Chapter 8 #2
“Perhaps the door of the sauna just got stuck.”
“No way. It was locked. And then unlocked. I heard the sound when it happened.”
The tingle becomes a full-blown chill. Car door open, I study her face in the dim light: the wide eyes, the straightforward manner that has already gotten her in enough trouble to ruin a good chunk of her life.
“Somebody locked you in the sauna?”
“And then turned off the lights.”
I think back. The lights in the place had been blazing when I arrived with the other reporters. The door to the club had been open.
“Then somebody unlocked the sauna?”
“And I stumbled out, got my towel and found you people waiting for me. I tell you, somebody locked me in there, then let me out just in time.”
“Who would want to do something like that to you?”
“I don’t know,” she sobs. “If they tried it once, what are they going to do next?”
I try to follow up on Tania Marie’s story back at the health club when I pick up Tania Marie’s phone and clothes.
The woman with the gym-teacher voice informs me that she’s the night manager.
She doesn’t like my questions and especially doesn’t like my invading the privacy of her members.
When I ask if I can speak to the employees who were responsible for locking up that night, she says certainly not.
She mentions attorneys. I tell her I’ll be checking with her.
With her still berating me, I walk away.
Tania Marie refuses to see me, so I leave her phone, jeans and T-shirt outside her apartment as she has requested.
I know what I have to do next, but I don’t want to.
I try to invent excuses, reasons why I must remain here in Santa Barbara, living out of a motel, talking to the other Killer Body candidates.
It doesn’t work. The knowledge of what must happen next keeps me thrashing most of the night.
I leave a little after six the next morning.
It’s close to eleven by the time I reach Pleasant View.
Pete Lewis’s office is located in the rapidly developing northeast part of town, on the twelfth floor of a bank building.
I asked if we could meet here because I didn’t think I could bear being in the home where he and Lisa were going to live.
Now I’m not so sure I shouldn’t have opted for something impersonal, like a coffee shop.
We sit in his conference room, with its view of the hazy day.
Pete doesn’t look as if he’s slept, either.
His jeans and fisherman’s knit sweater look brand new, as does everything I’ve ever seen him wear.
I remember that I told Lisa he was too perfect, asked her if she didn’t ever want to just reach over and muss up his hair.
But then, she was that way, too. Perfection personified.
Although his hug is warm, I know he’d rather do just about anything than meet with me today. After he asks about my trip, which was uneventful, and lunch, which is impossible, he sits on the edge of the conference table, his eyes so intense I have to turn away.
“I went to the cemetery this morning,” he says.
“I’m stopping on my way back.”
“After the funeral, I spent that first night out there, all night, in my car.”
“Oh, Pete.”
“I couldn’t stand for her to be alone.”
The ragged pain in his voice mirrors what I feel, what I try to hide from others. There is no reason to hide it from him. I let the tears fall. He leans down, puts his arms around me, and I know that he is crying, too, into my hair. Turning abruptly, he walks to the window, his back to me.
“What are we going to do, Rikki?”
“I don’t know. Work, I guess. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
“On that Julie Larimore story?”
“Yes,” I say to his back.
“You get anything?”
“Not much, so far. That’s why I’m here. I need your help.”
He turns. “I don’t know anything that can help you with that story.”
“You might.” I sit straight in my chair, trying to pretend he is a source and not the man who loved my cousin, not the man who spent last Saturday night at the cemetery because he didn’t want her to be alone. “I need to talk to you about Lisa.”
“She had a bad heart, like your mom did. A young woman can look healthy, and then, just like that.” He snaps his fingers.
“She’d lost a lot of weight.”
“That was for the wedding. She had this crazy goal. I told her she looked great, that she’d be a beautiful bride.”
“A lot of weight, Pete.”
He glances away, as if he can visualize her, standing there in the space between us. “That wasn’t what killed her. You just need to believe it. You have to blame something.”
“She idolized Julie Larimore.”
“That’s a pretty strong word for it.”
“She wore her hair like Julie’s. Streaked it blond. Bought that black dress with the low-slung belt. Even the locket.”
He pulls out a chair from the conference table and sits stiffly. “A lot of women admire Julie Larimore. I caught her on some of the talk shows. She sounded okay to me.”
“Discipline and accountability.” I sit to his right, forcing him to look at me when I speak. “Those and a Killer Body membership can fix anything, right?”
The doubt registers in his eyes. Then the lawyer in him comes back, fighting. “Rikki, tell me. Would Lisa want you asking all this?”
I’ve wondered the same thing myself. Maybe it isn’t the lawyer in him that’s making him resist my questions.
Maybe it’s just the man who lost his woman and who doesn’t want to endure one more second of pain.
I tell him what I know. “She’d want me to if it would help find out what happened to Julie Larimore. ”
“You really think it will?”
No point in lying to him. “I don’t know, but it’s all I’ve got. Someone had Julie’s dress, or one that looks like it, delivered to Bobby Warren Friday night. I was there. It was torn to shreds. The police have it right now.”
“God.”
“Something else happened last night.” I decide not to mention Tania Marie by name, knowing how he’ll react. “Someone else connected with Killer Body could have been hurt, maybe killed. I need to know how involved Lisa was with the organization.”
“It was her thing. You know that. She’d go down there every day, to weigh in or whatever they do. A few times, she went to L. A. to consult regarding some television spots. They never happened, though.”
“Did she ever meet Julie Larimore?”
“Are you kidding? You would have been the first one she told. She worked with people who did.” He pauses as if trying to decide how much to say. “Like I said, she went down south a few times to audition or whatever.”
“For whom?”
“Somebody down there told her she had Julie’s look. That if she lost a few more pounds she might be able to be in some of their ads. I didn’t think it was important, or I would have told you sooner.” His eyes darken, and he gnaws his lower lip. “She was going to be my wife, damn it. I trusted her.”
In his eyes, I see something else that connects with my own, still-nameless emotions. And all I know before I turn away is that he’s not telling me the whole truth.