The Readaholics and the Poirot Puzzle by Laura Disilverio Page A

bad as Ratchett,” I protested. “He didn’t kidnap and kill children.”
    â€œYou know what I mean.” She stood back so I could close the door.
    â€œHave a good rest of the weekend,” I said. “Thanks for worrying about Derek. Call me if you find out anything. Otherwise, I’ll see you at Kerry’s Monday night.”
    She agreed, and with a brief toot-toot of my horn, I drove off.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    With some reluctance, I reported to the police station to sign my statement. The Heaven Police Department building was red brick, separated from the street by the sidewalk, and one block off the downtown square between Mike’s Bikes and A World Apart, the new travel agency. Pink and purple petunias frothed from planters outside the building, getting leggy and tired-looking as summer raced toward fall. A skateboarder careeneddown the sidewalk, ignoring signs prohibiting the activity, and forced me to jump against the glass door that didn’t quite go with the building’s facade.
    Inside, it was cool and dry. The reception area consisted of a counter, molded plastic chairs, and what might have been the building’s original tile floor. I’d never been in here before this summer, but what with Ivy’s murder and now Gordon’s, I was spending more time here than some of the town’s repeat offenders, I was sure.
    â€œAmy-Faye Johnson. Detective Hart told me to expect you.”
    Mabel Appleman was in her seventies and had been the police dispatcher forever, starting back in the era of typewriters, carbon paper, and party lines, as she liked to remind people. She wore blue-framed glasses that perched halfway down her roman nose, and had tightly permed gray curls. Double-knit polyester was her fabric of choice, and today’s short-sleeved powder blue jacket had brassy buttons the size of fifty-cent coins. She occasionally came to Readaholics meetings when we were reading a police procedural.
    â€œI heard you’ve gotten mixed up in another murder,” she greeted me.
    â€œI wouldn’t say ‘mixed up,’” I protested.
    â€œWell, if you aren’t yet, you will be,” she said, digging through an in-box and retrieving a couple of pieces of paper stapled at the top. She thrust them at me. “Here. You’re supposed to sign this.” She pointed to the signature line and slid me a pen she pulled out of her tight curls.
    I took it, disappointed that I wasn’t going to see Hart. I started to read the statement.
    â€œWhat are the Readaholics reading now?” Mabel asked.
    â€œ
Murder on the Orient Express
.”
    â€œAh. That was the first Agatha Christie mystery I ever read. It seemed very clever to me then, the way Christie built up to the climax with Poirot interviewing the suspects one by one, and then gathering them together and revealing all.” Mabel spread her hands wide on the last word, as if performing a magician’s trick. “And the elegance of that train, oh my. Of course, it doesn’t work like that in real life.” She gestured to our surroundings. “Crooks don’t work together, and if they do, one of ’em rats the others out.” She eyed me sideways. “Heard anything from Doug Elvaston lately? I hear he’s sailing around the world. Any idea when he’ll be back?”
    I didn’t need her prying into my private life. Not that Doug and I had had anything to be private about since we broke up more than two years ago. I didn’t lift my gaze from the page I was reading. “Nope.”
    â€œI hear tell your brother could use a good lawyer,” Mabel said.
    That brought my head up. She blinked at me innocently from behind her lenses.
    â€œHave you heard something?” I whispered. “Are they going to arrest him?” I resisted the urge to add
He didn’t do it.
    â€œHow would I know that? Chief Uggams and Detective