Last Resort of Murder (A Lacy Steele Mystery Book 9) (7 page)

In her peripheral vision, Lacy saw
her slip to the side and cover her mouth, trying unsuccessfully to stifle her
ill-timed amusement.

The husband seemed to take offense
at her laughter. He spoke sharply, pointing to Lacy as if to tell her to get
back to her post. The wife laughed harder, doubling over with loud guffaws.
Tears ran down her cheeks. Now the children joined in, echoing their mother’s
laughter. They stood together over Lacy, one of them pointing at her as he
brayed.

The husband was furious. He began
issuing commands, pointing, stomping his skis, trying to get his family to fall
back into line.

The wife fell over backwards
laughing. The children doubled over. People behind them shouted for them to get
out of the way. The teenage towrope operator threatened to get security.

Lacy thought she would finally
learn if it were possible to die from humiliation. She closed her eyes, trying
to block out the laughter of her rescuers when someone whooshed up beside her.
She opened her eyes to see Snaps standing over her.

“Stuck?” he said.

“A bit,” she replied.

He pushed his poles into the
boot-release mechanism on her skis. Once freed, she slid down the hill
headfirst. Snaps gathered her skis and met her at the bottom.

“I’m exhausted. Do you want to grab
some hot chocolate?” he asked.

“More than anything in the world,”
Lacy said.

He glanced at her skis. “Are you
done with these?”

“Forever,” Lacy said. She turned
her back to the bunny hill, trying to forget the horrors that had passed there.

“Sit. I’ll get the cocoa,” Snaps
volunteered. Lacy didn’t fight him. She sank wearily into a chair and tried to
figure out when things went so wrong. Her cheeks were still burning and hot
tears pricked the backs of her eyes, begging for release. She wouldn’t let them
flow, though. She had come too far in her life to cry over this latest
humiliation. All she had wanted from this day was to make it down the bunny
hill. As it turned out, she couldn’t even make it up the bunny hill.

“You ski?” Lacy asked when he
returned with two cups of steaming cocoa.

“I do, believe it or not.” He
patted his belly. “Low center of gravity. I’m like a Weeble—I wobble, but
I never fall down.”

Lacy smiled and sipped her cocoa.
The smile quickly morphed into a grimace. “What is this?”

“Some sort of blend of soy milk,
carob, and stevia. I’m not really sure because it’s proprietary,” he said.

“Seriously? They’re afraid someone
is going to steal this recipe? What would they use it for, hair tonic?”

“You drink enough of them, and you
learn to like them,” Snaps said. It must be true because his “cocoa” was nearly
finished. Lacy choked down another sip of the vile concoction. If she wanted to
be skinny, this was the kind of stuff she would have to drink all the time. Her
tongue felt coated with carob residue. She stuck it out a few times, trying to
scrape it with her teeth, until she realized Snaps was watching her with a
smile. Quickly, she sucked her tongue back into her mouth and assumed a more
serious tone.

“Did you hear about Jill?”

“I did,” he said, nodding. “It’s
the kind of thing the resort tries to keep top secret, so of course everyone
knows.”

“I’m sorry for her, but I couldn’t
help think you might be a tiny bit relieved at the change of venue. You can
have Sven now. He’s fantastic.”

Snaps smiled. “Believe it or not, I
requested Jill. This isn’t my first visit to the resort. I’ve been coming here
twice a year for the last few years. Jill is a miracle worker. By the time I
leave here, I’m in fighting shape. Selfish of me to say, but I don’t have much
hope for transformation now that she’s gone.”

Lacy tried not to gawk at him as
she studied his body. He wasn’t obese, by any stretch of the imagination, but
neither was he toned. He was sort of soft all over, a little doughy and saggy.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “After knowing her so long, you must have considered
her a friend.”

“I’m not sure Jill had any friends,
but I appreciated her professionalism. And, I’m not going to lie, despite the
amazing transformation she worked on my physique, she wasn’t the only reason I
came to the resort. I love the pampering. And the skiing. It’s one stop
shopping. In fact, I’d have to say this is one of my favorite places on the
planet, and I’ve visited a few places since high school.”

“You’ve blossomed into quite the
sophisticate,” Lacy said.

“I don’t know about that, but I’ve
definitely expanded my horizons. Once I stopped caring about what other people
thought of me, I kind of grew into myself, you know? In addition to finding a
career, I took up some hobbies.” He nodded to an oversized sepia photograph on
the opposite wall. “I took that and donated it to the resort.”

“It’s fantastic,” Lacy said. She
knew little about photography, but she knew enough to appreciate the picture.
It was a photo of a bridge in autumn. The way the wind bent the trees and swept
the leaves imbued a feeling of peace. “What else are you into?”

“I still play the tuba, but since
that is still woefully unhip, I don’t tell many people. It’s relaxing to come
home at the end of a long day and play a few songs. What about you? What are
you up to? Are you and the guy serious?”

“Kind of,” Lacy said. “You probably
wouldn’t believe me if I told you he was our school’s former quarterback. It’s
a real
Breakfast Club
kind of
situation.”

“Ah,
The Breakfast Club
. Every lonely geek’s fantasy movie, and now
you’re living it.”

“What about you?” she asked.

“I’m still Anthony Michael Hall,”
he said.

“No, I mean are you seeing anyone?”

He took a breath and let it out
slowly. “No. For all my bluster about having come a long way, that’s the one
area I can’t seem to make any headway. Every time I come here, I leave feeling
like a million bucks, like I have the confidence to approach someone for a
date. But somehow I never do. And now without Jill to transform me…” He trailed
off and glanced at the opposite side of the room where a uniformed officer was
passing.

“I wonder who did it,” Lacy mused.

Snaps shifted uncomfortably and
sipped his cocoa.

“What?” she asked. “Do you know
something?”

“I don’t want to get anyone in
trouble. I feel like a tattle tale for even thinking about it.”

“Snaps, this is a murder
investigation. If you know something, anything, you need to come clean.”

“I’m not sure I know anything; it
was something I saw.”

“What?” Lacy pressed.

“Last night, after our session, I
saw Jill arguing with someone.”

“Who?”

“The pretty black masseuse, Uma or
Ulna or whatever her fake name is.”

“You have to tell the police,” Lacy
said.

“It was probably nothing. Jill
argued with everyone. Disagreement was like oxygen to her.”

“I’m sure you’re right and it’s
probably nothing, but every little bit of information in an investigation helps
to paint a clearer picture. You have to tell the police what you know, the
sooner, the better.”

“I guess,” he said, although he
still sounded reluctant. “I just don’t want them to think I’m some sort of
amateur sleuth sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“Yeah, they hate that,” she agreed.

“Don’t tell me you’ve ever had any
contact with the police, Miss Goody-Goody. Even among choir kids you were
considered saintly.”

“I may have filled out a police
report or two in my time,” she said.

He drained his drink. “Can I get
you another?”

She was still halfway through hers
and holding. Somehow it had been easier to drink the healthy concoctions Sven
gave her. At least they weren’t pretending to be anything other than
disgusting. This hot chocolate wannabe offended her senses. “Thanks, I’m good.”

“I think I’m going to hit the
slopes again, if you don’t mind.”

“Go ahead. Have fun,” Lacy said.

“Are you sure you don’t want to
come with me? I could teach you. I’m patient,” Snaps said.

“I wouldn’t want to test that.
Besides, I might catch up with the rest of my family and go pamper myself for a
bit. I could use some girl time.”

“Don’t call it girl time; I intend
to do the same thing later,” Snaps said. He gave her a smile and a little
salute and walked away. Lacy waited until he was gone before dumping the
remainder of her drink. It was so bad she was surprised it didn’t hiss. She was
about to leave the juice bar area when she ran into Sven, almost literally.

“Are you okay?” Lacy grabbed his
biceps, whether to steady him or herself she wasn’t sure. Avoiding a run-in
with him had knocked her off kilter, but he also looked unsteady.

“They think I killed Jill,” he
said. His voice seemed overly loud. People turned to look at them. Lacy led him
back to the table she had just vacated.

“What? Why do you think that?” she
whispered, hoping he would take the hint and follow suit.

He did, glancing around the room to
see who might be watching. “The polithe. They’ve been athking me quethtionth
almotht thinth I latht thaw you thith morning. I thought they might arretht
me.” He put his head in his hands. They were shaking slightly.

“Why do they think you killed her?
Did they say?”

“A thupplement I gave her. They
thaid thee wath poithoned. But I tried to tell them I’ve been drinking the
thupplement, too. If that wath what killed her, why am I thtill here?”

“What was in the supplement?” Lacy
asked. More importantly, had he given it to her?

“It wath thomething my couthin
brought back from Mexthico. I told Jill about it, and thee wanted to try it. I
gave her thome ath long ath thee promithed not to uthe it on the guethtth. That
wath the kind of thing thee would do to get rethulthth. Thee wath a cheater.”
He put his head in his hands again and groaned. “Lithen to me. No wonder they
think I did it.”

“What was in the supplement?” Lacy
repeated.

He looked around again and leaned
closer. “Thtrychnine.”

“Strychnine?” Lacy hissed. “Why
would you take that?”

“It’th been an effective
performanth enhanther for thenturieth. It wath thuch a thmall dothe. There wath
no way it wath what killed her.”

“What if she drank too much and
overdosed?”

“No way, Joan. I wath careful. I
gave her a lecture. I told her exthactly how much to take and warned her what
would happen if thee took too much. If thee did, then it wath thuithide.”

Lacy wondered if he had mentioned
“thuithide” to the police who interviewed him. If so, she could only imagine
their reaction. She also thought of the almond smell and bright red skin. “Was
there cyanide in the supplement?”

He looked stricken. “No way. I’m
not crathy. There wath a teeny, tiny amount of the poithon with a bunch of
B-vitaminth and thome caffeine. It wath bathically a high energy drink.”

“Sounds healthy,” Lacy said, but
her sarcasm was lost on him because he nodded.

“What am I going to do? I’ve never
been in trouble before. I could lothe my job,” Sven said.

Lacy didn’t tell him he could lose
a whole lot more than that, but she did give him some advice. “They don’t have
evidence, or they’d arrest you. They were feeling you out this morning. If they
ask to talk to you again, refuse.”

“Refuthe? I’d look guilty,” he
said.

“If they already think you’re
guilty, that won’t matter. What matters is that you don’t incriminate yourself
while inadvertently trying to clear yourself. Refuse to speak to them. If they
insist, or if they arrest you, demand a lawyer. Don’t say another word to them
without a lawyer present. Got it?”

“I thuppothe,” he said. “How do you
know tho much about thith?”

“My boyfriend, uh, Rick, is a
police detective.”

Sven sat up. “Ith he involved in
thith cathe?”

“No, we’re out of his jurisdiction.
He’s on vacation,” Lacy said.

“Do you think he might help me
clear my name?” Sven asked hopefully.

No.
Lacy didn’t say it, but she knew the answer immediately. Jason didn’t stick
his nose in where it wasn’t wanted, especially when it came to official
matters. “I don’t think he would be comfortable with that.”

Sven looked crestfallen again.

“But maybe I could ask around,” she
heard herself volunteering and wanted to give herself a mental shake. What was
she thinking? She barely knew Sven. Did she have an overwhelming desire to be a
busybody? Or was it because his face looked so sad, scared, and pleading?
Underdogs got her every time.

“Could you, Joan? That would be great.
I can’t talk to anyone here about thith in cathe they don’t know I’m under
thuthpithion,” he said.

“I understand. But, Sven, there’s a
good chance I might not be any help at all.”

“Knowing thomeone ith on my thide
helpth more than you’ll ever know. And you can call my by my real
name—it’th Thtanithlauth. My mother ith Polith.”

It was his mother’s bad luck to
name a child Stanislaus and have him end up with a lisp. Poor woman. Lacy idly
wondered if she had ever been struck by lightning. “I’ll stick with Sven, if
that’s okay. It’s short and catchy,” Lacy said.

“Right, okay. You’ll keep me
informed?”

“I’ll tell you everything I learn,”
Lacy promised.

“Thankth, Joan. You’re the betht,”
Sven said.

Lacy wondered if Jason would say
the same when she told him what she was up to.

For reasons Lacy still didn’t know,
the names of the sisters in Tosh’s family all started with the same letter.
Tosh and his brothers, Keegan and Jeffrey, had different-sounding names, but
Brynn, Bede, Betsy, Bridget, and Belle were alliterative. Betsy, Bede, and
Belle were responsible for the trip. Lacy found them, along with Riley,
Frannie, and Kimber, just finishing lunch.

They exited the restaurant smiling,
but the happy mood didn’t last long.

“There’s our favorite Steele
sister,” Bridget said, and Riley’s temporarily good mood went down the drain.

“She’s the fun one,” Bede added
loudly enough for Riley to hear.

“The nice one,” Belle said.

“The one who’s not sleep deprived
and post-partum,” Riley said.

“How was skiing?” Kimber asked. She
had assigned herself the role of peacekeeper and had been running interference
between the two warring factions since the weekend began. Lacy was glad because
it meant she didn’t have to do it for once.

“It went about as well as these
things usually do for me,” Lacy said.

“Sorry, girl,” Kimber said.

“What? You didn’t ski? We’ll take
you right now. You’ll be a pro by the end of the day,” Bede said. All of the
sisters were tall and large boned with matching brash personalities and a
can-do attitude.

“I think I would rather relax at
the spa for a while. Are you guys up for a massage?” Lacy said.

The sisters recoiled as a unit.
“No, we’re hitting the slopes. Anyone else?” They turned to survey the
remaining women.

“A massage sounds lovely to me,”
Frannie said.

“Me, too,” Kimber agreed.

“I have a newborn, which is why
people with newborns don’t generally go on ski vacations,” Riley said.

Bridget tsk’d. “Mom went skiing how
long after she had Keegan? Two weeks, three?”

“I thought it was one,” Belle said.

“You mean she didn’t deliver him
herself on the mountain?” Riley said.

The sisters tensed for battle.
Nobody, but nobody, insulted their mother.

“We should go,” Lacy said,
inserting herself between them to put a hand around Riley and drag her away.

“You should have let me hit one of
them,” Riley said when they were safely down the hall.

“You’re wearing a baby,” Lacy
pointed out as baby Lucy slept peacefully in her cloth arrangement.

“That would have given me the
advantage,” Riley said.

“You have to learn to ignore them.
They’re trying to get a rise out of you,” Lacy said.

“You can say that because you’re
the sainted chosen one,” Riley said.

“I wouldn’t be, if I were the one
who married Tosh. If our roles were reversed, they’d be picking on me as much
as they pick on you. It’s what they would do to anyone he married. Try not to
take it personally.”

“Whatever. I’m going to take a
nap.”

“I’ll take Lucy so you can sleep,”
Frannie offered.

Kimber and Lacy continued toward
the spa. “I’d like Uma,” Lacy requested when they reached the front desk.

“Uma’s with a client.” This clerk
spoke the same as all the others, as if she would receive a beating if she
raised her voice over a gentle whisper. Lacy wondered if it was part of the training
or if the soft, tuneless music filtering through the speakers had a hushing
effect.

“I can wait for her,” Lacy said.

“As you wish,” the clerk said and
indicated a cozy-looking waiting area. Kimber took whoever was available and
got in right away. Lacy sat and reached for an
Architectural Digest
magazine. Ten pages in, she began to doze as
the early morning caught up with her. She had no idea how long she napped, but
at some point she began to drool and then Uma was in front of her and calling
her name.

“Mmm,” she said, her head snapping
up guiltily like the little old women who dozed in Tosh’s church.

“Are we ready for our massage?” Uma
asked.

“You’re getting one, too?” Lacy
said, confused by her misleading use of pronouns. Uma said nothing, merely
waiting patiently for Lacy’s brain to come to. Finally she lumbered slowly to
her feet. Sometime during her nap, her muscles had started to ache. Either from
Sven’s grueling workout from the day before or the unfortunate morning of
“skiing” she had no idea. Uma handed her a chalky white drink.

“Compliments of Sven.”

“How did he know where I was?”

“Sven knows all,” Uma said with
such a mystical air that Lacy half expected her to pull a bouquet of magic
flowers out of one of her oversized sleeves. When she didn’t, Lacy followed her
to the room, somewhat disappointedly.
 

“What kind of massage would we like
today?” Uma asked.

“The good kind?” Lacy said,
confused again. Did everyone have this much trouble communicating with the
masseuse? The way Uma was eying her made her think not.

Uma handed her a laminated copy of
massage possibilities. Lacy glanced at it and handed it back. “Surprise me.”

“As you wish,” Uma said.

Lacy lay down, wondering if they
were contractually obligated to say that or if it was the natural response
after dealing with so many different types of people with different types of
requests. If she had asked Uma to peel a potato and rub it over her back, would
she have nodded vacantly and whispered, “As you wish”? The subservience was a
little creepy. How had Jill made it here?

Uma slathered some warm oil on her
back as Lacy pondered how to begin her interview. Subtlety probably wouldn’t
work, given their previous conversation problems. She decided to go for the
direct route.

“Did you hear about Jill?”

Uma ground her elbow into Lacy’s
back. Lacy screeched and came up off the table.

“Was that too much pressure?” Uma
asked, blinking innocently as Lacy surveyed her with open-mouthed accusation.

Not
if you were trying to gouge my lungs out or make them into an elbow kabob,
she
thought, but decided not to say it. She was trying to get information out of
the woman, after all. “A bit,” she said, sounding breathless.

“Sorry,” Uma said in her creepy
monotone whisper.

Lacy lay back down again and
tensed. Uma’s hands plunged in again, kneading and working the muscles in her
back so hard that Lacy’s eyes began to water.

“What kind of massage is this?” she
choked.

“Deep tissue,” Uma said and she,
too, was breathless now. “I noticed you limping a bit. This will help.”

Lacy had her doubts about that. The
pain was so intense she momentarily lost her train of thought. Her fingers
gripped the edge of the table as she struggled to breathe. Was this normal for
a deep tissue massage, or was Uma passive-aggressive?

“So, about Jill,” she tried again,
but her voice cut in and out as Uma bounced her off the table, thumping her
back so it sounded like Lacy was talking through a helicopter rotor. “Did you
know her?”

“Everyone knows everyone here,” Uma
said after a few seconds hesitation. “We’re close. It’s very sad.”

“Sad,” Lacy repeated. As if to
prove it, a few tears trickled down her cheeks, although they were either from
pain or possibly loss of nerve control in her face. Uma had moved on to the
tender area above her coccyx. The agony radiated all through her body. Even her
toes were twitching, withdrawing into themselves and expanding violently
outward again.

Uma moved on to the large muscles
at the back of Lacy’s legs and for once the massage felt good. The relief was so
intense that Lacy went mute, enjoying the reprieve from pain. Just as she
remembered she was supposed to be asking questions, Uma moved on to her calves.

The first squeeze of pain was so
powerful that Lacy sucked air and jutted her leg out, nailing Uma in the
stomach. She doubled over. Lacy flipped around, embarrassed. “I’m so, so sorry.
I didn’t mean to. I sort of lost control of my leg.”

“It happens,” Uma said. She stood
upright and took a deep breath. Lacy could tell that it still hurt. She tried
not to feel a secret sense of justice about that.

“We’ll finish with your feet now.”
The look she gave Lacy’s feet erased any doubts about her intentions. It was
the same look that Wile E. Coyote gave the Roadrunner before he tried one of
his schemes to eat him. She reached for Lacy’s foot. Of its own accord, it
dodged away. Uma used both hands to try and pin it down. It scuttled away
again. Uma hopped onto the table and tackled the foot, digging her thumb into
the soft instep while Lacy howled. She was fairly certain that the massage
person wasn’t supposed to share the table with the person getting the massage,
but Uma appeared to have become unhinged. She sat on the back of Lacy’s calves,
grinding away at her feet while Lacy writhed and tried to kick her off.

At last it was over. Uma hopped
down from the table and subtly pushed a tip bowl into Lacy’s sightline. Lacy
fished in her robe, pulled out a twenty, and dropped it in the bowl.

“We recommend a warm bath after
deep tissue. There may be some lingering soreness,” Uma said. She adjusted her
hair, smoothed down her smock, and left the room. Lacy tried to sit up and
couldn’t. Her muscles quivered in protest from breathing, let alone any other
movement. She had failed to ask Uma any of her questions or get any answers
about Jill. Worse, she had just tipped a woman twenty dollars to torture her
and render her immobile. The session wasn’t a total waste, though. She had
learned one thing—Uma was definitely capable of murder.

What was she going to do now? There
was no way she could get off the table by herself; she couldn’t even flip over.

She called for help.

No one answered.

After an unknown length of time,
someone knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Lacy said. She didn’t care
who it was; she needed help. She craned her neck and was so relieved to see
Kimber she almost started to cry again.

“What are you doing? I’ve been
looking everywhere for you,” Kimber said.

“I can’t move,” Lacy said.

“Too relaxed? I felt the same way after
my massage.” She stretched luxuriously. “I wish I could have one of those
everyday. I fell asleep, it felt so good.”

“I never want one again, ever,”
Lacy said.

“Why not?”

“She did things to me. Bad things,”
Lacy said. “Can you help me down?”

“Girl,” Kimber said on a sigh.
“Only you go into a massage okay and come out unable to use your legs. Are you
going to be able to make your family dinner tonight?”

“I’ll make it,” Lacy said, but as
Kimber helped her off the table, her legs gave out and she slunk to the floor.
“Probably.”

“It’s a wonder you’re still alive,”
Kimber said as she reached her arms under Lacy’s armpits and pulled her back up
again.