Detour

Thursday, January 13Thirteen had always been a lucky number for me. And today it didn't let me down. I spotted my elusive target the second I walked into the old warehouse housing the Black Bridge Gym in Nashua's downtown hospital district. There, Finnegan Murdock, aka The Hammer, taught a Wrestling Federation-style class at night.Finn stood in the middle of the ring, grunting as he simulated pounding his opponent's face to a bloody pulp. The slap of his foot against the mat made a wetthwackmimicking the sound of fist-on-flesh that echoed in the cavernous room. I aimed the hidden camera in my parka lapel square at him. "Push off," Finn instructed the apprentice wrestler at his side, then hefted the man's body over his head. He spun the apprentice around and launched into a series of instructions on the art of mock anger and crowd rousing at the eleven brawny male wrestler-wannabes peering up at him from the ring's edge.The place stank of testosterone-soaked sweat. Red punching bags hung from black ceiling beams on black chains. Chrome weight machines lined two walls. And a mirrored wall reflected the black-roped boxing ring built on a red platform.Finn, all 285 pounds of him, stood as erect as a Colossus in his skimpy black Spandex leggings and silver tear-away muscle shirt, sweat gleaming off his bulging pecs and delts under the stark fluorescent lights. The sharp angles of his bald head, beady steel-gray eyes and hooked nose probably accounted for his stage name. So did the hammerhead-shark tattoo on his steroid-enhanced chest.As he twirled his student over his head, he caught sight of me in the shadows of the ring. Uh-oh. Not good."Who the hell are you?" His gravelly voice rocked through the air.Tapping my chest innocently with a hand, I stood up. I took in thirteen pairs of slitted eyes staring at me and realized I was way outnumbered. Mind spinning through options, I said, "Me? I'm Jennifer Jones.""Who let you in here? How'd you get past the guard?" He glowered as he dropped the man he was holding to the mat and stepped to the ropes. He shook a finger at me. "Wait a minute, I know you. You're the broad who wanted help changing a flat tire yesterday afternoon."I gulped, then pasted on my best bubblehead smile and batted my eyelashes at him. "What can I say? I'm a fan. Can I have your autograph?"Suspicion dawned in his beady eyes. "Someone get her!"I didn't hang around to argue. I booked out of the joint, knowing he'd come after me and, this time, the bloody pulp face wouldn't be faked. He couldn't afford to let me show the images I'd caught on tape to his insurance company.Sierra Martindale, private investigator, was once again on the run and loving it.Finnegan Murdock was a part-time wrestling instructor and a full-time mechanic for an oil-change company in Hudson on the other side of the Merrimack River. Nothing wrong with multitasking. I was rather good at it myself. The problem was that Finn was supposed to be in so much pain from his on-the-job shoulder injury that he couldn't possibly heft the poundage required by his work.My job was to get him on tape to prove insurance fraud. A bone my brother, Van, a lawyer, had thrown my way, knowing things were a little tight for me at the moment what with my boyfriend, Leonardo's, betrayal last Thanksgiving. That made Finn's and my goals mutually exclusive. Someone was going to lose, and it wasn't going to be me.So here I was, lean and fast, hauling ass through the back black door of the corrugated metal building into the slap of frigid January night air, where my hot breath steamed like exhaust. The offices of Martindale & Martindale were about six blocks away on Pearl Street and, on these cold days, I couldn't trust my van, Betsy, to start, so I'd walked. With the spur of adrenaline giving me wings, I was getting a lead on the muscle-bound thug pounding the pavement after me, not to mention the posse of would-be wrestKurtz, Sylvie is the author of 'Detour ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780373514182 and ISBN 0373514182.