Murder at the Spa Read Free Page B

for Civil Defense equipment. What to do about the spa became a public issue. After long debate, the legislature decided to lease the spa and the bottling plant, which still bottled High Rock, Union, and Sans Souci waters, to private investors.
    It was then that Paulina stepped in.
    And so Charlotte sat in the High Rock Pavilion, a replica of the rustic Victorian pavilion that had burned in the great fire, sipping a glass of the famous mineral water. She knew that sipping wasn’t what you were supposed to do. Sipping didn’t allow the bubbles to perform their miracles on the digestion; you were supposed to toss it back like a belt of whiskey. She also knew that the water was best taken on an empty stomach, preferably before breakfast. But she wanted to sip, to taste the hint of iron, to feel the fizz of bubbles in her nose. She slowly drank the rest of her glass. It had a not-unpleasant saltiness, like something you’d gargle with for a sore throat. A rustic sign mounted on a column proclaimed: “High Rock Spring: A naturally carbonated saline alkaline mineral water. Contains more minerals than any other water in the world.” Another sign asked visitors not to chip souvenirs off the famous mineral cone.
    Rising from her seat, Charlotte tossed her plastic glass into a trash basket and headed across the esplanade to dinner.

2
    Charlotte began her Rejuvenating Plan with breakfast on the veranda. It consisted of half a grapefruit, a low-fat bran muffin, and a cup of peppermint tea. The grapefruit and muffin weren’t so bad—she seldom ate much for breakfast anyway—but the peppermint tea was a sorry substitute for her morning coffee. The night before, she had taken dinner in her room and gone straight to bed. Breakfast was to have been her first chance to look over the other guests. She had wanted to see if there were others of her advanced years. But the dining room was deserted. Although it was only eight, most of the guests were already out on the esplanade. In front of the High Rock Pavilion, a group of sweat-suited figures of indeterminate age and sex was doing aerobics under the direction of an energetic blonde in a pink leotard. A recorder blared a fast-paced disco tape, to which the sweat suits pulsed, bounced, and dipped. Another group jogged in strict military formation around the esplanade behind a young man with bulging biceps. Strict military formation, that is, except for the three fatties who lagged behind, alternately lurching forward in determination and falling back in distress. Charlotte didn’t smile; she would be happy not to be the only one bringing up the rear.
    After breakfast, Charlotte headed toward the lobby, where she was to meet her personal exercise advisor, Frannie LaBeau. Frannie was a thin blonde with metal-rimmed granny glasses. As Charlotte’s personal exercise advisor, she explained, she would be responsible for overseeing Charlotte’s spa stay. She would review Charlotte’s program daily, making adjustments and suggestions. Charlotte thought this sounded vaguely despotic. She wondered if a black mark would be entered against her name if she didn’t do the required number of push-ups. In fact, her impression turned out not to be far off the mark. The first event on her schedule was a two-part Fitness Appraisal. The first part, Frannie explained, would be a physical evaluation, the results of which would be fed into a computer along with information from Charlotte’s preadmission physical. The second part would be a computer interview, the subject of which would be her health habits. From this data, the computer would calculate her biological age (as opposed to her real, or chronological, age). “Hopefully,” said Frannie, “your biological age will be younger than your chronological age.”
    Frannie explained most of this as they walked across the esplanade. Or rather, Charlotte walked. She had a long leggy stride, as forthright as a man’s. Frannie kind of lurched, her body