you so thoughtlessly ate in front of me.” Death was back, in the red housecoat, smoking a huge cigar.
“Put that out.”
“Oh, come on. It’s not real smoke.”
Casey stared at the glowing end until Death sighed and stuck it in a pocket.
“The cops are gone,” Death said, “along with the crime scene tape.”
“Have they cleaned the locker room?”
“It’s sparkling. Like it never happened.”
Casey glanced at the clock. A little after ten. “The fitness rooms are technically still open until midnight.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I hope not, because I never can guess what goes on in that head of yours.”
“I’m thinking this would be a good time for you to look around down there.”
Casey made a face. “So we are thinking the same thing, which is scary.”
“Come on. Let’s see what we can find.”
The aerobics room was dark, and just as quiet as it had been the night before. Casey shivered.
“It’s okay,” Death said. “There’s nobody here.”
“In either locker room?”
“Or even the weight room. It’s like people are freaked out and want to stay away.”
“Isn’t it usually the opposite? People want to get an eyeful of the murder scene?”
“Guess they got that earlier. The cops and cleaning crew were done a few hours ago, while you were stuffing your face. Folks had a chance after that to look around. I guess since there was nothing to see they didn’t spend much time gawking.”
Casey left the light off in the aerobics room, not wanting to advertise her presence in case curious people came by. She went into the locker room and stood just inside the door. Here, she did turn on the light, since no one could see her from the outside.
Death had spoken correctly. The room was sparkling.
“Was it the regular cleaning crew who did this?”
“Yup. Sissy didn’t want to spend the money on the special crime scene ones. Couldn’t blame her, really, since it was just the one shower stall that had, well, stuff in it.”
“So there would be nothing left for me to investigate.”
“Not on the surfaces. But that’s the cops’ territory, anyway. It’s not like you’re going to go around collecting fingerprints.”
“True. But I can look in my office.”
“For what?”
“Who knows?”
Casey let herself into the training room. “Did the cops go through here, too?”
“I’m sure they did. The men’s locker room was barred from the outside all day. They figure the killer escaped that way, so he might’ve left something behind.”
“He?”
“Just being grammatically correct. I’m willing to suspect a ‘she’ just as easily.”
“Oh, no.” Casey stared at the shelves of hand weights. She’d forgotten about them, and had assumed the weight that had killed Andrea had come from the weight room across the hall. But it was here, in her office, that there was an empty space where a ten pound weight should be.
“Closer to hand,” Death said. “It makes more sense than if the killer went all the way over to the weight room.”
Casey sagged into her chair. “It does. It just makes it more real, knowing that whoever did it was in here right before it happened.”
Death was squatting by the shelves. “Lots of fingerprint dust. You’re going to have to clean all of these before you use them”
“I never want to use them. I never want to touch them.” Casey turned on the computer and opened the door to the men’s locker room while it booted up. The room was a mirror image of the women’s, except not as sparkly. Apparently the cleaning crew wasn’t given the order to sanitize it to within an inch of its life. Casey walked through to the door that led out to the hallway. “Anyone around yet?”
“Not even a mouse.”
Casey peeked into the hall, and found herself face to face with the weight room door, as she’d expected. The weight room, which was not missing any weights. The hallway, as Death had said, was empty and silent. The security camera hung in the corner, and she went to stand under it, scrutinizing the lens. It looked completely clear of Vaseline, and was probably a new part altogether. She winced, realizing she was giving the security team a nice close-up of her face. Time to go away.
Back in her office, the computer was ready.
Death hitched a hip on the side of the examination table. “What are you looking for on there?”
“Don’t know. I guess I just need to get familiar with what’s here, first.” She explored the desktop, finding old class and training schedules, purchase orders, and individual records of