by Leslie Caine
important than my damned career." He hesitated. "I
guess."
"It is, Jeremy. He's already killed twice. You can't risk
thinking he'll stop there."
"Right." He fished Detective O'Reilly's card out of a
drawer. "I'll get this over with right now."
I watched him dial and heard O'Reilly's gruff tones on
the other end as Jeremy told him about spotting
Matthew's van at Burke's house the day of the murder.
Stunned by what we'd learned, Sullivan and I left without another word.
"I'm starting to think you're right," Sullivan said as we
drove to our office. "It's looking more and more like
Hayes or Greene killed Richard. Do you trust Jeremy
enough to call the cops?"
"I know he's at least actually talking to O'Reilly. I recognized his voice."
"Do you think Matthew Hayes is the killer?"
"It's certainly very possible." I needed to have another
chat with Matthew. I could claim I was merely checking
up on Burke's desk. As long as I didn't mention anything
about why he might have been in Burke's driveway the
day of the shooting, I might be able to get a feel for
whether he'd been there for legitimate reasons. "Steve?
P o i s o n e d b y G i l t 225
Why don't you drop me off on Thirtieth Street, near the
mall. I'll take RTD back. I need to check on a client."
"Which client?"
"Suzanne Langley. I told her I'd come pick up the
wallpaper samples today and get the paper ordered."
"Okay. She does live nearby. So I guess I can trust
you."
"Of course you can. We're partners. We've got to trust
each other."
"Good. Because if I didn't know better, I'd think that
Matthew Hayes's shop is right on the way to Suzanne's
house, and it'd be just like you to try to pry information
out of him." He gave me a smug grin.
I was annoyed at his obvious delight in outsmarting
me. "Just because I was planning a little side trip doesn't
mean that you can't trust me."
"Except that it does." He continued past the intersection where I'd wanted him to leave me.
"But one of us needs to return phone calls and keep
things in order at the office. We haven't exactly been
working at full steam the last couple of weeks."
"Hey, it's more important that I babysit you than stay
in our office. After all, we're partners."
"But we won't have an office or a partnership if we
keep ignoring our business. Be reasonable, Sullivan! I
can get Matthew to talk if I'm on my own. He'll clam up
if you're there, listening to our every word."
"Fine. I'll stay in the car. And you can beep me with
your cell phone if you need help."
"Will do," I replied.
"You should have just told me the truth about where
you were going."
"Are you always forthcoming with the truth to me?"
226 L e s l i e C a i n e
Sullivan said nothing. His jaw muscles were working.
I'd hit a sore spot, and we both knew it. The atmosphere
was suddenly so charged, it felt like the van windows
could explode at any moment. I couldn't stand to address
the real issue between us, but I also couldn't endure this
tension in silence. "You don't have to be so patronizing,
Sullivan! I'm simply going to enter Matthew's place of
business and ask a few questions, not stage a shootout, for
heaven's sake!"
"Regardless, we agreed to watch each other's backs.
I'm holding up my end, even if you're unwilling to hold
up yours."
Once again, I was the one who had let him down. We
arrived in the parking lot. "Thanks for driving," I snarled
as I opened the passenger door.
"Don't mention it."
"I won't ever again."
"All the better," he said.
"What does 'all the better' even mean? You're just
making sure you get in the last word! As if we're still in
grade school! This is sure one heck of a healthy, mature
partnership we've got going for ourselves." He'd begun to
scribble something on his notepad, but I got out of the
van and slammed my door shut without asking him
about it.
Just as I'd taken a step toward the store, Sullivan
tapped on his windshield and, despite my better judgment, I turned to see why. He held up a sign in the window. In a nod to a Gilbert and Sullivan lyric from Pirates
of Penzance, he'd written:
We are the very model of a modern, MAJOR partnership.
Surprised that Sullivan had been the one to lighten
P o i s o n e d b y G i l t 227
the situation, I couldn't help but giggle. Sullivan winked
at me, and my steps felt infinitely lighter as I walked away.
My amusement faded when I entered Matthew's shop
and remembered it was quite possible that he was a double murderer. He was alone, reading the newspaper, and
glanced up at me with a hopeful-for-a-sale glint in his eye
that quickly faded when he saw it was just me.
"Afternoon, Erin."
"Hi, Matthew. I was in the area and thought I'd check
on the progress with Burke's desk."
"Should be ready by the end of the week."
"Great."
"Will the contest still be going on by then?"
"I'm not sure. Why?"
He frowned and muttered, "Nobody seems to know."
"Who else have you asked?"
"Burke, actually. I was hoping to make a deal with
him . . . to give him a discount in exchange for his pointing out the desk to the judge to prove that I can do green
designs."
That could explain Jeremy's having spotted his truck
at Burke's on Monday morning. "Did you go to Burke's
house, or call him on the phone?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Just curious. I wondered if you felt compelled to visit
Burke in person. After all, you've pretty much burned
your bridges with conservationists . . . and contest judges."
He made a derisive noise. "No comment, Officer
Gilbert." He held my gaze. "I don't suppose you'd be
willing to talk me up to Audrey Munroe, would you? I'd
love to do a segment on her show about local furniture
makers."
I wasn't about to say straight out that he'd be one of the
228 L e s l i e C a i n e
last people I wanted to help. "An appearance on her show
can really boost sales."
"Lucky you to be living with her."
"Yes, I am lucky. But the publicity is the least of my
good fortune. She's a terrific person."
"I'm sure she is."
Which is why I couldn't bear it if someone killed her!
"As was Walter. Between you and me, Richard struck me
as being a bit of a loon."
He chuckled. "It's nice to hear you say that. The papers are making him out to be a fallen saint."
"Either way, he didn't deserve his fate."
"No. He didn't," Matthew admitted. "Just because the
guy was such a stupid show-off as to drink his own paint
doesn't mean someone should've taken advantage and
poisoned him."
"You don't feel guilty for egging him on?"
; "Actually, I do. But I'm also angry. Some bastard
turned me into his henchman."
"His? Do you know for certain that the killer was a
man?"
Matthew shrugged. "No idea." He leered at me. "But
now that you mention it, poisoning someone does seem
more like something a woman would do."
c h a p t e r 1 9
he phone was ringing when we returned to the ofTfice. It was Burke. He was upset about his conversation with the structural engineer. I put him on
speakerphone so that we could have a three-way conversation. Apparently, the engineer had asked Burke over
the phone to describe the crack and had surmised that he
was right to be concerned about it. Burke had pressed
him further, and the engineer had said that, yes, it was
possible that a whole new basement might need to be
built.
"I can't do that," Burke shouted at us. "I mean, sure, it
230 L e s l i e C a i n e
can be done physically--the whole house can be jacked
up and a new basement can be built underneath it, but
that would be almost as expensive as building a whole
new house from scratch!"
"The engineer hasn't even seen the house yet," I said
reassuringly. "He only told you it was possible that you
might need a new foundation, right? So he was giving
you the worst-case scenario because you asked him to do
so."
"This has got to be the all-time biggest irony," Burke
replied. "Here I've been thinking I'd struck this shrewd
deal, saving thousands of dollars, by agreeing to give my
architect all of the proceeds from an energy-efficiency
contest in exchange for designing my house. I figured
that he'd work his butt off to make my house the best in
the city. Instead, he does such shoddy work that the entire place is going to sink into the muck!"
"It's not anywhere near that bad," Sullivan said.
"I'm sorely tempted now to just surrender to Asia and
tear down my windmill. Hell, I should just give her my
entire property and make a clean start in some other city.
Some other state, even. Let her be the one to sink with
the ship. It was her flooding me with sewer water that
sped up the whole process in the first place." He chuckled bitterly. "Hey, global warming might even be my
friend. It might dry out this basin my house was built in."
"If it's any consolation," Sullivan said, "I doubt there's
any way Audrey is going to be able to overlook the seepage in the basement and award your home with first
place."
"That's supposed to console me?" Burke growled.
"Only in that Jeremy won't be earning all that prize
money now."
P o i s o n e d b y G i l t 231
"Yeah. The incompetent boob who caused my misfortunes now has to share in them. I'll start doing my happy
dance any day now."
"Speaking of Jeremy, I need to run home. He's meeting with Audrey to discuss his plans for the kitchen remodel right about now, and I want to sit in on their
meeting."
"Hurry Erin out of there, Steve," Burke said. "Jeremy's
a quack. Maybe Erin can stop him from taking advantage
of Ms. Munroe."
I was relieved to discover that Audrey was alone in the
dining room; I'd gotten home ahead of Jeremy's visit.
"Something smells good," I said.
"It's lamb stew, heavy on the basil," she explained. "A
good thing about the whole kitchen-tree fiasco is that it's
encouraged me to use my Crock-Pot more often."
"Wonderful. I'm looking forward to it already. Have
you heard anything from Jeremy Greene?"
"No, why?"
"Things haven't been going well for him at Burke's."
"That crack in the basement is looking like his fault?"
"Yes, and now I have serious doubts about the caliber
of Jeremy's work in general."
"Do you think I made a mistake by hiring him?"
"Yes."
The doorbell rang. "Shoot. Well, that's him now. I
suppose we could just ignore that and tell him we've
moved away."
"It's your call. I'm willing to act irresponsibly if that's
what you want to do."
"Fine." She headed toward the foyer. "Let's see if his
232 L e s l i e C a i n e
design is so wonderful that it changes your mind about
him."
"I hope so," I replied, although I suspected I'd see a
pig fly over Audrey's demolished kitchen first.
I stood sentinel in the parlor as Audrey and Jeremy
made small talk. She hung up his coat in the foyer closet
and then started to walk past me, saying, "Let's sit down
in the . . . parlor."
"Good evening, Erin," he said with great cheer, which
was in striking contrast to the mood he'd been in when
we parted company a few short hours ago. He held up his
rolled-up cylinder of oversized papers. "I've got the blueprints right here, and this is my all-time best work. You'll
love it, Audrey."
"Excellent. Let's all have a seat." She gestured at the
sofa.
Jeremy hesitated as he eyed the small oval glass coffee
table. "I could use more room to spread out the drawings." He glanced around. "Dining room table, maybe?"
He strode as far as the entrance to the dining room,
caught sight of how the kitchen contents had monopolized that space, and said, "On second thought, the coffee table's fine." He unrolled his set of four drawings.
"Now, these are just preliminaries, of course. I didn't
want to start ringing up the charges on you till you had
the chance to give your approval."
With the briefest of glances, I was irate. "You're doubling the room's floor space?" I asked.
Looking at Audrey, he replied, "I want to move back
your west and south walls, so that we can give you both a
bigger kitchen and a bigger dining room. As you can--"
Audrey flipped through the drawings and said, "It
looks to me like you'd be gutting my entire kitchen."
P o i s o n e d b y G i l t 233
"Yes, but in return, you'd have a professional-style
kitchen, suitable to prepare feasts for the queen."
"I can do that now. Or rather, I used to be able to, before half of a cottonwood tree took up residence in my
kitchen. Erin has enlightened me about how building
green means reusing what you've already got wherever
possible. All I want is a separate solarium, big enough for
a small eating area."
"You'd just be wasting my talents that way," he stated
flatly.
"But we'd be wasting all of my perfectly good cabinetry your way. All that needs to be replaced is the sink
cabinet and the island. And the countertops, of course."
She looked at him pointedly, but he said nothing and
looked right back at her. Apparently he hoped to win a
staring contest with Audrey. The guy did not know how to
pick his battles.
Jeremy sighed and shifted his attention to me. "Erin,
could you and I have a word in private?"
"Certainly." I rose. "Let's step into the den."
Before I'd even had the chance to shut the door behind us, Jeremy uttered the same curse word three times.
"I knew you'd turn her against me," he
snapped at me.
"You had no intention of actually hiring me in the first
place! I did all this work for you for nothing!"
"Jeremy, I told you when I went to your office the
other day that we just wanted you to add a solarium for
us!"
"And I came up with a better plan. Obviously your
scope is too narrow to see that."
"Obviously your vision is too hard-wired for you to listen to your clients."
"I sure hope you're not planning on getting any more
234 L e s l i e C a i n e
referrals from Margot. We're back together, you know.
She can appreciate a good design when she sees one."
I followed him as he marched back into the parlor and
gathered up his things. His cheeks burned a deep magenta as he said to Audrey, "I'll let myself out, Ms.
Munroe. Thanks anyway."
"I'm sorry you were unwilling to listen to Erin. What
she says goes for both of us. Frankly, I'm surprised you
took it upon yourself to assume otherwise."
Jeremy gaped at her for a moment, then pivoted on his
heel and left without another word.
"Well, that didn't go especially well," Audrey said. "I
had hoped to pick up some clues from him, but all I
learned is that he has the temper of a crabby old man and
the attention span of a teenager. On the plus side, he
didn't kill me on the spot for telling him off."
She wandered into the dining room, and I followed to
see if I could help get dinner on the table. Or, to be more
accurate, on our laps; the surface of the table was obscured beneath all the dishes and cookware.
"What time is your stew going to be ready?" I asked.
"Will I have time to run to the store for some dinner
rolls?"
"I think so. Let me look at the recipe . . ."
She glanced at her watch. "Hmm. This takes longer
than I thought. I'd better turn it all the way up." She
cranked the dial on the Crock-Pot as far as it would go.
She looked again at the recipe. "Oh, that's much better.
Now it'll be ready by . . . nine-thirty tonight."
"On the bright side, I have plenty of time to get to the
store."
"Several times over," she said.
P o i s o n e d b y G i l t 235
"How very stylish of us to eat late. This officially turns
us into metro-singles, you realize."
"Good of you to put a positive spin on my bad planning. By the way, you're now in full charge of the kitchen
remodel. Whatever you say goes."
"Wonderful!" My mind's eye was instantly agog at the
