A Body to Die For (21 page)

“Yeah, it’s a whole industry,” he explained. “It’s called release massage. Or happy ending massage. Guys love it because they
have a full body massage and then they get the happy ending as a bonus. Plus, they tell themselves they’re not really going
to a whore or cheating on their wives. To them, it’s just an extension of a massage—stress relief taken one step further.”

“Where do the women work?”

“Generally out of an apartment. I saw one situation where they used a duplex with an entrance on each floor. The upstairs
one was for new clients and the downstairs one was for old so that in case one of the new clients turned out to be a cop,
they could shut off access to the other women and clients.”

“They work in groups?”

“A lot of them do, yeah. For security reasons.”

“So the women are basically prostitutes.”

He snorted. “They don’t see it that way. In their minds they’re just housewives or actresses or teachers trying to make some
extra money. But it still comes down to providing sexual gratification for a fee.”

“Are any of them actual massage therapists?”

“Sure, some of them are.”

My mind was in overdrive, and though I could sense he was anxious to hang up, I didn’t want to let him go.

“Just one more question,” I said. “Have you ever heard of a legitimate massage place doing this?”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “In fact, we busted a place a year ago. It was a pretty decent day spa that was leasing space from a hotel
on the West Side. Two or three girls were offering happy endings—and the management had no idea. The whole spa ended up being
shut down because of it.”

“If management isn’t in on it,” I said, “how do the girls get the word out?”

He chuckled. “It’s all done real nice and subtle in the beginning. The girl gets a little suggestive during the massage, letting
her breasts touch the client, letting her hand get a little close to the action. The guy might end up suggesting the finish.
And she says something like ‘Well, since you’re a special client…’ From there, it’s word of mouth. He tells a friend, and
then the friend tells a friend. Look, I’m gonna have to wrap this up.”

“Just one more question, I swear. What kind of money are we talking about? I mean, in the case of a legitimate spa, how much
extra could a girl ask for?”

“For each session? A girl might ask for anywhere from fifty to a hundred dollars more—on top of her tip. That can mean hundreds
more a week.”

He signed off then. Which was a good thing, because I’d been so bowled over by what he’d been saying, I almost missed my last
turn before the Cedar Inn.

The foliage around Warren was even more spectacular than when I’d been there on the weekend. In the two days since I’d departed,
the oranges and yellows had intensified, and the reds had burst forth almost like little explosions everywhere. When I rolled
down my window to check the temperature, I discovered that I was driving through one of those clear, crisp fall days that
fill you with an urge to put on a pair of tartan shorts and head for a football game.

Yet it was hard to appreciate the autumnal splendor. I was too busy working over what Barry had revealed. Release massage.
Happy endings. This
must
be what had been going on at the Cedar Inn and Spa. This was the reason they didn’t like it when Danny popped over there.
The massage therapists who were in on it (Anna and Piper, most likely, but maybe others) pulled in hundreds of extra dollars
each week for their efforts. If Josh was involved—and based on Danny’s description of his defensive behavior, I suspected
he might be—he was probably benefiting in a big way, too. He most likely received a kickback for each client, but since he
also earned a bonus from Danny on overall profits, he got a double hit. Now I knew why the spa business had exploded in the
last year or so.

And this could shed new light on William Litchauer’s death. He’d been a regular client, and he may have requested the special
finish at his weekly appointments. And maybe one night it was all too much for his impaired ticker, and he’d ended up with
the biggest special finish of all. It could be that he’d even died on the massage table and been moved—though wouldn’t that
have turned up in the ME’s report?

The next question was whether all this nasty business had led to Anna’s death. Maybe she’d been murdered by a freaky client.
Or if Josh
was
involved, maybe he’d killed her over a dispute regarding the business.

I was in the midst of thinking bad thoughts about Josh when I nearly bumped smack into him—as I stepped out of my Jeep in
the inn parking lot. The look on his pale, handsome face indicated he was totally surprised to see me—and not overjoyed.

“Hello, Josh,” I said.

“I thought you’d gone back to New York,” he said icily. He was wearing slim black slacks today and a black leather jacket.
Very L.A. for the Berkshires.

“I did. But then my schedule loosened up again, so I decided to come back and lend a hand to Danny—what with everything that’s
happened.”

“Isn’t she lucky? Are you going to stack towels in the linen closet—or just be an arm to cling to?”

“Maybe both,” I said, ignoring his sarcasm. “I heard the spa is opening back up tomorrow. You must be relieved.”

“Very. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some business to take care of.”

He brushed past me, his arm knocking against mine in a way that suggested it had been intentional. I felt a little trickle
of fear. Was
he
the sender of the mouse? I wondered. Had he suspected I was investigating the spa and decided to warn me away from Warren?
He certainly wouldn’t be happy to have me back. I watched him climb into a silver Saab convertible and drive off.

The lobby was deserted, except for Natalie puttering at the front desk and the faint strains of something Chopin-like being
piped from a nearby speaker. Someone had obviously put on a CD to add life to the place, but it was a sad, mournful piece
that made the lobby even more forlorn.

Natalie informed me that I’d find Danny in the gardens. I left my bag and cooler behind the desk and headed for the garden,
where Danny, dressed in a lavender wool poncho, strolled with her head down. We hugged, and as I pulled away, I saw that her
gray eyes were troubled.

“So give me the latest,” I said, taking her small, slender arm. We started to stroll slowly along the path.

“There’s not much new to report,” Danny said. “Which is awful in its own way because you keep anticipating the worst. We found
a criminal lawyer to switch over to. George is meeting with him today.”

“How’s George handling all of this?”

“He’s—I…”

“What?”

“He’s been acting strange to me ever since this happened.”

“In what sense?
Guilty?
”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “But on the edge of his seat, wired. I can’t tell if it’s because he’s got something to
hide or because he’s just so anxious about everything that’s happened.”

“Have you ever suspected him of being unfaithful?” I felt awful asking it, but it was a question that couldn’t be ignored.

“No,” she said almost curtly—in fact, practically before I had the words out of my mouth.

“Well, then he’s probably just upset about being interrogated by the police,” I said. “Hopefully they’ll drop it since they
don’t seem to have much to go on.”

I told Danny that there were a few things I needed her help with. First I wanted access to the computer files on which she
kept a record of regular clients and their appointments. She gave no indication that she thought there was anything odd about
the request. I said that I wanted her to give me a private tour of the spa as soon as it was reopened. And since I wanted
to spend more time with Eric, I needed her to arrange for me to interview him as part of my “spa research.”

“I also want to talk to Piper again, but I’ll just pop in on her. I’d rather catch her off guard.”

“You’d better do it soon. She resigned. And she’s planning to be gone by this weekend.”

“Interesting,” I said—and I meant it. Piper might be simply wigged out by the murder, but in light of what I now knew about
the spa, she might be scared for her life.

“What about Anna’s sister?” I asked. “Is she here yet?”

“She arrived late this morning. She went through Anna’s things and arranged for her body to be flown back to Florida. Now
she’s in town talking to the police. But she’s coming back here shortly for us to discuss what to do with the things of Anna’s
she doesn’t want.”

“I’d really like to join you when you talk to her,” I said. “Eve told me that Anna was disturbed by something in her past,
and I’d like to see if her sister knows something about it. You can just say I’m a colleague. Is she staying at the inn?”

“No, she said she couldn’t bear to. She’s driving back to Albany tonight and will fly out of there in the morning.”

We had reached the far end of the garden, near what appeared to be a large area for herbs. The only one I recognized was basil.
There was row after row of it, but the leaves were shaggy and bruised from the colder weather.

We circled around, back in the direction we came. It was then that I told Danny about the mouse. She stopped in her tracks
and gaped in horror.

“That’s perfectly dreadful,” she said. “And how scary for you.”

“Do you have traps at the inn? I’m wondering where the sender could have gotten a dead mouse.”

“Yes, we have traps set up in the basement. This is the time of year the mice start to come indoors.”

“Could you ask your janitor if he’s missing a trap?”

“Of course. Is this why you asked me yesterday if I’d sent you a package?”

I explained that her address had been on the package and asked if she had any thoughts on why someone would use it. All she
could think of is what had occurred to me: that it was to guarantee that I would open it.

The sun was now low in the sky, and we quickened our pace. Ten minutes later I was ensconced in Danny’s office in front of
her computer.

It was all very simple, just as Danny had said it was the other day. The computer listed each of the spa’s therapists with
the name of every client they’d ever had—including the types of treatments they’d booked and the dates on which they’d had
them. Danny pointed out the symbol that indicated which clients were guests of the inn rather than just visitors to the day
spa. All of this information was available from the flip side, too—clients were listed in alphabetical order, and you could
click to view the dates on which a person had had appointments and the therapist who’d performed each service.

I was glad Danny had decided not to sit in the office with me. Ever since I’d been in her presence at the inn, I’d felt guilty
and awkward about withholding what I’d learned regarding Anna’s background. It was one of those secrets that kept threatening
to leap Linda Blair style from my mouth, and I was fearful that at some moment when I intended to make a benign comment like
“Just lean on me, Danny,” I’d end up blurting out, “Your spa is really a whorehouse!”

I scrolled down to Anna’s name on the list and examined her record. Last year at this time, just after she’d started, she’d
had a wide variety of clients and most of them were inn guests. Since she was new, she was obviously given clients who didn’t
request a particular therapist by name, which of course most inn guests wouldn’t do. But as the months went by, not only had
her business picked up in volume, but she had quickly developed a loyal band of day spa clients—almost all male. In the last
seven months, she’d had at least eight or nine male clients with weekly appointments, a couple of semiregular female clients,
and a hodgepodge of inn guests. In late July, she’d given a massage to the tennis pro, Rich, apparently part of the barter
arrangement that Danny had mentioned to me.

Next I checked out Piper’s track record. Her male fan club seemed to be about as big as Anna’s. One by one, I went through
the rest of the therapists—males as well as females. Four or five of them, including Cordelia, did appear to have fairly strong
followings, but no one had as many regular appointments as Piper or Anna, and none of the women therapists had as many male
clients as they did. Except for one—Lauren, the therapist who’d reportedly moved to Hawaii. Her last client had been on August
17.

It wasn’t a big leap to conclude that three, then two, therapists had been offering relief massage at the Cedar Inn. According
to the information Barry had shared with me, they probably had been pulling in as much as eight or nine hundred extra dollars
a week—some of which would have gone to Josh if he was involved.

I wondered suddenly what had happened when Lauren had moved to Hawaii. Had Anna and Piper absorbed her clients? I scrolled
down the list of clients under Lauren’s name and on a scrap of paper jotted down the names of men with regular weekly appointments.
Then I went to their names in the client file. A few of them had continued to visit the spa sporadically since mid-August,
but going to a variety of therapists—not just Anna and Piper. The others had stopped coming altogether.

Just then Danny appeared in the doorway, announcing that the inn manager had phoned to say he was on his way back with Anna’s
sister.

“I thought I’d meet with her in the solarium,” Danny said. “Why don’t you join us there in a couple of minutes. Oh, and by
the way, I arranged for you to have a massage with Eric tomorrow at eleven, and he knows you want to talk to him afterward.
I told him you’d want to discuss the treatment.”

I closed down the files I’d been working on, used the rest room off the lobby, and then found my way to the solarium. Danny
was sitting on the couch, and Anna’s sister had taken one of the black wicker armchairs. On the coffee table was a small tray
with a plate of shortbread cookies, cups, and a silver pot. Though Danny rose to greet me, Anna’s sister sat motionless in
the chair.

“Connie Green, this is one of my, uh, colleagues, Bailey Weggins,” Danny announced. “She’s helping me right now—through all
of this.” Danny had lied badly, but Connie didn’t seem to care that I was there. She leaned forward slightly in her chair
and shook my hand limply.