by Leslie Caine
Linda gestured to her partner. “While we’re waiting, Officer Mansfield and I will walk you through the house, just to double-check that nothing’s missing or out of place.”
Audrey nodded grimly.
“I’m going to sit down for a minute,” I muttered, and made a beeline for the sofa. Hildi was already perched on a cushion and meowed at me.
Audrey followed me into the parlor and draped her coat across the wingback chair. “You persist in sticking your nose into murder investigations, Erin. It’s like an obsession with you! One of these days you’re going to get yourself killed!”
“Audrey…I’m an interior designer, not a mob boss or a drug dealer. I don’t pose a threat to anybody.”
“Tell that to whoever mugged you.”
The next morning, Sullivan was on his best behavior. For once, I’d been timely and remembered to tell him about my bad experience, so as to spare myself from having to hear his we’re-partners-and-blah-blah lecture. He was downright charming as we worked to complete our plans for a bedroom remodel in the foothills. He was unwilling to argue with me on anything, quickly acquiescing to my every suggestion. It was a little creepy, frankly. Till that moment, I hadn’t realized how beneficial it was to have such an exacting, snarky sounding board and devil’s advocate.
After a while, I caught him staring at me instead of at the fabric samples I was holding up for comparison. “My head’s still reasonably round,” I snapped at him. “Or were you waiting to see if horns would pop out?”
“Pardon?”
“I had a big lump for a few hours last night, but that mostly went away. It’s a little tender to the touch still, is all.”
He frowned. “Wouldn’t it have been smarter for you to take some time off today? I can hold down the fort, you know. Did you have X rays taken? A CAT scan?”
“My head is perfectly fine. There isn’t a thing wrong with meatballs. Constant kadoodles for being so wahwah bedoink.”
Although I managed to keep a straight face while spouting gibberish, I cracked up when his eyes widened in horror. “Just kidding.”
“Real funny, Gilbert. It’s no wonder somebody smacked you upside the head.”
Still laughing, I said, “True. Thanks for worrying about me, though.” He was fighting back a smile. “And please stop being so nice to me. It helps my creativity when—”
I broke off as the door opened. Pate Hamlin was wearing a tailored jacket over a rumpled white shirt and blue jeans. “I was in the area. Thought I’d better discuss things with Erin.” He gave me a small smile. “About her getting mugged, I mean.”
“How did you hear about that?” I asked, startled.
“The police paid me a visit last night.”
Sullivan rose and stepped toward our pseudo living room by the gorgeous palladium window, saying, “I think we’d better all have a little discussion. Pronto.”
The words struck me as so much macho posturing, but Pate didn’t take the bait; he merely sat down on one of the slipper chairs. Sullivan eased reluctantly into the leather chair beside him. I had no choice but to move to the love seat across from the men. “I had a break-in at my house last week,” Pate said.
I studied his face. Now I knew who owned the handgun that Linda found in my pocket last night. Had his gun truly been stolen, or had Pate staged this break-in himself? “I’m sorry to hear that. I wonder if it was the same person who broke into Audrey’s.”
“That’s what I need answers about,” Pate replied, glowering at me.
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.
“The police investigated when my office at home was ransacked. All of the fingerprints they found there were easily explained. Except for one set of prints.” He held my gaze. “Yours.”
“Mine? I’ve never as much as set foot in your office.”
“And yet your fingerprints were on a hanging file folder. Which had been emptied.”
“Pate.” I leaned forward to emphasize the sincerity of my words. “That’s simply not possible.”
“Unless it wasn’t really your folder, but one of Erin’s,” Sullivan interjected.
It took me a moment to make the connections. “Oh, of course! That’s the only logical explanation!”
“I’m not tracking any of this,” Pate said irritably.
“Last week,” I began, “somebody stole a standard-issue, khaki-colored hanging folder out of my desk. It would have been covered in my fingerprints. Easy enough to swap tabs with yours…and make it look like I’d been handling that one file in your desk.”
“Exactly,” Sullivan said. “But why would you think Erin had any interest in going through the records in your desk?”
Pate tented his fingers. “The folder contained reports about an organization that’s near and dear to her heart.”
“No Big Boxes?” I guessed.
“Yes. And my file delineated the improprieties that Shannon and/or Audrey Munroe were responsible for.”
“Improprieties? No way!” The accusation was so preposterous it was all I could do to stay seated. “Audrey’s the most ethical person on the planet.”
“Maybe she was kept unaware. It appeared that Shannon Young had been pocketing the donations to that committee. The records that I was compiling and planned to present to the authorities were swiped right out of my office. And the folder had your fingerprints on it.”
Maybe it was the result of my minor concussion, but I had a moment of disjointedness. Our conversation struck me as absurd—the three of us sitting in this warm, cozy setting and discussing serious treachery. “Again, Pate,” I said, exchanging glances with Sullivan, “I don’t buy that about Shannon, either.”
Pate gave a barely perceptible shrug. “My inside information would seem to say otherwise.”
“And by insider, you mean your wife? The one you’d hired to run dirty tricks on the organization, spy on everything, and report back to you?”
“No, Erin. Tracy had nothing to do with it. The woman hates my guts. She’d sooner spit on me than keep me from drowning. And, before you go letting your imagination run even wilder, I did not concoct a phony burglary and then shoot a bullet through your window.”
Sullivan glared at me. “Someone shot at you through your window? Why didn’t you tell me?”
I sighed in exasperation. “Do you want me to start wearing a minicam atop a helmet just to keep you informed?”
“Maybe. Sure would’ve helped last night. You’d have spared yourself a head injury!”
“For your information, nobody ‘shot at me.’ I was downstairs at the time. Entirely different floor.”
“Judging from the questions the police were asking me last night, the shooter used my forty-four Magnum,” Pate interjected—a welcome interruption to our bickering. “Which had been stolen out of my desk in my office, along with the file.”
“Somebody is trying hard to frame us,” I told him. “There isn’t—”
“Erin, we’ve got to leave for that appointment,” Sullivan interrupted. He was right, although he could have waited till I’d finished my sentence.
Pate rose. “I should be going.” I stood up, too, and he touched my arm gently. “On a much happier note, I meant to ask, Erin. My divorce will be finalized this Friday, and—”
Sullivan piped in, “I thought you and your wife were still arguing about which of you gets the house in Crestview.”
“Tracy changed her mind. She agreed to a cash buyout. She knows I’ll win out in the long run and develop my property as I see fit.”
Sullivan made a noise of disgust. “That house won’t be worth owning by the time you’re through wrecking the neighborhood.”
“Anyway, Erin,” Pate said, ignoring Sullivan, “I just wondered if you were free to help me celebrate over dinner. Friday night? At the Overlook.”
My eyes widened. One minute the man was all but accusing me of breaking into his office, the next he was inviting me to the fanciest restaurant in town? How bizarre
! My first instinct was to decline, but seeing Sullivan glare at me was tempting me to do otherwise. “Um, let me check my schedule.”
“We have that bid on the job in Longmont Friday evening,” Sullivan interjected.
“The reservation isn’t till eight-thirty. I like to eat late.”
“Typical yuppie,” Sullivan muttered.
His rudeness sealed the deal for me. “Dinner sounds nice, Pate. Thank you. I’ll be looking forward to it.”
“Me, too. Pick you up around eight?”
“Fine.”
He asked for my number and address, saying he’d remember and didn’t need to write them down. Then he left.
As Pate closed the door behind him, Sullivan spat out: “He doesn’t need to write down your address because he already knows where you live. He fired a bullet through your window and attacked you there! That was probably his real motive for dropping by just now…to find out if you were hospitalized or comatose. You need to cancel out on this dinner!”
“No! You’re just making it sound dangerous because you’re jealous. I’m merely researching a suspect over dinner. The same way you researched Rebecca over lunch.”
“At least Rebecca wasn’t asking me to celebrate her divorce with her.” He grabbed his coat and charged outside, forcing me to trail after him.
I locked the door behind us, calling over my shoulder, “That’s true. She was merely causing a divorce between our clients! Immediately prior to one of them winding up dead!”
He waited for me by his van. His face looked red hot. In the nippy air, it was easy to imagine steam rising from his head. “You’re looking for trouble, Erin. Check that. You don’t have to look for trouble. It strolls into our office all on its own.” He hopped into the driver’s seat and slammed his door.
We left. While I was ruminating on the fact that Sullivan’s comment was too lame to warrant a response, my cell phone rang. It was Detective O’Reilly. He had “information for me” and wanted me to come down to the station house to “discuss” it. I checked my schedule and told him I could get there around three that afternoon.
At a few minutes past three, an officer escorted me to an interrogation room, then said he’d let the detective know I was there. I muttered, “Thanks,” but was miffed. Regardless of whatever “information” O’Reilly had ostensibly beckoned me here to discuss, an interrogation room was the last place I wanted to be. O’Reilly must have known how reluctant I’d be to stay put, because he appeared at the doorway while I was still standing at the table, weighing whether I should sit or walk out.
“Afternoon, Miss Gilbert. Have a seat.”
“I’d rather not stay that long.”
He pulled out the cheap chair at the head of the fake-wood laminate table and squinted up at me. “You in that big a hurry? If so, we can do this another time.”
“The only reason you’ve put me in this horrid little room is so you can record our conversation. There’s no reason for that. I’m not a suspect!”
“We like to record our interviews with witnesses, too. Helps us sort things out sometimes. You’re free to leave, if you want. Though it’ll help us solve your brother’s death if you’ll just give us a couple minutes of your time. Up to you.”
I rolled my eyes, hating to be played like this, but I took a seat, opting to sit next to him instead of across the table, hoping that would at least throw him off his game.
“Like I said,” O’Reilly began, “we’ve got some new evidence.”
“By evidence, do you mean the fingerprints on the empty folder at Pate’s house?”
“How’d you know about that?”
“Pate came to see me this morning.”
“He shouldn’t have done that.”
“Well, in any case, Steve Sullivan and I have a theory about what happened. Remember the stolen folder? We’re thinking it was swapped with Pate’s. And, since I’ve never been in Pate’s home office, you folks must have noticed that there were no fingerprints of mine anyplace else in the room. So a pilfered folder from my office is the only explanation. Other than that I was a complete moron and wore gloves as I was entering, searching, and leaving the room, but took them off while I was handling the one folder.”
“That inconsistency occurred to us as well.” He narrowed his eyes. “Which is why I didn’t want anyone to spill the beans too early about Mr. Hamlin’s break-in.”
“‘Spill the beans?’ In other words, you still think I broke into his office?”
“You could have worn gloves and planted your empty folder there yourself, then switched tabs on it, just so you could claim you were being framed.”
“Give me a break!”
“Hey. That’s just as likely as your theory.”
“Oh, please! For the record, I did not break into Pate Hamlin’s house, and I most definitely did not murder anybody.”
“You’re acting pretty defensive, Miss Gilbert.”
“That’s because you are acting as though you suspect me. I was with Steve Sullivan both times…when Taylor Duncan was killed, and when Shannon Young was killed.”
“You have an alibi for most of the time. But according to my notes, you were the last one to see Ms. Young alive.”
“Sullivan was there too!”
“Not according to your statement,” he countered promptly. “You said you went back inside alone. Then you and Mr. Sullivan left together.”
“But…Shannon’s and my whole conversation lasted less than a minute.”
“Right. And that minute is what concerns me.”
“Why?” I cried. “What possible motive would I have to kill my own client?”
“Avenging your brother’s death.”
“By stabbing Shannon? That’s ridiculous!”
“You knew that her fingerprints were found on the nail gun.”
“They were?”
“You confronted her, and she confessed the murder to you. Vengeance for your brother’s life is a pretty good motive, by my way of thinking.”
“Except she didn’t confess. And I didn’t suspect her, then or now. I didn’t know about Shannon’s fingerprints, but even if I did, she could have simply handled the nail gun before she left for the luncheon the day Taylor died. By my ‘way of thinking,’ the same person killed both of them. Furthermore, I know I’m innocent. Yet you keep insisting Taylor’s death was an accident.”
“We’re still considering an accidental death as one possible scenario.”
“Which I’m sure was exactly what the killer wanted everyone to think. And if he or she could have made it look like Shannon tripped and fell onto the sword, you’d have considered that a possibility as well.”
O’Reilly laced his fingers and peered at me in silence. Finally, he asked, “Is there a reason for your hostility toward the police?”
“Frankly, it’s not directed at the police in general, but to you personally, Detective O’Reilly. You’re implying that I had a hand in my client’s murder. Call me a hot-head, but that doesn’t lead me to harbor warm and fuzzy feelings toward you.”
“I’m just doing my job, Miss Gilbert.”
“And I’d really like to get back to mine.”
“Fine. I’ll get right to the point, then. It was reported that you spoke up at the council meeting in support of No Big Boxes. Did you know that Shannon was allegedly pilfering funds from the organization?”
“Pate told me that just this morning. But it’s a batch of baloney.”
“We found records and cashed checks for donations in her personal file cabinet.”
Maybe those were the records stolen from Pate’s file! As one more attempt to shift police attention onto me!
O’Reilly continued. “Which gives you yet another motive for murdering the woman. Wouldn’t you agree, Miss Gilbert?”
“No! For one thing, Shannon Young had an alibi for Taylor’s murder. She was speaking at a luncheon. And, for another thing, Shannon could have been selling her pieces herself, occasionally.
I’m sure her customers paid her in checks and cash all the time. She could have easily had deposits that were unaccounted for. That money could have gotten mixed up with donations for No Big Boxes from time to time. In any case, she was highly successful. She wouldn’t have been stealing petty cash from the campaign.”
“I’m talking about five thousand dollars that’s gone missing and seems to have shown up in Shannon’s bank account. Hardly petty cash. Plus, the Royala Hotel where she was speaking is just two miles from her house. And there’s a fifty-minute gap where nobody at the luncheon remembers seeing her.”
Precisely the scenario that Ang Chung had painted for me. Was he getting fed information by the police to use against me? No, this time I was being paranoid. “Am I under arrest, Detective?”
“No.”
I left without another word. O’Reilly made no move to stop me. I got into the car and sat there, struggling to breathe and to keep from vomiting. My God! I was actually a murder suspect! O’Reilly had scared me so badly I could barely move.
What should I do now? No way could I go back to work. I counted to ten, then to thirty, and took calming breaths. Then I called Sullivan. I told him my head was starting to ache after all. He said he’d cover for me. I drove straight home, needing to shore my spirits; I craved comfort furniture the way other people ate comfort food.
I went for the whole treatment—a cup of Grandma’s Tummy Mint tea, the sage sofa in the parlor, my lavender angora afghan, and an engrossing paperback. I tried unsuccessfully to coax Hildi to my lap. She did at least deign to occupy a seat in the same room—Audrey’s wing chair. I’d only just gotten settled when the doorbell rang. It was Emily.
“Hi, come on in,” I said, truly happy to see her, although she looked ill; her face was pale and her features drawn.
“Thanks. I should have called first, I know, but…”
“You don’t need to have a formal invitation before you can drop by. It’s just that I’m gone a lot, so I’m glad you caught me in.” I ushered her into the parlor. “Is everything all right?”
She sighed and lowered herself onto the far end of the sofa, and I reclaimed my seat. “I haven’t been sleeping well,” she confessed.
