With their permission, Steve tape-recorded their exchange.
“This is a terrible loss,” Janger said. “She’d been with us for three years, and she was terrific. Smart, motivated, and dedicated to her clients, and they loved her. She was one of our best trainers.”
Dion nodded in agreement. “I still can’t believe it. She was very professional and a really fun person.” Her eyes filled up.
“Can you think of anyone who’d want to harm her?”
“No, not a soul,” Dion said.
Janger shook his head. “No one.”
“Do you know if she was personally close to any of the club members, maybe even dating any?”
“Actually,” said Janger, “we have a hard-and-fast rule that the staff cannot become involved with club members. We had a problem in our first year, and since then it’s been written in stone: no dating clientele.”
“To what consequence?”
“They’d be fired, no questions asked.”
“Seems like an effective deterrent.”
“So far so good.”
“Do you know if she was seeing anyone?”
“Not that I know of,” Janger said, and he looked to Dion.
She thought for a moment. “She didn’t say much about her private life.”
“So, she never mentioned going out with anyone—a dinner or movie date or whatever?”
“Not to me. But maybe to some of the other staff. Maybe Michelle San Marco. She’s one of the other aerobic instructors. She and Terry were pretty close, except she’s not in today. But I can give you her number.” And she jotted it down on one of her cards and gave it to him.
“I’d also like a list of her clients over the last three years.”
“Sure,” Alice said, and turned to her computer and hit a few keys. In a few minutes her printer kicked into action. When it was finished, she handed him a printout of a few dozen names, most of them women’s.
“If you’ll bear with me I’d like to do some cross-checking.”
“Sure,” Dion said. “Can I get you something in the meantime? Coffee, water, soft drink?”
“Water would be just fine, thanks.” Dion left, and Steve went down the list looking for matches to names from Terry Farina’s Rolodex—neighbors and friends the investigation had compiled. There were more than a hundred on the list, which he’d have to check for overlaps. But at a glance none jumped out but Neil French.
When Dion returned, Steve mentioned that his partner had hired Farina.
They both remembered him. “Big good-looking guy,” Janger said.
“Yes. She was his trainer for a while.”
“He must be pretty upset by this,” Dion said.
“He is.”
They talked some more, and when it was clear that they had nothing else to give him, Steve got up to leave. They walked him to the front door, where Steve handed them each his card. “Call me if you think of anything that might help.”
“Of course,” Janger said.
Alice Dion nodded as she studied Steve’s card.
As he was about to leave, she looked up and Steve felt something pass between them. The next moment she headed back to her office.
10
DERRY, NEW HAMPSHIRE
FALL 1970
“Mom, my head hurts.”
In the dim gray light of dawn he had padded from his room into the master bedroom where Lila slept alone in the big fancy canopy bed. His father had left while it was still dark that morning to drive to Boston’s Logan Airport in order to pilot the 747 he was assigned for the next several days. They had been out the night before, and Lila’s clothes were still draped across a chair, her black lace-top nylons hanging on the arm.
Still furry with sleep, Lila opened her eyes. “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.” She sat up and put her arms around him.
“I couldn’t even sleep,” he whimpered.
It was a month after the accident and the headaches were getting worse. She gave him a kiss on his forehead. “My poor little Beauty Boy.”
“It hurts so much.” His voice broke and he struggled not to cry as he rested his head against her.
“I know. I know. I’m so sorry.” She patted the side of the bed for him to sit down. “Want me to get the peas?”
A bag of frozen peas across his forehead worked when the headaches were mild, but not when they got this bad. “No.”
“Okay, I’ll get you your medicine, and that should do the trick.”
She got up and went to the bathroom and returned with a pill and a glass of water. She sat beside him, dressed in a shiny pink baby-doll nightie with a short bottom—a gift from his father last Valentine’s Day. And while he drank it down, she rubbed his leg. “Good boy. That will make you feel better.”
She got back into the bed and held up the covers for him to crawl in beside her. When he did, she pulled the covers over them both and snuggled up against him, his face against her chest. He could detect the sweet flowery scent of her perfume in her hair and on her breast. With one hand she gently massaged his temple. “Does that feel better?”
“Mmmm.”
She kissed him again. “Good,” and continued massaging him.
“But I wish you didn’t have that stupid accident.”
“Me, too, that stupid truck driver.”
“Yeah.”
She kissed him again. “You try to sleep, okay?”
“But what about school?”
It was the third week into fourth grade at Bishop Elementary. The cuts and bruises had all but healed. Except for a starburst scar on his forehead where he had hit the windshield, no one would have known that he had experienced a terrible car accident, sending him into a three-day coma.
“Well, I think we’re going to skip school today.”
“Okay.”
“Besides, all those kids and the noise is kind of scary when you’re not feeling well, right?”
“Uh-huh.” And he snuggled into the warm satiny pillow of her chest. Even though he liked school and had friends, including Becky Tolland who lived a few streets away, he welcomed a day with Lila.
“And you know what we can do when you’re feeling better? We can work on your model airplane and maybe do some drawing. Would you like that?”
The model 747 from his father he had completed in an hour and now it sat on a shelf. Since then Lila had bought him several more kits, including a fighter jet. He took to them with a passion, working for hours methodically fitting together the intricate pieces and affixing all the colorful decals. On occasion she would sit on the floor with him like another kid and put together a model as they did puzzles that she had bought. She had also bought him a sketchbook and different colored pencils. They would often sit and draw together.
“Uh-huh.”
“You know what?” she said. “You’re my best friend in the whole world.”
“Me, too.”
