The Readaholics and the Falcon Fiasco

by Laura Disilverio

  Was I imagining it, or did the look he gave me say he was having the tests run because he doubted my story?

  “She said she felt sick when she left my house,” I remembered aloud.

  Hart nodded. “You said that. Like I said, we’ll test this. I’ll put a rush on the test. This is turning into the case that never dies. Just when I think I’ve put it to bed forever, something new comes up.” He patted the pocket where he’d stowed the evidence bag. “There’s no other piece of evidence you’ve ‘forgotten’ to tell me about, is there?”

  I didn’t like his emphasis on “forgotten.” “I don’t suppose you had a chance to track down that ledger page yet, did you?” I asked pointedly. I accepted my change, and Hart and I moved to the condiments counter, where I added cream to my coffee.

  “Actually, I found it at the bottom of the chief’s in-box, where Ridgway said he stuck it after you turned it in. Sloppy. I followed procedure and logged it into the evidence room before I left yesterday. I didn’t really have a chance to study it—I was going to do that today.” He gave me a rueful look.

  “So it’s gone,” I said neutrally, my ears ringing with Maud’s accusations.

  “In all likelihood. We haven’t inventoried everything yet, but it probably went up in smoke. I’m sorry. Do you have a copy, by any chance?”

  “As a matter—” Something stopped me from confessing that we’d copied the page before turning it in. I wasn’t absolutely convinced that the fire was an act of sabotage aimed at destroying the ledger page, but the coincidence—if that’s what it was—was spooky enough to make me hesitate. “Why would we have a copy?” I asked instead.

  He shrugged. “Long shot.”

  My brain was racing. Hours after I mentioned the ledger page to Hart, a mysterious fire at the police station burned it up. Would something similar happen to the tea I’d just given him? I stared at his profile as we made our way to the door through the caffeine addicts waiting for their fixes. What did I really know about him? He was new in town—from Atlanta. He was good-looking and seemed kind and competent—all things I found attractive. He had a sister and a brother. He’d had a brother-in-law who was a firefighter, so maybe he knew all about how to set fires and make them look like accidents. The thought popped into my brain, a product of my free-associating. He would have no reason to destroy the page, though, unless . . . unless he was somehow involved in Ivy’s death.

  I shook my head to dislodge the unwelcome thought. That was utterly ridiculous. He’d been in town only about ten minutes; he’d have no reason to kill Ivy or want to cover up for whoever did. We emerged onto the sidewalk. The day was sunny and crisp, with a promise of more seasonal temps later in the day.

  “What caused the fire? Do they know?” I asked.

  “Something electrical, I heard. We’ll probably know more later today.” He didn’t sound worried about it.

  I’d been going to mention the wedding to him, but now I hesitated. Oh, what the heck. Attending the ceremony with a possible arsonist/murderer was better than going alone. “Um,” I started. “Um, I’ve been invited to a wedding—in fact, I’m organizing it—and I was wondering if you’d like to go with me. It’s Saturday after next and I thought it might be a great opportunity for you to meet more people our age, you know, get to know more people here in town. I completely understand if weddings aren’t your thing, though, and my feelings won’t be hurt if—”

  “Weddings are definitely my thing.” Hart’s eyes smiled down into mine and I felt a heat building that had nothing to do with arson. “I own a tux, can stumble through a fox-trot if I have to, and have caught more garters than anyone I know.”

  “Wow,” I said, as if awed. “What a catalog of talents. You won’t need the tux, though; it’s a morning wedding.”

  “Too bad. I look devastating in a tux.” He grinned.

  I was sure he did. A little disconcerted by my reaction to him, I held up my coffee in a farewell gesture. “We can work out the deets later. I’ve got to get to work. We small-business owners have to scramble to make a living.”

  “Unlike those of us on the city payroll.”

  “You said it—I didn’t.” I scooted around the corner toward my office before he could get the last word. I passed a gaggle of women descending the stairs from the yoga studio, glowing from the exercise and chatting. Fee Shumer was among them, wearing a lavender and yellow yoga top and form-fitting capris. The top was loose enough to conceal any sign of pregnancy, if there was one. I greeted a couple of the other women, feeling guilty about not having been to a class in more than a week, and continued around to my office.

  I came in through the French doors and stopped. Al was kneeling on the floor, khaki-clad butt facing me, painting what looked like a pink hippopotamus onto poster board. He looked at me over his shoulder. “You look cheery today, boss,” he said. “Happy. Jolly.”

  “Lighthearted,” I said automatically. “What in the world—?”

  “It’s for Alyssa Fenley’s party tonight. She’s the hippo-obsessed about-to-be-eight-year-old who wants to play ‘pin the tail on the hippo.’ I put in an order with JoyGraffics, but they did a rhino instead of a hippo.” He pointed with the paintbrush at a piece of poster board leaning up against the wall. A two-horned rhino in sunglasses and a tutu twerked on the board. “They don’t have time to redo it today—don’t worry; they’re giving us full credit plus a discount on our next order—so I’m doing my best.”

  “It looks great. I didn’t know you had artistic talents.”

  “I’ve got all sorts of talents, boss.” He laughed, dipped his brush into a vase full of water, and began to paint extravagant eyelashes on the hippo. “Remember I’ve got to leave by noon today. Class.”

  I left him to carry on and was almost to my office when he called after me, “Oh, your brother called.”

  I remembered guiltily that I’d told Mom I’d phone Derek and I’d forgotten. Plunking my purse onto the table, I dialed Derek’s number. There were five of us kids in the family, but he was the only boy. In high school, I think he’d deliberately gone out for every sport, taken auto shop, and hung with a bunch of guys who smelled like locker rooms and diesel exhaust to make sure no girl stink—nail polish, hair products, basic soap and water—clung to him. Next in line after me, he was four years younger, but we’d always been close.

  “Hey, brudder,” I greeted him when he answered. “How’s the brew biz?”

  “Frustrating.” He bit out the word. “Gordon has been surlier than a wolverine the last few days. I don’t know what’s up with him. The temperature gauge on my vat went haywire and I lost fifteen hundred gallons of a new brew. And the building inspector says the handicapped stall in the women’s room isn’t up to code. It’s gonna be a cool two thou to redo it. I don’t know, sis. Sometimes I feel like this venture is cursed.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, wishing there were something more concrete I could do to help, but my bathroom-remodeling skills were nonexistent, and what I knew about brewing beer could be inscribed on my pinkie nail. “Want me to have a talk with Gordon?”

  That was a joke—Gordon and I did not see eye to eye. He’d asked me out a couple of times after Derek introduced us, but since he was twenty years older than me, had already seduced half the women in Heaven (according to the rumor mill), and was only separated from his second wife, I said no. We were polite to each other for Derek’s sake, but that’s as far as it went.

  “Nobody can talk to Gordon these days,” Derek said morosely. “I think his first wife’s sicced a lawyer on him—something about nonpayment of alimony—and I don’t think his recent trips to Vegas have been lucrative.”

  “How ’bout I pick you up and we go for ice cream? That’ll make you feel better.” Ice cream was our panacea for all woes. It had started in high school when he was a pitcher on the baseball team. I consoled him with ice cream whenever
he lost a game. It had taken a whole gallon to help him get over the disappointment of not getting the baseball scholarship to CSU that he wanted. He returned the favor by taking me out for ice cream when I didn’t get the part in the play, or when I tubed a test, and whenever Doug and I broke up.

  “It’s nine in the morning.”

  “So?”

  “You’re on.” He sounded a shade more cheerful, and I was glad I’d called.

  * * *

  We had to go to the City Market to buy pints since none of the ice-cream parlors were open yet, and we ate them up by Lost Alice Lake, watching a second grade field trip group get a lesson in the area’s geology. By the time I got back to the office, it was after ten and I was behind. It had been worth it, though; Derek looked considerably more relaxed when I dropped him back at Elysium Brewing than when I picked him up.

  I worked like a demon until noon, fighting the urge to call Maud and ask if she’d made any progress on the code. She’d been somewhat daunted by the number of books Clay kept in his office and said it might be a couple of weeks before she found the right one. She’d call when she had anything to report. I gnawed on a hangnail. I didn’t want to sit around and do nothing about Ivy’s murder while Maud tried to crack the code. I still didn’t know why Doug and Fee Shumer had visited Ivy’s house the day after she died. It might be useful to know what they’d been doing there.

  The only place I ever saw Fee was at yoga. We never said anything more than “good morning” to each other, but maybe I should plan on attending class tomorrow morning. I put it in my calendar with a note to bring my yoga gear. It would be easier to bump into Doug, but harder, in some ways, to grill him about what he was doing at Ivy’s. I didn’t want him to think I thought he had anything to do with murdering her. I knew he hadn’t. No way. Still, he might know something. I thought about how to approach him, how to engineer a meeting and ask the questions I needed to ask without pissing him off or making him clam up. An idea hit. I phoned and asked him to meet me at Bloomin’ Wonderful.

  “A-Faye, you know I’m not a flowers guy,” he groaned. “I’ll tell Madison you need—”

  “No!” I wished I’d thought to tell him I needed his opinion on groom cakes or something. Too late now. “Wouldn’t it be nice to . . . uh, have a special bouquet or plant delivered to Madison the night before the wedding with a note about how your love will continue to grow?” I covered the phone and gagged. “And one for your mom and Madison’s mother? Just from you?” I was improvising, and I wasn’t sure he would go for it. I held my breath.

  “That is a nice idea,” he said, “but you could pick out—”

  “It should be personal.”

  After another long hesitation, he said, “Okay. But I’ve only got twenty-five minutes, so let’s get going.”

  “Meet you there in five,” I said.

  Chapter 19

  He beat me there and was waiting outside Lola’s greenhouse when I pulled up. Sun glinted off the greenhouse glass, making the whole building seem to sparkle. With all the green inside, it looked like part of the set for the Emerald City. I didn’t see Lola. Doug gave me an easy grin. “Hey, A-Faye. I didn’t mean to carp at you. This is a good idea. And it’s good to get out of the office.” He turned his face up to the sun and unbuttoned his suit jacket.

  I led the way inside and he followed me. It smelled lush and earthy and I breathed deeply of the humid air. Rows of plants—some in windowsill-sized containers on tables and others in huge planters—stretched before us. The sixty-six shades of green, plus the pops of color from blossoms, made me happy. No wonder Lola was such a calm person. Two sparrows flitted back and forth near the glass ceiling. It didn’t take us long to pick out a rosebush to have delivered to Mrs. Taylor, his mother-in-law-to-be, at her house outside Oshkosh. “I’ll bet she’s got two dozen different kinds of roses in her garden,” Doug said.

  “Well, now she can have twenty-five,” I said, crossing through her name. It took him a while to choose something for his mother, and longer still to find a plant he thought Madison would like.

  “She’s not really a plant person,” he eventually said. “She says they’re too much responsibility, what with needing to water them all the time and fertilize them and prune off dead leaves and what-have-you. She travels too much and they always die, which depresses her.”

  “Well, then, let’s ask Lola to put together a bouquet.”

  He glanced at his watch and I knew he was going to take off soon, so I dragged him over to Lola, who had come in with Misty and was potting seedlings at a workbench in the back, and told her what we wanted. “Orange flowers,” Doug said. “Madison likes orange. Orange and pink. She’ll be staying at the Columbine the night before the wedding, so can you deliver them there?”

  “Of course.” Lola smiled. “I can include some tiger lilies and gerbera daisies, and perhaps carnations . . . Would you like to fill out a card to go with them?”

  As we followed her out of the greenhouse to her office, I spotted three large plants in tubs by the door. I hadn’t noticed them on the way in. Fuchsia blooms were gaudy against dark green leaves. “Hey, Lola, aren’t those—”

  She nodded grimly. “Oleander. This variety’s called Calypso. I’ve decided not to carry any oleander anymore. A nursery from Mesa is sending a truck to pick them up.”

  Doug and I paused, staring at the plants, while Lola went on. “Poor Ivy,” he said.

  It was now or never. “So,” I said, “I guess you didn’t hear about her death right away, since you were at her house the day after she died.” I tried to make it sound like a casual comment, but of course it came across about as casual as cement boots on a mob witness.

  He gave me a long look, his face closing down. “How did you know that? Were you following me? Madison told me you were upset about us getting married, but I didn’t believe . . . after all this time . . . How could you invade my privacy by following me? How could you sink so low?”

  I was horrified. “No! No way. Of course I wasn’t following you. It’s nothing to me that you’re getting married or who you’re marrying, even if she can’t even commit to an African violet—” I cut myself off before I babbled my way into deeper trouble. “No. A reporter was watching the house. She noticed you go in. I thought it was strange—that’s all—because you told me you weren’t really in touch with Ivy anymore. Of course I wasn’t following you—how could you think that? I’ve got a life, Doug, and I’m sorry, but it doesn’t revolve around you. Having Madison worship you has given you delusions of importance.”

  I rather liked that line. I waited, tense, hoping he would buy my uninterest. It was humiliating enough that half the town thought I was still pining for Doug; it would be slit-my-wrists time if he believed it, too.

  He laughed ruefully. “Madison worships her career. I’m sorry, A-Faye. I’m an idiot. God! Put it down to prewedding jitters or something. Work stress, maybe. I was just surprised when you mentioned me being at Ivy’s. She was a client. A recent client. We had an appointment Wednesday morning. And that’s all I can tell you. Attorney-client privilege.”

  “Lawyers make house calls?”

  He put on his poker face and I knew he wasn’t going to tell me anything more. This investigating business was frustrating when people wouldn’t cooperate. Spotting Lola coming toward us, I said, “Write something lovey-dovey on the card and get back to work before your wicked Boston boss docks your pay.”

  He grinned, scribbled something on the card and handed it to Lola, kissed my cheek, and said, “Mad and I are looking forward to choosing a band Thursday. See you then.” He headed to his car. I resisted the urge to jerk the card from Lola’s hand and read it.

  “What was that all about?” Lola asked as we both watched Doug drive off.

  I told her.

  “Hm. So Clay went to Ivy’s to retrieve some office papers, and Doug went becaus
e he didn’t know she was dead and thought they had a meeting? Why in the world would Ivy need a lawyer?” Lola’s tone gently questioned Doug’s story.

  “Good question. To make her will? That would shoot down the suicide theory, wouldn’t it? I mean, if you’re making a will because you’re going to kill yourself, there’s no point in killing yourself before you get around to the paperwork. How many unmarried, childless thirty-year-olds bother with wills? I don’t have one. Do you?”

  Lola nodded. “Oh, yes. I’ve got the business after all, and my grandmother and Axie to provide for.”

  Misty wound around my ankles and I started, laughed, and then bent to pat her. “Silly kitten. Well, Ivy didn’t own a business, so she wouldn’t need a lawyer for that. Maybe she was planning to sue someone.” That didn’t sound like Ivy, but I couldn’t think of any other reason someone would need a lawyer, not unless they were on trial.

  “Does Doug do that kind of legal work?”

  “Not really. Who’s that guy with the commercials, the ambulance chaser? Michael Werke. ‘I’ll make the legal system Werke for you!’ He’s the guy to call for suing people, I’ve heard.”

  We gave up trying to figure out what Doug had been doing for Ivy. Unless he told us, we were unlikely to ever know. I said good-bye to Lola, who headed around the side of the greenhouse. Taking a last look at the oleander plants, I picked up a shiny leaf that had dropped to the ground. That got me thinking. Anyone could have walked in here, or into any nursery in the area, and picked off a leaf or two, if they wanted to poison someone. You wouldn’t even have to incriminate yourself by buying a whole plant. I inspected the three bushes, looking for evidence that Ivy’s killer had stripped off a leaf. One of the plants had a raw spot where a leaf had been attached to a branch, and I fingered it. Although it looked as if a leaf had been forcibly removed, I had no way of knowing if someone had picked it or if it had been knocked off when Lola moved the plants, or maybe by the hose when she was watering. Sighing, I let the leaf slip from my fingers and returned to my van.