The Readaholics and the Gothic Gala

by Laura Disilverio

  “We ordered lunch,” Maud said, “but we were waiting for you to discuss Allyson’s situation. Okay now, Merle, tell us what happened.”

  He started to answer but was interrupted by the arrival of a server I didn’t know. When she had left with my order for water, Merle cleared his throat and said, “The police found Allyson’s fingerprints in the manager’s office at the country club.”

  Ooh, not good. Off the top of my head, I couldn’t think of a single legitimate reason for Allyson to have been in Wallace’s office.

  “Where?” Maud asked.

  Merle licked droplets of beer off his mustache. “On a display case and on a golf trophy.”

  “Lucky the victim wasn’t clubbed to death with that,” Maud said.

  Small comfort. “What does Allyson say?” I asked. “Did she say why she was in there?”

  Rocking his heavy-bottomed mug back and forth so the beer sloshed, and watching the suds rise up one side of the glass and then the other, he said, “She said she got turned around on her way to the restroom. When she realized she was in the wrong place, she looked around out of curiosity. I understand the manager has some nice artwork in there. I’m sure no one can blame her for taking a look.” He sounded defensive. Not surprising.

  Maud and I carefully didn’t look at each other and there was an awkward moment of silence. I didn’t think either of us was buying Allyson’s story; I certainly wasn’t.

  The server appeared with my water, and slid bowls in front of Maud and Merle. Maud’s was tomato basil soup, and Merle had shepherd’s pie. I could tell by the lovely aroma of lamb rising in the steam. They each sampled their lunches, and then Maud directed a piercing look at her old friend.

  “Merle, you and I have known each other a long time, long enough for me to say, ‘Hogwash.’ That story won’t fly. If you don’t want your daughter locked up for killing Trent Van Allen, I think you’d better come clean with us. You clearly know more than you’re saying—it’s written all over your face. You never could tell a lie, my friend. Remember that rally for student rights at Berkeley, and what you said to the dean when he questioned you? Even a two-year-old would have seen through it.”

  “Dean Pugh certainly did,” Merle said with the ghost of a smile. He seemed to be recovering some of his color as he ate the shepherd’s pie. “I thought he was going to expel me. It was a near-run thing. That wasn’t as bad as the time when—”

  It seemed as if he was going to seize the opportunity to wander down Remember-When Lane, but Maud brought him ruthlessly back to the point at hand. “Allyson,” she said.

  His shoulders slumped and he drained the rest of the beer in his mug. “Allyson,” he finally said, his Adam’s apple working, “was probably in the manager’s office to steal something.”

  Maud and I goggled at him. He acknowledged our reaction with a small, rueful smile, and added, “My daughter is a kleptomaniac.”

  “That explains it,” Maud said, more to herself than to Merle.

  “Explains what?” he asked.

  “Her expulsions from school, her inability to hold a job. She steals and gets caught, then gets kicked out or fired, right?”

  An ugly maroon flush flooded his face. “How do you know that? Have you been digging into our lives, snooping on us?”

  Maud shifted as if the seat had suddenly grown too hard. “We did a little research, yes. We Googled everyone we thought might have a connection to Van Allen.”

  I knew her research had gone way beyond Googling, but I kept my mouth shut.

  “My God, Maud, how could you invade our privacy like that?” He set his hands against the table’s edge and pushed back as far as he could go, denting the upholstery of the booth’s back. He glared at his old flame. “What else did you find out? I used to admire your ‘research’ skills when we were in college, when you were using them to discredit the people and organizations responsible for strip-mining and DDT use and unlawful disposal of toxic waste, but I never thought you’d turn against me.”

  “I haven’t ‘turned against’ you, Merle,” she said crisply. “Far from it. I want to help Allyson, and unless you—or she—comes clean, that won’t be possible. What did your lawyer say about her case?”

  He took a couple of deep breaths, breathing out heavily through his nose. “Elvaston seems to know his stuff,” he said finally. “He’s sharp and he was kind to Allyson. Thank you for recommending him,” he added, looking at me. I nodded, and he went on. “He says the police don’t have enough to arrest Allyson, although they got a warrant for the clothes she was wearing that night. I don’t know if he believed her story about looking for the bathroom—probably not—and he suggested to me and Constance that we try to get her to remember a few more details about that night. I took that as his tactful way of saying he thought her story was so much bull hockey.” He scrubbed the back of his hand across his mouth.

  “Did she tell you anything more?” Maud asked more gently, eyeing her friend with concern.

  “Not a word. She won’t give me or Constance the time of day. She literally did not say a single word from the time she came out of the interview room until we got back to the Columbine. She went straight upstairs and locked herself in. That’s where Constance is now—trying to talk sense into her, although it’s damn hard to have to do it through a locked door in a public inn.” Looking around for the server, he raised his mug to signal for a refill.

  “You know,” I said, “it’s possible that Allyson might have seen something that would point to the real killer. What time did she say she was in the office?”

  “I don’t know,” Merle said. “Must have been before Van Allen got killed, though, because I don’t think she’d have stepped over his body to pilfer the place.” The bitterness of an oft-disappointed parent made his voice harsh. I’d had a high school friend who was an alcoholic, and Merle sounded just like his parents had after numerous cycles of drying out and relapsing, of AA and rehab and DUI arrests.

  Maud laid her hand over his where it rested on the table, and he didn’t pull away. “We’ll have to search her room,” he said, “so we can return whatever she’s stolen since we’ve been here. I thought she was getting better, that the new therapist was having a positive effect. . . .”

  When his second beer arrived, Derek’s highly popular Exorcise Your Demons IPA, he became downright loquacious, giving us chapter and verse on Allyson’s history of theft, therapy, expulsion, and treatments. I listened to “fluoxetine,” “trazodone,” and “sertraline” with half an ear, trying to figure out what Allyson’s presence in Wallace’s office the night of the murder might mean. For the moment, I was discounting the theory that she had murdered Van Allen. There was no hint of a connection between them, and I could see why she hadn’t owned up to being in the office if she had been there to steal. I assumed that if she’d witnessed the actual murder, she’d have come forward, but maybe she saw something else. Wasn’t it possible that she had seen someone headed toward the office when she was leaving it? Or overheard something?

  “We need to talk to Allyson,” Maud and I said in unison. I looked at her, startled, wondering if she’d been reading my mind.

  “Great minds think alike,” she said. “What do you think, Merle?”

  “You’re welcome to try.” He shrugged. He hefted his glass like he was going to take a swig, looked at the golden liquid left in it, and set it down. Pushing the mug away, he slid out of the booth, and threw two twenties onto the table. “No time like the present.”

  * * *

  We caravanned to the Columbine, arriving shortly after two thirty. I was conscious of the time, knowing I needed to be back at the Club no later than five to make sure preparations for tonight’s birthday event were proceeding smoothly. I trusted Wallace and his staff, but I wanted to run an eye over everything before the guests arrived. Trust, but verify. That could have been my motto. Mer
le drove around to the guest lot in the back and Maud and I parked on the street. We walked into the inn to find Merle and Constance arguing outside the small parlor where Sandy served cocktails.

  “—not making restitution this time,” Constance was saying in an angry whisper. “She’s an adult, and she simply must start taking responsibility for her actions.”

  “I agree,” Merle said.

  “You do?” Surprise rang in Constance’s voice. She recovered after a second, adding a waspish, “Well, it’s about time.” Spotting Maud and me, she said, “What do you want?”

  “They’re here to talk to Allyson,” Merle said, laying a hand on Constance’s arm when she moved as if to block the stairs. “Let them. It can’t hurt, and maybe it will help.”

  For a moment it looked like she would shake off her husband, but she tightened her lips and said, “Oh, go on, then. Second door on the left. The Alpenglow Room.”

  Maud and I climbed the wide stairs before Constance could change her mind and hesitated outside a door with a ceramic sign hanging by a ribbon. “Alpenglow” was painted on the sign, above a rendering of mountains topped with sunshine. The other doors along the hall, all closed, had similar signs with mountainy-sounding names: Peakview, Aspen Glade, Whistling Marmot. “What now?” I whispered.

  “We improvise,” Maud said. She threw back her shoulders and rapped on the door.

  When Allyson didn’t respond, I said, “Allyson, it’s Amy-Faye Johnson and Maud Bell. We know you didn’t have anything to do with what happened last Saturday, but you might be able to help us figure out who did. You don’t want the murderer getting away with it, do you?”

  “I don’t care.” The words were muffled by congestion, and I had a vision of Allyson in there crying.

  “Of course you do,” Maud said briskly. “You’re not the kind of girl who wants a murderer running around. Open up so we can chat. We won’t take long.”

  I thought I heard a click, like a door opening, but when I looked over my shoulder, all the doors were still closed. Someone who didn’t want to get in the middle of a disturbance, I suspected. If Constance had been up there trying to coax Allyson into opening up for the last hour, the guests were probably heartily sick of the drama.

  I turned back around to see that Allyson had opened the door. “You might as well come in,” she said. She spoke through a handful of tissues she was using to dry her eyes and streaming nose. Maud and I stepped into the dim room, and she closed the door again. The room was small, but beautifully appointed, with an antique bed and dresser, a rocking chair, and apricot-painted walls that evoked the alpenglow that painted the mountaintops just before sunrise. The four-poster bed was covered with a crocheted spread, considerably mussed, as if Allyson had flung herself onto the bed to cry her eyes out.

  “What did you mean about me helping to catch a murderer?” she asked, sniffing. Her mouse brown hair was rumpled, sticking up in the back, and her red-rimmed eyes reminded me of my fourth-grade class’s white rabbit, Bunnykins. She had Constance’s strong chin, though, and her mouth was set in a resolute line.

  “You were in the manager’s office Saturday night,” Maud said. “Did you see anyone, coming or going?”

  Allyson was shaking her head, limp hair flopping, before Maud finished asking the question. “The police already asked me that. I didn’t see anyone.”

  “What about sounds? Did you hear any voices?” I asked. “Or anything from the parking lot—a car’s engine, a door closing, anything?”

  She wrinkled her brow, trying to remember. “I wasn’t concentrating on noises from outside. I’ve been stealing for a long time now, it seems like my whole life”—she said it casually, as if it was a fact of existence like allergies or dandruff—“and I’m good at listening, but I listen for certain things. You know, footsteps, doors opening, sounds that mean someone might catch me. I tune out everything else. I’m sorry.”

  “What made you go in there in the first place?” I asked.

  She twisted her hands together. “It was the stress. I steal when I’m stressed. It’s like . . . like an outlet. When I’m with my mom for any length of time—well, you’ve seen her. She treats me like I’m twelve, not twenty-two, and she tells every group she talks to about how she’s had a bestseller every year except the year I was born. How do you think that makes me feel?” She sniffed hard. “She drives me crazy. Anyway, Saturday night, she was going on and on about how my costume wasn’t appropriate, how I should have come as a character from one of her stupid books, and I just . . . I just needed . . .” She stopped and dragged in a ragged breath. “There wasn’t anything in the public areas worth lifting, so I just kind of wandered. I came to that hall with all the trophies and the artwork, and I . . . browsed. The office door wasn’t locked, so I went in, just to see.”

  She stilled and her eyes fixed on a spot on the wall behind me. I could tell she wasn’t seeing us, that she was reliving her time in Wallace’s office. It was a little eerie, frankly.

  Her voice grew softer, more monotone. “I never know what I’m going to want in advance. Sometimes an object speaks to me. Like the crystal paperweight at the inn. I’d been in and out past it a couple of dozen times before I just needed to have it. I stood in the doorway a moment, making sure no one was coming. A man came out of the restroom and went toward the party. He didn’t see me.”

  I glanced at Maud with raised eyebrows, and she shrugged. The timing was wrong for the restroom visitor to be the killer. The man probably only needed to relieve himself of a couple of beers or martinis.

  “What did he look like?” I asked anyway.

  As if she’d forgotten we were in the room, Allyson started. “Oh! Uh, I’m not sure. I only saw his back. Tallish—maybe six feet? Short hair. Just a guy.”

  “So then what happened?” Maud prompted.

  Allyson blinked twice, slowly, and continued. “I went in—it was dim. The only light was from a desk lamp. Heavy furniture, kind of ugly. I wandered toward the desk. Computer, printer, iPod dock—not interested. I never want anything big or bulky. A trophy—shiny and gold. I picked it up. It was a golfer, a man—it had a plaque. It felt awkward, heavier at the base than at the top. I put it back. Framed photos—nothing special. They didn’t speak to me. There were display cases on the far wall. I went to them. Indian jewelry—turquoise and silver, beads. Pretty, delicate. A beaded bracelet that I couldn’t take my eyes off. Intricate designs in green and black and yellow, a silver clasp. I tried to open the glass lid, but it was locked. Damn. I started toward the desk to look for the key, but I wasn’t watching where I was going, and I bumped into a table. A stack of books came tumbling down—so loud!” For the first time since starting her recital, Allyson made eye contact with me, her eyes wide, her mouth slightly open. “Too loud. I was sure someone had heard. Someone would come. My mom would be so mad. I didn’t even bother to pick up the books. I ran out of there and down the hall and back to the party.” Her gaze went from me to Maud. “I told you I couldn’t help.”

  “Thanks, anyway,” Maud said. “If you think of anything else—”

  “I don’t want to steal, you know,” Allyson said, her fingers scratching at a spot on her neck below her right ear. “Like right now, I don’t want to steal. I don’t go around all day looking for things to lift. But then sometimes, I have to steal. This itchy feeling will come over me, sort of a cross between a tingle and hives, and I have to steal something. I just have to.”

  She didn’t say it as if she were trying to get us to understand. Something in her voice told me she’d given up on making anyone understand her compulsion. She was explaining, nothing more. I felt sad for her and for Constance and Merle. I felt like telling her to go for a hike, or to the gym, when she needed an outlet for stress, but I had to suppose a therapist or three had already tried to help her find more acceptable ways of relieving stress. I was no psychologist and I wondered
how common kleptomania was.

  “Sometimes I give stuff back,” she offered with a tremulous smile. “When I can remember where I got it, and if I can do it without getting caught.”

  I caught a glimpse of the bedside clock and realized I needed to beat feet if I was going to shower and change, and still get to the Club on time to set up for the birthday party. I signaled to Maud and we said our good-byes to Allyson. She stood in the middle of the floor, unmoving, as we left.

  “That is one mixed-up young woman,” Maud said in a low voice as we descended the stairs. “I’m going to read up on kleptomania.”

  Constance and Merle were hovering at the foot of the stairs, and Constance took one look at us and plunged up them without a word. Merle looked at Maud. “How’d it go?”

  “How long has it been going on?” Maud asked.

  “The stealing?” He tugged at beard hairs. “Since she was five. It started shortly after she entered kindergarten. She has a form of kleptomania called sporadic, where there are brief episodes of stealing interspersed with longer remission periods. Every time, we think she won’t go back to stealing, and every time, well, here we are again.”

  I thought about what Allyson had said about stress. I was grateful I turned to chocolate for stress relief, rather than theft or something equally destructive. I surreptitiously patted my derriere, for once not minding the extra padding. A few extra pounds were little enough to carry around compared with the weight of guilt and frustration Allyson and her whole family carried.

  “I can’t even imagine,” Maud said quietly as we crossed the hall to the front door.

  I knew she was talking about Allyson’s compulsion.

  “Nope, me neither.”