The Readaholics and the Poirot Puzzle (19 page)

“Pretty well,” he said. “The pub's not as deep in the hole as I thought it might be—no more than is reasonable for a restaurant in its first months—and the books are in fairly decent shape. He flipped a hand at the open checkbook. “Just catching up with some tax payments and payroll stuff that's in arrears. I don't suppose you know how to get hold of that janitor, Foster Quinlan, do you? He hasn't been in for his last check, and Derek doesn't have an address on file for him.”

“Tear it up,” I suggested. Foster didn't deserve a penny after what he'd pulled during the grand opening.

Dad frowned. “You know we can't do that, honey. It's not much, not after we subtracted the damages, but he's entitled to it.”

“Give it to me. I'll get it to him.”

Dad pulled an envelope from a drawer, slid the check inside, sealed it, and printed Foster's name on it neatly. His meticulous way of doing professional things used to drive me crazy, but now I merely grinned, finding it endearing. I'd never understand how a man who was so precise about his research and classes and professional obligations could let the house and yard go the way he did. Maybe it had something to do with chaos theory, whatever that was.

Taking the envelope from him and promising to deliver it safely, I asked for Mom. “At the library,” he said. “The new librarian, that Chianti—”

“Chardonnay,” I corrected him.

“—is having trouble with the computer system
again. You know your mom's the only one who can fix it.”

My mom's forty years as Heaven's librarian had left her the expert on anything related to the library's collection, history, computing systems, and technical services, and her replacement, a twentysomething with good intentions but little practical experience, frequently called on her for help. I suspected she was happy to still be needed.

I wished him and Mom luck with their first weekend night at the pub, and returned to my office briefly to get Foster's address. I recognized it as being out near the Cresta Community College, in an apartment complex largely inhabited by students, and hoped that showing up with a check might gain me entrance to Foster's lair.

T
he Crestview Apartments parking lot, when I pulled in, had numerous potholes that I had to steer around, and was more than half-empty on a Friday afternoon. The vehicles that remained tended more toward beaters, cheap compacts, and well-used pickups than anything Matthew McConaughey would be an advertising spokesman for. Two buildings on either side of a rectangular pool bounded by a sagging chain-link fence made up the complex. The exterior was pitted tan stucco with rusty drips washing down from window air-conditioning units. The landscaping consisted of various cacti, rocks liberally dotted with cigarette butts, and tired annuals in pots on either side of the leasing office door. The pool should have been a cheerful oasis, but its harsh turquoise color and strong chlorine odor were somehow off-putting, although three college-aged kids were baking themselves on loungers. The contentious voices of a courtroom “reality” show drifted from an open window. Merely standing in the parking lot was depressing me; I was grateful for my cozy house.

Clutching the envelope, I looped around the pool enclosure to hunt for Foster's apartment. I couldn't find the building numbers, so I wandered through the
nearest building without any luck before deciding the apartment must be in the other building. I passed the pool again and finally found Foster's apartment, an end unit on the second floor. Two towels hung over the wrought-iron rail fencing off the landing, flapping in the growing breeze. I knocked.

The apartment was so silent I was convinced no one was home. Then the door opened, startling me, and I stepped back. A woman stood there, middle-aged but fierce, with dark hair showing gray roots drawn into a low bun, deep-set eyes, and a red-lipsticked mouth. She balanced a plastic laundry basket on one hip. Despite the pile of soiled laundry, she made me think of an aging flamenco dancer I'd seen in a painting somewhere, mouth drawn down with weariness or disillusion, but still holding herself with a dancer's erect posture. She wore a linen sheath and low-heeled pumps more suited to after-work cocktails at an upscale bar than schlepping dirty clothes to the complex's laundry room. The dress showed off truly stunning legs. She did not remotely fit the picture of the long-suffering but loyal wife Foster had drawn for me during his kitchen confession. I knew immediately that Mrs. Quinlan had not adjusted well to the change in her economic circumstances.

“I don't need magazines, or candy bars, or whatever you're selling,” she said.

I led with my trump card. “I've got a check for Foster,” I said, holding up the envelope.

She gave me a “try it on someone else” look. “If
you'd said you were a bill collector, I might have believed you.”

“No, really. It's from Elysium Brewing. He said he'd be back to get it, but he never came in, so I brought it over. I'm Amy-Faye Johnson. My brother, Derek, owns the pub.”

Mrs. Quinlan let out a long, whistley sigh, like a leaky balloon. “Damn him.”

Damn who? Derek? Foster? Gordon?

“I don't imagine it was worth the gas you burned coming over here, but thank you.” Her tone was grudging. She held out her hand and I had no choice but to place the envelope in it.

Sensing that she was about to herd me down the stairs with the laundry basket, I fought for a way to continue the conversation. “Look, I really need to use the bathroom. Do you mind?” Not up to Kinsey Millhone's standards, but it would have to do.

For a moment I thought she was going to tell me to hold it until I got home, but she finally stepped inside and set the laundry basket on an ottoman. She gestured me in and shut the door. “Through the bedroom.”

Averting my eyes from the unmade bed, I entered the small master bathroom, locked the door, and ran the tap. I didn't really have to pee, so I peeked into the medicine cabinet while waiting for a believable length of time to elapse. Enough prescription bottles crammed the shelves to stock a pharmacy. I recognized some of the drug names as antianxiety meds and antidepressants. Her name was apparently Anita and it appeared
on roughly half the bottles. Foster's was on the other half. I eased the cabinet shut quietly, flushed, swished my hands under the faucet, and rejoined her.

The furniture in the living room was too big for the space, and I imagined it was a small fraction of the furnishings from their prelayoff house. There was a tiny parqueted square meant to be an eating area, but an ornate desk, a grandfather clock, and what looked like antique fire tools with enameled handles—a poker, brush, and tongs in a stand—family heirlooms they couldn't bear to part with, perhaps, took up all the space. They must eat standing at the kitchen counter or sitting on the oversize leather sofa.

While I was in the bathroom, Anita had pulled a two-liter bottle of diet lemon-lime soda from the refrigerator and now offered me some. I was wary of her sudden friendliness, but accepted. Getting ice from the freezer, she filled two heavy tumblers and added the clear soda. The carbonation tickled my nose when I drank.

“I was hoping to see Foster,” I said, sitting on the oversize ottoman when she sat on the sofa, which was angled across the living room because it was too big to fit against either of the walls. “He told me some things . . . Well, I have a few questions.”

“He's at an interview,” Anita lied smoothly, running one hand up and down the glass's smooth sides. “He, er, told me a little bit about your conversation, and, well, I'm hoping you—your brother—that there won't
be any legal ramifications? Foster's really not himself. He's not responsible for his actions, not since . . .”

Ah, here was the reason for her more welcoming manner. She was afraid we were going to have Foster arrested for the vandalism. I was surprised to realize the idea had never crossed my mind. I was about to deny any such intention, when I decided to let her stew and see what she had to say. “I can't speak for my brother,” I said, setting my glass on the Oriental carpet, a murky mix of reds, blues, and peach, since the only end table was unreachable.

“It's all Gordon Marsh's fault,” Anita burst out, her red mouth tightening to an angry slash. “He had no right to fire Foster. No right! Foster was a good worker, a hard worker. He had a history with the company. He was months from retirement eligibility and his pension. You can't just throw that away.” Anger deepened the lines at the corners of her eyes. “People are not paper plates, not disposable. After all we—after all Foster did for the company—he had no right.”

“You knew what Foster was planning to do?”

“Knew? It was my idea. He balked at the idea of becoming a janitor, said if I was so set on the idea I should apply for the job, but no one would believe that I was janitor material,” she said, clearly thinking her designer dress and manicured nails proclaimed her lack of fitness for honest labor. “Besides, I already had a job.”

“Teaching, right?”

Her eyes slid away. “I was. Preschool. But I couldn't stand the dirty little . . . I had to hand in my notice
when the principal objected to my discipline methods. No one today wants to hold kids accountable, or teach them manners or the correct way to behave. They're positively encouraged to run around like wild animals and ‘express themselves.'” She sneered the last words.

I resisted the urge to ask what her methods were, and banished images of medieval torture chambers from my mind. “So you hatched the plan . . .”

“To ruin Gordon like he ruined us.” She curled her fingers into her palms. “It was only what he deserved.”

“Getting thrown off the roof?”

“Yes.” The word ended with a drawn-out hiss.

I had a sudden vision of her standing on the pub's roof, arms upraised in triumph, hair whipped by the wind, as Gordon's body tumbled into the Dumpster. I added a couple of bolts of lightning and a rumble of thunder to the scene for atmosphere. “Where were you Friday night?”

“Where am I always?” she asked bitterly. “Here. We don't have enough money to even go to the movies, and it's not like any of my old friends are going to drop by here to have a cocktail.” Ice clinked as she jiggled her glass.

I took a stab in the dark, hoping to scare her into revealing something. “I saw you at the pub. In the
parking lot. You're very striking, easy to remember.” I hadn't really seen her, but she might have been there.

Confusion and what I thought was a flash of fear flitted across her face. “You're mistaken. I wasn't—well, of course I had to drop him off. We can only afford the one car now. I didn't go in. I've never been in the pub. Frankly, I was afraid of what I would do to Gordon Marsh if I came face-to-face with him.” She crossed one lovely leg over the other.

Her pseudo-openness left me unconvinced. “So how did Foster get home?”

“He didn't come home.” She lengthened her neck so she could peer down her nose at me. “I called the police and tried to report him missing, but they wouldn't do anything. Said he was a grown man and would come home in his own time. It's not the first time. Since he was let go, Foster stops by a bar now and again and . . . well, you know.”

I remembered the police report that said Foster had turned up, dead drunk, in the gazebo at Lost Alice Lake. “That must have worried you.”

My sympathy made her eyes shimmer. “Of course it did! This . . . this”—she gestured at the apartment in a way that said she was encompassing their entire life—“is almost unbearable, even with Foster. Without him, I don't think I could stand it.” She set her glass down with a trembling hand and the ropy blue-green veins twining across the back made me think how hard it must be to start over from scratch at almost sixty. I tried to envision my parents near penniless, having to give
up our family home and most of their belongings, cooped up in a small apartment. Somehow I knew there'd still be flowers and open windows.

I believed Anita and felt sorry for her, sort of, but also suspected that she and Foster together were more than strong enough, and motivated enough, to have clonked Gordon over the head and flung him off the roof.

“Look, Miss Johnson, nothing Foster did was intended to hurt your brother—it was all aimed at Gordon Marsh—so I hope he, your brother, will take that into consideration. Foster didn't do any real damage, after all.” She stood and looked down at me, a supplicant, yet unable to totally shed her lady-of-the-manor air.

Anger burned away my pity. “He's collateral damage, not your target, and so he should be okay with that?” I asked, standing so quickly I knocked over my half-full glass.

“My Bokhara!” Anita Quinlan ran for the kitchen and began unspooling the paper towel roll.

Without even apologizing (my mother would lecture me if she knew), I let myself out, closed the door, and trotted down the stairs and back to my car, ignoring a wolf whistle from the pool area. I drove halfway back to my office in an angry blur, but then my brain started working again. Anita Quinlan had been at the pub Friday night, even though she'd initially denied it. She'd also said something about people not being disposable, something about “after all
we
—” and cut
herself off. I couldn't help thinking that she was a darn attractive woman, only a few years older than Gordon, and wondering if all her anger at Gordon was on her husband's behalf. Maybe she'd been one of Gordon's all-too-disposable women, wanting the kind of revenge that joining up with WOSC wouldn't supply.

I imagined a little scenario. She could have snuck onto the roof without anyone noticing, maybe even before the party got going, and waited for Gordon to come up for a smoke. Foster could have told her that was his habit, or if she really had had an affair with Gordon, she could have known. She could have texted Foster, busily plugging up toilets, when Gordon appeared. Foster could have crept upstairs and beaned Gordon with—what?—his mop or some other weapon, taking him by surprise if he was already arguing with Anita. Together, they could have heaved him up and over the wall. Foster could have returned to the first floor, pretending he was mopping up a mess or something if anyone caught him in the elevator or on the stairs, and Anita could have waited on the roof until after the party—

I wrinkled my brow. No, she couldn't know how long it would be until Gordon's body was discovered, so she'd have had to escape quickly. The fire! Foster blew up the microwave to set off the fire alarms so she'd have the opportunity to blend in with the exiting crowd and escape. I caught my breath. Then he confessed to the sabotage, hoping it would distract from their real crime. I didn't have any proof, but Foster and Anita had motive and opportunity. It all fit. I banged
the steering wheel with excitement. I needed to tell Hart.