Frozen Stiff

by Annelise Ryan

  I brace myself for the bad news. I don’t have a scale in the cottage and haven’t weighed myself in several stressful months, and food is my primary coping mechanism for stress. First Helga uses the height bar, which measures me at six feet even. Next she slides the big weight on the scale to the one-fifty notch, and then starts nudging the smaller weight. When the bar fails to tip, she sighs, moves the big weight to the two-hundred mark, and then goes back to the small weight. I close my eyes, not wanting to see where it ends up. I listen as the little weight slides along the bar, praying it will stop soon.

  “Well,” Helga says, and I detect a hint of a German accent in the way she applies a faint v sound to her w. “It looks like we have some work to do. Your BMI is firmly in the overweight category. In fact, you are just shy of obese.”

  “I’m large boned,” I say, knowing it sounds pathetic. “And these clothes are heavy.”

  Helga, to her credit, says nothing. Instead she takes a tape measure and wraps it around my bosom. When she reads the number her eyebrows rise, but she makes no comment. After writing the number down, she does the same with my waist and hips. Then she measures my arms, thighs, and calves.

  “How did you break your toes?” she asks, glancing at my health questionnaire.

  I’m tempted to tell her I kicked the crap out of the last person who told me I was on the borderline of being classified as obese, but I don’t. “I tripped over a tree root when I was running.” I figure wording it this way might shine me in a better light with her since it makes it sound like running is something I do every day for exercise, as opposed to something I do only when my house is on fire.

  “Okay,” she says. “We’ll have to modify your workout for now to accommodate the foot injury but there’s plenty here for us to work on.” Her eyes grow big as she gives me a quick head-to-toe scan, as if she’s wondering if I’m more challenge than she can handle. “Let’s head out to the main exercise area.”

  I follow her out to the floor, where I spy Richmond sitting on a machine rigged with weights and pulleys, doing repetitive arm pulls with a bar. His face is beet red and he’s already sweating buckets, creating a huge dark stain on his T-shirt.

  Helga leads me to a different section and directs me to a similar-looking machine, though this one has some kind of widespread leg thingies on it. “Have a seat and put your legs inside these,” she says, pointing to the leg thingies.

  I do so, feeling painfully awkward and exposed when I end up semireclined and with my legs spread-eagled. “I generally only get into this position once a year and then I’m naked for it,” I say with a laugh to disguise my discomfort. A woman two machines over shoots me a disgusted look and I fire one back at her. Skinny bitch.

  Helga finagles the weights behind me and then says, “Okay, now bring your thighs together and then let them fall apart. Keep doing that for ten repetitions.”

  I do as she says and the first four reps are a breeze, made easier by the fact that my legs meet in the middle faster than most. I’ve always been afraid to wear corduroy pants, fearful that the friction created by my thighs rubbing together might get hot enough to start a fire.

  Just as I’m starting to think this exercise thing is a piece of cake, the reps get harder and my muscles start to balk. By the time I reach number ten, my thighs feel like someone has set them on fire—and that’s without the benefit of corduroy.

  Helga looks pleased. “Very good,” she says. “Now let’s do some upper body strengthening.”

  Forty minutes later, Helga, who I’m now convinced is a semiretired B&D/S&M mistress, hands me some papers containing information about a proper diet for weight loss and then takes me to the locker room. I limp along behind her on legs that feel like they’re made out of gelatin—and not the sturdy green hospital kind, either. She gives me a tour of the showers, which I vow to never, ever use after watching two extremely slender, well manicured women sporting genital topiary—one has pubic hair that looks like a tiny landing strip, the other has pubes in the shape of a lightning bolt—parade around stark naked. There is also a hot tub, which I would love to use if I didn’t have to get undressed, because my entire body is throbbing like a toothache. I thank Helga and promise to come tomorrow for my second round of torture. It’s a promise I’m not sure I’ll keep.

  Richmond, whose torture I suspect rivaled mine considering that his face looked like it was about to explode the entire time, meets me by the door. He hasn’t showered either and I’m pretty sure it’s for the same reason I didn’t. While I can sympathize with his embarrassment, I’m glad we’re not going to be riding home in the same car. He smells like wet towels that have been tossed in the corner for a week.

  “So how’d it go?” I ask him.

  “That Slim guy tried to kill me. Hell, he might have succeeded and my heart is just too stunned to know it yet. I’m going to drop dead five steps into the parking lot, like Bill did in the movie Kill Bill, after Uma used that Five Finger Exploding Heart move on him.”

  “Are you going to come back?”

  He hesitates and I can tell he doesn’t want to. “I will if you will,” he says with a sigh of resignation.

  Damn. “Okay, let’s give it a few more times. How about we meet here again tomorrow, say around four in the afternoon?”

  “Yeah, okay.” He sounds disappointed that I’ve agreed.

  “You better not stand me up, Richmond, because if you don’t give Slim another chance to kill you, I’ll do the deed myself.”

  “Fine,” he grumbles. “But I’m going to spend my time until then thinking up ways to torture him for revenge.”

  As I watch Richmond waddle to his car, I breathe a sigh of relief when he passes the five step mark. My neck and shoulder muscles feel tight, so I roll my head to try to get them to relax. I hobble out to my car, my leg muscles protesting with every step. I suspect Richmond and I will both be paying dearly for this tomorrow, and oddly enough, this gives me an idea.

  Chapter 27

  Though I’m eager to hop into the shower and wash the gym stink from my body, I first retrieve the printout Steph gave me at the police station—which is still in my pants pocket—and then I check the cell phones. The throwaway has more of a charge on it than my regular phone so I take it off the charger. First I call information to get the number of the car rental office by O’Hare Airport. The person who answers sounds young, bored, and robotic as he recites the name of the place and asks if he can help me.

  “Hi. My name is Rebecca Taylor,” I tell him, resurrecting my alter ego. “I’m working for the Worldwide Insurance Company and I’m investigating a personal injury claim involving someone who says they were driving one of your cars. I suspect the guy is trying to file a fraudulent claim and I’m wondering if I can get some information from you.”

  “What information?”

  “Well, I’d like to know if there was any evidence of damage to the vehicle in question. If I give you the license plate number of the car, can you tell me if it was returned with any dings or dents?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” he says.

  I read off the make and model of the car from the note Steph gave me and the license plate number. He tells me to hold on a second and I hear the tapping of computer keys in the background.

  “That car was rented for a week and hasn’t been returned yet,” the guy says finally. “So I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  “Really? That’s odd, because the guy said he returned the car two days ago. You rented it out to a David Winston, right?”

  “Nope,” the guys says. “The name on the contract is Leon Lindquist.”

  Bingo!

  “Hmm, that’s odd,” I say. “I guess I better go back and check on a few things. Sorry I bothered you and thanks for your time.” I hang up before he has a chance to ask any more questions. Then I try to call Hurley, but once again it flips over to his voice mail. I leave a message telling him I might have a lead for him and ask him to call as soon as he can.<
br />
  Seconds after hanging up, my regular cell phone rings and I snatch it up from the charger and answer it without looking at the caller ID, assuming it’s Hurley. “It’s about time you called,” I say.

  “Were you waiting on me?” says a male voice that is not Hurley.

  “David?”

  “Were you expecting someone else?” He sounds suspicious and it irks me—he’s lost the right to be proprietary with me.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact I was,” I tell him. I leave it at that; let him think what he wants. “How did you get my cell phone number?” I know I never gave it to him so I’m wondering who did.

  “Some gal in your office,” he says, and I give myself a mental slap for never telling Cass to withhold the information. “Though you should have given it to me yourself,” he adds, sounding sulky.

  “What do you want, David?”

  “There’s someone here who wants to talk to you.”

  Frowning, I hear him hand off the phone and then a whispery voice comes on the line. “Mattie?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Nancy Molinaro.”

  Uh-oh. This can’t be good.

  “I’m calling to ask a favor of you.”

  “Okay,” I say hesitantly.

  “Your husband has been approved for discharge from the ICU but his doctors don’t feel comfortable sending him home alone. Not to mention the fact that he doesn’t have a home to go to at this point. And he is refusing to stay on the medical floor. So I’m wondering if you would be willing to let him stay with you for a day or two, to watch over him.”

  I’m stymied. I can’t believe David has sunk so low as to pull Molinaro into this. Though I must admit it’s quite brilliant of him since he knows how much I fear the woman. “I don’t know if I can,” I say, knowing Molinaro might be mentally fitting me for a pair of cement overshoes already. “I have my job and other obligations.”

  “What obligation can be more important than family?” she counters. It’s a question loaded with double entendre when I consider that it’s coming from a rumored ex mob boss. “Besides, your office already informed us that you are off duty for the next few days.”

  Damn Cass! “Fine,” I say. “I’ll be there to get him in an hour. But he can only stay for a day or so. Then he has to find somewhere else to go.”

  “Tell him that, not me,” she says. And then the line goes dead. I throw the phone onto the couch in anger, making Hoover scuttle off to the other side of the room. Then I head across the drive and knock on Izzy’s back door. Dom answers a few minutes later.

  “Uh-oh,” he says, eyeing me warily. “What got your panties in a wad?”

  “It’s my frigging ex,” I grumble. “They’re releasing him from the hospital and I’ve been coerced into letting him stay with me for a day or two, like I need that complication in my life right now.”

  “How can I help?”

  “Do you have an extra set of sheets I can borrow? I want to make up the couch as his bed so it’s crystal clear to him what kind of favor this is I’m doing for him.”

  “Sure, hold on a sec.” I wait a minute or so until Dom returns carrying a stack of linens and a pillow. He hands them to me and says, “If you need to escape, you know we’re here.”

  “Thanks.” I head back to the cottage, move my cell phone to the end table, and pile the linens on one end of the couch. I grab the pillow and start stuffing it into the case when my phone rings. I start to grab my cell from the end table, but when I hear it ring again I realize it isn’t my main phone, it’s the throwaway. I walk over, snatch it out of the charger, and flip it open.

  “Hello?”

  “Mattie?”

  It’s Hurley, and I breathe a sigh of relief. “Where are you?” I ask, sounding more irritated than I mean to. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  “It’s probably best if you don’t know for now.”

  “Has Richmond talked to you yet?”

  “He called me and ran the whole lawsuit thing with Minniver by me. I told him I’d already decided to move the fence to placate the old man.”

  “Is that true?”

  “No, but with Minniver gone there isn’t anyone to contradict me. It will placate Richmond for a while, but once he gets the fingerprints off that gas can and finds out about the altercation David and I had, I’m sure he’ll come back to me.”

  “So where do we go from here?”

  “Just stick as close to Richmond and the investigation as you can.” Great, I think. Now I have even less of an excuse to escape further gym tortures from Helga. “And keep me posted on any new developments. I’m going to stay off the radar for now. I left my cell phone at home in case anyone tries to trace it so I’m calling you from a throwaway cell. For now I’d like us to communicate using the throwaways only. Did the number I called from show up on your caller ID?”

  “Hold on,” I say, taking the phone from my ear and looking at the display. “No number,” I tell him. “It just says out of area.”

  “Good. Get a pen and I’ll give you the number. You can store it in the caller ID but give it a phony name of some sort.”

  “Okay, hold on again.” I rummage around in my purse until I find the pen and notebook Hurley had me bring along for our trip to Chicago. “Go ahead,” I say when I’m ready. He gives me the number and I scribble it down.

  “Anything new you can tell me?” he asks when I’m done.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact.” I fill him in on Helen’s story about the car and the name of the person who rented it.

  “Very clever,” Hurley says when I reiterate my conversation with the car rental employee.

  “Does the name Leon Lindquist mean anything to you?”

  “No, but that doesn’t surprise me. You’d be surprised how easy it is to come up with a fake ID and credit card. Anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you a call tomorrow to see if anything else has come up.”

  I start to agree, but then remember my deal with David. “Um, why don’t you let me call you instead?”

  There’s a pause and then he says, “Why? What’s going on?”

  I don’t want to tell him, but I don’t see any way around it. “David’s going to be staying with me for a few days.”

  My pronouncement is met with silence.

  “It’s only for a day or two, just to keep an eye on him while he recovers.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m making up the couch for him to sleep on.”

  “You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

  He’s right, I don’t. So why do I feel compelled to do so?

  “Call me when you can,” he says. And then he disconnects.

  Chapter 28

  After hanging up, I look up the number for Callie’s sister and hit redial. The phone rings a couple of times and then flips over to voice mail. Rather than leave a message, I hang up and make a mental note to try again later.

  I stash the throwaway cell at the bottom of my purse after entering the number Hurley gave me into its memory. After a little debate, I assign the number to my nephew, Ethan.

  When I arrive in the ICU to pick David up, he is sitting on the edge of his bed wearing scrubs and smiling. “I really appreciate you doing this,” he says, climbing into the wheelchair the nurse has insisted he ride in.

  When we get to the patient loading area out front, the nurse hesitates. “Which car is yours?” she asks.

  “The hearse,” I tell her.

  David shakes his head. “I forgot you were driving that thing.”

  “Hey, it’s in better shape than your car at the moment,” I tell him, knowing his was destroyed in the fire. “Take it or leave it.”

  After we get into the car and I pull away from the hospital, David says, “What did you do to your foot?”

  “I tripped over a tree root when I was running to the house last night and broke a couple of toes.”

  “You ran to save
me?”

  “Don’t go reading things into it that aren’t there, David,” I say, scowling. “It was adrenaline that made me run, nothing more.”

  He sighs heavily and an awkward silence fills the car for a couple of minutes. Then he says, “Look, I know you’re not happy about this. I get that. And I know I’m a schmuck for what I did to you . . . to us. But can we try to put the past behind us for the next couple of days and just be civil? No relationship talk, no future talk, just two people who once cared a lot for one another spending a little time together?”

  I consider his request. “Okay,” I say finally. “But you have to stick to your promise. No relationship talk. Deal?”

  “Deal. Have any plans for dinner?”

  Now he’s talking my language: food. “Not yet. What did you have in mind?”

  “How about we go out somewhere? My treat, except you’ll have to run me by the bank first since my wallet was lost in the fire. I need to go by there anyway so I can replace my credit cards. And I also need some clothes.” He plucks at the neckline of his scrub top. “At the moment, this is all I have.”

  I realize then that this fire has been far more devastating a loss for him than for me and I feel a twinge of guilt for all the nasty thoughts I’ve been harboring against him. He has quite literally lost everything, including the shirt on his back.

  “Okay, let’s do the bank first and then I’ll take you clothes shopping.”

  “Thanks, Mattie. I really do appreciate everything you’re doing for me.”

  “No problem.”

  After a lengthy stop at the bank, David emerges with a wad of cash and gets back in the car. “Next stop, Nigel’s,” he says.

  Nigel’s is the name of the only men’s clothier in town, owned by a pretentious fop who sports a fake British accent and charges twice what his clothes are worth for the privilege of shopping where the snobbish elite go. “Why don’t we hit up the Super Wal-Mart?” I suggest. “It’s only a half hour drive away and it will have better variety for a much more reasonable price.”

  “I’ve always shopped at Nigel’s,” David says, frowning. “Their suits are a better quality and I can get them tailored.”