A Berry Home Catastrophe

by A. R. Winters

  My hand lifted to reach out for it, and forcing myself to stop was the weirdest feeling. But this item was one that I couldn’t investigate. This needed to be done by the professionals.

  “Guy, I’m going to have to let the police know about this.”

  Guy peered past me into the locker. “What? Let ‘em know about some dead guy’s leftovers? You think anyone he left behind is gonna want a stinky towel?”

  “It’s the powder, Guy. It could have been tampered with.”

  Guy stared at it like he was looking at a landmine that hadn’t yet gone off. He took a deep breath, then ran a thick hand through his thinning hair. “Yeah, do what ya gotta do. I gotta get back to it. I’ll tell the kid to put a sign on the door telling everybody to keep out. Let him know if you need anything else.”

  “Thanks, Guy,” I said to his retreating back. This couldn’t be an easy situation for him.

  With Guy gone, Zoey and I plopped ourselves down onto the bench in front of Hank’s locker. Looking inside of it was like looking inside a time capsule of his life—the discarded remnants he’d left behind.

  I pulled out my phone and dialed Brad. It rang once, and he picked up.

  “Calderos.” His answer was clipped.

  “Brad?” I could hear people caught in a heated yelling match in the background.

  “Berry, you okay? ‘Cause if you are, we need to keep this short.” The sound of his voice became slightly distant. “Hey! Hey, you two! Knock it off or I put you in the squad car right now and we head into the station.” His voice returned full volume. “Berry, what is it?”

  “They still think Hank died of poisoning?”

  “Yeah. The toxicology report came back, but I haven’t been able to put eyeballs on it.”

  “I think we might have found how Hank was poisoned.”

  Silence met me, except for the yelling in the background. Then, “Berry, d’you touch anything?”

  I thought a moment. I touched his lock. I shouldn’t have touched the lock! But it was on the outside of his locker, and anyone could have touched it at any time. I did not, however, touch what was inside of Hank’s locker, and I thought that that was the most important part. But how to answer Brad’s question?

  “I’m at Results Gym, in the men’s locker room—”

  “The men’s locker room? Berry, come on. If ya wanted a show…”

  “Brad, focus.” At least I knew he was okay even with whatever testosterone-fueled hostile situation he was stuck in. I couldn’t imagine him joking around if he were in real danger. “Hank’s locker is in here. I helped the manager get it open, so I touched the lock, but I didn’t touch anything inside the locker. Brad… Hank was launching his own nutrition product. He kept a container of it here at the gym, and the manager said he was always putting it in whatever he was drinking. Brad, I think that someone poisoned his nutrition powder.”

  “So let me get this straight, Berry. You’re alone, in an isolated back room of a building, looking at a murder weapon, and the murderer is probably someone there right now.”

  He caught on fast.

  “I’m not alone. Zoey’s here,” I said in defense of myself.

  “Of course she is,” Brad said. If possible, he sounded even less happy than he had before.

  15

  Zoey and I stayed in place until the police arrived. As they swarmed in, the once roomy feeling locker room became claustrophobic. An Officer Speckman was one of the first to enter. He was short and stocky with bowed knees, but he moved like he had a dynamite load of energy under his belt.

  With a hand on my arm, he leaned in and whispered near my ear. “Brad says it’s time to go.”

  That was all the cue I needed. I nudged Zoey, bobbed my head toward the exit, and we were gone. No sooner had we exited the locker room and moved a good fifteen feet further into the gym than we saw Detective Gregson strut past. His eyes were focused forward, and with any luck he didn’t notice us. But then his head swiveled, and our eyes locked. Icicle shards shot through my veins. A half-second later and the man was gone, having disappeared into the short hallway that led to the men’s and women’s locker rooms.

  Detective Gregson and I had a past, and not a fun one. He wanted to arrest me so badly that he could taste it. So far, the only thing that had stopped him was, I think, Zoey. I suspected that she had some dirt on the local police chief and had blackmailed him to force Detective Gregson to lay off of me. If not for that, I was pretty sure Detective Gregson wanted to interview me Guantanamo Bay-style.

  Zoey tapped my arm, breaking the spell that fear had locked me in. “Come on. Let’s talk to the gym members before the cops get to them.”

  “Right.” I turned my back on where Detective Gregson had disappeared and took in the gym. It was mostly an open floor plan, but there were a couple more hallways leading off of it. Almost everyone we had identified as being gym regulars was there.

  Andy, the gym’s awkward assistant manager, was cleaning some equipment on the other side of the room. I waved him over. He’d been here as much as the gym’s owner, and I wanted to pick his brain.

  “Yes, ma’am?” Andy said when he reached us.

  I tried not to grimace at the title.

  “Andy,” I said, “did you like Hank?”

  Andy shrugged with a blank face that bordered on moronic. It made me want to face-palm him out of frustration. Suddenly Guy’s corrosive attitude about the kid became clearer.

  I kept pushing. I was sure that he could tell us things we didn’t know.

  “Andy, hun, is that a yes or a no?” I asked.

  “Uh, I guess it’s a yes, ma’am.”

  That’s a start. Now to get more. “Why did you like him?”

  Andy shifted uneasily. He looked like he was trapped in a difficult test five minutes before school let out for summer, except if he didn’t pass the test, he’d have to go to summer school. If the kid weren’t so frustrating to talk to, I might feel bad for him.

  “I guess ‘cause he never yelled at me,” Andy finally answered.

  “Did Hank ever yell at anybody else?”

  Andy twisted to look around him, then stopped twisting when he spotted Vic. The man was bent over a machine and pulling up on a weight-loaded leaver. The machine was laden with huge discs, and his muscles bunched to an absurd thickness every time he lifted.

  Andy lifted his hand to rub his forehead, which had the same effect as blocking the side view of his face from Vic. “Hank and Vic got into it a few weeks back. They were screaming at each other in the locker room. One of them pushed the other one into the lockers. It bent them.”

  I remembered seeing the dents. I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time.

  “Do you know who pushed who?” I asked.

  Andy crossed his arms low over his chest, tightened his lips and shook his head.

  I glanced past him at Vic. “Andy, are you scared of Vic?”

  Andy’s eyes drifted upward to study the ceiling. It was like he was avoiding answering.

  Okay… I’d ask from the other direction. “Andy, are you scared of Hank?”

  Andy’s eyes went wide, and he shook his head. “No, ma’am! Hank’s dead.”

  That he was. But Vic was alive.

  “Andy, were you afraid of Hank while he was alive?”

  Again with the tight lips. I wanted to pinch and twist the fire out of his arm.

  “Andy, so help me, you start answering these questions or I’m going to start talking really loud about how you may or may not feel about certain people in this room.”

  “You wouldn’t.” Andy’s eyes went round again.

  “I would.”

  His lips tightened again, but this time I could tell that it was out of anger at me and not because he was avoiding answering. “And what if I end up dead next? I bet you’ll feel real good about yourself then.”

  “Andy! Come on! Answer my question!” I was started to think that he played dumb more than he actually was dumb. �
��Who are you afraid of?”

  Andy blew out an exasperated breath. “Everyone, okay. Any one of these people could have killed Hank.” He held up his hand and started ticking off fingers. “Vic and Clive were jealous of Hank ‘cause Hank looked better than them with what seemed like a fraction of the effort. They kept trying to get him to tell them what he was on and all he’d ever answer was ‘good livin’.’” Next finger. “Then there was Hanna and Ellen and Samantha. Hank loved working out with women. He almost never worked out with any of the guys. And when he did work out with women, it was like he was getting up close and personal with them but in ways that could be explained away if anyone ever said anything about it. And when he’d work out with Ellen, every second of it had me wondering if Vic was going to pick up a weight plate and take Hank’s head clean off.” Next finger. “Then there was the whispering between Hannah and Ellen while they both stared at Hank. Then the heated looks that Hannah would give him when he wasn’t looking. His business partner Pete comes in sometimes, too, and I heard them yelling in the locker room.” He lowered his hand. “And because you won’t leave me alone, it’s going to be me next. They’ll find my body pummeled to death and thrown into a dumpster, but at least you got your answers.”

  Turned out Andy had some things to say after all. My head hurt from all the ping pong accusations he’d thrown out there.

  Zoey spoke up. “If you’re so scared, why don’t you quit?”

  Sage words, indeed.

  I looked at Andy expectantly. He stood up straight, lifted his chin and crossed his arms over his chest. Defiant. “I’m good at my job,” he said. “And I like it here. I’m not going to let some hooligans run me off.”

  It was my guess that Andy had taken his turn with more than one bully in his life. That he was standing his ground had me nodding with respect.

  “Thanks, Andy,” I said.

  While talking with Andy, I had noticed Vic throw us several looks. He seemed calm. Relaxed, even.

  We left Andy to get back to his work and made our way over to Vic. Thankfully the police hadn’t ventured past their work in the locker room.

  “You two reporters?” Vic asked a half second before he looked Zoey up and down. He towered over us both like an un-passable brick wall, too high to even climb.

  “No, no. We, uh, we’re…” I looked at Zoey. I was stumped as to what to tell him.

  “We’re students,” Zoey said.

  Ohhh, I loved that! I thought about Professor Garcia and his overly snoopy class that he’d brought into the café.

  “Yes!” I said. “We’re working on a paper to better understand… suicide.” I practically stumbled over saying the word. But if Vic thought we were here to study a person taking their own life, he might be less guarded. You know, as a potential murderer.

  “Oh… oh, yeah,” Vic said. “What Hank did. Made no sense to me.”

  “How’s that?” Zoey asked.

  “I mean, the guy had a smokin’ hot girlfriend, a successful business, and even had some hokey froufrou product set to hit the market in a few months. The guy was doin’ stuff with his life.”

  “Why’d you hate him?” Zoey asked.

  I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye and then looked at Vic again. Vic had a reputation as a steroid-fueled rage head. He could explode without a hint of warning. I wanted to take a step back, but my feet were frozen. If I moved, it might trigger him to lunge at me.

  Okay. I know my fear-drunk imagination was going overboard. But really, I was afraid. The guy was massive.

  To my surprise Vic threw his head back in a good-natured laugh. “Hank was a competitive guy. So am I,” he explained. “Sometimes men just like to be men.” He winked at Zoey.

  All the men here had seemed to notice Zoey but not me.

  I’m so old! My inner hag gave my ponytail a hard yank, and Agatha popped into my head. She was older than me and my inner hag put together, and men stumbled into doors from staring at her when she walked past. If men weren’t noticing me, it wasn’t because of my age. I needed to get a grip.

  “Is that why you threw Hank into the lockers?” Zoey asked.

  Good one! I gave her a mental high five. I was pretty confident she gave it back.

  Asking the question that way was a calculated risk. Zoey was making a huge assumption that it had been Vic who had thrown Hank into the lockers and not the other way around, but there was a fifty-fifty chance that she was right.

  Vic’s smile faded, and his eyes went cold. I imagined steroids oozing from his pores. He wasn’t going to answer Zoey’s question, and we were about to lose him. It was my turn to get some hard questions in before the opportunity was lost to us altogether.

  “It must have been hard to see your wife spending so much time with Hank,” I said. Okay, not a question but still good.

  Like the shifting of the wind, Vic smiled again. It even crinkled the corners of his eyes. “So that’s what this is all about,” he said. “Somebody told you I was jealous of Hank spending time with Ellen.” He lifted a hand and jabbed two fingers in our direction. “But I’m here to tell you that they were just friends.”

  “But you’re getting divorced,” I said. “How would you know if they were just friends?”

  Vic’s smile stayed locked in place but one eye twitched. “Because Ellen told me so. Marriage is complicated and ours didn’t work out. But life goes on. My life goes on. Ellen’s not my future. I know that. But even so, Ellen told me there was nothing going on between her and Hank, and I believe her. But even if she was lying—which I don’t think she was—it’s none of my business. Not anymore. She’s her own woman. She can do whatever she wants.”

  Wow. Maybe I needed to have him talk with Dan. I was pretty sure that my ex’s thoughts on who I spent my time with weren't as enlightened as Vic’s.

  “Then what was the fight in the locker room about?” I asked.

  Vic’s eyes took in the room around him before focusing back on me. When he answered, his voice was lower. It was like he didn’t want anyone else to hear. “Hank made a comment about Ellen bein’ easy. Even said something like he’d never met a nice girl who liked it that way.” He shrugged his mammoth shoulders. “I lost my cool. I know I shouldn’t have. Hank liked to play the nice guy, but behind the scenes, he got off on pushing buttons. Him talkin’ trash about Ellen that way, it was an easy button for him to push and he went for it. But it didn’t mean they were pressing skin. He was just getting in a poke on me… and I just let him know it wasn’t appreciated. But after that, after we got an understanding of each other, that was that. We put it behind us. No more hard feelings.”

  I studied his eyes and only saw sincerity. There wasn’t even any anger. Vic was a dead end, and not in the way I’d been hoping.

  “Thanks, Vic,” I said.

  “Hey.” Vic’s gaze took in the room once more. “If you’re lookin’ for life triggers that could have pushed Hank over the edge, it wasn’t me. Hank started that argument between us. He knew what he was getting into. He made me lose my cool, and that was exactly what he wanted. So he won. Get me? He’d have been happy about that. But…” He looked around again, and his voice lowered even more. “But if you’re lookin’ for life stuff that wasn’t in his control, you should look at Hot… ah, I mean Hannah. You should look at her. Before Hank, you know, did what he did, Hannah had started getting real possessive of Hank. She’d even started throwing Ellen dirty looks any time they’d be talking. She got weird.”

  “Thanks, Vic,” I said again. I glanced around and didn’t see the pretty blonde from the surveillance video that Guy had identified as Hannah. It didn’t look like she was here, but I could have sworn I’d seen her a little while earlier. “Any idea when she’ll be in?”

  “She’s here now. She’s in the mat room.” Vic pointed a finger at one of the hallways we hadn’t explored.

  Zoey and I left Vic to finish his workout in peace and headed for the hallway that he had indicated. As we a
pproached it, we started hearing dull impact thuds followed by guttural grunts. The sound grew much louder as soon as we entered the funnel of the hallway. At its end was a wooden door with a large glass window as its upper half. The glass was frosted, so it was impossible to see clearly through it.

  Outside the door were two pairs of sneakers lined neatly against the wall.

  Zoey and I gave each other a silent look that said we might as well. I twisted the door’s knob, and it swung open on silent hinges. On the other side of the door were padded mats. Everywhere. They covered every inch of the floor and went two-thirds the way up the walls.

  Hannah was inside wearing skin hugging, thigh-length rose-colored leggings and a light gray halter top that doubled as a sports bra. She had a body that could have graced the cover of any swimsuit magazine. Her silky blonde locks were pulled back into a tight ponytail that bounced and swooped from her quick, sure movements.

  With her was a man we hadn’t seen before. He was wearing loose black running shorts and a sleeveless turquoise muscle shirt.

  They were both barefoot.

  As we watched, Hannah drove her knee into the side of her fighting partner’s rib cage. She hit him so hard that the man lifted onto his toes. He grunted, and Hannah floated effortlessly backward with a couple of graceful hops. Her feet barely left the ground. No excess energy was wasted.

  “Hey,” she pointed an extended arm and finger at us. “No shoes. If you come in, stay against the wall next to the door.”

  Zoey and I dutifully took off our shoes and lined them up against the wall with the others. We then made our way inside the room and stood near the door with our backs against the wall.

  The mats were more thick and cushiony than I’d realized at first glance. The need for that became quickly apparent when Hannah kicked her sparring partner so violently in the stomach that he fell backward with a hard thud. To his credit, he didn’t stay down long. He was back on his feet a moment later, and he got in a sharp jab right at Hannah’s face. She dodged it, almost lazily, and followed up with a kick to his upper arm. He tried to kick her in the head next, but she blocked it with her arm and at the same time punched him in his solar plexus.