Dying to Diet

Denise has worked as a full-time journalist and as a freelance writer. She has been a graphic designer and video producer - including production of the first Christmas program broadcast in the Ukraine after the fall of communism. Her dog is named Hercule Poirot and she is fascinated with all things strange and mysterious. Denise is a member of Sisters in Crime. Her short-short story Smells Like ... Danger appeared in the Partners in Crime newsletter in Kansas City. She is currently marketing a suspense novel featuring an artist, a casino, and a devious stalker, while working on another book set in Kruger National Park in South Africa.

Destiny Hogan sighed, sucked her stomach in and unlocked the car. Her 210-pound bulk squeezed nicely behind the wheel, her round sunglasses on her round head, she put the car in reverse and wished again to lose weight. At 5’2”, she was unhappy with her size. Her appearance was classy and well dressed and according to the bottle her hair was ash blonde.

Mara, the secretary of Realty Inc. where Destiny worked, kept talking to her about some marvelous diet pills. Something new and experimental she hadn’t heard of it, and Destiny thought she had tried it all. Since turning 40, Destiny noticed the gimmicky stuff didn’t work as well.

Destiny had been showing houses to the Engles and today they were ready to buy. She spent the afternoon with the Engles doing the house contract. Mrs. Engle started talking about ML20 too.

Tom Engle said, “Susan, that is all you talk about. Diet, diet, diet. Destiny may not be interested in that sort of thing.”

Destiny told Susan, “It must be fate. My assistant is taking the same stuff. What’s their number?” She didn’t expect this to work anymore than anything else she had tried.

Destiny spoke to a woman who gave her an appointment at an industrial park office. It was a weird location, definitely not Weight Watchers. At the warehouse, the young woman weighed her and checked her body fat.

“That’s easy,” Destiny quipped as the girl put the caliper around the fat on her arm, “lots and lots.”

The girl smiled and wrote down some numbers. The girl was incredibly thin; Destiny hated her. She saw a man in the warehouse moving boxes around over the thin girl’s shoulder. Destiny was glad he didn’t have to measure her fat. The corners of the warehouse faded out to darkness with a small pallet of boxes and shelves in the center.

“Okay, Ms. Hogan.” The girl straightened up from the desk where she was leaning. “You need to drink two 8 ounce glasses of carrot juice in the morning when you take your ML20.” She held out a piece of paper with charts and boxes on it.

“It’s very important to follow the instructions exactly because it is a metabolic process that has specific elements working together to burn unwanted fat. Start with your juice, two tablets, then a piece of dry toast. Lunch has several menu suggestions--two boiled eggs, a hot dog or grilled cheese...”

“Well, you can read the rest. A month’s supply of ML20 comes to $240, please.”

Destiny swallowed hard and wrote the check. Had she lost her mind? When she got home later, she realized she didn’t have the ingredients on the diet list and decided to start tomorrow. She pulled a diet dinner out of the freezer and made popcorn to go with it. She settled down with a mystery on the couch and thought, “It doesn’t take a sleuth to figure out why I can’t lose weight.” She had low fat ice cream for dessert.

In the morning, She had spread a little bit of margarine on her bread in spite of the diet’s instructions. She stopped at the grocery store on her way to work to buy, ugh, carrot juice and some of the other odd things on the list. With a sigh and a gag, she drank the carrot juice with the two ML20 tablets.

Later, she realized she had forgotten the diet list but by then was across town closer to the ML20 office than her home. She pulled in the parking lot figuring they’d give her a copy of the menu suggestions.

Destiny pressed her face to the window when the door didn’t open. She saw the skinny girl’s leg sticking out behind a desk. The leg didn’t move when she tapped on the glass with her keys. She continued tapping and rattling the door. No movement. Something wasn’t right. Destiny decided to call the police on her car phone. She hoped the girl had just passed out from being thin.

The police took one look and broke the handle to open the door. Destiny stood outside peeking in, listening to the officers call for assistance. She shivered as the autumn sun touched her.

“No.” He started to ask for clarification and she continued, “I just came by the other day to pick something up,” she felt shy about telling the muscular officer about diet pills. “I needed a copy of an information sheet, so I just dropped by and saw her foot there...” She pointed vaguely towards the building. “Is she okay?”

“Mmmm, s’hard to say, ma’am,” Officer Winthorp said. Destiny took that to mean no. She looked over at the building as a paramedic returned equipment to the ambulance. He didn’t seem to be rushing.

She returned her attention to him, “Oh. I was, uh, I bought some of their products.”

“They were out there in the middle of the warehouse on the shelves - boxes.”

Destiny blinked her round brown eyes at him several times. “You’re kidding? When I came by, they had racks of shelves and boxes all over them.”

“Well, the girl helped me, but a guy was back there stacking up boxes and moving stuff.”

“The police questioned you and everything?” Mara perked up after a weak hello.

“The officer was good looking. I’m telling you, but I think that kid – you know the skinny girl – I think she was dead. They wouldn’t tell me though.”

“No, I wouldn’t think so. Well, I’m starting the diet today. Any culinary suggestions?”

Mara chuckled then coughed. “I feel lousy but I can’t put my finger on it. I’m weak and shaky, but I don’t think I have a fever. It’s like a weird form of flu. I keep wanting to eat but nothing tastes right when I try.”

“You’re not trying to stick to carrot juice are you? I mean, no wonder nothing tastes good if you are.”

Mara laughed. “I gotta go, Destiny. I’m feeling sick again. I don’t think I’ll be in tomorrow.”

Her entire schedule was shot, not to mention any attempt to stay on the new diet. She went through a Taco Bell drive thru on her way to the office after she took care of a few clients. She had a message from Tom Engle to put a hold on the house contract. Besides being a nice big sale, the nice Engles would lose money if she stopped it now, so she called his pager number.

“My wife is in the hospital and they aren’t sure what’s wrong or if, or if...” The man sounded distraught.

“The last couple days she hasn’t felt well. Then, last night after dinner she just passes out. She hasn’t been conscious again, but they’re doing tests. I just figured that well, you know, the house deal, it just wouldn’t...”

She felt sorry for him, “I’ll do what I can to stop it without losing your earnest money, Mr. Engle,” Destiny said.

Another voice mail message from the muscular police officer revealed, as Destiny had suspected, that the girl hadn’t made it. Officer Winthorp said she was suffocated. Dreadful and in a reasonably safe part of town, she thought.

“According to her family she’d only worked there a couple weeks. She was a temporary worker,” Officer Winthorp said when she returned his call.

“Oh that’s terrible.” Destiny felt bad, but why was she sharing in the grizzly details?

“We haven’t found any connections to the man you described. He never showed up to work and all the products are gone. Someone was subleasing the space and did the paperwork by FAX so we can’t get a description there.” Destiny made sounds of interest as he spoke. “So we were wondering if you could come in and work with an artist on a profile.”

Destiny’s eyes were subconsciously on her calendar. “Sure. I’d be glad to help. Is he the bad guy? Did he steal the ML20?”

“Mmmm. Okay, how about…how long will this take?” She squinted at the calendar.

She blew air thru the hair hanging over her forehead, “Oh, what about tonight?”

At the main station, Destiny sat with a little bespectacled man and talked for a long time. They looked at foreheads, noses, photographs and drawings. He started sketching and she started bossing him, but he seemed to be used to it.

“At least you have a clear memory, lady. Some people can’t remember what they saw in the mirror,” the artist said.

“Well, I wasn’t upset when I saw him. I was just getting my fat measured and well, you’ve got to concentrate on something besides your fat, so I looked at him,” she said. He grinned at her.

The next morning, Destiny called Mara’s house since she had no message from her reliable friend and helper. A girl answered in a sleepy voice.

“I don’t know. My older sister is there now. I was there all night. She just passed out or something.”

Destiny felt the hair on her arms stand up. “How long had she been taking those diet pills?”

Destiny jumped in her car. Schedule be hanged. She dialed the main police number on her car phone and told Winthorp her fears.

He met her at the hospital and she gave him the three or four pills from her purse.

“Officer,” she said, thinking of Mrs. Engle, “a woman I was selling a house to was taking this stuff,” she waved the sandwich bag at him, “and had the same thing happen. She may even be in this hospital.”

She told him all about the fliers, pills, and diet. He made a couple calls on his mobile phone but motioned for her to wait.

“Ms. Hogan,” he said pulling down his antenna, “we had your drawing circulated, and my sergeant just told me they found a similar description of a guy who is wanted in Florida.”

Destiny listened as the doctor described Mara’s symptoms. She felt sick at the idea she had taken two of those diet pills. A nurse had been dispatched to find out about Susan Engle.

“Officer, that woman is in our ICU,” the nurse reported. Destiny turned and stared at the woman. “They don’t expect her to last long,” she finished.

The police officer told Mara’s doctor to talk with Mrs. Engle’s doctor, then rushed the ML20 to a lab for testing. Destiny went and picked up the bottle from her house and the one from Mara’s. Her bottle seemed to be different shade of pink but maybe it was just her imagination. She took them to the police station. She returned to the hospital to sit with Mara. The silence gave her time to think.

Destiny thought about Mara’s normally happy attitude, about her own weight, and about life. She looked at Mara, quiet and sweaty on the white hospital pillows, and decided that her ideal weight wasn’t so important. The phone on the bedside table made her jump when it rang.

A nurse from ICU asked her to come downstairs. When she arrived, Tom Engle was silently sobbing in a chair. They wheeled out a gurney with a sheet covering it and Tom rose to follow it. The nurses discouraged Engle, but he just kept walking behind them. When they turned the stretcher into the double doors labeled morgue, Tom followed into the waiting area.

He turned and looked through her for a second, then at her. The stretcher disappeared behind another flapping door. He hugged Destiny and cried. She made shushing noises. She patted his back while looking at a nurse’s station. She heard the doors flap and a man in blue surgical scrubs approached the nurse. Destiny’s hand froze above Tom’s back. It was him, the man from the warehouse. Destiny tucked her face into Tom’s shoulder and listened to the quiet conversation.

“I’ll make my rounds. Then I’ll come back and start some exams. Get the two new ones set up.” He turned and pulled on a white lab coat.

Destiny’s heart thumped hard. She ducked her head into Tom’s shoulder in a familiar way.

“There now, honey,” she said. She felt the door close behind her and almost unbalanced Tom with her abrupt turn to the nurse.

“I need to use your phone. It’s an emergency.” Destiny’s finger shook as she punched at the numbers she read from the detective’s card. “I’ve seen him,” Destiny said.

“Here in the hospital.” She looked over her shoulders as she spoke; it was almost a whisper. “He was in the morgue--he’s in medical scrubs.”

“Hold on.” Destiny waited on the line while he called out the alert. “Are you alone, Ms. Hogan? Did he recognize you?”

Destiny didn’t think Mara could wait that long. She looked around. Tom sat in a chair staring straight ahead. She left him there and walked to the elevator. The hallway was deserted outside Mara’s room. The sense of isolation made Destiny more nervous. She walked in and looked at Mara resting quietly. Everything seemed fine.

She jumped horribly when the door opened behind her. He was looking at a piece of paper. Their eyes met when he looked up. Destiny’s heart felt hard. She hoped he wouldn’t recognize her.

“How is she doctor?” Destiny tried to make her voice sound normal, but it felt shrill in her ears.

“Nothing a little injection won’t cure.” She knew, by his tone, that he knew.

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said sitting in a chair between him and Mara. Destiny realized no one in the hospital would notice this man in his medical garb. He was just another person in the medical hallways.

“Obese people eat all the food they want, spend all their money on diets and complain about their appearance.” He paused. “Like you.”

“They don’t hurt anyone.” Her voice felt like it was shrinking. She willed someone to walk through the door. He held a syringe in his fingers like a cigarette at his side.

Destiny stood and swung the chair she was sitting on with all her 210 pound might. The force knocked the syringe to the floor. She stomped on it as he grabbed her arms and forced her face first to the floor.

“I have something that can take care of both of you.” He spoke into her ear.

He pressed her arms up so far behind her she thought they would break. Her attempt at screaming sounded muffled even to herself with his shoe on her face. She felt her arms being tied and she struggled harder to scream. He put duct tape roughly around her mouth and taped her feet together. She felt him drag her to the bathroom in Mara’s private room. She lay on the cold tile, feeling herself sweat and shiver. He’d gone, but she knew he would come back--with two syringes this time.

“Think,” she told herself. She wriggled her body around so that her feet pressed against the wall that she hoped was the hallway. With all of her out of shape muscles, she swung her legs at the wall. It was a huge effort. She continued to thump against the wall, trying to breath, wanting to live, fat or not. When the door opened, she flinched.

A hospital security officer knelt to remove the tape from her face. She gulped at the air. “Oh my God, did they get him?”

The officer radioed for assistance. Someone coaxed Destiny toward the emergency room. Police officers swarmed the hospital but Destiny raked in every medical person’s face, searching for the man.

Officer Winthorp appeared at her elbow in the tumult of the emergency room. He explained they had caught the suspect getting syringes and potassium from his truck. He appeared to be ready for a long trip. The truck was packed full of stuff. So far, they had found a couple cases of ML20.

Later, after the emergency room looked over her bruises and scratches, Destiny learned what was in the police lab report. The mixture in each pill wasn’t lethal. It was a random plant of a homemade drug that slowly built up to interfere with the digestive system. If that didn’t finish off the victim, this guy, Lambert, would take care of the victim in the hospital with potassium. It put the patient into cardiac arrest but wouldn’t show up on standard tests.

“Your bottle,” Winthorp said to Destiny, “was vitamins. Apparently this guy ran a similar scam in Florida and Arizona. The first month, customers get vitamins mixed with diuretics. He decides on a few victims, then the second month they get a mixture of pills, so it’s not immediately noticeable. He falsified medical documents to get jobs in hospitals. He finally messed up here. You and Mara would have made eleven victims.”

The question Destiny didn’t get answered until court was: Why? According to the defense, Lambert had a bad childhood involving his obese mother. She abused him, so he developed a need to harm heavy women. Destiny thought--go figure, a murderer with a fat grudge. She resolved to eat less and be content with the consequences. When court dismissed, Destiny would take flowers to Mara, who was finally home recovering, and tell her all about Lambert’s pudge grudge.