Fit To Be Dead (An Aggie Mundeen Mystery Book 1) Read online

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  Books in the Aggie Mundeen Mystery Series

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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  PILLOW STALK

  DOUBLE WHAMMY

  FINDING SKY

  BET YOUR BOTTOM DOLLAR

  CROPPED TO DEATH

  PORTRAIT OF A DEAD GUY

  Praise for the Aggie Mundeen Mystery Series

  FIT TO BE DEAD

  “West’s fine writing and clever plot reveal her mad sense of humor...She has produced a beautifully written book, brimming with wry humor and a cleverly woven mystery. Highly recommended! I am very pleased to see there is a follow-up Aggie Mundeen novel, Dang Near Dead.”

  – Diana Hockley,

  Australian Mystery Novelist and International Reviewer for NetGalley and Kings River Life Magazine

  “West’s main characters’ histories suggest they could fill a series. I hope so. I love this book!”

  – Rollo K. Newsom PhD,

  Professor Emeritus, Texas State University, and an editor of Lone Star Sleuths

  “Fit to Be Dead has it all: intriguing characters that point to romance, an engrossing plot, a compelling puzzle and well-disguised clues—a fun read.”

  – L. C. Hayden,

  Award-Winning Author of the Harry Bronson Mystery Series

  “Aggie Mundeen’s wry observations on life, death, and the struggle to whip mind and body into shape make Fit to Be Dead delightful. Joining a health club has never been so dangerous...or so amusing.”

  – Karen McCullough,

  Author of Shadow of a Doubt and A Question of Fire

  “Fit to be Dead is a satisfying read with powerful characterization, plot twists and a feisty believable protagonist.”

  – Midwest Book Review

  Books in the Aggie Mundeen Mystery Series

  by Nancy G. West

  FIT TO BE DEAD (#1)

  DANG NEAR DEAD (#2)

  SMART BUT DEAD (#3)

  (March 2015)

  Copyright Information

  FIT TO BE DEAD

  An Aggie Mundeen Mystery

  Part of the Henery Press Mystery Collection

  First Edition

  Kindle edition | July 2014

  Henery Press

  www.henerypress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Copyright © 2013 by Nancy G. West

  Cover art by Stephanie Chontos

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-940976-39-6

  Printed in the United States of America

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  No writer completes a book without help. I am grateful for gifts of time and information from:

  California publisher Terry R. Cooper, whose enthusiasm for this book spurred me on;

  Richard Hawk, who explained the work of the San Antonio Testing Lab;

  Dr. D.P. Lyle, physician and mystery writer who shared his knowledge of forensic medicine;

  Dr. Michael Wooley, San Antonio pulmonologist who clarified the effects of inhaling toxic gas and who epitomizes the caring physician;

  And the contributors to www.HealthandAge.com.

  None of my books would exist without Donald West, who sustains me and procures nourishment so I can stop writing only to eat. Any errors that exist in the novel are mine. I do not, however, accept responsibility for whatever Aggie Mundeen might do.

  One

  Shaping up at my age can be murder. My Wagoneer station wagon, Albatross, chugged toward Fit and Firm Health Club. Just thinking about trying to operate the machines packed inside that club made me shudder. I’m mechanically inept. My condition may be genetic.

  Before anyone figured out it was me who wrote the “Stay Young With Aggie” column, I had to get in shape. Once I decided to ditch banking in Chicago and move to San Antonio to start over, I was past thirty, overweight, devoid of muscle tone and terrified by the prospect of middle age. Naturally, my readers must never know these things.

  I had already enrolled in graduate school for the 1997 spring semester at University of the Holy Trinity and signed up for the class Aspects of Aging. Now it was time to investigate physical improvement.

  I called my graduate school friend, Meredith Laughlin, for support and heard her hesitate on the other end of the line. She’s only twenty-four.

  “That’s great, Aggie,” Meredith said. “I don’t have much time between studying and clearing out Conrad’s office, but I really should exercise.”

  Conrad’s her ex-husband. Meredith’s practical nature probably resulted from being spawned by a successful southern couple. Having virtually raised myself in Chicago, I plunged into situations headlong—unless the situation involved any form of exercise which might require physical agility.

  In addition to redesigning my body, I wanted to jumpstart my social life: break out, encounter people. Not people—men. I’d been confined in that bank in Chicago like a squirrel counting nuts for too long. There had to be a good man around somewhere, a trustworthy person like Detective Sam Vanderhoven, my friend at SAPD who’d left Chicago the year before I did.

  “Who knows? I might meet somebody at the health club,” I told Meredith. Chances were slim I’d find the right man at graduate school. “Students are fledglings, and professors stagnate. Getting tenured can petrify a teacher’s brain.”

  She chuckled. “Have fun at the health club, Aggie. I think sitting and studying expands our sitters faster than our minds.”

  I had written in my column about the pitfalls of inactivity: people who watched four or more hours of TV daily were 80% more likely to die of heart disease. Inactivity could result from occupying a desk at work, sitting at one’s home computer surfing the net or writing a book. One writer said every book was worth fifteen pounds. Once he finished writing it, he spent the next six months getting the weight off. Dear Aggie’s solution for sitters was to get up every hour to walk or do calisthenics. In addition to their daily exercise routine. Assuming they had one.

  Meredith’s remark spurred me into acti
on. When I stopped at North New Braunfels Avenue and waited for the light to change, I fixated on my nails: tomato red did not match the wine trim on my warm-up suit. Okay, I was stalling.

  When I veered right onto the Austin Highway, I spotted the health club: a four-story armory with convex windows that bulged out over a grassy knoll like a fat stomach over jeans. What kind of crazy people paid money to enter that unappealing edifice and exercise?

  The parking garage for inmates was on the other side of the building. I rolled by the asylum, contemplating alternatives. With people living past one hundred, middle age struck around fifty. Perhaps laboratories could genetically test every person who reached ninety-nine, drug companies could synthesize their genes into pills, and pharmacists could sell them like vitamins. Until those procedures were initiated, I supposed everybody pushing forty had to rely on maintenance.

  With my heart dancing a tango, I settled Albatross in Fit and Firm’s garage. What if I was too klutzy to master the machines? If that were the case, I’d need an alternative plan to spark my social life. Personal ads. Thank goodness I knew how to write. I snatched my yellow Big Chief tablet off the seat. “Single white female. Intelligent. Curious. Interested in everything. Desires to meet intriguing man.” I ripped off the sheet—I’d polish the ad later—and tossed the tablet on the seat.

  Inhaling a liter of air, I pried myself from the car and pointed my body toward the club, hoping I wasn’t about to kill myself on some peculiar apparatus. I crossed the garage exit and was approaching the entrance when a shaggy arm flew up in front of me and blocked the door. Hairy fingers gripped the sheet I’d torn from the tablet. He grinned down through hair flopping on massive shoulders.

  “You must have dropped this.” He devoured me with close-set eyes. “‘Interested in everything,’ huh? Me, too. We should get together.”

  Chills tumbled down my spine into my socks. My feet froze.

  “I’m not interested in everything,” I stammered. “Actually, I’m not interested in anything, (cough) since I’m about to throw up.”

  When he dropped his wooly arm, I lunged through the door. He didn’t follow. Head down, I crossed the stuffy foyer and approached the girl at the desk.

  “Is it all right if I look around?”

  “Sure.” She smacked her gum. “Sign this form and I’ll issue you a guest pass. Good for today only.” I glanced outside and didn’t spot the primitive, but I was sweating from a case of nerves. This health club was stifling. Heat rising from sweaty bodies on upper floors must have sunk to ground level. As I unzipped my jacket, exposing my T-shirt with Garfield the Cat hoisting his barbell, a magnificent blond creature with Caribbean eyes swaggered up from nowhere. He smiled at me as if I were Sandra Bullock. I’d never felt so gorgeous in a jogging suit. This hunk would never feel the need to write to Dear Aggie.

  He blinked at Garfield on the front of my shirt. “Hey, I’m Pete Reeves.” He extended a bronzed hand.

  “Aggie Mundeen.” He beat everything I’d seen at any financial institution or graduate school. He stood over six feet tall, a blond lifeguard type. After toiling days at the bank and dragging my body to night classes to earn a BBA, I felt skittish about meeting hunks—but eager to catch up.

  “Would you like to tour our fabulous club?”

  Only a corpse wouldn’t tour with Pete. “Okay.” I prepared myself to view a universe of flawless specimens. Maybe I could interview them for my column. I felt Pete’s hand on my shoulder. He squeezed me around the entrance desk and pointed to the establishment on the left.

  “There’s Tofu Temptations Grill. Beyond the grill are men and women’s locker rooms. The swimming pool is behind the locker rooms.” He irradiated me with a smile. “Olympic-sized, indoor pool. Heated to a satisfying temperature.”

  I cleared my throat. Thinking about being in the water made me suddenly desperate to use the bathroom.

  “Would you like to see the pool?”

  “No, thanks.” I’d remembered to stuff a swimsuit in my purse, but I didn’t need extra steam along with the heat Pete was generating. I was suffocating. “I’ll catch you later after I check out the ladies’ room.”

  His smile vanished. Before he could speak, I crabbed backwards into the women’s locker room and crashed into a towel depository inside the door.

  The din of high-pitched voices ceased. I righted the metal container, smiled agreeably, and plunged through a variety of fragrances toward the farthest lockers. Chatter resumed above the racket of showers and hairdryers. Assorted women in various stages of undress robed and disrobed. I had discovered a nudist colony of magpies.

  I grabbed a towel and found an empty locker. Two women flanked my space. Monica, a naked, pencil-thin woman with doorknob breasts, introduced herself. I was pretty sure she’d always been thin. She probably had trouble gaining weight or building muscle no matter what she ate or how much she exercised. Definitely an ectomorph.

  Her friend Mindy, a heaving Mason-jar woman, toweled her substantial body on my other side, her curly red hair flapping around her jowls. She had the opposite body type: endomorph. She probably ate half what Monica did and gained weight. I was researching how people should eat and exercise depending upon their body type. I’d seen a few mesomorphs around, lucky people who could gain muscle and lose fat if they simply ate and exercised moderately. They were rare.

  After peeling off my warm-up T-shirt and tights, I wrenched my cheap turquoise swimsuit on over sticky skin and envisioned the hunky-but-dependable man I’d find in the pool. He and I would slide like arrows through rippling water. I was not seeking thrills or emotional involvement, just safe companionship. I knew how to swim, so gliding through water seemed like the safest way to exercise. I could access the pool from the back of the locker room without having to traverse the lobby.

  I flip-flopped my K-mart thongs to the entrance and gaped at the Olympic pool, a rectangular jewel set in an oblong room. This pool would look perfect nestled into a Greek hillside overlooking the Aegean Sea. Eight lanes were painted with black stripes that ribboned the bottom of the pool.

  Inhaling the purifying odor of chlorine, I scanned the pool for swimmers and spotted a woman at the far end. Backing down the nearest steps, I luxuriated in water lapping against my body and bounced toward her to begin my workout with a chat.

  Despite my splashing, she ignored me. She floated face down, didn’t have snorkel gear and wasn’t coming up for air. My heart pumped faster. I started running with the water dragging against me. The pool seemed twice as big as before. Despite being totally out of shape, I had to reach her. I ignored the fleeting memory of my earlier leaps into situations that had proved disastrous. Gulping a breath, I plunged in, ripped water with my arms and kicked hard.

  I finally reached her, grasped her shoulders and flipped her face up. The water wasn’t too deep for me to stand. Panting from exertion, I leaned over her. “Are you okay? Can you hear me?”

  She was little more than a girl. Unconscious. With blue lips.

  “Help! Help!” I whipped my head around, desperate to find somebody, anybody, near the pool. My cry reverberated through cavernous space. Cradling her chin with one hand, I grabbed her hair with my other hand and tugged her toward the ladder. I backed up the first rung, struggling to hoist her up. She looked small, but she felt like the Titanic. She turned bluer. I put my ear to her nose and mouth. Her silence terrified me. Time was running out.

  “Give me her arms.” Blond curls loomed above us, bobbing over a red shirt and white shorts—the club uniform. I was never so glad to see another human being. With remarkable strength, the staffer pulled the girl up the ladder while I shoved her from below.

  She pulled the victim from the water and shook her gently, calling, “Are you all right?” I scurried out of the pool after the unconscious girl. The instructor initiated standard CPR procedures. Frozen, I waited for the girl to respond. She remained limp. Since the girl made no response, the instructor placed her on her back,
tilted her head back to open her airway and listened for breathing. She swept a finger down her throat to clear any obstruction and placed two fingers on the girl’s carotid artery. “She has a pulse!” Pinching the girl’s nose closed, she covered her mouth with her own.

  When she blew in two breaths, the girl’s chest rose. “The color’s coming back to her face,” I said.

  She felt the girl’s neck again. “Her pulse is stronger.” The instructor crouched over and blew air into the girl every five seconds until she sputtered. By then I had stopped breathing. The girl started coughing up water.

  “Whew.” The blonde settled on her haunches. “She’s reviving quickly. We still have to call nine-one-one.” She strode to the women’s locker room door, yanked it open and powered through it toward the phone. “Somebody swallowed pool water,” she called out.

  I snapped my eyes back to the girl. She coughed, struggling to clear water from her lungs. She sat up and started to cry.

  “What happened? I could have drowned...”

  I didn’t know what to say. When the blond savior came trotting back, I felt like somebody had lifted a freight car off my shoulders. “You’re great at CPR,” I told the trainer.

  She smiled. “I’ve had to use it a couple of times. We’re required to learn CPR to work here.” She bent down to touch the girl’s shoulder. “You’re Annie, uh, Cindy, right? I’m Sarah Savoy. We talked after aerobics, remember?”

  The girl squinted at her rescuer and at the pool, eyes fluttering. “It’s Holly. Holly Holmgreen. Was it only this morning I went to your class? I hoped I could still do aerobics. You were so nice to me.”

  Holly seemed fine to me. She was thinking and remembering. My breathing returned to normal.

  With flawless features in a doll-like face, ringlets plastered against her soaked head, and huge eyes with bushy lashes, she exuded a helpless appearance. She glanced down, embarrassed. “The doctor said swimming might help. I’ve been so depressed.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry to cause this trouble.”