Seven ways to die

6

She was shorter than Cody expected. Five-four or so. A trim young woman, twenty-six or seven, her body well-toned but not muscular, her dark hair cut to mold a face that was exotically beautiful even without makeup, green eyes with Asian folds that looked straight into his and held the stare, naturally full lips unenhanced by Botox. She was wearing black sweats, a black tank top and black walking sneakers.

“Amelie Cluett?” he asked and his surprise was evident.

“Yes. And it’s pronounced Clu-way. As in away.”

She read him instantly and knew what he was expecting. Masseuse: An alluring Amazon with Schwarzenegger muscles dressed in an outfit straight out of a Victoria’s Secret catalogue.

And he knew what she thought he was thinking now. His gaze never wavered.

“Sorry if I seem surprised,” he said. “I was expecting someone a little taller.”

“Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” he answered and held up his gold badge. “I’m here on my business, not yours. My name’s Cody. Got a minute?”

She, too, was surprised. He was gut-handsome, five-ten, a deep, natural tan, jet black hair pulled into a tight ponytail at the nape of his neck, and startling aqua blue eyes that seemed to see right through her and tickle the back of her neck. And he seemed awfully young to be carrying a badge with “Captain” engraved on it. And that ponytail!

“Come on in,” she said, stepping back and holding the door open.

“Thanks.”

The living room was bright and cheerful with two sofas and two easy chairs covered in a variety of colors and fabrics that gave the white-walled room a gem-like brilliance. They were arranged in a quadrangle that invited conversation and were interspersed with wooden pedestal tables.

The wall facing the door was dominated by an enormous contemporary print with splashes of color that balanced the colors of the furniture. The room was lit by four, four-foot square lights flush with the ceiling and arranged in an eight-foot square pattern controlled by a dimmer switch. They provided the room with a soft, almost shadowless illumination. The wood flooring was laid in a brick pattern, a sharp contrast to the rest of the room as was a black baby grand piano in the corner beside what was the bedroom door.

The aroma of good strong coffee enhanced the space.

She watched his eyes quickly roam the surroundings, taking in every detail, before settling on hers.

“Raymond’s dead, isn’t he?” she said without a moment’s hesitation, her gaze never wavering from his nor his from hers.

He always remembered the words of qiwn at times like this. Listen with your eyes. They are the doorway to the truth. “Yes. And it wasn’t an accident,” he said just as abruptly and with an edge.

Her breath withdrew compulsively. She had guessed the answer but it was still a shock. Tears filled her eyes. She put the fingers of both hands over her mouth and the word “oh!” squeezed out between them.

“Why don’t you sit down,” he said quietly, the flint gone from his tone. He had learned a lot in the brief exchange.

She shook her head sharply, her hair flipping back and forth across her face.

“No,” she said weakly. “I think…I think I need some coffee. Would you like a cup?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

He followed her into the small but adequate kitchen, all stainless steel with pots hanging from a rack over a light wooden carving table in the middle of the room. The coffee maker both ground the beans and blended the coffee. She took two mugs from a built-in closet and put them on the counter.

“How do you like it? This is pretty strong stuff. I order it from a place in Key West. It’s called Colombian Hammerhead. I take it with a little sugar.”

“I’ll go with that.”

“Sugar’s really not good for you,” she said as she sprinkled it in both cups and stirred them. “But a pinch or two won’t kill you.”

They went in the living room. She sat in a chair adjoining one of the sofas and nodded to it. When he sat down their knees almost touched.

“Mind if I tape the conversation?” Cody asked. “I’m not very good at shorthand.”

She looked surprised, hesitated a moment, and then said, “No, it’s alright.” She took a sip of coffee and then abruptly burst into a monologue, talking so fast he just sat bemused and listened.

“ My name is Amelie Cluett. My mother’s French. My father’s Japanese, in the diplomatic service, and they met in Paris. They never married. I was born in Japan. They started me on piano when I was just learning to walk but I hated it. I preferred gym and soccer and stuff like that. I learned neechika, which is a form of massage, from an old Japanese master. I loved Japan but we moved back here to New York and I went to Juilliard and I was pretty good at the piano but not good enough. I was going to a gym on Madison called The Body Machine which is a stupid name but it’s a good gym and the owner, Jerry Kerry-I told him once he ought to change his name to Harry, like hari kari — and he thought that was a hoot and when he found out I knew neechika he offered me a job and I was pretty popular and I started getting clients-I call them clients because customers sounds like a hooker-who wanted me to go to their homes and we made a deal where I work four hours a day at the Machine and do home massages the rest of the time. That was about two, no two-and-a-half years ago. I get one-and-a-half at the gym and two-and-a-half for home massages. Anyhow, that’s where I met Raymond.”

She stopped to take a breath and sip some coffee. She had looked him in the eyes during the entire speech.

“Two hundred and fifty dollars for home massages?” he repeated.

“What do you think, two dollars and fifty cents? What century were you born in? And, actually, with tips it rounds out to about three.”

“An hour? No wonder you gave up the piano.”

“I didn’t give it up. It gave me up. I play a little jazz to relax but Carnegie Hall was never within my reach. So? I’ve known Raymond about three years. Go ahead. Grill me.”

Cody laughed and scratched his chin with his thumb. “I’m out of breath listening to you. And I just want to ask you some questions. We do the grilling down at the station.”

“I’m sorry about that. I just got started and… I guess I wanted to get my mind off of, uh, Raymond. I do talk a lot, I know that, people tell me that all the time.” She took another sip of coffee and asked plaintively, “What happened to him?”

“Somebody killed him.”

“Is that all you can tell me?”

“I don’t really know much more. Even if I did it’s a homicide investigation. We don’t tell, we ask. How well did you know him?”

“Socially? Not at all. I gave him a massage twice a week. Lately, because he was under a lot of stress, three times. Look, my clients come in all flavors. Some talk, some take a nap, some don’t say a word, some even hum. I have a fellow who writes lyrics for big Broadway shows. He hums the tune and then he’ll talk some lyric and write it down, then hum some more. I have an opera singer who gargles with champagne before we start. Sometimes when the spirit moves her she hits a high note and scares me to death but it seems to loosen her up so what the hell. I once had an old fellow who was ticklish and giggled a lot. Thing is, I want this clear right off the bat…”

“Ms. Cluett,” Cody interrupted, smiling. “We’re way past ‘right off the bat’.”

“Please call me Amelie.”

“Okay.”

“What do I call you?”

“Captain Cody.”

“Oh, that’s typical. I’m Amelie, you’re Captain Cody. I find that a bit sexist. Oh, which is what I was going to say. I’m a licensed masseuse. No funny business. Anybody gets out of line, I’m out of there. It’s happened once or twice and it’s over. I just wanted you to know that.”

There was some muffled movement in the hallway and it alarmed her. She spun toward the door like a startled bird.

“That would be my team arriving,” Cody said. “There’s going to be a lot of action in and out over there. Ignore it. And stay away from that peephole. It’ll arouse suspicion.”

“Am I a suspect?”

He scratched his chin again.

“Well, you were about…” he looked over his shoulder at her bedroom door, “about fifteen, twenty yards from him when he got it.”

She sat upright, her eyes widening. “I didn’t think about that. Oh my God, it just didn’t occur to me!”

“I didn’t mean to alarm you. But we do have to cover all the bases. Let’s stick with Raymond Handley, okay?”

She rolled her head around, loosening her neck, and blew a little burst of air from her lips.

“Sure, okay. Well, I treated him on Friday mornings, to loosen him up for the weekend. I mean the stock market is a zoo. Did I tell you he works for the stock market?”

“Wilma mentioned it.”

“Anyway, he’d be tight as a tick. Then Monday he’d come over and I’d loosen him up after the weekend. He worked hard and he played hard. He’s their only client I did here because he would jog over to the Machine and work out and jog back and Wilma would be over there so I’d set up the portable table and work him out while she was making him breakfast. Anyway, Raymond is a talker.”

She stopped and started to tear up. She took a couple of swallows of the Colombian java.

“Was he a switch hitter?” Cody asked.

“No. No.” She shook her head. “It was always about girls. And not all the time. I mean, maybe once a month he’d go off on one of his tantrums.”

“It’s tangent. Go off on a tangent.”

“Come on, Captain, I know the difference between a tangent and a tantrum. These were tantrums. He was really upset. It was a strange thing. Like…it was like he was talking in his sleep.”

He stopped and they took a breather.

“Want another cup?” she asked.

“I’m fine, thanks. So these were kind of like ramblings, getting something off his chest?”

“Exactly. When I was through he’d smile and pay me and go back over to his place.”

“Anything else you can remember?”

She shrugged. “He was a nice guy. He was polite. He said ‘Thank you.’”

“And you never asked him about any of these things?”

“He wasn’t a Chatty Cathy. I’ve got some clients who like to chat. Talk about movies, casual talk. There was nothing casual about Raymond. His monologue was part of his working out emotional kinks. He was there to get the knots ironed out, period.”

“I’ve got to ask you this. Where were you last night?”

“Here. I was reading. Sitting over there.” She pointed to a chair near the door.

He could see her sitting there, and the thought oddly pleased him. “Did you hear him come in?”

She shook her head.

“Would you have heard him? If he had come in?”

“Probably. We just heard your people.”

“What time did you go to bed?”

“I finished reading about quarter to eleven. Went back, turned on the TV. Watched the top of the news and then put in the plugs. I was asleep by, I don’t know, eleven-fifteen maybe.”

“What kind of slippers do you have?”

“Slippers?”

“You know, for your feet?”

She smiled, a big smile for the first time since he had entered the apartment.

“Big fuzzy ones with little balls of stuff on the top. You want to see them?” She gave him an elfish grin.

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“I didn’t kill Raymond, Captain,” she said almost sternly.

“Okay,” he answered.

“I mean, I hardly knew him personally,” she said, still staring straight into his eyes.

Cody smiled. “You probably knew a lot more about him that a lot of his friends.”

Amelie didn’t disagree with that. She blurted out the rest of what she knew until Cody finally stood up to leave. “Thanks for the coffee,” he said. “It was good.”

“Where’s your tape recorder?” she asked.

He tapped the fountain pen in his breast pocket. “This is the mike. The recorder’s in my pocket.”

“Isn’t that cute,” she answered, following him to the door. He took out his card and handed it to her.

“My name and number is on that. You can call anytime, I’m always available. If you think of anything else.”

She flipped the card with a finger, smiled and took her card out and slipped it in the breast pocket of his jacket.

“May I ask a question?”

“I suppose so.”

“What’s with the ponytail?”

He stared at her for a moment and said, “My barber cut my ear with his scissors so I never went back.”

She shook her head and giggled. “Little wonders. A cop with a ponytail and a sense of humor. I bet you’d eat nails for breakfast if you had to.”

“It’s never come up.”

She stared at his neck and shoulders and then back into his eyes.

“You’re tight as a fist, Captain Cody. You could use a good loosening up. Give me a call. I’ll work you in. On the house. Civic duty and all that.”

“Thanks. Goodbye, Amelie.”

“So long for now. If I don’t hear from you I may just make up something and call you.”

“That’s against the law.”

“Then you can come over and give me a ticket.”