Killer Calories

eating salad, and exercising like a hyperactive Tasmanian devil. Who has any energy at all, let alone excess? ”
    Dion laughed and shot her a breathtaking smile. “All that clean eating and activity is supposed to invigorate you.”
    “Yeah, I’ve heard the theory,” she said. “Do you mind if we stop and catch our breath under those avocado trees over there?”
    As soon as she uttered the words, Savannah realized that he didn’t need to catch his breath. No, she was the only one huffing and puffing enough to blow down a little pig’s brick house.
    “Sure, no problem,” he said, heading for the copse of trees she had indicated. “But don’t be tempted to smuggle any back for guacamole.”
    “ Real food, high fat content, heaven forbid. Would I be shot at sunrise? Or would they be extra cruel and have me do morning exercises first?”
    “I wouldn’t tattle on you. But these trees belong to the Chesterfields , and Phoebe is probably spying on us this very minute. Rumor has it she keeps a rifle with buckshot and a scope in that bell tower with her to shoot anybody who touches the forbidden fruit.”
    Rifle, buckshot, a scope... Mr. Movie Star didn’t know diddly about firearms, she decided. Obviously, he hadn’t played in many Westerns.
    But, since the plan was to get him to open up to her, she figured that insulting him wasn’t the best way to gain his confidence.
    When they reached the shade of the avocado trees, he pulled a sipper full of water from his fanny pack and offered it to her. She drank gratefully, then returned it, and he did the same.
    “If Phoebe Chesterfield sees all and knows all about what goes on around here, I should try to talk to her again,” Savannah said, thinking aloud. “She must have an opinion or two about Kat’s death.”
    “What about Kat’s death?” Dion’s turquoise eyes searched Savannah ’s with a degree of intensity that interested her. “She died of an accident, right? I mean, that’s what the medical examiner said.”
    “Then, for the moment, that’s what we go on.”
    “What do you mean? Don’t you think it was accidental?” Did he look scared, angry, shocked, worried, or a bit of all of the above? Savannah watched him carefully, trying to evaluate. But the man was an actor, after all. That complicated things a little.
    For right now, she decided on “worried”—which could mean anything.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve heard rumors that Kat might have been done in by somebody... maybe somebody she had a fight with just before she died.”
    There. Her verbal arrow had found and pierced its bull’s-eye. Actor or not, the look on his face was pure shock, quickly followed by fear.
    “Who said that? Who?”
    “Oh, I can’t say for sure. You know how gossip is; it just splatters like a wet cow pie through a fan and lands on everybody. It’s hard to tell where it got started.”
    He took a long swig from the sipper, and she noticed he was gripping the container a lot harder than necessary.
    “Did any of these gossips have any idea who might have done it?”
    “Oh, I heard a theory or two, but none I’d get too excited about. Not unless there was some sort of physical evidence to back it up, that is.”
    Was he looking a little pale beneath his perfect movie-star tan? she wondered. Or was it wishful thinking on her part?
    Not that she wanted Dion Zeller to be a murderer, per se. But right now, she would take any lead she could get. High-and-dry private detectives couldn’t be choosy.
    “Don’t believe everything you hear, Savannah ,” he said as he poured some of his water into his palm and splashed it over his face. “Just because someone disagreed with Kat doesn’t mean they killed her. Kat was a controversial, difficult woman; a lot of us had differences with her. We couldn’t all have murdered her.”
    “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience. Did you have problems with her?”
    He didn’t answer right away. She could practically hear his mental hard drive whirring.
    Finally, he said, “I loved Kat; she was one of the dearest friends I ever had. Sure we had problems, some nasty arguments, all that. But I never, never would have hurt her .“
    “Did you ever threaten her?”
    Yes, his tan was definitely fading.
    “I might have. In the heat of an argument people say a lot of things they don’t mean.”
    Savannah weighed the risk of asking her next question-She was alone on a hillside with man who outweighed her