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I watched as Galigani attached himself to the M.E and disappeared toward the room where Kelly had taken her last breath.
The lobby was a flurry of activity, but I spotted the masseuse, Hannah, giving her statement to a uniformed officer. When he closed his notebook and stepped away from her, I stepped in. After all, it seemed as good a place to start as any.
“Hannah,” I called. “Would you mind speaking with me privately for a moment? Your employer, Jane North, hired me to investigate this incident.”
“I don’t know what happened,” Hannah said, her voice trembling. “I used the same mask that we always do. I had just gotten a fresh assortment from the supply closet too! There should not have been anything wrong with it at all!”
I put my hand on Hannah’s shoulder. “No one is blaming you, Hannah.” I glanced around at the crowded lobby. It was full of anxious, angry faces. My gut told me I had to get Hannah to calm down if I was going to get any useful information out her.
“Let’s take a walk, so that we can talk privately,” I said to her.
Hannah’s hunched shoulders dropped as we stepped away from the din of the lobby.
“So how long have you worked here, Hannah?” I asked as we found a hallway to casually stroll down.
“I guess two years? I started working here as a receptionists when I was in high school, and I got certified to be a masseuse last summer,” she said.
“Mind walking me through exactly what happened?” I asked.
“I already told the police everything,” she said.
“Yes, but your boss hired me specifically to help you out, Hannah. She wants to make sure you don’t get any heat for this,” I said to reassure her.
Although now that I knew about Jane’s history with McNearny I wonder if Jane secretly feared she’d be the target of the investigation rather than Hannah.
“I’m a private investigator,” I said. “And I have yours and Ms. North’s interests at heart. Is anything you can tell me that could help with my personal investigation?”
She shrugged. “I did everything I was supposed to. After I gave Kelly and Brittany their massages, I noticed we were out of the face mask we normally use, so I stepped out of the room to go to the supply closet to get more.”
“Did you see if anyone else entered the room?” I asked.
“What? No...No...why would anyone go in there?” Hannah asked nervously. Her hand flew to her throat and she scratched at her skin anxiously. “Brittany would have said something if anyone had gone in there, right?”
I nodded. “Okay, good point. I’m just trying to cross our t’s and dot our i’s.”
Hannah stopped clawing her throat and dropped her hand.
“Go on,” I prodded. “You went to the supply to get more and then what happened?”
“Oh!” Hannah exclaimed. “I just thought of something I forgot to tell the police,” she said. “I forgot about it completely.” She turned to race back down the hallway.
I grabbed her arm. “Wait. Wait! What did you forget?” I asked.
Hannah’s face clouded. She was young, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two max. It was obvious, she didn’t know which way to turn or who to trust. She chewed her lip.
“I’m on your side, Hannah,” I said. “You can tell me.”
She nodded. “Well, when I went to grab the tub of the face cream, I saw another tub that’d already been opened sitting on the shelf. I thought it was weird, because normally if a tub’s been opened, it would have already been brought into one of the rooms. But, I figured someone just maybe topped off an old jar or something. I opened it and it looked fine. I mean, it didn’t seem dried out and crusty or anything. It still looked fresh. I didn’t want the jar to go bad just sitting in the supply closet because it’s really drafty in there...”
“Someone tampered with one of the jars and left it in the supply closet?” I said.
“Tampered?” Hannah asked, her voice becoming shrill. “I don’t know.
I should have just thrown the opened jar away,” Hannah wailed. “I didn’t even think twice about it, you know? I just didn’t want to waste the tub of face mask because it’s very expensive. I never even once thought someone might have...what would someone have done? You can’t kill someone with face mask, can you?”
Could you?
I feared Hannah was to leave me with a one-way ticket on the hysterical train, so I ushered her to the supply closet.
“Show me,” I said.
She opened the closet, and pointed at the empty space where she’d picked up the tub.
I noticed the supply closet didn’t have a lock on it. Anyone could have gotten in there and messed with the face mask.
“Okay, Hannah, please tell Jane about this so that she can go through everything and make sure nothing else has been tampered with. And tell her to put a lock on the supply closet.”
Hannah nodded and dashed down the hall.
What could have happened? Could the kill have emptied Kelly’s room of the face mask, knowing the masseuse would have to go get more? Then they had infected the face mask?
With what?
An acid, of some sort?
It seemed far-fetched...but...
As I exiting the supply closet, Paula emerged from the locker room, freshly shampooed and smelling like a mix of wild strawberries and grapes. I covered my nose and shook my head.
What is wrong with me today?
Why is every strong scent thrusting me close to the edge of nausea?
“So have you gotten any leads?” Paula asked.
“I only know that the masseuse got the face mask from this supply closet, but I suppose it’s a start,” I said.
Officer McNearny bustled down the hallway toward us. In tow, was a uniformed officer and from their conversation it seemed like the body had already been removed and they’d requested the entire bridal party go down to the station for questioning.
They could have spoken to any one of them here at the spa, this was just his attempt to keep me away from information.
Perfect.
I’d hardly dipped my toes in the water of this case, and I was already experiencing some technical difficulties.
McNearny gave me a very fake friendly nod as he bailed out into the lobby. “Spa is all yours now, Connolly.”
Paula made a face. “Why does he have to so rude to you?”
“Long story,” I said. “Want to help me snoop around a bit before we head out of here?”
“Ooh, detective work. Sounds fun,” she teased, and we walked toward the room where Kelly had been. The room was closed, complete with crime scene tape. I looked around for Galigani, but he was nowhere to be found.
“He probably took off with the M.E.” Paula said.
We checked out another one of the massage rooms, but everything looked in order.
“Sure, they let me poke around now, after they remove the body, and wiped, dusted, printed, basically digested and regurgitated anything useful here,” I whined.
Paula patted me on the back. “At least you have a gig. I’d love to work for this place. Look at the paint color. Orange? They really need my help. You’d think a fancy place like this would have hired a decorator,” she whispered.
“Oh, they’re looking for one,” I heard a familiar voice say as we left the small room and rounded the hall corner, bumping into the spa’s construction zone.
I smiled. Standing in front of us, was a contractor I’d recently meet.
“Sean!” I said, “Good to see you. This is my girlfriend Paula.”
Sean smiled happily and shook her hand, tipping his ball cap in her direction.
“Long time no see,” he said to me.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
He pointed to the giant hole in the wall that he was currently covering with a plastic tarp. “Working. The spa is right next door to a nail salon, and the two businesses are merging. They have me doing the basic contracting work for the merge.”
“Nice,” I said.
“They really should take some time to redo their décor,” Paula muttered.
Sean quirked an eyebrow. “You know anyone?”
“Paula’s an interior designer,” I said. “And she thinks this place needs a serious makeover.”
Sean grinned. “Interesting. I’m a man who believes in fate. I used to have a go-to designer but lately she’s been too busy.”
“That’s a problem I’d love to have,” Paula said.
“Well, if you’re looking for new clients, Ms. Paula, I could use a designer who—”
“Yes!” Paula exclaimed before Sean could finish his sentence. She turned to me and squealed. “Who knew that going to the spa today would be so lucrative for us?”
I cringed, guilt weighing down on me, it seemed wrong to be happy about finding a case if it meant someone had died. I resolved I’d do my best to get justice for Kelly.
