by Leslie Caine
She thanked me, said she’d let me know when she was finished, and shuffled toward the bathroom. She’d borrowed a nightgown and robe from Audrey, which fit her perfectly, and she looked right at home.
I called Sullivan from my bedroom phone. His sleepy voice, I had to grudgingly admit, was annoyingly sexy; I truly seemed to be incapable of learning my lesson. We agreed to meet at a downtown coffee shop in forty-five minutes. I jabbed my heel into my shin to get my thoughts away from wondering if he slept in the buff, which he probably did, but was of no consequence to yours truly.
I felt a pang at the unbidden memory of our passionate kiss two months earlier. I was playing with dynamite by agreeing to work with him now. My twenty-ninth birthday was coming soon, and I’d already gotten the ‘Sex and the City’ thing out of my system, thank God. Nowadays I wanted lifelong love or nothing. It was all too clear that Sullivan was not the love of my life, so he had to be nothing. It would be too cruel if the one person who most made me feel miserable about myself and brought out the very worst in my personality turned out to be my soul mate.
As a way to distract myself onto a safer and cheerier subject, I started to think about the design of the bathroom that Helen was now using. In lieu of paying rent, I redesigned Audrey’s mansion. “My” bathroom was mired in the eighties with its blah beige tiles and yucky brown linoleum floor. Audrey was atrocious at actually allowing me to enact my new designs elsewhere in her home, but she’d promised me a free hand in my bedroom and the adjoining bathroom. I was envisioning sparkle and pizzazz—hand-painted white-and-indigo porcelain tiles and polished-brass fixtures—an above-the-counter porcelain bowl to emulate an antique wash basin on a mahogany vanity with carved cabriole legs, and a stone-and-tile steam shower with a rain-shower head and bright sea-glass accents....
My stumbling block was that remodeling meant putting my bathroom out of commission for weeks and sharing Audrey’s. I shuddered at the memory of how Audrey had turned her bathtub into a terrarium when I’d first moved in; we’d shared my shower for two months, till she’d finally concurred that the terrarium was a mistake.
To her credit, Helen showered in record time and knocked on my door once more, then called, “It’s your turn.” I thanked her and dashed into the shower, emerged reasonably refreshed, and quickly dressed in an in-between outfit—casual slacks and blouse—not the Armani skirt-suits I wore to impress clients, but not my paint-splatter clothes either.
Both my housemates were in the kitchen. Helen was wearing powder-blue draw-string Capris and silver V-neck pull-over that I recognized as Audrey’s, and once again I was struck by the physical similarities between the two women. It was altogether too easy for me to picture Audrey in Helen’s predicament—in the twilight of her life, scared that some deranged killer with a key to her house was making attempts on her life and had murdered a beloved neighbor in her own basement.
I declined Audrey’s offer of breakfast and hurried to the coffee shop where I’d agreed to meet Sullivan, having told him on the phone only that there’d been “trouble at Helen’s house last night.” I arrived first and asked for his customary coffee order along with my hot chocolate. I’d just taken a seat at a table in the corner when he strolled through the door. He looked sexy and handsome, as always. The man was immune to bad hair days. Or bad complexion days. Life was so unfair!
“Thanks, Gilbert.” He slipped into the chair across from me and pulled out his wallet.
I waved off his attempt to reimburse me. “I’m buying. I got you a tall latte.”
“Great. Thanks.” He blew on the surface of the steaming liquid. “So a neighbor died at Helen Walker’s house last night, eh? What’s the story?”
Startled, I asked, “How did you hear about it so soon?”
“When you said she had ‘trouble’ last night, I naturally imagined the worst...so I swung by her place on my way here. No offense, Gilbert, but you’re something of a Typhoid Mary.”
“Now, why would I take offense at that?” I snarled, glaring at him.
Sullivan blithely continued, “Yellow plastic police tape is strung across Helen’s porch banisters. Then the news report on the radio said that a retired electrician had gotten electrocuted in a flooded basement. I put two and two together and figured it had to be Jack Schwartz.”
“You figured right. Unfortunately. Sullivan, I think it’s possible Helen has been correct all along. Someone’s trying to kill her and make it look like an accident.”
“What happened last night?”
“Helen called me when she heard a noise and her lights went out. And...I found him at the base of the stairs. Jack’s wife claims they’d seen someone dressed in black run off, so Jack went over to investigate.”
“Odd that an electrician wouldn’t know that water in a basement often carries a charge.”
“No kidding. I’m thinking he was pushed into that water. Maybe the prowler that he and Rachel spotted leaving the house returned to grab a second load and shoved Jack down the stairs. In any case, since we can’t work at Helen’s house today, I’m hoping we can put in extra time at Stephanie’s, and hopefully dig up some information to give to Linda Delgardio.”
“You think Steph might be trying to bump off her own aunt?”
“It’s possible. She’ll inherit half of Helen’s estate, and she’d have an extra-strong motive if she’s secretly convinced that Helen killed her mom...that Helen deliberately put peppers into the casserole.” I paused, deciding not to discuss Peter’s confusing assertions that his mother had gotten the peppers from a Chinese-takeout entree. Sullivan was staring at me like I was nuts. “Why are you so incredulous? Are you too attracted to Stephanie to think she’s capable of anything so heinous?”
“Me? Attracted to Stephanie?” He held up a palm. “Not my type. I mean, yeah, she’s sort of pretty, but as soon as she opens her mouth...forget it. She’s so brassy, she’s part trumpet.”
For some reason, this turn in our conversation was making me edgy. I focused on my cocoa and stirred it with extra vigor. “The way you were leering at her yesterday, you certainly seemed to find her appealing.”
“I wasn’t ‘leering’ at her, Gilbert. Give me a break!” In gentler tones, he went on, “I did happen to notice she was wearing the same blouse I just got my mother for her birthday, which was a bit creepy.” He paused. When I looked up from my cup, he was studying my face. He slowly grinned at me. “You’re jealous. Hmm. All’s not lost after all.”
I clicked my tongue, but was too intrigued by his last phrase to leap to my own defense. Was I insane, or was Sullivan suggesting that he wanted to pick up where we left off before his California trip? It would be humiliating if I was wrong. And it would unquestionably lead to pain if I was right. I took a sip of cocoa before I replied, “I’m not jealous. I’m simply trying to find out if I can recruit you to help me do a little investigating at Stephanie’s house. I’m arming myself with a digital camera, in case we turn up any evidence I can photograph.”
“‘Investigating?’ Think your officer friend would be keen on that idea?”
“Linda won’t like it, but I’m sure as hell not going to sit back and do nothing while someone’s trying to kill Helen Walker. I did nothing when Helen told me two days ago that someone was breaking into her house. Now Jack Schwartz is dead.”
He sipped his coffee thoughtfully. “Stephanie’s not the sort to do her own dirty work. She prefers to throw money around...to hire someone else to do it for her. Maybe we can find some telltale financial reports, or something. She’s inherited her aunt’s packrat tendency when it comes to paperwork, and she’s got a home office downstairs.” He held my gaze and said, “Which, fortunately for us, is located right next to the rec room we’ll be designing.”
Having the ulterior motive of searching through my new client’s personal papers was more than a little distracting, and I was off my game that afternoon as we met with Stephanie to discuss her rec room. My nerves forced me to let her an
d Sullivan do most of the talking. Once I had the sleuthing behind me, though, I’d be better able to pull my own weight. So far all I’d done was confirm Stephanie’s ridiculous notion that, of the two of us, Sullivan had the more creative designs.
Stephanie had first hired him three years ago to redo her home in the wake of her divorce, and he’d done an amazing job. The main floor—all I’d seen of the house so far—was like strolling through the pages of Architectural Digest—astonishing attention to detail, every item the crème de la crème, from the magnificent Murano glass chandelier to the tiger-maple hardwood floors and the exquisite hand-knotted silk rugs. The living room in which we now sat was unmistakably a Sullivan creation. A lesser designer might have chosen some of these same exquisite furnishings, but wouldn’t have so brilliantly captured the lines, tone and texture of the stunning view through Stephanie’s picture window. He’d made this space feel like a natural part of the glorious scenery.
My own design could well have been on a par with this one, however. Given enough time, I could probably even quibble with a selection or two. Then again, maybe not. This floral-pattern damask sofa was not only gorgeous, but incredibly comfortable. And since when did Sullivan select such perfect accent pillows? Not to mention the cashmere throw.
“Erin,” Stephanie said with an arrogant smile during a rare pause in their banter, “you’re being awfully quiet.”
“I’m just in an observational mode right now.” And starting to develop an inferiority complex in the process.
She nodded. “I’m sure last night’s events were almost as traumatic for you as they were for me, but there’s nothing quite like having it be within your own family.”
Yes, and there’s nothing quite like having discovered the corpse yourself, I retorted in silence.
“Well,” she said, rising, “shall we take a look at the room?”
“Absolutely,” I enthused, hopping to my feet to show that what I lacked in loquaciousness, I made up for in energy. My curiosity was eating me up, however. “I’ve got to say that I’m really impressed with this cashmere throw. What a gorgeous color!” I turned to Sullivan. “Where did you get it?”
Stephanie answered for him, “I’m not even sure where that came from originally. It’s not as though I went to the store myself, after all. I brought in a second designer to accessorize Steve’s room. As I said before, his work lacks the feminine touch.”
I could read the tension in Sullivan’s clenched jaw. No wonder Stephanie wanted us to combine our talents: apparently, I was here to dot Sullivan’s i’s and cross his t’s. How very belittling. For both of us.
We descended a flight of stairs into the walkout basement. The irregularly shaped room at the bottom of the room was painted white and housed just a pool table and a wide-screen TV. Stephanie and Steve resumed their private conversation about her ideas and needs for the space, so familiar with each other that they could essentially speak in shorthand. They finally—and reluctantly I thought—looked my way, and I asked, “Could Sullivan and I have a few minutes to gather our thoughts?”
“Oh. Certainly, Erin. You two discuss away. I’ll be right upstairs if you have any questions.”
“Thanks,” we said simultaneously.
“Who’d she hire before to ‘accessorize’?” I whispered the moment Stephanie was out of sight.
“Don’t know,” he murmured. “This was the first I heard about it. Told me she wanted to put on the finishing touches herself. I’d have froo-frooed up the place for her myself, if she’d been upfront with me.”
I rolled my eyes, disagreeing as always with his tendency to consider any and all personal touches “froo-froo,” but we were too short on time to bicker. “Let’s search the office.”
At a glance, I took in the attractive room—heavy on the mahogany—with Sullivan’s flawless, Zen-like style stamped all over it. Aha! There was a flaw! A gorgeous rosewood inlay console was wasted along one wall. She needed to move that someplace front and center.
While rifling through her desk as Steve scanned the contents of the file cabinet, I soon located a folder with Helen’s address on the tab. I opened it and skimmed the papers inside.
“Steve, look at this.”
Selling her aunt’s house with its two acres in downtown Crestview would net a million-dollar profit, provided the house was bulldozed and the lot parceled. As Sullivan scanned the information for himself, I balked at the thought that Stephanie’s greed could motivate her to make attempts on her aunt’s life; that would be so extreme and so heartless. Again, though, might Stephanie be capable of such a thing if she secretly blamed Helen for her mother’s tragic death?
At the sound of footsteps on the stairs, Sullivan hastily shut the desk drawer, and I started blathering, “That’s a good point, Steve, but this office space is quite...efficient.”
Picking up on my diversion, Sullivan said, “Yeah. Probably makes more sense to keep the room dimensions intact.”
“You’re discussing moving the walls between the rec room and my office?” Stephanie asked.
“Just trying to be open to everything at this juncture,” Sullivan replied without hesitation. The man was quite a smooth liar. As if I hadn’t already discovered that all on my own.
“Fine by me. Move as many walls in your imagination as you’d like. When it comes to the actual walls, though, I get the final say-so.” She gave his arm a playful squeeze, which annoyed me to no end. The fact that I was annoyed only annoyed me all the more. “Anyway,” she continued, “I didn’t mean to interrupt your brainstorming. I simply realized I left my planner down here.” She grabbed a leather-bound journal from the kneehole drawer. “By the way, Erin, I heard from the police last night that Aunt Helen is currently living at your home.”
If she knew Helen was at my house, why had she waited this long to mention it? “Only for another day or two, until they let her go back home.”
“If you’re smart, you’ll keep it limited to that. She used to drive my poor mother up a wall. That’s why Mother had been so happy to get the house to herself for once. Though that backfired, of course. If Helen had been home, she’d have been able to give Mother the epinephrine shot.”
I asked, “Where was Helen the night Lois died?”
“She was at a book-scrappers’ convention.” I fought back a smile at the image that Stephanie’s misspeak gave me—a batch of people getting together to throw away books—as she continued, “Ironically, I sent Helen there myself...paid for the registration and set everything up. I thought it would be good for them to separate for a while. They’d gotten to a point where they were constantly quarreling, and I was hoping to convince my mother to move in with me instead.”
“You’d have had more than enough room, all right,” Steve replied and added casually, “although Helen’s got an enormous lot, at least. That piece of property is probably worth a fortune on the open market.”
Stephanie snorted. “Not while Helen’s alive. She keeps saying I can sell the place over her dead body!” She blushed. “Not that I’d ever want to see that happen. All of her talk about attempts on her life is ludicrous. I don’t for a minute believe her crazy theories about my parents’ deaths being murder. And her neighbor’s death was an accident. Aunt Helen forgot to turn off a water spigot in the backyard. She’s paranoid.”
“Well, Steph,” Sullivan said pleasantly, “there’s that famous quote from the wise men of Monty Python to consider— ‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.’”
I laughed. An instant later, I felt guilty for finding humor in such a terribly stressful time for my client. Stephanie shot us both a withering glance, clutched her notebook to her chest, and left the room without another word.
Steve crossed his arms and regarded me. “You’re a Monty Python fan?”
“Absolutely.”
“Their humor is timeless, isn’t it? Kind of like The Three Stooges.”
“You’re comparing The Th
ree Stooges to Monty Python? Are you serious? That’s like comparing Bozo to Bill Cosby.”
He grinned and shrugged. “Just checking.”
“Checking what? To see if I have any discerning judgment whatsoever?”
He chuckled. “I was just getting a feel for your sense of humor.” He wiggled his eyebrows and added, “So to speak.”
I said through a tight jaw, “In that case, let me just clue you in: I never find double entendres amusing.”
His eyes still merry despite my growing annoyance, Sullivan struck a theatrical pose and sang, “‘What, never?’”
The lyric was straight out of Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘HMS Pinafore,’ and his antics caught me so much by surprise that I laughed again. I replied in a deadpan, “‘Well, hardly ever.’”
He held my gaze and returned my smile, and I felt my cheeks burn crimson. An old adage claimed that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, but the funny bone was definitely the way into mine. Maybe Sullivan realized as much and was mocking me. That possibility sobered me. I snapped, “This is hardly an appropriate time to be clowning around. My client has been banished from her home because people are dropping dead all around her.”
“Fine. I give you my solemn word...I’ll never sing to you again.”
“Fine.”
Now if I could just make him promise never to make me laugh again, my heart might survive our working together after all.
Chapter 11
We needed to finish up quickly before Stephanie became suspicious. I took digital photographs of the documents in Stephanie’s file, then Sullivan and I went upstairs and bluffed our way through a generic, heavy-on-superlatives, light-on-content description of our initial thoughts for her room makeover. He and I privately set a time to get together and do the actual sketches and planning, then we left in our separate vehicles. I headed for a quiet side street and immediately pulled over. I called Linda Delgardio on my cell phone, and told her about the fortune that Stephanie stood to gain if she were to get hold of her aunt’s property.
