Ripe for Murder Read online

  “That’s her. She must be asleep.” I reached over and tapped her on the shoulder. “Kim?” Nothing. I shook her lightly. “She must really be a heavy sleeper.” I gave her another shake, and this time the cucumber slices fell away and her face rolled toward me. Her eyes were open, but there were dark red marks around her neck, and she was very, very dead.

  Nineteen

  I SENSED rather than heard Sandie screaming behind me. I couldn’t hear her because the hammering in my head was even louder. I shivered in the hot air and backed away from Kim, bumping right into Sandie. She hadn’t moved, and I turned to face her. Even though I knew she was right in front of me, my vision had narrowed and she seemed to be in a tunnel. Her screams brought Suzette, who stopped next to Sandie and joined in on the screaming.

  My mind couldn’t get around what was on the bench behind me, so I just stood there and watched them scream, Sandie with the blonde hair and black smock, and Suzette with the black hair and white smock. Negatives of each other. Was it a coincidence the smocks were in contrast to their hair? What if they hired a redhead? What would she wear?

  I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm myself. I couldn’t think with the screams bouncing off the walls, and without hesitating, I slapped the one on the right. Maybe Sandie. They both stopped instantly and stood there in shocked silence.

  “Turn off the steam and call the police,” I said, my voice loud in my ears.

  Without a word they turned, one to the thermostat on the side wall and the other to the wall phone.

  I looked back over my shoulder at Kim. I really didn’t want to go back in there, but the police would be here within minutes. If I wanted a closer look, this was my one chance.

  I took a moment to change into my robe. Knotting the belt tightly around my waist, I crept back into the steam room. The open door and closed vent had cleared the room, and now puddles formed and water dripped from the ceiling.

  Kim was on her back in a one-piece green swimsuit. Her long hair was wrapped in a towel, and she had a diamond stud in her right earlobe. Her left ear was bare.

  The roar in my ears returned, but I pushed it down and took a closer look at her neck. Angry red marks stood out on her pale skin. Without touching her, I positioned my hand over the bruised skin. It was a wide reach with a hand larger than mine, and I’m not a small person.

  I took a step back. There wasn’t any sign of a struggle. After she was dead, the killer must have repositioned her, making it look as if she’d fallen asleep. Either that or she was unconscious when she was killed. If they hadn’t come to collect her for her massage, she could have been there for a while.

  There was one deep mark about the size of a thumb on the left side of her neck and several smaller marks on the right. I tried to move behind her but the roof sloped, making it impossible. If the killer had done this where she was, which was likely, he was probably left-handed.

  “What do you think you’re doing in here?”

  I knew the voice and tried to gather my thoughts before I turned around. It was Chief Lawrence Harding, and I was in for it.

  “Wow. You got here really fast.”

  Wrong thing to say.

  He narrowed his eyes. “You! I might have known.” He rested one hand on his hip and with the other he caressed the butt of his gun, as though I might be a threat requiring its use.

  “Believe me, I didn’t ask to be the one to find her. I just took a steam bath and didn’t even realize she was, she was . . .” I dropped back down on the tile bench, put my head between my knees, and pushed a couple of deep breaths into my lungs. When my head cleared, I stood. “I’m surprised to see you so soon. I mean, they just called.”

  “I was in the area. Lucky for me. Unlucky for you. Seems like you’ve been at the center of all the trouble this week. Why don’t you tell me what you were doing? This is a crime scene.”

  I fingered my locker key in the pocket of my robe, scooped it out, and dangled it in front of him. “I just came back in to get this.”

  “And you didn’t disturb the body?”

  “No. Except when I shook it.” I stifled a groan. Even I could hear the problem with that one.

  “Do you want to explain yourself?”

  “We thought she was asleep! Ask Sandie up front. I think she was the one I slapped. She came in to get Kim for her massage, and I tried to wake her.”

  “You slapped someone?”

  “She wouldn’t shut up.”

  He looked angry, or maybe he was just uncomfortable in the warm, damp room. His face was bright red, and the paunch he’d squeezed into a uniform two sizes too small bulged over the top of his pants.

  “Do you want to continue this conversation somewhere else?” I glanced behind me. “I wouldn’t mind moving if it’s all the same to you.”

  He swiped at the top of his head as water continued to drip from the ceiling. “Go for now, but don’t leave the spa. My deputy will be along soon. When he can take charge of this room, I’m going to want to have a talk with you.”

  “Sure.” I pulled the robe around me. “I’ll just wait out front.”

  He didn’t answer and turned back to the body.

  Just out of sight, I stopped. I’d had my locker key in my robe pocket. Kim didn’t have a key on her now. The robe from earlier still hung outside the steam room. I peeked around the corner. Harding was bent over Kim, his back to the door.

  I ran my hands across the robe pockets and immediately felt the outline of a key. I slipped my hand into the pocket and grabbed it just moments before Harding came out to grab a towel from the stack to wipe his forehead. Before he spotted me, I scooted around the corner leading back to the dressing room.

  The locker numbers were etched into the sides of the keys, and I made my way to Kim’s locker. Number twelve. The door opened with a small rush of air. In the front were Kim’s dress and matching sandals, both in navy blue. To the back was a black Coach shoulder bag. I pulled it out, wrestled it into the folds of my robe and ducked into one of the private dressing rooms. I spread out the towel I had wrapped around my head and set the purse on it.

  Kim’s purse was perfectly arranged and looked nothing like the inside of mine. A neat little cosmetics bag held just the essentials, and for some reason her powder blush and eye shadow were in one piece. Mine always shattered within a day or two. Another little matching case had small containers of headache and stomach relievers, tweezers, an emery board and a small sewing kit. A small notebook and attached pen fell out, holding flight information and little else. Reading glasses, her phone and a mystery paperback were the only remaining items.

  A quick check of her phone showed calls to the Chicago area. Nothing local. Another pocket held a printout of the profits and losses for the train company. It matched the copy I’d been given. Finally, I ran my hand along the bottom of the bag, looking for the missing diamond stud. Nothing. I replaced everything, scurried back to her locker and shoved the bag back where I’d found it.

  Using the wall phone, I called the hotel front desk. I told them Antonia would be asking to enter my room and that I gave my permission for her to do so. Then I asked to be transferred to her room.

  “Penny, why on earth are you calling? You’re supposed to be getting your massage. I must say I wouldn’t have spent the money if I didn’t think you were going to relax and enjoy it.”

  “Antonia, I didn’t get a massage. What I did get was another body. George is going to let you into my room. Grab me some sweat clothes and get down here.”

  To her credit, she didn’t ask any questions. She didn’t even say good-bye. Ten minutes later she walked through the spa front door. For a woman her age, she knew how to move when she wanted to. She practically sprinted up to me, waving off Sandie when she tried to stop her.

  “Talk to me,” she said.

  I summed up what had happened th
rough the changing-room curtain as I slipped into the sweats.

  “What did you find in her bag?” Antonia asked.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary.” I stepped out from behind the curtain. “Wait here.”

  “Where on earth are you going?”

  “To return a key.”

  The spa girls weren’t in sight and, for the scene of a murder, the hall was eerily quiet, although I heard Harding from somewhere within the spa. I reached the steam room, dropped the key back in Kim’s robe and was back with Antonia moments later.

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “Nope. Not that I learned anything from checking her locker. Why would anyone want Kim dead?”

  “Well, you must have seen or learned something.”

  “I saw her neck.” I shut my eyes and swallowed hard. “She looked peaceful enough, until I saw the bruises. Someone crossed her arms. She looked like she could have been asleep from a distance.” I stared into nothing as the image came back to me. “My first thought when I saw the marks was the killer was left-handed.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “There was a row of small bruises on the right side of her neck and one dark deep bruise on the left side.” My mouth went dry and a cold sweat ran down the center of my spine. “The size of a thumb.”

  “I wonder if her husband is left-handed.”

  I shook my head. “It couldn’t have been Jim. He was with Connor, playing bocce ball. I saw him right before I got here.”

  “Okay then, what if it was a tennis player, someone used to gripping a racket all day using both hands . . .?”

  I took over. “Someone equally strong with both hands. That would fit, but I don’t know why Vance would want to kill her. Of course, the same could be said for Big Dave, Bill or even Seth. Why would any of the men in our group want to kill Kim?” I rubbed my temples. “And yet, it’s got to be one of them.”

  “No doubt,” Antonia said. “There has to be a connection with Tara’s death. Someone went to the trouble to sneak in here to kill Kim. That’s too much work for it to be a random murder.” She pounded her fist in her palm. “I just don’t understand it. Surely a mistake’s been made. Why would anyone want to kill Kim?”

  I sat down hard on the changing bench. “What if that’s exactly what happened? A mistake, I mean. I just said it myself. Nobody wanted Kim dead. The one they want dead is me.” I grabbed the corner. “When I checked in to the spa, Kim and I were the only two getting massages. We were both wearing identical robes.”

  Antonia tilted her head and studied me. “You could be mistaken for Kim from the rear, especially if both of you had your hair up in towels.”

  “We did. And it’s practically impossible to see in the steam room.”

  “But at some point, he would have realized his mistake,” Antonia said. “He would have stopped once he saw it wasn’t you.”

  “Oh, no,” I said, feeling sick. “You’re wrong. Once he grabbed her, she was dead either way. There wasn’t anything he could have said to explain why he’d attacked her, so he needed to make sure she wasn’t around to say anything.”

  Antonia considered, then took my hand. “You mustn’t blame yourself.”

  “Kim died because of my snooping.”

  “Nonsense.” Antonia stamped her foot. “Kim died because there’s a murderer on the loose. It’s time the police stopped looking at Chantal. She couldn’t have done this. For one thing, she was in her room.”

  “She doesn’t have the strength, for another,” I said, remembering the angry marks on Kim’s neck. “Let’s go find Chief Harding.”

  Twenty

  “I THINK you’d be surprised at how strong someone can be, in the grips of an uncontrolled emotion.” Harding sat at the desk in the spa office, his laced fingers resting on his stomach.

  “You can’t actually believe Chantal did this to that poor girl.” Antonia had insisted she be allowed to join me and, to my surprise, Harding had agreed. A determined Antonia is a hard woman to deny.

  “What I can’t believe is how the two of you fail to understand how police interviews work. I’ll be the one asking questions.”

  “At least tell me you agree that the two murders are connected,” I said.

  “It’s certainly a possibility, which is why I’m keeping my list of suspects open at this point, including Chantal and everyone that had access to this spa.” He narrowed his eyes. “The fact that you found the body doesn’t mean you aren’t on that list as well.”

  “If I’d known I was in a steam room with anybody, and I mean any body, I would have been out the door.”

  “Not necessarily. Not if you were guilty. What better place to hide than in plain sight? However,” he raised his voice over my protestations, “I have other suspects with more motive than you. No, we’ll continue our investigation and follow the leads wherever they take us. It could even be a robbery that ended with unintended consequences.”

  I caught myself before I snorted. “Two days after someone else in the same group of people is thrown off a train? Quite the coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

  He ignored my question. “Did you see a diamond earring?”

  “No. I saw she was wearing only one. Maybe it was lost when she was killed.”

  “Maybe. My deputy is searching the victim’s bag for it now.”

  Good luck finding it there.

  “We think Penny might have been the target and that the killer made a mistake,” Antonia said.

  Harding raised a brow and his lip curled faintly. “Really. You’re just going to insist on voicing your opinions on this, aren’t you? So go ahead, Penny, tell me why you think you might have been the intended victim.”

  I gave him the quick version of being followed along the bike path and getting shut in the Berninni caves. While I spoke he looked at his watch several times and checked his phone. When I finished, he sighed.

  “So you think you might have heard someone on the bike path yesterday morning.” He rocked back in the chair behind the desk.

  “I know it doesn’t sound like much, but you weren’t there. Just the way the birds, everything, stopped. It just felt wrong, and I’m sure I was being watched. Followed.”

  “Right. And then at Berninni Winery someone turned off all the power when you were alone in the caves. It could have been a coincidence.”

  “It can’t be a coincidence that both things happened to me on the same day.”

  “If something happened on the bike path, and I’m not convinced there was anything to cause real concern, there’s nothing to connect the two events.”

  “Together they could be taken as a warning,” I said.

  “A warning? About what?”

  “Someone doesn’t like my asking questions, interfering.”

  “Well.” He rubbed his arm absently. “You’ve put me in the unusual position of finding myself in agreement with my suspect, whoever that might be. I don’t like you asking questions either.”

  “Indeed, somebody’s got to,” Antonia said.

  Harding focused his attention on Antonia. His jaw quivered, and when he spoke, he worked to control every word.

  “I will allow you some latitude since it’s your daughter you’re trying to protect.” He picked up a pencil, tapping it on the desk while he stared into space. Finally he dropped it and laced his fingers. “It looks like you’ve been asking questions in spite of my admonitions to stay out of it. If that’s the case, tell me what you’ve discovered about your fellow passengers.”

  I briefly outlined what I’d learned. Harding didn’t move, his eyes focused on the wall somewhere behind me. When I finished, he flattened his palms together and rested his chin on the tips of his fingers.

  “Vance was afraid Tara was spending his inheritance, Big Dave didn’t have a prenup, Seth was her high school l
over and was possibly rejected in his bid for a final fling, and Barb wanted Tara to keep her hands off Seth. That it?”

  My spine stiffened. “All pretty decent reasons to want someone dead. Better than that little scrap Tara had with Chantal.”

  He watched us for a moment, absently rubbing his chin, until finally he shook his head. “This is how we’re going to play this. I know you won’t stop meddling where you don’t belong, and we all know I can’t haul you both down to jail. How’s it going to look, me dragging winery owners in? Especially you two.”

  “Why especially us?” I asked.

  He leaned toward us, meaty elbows resting on the desk. “Because you’re a yapper, and she’s old enough to be my mother.”

  “It’s true,” Antonia said. “She is sort of a yapper.”

  I shot Antonia a look and Harding ignored the interruption. “So here’s how it’s going to work. Everything you hear, and I mean everything, I want to know about it.”

  Antonia sniffed. “I would have thought you’d be conducting your own interviews.”

  “I’ve interviewed everyone who was on that train. It doesn’t matter if you believe me. I don’t answer to you.”

  “Surely the reasons I just gave you prove that other passengers had as much motive as Chantal to kill Tara, if not more,” I said.

  He rubbed the back of his neck and frowned. “The problem is that nobody else could have been there but Chantal.” He swiveled his head toward me. “You’re the one who pointed out the tablecloths piled against the door. Nobody else entered that room after the brake was hit and the entry blocked.”

  “Yes, very clever of you, Penny.” Antonia raised her brow. “My daughter and I can’t thank you enough for sharing that interpretation of the crime scene.”

  “But.” He held up his hand. “There’s something about it I don’t like.” He tilted his head toward the door. “I also find it unlikely Chantal was responsible for this murder here.”