young man, before he’d gone off to India to find himself.

Was any man ever what he seemed? Swami, whom Kate had considered an aesthetic, had convinced his wealthy female admirers in Miami to finance the Palmetto Beach Yoga Institute, had moonlighted by teaching Tantra Workshops, had partnered with Jack Gallagher in the Life Preserver Corporation, peddling cryogenics, and had been a founding member of the Lazarus Society.

Whatever had occurred in the men’s past lives, Danny Mancini was plagued with current demons. Debts from his gambling addiction, and, despite his failing health, a lifestyle that could kill him, and an ungrateful godson who’d turned down Danny’s desperate requests for money. How easy it would have been for the restaurateur to slip poison in Swami’s espresso.

With his partner’s death, Dr. Jack Gallagher became sole owner of two corporations. Could greed, one of the seven deadly sins, have been the motive for Swami’s death? Gallagher struck Kate as a self-centered, grasping man, but would he have murdered Swami, knowing an autopsy would prevent the yogi from being frozen? From ever coming back? Or had that punishment been the doctor’s judgment call?

Lust, another deadly sin, might have contributed to Sanjay’s motivation. He wanted Tiffani; she wanted Swami. If Sanjay had spiked the yogi’s coffee with cyanide to get the girl, it worked. They’d looked pretty cozy on the beach this morning. And, after Swami’s death, as a bonus, Sanjay Patel had been appointed director of the Yoga Institute. Though he’d acted surprised, could Sanjay have been aware that Jack Gallagher would promote him?

Laurence McFee had a screaming match with Swami over his inheritance. Unbelievably, Magnolia McFee had changed her will, leaving most of her millions to Swami for research on what Laurence referred to as a “science fiction project.” With the yogi dead, would Laurence be back in granny’s will as heir-in-chief? Kate answered her own question: Yes. Why else would young Mr. McFee have threatened Swami?

Somewhere along the way, she’d started to doubt Tiffani Cruz. Just how incriminating were her “sappy” emails to Swami? And after he’d spurned those romantic overtures, what had she written in her self-proclaimed “nasty” emails? Could Nick Carbone be right? Maybe Tiffani had laced Swami’s demitasse cup with poison.

Kate liked Dallas Dalton as a dark horse. That trot around the block just before Swami’s death nagged at Kate. Had Dallas left the restaurant to make a phone call? To meet someone? Who?

She dropped her mascara wand. Hell’s bells! Maybe the ubiquitous Harry Archer. Could he have been courting Dallas too?

Though she couldn’t come up with a motive for either Dallas or Magnolia, tonight’s memorial rehearsal might open up all kinds of new possibilities. That thought pleased her. Smiling, she grabbed a sponge and wiped the dark brown streaks off the sink.

With her left eye finished, she leaned into the minor to draw a fine line above her right eye.

The doorbell rang. Who now?

Ballou went wild, as he always did when he heard the bell. “It’s okay, boy.” But Kate felt taken care of by the Westie. Mary Frances had left less than thirty minutes ago. It must be someone in the building; otherwise, with Miss Mitford off duty, anyone from the outside would have had to ring her up on Ocean Vista’s visitor’s phone line.

She opened the door to find Tiffani in tears. Ballou, like all males, hated the sight of crying and went back to his cage in the bedroom.

“I’m on my way home to change, then Sanjay’s going to drive me up to Mrs. McFee’s, but I had to talk to you.” She sighed. “Mr. Mancini disappeared from the hospital, and it’s all my fault.”

Tiffani, dressed in tight white shorts and a halter—thank God she was planning on
chan
ging
—seemed to thrive on the drama, enjoying her role as a messenger delivering bad news. Kate found it difficult to work up sympathy for her, but she was alarmed about Danny Mancini.

She glanced at her watch, then, less than warmly, said, “Come in, Tiffani.”

“You were doing your makeup, right?” She pointed to Kate’s right eye. “Sorry, this is important. I won’t take long.”

The girl was astute, Kate would give her that. “Yes, you caught me in the middle of applying eyeliner. Please make this quick, I have to finish dressing.”

“You’ve always been so nice to me, Mrs. Kennedy, almost like a grandmother. I have no family, you know. My mother walked out when I was six. My grandmother raised me, but she died last year in Kansas City—Missouri, not Kansas. I used the insurance money to move here. You sort of remind me of my grandmother, better dressed, but kind, like her.”

A wave of guilt crested, then swept over Kate, still she couldn’t shake the idea that she was being conned.

“What happened to your mother? Where did she go?”

“Now that’s a question with no answer.” Tiffani shrugged. “You’ve got a great ocean view, don’t you, Mrs. Kennedy? I’d kill for that view.”

Any resemblance to her granddaughters evaporated. “Tell me about Mr. Mancini. Why do you feel responsible for his disappearance?”

Kate could hear the coolness in her voice, but Tiffani didn’t seem to notice.

“I’ve screwed up. Big time. Swami told me I was out of line, that he totally wasn’t interested in me, that he was old enough to be my father, but I kept chasing him.” She sounded like a woman scorned. “Then Mr. Mancini got on my case, told me Swami might not fire me from the Yoga Institute, but he’d fire me from the restaurant. You know I’m paying my own tuition for my associate’s degree in massage therapy, I need all three of my jobs. I make the most money at Mancini’s. Bar tips. Hardly anybody tips well here at Ocean Vista.”

Where was she going with this?

Kate moved into wait mode.

“I resented Mr. Mancini’s interference. He accused me of chasing after Swami. At the time I had no idea Swami Schwartz was his godson.” Tiffani squeezed her eyes shut. “Yesterday morning at the restaurant, I told Detective Carbone about Mr. Mancini’s gambling and how Swami had refused to pay off his debts. I was mad and, with Detective Carbone throwing all those questions at me, afraid I’d be arrested. Mr. Mancini overheard me and, suddenly, he got sick, almost fainted. That’s when Detective Carbone and he left. They might have gone to the hospital.”

“Why didn’t you tell me all this yesterday?” Tiffani had been lying to her from the start.

“I didn’t think you’d help me if you knew what I’d done.” She stared at the floor. “And I felt ashamed.”

Kate felt ashamed too. She hadn’t gone to visit Danny at the medical center.

“Now Mr. Mancini’s run away and Sanjay’s looking all over for him. So is Dr. Gallagher. And Detective Carbone. But no one can find him.” Tiffani crossed to the balcony and stepped through the open door. “Yeah, that’s quite a view.”