The Cereal Murders gbcm-3

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “Folks just want to lift weights,” she said with what I thought was too lingering a look at my lower-body bulges.

  I felt my heart sink with each step up to where people actually lifted heavy things because they thought it was good for them. I mean, these people wanted to be big, they wanted to gain bulk, and they didn’t want to do it by eating fettuccine Alfredo and sour cream cheesecake! They used powdered diet supplements! What were they, nuts? With some trepidation, I pushed open the door.

  The place didn’t just smell bad, it smelled horrific. It was as if the walls had been painted with perma-sweat, guaranteed to stay wet. Sort of an unwashed rain-forest-in-the-gym concept.

  When I was about to pass out from the stench, a big guy – I mean a really big guy – with lots of knots and bulges and popping-out muscles on his arms and chest and massive legs, sauntered up to me. He growled, “You Goldy?”

  I swallowed and said, “Aah – “

  His eyes, tiny sapphires set in an expanse of facial flesh, flicked over me contemptuously. “Don’t work out much, do you?”

  Not a good start. I looked around at the different instruments of torture, things you pushed up on, things you pushed down on, things you watched your shoulders dislocate on in the bank of – yes! – mirrors. Men of all ages, and one woman who I at first thought was a man, were grunting and groaning and pumping. It didn’t look like fun.

  “Really,” I improvised desperately, “I’m just looking for somebody… .”

  “You’re looking for me,” said Big Guy. “Come on over here. I’m Blaster.”

  Not one to argue with one so massive, I followed dutifully behind. I had a terrible blinding thought: What if I saw my ex-husband here? John Richard Korman would laugh himself silly. I cast a quick glance around. No Jerk. He preferred the more chi-chi athletic club. Thank God for tiny favors.

  “First we stretch,” announced Blaster. Well now, stretching was something I knew about. I said hopefully, “I do yoga.”

  Blaster did a prune face of disdain and thrust a long metal rod at me. He said, “Do what I do,” and then he threaded his huge arms around an identical metal rod. As he twisted his sculpted torso from side to side, I struggled to follow suit. But in the mirror I looked too much like a chunk of meat skewered on a shish kebab, so I stopped. Unfortunately I also let go. The rod Blaster had given me clattered to the floor with an unhappy thunkety-thunk.

  “Hey!” he bellowed.

  “Oh, don’t be too hard on her,” Hank Dawson said. “She had a really rough day yesterday. And she’s a big Bronco fan.” Unlike the young jocks in their scoopneck sleeveless shirts and tight black pants, Hank wore orange sweats emblazoned with the words DENVER BRONCOS – AFC CHAMPIONS! “Finger okay?” he inquired as he extricated himself from the thing he was pushing his elbows together in and walked slowly up to my tormentor and me. One thing I had noticed about how the men moved in the weight room: They swaggered around bowlegged, as if at any minute they were going to face off against Gary Cooper. Tromp, tromp, tromp, don’t be too hard on her tromp tromp a rough day tromp, draw on three, pod’ner.

  “Actually,” I said, turning pained eyes up to Blaster, “I did suffer from a terrible spider bite yesterday… .”

  But Blaster had already clomped off to what looked like a stretcher lying on an angle. Hank Dawson gave me a grim apologetic look. “Are you sure you’re well enough to do this, Goldy? Did you hear Elway pulled his shoulder in practice yesterday? I’m surprised you’re here.”

  I said feebly, “So am I.”

  He grinned. “You know they hate food people here.”

  “I’m beginning to think this whole idea was a mistake.” I meant it.

  Blaster roared, “Hey, you, Goldy! Get on this thing head down!” Several men turned to see if I would do as commanded. I scurried over to Blaster.

  “You don’t seem to understand, I’ve changed my mind…”

  He pointed at the stretcher. It was a long-fingered commanding point, not unlike when God brings a flaccid Adam to life on the Sistine ceiling. “Decline sit-ups,” he boomed.

  “You see,” I ventured tremulously, “there was this black widow…”

  The remorseless finger didn’t waver. “Best thing for it. Get on.”

  A man of few words.

  And so I started. First, sit-ups with my head lower than my feet on the stretcher, which seemed unfair. Why not at least be level? Then incline leg raises and crunches (sit-ups on a level surface-why bother when I’d just defied gravity the other way?), then more torso twists with the skewer rod, then leg presses, leg extensions, leg curls, bench presses, and front lat pulls.

  I’m dying, I thought. No, wait-I’ve died and I’m in hell. In the mirror, my face was an unhealthy shade of puce. My finger throbbed. Rivulets of sweat ran down my forehead and turned into a veritable torrent inside my sweatshirt. Blaster announced we were almost done, and that I would do better next time. Hey, Blaster! There ain’t gonna be a next time.

  Finally, finally, Egon Schlichtmaier walked in with none other than Macguire Perkins. Why I had not made an appointment just to see Schlichtmaier at the school was beyond me. I was going to need a heating pad for a week. No, not a heating pad – an electric sleeping bag and months of physical therapy.

  “I need to talk to you,” I panted when the two of them sauntered, John Wayne-like, over to where I was slumped on the floor, collapsed and terminally winded. Before they could greet me, however, Blaster loomed suddenly overhead. I was looking straight at his calves. Each resembled an oven-roasted turkey.

  Blaster’s beady blue eyes had a bone-chilling God-surveying-Sodom-and-Gomorrah look. “You’re not done.” His voice echoed off the dripping walls.

  “Oh, yes, I am,” I said as I scrambled to my feet, not without exquisite and hitherto undreamed of pain. “Stick me with a toothpick. I’m as done as I’ll ever be.”

  But he was waving me over to the Stairmaster, unheeding.

  Egon Schlichtmaier said, “It’s not so easy the first time,” only it came out, “Id’s not zo easy ze furst time.”

  He gave me his big cow-eyed look. “Like sex, you know.” The muscles in his back and arms flexed and rolled as he escorted me over to the aerobics area.

  I hated him. I hated Egon Schlichtmaier for his muscles, I hated him for sleeping with those undergraduates, and I hated him for comparing what we were doing in this chamber of horrors to making love, which I had just begun to enjoy lately, thank you very much.

  Blaster was punching numbers into the Stairmaster’s digital readout with that meaty finger I had come to dread. He looked at me impassively. “Get on. Ten minutes. Then you’re through.” And joy of joys, he stomped away. I faced Egon Schlichtmaier and scowled.

  “Better do what Blaster says,” came the unnaturally low voice of Macguire Perkins; “Guy has eyes in the back of his head. We’ll get on the treadmills and keep you company.”

  With such sympathetic exudings, the two of them mounted the treadmills and effortlessly began to walk. I wanted Macguire to go away, because what I was about to say concerned only Arch, Schlichtmaier, and me. Perhaps Macguire sensed my disapproval. He pulled out a headset while he was walking, tucked on earphones, and obligingly blissed out.

  I stepped off the Stairmaster. Let Blaster come over and bawl me out. I dared him. I crossed my arms in front of Egon Schlichtmaier’s treadmill as Macguire Perkins began to screech along with his tape: “Roxanne!”

  To Egon Schlichtmaier I said, “I understand you’ve had some difficulty with my son.”

  Surprise flickered in his eyes. “I do not teach your son.”

  “Roxanne!” squealed Macguire. “But was there something you didn’t want him to tattle about?” I replied evenly. “He said you were teasing him about something he said. He said you teased him day after day, and it was about tattling on you for using steroids. I simply will not stand to have my son harassed, by you or anyone else,” I narrowed my eyes at him.

  And then I had
a horrible thought: Maybe Arch wasn’t the only one Egon Schlichtmaier didn’t want to have tattle on him. A chill of fear scuttled down my back.

  Damn. I should have left this whole thing to Schulz, as he was always telling me. Egon Schlichtmaier quietly turned off his treadmill and stepped off. He flexed his solid wall of muscles and I felt my heart freeze. Here I was among a bunch of bodybuilders, facing a possible multiple murderer.

  “Roxanne!” screeched Macguire. His tall body rocked and heaved along the treadmill. His muscular chest shimmied to the beat. “Roxanne!”

  In his thick German accent Egon Schlichtmaier said, “Yes, I did tease your son. But that was all it was. Your son has had a hard time fitting in socially at the school, as you mayor may not be aware.” He crossed his arms: a standoff. “When he accused me of using steroids, which is no small accusation, as you know – “

  Especially with all the other accusations you’re facing, I thought but did not say.

  “I tried to joke him out of it. I mean, I work out, but I’m no Schwarzenegger, although we sound alike, no? I think your son has been watching too much TV.”

  I really hate it when people criticize Arch. Egon Schlichtmaier put his hands on his hips. He was muscled, this was true, and superbly proportioned. Just because I didn’t like him didn’t mean he couldn’t have an athlete’s body. But I had learned a few things about steroid use from one of the many parenting books I had read, Steroids cause mood swings. Egon Schlichtmaier may have been subject to these, who knew? “His reputed sex life certainly pointed to an abundance of testosterone. But he had none of the acne, no sign of the female-type breasts that chronic steroid-users frequently develop.

  Drug abuse. What was it that Hank Dawson had said to me at church the day after Keith’s murder? I understand that kid’s had quite a history with substance abuse. The kid was the headmaster’s son. At the time, I had just ignored it; no one else had seemed to think the rumor was worth looking into. And if the police suspected marijuana or cocaine deals were going down at the school, Schulz would have at least mentioned it.

  “Roxanne!” bellowed Macguire Perkins joyously as he jounced along the treadmill. My eyes were drawn to him. Not just his face, but his entire body, was covered with acne. And he looked as if he could use at least Maidenform 36C.

  13

  Why did you drive Macguire over here?” I demanded.

  “His license has been suspended for a year. Drunk driving.” Egon Schlichtmaier screwed his face into paternalistic incredulity. “I try to help these kids. I do not threaten them.”

  “Just trying to help, eh?” I didn’t mention the dalliances at C.O. Sometimes teachers didn’t know their own power. One thing 1 did know about steroids was that a large percentage of students who took them got them from coaches and teachers. “Does Macguire have problems with other drugs? I mean, that you know of.”

  “Sorry?” Egon said as if he had not understood me. “Like steroids, for instance?”

  His shoulder muscles rippled in a shrug. “Haven’t the foggiest.”

  I peered hard at the darkly good-looking face of Egon Schlichtmaier. He was an oily sort of fellow – evasive, glib, hard to know.

  I said, “Because of Keith’s death, I’ve been extremely concerned about things happening at the school. There was this snake, this… threat to Arch. Do you know anyone who would want to hurt my son?”

  “No one.” And then he added fiercely, “Including me.”

  “Okay.” I stalled. Perhaps I was overreacting. “I guess I misunderstood the tattling banter the two of you had.” Egon Schlichtmaier shrugged again. He closed his eyes and sighed asin, I’ll let it go this time. I tried to adopt a cheerful tone. “Think you’ll be staying at Elk Park Prep? I mean, past this year?”

  He pondered the question. “What makes you think I would not?” I raised my eyebrows in ignorance. He seemed to accept that and shrugged again. “I have not decided.”

  At that moment a horrific shriek and reverberating metallic crash cut the air. On the other side of the room, a crowd gathered to see what had happened. A short, stocky fellow had dropped one of the .largest barbells. I wondered how many pounds were involved, and if the barbell had landed on his toe. So much for clean and jerk.

  Blaster started yelling at the poor guy who’d dropped the weight. Even Macguire pulled off his earphones. The Richter-scale vibration had come through the treadmill. With an air of exasperated defeat, Egon Schlichtmaier hunched toward the melee. But it seemed to me the teacher was only too glad to leave me standing there; we hadn’t exactly been having a pleasant conversation. Macguire slouched off after Egon. I noticed with delight that the preoccupied Blaster had his back turned to me.

  Time to boogie.

  I showered quickly and drove home. By the time I eased the van in behind the Range Rover it was almost eight A.M. The Range Rover? Julian and Arch usually left for school around 7:30. Panic welled up. Were they all right? Had they overslept? I bounded inside and up the stairs to check, and immediately regretted the move. My thighs screamed with pain from the workout.

  “Julian,” I whispered after knocking on their door, “Arch!”

  There were groans and the sounds of shuffling sheets. The air in the room was close, and it smelled of boy. As an only child, Arch took rooming with Julian as a great adventure. It had begun with a bunk bed. Of course, I hadn’t been able to afford a new one, and we wouldn’t be needing it after Julian went off to college. But a classified ad in the Mountain Journal had provided a secondhand two-tiered bed for fifty bucks. Unfortunately, it had cost another fifty for a carpenter to reinforce the upper bunk for Arch’s weight.

  “Guys!” I said more loudly. I glanced around the room. Their school clothes lay in piles on a chair. A gel-filled ice pack was on the floor next to Arch’s slippers. “Is this a school holiday that I don’t know about?”

  Julian lifted his head and barely opened puffy eyes. His unshaven, exhausted face was a mottled gray. He made unintelligible sounds along the lines of, “Gh? Hnh?” and then, “Oh, it’s you,” and flopped back on his pillow.

  “Hello?” I tried again. “Arch?” But Arch only pulled himself under his covers, a typical maneuver. I bent down to pick up his slippers. They were wet.

  “Julian,” I said with frustration, “could you wake up enough to tell me what is going on?”

  With great effort Julian propped himself up on one elbow. He announced thickly, “Arch and I saw your note. Arch went outside to get the paper and slipped on the top porch step. He landed on his ankle and really hurt himself.” He yawned. “I took a look, and since it had already begun to swell, I put some ice packs on it and told him to go back to bed until you could decide what to do.” Another, longer, yawn. “I didn’t feel too good either. I’m really tired.” He let out a deep, guttural groan, as if even putting this much thought into discourse were an effort.

  “Uh, Doctor Teller?” I said. “After you diagnosed and treated the ankle, and sent the patient back to bed, what?”

  He opened an eye. “Well,” he said with just a shade of a grin cracking the expense of youthful brown beard, “since I knew you wouldn’t want Arch to be here alone, I mean after the rock and the snake and all, I decided to stay home with him. I can afford to miss a day.” He flopped over. “You’ll have to be the one who calls the school, though.”

  Oh, what was the use? “All right, okay,” I said. Respecting kids’ assessment of a situation is a finely tuned parenting skill. Not a skill I was sure I had yet, but never mind. “Arch? May I please take a look at your ankle?”

  He grunted an assent and thrust the offending foot from underneath his covers. Julian’s makeshift ice pack had already begun to unwrap, but there were still two frozen gel-filled packs inside a gently knotted terry-cloth towel. The ankle was swollen all right. The skin around the ankle was a pale blue.

  “From the steps?” I was confused. “That’s awful.” Arch was not usually clumsy. In fact, his lack of athletic ability was i
n direct contrast to what I thought of as his physical grace, which of course you could see when he skied. Admittedly, as his mother I was somewhat prejudiced. “Can you stand on it?”

  “I can stand on it and it is not broken,” said Arch.

  “One more thing,” muttered Julian, his head on the pillow, his eyes closed. “I don’t know if I’m getting paranoid or something. Did you spill water out front?” When I said that I had not, he said, “Well, it looked to me as if someone had poured water over the steps. So anyone going out the front would fall and break his ass.”

  Hmm. In any event, medical attention was not warranted, at least for now. I backed out of the room, but not before I heard Arch’s muffled and indignant voice say: “I did not break my ass!”

  I went down to the kitchen. When other people’s lives get chaotic, they smoke, they drink, they exercise, they shop. I cook. At the moment it seemed we all needed the comfort of homemade bread. I made a yeast starter and phoned Marla. “You said you were coming over to help me today, remember? Please come now,” I begged to her husky greeting.

  “Goldy, it’s the middle of the night, for crying out loud. Or the middle of winter. I had a late date last night and I’m hibernating. Call me when spring arrives.”

  “It’s past eight,” I countered unrelentingly, “and it won’t be winter for another seven weeks. Come on over and I’ll make something special. Julian and Arch are both home. Arch fell and Julian’s… tired. Besides, I want you to tell me more about the lost teacher, Pamela Samuelson, and this Schlichtmaier fellow.”