Twisted: A Tracy Turner Murder Mystery Novel (The Tracy Turner Mystery Series Book 1) (9 page)

I blushed. “It was something I picked up on a Google search.”

“I think you should talk to Gina. There was something a little odd about that woman. Maybe she could shed some light on the white-haired man and why Katherine was in Frank’s room. Oh yes, and please be discreet. I’m not looking forward to another visit from her,” she said with a quick wink. “And, Tracy…”

“Yes, Millie?”

“Stay away from Katherine Walters.”

I smiled.

“Here’s Gina’s card.”

It was rose pink business card embossed with the symbol of two interwoven lotuses. In purple ink the card read:

I followed the smell of burning camphor and jasmine wafting down the corridor leading to Gina Fey’s room. A quick Google search had confirmed the details on her business card. Gina was the proprietor of an exclusive Tantric yoga studio based in a shopping enclave downtown. Google Street view featured it as a dim-lit venture tucked between
The Witches Lair
that peddled love potions and good luck charms and
Armoires, Antiques & Things,
a local store that sold near-new antiques.

Tantric yoga was an ancient Indian practice that was meant to strengthen a couple’s spiritual bond though sensual awareness and soul connection using yoga postures performed in unison. By adding her own spin to the basic poses, Gina, had created her own brand of therapy and charged couples big bucks to get naked and contorted.

Gina had sold Katherine the idea that the only way to save her marriage was to rekindle their intimacy by fanning the fires of desire. She swore that it was the jump start that their relationship needed. Within a week of beginning their sessions, however, the only thing Frank was jump starting was their curvaceous therapist.

First they had sneaked around behind Katherine’s back like a pair of love struck teens, but this was short-lived. A young reporter had snapped up the two canoodling at Fuga d’Amore, an Italian restaurant located near Gina’s studio. The photo featured the couple sharing what the article recorded as Katherine’s favorite dessert, Tiramisu—one bowl two spoons. Celebrity gossip columns across the country were set ablaze with the news. Katherine was devastated, but Gina made no apologies. There was even some speculation that she had tipped off the press.

I raised my arm to knock on the door when I noticed that it was ajar. From inside I heard an “Oooouuummm…” sound that vibrated deep in my belly. I peered into the room and saw Gina seated in
samadhi pose
with her hands resting on her thighs in
chin mudra
.

She stopped chanting and unraveled her legs that had been bound in the full
lotus posture
. She stood up and walked to the edge of her mat and did three rounds of
sun salutations
in quick succession.

I held the door still and gave it a gentle knock. She didn’t seem to notice and made her way to the end of the room, hoisted her feet up into the air, and rested her legs spread eagled against the wall.

I knocked louder and cleared my throat. “Excuse me, Gina,” I called, “It’s Tracy Turner. Millie Henderson sent me.”

“Come on in, honey,” came a voice as smooth and warm as chocolate fondue. Gina pushed her feet against the wall and flipped backwards. In a trice she was standing on her feet, arms spread out, bowed her head and smiled.

Her bushy tangle of blond curls with dark brown roots was pulled back with a thick elastic burnt orange headband. The leopard-skin leotard she wore left nothing to the imagination. A small brown cotton scarf was twisted and knotted at her throat and was a poor cover for the bare skin that was revealed by the plunging U-neckline.

I averted my gaze and focused on her face shining with a combination of perspiration and soft orange bronzer. Several clumpy coats of mascara accentuated her startling blue eyes.

I smiled back at her. “I’m Tracy, PR and Events,” I said as I offered her my hand. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

In a twinkling, her zen state evaporated like the smoke of the joss sticks littered around the room. “Oh, Frankie, my Frankie, how I loved him,” she wailed. She lost control and began to sob and moan. Exhausted, she collapsed into my arms.

Hating to be touched in this way, I stiffened. Regardless of my discomfort, I patted her back a couple of times, and each time she leaned closer. Suffocating under her weight, I tried nudging her with my shoulder so that she would get the hint. I was careful not to go too hard in case she fell back. The last thing I wanted was for her to complain to Millie that I had pushed her. I remembered that I had some old tissues in my pocket and pulled them out.

“Here you go. This will make you feel better,” I said, giving me an excuse to move away. The paper tissues were falling to pieces. She snatched the bits from me and cleaned her nose with the soft trumpeting of a baby elephant. Her nose had grown three times its original size and glowed bright red, like a vine-ripened tomato ready to be picked.

She must have noticed that I had been staring at her bulbous nose because she turned and looked in the mirror and gave it a rub. She rummaged about an overnight bag and grabbed a jug with a handle and a long narrow spout. “Netti pot,” she explained.

She dropped some pink rock salt crystals into a bottle of water and capped it. As she shook the bottle, so did her entire being. She then poured the liquid into the jug. “Mucus. It needs to come out.” She held one nostril shut and tilted her head to the side. She stuck the spout up her other nostril and held the saline water for a few seconds, catching the fluid that dripped out in the fragments of tissue and repeated the process on the other side. She expelled more water than what went in. Her nose was still very red but not as swollen, so I guessed that the procedure was a success.

“There. That’s better. We can talk now,” she said.

“I understand that you were Frank’s…”

“Fiancée. We were to be married, you know, when the lawyers tied up the loose ends.”

“Katherine told me about the divorce, and that you and Frank were having an aff… in a relationship.” I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and bit my lip.

“That slut. She can’t talk, sneaking around with that lawyer of hers.”

“Her lawyer. An older gentleman, white hair?” I tried to keep my voice even. “Is this him?” I asked, showing her a copy of the photograph. So that’s where I had seen him. He was in the Channel 10 clips.

“Yes, yes, that’s him.” Her excitement reflected my own. “Pooh, she was accusing Frank of sleeping around. People in glass houses, I say…”

“So Frank knew about Katherine’s affair?”

“My Frank was smart. He found about it, didn’t he?”

“How did he find out?”

“He got a private investigator to follow her, and he got all the shots he needed to prove that she was guilty. Since they both had affairs, the pre-nup would have had no effect.”

I was quiet as I processed the new information and what it would have meant to the divorce proceedings.

“You are surprised, huh? She went nuts when Frank told her that he had found out. Swore to kill him. Bet she didn’t tell you that part of it. That cow all holy-holy, thinks everyone else is beneath her.” She puckered her mouth and I thought she would spit so I moved away from her line of fire.

“Katherine was pretty sure that you had done it. She said that you were to benefit from a life insurance policy. Is that true?”

She burst out laughing. “Look, Frank told her that to piss her off. He had stopped paying the instalments on that policy a long time ago. There was no policy. Truth was that the man didn’t have a dollar to his name. After the tournament he was going to declare bankruptcy. I made more than enough for the both of us. After our affair went public, business skyrocketed. We were going to start all over again. And now… and now he’s dead because of that whoring slut.” She swallowed a sob that threatened to interrupt the conversation, but thankfully it passed.

“Do you know anyone other than Katherine who’d want him dead?”

“BG—that’s before Gina—he had lotsa women. Let’s face it, my Frankie was a good looking guy. Women couldn’t resist him, and it was not like she was doing anything for him. That’s why he had to turn to me. So it could have been any one of those jealous women who couldn’t stand it that Frankie had found his soul mate.”

I nodded and smiled.

“What? You don’t believe we were soul mates?”

“I have no doubt…” I wiped the smile off my face and stared back into her eyes, with what I hoped was a solemn expression. Inside I felt a giggle growing in my belly.

“Anyone could see it,” she said, gazing up at the ceiling.

I sighed sympathetically and redirected the conversation to the matter at hand.

“Did anything else happen recently that seemed suspicious?”

“Huh?”

“Was there anything that made you worry about Frank?”

“Now that you mention it, there were some prank calls, weird hang-ups and such. I thought it was another woman.” She had a foolish smile on her face and shrugged. “Frank had needs and I made sure that I was the one satisfying him.”

“Of course. I would do the same in your situation,” I mumbled.

“So I put a tap on the line. It was not a woman, but a man. Called himself Burns. Once I picked up the call and he demanded that Frank pay the quarter of a million dollars that he said Frank owed.”

“Frank said he’d take care of it after the divorce and told him not to call the house because it would frighten the missus. See, he was always considerate like that.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“No, he just hung up.”

“Did you ask Frank about it?”

“No, I knew my Frankie had money problems. Like I said, we had a plan. We were going to work it out and start over.”

“Did you tell the police?”

“The police? Do you think they’d want to hear from me?” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her chest heaved in response. “No, now it’s all over. Anyway, no one hated him like that except Katherine. I’m sure as the sun rises in the sky that she killed my Frankie.”

“I heard that Frank and a man named Burns had it out in the casino last night.”

“You’re saying that piece of crud touched my Frankie? You think that he killed my baby?” Her voice rose into a sharp squeal and cracked.

“It is a possibility, Gina.”

“No, no that’s not right. Frank would have made it good. He told Burns that he would, and he is no liar. I know it’s that whore. She killed him.” She growled the words and her nose changed into a curious shade of maroon.

In the next instance she regained her composure. “Now, if you will excuse me, I need to get back to my meditation. Thank you for checking on me. Nobody thinks of my loss, you know.”

“Thank you for your time, and once again my sympathies.” I moved fast toward the door in case her emotions got the better of her again.

“Oooouuummm…”

My conversation with Katherine earlier that day had me thinking that Gina, Frank’s mistress, had killed him for the insurance money. Having spoken to her, however, it seemed that there was no policy. Had Katherine been trying to throw suspicion on Gina to hide her own wrong doings? I wondered if there was a way to verify Gina’s story. My chat with her earlier that day left me with the notion that she couldn’t do up her own shoelace, let alone murder a man and frame another for his killing.

The next question was, who was this man Bruno Burns? His name came up so many times today. Could he have killed Frank because he had not been making good on his debts? Then again, what good would Frank be to him dead? Perhaps he knew that Frank was filing for bankruptcy. Could that have made him angry?

I wondered how I could find out more about Burns. I Googled his name, but nothing came up. I bit my lower lip in frustration and ran another query. A LinkedIn entry popped up of an Anthony B. Burns as a CEO of a global conglomerate. His business interests included a stake in Katherine’s confectionery company. Was this the same man who fought with Frank in the casino? What if he and Katherine were in on this together? I tapped out an electronic note.

I reached for the telephone on my desk and punched zero for reception. Imogen Adair responded.

“Hey, Imogen, it’s Tracy from PR and Events. Could you please let me know if there’s a Bruno Burns staying at the resort.”

“Give me a moment, Tracy. Putting you on hold.” The light and airy trills of Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” filled the silence. It made the wait bearable and lifted my mood.

“Tracy, are you there?”

“Yes, Imogen, I’m here.”

“No, I’m sorry, Bruno Burns is not a guest here.”

“Could you try Burns, or anyone with the surname. May be he had been a guest in the past?”

“Just a moment while I check through guest profiles.”

In order to improve customer service, Maxwell had put in place a number of new initiatives. One of these was installing a guest information system to capture visitor records.