He took a few puffs but wasn’t ready to give up. “Where are those leather couches you ordered and the big chairs?”
“Your great room furniture is being custom designed, and that takes time. I know the wait’s frustrating, but it’ll be worth it in the end, you’ll see.”
He mulled that over as he sucked on the stogie, then, “What about all that Western-themed crap you mentioned?”
I stifled a sigh. “No point in bringing in accessories before the major pieces are in place. Have a little faith, Stew. You’ll like the finished product. Guaranteed.”
“I hope the hell so.”
“There is one bit of good news. Your bedroom furniture is due for delivery tomorrow. And didn’t the color in there turn out well?” A dangerous question. In his current mood, Stew wasn’t likely to be positive about anything, but I couched my query in a way that almost forced him to agree.
Almost. “I’ve seen brown before.”
“What?” Client or no client, I couldn’t let him get away with that. “The color’s not brown, it’s terracotta, a warm version of the hallway tone. Haven’t you noticed how the shade deepens from the great room, to the hall to your bedroom? Kind of like an escalating scale with the bedroom as the...ah...climax.”
His eyes narrowed, but a little amusement flickered around his mouth. To my relief, he ground out his smoke in an ashtray. “That’s flowery B.S. You’re good at it, you know that? So yeah, the bedroom color’s okay. Anything in there would be better than pink. Keep on the job, you hear? I don’t want to hire somebody else to step in. Not now that you’ve gotten this far. Just finish up ASAP.”
He arched a thumb in the direction of the master bath. “I need those guys out of the house before Teresa comes back. So make sure they don’t leave until they’re finished.” He stuck a fresh cigar in his shirt pocket, yanked out his keys and stomped toward the front door. “I have to get to work. My business is going down the tubes while I babysit the damn house. That’s your job, not mine. So do it.”
“Wait a New York minute,” I said, but too late. With a bang, the front door slammed shut and he was gone.
The nerve of him. I should abandon the project, let somebody else put up with his attitude. I heaved a sigh. What about the contract I’d signed? If I walked off the job, Stew was just the type who would sue me. Hoist on my own petard. Damn.
Charlotte was looking up at me with those big browns of hers. “You’re smart, aren’t you? You know something’s amiss. Well, we won’t let it bother us, will we?” I dropped my tote on the sofa and unclasped her leash. “Go ahead, run around, have fun. Pee on the floor if you want to.”
Dim scraping sounds and the muted voices of Tony and Mike came from the direction of the master bath. Since Stew was anxious that they finish up today, I wouldn’t bother them, though I was curious to see the decorative tile frieze. I was also curious about those red pants.
The pants won out.
“Want to come with me?” I asked Charlotte. “I think you should. You might not get another chance to see Teresa’s wardrobe.”
No woof of agreement? As I went to reach for my tote, tiny nails clicked along the tiled floor. I glanced over a shoulder.
“Hey, what’ve you got?”
She scampered past me, but I grabbed her en route and lifted her into my arms. “Come on, let it go. Be a good girl. Open your mouth. Come on.” With a lot of coaxing and more than a little tugging, I finally convinced her to open up and release the billfold. I kissed her topknot. “Good girl. This is your day, isn’t it? One treasure after another.” I put her down but held onto the wallet. Stew must have dropped it on his way out. I’d leave it on his dresser for him to find.
I only planned to take a quick look at Teresa’s clothes, but for some reason, guilt at snooping maybe, I tiptoed along the hall to the master bedroom. If I were quiet enough, I could be in and out in a minute or two without the tile guys even knowing I’d been there. As silent as if she were a cat, my new friend padded along beside me. No doubt about it, she had an adventurous streak.
I cracked open the master bedroom door. We slipped in, and I closed it behind us. The odor of new paint filled the empty room, pleasantly so. I knew I was weird that way but to me the aroma of latex paint was right up there with Chanel No. 5 and Prada Candy—providing the wall color had been well chosen. And despite Stew’s nasty crack, the terracotta would be a great foil for the platform bed I’d ordered in a he-man rough-hewn pine.
With her paws on the French doors, Charlotte stared outside at a squirrel romping up and down a palm tree. I hurried over to the walk-in closet and, pulse revving up a bit at what I might find, swung open the double shutter doors.
Oh, I’d forgotten. The closet was empty. After the python nearly scared her to death, Teresa had transferred her clothes and Stew’s to the guest room across the hall. I should have remembered.
“Come on, girl, we’re hitting the road,” I said to Charlotte.
As we strolled along the hall, I could hear loud voices coming from the bathroom. Or mostly one voice, Mike’s. Didn’t he ever keep quiet? Apparently not. All incensed about something or other, he was rattling on nonstop. We went into the larger of the two guest bedrooms. I closed the door, surprised that the room’s hideous, snaky vine wallpaper hadn’t given Teresa nightmares. Tomorrow after the master bedroom was complete, we’d start in here.
Charlotte hopped up on the unmade bed and settled down on the duvet with a contented little sigh. I laid the wallet on the dresser and opened the closet doors, hoping I had the right ones this time.
Bingo.
Stew’s clothes filled the left side and Teresa’s colorful duds hung on the right like a rainbow about to explode. Of all the people I knew, only Rossi had a closet as full of color as this one.
Red. Look for red. I riffled through the hangers. Blue, purple, cerise, chrome, floral, stripes, black. Black? How did that get in there? And then I found them. Three pairs of bright red pants.
I placed them on the bed next to a dozing Charlotte and looked them over carefully. Not one pair was missing a single button, brass or otherwise. So there went my theory about Teresa’s guilt.
Pleased she’d been saved by a button and yet a little deflated that my sleuthing had been so far off the mark, I hung the pants back in the closet. Charlotte seemed so comfy nestled into the duvet, that on an impulse I kicked off my shoes and stretched out next to her. Just for a minute, I told myself.
* * *
A loud thud brought me to with a start. Where was I? Oh God, I’d fallen asleep on Stew Hawkins’s bed. Unbelievable. Long shadows fell through the French doors, the light softer than at midday. What time was it anyway? I glanced at my watch. Egads. Late afternoon. I leaped off the bed and gave Lazy Bones a little pat. “Come on, girlfriend, let’s go see what the tile job looks like. I’ve got that decorative frieze on my mind.”
Charlotte stood on the duvet and shook herself awake. Then she leaped off the bed and scampered straight for the French doors.
“You need to go out?”
A rhetorical question. She didn’t even bother to answer, the urgency of the moment all that mattered. I’d left her leash in the great room, but the yard was enclosed by a six-foot-tall fence, so she wouldn’t be able to scamper away.
“Okay, I’ll leave the door open so you can come back in. Be good now.”
She ignored me and, tail high, ran outside.
I finger-combed my hair and slid into my shoes. My skirt was hopelessly wrinkled but nothing to be done about that. So much for literally sleeping on the job. A peek in the mirror told me I could use some lip gloss, but I’d left my tote in the great room. Only Stew’s billfold sat on top of the dresser. Brown and beat-up, it didn’t strike me as the kind of accessory you’d expect a wealthy man like Stew to keep in his pocket. Well, he was a one-of-a-kind type of guy. Still...I picked the wallet up and flipped it open. Ah, it wasn’t Stew’s at all. The wallet belonged to a Tony Pavlich—the same
Tony Pavlich who was installing tile in the bathroom down the hall. And in a plastic sleeve next to his ID was a photograph. My heart thrumming in my ears, I stared at a smiling image of Connie Rae in her high school graduation cap and gown.
Whoa!
The snapshot looked to be at least three or four years old. I slid it out of the sleeve and turned it over. In purple ink, in a broad, childish hand, I read, To Tony with love. C.R.
Omigod. Tony had known Connie Rae all along and never said a word to anyone. Why not? Whatever the reason, somehow I doubted it was a good one. What good reason could there be in shrouding their relationship in secrecy? None that my stunned mind could come up with. Only fear of being implicated, somehow, in her death. Or...because he had caused it.
A door opened and banged against a wall. I dropped the wallet in a dresser drawer and stood there, too scared to move, too upset to think.
“Hey, watch it. Don’t bust up the place.” That was Tony.
“You know something? I’m sick of you telling me what to do. No more orders. Got that?” Mike.
My hand on the bedroom doorknob, I stood frozen, listening.
“If that’s your attitude, take a hike. You do more talking than working anyway. Who needs it? Go find another job. If anybody’ll hire you.” Tony guffawed, an ugly, throaty sound.
“You can’t fire me. I’m yours for life, buddy. Or until I walk. Or decide to talk.”
“Don’t threaten me, you punk.”
Something heavy hit the floor. Or the bathroom wall. I couldn’t be sure. Another thump and a muffled shout. Or was it a groan? Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
They were closer now, in the hallway right outside the bedroom door, scuffling and banging against the walls.
“Get your hands off me.” That was Mike, gasping out the words. “Save the rough stuff for your women.”
Tony’s women? What did that mean? I thought he lived with his mother.
A loud crack, like a fist against bone, then a thud that sent the walls shuddering.
“You got a glass jaw?” Mike yelled. “One sucker punch and you’re down? Hell, you’re no challenge.”
A groan. That must be Tony.
“Wake up, Tone. You can’t be out after that. I hardly touched you.”
Oh yeah? The walls were shaking. I hoped the new paint job hadn’t been wrecked. That’s all Stew would need.
“You son of a bitch.” Ah, Tony was coming to.
“Nah. I’m your pal, Tone. Your only one. You have to learn not to dis me.”
A muffled moan. “Why don’t you shut up once in a while? Your yammering is driving me nuts.”
“Aw, you don’t mean that. Come on, let me help you up. We’ll call it a day. Stop off someplace for a couple of beers and relax. Forget all about this.”
“No, we have to finish the job first. I want my money, and Hawkins is getting antsy.”
Somebody, maybe Mike, whistled through his front teeth. “He wouldn’t be so tear-assed if you hadn’t put that python in the bedroom.”
What! I pressed my ear to the door, anxious to catch every word. Mike had said he accidentally released the snake, not Tony.
“I had to do it.” Tony again.
“No, you didn’t. There’s women everywhere. You can’t have one, you find another.”
What did women have to do with this?
A deep, loud sigh. “You don’t get it, do you? Connie Rae and me, we were talking marriage, then Hawkins waved his money in her face. That’s all it took. A few bucks.”
“Tone, she told you the reason. You couldn’t afford that operation she needed so—”
“She was sleeping with him!”
“What did you expect?” Mike asked. “They were married. You shouldn’t have done it.” Done what? “A hell of a way to go if you ask me. Scared to death by a monster snake.”
“Who’s asking you?” Omigod, Tony had deliberately released the snake while Connie Rae was alive. He had caused her death, and Mike had covered up for him. “The case is closed. She died from natural causes. Nobody can prove otherwise.”
“You got lucky that time, but killing the second one was dumb.” Mike barked out a short laugh. “That flag bikini was too good to die.”
“If it wasn’t for you, nothing would’ve happened.”
“My fault, huh? You’ve got a helluva nerve. I never laid a finger on her.”
“Blame your big mouth. Talk, talk, talk, that’s you. Bringing up Connie Rae while we were working on those stone steps. After the broad in the bikini heard you shooting your mouth off about the python, how could I let her go? Next thing you knew, the cops would’ve been swarming all over me.”
“It would’ve been her word against yours.”
“Yeah, you’re good with the advice. Shut up for a change. Give my ears a break. And help me up. We got to get back to that grout.”
“You’re the boss. But let’s hurry. I’m nursing a hell of a thirst.”
Omigod. I’d just heard Tony confess to double murder. I felt like sliding down the bedroom door and melting into a puddle on the floor, but that wasn’t an option. I had to get out of there and fast. Get word to Rossi. But how? My cell was in the tote. It might as well have been in Alaska. A house phone then? I glanced over at the bedside table. No, only a lamp.
A trickle of sweat trailed down my spine as I tried to think...think...okay, I’d sneak out the French doors, grab Charlotte...and then? My thoughts skidded to a halt. I couldn’t scale a six-foot-high fence, and there were no gates. Maybe the opening to the great room was unlocked. Stew was pretty casual about locking up...or maybe we could tiptoe back down the hall to the front entrance.
I pressed my ear against the door again. No voices but the scraping was louder than earlier. They’d returned to their task but left the bathroom door open. No way could I sneak past them.
Woof, woof, woof!
Back inside again, Charlotte wanted attention. I put a finger to my lips. “Shh,” I whispered. “Not now. Be a good girl.”
Woooof!
Excited by her outing, Charlotte was in a party mood and not about to be quiet.
“I scooped her up. “Shh.”
Woof, woof, woof!
“What the hell was that?” Tony asked.
“Sounded like a dog.”
“What’s a dog doing in here? I thought we were alone. Hawkins left for work hours ago.”
“Beats me.”
“We’ve been talking. What if someone heard us?”
“Oh. Yeah.”
Something metal hit the floor. A trowel?
Heart pumping as fast as Charlotte’s tail, I raced for the closet and shut it behind us. Uh-oh. I’d left the French door open. A dead giveaway. In Florida in July no one went out and left a door open, not while an air-conditioning system was pumping full blast.
Footsteps pounded along the hall. Too late. We were trapped.
I hugged Charlotte tight. Sensing something wrong, she nestled into my arms and tucked her head under a paw.
The bedroom door opened. Through the slats on the closet door, I saw Mike stride in.
“Hey, Tone, somebody forgot to close a door in here. That dog we heard must have been out in a yard somewhere.”
Tony strode in and glanced around. “Funny, I don’t hear no dog now.”
Mike poked his head outside. “We did a good job fixing those pool tiles, you know that? It’s looking terrific out there.”
“Right now, I’m not thinking of tiles. Something’s off. I can feel it.”
With that, Tony strode over to the closet and threw open the doors.
Chapter Forty-Seven
“Hi, Tony.”
“What are you doing in here?”
“Oh, um, Teresa, Mr. Hawkins’s fiancée—”
“Ha!”
“—asked me to send some of her things to the dry cleaners.”
“How long you been here?”
“Just a minute or so. You were so busy in th
e bathroom I didn’t want to disturb you. Though I’m dying to see the frieze. Is it all right if I go in and take a look?”
He squared his big shoulders. “Nah, it’s not okay.”
“What’s going on?” Mike said, crowding into the closet with us.
“The spatial planner didn’t allow for parties in here,” I said, trying to keep the atmosphere light.
“That’s a wiseass comment,” Tony said.
“Hey, take it easy.” Mike put a hand on his arm.
Tony shrugged it off and gave his low-flying cargo shorts a hitch.
No wonder his shorts rode so low on his hips. I had his top button in my pocket.
With a bravado I really didn’t feel, I said, “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I’d like to get out of the closet.”
“Ha, ha, you’re a riot, you know that?” Mike said, his voice rising as he glanced quickly from me to Tony.
“First, I want to know what you heard,” Tony said. “Mike and me, we were talkin’. You must have heard something.”
“No...I—”
“Leave her be, Tone.”
“Shut up for once.”
Without warning, Tony reached out and snatched Charlotte from my arms. “Python food,” he muttered, flinging her out of the closet.
She sailed through the air, landing with a yip on the bed. Unhurt but furious, she stood knee-deep on the duvet, growling like a grizzly.
“Hey!” was all I had a chance to say when Tony shoved me up against Stew’s collection of polyester pants.
“Get off her,” Mike said.
Tony looked over a shoulder at him. “You shut up, and I’m not telling you again.”
He swiveled back to me. “You picked the wrong bedroom to decorate.” He poked a finger against my chest. “Understood?”
I nodded. Of course I understood.
“Why you roughing her up like that?” Mike asked. “You stupid or something? She’ll have you up on assault charges.” He shook his head but didn’t try to step between us. “I don’t understand your thinking, buddy.”
“No,” Tony said, “you don’t. At least you got that right. But you’re wrong about charges. She’s not leaving here.” His lip curled up. “Not on her own. I can’t take the chance. We don’t know what she heard. So we take her with us and head for the swamp.”
[M. by D. #5] The Design Is Murder Page 22
