Killer Calories (5 page)

 

“Don't look at me like that,” Savannah told Diamante and Cleopatra as they traced furry figure eights between her ankles and gazed up at her with rapt green eyes.

She scooped spoonfuls of the foul-smelling Pampered Kitty gruel into their matching bowls. They buried their faces in it, as though no future meals would ever be forthcoming. Somehow, they could always tell when she was getting ready to leave for a while.

“I'll only be gone a few days, and Mrs. Normandy is going to come by to feed you and give you pets. Don't worry; you'll get your salmon mousse. It's your mistress who's going to be deprived of culinary pleasures. Do you feel sorry for me?”

Not really, she decided. They lapped and smacked, oblivious and unconcerned.

She thought of the DoveBar ice cream treats in the freezer, the Mrs. Fields chocolate-chip and macadamia cookies in the jar, the stash of Godiva truffles in the pantry. What if an attack of PMS set in?

Maybe she should stick a few truffles and a cookie or two into her suitcase ... just in case....

The phone rang, and she grabbed for it, feeling a little guilty. Sure enough, it was Tammy.

“I'm here at the club,” she said, sounding so encouraged and hopeful that Savannah decided she was doing the right thing after all. “They said you went home to get some things, and you're coming back this evening?”

“Right. I needed to settle my affairs, before I check into Hotel Hell.”

“Geez, Savannah, it's supposed to be fun. People pay big bucks to come here.”

“That's
the real mystery ... not what happened to Kat.”

“Naw, really, you're going to have a good time. But I wanted to warn you...” Tammy lowered her voice. “... when you officially check in tonight, they'll search your bags, just to make sure you aren't smuggling in any goodies. They've had trouble with contraband in the past.”

“Contraband?” Savannah feigned shock. “You mean ...
drugs?”

“Oh, no ... I'm talking junk food. You wouldn't believe the kinds of garbage they try to smuggle in here!”

“Really! I'm appalled!” She reached for the cookie jar, extracted one of Mrs. Fields's best, and took a big bite.

“Go figure,” Tammy rattled on. “I mean, why would somebody enroll in a health spa if they were just going to poison their bodies with toxic substances like sugar and chocolate ...”

“And butter.” Savannah chewed, savoring every bite. “Don't forget creamy dairy butter and, of course, macadamia nuts.”

“Macadamia nuts?”

“Yeah. I heard they're a common problem.” She munched. And smiled. “Macadamia nuts comprise about 10 percent of the overall contraband that's confiscated at health club entry checkpoints.”

“Really? I didn't know ...”

“Oh, yeah, it's true. They're worse than peanuts and cashews.”

Savannah walked over to her pantry, gave the phone cord a pull, and disappeared inside. “I read it in some magazine called
Health Spa Beautiful,”
she continued, rummaging along the bottom shelf. “An article about ‘Keeping Your Spa Nut-Free.' ”

“Savannah, I think you're pulling my leg.”

“Why, Tammy, honey, would I do that?”

“Every weekday and twice on Sunday.”

Savannah cackled with glee as she saw the gleam of a gold foil box behind a cream-cheese brownie mix and a cherry-swirl bundt cake. “Thanks for the tip about the search, sweetie,” she said, coming out of the pantry, chocolates in hand. “I owe you one.”

Hanging up the phone, she glanced down at the cats, who were gazing up at her as though expecting more salmon mousse.

“Forget it. One bowlful apiece is enough,” she told them. They meowed a protest. “No way! You two are gluttons! You should be ashamed of yourselves.\”

She left the kitchen and headed upstairs, clutching her truffles to her chest. “Besides, I have to pack,” she muttered. “Maybe I can shove these things under the lining.”

“
S
o, what do we do now?” Savannah asked. “Paint each other's toenails, talk about boys, tell ghost stories?”

She and Tammy lay on matching twin beds in the tiny room that was to be Savannah's home away from home for the next week ... or two ... or however long it took her to investigate Kat Valentina's murder.

Like the rest of the Royal Palms, the dorms reflected the faded, gaudy glory of the early seventies. The bedspreads were crushed red velveteen that had long passed their prime. The shag carpeting was the sort that required “raking.” Overhead a wrought-iron light fixture represented someone's idea of a Roman torch with flickering bulbs that supplied hardly any light at all.

But Savannah had decided to get into the fantasy of it and enjoy the experience. She was even wearing her Victoria's Secret toga nightgown in honor of the occasion. Plus, having Tammy spend the night with her helped. She would just pretend they were hanging out in some badly decorated catacombs.

“It is sorta like a slumber party, huh?” Tammy said with a giggle, wriggling her pink flannel pajama–clad legs. “I haven't had this much fun in a long time.”

Silently, Savannah filed that information away for future consideration. For all her cheerfulness, Tammy seemed rather lonely at times. Her family lived on Long Island, New York, and Savannah got the impression that they hadn't been that close even when Tammy had lived at home. The only child of a socially prominent father-physician and attorney-mother, Tammy had grown up with absentee parents ... something Savannah understood.

Savannah had never really known her dad, and Mom had produced child after child, turning them over to their grandmother to raise.

But at least Savannah had Granny Reid. And she wouldn't have traded their relative poverty and the responsibility of eight younger siblings for Tammy's privileged, but solitary, childhood for anything.

At least, Savannah had known without a doubt that she was loved. And she had been taught life's most important lessons by Gran's example.

“Tell me something, Tammy,” she said, staring up at the gaudy, flickering fixture over their heads. “Why were you so fond of Kat? Please don't take offense. I'm not implying you shouldn't have been. I'm just asking why.”

Tammy was silent for a long time, thinking before answering. “I guess it sounds simple and dumb, but Kat could be really nice when she wanted to be. She was really pretty, and sometimes, when she looked at you with those big golden eyes of hers, she made you feel like you were the only person in the world.” She paused. “Does that make sense?”

Yes, Savannah knew the pleasure of receiving someone's undivided attention ... especially important to a young woman who hadn't received enough of that valuable commodity as a child.

“Yes, it does,” she replied. “What else?”

“She was really funny. She would say things that were kind of ... naughty ... and make people laugh.”

Savannah nodded. “My Granny Reid is like that. That sort of woman sets the rest of us free to be our own sexy selves.”

“That's true! I felt more free around Kat than with anyone else. It's like nothing shocked her.”

Savannah recalled the infamous Royal Palms orgies back in the seventies, but decided not to comment.

As Tammy continued to enumerate Kat Valentina's qualities, Savannah silently noted that all her attributes fell into the category of “personality” rather than “character.”

Kat knew how to entertain people, make them laugh, make them feel special. Those abilities were nothing more than highly developed social talents, forms of acting and interacting. Endearing as those charms might be, they said little about the person inside.

Long ago, Savannah had learned to look beyond those social graces to the actions that defined a person's true character. And although Kat Valentina might have been pretty, witty, and interesting, she had also been known as a liar, a swindler, an adulteress, and a wanton, bent on self-destruction.

Savannah's Granny Reid had told her that although someone might put on a charming facade, it was their actions that more clearly defined who was living inside the pretty package.

But Savannah decided to keep this bit of homespun wisdom to herself tonight, as they lay there enjoying their slumber party. If Tammy hadn't figured out the difference between personality and character, she would. This didn't seem to be the time for life lessons.

“Besides,” Tammy chattered on, “Kat had really changed the last two months or so.”

Savannah's investigator's ears perked up. “Really? How had she changed?”

“I'm not sure, exactly, but she seemed more serious about things. She said she was changing a lot of her habits. Like drinking, for example.”

“Drinking?”

“Yes. She had decided to purify her body, said she needed to do it for her health's sake. She was taking lots of vitamins and good stuff, was watching everything she ate, and she had stopped drinking completely. That's why I was so surprised when she had that pitcher of margaritas there by the mud bath.”

Savannah rolled over onto her side, facing Tammy. “I hate to mention this, sweetie, but Kat wouldn't have necessarily been the first person with a drinking problem to fall off the wagon.”

“I know. I thought of that. But I don't think so. She seemed so determined to eat and drink only healthy stuff. It was like she was finally practicing what she'd been preaching. She seemed
really
motivated ... almost scared, like she
had
to do it, or something.”

“Hmmm.” Savannah digested that for a moment. “Did you mention this to anyone?”

“Yes. I told Kat's husband, Mr. Hanks, I thought it was strange that she was drinking again, when she'd been so good.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Nothing Kat did surprises me. I got over that a long time ago.' ”

“Maybe he's right. Maybe you're reading too much into something that may have been just a lapse for her.”

“Maybe.”

Savannah could hear the doubt in Tammy's “maybe.” But then, Tammy was a bit too trusting with people, a bit too eager to give them the benefit of that doubt ... whether they deserved it or not.

Either way, it was something to consider. And something to check out.

“I think I need to find Lou Hanks and have a talk with him tomorrow,” she said. “I just have to finagle it without him getting suspicious.”

“Too late,” Tammy said. “I meant to tell you ... he was looking for you this afternoon, heard you had checked in. Seems he's already wondering why you're here. I guess he knows you're a detective and all.”

“Great.” Savannah sighed, plopped onto her back, and stared up at the ugly light fixture. “There's nothing quite like going undercover ... when everybody and their dog knows who you are.”

 

“What the hell!” Savannah bolted upright in bed, her ears ringing from the rude alarm that was sounding up and down the hallway. “What is that! A fire bell?”

A sleepy Tammy stirred in the bed next to hers. “No, that's just the wake-up call.” She yawned, stretched, then bounced off the bed, fully rejuvenated. “We've got ten minutes to get dressed and outside for warm-up exercises.”

“What? Who said anything about exercising? Where's my coffee? I need a Danish ... or two,” Savannah grumbled, her heart pounding in her throat.

Tammy hopped around the room, flinging off her flannel jammies and donning a shapeless gray workout suit. She tossed Savannah's to her.

“Act alive!” she pealed. “Shake a leg now, or we'll be late.”

Savannah shot her a dark look as she climbed into the ugly uniform. The last time she had gotten up this early and dressed this badly to do exercises, she had been in the police academy. And that had been before the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, give or take a year or two.

“Shake a leg, my ass,” she grumbled. “I'll shake
you,
until your teeth rattle, if you start that perky ‘morning' shit with me again.”

“Ah, Sa-a-v-aaa-nah! Give me just one little good-morning smile. Come on ... just for me ... !”

Savannah bared her teeth and growled.

“Now that's better. Let's go. We've only got two minutes!”

 

Savannah didn't mind the exercises half as much as she had anticipated. Even the cross-country run around the perimeter of the spa's property wasn't so bad, she decided. If only Tammy had mentioned that the exercise session was led by Dion Zeller, Kat Valentina's leading man in
Disco Diva,
she might have jogged to the exercise field more eagerly.

There was nothing to compare with following those cute little bouncing buns around to clean those “nasty toxins” out of her system and make her feel like a “new woman” just as Tammy had predicted.

Yes, there were worse ways to spend a morning than looking at the backside of Dion Zeller. Her eyes were likely to be as sore the next day as her long-dormant, newly awakened muscles.

Their exercise class had boasted only six students, including Savannah and Tammy. This did appear to be a slow time for the Royal Palms. Their four classmates were all older people, three women and a man, who had dropped out of the routine soon after the workout. They had declined the joy of the hillside run, leaving only Tammy and Savannah to join Dion.

With a not-so-subtle nod of her head, Savannah had indicated to Tammy that she should make her own exit. Reluctantly, she had, leaving Savannah to run behind Dion with an unobstructed view of the marguerite daisies, the sage scrub, and—most importantly—Dion's electric blue running shorts.

On a wide straightaway across the top of the arroyo, she caught up with him and jogged beside him.

“So, how long have you been working at Royal Palms?” she asked, dryly congratulating herself on the originality of the line. Perhaps she should make her humiliation complete and ask when he got off and if he came there often.

“Since I decided to start earning my keep,” he replied with the somber face of a golden-haired Greek god. “I've been living here off and on since the
Disco Diva
money ran out. Kat was kind enough to let me stay.”

She had to give him a perfect score of 10.0 for honesty.

Long, curly blond hair, a physique to die for, patrician features, turquoise eyes ... and a penchant toward honesty and humility.

Not bad.

“You were a good friend of Kat's then?” she asked.

Their feet churned a lot of dust on the dry unpaved path before he finally answered. When he did, his voice was husky with emotion. “Kat was a good friend to me. I don't know how good a friend I was to her.”

“I'm sorry for your loss,” Savannah added, meaning it. If she were any judge at all, she could swear she saw genuine sadness in his eyes as she sneaked sideways glances at him.

Chugging along beside him, matching him stride for stride, she was thankful for her sturdy constitution. She was hardly huffing and puffing at all.

For all of Tammy's bitching at her about health, Savannah decided she was in remarkably good shape for someone whose most strenuous form of exercise lately had been hefting forkfuls of Black Forest cake. Compared to police work, being a private detective was pretty soft employment. But she hadn't lost it all. Not by a long shot.

They came to a fork in the path, and he chose the one leading toward a large, sprawling hacienda that crowned the top of a hill.

“Are we still on Royal Palms property?” she asked, beginning to feel the burn in her calves and thighs. Yes, she would definitely be sore tomorrow. Hopefully, he would turn around and head for home soon. The last thing she wanted to do was fall flat on her face with exhaustion in front of this ravishing male specimen.

“It runs right up to that fence, the one near that big Spanish-style house,” he replied, wiping the sweat from his face with his forearm.

A very muscular, tanned forearm ... she couldn't help noticing.

“Wow, nice place,” Savannah observed, as they rounded a corner and still more of the estate was revealed.

The white stucco gleamed in the rose-tinted, early-morning light, as did the red tiled roof and the cobalt blue mosaic accents around the windows and doors. An elegant belfry graced the center of the building, giving it the old-world charm of an adobe mission.

She could see at least three fountains, meticulously manicured flower gardens everywhere, and an arbor draped with lavender and white wisteria that ran from the backyard to a huge, modern barn.

“Yeah, that's the Chesterfield estate,” Dion said. Savannah detected a note of ... something ... in his voice when he spoke the name. Was it contempt? Or maybe simple dislike? “Ford and Phoebe Chesterfield own the whole hill. They're brother and sister, and they're a matched set.”

“How's that?”

“Old, cantankerous, and richer than God.”

“Doesn't sound as though you like them very much.”

“They don't make it easy. Ford was always hanging around the spa. He was nuts about Kat—even asked her to marry him. Can you believe that? An old fart like that?”

Actually, Savannah
could
believe it. If Chesterfield was richer than God, an opportunist like Kat Valentina must have at least
thought
about it.

“And his sister, Phoebe ...” Dion shook his golden head. “... now there's one irritating lady.”

He paused in the middle of the path and pointed to the belfry. “Phoebe's favorite pastime is to sit up there in that tower and spy on everything that goes on at the spa.”