Rooms to Die For

by Jean Harrington

I could have been wrong, but I read his expression as disapproval. He handed me a receipt, and we arranged an installation date for the following day.

  “Painters will be working in my client’s house, but they’re not doing the ceilings, so your installer should have no problem,” I said, trying to tune out the low murmur of voices coming from the direction of the office. Then a muffled thump.

  What was that? Had something been knocked to the floor?

  “Fine. Our installer will be there at ten tomorrow,” Ted said. “With the lights.”

  I got the impression he wanted me to leave. Strange. I was a repeat customer who always paid my bills on time. Was he being a good employee and covering up? Either for Raúl or his wife, Claudia, or both? One thing for sure, he wasn’t quite as calm as when I first walked into the shop.

  Giving a mental shrug, I left, but on an impulse ducked into Ralph Lauren Homes next door. A chic young clerk in a Polo top and a black pencil skirt came right over. I asked for a book of paisley fabric samples and sat with it on my lap in a chair by the window, pretending to search for a selection. Actually I saw some lovely fabrics, but I was really after an eyeful of something else. A half hour and three sample books later—bingo!

  Exiting Breeze City in his signature double-breasted, boutonniered suit was Oliver Kent, owner, manager and driving force behind the Naples Design Mall. An intriguing guy in his late forties, he had the alpha male’s confidence in his own allure. So much confidence that his receding hairline probably didn’t even bother him. Or if it did, he wouldn’t let on. As I watched—well, spied—he paused at the entrance of the shop and ran both hands through his hair, smoothing it over the gray at his temples. Well, maybe his hairline did bother him. He adjusted his tie, snapped his French cuffs and strode along the walkway with his usual swagger.

  I leaned back in my seat and exhaled. Oliver hadn’t been in the front showroom of Breeze City when I placed my order with Ted, and no one had entered since I’d sat here in the Ralph Lauren window. That meant only one thing. Oliver had been in the office with Claudia Lopez. Nothing wrong with that. But what of the giggles, the laughter—the thump? Not sounds of a business transaction. And what of Ted’s growing unease?

  I placed the sample book on the coffee table and stood. The clerk who had been hovering approached, but I had to disappoint her. Though I did promise to return as soon as I had a project calling for a paisley print.

  I left the Lauren shop not sure of what my spying had accomplished. Distracted by my thoughts, I nearly bumped into Claudia Lopez as she hurried out of Breeze City, a Ferragamo bag slung casually over an arm.

  A member of an old Florida family, thirty-something Claudia was that rare person: a native Neapolitan. She had grown up with horses, yachts and membership in Naples’s most prestigious private clubs. Also she was gorgeous—with the blond, tanned and toned good looks every man admires and every woman envies.

  “Deva, how are you?” she gushed, smiling as if she didn’t have a worry in the world.

  “Claudia, what a surprise. You working today?”

  That threw her off guard for a moment. “Not exactly. I just had some...ah...office details to clean up.”

  “Nice to see you,” I said in that bland voice women use on one another when they really don’t know what to say.

  “You too.” Stunning in an aqua linen sheath, her hair rippling straight and shiny to her shoulders, she strolled beside me toward the elevator, her red Christian Louboutin heels clicking on the marble tiles, her Dior J’adore perfume wafting around us. The arrival bell dinged, and the steel elevator doors slid open. As we walked on, she flipped her hair over one shoulder. A mistake. On her neck in nuzzling position beneath her left ear, she sported a fresh hickey as red as the one I got the night of senior prom.

  Chapter Eleven

  At the bronze entrance portals I said goodbye to Phil the doorman, tossed my tote onto the Audi’s passenger seat and slid behind the wheel. As Claudia’s shiny black Jag zoomed out of the mall parking lot, I sat staring at the roadster’s rear end until it sped out of sight.

  Was Claudia having an affair with Oliver Kent? Not unless she had a bad marriage and wanted her husband gone from her life. And there was a very real possibility that might happen if he were charged with murder or deported to Colombia. Could be that was the reason Claudia appeared so carefree. She saw a way out of her marriage.

  It was inconceivable she didn’t know he’d been blackmailed and accused of murder. But maybe, just maybe, like her clerk Ted, she didn’t know. In addition to Rossi and me, only the police had been present when Beatriz made her startling accusation. But all she’d said was she knew who killed her husband. She hadn’t mentioned a killer’s name, or said a word about the blackmailing. Not until she was alone with Rossi, and later with me. I certainly hadn’t revealed Beatriz’s secrets to anyone, and from the untroubled behavior of Raúl’s wife and his employee, Rossi hadn’t either. Not yet anyway.

  I turned on the ignition and swung out of the lot onto the Tamiami. To my relief late morning traffic was light.

  Still, it was hard to believe that Raúl hadn’t told his wife the police questioned him about José’s death. What husband could conceal so much from his beloved other?

  I switched lanes without looking. The driver behind me leaned on his horn. I couldn’t blame him. What was the matter with me, anyway, taking a chance like that? I slowed down to a forty-five-mile-an-hour crawl and let him pass.

  Though painful to acknowledge, husbands did conceal the truth from people they loved. It happened all the time. Maybe for that very reason—love. My late husband Jack never told me I was the one, not he, who couldn’t have children. When I finally discovered the truth, it nearly killed me, but that was another story. The fact was he had concealed the truth. So if Jack, the soul of honesty, could be so deceptive, what of Raúl?

  None of your business, I reminded myself again. Besides, if for some reason Claudia didn’t understand the trouble her husband faced, as soon as forensics revealed José had been murdered, she would understand. Rossi would be all over the case, relentless as fire ants at a picnic.

  I glanced at my watch. Noon. I had a half hour to get to Gordon Drive in the Port Royal neighborhood. Plenty of time. Thank God I could depend on Lee to keep the shop open and handle drop-in traffic while I ran around town networking.

  A few days ago I’d been invited to design a room in a Showhouse at Sprague Mansion on palatial Gordon Drive. All participating designers were members of ASID, the American Society of Interior Designers, and I was thrilled to be included in this project with my peers. For sheer PR, nothing surpassed a Showhouse, where each designer was given carte blanche to transform a room into an expression of his or her personal vision. Some of Naples most prominent names would be taking part as well as—drumroll—Deva Dunne Interiors.

  The challenge had me eager to see my assigned room, so I could get the creative juices flowing. I’d be in good company and was determined to do my very best. Both for my business and for St. Martin’s Homeless Shelter, the cause the Showhouse was supporting.

  At twelve-twenty, I parked behind several other cars on the Sprague Mansion driveway. Old Florida Style gray board-and-batten siding covered the building’s exterior, and a tin roof extended over the front verandah. Unpretentious but spacious, the house faced the Gulf of Mexico in a paradise of oleander and hibiscus, its lawn shaded by mature palms and mahogany trees and perfumed by late-blooming gardenias. Now let’s see if I could create a room worthy of the lush setting. A room to die for.

  I mounted the broad front steps to a verandah embellished with stone planters filled with cascading ivy and spiky succulents. Through the front screen door I could see clear down the central hall to the screen door on the opposite end—the classic cross-ventilation layout of a house built before air conditioning became the Florida norm. No doubt
the windows in all the rooms faced each other to catch a breeze from any direction. Clever.

  Voices echoed from somewhere inside. I rang the bell. When nobody answered, I tried the doorknob. It swung wide, and I stepped into the hall. The rooms on both sides were empty of furnishings. In the first one on the left, drop cloths covered the wide plank floors, and the odor of fresh paint filled the air. The sparkling white ceiling had obviously just been given a beauty treatment.

  I strolled the main downstairs rooms, including the Florida room with its spectacular Gulf views—how I’d love to be assigned that space. Last I took a quick peek at the dated 1930s kitchen. What a disaster with its linoleum floor and obsolete appliances. I doubted the kitchen would be part of the tour. Bringing it up to twenty-first century standards could easily take $100,000 or more. Since each designer donated the cost of refurbishing a room, that meant a large, mainly nonrefundable outlay. Far too much for struggling Deva Dunne Interiors, that was for sure.

  My curiosity largely satisfied, I wandered back to the front hall. Voices floated down from the floor above.

  “Hello,” I called up the stairs. “Anybody home?”

  A woman with salt-and-pepper hair leaned over the mahogany railing. “Are you Deva Dunne by any chance?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Oh good. I’ve been expecting you. Do forgive me for not greeting you at the door. We got busy up here. Please join us,” she said, her patrician voice at odds with her plump Mrs. Santa look.

  I mounted the uncarpeted stairs. In the upper hall, the woman held out a diamond-studded hand. “Welcome to the Showhouse. Or what will be one when it’s finished,” she added with a tinkling laugh. “I’m Marian Stilwell, chair of the event. So happy to have you as one of our designers.”

  I murmured a thank-you, but before I could ask which room I’d been assigned, a man strode out of one of the empty bedrooms. Of medium height, he walked on the balls of his feet, giving each step the energy of a coiled spring. He flashed me a Latin lover’s smile and hurried forward, both hands outstretched, reaching for mine.

  “Deva! What a delightful surprise.”

  Raúl. “The surprise is all mine,” I replied, and boy did I mean it. Too stunned to say more, I just stood there, mouth agape, and stared at him. Like Claudia earlier, he looked carefree and untroubled. The man had been accused of murder, for Pete’s sake. Why hadn’t Rossi arrested him? Or at the very least brought him in for more questioning? What was going on anyway?

  Still holding my hands, Raúl turned to Marian and treated her to the same megawatt smile. “Deva is a client of mine and, may I say,” he paused to swivel his attention back to me, “my friend.”

  I cleared my throat at that one, but under the gaze of those Valentino eyes, I nodded. What harm to admit I’d been in and out of his shop dozens of times, made many purchases and, actually, had always found him to be a charming, capable businessman. With bedroom eyes.

  “Mr. Lopez is donating fans to our cause. Isn’t that wonderful?” Marian gushed.

  “Absolutely.”

  “In keeping with the house’s history, I had plain white retro in mind,” he said. “Unless a designer has a different request. What is your preference, Deva?” The second time in two days a sexy man asked me the same question—for entirely different reasons.

  I cleared my throat again. It was so dry I must be coming down with something. “I prefer the retro look myself, but I haven’t been given a room to redesign yet. I was hoping you could tell me that today, Marian, so I can get started on the project.”

  “Of course, my dear.” She hurried over to a folding card table piled high with loose papers and brochures. “Let me check, just to be certain.” She picked up a sheet of paper, and from a chain around her neck, raised a pair of readers to her nose. She ran a finger down a list of names. “Oh here you are,” she said, whipping off the glasses. “You’re assigned to the kitchen.”

  Chapter Twelve

  You’re assigned to the kitchen.

  Well, I’ll be damned. Assigned to the kitchen was I? Put through a meat grinder was more like it.

  After managing, barely, to squeak out a polite farewell to Marian, I stomped down the verandah stairs of the Sprague Mansion. All the way en route to the shop, I drove the Audi mad as hell, not even caring that I’d left Marian alone with an illegal who’d been accused of murder. Frustrated to the max, I heaved a sigh and told myself not to worry. If Rossi thought Raúl was a threat to public safety, he’d have locked him up, wouldn’t he?

  No, that wasn’t my problem. I’d been set up, that was my problem. I got the room no one else would touch. Not even the top businesses in town. A struggling one-woman operation, and I’d been given the kitchen. Some honor. A rundown, worn-out room that hadn’t had a thing cooked or cooled in it for the past thirty years. I grasped the wheel as if it were a killer’s throat.

  What I should do was bow out. Call Marian Stilwell in the morning and, using my best Boston voice, tell her I was terribly sorry, but business constraints, and my very, very demanding client list meant I simply couldn’t devote enough time to the Showhouse. And of course I wouldn’t want to tackle a project so important and not be able to do my very best. Blah. Blah. Blah.

  I screeched to a halt at a red light. When had that been installed? Ten minutes ago? Telling myself to relax, I loosened my grip on the wheel and blew out a breath. If I bowed out I knew, knew, I’d be hearing Nana Dunne’s voice echoing in my brain, telling me no woman in the family had ever been a quitter—to thumb my nose at the bastards who stuck me with an impossible job and make it possible. But how? How? I didn’t have the deep pockets to transform that dinosaur kitchen into a knockout.

  The light changed and traffic surged forward. To raise the most money it could for St. Martin’s Homeless Shelter, the Showhouse would open soon to take advantage of tourist season. St. Martin’s had a new building project in the planning stage, one that could care for twice as many people as its current facility, but it needed funding before construction could begin.

  If I walked away from that disaster of a kitchen, I’d be walking away from people in need. How could I do that and live with myself? Or with Nana’s voice? After all, I could hear her say, everybody deserved a home. I had to at least try. And I had to smile as I changed directions and headed for one of my favorite vendors, Kustom Kitchens, on Mercantile Way. Irish guilt was a powerful instrument.

  * * *

  A giant of a man, Tiny Forbes ran the oldest kitchen remodeling business in Naples, and one of the best. If anybody could help me, it would be Tiny. Six-six at least, with a girth so formidable he had trouble finding belts to fit and had given up on them years ago. Today he had on his usual white starched shirt, open at the throat, chinos—in God only knew what size—and a pair of red suspenders.

  His face split into a grin when he saw me. “Hey, favorite lady.”

  “Tiny, I need you,” I said.

  “Sorry, doll. I’d love it too but my wife would kill me if she found out.”

  “This is serious, Tiny. I’ve got a problem.” I parked my tote on his sales counter and sank onto a utility stool in front of it. “I’m one of the designers for the Sprague Mansion Showhouse.”

  “That’s a problem? I say good for you. Excellent exposure.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  Tiny snapped one of his suspender straps, something he did regularly. A nervous habit I think he’d picked up when he stopped smoking. Whatever the reason, I don’t know how his chest stood up to the strain.

  “Being chosen is an honor,” he insisted. “Designers come in here all the time who’d kill for a chance like that. Do you know how many people will see your name, get a glimpse of your style, want to—”

  I held up my hands, palms out. “I’ve been given the kitchen.”

  �
��Oh, God. In that old dungeon.” As the weight of what I’d said hit home, he slumped onto a stool behind the counter, the stress causing it to creak ominously. “So you’re here to talk business. I’m disappointed. I thought I was the draw.”

  “You are, darlin’. I need your advice. How much can I do with ten thousand...maybe fifteen tops? To be honest, I can’t even afford that much, and I know it’s only about ten percent of what’s called for, but rather than just give up, I thought I’d see what you think.” I waved an arm around his display room. He’d fitted it out with custom kitchen installations in various styles from ultra-sleek to Cape Cod quaint. Each one perfect right down to the carefully selected hardware. “How can I even come close to anything like these?”

  “Well, ten’s not going to buy a custom kitchen, that’s for sure.” Tiny’s eyes narrowed as he fumbled with the suspender straps. “You’ll have to fake it.”

  “Oh, no.” I groaned. “Not another fake.”

  “You got one going already?”

  “It’s a long story that I won’t get into. Just tell me what you mean.”

  “You want to share the limelight? Put my name on the credits along with yours?”

  “In exchange for your help? Of course.” Broad jokes aside, Tiny was a businessman and a darned good one. I respected him for that and for his lifetime of expertise.

  He lifted his bulk off the long-suffering stool. “Come on out back. I got something to show you.”

  He held the door open for me, and we stepped into his workroom, a combination warehouse and craft shop where a half dozen finish carpenters were busy working various projects. Sawdust drifted in the air, its sweet, woodsy odor mingling with glue and wood polish. A saw buzzed. Rather than shout over its din, Tiny crooked a finger, and I followed him to the rear of the workshop. He led me to a large rectangular object covered with a padded tarpaulin secured with webbed straps.

  Mercifully the saw that had all the charm of fingernails on a blackboard stopped shrieking. In the sudden quiet, Tiny, grinning like the Cheshire cat, asked, “Ready for this?”