The Readaholics and the Poirot Puzzle Page 8

  “Yes.” I nodded once, firmly.

  He flipped the notebook closed and stood, startling me.

  “Wait. Do you have the autopsy results yet? Have you talked to Kolby or Susan Marsh? Is—”

  There was a trace of regret in his voice when he said, “You’re too close to this one. I can’t talk to you about the case. We’ll see you down at the station sometime this morning to sign your statement, right?”

  “Right,” I whispered. The day seemed gray and chilly all of a sudden, even though the sun shone brightly through the window beside me, highlighting a gleam of white I took to be shaving cream beneath Hart’s left ear. I wanted to wipe it off. “I’m really sorry.”

  “I know.” He seemed about to say more, but then he swallowed the rest of his coffee, put the cup gently on the table, and walked away.

  I watched him go, his back straight and shoulders squared, curly brown hair lit with gold by the sun. Overnight a wall had gone up between us and it hurt. It hurt a lot. I blinked back tears and made myself return to my list. If I was going to cry about anything, it should be Derek, who was facing ruin and a potential prison sentence. Unable to concentrate, I put my phone away and pushed my chair back with an ugly scraping sound. If Detective Lindell Hart wasn’t willing to share any of the case details, I’d find out for myself.

  • • •

  My office was at the back of the building housing the Divine Herb, but for once I didn’t feel like making lists. I needed to do something. Hurrying to my van, I pulled away from the curb, not sure where I was going. My incomplete two-item list came to mind and I determined to talk to the ringleader of the Women Outing Serial Cheaters. They had a clear motive for wanting to kill Gordon, and opportunity as well, since they were at the pub last night. Maud had researched them yesterday; she’d know where to find them. I headed for Maud’s house.

  As I pulled into the circular driveway of Maud’s timbered one-story on the outskirts of town, I saw her hosing down the boat near the garage-cum-shed. She stood with her feet braced wide, the way she always did, shoulders squared, like she was on the deck of a ship, riding out a storm. I guess it’s helpful to have a grounded stance when shooting at elk or trying to land a fish. She turned off the hose and made a visor of her hand to watch me as I approached. Wearing a white T-shirt tucked into multipocketed khaki shorts, with work boots and a bandanna around her head, she looked as if she’d just come back from a fishing charter. The large orange bucket of flopping trout seemed to prove that.

  “Client had to catch a plane back to D.C.,” she said when I eyed the fish. “Gave them to me. Joe’ll smoke ’em tonight. Delish. What’s wrong?”

  Words poured out of me as I filled her in on what had happened after she left the grand opening. She’d heard about Gordon’s murder—no one knew more about what was happening in Heaven than Maud—and she listened carefully as I told her about lying to Hart, being worried about Derek, and wanting to find Gordon’s killer to keep my brother out of jail.

  “Sounds like your brother’s in a pickle,” she said when I finally ran out of words, “but it’s nothing the Readaholics can’t sort out. You call Brooke and I’ll get hold of Lola and Kerry. We figured out what happened to Ivy when the police wanted to call it a suicide—we can darn well figure out what happened last night. The police might want to play ‘I’ve got a secret’—they never want to share information with the citizens who pay their wages—but nothing happens in this town that I can’t ferret out.”

  My muscles went limp with relief and I almost dropped my phone when I pulled it out to call Brooke. When I gave her a short explanation, she said she’d be right over. Lola was busy with Bloomin’ Wonderful, her plant nursery, which wasn’t unexpected on a beautiful Saturday morning, but Kerry told Maud she’d come by as soon as she finished a house showing. It warmed me that my friends were willing to drop everything to help out. When Maud lobbed a sponge at me, I set to washing her boat with gusto, ready to let the sunshine and physical labor drive away the worry and sadness I’d been feeling since talking to Derek and then to Hart.

  Half an hour later, the four of us minus Lola were scrubbing Maud’s boat and making plans. Brooke, wiping down the surfaces inside the boat, spoke from above us. When she found out we were doing manual labor, she gamely twisted her dark hair into a messy bun and tied the tails of her royal blue shirt at belly button level, kicked off her fashionable metallic sandals, and clambered into the boat with a rag and a spray bottle. She still managed to look like a supermodel.

  “I think you’re right about those WOSC women, A-Faye,” she said. “We should check them out.”

  “Why in the world would they talk to any of us?” Kerry asked. She clutched a sponge in both hands and used her whole upper body to move it vigorously across the boat’s underside. Soapy water dripped down her arms to where she had her sleeves rolled at the elbows. Her open-neck white blouse was not looking as crisp as when she’d arrived.

  “Maybe,” I suggested slowly, thinking the idea through, “one of us contacts them to say she dated Gordon and is so sorry she couldn’t be at the pub opening to ‘out’ him—because of work or illness or something—and wants to know how it went?”

  “I’m not saying I dated Gordon,” Brooke said, straightening. “That would not go over well with Troy.”

  “Joe would think it was a hoot,” Maud said, smiling broadly, “but I don’t think anyone would buy the idea that Gordon was dating a woman ten years his senior, especially not a string bean like me. Judging by the other night, he liked his women on the rounder side.” She looked at me.

  “Hey,” I protested.

  Kerry gave me a “get over it” look. “Face it, everyone’s rounder than Maud.”

  “Fine, I’ll do it,” I said.

  “You knew him better than the rest of us, so you’ll sound more plausible,” Brooke said. “While you’re checking up on the WOSCers—do you s’pose that’s what they call themselves?—I’ll see if I can find out the scoop on his niece’s death.”

  “And I’ll get hold of the autopsy report,” Maud said.

  The three of us turned to look at her with varying degrees of surprise.

  “I have sources,” she said, pleased with our reaction, but trying to act as if it was no big deal. “You don’t think I just make up the stuff on my blog, do you? I work damn hard ferreting out the truth about political shenanigans and other conspiracies in this town. No offense, Kerry.”

  “None taken,” our part-time mayor said. The way she dropped her sponge into a bucket with a soggy plop belied her words.

  Maud finished rinsing the boat and turned off the hose. “I’ve cultivated a lot of sources over the years. You’d be surprised how many people want to be whistleblowers but can’t afford to risk losing their jobs. People who work for the government—and not just the minions, either, in medicine, insurance, for nonprofits, the schools. Corruption and conspiracy are rampant in all sectors. They’re happy to pass info along to me so that the truth gets out there. I’m looking into a conspiracy now involving the National Forest Service and that corporation that wants to develop—”

  “You’re a public servant, Maud,” Kerry interrupted with a sour look.

  I jumped in. “Where do I find WOSC headquarters, Maud, if there is such a thing?”

  After consulting her smartphone, she told me that the Web site only listed a post office box. “No physical address,” she said. “And the contact e-mail isn’t in anyone’s name. It’s just WOSC at Gmail-dot-com. Conspiracy rule number two: When people try to hide their identity, they’ve got something to hide.”

  I pondered that, wondering how I could get hold of whoever was in charge of WOSC. I’d have to send an e-mail and wait for a reply, I guessed.

  “I’ll ask the police chief for an update on their investigation. There are some perks—damn few—to being the mayor of this burg, but finding
out what’s going on with city funds—from police investigations to buying a new snowplow—is one of them. Let’s get together on Monday evening to see what everyone’s found out,” Kerry, ever the organizer, said. “We can do it at my house. Six thirty?”

  We all agreed and tramped back to our cars, a bit wetter than when we had arrived. Brooke caught up to me as I was getting into the van. “How’s Derek holding up?” she asked, worry putting a line between her brows.

  “Not so well,” I said, grateful for her concern. “He’s worried that he’ll lose the pub and end up in jail. He looked awful this morning when I talked to him; I sent him over to Mom and Dad’s.”

  “If there’s anything Troy or I can do . . . Troy Sr. knows some good lawyers.”

  Troy Sr. had enough business irons in the fire to keep a whole herd—pack? flock? pod?—of lawyers gainfully employed. A murder of lawyers . . . I liked that. “Thanks, Brooke, but he’s already got a lawyer.”

  She hugged me. “Tell him to hang in there. No one with half a brain could think he killed Gordon. It sounds like he’d have had to stand in line to get to him, as many people as Gordon pissed off. Like Ratchett in The Orient Express.”

  “I don’t think Gordon was as bad as Ratchett,” I protested. “He didn’t kidnap and kill children.”

  “You know what I mean.” She stood back so I could close the door.

  “Have a good rest of the weekend,” I said. “Thanks for worrying about Derek. Call me if you find out anything. Otherwise, I’ll see you at Kerry’s Monday night.”

  She agreed, and with a brief toot-toot of my horn, I drove off.

  • • •

  With some reluctance, I reported to the police station to sign my statement. The Heaven Police Department building was red brick, separated from the street by the sidewalk, and one block off the downtown square between Mike’s Bikes and A World Apart, the new travel agency. Pink and purple petunias frothed from planters outside the building, getting leggy and tired-looking as summer raced toward fall. A skateboarder careened down the sidewalk, ignoring signs prohibiting the activity, and forced me to jump against the glass door that didn’t quite go with the building’s facade.

  Inside, it was cool and dry. The reception area consisted of a counter, molded plastic chairs, and what might have been the building’s original tile floor. I’d never been in here before this summer, but what with Ivy’s murder and now Gordon’s, I was spending more time here than some of the town’s repeat offenders, I was sure.

  “Amy-Faye Johnson. Detective Hart told me to expect you.”

  Mabel Appleman was in her seventies and had been the police dispatcher forever, starting back in the era of typewriters, carbon paper, and party lines, as she liked to remind people. She wore blue-framed glasses that perched halfway down her roman nose, and had tightly permed gray curls. Double-knit polyester was her fabric of choice, and today’s short-sleeved powder blue jacket had brassy buttons the size of fifty-cent coins. She occasionally came to Readaholics meetings when we were reading a police procedural.

  “I heard you’ve gotten mixed up in another murder,” she greeted me.

  “I wouldn’t say ‘mixed up,’” I protested.

  “Well, if you aren’t yet, you will be,” she said, digging through an in-box and retrieving a couple of pieces of paper stapled at the top. She thrust them at me. “Here. You’re supposed to sign this.” She pointed to the signature line and slid me a pen she pulled out of her tight curls.

  I took it, disappointed that I wasn’t going to see Hart. I started to read the statement.

  “What are the Readaholics reading now?” Mabel asked.

  “Murder on the Orient Express.”

  “Ah. That was the first Agatha Christie mystery I ever read. It seemed very clever to me then, the way Christie built up to the climax with Poirot interviewing the suspects one by one, and then gathering them together and revealing all.” Mabel spread her hands wide on the last word, as if performing a magician’s trick. “And the elegance of that train, oh my. Of course, it doesn’t work like that in real life.” She gestured to our surroundings. “Crooks don’t work together, and if they do, one of ’em rats the others out.” She eyed me sideways. “Heard anything from Doug Elvaston lately? I hear he’s sailing around the world. Any idea when he’ll be back?”

  I didn’t need her prying into my private life. Not that Doug and I had had anything to be private about since we broke up more than two years ago. I didn’t lift my gaze from the page I was reading. “Nope.”

  “I hear tell your brother could use a good lawyer,” Mabel said.

  That brought my head up. She blinked at me innocently from behind her lenses.

  “Have you heard something?” I whispered. “Are they going to arrest him?” I resisted the urge to add He didn’t do it.

  “How would I know that? Chief Uggams and Detective Hart don’t check with me before they go off and make an arrest,” she said, her expression inviting me to probe further.

  “No, but you might overhear something, accidentally.” I could just picture Mabel lingering in the hallway outside the chief’s office, or taking note of indiscreet conversations between the uniformed officers. They should probably put suspects in an interview room with Mabel, I thought, who could coax information out of a spaghetti squash.

  “Well.” She leaned forward so a brass button clicked against the counter, pushed her glasses up her nose, and looked around. “I did get the impression Lindell—Detective Hart, I should say—and the chief were pretty excited about something they found in the vic’s phone records. And the chief and Jackie Merton, the DA, left at lunchtime for a couple days’ fishing up at the chief’s cabin, so I wouldn’t expect an arrest before they get back on Tuesday, at the very earliest. But you didn’t hear that from me,” she said, sitting back.

  “Thanks, Mabel.” I signed the statement and handed it to her. “We’re thinking about reading a Michael Connelly book for next month. Want to join us?”

  “Harry Bosch or Lincoln lawyer?” she asked, tucking the pen back in her hair.

  “We haven’t decided. Do you have a preference?” I expected her to go for the cop series, but she surprised me.

  “Lincoln lawyer,” she said. “Then we can watch the movie. That Matthew McConaughey has got It with a capital I.”

  I laughed, tickled that Mabel was still interested in “It,” and told her I’d let her know what book we picked out.

  Emerging onto the sidewalk, I dodged the skateboarder again and bumped squarely into Detective Lindell Hart. I recognized his smell before my eyes told me who it was. His arms caught me at the waist automatically and steadied me. His palms burned through my thin blouse to my skin. Was it my imagination, or did he hold on a few seconds longer than necessary?

  “Sorry,” I said, stepping back. “Someone should give that kid a ticket.”

  Hart smiled, like he’d forgotten he was disappointed in me, and said, “Officer Bradford talked to him. The kid’s here with his parents for a week. Tourists. The town council has asked us not to discourage tourism, so . . .”

  “I signed my statement,” I said, then could have hit myself for reminding him that he was mad at me.

  No anger showed on his face. The breeze riffled his brown curls. “Thanks.”

  “I’m really sor—”

  “Over and done with,” he said, not letting me finish another apology. “I might have done the same if it was my brother.”

  I didn’t believe that, but happiness bubbled through me, making me feel lighter. I smiled. “Over and done with,” I agreed.

  “What do you have going on tonight?”

  “A retirement for the school superintendent,” I said regretfully. Was his question a precursor to asking me out? “If you’re not doing anything tomorrow, I could make you dinner,” I heard myself offer before I thought it through.
What was I thinking? I wasn’t much of a cook. He’d think I was too pushy. We weren’t—

  “Sounds great,” Hart said immediately. “No job talk, though. Nothing about your brother, or the case.”

  “Cross my heart,” I said, making the familiar gesture.

  Taking me by surprise, he leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “I’ll bring the wine.”

  Before I could react, he disappeared into the building, whistling.

  Chapter 9

  The retirement roast Saturday night went off without a hitch, thank goodness. Eventful! couldn’t stand another evening like last night. As Al and I watched from the back of the musty-smelling auditorium while various teachers and principals shared anecdotes about the superintendent, I told Al that I’d changed my definition of “successful event.”

  “No dead bodies,” I whispered. “That’s it. We can cope with anything else, but no dead bodies.”

  “What about a hostage situation?” Al asked, obviously trying to poke holes in my new definition. “One with gunmen and a SWAT team and huge media coverage?”

  “As long as there are no dead bodies, I’m good with it,” I maintained. “The media coverage might draw in more business.”

  “What if it goes on for months, like in Iran?”

  I gave him a “now you’re just being silly” look. “If it goes on for months, then it’s not part of the event we contracted for, so it doesn’t count.”

  Al choked back a laugh as a man in the back row turned to frown at us. “I’m going to check on the caterers,” I whispered, making my escape.

  My heels clicked on the school’s linoleum floor as I walked. It felt weird to be back in the high school as a grown-up. The walls had obviously been painted over the summer, since the odor still lingered and they were glossy and pristine. The top half of the walls was white and the bottom half a crimson red, the Heaven High School colors. The lockers hadn’t been replaced, it didn’t look like, not if the dents were anything to go by. Just before reaching the cafeteria, I came to my old locker, 214. On a whim, I dialed the combination, which came back to me as if I’d been stuffing my history and biology texts in there yesterday, rather than twelve years ago. The door popped right open, emitting a too-sweet fragrance I recognized from my last visit to Bath & Body Works. I found myself staring at myself in a mirror attached to the inside of the door and automatically smoothed my copper hair and dabbed a fleck of mascara from my lower lid. Pictures of a callow-looking teenager were taped to the door, and basketball jerseys, shoes, texts, folders, pens, cosmetics, hair paraphernalia, and other gear were jumbled together. A film of pink powder that might have been a broken blush covered it all. How could it be such a mess this early in the school year? When this was my locker, it had been a model of neatly shelved texts and clearly organized folders and notebooks, color-coded by class. Even in high school, I thought, closing the door with a clang, I’d been headed for a career based on organizational skills.