A young, brawny man stood behind the counter when John and Regina entered the health club.
“Hey, new faces,” he said, smiling broadly. “My name’s Brad. Brad Segal. I’m one of the trainers. Welcome.”
“Do you mind if we look around the facilities?” John asked.
“Heck, no. Go right ahead. The place looks kinda dead tonight. But it’s not always like that.”
“Adverse publicity will do that,” John said.
“Uh, yeah. Course that death had nothing to do with the center. She was havin’ personal problems and the cops think maybe she killed herself.”
“No kidding? I thought they suspected foul play.”
“At first they did. That’s why it’s dead here tonight. No pun intended. The center’d been shut down with yellow ribbon strung up all over the damn place. Didn’t do the business much good.”
“Were you the one to find her?” Regina asked, knowing the answer, but wanting to keep the topic open.
Brad hitched himself up on the counter. He seemed to bask in the attention. “No, the husband did. I was in the office, though, I was right here when it happened, but I didn’t hear a thing. She didn’t call out or nothing. I would’ve heard.”
“Was anyone else here?” John asked.
“I don’t think so. I didn’t see or hear anyone.”
“It’s okay if we look around?”
“Be my guest.”
In the main room Regina stood in reverent silence staring at the pool and the cast-iron statue of Neptune. Regina was certain that was what Pandora had seen in the vision, supposedly through Tammy’s eyes. She shuddered.
John stepped to the door of the sauna and looked through the small window. The window was clear and dry. The steam had been turned off.
Regina walked into the women’s locker room. After wandering around aimlessly for several minutes, she went to the door and asked, “What are we looking for?”
“I’m not sure,” John said. He tried the knob on a door marked Utility Room. Keep Out. The knob turned, the door opened, and John disappeared inside.
Regina stepped to the door and looked in.
John was squatting down. He lifted something and slipped it in his pocket.
“Find something?”
He started at the sound of her voice. “Oh,” he laughed lightly, reaching into his pocket “I dropped this.” He held up a red pistachio shell. “Nothing mysterious.”
He rose and stood facing the shelves that held what looked like pool cleaning supplies and equipment. He seemed lost in thought. He reached out and lifted a plastic bottle of chlorine. He shook it. It sounded about half full. Regina watched him uncap the bottle and then sniff it. He tipped his head.
He turned to look at her, an odd expression on his face.
Regina felt the skin on the back of her head tighten. She stared back, puzzled by his strangeness.
His gaze slid from her face to a point behind her. She turned her head and looked at the wall. There was nothing there.
With the chlorine in his hand, his expression tense, he slowly crossed the small room.
Stopping within inches of her, he said, “Something splashed against this wall.”
She leaned in, moving so that a glare from the bulb reflected on the wall. Then she saw it. Clean spots. Splashes from some clear liquid.
He bent down on one knee and examined the stack of folded towels. He lifted the top one to his nose. “What’s that smell like?” he asked, handing the towel to Regina.
She sniffed. “Chlorine?”
“Exactly.”
“You think someone splashed chlorine against the wall?”
He moved Regina to the side and stood in her place, looking toward the shelf where he’d gotten the bottle of chlorine. His hands came up to his face. He turned, and with his eyes closed, one hand out in front of him, he headed for the open doorway. His knuckles rapped the door frame and he grunted, but continued on through the door, stopping within a foot of the pool. He stared down into the water.
Regina watched silently, fascinated. She realized he was acting out some weird scenario.
He came back into the room and busied himself shifting the towels to one side.
“Well?” she said.
“What have we here?” He held something in the palm of his hand. It was a fingernail, broken below the quick, torn skin lining the ragged edge.
“It’s Tammy’s,” Regina said with excitement.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Look at it. See the glitter and the special design—the gold stripe? I remember seeing that very design on her nails the night before she died.”
“Did you notice a broken nail?”
Regina shook her head, took the fingernail. “That would’ve hurt like hell. See, it’s torn off below the quick. Of course she could have lost this earlier in the week and had the nail mended and repolished.”
He looked thoughtful. “There’s only one way to find out.”
“Hey, what’re you two doing in there?” Brad said behind them. “This room’s for employees only.”
Regina slipped the broken nail into her handbag.
John snatched up a towel, sniffed it, tossed it back on the stack. “Sanitized. That’s important. He grabbed Regina’s hand and pulled her out the door, hurrying toward the exit.
A moment later they were in the station wagon pulling out of the parking lot. Regina started to turn left, changed her mind and made a right.
“Where are we going?”
“The hospital to see Donna,” she said. “Do you mind?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Then, in a quiet voice, he said, “Mind? No, I’m a fan of hers. Do you have the fingernail?”
“Yes.” She pulled smoothly into the traffic. She glanced at him. He was staring straight ahead with that same calculating expression on his face that she’d seen in the utility room. Normally his face was a mixture of hard and soft, brooding eyes over a quick, easy smiling mouth. Now, his features were set. “Tell me what was going through your mind back there at the gym,” she said.
“This is purely speculation, mind you, but I think the lady was lured into the storage room and doused with a blinding chemical—”
“The chlorine?”
“Yes. It’s not acid, but a dose of it in the eyes could have temporarily blinded her.”
“And being blinded, she stumbles out of the room, breaking a nail on the doorframe, and falls into the pool?”
“Yes,” John said. “Now either she couldn’t swim, or she panicked and lost consciousness, or she was held under.”
“Murder?”
“We should have asked Segal if she could swim.”
She glanced over at him. “She was a strong swimmer.”
Regina found a parking space at the entrance to the hospital. They took the elevator to the fourth floor. The door to Donna’s room was open and Regina could see she had a visitor. Tom Gansing, the director at KSGO, stood at the side of her bed. Donna looked past Tom, caught Regina’s eye, and motioned for her to come in. They entered. During the introductions, Donna’s hand self-consciously went to her throat before dropping to her side. Her throat and neck were unbandaged. Regina noticed that both John and Tom looked Donna directly in the face when talking to her, yet neither stared longer than necessary. Nolan, Regina remembered, didn’t seem as comfortable looking at his wife.
“Guess I better be going,” Tom said, backing up. “Next time I come I’ll bring that book I was telling you about.”
“Can you come tomorrow?”
“Sure.” He grinned and his face colored, matching the red of his hair.
Tom was more than infatuated. He was in love. Regina had suspected for months that the director had special feelings for Donna. Watching him with her now, the way he looked at her, listened to her, seeing his reluctance to leave her, confirmed it. Tom was a good man. Sweet, considerate and down-to-earth like Donna.
Regina moved into his p
lace and took Donna’s hand. “How are you?”
“Okay,” she smiled wanly. “They’ll be doing more skin grafts in a couple days.”
“When? I’ll come by.”
Donna shook her head. “Daddy will be here.”
Regina knew how important it was for Donna to have her father to herself. She smiled and squeezed Donna’s hand.
Donna looked at John quizzically. “I have this feeling we’ve met before. A long time ago.”
“John covered the Miss Classic Pageant for the Chronicle,” Regina said.
“Really? That must be it, then. And now the two of you are neighbors. What a small world.”
“Donna, the police are planning to rule out foul play in Tammy’s death,” Regina said.
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Not if it’s not true. Tammy’s dog was poisoned two nights before she died. John and I went to the gym and found some things that may prove she was assaulted ... and possibly murdered.”
“Murdered?” The color left Donna’s face. “But why?” Without waiting for an answer she said in exasperation, “Oh, God, Reggie, what have I done? It’s my fault. If I’d have left things alone I wouldn’t be here and Tammy ... Tammy would be alive.”
“Stop thinking like that,” Regina said. “No one can say what would have happened. What’s important is that we do what we can to stop it before someone else gets hurt.”
“Are you going to the police?”
“Yes,” Regina said.
John’s head snapped up. His eyes bore into hers. She looked away.
“Go see Corinne,” Donna said.
“Corinne?”
“She paid me a visit a couple days ago.”
“She was here?” John asked, sounding dumbfounded. “In the hospital?”
“At first I thought I had dreamed it. I’m still not positive she was here. But she said things about her private life that make me believe it really happened.”
“What things?” John asked.
“Terrible things about her father. There’s so much hate inside her.”
“Exactly what day was she here?” John persisted.
“Thursday. Well, actually, early Friday morning. Before dawn.”
“What did she want?”
“To see me. Just that ... to see what I looked like.”
“God,” Regina whispered.
“Was she disfigured?” John asked.
“Greatly.”
“But she said she’d had plastic surgery,” Regina said.
“I think she lied,” Donna said.
“Did she threaten you?” John asked.
Donna shook her head. “But she’s a very bitter woman. I’m not at all sure she’s entirely sane.”
Regina felt cold. She wished she hadn’t gotten involved in this investigation. The police were trained for this kind of work. She was too close to it all.
She glanced at her watch. 8:03. Suddenly she felt an urgency to get home. Kristy would leave work at nine, and Regina’s maternal instincts took over. She didn’t want her daughter coming home to an empty apartment.
John stole glances at Regina as she drove. She was quiet, seemingly lost in thought. The radio played a love song by Billy Ocean.
She has a great profile, he thought. He remembered her as a young woman in the contest. She had been beautiful then, but he felt that her beauty had increased over the years. Along with wisdom and a distinctive persona, she had filled out characteristically. Routine movements, such as adjusting the mirror and vents, steering, shifting gears, seemed graceful and sensual when she did them, yet she had a certain innocence that he found quite captivating.
“How long have you been a widow?” he asked. His own question surprised him, coming out of nowhere.
When she remained silent, he figured she had chosen not to answer. He stared out the passenger window. Storefronts and parked cars flashed by.
She leaned forward and turned down the radio, her eyes straight ahead. “Six months.”
It was his turn to be silent. Six months. Not a very long time if she had loved him. Six months after the death of his wife and son, he would think of them only half his waking hours instead of all. Then, for many years after that every young boy reminded him of Andrew. Every woman he met he compared to Darlene and none had measured up.
“What did your husband do?”
“Leo wrote reference books for writers. L. V. Raven. Nonfiction Handbook, The Craft of Article Writing, to name a few.”
John was familiar with the latter book. “He was good.”
She glanced at him, smiling. “Yes, I thought so too. Course I’m biased. I edited and typed his manuscripts.”
They withdrew into their own thoughts again.
She braked to a stop at a red light. “I meant what I said about going to the police.”
John tried to appear unaffected by her words. His stomach knotted. If he went with her to the police, she was certain to find out who their prime suspect was. The police would like nothing better to pin this and Corinne’s assault on him, it would save them a lot of footwork.
John touched the pistachio shell in his shirt pocket, the shell he’d found on the floor of the gym’s utility room. He had told Regina he had dropped it, but that was one more lie to add to the growing list. If the investigating cops had found it, instead of he, Lillard would be that much closer to making a case against him. Was it a coincidence that the very type of nut he regularly ate was found at the scene of a crime? A crime that in all likelihood was connected to the finalists of the Classic pageant? Or had someone, knowing his habits and knowing that he was a suspect, planted it? It was sheer luck he had come across it.
And his luck had held regarding Donna Lake. She had recognized him from the pageant all those years ago, but fortunately she had believed he’d been a journalist covering the event. Unlike Regina, Donna had come in contact with him twice during that fateful pageant. The first time was at the hotel the day of the final judging. He and Corinne had fought that afternoon. Corinne, angry that he would not be present for the crowning, had screamed at John, slapping his face when he had turned to leave. Donna had been within hearing. His second contact with Donna was at the hospital the following day. Corinne, though heavily sedated, adamantly refused to allow John to see her. He had waited all night, endlessly pacing the corridors, praying she would change her mind and let him share her pain and anguish. In the morning Donna had shown up, along with the police detective who took him away for questioning.
“I think they should know what we know,” she added.
“I agree,” he lied again. “But the police will only tell us to stay out of it. And I don’t think I can do that.”
After several moments of silence, Regina said, “Wilma, then.”
He suppressed his relief. “Yes. What time?”
“Eleven. I have a light load this week. We’re doing the show Saturday, live again with open phone lines.”
“You’re very good in front of the camera. Your face comes across sensationally on the screen. As well as off.”
“Thank you. Pancake makeup works miracles. At least I wasn’t asked to have a face lift.”
“There was no reason to.”
He saw her glance at him as if checking his sincerity.
“Well, I won’t mind in the least turning the program back over to Donna.”
“She’s coming back?”
“Of course. Why not?”
He shrugged. “Why not.” At 8:30 they pulled up to the apartment house.
Corinne had been sitting in the old, gray-primered Packard on the quiet residential street for nearly an hour. She stared at the lighted window on the ground floor, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.
She was nervous, like the two other times this week she had come here to spy on him. So strong was her compulsion to see Jack Davie that she did so at the risk of being caught. Last night she had come close to being discovered when, sitting in the car at three in the mo
rning, staring at his dark windows, Jack had surprised her by jogging by within yards of her, and by some miracle he hadn’t noticed the hooded woman in the parked car. Minutes later she watched him move around in his apartment and she’d filled her eyes, her aching heart, with the wonderful sight of him.
Tonight the light was on in his apartment, but there was no movement. She felt empty, unfulfilled. Perhaps she was too early, she thought. She would leave and return after midnight.
Corinne reached over to start the car when a station wagon pulled up across the street. She jerked her hand away and slid down on the seat, pressing herself into the dark corner. With pulse racing, she watched as a man stepped out of the car. There was no mistaking Jack’s silhouetted profile. She watched a woman get out of the car a second later. Who was the woman with him? She watched the two of them enter the apartment house. Not a mate, don’t let her be his mate.
In the light of the vestibule, she recognized the woman with John. Regina.
Corinne was relieved to see that the two hadn’t touched each other. Not lovers, she thought. Thank God.
In the hall, Regina headed for the stairs.
“Why don’t you come in,” John asked, unlocking his door and pushing it open. “It’s early.”
She paused indecisively.
“Kristy’s not home yet. She has to pass here to go upstairs. I’ll leave the door open.”
“Well ...”
“We haven’t had dessert yet.”
Regina smiled weakly, then walked past John into his apartment.
“Sit down. Make yourself comfortable,” he said, disappearing into the kitchen.
She stood in the middle of the living room and leisurely took in her surroundings. His apartment was furnished in a potpourri of new and old, store bought and scavenged. The furniture consisted of a leather sofa and a matching armchair, a weathered pine rocker, a straight-back pine chair, and an upended antique leather trunk topped with a piece of glass. The coffee table, rich-toned mahogany, was one half of a scarred double door, intricately carved, the hinges and handle intact. Opposite the sofa was a wall unit stereo system with television and VCR. On the floor were cacti in terracotta pots, and baskets made from thick, gnarled twigs woven into crude shapes, containing potted plants and magazines. On the walls were sketches of deserts and Indian and Cavalry portraits and paraphernalia. The room was warm, western, and very pleasing.
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