I started my engine, intending to leave the scene as quickly as possible, but Stuart stood there, torn between following Gillian or me, and opted for me. He knocked on my window, which I rolled down.
“It’s not what you think,” Stuart said, his face beet red. “I was just comforting her. She got a little upset about all of this trauma we’ve been in. The pressure is just so great and, well, you stumbled onto a one-time anomaly that would never happen again. Gillian is a happily married woman.”
’That’s nice,” I replied, not knowing what else to say. Apparently it wasn’t her husband who was accountable for the “happily” part of the sentence. I almost laughed when I looked at him—the glue job on his comb-over was not holding its own in a sudden stiff breeze. His hair was standing at attention like the flag on a mailbox. “I’ll just leave now and we’ll pretend like this never happened.”
Gillian Sweet and Stuart Ackleman? Who would put those two together? And if Kent and Michelle were also having an affair, that meant that there were two couples on one board.
Stuart was still holding onto the frame of my window, however, foiling my attempt at a hasty exit. “I…get the impression that you don’t believe what I just said.”
I shrugged. “This is really between you and Gillian. And her husband. And their son.”
“Don’t remind me.” He met my eyes. “You’ve got to keep this quiet, or her son will be hurt. The truth is, we’ve been managing to keep this a secret for the past couple of years. We didn’t mean for it to happen, though.”
I’m never one for excusing adultery, and figured that since Stuart was making me stay in his company, he deserved my lecturing him. “Please, Stuart. You’re both responsible adults, in control of your actions.” He frowned and reseated his glasses on his nose, but still had one hand on my window frame. “I can see saying that you ‘didn’t mean for something to happen’ when you’re talking about an accident versus a deliberate act. To me, claiming you accidentally became involved in a longstanding affair with someone is like claiming you accidentally shot someone, four times or so. But this truly isn’t my business. Unless, of course, your relationship led to murder. Then it’s everyone’s business.”
Stuart reached through my window and laid a heavy hand on my shoulder. For the first time, I regretted our not having paid more to have the luxury of electric windows. “You can’t tell people about this, Molly. A lot of innocent people would get hurt.”
“I have no desire to tell anyone.”
“What does that mean?”
“That as long as I’m not forced to talk about this, I won’t. But if it turns out to affect the police investigation in any way, all bets are off.”
He started to protest, then set his jaw. “Please don’t tell your father.”
I chuckled a little at the irony. “That’s almost nostalgic. Back when I was a teenager, I’d always be the one asking someone else not to tell my parents.”
“So you won’t tell him?”
“I see no reason to say anything to him at this point.”
“Thank you.”
I didn’t acknowledge his thanks, too uneasy at this latest discovery. I drove home and fixed myself an early lunch, still dreading my one o’clock appointment for “the works.”
If I’d learned anything in the past few days, it was that this particular school board was not one with which I wished to be affiliated, nor with which to have my father affiliated.
The doorbell rang. There stood Stephanie Saunders, looking casual but especially nice in tan cotton twill slacks and a cream-colored blouse.
“Stephanie, this is a surprise. Is Mike with you?” I asked in hope.
“He’s at preschool.” She wrinkled her nose in disapproval as she scanned my living room.
“I’m sorry I didn’t have time to spruce up in honor of your visit. My son does most of the cleaning and he’s still at school.”
She met my eyes. “Have you made any progress in determining who might have tried to strangle me? And killed Sylvia and that other guy?”
“No. I’m still working on it though.” After weighing the pros and cons for a moment and realizing that I had no need to feel loyalty toward either party,’ I added, “I did find out that Gillian Sweet and Stuart Ackleman are having an affair, however.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Huh. That’s what I came over here to tell you. That, and the more I think about it, the more certain I am that Stuart’s some sort of a con artist.”
“What makes you say that?”
“For one thing, I’m excellent at discerning people’s accents and am certain he’s from Massachusetts, and yet he always claims he’s from Connecticut and got his accent from his parents.”
“That’s possible, though, isn’t it?”
“It would be, except he doesn’t have the, well, social bearing of someone from Connecticut. And I did a little checking on the town. No one’s heard of an Ackleman family there.”
“You called the town?” That must have been quite a feat; I could only imagine trying to call, say, Boulder, Colorado, to ask if the Acklemans had ever lived there.
She didn’t elaborate. “My sources tell me that Stuart and Gillian are trying to cool it, though. Gillian wants to prevent her husband from finding out.”
Gillian was trying to end things. That fit in with the exchange I’d overheard at Proctor’s the other evening. Which meant that Gillian was hiding some secret regarding Stuart’s past, a secret which she was tired of keeping. “How did you find out, Stephanie?”
“Gillian’s best friend is the homeroom mom of my hairdresser’s daughter’s class.”
“Small world.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She glanced at her watch. “And speaking of which, I’d best be going. I’ve got an appointment at my salon.”
“That reminds me. Are you interested in taking my place at the Jackson Mineral Baths this afternoon? I’ve got an appointment already paid for, but I’d just as soon not go.”
“Please, Molly. I have a personal massage therapist plus a skin consultant for my facials. I don’t even share my bathtub with members of my own family. The last thing in the world I would ever do is take a mineral bath in the same tub where thousands of strangers’ nude bodies have been.”
The image turned my stomach slightly, but I replied, “I’m sure they wash the tub between customers.”
“Just the same, I’ll pass. Thank you for the offer. I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself.” Grinning, she gave me a visual once-over. “Immensely, even.”
Chapter 17
Wringing Out the Sheets
One p.m. arrived far too quickly, but to my credit, I was at the spa on time. Technically, though, I was still in the parking lot debating the matter of actually going in at the top of the hour.
Before entering the building, I circled the outside and had one prolonged moment in which I realized that this place reminded me of some childhood image I had of an insane asylum. When I opened the door to the main entrance, I was instantly awash in that indoor-swimming-pool type of air—humid with the faint odor of chlorine. The lobby itself resembled a fancy swimming pool—a mosaic of tile on the floor and walls, furnished in bamboo patio furniture. (Not to say that most people put bamboo furniture in their pools.)
I dragged myself to the desk, where a smiling receptionist greeted me. “Hello. Welcome to Jackson.” She spoke in a low, breathy voice that instantly set my teeth on edge. “Do you have an appointment?”
“Probably. My name is Molly Masters.”
“Ah, yes. You’re right on time for your one-fifteen.”
“Actually, my appointment was at one P.M.”
“No, your friend who made this appointment specifically said that you’d be late unless she told you to be here earlier than your actual appointment time. Have a seat, please, and Hilga will be right with you.”
“Who’s Hilga?”
“Your personal escort. She’ll run your bath and guide you to each station fo
r your full body-works experience. Please, relax. It is our job to pamper you for the next few hours.”
“Goodie.” I hate that word: pamper. Makes me think of diapers. I dropped into the nearest seat. Hilga. I was about to be diapered by some Swedish goddess type who’d make me feel like a member of an inferior species.
“Here’s Hilga now,” the receptionist said, as a stooped-over, prune-faced elderly woman shuffled into the room.
I got to my feet and found that I towered over the woman. Okay, I told myself, I’d made an off-base assumption about the woman’s name. Maybe I’d find that I underestimated this entire experience. Lauren knew me well, after all, and if she thought I’ d enjoy this, she was probably right. Much as I doubted it.
“This way,” Hilga told me, her sharp voice a striking contrast to the receptionist’s. I followed, straining to walk slowly as she led me down the hall. “You start with the mineral bath itself. Then the massage. Then the facial. By the time you’re through, you’ll look and feel ten years younger.”
If this woman was anything less than a hundred and ten years old, I had serious doubts about this place’s rejuvenating powers.
The hallway we inched along resembled an ancient and oversize airport bathroom—a badly maintained bathroom, at that. “The baths are in here. You got the middle one, here. You got your own private dressing room.”
She pushed the metal stall door open for me, then stepped inside with me. The area was not much larger than a handicap toilet stall, but with a built-in bed/bench along one side. The thin mattress was reasonably clean, but looked like something from a prison warehouse sale. The Hilga person was still standing beside me. “If it’s private, aren’t you going to leave?”
“I got to run the bath for you and get you in. That’s part of the service.”
“But I’ve been running my own baths for years now. I really, truly know how to get into a bathtub. And out of one.”
“It’s also a safety issue, miss.”
I looked around, desperate now to escape. At the back of this little dressing room was a second stall door, which had to lead to the tub itself. A small laminated sign on the front wall listed the suggested tip for one’s bath escort. “Hilga, how much could I tip you to let me get into and out of my own bath?”
“Don’t you want the hot sheet wrap? It feels great.”
“Call me compulsively modest, but I have a thing about perfect strangers seeing me naked.”
She flicked her pruny hand at me. “Miss, I been doing this job for twenty years now.” She reached around the front stall door, then shut it behind us and handed me a frayed, once-white, rust-stained towel, roughly the size of a placemat. “Believe me, there ain’t a body type I ain’t seen, and I’m long past noticing or caring.”
“I’m sure that’s true. But the same isn’t the case for me, but I’d feel stupid closing my own eyes.”
“You’ll be fine.” She shuffled past me, entered the second stall, and turned on the bath water. I took a peek at the tub, which had to be the least-appealing bathtub I’d ever seen. It was an old-fashioned white tub with claw feet, but the insides were a dark, red-brown hue.
“Yow. Talk about rust stains.”
“That’s caused by all the minerals in the water. You know, some of our most famous presidents enjoyed these very same hot springs.”
“I’m sure that’s true. It’s just that I’d hoped somebody would have cleaned the tub since then.”
“Pardon?”
Resigned to my fate and wondering just what Lauren had been thinking when she got me this “gift,” I undressed and flattened my placemat-cum-towel against my significant body parts in the front, having to give up on any notion of hiding the fact that there was a full moon showing in the back. I’m sure that when these baths were first built, they were really elegant. At the moment, though, I would have been more inclined to take a dip in the toilet at a well-maintained truck stop. Hilga, my personal trucker lady, grabbed my arm and “helped” me maintain my balance as I stepped into the tub.
“You can just let your washcloth float on the water surface, since you’re shy.”
I took that to mean my placemat was actually a washcloth. She left without another word, or a guffaw, and I settled into the slightly rotten-egg-scented warm water, and watched the tiny bubbles form on my skin. I instantly resembled a gigantic Alka-Seltzer tablet. I concentrated on the concept of my body fizzling away entirely, while plotting how I could possibly reciprocate appropriately when Lauren’s birthday rolled around next spring. And yet, despite the less-than-elegant surroundings, the water did feel wonderful on my aching muscles. I felt my body begin, to relax, in spite of myself.
In the stall next to mine, a woman was having a conversation with her friend. They were speaking at a volume that indicated that the two women were not sharing a tub but rather had requested adjacent ones. I tuned them out, trying hard to assure myself that I hadn’t ticked off Lauren, and that from here on, my enjoyment would escalate. I pricked my ears up, however, when one of the women said, “They sure are having quite the problems in Carlton with that school board, aren’t they? I mean, things were ugly enough before. Now they’re murdering one another.”
“I’ll say,” her friend responded. “Makes me glad my own kids are grown, so that I’m no longer affected personally by what goes on.”
I gritted my teeth at that, knowing exactly what she meant, and yet also knowing what a false sense of security it was ever to dismiss education as not having an impact on one’s own life. It only stood to reason, too, that these “splashy” murders would be the subject of conversation in a bath house. I had instantly lost any hope of relaxation.
“I can’t believe they’re not kicking that murderer off the board,” said one woman.
“They don’t even know who did it yet,” said the other.
“Of course they do. It’s obvious that the killer’s that man who was written up in the papers. Charles Peterson.”
In an example of how far I had to go till I could take remarks such as that one lying down, even while soaking in a tub, I sat up, hoisted myself partially out of the tub enough to pound on the metal partition that separated us, and cried, “Hey! That’s my father you’re talking about in there. And he’s innocent!”
There was a momentary silence. Then the woman said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend anyone. I didn’t realize…you were in there.”
“What made you leap to the conclusion that my father is guilty?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. I, uh, sorry.” She called out loudly, “Hey, lady with the towels? Isn’t it about time we got out of here? I’m getting all pruny.”
“Me too,” her friend called.
“Be right there,” someone answered, probably Hilga, but I couldn’t say for certain.
There were various rustling and bumping noises as the women got out of their tubs. After a couple of minutes, the room was completely silent, and I took this to mean that I was the last bather in the place.
Suddenly my door opened, and I tried to hide beneath my rusty little washcloth, then laughed. The person had a sheet draped over her entire body, with just the holes cut out for the eyes.
“If you’re the bath attendant, this really is not what I intended toward protecting my modesty. I’m supposed to be the one under the sheet.”
The sheeted person walked up to the edge of my tub and knelt without a word. Her hands were covered by rubber gloves, and she grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed. In a tribute to how strong my sense of disbelief was, even after she’d shoved my head completely under the surface of the water, I was thinking: I’m so not giving her a tip after this! She’s shoving me under instead of helping me out!
An instant later, it dawned on me that this wasn’t a joke. Someone truly was trying to drown me.
I had automatically gasped and had a lung full of air when the sheeted person shoved me under. That precious breath of air was not going to last me for long.
<
br /> I flailed madly, trying to get myself free. My assailant had a grip on my hair, close to the scalp. I grabbed the attacker’s hand to protect my scalp and tried to pull myself around sideways, using my elbows while kicking up with my legs.
It was no use. I couldn’t get any leverage.
My toe caught on the chain. I kicked the plug out and hoped that the water would drain before I lost consciousness.
My lungs were already burning, and I had a strong urge to take in another breath, even though I knew that I’d only be filling my lungs with water. My eyes began to sting.
Suddenly the person rose, and I managed to get up, sputtering and coughing for air.
“Hey! What are you doing to her?” someone cried.
Hilga! She had caught my assailant in the act and saved my life.
My assailant, still under the sheet, barreled into the elderly woman. Hilga let out a grunt of protest as she fell, falling backward into the partition.
I was struggling too hard to regain my breath to do anything else. Instead of chasing after the person, Hilga looked at me. “Are you all right?”
My head felt as though it would explode, my pulse was racing so, but I managed to nod. “You okay?”
“I’m too old for this nonsense,” she muttered, rubbing the back of her head where she’d hit the wall. “Who was that?”
“I don’t know. The person was covered by the sheet.”
Hilga was not going to be able to give chase, and I got to my knees, gripping the edge of the tub.
“Can’t you trip an alarm?” I asked.
She made her way out of the stall, and I stepped out of the tub, shivering, wrapping my arms around myself as best I could. She came back a moment later. “He’s long gone. Went out the emergency exit. Nobody saw him. I’m sorry.”
“Him?”
“Well, yeah. That’s what I figured. Didn’t you?”
I shook my head, my teeth chattering as I dripped all over the floor. “Hilga. Could you please call the police? And get me my heated sheet? Or better yet, a freaking towel?”
Death on a School Board (Book 5 Molly Masters Mysteries) Page 19
