False Premises

by Leslie Caine

  “I was just leaving,” I said, heading toward her. “Thanks for your time, Dave.”

  There was no escape; Detective O’Reilly was standing right outside Dave’s door. His eyes bored holes into me as I strolled past. “We meet yet again, Miss Gilbert.”

  “Yes. Like two carrot peels going down the same drain.” I trotted down the stairs, got into my van, and started the engine. I believed Dave, at least as much as my newfound skepticism would allow me.

  Not two minutes into my drive, a news announcer spouted from my radio: “A man’s body was discovered in a downtown Crestview office this morning.” Too agitated to drive, I immediately signaled and pulled over as the reporter continued, “The business owner, Erin Gilbert, an interior decorator, made the gruesome discovery this morning when she climbed the stairs to her office. Crestview police are not releasing any names or details at this time, but have said that the death was a probable homicide. . . .”

  I smacked the steering wheel with the heel of my hand, cursing under my breath. Nobody would want to drop in on a designer whose recent visitor was murdered at her office. At the same time, my thoughts made me feel all the worse, at how egocentric it was of me to consider my own, relatively petty, issues when two people had been brutally murdered.

  For reasons I didn’t feel like examining closely, I drove straight to Steve’s house. I parked at the foot of his driveway, headed up the slate walkway, and used his door knocker. A few moments later, he opened the door. One look at his face told me he’d heard the news. It was probably fortunate, in a way, that Sullivan had a broken leg. Otherwise I might have given in to my temptation to do something really stupid, like throw myself into his arms, which would, of course, have been a disaster.

  Leaning heavily on a cane, he hobbled aside to let me pass. “I was listening to my radio just now, Erin. Who was it? Did you know him?”

  “Jerry Stone.” What am I doing here? I should have driven to John’s office instead.

  Sullivan said sadly, “The guy Laura had the altercation with. I knew this would happen. You’re a target. That’s why I . . . We’ve got to get you out of this. Maybe you should go away for a few days—”

  “I don’t want to. Not unless I have no choice. That’s what the killer wants me to do. I can’t run forever, and I if I’m truly a target, I won’t be safe anywhere till the killer’s under arrest. I’m better off helping to find out who it is, while the police are at least still keeping an eye on me.” I tried to collect my nerves. “We were right about Dave, by the way. He admitted to me in private that he set the fire, but says he discovered Laura’s body, panicked, and ran.”

  Sullivan limped across the room and eased himself onto his chaise. “I never should have dragged you into this mess.”

  I remained standing near the door. “You didn’t. I made my own choices.”

  “Still.”

  I sighed, thinking: In for a penny, in for a pound. I sat down in the Windsor chair, as distant a seat from Sullivan’s as was available. “I’m pretty sure it was Jerry Stone who slipped the photographs under my office door. That he was working as a private investigator for someone he came to believe was the killer. He slipped me those photographs to help me along.”

  “You’re thinking he gave you the photos because he had a guilty conscience?”

  “Essentially. He admitted he tried to poison me by rigging the picture frame, and no doubt the stairs. He could have had an attack of conscience. Maybe Henry Toben or Robert Pembrook . . . or George Wong . . . one of them was behind this and knew that Jerry had become a weak link, so he killed him.”

  Steve said slowly, “Henry paid Laura off once, years ago, to save his marriage. He hated her, but . . . bad enough to kill twice?”

  “The embarrassing photographs could have been just the tip of the iceberg, Steve. Maybe she was currently blackmailing him for something incriminating that would wreck his life.” I glanced at my watch and grabbed my cell phone. “Linda’s back on shift by now. I want to run all this past her.” And then call John to tell him what’s happened. I’d left my boyfriend in the dark too many times already.

  Linda came to Steve’s house, arriving less than an hour after I’d called her. After I finished telling her my theory, she looked at me with weary eyes. “All very interesting, Erin. Thanks. Now, do me a favor. Go home and stay there. For the next few days, at least. Let things cool off for you, and let us do our job.”

  “I can’t just stay home and not work, Linda. That’s one of the problems with owning a one-woman business—no paychecks during days off.”

  “Listen to me, Erin. I’m warning you, not as a cop, but as a friend. Whether the killer is Henry Toben or someone else, the person’s vicious. And on the loose.”

  Chapter 19

  I had called John’s work number shortly after calling Linda, but he wasn’t in, and he called me back on my cell phone just as Linda was leaving Sullivan’s place. “I just got your message,” he said, sounding slightly out of breath. “I found someone to cover for me and left, but you’re not at your house.”

  “I’m at Sullivan’s.”

  “Office?”

  “House.”

  “Tell him to come over, too,” Steve said.

  “Why don’t you come here? Steve said to invite you.”

  His voice testy, John said, “I don’t want to be a third wheel.”

  Through a tight jaw, I said, “The police have just left. Sullivan and I are kind of focused right now on anything we might have missed that could help get the murderer arrested, if you get my drift.” I added in silence: Enough with the jealousy, already!

  “Okay. I’ll be there in fifteen or so.” He hung up.

  Guilt was shading my mood darker by the moment. John had already told me he was jealous of my relationship with Sullivan. If John’s and my situations were the exact reverse, I wouldn’t like this any better than he did. “He’ll be here in a few minutes,” I said to Steve, slipping my phone back into my purse and reclaiming my seat on the Windsor chair on the far side of the room from him.

  It’s so much easier to fix a home’s interior than one’s own interior, I mused as I scanned my surroundings. This one-bedroom bungalow in the foothills of the Rockies was a mouthwatering space. Sullivan’s architectural elements were extraordinary—a wraparound deck, vaulted ceilings, a picture window with a fabulous view, oak floors. “Your walls are still bare. Haven’t you been painting lately?”

  “You mean wall paint?”

  “No, oils. You once told me that was your major hobby.”

  “It was, but I got a good price on my art supplies . . . so I sold them, too. I’ve gotten to like the place this way. Easy maintenance. Hardly anything to collect dust. Plus, it comes in handy when you’re trying to get around in a leg cast . . . less stuff to bump into.” He gave me a darting glance. “You know, Gilbert, when I found out about the sabotaged picture frame, it hit me that we’re not doing a good job at keeping each other informed. We need to compare notes.”

  “Okay,” I muttered, thinking he wasn’t going to be happy to hear for the first time about the knife in Audrey’s front door. “You go first.”

  “I’ve been slowed down a bit”—he tapped his leg cast—“but I made some calls to Chicago and South Bend, and I found out that everything Pembrook says is legit. He was a head honcho for a retail clothing company at one point, but served eighteen months at a low-security prison for a cooking-the-books conviction. Also, Laura’s birth name was Montgomery, like he said, and it was a murder-suicide that took her parents’ and younger brother’s life.”

  I nodded. “I verified that, too. I talked to the Smiths at the reception. Her adoptive father thinks you’re guilty, by the way.”

  He grimaced. “I know. I spoke to him, too, after the service. It’s no easy feat to find ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’ in a hotel, but we finally hooked up. Didn’t do much good. He still thinks I did it. Cleared my conscience a little, though. I shouldn’t have taken off lik
e that from the service. I’d intended to do what I’d said . . . sit in the back . . . but I just couldn’t take it all of a sudden. Anyway. I also checked into Hammerin’ Hank’s background, but didn’t uncover anything we don’t already know. He’s your basic sleazeball womanizer, who married a nice, sweet woman he unfortunately outlived.” He gestured at me. “That’s it for me. Your turn.”

  He certainly hadn’t gotten any earth-shattering revelations. Neither had I, but I seemed to have had more personal contact with the people in Laura’s life. “Um, did I tell you about George Wong visiting my house the day after I spoke to him at his workshop?”

  Sullivan peered at me. “No,” he said, dragging out the word. “Nor that you went to his workshop.”

  “He was angry that I’d given his name to the police, and he told me to mind my own business. Then, after that, there was a knife stabbed into the front door at home.”

  Sullivan paled and sat up straight. “Wait. You mean, Wong got so mad at you, he stabbed a knife into your door?”

  “It was an . . . anonymous door stabbing. I found the knife there when I got back from Laura’s service on Saturday. It had a black wooden handle, just like the murder weapon used on Jerry Stone.”

  Sullivan uttered a very colorful four-letter word. “You’re going to get yourself killed, Erin. And it’s going to be my fault.”

  “No, I’m not, and nothing that happens to me is your fault. I’m in charge of making my own decisions and dealing with the consequences.”

  He shook his head. “You wouldn’t be forced to make these kinds of decisions if I hadn’t dragged you into my screwed-up life in the first place.”

  I said firmly, “For one thing, you didn’t drag me, and for another, your life’s no more screwed up than anyone else’s.”

  But Sullivan wasn’t listening. He grumbled, “If it hadn’t been for the damned broken leg . . . Shit! I knew this was going to happen! I tried to get you uninvolved clear back when I found that ashtray in Toben’s storage unit. I knew you’d flip out. But then I fell, and now—”

  “You already knew about the gorilla’s paw?”

  “They delivered it Saturday afternoon, right before Laura’s service, along with the exchanges. That’s part of why I was so . . . weirded out at the time. I had to sign for the ashtray. How else did you think it wound up in the delivery truck?”

  Stunned, I stammered, “I . . . couldn’t figure that out at the time, then I forgot all about it.” I searched his flushed features. “ That’s why you made the crack about sewing the paw back on the gorilla’s leg? You were trying to get rid of me?”

  He clenched his teeth. “I didn’t want you to get hurt, Gilbert. This is my mess, damn it all, not yours.”

  Someone knocked, and Steve hollered, “Come on in, Norton,” without leaving his seat.

  I was still too shocked by Sullivan’s latest revelation to assess my feelings. Numb, I automatically rose and started toward the door as John opened it. He pulled me into a hug and whispered into my ear, “I’m so sorry you’re going through all of this.”

  “Thanks. It’s been a messy couple of weeks, I’ve got to admit.” And getting messier by the minute.

  With his arms still around me, John muttered, “Hey,” in Steve’s direction, then said to me, “This is insane. It’s too dangerous for you to stay here, Erin. Let me take you away for a few days.”

  “I already suggested that,” Steve interjected, “but she said no.”

  “Did you?” He was looking at Steve over my shoulder, and though John didn’t push me away, every muscle in his body grew tense. “You suggested that she go away with me? Or with you?”

  “Give me a break,” Steve retorted in a smoldering voice as I pulled away from John.

  “Hey. No problem, dude. You want me to take out your other leg?”

  “Stop this right now!” I scolded. “Both of you!” I knew I was sounding like their mother, but then, they were acting like children.

  Steve held up his palms as he looked at me. “Hey, Gilbert, this is all due to loverboy’s ego trip. Don’t blame me.”

  “Like hell!” John grumbled.

  I turned to him and said, “Of course Steve didn’t ask me to leave town with him, John! Sullivan and I are just friends!”

  “And barely even that,” Sullivan added.

  That stung. I’d made similar comments, but this wasn’t the time for sarcasm or rudeness. John, apparently, begged to differ, for he taunted, “Steve Sullivan always gets the girl. It’s carved in stone someplace.”

  “What the hell is this, Norton? Sour grapes? Almost two years after the fact?”

  “There you go again. You don’t seem to have learned a damned thing from what happened between you and Laura.”

  “What exactly was I supposed to have learned? You two were past history. She was already with Dave Holland, for Christ’s sake!”

  John ticked off on his fingers. “She wasn’t available, she was my ex, and the three of us still traveled in the same crowd! You broke the code by chasing after her.”

  “What code? And, anyway, what’s it to you now? You’re lucky you got away when you did. That woman destroyed me! And Holland.”

  “Maybe you deserved it. Bad karma.”

  “Come on, guys.” I tried to step between them. Sullivan was now sitting up on the chaise, gripping his cane in both hands as though it were a baseball bat. “This isn’t—”

  “I deserved it for falling for the same woman as you, you mean?” Sullivan retorted, speaking straight through me as if I were invisible. “Did you kill her?”

  “Jesus, Sullivan! Of course not! If you’d get your brain back in your skull where it belongs, you’d realize that!”

  “You hated Laura for dumping you, didn’t you?” Steve said, rising. “Why else would you be bringing it up, after all this time!”

  “You’re the one who hated her, not me! I’m starting to think you killed her and are trying to get me to take the rap!”

  I hollered at the top of my lungs, “Stop it! Now! Both of you!”

  They gaped at me, dumbfounded.

  “I discovered a murdered man today! I’m not going to stay here and listen to you two shout horrible accusations at each other!”

  I stormed out of the house and marched to my van. While fumbling for my car keys, I hesitated. Wait a minute! Sullivan wasn’t so callous as to say that we were “barely even friends” unless he intentionally wanted to hurt me. I whirled around. Sullivan had just done it again; he’d duped me into walking out on him. The man had manipulated me twice.

  John followed me. “Erin, wait. We need to talk.”

  Sullivan had staged his part of their confrontation. But what was John’s excuse? He was the one who’d actually cast the first stone. Unwilling to look at him, I growled, “Now’s not a good time, John. Call me tonight, after I’ve had some time to cool down, if you want.”

  “Steve’s just pissed about his life getting so out of control. He was just lashing out at me, you know. He knows I didn’t kill anyone, for God’s sake.”

  I looked at John’s handsome face, realizing that I didn’t know the man at all. He went on, “I said some stupid things just now that I didn’t mean. Truth is, it bugs me that he’s always the first one you turn to, rather than me. The bottom line is, Laura meant nothing to me.”

  “That’s your ‘bottom line’? Is it supposed to make me feel better about you? Laura meant nothing to you, so I’m supposed to be impressed?”

  He sighed. “No, Erin. That just . . . came out all wrong. I don’t even know what I’m saying. I care about you . . . a lot. I don’t want you to leave like this.” He tried to give me a sheepish smile and said gently, “Come on, Erin.” He grabbed my hand. “Let’s get a fresh start on things, okay? We’ve got a good thing going.”

  I yanked my hand free from his. “No, we don’t, John. We almost did . . . if none of this had happened with Laura. But I just don’t think we can bounce back. I’m sorry, but I t
hink we need to end things.”

  “You’re breaking up with me?”

  “Yes.”

  His face went slack, from shock to anger, then he pivoted and started to walk away—to my surprise and confusion, heading back toward Sullivan’s house. “Fine. I’ll . . . see you around.”

  “I really am sorry, John.”

  “Me too.”

  “If you’re going back inside, please give Sullivan a message. Tell him he’s fired.”

  I got into my car and drove away, too numbed by the day’s events to cry, too confused and disgusted by Sullivan’s manipulations and his shouting match with John to feel much sense of loss.

  After a full hour at home by myself, Audrey still hadn’t arrived, and I waited impatiently for her. I’d decided to vent by throwing myself into a home-improvement project. There was nothing I could do about the ever-present wall-to-wall furniture in the parlor, so I’d gone straight to my notebook computer and had scoured the Internet sites till I found the perfect armchairs for Audrey’s old-world Italian den. Though I’d shown Hildi the chairs on my screen, the experience hadn’t been fulfilling for either of us.

  The doorbell rang. I checked the sidelight. Sullivan. I threw open the door, ready and eager to go on the offensive. “I’m really not in the mood to—”

  “Whoa.” He held up his palm. “I need a woman’s perspective on something, Gilbert. I just want to ask you one question, then I’ll go. Promise. Okay?”

  I sighed. “Go ahead.”

  “How long should a guy wait before he apologizes to a woman for acting like a total ass?”

  I looked at him in surprise.

  “I mean, I gotta figure I’m the last person you want to see right about now, but then, the longer I wait, the more opportunity there is for you to think about what a jerk I am. So, tell me . . . what’s your advice here?”

  “First off, I’d need to know which asinine behavior you’re referring to. When you were deliberately egging John into fighting with you? When you were pretending not to care about Henry’s buying goods from poachers? Either way, I don’t need or want you to shove me out of the way and take the bullet for me, Sullivan. And, besides, don’t you think you owe John the bigger apology? He’s the one you wound up accusing of murder, for crying out loud!”