A Body to Die For (7 page)

On the way to my room, I knocked on the door to room 17, but there was no answer. Babs Hollingswood, I realized, might be
down at police headquarters this morning, making a formal statement.

Back in my room, I dug through my purse for my PalmPilot and, after finding his number, placed a call to Bud Patterson, a
forensic accountant. I’d interviewed him two years ago when I was writing an article on a woman whose husband had bludgeoned
her to death with a golf trophy after she’d discovered he was draining gobs of money from their business and funneling it
into a secret offshore account. As a forensic accountant, Bud approached a bank statement as a possible crime scene. But instead
of searching for fingerprints or clumps of hair, he scoured for signs of money in motion when it shouldn’t be. I knew he’d
be able to tell me how to spot any funny business in Danny’s records.

He answered right away, sounding bright eyed and bushy tailed for a Saturday morning. Not bothering to get into the murder,
I explained Danny’s concern about the spa staff and asked how I could help.

“Follow the cash,” he said without hesitation. “That’s always the first rule.” I heard him take a swig of a drink.

“But it’s not a cash business,” I told him.

“I don’t mean literally,” he said. “You want to look at what’s coming in each month and what’s going out. See if all the bills
are paid up. When people siphon off money, the bills often get ignored.”

“But how do you siphon off money when it’s not a cash business? You can’t just write checks to yourself.”

“Well, actually, that’s exactly how people do it. They create a fictitious vendor—or vendors. It’s a spa, you say? If I’m
the bad guy, I might make up a vendor called Super Smooth Massage Oils. I send in invoices for them and make sure those invoices
are paid and sent to an address I have access to. Then I cash the checks. Top management isn’t close enough to the operation
to notice we never
use
Super Smooth Massage Oils.”

Before signing off to head for his in-laws, he gave me a couple of other tips that I jotted down.

At eleven I was on my way to the police station, allowing plenty of time in case I got lost. Though the inn’s setting had
an out-of-the-way, almost rural feel to it—in part because of its abutment to a nature reserve—it was actually just at the
edge of town. I drove down several quiet roads, which after a few minutes gave way to suburbanlike streets and then, as I
got closer to the center of the town, to older streets lined with clapboard houses. In their front yards sat glistening wet
piles of raked leaves, waiting to be bagged. I was only a few hours north of New York City, yet autumn was far more entrenched
here.

The building was a nondescript, one-story affair on a lot that years before had once probably held something more historic,
like the old New England–style buildings surrounding it. There was no receptionist at the desk in the lobby, but a patrol
cop was holding up the wall while drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup, and he said he’d let Beck know I’d arrived.

It was ten minutes before he emerged, and he was accompanied by a couple in their mid- to late sixties. I overheard Beck thank
them for all their help, and I suspected that the woman might be either Babs or the other nine o’clock client. Beck nodded
at me, said good-bye to the couple, and then told me to follow him.

He was wearing brown pants, a white dress shirt, and a tweed blazer. Natty, like last night. He led me to a large open room
with about ten metal desks, some but not all with computers. There was only one other cop at a desk, though I noticed five
or six others standing around a table in a glassed-in conference room. Anybody who’d had Saturday off had probably been called
in because of the murder.

“I appreciate your doing this twice,” he said, indicating with an outstretched hand that I should take a seat in a plastic
stack chair next to his desk.

“No problem,” I said, though I was looking forward to it with the same enthusiasm I reserved for a leg wax. As I sat, my eyes
scanned the desktop area. There were a bunch of files, one stuck with a Post-it note with the words
Det. Jeffrey Beck
written on it (so
that
was his first name), a walkie-talkie, a green mug filled with pencils. No photos, no knickknacks, nothing personal at all—unless
you could count a schedule of Boston Patriot games taped to the desk lamp. He lowered himself into his swivel chair and leaned
back in it, making it groan. I noticed that in the bright light of day, his eyes really were the darkest blue I’d ever seen.
They looked as blue as the part of a map that shows where the ocean is deepest.

“You feeling okay?” he asked. “You had a pretty rough time last night.”

To my utter surprise and horror, I felt myself blush.

“I’m okay,” I said. “Thanks. It was all such a shock. I’d come up here from New York City expecting to discover the benefits
and joys of reflexology, and the next thing I know I’m giving mouth-to-mouth to a mummy.” Shut up, Bailey, I told myself.
You are talking way too much.

He took me in deeply with his eyes, a slightly puzzled expression on his face. Maybe he was wondering what reflexology was.

“Let me get you out of here as quick as possible, then,” he said, tapping a few keys on his computer. “Here’s what’s gonna
happen. We’ll run through the same questions I asked you last night. Once I print out your statement, you’ll sign it. After
that I need to take your fingerprints so we can tell which are yours at the crime scene. I also need a piece of your hair.
That way we eliminate your hair and DNA from any we discover on the body.”

“Fine—will it hurt?” Oh God, why was I trying to be cute?

“Will what hurt?” He looked at me seriously.

“The hair removal.”

He allowed himself a small grin. “Only momentarily.”

He started the questioning, traveling basically the same ground he had the night before. As I answered, he typed quickly and
confidently, barely looking at the keys. Once or twice he glanced at the written notes he’d taken the night before. Mostly,
he kept his eyes on me.

His manner was a notch warmer than it had been last night, yet I felt nervous, as if someone were tossing my stomach up and
down like a tennis ball. Why was I feeling so discombobulated? It must be because of the way he held on to my eyes, I thought.
And because he was so darn attractive. Those eyes. That gray hair. His soft, full mouth. And whereas some of the cops I’d
spotted in the conference room looked as though they’d had Butterball turkeys stuffed under their shirts, Beck was taut, clearly
in terrific shape.

By the end of twenty-five minutes, I’d shared everything I could possibly think of. But he had one more question.

“Have you had a chance to think about what we discussed last night?” he asked solemnly. My heart took off like a startled
titmouse. I had no idea what he meant.

“I—I’m sorry, I’m not following,” I said.

He sighed lightly in a way that suggested he was summoning a wee bit of patience. “I asked you last night to think about whether
you may have noticed anything suspicious in the parking lot when you walked back there. As you can probably deduce from the
timeline, you were clearly at the scene around the same time the murderer was. Are you absolutely certain you didn’t observe
anything?”

I paused a minute before answering, not because I needed the time to think, but because I wanted to offer the impression I
was doing just that.

“No, nothing,” I said finally, forming an expression on my face that I hoped suggested I had racked my brain so hard, I was
in danger of blowing a fuse. “In fact, I remember noticing how absolutely quiet it was back there. There were no cars in the
parking lot at that end, by the way. The killer was either gone or had parked the car someplace else. Or, of course, if it
was someone who worked at the inn, he didn’t need a car.”

He stared at me, expressionless. “Why do you say ‘he’?” he asked finally.

“Oh, just using the universal pronoun,” I explained. “Though clearly the body was wrapped up by someone awfully strong. Do
you have any theories yet?”

I hadn’t expected an answer, of course, but I thought I might get a bemused smile for my gumption. But no. Just more of that
staring thing. Burning a hole through my head.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said wryly. “You’re a writer. In fact, from what I hear, you write crime stories. When we catch the
killer, we’ll give you the exclusive.”

Before I could summon a flip comment, he rose from his seat and nodded his head toward the far end of the room.

“Let’s get those fingerprints taken care of.”

I trailed behind him toward an alcove. A few of the cops in the conference room paused in their conversation and checked me
out. It appeared as if the force were large enough to handle the case themselves without having to play second fiddle to the
state police.

Inside the alcove, a technician was waiting. He drew a pair of latex gloves out of a box, and stretched them onto his hands.
I nearly jumped when one of them made a hard snapping sound against the back of his hand. I had no idea why I felt so jittery.
Next he picked up a small set of scissors from the drawer, lifted one strand of hair from my head, snipped it, and sealed
it in a plastic bag.

Once the technician was done, it was Beck’s turn. From the top of the counter he picked up an inkpad and a white card. After
flicking off the top of the inkpad, he set it closer to me.

“Let’s start with your right hand,” he said. “Your thumb first and then the other four digits.”

I moved my hand over the pad, then hesitated.

“Here, I can help you.”

He took my right hand in his and pressed my thumb onto the squishy pad, lifted it, then moved it onto the card and pressed
again. He repeated the same procedure with each finger.

“Is everything okay?” he asked. Was he inquiring, I wondered, because my hand was as limp as an overcooked fettuccine noodle
and he was being forced to guide me, or because I wasn’t lobbing any cute remarks during the process?

“Yeah, fine,” I said.

When he was done, he handed me a tissue to wipe off the tips of my fingers. He glanced at his watch, turned, and strode back
across the room toward the lobby, clearly expecting me to follow.

“You’re just here for the weekend?” he asked as he held the door for me.

“Yes. Why? Will you need to talk to me again?”

“Possibly. Depending on how things develop. Thanks for coming down.”

The street was bustling outside, people finally out of bed and running their Saturday errands. I hurried along the sidewalk
to the Jeep and threw myself inside. And I just sat there, trying to get a handle on what had happened. There was no denying
it: When Beck had held my hand and pressed my fingers onto the inkpad, I had felt the hottest jolt of lust I’d experienced
in months.

W
AS I OUT
of my mind? was all I could think as I fired up the engine. The guy was a too intense, apparently humorless, small-city cop.
I couldn’t believe he was making my heart pound so hard. This is what happens, I thought, when you go for months without physical
contact. You look at men who are total strangers and feel the urge to tear their boxer shorts off with your teeth. You become
attracted to a guy who probably bowls every Tuesday night and has a best friend named Choppy.

I pushed the thought of Beck from my mind, deciding it was a complete aberration—like one of those blinding pains you get
in your temple one day that convinces you you have a brain tumor the size of a beefsteak tomato but then never occurs again—and
attempted to find my way back to the inn. I got lost twice, once so badly that I was forced to stop and ask directions. When
I drove through the gate fifteen minutes later, I saw two TV vans parked on the road outside and an array of police vehicles
still in the parking lot.

I was so absolutely zonked from the night before, I had to fight off the urge to return to my room and crawl into bed. But
if I was going to learn anything between now and Monday morning, I’d have to use every minute I had. The first thing I wanted
to do before meeting up with Danny was check out the back door to the spa. Since the parking lot was taped off, I walked around
the west side of the inn, following a path that bordered the gardens.

Once I was behind the inn, I saw that the area directly in back of the spa was taped off as well, though I could see the rear
door from the small incline that rose behind the building. There was a fir tree near the door, and several birches, and it
would certainly have been easy for someone with a key to slip in without being noticed. It was impossible for me to tell from
my vantage point whether the lock had been broken.

Following the yellow police tape, which flapped with a snapping sound in the autumn breeze, I continued walking east until
I could see the parking lot and the main entrance of the spa. I gazed at the spot where I had stood in the darkness last night.
Despite what Beck had said, I had no recollection of having seen anything suspicious—no movement inside, no movement in the
parking lot.