Naked Came the Phoenix Read online

  “This is official business, Mrs. Blessing.”

  “And I’m married to an official of the state of Tennessee … for the time being.” Caroline stood up tall. “Don’t make me pull rank!” But a moment later, she crumpled and pleaded to him with baleful eyes. “Please get me out of here, Detective!”

  What could it hurt? Having a congressman’s wife with you was good for the brass. He shrugged. “The only reason I’m agreeing to this is I don’t want problems with the politicians.”

  “Fine. Neither do I!”

  “Don’t get in my way. Don’t say anything, especially about what we were discussing!”

  “I understand.” Caroline let go with a genuine smile. “You actually trust me, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Toscana sneered. “I trust you. I also trusted my brother when he gave me that stock tip—″

  “Your brother almost lost you your entire IRA?”

  “Ain’t that always the case?” Toscana said, putting on his coat. “Family. You can’t live without’em, but you sure can dream.”

  8

  LAUREN DIDN’T KNOW IF IT WAS good for her face or not. She didn’t care. She was chilled to the bone and she just wanted to be warm again.

  Lauren Sullivan untied the sash of her pale green terry cloth Phoenix Spa robe and let the covering fall from her smooth, milky-white shoulders. Her carefully pedicured toes wriggled with appreciation as they padded across the almost hot cedar planks that covered the sauna floor. Nimbly, she climbed up to the top tier of the benches that lined the walls, spread out a towel, and lay down, stretching out her nude, lean body gratefully as the warmth of the toasted cedar began to seep through her back. She luxuriated in the hot, dry air that enveloped her exposed skin.

  She was relieved to have the sauna to herself. Today she wasn′t in the mood to take the normal scrutiny she went through as part of her daily life as a celebrity. The last thing Lauren wanted was some strange woman assessing her. Lauren knew full well that, later, the voyeur would brag to a friend that she had seen the famous Lauren Sullivan in the sauna and the movie star was thinner, fatter, shorter, taller, prettier, homelier, more relaxed, more haggard, younger looking, or older than she appeared on the movie screen.

  She ran her tapering fingers through her tousled red hair and fanned it out across the warm cedar. She played with it lovingly, knowing that when she went back to Hollywood it was all coming off. Her next film role demanded a short, boyish haircut. It didn’t really matter, Lauren reflected. It would all grow back. Or perhaps she would just keep it short. They said really long hair didn’t become an “older woman.”

  Older woman! At thirty-seven, she wasn’t really old by most people’s standards. But by the Tinsel Town yardstick, it had been time to get some face work done, before everyone started saying she needed it.

  The thin fingers patted ever so gently beneath her eyes, barely pressing on the recovering skin there. The dark circles under her eyes could be covered by a makeup artist’s expertise. But during the filming of her last movie, it had reached the point where no amount of ice packing had succeeded in alleviating the puffy bags that developed under her expressive eyes.

  Lauren continued pressing gingerly. The swelling had gone down now, and the last of the blue and greenish-yellow bruising was disappearing. The plastic surgeon, one of Hollywood’s best, had known what he was doing. He had said the bags were hereditary and asked if her mother or father had them as well.

  Good question.

  It was one of the many questions that Lauren had been afraid to ask for most of her life. Who were her parents? What did they look like? Why had they given her up? Did she have any siblings?

  Questions she hadn’t dared ask the succession of foster parents over the years. She didn’t want them to know and be angry that she often fantasized about her “real” parents and secretly wished that they would come and claim her and take her with them.

  Some of her caretakers had been better than others. But none of them had been like her, either physically or temperamentally. Lauren couldn’t help speculating about her gene pool.

  Most of her life she had held back from pursuing the answers to her questions. Finally, an emotional wreck, Lauren had gone into therapy. But therapy didn’t work unless the truth was spoken. A year after she sat in the psychiatrist’s office and tearfully described the tragic automobile accident that killed the most loving foster parents, Lauren knew she had to summon up the courage to come to Claudia. Claudia de Vries had the answers to her questions. Lauren was sure of it. If only Lauren had been able to get the information out of Claudia before she was killed.

  Lauren cringed internally but kept the expression on her face calm as she heard the sauna door open. Footsteps caused the floorboards to groan. Lauren wanted to keep her eyes shut and not acknowledge the visitor or feel obligated to talk. But with Claudia’s death, Lauren’s radar was in a state of high alert. Anyone could be a danger. It was necessary to be on guard.

  She turned her head and her gaze fell upon the towelwrapped head of Caroline Blessing. Caroline climbed onto another sauna bench.

  Lauren hated being stared at, and yet here she was staring herself. She turned her head back and looked up at the ceiling. The sauna was quiet save for the occasional creaking of wood expanding from the heat. It was Caroline who broke the silence.

  “What do you think happened to Claudia?” Caroline asked.

  “I really have no idea,” answered Lauren in her famous throaty voice. “But I suppose the police will figure it out eventually.” She hoped that her terse response would signal that she wanted to cut off the conversation.

  But Caroline pressed on. “Did you hear that the psychic was just pulled from the lake? It looks like someone tried to kill her too.”

  Lauren shook her head back and forth against the cedar platform but did not answer.

  Caroline ignored the snub. “I just came back from the infirmary. Looks like she’s going to be all right, but I didn’t stick around to hear all the gory details. The infirmary smelled like a hospital. It reminded me … well, I had to get out of there and clear my head.” Caroline rolled over on her stomach and rested her chin in her hands. “This place is a nightmare. What about that Ondine? How could someone be that thin and live?” Caroline wondered out loud. “She looks like she could snap in two. Her breasts are almost nonexistent and her legs are knobby poles. If you ask me, Ondine looks more like a young boy than a woman. Can you believe that she is held up as an icon to millions of American females?”

  Without responding, Lauren pulled herself up to a sitting position and climbed down to the sauna floor. Taking her robe from a peg on the wall, she wrapped it around her. As she pulled open the sauna door, she called over her shoulder, “If anyone wants rest, this is sure not the place to come. We should all demand our money back.”

  In the infirmary, Toscana sat next to Phyllis Talmadge’s cot. “You’re sure you didn’t see anything?” he asked insistently.

  Phyllis shook her head weakly against the white pillow. “As I said, Detective, I felt a sharp pain, and then everything went black. I don’t remember falling in the water or being pulled out.”

  Toscana was not about to give up. “Go over it for me again, will you please, Ms. Talmadge? Tell me again what happened. I’m not sure I got it right the first time.”

  Phyllis looked at him skeptically. Toscana didn’t miss a thing and they both knew it. Over the course of her psychic career, Phyllis had been called on to work with the police on some pretty tough cases. She knew the way the cops operated, asking a witness or victim to go over their accounts of what he or she recalled again and again until, sometimes, a new detail emerged.

  “All right,” she sighed resignedly. She closed her heavy eyelids as she tried to envision what she had been doing just before she was struck. “I was standing at the edge of the lake, trying to clear my mind of everything that was cluttering it. I wanted to get rid of all the negative energy and try to focus
on Claudia and what had happened to her. I was hoping that something would come to me that would help in the investigation.”

  “And?” Toscana led.

  “Nothing.” Phyllis opened her eyes and stared defiantly at the detective. “I told you. I felt a blow and then blackness.” The psychic’s blue-veined hand raised around to the back of her head as she felt for the egg-shaped bump that throbbed there. Toscana almost felt sorry for her as he saw her wince. But his sympathy was replaced by contempt as he watched her turn toward Raoul de Vries, her voice dripping with sweetness.

  “The first thing I remembered afterward was the concerned face of Dr. de Vries here.” She smiled in a pathetic attempt at flirtation with the man who stood beside her bed. “What a dear man, taking such good care of me when he’s just suffered his own deep and devastating loss!”

  Toscana felt his gag reflex rising. Thank God, Phyllis Talmadge didn’t remember being pulled from the lake. If she did, he, not de Vries, might be the uncomfortable recipient of the aging psychic’s affections. Toscana glanced over at the gallant Raoul de Vries. The good doctor didn’t look any too grief stricken to him. He noticed that Caroline Blessing, who had been standing just behind de Vries during the earlier questioning, had already slipped away—an important engagement, she had said. In the sauna. It was a tough life. Though he would be all too happy to leave Phyllis alone with her Sir Galahad, Toscana decided to give it one last try.

  “Think, Ms. Talmadge. Think, please. Is there anything at all you can remember that could help us find the person who attacked you? Is there anything that you heard before you were hit? Anything you felt or sensed?”

  Phyllis closed her eyes again, pausing dramatically before she spoke again.

  “Actually something is coming back to me now. I do remember something,” she answered with surprise in her voice. She opened her bloodshot eyes and stared up at Detective Toscana. “Cigarettes!” she declared triumphantly. “I smelled cigarette smoke just before I got clobbered!

  In a private treatment room, safely away from Caroline Blessing, Lauren handed her robe carelessly to the attendant and climbed onto the sheet-draped massage table. As she lay prone on the padded slab, her mind was not on the mineral salt scrub she was about to receive at the strong hands of the hefty Marguerite. Instead she wondered how she was going to get away from Phoenix Spa.

  If she had thought she would get rest, relaxation, and privacy here, she had been sadly mistaken. The atmosphere at Phoenix was not what the glossy brochures promised. Phoenix was far from serene, what with the police patrolling around the grounds and the media trawling outside the gates.

  Lauren closed her eyes and sighed deeply as Marguerite’s muscled hands swirled the warm lavender oil laced with coarse salt across her back. She tried to relax, but the abrasive rubbing felt like sandpaper being pulled across her skin. Lauren had to concentrate on keeping still.

  Her mind raced. If she tried to leave now, the press would swarm down on her. Vultures. They would salivate to have a new angle for their “death at the spa” stories. She could see and hear the headlines now: Lauren Sullivan, Top Box-Office Draw, Involved in Real-Life Murder Mystery!

  Just what she needed. More publicity.

  Of course her agent and publicist would not be unhappy. As far as they were concerned, any mention of Lauren in the media was a plus, as long as they spelled her name right. They said so frequently and worked hard to ensure that Lauren’s lovely face often stared hauntingly from the pages of People or smiled for the Entertainment Tonight cameras, dazzling the viewing audience. With yet another new Lauren Sullivan film set to be released next month, they and the movie studio would relish all the publicity she could draw.

  Marguerite’s sturdy fingers were kneading the backs of Lauren’s slim calves when the door to the treatment room opened quietly. Lauren heard the soft squish of rubber-soled shoes as they crossed the terra-cotta floor. She opened her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Sullivan,” apologized the young woman Lauren recognized as the keeper of the appointment book at the reception area.

  “What is it?” Lauren tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. Naked and covered with the gooey salt mixture, she was annoyed at having her precious privacy interrupted. Not to mention the constant awareness that how she looked would be reported to God knew how many other people by the person who saw her in her messy, vulnerable condition. That was just the way it was. People were fascinated with her, but Lauren never really got used to it. It left her feeling very exposed.

  “Excuse me, Miss Sullivan,” the receptionist said softly. “But Detective Toscana is on the phone. He’s ready to speak with you now.”

  “Oh he is, is he? That’s great.” Lauren sighed deeply. “Well, all right. I’ve had enough here. Tell him I’ll be ready to talk to him in fifteen minutes.”

  Moments later, she stood in the Swiss shower and felt her body cleansed by the warm water that sprayed from a dozen jet needle valves. As the oil and mineral salt slid from her exfoliated skin, Lauren planned what she would tell the detective.

  Those Chinese healers had it right when they came up with this, thought Howard Fondulac as he lay on his back in the darkened room and enjoyed his reflexology treatment. The Chinese thought all the energy paths that ran throughout the body converged in the feet. That each organ of the body was represented by a corresponding reflex point in the foot.

  The fifty-five-year-old movie producer lay on the table while the tiny blonde reflexologist slowly worked over muscles that he didn’t even know were there. Howard liked the feeling of the young woman rubbing and kneading his feet. There was something decadent about it. He felt like a king being pampered by a maiden slave. It had been a long time since he’d felt like royalty.

  Now the golden-haired servant was rubbing each toe.

  “What part of the body does the toe correspond to?” he asked.

  “The sinus. I push here to release blockages and help reestablish energy flow.” The woman continued her gentle pressure on the pad of his middle toe.

  “Ahhhh.” Howard sighed deeply and tried to envision his sinuses clearing. This was just what he needed. He was always getting sinus headaches. His doctor said he should cut out the liquor and quit the cigarettes. But maybe if he had this reflexology bit done on a regular basis when he got back to LA, it would take care of the headaches. He didn’t want to give up the booze and the butts, his two favorite vices. There was little enough he enjoyed these days, and a man was entitled to some fun.

  He lay in the darkened room and listened to the taped sounds of flute music and ocean waves crashing on the seashore. He tried to relax and clear his mind. That was what he had come for. Partially.

  He’d also come to Phoenix Spa because Claudia had told him that Lauren Sullivan would be here.

  He needed something, and he prayed that Lauren Sullivan would be it. His career was on the skids. He had been unable to raise the money to produce a film in years and, though he hated to admit it even to himself, the Hollywood powers that be thought Howard Fondulac was a has-been. He couldn’t get anyone to take his telephone calls, much less set up a face-to-face meeting with him. But if he could get Lauren Sullivan interested in his project, those studio snobs would take his calls, all right. They’d be falling all over themselves as they lined up to kiss his massaged feet.

  The blonde was firmly pushing her thumb up and down Howard’s arch, and he smiled in pleasure as he imagined producing a Lauren Sullivan film. That would make him a player again. He had to get Lauren alone somehow. If he could just talk to her, he knew he’d be able to sell her on his project.

  Even the jaded Detective Toscana was mesmerized as he watched Lauren Sullivan sweep into the room in her flowing purple robe. She was astonishingly beautiful. Toscana was careful to pay attention to the details of the movie star’s appearance. He knew that when he got home Mary Elizabeth would be pumping him for information on her favorite screen star.

  “Yeah, babe. She w
as gorgeous.”

  “No, honey. She didn’t have any makeup on, but she still looked great.”

  “I couldn’t be sure, sweetie, but I think that hair color is her own.”

  Mary Elizabeth never missed a Lauren Sullivan film. As often as she could, his wife dragged him with her to the movies. Toscana would sigh and groan as if he was going along only to please his wife, but the truth of the matter was that he found Lauren Sullivan easy on the eye and enjoyed her acting. He and most of the men in America, he’d wager.

  Now, in his makeshift squad room, the object of so many fantasies sat across the table from him. He watched Lauren as she glanced at the postmortem pictures of Claudia de Vries that were tacked onto the wall. She quickly averted her gaze, but not before Toscana saw her wince in repulsion.

  “Do you mind if I smoke?” asked the detective routinely. Not waiting for her answer, he lit up.

  Lauren sat quietly, waiting for the questioning to begin. Her graceful fingers played absentmindedly with a strand of hair that had fallen from the loose bun she had pinned to the top of her exquisite head.

  “How is it that you came all the way to Virginia to Phoenix Spa, Miss Sullivan? I would think there are plenty of other spas you could have chosen that would have been more convenient for you.”

  Lauren shrugged. ″I guess I could have gone to Canyon Ranch or Palm Springs. They are certainly closer to LA. But as you may have observed, Detective Toscana, I’ve just had some plastic surgery done, and I wanted to go someplace where I wouldn’t be tripping over people I know from Hollywood. I wanted privacy and peace.”

  “Well, you certainly haven’t gotten the latter here, have you?”

  “No. Unfortunately, I haven’t. And with those reporters prowling around outside, I’m afraid I might not get the former either.”

  Briefly, Toscana wondered what it must be like always to have people watching you. Not being able to take a walk in the park or run into the drugstore without someone gawking at you and telling friends that you bought a laxative. There was a price to fame. Suddenly, he was very grateful for his relative anonymity.