A Body to Die For (12 page)

“No, not intentionally. But maybe something happened there. Like he reacted poorly to one of the massage techniques.”

“Wouldn’t the coroner have discovered any irregularities?” she asked, her voice growing higher with anxiety.

“Maybe, maybe not,” I said. “Danny, I can see you’re getting alarmed by this, but I’m not headed in any clear direction with
it. I’m just trying to turn over every stone. This son you men-tioned—does he live around here? Maybe I could talk to him.”

“Yes, he’s around here. Matt Litchauer. He’s about thirty-five, I’d say. He runs a pub in town called the Bridge Street Tavern.
But I don’t think you want to talk to him. He’s a very, very unpleasant man.”

Unpleasant enough to kill Anna, I wondered, if he suspected that she was responsible for his father’s death?

“I’d also love to talk to more people who work at the spa,” I told her, “but I’m afraid of setting off alarms. You mentioned
Friday night that Anna had a friend who moved away. Is that the therapist who left for Hawaii?”

“No, Anna’s friend was Eve. She moved to Rhinebeck, New York, to work as a weaver. Oh dear, I should probably contact her
and let her know what’s happened.”

I suggested that since Eve was no longer in the thick of things at the spa, she might be a good source for me. I asked Danny
if she could arrange for me to talk to her either on the phone or in person on my drive back to New York, since I knew that
Rhinebeck was off the New York State Thruway. Just as I was about to ask her how things were with George, he came barreling
into the dining room, with our table in his sights. Danny glanced over and offered him a warm smile.

“Darling, I hate to interrupt, but we desperately need you up front,” he announced. “Good morning, Bailey. How are you holding
up?” He gave my hand an obnoxious squeeze, just long enough for me to notice that the sweatiness was gone, so it obviously
wasn’t a 24/7 condition.

“Perfectly fine, thanks,” I said. I was having a tough time generating any warmth for him.

He smiled that ingratiating smile of his, but I could see his eyes taking me in, trying to get a bead on me.

“What is it, George?” Danny asked anxiously.

“We’re having a
towel
crisis. We don’t have access to the spa towels, of course, and Josh is just helping himself to anything he can find at the
inn.”

She excused herself, and I watched them leave, George with his hand on Danny’s back, guiding her along as if he were afraid
she’d go off course. He hadn’t done one thing to offend me, but my dislike for him had already hardened like a stone.

Back in my room, the first thing I did was get the number of the Bridge Street Tavern from directory assistance and phone
there, hoping to find they were open on Sunday. There was no answer, but then it was only ten o’clock.

Next I called Paul Petrocelli, a young ER doctor I’d once interviewed for an article and who now allowed me to pester him
with the odd medical question from time to time. When I need answers involving a particular field or specialty, I track down
an expert, but if I want just basic background info or someone to point me in the right direction, I start with Paul. Since
he’d told me a month ago he was going to be working on Sundays, I tried the hospital first. The person who answered put me
on hold for five minutes, and then finally Paul picked up.

“Working Sunday?” he said in that husky voice of his. I had never met him in person, but I pictured him dark and handsome.
“Must be a big story.”

“Pretty big. I’m not interrupting a code blue, am I?”

“No, I was just suturing a gash in someone’s forehead.”

“Okay, so here’s my question. A guy dies of a heart attack in the locker room of a spa. He’s in his sixties. Apparently his
heart wasn’t in the best of shape to begin with, but I’m wondering if there’s any way the heart attack could have been triggered
during the massage he had—like maybe the masseuse used pressure on the wrong spots.”

“Not likely,” he said, “unless it was shiatsu and the masseuse used karate chops.”

“Very funny.”

“There
are
things at a spa that could create problems for someone with heart disease. At a spa or anywhere else, for that matter.”

“Like what?”

“The thing that jumps to mind first is some kind of heat-related problem,” he said. “Saunas, steamrooms—they obviously get
very warm, and that can cause trouble. When a person is overheated, the body redirects blood to the surface of the skin so
that some of the heat can be released through perspiration. The downside is that the organs that need blood flow the most—like
the lungs and the brain—aren’t getting as much. The heart starts to beat faster to accommodate the situation. For someone
with a healthy heart, that’s not a big problem, but an unhealthy heart doesn’t
like
to beat faster. It can ultimately lead to a heart attack.”

“So perhaps he took a sauna or steam after his massage and the heat triggered a heart attack?”

“Could be,” he said. “But bear in mind that if his heart was in bad shape, it wouldn’t necessarily have taken heat to make
it fail. It might just be a coincidence that it happened then and there.”

I heard someone call his name, so I signed off, promising to buy him a beer if I was ever in his part of the world.

After a bottle of water from the mini bar fridge, I began to pace the suite, trying to conjure up possible scenarios involving
William Litchauer’s death, scenarios that would have left the staff with something to hide. Maybe Litchauer had indulged in
a sauna or steam after his massage, passed out, and not been noticed until much later. Some staff members might have carried
the body to the locker room so they wouldn’t be accused of negligence. That was the only one I could think of, and it didn’t
seem all that plausible. I phoned the Bridge Street Tavern again.

This time someone answered. Yes, they were open today, a sleepy-voiced woman said, both for lunch and for dinner. Dinner,
I decided, was my best bet. You always found out more at night, when the booze was flowing. I’d decided that rather than try
to confront Matt Litchauer directly, I’d see if I could get someone else talking and find out just how mad he’d been.

It was finally time for my tennis lesson, and though I was anxious to check out this Rich dude, I wasn’t looking forward to
running around the court. Volleyball was the only net sport I’d ever mastered in school.

The tennis court, I was informed at the reception desk, was behind the barn, and as I came around the building in my sneakers
and khaki shorts (the closest things in my overnight bag to tennis wear), I could see a man I assumed to be Rich already on
the court, picking through a grocery cart of tennis balls. He was tall, maybe six three, totally bald, and dressed in white
shorts that hugged his butt too tightly for a guy over forty. Based on what I knew of Anna, he didn’t look like her type.
When I entered his peripheral vision, he glanced over toward me, and I could tell by the movement of his head that he was
running his eyes up and down my body, checking out my makeshift tennis outfit. I felt as though I’d walked onto the court
wearing my jammies.

“You on vacation?” he asked after we’d introduced ourselves. He had large green eyes, kind of roundish, that dominated his
face, but he barely took me in with them now that I was up close.

“Yup, just for a few days, though.”

“Okay, so let’s see what we can accomplish in an hour. Where’s your tennis these days?”

“Where
is
it?” I said. “To be honest, it isn’t anywhere. I only played twice this past summer, and it’s been years since I had a lesson.”
I shot him a flirty grin, but it seemed to bounce off him, like a robin against a plate-glass window. Maybe he was having
a hard time getting past the khaki shorts.

“Then I won’t have to undo any bad teaching. Why don’t you go to the baseline? I’ll feed you some balls and we’ll loosen up.”

For about fifteen minutes he fed me a constant stream of balls, alternating between my forehand and my backhand. He appeared
to be in awesome physical shape, and no matter where my balls landed, he never seemed to have to lunge for them. Only occasionally
would he offer some kind of comment, like “Relax” and “Easy does it—you don’t have to kill the ball.” It all seemed to be
part of a long established patter.

“All right,” he said finally. “You’re obviously feeling a little more fluid. Come on over here and we’ll talk for a minute.”

He had an obnoxiously patronizing style, and just to get even I felt tempted to whip out my lip gloss and apply it using his
bald head for reflection. But I behaved myself. I smiled politely and met him at the net. He suggested we concentrate for
the rest of the session on my forehand and backhand.

For the next fifty minutes he ran me ragged, forcing me from one side of the court to the next. I’m pretty religious about
going to the gym, but before long I was huffing and puffing. He gave me a few tennis tips, like remembering to touch my shoulder
at the end of every forehand, but for the most part he seemed to be operating on automatic pilot. I wondered what he had on
his mind.

“I saw an improvement in your forehand, didn’t you?” he said when we’d finished. He’d seemed so disinterested in me, it was
hard to imagine he’d noticed
anything,
but he was too smug not to give himself a pat on the back.

“Yeah, I think so. Any suggestions about what I should be concentrating on?”

“You need to move more,” he said, zipping up his racket in its case. “It’s not just about hitting the ball. Tennis is a moving
game.” It was his sweet way of saying that I’d looked like a slug and that Serena Williams had no reason to worry.

“Well, thanks,” I said, forcing a smile. He seemed itchy to go. I needed to get busy and see how well he’d known Anna. “I’m
glad you could fit me into your schedule—what with everything that’s happened here.”

“It’s not something that impacts directly on me.”

“But you knew her, right? The girl who was killed?”

“I knew her in passing,” he said slowly, beginning to pick up the scattered balls with a tennis hopper. “I’m not full-time
here. I work at a lot of different places.”

“Just in passing? Someone told me they thought you knew her pretty well.”

He stopped in his tracks and looked at me. It was the first time since we’d started that he seemed to actually register my
face, to register
me.

“Hardly,” he said testily, his eyes locking with mine. “Who told you
that?
”

“Just someone talking. I don’t recall.”

“Well, if you think of the person, please
correct
them.”

He seemed defensive, but I didn’t know why. Maybe he’d buzzed around Anna, as Danny had said, and she’d blown him off. Maybe
he’d taken her out once and bored her to tears. Maybe he’d killed her. I couldn’t possibly tell, and it was clear he wasn’t
going to share anything with me.

I said good-bye and thanks, which he acknowledged with a hard, phony smile. Once I was off the court and onto the path to
the inn, I glanced back. He was just standing there, leaning on the ball hopper and staring at me.

For the rest of the afternoon, I hung in my room. I made some notes in my composition book, looked through the employee folders
again, and replayed all the questions about the case over and over in my head. I didn’t have a single clue or theory. I threw
down the composition book and called the cell phone number of Parker Lyle, a criminal profiler I often interviewed. Maybe
she could offer some insight, but I got only her voice mail.

Tomorrow morning I was going to have to get in my Jeep and drive back to New York. I didn’t have a choice. My mass hysteria
piece was due at the end of the week, and all my files were in Manhattan. Plus I had a meeting at
Gloss
early Tuesday morning.

Around five, Danny called to suggest that we meet again tomorrow for breakfast and to inform me that Anna’s friend Eve had
agreed to see me on my trip back to New York. All I could hope was that she had some piece of information that would prove
valuable—or that I might stumble on something during my excursion to the Bridge Street Tavern.

At six-thirty, dressed in jeans and a sweater, I set out for the evening, stopping to get directions from Natalie in the empty
lobby. The tavern turned out to be in historic downtown Warren, not far, actually, from the police station. Just thinking
of that made my heart go up and down like a pogo stick.

There were only about a dozen cars in the tavern’s parking lot, and I pulled into a spot midway down the building. Stepping
inside, I was hit by a wave of nostalgia. The Bridge Street Tavern was like so many other old bars and taverns I’d been to
in my life, especially the ones I’d hung out in during college in Providence. The air was smoky, the wood tables and booths
were carved with initials, and from the jukebox came the mournful sound of the Zombies singing “She’s Not There.”

There were pegs in the entranceway for coats, and I took my time pulling off my jeans jacket so I could gauge the best spot
to sit. Grabbing a stool at the bar would guarantee conversation with the bartender, but there were too many townies there
tonight, and they’d all be sure to eavesdrop. A table was a safer bet. As I lingered by the entrance, a young waitress in
her mid-twenties strutted over, brandishing a nametag that said “Stacey.” She’d pulled the very top part of her long strawberry
blond hair into a tiny ponytail, making her look like a Yorky.

“How many?” she asked perkily.

“Just one.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” she said, pulling a menu from a wooden slot and leading me across the dining room.

“What can I get you to drink?” she asked as I slid into the booth.

“Have you got Cabernet?”

“Uh-huh. But it’s room temp, not chilled, if that’s okay.”

“That’s perfect,” I said.

“Lemme get that for you and give you a sec to look at the menu. There’s only one special tonight. It’s pot roast. It comes
with mashed potatoes and it’s real, real good. If you prefer somethin’ a little less fatty, we’ve got a nice roast chicken.
It comes with mashed potatoes, too, or I can substitute wild rice.”