Dangerous Minds

by Dee Ann Palmer

  “Too bad she hadn’t had her valuables locked up at the front desk. Room safes are easily breached,” Hal commented.

  Hal slipped his arm around my shoulder as we went up the steps to the elevator landing. We stood there, our backs to the elevators, looking down on a second lobby and the large glass doors opening onto 5th Street.

  “Anyone could walk in off the street from there or leave by that route quickly,” Hal said.

  A muted ding signaled the arrival of the elevator. When we reached our floor, we stepped out into an empty corridor.

  Back in the room, I began to lay out my race gear. “Oh my gosh, my shoes. I need to fasten my chip onto my shoelaces.”

  I went out to retrieve them, walking down the corridor to the short hallway where I’d left them.

  The hall was empty.

  I went to the end and opened the door to the outside landing, which went nowhere. Nothing. No room doors opened onto this short bit of side corridor, so no one would’ve mistaken them for their shoes.

  “Did you bring in the shoes I sprayed?” I asked Hal when I’d returned to the room.

  He shook his head.

  “Then someone stole them.” I sank onto the bed, shaking my head in disbelief, stomach roiling. You’d have to be an athlete to understand the importance of shoes to a runner. Your feet are everything. The first year South African Mark Plaatjes was expected to win he had to drop out at mile ten because he’d forgotten his best running shoes. “I can’t believe someone stole my shoes.”

  Hal stood up. “Let’s check again.”

  We cruised the entire corridor to the elevator and back. Nothing.

  “Maybe that theft wasn’t just for jewelry. Maybe there’s someone who stalks the corridors looking for things like this.” The hotel had other guests staying here, but so far we hadn’t seen anyone on this floor.

  “A lot of people set shoes and clothing outside their door to be shined or laundered,” Hal added.

  Now I had something else to think about—running in old shoes. Thankfully, I’d worn them here, but they had broken down. Without their usual cushioning and stability, I’d finish the race with the bottoms of my feet burning. I might get blisters that would make it impossible for me to finish. At worst, I could end up with stress fractures.

  I was a very unhappy camper.

  In bed, in the darkness, I felt Hal reach for me.

  I grew rigid. “I thought they didn’t allow that sort of thing before your NFL games.”

  He stroked my arm, his fingers strong yet gentle. “Come on, Babe, you’re tied up in knots. Roll over so I can get to your back.”

  Reluctantly, I let his strong hands knead the knots out of my shoulders and long muscles.

  And when they moved lower to stroke other things, well, I had a little hint that the pre-game rules hadn’t always been followed in the NFL. I drifted to sleep feeling loose and satisfied.

  * * *

  He was asleep the next morning when I leaned to kiss him goodbye.

  “Break a leg,” he mumbled.

  I swatted him across a butt still tight despite his age. “Thanks a lot.”

  Out front, I caught a crowded shuttle to the starting line on Figueroa, not far from the Coliseum. Excitement drifted through the little bus like ozone after a lightning strike.

  “At least it isn’t raining,” a young woman behind me said.

  “Maybe it will before everyone finishes, but right now it’s perfect. Cool and moist.” This from a man whose thin jersey tank top and skimpy shorts promised to leave him chilled once he began to sweat.

  Dressed in the phosphorescent pink T-shirt of my running club and black running skins, I thought I’d be more comfortable. The marathon begins at 8:45 a.m., and that can be too late if it’s hot. I was glad it wasn’t warm today, but I was still steamed about my theft.

  “Someone stole my shoes,” I said. “If it rains before I finish, these old ones will give me blisters for sure.”

  Sympathetic nods and exclamations boosted my morale.

  Once off the shuttle, I forced my way through a frightening crush of bodies into the four hour finishing time block, greeting several members of my running club. I could already smell body odor created by nervous tension, and the feel of so many people crowded around me began to make me nervous too.

  There was no sign of Janet. There were probably 25,000 runners in this competition. Depending on when her chip recorded her crossing the start line, she could be ahead of or behind me and still win. I shook out my arms and legs to loosen up.

  Don’t worry about her. Concentrate on running your own race.

  The sharp crack of the starter’s gun split the air.

  Every chip that crossed the mat caused it to give off notes as if it sang. I felt my blood singing in response.

  Due to the mass of runners packed tightly together, only the elite runners, cordoned off ahead of the rest of us so they had plenty of room, were able to actually run at this point. We peons were well past the second street block before we could do more than walk.

  A marathon is 26 miles, 385 yards long. Anything can happen in the race. I never knew if or when my body might betray me with cramps, knee pain, dehydration, or friction that rubbed my inner thighs raw or blistered my feet. The first man who ran this distance—from Marathon to Athens to report that the Greeks had conquered the Persians—collapsed and died. Of course, no one knows why the man died, but the joke among today’s marathoners was that he obviously hadn’t trained for seven months as we did to run that far.

  Adrenalin hyped me up. As usual, I started too fast. When I saw the blue and gray Mile Five banner that hung above and across the street, I checked my watch and knew I had to slow down. I didn’t want to repeat the experience of the first marathoner.

  The lines for the portable potties were long, and I turned one corner to see eight men standing in a row, eight golden streams wetting the side of an office wall. Gross. I shook my head and ran on. Then the thought came of how unfair it was that women didn’t have that option. We had to wait in line. The Walt Disney World marathon begins in the dark, and as dawn breaks you’ve reached a grassy stretch that rolled down on each side to a thick stand of trees. Men with full bladders raced for the trees. The women squatted facing the race, head and shoulders seen but their bare bottoms discreetly hidden.

  At mile thirteen, I walked through a water stop, carefully avoiding a banana peel, greedily drinking from cups volunteers handed us. Next to me, a red-haired young man, face flushed and sweat dripping off his chunky body, looked at his watch. “I guess we didn’t win the Hondas.”

  The race had already been won by the elites by this time and the cars awarded. “No laurel wreaths for our heads either,” I said.

  By mile fifteen, we had also missed the wedding of three runners who’d passed us earlier. Bride and groom wore hip length wedding gear, running shorts, and Nikes. Even the officiating judge was in a short robe and running gear.

  The bottoms of my feet felt like two hot coals.

  It was at the mile sixteen water stop—when fatigue was signaling I might “hit the wall”—that I felt someone shove something heavy into my left hand. I glanced down to see I held a black velvet bag, its silk drawstrings pulled tight. Looking around to see who might have passed the thing to me, I saw Widlow weaving through runners a quarter of a block ahead. Where on earth had she come from? And…I gasped…she was wearing my shoes!

  Anger surged through me. I always mark the backs of my shoes heavily with permanent marking pen so I can tell they are mates and when I’d bought them. Janet had stolen my shoes!

  I took another gulp of water, ready to increase my speed and catch up to her, but a runner bumped into me and almost knocked me down. Water hit my windpipe. Choking and coughing, I stopped. I couldn’t run if I couldn’t breathe. I fought mentally to stop coughing and relax the spasms in my voice box so air could get through.

  People slapped me on the back, which was no help, and I ra
ised a hand signaling them to stop.

  Finally, I could breathe and run again. By now Janet was out of sight. I took the last bit of water just as a man slammed into me hard and fast. I choked and the coughing and gasping for air began all over again.

  “You okay?” a man asked as he ran in place beside me. “That guy isn’t even entered in the race. No bib, and at this point none of the rest of us are able to be running that fast.”

  I nodded my agreement and waved him on.

  My hand closed tight around the velvet bag. Had Janet shoved it into my hand? If she had I didn’t know why, but, as Mr. Monk of TV would have said, “It’s a jungle out there.” And I am not stupid. You don’t keep anything someone shoves into your hand, pocket or suitcase. I veered off to a side street, found a thick bush, and jammed the bag in to hide it, noting the street name. If she’d passed the bag to me and didn’t have a good explanation after the race, I’d notify the police.

  My foray onto the side street had added to her edge on me. If I hadn’t been so tired, I’d have sprinted to catch up and find out right now if she’d handed me that bag and why in hell she was wearing my damn shoes.

  A few miles later, when we were on Hollywood Boulevard, I heard screams from what had originally been Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and saw runners dashing over to it. As fatigued as I was, as much as my feet hurt, I couldn’t resist investigating. I knew celebrities had signed and pressed their hand prints in cement squares in the Forecourt of the Stars, but why were people screaming? I’d lost precious seconds anyway, so I entered the court and slowed to running in place.

  Maybe I expected to see a celebrity, or maybe a Chinese dragon twisting and turning its huge head as it danced through the court. What I did not expect to see was a female runner lying crumpled on her back in one corner. A woman who’d just felt her pulse shook her head and stepped away. In an instant I took in the pale face against the red pool on the gray cement and wondered irrationally on which star’s hand prints she’d fallen. Her eyes stared upward as if admiring the coral columns that held up the bronze pagoda roof, but they were glazed over. I didn’t think they’d ever see anything again. Someone had grabbed her from behind, slit her throat, and left her to die on the streets of L. A.

  It was Janet Widlow.

  Bile rose in my throat. “Who has a cell phone? Call 911!”

  They say that women do what needs to be done and later fall apart. Men supposedly fall apart and then pull themselves together. They also say hearing’s the last sense to go. Instinctively, I crouched and touched her shoulder. “It’s Suevee, Janet. Paramedics are on their way. Hang in there.”

  “We should move back,” the pulse taking runner said. “We’re in a crime scene.”

  The paramedics arrived in four minutes. I waited for them, sensing it was too late for CPR.

  It was.

  I turned to the medic taking notes. “I know her, but I didn’t see what happened. In case the police want to talk to me, I’d like to leave you my name and where I’m staying.”

  They rerouted us away from the theatre. I broke into a run, but all the fun of “doing L.A.” had evaporated.

  * * *

  Hal was waiting for me just outside the crush of the finish line photography and food section. I hobbled toward him barefoot, a big round glass finisher’s medal on a red, white, and blue ribbon hanging from my neck, my wasted shoes in one hand.

  “How’d you do?”

  “I won the club competition.”

  “That’s terrific, Babe!”

  “Janet’s dead.”

  Then I burst into tears.

  * * *

  For the third time, I told the two homicide detectives who were interviewing me in the Biltmore manager’s office, “I don’t know who handed me the bag. I just know I saw Janet for the first time in the race just after someone shoved it into my hand. As my left hand swung down, someone pushed it in and I automatically closed on it. I glanced down to see what it was, then I saw Janet weaving her way through runners about a block ahead of me.

  “I didn’t open the bag; I don’t know what was inside. All I could think of was to get rid of it. What if it had drugs in it? Besides, someone stole my shoes last night, and Janet was wearing them. She knew our room number, and she’d stolen my running shoes. I wasn’t going to let her win the club prize if she’d stolen my shoes.”

  I itched from dried sweat on my skin. My ponytail had come loose, and my hair hung in dark wet clumps about my head. The beige leather couch on which I was sitting was cold, and I began to shiver.

  The heavier of the two men, Detective McAnally, removed his jacket and put it around my shoulders. It smelled of cigarette smoke. The odor nauseated me.

  “Thanks. Can someone get me something to eat? I need food.” Fatigue was setting in, and my blood sugar needed a boost.

  “She was driving a Maserati Spyder?”

  “That’s what she said. Offered me a ride, but I didn’t really care for her and I was with Hal so I didn’t accept. I didn’t see her in a car. Any car. I saw her in the front lobby, then again in the corridor near the bridal reception, once running, once dead. That’s all.” My voice shook. The image of her staring eyes and gaping bloody throat reeled through my mind again like a silent horror movie. Tears welled up in my eyes, threatening to roll down my cheeks. I managed to hold them back, but then they betrayed me by draining down my ducts. My nose started to drip.

  McAnally handed me a tissue he’d pulled from a box on the desk.

  “You didn’t report your missing shoes even though you knew a theft was being investigated. Even though you’d been advised to check your things.”

  They were statements, not questions. And they were designed to trip me up. Forget that. I was telling the truth.

  I wiped my nose and shook my head. “They were just running shoes. If Janet forgot hers she may have come up to see if I had an extra pair, spotted those and taken them. They weren’t in front of our room. No room doors opened into the short hall where I’d left them. I can’t imagine why she would have even thought they were mine.”

  Detective McAnally said, “None of the guests in the hotel have registered a Maserati. The Department of Motor Vehicles has no record of a Janet Widlow owning one.”

  I laughed shakily, weak from the need for food. “Maybe she stole that too.” Then quickly, “Forget I said that. I really do need to eat. I just ran four hours basically on an empty stomach. My mind’s not functioning too clearly.”

  “You can go for now, but please stay in town. We may need to talk to you again.”

  “We’re staying over. Hal has a business appointment tomorrow.” I returned McAnally’s jacket. “Thanks.”

  Hal was waiting for me outside the door, a can of orange juice and a bagel in his hand. “I made an appointment for a massage for both of us.”

  “Sounds wonderful.” I gulped down the juice and had started on the bagel even before the elevator door opened.

  After a hot shower and added food, I felt more like myself. I felt even better after the massage. There were gift shops along the corridor to the spa. We walked hand in hand through them before returning to our room. I spotted something in one of the shops that I’d probably buy for Marina before we left.

  Hal opened the door to our room, and I stepped inside and froze.

  The room had been ransacked. Chair cushions and mattresses had been slit open. Everything had been dumped out of our suitcases. Even Hal’s shaving kit had been slashed.

  Fear tightened my chest.

  “Don’t touch anything.” Hal was already on his cell phone calling security.

  The security guy suggested we wait in the lobby on our floor until the police in blue suits arrived. McAnally and Anderson surprised us by also showing up, and we led them to our room.

  “What the hell was in that velvet bag?” I asked, knowing the police must have found it.

  They didn’t answer, but the glances they exchanged told me I was right about
the bag having been found.

  “Whatever it was, the killer thinks I have it,” I said. That sent the hairs on my arms and neck skyward.

  Next, the Biltmore’s manager appeared, offering to put us up in another wing, on another floor. No charge.

  “Not on your life,” I said to him and the security guard in the grumpiest tone I could muster. “Someone here in the hotel knew our room number, knew I was connected to Janet. When she didn’t have the bag, they murdered her. Must have guessed she passed that bag to me. We’ll stay somewhere else, thank you very much.”

  “We can’t be sure this is connected,” McAnally said.

  Hal said, “Don’t bullshit us. You know it is. Else why did they two Robbery/Homicide detectives with the blue suits?”

  Neither detective answered.

  Hal stepped out on the landing at the end of the “shoe spray” hall and used his cell phone to make a reservation at the Bonaventure. By the time he’d returned, an LAPD officer had arrived. To please me, McAnally asked Hal for his car keys and the valet parking ticket, then instructed the officer to retrieve the car and wait for us to pick it up at the nearby Los Angeles Athletic Club. No one would know where we’d be staying.

  The only things we could take with us were the clothes we were wearing. I was glad we’d had our wallets and IDs on us.

  At the Bonaventure, I changed my looks as best I could by having my hair cut, highlighted and styled. I bought a set of clothes that didn’t stand out, but weren’t as casual as I usually wear, and I paid for everything in cash.

  We spent the rest of the day in our room while I rested from the race. We ordered in and watched movies. When it was time for bed, I discovered the only nightwear we had was our undies.

  “Sexy,” Hal said in a low voice as he pressed his lips to my neck just below my right ear.

  I groaned. “Can you take a rain check? The only thing I’m up to after racing a marathon is to crash.”

  With a sigh, he drew back. “Sure, Babe. I’m here to please.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Hal drove to his appointment.

  I was convinced now that Janet had deliberately passed the bag to me. It had been a baton pass. We’d both run track and field in college. Your arm goes back, you clamp down hard on the baton, and then you run like hell. She’d been murdered because she didn’t have that bag.