Hide nor Hair (A Jersey Girl Cozy Mystery Book 2) (17 page)

I jumped up and left Ken’s office before he could move in for another kiss. I needed a clear head. I went straight to Meredith Mancini’s cramped little cubicle. She always had something on her desk to eat, and I was famished. I didn’t spot the usual box of Twinkies, and for some reason, her stash of M&M’s seemed to be missing from her top left-hand drawer.

“Where did you hide the snacks?”

“No more snacking for me,” she informed me. “I’m trying to eat healthy.”

“Why?” I asked. The kid editor weighed no more than my Sara. I couldn’t imagine what brought on this blatant food defection.

“I have high cholesterol!”

I could sympathize. My own numbers hovered around the borderline. Still, they weren’t quite high enough to frighten me into sensible eating. But I wasn’t in my mid-twenties. Poor girl! “Does this mean no more feasts at Domingo’s Enchilada Palace, or will you forgo the cheesy things and just stick to salads and sangria?”

“If I drink enough sangria, maybe I can stand the salads.” She paused a moment and studied me. “Tell me what’s on your mind. What happened in the big man’s office?”

“Nothing,” I told her, trying my best to look nonchalant or at least not guilty.

“Yeah, something’s wrong. I can see it in your face. Is it the murders? What’s going on? You’re worried about something. Did someone threaten you?”

I shook my head. “Nothing like that.”

She flipped a thumb in the direction of Ken Rhodes’s office. “Trouble with the office hunk?”

I said nothing. This brought a huge smile to her face.

“Oh my God! I knew it! You looked so nervous when you first walked in. Tell me all about it. Roses? Cheap motel room? Expensive suite in Atlantic City? Fess up!”

I could feel my face flushing. “I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it just yet,” I said.

“Fine. See if I care, though I guess if I can’t have him, I’m glad you did.”

I sighed. “By the way, there’s something else.”

“In addition to a night of ecstasy?” she asked.

“Yes, in addition to … Do you remember months ago, when Ken Rhodes first came to the
Crier
?”

“Yeah.”

“You said you thought he might have been a hit man in a previous occupation.”

“You shot down that theory pretty fast,” Meredith reminded me.

“Well, there’s more to his background than I thought,” I told her. “This is between you and me and my best friend …” I thought about it second. “… and maybe my mother, if she ever gets over me staying out all night.”

“This is beginning to sound like a cast of thousands.”

“I learned something last night that gave me the creeps,” I said. “You have to promise …”

“For God’s sake, Colleen! Just spit it out!”

“Ken Rhodes was married,” I whispered. I sat on the edge of her desk and bent over, like a schoolgirl telling a secret. “His wife was murdered.”

“I told you something was up with him. Didn’t I tell you? Just look at him. That hair, those eyes, his body … you get the picture. Or should I say
got
the picture?”

“Maybe I should give Ron Haver a call,” I told her. “He’d know about it. Or maybe I should call my brother. They were college friends. Talk about bad luck.”

“For you, or Ken Rhodes’s wife?” Meredith quipped. “Tell you what—I’ll do a little research tonight. I don’t want to do any online searches in the office. He might walk by my cubicle and catch me checking out his past. Besides, I think those two tech guys in IT can track the websites we visit here. They’re big mouths, both of them.”

We were all big mouths at the office, but that wasn’t the point. It might embarrass Ken Rhodes if he knew everyone at the paper was aware of his past, hard-nosed newspaper man or not.

“Let me know what you find,” I said.

“Can do.” She flipped through a notebook on her desk. “Meanwhile, I’m giving you another assignment. As soon as I saw it, I thought of you. They’re offering hour-long Zumba classes again over at Body Beautiful—that highbrow women’s fitness place down by the waterfront. Are you interesting in covering it for the Health and Fitness section? You haven’t gotten independently wealthy in the past few months, have you? I’m sure you can still use a little extra cash.”

I stuck out my hand, waiting for Meredith to copy down the assignment on a bright yellow Post-it. “My finances have improved dramatically, but I stink at handling money and can always use more. I’m not much into physical fitness lately though, even if I did lose a few pounds. I hate to sweat. It’s so—sweaty!”

“You don’t have to do Zumba. Just talk to the instructor,” she said, handing me the note. “The woman at the front desk is Belinda. She sounds like a peach over the phone.”

“Why hour-long classes again? And what made you think of me, out of all the stringers, for this one? You should be covering this. You’re the one with the high cholesterol.”

“I’m an editor. I don’t do that stuff anymore. And the reason you’re writing up this place is because I thought you’d have more than a passing interest. They’re offering the classes again because they have a new instructor.”

“What happened to the old instructor?” I wondered.

Meredith smiled sweetly. “She died recently.”

“Dear God, you don’t have to look so pleased about it. Apparently Zumba doesn’t automatically guarantee a long, healthy life. That must be one killer class.”

“It’s definitely a killer class,” Meredith informed me. “Leona Barber was the previous instructor.”

16

Body Beautiful didn’t quite live up to my expectations. Actually, I didn’t know what to expect when I visited the fitness center early on a Thursday afternoon. I thought it would have more of a spa atmosphere, or something along the lines of the waiting area at Trina’s Tresses. The entrance and the reception area seemed tastefully decorated and appeared antiseptically clean. There was lots of white, from the fresh-cut flowers in a clear crystal glass vase on the counter to the tall, blindingly white stack of highly absorbent towels on a cart near the corner. The woman I was to meet, Belinda, stood behind a stomach-high counter. She wore a white golf shirt and white, stretchy-looking pants. Belinda looked more like someone who would take my temperature at the doctor’s office or maybe even try to sell me car insurance on the internet than someone who ran a gym.

“Colleen Caruso?” she asked, guessing correctly because I carried an aura about me that screamed to the physically fit that I didn’t belong anywhere near a place like Body Beautiful.

I dug in my pocketbook for my notepad. “Hi! Yes! I’m Colleen Caruso. I’ll be writing up the story, and my photographer will take a few pictures of the Zumba class. I didn’t see his car in the lot, though. We’ll have to wait until he arrives.”

Belinda came around the desk and guided me to some seats near the huge plate glass window that overlooked the parking lot. “We can get some of your questions out of the way first,” she said, taking the lead. “This way you’ll be free to observe a class in action. Zumba is loads of fun. Lots of moving and music—it really gets the blood pumping! What a workout!”

I wrote down Belinda’s comments, hoping to link them to some good cardio workout health tips.

“I don’t exercise,” I admitted, glancing to my left at a vast area of the gym dedicated to treadmills and elliptical machines. “I used to jog a little, but it always seemed like more trouble than it was worth. Just waking up and putting on running shoes—and then you have shower right after or else …” Not to mention the chaos that had ensued the last time I’d gone for a jog and discovered body number one of the year.

Belinda laughed. “You’re really not into any of this at all, are you?”

I shook my head. “Maybe we can cover a little background about Body Beautiful. How many years has this place been open?”

“Two years in December,” Belinda said. “When Sue and Leona first opened the gym, they thought having a gym specifically geared toward women …”

“Sue?” I asked, looking up from the notepad. “You mean Sue Jeffries?”

“Yes. I thought you knew. She seems so lost without poor Leona. I can’t tell you how much we miss her.”

“Tell me about Sue Jeffries,” I said, though my mind was racing.

“She and Leona were partners in Body Beautiful.”

Sue Jeffries’s name kept turning up like a bad penny. It seemed the blonde bombshell was no slouch. How convenient that she also had a partnership in Body Beautiful. With Leona Barber out of the picture, I wondered if the gym would be solely hers.

“I don’t like to spread rumors, and of course I could be wrong, but I always thought Sue and Leona’s husband had a thing going on,” Belinda whispered.

Inwardly, I smiled. “What makes you think so?”

“Their little jaunts to Atlantic City, for one thing. Either that or they were sneaking away for Gamblers Anonymous meetings, but I doubt it.”

“They went without Leona?” I asked.

“Leona was a quiet girl. She was into health and fitness—and a little on the shy side. She wasn’t the glamorous type—the total opposite of Sue Jeffries. She really couldn’t afford to go half with Sue on this place, but she borrowed some money to add to her own, and managed to buy in.”

“There’s a silent partner?” I asked.

The woman nodded. “Derek Oliver—the Hot Air King’s father.”

Out the window, I spotted Willy Rojas pulling his Jeep into a parking space. He came inside with his camera dangling from a strap and banging against his chest.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said, a little out of breath. “There was a big accident on Route 35 in Hazlet—five cars! I got stuck in traffic. Got some great shots, though.”

I introduced the staff photographer to Belinda, who squealed with delight when Willy suggested he take a picture of her at the front desk.

“Now I need to take some shots of that exercise class,” Willy said when he finished with her.

“Zumba!” she told him, like he would know the difference. “Room 3. All the ladies know you’re coming. They’re very excited.”

The music was blasting loud and clear before we even entered the room. Willy smiled broadly. “Merengue.”

“Aren’t you a little young to know what that is?”

“Merengue, mambo, samba—it’s all the music of my people!” he informed me.

We opened the door and stepped inside, where fourteen highly toned contortionists danced an entire day’s worth of calories away. Sue Jeffries, Tranquil Harbor’s answer to Amelia Earhart, led the group at the front of the class. She wore a bright orange, formfitting, stretchy outfit that accentuated her curves and wasp-like waist. Her blond ponytail swung to the rhythm of the energetic Latin music, while the jewelry on her wrists rattled like maracas.

Willy jumped into action, snapping away at the class filled with tight, swaying rumps as they kept in beat with the music exploding from a sound system across the room.

I began to write, with more than a little envy in my heart concerning these rich, sculpted women who were free enough to spend the afternoon dancing instead of working, cleaning, and cooking.

“I must be doing something wrong,” I mumbled, scratching down a few notations about the music and the obvious benefits all that movement had on the cardiovascular system.

The music came to an abrupt stop. I looked up from the notebook.

“Would you like to give it try?” Sue Jeffries called out from the front of her class.

Over a dozen heads turned to look at me. I shook my head no, no way. The instructor took my noncompliance as a personal challenge.

“Come on, Mrs. Caruso. Give it a try!”

Her class of firm, tight beauties in butterfly-bright workout gear began to clap. I didn’t really have a choice. I joined Sue Jeffries at the front of the room. From over in the corner, one of the women started the music—soft and slow at first. I tossed my purse and notebook aside, and mimicked the instructor’s moves with a fair amount of confidence in my dancing abilities. Then the pace quickened, the beat grew stronger, and more intense samba music filled the air. I struggled to keep pace, mimicking Sue Jeffries’s every move.
Not bad, Colleen!
My left calf muscle chose that moment to cramp up so badly I could have sworn I’d gotten caught in a bear trap.

“Ouch!” I yelled and sat down on the floor.

The music stopped, and the instructor knelt beside me. “Are you okay? My God, we’ve never had that happen—and we have eighty-year-olds in the Zumba gold class. Shall I call an ambulance?”

If I’d had the strength, I would have kicked the blond bombshell in the teeth. As it was, I sat on my butt and massaged my calf until Willy came over and offered his hand to hoist me up.

“That went really well,” he joked. “You showed her.”

“Cut me some slack, Willy,” I muttered.

I held onto Willy’s arm and kicked off my sandals. Though the heels on them were only two inches high, I didn’t think I should chance it with my knotted calf muscle. Willy, ever gallant, reached down and snatched them off of the floor. Sue Jeffries took my other arm, and the three of us walked out. Well, I actually hobbled to the reception area.

Belinda at the front desk came around with a cold gel pack and slammed it on my calf when Sue Jeffries deposited me in a chair. I felt out of shape and decrepit.

“I think we should do the interview out here,” I told Sue Jeffries. “Are you up for that?”

“Are you?” she quipped.

Willy grinned, falling for the woman’s many obvious charms. I shot him what I hoped was a malevolent glare and took out my notebook to write.

“I can manage,” I told her. “Fill me in on Zumba and how it helps maintain a healthy heart.”

As the instructor talked, I managed to steal sideways glances between writing. She had a slight, non-Jersey accent, and she seemed to choose her words carefully. The woman was in unbelievably good shape. I could see why Willy was so enthralled with her. Her body was beautifully toned, her hair was perfect, and her arms were firm and tight. She was, in fact, in such good shape, I thought she’d be capable of tossing her business partner from a plane without too much trouble. Could she have killed Leona to get her half of the Body Beautiful gym? Was it even deeper than that, a murder that would get her the business
and
Leona’s husband? I thought back to my original assessment about the body out in the field. One person flew the plane, while someone else either struggled with or tossed the victim. Sue Jeffries had a pilot’s license. Maybe Hank flew and Sue threw, or vice versa.