The Readaholics and the Poirot Puzzle (12 page)

“I'm really sorry,” I said sincerely, feeling like a heel for lying to her.

She blinked at me. “Who did you shay you are?”

“Amy-Faye Johnson,” I said, coming clean. “Derek Johnson, the guy who owns Elysium Brewing, is my brother. The police think maybe he had something to do with Gordon's death, but I know he didn't. I came
to see you today hoping you could tell me something about the women who were involved in the outing Friday.”

“WOSC outed Gordon every other year or so,” she said, smiling at the memory. Most of her lipstick was gone. “He was responsible for a lot of repeat business, although not as much as Lars Ingerholt.”

I fought down the urge to ask about Lars. “What time did you last see Gordon?”

Guinevere blinked twice, trying to focus. “Um, I got there early Friday and talked to him about expanding Mutual E-ttraction. The pet salon next door is going out of business and I could take over that space. Wouldn't it be nice if we had a bigger space and could host bigger parties, maybe do some shpeed-dating events?” We both surveyed the room for a moment, envisioning forty or fifty singles mingling, eating, exchanging phone numbers.

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” I said.

“I know, right? But Gordon wasn't having any of it. He said the numbers weren't what they should be for expansion and that I should table the idea for a year or two. Anyway, we had a little shpat—tiff—about it. Then I gathered up the gals who had come to out him and we did our thing. I think the last time I saw him was . . . hmm, maybe seven? He was headed upstairs for a smoke. Nashty habit.” She made a face. The empty wine bottle slipped from her hand and rolled a foot before stopping.

“Who were the other women that were involved?”

“Well, Susan, of course—she comes every time. Wait.
I shouldn't be telling you. It'sh confidential.” Guinevere stood and walked to her desk, listing only a little. She put a hand on the desk to steady herself, removed a compact from a drawer, and began to poke at her hair and reapply her lipstick. She adjusted her belt. “Elashtic. Gotta love it. Got a potential client coming at four,” she said. “You'll have to leave. Unless you want to meet him?” She scanned me. “Are you a Libra? He was definite about wanting to date a Libra.”

“Aquarius,” I said, rising. “Look, Guinevere, I saw you and Susan Marsh at the pub, and I know Bernie Kloster hooked up with you guys later on. Who were the other two women? Do you think any of them—Susan, or the others—were mad enough at Gordon to physically hurt him?”

“Who would want to hurt Gordo? He was smart and funny and generous. He didn't mean any harm. He couldn't help himself. Testosh . . . testosterone.” Guinevere's eyes filled with tears and she suddenly crumpled into the desk chair. “Who am I kidding? I can't meet a client tonight. I'm closing up.” Her voice shook as she called and left a voice mail for the man who wanted a Libra. Tears were streaming down her face when she hung up.

“Look, can I take you home?” I asked. She definitely shouldn't be driving.

“I'll call a taxi. Please leave.” She weaved toward the door and managed to open it on the second try.

“I'm sorry for your loss,” I said as I passed her.

She didn't seem to hear me. She didn't even close the door, but drifted back toward her desk. I pulled the door gently closed, phoned for a cab, and waited in my van until it arrived and she got in. Then I hit the road for Heaven, eager to meet up with the Readaholics and hear what everyone else had discovered.

I
barely had time to skate by my house, down a yogurt and a hunk of leftover salmon, and change into shorts and a T-shirt before it was time to head for Kerry's house. I parked at the curb and walked up the flagstone walkway to the double doors. The strains of a song I recognized from childhood but couldn't name drifted from the open window of the garage apartment where Kerry's daughter, Amanda, lived with her two-year-old son. A ladder was propped against the side of the large gabled house Kerry had inherited from her parents, and a lanky figure with moplike black hair stood precariously on the highest step, dabbing salmon-colored paint on the gingerbread trim.

“Hi, Roman,” I called up at Kerry's seventeen-year-old.

His reply, if you could call it that, sounded like “Uhn.” I took it to mean “Hi, Amy-Faye. Nice to see you again.” Teenish is such a succinct language.

When I knocked, Kerry answered almost immediately, and pointed me to the larger of the two living rooms, where my friends were gathered. She looked flushed. “I'm getting iced tea for everyone. Do you want some? No booze tonight because I've got to be
out of here in an hour—I'm giving a talk about city government to a Girl Scout troop.”

“Sure, thanks. Need me to help carry? Do you feel okay?” I asked as she fanned herself with both hands.

“Hot flashes suck,” she said. “Women sure got the short end of the hormonal stick.” She disappeared in the direction of the kitchen without waiting for me to answer and I walked into the living room, wondering what it was about hormones today. First Guinevere and her testosterone lecture, and now Kerry.

Lola, Brooke, and Maud were seated on the stiff Victorian-era furniture Kerry had inherited along with the house and couldn't yet afford to replace. Only Brooke looked natural there, sitting cross-legged on a blue horsehair (at least that was what it felt like the only time I sat on it) sofa. The sofa's high arms and the ornately carved wood rising in points from its back defeated Maud's attempts to assume her usual lounging position, and its height made Lola perch on the very edge of the tufted seat so her feet would reach the floor. She greeted me with a smile. “Hey. We were just talking about the autopsy report. But now that you're here, we can talk about your date last night.” Gentle mischief gleamed in her brown eyes.

“How did—?” Why did I even bother asking? Total lack of privacy was one of the drawbacks of living in Heaven, or any small town, I imagined. I sat on a low, tufted ottoman with feet like a lion's paws.

“One of my customers saw the HPD Tahoe outside your house last night and mentioned it to me this morning when she came in to pick up some barberry
because she knows we're friends,” Lola said, clearly tickled by my reaction. “So—”

“So, either you were being arrested—which apparently isn't the case—or you had a hot date with the hot Detective Hart,” Brooke finished. She leaned forward so her mink brown hair spilled over her shoulders. “Tell all.”

“We had dinner,” I said. “Not much to tell. Salmon, asparagus, and—”

“We don't care about the
menu
,” Brooke laughed. “Did you—?”

“We ate, chatted, and he
left
,” I said, emphasizing the last word. “As the local spy might have been able to tell you if he'd cruised past around nine or so.”

“No—” Brooke made smooching noises.

“What are we—fourteen?” I asked, blushing. I flashed on Lola, Brooke, and me sitting around in my bedroom with its bean bag chairs when we were in high school, dissecting one another's crushes.

“Aha!” she said triumphantly.

“What are you ‘ahaing'?” Kerry asked, slipping back into the room with a pitcher of tea and stacked acrylic glasses, which she passed around.

Brooke took pity on me and changed the subject. “I read up on his niece's death,” she said. “Her name was Kinleigh Dreesen. There doesn't seem to be anything there, really. It's the—I hate to say ‘usual'—the not
unusual
tale of a girl who drank too much, partying with her college friends, and drove her car off the road into a tree. She died at the scene. Gordon was with her and he pretty much walked away from the wreck. Her
friends say she was giving him a lift home because he had a ‘dizzy spell.'” Brooke put air quotes around the words, as if they were a euphemism for “drunk.” “Her parents, Gordon's sister and her husband, made a big fuss in the paper, alleging he and his club, Moonglade, were responsible, but the girl was of legal age and . . .” She shrugged. “They—the parents—accused Gordon of being the driver, and accused the police of a cover-up when they said a blood test showed he was sober. I guess he had tried to help the girl, who was thrown from the car, and there was some question about who was driving, even though a witness definitely said Kinleigh was driving when they left the club. The stepsister and her husband tried to bring a case, and he countersued for defamation of character. It was just ugly, a case of hurt people making a tragedy so much worse. Moonglade went out of business anyway a few weeks later. Troy and I went there once. It was nice. Classy. Definitely a step above most Grand Junction nightspots.”

“What a senseless tragedy,” Lola said. “You can see why the parents were looking for someone to blame. Gordon was there, so . . .” She let the thought die out, and then said, “Maybe we should get back to the autopsy report,” she said. “Maud, you were saying?”

“Gordon was a big man with a big-time problem,” Maud said, putting on rectangular cheaters and reading from her steno pad. “Six-one, two hundred twenty pounds, and in generally good health . . . except for the brain tumor.” She peered over the glasses to see how we reacted to her bombshell.

“Brain tumor!” Kerry exclaimed.

“I'd've thought lung cancer, as much as he smoked,” I said.

“Maybe he really was dizzy when Kinleigh drove him home,” Brooke said, eyes widening.

“Poor man,” said Lola. “Did he know?”

“Good question,” Maud said, pointing at Lola. “I haven't been able to find that out yet. I talked to a friend of Joe's, though, an oncologist, and showed her the X-rays I got from the coroner's office. She said the tumor, a glioblastoma, was inoperable, terminal, and might have been affecting his speech, balance, and even personality.”

“How so?” Kerry asked, seating herself in a rocking chair.

“Less executive function,” Maud answered, referring to her notes again. “Unusual fits of anger or acting out. Not the way I want to go,” she added, trying to lean back against the sofa and frowning at it when her head hit part of the wood carving. “Kerry, damn this couch. You should break it up for kindling.”

“That explains a lot,” I said, telling them about Gordon heaving a beer mug at his ex-wife and exploding at the least little thing. “I don't think Derek knew Gordon was ill.”

“I'll bet the murderer didn't know Gordon was ill, either,” Kerry said. “Why bother murdering someone who's already up against his expiration date?” Her flush had subsided and she was rocking gently back and forth.

“Maybe the tumor made him lose his balance and just fall off the roof,” Lola suggested.

I wished that were possible, but I shook my head. “You haven't been up there, Lo. No way could anyone fall over accidentally—the wall is too high.”

“Let me read you the rest of this,” Maud said, abandoning the sofa to lean against the fireplace, cold and only faintly ashy smelling at this time of year. “And for heaven's sake don't mention this to anyone until you see it in the paper. We're not supposed to know this. I don't want my source getting in trouble, or refusing to help me out in the future.” She cleared her throat. “The gist of it is that he was conked with the proverbial blunt object, got a fractured skull that was probably fatal, and was then tossed over the wall. There's lots of data about mortar that matches samples from the wall in the scrapes on his arms and face, antemortem bruising, blah-blah, and then a cracked cervical vertebra, supposedly suffered postmortem, that probably happened when his body hit the metal lip of the Dumpster.”

Lola put a hand to her mouth. “That's just awful.” She closed her eyes and I wondered if she was saying a prayer.

“At least he didn't suffer long,” Kerry said practically. “He was dead before he landed in the Dumpster, it sounds like.”

We sat in silence for a moment, chastened by the reality of violent death. I cleared my throat and said, “Let me tell you what I found out about Women Outing Serial Cheaters.” It took me fifteen minutes, but I gave
them a blow-by-blow account of my discussion with Guinevere Dalrymple.

“She was married to Gordon?” Kerry exclaimed. “How many ex-wives does he have?”

“More important,” Maud put in, “do the police know? Maybe this Guinevere was madder at Gordon than she let on, or maybe she's in his will.” She made a note and I knew she was going to do her damnedest to get hold of Gordon's will. “They can also get her to cough up the names of the other participants in the ‘outing,'” she said. “What did Chief Uggams have to say about the investigation, Kerry?” she asked.

Kerry planted her feet and quit rocking. “That man! He's on a fishing trip until tomorrow. With a homicide case on his plate, he goes off after trout
and
takes the DA with him! Mabel put me through to Detective Hart, and he wouldn't say more than that the investigation was going well, they were collecting evidence and interviewing witnesses—a lot of them, since there were so many folks at the grand opening—and he hoped to make an arrest by the end of the week. Sorry, Amy-Faye.” She shot me a look that said she assumed Derek would be the arrestee.

My stomach clenched, but I said, “He might have been talking about Foster.” I told them about my run-in with the ex-janitor and his obsession with revenge on Gordon.

“What we need,” I said when I finished, “is Hercule Poirot to march all the players in one by one and grill
them about what they saw and where they were when, and then draw up a timeline.”

Lola smiled faintly. “I don't think it's ever quite that easy for the police in real life.”

“Maybe they were all in on it,” Maud said, her eyes lighting up.

“All who?” Brooke asked. “In on what?”

“Gordon's murder,” Maud said impatiently. “Maybe his exes and his son, and his sister, and the WOSC women, and the janitor, and everyone were in on it together. Like in
Orient
.”

“Everyone except Derek,” I quickly put in.

Kerry hooted derisively. “You have finally lost it, Maud. You left out the CIA and Sirhan Sirhan. These people don't know each other, and even if they did, how many people does it take to toss one man—even if he weighed two hundred plus—off a roof? You don't think someone would have noticed if half the party trooped upstairs to the roof and came back soaking wet?”

Maud made a disgruntled face, unhappy at having her conspiracy theory debunked so quickly. “I'm just saying it's possible.”

Kerry, never one to let well enough alone, added, “Yeah, well, it's
possible
that the town's new ad campaign will triple our tourist business, but I'm not holding my breath.”

Part of her earlier question had caught my attention. “Does the autopsy report have a time of death, Maud?” I asked.

She scanned her notes. “Somewhere between seven
and seven thirty. Seems to be based on stomach content analysis.”

We all grimaced, and Brooke said, “Eww.”

“Anyone remember when it started raining?”

They all shook their heads, but Maud said, “I see where you're going with this. I'll check with the weather service.”

“It started raining before the fire alarm went off,” Kerry remembered. “Everyone got wet from standing in the parking lot. I had to wring out my bra when I got home. I'll try the chief again when he gets back tomorrow afternoon. Better yet, maybe I'll set Chester on him.” Chester was both the former police chief and Kerry's former husband. She looked at her big-faced watch. “I have to shoo you out of here. Can't be tardy for the Girl Scouts.”

We thanked Kerry and left. I waved at Roman, still up on his ladder, trying to dab paint on the row of gingerbread shingles just under the eaves. His ladder rocked and he dribbled paint onto a windowpane. That would be fun to clean up. The Readaholics seemed more subdued than usual, I thought, saying good nights as Kerry pulled out of the driveway, tooting the Subaru's horn, and zipped down the street. If the others were feeling like me, it was because finding Gordon's murderer seemed hopeless. There were too many people we knew about who had grudges against him—motive—and too many people at the grand opening who might have had the opportunity to kill him. And the means of death was readily available to anyone who took the time to climb to the roof. Wait . . . maybe
not. Maud had said Gordon was hit with something. I wondered if the police had the weapon in hand, and what it might have been. Something available on the roof, or something the killer would have had to bring along?

I let go of my train of thought for a moment, catching up to Brooke before she got in her Mercedes. “How did it go with the home inspection today?” I asked.

She smiled. “Great, just great. The woman, Elaine, was very nice, and she seemed happy—impressed even—with the house, how clean it was and everything.”

“Who wouldn't be?” There were operating rooms that weren't as clean as Brooke's house.

“Troy even came home from work to be with me when she came,” Brooke added. “He's as committed to this as I am,” she assured me.

“Of course he is.” It was her parents-in-law that couldn't stomach the thought of their son adopting a child that didn't have Widefield blue blood trickling through his or her veins. “What happens next?”