A Body to die for

looked like testosterone. And the chromium looked like ascorbic acid and riboflavin.”
    I blinked. “That should help. Thanks.” I wondered how a police sketch artist would handle that description. “Who knew, besides Barney?”
    “Only Barney.And my chemist. He designed the stuff in his private lab.”
    I said, “I can see why you’d think I’d want in.”
    “No one’s getting anything if the samples can’t be found. Barney bought the chemist’s notebooks when we paid him for the samples. Barney took the notebooks, and I’m not sure what he did with them. This whole money/drugs transfer only happened yesterday afternoon. I was a wreck even then. Now I’m a total wreck.” Ameleth wiped her mouth carefully, and then sucked down her carrot-garlic concoction in one big gulp. “I love that garlic rush.” She relished it for a moment, eyes closed. Then she said, “And I’m not going to tell you who my chemist is. The last thing I need right now is to deal with you asking him questions. He’s not a well man. He may be insane.”
    “How can you tell?” I asked.
    “I’m not falling for that one,” she said.
    I could smell the garlic rush from my stool. I said, “Take the story from the transfer to right now.” Across the room, a waiter in a white button-down and loose black shorts walked across the room with an ice cream mountain on a tray. He brought it to a woman who must have been fifty pounds overweight. Ameleth said, “I don’t really have much to lose. Okay, yesterday morning, I told Jack I was going to the Fitness Convention at the Jacob Javits Center. I’d be gone all day. He could take the day off himself. Jack, of course, offered to go with me to the convention. Poor idiot, he doesn’t even know when I’m trying to get rid of him. I sent him on some work errands—see how all of the new sneakers rate on a five-mile run, that kind of thing. And, wanting to please me like a jerk, he left me alone to get ready for the drop.
    “The chemist showed up at the suite in the club at noon,” she said. “I’ve never met the guy. Barney thought it. was best if I never laid eyes on him, so he sent me on an important errand while he paid him. The chemist had been working on these formulas for years. We bought him a lab to work in and an offer of sixty thousand dollars in exchange for half the royalties. For our share, we’d get FDA approval, a marketer and a distributor—the grunt work. But Barney had a plan. He was going to buy the notebooks and the samples from the chemist at the club. Meanwhile, I was on my important errand locking up the lab we bought for him. We’d have it all, you get it? In the time I’d take him to reconstruct his formulas, we’d be on the market.”
    I slurped my Diet Coke. “Where is this lab?” I asked.
    “Forget it. I’m not falling for it,” she said. “I got back to the club to meet Barney with the samples. He was in the suite, just like we’d planned. The chemist was gone. The samples were in the fridge. The notebooks were safely hidden, he told me. We chased each other on the treadmill for fun, and then took a nice Jacuzzi and made love in the bubbles. I left soon after because I thought Jack might show up to tell me about his jogging mission. I didn’t want him to catch me with Barney.”
    I rudely interrupted. “I thought that was what you wanted.”
    She ignored me. “I took the elevator down,” she said. “I went back to the apartment—”
    “Which is where?” I asked.
    “That won’t lead you to the chemist.”
    “I was looking earlier today. I’m curious.”
    “I’ll write you a card when you find the samples. As I said, I went back to the apartment and changed into dry clothes. I did some stretching exercises to loosen up. I napped. At nine o’clock, the phone rings. A cop tells me there’s been a murder at the club. I race over there, and find Barney murdered. I look in the fridge in the juice bar—empty. I check the safe in the back: money gone.”
    “I still don’t get why you assume Jack killed Barney.”
    “I know he did it,” she said firmly. “It’s as simple as that. And then to get word that he tried to demolish the club? I’ve had enough emotional wrenching for one day. With Barney gone, the samples stolen and my garlic rush over, I need some time to think about what else to live for.”
    On that happy note, Ameleth wiped a tear from her gray eyes, and left me to my sundae, and the remains of hers. It was a