The Readaholics and the Falcon Fiasco (17 page)

“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.

H
e 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 because 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.

My cell phone rang as I closed the door. Flavia Dunbarton, the reporter. I answered, trying to decide how much I was going to tell her. I didn’t completely trust her, but she had sources I didn’t, so maybe if I shared what I’d learned with her, she’d do the same. Tit for tat.

We exchanged hellos and I filled her in on what I’d learned from Clay and Doug.

“Just barely plausible,” she said of Clay’s reason for entering Ivy’s house. “If I were a betting gal, though, I’d guess he was really retrieving personal items he didn’t want anyone to find—a toothbrush, robe, or something more recognizable. He didn’t want the police finding his stuff at her house and wondering about the relationship. Or worse, showing up at his house—with his wifey listening in—to ask about it.”

Flavia was good. I was struck by the sneaky way her mind worked. “You could be right. Maybe you can figure this one out.” I told her about Ivy being Doug’s client and about their meeting. “He didn’t know she was dead,” I finished.

Flavia took a bit longer analyzing Doug’s presence. “You know what I think?” she finally asked.
“I think she could’ve been mixed up with the crime she wanted to tell me about, as an accessory of some kind, or maybe even a principal. She talked to the lawyer about getting immunity.”

I was shocked. “Ivy? No way. She wasn’t a criminal.”

Flavia’s silence dismissed my objection as clearly as a skeptical shrug would have. “You knew her. I didn’t. But it makes sense. Only rich people and criminals need lawyers. And Ivy was no billionaire.”

My mind was still chewing on what she’d said. “Maybe she wasn’t involved . . . maybe she was worried about telling you, about being sued for slander or libel or whatever it is, and wanted a legal opinion.”

“Oh, totally possible,” Flavia said. “Why didn’t I think of that? The
Gabbler
’s lawyers are always harping on fact checking and our exposure to possible lawsuits.”

“Have you found out anything?” I asked.

“I’ve been poking around, sounding out some of my sources, seeing what rumors might be out there. I’ve heard there’s a building inspector under investigation for taking bribes and that there’s some money unaccounted for in the county Republican Party’s coffers, but I can’t imagine how Ivy would have a lead on any of that.”

Her voice rose questioningly at the end, and I answered the implied question. “Me, either.”

She hung up, after saying she’d call in a day or two. Putting the puzzle out of my mind for the moment, I pulled out lengthy lists of tasks to tackle for three different events and headed for my favorite
caterer’s, made arrangements with a party-supply rental place for folding chairs, and coordinated with a Baptist minister on the way back into Heaven. The town’s new name and booming wedding industry had attracted a wide variety of clerics. When we were Walter’s Ford, the only places of worship in town were St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic and St. Luke’s Lutheran, where we’d gone since I was a girl. Now we had our pick of Baptist, Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian, Unitarian, Jewish, and Church of Christ services. I was pretty sure I knew every priest, rector, rabbi, and minister in town. I’d planned weddings with all of them and knew which ones would marry a couple on short notice and which demanded the opportunity to counsel the engaged couple before performing a ceremony. Sadly, there were a lot more of the former than the latter.

I
purposely arrived early for yoga Wednesday morning, wanting to be sure of getting a spot next to Fee Shumer. The room was large, floored with boards that needed refinishing. Mirrors lined the front wall, and mats and yoga blocks were neatly stacked against the back wall, which still showed grease smudges from where the previous renter, the bike repairer, had leaned bicycles against the wall. It smelled pleasingly of sandalwood from the candles Yael had burning on the windowsills. Fee was on the far side of the room from the door, but I determinedly wiggled my way through the assembled women, ignoring one who scooted her mat over to make room for mine. When I was within talking range of Fee, I gave her a bright “Good morning” and unrolled my turquoise mat. Fee nodded and turned her attention to Yael, the instructor. As we sat for some breathing exercises, I studied Fee covertly. Her blond hair was drawn back into a low ponytail, and a stretchy headband ensured no wispies escaped. She was makeup-less
but still managed to look dewy and beautiful, with a flawless complexion that showed no hint of sun damage or the dryness that afflicted so many of us in this arid climate. She looked ten years younger than the thirty-five or six she must have been. I considered asking her what products she used but then turned my attention to the asanas.

I quickly realized that starting a conversation about Fee’s presence at Ivy’s house while doing warrior poses was not going to work. I’d have to catch her as soon as we finished, I decided, putting my foot down to balance myself. Dang. Even a few days away from class had affected my flexibility and balance. I concentrated on not landing on my nose and managed to block Fee’s escape from the room by rolling up my mat in her direction when we finished. As with Doug, there was no graceful way to start this conversation. I took a deep breath, smiled brightly, and said, “Congratulations, Fee!”

She looked down her pointy nose at me as I bundled up my mat. “Come again?”

“The baby,” I said, nodding toward her midsection. “Congrats.”

The young woman beside us overheard me and squealed, doing a jazz hands kind of waggle. “You’re pregnant, Fee? I didn’t know! Oh, I’m so happy for you. When’s the baby due?” When she went to hug Fee, I got a whiff of marijuana. OJ and MJ to start the day. I suppressed a smile, thinking it was a vice, like cigarette smoking, that you couldn’t hide from anyone with a nose.

Fee looked daggers at me. “We haven’t told anyone yet.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said. “I heard—”

“From who?”

I didn’t want her mad at Brooke. Without thinking about it, I said, “Ivy.”

“Ivy? Ivy Donner?” Fee’s eyes narrowed, making her look strangely feline. “Ivy Donner told you I was pregnant? How the
hell
did she know?”

The other well-wisher backed away. Too bad I couldn’t do the same.

“I shouldn’t have mentioned it,” I said. “I didn’t know it was a secret.”

Fee slung her mat carrying case over her shoulder. Her boobs seemed bigger than usual. The pregnancy. “Ivy Donner was a—” She cut herself off so abruptly her teeth clicked together. “Never mind. I hardly knew her.”

“Really? Then what were you doing at her house the day after she died?”

She didn’t ask me how I knew. “Inviting her to the baby shower, of course.” She tossed the lie out with a sardonic smile, expecting me to recognize it as a lie. “I guess I shouldn’t be waiting on her RSVP now, hm?”

“So you didn’t know she was dead when you went to the house?” My hands trembled at her cavalier attitude toward Ivy’s death, and I clenched them into fists.

“It would be stupid to invite someone I knew was dead, wouldn’t it?” She leaned in close enough for me to smell the minty toothpaste on her breath and the vanilla of her body lotion. “Just like it would be stupid for someone to be poking her
nose into things that were flat-out none of her business.”

“Amy-Faye, we missed you.” Yael, sensitive to the friction between us, had glided over to defuse the tension. She put a calming hand on my arm. “You seemed a little stiff today. You should come to the Bikram class this afternoon, as well.”

Taking advantage of the interruption, Fee murmured good-bye to Yael and walked away. I watched her leave, answering Yael at random as I replayed Fee’s final words. They had sounded an awful lot like “Mind your own beeswax.” I tried to picture Fee loading a beehive into the back of her SUV and carting it to the park but couldn’t do it.

Trotting downstairs to my office two minutes later and planning to change there, I spied Detective Hart as I rounded the corner.

“Casual Wednesday?” he asked, taking in the pale green scoop-neck top layered over a royal blue workout bra and matching yoga capris, and my bare feet. His gaze was appreciative and I smiled.

“Yoga. What brings you here so early?”

I fitted the key in the lock and pushed open the door, inviting Hart inside. He stayed where he was. “I need you to come down to the station.”

“What?”

“We need your fingerprints.”

“What?” I said again, feeling like one of my dad’s stuck albums.

“For elimination purposes.”

I drew in a breath. “The tea. You found something in the Baggie.”

He didn’t confirm or deny my guess. “Change, and come over as soon as you can, okay?”

Somewhat relieved that he didn’t plan to escort me to the police station like a prisoner under guard, I nodded. “Okay. Can I stop for coffee on the way?”

“Sure. Bring me one, too. Black.”

With a smile that made me feel less like a suspect, Hart flipped a hand in farewell and left me alone.

*   *   *

The first thing I noticed when I pushed into the police station was the smell. Soggy fire. It brought back memories of camping out when I was a girl, dousing the campfire with water from whatever lake we’d pitched our tent next to. This fire had a chemical overtone to it, though, probably from the plastics and what have you that had burned, so my initial buzz of pleasant memory gave way to distaste.

“How can you stand being in here?” I asked Mabel when she greeted me from the counter.

“After a while, you just don’t smell it, hon,” she said. “A little Vicks under the nose works wonders, too, just like they use at murder scenes.”

Now that she mentioned it, I noticed a smear of goo under her nose.

“Thanks for coming in.” Hart spoke from the hallway leading to the offices. “This won’t take five minutes.”

He led me into a small room and produced a fingerprint card and a pad of what looked like red ink. “Where’s the black smudgy stuff they use on TV?” I asked.

“Hey, we’re cutting-edge here in Heaven,” he said. “Just let your hand relax in mine. Let me do everything.”

“Lie back and enjoy it?” I grinned.

His mouth quirked at the corner. “Why, Ms. Johnson. If I’m not mistaken, that was a double entendre. How am I supposed to take that?”

I hadn’t expected him to call me on it, and it knocked me off-balance. “As a joke? A snappy, if ill-timed quip from an English major who can’t help herself when it comes to wordplay? You should laugh.” I demonstrated: “Ha-ha.”

“Damn. Not what I was hoping for.”

The room suddenly felt very small. I didn’t have the nerve to ask what he was hoping for. Not yet.

He grasped my right hand in his and pressed my fingers onto the ink pad. His hand was half again as big as mine, his fingers an inch longer. I watched his hand, fascinated, as he rolled each of my fingers, one by one, over the space allotted to them on the card. Fine hairs sprinkled the back of a hand ridged with strong bones. His fingers were long and oddly graceful, ending with nails that were neatly clipped and filed, but not polished, thank goodness. It may be totally unfair of me, since I occasionally get my nails done and think other women’s painted nails are pretty, but polished nails on a man make me suspicious. I mean, a man who works for a living shouldn’t have time to sit in a nail salon while someone rubs lotion into his cuticles, and the thought of a man standing over his kitchen counter, a little bottle of clear
polish in hand, stroking the teeny brush across his thumbnail . . . well, let’s just say it doesn’t add up to the definition of “manly” for me.

I gave Hart my other hand, liking the way he gripped it firmly but gently. He stood to my left, his body warm and solid, a mere half inch from me. If I shifted a smidge, I’d be pressed against his side. I resisted the temptation.

“All done.” He handed me a towelette to wipe what turned out to be almost invisible ink off my fingers.

“So,” I said, before he could usher me out. “Tell me. There was oleander in that Baggie, along with the tea?”

He hesitated before giving a brief nod. “It raises questions. Ivy might still have killed herself, but it strikes me as a bit out of the ordinary for her to poison both the tea she kept at home and what looks like a mobile stash she kept with her. From where I stand, it looks like she filled the Baggie from her canister at home, not knowing it was poisoned. Why dose herself at your house? Unless,” he continued as if talking to himself, “it was really a cry for help, and she thought she’d be sick enough that you’d get help?”

“No.” I shook my head decisively. “If that were the case, she’d have made a bigger fuss out of feeling ill than she did. I told her she looked peaky and she shrugged it off, said her tummy was unsettled. If she was looking for attention, wouldn’t she have played it up more?”

Keeping a noncommittal expression on his face, Hart moved toward the door. “At any rate, it’s
enough of an anomaly that I’m going to investigate further.”

“Wait.” I put a hand on his arm. He looked down at me with a question in his eyes. “There’s something else you should know, if you really believe she was killed.”

I told him about Flavia Dunbarton. It took me a good ten minutes to go through it all, and we stood by the door the whole time. I hadn’t wanted to sic the police on Flavia, but if Hart was treating Ivy’s case like a murder investigation—finally!—then he needed to know everything that might conceivably help. And Flavia’s photos and her tale about Ivy coming to her with a big story definitely fell into that category. I wrapped up by telling him about my “interviews” with Clay, Doug, and Fee. “Doug didn’t know Ivy was dead, and I’m not sure about Fee,” I finished.

Hart’s jaw worked from side to side. “You should have told me all this when the reporter first approached you.”

His minatory tone rubbed me the wrong way. “She didn’t want the police involved. And you would have dismissed it, just like you’ve discounted everything that wasn’t evidence your lab could test, like the break-in and the fact that all of Ivy’s friends told you she wasn’t the suicidal type.” I glared at him. “Oh, and the other piece of testable evidence I gave you just ‘happened’ to get burned up.”

Hart frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re the detective—you figure it out.” I swept past him into the hall. I turned the wrong
way and found myself outside a room with a closed door that had a jagged hole the size of a beach ball eaten through it. Flame tracks scarred the wood, reaching up and out, and the smell of charred things was overpowering here. The evidence room. Through the hole, I glimpsed a mass of melted, icky black goo and ash mounded in unidentifiable heaps. I backed up a step, feeling a bit like I’d peered into someone’s grave.

Hart caught my arm. “You think this fire was deliberate? That I—or someone here—deliberately burned that ledger page?”

I shrugged his hand off and swept a lock of hair out of my eyes. “Do the math.” Seeing the troubled look on his face, I softened. “I don’t know. The timing seems”—I used Maud’s least favorite word—“coincidental.”

He didn’t comment. “I’ll need the reporter’s contact info.”

“I’m going to call her as soon as I leave here and give her a heads-up,” I warned him, heading back toward the waiting area.

“That’s fine.”

I wished we could go back to double entendres.

Chief Uggams stepped out of his office and greeted me. “I thought I heard your voice, Amy-Faye. What are you doing here again? If you keep showing up like this, I’ll have to put you on the payroll.” He chuckled. “Hey, tell your dad I’m planning to come for poker night tomorrow evening. I’m feelin’ lucky, so he and the boys better watch out.” Apparently sensing the tension
between me and Hart, he gave us a penetrating look. “What’s going on?”

“I’ll brief you, Chief,” Hart said, gesturing for me to go on. “Ms. Johnson came in for fingerprinting.”

“That’s right.” The chief looked at me from under heavy brows. His down-angled head made the pouches under his eyes pooch out even further. “Tell me again how you ended up with a Baggie of poisoned tea, young lady?”

I started to reply, but Hart stopped me. “I’m satisfied Ms. Johnson is not a suspect.”

Wow, warm fuzzy.

“Of course she’s not,” Uggams said testily. “Why, I’ve known Amy-Faye since she was a toddler and her dad since we were part of the 3A state champion football team, back in—hell, a long damn time ago. The Walter’s Ford Demons were a feared squad in those days, not like today where they couldn’t beat a decent middle school team. Amy-Faye’s got her faults, but killing people’s not one of them.”

Another ringing endorsement.
I lifted a hand in farewell and pushed through the door into Mabel’s domain.

As the door swung shut behind me, I heard Hart ask, “Have you got the report on the fire yet?”