More Twisted

no way of turning down the temperature or calling for help; there were no controls inside the unit. And heat in a sauna could kill; York and his wife had just seen a local TV story about a Phoenix woman who’d died in a sauna after she’d fainted in hers.
    Holding the shims, staring down at them, a sudden click from nearby made him jump. York turned and saw a shadow against the wall, like that of a person pausing. Then it vanished.
    “Hello?” York called.
    Silence.
    York walked into the hallway. He could see nobody. Then he glanced at the emergency exit door, which didn’t seem to be closed all the way. He looked out. The alley was empty. Turning back, he noticed something on the edge of the door. Somebody had taped the latch down so he could get inside without being seen from anyone in the lobby.
    Cause you some harm  . . .
    Five minutes later, showerless, York was hurrying out of the club, not bothering to give Gavin the lecture he deserved. The businessman was carrying the shims and bit of duct tape, wrapped in paper towels. He was careful. Like everybody who watched TV nowadays he knew all about the art of preserving fingerprints.

    “They’re in here.”
    Stephen York handed the paper towel to pale-skinned detective Bill Lampert. “I didn’t touch them—I used tissues.”
    “At your health club, you said?” asked the detective, looking over the shims and the tape.
    “That’s right.” York couldn’t resist adding the name of the exclusive place.
    Lampert didn’t seem impressed. He stepped to the doorway and handed the evidence to Alvarado. “Prints, tool marks, stat.” The young officer vanished.
    Turning back to York. “But nobody actually tried to detain you in the sauna?”
    Detain ? York asked himself wryly. You mean: Lock me inside to roast me to death. “ No.” He pulled out a cigar. “You mind?”
    “There’s no smoking in the building,” Lampert replied.
    “Maybe not technically, but . . .”
    “There’s no smoking in the building.”
    York put the stogie away. “The way I read it, Trotter found out my routine. He got into the club and taped the back door open so he could get in without anybody seeing him from the lobby.”
    “How’d he do that? He a member?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Lampert held up a finger. He called the club and had a brief conversation. “No record of him as a member or a guest in the last month.”
    “Then he had a fake ID or something to try a guest membership.”
    “Fake ID? That’s a little . . . complicated, isn’t it?”
    “Well, somehow, the asshole got inside. He was going to seal me inside but I think I surprised him and he ditched the shims and took off.”
    Alvarado walked into his boss’s office. “No prints. Tool marks aren’t distinctive but if we find a plane or chisel we might make a match.”
    York laughed. “No prints? That’s proof of something right there, isn’t it?”
    Lampert ignored him. He lifted a sheet of paper from his desk and looked it over. “Well, we’ve looked into this Trotter fellow. Seems like any normal guy. No police record except for a few traffic tickets. But there is something. I talked to the Veterans Administration in Phoenix. Turns out they have a file on him. He was in Kuwait, the first Gulf War. His unit got hit hard. Half his men were killed and he was badly wounded. After he got discharged he moved here, spent a year in counseling. The file has his shrink’s notes in it. That’s all privileged—doctor-patient—and we’re not supposed to see it but I’ve got a buddy in the VA and he gave me the gist. Apparently after Trotter got out of the service he ended up hanging with a bad crowd here and in Albuquerque. Did some strong-arm stuff. For hire. That was a while ago, and he was never arrested but still . . .”
    “Christ . . . . So maybe somebody hired him?”
    “Who’ve you pissed off bad enough they’d go to this kind of trouble to get even?”
    “I don’t know. I’d have to think about it.”
    Alvarado said, “You know that expression ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold’?”
    “Yeah, I think I heard of that.”
    “Might be somebody from your distant past. Think way back.”
    A dish served cold  . . .
    “Okay. But what’re we going to do in the meantime?” York asked, wiping his sweating palms on his pants.
    “Let’s go have a talk with him. See what he has to say.” The detective picked up the phone and placed a call.
    “Mr. Trotter