“A-Faye—”
“I think they’re good, don’t you?” My voice was brittle. I was mad at him for playing these games with me, and mad at myself for getting sucked in.
“Yes.” He clipped the word short, obviously not interested in discussing the band. The fluorescent lights gleamed off the wheat-colored streaks in his dark blond hair. His green eyes searched mine and I thought I read concern and confusion in them. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have— I didn’t mean— It started out as just a dance.”
“No, you shouldn’t have. We shouldn’t have.” Clarity broke over me, like a gallon of cold water dumped on my head. “I don’t think I’m the one to plan your wedding, Doug. I appreciate that you and Madison were trying to push some business my way, but I’m backing out. I’m sure Madison can take over from here, or your mom. I’ll pass along all my notes and details about the arrangements I’ve already made. No charge.”
“Don’t do this.”
Doug looked stricken, and I knew it was about more than having his wedding planner flake out a week before the big day. His face said he knew our friendship would never be the same.
The band started in on a soft version of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” and I shot them a dirty look.
“I have to.” I leaned forward and kissed the corner of his mouth. “I truly hope you and Madison will be very happy. I’m sure you will be.”
His hand came up to my shoulder—to draw me closer or push me away?—but I stepped back and it fell to his side. Without waiting to see his reaction, I fled from the basement.
“—now it’s gone, gone, gone, woh-oh, woh-oh,” the lead singer crooned behind me. Ass.
I made it to the parking lot before I noticed I wasn’t crying. I blinked my eyes a couple of times to be sure. Nope. Dry. I inhaled deeply and realized that although I was sad, my uppermost emotion was relief. I’d finally done the smart thing, the right thing, what I should have done the moment Madison told me she was marrying Doug. Pleased that I hadn’t mentally stuck a “my” in front of “Doug,” I got in the van and fiddled with the tuner. I didn’t need sappy country songs right now. Finding a station that played pop music, I drove away singing along with “What Does the Fox Say?” perhaps the most inane song produced this decade. It fit my mood perfectly.
Chapter 27
I considered calling Lola, or dropping in on my folks, but I really just wanted to be alone and wallow. So I bought some brownie mix at the City Market on my way home and whipped up a batch of chocolatey goodness while watching An Affair to Remember. The aroma of baking brownies was the perfect complement to Cary Grant’s suavity and banter. I ate a couple of warm brownies with a glass of cold milk and made it a double feature with Sleepless in Seattle. It wasn’t as masochistic as it sounds. I let myself get weepy, and it felt cathartic. Before going to bed, I ground the rest of the brownie batch in the garbage disposal and washed them away to keep from finishing them off for breakfast.
Friday morning I awoke feeling refreshed. A little sad, but basically okay. My eyes were puffy, but concealer and a darker eye shadow than usual covered that up. I went to yoga and was not surprised to find that Fee was absent. The hour of stretching made me feel limber and relaxed, and I was feeling good enough to tackle any task that came down the pike by the time I changed and started working. The first thing I did was forward all my notes and e-mails about the wedding to Doug and Madison. The stuff that wasn’t e-mailable I stuck in an envelope; I scribbled their names on it and popped it into the mail. When Al came in, I told him that we were no longer working the Taylor-Elvaston wedding.
“Thank God,” he said with an expressive eye roll.
“What?”
“I always thought your taking on that wedding was stupider than sticking your finger in a light socket,” he said, sitting at his desk and sifting through his files.
“You did? Why didn’t you say so?”
“Right. Like it would have done any good.”
Was this Al? My Al? The one who blurted every thought? “Who are you and what have you done with Al Frink?” I asked.
He gave me an affronted look. “It’s not like I say everything that comes to mind, you know. I do have some tact.”
Could have fooled me. I let it go. “Give me a rundown of your events for this weekend. Do you need my help with anything?”
When he told me he had everything under control, I found myself at loose ends. The wedding had been my big project, and now I had time on my hands. I spent half an hour sorting paper clips, changing printer cartridges, and deleting old e-mails, but then shoved back from my desk. Maybe my lack of occupation was a sign, a sign that I should get off my fanny and go talk to Troy Widefield Sr. The thought of Brooke’s reaction, if she heard, stopped me. I didn’t want to be precipitate. Yes, Fee had said Clay told Widefield that Ivy was going to out their gambling connection, but he surely wasn’t the only one.
I started thinking about the timing. I’d been assuming that Troy Jr. had told his dad about me having the ledger page, but I hadn’t told Brooke and Troy about it until after the bee incident. So either Senior hadn’t been involved in relocating the beehive and leaving the threatening message, or someone else had told him about the ledger page. I got out an unused notebook. I needed a timeline. It all had to revolve around the ledger page, because nothing else made sense. The ledger page could send people to prison; it was worth killing for, moving beehives for, threatening for.
I wrote:
Ivy calls Flavia, tells her she has a big story, criminal scandal, etc. (Tues before she dies)
Ivy calls Doug, tells him she needs a will because she realizes she might be in danger? (Wed before she dies)
Ivy copies ledger page (when?) and mails it to herself (to avoid being caught with it?)
Clay finds duplicate copy in machine, confronts Ivy (find out when from Fee)
Ivy tells Clay she’s going to give the page to a reporter; he warns a few clients (including Widefield)
Oleander put in Ivy’s tea stash (when?)
Ivy dies (Tuesday)
Doug, Fee, and Clay go to her house, seen by Flavia (Wed)
House is searched (late Tues/Wed/Thurs/early Fri)
Ledger page arrives at Ivy’s/I find (Fri)
I pondered that last item. Where had the ledger page been between when Ivy copied it and when the mail carrier delivered it to her house? Clearly, she hadn’t popped it into the nearest mailbox. I visualized the envelope in my mind. It hadn’t had a regular postage stamp stuck in the corner. It had been through one of those metering machines. I tried to put myself in Ivy’s place. I’m Ivy. I’ve decided to skewer my former lover by publicizing his illegal bookie biz. I contact a reporter. She tells me she needs proof. I know where Clay keeps his ledger, but I can’t get caught copying it. The weekend! I go to the office on Saturday or Sunday—Sunday would be better—to get the proof. I jimmy Clay’s bottom drawer—or maybe I know where he keeps the key—and copy a page from the ledger. I’m putting the ledger back when I hear a noise. Someone’s coming!
I paused in my reconstruction. Who would be there on a Sunday? A janitor? A security guard? Clay? No matter. I only have a second. My purse is in the other room. I pop the page into an envelope and scribble my name on it. Then I drop the envelope in an out-box, greet the janitor or security guard, and stroll casually out of city hall.
Hm. It could have happened that way. Then maybe the envelope sits in an out-box for a day or two before it gets down to city hall’s mailroom. Government efficiency being what it is, it’s another day before it gets sorted, weighed, fed through the metering machine, and handed over to the U.S. Postal Service. It goes to some sorting center—Grand Junction?—and comes back to Heaven, getting delivered on Friday. I tapped my pencil on the pad, pleased with my reconstruction. I called Fee.
When she answered I asked
her when Clay confronted Ivy about the copied ledger page. “Monday. The day before she died,” Fee said. She sounded more with it than she had yesterday. “Are you looking into it? Have you found out anything?”
“Just doing some thinking,” I said, and hung up before she could press me further.
I entered “Monday” onto my timeline and stared at it. It made sense. If Ivy copied the page on Sunday, Clay could have found it on Monday. She was taking a personal day, but he probably hotfooted it over to her place. If Clay and Ivy had it out at her house on Monday, that didn’t leave much time for him to decide to kill her, come up with the oleander plan, collect a few leaves and introduce them into her tea canister by Tuesday. Actually, by Monday evening, I realized, because Ivy had poisoned tea with her when she came to the Readaholics meeting. The more I considered the timing, the more I realized how unlikely it was that Clay had killed Ivy. Fee was right.
The phone rang twice, but Al picked it up. I went back to my timeline, but Al appeared in the doorway.
“Hamilton Donner on the phone. Says it’s about spreading ashes?” Al quirked an eyebrow at me.
“Oh.” I’d almost forgotten about promising to spread Ivy’s ashes with Ham. I picked up and greeted Ham.
“Hey, Amy-Faye, I was thinking about spreading Ivy’s ashes today on my lunch hour, in about forty-five minutes. Does that work for you?”
It seemed borderline disrespectful to squeeze it in over a lunch break, but I didn’t argue. I’d told him I’d go with him. I was happy to do this for Ivy. “Sure. Meet you at the tree house.”
I hung up slowly. His voice had triggered a disturbing thought. I read through my timeline again, focusing on the Wednesday before her death when Ivy contacted Doug about a will. I drew a box around the word “will.” Doug said she hadn’t left Ham a penny, and yet here he was, selling her house, making plans for spending her money, and all because she had died before she had the opportunity to sign the will. I licked my lips with a suddenly dry tongue. Could Ham have known? Had Ivy told him about the will, or had he seen it somehow? He had a chip the size of Mount Rushmore on his shoulder about his family not believing in him, not investing in his projects . . . How would he have reacted to discovering that his sister was leaving her money not to him, but to a bunch of animals and a college?
Had I gotten so caught up in the Clay scenario, with its codes and criminality, that I overlooked the statistically more likely possibility, that Ivy had been killed for her money? By Ham. The two circumstances were connected, of course; Ivy wouldn’t have made a will if she hadn’t been worried about the repercussions of exposing Clay. I brought myself up short. This was Ham I was thinking about. Kind of a jerk, sure, but one I’d actually gone on a date with, someone I’d known for fifteen years. Did I really think he was capable of slipping oleander into his sister’s tea canister? If she’d been whacked over the head or pushed off a convenient cliff, okay, maybe. But oleander? It didn’t seem very Ham-ish. On the other hand, I’d thought a couple of times over the past few days that we knew less than we thought about even close friends and family members . . .
I shook my head. All in all, Ham wasn’t a very likely candidate, despite the money, but I could take advantage of meeting him at the tree house to figure out if he’d known anything about the will. I felt a moment’s pause about being alone with him but felt too silly to call Hart or anyone to go along as a bodyguard. Then I remembered Brooke and Lola saying they wanted to be in on spreading Ivy’s ashes. Relieved to have a good reason to ask them to come, I called them, leaving a voice mail for Brooke and agreeing to stop by Bloomin’ Wonderful to pick up Lola on the way.
I flipped my steno pad closed and tucked it into my purse. Telling Al I was taking an early lunch, I left the office and drove to Bloomin’ Wonderful, where Lola supplied me with a bouquet of sprightly daisies to leave with Ivy’s ashes but said she couldn’t go after all.
“Wish I could come with you and pay my last respects,” she said, “but my delivery guy just called to say he’ll be here any minute now.” She looked distressed. “If he unloads quickly, I could get there before you’re done, maybe.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, putting a hand on her arm. “I’ll tell Ivy these are from both of us.”
Lola smiled sadly and waved as I drove off. I had to wait for a semi to make the turn into her driveway before I could get onto the main road. As a result, I was running a few minutes late when I got to Ivy’s old address and parked in front of the house with its virulent pink flamingos. I wondered if they glowed in the dark. Ham’s truck was already there, and he got out when I pulled up, holding a wooden urn in the crook of his arm. He wore jeans and a white shirt with his name over the pocket, and his hair was neatly slicked back with some gel.
“You said you’re on your lunch break—where are you working?” I greeted him.
“Delivering product for vending machines,” he said, leaning in to kiss my cheek.
I allowed it, given the occasion, and even refrained from wrinkling my nose at the odor of cigarettes that hung around him. I found myself thinking he ought to smell differently but couldn’t figure out why. My brain niggled at it as we turned and made our way toward the woods.
“Brooke said she wanted to come,” I said, hesitating at the tree line. “And Lola. We could wait for them.”
“I’ve got to get back,” Ham said impatiently. “My boss is a real whip cracker. Docks my pay if I’m thirty seconds late.” He plunged ahead.
Somewhat reluctantly, I followed him into the woods.
“Damn, I haven’t been here in ten years, I’ll bet,” Ham said. “Not since a couple years before my folks bought it in that car crash. We weren’t getting along too well that last year or so. No one in my family ever had any faith in me.” The weight of grievances long held dragged down the corners of his mouth.
I took his words to mean no one would give him money for his harebrained get-rich-quick schemes.
“I like those flamingos,” he added. “They add something to the old place. They’re cheery.”
We continued down the overgrown path in silence, only the crunch of leaves under our feet marking our progress. When we came within sight of the old tree house, Ham quickened his step. “Damn, it’s still here,” he said.
He walked beneath it, studying it from all angles. “We did a good job, Pop and me. Who’da thought it’d still be here after all this time? You know, A-Faye, working on this with my pop, it’s one of the best memories I have of him. We built it that summer we moved here. I was pissed about leaving Des Moines and all my friends, but my folks said Walter’s Ford would be a fresh start. When we bought this house, my pop promised we’d build a tree house together. I didn’t think we really would, but damn if he didn’t tell the truth, for once.” Ham placed a hand on a ladder rung, seeming to test it for solidity. “We did good.”
“It’s a great tree house, Ham. It’s too bad there aren’t any kids in the neighborhood to use it anymore. Ivy and I had good times up there.”
At the mention of Ivy’s name, Ham looked at the urn he carried. “Well, I suppose we should get it done. From up there?” He jerked his chin up.
“Sure. You first.” I did not want Ham Donner admiring my rear view all the way up the ladder.
“Hold this.” He thrust the urn into my hands. It was warm from being held against his chest, and I found that distasteful. I held it at arm’s length while he climbed, and then passed it up to him. When I reached the opening, he was looking in the cupboard like I had when I came here a couple days after Ivy died. The urn sat on the floor.
“Nothin’ in here,” he said, smacking the door closed with a backward flip of his hand. “My pals and I used to smoke the occasional doobie up here”—he mimed holding a toke to his lips with thumb and forefinger—“and I thought there might be a hit or two left. You and Ivy must have finished them off.”
“I don’t toke anymore, anyway,” Ham said. “Realized a couple years back that I needed a clear head if I was going to be a successful entrepreneur. A clear head and some dough. I just needed a little backing, a little cash, and now I’ve got it, so look out, world! Ham Donner is about to make a splash.” He threw his arms wide and almost kicked over the urn.
It hit me. I knew why I expected Ham to smell like marijuana and why his announcement that he’d given it up rang hollow: I’d seen a Baggie of marijuana on his bedside table when I met him at his room to talk about Ivy’s funeral. It’d been partially concealed by a lamp . . . The image came back to me, and I froze. A snack-sized Ziploc Baggie, half-full of what I’d immediately assumed was weed. What if . . . what if it was tea? Tea mixed with oleander? That would certainly explain why he didn’t smell like marijuana—he was telling the truth about having given it up. I struggled to keep my face expressionless as I realized that my earlier thoughts might not have been far off the mark. There was no proof he’d seen the will, though. Or was there? Doug had mentioned that the will specified what she wanted done with her remains . . .
I picked up the urn, turning it in my hands, and said, as casually as possible, “What made you think of spreading Ivy’s ashes from here, Ham? I mean, it’s perfect.”
There was silence. I looked up to find him staring at me, his piggy eyes narrowed and speculative. I realized I had grossly, grossly underestimated his intelligence, or at least his survival instincts. I knew if I asked Doug that he’d say Ivy had wanted her cremains spread from the tree house. I backed up a step involuntarily and immediately knew it was the exact wrong thing to do.
The Readaholics and the Falcon Fiasco Page 23