Pumped for Murder Read online

  “Could be,” Phil said. “Is it any duller than standing at a shop counter?”

  “I guess not,” Helen said. “Maybe Margery has some ideas to make a more lively living. Our landlady has a stake in our future, too. Our office is in her apartment complex. Is it time for the nightly poolside gathering?”

  “It’s seven ten,” Phil said, checking the bedside clock. He pulled on his jeans. “Should be just starting.”

  “Wait. We haven’t fed the cat yet,” Helen said, buttoning her blouse. “Thumbs is at my place.”

  “Are you sure it’s a good idea to keep two apartments?” Phil asked.

  “My tax attorney said no major lifestyle changes until I settle my IRS problem,” Helen said.

  “Getting married isn’t a lifestyle change?”

  “He meant we shouldn’t throw money around buying luxury cars and mansions. Besides, keeping my own apartment and sneaking into yours makes marriage seem illicit.”

  A furious cat greeted Helen at her apartment door with loud yowls of protest. Thumbs was mostly white with gray-brown patches. His giant six-toed front paws gave him his name. Thumbs followed Helen into the kitchen. He flipped over his food bowl with one huge paw.

  “Hey! That’s not nice,” Helen said.

  Thumbs stared at her with angry green eyes.

  “I should know better than to lecture a cat,” she said, flipping his bowl back over and pouring his dinner. Thumbs edged her hand out of the way and buried his face in his food.

  Helen found a box of white wine in her fridge, rummaged for a can of cashews and headed outside.

  The Coronado Tropic Apartments, built in 1949, looked like a white ocean liner. A hot breeze stirred the palm trees in the courtyard, and small waves rippled the pool’s tepid water. Margery Flax and their neighbor Peggy were stretched out on the poolside chaise longues like Victorian maidens.

  The real maidens would have fainted if they’d seen Margery. Helen’s seventy-six-year-old landlady was wearing a purple romper. Her long, tanned legs ended in eggplant espadrilles. Marlboro smoke veiled her face. Her sunset orange fingernails glowed through the cigarette smoke.

  Margery’s face was wrinkled, but she wore her age like an exotic accessory. Her steel gray hair ended at a necklace of charms—Helen saw martini glasses, wine bottles, olives, lemons, wineglasses, drink stirrers and a small corkscrew, each about the size of a beer cap.

  “Cool necklace,” Phil said.

  “It’s called a statement necklace,” Margery said.

  “Looks like yours says it’s time for a drink,” Phil said.

  “Drink!” came a raucous voice. “Drink!”

  “Pete’s learned a new word,” Peggy said. Her Quaker parrot was perched on her shoulder like a corsage. Pete was the same bright green as Peggy’s long gauzy dress.

  “And a useful word it is,” Margery said. She raised her wineglass in a salute to the gray-headed parrot. “Let’s drink.”

  “Good boy,” Peggy said. “Here’s your reward.” She gave the bird a bit of broccoli. The parrot dropped it on the pool deck.

  “Poor Pete,” Helen said. “That’s some celebration when all you get is broccoli. Can he have a cashew?”

  “Sorry. That’s on his no-fly list,” Peggy said. “He’s still two ounces overweight.”

  Helen closed the lid on the can of nuts and stuck them under her chair.

  “Bye,” Pete said sadly.

  “We came here for help,” Phil said, dragging a chair over to the group. “Coronado Investigations needs to specialize to succeed. Any suggestions?”

  Peggy said, “Based on my past experience with men, you should investigate potential spouses and lovers. Right now, I’m dating a good guy, but my friend Shelby at work is looking for a detective. She’s having problems with her husband, Bryan. About a year ago, she bought him a gym membership. Bryan has lost twenty-five pounds. He works out seven days a week. He’s got a killer body.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Helen asked.

  “Shelby hasn’t had sex with him since he started looking good. She’s convinced he has buffed himself up for another woman.”

  “Or man,” Phil said. “Fort Lauderdale may have more gays than San Francisco.”

  “Whoever it is, Shelby needs an answer,” Peggy said.

  “Sounds promising,” Phil said.

  “I think you should help families,” Margery said. “The average person can afford you better than they can a big agency. You can investigate situations when the family can’t—or won’t—go to the police.”

  “Like finding runaways and deadbeat dads?” Phil said.

  “Partly,” Margery said. “My mechanic has a problem. Gus thinks his brother’s suicide was a murder. He wants to hire an investigator to prove his brother was killed. He died in the eighties.”

  “Opening a cold case can cost a lot of money,” Phil said.

  “He’s got it,” Margery said. “Gus charges me eighty bucks an hour to work on my car. He specializes in vintage restorations.”

  “I thought your Lincoln Town Car was fairly new.”

  “Then I’m the vintage restoration,” Margery said. “You want the job or not?”

  “What’s his number?” Phil asked.

  “I have him on speed dial.” Margery opened her cell phone and hit a number.

  “Gus?” she asked. “You still want that detective? I’ve found a good agency—Coronado Investigations.” She listened a moment, then asked, “Can you meet him at his repair shop?”

  She looked at Phil. He nodded. So did Helen.

  “It’s they, Gus,” Margery said. “You’re hiring the best team of shamuses in South Florida. They don’t come cheap, but you can afford it after my car bills.What did you do last time on my Lincoln—a heart transplant? Coronado Investigations will see you at seven tomorrow night.”

  Peggy had her own cell phone out. She snapped it shut and said, “My friend Shelby really wants you to start, too. She’ll stop by at seven tomorrow morning before she goes to work.”

  “Amazing,” Helen said. “We got two jobs sitting by the pool.”

  “Enjoy the honeymoon,” Margery said. “It won’t ever be this easy again.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Shelby Minars was blond, desperate and drop-dead gorgeous—the proper client for a couple of PIs drunk on the romance of their profession.

  “Welcome, Shelby.” Phil smiled at Coronado Investigations’ first client. “You’re here at seven a.m. on the dot.”

  Shelby teetered in on red heels and flashed an uneasy smile. Helen thought Shelby looked young enough to be a schoolgirl in her red polka-dot sundress. She clutched her little white purse as if it were a life preserver.

  Helen and Phil sat in their matching black-and-chrome club chairs. Shelby arranged herself in the yellow client chair, crossing her pale legs. The painted toenails peeping through the open toes looked like Red Hots.

  Phil stared at Shelby’s toes with that silly smile still plastered on his face. He pulled himself out of his toe trance and raised his eyes to Shelby’s face.

  “How can we help?” Phil asked.

  “I’m going to kill my husband,” Shelby announced.

  “Be careful with statements like that,” Phil said. “We’re required to report threats to the police.”

  “I think my husband, Bryan, is cheating on me,” she said. “I think it’s true, but I don’t want it to be. I hope it’s not true. That’s why I need your agency.”

  We need you to pay the electric bill, Helen thought. “We can’t help you without facts,” she said. “Why do you believe your husband is unfaithful?”

  “I met Bryan in high school. We’ve been married seven years,” Shelby said. “We’ve always been happy. At least, I thought we were. We have a four-bedroom house in Rio Vista.”

  She paused, waiting for the congratulations.

  “Nice neighborhood,” Helen said. It was, too. Rio Vista’s biggest crime problem was golf-cart rustlin
g.

  “Yes,” Shelby said. “Bryan got us a good deal on our home.”

  “Is he a doctor?” Phil asked.

  “A lot of doctors live in Rio Vista, but Bryan is a successful real estate salesman. At least, he was until the Florida real estate market tanked. My husband has been restless and worried since the housing market fell apart. He’s not getting commissions like he used to. Real estate isn’t expected to spring back anytime soon. We have plenty of money to live on, but Bryan had too much free time. He started drinking too much and taking long lunches. He put on twenty-five pounds. I couldn’t have my honey slipping into a depression, so I bought him a membership at Fantastic Fitness of Fort Lauderdale.”

  “That’s the big gym on Federal Highway?” Phil asked.

  Shelby nodded.

  “When did you buy the membership?” Helen asked.

  “Last June,” Shelby said. “Bryan didn’t seem enthusiastic about my gift at first. He’d work out maybe once a week and come back in forty-five minutes—and that included his drive time. About a month into his membership, Bryan changed. Now he goes to the gym seven days a week. He can spend five or six hours there.”

  “Is he really working out,” Phil asked, “or watching babes?”

  “He’s definitely working out. He looks so hot. Bryan is a mass of rippling muscle. Put him in a pirate shirt, and he could model for romance-novel covers.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Helen asked.

  Shelby studied her red-painted nails. “There’s no romance,” she said. “Not for me. My husband has lost interest in me.”

  “Maybe he’s tired from working out,” Helen said. “How old is Bryan?”

  “Forty,” Shelby said. “I’m two years younger. Forty is a dangerous age for men. They get restless. There’s someone else. I’m sure. Almost sure. I need you to make sure.”

  “Have you seen any signs of infidelity?” Phil said.

  “I never caught him with another woman,” Shelby said.

  “There are other, less obvious clues,” Phil said. “One giveaway is when a spouse uses a different soap than you have at home.”

  “We use Irish Spring. But Bryan showers at the gym, so that won’t help.”

  “Have you found matchbooks from strange restaurants? An earring or feminine item of clothing in his car or gym bag? Numbers on his cell phone he calls often that you don’t recognize? Odd charges on your credit card statements?”

  “Bryan has lots of callers I don’t know on his cell phone,” Shelby said. “It’s part of his real estate job. There are no unusual charges on our credit cards. I haven’t found any lipstick on his shirts.

  “But I did catch him lying. A month ago, Bryan told me he was showing a house in Victoria Park. He left at noon Sunday, saying he was going to meet the Jacksons. At twelve thirty I got a call from Bryan’s office. Renee said the Jacksons were waiting at the office to see the house. She asked if I knew where Bryan was. His cell phone went straight into voice mail. I called, too, and he didn’t answer. Renee said not to bother; she’d take the Jacksons herself.

  “Bryan came back about five that afternoon and said the Jacksons had looked at the house, but he didn’t think they were interested. I didn’t mention Renee’s call, but I was suspicious. We hadn’t had . . .”

  Shelby stopped and looked at Helen and Phil with sad hazel eyes. “We haven’t had marital relations in more than six months. I’d asked him again and again if anything was wrong. He insisted he was fine. I offered to go to a marriage counselor. He said nothing was wrong. I didn’t believe him.

  “Bryan did something strange the next morning. He said he had to go to work—at six a.m. Nobody shows houses that early, and I said so. Bryan said he had a lot of paperwork. After the day before, I was suspicious. I waited fifteen minutes, then drove to his real estate office. No one was there. The lights were off. Fantastic Fitness is on my way home. I saw his car parked in the lot. I peeked in the gym window. Bryan was sweating on a treadmill.”

  “Anyone working out with him?” Phil asked.

  “Lots of people,” Shelby said. “But they were all men. I thought maybe Bryan wasn’t interested in me because I’m not as fit as the women at his gym.”

  Shelby gave a long pause, as if she expected Helen or Phil to protest that she looked fine. Both kept silent on that subject.

  “So what happened?” Helen said.

  “I bought a membership, too. I thought we could work out together. But Bryan wouldn’t go with me. If I went in the morning, he went in the afternoon. If I worked out in the afternoon, he went at night. I started dropping in at different times, hoping I’d catch him. As soon as he saw me, he’d make some excuse and leave. Then he’d sneak back to the gym later when I wasn’t around.”

  “How do you know that?” Phil asked.

  “I paid Carla, the girl at the reception desk, twenty dollars to let me see the check-ins on the computer,” Shelby said. “Bryan is shaping up for someone, and it isn’t me. I want you to find out who he’s seeing.”

  “I could work out at the gym and follow him,” Phil said.

  “That could be difficult,” Shelby said. “Bryan is sneaky and observant. It would be too easy for him to figure out he’s being followed and change his hours like he did with me.”

  Shelby slipped off her red high heel. It dangled from her painted toes as she slowly swung her leg back and forth. Phil’s eyes were drawn to those Red Hots toes as if they were little magnets.

  “I have a better idea,” Shelby said. “The gym is looking for a receptionist. Maybe Helen could work there as a receptionist. If you wouldn’t mind, I mean.”

  “Why would I mind?” Helen said.

  “Well, being a detective is highly skilled. Receptionists just answer the phone and check in members. The job may be too low for you.”

  “No job is too low,” Helen said, and then looked at Shelby’s startled face. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind working as a receptionist.”

  “There are mirrors everywhere, and you could watch Bryan without him knowing he’s being watched,” she said. “You could keep the money you’ll make as a receptionist and I’ll pay, too. That way you get paid double, Helen.”

  “Nice,” Phil said. “I can answer phones. I’d make a terrific receptionist.”

  “I’m sure you would,” Shelby said. “But the club doesn’t hire guys for the reception desk. That job is for women only. The men are trainers and salesmen. They make more money.”

  “That sounds like a lawsuit,” Helen said. “I used to be a director of human relations at a big company. They were careful about gender bias.”

  Shelby nervously swung her leg. Her red heel dangled from a single toe. Phil’s eyes were glued to the painted pinkie.

  “The club promotes the women to trainers, too, as soon as they buff up,” Shelby said. “The women are so happy to make more money and get away from the desk, they never complain. The club lets the receptionists work out for free, so you could get in shape, too. I mean, if you wanted.You look just fine.”

  “I hate working out,” Helen said.

  “Me, too,” Shelby said. “At the gym the trainers said an early-morning workout gives you energy for the rest of the day, but it just left me exhausted. Phil, you’re ripped enough to be a trainer, but Bryan already has one. Her name is Jan Kurtz.”

  Phil tore his eyes away from Shelby’s tootsies to ask, “Could Bryan be having an affair with this Jan?”

  “I don’t think so,” Shelby said. “Carla at the front desk says Jan is having an affair with Nick. He’s another client. Nick is married, but that doesn’t seem to stop anyone there.”

  “Sounds like an interesting place,” Phil said. “Helen, you could get paid to be in this soap opera.”

  “We’ll need a recent picture of Bryan,” Helen said.

  “I have one with me,” Shelby said, pulling a snapshot from her purse. Helen raised one eyebrow. Bryan wore a Speedo that barely covered his private parts. The man had
to shave down there, too.

  “Isn’t he amazing?” Shelby asked.

  “Let me get you a contract, Shelby,” Helen said. “If you come over to my desk, I’ll explain the terms and rates.”

  Shelby slipped her red heel back on and trotted over to Helen’s desk. She nodded as Helen talked about the payment schedule, barely glanced at the contract before she signed it, and wrote a check for one thousand dollars.

  “These desks are amazing,” she said, running her small, painted paw over the beat-up gray surface.

  Phil looked like a pooch that had been patted on the head. He was proud of the battered gunmetal desks. To him, they were vintage. As a final romantic private-eye touch, he’d added a framed poster of Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade.

  “They’re so old,” Shelby said. “Did you get them at a museum or something? And who’s the funny-looking guy with the bird statue in the poster?”

  “Sam Spade,” Phil said. “From The Maltese Falcon. It’s a classic detective movie.”

  “I don’t like old movies,” Shelby said, wrinkling her nose, “but my grandfather watches them. He’s got lots of time now that he’s in assisted living.”

  Phil looked like he’d been walloped with a walker. Shelby waved good-bye as she tripped across the terrazzo.

  “Thank you, Shelby,” Helen said.

  “Bye,” Phil said.

  Helen kissed Phil on his ear and said, “See you, Gramps. I’m off to get a job at the gym.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Fantastic Fitness of Fort Lauderdale looked like a gym on steroids. Walls stuck out at gravity-defying angles. Windows appeared in improbable places. The gym was bigger than many corporate headquarters.

  The automatic doors opened with the whoosh! of a spacecraft’s air lock. Helen was hit with a blast of refrigerated air and pounding techno-pop. A wall of muscle blocked her way inside.

  “I’m Logan,” he said.

  Logan was built like an anatomy chart. All the muscle groups were visible under his skin. Helen could even see his chest muscles through his tight tank top. She caught the outline of more muscle under his tiny white shorts. Veins were popped out on his neck, thighs and biceps. Even his chin had muscles. The center dimple looked like it had been installed with a drill bit.