Nevada Barr - Naked Came The Phoenix

"But you're not a businessperson. You're an author, right?"

"Same difference. For example, take my latest, Flex Your Psychic Muscles . It flew outta the stores on the lay-down date."

"Lay-down date?" Vince didn't know the term, but it sounded important, if not clairvoyant. Or literary.

"After I did The Morning Show , we went into a fifth printing. I told my publisher, who needs Oprah? Print those suckers! Hold contests! Give incentives! Co-op ads! Rebates! Post me on the Web site, bounce me off the satellite, shrink-wrap me with the Sugarbusters, do whatever it takes. Just move product!"

"You mean your books?"

"I'm following up with a video, for people who hate reading, like me. Who has the time? And who needs it, really?"

"You don't read?" Vince asked, but the author appeared not to have heard him.

"My publicist thinks we can take John Gray, hands down, if we can just get the media in LA. Nobody gets media in LA, she says. She tells me you gotta be blonde. It's a visual medium, she says, but I say, to hell with that ! I'm a promotable author, even though I'm not blonde. Where is it written you gotta be blonde? Look at Faulkner!"

"Uh, well-"

"Not blond. Also Hemingway-not blond."

Vince was growing impatient. He had met felons with better manners. "But Ms. Talmadge-"

"And Papa shoulda missed a few meals, if you know what I mean. The man had a beard like my aunt, but he moved product. You gotta admit, the man could move product! He still can and he's dead! And not even blond!"

Vince halted the author with a palm. He wasn't getting anywhere, and he had a job to do. "Yes, well, I wanted to talk to you about the murder of Claudia de Vries. Where were you last evening, between the hours of six o'clock and midnight?"

The author's enthusiasm vanished in an eye blink. "Why do you ask?"

"It's my job."

"Is that what you want to talk about?"

"Yes, of course."

The author looked confused. "You don't want to talk about my books?"

"Frankly, no. I'm a detective." Vince caught himself. He hadn't introduced himself because of the way she had barged in. "I'm sorry, my name is Detective Toscana."

" You 're the detective?" The author gasped. A pudgy hand flew to her mouth. "This isn't my preinterview for The Today Show ? They said they'd meet me here, at the spa. I thought the detective was next door. Wait'll I get a hold of that publicist!" She jumped to her tiny feet and plowed through the door, leaving steam in her wake.

Left alone in the interview room, Vince mentally regrouped. So nobody would talk to him without a lawyer. He should have expected as much. Rich people didn't expose themselves to risk, and they were used to layers of protection. He would have to approach the crime another way. Outside the room, the coroner would be examining the body of Claudia de Vries, and the techs would be vacuuming for fibers, hair, and other trace evidence. In a mud bath, there could even be muddy footprints. The crime scene would talk to him, even if the witnesses wouldn't. He had no time to lose.

Vince rose quickly to go and, in his haste, bumped into a white board resting on an aluminum easel. The easel toppled over and the white board fell off with a clatter, knocking into a closet door. Embarrassed, Vince hurried to right the easel, and as he bent over, noticed the closet door had been knocked ajar. Hmmm. He didn't have a warrant and had a lousy argument for a consent search. But if he found pay dirt, he'd go to the judge and get the warrant then come back later and "find" the stuff. Vince had no problem with the Constitution, when it served justice. He opened the closet door.

The Sharpie letters on one of the boxes read "Dead Files." Vince lifted the cardboard lid of the box and peeked inside. A lineup of manila folders, all tabbed with different names and colors. Vince, whose color coding was limited to pink for girls and blue for boys, was dazzled by the array of chartreuse, cerise, and puce. He gave up cracking the color codes and pulled out the first folder.

"Leticia Finnerman" read the name on a lime tab, and Vince opened the folder. It had the name and address of a woman who lived in Newton, Massachusetts, and who weighed exactly 112 pounds. There was a chart that contained a detailed account of everything Mrs. Finnerman had eaten for a ten-day period. Vince closed it in disgust. Not a pasta dish among them. It broke his heart. And it didn't help with the case, either.

He riffled through the other folders, and they were all similar: records of spa menus for the length of the guest's stay. Then Vince remembered the skinny model, with the legs. Ondine One-Name. Had she been here before? What the hell could she eat? Water with ice? Vince flipped to the O's and found a file. Ondine . He yanked it out and it flopped open.

But it wasn't a record of Ondine's menus. It was something else entirely. A ten-day stay, all right, but on each day, where the other guests had their food intake recorded, Ondine's chart showed a record of cash payments. The first day of her visit, which was October 31 of last year, she received $125,000, and she got $100,000 every day after that.

Vince blinked. Could it be? Did this kid get over a million dollars in ten days? But why? And from who? Whom? How much was she getting this visit, which was around the same time of year? Did it have anything to do with the de Vries murder?

Astonished, Vince looked up from the file just as the door to the conference room opened.

After her encounter with Detective Toscana, Caroline walked in a stiff silence with her mother, neither speaking until they had left the crowd at the mud baths behind and reached the flagstone path to their cottage. Caroline's emotions churned within her, as did so many questions. Why was her mother acting so strangely? Why didn't she tell the detective what she knew? And why didn't she want Caroline to talk to the authorities? She couldn't contain her thoughts a moment longer. "Mother, you told the detective you have an appointment. What appointment do you have?"

"I have things to do." Hilda Finch picked up the pace and her eyes remained straight ahead, confusing her daughter further.

"I've had a telephone installed in our cabin, for one thing. I have a business to run. The transition has to be smooth."

"Mother, for heaven's sake. It's a spa, not a country. And a murder has been committed."

Hilda Finch pivoted on her heel, her face contorted with anger. "Don't you dare tell me what to do. Or denigrate my efforts. The spa is my business, just as you have your business. I don't make jokes about your cello playing, do I?"

Caroline was stung. "I wasn't making jokes. I was just trying to understand you. This is a murder we're talking about, the murder of your friend. Don't you feel bad for her? And aren't you concerned for all of us? Why don't we go back and help the detective? What about justice?"

"Justice!" Her mother snorted. "Do you have any idea how much money this spa grosses a year?"

"Well, no."

"Swedish massages at a hundred and fifty dollars a half hour. Victorian manicures at forty-five dollars. All we do is put a foreign name on it and we charge extra."

"We?"

"Yes, we." Her mother's anger seemed to dissipate, and she leaned over confidentially. "The profit margin here is obscene, especially considering what we pay the help. I'm going to run this place even better now. I'll be more hands-on. Downsize, merge, and franchise."

"But you don't know anything about-"

"I don't? Does Mrs. Field know cookies? Does Mary Kay know mascara? Why shouldn't I have my own spa business? Who knows more about beauty than I do?"

Caroline gathered that the question was rhetorical. Her mother was the vainest woman alive, but was that a job qualification? Caroline couldn't shake the sight of poor Claudia, clutching that absurd bikini, even in death.