“In here,” Kerry called when I pushed open the door with a perfunctory knock.
I followed her voice to the larger of two living rooms, where I found her flat on her back in front of the brick fireplace. Old sheets covered the floor around her. She’d changed into jeans and a faded sweatshirt and had a smudge of soot on her cheek.
“Do you know what chimney sweeps charge?” she greeted me. On the words, she poked what looked like a giant-sized wire toilet brush up the chimney.
“Too much, I’m guessing.” Mary Poppins was the source of everything I knew about chimney sweeps, and I was pretty sure Colorado sweeps didn’t dance across rooftops.
“Got that right. If you were a bird, would you build a nest over an open flame where your eggs are more likely to end up hard-boiled than hatched? What’s wrong with a lovely fir tree for a nest, or a nice, secure spot under the porch eaves?”
It seemed to be a rhetorical question.
“We built a fire two nights ago with that cold snap and you wouldn’t believe the smoke. So tell me what Maud discovered. She decoded the ledger page, am I right?”
“Right. Is Roman home?” I didn’t want her seventeen-year-old son listening in.
“Upstairs. Plugged into his iPod, allegedly doing homework, more probably Skyping with his buddies while playing Xbox. Trust me, he’s not listening to us.”
While she worked the brush into the chimney, I told her about Clay running a bookie operation.
“On city time?” She sat upright, looking outraged. If the brush had been a sword and Clay had been present, she’d have run him through.
“Presumably. Anyway, Maud and I think Ivy knew about it, or found out about it, and went to the reporter with the story.”
Kerry chewed on that for a moment while a gentle rain of soot sifted from the hearth opening behind her. “Watch out for a woman scorned,” she finally said.
“That’s what Maud and I figured,” I agreed. “She wanted revenge when he dumped her.”
“You think he killed her?” She twisted and began to attack the chimney with a sharp upward plunging motion.
The wire brush against the bricks grated on my ears. I took a precautionary step back.
“It seems likely.” A thought occurred to me. “Do you know what made the police want to talk to Clay today? I haven’t told them about the ledger page yet.”
“Uh-uh.” Kerry’s voice echoed strangely as she peered into the chimney. “That dratted nest is hanging by a twig. I can just about—”
A sound like pebbles rolling down a hill presaged an explosion of soot. It puffed out of the hearth opening, coating the sheets and hanging in the air so thickly I couldn’t see Kerry. She coughed, and as the air cleared, I saw her, drenched in soot, her hair and brows thick with the stuff, her eyes the only spot of white in her blackened face.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Fine.” She coughed again and wiped a hand across her face. It didn’t help. She looked around at the room, at the film of black on the walls and furniture, and sighed. “You’re going to need a shower when you get home,” she said.
I looked down and saw that the soot clung to me as well, albeit much more lightly, like an even haze of dust. A finger swiped across my cheek came away black. At least I wasn’t wearing my white suit. “Me?” I said with a grin. “You’re going to need a fire hose to get that stuff off you.”
“At least I got it.” With her toe, she prodded a mass of twigs and leaves that lay on the hearth. “Roman!” she yelled at the top of her lungs, making me jump. “Come down here, and bring a bucket and a package of sponges.” Satisfied by the incomprehensible (to me) mutterings that answered her demand, she turned back to me. “So case closed? Clay killed Ivy?”
I frowned slightly. “I guess so. It just feels kind of . . . anticlimactic.”
“You wanted a confrontation with guns blazing and fisticuffs, à la Falcon?”
Her words stirred a memory. “Did you know Clay had a gun in his office?”
“No! The way our budget meetings go, I’m surprised he didn’t pull it out and shoot anyone. I’ve been tempted myself, on occasion.” Looking a bit self-conscious, as if worried her comment was too flip for the circumstances, she added, “I wonder why. Protection? If he’s big-time into the bookie biz, he might have received threats.”
“Or he used it to threaten people who didn’t make good on their debts. I wonder if he had a— What do they call them? Enforcer?”
“You know,” Kerry said, “the more I think about it, the more I’m sure Ivy must have known about his sideline all along. I mean, come on—she was his assistant; she answered his phone half the time. She had to have known something was going on besides city business.”
“I don’t know. He probably used a cell phone, something that couldn’t be traced to him. How likely is it that he’d give the office number to his gambling clientele?” If Kerry was right, though, did that mean that Kirsten, Clay’s new assistant, knew what was going on?
Clomping footsteps heralded the appearance of Roman, a big kid with a mop of black hair and a couple of acne spots. He stopped on the bottom tread and stared at us. “Shit, Mom, what happened? This is worse than that time I set the spray paint can on the stove, not realizing it was hot, and—”
“Don’t use that kind of language, and no, it’s not. Find the bucket—no, get the Shop-Vac first—and get started in here.”
When Roman had disappeared into the garage, I said, “You know, I think I’ll check with Detective Hart”—Kerry put on a knowing smile but I ignored her—“and see if he can tell me why they picked up Clay. They didn’t arrest him—maybe he’s ‘helping the police with their inquiries,’ or however they say it on cop shows.”
“Right. And the Publishers Clearing House guy is pulling up to my door right now.” Kerry shooed me out. “I need a shower—I’m starting to itch. Heaven knows what’s in this soot. Let me know if you find out anything.”
Chapter 23
I was halfway to my van, trying to figure out how to approach Hart with my questions, when my phone rang. The man himself, returning my earlier call. Serendipity. I smiled and answered.
“You said you have more information for me,” he said without any preamble. He sounded pressed for time and cop-ish.
“I’ll buy you a beer,” I said, hoping what I had to tell him would go down better with a little alcohol.
“I’m still working. I’d appreciate it if you’d come to the station.”
Uh-oh. That didn’t bode well. “Um, okay. Now?”
“Now would be good.” After a brief hesitation, he said in a lowered voice, “I’ll take a rain check on that brew.”
I told him I’d be there in half an hour—I needed a shower and soot-free clothes—and smiled as I hung up.
* * *
I fed the meter outside the police department and was walking toward the doors, head down to restore my wallet to my purse, when I bumped into someone exiting the station.
“Oh, sorry!” I said, looking up.
Clay Shumer shouldered past me without acknowledging my existence. His face was pale and set, his lips drawn into a thin line. I didn’t think he was being rude; I was pretty sure he didn’t even notice me. Fiona followed him out, her expression also set to “death mask.” She noticed me with a flick of her gaze in my direction, but she was so focused on her thoughts, or on Clay, that she couldn’t be bothered to say hello or even sneer at me. I was reaching for the station door when someone yelled, “Hey, Mr. Shumer! Over here.”
I spun in time to see a photographer from the Heaven Herald aim a camera at Clay and Fee.
“You can’t do that!” Fee screeched, lunging toward the photographer.
He sidestepped nimbly, taking photos nonstop, until Clay grabbed Fiona’s arm and stuffed her into their car. He hadn’t said a word since t
he photographer hailed him. Hunching and cupping his hand to obscure his face, he slid into the driver’s seat and peeled away from the curb. The photographer, who had approached to take photos through the car window, sprang aside with a curse. Sobered by the encounter, I stepped into the station. The smoky odor had dissipated somewhat after a day with all the windows open, and the place now smelled like a charcoal grill whose ashes hadn’t been emptied.
Mabel Appleman greeted me. Her perm looked a bit frizzy today, the gray curls poking up around the glasses she had tucked into them.
“Detective Hart’s expecting me,” I said. Lowering my voice, I added, “What’s up with them?” I nodded in the direction of the departed Shumers.
Mabel glanced over her shoulder to ensure that no one was listening. “Well, I really can’t talk to you about police business, but let’s just say there’s been big doings this afternoon. Big doings. I heard Detective Hart say you were right.” She gave me a congratulatory look.
“About?”
“About Ivy Donner being murdered. And I didn’t say this”—she laid a finger alongside her nose—“but you may have just bumped into the guilty party.”
“Thanks for coming, Amy-Faye.” Hart had come into the room without either of us noticing. He looked harried, his tie slightly askew, and a shade grim.
Mabel started guiltily and immediately turned her attention to a folder open on the counter.
“Happy to,” I babbled, hoping I hadn’t gotten Mabel in trouble by asking about the Shumers.
Hart led me back to his office, a small room with windows on two sides, and I looked around with interest. Paint, flooring, and furniture were all taxpayer-funded blah and utilitarian, but a full set of Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories were bookended by a plaster deerstalker cap and pipe, a set of golf clubs slouched in one corner, and a stuffed bulldog wearing a red jersey perched atop the printer.
“You went to the University of Georgia?” I asked.
“On a football scholarship,” he said. “Sit, and tell me what you’ve got this time.”
I sat, slightly chastened by his emphasis on “this time.” Silently, I pulled out the decoded ledger page and passed it to him. As his gaze swept over it, I said, “That’s from a copy of the page I gave you earlier. The one that got burned up. Accidentally.” Two could play that game, I thought. “Maud—Maud Bell—decoded it.”
As his brows rose ever higher, the whole story spilled out in a rush: Maud determining the cipher was a book code, my visit to Clay’s office, the list of books, Maud’s decoding efforts, and our conviction that Clay was running a gambling business and might have killed Ivy to keep her from spilling the beans. I finished, flushed, and looked at him for a reaction.
Putting both palms down on his desk and taking a deep breath through his nose, he studied me for a long minute. “Damn it, Amy-Faye,” he said finally, the words no less hurtful for being uttered in a low voice. “You are messing around with a potential murderer, putting yourself in the line of fire. I don’t want to see you end up like Ivy Donner! Is this everything you have that pertains to the case?” He slapped his hand on the page. “And I mean everything?”
I blinked away tears at his harsh tone. Then it occurred to me that he seemed angrier about the possibility of me being in danger than about my withholding evidence, and I regained my composure. “Yes. Everything. I’m sorry.”
“You should have given this to me immediately, and not run around like Miss Marple—”
“Can’t I be Stephanie Plum or Kinsey Millhone?” I asked. “Miss Marple is in her eigh—”
My attempt to lighten the atmosphere failed when he cut me off with “This isn’t fun and games. This is murder. Cop business. By all rights, I should arrest you for impeding an investigation.”
“I haven’t impeded,” I said, getting mad myself. “I’ve given you evidence you didn’t dig up on your own because you didn’t believe Ivy had been murdered. And if you want to know why I didn’t come running straight here with that”—I pointed to the page—“it’s because that’s only a partial list. We don’t know who else’s names are in Clay’s little black ledger.”
“So?”
I drew in a deep breath. “So, given that the original ledger page got destroyed, I can’t help but wonder if one or more of Heaven’s finest appear in that book.”
To his credit, he didn’t immediately discount the idea. Instead, he leaned back slightly and thought it through. “I’m honored that you trust me,” he said finally.
I was still pissed off enough to come back with “Yeah, well, you haven’t been here long enough to get in bed with the crooks.”
That got a small smile, like he knew that wasn’t the only reason I’d come to him. “Still, thank you for trusting me with this.”
“What will you do now?” I ventured to ask.
“Hell if I know.” He stared at the ledger page with distaste. “I’ll get a search warrant for Shumer’s home, office, and car to see if we can’t dig up the ledger itself. And I’ll hope like crazy that the judge who signs the warrant isn’t one of Shumer’s clients. Then I’ll get Shumer back in here to see if he knew Ivy had copied a page, and if so, what he did about it. It doesn’t look good for him.”
“Why did you bring him in today?”
“We got a photo in the mail.” Hart wrinkled his nose with distaste. “A grainy, long-distance shot of Shumer and Ivy. Kissing. And not the way you’d kiss a sibling or your best buddy.”
“Oh. Who was it from?”
“I’d like to know that myself. We got Shumer’s fingerprints, and an initial comparison shows his dabs all over Ivy’s place—including on the tea canister.”
“And the Baggie?”
He shook his head. “Nope—his prints aren’t on it. Which makes me think Ivy filled the Baggie from the canister, like we thought. So whoever poisoned her had access to that canister.”
The scenario he was painting made me feel sick to my stomach. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have someone you loved poison you, sneak into your home and slip a toxic substance into something you ate or drank. A bullet through the head would almost be more merciful. I wondered if Ivy had died thinking that Clay, the man she loved, had caused her agony. “That’s so sad,” I murmured.
He came around the desk and helped me to my feet, holding on to my hand for a moment. “Murder is almost always sad. Sometimes grotesque or perplexing or enraging, soul eating or tragic or all of the above, but always sad. Sad for the person who was killed, sadder for the ones who loved him or her, and even sad, lots of times, for the murderer. More murders than not are in the heat of passion when a boyfriend or spouse loses it. Their grief, when they realize what they’ve done, is genuine.”
“Do you think Ivy’s murderer is sad?” I asked, my hand tightening unconsciously around his.
“This was planned, premeditated, and executed with cold precision. I’d guess not. Only time will tell.” His hand returned my pressure and his eyes gazed into mine. For a moment, I thought he would pull me into his arms and kiss me. I caught my breath, but a sound from the hall reminded us where we were and he stepped back. Good thing. It was early days for kissing, even though for a moment I’d really, really wanted to. Reaction to the stress, to talking about murder, I decided, taking hold of the doorknob. A need to experience something life affirming. Total BS. He was hot and it’d been way too long since I’d kissed anyone. Feeling myself blush, I let myself out with a strangled “good-bye.”
I walked away too quickly to hear what he said in reply, but I thought I caught the words “rain check.”
Chapter 24
Thursday morning’s Heaven Herald had a large photo of Clay Shumer on the front page above the fold with a caption that said Heaven’s chief financial officer had been asked to assist the police with their investigation into the death of Ivy Donner, now catego
rized as a homicide. Fee was in the background, the tendons on her neck standing out in an unflattering way. I suspected neither of them would be happy with the article, which combined innuendo and vague quotes to make it sound like Clay was the main suspect in a homicide investigation. Which, of course, he was. A long, rambling quote from Ham Donner said he’d known all along that his sister wasn’t the type to kill herself and said he’d been pushing the police to pursue the investigation. I made a disgusted sound, folded the paper, and went to work. No yoga today. I didn’t know if Fee would show up for class, but I didn’t need another confrontation to start my day. I was already semidreading the day, what with the appointment to listen to bands with Doug and Madison scheduled for this afternoon.
Work today started at the Club. I needed to talk to the pro about setting up the tournament for Madison and Doug’s family and wedding guests. It never ceased to amaze me how often golf played a role in destination weddings. I guess it gave the men an alternative to mani-pedis and oohing and aahing over gifts. Women played, too, of course, but it was mostly men, in my experience. When I stepped into the pro shop, it was almost eight thirty, so the early morning golfers were well on their way around the championship course. A lone man was examining drivers set in racks beneath the plate-glass window that looked out to the ninth green and a row of golf carts. The pro shop carried the usual assortment of clubs, shoes, gloves, and golf apparel. I’d bought Doug cute club head covers here one Christmas when we were still dating. Looney Tunes characters: Bugs, Daffy, and Tweety Bird. I smiled sadly at the memory and headed toward Betty, who was giving someone a tee time over the phone.
Betty Bullock, the Club’s pro, was a short, no-nonsense woman in her sixties who had competed on the LPGA Tour for six or seven years. Her skin, baked by too many rounds in the sun, had the texture of a golf bag, and it creased when she saw me and grinned. “Amy-Faye! Here for another lesson?”
This was a joke. Doug had encouraged me to learn to golf when we were dating and I’d signed up for a series of five lessons. To say I had no aptitude for the game was to grossly understate the case. I’m sure gophers have moved into some of the divots I dug into the course—that’s how deep they were. And I’m pretty sure that by our third lesson, Betty was having to fortify herself with a shot of Cuervo Gold before meeting me on the driving range. I nodded with feigned eagerness.
The Readaholics and the Falcon Fiasco Page 20