Killer Kitchens (Murders by Design)

by Jean Harrington

  A few minutes before nine I drove to Tenth Avenue South. Nikhil’s apartment was located on the ground floor of the Azalea Building. He answered the bell on the first ring dressed in jeans and a ratty Ole Miss T-shirt. A glad-to-see-you smile lit his face, and he ushered me into his living room with an elaborate arm flourish.

  At the sight of the drab, empty space, an “Oh my” escaped me before I could stop it.

  His face fell. “See what I mean? The place is a dump.”

  I didn’t disagree. “Mind if I walk through?”

  “Please. Be my guest.” He threw up his hands then let them flop down by his sides. “It only gets worse.”

  A five minute tour of the small kitchen, smaller bath, sizeable bedroom and the concrete patio adjoining it revealed all the apartment’s secrets.

  Back in the living room, I eyed one of the two plastic lawn chairs that faced the fifty-two-inch HDTV—except for a vintage Gibson guitar propped in a corner, the room’s only furniture.

  “Why don’t we sit down and talk about what needs to be done?” I asked.

  “Sure. Sorry I don’t have a more comfortable seat to offer you.”

  I laughed. “You will soon.”

  “Great. This stiff stuff’s awful. Usually I just sit on the floor, but that’s not too comfortable either.” He ran a hand through his hair and flushed in that charming, boyish way I remembered. I reached into my tote bag and removed the clipboard. “You wouldn’t happen to have any coffee, would you?”

  “Oh. Sure. Coffee’s my specialty. Starbucks medium blend. No cream though.”

  “Black would be heaven.”

  After I’d downed a few jolts of excellent brew out of an Ole Miss mug with a big chip on the rim, I said, “Okay. Good news first?”

  He nodded, a flash of surprise lighting his eyes. “There’s good news? Hard to believe.”

  “For starters, you have an excellent layout. Nice tiles in the bath. Fairly new appliances in the kitchen. Big bedroom closet. And I love the French doors leading out to the little private patio.” With a finger I described a circle in the air. “This is a good-sized room too. Tall, wide windows overlooking the lawn.”

  I pointed at the blinds. “Verticals aren’t my favorite, but they’ll do, and the ivory color goes well with the rug. In other words, you have a lot to work with here.”

  He sat across from me, cradling a mug between his hands, his face a little brighter than it had been a few minutes earlier. “What’s the bad news?”

  “There isn’t any.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  I shook my head. “Nope, not unless work is bad news to you.”

  As if his adrenaline didn’t need another boost, he put his mug on the floor and sat up straight in his plastic chair. “Work isn’t a problem. Not at all.”

  “Good. What you need, in addition to some basic pieces of furniture and a few well-chosen accessories, is cleaning and brightening. Sweat equity. We’re not going to build for the ages. We’re going to be practical.”

  He grinned. “Practical. My middle name.”

  “Forget about the ceilings and the woodwork. They’re both white and in decent shape. The walls are what we’ll concentrate on. And then the floors. Okay. For the walls, we need a color. Any preferences?”

  “No, not really. Except no pink or anything.”

  “How about green?”

  He shrugged. “Sure, whatever you say.”

  “Green would be symbolically perfect. It’s the color of spring, of new beginnings—”

  “Of money,” he said laughing.

  “True. Spoken like a bona fide investment broker. So how about a pale wash of lime green? It’s bright and youthful. And in the bedroom—”

  He leaned forward. “Yes?”

  Cute.

  “Well in there, a deeper lime green on one wall, the one behind the bed. Make the bed a focal point,” I said, resisting the urge to grin.

  “I like that idea.”

  “I hoped you would.” I kept a straight face but it wasn’t easy. “As for the floors, this beige carpeting looks to be in good condition. It just needs cleaning. Once the painting is finished, you can rent a rug shampooer. Then wash the windows. When that’s done, we’ll bring in some furniture. Now...”

  I didn’t need to say more. Nikhil jumped up and hurried into the bedroom returning with a check in his hand.

  “Fifteen hundred,” he said. “My limit.”

  “Trust me,” I said, tucking the check into my purse. “We won’t exceed this amount by one penny. “I’ll keep a running tab on everything I buy. If I can come in under budget, I will.” I held up a warning finger. “But don’t count on that, please.”

  I removed four rolls of blue masking tape from the tote and held them out. “For you. A present. Use it around all the windows and doors, up by the ceiling and down around the baseboards. I’m going shopping for paint. Should be back within an hour.” I slipped the clipboard into the tote and stood. “When is Melanie due to arrive?”

  “In six weeks.”

  “That’s a tight schedule, Nikhil. Nights and weekends won’t give you much time to get everything done.”

  “Time isn’t a problem. I left my job at Harkness Investments yesterday.”

  And I left my Rossi last week.

  “Our lives seem to be on a parallel track,” I told him, trying to smile.

  Nikhil’s brow wrinkled. “Pardon?”

  I shook my head, not wanting to get into it. “Recently I made a momentous decision too.”

  “Yeah, momentous is the word. Wait till my parents hear what I did. They’ll have a fit, but I had no choice. Not once I learned what Norm was doing with the books. It’s worse than

  I—” He stopped.

  One hand on the door handle, I said, “My lips are sealed, but if I can make a suggestion?”

  He nodded, clearly upset by what he’d told me.

  “Do you remember meeting a Lieutenant Rossi in my shop?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, if you’ll get a piece of paper, I’ll write down his number.”

  Nikhil’s face, so quick to flush, paled. He backed up a step. “I don’t want to get involved with the police.”

  I shrugged and opened the door. “Your decision, but look at it this way. Norm is a person of interest in a murder case. You must have heard about that. The news was plastered all over the local media for days. Anyway, Norm was present the night the victim died.”

  “What’s that got to do with Harkness Investments?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe nothing. But something’s the matter if Norm’s been cooking the books.”

  “I didn’t exactly say that.”

  I slid the tote over a shoulder. “No but you came close. At the very least you need to protect yourself.”

  Nikhil gulped in some air. “I haven’t done anything wrong.” Maybe not but he looked like he could throw up anyway.

  I stepped back a little, just in case. “If something illegal is going on, and you know about it, you can’t just quit and walk away.” I was scaring him, but on the theory that it was better to be scared than arrested, I went for the jugular. “You want to go to jail for something you didn’t do?”

  He stretched out an arm and leaned on the door, snapping it closed. “I shouldn’t have mentioned anything about Harkness. That was dumb of me. I don’t even know you. Not really.” He ran a hand through his tousled hair again, rumpling away any resemblance to his fledgling, stockbroker image.

  I smiled in what I hoped was a reassuring way. “Interior designers are like shrinks. Our clients tell us everything.” And here I was telling yet another person to make an emergency phone call to Rossi. Would he?

  Nikhil’s shoulders slumped, and he stuck his hands in his jeans pockets. “I’ve been awake every night this week trying to decide what to do. You’re sure making it tougher for me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Well, I couldn’t force Nikhil to mak
e the call, but I gave him one of my cards with Rossi’s number on it anyway, and drove over to Barley’s Paints to choose some wall color. A flat latex in lime green with the creative name of Citrus Frappé spoke to me. Barley’s master mixer diluted the shade to a pastel wash for the living room and intensified it for that all-important bedroom wall.

  To zap up the bland ivory kitchen, I’d have Nikhil apply masking tape to the walls in vertical stripes then run a roller of Citrus Frappé over them. Let the paint dry, strip off the tape and voila—stripes, style, panache. And no more money spent.

  In the equally bland bathroom, a soft apricot shade sponged on above the tiles would make Melanie’s skin glow every time she looked in the mirror. Yup, I was a red-haired cupid all right—for another woman’s love life.

  I added paper buckets, stirrers, brushes, paint tray, roller with extra pads, and a giant sponge to my purchases, pocketed the receipt, and loaded everything in the Audi’s trunk for the trip back to Nikhil’s place.

  But I didn’t go in. Not with Rossi’s dusty Mustang parked at the curb in front of the building. So Nikhil had placed the call after all, and whatever he knew about Norm, Rossi must have thought was worth hearing ASAP.

  I sat, staring at his car for a moment, wondering if he missed me, if he had slept last night, if he’d had anything to eat. All questions I’d given up the right to ask. I finally drove away, forcing myself to remember I had listened to Nana, had gotten up off the couch, had gone to work, and wouldn’t give in to self-pity or longing. Not if it killed me.

  Rolling along the quiet Saturday morning streets, I gripped the wheel of the Audi as if I were in the Indy 500 and headed toward the Old Naples shopping district. Francesco wanted Hudson River oils, so I hit the big three galleries—Harmon-Meek, Sheldon, and DeBruyne’s. No luck.

  Not in Hudson River oils, though at DeBruyne’s a stunning, drop-dead abstract took my breath away, literally stopping me in my tracks. Jagged bolts of purple, tangerine and vivid mango—yes, mango—thundered across a huge canvas. Here and there, narrow shards of gold glimmered in the light, the power of the composition alone holding their glitter in check. The tension between the two forces was electrifying. And perfect for that mango dining room. It generated so much energy, Francesco’s guests would be eating the tablecloth.

  I stood in front of the canvas, tapping my toe, wondering if Francesco would agree to include one avant-garde piece in his antiques heaven. Totally unexpected, it would be a knockout. A little sweep of excitement flitted through me for the first time all week. Yes, it was true, work did help alleviate misery. Maybe if I kept busy enough, the days would peel away in a blur of activity.

  “I’m fighting a tight schedule,” I said to the store manager. “Can you deliver the painting this afternoon? And send an art installer to hang it?” They absolutely could and would and understood the sale was subject to the owner’s approval. As for the Hudson River oils, they would contact dealers around the country and get back to me.

  On Third Street South, I dropped in at Tommy Bahama’s for coconut shrimp and salad. Fortified by the food and the sunshine and the salty breeze wafting in from the Gulf, I plowed on...determined to stay busy...determined not to think about Rossi.

  Francesco needed carpets. At least two to start—one for the living room and one for the dining room. That meant a visit to Arabian Sights, a shop always piled high with luscious orientals.

  Zayd, the proprietor, greeted me with a bow so low his hair nearly mopped the floor. “Delighted to see you again, my darling,” he purred. “How may I help you?”

  “Lovely to see you too,” I purred back. “What is your largest Heriz?”

  His eyes flared wide at that, and leading me to a hip-high stack of carpets, he snapped his fingers. As if he were Aladdin and they were genies popping out of a bottle, a pair of young men with in-your-face muscles rushed over and folded back rug after rug for my inspection. This time I lucked out and found exactly what I had in mind. A rare fifteen by twenty-two Kashmar for the center of the living room and a lovely faded nineteenth century Heriz for the dining room.

  “Can you deliver these today?” I asked Zayd.

  “For you, my darling, all things are possible.” He reached out, seized my hand and kissed it.

  I resisted the urge to wipe the wet spot on my jeans and managed a smile. “You never did that before.”

  “Never before, my darling, did you buy a thirty thousand dollar Kashmar.”

  I waggled the forefinger on my wet hand. “Subject to the owner’s approval.”

  He raised his open palms toward the ceiling and shrugged. “But of course. Though how can he refuse gems such as these?”

  “We’ll see, Zayd, we’ll see. Now I have a favor to ask.”

  His jolly demeanor disappeared as fast as chicken wings at a Super Bowl party. He uttered a wary, “Yes?”

  “To enhance the beauty of these ah...gems, when your men deliver the rugs, could they move some furniture for me?”

  “Certainly, my darling.” He tried to conceal his relief with a quick smile. “That is no favor. That is part of Zayd’s white gloves service.”

  “Thank you.” I scribbled Francesco’s address on the back of one of my cards and gave it to him. “Can you be there in two hours?”

  “But of course.” He made a grab for my hand, but I yanked it back in the nick of time. “For you—”

  “—my darling, anything,” I finished with a laugh and, reaching out, I took his hand and gave it a good sturdy Boston shake. No kiss. No wet spot.

  After leaving Arabian Sights, I swung by the Azalea Building. The Mustang had disappeared, so this time I parked and went in. Nikhil had the living room pretty well taped up and ready for painting, but he kept mum about whatever he and Rossi had discussed.

  “With luck one coat should cover well,” I told him, as he helped carry the supplies into his apartment.

  “Fine,” he agreed but a look at his glum face told me wall paint wasn’t what he had on his mind. His discussion with Rossi probably was.

  Though I felt sorry for his distress, the police needed to know what was going on at Harkness Investments. The leap from embezzlement to murder wasn’t a farfetched stretch of the imagination by any means. Not that I was ready to heap a murder rap on Norm, but somebody in the house that night had killed Donny, and Rossi needed to know everything about everybody who had been there.

  Leaving Nikhil to his painting, I drove to Rum Row and punched in the security code to Francesco’s house. Shortly afterward, Zayd’s truck arrived and within an hour both rugs were laid, their size and elegant fading exactly what I’d hoped for. That done, I directed the men into the garage and had them move the inlaid mahogany table into the dining room, flanking it on opposite walls with a matched pair of Hepplewhite sideboards.

  I was concentrating so hard on making sure not a wall or a piece of furniture was marred that I jumped a little when a soft voice said, “Deva.”

  I whirled around. “Jewels! How nice to see you. You too, sweetie,” I said, stroking little Frannie’s cheek with a single finger. Snug on Jewels’s hip, his baby powder and milk aroma was so seductive I could have dabbed it behind my ears. “You’re getting big, you know that?” I asked him. He rewarded me by showing off two pearly white teeth.

  Jewels, slim as ever, kissed him over and over. Hard to believe she was nearly five months pregnant.

  Time to change the subject. “Well, what do you think so far?” I asked, waving my arms around the rooms.

  “No comment,” she said and laughed.

  “No, seriously, tell me. Your opinion’s important.”

  “I don’t have one,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Not about this old stuff.”

  “Oh. Right.” She wasn’t just being compliant, she really didn’t care.

  She shifted the baby to her other hip. “But Frannie can’t wait to have everything finished. He promised the pastor at St. Anne’s that as soon as the police find Donny’s k
iller, he’d have a church fundraiser here.”

  “Really? I didn’t know Francesco was religious. He’s never mentioned it, not that—”

  “He doesn’t like to talk about it. He’s shy that way. But he goes to Mass every morning. Don’t tell him I told you. He wants everybody to think he’s so tough, but he’s really a softy. Like you,” she murmured into the baby’s ear.

  “My lips are sealed.”

  “He prays for Donny. I pray for him too, but mostly for Frannie.” She lowered her voice though we were alone. “Someone tried to kill my husband, Deva, and I won’t have a moment’s rest until they find him.”

  “Or her.”

  Jewels shook her head. “No woman would do that,” she said. “We create life. We don’t kill it.”

  Francesco a churchgoer and Jewels a philosopher? I would never have guessed. My knowledge of people had to be seriously flawed.

  “We tried to reach you this morning,” Jewels said. “But we kept getting your voice mail.”

  “Sorry about that. My shop’s been closed all day. I should give you my cell number.” Though if I did, Francesco would probably call day and night...maybe Jewels wouldn’t take me up on my offer.

  But she nodded. “He’d like that. We’re leaving for Providence tomorrow.” Her face clouded over. “For Donny’s funeral. Before we go, Frannie wants to ask you something.”

  “What’s that?”

  She couldn’t wave her arms, so she tossed her head from left to right. “You know how he loves all this old stuff. Well—”

  “Who loves all this old stuff?” boomed from the doorway. Francesco.

  “You do,” Jewels and I said in unison. Then we both laughed.

  “You girls wanna have a chuckle on me, that’s okay.” In a cloud of macho musk, he strode around examining the rugs. “They look terrific. I won’t ask how much they set me back. Surprise me with the bill.”

  “Ready for another surprise?” I asked. A discreetly lettered DeBryne panel truck had driven onto the driveway. Stan, DeBruyne’s art installer, and Larry, his helper, slid a heavily padded rectangle out of the truck’s back doors and carried it carefully into the dining room. They unwrapped it, and as the padding fell away, my heartbeat quickened, and a long “Ooooh!” escaped from Jewels.