Killer Calories (17 page)

“
T
he stars are out,” Tammy said as they hurried along the gravel driveway that led from the Royal Palms entrance to La Palma Drive.

“More importantly, the moon is up,” Savannah replied. “I just hope half a moon is enough.”

She held her report in her hand, a hastily scribbled account of what she had uncovered so far. Which wasn't much, once she left out a few pertinent facts that she didn't feel like sharing with some anonymous somebody—paying client or not.

“Maybe they'll call us and tell us who they are.” Tammy's voice sounded so hopeful that Savannah didn't want to discourage her, but ...

“Not meaning to sneeze on your ice cream,” she said, “but if our client calls and tells us who they are, I'll eat a cockroach dipped in Tabasco sauce.”

“That's hardly a fair bet. You'll eat almost anything.”

Savannah gave her a warning grunt, which seemed to work, because the younger woman stayed quiet for an entire thirty seconds or so.

They reached the end of the driveway and exited the wrought-iron gates. By the light of one streetlamp overhanging the gate, they found a large white mailbox with the spa's address painted on the side, along with the omnipresent symbol of the twin palms.

Savannah shoved her folded report inside and slammed the small door closed. Looking around, she couldn't see or hear any life-forms other than the usual crickets and occasional coyote howl.

She supposed her client was crouching behind a sage bush somewhere. But since she could see at least five hundred bushes from the spot where she stood, she decided not to waste too much time examining each one.

“There we go,” she told Tammy. “Sorta like leaving a letter for Santa. And like the old fellow with the white beard, our person probably won't show as long as we're on the scene. So let's boogie.”

“Do you think they're watching us right now?”

“Yeah, most likely.”

“Oooo ... creepy.”

They headed back through the gates and up the driveway, their sneakers crunching loudly on the gravel.

“How do you learn all that stuff?” Tammy asked thoughtfully.

“What stuff?”

“You know, what people are going to do and all that.”

Savannah chuckled. “You get burned a lot. And if you're smart, you learn from it. If you don't, you spend a lot of time waiting for phones to ring, waiting for crooks to turn themselves in, waiting for lots of frogs to turn into princes. Eventually you learn. It's a matter of self-preservation.”

“Sounds like you learned the hard way.”

“The hard way is the only way, kiddo. None of life's greatest lessons are learned when we're having a good time. Sadly, it just doesn't work that way.”

“I wonder why that is.”

Tammy sighed, sounding battle-weary. Savannah suppressed a chuckle. She knew quite a bit about Tammy's past life, and her sheltered existence hadn't been all that challenging. As a cop, Savannah had seen truly traumatized lives. And most of the people she knew—herself included—were pretty spoiled to think their own lives difficult.

“I guess life has to slap us upside the noggin to get our attention,” she said.

“What's a noggin?”

“Your head.”

“Oh.”

“What's the matter? Don't you speak Georgian?”

“I'm learning the language. But sometimes I still need a translation.”

They arrived back at the spa's gilded front doors and stepped into the lobby, which was nearly deserted at this relatively late hour. A toga-garbed Bernadette sat at the desk in the shadows of the giant plaster-cast Adam and Eve monstrosities. She gave them a nod and a curious look as they passed on their way to the rest room/public phone alcove in the rear.

“Now what?” Tammy asked as they took their positions on each side of the black, wall-mounted phone.

“We wait. It isn't hard; we're women. And if there's anything we women are good at, it's hanging out, waiting for the damned phone to ring.”

 

“
Now
what?” Tammy shifted from one foot to the other, staring at the silent telephone.

Savannah gave her an “oh, please” look and a dismissive wave of her hand. “You need to get somebody to write you some new material; the old reruns are starting to bore me.”

“But it's been over fifteen minutes! When are they going to call?”

“I already told you. There isn't going to be any call. This is just a ruse to get us out away from the mailbox so that they can pick up my report.”

“Shoot.” Tammy's lower lip protruded a couple of notches. “I was really hoping they'd call just so that I could tell you ‘Nanny, nanny, boo, boo.' ”

“That's so immature and childish of you.”

“So, why are we waiting here?”

“Just on the far-flung, outside chance that I might be wrong and you might be right. But, as we can see, you blew it ... again.” She glanced at her watch. “Nine-twenty. That's long enough.”

She took a step out of the alcove and looked around the lobby. Bernadette and her toga were still sitting at the desk. She was hard at work, nose deep in some sort of romance novel. No one and nothing else stirred.

Turning back to Tammy, Savannah said, “Keep an eye opened while I'm in the ladies' room, and let me know if anybody's coming.”

“Sure!” Tammy looked excited, relieved to have the wait over. “What are you going to do? Make the phone call?”

“That's exactly what I'm going to do.” She lowered her voice and whispered, “If anybody comes this way, knock on the door ... use the secret knock.”

Tammy's eyes widened. “But I don't know the secret knock. What is it?”

“Do you mean to tell me that you don't know the secret detectives' knock?”

Tammy shook her head.

“It's three hard, two soft, three hard and a soft. Got that?”

“Three hard, two soft, another hard ... and ... oh shoot, what was the rest?”

Savannah stifled a snicker. “That's okay, Tam. Don't sweat it. If anybody's coming, just open the door a crack and tell me so.”

“You got it.”

 

The ladies' room had three stalls, a couple of sinks, and, standing in each corner, miniature statuettes resembling those in the lobby. The mirrors over the sinks were surrounded by a ring of bright, Hollywood dressing table-type lightbulbs that did nothing to flatter a woman's face. Savannah was surprised that Kat Valentina would have allowed such things in her establishment.

But then, these mirrors were for lobby visitors, more than spa guests, and maybe they were intended to instill self-doubt and loathing, like Adam and Eve with their unrealistically perfect bodies.

Savannah ducked into the third stall and bolted the door behind her. After listening and hearing nothing but the overhead fan spinning, she pulled her cellular phone from her waistband, where she had tucked it next to her Beretta.

Punching “redial” she listened to the phone play its non-melodic tune at lightning speed. After ten rings, the party on the other end answered.

“Halloo,” said Phoebe Chesterfield with a voice that was strong, but sounded a bit breathless.

“It's Savannah Reid, Miss Chesterfield.”

“Yes, Savannah. I'm sorry it took me so long to answer, but I had to run down from the bell tower.”

“Then you were watching for me with your telescope?”

“You asked me to, didn't you?”

“Yes, but—”

“Well, unlike these younger people today, I keep my word. When I say I'm going to do something, you can bet your life on me doing it.”

“That's wonderful to hear.” Savannah was impatient to get off the morality lesson and on to the latest news bulletin. “So ... did you keep an eye on the mailbox area for me?”

“Yes, I watched it. I watched it like a hawk from the minute you called me, until just now when I heard the phone ring.”

“And did you see someone take anything from the mailbox?”

“I certainly did.”

“That's fantastic!” Savannah could feel her heart rate rise appreciatively. “Who was it?”

“I'm not going to tell you.”

“Wh—what?”

“I said, ‘I'm not going to tell you.' I think I'll just keep it to myself,” Phoebe Chesterfield replied as cool as a sprig of mint floating on top of a julep.

“But you can't do that! I'm the one who told you somebody was going to be there in the first place....”
You nosy old biddy body,
she added silently, biting the words off on her tongue.

“Well,
you
didn't tell
me
why they were there and what they were doing. And you didn't mention why you wanted me to spy on them. Why should I share my information with you, if you're holding back on me?”

Savannah had to give her that round. She had a point, but—

“Phoebe, I can't tell you. I'm a professional private detective, and as a professional, there are certain things I'm not at liberty to discuss with other people.”

“Then I'm not at liberty either. But I will tell you one thing. The person you were asking about—”

“Yes?”

“They didn't just take something out of the box. They put something in, too. Good night, Savannah. Sleep tight.”

Click.

Dial tone.

“She hung up on me.” Savannah stared at the phone until the operator's recorded voice came on the line, telling her to hang up the phone and try her call again later. “First she holds out on me, and then she hangs up on me! Why the gall of some people!”

A series of frantic, erratic knocks sounded on the restroom door. Savannah jumped. “What the hell?”

Suddenly, it occurred to her that this was Tammy's version of the secret detectives' knock.

She tucked the phone into her waistband, lowered her blouse, and walked out of the stall, just in time to see Tammy's head poke inside the door.

“She's coming. I think Bernadette's taking a potty break.”

“Thanks.”

“Did I do the knock right?”

Savannah gave her a deep-dimpled grin. “You did it perfectly.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Chuckling to herself, Savannah walked over to the blue-and-white-tiled sinks and washed her hands. As she was drying them on a small white hand towel, Bernadette entered, gave her a brief nod, and headed for the first stall.

“Nice evening,” Savannah told her.

“Yeah. But you guys had better get in bed. Lights-out in half an hour, and exercises begin at dawn.”

She disappeared inside the cubicle, and Savannah stuck her tongue out at the closed door. “No shit,” she whispered, as she looked around for a receptacle for the used towel.

For one brief, perverse moment, she considered hanging it on Eve's perky boob or Adam's ridiculously large dick. But in the end, she decided to be a lady and tossed it into the white wicker hamper beneath the sink.

Granny Reid would have been proud.

 

“I can't believe she held out on you like that!” Tammy trudged along beside Savannah as they retraced their steps back down the driveway they had walked less than thirty minutes before. “If it hadn't been for you, she wouldn't have even known anything was going down.”

“I reminded her of that,” Savannah said, “but—although she was adamant about fulfilling her promise to me to spy on said party—she didn't feel morally obligated to spill her guts about what she saw.”

“She probably didn't see anything at all and just doesn't want to admit it.”

Savannah nodded. The kid was getting better. “I thought of that, too. But if she didn't see the person, how would she know they put something into the box.”

“Maybe she made it up.”

“No. I don't think so. She may be a self-righteous pain in the ass, but I don't think Phoebe Chesterfield lies. It's a feeling I get about her. Besides, we'll know soon.”

Again, they exited the iron gates and walked over to the mailbox. Around them, the night seemed even quieter and darker than before. This time, Savannah didn't feel as though they were being watched. Whoever their nocturnal visitor had been, she was pretty sure they had come and gone.

Before reaching into the mailbox, she shined her flashlight—the one Fate had provided on the hillside—inside ... just in case her contact hadn't liked her report and had left something, like a rattler, behind.

Inside, she saw a single piece of the beige stationery, folded in half. She took it out and opened it.

“What does it say?” Tammy asked, straining to read over her shoulder.

“It seems my client isn't particularly pleased with my theories,” she said, studying the typed words.

“Well, I'd like to know why they're so sure it was a homicide,” Savannah said. “They want results, but they're tying my hands here by not telling me at least everything they know.”

“I'll bet you're frustrated, not being able to tell them that.”

“Right now I'd just settle for a name or a face. Hell, I'd be content just to know who hired me.”