“Thanks to you, no doubt, you weasel. I haven’t done anything improper—”
“Chief Blackwell disagrees,” Bullock said.
“What?”
“Chief Blackwell was not at all amused by your little on-camera diatribe at the crime scene,” Bullock said. “Cursing and screaming at a fellow officer. While the cameras were rolling, no less.”
Mike felt his lips run dry. “They ran that? But—”
“They did not run it, thank God. But a copy was supplied to Chief Blackwell. He was very unhappy about it.”
A light slowly dawned in Mike’s brain. “You’re trying to blackmail me into being your toady on this case. To cover up the truth.”
“You can call it whatever you like, Lieutenant. Either you play ball with me or you’ll be playing ball in the streets.” He turned and headed for the door. “And if I see you anywhere near Kincaid before this case is over, you’ll be fired on the spot. Come on, Prescott.”
Prescott headed out the door, but not without first giving Mike his best so there look.
“Get out of my office,” Mike growled.
“So long, Morelli,” Prescott said, smiling. “I’ll be watching you.”
Chapter 20
BEN PEERED THROUGH THE windshield of his beat-up Honda Accord. “Where is this place, anyway? I don’t usually get this far south. And you still haven’t told me where it is exactly that we’re going.”
“We’re almost there,” Christina said enigmatically. “Turn onto Yale and head south.”
The light at the intersection was green, so Ben swooped through and hit a hard right.
“And you might want to slow down.”
“Nothing personal, Christina, but I hate passengers who try to tell me how to—”
Suddenly the road before him made a sharp ninety-degree swerve to the left. Ben twisted his steering wheel around, barely making the curve. As soon as he successfully completed the maneuver, he saw another equally sharp hairpin curve, this one twisting to the right.
Ben pulled the wheel hard the other way and hit his brakes, barely making the second turn. “Jiminy Christmas,” he muttered. He slowed down to about twenty and cautiously threaded his way through the equally sharp remaining curves. “What is this place?”
“Dead-Man’s Curve, Tulsa style,” Christina explained.
“Man, if I’d been going any faster, I would’ve gone right off the road.”
“A sad fact that has been discovered by many before you. How do you think the place got its name? This stretch between Eighty-first and Ninety-first is one of the worst in the city, especially at night. People who weren’t even aware they were speeding have totalled their cars here.”
“Well, next time you steer me toward Dead-Man’s Curve or anything else with a grim nickname, give me some warning, all right?”
“I don’t want to affront your manhood.”
“After all, I know how you hate passengers who try to tell you—”
“Christina!”
She smiled, and didn’t say a word for the rest of the drive.
Ben peered through the glass window in the door. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Christina frowned. “You said you wanted to talk to her.”
“Couldn’t you arrange a nice normal interview? Like in an office, maybe?”
“She refused.”
“So you came up with this!”
“Pardonnez moi. It was the best I could do.”
“Christina—”
“It was this or nothing, Ben. Take it or leave it.”
Ben sighed. He peered through the window to the main studio in the Midtown All-American Aerobic Salon. Ten women were scattered through the studio in rough formation facing a full-wall mirror. They were all stretching, warming up. They were dressed in leotards, mostly pink and purple, and body suits that wrapped around their torsos and thonged over their backsides. Headbands were de rigueur.
“This is not going to work,” Ben murmured.
“C’mon, Ben, give it the old college try. These women do this three times a week. Surely you can survive it once.”
“I’m not complaining because it’s too hard. I’m complaining because it’s stupid!”
“Right.”
“Look, you want me to do push-ups, I can do push-ups. You want sit-ups, I’ll do sit-ups. I can do jumping jacks all night long. But I’m not going to do all this swishy-wooshy, dancy-wancy, pseudo-sweaty stuff.”
Christina laid a hand on his shoulder. “Ben, you may not be the most coordinated guy in the world …”
“That is not what I’m complaining about!”
“Uh-huh. Look, when I contacted Cynthia Taylor, Caroline Barrett’s sister, she absolutely refused to talk to the lawyer representing Wallace Barrett, whom she despises. I tried every trick, every fib, every canard I know, but she wouldn’t change her mind. Short of sending Loving over to threaten her with bodily harm, I saw no way to change her mind. But after a little investigation, I discovered that she’s the instructor in this aerobics class.”
“And your brilliant plan is that if I sweat with her for half an hour, she’ll agree to talk to me?”
“No. But after each session, she makes herself available for private counseling with members of her class …”
Ben shook his head. “I’m not going to forget this, Christina.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
Ben entered the aerobics studio dressed, thanks to Christina’s prior instructions, in his green gym shorts and Beethoven T-shirt. He noticed everyone else was wearing snazzy name-brand exer-outfits with sparkling white high-top tennies. His sneakers, which were at least ten years old, were scuffed and brown and had holes over both big toes.
He did not blend in.
Ben took an unobtrusive position in the far corner.
“Psst.”
Christina again. She was standing in the next row over, holding a large rectangular block. “Don’t forget your bench.”
“My what?”
“Your bench. This is a steps class.”
Ben walked to the far wall where the rectangular blocks were stacked. “What does that mean?”
“You’ll see. Don’t forget to get a set of weights, too.”
Ben obliged.
A few moments later, Cynthia Taylor bounced into the room. As might be suspected, she was tall and thin and perfectly shaped. Her headband was a pastel tie-dye.
“All right, class!” she said, clapping her hands. “Let’s gooooo!”
She punched a button on a tape deck resting in a folding chair, and a dance tune with lots of synthesizers and a prominent beat burst out.
“What is that?” Ben asked, wincing.
“That’s music, silly,” Christina shouted back. “To help you keep the rhythm.”
“I don’t know what it is,” Ben replied, “but it is definitely not music.”
Ben diverted his attention from the painfully loud and bizarre lyrics (“Se’s a maniac, maaaan-i-ac I know … “) and tried to follow Cynthia Taylor’s fancy footwork. She was doing a sort of reverse box step, with the bench in the middle. Left foot floor, right foot up. Switch around, left foot up, right foot down.
Ben tried to copy her movements, but he was about three steps behind and soon was totally confused. He looked in the mirror and suddenly realized that the entire class was facing the other direction. He was facing the mirror; they were facing him.
“Don’t forget the switchback on the horseshoe,” Cynthia Taylor shouted.
“The what?” Ben said, but his words were lost in the general clamor. The music switched from one raucous rhythmic number to another that, as far as Ben could tell, was musically indistinguishable from the first.