by Leslie Caine
chapter 9
Remembering Taylor’s funeral was in a mere two hours, my mood was decidedly low when I returned to the office. Sullivan was there, hard at work at his desk. Unexpectedly, I suddenly found myself wishing he and I were better friends. In the past three years, my adoptive mother had died, my biological father had died, and now so had my half brother. I was starting to feel like the last remaining duck at a shooting gallery. I would have loved to find reassurance and comfort in Sullivan’s arms, I thought as I hung up my coat.
“How come you didn’t tell me about your speech at the city council meeting last night?” Sullivan snarled at me in lieu of a greeting. He didn’t even look up.
That statement was about as far from what I needed to hear from him at that moment as imaginable. Then again, “Drop dead” would have been worse—a realization that cheered me somewhat.
I’d been in no hurry to bring up the subject of the council board meeting. Pate was the second man I’d considered an archrival, yet found myself strongly attracted to nevertheless. Sullivan had been the first. No doubt a good psychotherapist would have a field day with that. It probably had something to do with my father deserting my mother—my adoptive mother, that is—and me. But if so, I detested discovering that my behavior was predictable.
“Erin?” His hazel eyes challenged mine.
“I should have mentioned it. Sorry. Though it wasn’t exactly a speech. Just thirty seconds of my opinions.”
Sullivan scowled at me.
“Did they cover the council meeting in today’s paper?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I dropped my subscription and haven’t read it. Got my info over the phone in this case. Pate’s on the warpath.”
“Uh-oh.” I sat down. We’d arranged our desks in an L-shape with our backs to adjacent walls. Pate was likely going to figuratively put our backs to the wall, now that I’d publicly blasted his BaseMart empire. “He kind of warned me last night that he wasn’t thrilled. Did he call during lunch, wanting to curse me out, or something?”
He nodded. “About twenty minutes ago. Though he wasn’t cursing. Just said that you wasted your breath last night.”
“He’s probably right. All that happened is the city council voted to recommend to the county officials that they deny BaseMart’s building permits. That’s really the extent of the city’s power over the county.”
“Well, Pate claims he’s got enough influence with government officials to get the go-ahead to build.”
“Let’s hope he’s bluffing.”
“No kidding.” Sullivan’s eyes flashed with anger. “Pate claims that the most the city officials can do to him is force him to put the entrance to BaseMart on the opposite side of that huge land parcel he owns behind his house. Which will tick off the homeowners in both Creekside Estates and Wellshire Manors. And he says that the word’s already out among those homeowners that it was partly your fault that he had to redesign the access to his store.”
My heart sank. Sullivan had just named two of the ritziest neighborhoods in all of Crestview County, which also meant they were two of the most lucrative locales for interior design jobs. He continued, “He’s threatening to begin a door-to-door campaign, letting everyone in Wellshire and Creekside know that he’ll surround BaseMart with tree-filled parks to hide their view of the store. But only—”
I groaned and held up a hand. “Don’t tell me. But only if he can put the main entrance—and the BaseMart Auto Repair Shop—on Shannon’s property.”
“Correct. Give that little lady a cigar.”
I sighed. “We can always spin it that I was merely being loyal to my client’s needs by speaking up to prevent her home from getting flattened. Surely the homeowners in Wellshire and Creekside will appreciate my dedication to our clients?”
“On an intellectual level, sure. But when they’re dealing with traffic noise and lowered property values, they—”
Rebecca Berringer barged through the door. She smiled sweetly at Sullivan. “Good afternoon, Steve. I’m afraid I have something personal to discuss with your business partner.” She indicated me with a flick of her wrist, but her blue eyes remained fixed on him.
“No problem,” he replied graciously. “I was just about to head out for a latte, anyway. Can I get you ladies anything?”
“No, thanks,” we replied simultaneously. “But you don’t have to be the one to leave, Steve,” I said, rising. “I’ll just step outside with Rebecca for a minute.”
“That’s okay. I’ll be right back. Call my cell if you change your mind about wanting something.”
“Thanks so much,” Rebecca cooed to him, stroking his arm as he walked past her. Gag me! Rebecca was beautiful, and she knew it. She was making my client’s life miserable, my beloved landlady miserable, and I didn’t want her within fifty yards of my business partner!
She watched him leave, then leveled a glare at me the instant the door shut behind him. “I just had an upsetting conversation with two police officers, thanks to you.”
Uh-oh. The photographs. “What about?”
“They told me that ‘an anonymous source’ gave them some suggestive pictures that they’re certain were taken by Taylor Duncan.”
“I don’t follow.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t play games with me, Erin. You know full well what I’m talking about. Yes, I was having an affair with Michael Young, but I ended it weeks ago. It was a dead-end relationship. Michael will never leave Shannon. Besides which, I told him the truth…that I’ve fallen for somebody else.”
“That really isn’t any of my business.” Although she was lying. “Weeks” ago, Taylor had still been in jail, unable to photograph their tryst with his Polaroid.
“No, it isn’t your business,” she said sharply. “Which is exactly my point. It wasn’t hard to figure out who the ‘anonymous source’ was who gave pictures to the police that Taylor shot of me and Michael. Considering Taylor was your brother.”
“We all have a civic duty to give any possible evidence from a crime to the police—”
“Oh, please, Erin,” she cut in. “Civic duty was hardly your motive.”
“Of course it was! I want the police to arrest whoever killed my brother!”
“My private affair, which, again, had already ended, has nothing to do with your stupid brother accidentally or intentionally shooting a nail into his skull.”
“Taylor did no such thing. But he might have tried to blackmail you or Michael with those pictures. And that could have been a motive for killing him.”
“Give me a break! In this day and age? Blackmailing a two-bit chef for having an affair with a single woman? No way! But you go right ahead, Erin. Tell yourself you were just being a good citizen. I, for one, am very aware how badly you want to get me out of the picture.”
“What are you talking about?”
She gave a haughty toss of her head. “I’m your biggest rival for Steve Sullivan’s heart. You want him all for yourself.”
I felt a pang that I hoped wasn’t a stab of recognition at being so bluntly confronted with what I feared was the truth. “Sullivan can make his own decisions about his personal life,” I fired back. “But I’m not about to sit back and watch you fawn all over him, while you’re fooling around with my client’s husband. Sullivan’s a friend. He deserves better than you.”
She looked angry enough to hit me. I half wanted her to, so I could hit her back. “Erin, I’d focus first on my own behavior, if I were you.”
“I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of.”
“Oh, no? A police officer told me he saw you blatantly flirting with my client after the fire yesterday! Pate’s a married man, too, you know. He and his wife have separated, but they’re not divorced.”
“That police officer was spouting nonsense…probably to get you rattled enough to say something incriminating! I haven’t been flirting with Pate. And we certainly haven’t been having an affair. We’ve barely exchanged two se
ntences. And those weren’t even friendly, let alone flirtatious.”
“Bull!” she snorted. “Get with the program, Erin! Just who do you think you’re dealing with here? You can’t treat me like this, you know!” She wagged a finger in my face. “I wield a lot more power than you do in this town. Guess who is now in charge of Crestview’s branch of the I.D.A.?”
I.D.A. stood for Interior Designers Association. “Oooo,” I said in mock fright. “Heaven save me from Crestview’s designers. They’re almost as powerful as the N.R.A.”
“When things get ugly, Erin, just remember: You started this. You turned those embarrassing photos into the police. If you’d had any decency, you’d have given them to me.”
“The photos were evidence! In a murder!”
“The only thing those pictures revealed was that your brother was a peeping Tom. Before I’m through with you you’re going to find yourself struggling to get jobs designing outhouses!” She whirled and headed for the door, but then stopped. Slowly, she turned and grinned at me while reaching into her coat pocket. She snatched up her cell phone and dialed. With infuriating casualness, she leaned back against the wall.
After a moment, she straightened and cooed into her phone, “Hi, Steve? It’s Rebecca. I’ve changed my mind about having you get me a latte. In fact, I have something important to talk to you about. I’ll be right there.” She cast a triumphant smile over her shoulder at me as she trotted out the door.
The phone rang an instant later, and I was so distracted I growled “Gilbert and Sullivan” by mistake.
“Erin? It’s Shannon,” our client sobbed. “I’ve got to talk to you. Now!”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Pate. He’s running a smear campaign against us! He’s talking to all my neighbors! And all this pounding on my roof is killing me! It sounds like they’re dropping pianos up there, every few seconds!”
He was already lobbying his neighbors against us?! “Why don’t you go back to your hotel and try to—”
“I can’t! Somebody has to keep an eye on my artwork! And it sure as hell isn’t going to be Michael!”
“Fine. I’ll…be right there.”
I weighed calling Sullivan, but figured he had his hands full with Rebecca Berringer at the moment. (I could only hope not literally.) So I tore out of the office, leaving it unlocked, and raced to Shannon’s house.
The gist of Shannon’s lamentations was exactly as Sullivan had forewarned. Pate was taking his case to the homeowners on the opposite side of the enormous land parcel he’d purchased for BaseMart. Those neighborhoods would be adversely affected by BaseMart if Shannon’s property remained unscathed. Yet, there also was some conflicting information floating around. As best we could gather, Pate was now pitching an either-or ultimatum: He was threatening to develop either a BaseMart—which he’d surround with mature landscaping—or high-density housing, meaning condos or apartment complexes, with no parklike buffer zones.
Shannon was in a frenzy, saying we should “just give up and burn my house to the ground! Let the bad guy win!”
Nothing I did or said could calm her. Finally I vowed to discuss the matter with Pate and headed alone across the street. As I made the short journey, I bypassed my usual confidence-and-optimism mantra and repeated to myself: He’s not all that handsome….
By the time I rang his doorbell, I’d convinced myself that he was a conniving, heartless, money-grubbing S.O.B. The door opened. My jaw dropped. It wasn’t Pate. It was Tracy Osgood—the woman Audrey and Shannon had trusted to manage the finances for the No Big Boxes campaign.
“Tracy?” I said, stunned.
“Hi, Erin.” She came outside and shut the door behind her. She was wearing a snug-fitting angora sweater and black slacks tucked into her knee-high black cowboy boots embossed with silver lassoes. “This is really unfortunate timing. I’m hardly ever here. This is only the third or fourth time I’ve been inside this house in my entire life.”
“And yet you’re here now, because…? Oh, my God. Are you Pate’s wife?”
Even beneath all that makeup, her cheeks grew rosier. “We’re legally separated…and our divorce will be finalized very soon.”
“Is he here now?”
“Pate’s on the phone?” She seemed to be flustered; her Texas accent was ratcheted up a notch, and she’d turned her statement into a question. She glanced over her shoulder at the closed door. “He’ll probably come out any second to check up on me.”
“Why are you working for No Big Boxes? To get back at your estranged husband?”
She shook her head. “I wanted to stop Pate from destroying the neighborhood. I’m fixin’ to take ownership of this house, so as I can live in Crestview permanently. I like it much better than my current home in Denver. The bastard built a BaseMart right behind it. After he’d moved out himself. When I found out he was fixin’ to do the same thing here, I was fit to be tied. Figured I’d best pitch in at No Big Boxes to—”
She broke off and whirled around as the door opened. Ignoring her, Pate said, “Hello, Erin. Are you here to see my ex-wife?” He was dressed casually—leather sandals, gray slacks, and a bright sea-foam–colored long-sleeve shirt. I’d obviously caught him at a bad time; his face was flushed, and his tone chill. “I saw you two conferring at the meeting last night.” He seemed to have deliberately angled himself so that he wouldn’t have to face Tracy.
“No. I didn’t even know that she…was here.” My cheeks were blazing. I hoped he didn’t realize how shocked I was at Tracy’s decision not to tell me or, apparently, her fellow members of No Big Boxes that she just happened to be married to their archnemesis.
“I see. In that case, you must have come over because Shannon told you my latest plans. I’m giving our neighbors the choice between BaseMart and a huge condo development.”
“You’re thinking of putting in a bunch of condos now?” Tracy cried. “So I lose out either way? How dare you!”
“Give me a break!” Pate glowered at her. “Our agreement states clearly that I can develop the land behind this property. You can stay put in the house in Denver if you don’t approve of my plans for my land.”
“I like this house better. Especially now that you built a BaseMart in the backyard of my home! I should’ve known you’d go right ahead and destroy this home too! I should have demanded a cash buyout!”
Someone gasped behind me. Shannon was standing in the middle of the street, staring up at us. “Tracy! What are you doing here?”
“My ex-wife is trying to stake a claim on her territory,” Pate declared with a laser-hot glare to Tracy, “which includes half the house, but not the land parcel behind it.”
Before Shannon could reply, he added, “I was just discussing my new idea about the condos with Erin, Shannon. I’m afraid your property value has just plummetted. It’s probably worth only about half what it was last week, before my development proposal to the county became fodder for the general public. But I’d be willing to split the difference if you’d like to sell. Shall we say…seventy-five percent of my original offer?”
“I’m going to kill you for this!” she shrilled.
I grabbed her arm. “Come on, Shannon. Let’s go back over to your home and discuss strategies.”
Red-faced and cursing, she let me lead her back home. As I ushered her through the door, she wailed, “Now do you see what a horrid, hateful man he is?”
“Yes, but there were extenuating circumstances. Apparently I interrupted him in the middle of an argument with his estranged wife. So we can’t really expect him to be—”
“Well? Do something, Erin! Get me out of this mess! Otherwise, I’m going to have no choice but to cave in and sell my house and my soul to that devil of a man!”
“We’re not out of options, Shannon. I’m going to tell Audrey about Pate’s latest plot. She has a lot of influential friends around town. She might be able to get someone with power to pull some strings and rezone that property. Maybe we
can declare it as a wetland, or something, and get it protected.”
“Oh, sure.” She rolled her eyes. “A wetland. Which is bone dry. In the meantime, I’ll start packing.”
Her cell phone chirped. “About time!” she said to me as she glanced down at her phone. “It’s Michael calling me back on his cell.” She pressed a button with her thumb. “Hi. What took you so long?” She listened, then told me, “He’s on his way home now.” To Michael, she said, “I was getting some good work done, till Jerk-face Hamlin showed up at the door. If he can’t construct a BaseMart, he’s threatening to build hundreds of condos on his property. Apparently the main entrance would be where his house sits now.” Pause. “I’ll say it is! We’ll be facing a heavily traveled T in the road, Michael! That’s hideous feng shui. And he dropped his offer to buy our place to seventy-five percent of his original offer.” She drew a halting breath. “He still wants to put a car repair garage on my property. A garage, Michael! Right where I’ve created my artwork throughout my entire life!” She was in tears. To her husband’s reply, she cried, “You should have listened to me! I’ve told you all along he wasn’t a nice guy. Ang Chung warned me about Pate’s terrible tao vibrations.”
Tears streaming, she listened, and her wet eyes widened. “You mean, you’re willing to stand up to him, after all? Really?” She gave me a tentative smile. “Okay, then. I will…. I love you, too.” She hung up and gave meher first real smile in days. “Erin, go talk to Audrey like you said. No need for me to start packing. I’m going to build myself a slingshot, instead. We’ll be David, and we’ll take on Goliath.”
“That’s great news. Audrey and I will help in any way we can.” I glanced at the thick plastic sheeting that separated the addition from the rest of the house. “How’s the construction for the new room coming along?”
