The Readaholics and the Falcon Fiasco (4 page)

“I’m afraid I can’t give out information to anyone other than a family member.”

The hairs on my arms pricked up, and it had
nothing to do with the air conditioning. “She’s okay, isn’t she?”

“I’m afraid I can’t—”

“Let’s try the ER,” Brooke said, pulling me away from the desk. “She might still be there.”

The volunteer looked relieved. “It’s faster to go around the outside,” she said, pointing.

Brooke and I braved the heat, which felt like smacking into a wall. People can talk about it being a “dry heat” all they want, but hot is hot. Sunlight bouncing off the sidewalk partially blinded me and it took me a moment to notice the man standing outside the ER’s sliding doors, leaning against the wall, his head in his hands. His shoulders jerked with silent sobs. Something about him . . . the bulky build and military-short hair . . . I recognized him. Part of me knew right then, but I pushed the knowledge away.

“Ham?” I put out a tentative hand and touched his shoulder.

He looked up. His eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot. “She’s dead, Amy-Faye. My baby sister’s dead.”

Dead. The word didn’t penetrate at first. I stared at him, confused, and heard Brooke gasp. It finally sank in. The knowledge was a razor-sharp spear that plunged into my gut and sent grief radiating through me, seeming to pull apart my insides. I hugged Ham to me, tears welling. “I’m so sorry, Ham, so sorry.”

He sobbed against me for long moments, body juddering, his tears dampening my ear and hair. I murmured meaningless comfort words and Brooke
patted his back. Finally, he stepped back and wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. Brooke, always prepared, offered him a packet of tissues. He took them mechanically, blew his nose twice, and stood with his arms hanging limply. He worked his lips in and out and finally cried, “Why? Why would she kill herself?”

L
ate afternoon found me back at my office, trying to accomplish the work that I hadn’t gotten to earlier, what with finding one of my friends passed out on her floor, getting help for her, learning she had died, comforting her brother and taking him back to his house, agreeing to plan her funeral, and fielding calls from other friends as the news trickled through Heaven. What a horrible, no-good, very bad day, as some children’s book said. I sat at the six-foot-long table that doubled as my desk, dropped my head in my hands, and massaged my temples. Sadness seeped through me. I remembered Ivy as I’d first seen her in the middle school lunchroom. She’d been wearing a beret, which I thought was terribly chic, and holding a tray, looking around in a stiff way that said she didn’t want anyone to know she was feeling awkward and lonely on her first day in a new school. I’d scooted over against Brooke and beckoned to Ivy. Thus had begun almost two decades of friendship. I’d gone with her to the drugstore to buy an early
pregnancy test after our freshman year in college and waited outside her bathroom door while she peed on the stick (negative), been a bridesmaid in peach taffeta at her wedding, and helped her get over the divorce with a judicious mixture of listening, margaritas, and man bashing.

My assistant, Al Frink, appeared in the doorway.

“You okay, boss? You look sadder than Batman fans when Ben Affleck got cast as the Caped Crusader. That was a dark, dark night.” He looked at me hopefully to see if I got it.

I groaned and gave him a watery smile. “Been better. And don’t call me ‘boss.’ How many times have I asked you not to?”

“Four hundred twenty-six.”

“Really?” He counted?

“Nah, just pulling your leg, bo—Amy-Faye.”

He grinned. With a shock of sandy hair falling over his high forehead, Al looked about fifteen, even though he was twenty-two. He thought the sweater-vests and bow ties he habitually wore made him look older; I didn’t have the heart to tell him they had the opposite effect. He’d been something of a screwup in high school and didn’t have the grades to get into college, so he’d worked in retail and food service in Grand Junction for a couple of years before getting his act together enough to give college a try part-time. The community college had hooked him up with me for an internship one semester and we’d clicked. Now he was at Colorado Mesa University, working on a marketing degree, and he appreciated the flexible
schedule I could give him. I appreciated his energy and the youthful outlook he brought to event planning, although his total honesty with clients was occasionally problematic. I was hoping he’d stick with me after he graduated, but I hadn’t broached the subject with him yet.

“I could finish up with the Beauman party,” he offered, nodding at the folder I had open on the table.

“Thanks, Al, but it helps take my mind off it.” It hadn’t so far, but maybe if I actually called the rental company to order the bouncy castle, or talked to Nona about baking forty-eight red velvet cupcakes frosted with vanilla icing and decorated with My Little Pony profiles, it would help.

“Okay. Just wanted to let you know that it went fine this morning, and I’m working on the Finkelsteins’ fiftieth. Have you heard him clear his throat? Sounds like a cat hacking up a hairball. And the way they quarrel—I’m surprised they made it past their third. They are a
combative
pair.”

I recognized the challenge; ever since he took an English class focused on vocabulary building, Al had been hooked on learning new words. “Disputatious,” I came back with.

“Belligerent.”

“Bellicose.”

“The Finkelsteins were as bellicose as cops fighting over the last jelly-filled donut.”

I cracked up and he looked pleased with himself. “Anyway, I’ve got everything set for the party Saturday, except . . . Do you know where I can get a hundred copies of the newspaper issue that ran
their wedding photo fifty years ago? Was the printing press invented then?”

“Hm. That’s a new one.” I sucked on my upper lip. “Try the
Herald.
If they don’t have back issues of the
Walter’s Ford Beacon
, then maybe you could get it on microfiche at the library and print the copies. They don’t want the whole paper, right? Just the wedding announcement?”

Al nodded. “I’ll figure it out. Oh, and there’s a policeman here to see you.”

I knocked my knee against the table leg as I sprang up. “Ow. Why didn’t you say so?”

“Just did,” Al said, unrepentant. He had a single-minded focus on the events we were responsible for and was liable to forget to give me messages that dealt with “extraneous” issues like a date calling to change our dinner plans, my landlord calling to say the water would be off in my apartment, or once, famously, my sister giving birth.

Brushing past Al, I stepped into the reception area of the office. I rented two rooms in a restored Victorian house in downtown Heaven for Eventful! They had been the dining room and back parlor when the house was a family home and were at the rear of the house, opening onto a garden reached via a brick walkway that came around the side. I hadn’t been able to afford office space in the front rooms that faced the street and Heaven’s main business and shopping district. I’d rationalized that an event-planning company wasn’t going to get a lot of drop-in business anyway and signed the lease for the ground-floor space at the back. A tea shop called the Divine Herb had the primo front space, a
small law firm occupied the second floor, and in the three years I’d been renting there, the third floor had housed a nonprofit organization doing something for women in Senegal, a bike repair shop, and now a yoga studio.

A man stood with his back to me, inspecting the framed photographs of events we’d organized that hung on one wall above the love seat, solitary wing chair, and coffee table that constituted our reception area. Al’s desk and an overgrown ficus took up the rest of the small room. French doors opened to the garden and walkway.

The man turned at the click of my heels on the wood floors. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” I said, unable to keep from thinking that he didn’t look like he ate many donuts.

About my age or a year or two older, the policeman was attractive without being handsome. He had ever-so-slightly receding curly brown hair, a nose that had clearly been broken at least once, and tanned skin that said he spent time fishing or golfing or playing league softball. He was almost a foot taller than me, maybe six-four, and had a stillness about him that I imagined could be relaxing or intimidating, depending on his mood. His brown eyes assessed me and I worried that the day had taken a toll on my appearance. I ran a hand over my hair, still mostly corralled in its French braid, and hoped my pale skin didn’t look too washed-out since I hadn’t touched up my makeup or lipstick since before I left to meet Ivy. I knew my nose was red tipped from crying, and I
suspected my mascara had melted into raccoon circles under my eyes. Nothing I could do about it now, and it seemed almost disrespectful to worry about my appearance when Ivy was dead. I flashed on an image of her lying naked and blue tinged on a stainless-steel table and forced it from my mind.

“Ms. Johnson?”

At my nod, he said, “Detective Lindell Hart.” He had a Southern accent that told me he wasn’t originally from Colorado.

We shook. His hand was large and callused, almost totally engulfing mine.

“I need fifteen minutes of your time. In your office?”

I led the way silently into my office and gestured him toward one of the club chairs positioned in front of my table. Upholstered in grass green velvet, a color that made me happy, they added punch to a room that had pale lemon walls and oak floors. Detective Hart’s gaze lingered on the whiteboard behind my desk that contained the ever-changing schedule of events we were responsible for, divided by months and extending until the middle of the following year, when we already had two June weddings on the books.

“Looks like you’re pretty busy.”

“Early summer—weddings—and the holiday season are our busiest times.”

We both sat and he rested an ankle on his knee, his slacks pulling up to show argyle socks. “I understand Ms. Donner was a friend of yours?”

I nodded, my throat swelling at his use of the past tense.

“I’m very sorry for your loss.” He sounded sincere and I wondered how many times a year he had to say that. “Please tell me how you came to find Ms. Donner’s body.”

“It wasn’t her body! I mean, she was still alive.” I took him through the chain of events, ending with my frantic trip to the hospital. I didn’t realize I was crying again until he nudged the box of tissues on my desk closer to me. I took one, blew my nose, and apologized.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he said. “I know it’s hard.” He paused a beat, and then asked, “When was the last time you saw Ms. Donner? Before this morning, I mean.”

“Last night. We had a Readaholics meeting. We’re a book club,” I said, in response to his questioning look. “We read a lot of mysteries and crime fiction, some Oprah kind of stuff, the occasional classic or nonfiction book.

“Our book this month was
The Maltese Falcon
. We were all there.” At his request I listed the group members and he wrote down their names. He wrote left-handed and didn’t wear a ring. “Ivy liked the book.”

“How did she seem last night?” His tone seemed almost too neutral, like he was trying not to influence my answer. “Did she seem different? Maybe depressed or sad about something?”

“Ivy didn’t kill herself, if that’s what you’re getting at,” I said angrily. I’d told Ham the same thing
this morning, shocked that he would even think it. “She wasn’t the suicidal type and she wasn’t depressed. If anything, she seemed mad, angry at someone, or maybe something.”

The detective nodded noncommittally. “Any idea what?”

I tried to remember what Ivy had been railing about last night. “She said she had a lousy week and talked about men being scum.”

“Was she seeing anyone? Was there a ticked-off ex in the picture?”

His questions made me realize I hadn’t had a good conversation with Ivy in too long. I felt guilty and took it out on a paper clip, twisting it. “Last I heard, she wasn’t dating anyone—not seriously. She was divorced, but it was years ago and her ex moved out of state, to Oklahoma, I think.” I supplied his name.

“What did she die of?” I asked the question hesitantly.

Detective Hart’s brown eyes met mine. “We won’t know for sure until after the autopsy later this week.”

“Why would you even think suicide?” I pushed the point.

The detective hesitated, then said, “Her brother says she was depressed recently, that he was trying to talk her into seeing someone—a therapist—and getting medication.”

Astonishment and anger flared up. “Ham? She didn’t see him more than twice a year. And the kinds of ‘medicines’ he knows about aren’t the sort
that are legally prescribed.” I was horrified that I’d let myself say something so ugly—even if true—and I bit my lip hard.

My comment didn’t seem to faze Detective Hart. “She had a contentious relationship with her brother? Over anything in particular?”

I squirmed, feeling guilty yet again about bad-mouthing Ham. The paper clip broke and I dropped the two bits as if they’d stung me. “I don’t know about ‘contentious.’ They weren’t close, although Ivy took him out to lunch on his birthdays and I think they saw each other most Christmases. He hit her up for money now and then, wanting her to fund his ‘business’ schemes. The last one was an alligator-wrestling attraction off I-70. She said no.”

“What did she have to eat at your house?”

His change of direction took me by surprise and I gave an instinctive denial. “Nothing. Well, maybe a chip or two. But we all had some. I don’t think she even had a petit four. Ivy didn’t have much of a sweet tooth. That’s it—no spoiled shrimp or
E. coli
–infected produce or deli meat past its expiration date.” Geez, could I sound more defensive? I took a deep breath.

“Drink?”

“Tea. She brought her own. She always does. I remember she said she had an upset stomach.”

“Is there anything else you think I should know?”

“No, I can’t think of anything.” What did he think . . . that I would suddenly remember Ivy handing me a suicide note before she got in the ambulance, or . . . “Wait. She did say something while we were waiting for the ambulance.”

He nodded for me to go on, looking a shade more interested than earlier.

“She said everything was blurry and then said, ‘Clay didn’t mean—’” I shrugged. “That was it.”

Detective Hart noted down the words without saying what he thought of them. Then he flipped the notebook closed, stowed it in his sport coat pocket, and rose. “Thanks for your help, Ms. Johnson. If you think of anything else—” He handed me his card.

I ran a thumb over the embossed black lettering:
LINDELL HART, CHIEF OF
DETECTIVES
,
HEAVEN
P
OLICE DEPARTMENT
. “‘Chief of Detectives’? How many detectives does Heaven have?”

He grinned, making the corners of his eyes crinkle in a surprisingly appealing way. “You’re looking at him. I’m pretty sure the town council gave me the title in lieu of a larger paycheck when they lured me up here.”

“From where?”

“Atlanta. Georgia.”

“I know where Atlanta is. Did it take much luring?”

“I was ready for a change.”

His tone told me he wasn’t going to explain further. His reticence piqued my interest. He
was
attractive in a somewhat reserved way, and single, if the lack of wedding band was anything to go by. Ivy would’ve thought he was cute. The thought popped into my mind unbidden, and I smiled sadly.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said, holding out his hand.

I shook it and walked him to the French doors,
closing them once he was on his way around the corner of the house. I tried to likewise close off my mind to thoughts of Ivy and her death. Bouncy castles, clowns, cupcakes . . . I held those images firmly in mind as I returned to my desk and forced myself to focus on work.