The Perfect Body, page 5
part #8 of Professor Molly Mysteries Series
I’d be doing Bee a kindness by calling. A mitzvah, as Emma would say.
I took out my phone and turned my back to the sun so I could see the screen. Francesca watched, fascinated, as I dialed Bee’s number. While the phone rang I debated how I would start the conversation. Bee picked up the phone before I could decide.
“Hey Molly,” she said.
“Oh. You knew it was me calling?”
“The Caller ID gave you away. How are you holding up? Are you taking care of yourself?”
Darn it, she’s got me off balance already. I was going to ask *her* how she was doing.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Taking a walk with the baby. How are you?”
“I can’t pretend everything’s okay, but this grant report is keeping me busy. Oh yeah, and I had to fire one of my student workers.”
We spent a few minutes trading student worker horror stories. Then a pause in the conversation gave me the opportunity to introduce a new topic.
“Has Detective Medeiros talked to you?” I asked. “About what happened?”
“Medeiros?”
“He’s a big, tall guy, maybe forties or early fifties, short black hair, he was wearing a red aloha shirt with a yellow taro leaf print?”
“Oh, yes, of course. I remember him. He was great. So friendly and comforting.”
“What?”
“It was one of the worst nights of my life and he really put me at ease.”
“Are we still talking about Detective Medeiros?”
“I can’t believe it, Molly. Stephen’s really gone.”
“It is kind of surreal,” I agreed.
Francesca and I had reached the top of the street. Although it was not yet nine o’clock, the sun was shining hot, and my belly was sweating where the baby carrier covered it. I adjusted the baby’s hat to shade her face, turned toward the sun, and started back down to the house.
“Detective Medeiros doesn’t think Stephen’s death was an accident,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
Medeiros hadn’t sworn me to secrecy or anything. I couldn’t think of any reason why I shouldn’t tell Bee about my interview with him.
“He was asking me about Donnie’s, my husband’s, interaction with Stephen that night. You didn’t see anything, did you? No raised voices or anything like that?”
“Well…I mean, it’s totally understandable,” Bee said.
“What’s understandable?”
“Your husband not being crazy about Stephen. I mean, what guy wants to sit across the table from his wife’s ex?”
Why did she assume it was Donnie who disliked Stephen? Donnie had been patient and gracious throughout the whole ordeal, while Stephen had pouted and snarked like a middle-schooler. But Bee apparently remembered things differently.
“I’m Stephen’s ex,” I pointed out. “And you don’t seem to have any animosity toward me. What’s so funny?”
“Stephen and I were friends,” she said, suppressing her laughter. “But I would never…I mean, that was all. We weren’t romantically involved. I can’t even imagine…I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. It’s not funny. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to disrespect the dead.”
“It’s okay. You have a lovely laugh.” It was true, she did. Just the right mixture of throaty and silvery. “Wait. You and Stephen weren’t a thing?”
“No. You can have a male friend without it being a ‘thing’, can’t you?”
“Well, sure. I mean, I’m friends with Pat Flanagan. You don’t know him—”
“The news blogger? Island Confidential?”
“Yes. That’s him. Okay, I guess you do know him.”
“Just from reading the blog. His haunted Hawaii stories are great. I’d love to meet him sometime.”
“Sure. So, really? You and Stephen weren’t an item? He seemed to think pretty highly of you.”
The few times I’d run into Stephen over the past semester, he’d unfailingly brought the conversation around to the topic of Dr. Bee Corcoran and her amazing awesomeness. Bee, according to Stephen, was a triathlete, a fitness model (which I gather is like a regular model but with even less bodyfat), and a research superstar. Stephen would never fail to mention how brave Bee was to claim the life she wanted for herself, and how despite “everything,” she was the most feminine woman he’d ever met.
Why hadn’t I noticed that Stephen had been getting more muscular? Because I had been trying my best to ignore him. It was only at the dinner that I’d been forced to look at him for any length of time.
“No. I told you, we were buds, that’s all. Besides, it was pretty clear he still wasn’t over you, Molly.”
“He…what?”
“I mean, I guess I can understand why you dumped him for Donnie, but honestly? He had a hard time accepting it.”
I sputtered for a moment and finally managed to form words.
“I dumped him…is that what he told you?”
“I guess it doesn’t matter now, sad to say. Hey Molly, did you remember to drink your lemon water this morning?”
“Not yet.” I was barely paying attention to what Bee was saying. I was furious at Stephen for selling Bee his preposterous story with himself as the wronged hero. And me as the heartless villain, or course. But if I tried to set the record straight now, I would just sound petty.
“Just one glass of lemon water in the morning,” Bee said. “It’ll keep you from overeating.”
“Right. I remember.”
“Don’t worry, Molly, you’ll lose that baby fat. Just keep at it.”
“Thanks, Bee. So glad I called.”
Chapter Fourteen
I had been looking forward to my usual late lunch with Donnie, but after Margaret left, he called home to cancel.
“We’re slammed,” he explained. “The lunch rush usually dies down by now. Not today.”
“Oh. But that’s good, right?”
“If people were only showing up to buy lunch, yes, it would be. But I think a lot of people are here because of the…incident. Word’s getting out that I was at the dinner when Park died. And people are asking me about it. It’s a little uncomfortable, to tell you the truth.”
I’d become accustomed to the Mahina rumor mill, aka the Coconut Wireless. It used to bother me, but I’ve long since given up on any expectation of privacy.
“Rubberneckers?” I asked.
“You mean like people who slow down to stare at a car accident? Exactly. That’s the feeling I’m getting from a lot of them.”
“But are they buying food?”
“I suppose so.”
“Doesn’t seem like a problem to me then. Let me rephrase that. It seems like a silver lining to an otherwise tragic situation. Want me to write you some talking points?”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll be okay. I just wanted to let you know what was going on. You two stay safe, okay?”
“Listen, Donnie, I was talking to Bee Corcoran this morning—”
“Molly, I’m sorry, I have to get going. I’ll see you tonight. Love you both.”
I wanted to talk to someone besides the baby. I called Emma to see whether she could come over.
A few minutes after I hung up, Emma knocked on the door.
“I’m glad you called, Molly,” Emma swept in and made a beeline for the refrigerator. “I gotta talk to someone who understands. In other words, not Yoshi. You know they say the only thing worse than being married to another academic is being married to a non-academic. You got any beer?”
“Just wine. Can you pour me one too? And a big glass of water while you’re there?”
“Water? Oh yeah, the baby. Okay, sit down. I’ll be right there.”
Emma brought three big mugs out to the living room, set two of them down in front of me, then sat down and took a big gulp from hers.
“I’ll go first,” she said. “Friggin’ Bee Corcoran.”
“Bee Corcoran! That’s funny, I just…what about Bee?”
“I think Gunderson’s gonna nominate her research for the system life sciences award.” Emma narrowed her eyes. “Which means I’m out.”
“But Emma, your research…I mean, I’m not an expert, but what you’re doing seems really important. To the environment and everything. Right?”
“That’s what I thought.” Emma lifted the mug to her mouth and kept tilting it back and drinking until it was upside-down.
“Is it just one nomination per campus?” I asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Ohhh. Hm. I saw Geoffrey Gunderson at the dinner. I think he did say he nominated Bee.”
Silence fell over my living room.
“I need another glass,” Emma said, finally. “You?”
“I’m fine.”
I waited for her to come back from the kitchen.
“You’ve been spending years on it, haven’t you?” I said. “Mapping the family trees of native plant species, right?”
Emma lifted her mug in a mock toast.
“Yeah, pretty much. Not bad for an English major, Molly.”
“I’ll take it. So, what’s Bee doing that’s more impressive than what you’re doing?”
Emma set down her mug.
“You know about DNA, right?”
“Yes, I do, thank you for asking. That’s what you study, yes?”
“Yeah. I study plant DNA. But us humans have DNA too.”
“Emma, I’m not a complete moron. Plus, I’ve seen GATTACA. I know humans have DNA.”
“Sorry about assuming you’re a moron, Molly. I’ve been spending too much time talking to administrators, that’s why. Like my dean.”
“Come on, Emma, Geoffrey Gunderson seems perfectly nice.”
“Have you ever tried to explain gene mapping to a medievalist?”
“I have not. Go ahead and tell me about DNA.”
“Okay.” Emma set down her wine mug. “You know how your eye color, earwax, stuff like that is determined by your DNA, right?”
“Earwax?”
“Yeah. You probably have wet earwax.”
“How would you know that?”
“Don’t get distracted when I’m trying to explain stuff. Look. Muscle, right?” Emma held her arm up and tapped her meaty bicep. “You know how you work out, you grow more muscle?”
“Theoretically, yes.”
“So you have these processes in your body that work to build muscle, yeah? But how come your muscles don’t just keep growing and growing forever?”
“Well, there must be some natural limit—”
“Ha! Exactly. So these other processes that keep the growth under control, so you don’t grow too much muscle. That’s what Bee’s researching.”
“Oh. So if you’re a bodybuilder, you’d want to find out what’s keeping your muscles from getting as big as possible, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you’d want to slow down or stop that process.”
Emma pointed at me.
“Exactly. And not just bodybuilders. If you can get a handle on the mechanism, you can treat people with muscle wasting conditions.”
“She can’t be the only one working on that,” I said. “There must be a huge market for a treatment like what you’re describing.”
“That’s the thing. People have been trying to crack this for years. But somehow, apparently, she’s finally nailed it. Molly, how can I compete with that?”
Francesca had dozed off, so I set her down into the bassinet. She immediately woke up and started fussing. I slid the bassinet next to me and rocked it gently with my foot, which seemed to calm her down again.
“Has Bee actually published anything?” I asked. “About this research, I mean? Maybe it’s just vaporware.”
Emma pointed at me again.
“Exactly! It has not been peer-reviewed.”
“Interesting.”
“She presented it at a conference, and it got a bunch of publicity. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it, Molly.”
I looked down at Francesca, who was starting to stir.
“I’ve been a little busy,” I said. Then something struck me.
“Stephen!” I exclaimed.
“What about him?” Emma asked.
“When I saw him, he looked like he’d been working out.”
Emma snorted.
“Stephen Park? Isn’t he way too cool to go to the gym and sweat in front of everyone?”
“Exactly. But he was definitely more muscular than I’d ever seen him. He had the shoulders and everything. Do you think he was Bee’s guinea pig?”
“What? Testing a treatment like that on human subjects? Aw, no way. She’d never get that approved. Our IRB doesn’t let us do bupkis.”
“What if it wasn’t approved,” I said, “but she did it anyway? Think about it. You know how Stephen is about his appearance. Was. He was so self-conscious when he gained weight after rehab.”
“I guess,” Emma said. “I don’t think I would’ve noticed, except when he started wearing capes to cover it up.”
“Maybe Stephen found out something about Bee’s research,” I said, “and was going to make it public. So she had to stop him.”
“Ooh, are you saying she killed him?”
“No, Emma, I don’t know. I’m just brainstorming.”
“Nah, I like it. Go on.”
“Okay. Maybe she was doing something unethical, or at least something the IRB didn’t approve in advance. Maybe she was experimenting on Stephen, and he consented at first, but then he got some side effects and changed his mind. Oh, great, she’s awake.”
I picked up Francesca and popped her under my shirt. She latched on right away. I was getting good at this. I was also suddenly desperately thirsty.
“Emma, can you get me another glass of water?”
“What? Oh, sure.”
Emma disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a big tumbler.
“Your idea’s a little out there,” Emma said as she handed me the glass. “But I can see it. If someone didn’t kill him then the only other explanations are either he fell on accident or Miss Constance got him.”
“It was so weird to see Stephen Park looking like he’d been lifting weights,” I said. “I was like, when did you turn into such a basic bro?”
“Eh, there’s nothing wrong with lifting weights.” Emma plunked down on an armchair. “You should try it.”
“Try it? Hey, I’m lifting weights all day, every day.” I looked down at the baby latched to my chest. “Boy, I hope she doesn’t grow up to be like Stephen. You know, Stephen’s parents aren’t bad people. And his sister’s perfectly nice. But Stephen. How does someone grow up to be so entitled and arrogant?”
“Stephen was spoiled, that’s why. He always got everything he wanted.”
“Ah, that reminds me. Not everything. When I talked to Bee this morning—”
“You what?”
“Yeah, I called her. Anyway, she told me she and Stephen were just friends. No romance.”
“What? Nah.” Emma leaned forward, interested. “Maybe he was trying to get jacked to impress Bee then.”
“Maybe? It seems unlike him to make that much of an effort.”
“So, let’s flesh out our theory.” Emma leaned back into the chair and folded her hands behind her head. “Stephen is using Bee’s treatment to get all jacked. He might be the first human subject to try it.”
“He’d be all over that,” I said. “He loves to think of himself as a risk-taker.”
“Okay, but then he starts to get some bad side effects. He tells her to fix it. She says sorry, she can’t. He gets upset and threatens to report her. She knows she can’t let that happen. So she acts all nice to him, that way he won’t get suspicious. But the whole time she’s waiting for an opportunity, yeah? When he goes outside for a smoke, she sees her chance. She sneaks out after him and shoves him off the terrace. Then she comes back in, and pretends to be surprised when she hears the news.”
“Sounds plausible to me,” I said.
“She could’ve sent ‘im over with one push, too,” Emma said. “You seen her arms, yeah?”
“Oh yes. She was wearing a sleeveless top at the dinner. She looked like a golden statue of Athena come to life. It was appalling.”
“So we solved it. Bee killed Stephen Park to keep her secret safe.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you wanted Bee to be guilty of murder so she won’t get the research award.”
“It was your idea to begin with, Molly. Anyway, you don’t know what it feels like to lose that research award.”
“True, because I’ve never had a research award. They don’t really expect us to bring in grant money in the College of Commerce.”
“Man, why didn’t I become a business professor?”
“Because it would be so contrary to your nature that your every waking minute would be a torment of self-loathing?”
“Yeah, something like that. Molly, I’m gonna get more wine. You want some?”
“Not right now, thanks,” I said. “But could you refill my water?”
Chapter Fifteen
Emma’s fears about the research award were confirmed a few days later. A university-wide email from the chancellor’s office announced that the system life sciences award had been granted to Dr. Beatrice Corcoran of Mahina State University for her research on muscle metabolism.
I heard the news first from Emma. She called while Donnie was home for lunch. I invited her to come over. She accepted.
“Emma.” Donnie half-stood to give Emma a careful hug without tipping the baby out of the sling. “Congratulations. I heard Mahina State won the system life sciences award. You beat out all the other campuses.”
I was shaking my head at Donnie and mouthing the word “no” at him, but he didn’t see me until it was too late.
