Six Strokes Under (21 page)

I accepted a second round of his congratulations and best wishes and left the office. I stopped again at the players' bulletin board and read the Bible study notice and list of illegal drivers for the umpteenth time. I wondered if Maria Renda was out shopping for a club to replace the driver she'd destroyed earlier today. I still didn't understand how her caddie tolerated her over the long haul. Some quirk in his personality—masochism maybe—allowed him to interpret her volatile nature as part of her charm.

Which again brought Kaitlin to mind. Loving Kaitlin either took someone half-cocked, and I'd place Walter Moore squarely in this category, or a person who took the "love your neighbor as yourself commandment very much to heart. Like Julie Atwater. Former Bible beater and possible lesbian. I no longer knew what to think of her. No way around it: her friendship with Kaitlin seemed odd, her calm presence a major contrast to Kaitlin's turbulence. And despite her explanation, I didn't understand the bad blood between her and Gary.

I grabbed my putter from the trunk and trotted over to the practice area, my mind running loose with possibilities. Suppose Julie had developed a crush on Kaitlin after Kaitlin helped her out with the referral to Dr. Bencher. What if Kaitlin gave her the cold shoulder and the crush evolved into a jealous rage once Kaitlin turned her advances down? This theory would raise Julie to the status of murder suspect, as well as explain Gary's dislike for her.

I found Jung Hyun Ro at the Panther putting green. She nodded politely at my greeting, then refocused on her putting stroke. "How is So Won Lee holding up?" I asked, dropping three balls down onto the short grass. "It was such a shame, what happened to her."

"She was very sad," said the girl. She sunk two three-footers. "It was not her golf club that they found in her bag." Clunk, clunk, two more balls deposited in the heart of the cup. "But she is at peace, if it is God's will. And she has forgiven those who have wronged her." I looked carefully to see whether Jung Hyun Ro was including me, the obvious beneficiary of So Won's misfortune, in that company. Her face was blank. I rolled a putt well past my targeted hole.

"Is she still in town?"

"She left for Orlando yesterday afternoon."

So much for the theory of So Won Lee as killer. It's hard to have a murder pinned on you if you were miles away from the immediate vicinity.

I returned my putter to the trunk, slid into the driver's seat of the car, and pointed it to the Starlight—home away from home. None of my ruminations fit just right. Walter Moore, with a manslaughter charge in his history, was developing as a solid suspect. Other than that, my latest brainstorm about Julie Atwater made as much sense as any of the other theories we were working with. Not a lick.

 It was twenty to six when I arrived back at the motel. Walter Moore ducked into the reception area ahead of me.

"Walter!" I called out when I reached the vestibule. He turned back from the elevator. Every crease in his face contributed to the intensity of his scowl. "Do you have a minute?" I tipped my head toward the empty breakfast nook. Manslaughter charge or not, I figured he was unlikely to hurt me in full view of the motel lobby.

"Make it snappy," he said. "I'm on my way out of this stinking town."

"You've had a rough week. That was hard, the service for Kaitlin. They did a nice job, though." Now I was babbling. Frankly, I was surprised the cops would allow him to leave the area.

He clenched his teeth until the small muscles around his nose and eyes began to twitch, but said nothing. Either he was struggling to contain his sadness or really, really angry.

"Let's see, I've lost two contracts, a girlfriend, and my professional credibility. Plus, the cops are on me like flies on a cow's ass. Rough week? You make the call."

"What's next for you?" I asked after several silent moments. It was a clumsy question, but I couldn't think of a casual entree into the subject of his plans.

"If I knew," he said, spittle forming little hills of bubbles in the corners of his mouth, "if I knew, I don't believe I would pass the information along to you. Some people are better than others about keeping quiet about subjects that are none of their fucking business." The last few words were more hissed than spoken.

"I didn't say anything—" He stood up and shut down my objections with a sharp wave.

"Well, good luck," I said to his back as he strode out of the room.

I flipped on the TV and surfed through reruns of Maury, Ricki Lake, and Queen Latifah. From this quick review, it appeared I could choose between programs about dictatorial husbands and fathers, gender-bending affairs, or two-timing gold-diggers. Who watched this garbage? And more to the point, where did they find the losers willing to expose their bizarre problems to public ridicule? I shut the television off—I was wound way too tight to sit through any of the available nonsense. The conversations with Walter's boss and Walter had turned the screws a little tighter still.

Returning to our room was not an option yet. Laura would kill me if I woke her up ahead of schedule to yak about my murder theories. That left pulling the trigger on the cocktail hour ahead of the others—not the smartest move just before the final round of Q-school. Or I could work some of my tension out in the miserable motel gym.

The desk clerk waved me over on the way through the faux green lobby to the small room that housed the exercise equipment. "I have two messages from your mother," she said, holding out a pair of Starlight-logo sticky notes. "She told me she hadn't been able to get through to you. She asked me to deliver these to you personally."

"Is something wrong?" I wasn't particularly worried. Mom's baseline level of hysteria tended to escalate when I'd been out of touch for more than three days.

"She just said she hadn't heard from you. She thought maybe there was a problem with both your voice mail and your cell phone." She shrugged apologetically. "You know mothers."

I sure knew mine. I thanked the clerk and continued on to the gym. The room was dim and empty, the skeletons of the equipment lit only by the flickering television that hung from the ceiling. I slid my key card into the slot, opened the door, and flipped on the overhead lights. The previous patron had left the TV volume blaring. Maury was attempting to intercede between a snotty teenaged girl wearing black lipstick and double nose rings and her enraged father. Unable to find the channel changer or reach the volume button on the television, I left him holding forth and turned to the exercise equipment.

Having run this morning, I skipped over the selection of cranky aerobics machines and went straight for the weights. No LifeMaster computerized machines here. The motel had provided an unlikely assortment of free weights—two pounds and three pounds, then skipping directly to fifty. I knew bicep curls with the fifty-pounder would leave me crippled, probably unable to swing my clubs higher than shoulder level tomorrow. The lighter weights were not worth the effort, even with multiple repetitions. The only other selection was a vaguely familiar Smith press bar, this one produced by EZ-Fit. I read the description and instructions from a faded printout on the wall. The bar targeted pecs with bungee cord counter-resistance and had a built-in spotting system that eliminated the need for a lifting partner. Who wouldn't want firmer pecs?

I squinted at the faint numbers on the upright sidebar. The weight on the EZ-Fit was set for forty pounds, which seemed ambitious but not unmanageable. As instructed, I lay on my back on the bench, with my chest centered under the barbell. I grabbed the bar with the overhand grip illustrated on the wall, disengaged it from its selectorized safety system, and lowered the weight to my chest. I braced my feet against the footholds at the end of the bench and slowly extended my arms to lift the barbell. It felt refreshingly heavy.

By the third repetition, the muscles in my arms and chest had begun to shake with the exertion; I was no longer feeling refreshed. Either I wasn't as strong as I liked to think, or the EZ-Fit could use a recalibrating tune-up. I needed to reduce the amount of weight on the barbell, or else quit. Quitting sounded good.

I extended my arms again and pushed the bar up and over into the safety slot. Instead of catching when I flipped the barbell over, the entire weight dropped and banged down toward my chest. By sheer reflex, I absorbed enough of the impact with my hands to avoid being knocked breathless or cracking a rib. I stared up: the selectorized safety spotting system had apparently failed, and the bungee cord cable supporting the weights had snapped in half.

"Stay calm," I told myself. "Breathe easy." Not so simple with forty pounds pressing on your windpipe. The scene on the television came into focus as I regrouped. Maury motioned the studio audience and the father for quiet.

"I'm seventeen years old," shrieked the teenager with the nose rings. "He can't tell me how to run my life." The gem-encrusted ring in her exposed, pierced navel glinted in the studio's harsh light.

"I will not allow my daughter to behave like a common slut," said the father. "As long as she's in my house, she'll live by my rules." He slammed his fist down on Maury's flimsy studio desk. At first glance, he had long ago lost the battle of controlling this girl.

Three more times, I positioned my sweaty hands on the barbell and heaved up. But I did not have enough strength left to move the weight more than an inch above my quivering pecs. Breathe in, breathe out... now on the TV, Maury and the teenage she-devil had agitated the dictatorial father into a seething rage, which reduced him to speechless grunts.

"You've put my brother down all his life," said the girl, pointing at her father with a long black fingernail. "He's a failure, a fucking flop." The audience hissed at her use of the f-word. "You've told him that every day of his life until he finally bought it. You're not going to do the same thing to me."

A small contingent of the audience rose to their feet and began to chant: "Loser! Loser! Loser!" Where the hell was the girl's mother? Couldn't she pull the plug on this embarrassing display? I glimpsed a janitor passing by the small window in the gym room door.

"Help!" I yelled. "Help!" The fight on the television drowned out my screams.

I studied the safety clips that dangled several feet above me. Even if I was able to summon the strength to lift the bar again, the latches hung uselessly from the poles. Next plan: if I could roll left and tip the barbell sideways onto the floor, I thought I might have room to slide out from under it. I shifted my body right. The legs of the bench collapsed, slamming my head against the floor. The barbell bounced off my windpipe and rolled up under my chin.

I lay stunned and choking, my eyes filling with tears. I fought back the urge to struggle against the weight across my neck. My left leg had caught under the bench as it fell. Each movement I made increased the pain. I wondered how long I had to lie here before another motel resident had the bright idea to work out. Certainly from the looks of the wall-to-wall, grime-gray carpet, the housekeeping staff did not often visit the gym.

From down near my hips came a familiar buzzing noise. The cell phone had dropped out of my pocket during the collapse of the bench and lay vibrating with the news of an incoming call. Although my hands were free, the phone was out of reach. The chatter of the vibrating phone stopped, then started up again. I shifted my body toward the phone, ignoring the sharp pain in my leg, and rolled over onto the talk button with my right buttock.

"Hello!" I screamed. "Hello!" I could barely make out the small, tinny voice on the other end.

"Cassie? Is that you? It's Mom."

"Mom!" I yelled down in the direction of the phone. "I need help!"

"I can't hear you. Turn down the radio. You'll damage your hearing with all that noise."

"Listen, Mom, please," I shouted. "I'm trapped in the gym under a piece of equipment. I need you to call the main desk and tell them to come and help me."

"This connection is terrible," said Mom. "It sounds like you're breaking up. Call me back when you get out of the dead zone."

"Mom!" I screamed. "Don't hang up!" Too late. The phone lay silently blinking. Even if she called again, I doubted I could stand the pain involved in rolling my hip over the talk button a second time.

Maury signed off today's program, insisting that the father and daughter hug before they were allowed to leave the studio. The audience cheered and booed.

I had begun to feel faint and woozy when the door to the gym burst open.

"Oh, my goodness!" said the desk clerk.

"What are you doing here?" said Laura.

"The thing collapsed on me," I croaked. "My leg's crushed and I can't breathe. Please get it off."

"I'm going to get the manager," said the desk clerk as she ran from the room.

"Thanks a lot," said Laura. She squatted down, lifted the left side of the barbell, and eased the weight off my neck. The purple goose egg on her temple throbbed with her effort. She thumped the weight down on the floor beside me. I sat up, slid my leg out from under the bench, and gulped for air.

"Are you all right?" Laura asked. She studied the Smith bar. "What were you thinking of, trying to bench ninety pounds?"

"I was thinking you would kill me if I woke you up too early," I said, annoyed by her scolding tone. "I thought it was set for forty. The numbers are almost worn off. See if you don't think it looks like forty."

The motel manager rushed into the room with the desk clerk. I reviewed the details of the incident.

"The safety catch is not working and the cable snapped. It's very dangerous," I said, fingering my swelling neck. "Besides all that, you can't read the damned numbers on the bar. I'd recommend you spring for a new piece of equipment."

"We need to call the police," Laura insisted.

The manager looked horrified. "We'll take care of it," he said. "We'll look into it. We don't need the police. We'll give you one night's stay free for your bother."

"You don't understand," Laura said. "Someone's threatened Cassie. This machine has been tampered with."

I crawled over to lean against the wall. "I think it was just a fluke," I said. Laura had already punched 911 into my cell phone and begun to explain the situation to the operator.

"I'm calling an ambulance, too," said the manager, apparently now committed to displaying his concern for my condition.

Several minutes later, the sheriff's deputy who had worked with Pate at the scene of Kaitlin's murder was shown into the exercise room by the desk clerk. "Not you again."

I smiled politely and explained my altercation with the Smith bar. The detective crouched down to examine the flattened bench.

"Why do you think this was done deliberately? This equipment looks like it could use some updating."

"Updating!" Laura snorted. "That's the term they use in real estate when the kitchen appliances were manufactured and installed in the Stone Age."

"All of our guests sign a statement when they check in," interrupted the manager. "The athletic equipment is provided for the convenience of our guests and all use is strictly at your own risk. Let's go somewhere more comfortable." He ushered us out of the gym and down the hallway into the breakfast area, away from the sight of the offending equipment.

"You're going to have to tell the detective about the closet," said Laura. "Tell him about Turner's threat." Joe and Jeanine arrived in the lobby as I finished reviewing the details of our foray into the False Memory Consociation's office.

"So the second man, whose name you do not know, was instructed by this Dr. Turner to scare you off, is that accurate?" said the deputy. I nodded, shrugging apologetically at Jeanine. "And you were hiding in the closet because..."

"Because, Sheriff, I mean Deputy, Pate was making me feel like you guys weren't looking very hard in any direction except mine for either Dr. Bencher's or Kaitlin Rupert's killers. One more thing," I said. "I don't mean to tell you how to do your job, but Walter Moore is not too crazy about me either." I reported our earlier conversation. "I saw his boss in the parking lot earlier today— he says Walter was charged with manslaughter."