Body Copy - Michael Craven [48]
“No.”
Somehow, the woman made the directions very compli-cated when, in reality, all she needed to say was, “Go down the hallway right over there behind the bench presses and look for her name on the door.”
Instead, she rambled, thinking out loud, verbalizing every way possible to get to Wendy’s office. In the end, using his best P.I. skills, Tremaine deciphered what she had said and began making his way though the gym.
He spotted the hallway the receptionist had referred to.
As he walked by one of the bench presses, he looked down at an enormous, red-faced man pushing up the bar, which was loaded with weights. There was another large man 149
Michael Craven
standing over him, spotting. The man lifting the weights was grunting and even spitting. Tremaine could see the veins in his head, filled with blood, looking ready to burst.
The spotter was talking to the lifter, saying, “Do it.
Come on. You’re a stud. Push it harder.”
The lifter let out an enormous grunt and managed to get the weight up and back on to the bar that supported it. He stood up off the bench and faced the spotter. They bumped chests and let out a simultaneous grunt.
Tremaine, passing the two on his way to the hallway, said, “Excuse me, gentlemen.”
He found Wendy’s door and knocked. From inside, he heard, “Come on in.”
Tremaine entered her office. She stood up to greet him.
“Hello, I’m Donald Tremaine.”
“Wendy Leahy.”
They both sat down.
“I was surprised when you called. I haven’t talked about Roger Gale in so long.”
“You didn’t sound surprised,” Tremaine said.
“Well, I was. I talk on the phone so much for work, I’m kind of on autopilot when I’m on the phone. That’s probably why I didn’t sound surprised. I probably sounded like I always sound.”
Tremaine nodded.
“Anyway, I’m happy to talk about it, to help or whatever.”
“Great. Thank you,” Tremaine said.
Tremaine studied Wendy. She was pretty but not sexy.
Just attractive, and put together well, and—the word kept coming into his head—friendly.
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Wendy said, “After you called, Bill Peterson called and told me you were coming. I told him you had already called. He said, that’s okay, he just wanted to tell me not to worry. You know, I hadn’t talked to Bill since he questioned me before. But he was nice then, and he was nice when he called. He said I could trust you and I should feel comfortable telling you everything I told him.”
“That was nice of Bill.”
“Yeah, he’s nice.”
Switching the subject, Tremaine said, “So, how’d you meet Roger Gale?”
Quickly, she said, “I met him here at the gym. At the time I was just managing this one. Now I manage four of them in L.A. But he came in for a membership and I gave him a tour and a spiel and all that stuff.”
Tremaine thought about how he’d phrase this next question. Yes, Wendy had agreed to talk specifically about her relationship with Roger Gale. But it was always tricky to ask about an affair because the question itself implied wrongdoing. You know, when did you start doing that horrible thing . . .
Wendy solved his problem for him, saying, “After Roger signed up, he left, then, about twenty minutes later, he came back in and asked me if I wanted to have dinner that night. I confess, I had looked at his finger during the tour.
No ring. It wasn’t until a little later that I found out he was married. Anyway, when he asked me out to dinner, I didn’t hesitate. He was older than most of the guys I usually go out with, but he was so smart and funny. That was obvious immediately.”
“How many times did you go out?”
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“Six. The sixth being the time he told me he had to call it off.”
“What would you two do?”
“Go to dinner, or bars, once, a movie.”
“And the intimate part?”
Tremaine had to ask, even if it was just to see whether or not she’d answer. Or how she’d answer.
She said, “We went to my place a couple times. It’s embarrassing, but it was so long ago. You know, I hadn’t talked to him in over a year when I read that he’d been killed.”
“So, basically, you had a very brief affair, which