Granny Bares It All Read online

  “I want to see you and Dad arm wrestle,” Martin said, bouncing up and down in his seat.

  Frederick was still shoveling food into his mouth. He hadn’t answered my question. I knew well enough not to ask a second time.

  Alicia turned to me. “Can you still take care of Martin the night after tomorrow?”

  “Oh right, your anniversary. I’d nearly forgotten.” Witnessing a murder tended to reprioritize your thoughts.

  “We’ll go to Fatberger,” Martin said. “You won’t even need to cook.”

  The poor child had suffered through some of my attempts at cooking.

  “It’ll take a dozen workouts to get rid of one dinner at that place,” I objected.

  While most fast food chains tried to play down how unhealthy their meals were, Fatberger reveled in it and made it the center of their marketing. No, it’s not spelled Fatburger, but Fatberger. A fatberg is a phenomenon they are experiencing over in England. The congealed fat of hamburgers, fries, and kebabs is getting glommed together with baby wipes to make giant “fatbergs” like icebergs that clog up the sewer system. Some are as big as a double-decker bus. Fatberger’s logo is a giant fatberg with a smiley face holding a bacon double cheeseburger and a milkshake.

  “We’ll see about Fatberger,” I told Martin and turned to my daughter-in-law. “Yes, I can take care of him. You two have a nice evening. What are your plans?”

  Frederick shrugged. “Dinner and a movie.”

  “At Fatberger?” Martin asked.

  “No,” Frederick said. “That place gives me gas.”

  Martin screwed up his face. “Eeew. Good thing Grandma is taking me.”

  I didn’t like the idea of having Martin around when I was on a murder investigation, but I had already promised and couldn’t see a way to get out of it. It was only for one night, though.

  The following afternoon, I went to Suburban Fitness, arriving around 12:30 p.m. to catch the lunchtime crowd. I wanted it to be busy so I could meet as many people as possible. I also wanted to give enough time for news of Clarissa Monell’s death to circulate.

  When I got there, the first thing I saw was a newspaper report about her death posted in the front hall. A small crowd of people stood reading it, openmouthed.

  I joined them, taking a close look at each face and registering every reaction, and saw nothing suspicious.

  Everyone had the expected responses—surprise, shock, disbelief, and sadness—none of it very deep. Their emotions were those that any decent person would have at hearing of a tragedy that didn’t closely affect them.

  My impressions were confirmed by their conversation.

  “So who was this?” a young man asked.

  “Clarissa. She always used the rowing machine.”

  “Oh right, I think I remember her.”

  “Wasn’t she in the yoga class?”

  “No, you’re thinking of Clarice.”

  “Oh.”

  “I knew her a bit,” a woman in her forties said. She had the harried look of an overworked professional. She reminded me of my daughter-in-law. “We chatted a few times in the sauna. Nice person.”

  “What a pity. I wonder if the driver was drunk.”

  “Probably. Says here he went right through a red light.”

  I read the article, which had been cut out of the front page of the Cheerville Gazette. Not much happens in Cheerville, at least on the surface, so her death had earned a banner headline.

  Despite its prominent placement, the article wasn’t terribly long. It simply stated the bare facts, leaving out my chase and the important detail that the car had been stolen. Grimal had done that part of his job well, at least. He’d gotten the newspaper to play ball. Anyone who hadn’t been there would think it was a simple hit and run.

  “What a tragedy. Did you know her well?” I said, turning to the woman who had spoken to Clarissa in the sauna.

  She shook her head sadly. “No. We talked a few times about regular things, workouts and the news. Did anyone know her better?”

  Everyone shook her head.

  “She sort of kept to herself,” one man ventured.

  Interesting. That was a rather odd description of a nudist. I figured that nudists would be more outgoing. If you were uninhibited enough to take your clothes off in public, then I would think you’d be pretty open and social. But I realized that was just a guess. What did I know about nudists?

  The crowd broke up, people heading to the machines or out of the gym and back to their daily round. Poor Clarissa was just another minor bit of bad news, something to shake your head over and forget. What a shame that we are all like that on some level. I had seen enough death to know this. When the Cheerville Gazette posted my obituary sometime in the hopefully far future, most of those reading it would have no idea who I was. Of those who would—the hairdresser and the nice young man who helped carry my groceries at the supermarket and the owner of the shooting range outside of town—they would do little more than heave a sad sigh and get on with their lives.

  But I couldn’t do that with Clarissa Monell. She had been killed right in front of me, and then her killer had tried to kill me and Pearl. I couldn’t just sigh and get on with my life. This stranger’s life had become intertwined with mine.

  It was the same attitude that had made me join the CIA. I had studied international relations in university and was an avid news junkie. Even before I got into the CIA, I knew how dangerous the world was and saw clearly the many threats to our country and the rest of the free world. I couldn’t stand by and let others do the work while I and everyone I cared about were in danger. I couldn’t stand by and allow injustice.

  So here I was in the victim’s gym, trying to find out more about her.

  That turned out to be very little. I lingered in the locker room, eavesdropping on the small talk as I took my time getting changed. Only a bit of it was about Clarissa, and all of that was in the most general terms. Chatting with a few people as I made my rounds of the treadmill and some weights, I found that what the young fellow in the front hall had said had been true. Clarissa Monell kept herself to herself. People who remembered her at all remembered her as a friendly but quiet woman. After my workout, lounging in the sauna and enjoying the sensation of the heat soaking into sore muscles that hadn’t been exercised in far too long, I learned the only juicy detail anyone had to share—that Clarissa would sit in the sauna totally naked. Everyone else, myself included, kept a towel wrapped around themselves.

  “Perhaps she was a nudist,” I said jokingly to the three women sitting with me in the sauna.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that!” one exclaimed.

  “It wasn’t like she did her workout naked,” tittered another.

  “You shouldn’t speak ill of someone who has just passed,” another said, frowning at me.

  The gym appeared to be a dead end. Since I planned on going every day, I would keep my eyes and ears open, but I didn’t hold out much hope. That left only two possible ways forward, neither of them good—Police Chief Grimal and the nudist colony.

  Five

  After my workout, I went to visit Grimal. I found him sitting like the desk jockey he was behind a computer, surrounded by file folders, heaps of notes in messy handwriting, and several empty Chinese takeaway boxes.

  “Have a good lunch?” I asked, closing his office door behind me without being invited.

  He grunted at me. It was his way of saying he didn’t like my attitude. That was quite all right; I didn’t like his.

  “So what have you found out about my attempted murderer?”

  “We’re pursuing several leads.”

  “Such as?”

  Grimal sighed, looked longingly at the empty takeaway boxes, no doubt wishing they were full, and said, “What I tell you is privileged information. At the moment, we’ve told the press that it was a simple hit and run. We don’t want to spook the murderer.”

  “The murderer knows I followed the Lexus and must h
ave figured I got the license plate.”

  “That won’t do any good,” Grimal said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “We found the vehicle and dusted it for prints. The steering wheel and driver’s-side door had been wiped. Someone didn’t want to leave any fingerprints. We dusted the whole vehicle and sent the results to the lab to compare with the owners’ prints, but it doesn’t look like there’s much hope in that direction.”

  “Where did you find the car?”

  “In a parking lot in a strip mall out on the Interstate. No doubt the murderer had their own car parked there and used it to get away. It’s too far from anything to walk.”

  “CCTV?”

  “None pointing to that part of the parking lot or the entrance to the parking lot.”

  “Our murderer is careful.”

  Grimal nodded. “Yeah, a real pro.”

  “Professional? Probably not. Running someone over in the center of town is too showy for a professional. Also, too many things can go wrong. The police station is just a hop, skip, and a jump away, and there were bound to be witnesses.”

  Grimal shrugged. “Perhaps the murderer wanted to be showy. Prove to someone besides Clarissa Monell that you can be vulnerable anywhere and at any time.”

  I nodded. “You might have a point there.”

  He sat back, a smug smile on his lips that I had conceded to him. But he did have a point. I was secure enough to allow him his little victories. They were rare enough.

  “Other things suggest a pro,” he went on in an annoyingly lecturing tone. “He or she picked a car with tinted windows, knew just when Monell would be passing through town, and showed a sense of calm and cold-bloodedness.”

  “That makes them careful and nasty, not necessarily a pro. When he or she tried to run me off the road, they did it like an amateur. The Lexus was a much more powerful and heavier car than mine. It would have been easy to knock me into a tree if the driver had any training to compete with mine.”

  Grimal shifted in his seat. He didn’t like to be reminded that I was far better trained than he was.

  “Did you check out the gym and that … other membership card she had?” I asked.

  Grimal actually blushed at that, which told me he had given Sunnydale Nature Resort a visit. He didn’t meet my eye when he replied.

  “I, um, looked into both organizations. I’m handling this personally, you know, because I’m the most experienced officer.” Did I sense a need for justification in his tone? “According to the folks in the gym, she kept to herself mostly. Few people knew her there. And at the … other place, they say she was well liked and had been a member for years.”

  “Did you tell these people you were investigating a murder?”

  “No, of course not. We want to lure the murderer into a false sense of confidence. I stressed that it was routine to ask around after a hit and run like this but that we suspected it was merely a tragic accident with the driver panicking and leaving the scene.”

  “What other leads do you have?”

  “I checked on the couple who had their car stolen. They don’t own another vehicle, so I don’t see how they could have done the switching routine in the parking lot. Plus neither of them is a member of the gym or the resort.”

  I bit my lip. “No, I didn’t think they would be mixed up in this. Only a fool would do this with their own car, and we are not dealing with a fool.”

  Grimal’s eyes went wide as he noticed some sweet and sour chicken congealed in the bottom of one of the cartons. He grabbed some chopsticks and began to pry it off.

  OK, I’m dealing with a fool, but he’s not the murderer.

  “Any other leads?” I asked.

  The police chief shrugged. “We’re looking into it. So far, nothing yet.”

  The “several leads” he had spoken of didn’t amount to much. It was just him trying to sound efficient.

  “So what’s next?” I asked.

  Grimal seemed at a loss and didn’t answer for a moment. “Wait for the lab results to come back. Maybe the murderer left some trace in the vehicle. We’re also digging into her past to check if there’s anything there that might give a clue.”

  “Next of kin?”

  “A sister in California. She’s been notified. No husband or kids. She was single all her life. She took early retirement from—”

  “State Parks and Recreation, I know. Why did she do that?”

  Grimal looked annoyed at being interrupted and by the fact that I knew what he was talking about already.

  “She was an avid outdoorsy type,” Grimal said. “She didn’t like her job at Parks and Rec because she worked in the accounting office, in a cubicle where the only window in sight faced a parking lot. She always complained that she had joined the department to work in the great outdoors and never got a chance to. Her colleagues said she took early retirement so she could be outside all the time instead of just on weekends. Since she had no family to support, she could take the smaller retirement package.”

  “Any enemies at work?”

  “None that I could find.”

  That meant nothing. “She ever uncover any stolen money while doing her accounting or steal any herself? Accountants often get sucked into crime or discover it.”

  Grimal paused for a second and then quickly said, “We’re looking into that.”

  You are now, I thought with a smile.

  “Did she ever do any accounting for the gym?” I asked.

  “No, she was just a member. She volunteered to do the taxes at that resort, though.”

  “I see. That’s interesting.”

  Grimal shook his head. “No it isn’t. I called the IRS and the state tax people. They’ve never been under investigation except for a routine audit that they passed with flying colors.”

  Maybe because they’re good at hiding what they’re doing, I mused.

  It was a thin lead, but it was the only one we had at the moment. And Grimal wouldn’t be able to follow it by blundering around the offices of Sunnydale Nature Resort. If they really were cooking the books over there, Grimal’s last visit had probably spooked them into burying the evidence even further.

  So it was up to me. Great.

  I’d let Grimal continue with the routine paper trail, something he was good enough at, and I’d have to do the undercover work. In a nudist colony.

  I wished I had joined Suburban Fitness earlier.

  At least it was a warm and sunny day in late spring as I drove out of town, headed for the first nudist colony I had ever stepped foot in. I had already sent an email to the director, Adrian Fletcher, saying I wanted to meet him and apply for membership. I’d read the website’s extensive list of rules and found that you couldn’t just show up, say hi, and bare all.

  I drove a rental car just in case Adrian or someone else I met that day was the murderer. Whoever I had chased had gotten a good look at my car, and I didn’t want to announce myself by driving into the nudist colony with my own vehicle.

  As I pulled off onto the leafy country lane leading to Sunnydale Nature Resort, I noticed my heart pounding in my chest at a rate unhealthy for anyone over fifty.

  The resort lay at the end of a quiet gravel lane flanked by woods. I had seen no houses for the past mile. The lane was blocked by an automatic barrier, painted a bright red and equipped with reflectors so no unwary driver would slam into it. Above it was a large wooden sign about ten feet up stretching across the road and reading “Sunnydale Nature Resort” in letters carved into its surface.

  To the side, I saw a small metal box on the top of a post. It had a camera, a button, and a little speaker. I pressed the button.

  For a minute, no one answered, and I fought a strong temptation to turn around and drive back to town. Just as I put my hand on the gear shift to move into reverse, the speaker crackled to life.

  “May I help you?” a man’s voice asked. It would be a man, wouldn’t it?

  “It’s, um, Barbara Gold. I have an appointmen
t at the office.”

  “Oh, yes. Welcome to Sunnydale Nature Resort, Barbara. Drive up the road about half a mile and you’ll see the office building on the left.”

  The speaker emitted a beep, and the barrier rose. I put the car back into drive and moved forward.

  “Well, you certainly got yourself into it now, Barbara,” I whispered to myself.

  After about a hundred yards, the woods opened up into a wide field of grass speckled with wildflowers. Far to my right, a pond glittered in the sunlight. Nude figures cavorted by the side of the water or swam in the pond. My eyes bugged out, and I nearly drove off the road. I am not a prude, but I had never seen anything like this before, even from a distance.

  I tried to control my reactions. If I looked skittish, it might make people suspicious.

  Driving up a gentle slope, I crested a ridge, and the rest of the camp came into view. To the left I saw a building tucked up against the tree line with a sign saying “Office” in front of it. Ahead, the road continued to a long, low building with a sign saying “Rec Center.” I could glimpse the corner of a pool behind it. To my right was a tennis court, where a doubles game was going on. Both teams looked like couples, the men rather portly, the women a bit saggy around the edges, but not the Gothic ruin that I was turning into. Some more activity areas lay beyond the tennis courts, but I couldn’t see them clearly.

  I parked in front of the office just as a man in his early sixties came out the front door, stood on the porch, and waved at me. He was wearing clothes, thankfully.

  I parked, took a deep breath, and got out. When I came up to the porch, he shook my hand.

  “Barbara Gold? I’m Adrian Fletcher. Pleased to meet you.” He spoke with the slow drawl of the Deep South.

  “Hello. Um, nice day, isn’t it?”

  “A beautiful day for some fun in the sun. Come on inside and meet my wife.”

  Not the usual thing a man says to a woman when they’re about to undress, but okay.

  The wife turned out to be Zoe Fletcher, a roly-poly little woman in her fifties. She was already naked, or nude. I’ve never known the difference. Since I’ve been to many women’s locker rooms, her appearance in the buff did not shock me, although it felt a bit odd seeing her sitting behind a desk tapping away on a computer. I noticed her webcam was covered. Smart precaution.