The Readaholics and the Falcon Fiasco (22 page)

“I don’t toke anymore, anyway,” Ham said. “Realized a couple years back that I needed a clear head if I was going to be a successful entrepreneur. A clear head and some dough. I just needed a little backing, a little cash, and now I’ve got it, so look out, world! Ham Donner is about to make a splash.” He threw his arms wide and almost kicked over the urn.

It hit me. I knew why I expected Ham to smell like marijuana and why his announcement that he’d given it up rang hollow: I’d seen a Baggie of marijuana on his bedside table when I met him at his room to talk about Ivy’s funeral. It’d been partially concealed by a lamp . . . The image came back to me, and I froze. A snack-sized Ziploc Baggie, half-full of what I’d immediately assumed was weed. What if . . . what if it was
tea
? Tea mixed with oleander? That would certainly explain why he didn’t smell like marijuana—he was telling the truth about having given it up. I struggled to keep my face expressionless as I realized that my earlier thoughts might not have been far off the mark. There was no proof he’d seen the will, though. Or was there? Doug had mentioned that the will specified what she wanted done with her remains . . .

I picked up the urn, turning it in my hands, and said, as casually as possible, “What made you think of spreading Ivy’s ashes from here, Ham? I mean, it’s perfect.”

There was silence. I looked up to find him staring at me, his piggy eyes narrowed and speculative. I realized I had grossly, grossly underestimated
his intelligence, or at least his survival instincts. I knew if I asked Doug that he’d say Ivy had wanted her cremains spread from the tree house. I backed up a step involuntarily and immediately knew it was the exact wrong thing to do.

“Whaddaya mean, how’d I think of it? It just came to me, like it was the right thing to do. I knew my sister pretty well, you know. We were close.” While he was talking, Ham came toward me. His heavy footsteps made the platform vibrate.

“I know you’ve got to get back to work,” I said. “So we should do this.” I thrust the urn at him and he took it automatically.

“You do the honors,” he said, handing it back to me almost gently. His gaze never left my face.

I had to be wrong with what I was thinking. Ham wasn’t the subtle type. Oleander? I doubted he’d ever heard of it. He wouldn’t know it from parsley. My logic didn’t quiet my fears.

With a trembling hand, I tried to lift the lid on the urn. It was sealed somehow and I pulled harder.

“You need to work out more,” Ham said, encircling my upper arm with one big hand, like he was assessing my biceps. His fingers crunched down and fear gave me strength. The lid popped open. I sidestepped to put some distance between us, but Ham didn’t let go of my arm.

My hand hovered over the ashes. In the “ashes to ashes” speech at funerals, the priest sprinkled something into the grave, but I’d always thought it was either dirt or generic ashes, not someone’s remains. I was reluctant to scoop up the chunky-looking ashes in the urn and scatter them around
the tree house. “Do I dump it out or what?” I asked uncertainly.

“You’ve figured everything else out,” Ham said in a voice that left no doubts. “I’m sure you can figure this out.”

Without warning, I flung a handful of ashes into his face and tore myself away.

Ham cursed and rubbed his eyes. I made for the ladder. My breaths came fast and I slipped putting my foot on the first rung.
Got to get away.
I was only two rungs down when strong arms grabbed me under the armpits and hauled me back into the tree house. My thighs scraped the boards and I yelped.

“Too smart for your own good,” Ham observed. “Always were.”

He released me, and hope flared momentarily. Then his hands closed around my neck and he began to squeeze. “She didn’t have to die,” he said. “If she’d only believed in me. That’s all I wanted—someone in my goddamn family to have a little faith. But none of them did. When I saw her will and realized she was cutting me out, well—”

Ham’s thumbs digging into my trachea hurt, and it was hard to breathe. “I won’t tell,” I gasped. “Please don’t—” I couldn’t suck in air, no matter how hard I tried. I tugged at his hands, scratched them, but his grip didn’t loosen. I kicked wildly, my feet thudding against his shins, his ankles. My pumps flew off and my bare feet were ineffectual. He thrust me away, holding me at arm’s length, and continued to squeeze my throat. My vision grayed at the edges.

All sorts of things went through my mind, but I was most conscious of being unbearably sad about the grief my parents would feel when they learned I was dead. Couldn’t . . . do that . . . to them. With the last of my strength, I flung myself backward, toward the tree house wall only a foot behind me. Caught off guard, Ham stumbled after me, his hands still encircling my neck. I slammed into the wall and felt it give. Ham, unable to stop his forward momentum and still keep strangling me, thudded against me. Our combined weight was too much for the old wood. It cracked. I felt the wood start to bow, and then there was nothing but air behind me. I was falling. Ham’s eyes widened with fear as he plummeted after me. Somewhere in midair, his hands let go and I sucked in a huge breath just as I smacked into the ground.

I landed on my back and it knocked the air out of me. Tears came to my eyes, but I had enough presence of mind to roll slightly to my left—all I could manage—to keep from having Ham land on top of me. The ground shuddered when he landed. I concentrated on dragging in a small breath, then a slightly deeper one. The duff, years’ worth of matted pine needles and leaves, had cushioned the fall somewhat. I wasn’t dead. No time to catalog my aches and pains. I tried to push myself to a sitting position. Pain zinged up my arm from my left wrist and knocked me down again. Ham stirred beside me and grunted, and I knew I was out of time.

Ignoring the pain in my broken wrist, I latched onto an aspen sapling with my right hand and
pulled myself to a standing position. Had to get to the street. I took two tentative steps. My knee hurt, but it would hold me. Spotting a piece of wood as long as a baseball bat, I picked it up and jogged toward my car. It was my only hope. Every step jarred my broken wrist, and I realized the pained “hew, hew, hew” sounds were coming from me. I forced myself to run. Branches slapped my face, but I was hardly conscious of them. Footsteps thudded behind me, and I tried to go faster. I glimpsed the house. The road was just beyond—

Ham’s hand landed heavily on my shoulder, and as he spun me, I raised the slat and brought it around as hard as I could. It glanced off his shoulder before smacking his jaw with a crunch that jerked the board from my hand. Splinters dug into my palm. I didn’t wait to see if he went down, but whirled and ran for the street again.

“Amy-Faye! Where are you?”

Brooke’s voice!

“Call nine-one-one,” I shrieked, hardly recognizing the hoarse sound coming from my mouth as my voice. “Get the police!”

I was at the yard. Halfway across it, I risked a look back. Ham had reached the edge of the woods, blood smearing his face. WWKMD? Chase him down and tackle him. The hell with that. What did Kinsey know, anyway? She was fictional. I turned and kept going across the yard. The street came into view, our cars, Brooke on her phone, and Lola hurrying toward me.

“Amy-Faye, whatever happened to you?”

I fell into her kind, capable, strong arms.

“Your throat!”

“Ham—”

I whipped my head around, suddenly afraid to see him plunging across the yard, a threat to me and my friends. I scanned the tree line, but he was gone. Relief cascaded through me and left me so limp I slumped to the ground.

“Brooke’s calling the police,” Lola said, squatting to put an arm around me, “and an ambulance. Come on, let me help you to the car.”

Brooke ran up to us, fell to her knees, and hugged me tight. “I got your message about the ashes, A-Faye, and I actually walked out on lunch with Clarice to join you and Ham and Lola. Tell me you’re okay.”

I managed a nod. “Never better.” My voice was a raspy whisper from a horror movie.

Brooke gave a watery giggle and said, “You sound like Clint Eastwood.” Then we were all laughing for no reason I could see. It hurt but felt good at the same time.

They helped me up and both of them put their arms around my waist to support me to the open door of Lola’s car. “Did you see—?” The pain in my throat stopped my words, and I put a hand to my neck.

“Don’t talk.” Lola pulled a survival blanket from her car’s trunk and wrapped it around my shoulders. Only then did I realize I was shivering, even though it wasn’t cold. “The delivery guy arrived just after you left and off-loaded my order quickly. I figured you and Ham might still be here. Did he—?”

I nodded. “Murdered Ivy.”

“Poor Ivy,” Brooke said, sensitive mouth trembling. “Thank God you called us, or he might have killed you, too.”

“Thank God you came,” I croaked.

We were all quiet after that, waiting in silence until an ambulance screamed into view, followed by Hart’s Tahoe, lights strobing.

I
was at the clinic getting my wrist wrapped in a cast when Hart and a couple of officers apprehended Ham Donner. Thank God. I couldn’t believe I actually went out with the guy once. What did that say about my judgment? I felt truly sad for Ivy and hoped she hadn’t had an inkling that her own brother had poisoned her. In fact, I hoped she hadn’t realized she’d been murdered at all. What a hideous thing to think about as you’re dying. Although the doc said the wrist was my only serious injury, I was shivering uncontrollably when my parents arrived at the hospital to take me home with them. Popping a couple of the pain pills for my throbbing wrist, I flopped onto my old bed and slept straight through to the next afternoon.

Mom set aside her reading and reviewing to field phone calls for me. I slept in my old room, surrounded by my favorite childhood books and stuffies, while she gave friends the bare bones of my ordeal, brushed off reporters, and told Detective Hart he could come by at three o’clock to do
his official interview. She woke me in time to get ready, found a plastic bag to tie around my cast while I showered, and helped me dress in a slouchy T-shirt and jeans. My body was splotched with large bruises from the fall, and I ached in strange places. She did my damp hair in a loose braid, bringing back memories of elementary school, when she braided my hair most mornings before my sisters and I walked to school.

“There,” she said, planting a kiss atop my head. “Did I mention I’m darned glad that Ham Donner didn’t kill you?”

I shook my head.

“Well, I am.” She heaved her bulk off the bed and offered me a hand up.

“Me, too.” I hugged her.

The doorbell rang. Mom opened it and introduced herself to Hart. “It’s a nice day,” she said. “Maybe you and Amy-Faye would like to sit out here.” She gestured to the veranda and we obediently settled into the flaking Adirondack chairs. “I’ll bring you some tea.” She disappeared.

Hart scanned my face. “You don’t look too much the worse for wear. How long do you have to wear that thing?” He nodded at the cast.

“Could be six weeks.” I made a face.

“You were lucky.”

I nodded.

“Can you tell me about it? We’re charging Donner with his sister’s murder, and also with attempted murder. You. I need a statement. How did you end up in a tree house with the guy?”

Pleased that Ham was going to have to pay for
what he did to me, I told Hart everything I could remember. “He said he killed her because she didn’t have faith in him, because no one in his family believed in him,” I finished. “Have you ever heard anything more pitiful? I mean, what a dumb reason to die . . . for not wanting to fund your brother’s crazy-ass schemes for alligator-wrestling attractions and edible crepe paper, although I guess it was really about not feeling valued. He must have spent years and years building up resentment. It’s so freaking sad.” I remembered his earlier words about how murder is almost always sad, and fell silent.

“It is sad,” Hart said. “I’m sure the prospect of inheriting Ivy’s house and money also played a role. He gave us a full confession last night, actually proud of how he pulled it off. He got the oleander idea from a movie, if you can believe it.”

“Yeah, I figured that out. I actually saw the DVD cover in his room when I went by after Ivy died.
White Oleander
, right? I think I saw it a few years back. Michelle Pfeiffer was the baddie. So I guess this means Clay Shumer is off the hook?”

“For murder. He’ll still have to face charges related to the gambling. As will many other folks, I suspect, by the time we’re done decoding that entire logbook.”

A neighbor’s dog barked. I wondered where Mom had gotten to with the tea and figured she’d picked up a book, begun reading, and forgotten it. “So what about the fire? Clearly, Ham didn’t do that.”

“As you suspected, it was arson. We confronted
the cop on duty when it happened—Officer Ridgway—and he broke down pretty easily and admitted to setting it.”

“But why? Was he a gambler?”

Hart shook his head. “No. But he’s got debts, and his wife just had twins. Apparently he’s been accepting bribes from someone he wouldn’t name—”

“Whose name rhymes with ‘Widefield’?”

“Possibly. Anyway, he’s been on someone’s payroll as an informant. He calls a number—a pay-as-you-go phone we can’t track to anyone—and leaves a message when he comes across anything interesting. He called after you turned in the ledger page. He received a big bump in his illicit paycheck for trying to scare you off the case, and then for getting rid of the ledger page. He resigned this morning, two seconds before the chief could fire him.”

“Will he go to jail?”

“Up to the DA, if she wants to prosecute. She might offer him immunity if he’ll give up the name of the person he was working for. Personally, I’m not sure he knows it. Oh, and guess where he lives? He and his wife rent a cottage on Udo Yasutake’s farm. The beehives are practically in their backyard.”

I chewed my lip. The whole thing was very unsatisfying . . . If Widefield was behind it, I didn’t want him to get away with damaging my business and scaring me half to death. If I’d caved when Ridgway left the threatening note, we might never have found out who killed Ivy.

Hart put a hand on my arm, the one not
covered with plaster. “Leave it, Amy-Faye. Do not approach Widefield about this. You know what they say: Some days you get the bear, some days the bear eats you, and other times—like this—you and the bear go your separate ways.”

“For now, maybe.” I cocked my head. “You and your bear analogies . . . anyone would think you were born and raised in the Rockies.”

“Hey, we have bears in Georgia, too, you know.” He gestured to my cast. “Are we still on for the wedding this weekend?”

“Oh yes,” I said hollowly, giving only momentary thought to making my wrist an excuse for not showing up. “Wouldn’t miss it.”