The Readaholics and the Poirot Puzzle (13 page)

“We do an interview, and then—keep your fingers crossed—we're in The Book. This agency gives The Book to expectant mothers so they can choose who they want to adopt their baby. They've got two new pregnant girls coming in next week to go through The Book.”

“That's wonderful. Keep me posted.”

“You bet,” Brooke said with a grin. “And you keep me posted on progress with Detective Hot—I mean Hart.”

I blew a raspberry and headed to my van as Brooke drove off. From behind me came a scraping sound, and a strangled yelp. I pivoted in time to see Roman's ladder list to the right, bang against the side of the house, and crash into the juniper shrubs. Roman flung his paint can, which tumbled end over end, spewing salmon-colored latex that spattered me from head to toe as I raced toward him, and tried to jump off the ladder, but it looked as though he'd caught his shirt in the ladder somehow and couldn't pull free in time. He tumbled headfirst into the shrubs. The branches quivered as he thrashed.

“Roman!” I called, skidding to a stop in front of the junipers. A rich evergreen scent arose from the crushed limbs.

“I'm okay,” he mumbled, sitting up and spitting out the tip of a juniper branch. His moplike hair was messier than usual, and salmon paint streaked it and his face. He tried to push himself up, but cried out, “My wrist!”

“Let me see.”

He held out his right hand. Even without an MD, I could see it was broken, already swollen and with a strange bulge that made me wince in sympathy. “I'm taking you to the doctor,” I said, thinking quickly. At this hour, the only option was the urgent-care clinic on Paradise and Fourth Street. “Give me your other hand.”

I helped pull him up, my hand lost in his bigger one. He cradled his injured wrist in his left hand as I urged him toward the van. “How about you call your mom
while I drive, okay? Do you think you can do that? She can meet us at the clinic.”

Roman nodded, hair flopping. I helped him into the van and tried to drive smoothly so I didn't jar his wrist while he dialed one-handed. “Voice mail,” he said after a moment. “She turns her phone off when she does speeches.”

That might have been the longest phrase I'd ever heard him utter. “Do you know where she is, where the Girl Scout meeting is?”

Roman shrugged in the teenage boy way that could mean anything from a simple “No” to “Why are you bothering me with this?” to “I heard blah-blah-blah and thought I should act like I'm listening.”

We were at Alliance Urgent Care now, and I turned into the nearly empty parking lot. I hoped that boded well for our wait time. Thank goodness it was Monday night, and not a weekend. I helped Roman out of the van, noticing his face was distinctly paler, and held the door for him. The space was brightly lit, linoleum-floored, and virtually empty. An elderly man sat at the farthest end of the waiting room, listlessly flipping the pages of a magazine. Some inane reality show played on the TV mounted in a corner. The middle-aged black receptionist greeted us with a smile and “Can I help you?”

I explained why we were there and Roman held out his wrist. The receptionist handed me a clipboard. “Mom, if you could fill out these forms, we'll get—”

“She's not my mom,” Roman said at the same time I said, “I'm not his mother.” At her confused and now
suspicious look, I explained. The receptionist asked for Kerry's cell phone number, called it, and left a message summarizing the situation. “Dr. Dreesen will be right with you,” she promised us.

Before I had time to figure out where I knew that name from, a door to the right of the reception desk opened and a petite woman in a snowy lab coat appeared. She had a stethoscope draped around her neck and her sandy blond hair in a low ponytail. I recognized Gordon's sister immediately. “Roman Sanderson?” she called crisply, looking right at us.

Sweat beaded Roman's forehead, which I took as a sign of increasing pain. “Do you want me to come back with you?” I asked, not sure of the protocol.

“Nah.” He shambled toward where Dr. Dreesen waited and they disappeared through the door.

“The washroom's through there,” the receptionist called to me, pointing.

I wasn't sure what she meant, but when I pushed into the restroom and saw the salmon speckles all over my face and clothes, I understood. Using paper towels and warm water, I scrubbed off most of the paint on my face and hands; my clothes and hair would have to wait until I got home.

The magazines on offer—
American Baby
,
Highlights
, and
Rider Magazine
(perhaps because motorcycle riders spend a lot of time in ERs?)—held no allure, so I occupied myself for the next forty minutes by alternately watching the reality show, which featured precocious brats being forced into beauty pageant slavery by their tyrannical mothers, and calling Kerry. She still hadn't
answered when Roman and Dr. Dreesen reappeared. Roman sported a cast wrapped in traffic-cone-orange tape, and a woozy look that suggested they'd given him some effective painkillers. Dr. Dreesen beckoned to me.

When I approached, she gave me a sharp look. “I know you.”

“Amy-Faye Johnson. I'm Derek Johnson's sister. We met at Elysium Brewing.”
Where your brother died.
Up close, I towered over her, which doesn't happen often, since five-four doesn't often qualify as “towering.” She couldn't have been more than five-one, and I'd bet she didn't weigh a hundred and five, dripping wet. She had pretty, delicate features, pinched with worry or exhaustion, and I put her at forty-five or – six. I wasn't sure whether or not to offer my condolences, given the circumstances, but I finally said, “I'm very sorry about your brother.”

“Stepbrother. You found him.” Her pale blue eyes searched my face.

I tried to read her tone or expression, but couldn't, so I simply nodded.

“I'm sorry. That must have been horrid for you.”

Surprised, I nodded again.

“The police suspect your brother, Derek.”

Tired of nodding, I stood, waiting to see where she was going with this. By my side, Roman scratched at a line of paint of his cheek.

“Roman, why don't you sit down while I write out a prescription for your pain meds?” she suggested. When he was out of earshot, she scribbled on a
prescription form, ripped it off the pad, and handed it to me. “I don't think your brother did it,” she said, “and I told the police that.”

“You did?” I failed to keep the surprise out of my voice.

“There was a line of people with much more long-standing”—she searched for a word—“grudges against Gordon, most of them family. You can't hate someone properly unless you're related, can you? Even by marriage. When my mom married his dad, we redefined ‘dysfunctional.' My sister and I were furious about having to leave our house and friends to move in with Larry and Gordon. We took it out on Mom. Gordon was furious about being landed with two younger siblings he was expected to take care of, and took it out on us. The first year was torture and it got worse from there. When Larry cheated on Mom the first time, it all went to hell in a handbasket. By the eighth or ninth time, Mom spent more time with her lawyer than with us. Gordon had escaped to college by then.” Her thin smile was a blade. “He killed my daughter, you know.” She fumbled at the neck of her blouse and tugged on a thin gold chain. A locket dangled from it and she flicked it open with a thumbnail to show me the photo of a pretty girl with short brown hair and a broad smile. “That's my Kinleigh.”

I got the feeling she had gone through the locket routine a thousand times since her daughter's accident. “She was beautiful,” I said. That didn't feel like enough, so I added, “She looks kind.”

The clinic door opened and I looked over, hoping it
was Kerry, but a young mother came in, bouncing a crying toddler on her hip and promising him that the doctor would fix his ear. Dreesen had scanned the duo automatically, it seemed, and decided the child's problem wasn't life-threatening, because she didn't rush off. She nodded and tucked the locket away.

“You're perceptive. She was very kind. If it weren't for Gordon—” Her tone was as corrosive as sulfuric acid and I inched away. “I'm sorry. I'm not supposed to keep talking about it. Now, about Roman—”

She described the break, the X-rays, and the dosage for the painkillers. Before she could leave, I said, “When was the last time you saw Gordon at the party?”

Realization flashed in her eyes, and the thin smile reappeared. “Are you asking me for an alibi?” She held her hands out from her sides. “Do I look like I could heave a two-hundred-plus-pound man over a wall?”

She didn't look burly enough to strew rose petals. No way could she have pushed Gordon over the wall, not without a winch and crane. “Your husband—” I started.

“Wasn't even there by the time the police say Gordon died,” she said with the air of someone who had told this story already, to the police, probably. “He was late leaving the office and then stopped to help
someone with a flat tire. He didn't get there until we were all in the parking lot because of the fire. The police are satisfied with his alibi.”

She was turning away, ready to help the earache boy, when I asked, “If you told the police you don't think Derek was involved—thank you, by the way—did you suggest someone who might have done it?”

She hesitated, but then said, “My money's on Susan. Susan or Kolby. I might have hated Gordon more than they did, but they wanted his money in the worst way. Susan's never stopped trying to break the prenup. And Kolby . . . well, do you know Kolby?”

“We've met.”

She nodded as if to meet Kolby was to despise him, which was pretty close to true. “He tried to kill Gordon once before, you know. Tried to run him over.”

Before I could react, the clinic door burst open and Kerry rushed in. “Roman! Are you okay? How many times have I told you not to stand on the top rung? Thank you so much, Amy-Faye. Are you the doctor? Is he going to be all right? That's his pitching arm—when do you think—?”

I patted Roman's shoulder and said good night, not expecting a reply, but he surprised me. “Thanks for driving me over here,” he said with a sweet smile. “You're the bomb. Want to be the first to sign my cast?”

Borrowing a Sharpie from the receptionist, I signed his cast, told him to take it easy, and escaped while Kerry was still interrogating Dr. Dreesen. I had a lot to think about.

A
crush of new business descended on me Tuesday morning, and I didn't get around to thinking about lunch until almost one o'clock. Three new jobs, I thought gleefully, labeling a blue file folder for the corporate offsite I'd just booked and entering it on my whiteboard schedule. I didn't think I'd ever landed three events in a single morning. Al—who had class on Tuesday mornings—would be amazed when he came in. From my office, I heard the front door open on the thought, and I called out, “Hey, Al, guess what.”

“What?”

It wasn't Al's voice. I looked up, disbelieving, to see Doug Elvaston standing in the doorway, white grin splitting his tan face, sun-bleached hair falling across his forehead. He looked fit, and leaner than when he left, without the shell-shocked look that had made him seem fragile after Madison jilted him at the altar. His forearms, displayed by the madras shirt he wore, were corded with muscle. My mouth fell open. I scrambled up. “Doug! You're back.”

He swept me into a bear hug. “I'm back. Miss me?”

The question brought me up short. I had missed him, but not nearly as much as I would have thought I would, I realized. Perhaps I was truly over him? The
thought seemed traitorous, so I squeezed him extra hard and said, “Of course!”

He released me and held me at arm's length to study me. “You look great, Amy-Faye.”

“So do you.” His eyes seemed greener and his teeth whiter against the deep tan. “How long have you been back?” It couldn't have been too long or the local grapevine would have told me. “Are you working?”

“Four days, and sort of. Do you have time for lunch? I've got something I want to show you.”

“Sure. I was just thinking about lunch. Let me grab my purse.”

Four minutes later we were out the door and Doug was opening the passenger door of his Camry for me. We drove a quick four blocks north and stopped. There wasn't a restaurant in sight. This part of town was mainly residential, with a smattering of offices housed in converted homes. “What—?”

“You'll see.” Doug parked at the curb and fairly dragged me out of the car. In front of a three-story Victorian house that reminded me of Kerry's place, minus the salmon-colored splashes on the window, he said, “Ta-da!”

I looked closer and saw a wooden sign gracing the postage stamp front yard. D
OUG
E
LVASTON,
A
TTORNEY-AT-
L
AW
, it read in dark red script on white, to match the house's colors.

“You've left the firm,” I breathed.

Doug threw up his arms. “I'm a free man!”

“What—? How—?”

“Let's get some food and I'll tell you all about it.”

At the Salty Burro, only half a dozen tables had diners at the tail end of lunch hour, and a single waiter was trying to handle them all. Delicious scents of jalapeño and cumin filled the air. Doug munched on a tortilla chip in our high-backed booth, and said, “I had an epiphany while I was at sea, Amy-Faye. Madison did me a favor by dumping me.”

I raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“No, really. If she hadn't left me at the altar, we'd be married now, splitting our time between Heaven and Manhattan, each of us so deep in the rat race of billable hours and fighting to make partner that we'd probably never see each other. It would probably have taken me years to see that that's not the life I want, if Madison hadn't made me see it.”

“Let me nominate her for sainthood,” I said drily, crunching hard on a chip. “She could at least have told you prior to the wedding day that she wasn't going through with it.”

“Granted,” Doug agreed. “I haven't really been happy—‘fulfilled,' I guess, is a better word, but that sounds so navel-gazing and therapyish—since I got out of law school and joined the firm. I was excited that they hired me and about the money, but I don't get much say in my cases and the hours have been backbreaking. When I went into law, I wanted to make a difference, to help people, but the only people I ever see are opposing counsel—more lawyers, not real people who need help like that summer I did legal aid in Denver, remember?”

“I remember.” My enchiladas arrived and I began to salivate. I was starving.

“So, one night at sea, I'm on the midwatch, and it's dark, but not fully, because the water always has a glow to it, phosphorescence or reflected stars, and I'm totally alone on deck, just me and the sea, and I realized I felt peaceful. For the first time in years. Since before I joined the firm, since back when you and I were together.”

I tensed, but he didn't seem to be giving that last phrase any special significance, hinting at anything; he was merely stating a fact.

“And I got to thinking.” He slurped a spoonful of chicken tequila soup, one of the Burro's specialties. “I got to thinking that a lot of the ‘have tos' in my life weren't really. Have tos, I mean. They were self-imposed. I don't have to make the kind of money I'm making to be happy. I don't have to run my life in six-minute increments for billable hours. I decided that night that I was going to quit the firm and go it alone. I e-mailed my resignation from the yacht and started searching for offices to rent in Heaven whenever we were in port and I could get a wireless connection. When I got back Saturday, I went straight to the leasing office and signed a contract. Now I'm just like you—a self-employed small-business owner.” He stretched his arms along the booth's back, and grinned at me.

“Welcome to penury,” I said, returning his grin. “And if you think you'll be working fewer hours now that you're on your own, you're in for a big disappointment.”

“Yeah, I know, but I'll be working for myself, on cases that interest me, and I think—I hope—that will make a big difference. I've already got two clients. So, what's new with you?” He leaned forward to spoon up more soup.

Lindell Hart immediately sprang to mind, but I said, “Well, Derek may get arrested later this week. For murder.”

“What!” He practically spat a mouthful of soup at me.

Perversely pleased with his reaction, I gave him chapter and verse on everything that had happened since the grand opening on Friday. “If you'd come home a day earlier, you could have been there.”

“Sounds like a good party to have missed.” His brow wrinkled. “Does Derek have a lawyer?”

“Drumming up business?” I teased. Before he could reply, I said, “Yeah, some guy he plays basketball with.”

“Well, if there's anything I can do, tell him to call. Completely pro bono, of course. Heck, I thought of the D-man as my future brother-in-law for a long time; I can't charge him.”

I dropped my fork. Before I could say anything, a couple of women I knew said hello on their way to the door. By the time they'd passed, the moment seemed to be gone and I didn't react. There hadn't been anything portentous in Doug's tone, and he didn't look self-conscious now as he studied the bill and put twenty bucks down. It was a throwaway remark, not an invitation to resume a relationship that had been dead for
two years and on life support a year before that, I told myself.

As he dropped me off in front of my office, with a peck on the cheek and a promise to call, a niggling thought arose: Maybe our relationship wasn't dead beyond hope of resurrection. An image of Lindell Hart smiling down at me made me smile involuntarily. Even if resurrection was possible, was I interested? That was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question for which I didn't have an immediate answer.

•   •   •

When I walked around the building to the back garden and my office entrance, I saw two figures standing in the reception area: Al and Hart. A smile broke over my face at the sight of Hart and I entered with a cheery “Hello.”

Hart's expression wiped the cheery right out of me. “Got a minute?” He gave a tiny head nod toward my office.

Closing the door behind us, but hovering near it rather than going to my desk, I asked, “What?”

Hart laid a hand on my shoulder. “Officers are arresting Derek as we speak. I wanted you to hear it from me. I don't have a choice, Amy-Faye. I shouldn't be telling you this, but we found Gordon's blood on a shirt in Derek's trash can.”

I jerked away from his hand. “From the fight the other day, not from that night!” I exclaimed. “Gordon got a bloody nose. It got all over Derek.”

“It's the shirt he was wearing Friday night. Witnesses ID'd it. The chief and DA got back from their
fishing trip last night and issued the arrest warrant as soon as the lab tests came back this morning.”

Hart's voice stayed gentle as mine became more shrill. “What about Foster? Have you talked to him? Or Guinevere Dalrymple? Did you know Gordon was married to her? She's the woman I saw arguing with him before the party. She was mad at him about money.” I told him about my meeting with Guinevere, the words tumbling out of me. “And what about his other ex-wife and Kolby?” I asked, not giving him a chance to respond to my Guinevere story. “His sister says they've had it in for him for years, and that Kolby already tried to kill him once.”

Hart's brows snapped together. “You talked to Angie Dreesen?”

“Long story,” I said wearily. I walked to the window and placed my forehead against the cool glass, staring out at the garden. A hummingbird buzzed past, two inches from my nose. They'd be going south soon. Hart touched my shoulder again and this time I didn't shake his hand off. Instead I turned and burrowed against his chest as he pulled me in tightly.

“I'm sorry,” he murmured against my hair.

“I'm mad at you,” I muttered into his shirt.

“I don't blame you.” His hand stroked my back.

I pulled away far enough to look up at him. “I'm going to find out who really killed Gordon,” I said. “You can't stop me from talking to people.” My tone dared him to try.

His eyes serious, he said, “Be careful, Amy-Faye.
Bring me anything you find and I'll follow up on it, I promise. In case we don't have the right guy—”

“You don't.”

“I don't want you making a killer nervous with your questions.”

“The killer better be nervous,” I said, slitting my eyes, “because I'm going to find him. Or her.”

•   •   •

Hart had to leave and as I closed the door behind him, Al asked, “Bad news, boss?”

“The worst.”

“The Russians detonated a nuke over California? Ebola is clearing out Chicago?
Sports Illustrated
is abandoning their swimsuit issue?”

“Worse,” I said, but a small smile peeped out. I got his point. “My brother's been arrested for murder.”

Al actually clapped his hands to either side of his face, like that kid in the
Home Alone
movies. “No! No way. Get out. Derek might be a thoughtless boob sometimes, and obsessed with beer, but he's not a killer.”

“My thoughts precisely,” I said, half impressed and half irritated at Al's perception and honesty. Derek might, every now and then, be a thoughtless boob, but only I (and maybe my sisters) got to apply that label to him. Al frequently made me rethink the old saw “Honesty's the best policy.” I marched past him to my office. “I need to let my folks know.”

I dreaded calling my parents and couldn't decide whom I wanted to pick up the phone, Mom or Dad. Mom would cry and Dad would rant. Before I could make myself dial, the phone rang. I snatched it up.
“Eventful!” I said in a tone that would discourage anyone considering hiring me to organize a cheerful celebration.

“I heard Doug's back in town,” Brooke said, in her “let's dish” voice.

“The police arrested Derek for Gordon's murder.”

“That's not funny.”

“No, it's not.”

“You're serious? Oh my God. When? Why? What can I do?”

Her instant and sincere concern and offer of help eased the tension in my chest. I drew a deep breath. “Nothing right now. I'll let you know if anything comes up. Oh, and I already knew about Doug. We had lunch today and he showed me his new office. He's quit the law firm and is going it alone. Gotta call my folks about Derek. I'll call you tonight.”

I hung up on her demands for more information and forced myself to dial my parents' number. Their phone rang twice, but I hung up before they answered. News like this needed to be delivered in person. I managed to calm myself on the short drive to Mom and Dad's. Derek hadn't killed Gordon; ergo, Derek wasn't going to prison. He might spend a night in jail—how fast could his lawyer get him out on bail?—but that wouldn't kill him. Not in Heaven, where he'd probably be the only prisoner, except for maybe a drunk or two.

Pulling into the weed-choked driveway—Dad would rather stare endlessly at unsolvable math equations on his whiteboard than do home maintenance or yard work—I hesitated a moment before getting out of
the van. Rarely had I returned with less enthusiasm to the rambling two-story I'd grown up in on the east end of Heaven. The house, with its flaking gray paint, overgrown yard with apple and peach trees, and detached, two-car garage was normally a haven, but not now. The winey-sweet smell of fermenting peaches, fallen from the trees and greatly appreciated by the squirrels, birds, and bears, clung to my skin as I climbed the veranda steps.

Dragging Dad out back to the table where Mom did her book reviewing in the summer, I broke the news of Derek's arrest. The hum of bees feasting on the fallen peaches was the only sound for a few moments after I said the
A
word. They were more stoic than I expected. Mom did, indeed, cry, but only for a couple of minutes before drying her eyes with her shirt hem and saying, “Derek's tough. This family is tough. We'll get through this. I hope the stress doesn't bring on a shingles attack, not that I've ever had shingles, but I'm pretty sure I had chicken pox as a child, so it's always a possibility. Did you know shingles pain can linger for
years
after the blisters have disappeared?”