Killer Calories (2 page)

Halfway up the walk, she paused to pull off the spike heels. Tucking them under her arm, she saw her neighbor, nosy old Mrs. Normandy, peeking out her kitchen window. Once Savannah had tried to explain why she sometimes left the house dressed in strange garb. But Mrs. Normandy didn't seem to grasp the concept of “undercover.”

That, or it was more interesting for the old woman to think she lived next door to a part-time private investigator/ hooker. Mrs. Normandy was also convinced that aliens had abducted Jimmy Hoffa from her backyard, so Savannah hadn't wasted a lot of time trying to cajole her about the risqué costumes.

Savannah had just slipped her key into her front-door lock, when a cheery voice reached her from across the lawn. “Hey, Savannah! I'm he-e-e-re!” The nasal, Eastern seaboard twang grated on her sleep-deprived nerves.

Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was exactly nine o'clock. Damn, that girl was punctual.

She turned around and saw her trainee-in-private-detection, Tammy Hart, jogging across the lawn toward her.

Savannah loved Tammy to pieces; the young woman was bright, good-hearted, and a whiz with computers—quite the opposite of the ditzy blonde she appeared to be at first glance. But Tammy had one major character flaw. She was a morning person.

Her short, golden ponytail bounced from side to side as she trotted up onto the porch, where she continued to jog in place, bouncing ... bouncing ... bouncing until Savannah thought she was going to be seasick just watching her.

She was wearing a smile that should have been illegal before noon, and a bright yellow short set that made Savannah wish she was still wearing that Buzz creep's sunglasses.

“Hope I'm not too late,” Tammy pealed. “My bug wouldn't start, so I decided to just jog to work ... get the old blood flowing ... you know.”

Tammy's classic Volkswagen bug was the only car on the planet that was less reliable than Savannah's Camaro. But jogging? It had to be nearly ten miles, and she hadn't even worked up a good sweat ... just this nice, ladylike sheen that looked great on her golden, California tan.

Sometimes, Savannah hated her.

“Neat outfit, especially the shoes!” Tammy continued to bounce.

Savannah thrust the heels at her. “Here, you can have them.”

“Gee, thanks. I wonder if they'll fit.”

“They'll fit,” Savannah growled, not adding the fact that their shoe size would be the only size they would ever have in common. Petite Tammy actually wore a minuscule size zero. Until Savannah had pinned her to the floor one day and turned her shirt wrong side out, looking for proof, she hadn't even known there
was
a size zero.

Savannah unlocked the door and found herself face-to-face with two hungry and unhappy felines. Diamante and Cleopatra were more like miniature black leopards than housecats, with appetites as healthy as their mistress's.

“Oooh, they're so pretty,” Tammy cooed as she followed Savannah into the house and bent to pet the cats. “Good morning!”

“There's no such thing,” Savannah grumbled.

“Pardon me?”

“I said, there's no such thing as a good morning. It's an oxymoron.”

“Oh, you're just grumpy because stupid old Dirk had you out all night.”

Minutes after meeting him, Tammy had dubbed Dirk, “stupid old Dirk,” and she seldom mentioned his name without the accompanying adjectives.

“I'm not grumpy.” Savannah tossed her bag onto a side table and entered what had once been her living room, but was now the office of the Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency. “I'm just not a morning person,” she said. “I hate mornings, and I hate morning people ... like you.”

Tammy laughed, so loudly that Savannah's ears ached. “That's funny. You're a kick, Savannah, even when you're grumpy.”

“Tammy, I mean it. Stop with the perky shit. I'm not up to it. We're talking no pulse or measurable brain waves until I have a hot bath and a nap.”

Savannah forced herself to go into the kitchen and pour some Gourmet Kit-Kat into the two bowls beneath the counter. She was rewarded by purrs and satiny rubs against her ankles.

Undaunted, Tammy did a samba around the office, turning on the computer and printer, checking the fax machine.

“Don't touch those blinds,” Savannah warned her. “If you let one ray of sunlight into that room, you're fired.”

She could tell that Tammy was traumatized by her threat; the girl broke into a rousing rendition of “Zip-a-dee Doo-Da.”

“And stop singing that stupid song,” she told her, “unless some guy's do-da is open.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” Savannah sighed. There was no fighting optimism and cheerfulness ... short of murder, and her mood wasn't quite foul enough to warrant homicide.

Scrounging around in the refrigerator, Savannah found something that raised her spirits: a chocolate-chip, double-fudge muffin with cream-cheese filling. She zapped a cup of stale coffee in the microwave and laced it with Baileys and Half & Half.

Ah, breakfast.

But the moment she carried the cup and plate into the office, she got “the look” from Tammy.

“Oh, shut up and drink your pure springwater and nibble your organic carrot sticks,” she told her.

Tammy grinned and shrugged. “I didn't say a word.”

“Yeah, yeah. I heard every word you didn't say. Not everyone's a Spartan like you.” Savannah sank into the comfort of her favorite chair—overstuffed, just the way she liked it, just like her. “Some of us,” she said, breathing in the aroma of the coffee and savoring the anticipation of the chocolate cream cheese, “are pure, unadulterated hedonists.”

Tammy sat down to the computer and began to type. She shrugged. “Whatever.”

“And what's that supposed to mean?”

With a perfectly guileless face, Tammy replied, “If you want to poison yourself with toxins, pollute the perfect body that Nature gave you, it's your personal right to do so. It's just that Ms. Valentina says—”

“Oh, please. Don't quote Kat Valentina to me. She's hardly an expert on nutrition, or anything else, for that matter.”

“I like Kat.”

The three words were simply, quietly stated, but Savannah could hear the underlying hurt. For some reason beyond Savannah's understanding, Tammy liked her “other” employer, the owner of the notorious Royal Palms Spa that sat on the hillside overlooking San Carmelita.

The resort was a haven for the wannabe-filthy-rich and sorta-kinda-famous. No Oscar-winning actor or critically acclaimed director would be seen inside the complex. Royal Palms was too tacky even for Hollywood.

Back in the late seventies, Kat Valentina had starred in a hit movie,
Disco Diva.
Though the critics had hated it, fans had flocked to the movie, making Kat Valentina a cult phenomenon.

From what Savannah heard, Kat had never quite gotten over the seventies disco scene. She was still stuck in the “Screw Whomever You Can”—literally and figuratively—mentality. By reputation, the Royal Palms was an extension of her own hedonistic attitude. While the club claimed to be a health spa, the guests did more fooling around than aerobics, more hallucinogenic drugs than cleansing herbs, and more scheming than soul-searching.

Savannah hadn't been happy last month when Tammy had admitted to taking a part-time job there as an aerobics instructor. But considering how little Savannah was able to pay her, she could hardy complain.

“I know you like her,” Savannah said, cursing her own insensitivity. “I'll keep my opinions to myself, as long as you keep her nutritional advice to yourself. Deal?”

“Sure. No problem.” Tammy brightened instantly. Another aspect of Tammy's personality that Savannah loved: her ability to forgive and forget.

“By the way, speaking of money ...” Savannah began.

“We were?”

“We are now. Did Mr. Barnett ever pay us the last payment that he owed us for—”

The jangling of the phone cut her off, and Tammy grabbed it, assuming a professional attitude along with a Marilyn Monroe breathiness.

“Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency,” she breathed. “May I help you?”

Savannah listened eagerly. She had the sinking feeling it was Dirk, wanting another favor or inviting himself over for a pizza and beer dinner. Her treat. But one could always hope it was a new client. Lord knows, they needed work if she were to keep Diamante and Cleopatra in Gourmet Kit-Kat niblets.

“Yes, this is Tammy.” She looked slightly confused. “Oh, hi, Mr. Hanks.”

Hanks? Lou Hanks? Savannah recalled meeting the guy a time or two. He was Kat Valentina's ex-husband and business partner, co-owner of the Royal Palms.

“Yes, I was coming in later this afternoon to lead the step-dance class,” Tammy was saying. “Oh, why not? Closed? But what's ... ?”

Savannah set her muffin and coffee aside as she watched the color drain from Tammy's well-tanned face.

“Oh, no! She did? Oh, Mr. Hanks ... I ... I'm so sorry. I ... of course, I understand. If there's anything I can do, just—”

Tammy hung up the phone and turned to Savannah, her eyes huge with hurt and shock, her hand clapped over her mouth.

“What is it?” Savannah asked. But she knew. She knew the look. It only meant one thing.

“That was Mr. Hanks.” Tammy began to tremble all over. Savannah rose, walked to her, and put her hand on her shoulder.

“What did he say, honey?” she asked.

“It's Ms. Valentina. Kat's dead.”

Kat Valentina was only in her early forties, and Savannah had seen her at a downtown boutique two weeks ago. She had looked a bit overindulged, maybe some substance abuse, perhaps a tad too much booze, but basically healthy. Certainly not like someone who was going to check out in a matter of days.

“Did he say how she died?” Savannah asked, rubbing Tammy's shoulder, trying to impart a little comfort.

“Not exactly. But he said I shouldn't come to work today because the club is closed.”

“That isn't too surprising ... considering.”

“Yeah, but he said the police closed it.”

B
y the time Savannah changed into suitable street clothes, and she and Tammy arrived at the Royal Palms Spa, the appropriate authorities had been alerted, as well as the media. Los Angeles television crews milled around the front gates, seeking entrance and being rejected, as well as the San Carmelita cable station entourage of two. Apparently, Kat Valentina could still create a stir, especially if she died unexpectedly.

Flashing her private investigator's license as though it were a badge, Savannah managed to bulldoze her way through the crowd and even past the gates. “Attitude,” she whispered to Tammy, who followed in her wake. “It's all in the flick of the wrist.”

Once inside, her past friendships with the local cops enabled her to maneuver through the gauche gold-painted doors and into the reception area. Modeled after Kat Valentina's idea of an ancient Roman villa, the lobby was a nightmare collage of pseudo “artifacts.”

Two enormous, white plaster statues dominated the semicircular room. Nudes, a man and a woman, supposedly the ideal male and female of the species. Muscles rippling, lean machines, they looked as though they were straight off the pages of a superhero comic book. Anatomically correct in every detail, their grossly exaggerated attributes could only have been achieved by plastic surgery.

“Talk about a boob job,” Savannah muttered, as she and Tammy hurried past the statues. “And to get a dick that big, you'd have to do a penile implant ... with a ten-pound Polish kielbasa. The club should be sued for false advertising.”

When Tammy responded with wounded silence, Savannah cautioned herself to keep her mouth shut. Heaven forbid that she should speak ill of the dead.

She wondered, who made up that stupid rule about saying only good things about the deceased? Probably someone who was more afraid of being haunted by pissed ghosts than concerned about giving dead people a break.

They passed between Grecian columns, whose paint was peeling, on royal blue carpeting that had seen better days ... a decade ago. The plastic greenery in the atrium to their left was sun-bleached and yellowed. No one had turned on the fountain this morning, so the “waterfall” was dry. The goldfish in the pool had disappeared long ago.

“How have they been doing financially?” she asked Tammy in low tones as they hurried down the hallway, toward what appeared to be the center of activity ... the bathhouses.

“I don't know, but Mr. Hanks has been pushing us to bring in customers and offering lots of special, low prices. So, probably not too good.”

A young man and woman met them in the hallway, both wearing gauzy togas that barely covered their assets. The girl was attractive with lots of curly chestnut hair, and the guy looked like a beach bum or lifeguard moonlighting as a Grecian god.

“Brett, Karen, what happened?” Tammy asked them in a tense whisper, even though there was no one nearby.

“We don't know.” The pretty brunette looked scared and more than a little shaken. “Mr. Hanks found her this morning in one of the herbal mud baths. She was already ... you know ...”

“The cops are here, going over everything and everybody,” Brett said. “They won't let anyone in the bathhouses. Not that I'd want to go in. She's still there in one of them. They haven't taken her out yet.”

Good,
Savannah thought. Maybe she could get a look at the scene before everything was broken down. Of course, she had no official interest in the case, but she couldn't help being curious. Besides, in some probably misguided way, she felt she owed it to Tammy at least to look into the situation.

“How's Mr. Hanks taking it?” Tammy asked. “He must be devastated.”

Brett and Karen shared a look that Savannah had to file away as “knowing.”

“Not so's you'd notice,” Brett whispered. “Mostly, he just seems mad that the detective grilled him for half an hour. The cops are acting like it was murder.”

“They have to assume it's murder,” Savannah added, “until they prove it wasn't. I'm sure they're just doing their job by questioning him.”

Karen waggled one eyebrow. “Maybe, but this detective is a real slob and an asshole to boot. Not exactly Mr. Hanks's type.”

A slob and an asshole,
Savannah thought as she headed for the bathhouses, Tammy in tow.

She just had a feeling.

 

Yep. It was Dirk, all right, who was in charge of the scene. He stood outside in the open yard behind the main building, directing traffic, barking questions and orders to the forensic team that was working the area.

Even under the best of circumstances, Dirk made no fashion statement. But he had been up all night, as she well knew, and the lack of sleep hadn't improved his perpetually disheveled appearance. Although he had changed from his wino costume, there wasn't much discernible difference.

The battered, once-white sneakers were the same. His khakis were just as wrinkled, and his token necktie was askew. What little hair he had stood almost on end.
That
was unusual. Slovenly though he might be with the rest of his grooming, Dirk generally made certain that his few remaining hairs were neatly combed across his bald spot.

Long ago, Savannah had theorized: Everyone had his or her point of vanity. Even a guy like Dirk.

Sleep deprivation hadn't sharpened his social skills either, she noticed.

“Get the hell outta here!” she heard him yell at several toga-wearing employees who had crossed the yellow tape that cordoned off the area around one of the bathhouses. The scene of the crime—if, indeed, there had been a crime—was the last in a row of a dozen tiny cottagelike cubicles with white stucco walls and bright blue tiled roofs.

“Each house has its own private tub,” Tammy explained. “Some of them are just regular hot tubs, and some have herbal mud baths.”

Savannah resisted the urge to tell her that she was quite familiar with the place. Years ago, when she had first arrived in San Carmelita and had pulled a graveyard patrol shift, she had often been called to the club to quell the occasional drunken brawl. At least back then, those cubicles had been used for a lot more private goings-on than just mud baths.

While orgies might be out of vogue, because of fear of social diseases, she imagined that some of the enclosures were still being used for more earthy pastimes than meditation and soul-searching.

“You should probably wait here,” Savannah told Tammy before she approached the cordon tape. “He shouldn't even let me cross, let alone both of us. We don't want to push him when he's obviously in ‘grouch' mode.”

Tammy hesitated only a moment, then her eyes searched Savannah's, asking the silent question.

“Yes, that, too,” Savannah admitted. “It's bad enough when it's a stranger. But if it's someone you knew ... you'll never be able to forget it.”

Blinking back tears, Tammy turned and walked over to the tennis courts, where more onlookers congregated and stared, shock and disbelief written on their faces.

Savannah got Dirk's attention. He gave her a curt nod and she wasted no time stepping over the tape. The other civilians would assume she was one of the investigating team. The other cops knew her and welcomed her presence. The brass would throw a tizzy fit if they knew, but Dirk was the highest-ranking official present.

“If Captain Bloss or the chief shows, disappear,” Dirk muttered as he directed her toward the door of the cottage.

“No-o-o-oo problem. Whatcha got?”

“Don't know yet. Doc Liu's here. I suppose she'll figure it out.”

“She usually does.”

It took a moment for Savannah's eyes to adjust to the relative gloom of the inside of the bath, compared to the glare of the outside sunlight. When she finally focused, she saw the medical examiner, Dr. Jennifer Liu, kneeling on the blue-and-white tile beside the mud-smeared body of a woman.

Savannah never would have recognized Kat Valentina, darling of the disco generation. Her famous long, blond hair was hanging in muddy strings over her once-pretty face. Her body was covered with mud that was beginning to dry, giving her a mottled, rotting look.

Kat Valentina had been a vain woman; she wouldn't have wanted to end up this way.
But then,
Savannah reminded herself,
who would?

“Hey, Dr. Jennifer,” Savannah said as Dirk led her over to the medical examiner, who had just finished making a small incision in the body's abdomen and was inserting a long thermometer into the liver.

“Hi, yourself, sassy.” Jennifer's smile was warm as she looked up at Savannah. The two women had become good friends over the years, sharing a love for crime-solving, moderate male-bashing, and German chocolate. The ingredients for perfect female bonding.

Although Jennifer Liu was a stunningly attractive Asian woman with a trim, petite figure and long, flowing black hair—the least likely suspect for a county medical examiner—Savannah had heard her tell some pretty morbid jokes from time to time, and there was that rare, Vincent Price cackle that sent shivers down the backbone. Yes, there was more to Dr. Jennifer than met the eye.

“What does it look like, Doc?” Dirk asked, kneeling on the other side of the body. “Accident, suicide, or ... ?”

“Can't tell yet.” Jennifer checked her thermometer and jotted the results on her clipboard. “Drownings are the toughest.”

“Drowning?” Savannah clicked into analytical mode and tried not to think about how this lifeless piece of flesh had been a functioning human being a few hours ago. She hadn't liked the woman, but she hated to see anyone's life end prematurely.

“Don't even know that for sure.” Doctor Liu wiped the blood from the thermometer, shook it down, and thrust it into the tub filled with mud. “There's no obvious perforations, other than the one I just made,” she said. “No bullet holes or stab wounds. Though we can't be certain until we get her back to the morgue and hose her down. I don't see any strangulation marks on the neck or other contusions. But, it's hard to see anything through the mud.”

“What's in it?” Savannah asked, nodding toward the bath. “I smell something like mint and flowers ... maybe honeysuckle.”

“Stinks to me,” Dirk said with a sniff. “These people are nuts, sittin' in mud like a bunch of pigs. And they call that a bath.”

“Don't knock it 'til you've tried it,” Jennifer said with a smirk that bordered on lascivious.

“You
have?” Dirk seemed genuinely shocked.

“Sure. I've tried everything once, and most things twice,” she replied.

Yes,
Savannah decided,
the grin is definitely lascivious.
Sometimes Savannah wondered about what lives Jennifer Liu had led before becoming the respectable medical examiner of San Carmelita County.

“I see that rigor has set in, big time,” Savannah observed, seeing the stiff, unnatural, outward extension of the body's arms. “I guess that means eight to twelve hours ago, huh?”

“Normally, yes.” Jennifer read her thermometer and noted that result, too. “But the mud is over one hundred degrees. The heat would speed up rigor, plus the fact that the victim is so thin. She would set up pretty quickly.”

Savannah watched Dirk as he walked slowly around the edge of the bath, taking note of the few items lying on the tiles. “Looks like she was drinking margaritas,” he said, pointing to the nearly empty pitcher and the glass with salt around half the rim.

“Yeah.” Jennifer slipped a bag over each of the body's hands and taped them. “I noticed that. Alcohol and a hot tub of anything is a bad combination. She may have died of heatstroke. It wouldn't be the first time I've seen the combination turn lethal.”

“I drink margaritas in hot tubs any chance I get,” Savannah said. Not that she had that many opportunities. In her part of town there weren't a lot of whirlpools and tennis courts.

“Well, stop it, or I'll be doing a postmortem on you someday.” Jennifer rose from her knees and nodded to her assistants, who had just entered with a gurney and a white body bag. “You can have her now. Careful, she's slippery.”

Dirk held up a tiny bit of black silk and lace that might have been a teddy and turned it this way and that, scrutinizing every stitch. “I guess this is what she wore out here. Sorta skimpy.”

“If she's like she was in the old days,” Savannah said, “I'm surprised she was wearing anything. She wasn't exactly known for her modesty.”

Savannah recalled a night when she had been summoned to the club for some disturbance. She had seen Kat strutting, naked, across the lawn, completely unconcerned with the fact that several police officers were present.

Neighbors of the club had complained continually about her nudity and her impromptu love fests that often occurred in plain sight of the surrounding properties. In this elite area of town where people had more money than they knew what to do with, voted Republican, and went to church every Sunday, Kat Valentina was considered an unwelcome nuisance by those who were most forgiving. The rest deemed her “Hollywood Trash.”

The irony of the term crossed Savannah's mind as she saw them load the remains of the unpopular neighbor into the white plastic bag and zip it closed.

No ... whatever Kat Valentina might have been or done in her lifetime ... she wouldn't have wanted or expected it all to end this way.