Eating Nemo - Goldie Alexander

Inspector Breen sniffs loudly as his pen flies over his note-pad. He sneezes, gropes for a tissue, blows his nose, and inspects the phlegm like a witchdoctor examining entrails. Will this tell him who murdered my boss? Somehow I doubt it. His number-one haircut, bluish chin and ill-fitting suit don’t inspire confidence. All he’s managed to confirm is when Clarke’s body was found. Meanwhile Detective Olsen stares morosely into space. I suppose she’s used to Breen taking over. Maybe she’s even used to combating his germs.

I have already explained that my job at Melbourne’s Squadrose Gym involves handling Clarke’s finances. While my bookkeeping mostly consists of hiding awkward figures before any audit, I know Breen is wondering why Clarke employed me in a club designed to keep people fit and slim. But isn’t it obvious? Clarke’s message was “If you don’t pay your dues, you could end up like her.”

In a momentary lull, my mind’s eye pictures my newly demised boss - his sun-lamp skin, trim moustache, flat stomach and restructured teeth. I can’t believe he’s really dead. Clarke’s mother called him James Arthur Gavison Clarke. It was only after Doreen, his current wife, mentioned that he reminded her of that forties film star, that he deed-polled his name, bought contact lenses and grew a moustache. I once said to him “Clark Gable didn’t spell his name with an E.”

“What would you know?” Clarke jeered back. “They don’t call us kings for nothing.”

Well now both kings are dead. Long live the queen.

***

Breen uses one hand to sneeze into soggy tissues. Olsen barely stifles a yawn. Her tall, skinny, sharp-nosed frame and wispy hair speak volumes. Not for her the exquisite meal, the excellent wine, the lover waiting in the half-light. Though hopefully her career will prosper, meanwhile she must watch D.I. Breen fumble through cases she could handle with ease.

As the amplifiers on the other side of the wall urge our clients to strain harder, Breen rereads his notes. Yesterday morning our cleaner Van Nguyen found Clarke dead in the spa. Cardiac Arrest. Coming across a fatal heart attack might shock some. Van was more astonished to find that our boss actually had a heart. Clarke always referred to Van as “Slope.” If Van mentioned something needed fixing, Clarke would growl, “What would that Slope know?” Nevertheless when Van found Clarke’s body, he knew enough to call an ambulance. When they dragged Clarke out of the pool, the attendants noticed a purple scar, a mark caused by a thin cord being tightened around his neck. Death by garrotte, they decided. Then contacted the police.

***

Fishing inside my bag, I pop a truffle into my mouth. Interesting how chocolate, has over the millennia been coupled with conquest and carnage. It was the Olmec who taught their art to the Mayans who in turn taught it to the Aztecs. For the Aztecs, cocoa was both gold and religion - a metaphor for spilling blood. Those Aztecs were certainly onto something because after the Spanish nearly annihilated them, their conquerors melted their ill-gotten gold into cups; those very same cups in which the European upper class drank their chocolate. Then they got their comeuppance too, chocolate being the favoured drink of the Eighteenth Century philosophers whose ideas fuelled so many revolutions. Today the preparation and eating of chocolate is a scholarly subject, and if one should also happen to delight in the taste, so much the better.

It reminds me of Clarke’s habit every Monday was to call me into this office to check the gym accounts. “Well Fatso,” he’d say. “What was it last night? A metre of Toblerone, I’ll bet.” In his efforts to remain young, he subsisted on raw vegetables, fruit and whole grains washing these down with whisky. Have I mentioned how ignorant he was? Once seeing me with “The True History of Chocolate”, he snarled, “Listen Piggy, no one’s paying you to read.” Yet he regularly dipped into the drawer where I kept a box of soft-centres. But if I ever caught him, he’d growl “After a pen,” and stroll away unabashed.

***

On the other side of the wall the amplified “step on, move on”, wafts into the office. Breen clears his throat. “Ms. Graham…” in a rasp must surely give out before nightfall, “In your obinion, who might want Clarke Gable dead?”

My eyebrows shoot up. Shouldn’t he be asking, How come Clarke survived this long?

“Would his wife wanb him dead?”

“Which wife? Clarke was married four times and had numerous lovers.”

Breen gapes enviously before turning back to his notes. “We’ll neeb names and addresses. Assume you can provide those?”

“Of course. Always happy to help the police in their investigations.”

I must enthuse too much because Breen’s eyes narrow. “Whab exactly are your duties?”

“Keyboarding letters into the computer. Balancing Clarke’s books. Keeping files on our staff and paying salaries into their bank accounts. Maintaining our clients register. Checking all appointments and entering details into the computer. Also I create, print and send out all our latest programs...” I rabbit on. What I don’t mention is that for the last six years I was also the chief butt of Clarke’s sarcastic wit. So why stay here? The truth is, there aren’t too many jobs for five foot two women who weigh one hundred and seventy kilo - especially if her CV reads “Caring for aged parent”. Though many gyms dump their clients like beached fish, it’s only my creative accountancy that keeps Squadrose fiscally fit. If only Inspector Breen would think to ask, I could explain how I hide Clarke’s opulent living under general comings and goings. For example personal laundry is billed under “Towels”, groceries under “Snack-bar”, power, rates, car and phones under “Running Expenses”.

Breen picks up a staff list. “Seven, eight...” He glances up. “All parb-timers?”

“Clarke doesn’t pay us for getting sick.” I launch into my angling for customer speech, “Our staff work with our clients Spinning, Aerobics, Body Pump, Feldenkrias, Pilates, Intro Yoga, Yoga Iyengan Style, Dynamic Yoga, Tai-Chi, Boot Camp and Funky Dance. Plus there’s a personal fitness test designed to accommodate individual need and performance…”

I burble on. Breen returns to blowing his nose. “Yes, yes,” he butts in, “I assume you can subbly us with names and addresses?”

“If you look in Clarke’s right hand drawer, you will find our most recent client list.”
“Right.” He leans forward, “Where were you Friday night after work?”

“I was home.”

Breen turns to Olsen, his glance instructing her to take over. Her eyelids flutter. “Anyone with you?”

I shake my head. I spend Friday nights watching “Murder Inc” with a box of soft centres.

“No alibi.” Breen sneezes again. He says “Who else, apart from yourself, has a set of keys to this Gym?”

“Phil Green, our trainer. Van Nguyen our cleaner and Vickie Olsen. We take turns opening up. I do Monday and Tuesday mornings. Phil, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Van opens the doors on Fridays.”

“How about Vickie?”

I roll my eyes. “She only does massage.”

“Was Vickie Clarke’s lover?”

Having walked into her kneeling under his desk, his head thrown back, I merely shrug. However when Clarke saw me, how he opened his eyes long enough to snarl, “Piss off, Piggy.”

Olsen clears her throat. I enjoyed watching them jostle for position, a reminder of Clarke’s weekly meetings where his staff “yes and no sired” him so hard, it made me want to throw up. She asks, “How often does Clarke use the spa?”

“Most nights after everyone leaves. It was one of the few places he could relax.”

“Everyone knew this?’

“Yes.”

On the other side of the window, the sky has cleared to a soft pale blue. From here I glimpse the end of the pier where Dad and I once fished. Dad’s major rule was that hook and sinker must match. His other was how to give a swift tug to a line so no matter how big this fish was…

Breen cuts into my thoughts. “Were you the last person to see Clarke alive?”

“Yes. Clarke always got me in last thing at night to report on that day’s takings.”

“Where did this usually happen?”

“In the spa.”

“And this was common knowledge?”

“Clarke used to boast that he was the only person that could be sure of having the spa all to himself.”

“Last night, how was his mood?”

“As usual.” I didn’t add that Clarke had become quite obstreperous when his staff asked for a small rise. Moustache bristling, he yelled “Do they think I’m made of money?”
***
How ironic that one of Clarke’s favourite names for me is Ms. Piggy, that wonderful ‘Sesame Street’ character whose motto is “Never eat more than you can carry.” In my pantry is a chocolate fish also modeled on a children’s film ‘Finding Nemo’. Larger than the original tiny coral fish this replica measures twenty-two centimetres in length, is eight centimetres tall and ten centimetres at its widest point. In reality, that charming little clown-fish Nemo began life as a male. But as he grew large enough, he turned into a female. What a star! This ‘innocent-seeming’ coral clown-fish has a strangely symbiotic relationship with a poisonous sea anemone and what’s more, is known to be carnivorous.

Clarke’s sarcastic jibes included “How much did you spend this week on chocolate?” And “Bet you spent the weekend bonking a carton of Cadbury Milk,” all of which proved how little he knew as I have always preferred dark, the bitterer the better.
***
Dismissed, I make my way into the main exercise room, an area lined with walkers, stationary bicycles, steppers, rowers, and weight resistant equipment. This reminds me how long it took to design Clarke’s demise. At first I tried to find some way to adapt the leg press into a rack. My idea was to tie Clarke to one end, and counterbalance his weight with a fourteen-hundred-pound block on the other. That would extend his thinking very nicely. There was also strapping him to a Pilates Bench and raising him in such a way that his legs and arms would be ripped out of their sockets. Or perhaps I could follow the Aztec example of plunging a knife into his chest and pulling out his heart.

I would have been less vindictive if Clarke had ceased calling me “Fatso. Fatty. Butterball. Blimp. Chubby. Chunky. Gross-out. Buxom-One. Pudgie, Piggie. Hoggie etc.” Perhaps I wouldn’t have planned his demise in such a cold-blooded way if he had once called me by my correct name. It’s always a mistake to judge a person by her appearance. Or the quality of chocolate by its cost.

Still smiling, I pass the Steppers, the stationary bicyclists, the body builders and the hips and thighs toning class. Faces are flushed. Legs pedal furiously. I once calculated that our cyclists produce enough energy to soften a vat of cacao butter. Too busy watching their reflections, no one glances my way. Clarke could never pass his without tightening his stomach and straightening his shoulders. My own shows a woman in her late forties with shoulder-length hair, blue eyes, cheeks a healthy pink. While some might view me as grossly overweight, I prefer to admire my shape as similar to a Palaeolithic fertility statue and equally significant.

Our staff-room, no bigger than a cupboard, is at the back of the gym. I’m hoping to pass it unobserved only our cleaner Van opens the door, beckons me inside, and anxiously asks, “Do they know what happened?”

“Not really. I think they intend interviewing us one at time.”

Before he can quiz me any further, I’m out the door and heading towards the house where I grew up. First I go to the back shed where Dad’s fishing tackle is stored. As I gaze around, I consider how those rods, lines, sinkers and flies still hold his fighting spirit. If only he could have seen what a big fish I’d caught, I know he’d be proud of me.

My thoughts return to how I’d dealt with my boss. It was Clarke’s nightly habit to wait for our clients to leave then sink into the spa. While he wallowed about like a middle-aged whale, it was my job to report on that day’s takings. “So?” he’d say. “How many paid up memberships?”

But this was different. Probably because for the very first time in six years I came to report a loss. Clarke sat bolt upright. Water splashed over the tiles onto my shoes as he yelled “I want to see everything on paper…”

“Course,” I said reaching into my pocket for a fishing line. “But first I’m planning to indulge you a little.” And knowing how he could never resist raiding my drawer for those soft-centres, my left hand now protected by a disposable glove held out a chocolate Nemo, all plump and gorgeous in its orange, white and brown sugary coat.

Distracted by this glittering prize, Clarke reached for it. His action allowed me to come close enough to slip a line over his head and around his throat. Then all I did was jerk and pull, jerk and pull, just as once Dad had shown me how to land an extra large fish.

I’ll spare you the gory details. But with my weight on the other end of that line, Clarke let out a cry, then a choking cough. When I finally let go, his limp body slid deeper into the spa.

I listened intently. What if someone heard him cry out? Only water lapping against the sides of the spa. Water washed over his body in slow, leisurely burps, his body slid deeper into the spa until it finally came to rest. Only then did I leave him there, his half-submerged sun-lamp-tanned body striped orange like of a king-size Nemo.

Gloves still on so as not to leave any fingerprints, and with the fishing line tucked safely into one pocket and my Nemo in the other, I hurried away. In the pool’s warm atmosphere, any prints would dry before morning. Back in the office I wrapped a towel around my gloved hand, smashed a window and opened it to its widest. Then I trashed the room, raided the strongbox where Clarke kept his petty cash, switched off the alarms to make it look like a break-in. Now the only fingerprints were my own and the police would assume that the thief or thieves wore gloves.

****

Back home after the police interview, I log onto the Internet to check my Swiss bank account. Over several years I have worked the gym’s finances in my favour, always making sure nothing can be traced back to me. Then I celebrate my victory by slowly savouring my chocolate clown-fish. I know Clarke would have enjoyed its rich mellow flavour.

BIO: Goldie Alexander is an Australian author who has written for the adult and youth markets. Her latest books include "UnKind Cut" and "Shape-Shifters". Coming soon "Bridging the Snowy" and "Lame Duck Protest" Her website is www.goldiealexander.com