The Readaholics and the Poirot Puzzle

by Laura Disilverio

  “You don’t need to say that all the time, Mom, not in front of other people.” He shuffled his feet and managed to look both embarrassed and defiant. He had crew cut hair and freckled jug ears, and looked a lot like the way I’d always pictured Tom Sawyer. He peeped at me from under sandy lashes. “There’s pool tables, right? I could play pool until Dad gets here.” His pleading gaze went from his mother to me.

  “I don’t see why not,” I said.

  A grin lit his face. He was an engaging kid and I smiled. “How are you going to play pool with your leg in a cast like that?” My eyes went to his foot. The plaster extended from just above his grubby toes to midshin. Orange tape covered most of it. It looked just like Roman’s . . .

  My eyes widened as I made a connection that upended all my previous theories about Gordon’s murder. The truth plowed into me with the force of a boulder hurtling down a hill. I swallowed and looked from Billy to Bernie, who didn’t seem to sense my new discomfort. “I’m sure it’ll be okay if you hang out in the pool lounge,” I said. “There’s no one up there yet. Take the elevator.” I pointed to it.

  “I’ll show him,” Kolby volunteered, having off-loaded the new keg and moved it into position. He brushed hair off his face. I had a feeling he was also volunteering to waste an hour playing pool with an eleven-year-old.

  “Thanks,” Bernie said, giving me a grateful look as Billy thumped his way to the elevator, already chattering to Kolby as if he’d known him for years. “I don’t like playing the single-mom card, but sometimes it’s the only one I’m holding.”

  I didn’t know how to say what I needed to say, so I started obliquely. “They do a good job with broken bones at Alliance Urgent Care, don’t they? I had to take a friend’s son there a few nights ago and I was impressed with their efficiency.”

  “Yeah, they do a good job,” Bernie agreed, putting her purse behind the bar. She grabbed a wet rag and began to scrub at a spot on the gleaming surface. “The docs are real good with Billy.”

  “You told me you didn’t know Angie Dreesen, but if Billy gets hurt as often as you say, you must know her.”

  Silence followed my statement. Bernie’s hand slowed until she was merely holding the rag pressed against the bar. Finally, she looked up at me. Her eyes were brown pools of worry and guilt, but she didn’t say anything.

  “You were late last Friday, too. You said you’d had car trouble. Gene Dreesen didn’t get to the party until late, too.” I suddenly realized I’d seen Gene get into a car with Angie when they left the party—if he’d arrived late, why wasn’t his car still in the lot when I left much later? “He told the police he helped someone with a flat tire. I’m betting that someone was you, only you didn’t really have a flat, did you? You told the police you did, though—you gave Gene Dreesen an alibi for the time Gordon was killed. Why, Bernie? Why?”

  Every muscle in her body seemed to quiver and for a moment I thought she was going to bolt. The futility of it must have struck her—Billy was upstairs, after all—because the tension melted away and she went as limp as a rag doll. I knew then she was going to tell me everything.

  “You’re right. I’ve known Dr. Dreesen for a few years now. She’s treated Billy for everything from ear infections to broken bones. Kids always seem to get hurt or sick in the middle of the night or on a weekend when the family doc is playing golf or asleep in bed, right?” She tried to smile, but it was a poor effort. “This last time, with Billy’s ankle, we got to talking. Gordon . . . Gordon and I . . . I’d thought Dr. Dreesen and I were going to be sisters-in-law, you know? Gawd, was I a fool!” She put her elbows on the bar and dropped her face into her hands. “He cheated on me with Sam, just like he’d cheated on some other woman with me. I don’t know why I thought he’d be different with me. Any woman who was ever the ‘other woman’ and thinks her man will behave differently once he’s hers is a fool. Tattoo it on my forehead.” She slapped a hand to her forehead. “F.O.O.L.

  “He dumped me the same day Billy broke his ankle. I broke down at the clinic, burst into tears, told Dr. Dreesen everything. I told her how I loved Gordon and had believed him when he said he was going to take care of me and the kids. You don’t know how that felt, Amy-Faye, looking forward to not having to scrimp and scrape and save and do without all the time. I wanted to get Billy a pair of jeans that didn’t come from Goodwill, to sign Chester up for Little League. I don’t mind working, but I thought I could drop back to one job when Gordon and I were married, and have more time to spend with the boys. They need me.”

  She turned her head to look at me, her eyes begging me to understand. Tears streamed down her face.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, aching with the inadequacy of it.

  “Gordon dangled that new life in front of me, and then he jerked it away.” Her mouth tightened into a thin line. “I was hurt, but I was also angry. So angry. Gawd.”

  She used her palms to rub her tears away so hard I thought she’d tear skin from her face. I passed her a handful of bar napkins to use as tissues.

  “So when Dr. Dreesen suggested . . . suggested it, and offered to pay me to give Gene an alibi, I said yes. They gave me ten thousand dollars,” Bernie said, straightening and looking me in the eye. “Ten thousand dollars to be late for work, to wait for them to call before I showed up, and then to tell the police if they asked that Gene had stopped to help me change a flat tire. Ten thousand dollars for one little lie.”

  My expression must have accused her of more because she said, “I didn’t kill Gordon! I didn’t even know for sure they were going to—” She couldn’t go on. She shook like she was freezing.

  “Would you have let Derek go to prison?” I asked, anger getting the better of me for a moment.

  “No! No, I . . . of course not. I’d have—it wouldn’t have come to that. They had no proof. He wouldn’t have been convicted.” Her teeth chattered.

  Most of my sympathy for her evaporated. Not that I was sympathetic toward murder, but I could see how she’d gotten to the point where she could convince herself that telling a lie for enough money to make her boys’ lives better was an acceptable moral trade-off. Letting an innocent man go to prison for the crime, though . . . there was no way she could justify that.

  I pulled out my phone and dialed Hart without taking my eyes off Bernie. “I’m at Elysium,” I said when he answered. “You need to come here. It’s important.”

  Something in my voice must have convinced him, because he didn’t ask any questions. “On my way,” he said.

  “Want a drink?” I asked Bernie when I hung up. “On the house.”

  “A Coke.”

  She waited while I put ice in a glass and filled it from the soda hose. Taking long, thirsty gulps as the glass clinked against her teeth, she said, “Don’t tell Billy, okay? I mean . . .” Realization dawned. “Oh my Gawd, what will happen to Billy and Chet? I won’t go to jail, will I? Not for telling a lie? Do I need a lawyer?”

  I couldn’t tell her what was likely to happen, but I advised her to get a lawyer and to call someone who could look after Billy and his little brother for a couple of days, at least.

  “I can’t call my ex. He’ll use this to take the boys away from me.” Panic filled her eyes as the full range of consequences opened like a bottomless pit in front of her. “My sister, maybe she can come.” She made a couple of frantic phone calls while we waited for Hart.

  I served the first three customers through the door, filling a pitcher with beer, chatting, and swiping the credit card on autopilot. They moved toward a table, laughing and joking, when Hart came through the door. His eyes asked a question. I cut my eyes toward Bernie, sobbing into her cell phone. His brows rose and I nodded in confirmation. When he reached the bar, I gave him the thirty-second version of what Bernie had told me, and then introduced him to her. He led her to a booth, where they talked. I kept an eye on them as I served a trickle of
customers, but they were too far away for me to hear anything and their profiles didn’t tell me much. After ten minutes, Hart approached me again, leaving Bernie slumped in the booth.

  “I’ve got to take her in,” he said in a low voice. “She says her sister is coming from Rifle to pick up her son. I can send a social worker if you don’t want to be responsible for him until then. It could be an hour.” He quirked a questioning eyebrow.

  “No, it’s okay. He can stay here. What do I tell him?” The thought panicked me. How do you tell an eleven-year-old his mom has been arrested for—what?—conspiracy to commit murder?

  “I’m going to give her five minutes with him,” he said. “She can tell him what she wants to. How did you get onto her?” he asked.

  “It was the cast.” I told him how I’d figured it out. I thought about how Maud or one of the others had said to look for connections people didn’t know about, like the ones between Poirot’s suspects, when trying to ID the murderer. Since our body-dragging experiment on Maud’s deck, I’d been thinking in terms of two people killing Gordon. I’d focused on Foster and Anita because they were so noisy about hating Gordon, but Angie and Gene Dreesen had much more powerful motives for wanting him dead: their daughter’s death at his hands (as they thought), the blow to Gene’s business, the lawsuits back and forth, even pent-up hatred and envy from Angie’s childhood.

  He shook his head, smiling in admiration and disbelief when I finished. “First time I’ve heard of a criminal being tripped up by orange tape,” he said. “I hope Derek appreciates you.”

  Thinking of Derek filled me with joy. “Can I tell him?”

  Hart hesitated but then said, “I don’t see why not. It might take a couple of days for the DA to formally drop the charges, but you can let him and his lawyer know that I’m arresting Ms. Kloster and will shortly be picking up Angie and Gene Dreesen for questioning. Even if they don’t confess, I’m sure we’ll be able to follow the money trail. That ten thousand and the clinic’s records will tie them to Ms. Kloster.”

  “And Gene’s car wasn’t in the parking lot,” I said.

  “What?”

  “The Friday it happened. I waited in the parking lot until you were done with Derek. By the time he came out, there were no cars there except police cars. I saw Gene go home with Angie in her Lexus, so where was his car if he came late after helping Bernie?”

  “A very good question,” Hart said. “I’ll be sure to ask him. We’re still on for tomorrow night, right?”

  “Most definitely.” Derek would be cleared by then, with any luck, and we’d really have something to celebrate. A smile took over my face.

  Hart patted the bar twice and returned to Bernie, leading her upstairs to talk to Billy. They returned less than ten minutes later, Bernie staring blindly ahead as he guided her down the stairs and out the door. He’d been discreet enough that I didn’t think any of the customers knew an arrest had taken place under their noses. I appreciated his consideration for Bernie and for the pub’s bottom line. Although—who knows?—an arrest might be a plus for business.

  I thought about calling Derek, but wanted to break the news in person. I was on tenterhooks until Bernie’s sister, easily identified by the spirals of sandy hair crowning her head, burst through the door, asking, “Where’s Billy?”

  I abandoned the bar for a few minutes to lead her upstairs to the pool area. When she had collected Billy and hustled the subdued boy downstairs, Kolby trailed me back to the bar, a suspicious frown tweaking his brows together.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. “First that cop drags Bernie out of here, and then that other woman—her sister?—hauls Billy away. What gives?”

  I bit my lip, wondering what I should tell him. I finally decided on the truth. Gordon was his father and he deserved to know. “Bernie might have had something to do with your dad’s death,” I said. “The police need to talk to her.”

  “Bernie killed my dad?” His mouth hung open.

  “No. She just knows something about it. She was . . . involved.”

  “Why didn’t she say something sooner? What—? Will she go to prison?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He looked dazed. He flipped his hair off his face, but it fell into his eyes again when he shook his head and said, “That poor kid.”

  I gave him a puzzled look.

  “Billy. He seems like a decent kid.”

  Kolby’s moment of humanity surprised me and made me feel more kindly to him. “It’ll be hard on all of them.”

  “Does Bernie know who killed him? Is that it? Who—? Aunt Angie!”

  It was my turn to be astonished. How had he guessed? Then I noticed he was staring over my shoulder, toward the door. I turned to see Angie Dreesen crossing the floor toward us.

  Chapter 27

  Gordon’s sister looked thinner and older than she had a mere week ago, a couple of breakouts marring her complexion, and muddy circles under her eyes. Her blond hair was the only bright note. She wore maroon scrubs and I guessed she’d come from the clinic. I knew immediately that Bernie must have called her. For a fleeting second, I thought she might be here to shut me up, keeping me from telling the police what I knew, and adrenaline zinged through me, but a second later the thought was gone.

  She didn’t look like a murderer prepared to kill again to cover her tracks. She looked utterly defeated. Broken. A woman who has done herself irreparable harm by abandoning her moral compass and doing something so heinous she’d never forgive herself. She stopped in front of us and no one said anything for a long moment.

  Finally, Angie licked dry lips and said, “I’m looking for Derek Johnson. Is he here?”

  “No,” I said.

  Her eyes met mine with what might have been her last ounce of resolve. “I’ve come to apologize to him. Bernie called me. I might not have the opportunity later to tell him how sorry I am.”

  “What do you have to be sorry for, Aunt Angie?” Kolby asked.

  She hesitated, clearly not wanting to tell her nephew she’d killed his father. I wondered when she’d realize she owed Kolby the biggest apology.

  “Kolby,” I said, “I need you to hold down the fort for half an hour or so. Your aunt and I need to find Derek.” I ducked under the bar. “My folks should be here soon.”

  “You mean I’m in charge?” he asked, clearly taken with the idea. “My dad never let me be in charge.”

  “You’re in charge,” I affirmed. I’d only be gone half an hour—he couldn’t do any damage in thirty minutes, could he?

  I escorted Angie from the bar and walked her to my van. It was probably stupid, to hop into a vehicle with a murderer, but I didn’t feel threatened at all. “Derek’s with his lawyer,” I told Angie. “We can find him there. I’ll call and let them know we’re coming.” While Angie got in on the passenger side, I dialed not Derek’s number, but Hart’s. He didn’t answer, but I left a message telling him Angie and I were headed to Courtney’s office. Disconnecting, I hopped into the driver’s seat and we rolled out of the parking lot.

  “The police are probably looking for me already,” Angie said. “And Gene. I should have called him. After Bernadette told me. But he might have made a run for it, and I couldn’t let him do that. We need to pay for what we did. I thought killing Gordon would make me feel better about Kinleigh, and it did, in the moment, but then . . .” She angled the vents to focus the air-conditioning on her face.

  We idled at a stoplight and I asked, “How did you—?”

  “It wasn’t so hard,” she said, understanding my question. “Not once we had Bernadette on board. We knew Gordon spent a lot of time on the roof, smoking, so we decided to do it there. We picked the night of the opening because there would be so many people there it would be hard to keep track of any one person’s movements, and because there would be lots of suspects. I dropped Gene off a few
blocks away early in the afternoon. He waited for his chance and snuck up to the roof and hid. He had the tire iron from his car with him, and an umbrella, because we could see it was going to rain.”

  The light turned green and I depressed the accelerator a bit too hard. We rocked back in our seats.

  “I got to the party as early as I could and kept an eye on Gordon. When I saw him heading for a smoke, I waited a few seconds and followed him. I told people I was going to the bathroom. He was at the wall, smoking, when I came onto the roof. I wasn’t trying to be quiet—I wanted him to know what was happening and why, that it was for Kinleigh.” Her voice shook. “It was for Kinleigh. When he saw me, he started saying things, things that didn’t even make sense, calling me names. He lurched toward me like he was going to hit me. That made it easier.

  “Gene hit him. The tire iron hitting his head made the ugliest sound. A wet cracking sound, like dropping a cantaloupe. You know, I’ve treated people with horrible injuries—from knives and guns, tractors, falls, car accidents—and I never thought of the sound a body makes when it’s assaulted.”

  I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to think of it now.

  “Gordon went down. Gene took his shoulders and I took his feet, and we got him up onto the wall and rolled him off. We didn’t know how professional the HPD was; we were hoping his death might be called an accident, or maybe suicide. When it wasn’t, when the police arrested your brother, that’s when it all began to unravel for me. I couldn’t live with the idea of putting an innocent man in prison. I’m not proud to say I killed Gordon, but he deserved it for what he did to Kinleigh. But your brother . . . he didn’t deserve what was happening to him.”

  I could feel her gaze on my profile as I drove. She said, “I like to think that even if Bernie hadn’t given us up, I’d have come forward if it looked like your brother was going to get convicted. I told Gene we had to tell if he went to trial.”