Naked Came The Phoenix

Chapter Nine

CAROLINE HAD STORMED OUT OF the cottage at full throttle, but halfway down the tree-lined drive that led to the gates of Phoenix Spa, she eased her foot off the gas. Behind the pillars and the elaborate wrought-iron barrier, a writhing mass of reporters stood before a backdrop of cars and television vans, their satellite dishes pointed toward the sky on long, slender stalks. As she approached, Caroline thought she could make out some familiar faces-a bespectacled, frizzy-headed reporter from CNN and, Lord help us, that guy with the mustache, Geraldo Rivera. Next to Geraldo stood a well-coifed reporter who reminded her of an anchor back home on Channel 5.

Home. That word again. It stabbed at her heart with a pain so intense that she sobbed and paused in her purposeful march toward the world and the truth to catch her breath. Where was home? The house where she grew up had long ago fallen to the wrecking ball. Her bachelorette bungalow on Forest View in Nashville had been sold. And she couldn't imagine returning to the Georgian-style row house on Thirty-first Street in Georgetown where Congressman Blessing had brought his new bride less than a year ago. The furniture, carpets, wallpaper, and fabrics that she had chosen with such care and joy held no more warmth for her now than the cold fist of anger and fear that seemed to be squeezing the heart right out of her chest.

Panic seized her, she recognized the signs. First a tingling in her fingers and toes, then a wave of heat that rushed up her neck, suffusing her face and scalp and overwhelming her with dizziness. Fool! Whatever made her think she was even capable of meeting the press? Caroline glanced about for a quiet spot to withdraw, but a serpentine wall of solid brick lined the drive on both sides. She could continue toward the braying pack of media hounds or retreat up the drive to the cabin she shared with her mother, to her loft bedroom, now the only home she had.

Caroline scurried to the wall, seeking refuge in one of its sheltering curves. Panting with relief, she sat on her heels and leaned against the brick, which felt deliciously warm through the sheer cotton of her blouse. Insanely, she wished for Douglas. Douglas had experience with the press; he would tell her what to do. To her right, the manic shouting of the reporters assaulted her ears. To her left, there was nothing but tranquillity-a twittering bird, the drone of a honeybee-and a young man, striding purposefully in her direction.

"Mrs. Blessing?" he called.

Caroline swiped at the tears that streaked her cheeks and turned her face in his direction. She could tell he was a staff member by his green Phoenix Spa polo shirt, but he was neither tall enough nor lean enough to be Emilio Constanza. "Yes. Who are you?" she asked unnecessarily as the fellow got closer and she saw the name tag clipped to his uniform. It said "Dante."

"I'm a masseur," he offered.

"What do you want?"

"Dr. de Vries sent me to find you. You had an appointment with him at two-thirty yesterday."

Caroline wrinkled her brow. "What appointment?"

"Everyone has them. Part of the package. You discuss your needs, he evaluates your general condition, then he plans out the best therapeutic course for you during your stay."

In the blinding sunlight Caroline squinted up at Dante. She couldn't believe it would be business as usual for the freshly widowed Raoul. "Of course, I remember now." She stood, dusted off her slacks, and walked toward him. "But how did you find me?"

Dante pointed.

She followed the long line of his arm from rounded biceps to tapered index finger. "That birdhouse?"

He chuckled and shook his head, sending his ponytail flipping from one shoulder to another. "Surveillance cameras. They're all over the place."

Caroline gasped. "Raoul's been spying on me?"

"Not spying, exactly. The security officer sits in a basement room in the main lodge while this software just flips from one camera to another, capturing it all on videotape."

"I'm on tape?" Caroline was incredulous.

As if sensing her next question, Dante laid a hand on her arm. "They're only for the spa entrances and the grounds. We don't have any cameras indoors."

Caroline said, "Well, that's a relief." She wondered if Detective Toscana knew about the security system and, remembering her midnight raid on the spa kitchen, was glad she had come clean to him about it. "Do the police …?"

"Oh, yeah. That Toscana fellow and his goons have been all over security this morning."

Grateful for the interruption and glad of the company, Caroline turned her back on the reporters and accompanied Dante up the drive toward the main lodge. Exhausted and drained, she walked in silence. As they passed the kitchen wing, the smell of food teased her nostrils.

"Mrs. Blessing, do you mind if I make a suggestion?"

Caroline had been thinking about her meager breakfast and how much she now regretted passing up the whole-grain Belgian waffles with fresh fruit in favor of some dry toast. Her stomach rumbled noisily. "What?"

"After you finish with Dr. de Vries, come see me." Walking slightly behind, he laid his hands on her shoulders. "You're tied in knots. Stiff. Your spine's coiled as tightly as a bedspring."

Caroline rotated her shoulders. "I know."

"I have an opening at three." He removed his hands. "Have you ever been Rolfed?"

Caroline laughed. "Rolfed? You're making that up, surely?" But when he didn't smile she said, "Is it anything like shiatzu?"

Dante shook his head. "Not at all. Rolfing's a deep-massage technique that works on the connective tissues. Quite frankly, it's not for everybody, but I've never seen anyone who needed Rolfing more than you."

Caroline smiled up at the masseur, thinking, What could it hurt? "I'll mention it to Raoul," she promised.

"Ordinarily, we suggest an eight- to ten-week course of treatment," the young man continued. "But let's do an introductory session and if it seems to work for you, I'll recommend a practitioner for when you get home."

Wherever home might be, she thought ruefully. Forcing her lips into a smile, she looked up at Dante. "Okay, then," she said. "Pencil me in."

Through the half-open door, Caroline could see that Raoul's office was the June cover of Architectural Digest, from the brocade draperies to the foil-backed wall covering right down to the oversized art books carelessly but expensively arranged on the Louis XV coffee table. To the right, built-in bookshelves held matched sets of leather-bound classics. To the left, a globe the size of a basketball, each country delineated by encrustations of semi-precious stones, was centered on a narrow credenza.

If Raoul had a medical degree, Caroline could see no evidence of it. On the other hand, a boasting, black-framed diploma would hardly have been in keeping with the decor. As proud as Caroline was of the diploma from Juilliard that hung in her own study, it wouldn't have taken much arm-twisting to persuade her to replace it with one of the Mirós or Klees that hung in carved, gilded frames over Raoul's credenza.

Near the fireplace, a tabby cat, undoubtedly chosen by the decorator to coordinate with the rusty gold medallions in the Turkish carpet, had draped itself casually across the back of an overstuffed wing chair. When Caroline entered, the cat opened an eye, studied her, determined she was of no importance, and returned to its nap.

Raoul was hardly napping. Piles of papers and what Caroline took to be case files littered his desk. He was shuffling through them frantically, oblivious to her presence.

"Raoul? You wanted to see me?"

"What?" His eyes were enormous behind his glasses. "Oh, Caroline. So good of you to come." He shoved the folders aside until the space on the desk directly in front of him was clear, anchored the tallest pile with a substantial brass paperweight shaped like a propeller, whipped off his glasses, and stood. "Sit down. Sit down."

Raoul emerged from behind his desk and motioned Caroline into the armchair. The cat didn't budge. The handsome widower arranged himself opposite Caroline on a two-cushion sofa, beautifully upholstered in a reproduction of a medieval tapestry. Considering the money that had clearly been lavished on this place, it could have been a medieval tapestry.

"Frankly, Raoul, after what happened yesterday, I'm surprised you're keeping office hours," Caroline ventured after a moment of uncomfortable silence.

"What are my alternatives?" He spread his hands wide. "I've got a spa to run, as your mother keeps reminding me."

"That surprised me as much as it surprised you."

"Surprise is not the word I'd choose," he said. "Surprise is for Christmas presents or birthday parties. It's fair to say I was shocked, appalled, devastated." He massaged the bridge of his nose with a thumb and index finger. "Claudia must have known something about your mother's financial interest in Phoenix. You must have suspected."

Caroline had no answer for him, so she changed the subject. "Why did you send that fellow to find me, Raoul? It wasn't just to discuss my treatment program, was it?"

"No." He flushed to the lobes of his exguisite ears.

"Well, what then?"

"I wondered if you could tell me what your mother's plans are for Phoenix Spa."

"Mother and I were never all that close." She paused to swallow the lump that had taken up residence in her throat.

Raoul bowed his head. "I feel like a fish out of water. When Claudia was alive, I knew exactly what I'd be doing every day. But now…" He looked up. "Your mother can be difficult."

"What did Mother say to you?"

"She ordered me to stop mooning about and get on with it." He shook his head, and Caroline could see he was close to tears. "Carry on with what, for Christ's sake. I have a wife to bury!"

Caroline reached across the coffee table and laid her hand on his. "I'm so sorry, Raoul. Sorry about Claudia. About Mother…" She took a deep breath. "About everything." She patted his hand, then settled back into the comfortable recesses of the chair. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Nobody can do anything until the police release Claudia's body, and who knows when that will be." He leaned forward, fingers laced together, his elbows resting on his knees. "They're not even sure how she died. Everyone assumes she was strangled." He shuddered. "But what if she was still alive when whoever shoved her face into the mud?"

"Don't even think about it, Raoul. It'll make you crazy."

"I can't eat. I can't sleep." He fixed his eyes, unseeing, on the wallpaper behind her head.

"Raoul…"

He shivered, seemed to snap out of it, then turned to look at Caroline as if seeing her for the first time. He reached across the table, covered her hand with his, and stood up, pulling her up along with him. "Caroline, Caroline! Please forgive me. I've been babbling like a fool."

Caroline thought the man was hardly a fool. Quietly, she extracted her hand and began to stroke the cat.

Raoul seemed unperturbed. "We're supposed to be talking about you."

That's a subject best avoided, Caroline thought. Aloud she said, "Tell me about that young man you sent to find me. Dante. He's booked me in for a deep-tissue massage after lunch."

Raoul beamed. "Splendid! Should do you a world of good. He's quite the expert, Dante. We hired him away from the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. Claudia considered it quite a coup!"

While Raoul pontificated on the solid-gold credentials of Dante, otherwise known as Daniel Shemanski, and oozed on about macrobiotics, homeopathy, and the miracle of colonic hydrotherapy, Caroline inched her way toward the door, hoping to escape. "Join me at my table for lunch?" Raoul inquired.

Caroline felt her stomach knocking against her ribs. If she didn't get something to eat soon, she'd end up looking like Ondine. "Of course," she replied. "Why not?"

Vince Toscana stared at the plate in front of him and considered where to begin. A scallion, its topknot fringed and curled, sprang like an astonished bird from the top of a pink, spongelike cube. A quartet of tiny shrimp flanked the scallion, each nestled in a rose-cut carrot curl set on a nearly transparent cucumber round, sliced thin as a lab specimen. The whole mess was arranged on a bed of limp yuppie lettuce that reminded him of dandelion greens. Vince nudged his salad with his fork. Whatever happened to iceberg lettuce, he wondered. Saw off a hunk, pour on some Catalina dressing straight from the bottle. Now, that was a salad.

Across the table from him Stick Girl had moved one shrimp to the edge of her plate where she was using a knife to cut it into four pieces. One tiny quarter went into her mouth where she chewed it, he swore to God, one hundred times while gazing at nothing in particular, as if all her energy was going into the chewing of that infinitesimal lump of seafood.

Vince noticed her painfully thin arms and winced. Girls that skinny shouldn't wear sleeveless clothes. But sitting just to her right, Christopher Lund was staring at Ondine with more than the usual agent-to-client interest, so Vince thought, well, what the hell did he know? He was just a happily married old fart who was going to die of starvation himself if he didn't solve this case soon.

At a table for four near the kitchen, Raoul de Vries sat with the congressman's wife and that bitchy mother of hers. Vince would have given a Philly cheese steak with everything on it to overhear their conversation. Hilda was a no-go, but perhaps he'd be able to worm something out of Caroline later. As for Raoul, Vince had been avoiding the spa doctor ever since yesterday when the man had caught him practically red-handed in the file room. With only seconds to spare, Vince had stuffed Ondine's folder back into the proper box and managed to cover his presence in the room by swinging into his rambling, rumpled-raincoat, cigar-chomping TV cop routine.

Chewing thoughtfully on a carrot curl, Vince allowed his eyes to wander. In front of the swinging doors that led from the dining room into the kitchen, he noticed King David deep in conversation with Emilio Constanza. Emilio started to say something, but the rocker raised a hand and cut him short. Emilio shrugged and watched King's back as he approached de Vries's table and rested his paw on the back of the empty chair. Almost without looking up, Raoul waved King David away. But it didn't take the rock star long to find another luncheon companion. Soon His Majesty and that actress were sitting at a table by the window with their heads together, jabbering away like long-lost friends. Their four luncheon companions, with painful self-consciousness, dutifully ate their salads and tried not to gawk at the famous pair. So much for Lauren Sullivan's claim that she didn't know any of the other guests.

Vince dragged the tines of his fork across the pink sponge on his plate and tipped the fork onto his tongue. Salmon mousse. The meal disappeared in three bites-shrimp, carrots, cukes and all. Vince chewed on some corrugated box tops that passed for bread in this godforsaken place, then snagged a bunch of grapes from the tray of a passing waiter.

He popped a grape into his mouth and turned, at last, to the girl. "So, Ondine is it?"

The girl looked up from her plate, a bit of cucumber balanced on the end of her fork. "Yes, sir."

"Got a real name, Ondine?"

"Ondine is my real name."

"What's the rest of it?"

She glanced at Lund as if seeking his approval to answer the detective, then turned her high cheekbones on Vince in a full-frontal assault. Suddenly, even without the makeup, Vince saw what hundreds of photographers and millions of magazine readers must have seen-the gamin beauty, the childlike vulnerability of the woman. Her smile was dazzling. "Just Ondine."

Christopher Lund waved a knife. "Like she said, Ondine. Had it changed legal."

Did these people think he was a complete idiot? Vince polished off the last of the grapes and sighed. He considered starting on the floral centerpiece. "Look, miss," he said. "You went to kindergarten, right?"

She nodded.

"So what name did they put on your report card in kindergarten?"

Ondine laid down her fork, propped the knobs she had for elbows on the white tablecloth, and considered his question with a slight smile. "Mary Louise Thorvald."

"Thorvald." He grunted. Probably had some fancy punctuation marks over the vowels. At least she wasn't another goddamn Italian. "What kind of name's Thorvald?"

"Norwegian."

"So, Ms. Thorvald," he began.

"I haven't been a Thorvald for years, Detective. I was a foster child. Changed my last name as often as my hair style." She dabbed at her lips-the only plump thing about her-with her napkin, then folded it carefully and laid it down next to her fork. "I was a bit of a problem, you see. Nobody wanted me for long."

Vince stared at her in silence. What did it matter what her name was, Vince thought. Ondine didn't have the strength to knock off Claudia de Vries. She could hardly lift a fork, for Christ's sake, let alone strangle a one-hundred-thirty-pound woman and drop her into a tub of mud. Claudia would have broken those fragile arms in twenty-seven places.

A waiter balancing a stack of dirty dishes on his left arm materialized at the model's elbow and, as Vince watched incredulously, Ondine waved away her barely finished meal. Vince gazed hungrily at the lump of salmon mousse remaining on the lapis lazuli plate. "Aren't you gonna finish your salad?"

Ondine shoved the plate in his direction with two well-manicured talons. "Knock yourself out, Detective."

Caroline leaned over the marble counter in the plush reception area while Ginger, the receptionist and keeper of the master appointment book, helped her select a body lotion, some moisturizer suitable for extra-dry skin, and an assortment of hair care products. Perhaps twenty bottles of various colors, shapes, and sizes, each bearing the spa's distinctive silver label, were lined up along the counter. "I don't know," Caroline said as she studied the label on a bright lavender bottle of lotion. "This one's got coconut oil in it. I hate the smell of coconut oil."

With a well-trained, plastic smile, Ginger plucked the bottle from Caroline's fingers. "That's about it in the body lotion department, Mrs. Blessing. Unless…" Ginger turned, knelt, pulled open a drawer, and began to search through the neat rows of boxes it contained. While the receptionist's back was turned, Caroline reached over the counter and flipped the pages of the appointment book back a day. Reading upside down, she noticed that the facilities had been busy yesterday afternoon about the time Phyllis Talmadge took her nosedive into the lake. Of the names she recognized, Lauren Sullivan and Ondine had been in at one-thirty and two o'clock, respectively, while Howard Fondulac had managed to drag himself over for a reflexology treatment at three. Her mother, to her surprise, had found time to spend the hour from three to four working out on the StairMaster while Christopher Lund was signed up for something, she couldn't decipher what, in the weight room at five.

"Here we are!" Ginger turned to Caroline in triumph, offering her a slender white bottle with some green leaves looking suspiciously like marijuana embossed on the label. "This stuff is wonderful, and not a speck of coconut oil!"

Caroline took the time to read the list of ingredients as carefully as if it were a logic problem on the SATs. Lanolin. Aloe. Hemp. She unscrewed the cap and sniffed, enjoying the unexpectedly light, clean scent. "Yes, this might do quite well."

A few minutes later as she lay on the massage table of softly padded leather, facedown, naked, a sheet lightly covering her legs and buttocks, she found herself thinking about King David. Maybe it was the hemp that reminded her. Caroline had told Detective Toscana about her conversation with the rock star, of course, but why had she failed to mention the key King suspected Claudia of having? In his gruff, big-city way, Toscana had been as kind to her as he knew how, even letting her tag along like Junior Miss Jessica Fletcher while he interviewed Phyllis Talmadge after her near-fatal plunge. She owed him. She should have told Toscana about the key.

Caroline had been massaged before, so she recognized the effleurage when it began: long, gliding strokes of Dante's hands, open against and never losing contact with her skin. He'd prepared her for the deep massage with warm essential oils-marjoram for grief and sandalwood for depression-and even tucked hot oiled stones between her toes. "I feel like such a hedonist," she drawled.

He bent down until he could look directly into her eyes. "And I forbid you to feel guilty about that. This is all about you, you, you."

Caroline prayed that this focus on me, me, me would make her feel important, worthy, loved.

But right then, all she felt was boneless.

As his hands and fingers, skilled as a surgeon's, worked over her traumatized body, she could feel the muscles loosen, the adhesions breaking and falling away. She moaned. Once, as he loosened the contracted muscles along her spine, she screamed. This was normal, he told her. To be expected. As he worked to release the tension in her thighs, Caroline bit her lower lip and tried not to cry out. Was this what childbirth felt like? she wondered. Exquisite agony?

Childbirth. She had hoped to have children. Douglas 's children. Now that would never be, and her biological clock was ticking, ticking, ticking.

But she had a sister somewhere, or a brother! She counted backward to the year her mother was at Brown, 1962 or 1963. Her half-sibling would be thirty-something today. Had they ever met-on the metro, at the library, at a fund-raiser-without realizing the relationship?

She could be sister to the cashier at Bread and Circus, to the mechanic at VOB Volvo, to her stylist at the Toka Salon. Even to Ondine! No, Ondine was too young. But Lauren? Christopher Lund? And how about Dante? As his hands massaged her feet and ankles, she wondered about Dante. It was hard to tell with him; his amber eyes were wise, but his face was unlined and somehow ageless.

In her mellow state, Caroline wasn't sure whether she felt them first or heard them, but she gradually became aware of helicopters chop-chop-chopping overhead.

"Relax!" Dante warned. "Ignore them. It's nothing to us." His hands moved up to her shoulders.

Helicopters! Silly of Raoul to think he could keep the press out of the grounds of Phoenix Spa forever. It had to be the tabloids, she thought dreamily, training their telephoto lenses on the grounds below, hoping to catch Lauren Sullivan without her makeup or Ondine without her clothes. Vultures! She remembered fuzzy photos of a lover sucking on a topless Fergie's toes and knew that the tabloids would pay big bucks for a photograph of Congressman Blessing's wife with another man's hands grasping her upper thighs. Caroline was thankful that she lay indoors beyond the reach of their prying cameras.

As ordered, she ignored the helicopters, and for the next ten minutes she wallowed in forgetfulness. Cocooned, she felt limp, drained. Maybe she'd died.

"Caroline!" Douglas's voice spiraled down to her, as if from the end of a long tunnel. Dante's hands paused, resting lightly against the small of her back. With great effort, Caroline willed her head to rise and turned it toward the door. She stared at her husband with languid eyes.

He filled the doorway. She wondered, vaguely, why he was wearing jeans and a yellow cable-knit sweater instead of his usual three-piece suit. Brice, his pilot and sometime bodyguard, loomed large behind him, and Douglas must have brought other people along, too, because Caroline could hear the receptionist making fruitless stop-you-can't-go-in-there noises.

"Go away, Douglas." She rested her cheek against the soft, terry cloth covering on the table and waved a sluggish arm.

Douglas indicated to Brice that he should wait outside, then closed the door behind him. Caroline mused that Douglas would have liked to get rid of Dante, too, but the masseur's hands began their final assault on the tendons in her neck, and she once again became one with the table.

Douglas seemed to sense the wisdom of keeping his distance. He stood near the door, slim, tall, elegant as always even in his casual attire. Through half-closed eyes, Caroline was pleased to note that the suave self-assurance he showed in front of the television cameras and before his constituents had evaporated. His arms hung at his sides and he repeatedly opened and closed his hands, as if they were cold. "Caroline," he blurted at last, "I need to explain."

"Don't waste your breath, Douglas."

He took a step toward the table. "Honey, it's not what you think!"

Reluctantly, Caroline pulled herself up into a sitting position. She had never felt uncomfortable being naked in front of Douglas before, but now her nakedness embarrassed her. With elaborate care, she gathered the sheet around her, smoothing the fabric over her bare legs and twisting it into a knot at her breast. She skewered him with her eyes. "Congressman Blessing, you are full of crap!"

"Honey…"

"Don't you honey me!"

"But I can explain."

"Okay. So explain this. Eight-by-ten glossies. Dates, times, and places."

Douglas's jaw dropped. "You hired a private investigator?"

"I didn't, Mommie Dearest did." Dante's strong arm steadied her as she slid off the table and hopped to the floor.

"Where are the photos now?" Douglas asked.

"They were in my room…"

"Thank goodness! Then no one…"

"Depends on what you mean by no one." She gave him a tight-lipped smile. "I had them hidden, but somebody searched my room yesterday. Somebody found them." She watched her husband's face as the news sunk in. "Detective Toscana saw them when he searched our cabin, but when I got back to my room later, they were gone."

For an instant, Douglas wore that little-boy-lost look and Caroline felt her heart soften. But just as instantly, the look was gone, masked by what she had come to recognize as his press conference face.

"That's right. You'd better get on the phone to the damage control team.?" With one arm, she shoved her husband aside and disappeared through the door that led into the sanctuary of the women's sauna. "But tell those spin doctors not to waste any time working on me!"

From her post at reception, Ginger Finnegan was accustomed to hearing the occasional scream coming from behind the massage room doors. As she noted Mrs. Blessing's departure time in the proper column of the appointment book, she wondered, not for the first time, why anybody'd want to put herself through all that poking, prodding, and manipulating. With that new guy, Dante, there seemed to be more screaming than usual, but when the clients emerged, they seemed to be all smiles, so go figure. You know what they say. No pain, no gain.

With a few clicks of a mouse, she transferred information on the late afternoon schedule from the appointment book into the computer, thinking she had the most boring job in the world. Dr. de Vries had promised to give her a raise, but that had been before yesterday, before that wife of his had died and that other woman put herself in charge. Now all bets were off. Raoul had always been the voice of reason around the place. Didn't he put a stop to that foolishness when Claudia had wanted to call the spa attendants "guides" and the treatments they provided "journeys"?

Ginger nibbled at her thumbnail, scraping off the violet polish with her lower front teeth. She made up her mind to talk to de Vries about her future when he came through on his rounds at four-thirty. She looked around and, feeling guilty and a bit reckless, crossed to a console on the wall and turned a dial that silenced the singing whales. Enya, rain forests, and all that inner child crap. She just didn't get it.

She thought about the issue of People magazine that waited for her in the top drawer of her desk. Mel Gibson, now that was a subject she understood. But reading magazines on the job was a big no-no. Nevertheless, she had already slid the drawer half open when Howard Fondulac breezed into the room, a cell phone clamped to his ear.

"Can I…?" she began, but he held up an index finger to silence her.

"We have a deal, buster, and don't you forget it!" His head bobbed vigorously. "Yeah, sure, sure. You do that." Fondulac punched the End button, then tucked the cell phone into the pocket of his exercise pants.

With a casualness born of long practice, Ginger slid the drawer shut over her People magazine. Honestly! First that congressman bursting in with his thugs, and now this jerk. "Cell phones aren't in the spirit of the spa," she reminded him sweetly.

Fondulac leaned over the counter and grinned at her. "I know that, sweetheart. But now that the old witch has cashed in her chips, who's gonna stop me?" He reached out and tapped the name tag pinned to the breast pocket of her uniform. "You?"

Ginger slapped his hand away and scowled. Fondulac was definitely not her type. "Don't mind me," she said. "I just work here." She stood, making herself as tall as possible in her sensible flat shoes, until her eyes were level with his. "How can I help you, sir?"

He pointed to his name in the appointment book. "It's Fondulac. I'm supposed to meet Gustav in the weight room."

With a slight nod, Ginger indicated the door on her right. "This is the bathhouse, sir. The exercise center is just through there, down the path a little ways and to the left. If you get to the lake, you've gone too far." Suddenly remembering that Fondulac had once worked with Mel-her Mel-she aimed a thousand-watt smile in his direction. "Gustav will be waiting for you."

Ginger watched thoughtfully until the swinging door had closed over Fondulac's narrow backside, hoping that Gustav would teach that arrogant SOB a thing or two. Gustav had come to Phoenix Spa after a twelve-year gig with the Russian weight-lifting team. She smiled. Gustav, now he was someone she could get cozy with. Or that hunky Detective Toscana who was out on the meadow just then dealing with that delicious congressman's helicopter. She liked her men older. Road tested.

When Ginger first came to Phoenix Spa, all the girls had been goo-goo-gah-gah over Emilio Constanza, but what a waste of time that had turned out to be. She'd actually engineered a date with Emilio, until Jean-Claude, the dietitian, had taken her aside, raised one artfully plucked, bleached-blond eyebrow, and drawled, "Honey, you may be standing on the platform, but that train is not coming in for you." Back then her competition had been Steve, the pool man, but lately Emilio had been hanging out with the assistant pastry chef, a short, hairy-chested creep named Geoff. Ginger pulled her magazine out of the drawer and balanced it carefully on her knees where it would be hidden by the desk. Mel, she read, had a wife and seven children. Tried-and-true. She rested her case.

It could have been minutes or hours later when somebody screamed. Ginger dismissed it, assuming that Dante must really be giving his four o'clock client the business. But then the screams came again and again, long and shrill, like somebody twisting a cat's tail, and Ginger realized they were emanating from the exercise center, not from Dante's cubicle.

She deserted her post-another no-no-and followed the sound, flying out the door and down the path, straight-arming her way through a set of swinging double doors and bursting into the weight room. It was that skinny model, Ondine, who was screaming, tugging with scrawny arms on the long, leather straps of the Pilates machine, her narrow face flushed and tearstained. "Oh, help! Help!"

Ginger puffed air out through her lips. Jeez! What with all that screeching you'd think she'd caught a boob in the contraption or something. Except the poor girl didn't have any boobs. Maybe she'd mashed a finger. Wondering where Gustav had gotten to, Ginger rushed forward to assist the model.

Ginger knew all about the Pilates machine. Claudia de Vries had demonstrated it to her when she first came to work at Phoenix Spa. Mrs. de Vries had read about Pilates-pronounced puh-LAH-tease, if you please-in the Washington Post and had decided, right away, that her spa should have one. This model was called "The Reformer," which Ginger thought perfectly appropriate for an exercise device that looked like a cross between a hospital cot and an autoerotic rowing machine. It came equipped with straps, stirrups, springs and bars, a brace for the neck and shoulders, and a sliding pad to support the torso.

Howard Fondulac's torso was being supported just fine and so was his head, but someone had fully extended the leather straps, wrapped them around the producer's neck like dog leashes, and tied them off in a macabre bow. When Ginger got close enough to see Fondulac's face, she took hold of Ondine's shoulders and pulled her gently away. "I think we need to call Detective Toscana," Ginger soothed. She folded the sobbing woman into her arms and began rubbing her back vigorously, right where Ondine's shoulder blades stuck out like marble wings.

But Ginger knew by the way the straps bit tightly into Fondulac's neck, by his contorted face, and by his eyes, wide and bulging as if astonished by something written on the ceiling, that there was not much Detective Toscana or anybody else could do. They might have been able to revive that psychic lady yesterday, Ginger thought, but Howard Fondulac, Hollywood producer, was tee-totally dead.