Weapons of Mass Distraction (3 page)

“I can’t believe you drive to the gym to use the treadmill,” said Lily, as I took the machine next to her and settled my water bottle on the tray. The machines faced the windows and I could see my VW. I didn’t take much notice, however since I could also see Lily’s blue Mini parked in the corner of the lot. Taking a quick glance at the treadmill next to me, I saw a familiar-looking woman, my height and weight, at full pelt. She didn’t look like she’d even broken a sweat, and I could hear the soft hum of music escaping her earphones. Without slowing her pace, she reached for her water bottle and took a gulp, depositing it in the console bottle holder when she was finished.

“If I ran here, I would have no energy to run
here
,” I remarked, turning to Lily who was jogging without much conviction, her arms raised, while her legs pumped a gentle rhythm.

“This is true,” Lily agreed. “And I like your outfit. Is it new?”

I checked out my running capris with black-and-pink piping and matching top. “Half price on sale,” I told her. “Payday treat.”

Lily hit a button and her treadmill slowed from a jog to walk, and I sped mine up to a fast walk. “We should go shopping.”

“I wish. Right now, I have to save for new bathroom tile, a refrigerator that doesn’t make a noise like a wasp nest, and curtains for every window that doesn’t have them. That’s all of them, in case you didn’t notice.”

“The pleasures of home ownership,” sighed Lily. “Never-ending payments for stuff you never knew you needed.”

“I’ll drink to that.” I took a swig from my water bottle. “How’s the bar?”

“Awesome. I love running my own bar, but the paperwork! Sheesh! I thought getting the license was a tough call.”

“At least it’s making money.”

“Barely, but breaking even is good enough.”

I turned my head at hearing an odd noise next to me. The female runner was wobbling from side to side, her fingers clawing for the side bars and missing. She looked up at me with glazed eyes.

“Hey, are you…?” I started to say, slowing my power walk speed setting.

She gurgled something, and clutched her throat. Then she unexpectedly seemed to sink onto the treadmill, her legs giving way under her. Her face hit the belt as it continued to rotate before spewing her several feet onto the gym floor. She lay motionless in a limp mess. For a moment, I simply kept pumping my thighs and continued my walk as Lily and I stared at her. She didn’t get up.

“Oh my gosh,” said Lily, slowing her machine. “Did she just faint? Ow, that had to hurt.” She hopped off her machine as I stopped walking. I let it slide me off backwards until I could step off. We reached her at the same time as the gym floor monitor. Waiting silently as he crouched beside her, turning her onto her side into the recovery position, we ignored the sudden burst of chatter as people started to look. He checked her forehead with the back of his hand, then pried her eyelids open. When he checked her pulse, panic was visible on his face as he turned her onto her back.

“Call 911,” he yelled, tipping her head backwards and commencing chest compressions. He paused intermittently to breathe into her mouth. There was no response. Her lips and face looked swollen and her skin was discolored. She didn’t move at all when the instructor checked her eyes. He leaned over her, continuing to administer aid.

“I’m calling,” said Lily, extricating her cell phone from the band wrapped around her upper arm. “What do I say? Hello. Hello? Yes, I’m at Fairmount Gym and a woman collapsed. We need an ambulance. No, right away. She’s unconscious. Hold on. Lexi, is she unconscious? She looks unconscious.”

“Looks that way to me,” I said. “Tell them she’s getting mouth-to-mouth.”

“She’s getting mouth-to-mouth and not in a sexy way,” Lily told the operator. “And someone’s doing chest compressions on her. Is she breathing? No, not you. Why would I ask you?” Lily rolled her eyes at me. “Lexi, is she breathing?”

“Is she breathing?” I asked, relaying the question to the man resuscitating her.

He looked up from his chest compressions and shook his head before bending over her again, and breathing into her mouth. I shook my head at Lily, who shook her head at the phone. We waited. “Oh right,” said Lily. “No, she’s not breathing. Oh my gosh, she’s not breathing! Is she…?”

“Yes,” said the instructor, his tone dull, as if in shock. Around us, the whispering continued and I suddenly became aware of the pump of the air conditioning, the whirring motors of machines, and the soft thump of music trickling from the runner’s headphones as they were disengaged from her ears. Above all that was my own racing heartbeat. “I think she had a heart attack. No pulse for a minute. Ask them what do I do?”

“They say to keep doing compressions,” said Lily. “An ambulance is on its way.”

The man nodded, leaning over to breathe into her mouth again, before restarting compressions. He continued without cessation until eventually, I walked around and tugged him away. It had been five minutes. Five minutes without her taking any breath. I knelt next to him and held his limp hand as we looked down at the woman on the gym floor. We stayed there, along with the small crowd that gathered before Michael ran in with the paramedics. The silence broke into commotion again as everyone waited for them to perform some kind of miracle. But moments after they ushered us out of the way, I heard someone declare her dead.

~

“Two apparently natural deaths in two days at your gym,” said Solomon as he looked up from the menu. We were sitting in a Thai restaurant, which Solomon suggested we dine in downtown. The enticing smell of food wafted over us, making my stomach gurgle. It wasn’t surprising since I skipped lunch. The shock of the poor runner dying in front of me managed to put me off. “Do you want to join a new gym?”

“No, I want to know why two people died there in two days.” I looked at the menu and the long list of unpronounceable names. Fortunately, I had my pointing finger and quite an appetite. “Are we doing entrees?”

“Yes. Want to share?”

“Silly question. Of course, I do. Solomon, what are the odds on two natural deaths occurring within a day of each other at the same gym?”

“I don’t imagine anyone ever took the time to find out the probability on that, but I’m guessing low or…”

“Or?” I waited, ready.

“Or it’s a really unlucky coincidence.” The look on my boyfriend’s face told me just how unlikely that was. However, as the owner of a private investigations agency, he rarely was convinced of the innocence of anything or anyone anymore.

“Neither of them looked unfit. Jim Schwarz, the guy from my spinning class, took three spinning classes a week apparently. Then there's Karen Doyle, our dead woman. According to the treadmill’s data, she ran five miles without breaking a sweat. Both, of them, all of a sudden,” I snapped my fingers, “dead.”

The waitress appeared at my side. “Yes?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I wasn’t snapping at you.” I blushed at my unintended rudeness.

“Yes?” she asked again, this time tapping her pen against her notepad, apparently nonplussed.

“Let’s order,” said Solomon, reeling off dishes as though Thai was his second tongue. Maybe it was. He had a lot of hidden talents and I made it my mission to try them all out. His food, too. “Lexi?”

“That one, that one, and that one,” I said, pointing to the unknown dishes.

“Pleb,” said Solomon.

“Show off,” I retorted.

“Good choices,” said the waitress as she collected our menus. “All tasty.”

“She was saying that to me,” I told Solomon. “Yours? Not so much.”

Solomon laughed; then his face grew serious. “Two dead bodies. Two potential heart attacks. One connecting factor… the gym.”

“It’s very suspicious.”

Solomon smiled. “You have a suspicious mind.” If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that pleased him. Wait, I did know better. He was thrilled that I was suspicious. Intrigue made better date conversation than “How was your day, honey?”

“That’s why you employ me,” I said, reaching for his hand. It was warm, big, and very, very adept. I rested mine over it and tried not to think dirty thoughts while sitting precipitously on the tip of declaring the gym a double homicide crime scene.

“It’s not why I date you.”

I laughed and he turned his hand palm up, his long fingers wrapping around mine. “I think it could be a contributing factor.”

“Maybe. Okay, let’s say these two deaths aren’t just really unlucky. Who’d want to kill them?”

I picked up my wine glass and took a long sip. “That, I don’t know. But my gut tells me there’s something iffy about these deaths; and I’ve learned recently when my gut tells me something, I should listen to it.”

“All right then. Tell me more about what happened to the guy, the one in your spin class. Jim something,” he said. I was sure he knew Jim’s name and had already mentally filed every little detail I’d given him.

“There really isn’t much to say. He was doing okay, although I think he was going a little slower than he was supposed to. It’s a pretty tough class.”

“How so?”

“Tough cardio for heart and lungs, and pretty hard on thighs too. Our instructor, Anton, pushes us hard and gets results.”

Solomon nodded, but I suspected he’d never taken a spin class in his life. Not that his thighs suffered any for it; but I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about that either. “Okay. Go on.”

“So, Jim Schwarz was slowing down. He got off the bike, wobbled a little, then just collapsed onto the floor. Anton tried to help him, but there was nothing he could do.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah. Oh, and his finger was bleeding.”

“A lot?”

“No, like a bead, like he’d just pricked his finger.”

Solomon mused over that. Finally, he said, “With the exception of the treadmill death, it still sounds like your first guy died of natural causes. Maybe he nicked his finger. It’s probably not related.”

“And the woman?”

“It’s not absolutely unheard of for two people to die of natural causes at the same location in a narrow time frame. It’s just really unfortunate.”

We waited as the server arranged little plates onto the table, asked if we wanted our wine glasses refreshed, then gave us a little bow before disappearing.

“Unnatural enough for you to ask me if I wanted to find a new gym,” I pointed out. The delicious aromas reaching my nose made me salivate. “But maybe I’ll go to the doctors and get a health check.”

“I have a stethoscope,” said Solomon, looking up and smiling, with his eyes sparkling under his lashes.

“Really? Are you sure what you keep in your pants is called a stethoscope?”

The sultry smile remained on Solomon’s lips. “Stay over tonight and find out.”

“If you insist, but only because I need to stay healthy.”

“I’ll give you a full body check. Promise.”

I shivered. I knew exactly what that meant: that I’d be very tired in the morning, albeit very satisfied. “Since you insist and while we’re on the topic, I’ll be doctor and you can be nurse.”

“I’m a real man and I can be a hot nurse,” said Solomon.

For no apparent reason, I wanted to eat our meal quickly, but Solomon’s leisurely pace forced me to slow down. The dating thing was new, and great, and so far, only the two of us knew about it. Oh yeah, and Lily. And his sister, Anastasia. Okay, so that made four, but most importantly, our colleagues did not know, and the rest of Montgomery did not know, which meant my family couldn’t bug me about it. It also spared me from having an awkward conversation with Maddox, who already knew that things had occurred between Solomon and me in  the past, but not that they were now happening on a regular basis.

That said, I did have the occasional urge to shout from the rooftops that Solomon and I had been getting it on for the past two months, ever since he arrived at my house one night and asked to stay. Since then, we have enjoyed a series of movies, meals, and nights in at his place. He rarely slept over at mine when I had my apartment in West Montgomery, but I figured that was just because his home in Chilton was closer to our office. However, now that I’d moved, it would be nice to have him stay over in my home.

“You could stay at mine tonight,” I suggested between mouthfuls of something savory. “You could still get to work easily tomorrow.”

“At yours? The ranch?”

“It’s a bungalow,” I corrected for the millionth time. “And sure, why not? I’ve stayed at yours a bunch of times.”

Solomon shrugged. “Okay.”

“Oh, I didn’t think you’d say yes.”

“Disappointed? Worried what the neighbors will say when they see my car outside your house?”

“Not at all. Aidan will probably high five me.”

“Aidan?”

“Neighbor. You’ve met him. Deaf. Got a crazy dog.”

Solomon blinked. “Barney?” he asked.

“That’s him. He really doesn’t take any getting used to,” I continued, “and I have breakfast.”

“I’m already sold. No persuasion necessary. Why didn’t you think I’d say yes?”

“I thought you might find a sleepover at a yellow bungalow emasculating.”

“I already agreed to play the role of the nurse, how much worse can it get for me? Will there be any sex?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then…” Solomon showed me his palms and stuck his head forward a little, eyes wide, as if to say “What’s up?”

“Okay, you got me, what if one of the guys drives past my house and sees your car?” I asked, wondering why the hell this stuff came out of my mouth. I wanted him in my home. I just didn’t think he wanted to be there, despite what he said.

“Why would anyone drive past your house in the middle of the night?”

“Why does anyone do anything? I don’t know.”

“Lucas doesn’t like the outdoors. I know Delgado is staying with your sister tonight, and Fletcher and Flaherty went to a casino.”

“I hope they’re not robbing it.”

Solomon laughed. “Me too. All the same, no one is around, so you’re safe.”

“So… you don’t want to be seen at my house?” I frowned.

“I didn’t say that. You invited me over, I said yes, then you… are we having an argument?”

“Not unless we can have angry, make-up sex.”