Death by Cuddle Club

by Norah Wilson

  Yeah, I was not liking Gaetan Gough one little bit.

  Babe leaned forward. “Can you keep a secret?”

  Dylan and I both nodded. “I love secrets,” I said. That was so true.

  “This whole cuddle club thing—it was my idea. Oh, not the idea of platonic human touch being good for you, of course! That was the researchers. And I know there are informal cuddle clubs all over the world. But the idea of packaging it and commercializing it? That was mine. The soft music, the fresh air pumping in, the atmosphere, oh heck, the whole franchise! I came up with all of it! And yes, the Cuddle-Uppies!”

  “And big brother takes all the credit,” I didn’t even try to keep the bitterness out of my voice. “That’s so not fair, Babe.”

  She nodded. “I know. And now I have these other designs.” She waved a hand over her blouse, which was appealing to me more and more all the time. “But Gaetan says they’re dumb. And that I’d better just get all notions of being a designer out of my head. I have enough to do here with the bookkeeping, and making the Cuddle-Uppies, and handling his affairs, and—”

  “I’ll take two,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Your design,” I nodded at her top. “I’ll take two of them. I presume you can do custom orders? I’d like one with some lime green tones and another that would go with a sort of hot pink.”

  She sat down, flustered. “Of course, but—”

  “But they’re gorgeous. Not for me; I’m not that stylish.” Oh shit, dumbest thing ever for a designer to say! “But my mom in Florida would absolutely love to have a couple of these.”

  Dylan laughed. “Oh, for sure. It’d look great on your mom. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the other ladies at the Wildoh want to order one after Kat debuts it.” He angled his head. “Actually, so would my aunt Gert. Can you make one for me to give to my aunt?”

  “Really?” Babe squeaked.

  “Absolutely. Maybe something in gentle greens. She likes green.” Dylan turned to me. “What do you think about Mrs. Presley?”

  I laughed. “Perfect! Okay, make me a third one, in blues.” (I’d have asked her to make it from blue suede, but I was pretty sure she’d have to stick with the same type of fabric and eye-dazzling patterns to achieve the same life-of-its-own effect when the wearer moved.)

  Babe looked like she might cry. “You... you really think I have talent, don’t you? I mean, you two are doing it... living the dream as designers. I can only hope to do that someday.”

  I wanted to sink into the chair. Lying to find out information was one thing. Lying to find out information and potentially crushing someone in the process (someone you liked) was another thing altogether.

  We talked design with Babe Gough for the next half hour. (Dylan very skillfully drew her out about her own work, minimizing our contribution to that discussion. The less said, the better, lest we reveal our ignorance of our chosen “profession”.) Babe was all smiles—and all hope—as she walked us to the door. Eva was dusting around when we walked back through the office. She barely glanced at either of us. Even Dylan.

  “Oh, I think I’d like to place another order,” Dylan said.

  Babe clapped her hands together. “You want more of my tops?”

  “Actually,” he said, “I was hoping for one of those Cuddle-Uppies.” He gestured to a stack of them piled on the counter, no doubt ready for tonight’s cuddle club meeting. “Do you have any extras in stock?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Babe bit her lip. “I mean, I do have some almost finished, but I haven’t sewn in the Gaetan Land logo yet. Gaetan wouldn’t approve if I sold one without the logo.”

  I couldn’t imagine why Dylan wanted one of those horrors. Maybe as a joke for a friend. And who was I to stand between a man and his Cuddle-Uppie. “Gaetan isn’t here. And we won’t tell.”

  She gnawed her lip some more. “I really couldn’t.”

  I shrugged. “Then give him one of those.” I gestured to the plastic-wrapped Cuddle-Uppies on the counter. “I mean, they must be sanitized between uses, right?”

  “Of course!” Babe sounded shocked that there might be any question about that.

  “That works for me,” Dylan said. “Then you can finish one of the other ones and slide it into the lineup.”

  Babe look undecided. “I don’t know—”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Gaetan wouldn’t like it.”

  Babe tipped her chin up. “No, he wouldn’t. But like you said, he’s not here.” She plucked a plastic-wrapped blanket from the pile and handed it to Dylan. “And what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?”

  “Right,” Dylan said, tucking the blanket under his arm. “Just add that to my bill.”

  “Oh, no, just take it.” Babe said.

  “Are you sure?” Dylan asked.

  “Absolutely. What are friends for, right?”

  Babe’s parting comment gnawed at my conscience as we crossed the parking lot. Some friends. The poor woman thought we were actual designers, qualified to opine on her designs. When we reached the car, Dylan opened the door for me. I’m as independent as they come, but hey, I like those gestures. It shows a man is paying attention.

  A moment later, Dylan slid behind a wheel, turning to toss the plastic-wrapped Cuddle-Uppie in the back seat. Which reminded me...

  “Um... Dylan, what possessed you that you suddenly had to have one of those abominations?”

  “You’ll see.” He didn’t turn to look at me, but as we drove away, I could see his lips were curved in a smile.

  Chapter 8

  I ALWAYS felt sorry for women like Babe Gough.

  She was so smart, so talented, so being taken advantage of. Unsure of herself, she was just the kind of women that bullies and users (aka, turds) preyed on. The worst part was that her own brother—that overbearing, obnoxious jerk of an older brother—had no doubt helped make her that way, undermining her confidence at every turn. And going through life being called Babe? Not so great, even if it was just a family pet name. Grrrrrrr.

  I’d checked out the degrees on the small office wall as Dylan and I had sat there this morning. They were copies, of course, not originals. The originals were no doubt hanging on the walls of the California offices. Gaetan’s diploma in massage therapy (and no, not from the reputed Cornick School of Massage in Chicago) hung at perfect eye-level on the wall behind the solid maple desk. Meanwhile, Babe’s (or rather, Rhonda Mary Gough’s) honors degree in marketing and business from a reputable university was barely level with the low filing cabinet, and half behind it.

  “Is she any good at what she does?” I asked Dylan as he drove us back to the office. (I knew there was no point asking him to elaborate on that “You’ll see” comment back there.)

  “Eva Mulligan? Well, I guess she is... but honestly, Dix, I don’t know much about dusting and vacuuming. No more than you do. Well, probably more than you do, but really, not that much.”

  My glare bore a steaming hole in the side of his head. Well, not literally, but I think he definitely felt the heat of it. “I meant Babe,” I grated. “Do you think her designs are any good?”

  Dylan shrugged. “Yeah, I think she’s pretty good. I mean, I bet your mom will love those tops, and I know Aunt Gert will flip over hers. Mrs. Presley, too, especially if Babe can make her one that complements her blue suede shoes.” He shot me a quick, appraising glance. “Can’t see you wearing one of them, though.”

  “Why not?”

  He threw me another quick glance, this one of the “what, are-you-crazy?” variety. (And yeah, I get enough of those to distinguish them.)

  “Too trendy,” he said.

  “How can it be too trendy? As far as we know, there’s only one of them, and Babe was wearing it.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Okay, it looks to me like something that could become very trendy, probably sell enough to make somebody rich, then fall off the fashion map faster than last year’s American Idol can fade from memory.�
��

  “Like bolero jackets, you mean? Or the shrug.” I shuddered. “Remember those?”

  “Or tie-dye T-shirts.”

  “Bell-bottoms pants!” I responded.

  “Women’s jackets with linebacker-worthy shoulder pads!”

  Hey, I’d liked those. Best not to mention that, though. What else could I dig up from the tickle trunk of my memory? Oh, got it! He’d never top this: “The skort!” I announced triumphantly.

  He lifted an admiring eyebrow. “Not bad. But consider the leisure suit. The blue leisure suit.”

  Crap. Okay, that was pretty hard to top. Everything else I could think of had come back into fashion again. It looked like I was going to lose this one. Not that I’d admit it if I could help it. The trick was to distract him...

  “So what are you saying, Dylan? I’m not fashionable?”

  He chuckled. “Trying to distract me, Dix?”

  Yes, dammit. “Answer the question.”

  “I didn’t say unfashionable. I said not trendy. There’s a difference.”

  “Really?” God, Dix. Way to fish.

  He sent me an amused glance, then focused on the road again. “Yeah, there’s a difference. You don’t chase trends. You don’t have to. You’re classic.”

  Pleasure hummed through me. Well, until I started unpacking his words. Classic? Didn’t that mean old? Like 80s rock anthems or a 1967 Chevy Impala?

  As though he could hear the buzz of my thoughts, he laughed. “Quit it, Dix. It was a compliment. A high one.”

  “Well, good then.” My face burned at his perceptiveness, and I was glad for the darkened interior of the car. Time to shift the conversation back to Babe. “She really has talent then, doesn’t she?”

  “She has a lot of potential.”

  “Just to be clear, are we talking Babe or Eva?” I asked dryly.

  He snorted a laugh. “Definitely talking about Babe. And she has a helluva lot more potential than she’ll ever realize if she spends her life stuck under her brother’s controlling thumb.” Dylan’s voice had taken on an edge I heartily approved of. “And you know, I’ll bet you and I aren’t the only ones to realize that.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Bet we’re not.”

  Not surprisingly, Detective Richard Head was at my office door within three minutes of Dylan and my returning from our meeting with Babe Gough.

  Perfect timing on his part? Great luck? Obsession with this hot-as-hell private dick? Cop’s intuition?

  None of the above. My intuition told me he’d been waiting at Perky Joe’s—the little coffee and donut shop around the corner from my office—until we rolled in. Well, my intuition and that giant cup of coffee with the Perky Joe’s logo on the side that he clutched.

  “Would you like a cookie to go with that coffee?” I asked, hopefully. “They have sprinkles.” (Yes, these were the ones I’d packed for the road when Dylan had picked me up this morning.)

  He declined with a wave. The kind of wave that made me think he hadn’t even really heard me. He seemed distracted. Upset, even. Not his usual demeanor.

  Head and I hadn’t had the chance to talk since the death of Albert Valentine last evening. This conversation should be a doozie (ha, doozie!—those oozie words crack me up).

  Dylan went around behind the desk to check for messages, and I perched on the desk’s edge. Dickhead glanced around. The only seating in the outer office was a worn sofa which was currently occupied by Blow-Up Betty.

  Yup, good old Betty. Normally, we kept her stashed in the closet in my inner office, but after a rash of break-ins, we’d plunked her out here, within view of the window. Overt video surveillance was a non-starter in my line of business, what with so many of my clients being so shy. Camera shy, that is. Yes, we had an alarm system, but alarms went off so often in this part of town, they were practically white noise at this point. So we’d propped Blow-Up Betty on the sofa, and got into the habit of leaving a low light burning and the small TV in the corner on. (We only got one station, but Betty didn’t seem to mind.)

  “Have a seat.” I gestured at the couch. “Betty’s not particular.”

  Dickhead flopped down on the sofa, his weight depressing the worn cushions in such a way that Blow-Up Betty tipped over onto his lap, head first.

  “Whoa. I guess she really isn’t particular.”

  Cursing, Dickhead shoved the doll back to her own end of the sofa. Which was altogether too mild a response for the man I’d come to know and loathe. I looked at him closer and realized he looked like hell. His eyes had that heavy look, as if he’d not slept much. He definitely needed a shave, and I’m guessing a shower too. Even his necktie—with the crooked knot a good inch below where it should be—betrayed his worse-for-wear state.

  He was worried.

  “I checked before I came over,” he said. “The unofficial-soon-to-be-official word on Albert Valentine—natural causes. Sudden cardiac arrest.”

  “Did he have a history of heart issues?”

  “Some evidence of coronary artery disease according to the coroner, but it turns out that he wasn’t exactly big on doctors. If he had any arrhythmia going on, his family doc didn’t know about it. Of course, he hadn’t seen his own doctor in over 18 months. In fact, Albert’s last interaction with a physician was to wrangle a scrip for ED drugs at a walk-in clinic where he presented himself as an orphaned patient.”

  Huh. Well, there were enough of those around—people whose family doctors had retired or moved or gone on to specialize or died. “So, it’s looking pretty open-and-shut?” I asked.

  “Unless something shows up on the toxicology report.” Dickhead dragged at his already too-loose tie. “What do you make of it, Dix?”

  And yeah, I caught it: Dix with no derogatory suffix. Oh man, the guy really was troubled.

  I shrugged. “It does happen,” I pointed out. “I hear that younger and seemingly fitter people than Albert Valentine have erectile dysfunction. So don’t beat yourself up if you—”

  “I mean the cardiac arrest!”

  “Oh, sorry.” (I wasn’t.) “Yeah, could be pretty open and shut. I mean, nothing turned up in the tox screens for the other decedents. What are the chances they’ll find something in Albert’s?”

  “I know. But I still don’t buy it.” He looked at me dead on. “What about you, Dodd? What’s that famous intuition of yours telling you?”

  “I don’t believe it was natural causes either. I think—” Whoa, wait a sec... had Detective Richard Head, my evil nemesis, just complimented me? I like it! I like it a lot! But this was no time to be talking about me. “Hey, could you say that again? The part about my famous intuition?”

  Dylan coughed to cover a laugh.

  Dickhead ignored me. Not even an eye roll. “But if someone is responsible for these deaths,” he persisted, “how are they doing it? How are they inducing heart failure in these victims? Who has the means? Holy hell, who has the motive?”

  I didn’t have the answers, but I knew I would soon enough. Hopefully before there were any more deaths.

  “This... this could ruin me, Dix,” Head said.

  “The whole going to a cuddle club thing, you mean?” Dylan asked. “Prolly not great for the rep back at the station, I guess.”

  “Not at all,” I agreed, “but I’ve got a feeling that’s the least of Detective Head’s worries now. Am I right?”

  “I shouldn’t have bailed.” Dickhead sat forward, leaned his elbows on his knees, and put his head in his hands. “As soon as I was out of there, I knew it. I... I shouldn’t have left the scene. I’m a cop, dammit! And on duty or not, I was on the goddamned scene. If I truly thought a crime had been committed, then what the fuck was I doing hightailing it out of there? If Leola Pivans digs deep enough on this, I’m fucked. That’s one bulldog of a young constable.”

  No wonder the guy looked like shit. He’d been up all night dancing with his devils.

  “That’s not like me.” Dickhead sat up. “You’re not exactly
a fan of mine, Dodd, but even you know that’s not like me at all! What the hell was I doing, leaving like that?”

  “I have a better question,” I said.

  He looked up at me. “What’s that?”

  “What the hell were you doing there in the first place? I mean, come on, a cuddle club? Where people cuddle? Yeah, I know you went there on a lark weeks ago when your cousin was in town. I get it. I’m sure it was hysterical. But, why go back? Again and again? You see what I’m saying? That’s the better question.”

  Dickhead opened his mouth as if to defend himself, then stopped. His jaw hardened. “Look, that’s beside the point. The point is, I had to do something about it. I couldn’t just leave it lie like that.”

  He looked up at me, then quickly glanced away.

  “What?” I asked. There was something he had to tell me, but clearly didn’t want to.

  “What did you do, Detective?” Dylan said. Clearly he’d recognized the uneasy look too.

  “I had to do it,” Dickhead said. “There was no choice.”

  “Had to do what?” Wherever this was going, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like it.

  “I opened a file on Albert Valentine this morning. An official one.”

  As I asked the question I knew the answer to, I felt my fists clenching. “I see. So how did you explain Dylan and me being there?”

  He cleared his throat, he loosened his tie, and then he ducked his head (quite wisely). “I... uh... I sort of told them that you’d come to me and asked for my help.”

  Instant rage. It flooded every cell as his words knifed into my brain.

  That worm! He was the one who’d come groveling to me, asking for my help. And now he was spinning that all backwards, like I’d gone crawling to him?

  Miraculously, I did not take a swing at him. Well, not with an ax or something. Not even the easy-grip lamp I keep on the side table there by the couch for just such a purpose. Instead, I lunged for him, prepared to tear him a new one with my bare hands.