Mary returned a few seconds later with Mirela right on her heels.
“Sean, Sara, how’s it going?”
Sara held up a hand. “Can we talk in your office?”
“Of course.” Mirela turned and led the way. She let them go inside first, then closed the door behind them. “Take a seat wherever you’d like.”
Sara and Sean each took a chair.
Mirela parked behind a small glass-topped desk. “Have you gotten anywhere with finding out what happened to Katie?” Her expressive eyes were full of expectation.
Sara shook her head. “Not really, but we’re following some leads.”
“That’s a good thing. That there are leads.” Mirela glanced at Sean as if for reassurance.
“It is, yes,” Sean confirmed. “But we have some questions for you.”
“Okay.” Mirela dragged out the word. “Whatever it is, ask away.”
“I guess we need to know a little bit more about your relationship with Katie.” Sara wasn’t sure how else to put it without sounding like they were suspicious of Mirela, which they weren’t.
“Well, she came to us a year ago looking to shed her last twenty-five pounds. She’d already been at it on her own for about a year before that. Katie was optimistic and confident in herself, and she was in the right headspace. She put in the hard work, and the results came for her. We can only push and encourage people so far, and the rest is up to them. Katie was self-motivated.”
Mirela had focused on the professional side, but Sara was interested in their friendship. “She was more than a client to you, though, I assume. You are paying for us to investigate her death.”
“Katie was more like a little sister to me. We just clicked.”
“Very nice.” Sara was reminded of Levi saying he and Katie just hit it off. Katie must have had a magnetic personality. “Did you socialize with Katie outside of the gym?”
“Not really. I realize that might sound strange, given what I just said, but there’s a line between trainer and client that I don’t think should necessarily be crossed.”
“I suppose I can understand that,” Sara said. “I noticed that you aren’t connected with her on social media. Same reason?”
“I’m actually not on social media.”
She was probably one of the last holdouts, but Sara recalled there was an online fan page for Elite. “Who manages the company’s page?”
“That would all be Mary.”
Sara smiled at Mirela and nodded. “How well do you know Katie’s boyfriend?”
“I never met him. All I knew about him was whatever Katie told me, which wasn’t much.”
“You said that Katie was self-motivated,” Sean chimed in, “but do you think Levi might have been part of the reason for that?”
Mirela shook her head. “Well, not that I know, anyway. Maybe he inadvertently encouraged it. I mean he was a good-looking man, a professional athlete. Her relationship with him probably didn’t discourage her, but I didn’t get the impression that he ever pressured her to lose weight.”
That gelled with what Levi had told them about not really caring about Katie’s weight or looks. That was a point in Levi’s win column.
“After Katie lost her weight, did she change?” Sara asked.
“She was more confident, to be sure, but personality-wise…no way. She was always a person who loved life and wanted to get the most out of every day.”
“Did you notice if anyone started treating her differently?” Sean asked.
“I’m not sure I understand your question.”
“Did other people maybe hit on her or flirt with her—that you saw?”
“Like I said, I didn’t socialize with Katie, so anyone I saw around her would be here, and I’d like to think people who come here are more dignified than that.”
Sara noted a hint of defensiveness in Mirela’s response and how she hadn’t really answered Sean’s question. “Did anyone hit on her here?” she pressed.
Mirela’s cheeks got red. “I didn’t see anything, but I overheard a couple of clients talking about her. What they said…well, I’m not going to repeat.”
“They were interested in her,” Sara surmised.
She nodded. “You could say that for certain.”
“But no one here asked her out, that you know of?” Sean asked.
Mirela shook her head.
“Well, that’s all the questions we have for you for now. But we’d like to speak with your trainer, Nicki Player.”
“Nicki? Why?”
“From what we can tell, she was good friends with Katie.”
“Whatever you need to do to find out what happened to Katie.” Mirela spread her arms open, palms up. “Talk to anyone you need here. Obviously, I can’t have you interrupting any of their sessions, but Mary should be able to tell you when Nicki’s schedule is open.”
“Thank you.” Sara got up, and Sean followed.
Mary told them as soon as Nicki finished up with her current client, she had a couple of timeslots open.
“Charge both to our account,” Sean directed.
Sara smiled at his profile. Sean was under no obligation to do that, but that was her husband: generous. Sara couldn’t say “to a fault” as people often did, because as far as she was concerned, generosity could never be a fault.
-
Chapter 16
WEIGHING IN
Sean got Sara and Nicki situated at a corner table in a coffee shop not too far from Elite, and then he went and grabbed drinks for everyone.
His wife and Nicki were chatting away as if they were friends by the time he returned. Sara had an innate ability to make people feel comfortable and relaxed. It had served investigations more than once.
“Here you go, ladies.” Sean snatched Sara’s coffee from the tray and handed it to her, then the requested pumpkin-spiced latte to Nicki. He sat beside Sara with his orange juice. He and Sara were both facing Nicki, and it smacked a bit of an interrogation, but certainly a relaxed one. Oftentimes, those were the most successful.
“Nicki was just telling me she’s signed up for the Mohawk Hudson River Marathon in a couple of weeks,” Sara filled him in.
“Impressive.” He’d heard of the race that took place in Schenectady, New York, but he’d never participated.
“Yeah, it’s kind of sad, though. Katie was going to do it with me.”
“You two were close,” Sean concluded.
Nicki nodded. “We’ve known each other all our lives. Never lost touch or grew apart.”
“How lovely to find someone like that,” Sara said, her voice somber.
Nicki sniffled. “It was, yeah. I really miss her.” She blinked back tears, and Sean glanced at his wife, whose eyes were also pooling. Objectivity was obviously going to be a challenge with this investigation—not just for himself, but also for Sara.
“From what we understand, she liked to run through Corning City Preserve,” Sean said, directing the conversation.
“She loved running there every chance she got.”
“Not every day?” he asked to clarify.
“Sorry, yeah, every day.”
“Was that something a lot of people knew about?” Sara inquired as she lifted her cup for a sip.
“Enough, I guess. Police are saying her death was an accident, but I don’t buy that. When Mirela told me she hired you two to look into her death, I hugged her. I’m so full of gratitude. Someone needs to hold her killer responsible. It’s apparent the police aren’t going to.” There was a heat to Nicki’s voice. She buried her scowl in the lip of her latte cup.
“What do you think of Levi?” Sara asked, and Sean found himself cringing at the question and hated himself for losing objectivity yet again.
“He was all right, I guess, but he wasn’t perfect for Katie.”
“Why’s that?”
“He was…how do you say it? Possessive. He wanted her all to himself. I mean, the guy’s some big-shot athlete, but he’s hung up on Katie?”
He pulled back at the potshot. “She was a good friend of yours.”
“I don’t mean that she wasn’t worth it. She was amazing, but most of those guys don’t tie themselves down to one person, no matter what they preach.”
“By ‘those guys,’ you mean…?” Sean asked.
“Guys with money, in the spotlight, pro-athletes especially.”
Sean spun his glass slowly. “You know a few?”
“Let’s just say I do—and they are pigs.” Nicki slumped in her chair and crossed her arms.
“Katie obviously didn’t feel the same way,” Sean said.
“At first, she liked it. A guy like Levi—his looks, his money, his fame—what girl wouldn’t? But she was only twenty-seven—well, twenty-six at the time she met Levi—and it wasn’t long before he was talking about their future. He was suffocating her.”
Sean recalled Levi saying Katie valued her personal space. “She told him this?”
Nicki nodded. “He didn’t want to hear it.”
One thing to be told by a person you loved that they wanted personal space, but suffocating was another. He was just about to ask for Nicki to elaborate when three women at a neighboring table got up to leave and made a huge ruckus doing so. He waited for them to clear out before picking up their conversation. His ears almost rang with the silence they left in their wake.
“How did Levi react when she told him he was suffocating her?”
Nicki took another drink of her latte. “He shut her down, acted like he never heard her. He’d try to distract her by whisking her off to fancy restaurants or showing up at her door with roses and a waiting limo.”
“When was the last time he did that?”
“I don’t know.”
“She ever sleep over at his place?” Sean was working to reconcile what Levi had said with what Nicki was saying.
“Sometimes, yeah.”
“Do you know—”
Nicki shook her head, seeming to anticipate his question. “Don’t know when she last spent the night.”
“Here’s the thing. You’re telling us that Katie found Levi suffocating, but he seemed to think they had a good thing going. He was going to ask Katie to marry him.”
“What? Really? Wow. He really is nuts. I understand why Katie didn’t tell him to hit the road now. She must have been terrified of him.”
Sean nursed his orange juice. Was Levi delusional? Had he feared Katie would leave him and took a preemptive strike by killing her? He met Nicki’s gaze. “Was Katie seeing anyone else?”
Nicki stared at him blankly, licked her lips, took a sip of her drink.
Sean wasn’t sure if it was a delay or detour tact, but he wasn’t about to let either work. “If you know of someone…”
Nicki paled and shook her head rapidly, which told Sean she knew—or suspected—someone but wasn’t going to say who. “Are you protecting someone?”
Her eyes cleared. “Ah, no. You want to look at anyone for Katie’s death, look at Levi.”
And we’re back to him.
Nicki continued. “Like I said, he was possessive, almost to the point of being abusive.”
“So, he controlled how and when she used social media, when she went out and with whom, and where she went?” Sean heard how defensive he’d sounded, but he had no regrets.
“He wasn’t that bad.”
Sara nudged his arm. When he faced her, he read the message in her eyes: just because Levi “let” her have a social life outside of him, didn’t mean he wasn’t abusive. And Sean could concede she had a point. If what Nicki had said about Levi not taking no for an answer and pursuing Katie, despite her telling him to slow down…well, that was abuse. It painted Levi in a manipulative light—an athlete who was used to getting his way at whatever the cost. Sean’s gut soured as the doubts crept in. Was anything that Levi told them the truth? Did Katie spend the night before her death at his place? Had she left from there for her run? And something occurring to him now was if Katie had spent the night at Levi’s, where did she get the outfit she’d run in? Had she dropped by home first? Had she actually forgotten her phone at Levi’s or— Sean ran a hand through his hair –had Levi taken it from her body?
“Nicki, when Katie ran, did she listen to music, say on her phone?” Sean asked as casually as possible, hoping to sort out who might be lying.
“Ah, not her phone, but her MP3 player. She never took her phone on runs. And, boy, was that annoying.” Nicki rolled her eyes. “She didn’t seem to understand that her phone was a lifeline to her social life.”
He took a deep breath. Levi had told them the truth about that. He hoped Levi had also told the truth about everything else. But if he had, that would mean Nicki was covering up something.
Sara leaned forward, putting an elbow on the table. “Question about Levi.”
“Sure,” Nicki said.
Sean’s gut sank with the pitcher’s name out there yet again.
“Was Levi seeing other women?”
“I’m not sure.”
The back of Sean’s neck tightened. “You said guys like Levi are pigs.”
“Well, his assistant was always hanging around. A woman. Chandra, something.”
“Was she and Levi close?” He was really grasping for a way to take the light of suspicion away from Levi and cast it elsewhere.
“Katie told me they were just friends. You ask me, and I’d say close friends. They knew each other since grade school. You know what?” Nicki shook her head. “Katie was probably right. Chandra’s not really Levi’s type.”
Not that Levi’s feelings—or lack thereof—had any bearing on whether Chandra harbored any romantic ones for him. “Does Chandra have feelings for Levi?” he asked.
“She could have, but Katie told me that Levi had Chandra locked up tight in the friend zone.” Nicki pulled out her phone and woke up the screen, then flicked it off again.
“Do you have to be somewhere?” Sara gestured to Nicki’s phone.
“I do, actually. I need to get home to Tucker.”
“Tucker’s your…” Sean didn’t remember Sara mentioning children.
“My golden retriever, and he’s just a pup. He’s been left alone for a few hours already.”
“Well, you’ve been a big help, Nicki,” Sara said.
“Good. I loved Katie. Still do. It’s hard to think of anyone hating her enough to kill her.” Nicki gathered her purse and got up, grabbing her coat from the back of the chair. As she did, keys fell out of a pocket and clanged against the tiled floor. “Oh,” Nicki said as she bent to pick them up, “I have a key to Katie’s apartment. Could that help you in your investigation?”
“That it could,” Sara confirmed. Nicki worked the key off the ring, extended it to Sara, then shrugged into her coat and left.
“Sorry,” Sara said, looking at Sean.
“Why, because you think my idol might be a murderer?”
“Something like that.” She rubbed his arm, and he held out his hand to her.
“Onward and upward. We’re here to get to the truth—no matter what it is.”
She smiled at him, but there was a softness in her eyes, a lick of pity. He hated seeing it there about as much as he appreciated it.
-
Chapter 17
TIME FOR A LITTLE RECOVERY
Sara snapped her seat belt into place and looked over at Sean. She wished Levi had a solid alibi so they could just get him off the suspect list. “We could talk to the
front desk clerk at Levi’s building. Confirm he was there at the time of Katie’s death and she spent the night before there.”
“They’re not going to part with that information easily.”
“We could work around that.” Sara just wasn’t sure exactly how at the moment.
“Nah, we can’t go asking questions like that about Levi Bradley. He’s a pro-athlete, Sara. Even if he’s innocent, the rumors could destroy his career.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. We should talk to Chandra, feel her out.”
“I can get behind that, but let’s hit Katie’s apartment first, and I wouldn’t mind taking the focus off Levi and his household for a bit, either.”
Sara just nodded, barely recognizing her husband. She’d never known him to battle with objectivity so much before. And any detective or PI was familiar with Investigation 101: you look at those closest to the victim first; once they are cleared, then you move on.
“Where did Katie live?” he asked.
Sara rattled off the address from memory.
Sean set out in that direction. “You haven’t heard anything from Helen or Jimmy about the police files on Katie’s case yet, have you?”
“Nope, but Jimmy will make sure it happens.” She glanced at the clock on the dash, and it was just after three in the afternoon. Jimmy could be working on Commander Delarosa right now. “Let’s just take a look at Katie’s apartment, then go from there.”
In about twenty minutes, they were outside Katie’s apartment building, which was located in a middle-income neighborhood and five stories high. It seemed to be well-maintained from the outside. Sean got the front door for her.
“Thank you,” she said as she slipped under his arm.
“You’re very welcome.”
They climbed the stairs, as there was no elevator, to the top floor where Katie’s apartment was. They should probably speak with the building manager, just to let them know who they were and what they were doing, but sometimes it was best to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.
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