The Readaholics and the Poirot Puzzle

by Laura Disilverio

  “I was getting a cup of tea at the Divine Herb”—she held up the imprinted cup as proof—“and thought I’d stop by to see if you had time to talk about your brother’s case.”

  “Sure. Come in.”

  She cast a curious look at the balloons and I explained about the birthday party we were responsible for this evening.

  “I guess you’ve got to be able to tackle anything, if you’re an event organizer,” she said, considering.

  “Pretty much. Livestock, feuding relatives, nudity, food fights, incontinence, fires, floods . . . I’ve dealt with it all.”

  “I can see what Derek means when he says you’re the most amazingly competent person he’s ever known.”

  “He said that? Derek? My brother?”

  Courtney laughed. “Cross my heart.”

  My second warm fuzzy of the day.

  I introduced her to Al, who looked smitten with her dark beauty, and led her into my office. “Nice,” she said, gazing at my table desk, whiteboard, window, lemon walls, and green chairs. “Refreshing. I have an office smaller than my pantry at home, with file folders piled to head height against one wall and my desk against the other with about eight inches to push my chair back. If I gain five pounds, I won’t be able to squeeze into my chair.”

  I laughed and invited her to sit in one of the grass green club chairs. I joined her, rather than sitting at my desk. Pulling a bulky accordion folder from her briefcase, she opened it and spread some papers on the table between us. “You know, Amy-Faye—may I call you Amy-Faye?”

  “Of course.”

  She smiled. “The police actually did your brother a favor by arresting him, I think.”

  My brows soared. “Really? How so?”

  “The lead detective, Detective Hart, has been very forthcoming with discovery, turning over documents and reports to the defense. That’s me and Derek.”

  I knew what discovery was from reading so many legal thrillers. What I gathered from those books was that the police and prosecution usually tried to delay turning over documents the law required them to provide to the defense, or inundate the defense with so much extraneous paper that the defense team had to waste thousands of billable hours sorting through coal to get at the diamond.

  “If he hadn’t arrested Derek, I wouldn’t have access yet to all this”—she waved a hand over the piles of paper—“that lets me know who the police have talked to, who had what alibis, what investigatory paths they wandered down, et cetera. If you have time, I thought we could go over some of it together, since you’ve also done a fair amount of investigating on Derek’s behalf.”

  “Sure.” I felt warmly toward Hart for playing fair with my brother’s case and turning over the documents. I was eager to dive into his reports and find out the sorts of things it took a badge to discover. Telling Al to handle anything that came up, and refilling my coffee cup, I kicked off my shoes and plunged in, sitting on the floor to have easier access to all the documents. Without hesitation, Courtney joined me, sitting cross-legged.

  I left the autopsy report to Courtney (since I’d already had access, via Maud, to a purloined copy) and started in on the witness statements. There were at least a couple of hundred, I figured, riffling through them—most of the grand opening attendees. I yanked the ones I was most interested in: all of Gordon’s relatives (Susan and Kolby Marsh, and Angie and Gene Dreesen), the WOSC contingent, and Foster. They were the ones I knew had a serious grudge against Gordon, or who benefited financially from his death. After a second’s thought, I pulled Derek’s statement, too.

  Courtney produced a couple of legal pads and I took one to draw a timeline on. I read through the witness reports with an eye for who had been where when. Motive is all well and good, but opportunity is equally if not more important. I must have picked that piece of wisdom up from a police procedural. I decided to tune into my inner J. P. Beaumont, Jance’s Seattle cop, as I read.

  No one admitted to being on the roof at any point in the evening. Surprise. Angie Dreesen and Kolby and Foster were at the pub by six o’clock for the preparty. The WOSCers arrived right at seven—I’d seen them myself. The two whose names I didn’t know turned out to be Sally Braverman from Fruita and Veronica Kuykendal from a Denver suburb. I put them all on my timeline. So far, so good. From there, everything got hazy. From what I could tell, no one could produce any witnesses who could account for every minute of their time during the party. People mingled, went to the bathroom or the bar, and generally behaved the way people do at a party that’s not a sit-down dinner. Shoot.

  Courtney finished with the autopsy report and helped herself to a couple of the witness interviews as I tackled Foster’s statement. It was unilluminating. His last name was Quinlan and he’d been at the pub since midday, prepping for the opening. His definition of “prepping” had been different from mine, I knew now. After the party started, people reported seeing glimpses of “a janitor” but mostly couldn’t nail down the times. A kitchen worker mentioned seeing him by the Dumpster shortly before seven o’clock. In and of itself, that didn’t mean much because he was probably hauling trash out to the Dumpsters on and off all day and evening, when he wasn’t blowing up microwaves. On the other hand, maybe he was checking on Gordon, assuring himself that he hadn’t survived the fall. Stapled to his statement was my statement about our encounter, the log of a call from his wife reporting him missing when he didn’t come home Sunday night after our talk in Elysium’s kitchen, and an officer’s write-up of finding him intoxicated in the Lost Alice Lake gazebo at noon on Monday. I made a note to talk to Foster’s wife.

  One or another of the WOSCers claimed to have been with Susan Marsh all evening. Except for a five – minute bathroom visit, she hadn’t left the corner table until the fire alarm sounded. No one had seen her during the evacuation, but that was after the ME’s time of death, so it probably didn’t matter.

  Courtney interrupted me. “I kind of liked Gene Dreesen for it; he and his wife, Gordon’s stepsister, Angie, went off the rails when their daughter died, saying Gordon was culpable, accusing him of driving the car when it crashed, and basically making out like he was responsible for everything from ISIS to Ebola. Additionally, Gene’s accounting firm used to have a lock on all of GTM’s business—thousands of billable hours a year—but Gordon yanked it all away after Gene and Angie filed a civil suit against him related to Kinleigh’s death. Left Gene with a bunch of egg on his face in front of his partners. But he’s got an alibi.” She waved the page. “He got to the pub around seven thirty, after the window the ME established for Gordon’s death. There’s a note here that says his alibi checked out: He left his office late and stopped to help a motorist with a flat tire. The police talked to the driver, who corroborates the times.” She set the page down with a disappointed look.

  “Angie’s time isn’t so closely accounted for,” I said, riffling through the pile until I found the right statement. “She was gone for twenty or thirty minutes soon after the party started; she said she was having ‘digestive system difficulties’—you suppose that means diarrhea?—and had been in the second-floor bathroom.”

  “Maybe she’s anorexic.” Courtney mimed putting a finger down her throat.

  “She’s tiny,” I agreed. “There’s no way she could have thrown Gordon from the roof by herself. How about if she had an accomplice who wasn’t her hubby?”

  Courtney scrunched her face doubtfully. “Like who?”

  I shrugged, not having a suspect in mind. I read farther down the form. “Anyway, she rejoined the party before her husband arrived—several witnesses, including my folks, corroborate that—and they left together. I saw them get into the car myself.”

  Courtney had been only half listening to my last remarks and now read from another document, rectangular reading glasses perched on the end of her elegant nose. “The police haven’t found the weapon, but they describe it a
s metal, approximately one half inch to one inch in diameter.”

  I circled my thumb and forefinger to what I thought was an inch and then shrank the circle to half an inch. “So, a golf club shaft,” I said, thinking of the clubs in Gordon’s office. Surely the police would have tested them.

  “Or a tire iron, or a cane.”

  “An umbrella? There were lots of them around Friday night.”

  Courtney considered, but then shook her head. “I wouldn’t think so. Too light, right? You could poke someone’s eye out, but I wouldn’t think you could knock someone unconscious with one.”

  “How about a mop handle!” I said.

  Courtney caught on immediately. “The janitor. Do you have his statement?”

  I passed it to her with a comment about how much Foster had hated Gordon. She read it with a speed I envied; Moby-Dick wouldn’t have been such a slog if I could have read that quickly. The skill had probably served her well in law school.

  “Hmm, he certainly bears further scrutiny. I’ll have my investigator look at him more closely—background, work history, financials.”

  We worked side by side for another hour, and my timeline still had more bare spots than a monk’s head when Al rapped on the door and brought in two bags from the Divine Herb. The room filled with the mouthwatering smells of pastrami and chicken. “Thought you might be hungry,” he said, his adoring eyes on Courtney.

  “You are so kind.” She took a bag with a smile and I thought he was going to melt into a puddle.

  “Ahem.” I cleared my throat and he all but tossed me the other bag without taking his eyes off Courtney. “Don’t you have class this afternoon?” I reminded him.

  He started. “Accounting. Oh, right. I’m going to be late. Nice to meet you, Miss Spainhower.” He bolted.

  “Any messages from this morning?” I called after him.

  “Nothing important.” The door slammed.

  Courtney was already back into the documents. She sat cross-legged on the floor, munching her sandwich while she read. Tucking a comma of dark hair behind her ear, she said, “I like the son for it.” She looked up. “He’s inheriting millions and Doretta, my investigator, says there was no love lost between them. Kolby’s classmates and friends all say he hated his dad for leaving him and his mom, talked about what he’d do with the money when it was his, and was generally a weaselly person, not above stealing from friends or cheating on tests. People at the college don’t seem to like him much.”

  I told Courtney about Kolby maybe accidentally-on-purpose running Gordon down when he was sixteen. While she mulled that over, I pulled his statement from my pile and scanned it quickly. He hadn’t mentioned marijuana to the police as his reason for being outside, or the girl he’d tried to tell me he’d been smoking dope with. I summarized what he’d said for Courtney. “He told me he went out to smoke a joint with some girl, but he told the police he was taking a trash bag out. Ha! Not likely. He barely did his own job and I can’t see him volunteering to help the kitchen staff.”

  Courtney got an alert expression, as though something I’d said had struck a chord. “Marijuana, marijuana,” she muttered, flipping through some papers still in her briefcase. “Here it is.”

  The page she showed me was a line drawing of the Elysium Brewing rooftop with dimensions annotated and little squares drawn to represent the shed, the planters, and the AC unit. Neat numbers freckled the page and corresponded with a list attached on the second page. Studying it, I realized it listed all the items found and marked at the scene by the crime scene technicians. Cigarette butts made up at least half the list.

  “Number twenty-two,” Courtney said, pointing.

  “‘Marijuana joint, half inch,’” I read. “Kolby! He was toking up on the roof. He could’ve gotten into it with his father, lost his temper, and pushed him off.”

  “We don’t know when he was up there,” Courtney pointed out. “He could have dropped that joint days or even weeks earlier. Judging by the number of cigarette butts, no one ever swept the roof. And even if he was in the habit of sneaking a joint on the roof now and then, it doesn’t rule out the possibility that he also liked to smoke behind the Dumpster on occasion.”

  I reluctantly conceded her point, but added, “I still think he was lying about why he was out there.”

  “Most people lie,” Courtney said cynically. “The trick is sorting out what they’re lying about and why. People might lie about their whereabouts at the time of the crime because they were having an affair, or doing a line of coke, or something else embarrassing or criminal, not because they were involved in the crime being investigated. It didn’t take me more than one case as an associate to realize that. I’ll bet you there’s a lie in every one of those statements. Except yours, of course,” she added politely.

  “And Derek’s!”

  She remained silent and studied the page in her hand.

  I studied her, hovering between anger and curiosity. “You think Derek lied to the police about something? What?”

  “I don’t know, but he was drunk and facing a tough situation when they interviewed him that night. It would be miraculous if there weren’t any . . . discrepancies.”

  “Discrepancies” sounded so much better than the L word. “Will you be able to get him off?” I asked.

  She gave me a straight look. “Probably. The scene was chaotic, lots of people had motive and opportunity, there are no witnesses—juries love witnesses, even though they’re notoriously unreliable—and the only physical evidence is Gordon’s blood on Derek’s shirt, and I’ve got a plan for handling that. On the downside, several people, including you, know he and Gordon were fighting about money and how to run the pub, and he gets that million-dollar insurance payout.”

  Big downsides. I eyed the striking lawyer curiously. It was none of my business, but I asked anyway. “Are you and Derek . . . ?”

  “Derek and I are lawyer and client,” Courtney said with an enigmatic smile. “Look, I’ve got a meeting in half an hour, so I’ve got to go.” She rose to her feet in one graceful movement and began to gather the documents together.

  After showing her out, I threaded my way through the balloons and worked hard on upcoming events until five o’clock.

  Chapter 19

  This being Thursday, I headed for movie night with the Readaholics. When the book we were reading had been made into a movie, we usually watched it together after we discussed the book. Movie nights were usually at Maud’s or Brooke’s, because they had the nicest TV-viewing setups. Brooke, of course, had a full-up home theater with stadium seating and a projection screen. Maud had a big-screen TV in her living room, which had ample seating. You had to take a sweater, though, because her house was always chilly. Lola didn’t even own a TV and Roman and his buddies usually took over Kerry’s television for their Xbox games.

  Driving to Maud’s, I thought through the case, wishing I’d had time to read more of the documents Hart had turned over to Courtney. The thought made me think of him, and as I pulled into Maud’s driveway, I dialed his number.

  “Thank you,” I said when he answered.

  “For what?”

  “Arresting Derek.”

  He choked on a laugh. “I never thought I’d hear you say that.”

  “I never thought I’d say it,” I admitted, “but Courtney Spainhower explained about discovery and mentioned that the HPD was really cooperative about turning over documents and reports, and whether you thought that through before you arrested Derek, or you’re just being decent, I appreciate it.”

  “If it comes to trial, I’ll have to testify,” Hart warned me.

  “It won’t come to trial,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “And if it does, Courtney will tear you apart on the stand, shred your testimony, and make you wish you’d decided to open a bakery instead of become a cop.” I let a little humor c
reep into my voice to show that I was kidding . . . sort of.

  “She can try.” Hart’s tone said he didn’t think she’d succeed. “It’s not exactly my first go-round as the lead investigator in a homicide, you know, and I rather suspect it is Ms. Spainhower’s first appearance as lead counsel on a murder-one case. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to trial.”

  “Amen.” I realized that a trial would almost certainly end my just-beginning relationship with Hart. Whether or not Derek got convicted, I was sure I wouldn’t be able to get the images of Hart testifying against him out of my mind. I could tell myself until the cows came home that he was only doing his job, but Derek was my brother. The thought crushed me and I struggled for something to say. Kerry’s Outback pulled up to the curb and she got out. “I’ve got to go,” I said.

  “Thanks for calling,” Hart said, his rising inflection asking if we were okay.

  “Sure,” I said, not feeling sure about anything.

  “Any chance of seeing you Friday night?”

  “I’ve got a bachelorette party.”

  “Wow, that was sudden. Who’s the lucky guy?”

  I laughed, feeling lighter again. “No one you know—he’s from Oklahoma. The bride is a sorority sister of Brooke’s. It’s a hen party, of course, but I could maybe sneak you in if you want to wear a cop uniform and take it off while singing ‘I’m Too Sexy for My Shirt.’”

  Hart made a gagging sound, and I rang off, still laughing, and got out of the van to greet Kerry.

  Inside, the happy aroma of popcorn pulled us into Maud’s living room, where she, Lola, and Brooke had already staked out positions on the charcoal gray sectional sofa. I sat on the floor with my back against the sofa, between Lola and Brooke, because I didn’t like the couch’s too-squashy cushions. The opening credits for the movie were frozen on the huge television screen.

  “We’re having sidecars tonight, in honor of the Orient Express,” Maud said, waving to a tray with martini glasses filled with a golden yellow drink. “They’re a classic ’thirties cocktail with cognac, Cointreau, and lemon juice. I never thought I’d find a way to use the Cointreau someone gave Joe for his birthday two or three years ago, but this fits the bill nicely.” She held a glass up to the light. “I remember my mom drinking them, with a precious little spiral of lemon rind. I’m not the garnish type, so you’ll have to make do.” She urged us toward the tray. “It would be more authentic if we had a steward to bring them to us, but I’m afraid we’ll have to settle for self-service.”