Fatally Flaky

“My husband wanted to stay here a few days before we leave for our honeymoon,” Billie replied huffily. “Not that it’s any of your business.” With this, she picked up her plate and strode off.

In the kitchen, the presence of the other workers made conversation among Julian, Boyd, and me impossible. But when the two worker bees announced it was time for them to help the two servers clear the tables, Boyd and I lifted our eyebrows at each other.

I said, “Billie drove me crazy for months, then after changing the date twice, she finally got married, and they’re staying here, eating this food? Is she trying to lose more weight to fit into her bathing suit? I remember now that Craig Miller told me he had to change their tickets for getting to Greece, but why not stay in a hotel?”

Boyd rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know. It’s a good thing I’m helping you, though. I don’t like that woman. Whenever we get somebody who’s real belligerent, we think he or she might have had something to do with the crime. And I’ll tell you what, she was like a pit bull when we questioned her after Jack Carmichael was attacked.”

“Tell me about it. And where is Craig Miller? Sleeping in?” I didn’t really want to see either of the Millers, but I did have someone I wanted to talk to. I had the idea of checking the calendar of classes right outside the dining room. When I came back, I asked Boyd, “Any chance you and Julian could finish washing the dishes, and then set up for lunch? I need to go find someone named Isabelle. She works here, and is the only one who might have a key to the Smoothie Cabin, besides Victor,” I added.

“I promised your husband I wouldn’t let you out of my sight,” said Boyd.

“Then look out the front kitchen windows,” I said. “I’m going to pause out there, where Jack was attacked. Then I’ll be walking along a highly visible path to the gym, which is a highly visible structure, where Isabelle is.”

“Boss,” said Julian, “we should really start fixing lunch as soon as we get breakfast cleanup done. Any chance you know what Yolanda wants us to make?”

I showed him the kitchen computer, then booted it up, entered the password, and brought up the screen with monday lunch.

“Thanks, guys,” I said. I removed my apron, and walked quietly outside, while behind me, Julian shrieked, “That’s it? That’s disgusting!”

The area where Jack had been hit was surrounded by tattered yellow police ribbons. Since I’d already picked up my godfather’s Rolex and been bawled out for it by Tom, I knew better than to go into the cordoned-off section of lawn and garden, even though the absence of police probably meant they’d finished investigating this place. But…had they found anything out? I wondered if Tom would tell me. I took off for the gym.

Isabelle was more energetic than I expected. She was not attractive. Her freckled complexion was blotchy, her brown hair was pulled back in a low ponytail, and her too-thin ankles and wrists all canceled out any femininity quotient. But she knew how to move to a beat, and maybe her lack of prettiness gave the guests confidence, in a perverse way. I was amazed when she convinced even the most recalcitrant of the bunch—always in the back row, just like elementary school—to step up and wiggle their behinds. Billie Miller was right in front of the room’s big mirror, so I ducked behind an exercise bike to avoid being seen by her.

“What are you doing here?” Victor bellowed from in back of me. I was so startled I crashed over into the exercise bike, toppling it noisily to the floor. I tried to right it, but was too weak. Victor did it one-handed, all the while giving me a scalding look. I had to wonder: did this guy have an invisibility cloak that prevented me from seeing when he was sneaking up on me?

“I, I need to talk to Isabelle?” I proffered, scuttling around to put the newly upright exercise bike between the spa owner and myself. If Boyd was bothered by Billie’s bellicosity, I was giving the Hostility Prize to Victor.

“If you have so much time on your hands, away from the kitchen, that you need to sneak around my spa —”

“I’m not sneaking around!” I protested. “I was waiting for Isabelle. She was practically the last person to see my godfather alive—”

Victor smirked. “Then get into her class, Goldy! Look, there’s an empty spot right there in the front row —”

“The hell you say,” I retorted.

Victor pointed. “You want to talk to Isabelle? Go exercise with her.”

Omigod, why was this spa so popular? It just had to be one of those cases where the owner was nice to the clients, but hell on the help. Still, I was in no position to argue, because truth to tell, I had been sneaking around. Problem was, wherever it was I was intent on sneaking, Victor always seemed to be a step ahead of me.

Isabelle gave me a very sympathetic look. The class wasn’t half bad, moving as it did from the cha-cha to a kind of rock-and-roll step that I managed to keep up with. Of course, I looked ridiculous in my black catering pants and white shirt, which stood out painfully against all the brilliant hues spandex had to offer. But for the most part, the clients really were overweight, so it wasn’t as if we were at the Aspen Meadow Athletic Club, with its high- voltage classes and even higher-voltage clientele.

“You wanted to see me?” Isabelle asked quietly, once we’d gone through a stretch routine that was so relaxing I almost fell asleep. “I don’t have a class for another hour.”

“Yes, please.” I paused to take a drink of water from the conical cup Isabelle offered. “Thanks.” I tried to think of how to pose the questions I knew I needed to ask. “My godfather, Jack Carmichael—”

“I heard he died. I’m sorry. He was a nice man. And funny, you know? Not funny peculiar, but funny ha- ha.”

“Right. I saw you two in the Smoothie Cabin, and then dancing together at the reception.”

Isabelle blushed. “I don’t know why he wanted me in the Smoothie Cabin. I mean, he said it was for ‘cover,’ what ever that meant. He was searching for something.”

“What, do you know?”

She shook her head. “He said the less I knew, the better. That’s what I told the cops when they talked to me.”

“Please, Isabelle,” I begged. “He must have given you some idea of what he was up to.”

Isabelle cast a furtive glance around. We were alone. “He did ask me—” She stopped. “I don’t want to lose my job. I mean, it’s a crap minimum-wage job, but I need it.”

“If he didn’t ask you to do anything illegal, then you’re fine. You saw how well Victor Lane and I get along, which is to say that we don’t. So I’m not going to be talking to him about what you tell me.” Meanwhile, I was thinking, A crap minimum-wage job? If Victor didn’t buy high-quality foodstuffs, and he didn’t pay his people anything, what was he doing with all the money he made from the spa? Maybe those insurance costs he’d mentioned at the meeting Marla went to were particularly onerous.

“Jack wanted to know about Doc Finn,” Isabelle whispered. “Jack knew Doc Finn had been out here last week. Jack wanted to know every single thing Finn had done while he was at Gold Gulch. How much time Finn had spent, with whom, and what had happened. I did tell the cops all this,” she concluded.

I thought of Jack’s scribbled notes: “Fin.” I said, “I heard that when Finn was here, he had a big fight with Billie Attenborough.”

“He did.” Isabelle’s voice was barely audible.

“She told me Finn was mad at her for losing weight so fast.”

Isabelle waited a moment and then shook her head. “Their argument,” she whispered, “had nothing to do with weight.”

“What did it have to do with?”

“Her wedding.”

“Losing weight for her wedding?”

Isabelle shook her head. “I don’t know, because at that point, they went into her room. That’s what I told Jack, and that’s what I told the cops. Jack asked me if Billie, in one of her many visits to the spa, had been seeing anyone else. Like a guy,” she added, embarrassed. “I told him Billie had been here once when Lucas, Jack’s son, was here. Jack shook his head, but I wasn’t sure if he was disappointed in Lucas or in Billie.”

“Did Lucas enjoy being here?”

“Hard to tell. He consults for Victor, but I don’t think Victor pays him much. Lucas complained that the spa was too expensive. But he’s back this week, so he must have found some money around somewhere.”