Death by Inferior Design

by Leslie Caine

  He paged through the letters, and this time I couldn’t object—they’d been found in his house, after all— though I grew increasingly uneasy. If they were Debbie’s, I found myself hoping Carl wasn’t the violently jealous type.

  “The paper looks really old,” Carl remarked. His features and voice revealed some relief. “I’ll bet Randy or Myra put them here. Hey! M for Myra!”

  But wouldn’t Myra have remembered this stash in the years since they’d last lived here? Discussing the Hendersons’ design project, if nothing else, surely would have sparked a memory. How hard could it have been to sneak upstairs and remove the contents before I arrived? “I have to plaster up that hole and have it dry in time to hang the wallpaper,” I said, thinking out loud.

  Taylor went back to work tearing down paneling while Carl carried the letters and the pendant to some other room. I idly turned over the board that had been covering the hole to see if the back half of the groove had been filed away.

  In a rectangular, carved-out indentation that would have lined up with the cubbyhole was tucked a small photograph of a smiling toddler with red hair. She stood next to a blue-and-green checkered umbrella stand. I stifled a gasp.

  I glanced up at Taylor. He was paying me no mind, absorbed in his work. I peeled the picture loose and pocketed it. My pulse was racing so fast that I felt faint.

  I’d seen an enlarged image of that photograph sitting on my mother’s piano every day for sixteen years of my life. The baby in the photograph was me.

  chapter 2

  I felt as though I’d been sucker-punched. I continued to rip out the paneling, grateful that this activity allowed me not only to stare at a wall, but to treat that wall with no small degree of violence.

  What was my baby picture doing here? And how the heck had someone gotten hold of it? My adoptive mother was dead; my adoptive father had moved to California more than a decade ago. Only my birth parents could have had copies of that photograph.

  Memories of my mother’s death two years earlier made my eyes sting with tears. My chest ached, as it had throughout those two months of hospice care when my mother lay dying, the worst time of my life. My hopes and prayers had focused on the desperate, futile longing that I could somehow give my breath to my mother— could prevent her congenitally diseased lungs from filling with fluid—taking her from this world and from me when she was just forty-six years old.

  To make the end more comfortable and less impersonal, I’d brought her home, only to discover that the apartment she and I once shared and loved swiftly mutated into a mini-hospital, rife with the odors of disease and despair, pungent antiseptic, and medicine. My mother had been my first and ongoing client long before I’d enrolled at Parsons, and yet every design decision I’d made suddenly mocked me—every speck of color and vitality in our home made her look all the more ashen and frail and her hospital bed more stark. Even fresh flowers became merely funereal; light seemed a taunting exposure, so we spent those somber weeks with curtains closed, shrouded in heavy shadows.

  One evening after the meal that she couldn’t force herself to eat, she reached for me. “You have to promise me one thing, Erin.” Her voice was a halting, barely audible rasp, which tore at my heart.

  “Of course, Mom. Anything.”

  “You have to promise me you won’t ever look for your birth parents, under any circumstances. Do you understand?”

  I didn’t, not for a moment, but I replied without hesitation. “We agreed to that years ago, Mom.” Her hand had become frighteningly cold in mine.

  “I know. But you must promise not to change your mind once I’m gone.”

  “I promise, Mom. But why is it so important to you?”

  She returned the oxygen mask to her face for one more shallow breath, then, closing her lovely blue eyes—the only feature of my mother that still resembled the woman who’d always been my one true parent—whispered, “I can’t explain, Erin. I’ve got to rest now.”

  Although she’d languished for another nine days, it seemed to me that she’d poured what little strength and resources she had into asking me for that final promise. Afterward, she said less and less, until she fell silent for good.

  Now I resented the hell out of whoever had forced me to relive this heartbreak. Jeannie Gilbert—my mother— had been a vibrant, optimistic person in life, and that was the part of her I wanted to keep in my heart and in my memory. I could almost hear her spouting one of her cheerful aphorisms: “There’s a reason God gave us eyes in front of our head and not in the back, Erin, so that we can always look ahead.”

  Maintaining an eyes-forward approach had been a second promise of mine to her. It was one that, although unspoken, I also fully intended to keep.

  I wrenched my thoughts away from the past as I pried the last piece of aspen off the wall. Taylor announced that he happened to have some scrap pieces of Sheetrock in his truck, and I always carried mud and tape in my van for just such an emergency. Soon we had squared off the hidden hole and patched it.

  After an inordinately long absence for someone ostensibly putting away a few items, Carl returned to the room. He’d had enough time to read every word in those letters a dozen times. Suspicious that, despite his innocent act, he could have been the one to set this trap for me, I assigned him the miserable and messy job of sanding off the wall texture in preparation for the wallpaper. Even if it turned out that his wife was cheating on him and he’d had nothing to do with my photograph being inside his wall, he’d been a grump to work with; he deserved a nice coating of grit and white dust, I decided with petty satisfaction.

  I turned to Taylor. “Are you ready to get started on the new furniture and built-ins?”

  “I’ll get to ’em eventually.”

  “ ‘Eventually’ has rather tight limitations when the homeowner is supposed to return to a finished room in thirty-three hours. Even though the bedposts and legs have already been lathed, the headboard has a slanted backrest and an attached bookcase that’ll take a chunk of time to build. Let me show you my drawings.”

  He made a derisive noise. “So you’re in this big hurry, but suddenly you want me to look at your artwork?”

  “I’m talking about my sketches of the pieces I need you to build for me!” I took a calming breath and made a quick note to myself to adopt a new mantra for the weekend: be nice to the carpenter.

  I showed him my neat and precise diagrams, which he creased and stuffed in his pocket. He ignored me completely when I asked if he needed help unloading the boards from my van. Instead he called past my shoulder, “Hey, Carl! I’ll give you a hand with sanding that drywall.”

  Pointing out to Taylor that he was our carpenter and had yet to do any actual carpentry would not help matters. The upstairs guest room was now crammed wall to wall with furniture, so I went downstairs in search of a temporary sewing room. I needed to assemble the drapes, skirts, pillows, and duvet.

  Once alone, my thoughts returned unbidden to the photograph. What kind of person would hide a baby picture under a piece of paneling for the grown child to discover? Was the whole thing a cruel joke? Or was someone trying to draw me into some weird psychological game? In any case, I vowed, would not renege on my promise to my mother.

  Furnishings and wall treatments absorb the auras of their inhabitants as surely as heavy kitchen curtains soak up cooking smells. The less-than-ideal ambience of the Hendersons’ home now struck me. This place all but screamed of marital friction, of two people existing more apart than together within the same quarters. Although Christmas was right around the corner, there wasn’t a speck of holiday decoration. There were no conversation nooks, no groupings of chairs in this house. The wear marks and cushion indentations on the left side of the sofa indicated that Carl was a television junkie—and that the Hendersons didn’t rotate their cushions with enough frequency. The cheery yellow and robin’s-egg blue chintz love seat in the sunroom was obviously where Debbie came to relax and dream; the brass floor lamp was adju
sted to aim its light over one armrest, and a fluffy periwinkle-and-gray crocheted afghan had been draped over the sofa back. Their bedroom makeover might prove to be taking place in the nick of time, and I vowed that I would focus all my thoughts and energy toward the job at hand.

  I decided to put my sewing machine on the oak dining room table at the base of the stairs. There I could avoid most of the airborne plaster particles but still have convenient access to the front door for hauling supplies, and I could also race up the stairs whenever necessary. I wanted to begin with the draperies, knowing the new ones would be a massive improvement.

  Debbie Henderson—or perhaps one of the Axelrods, if the window treatments had come with the place—had made the common mistake of neglecting to pay attention to the curtain rods themselves. Floral fabric had been hung on metal hoops from a two-inch-diameter chocolate-brown rod, which sported oversized plastic finials on either end that resembled horizontal pagodas. That curtain rod had the same effect as a long, black heel mark in the center of an otherwise stunning travertine tile floor.

  After a few minutes, while I was immersed in pinning and cutting, I overheard Carl say, “Hey, Taylor, I’ve been thinking. You know anything about that hiding spot?”

  I instantly pricked up my ears.

  “Course not. Why would I?”

  Carl replied, “It just doesn’t seem like something Myra or Debbie would do . . . build a secret compartment in a wall. Randy either, for that matter.”

  “You think I’d put love notes and some chick’s necklace in your wall?”

  There was a pause. I didn’t move a muscle for fear that I’d miss their words. I hate to snoop on my clients, but my personal investment in their not-so-private conversation had been purchased in full by the photograph of me now tucked in the back pocket of my khakis.

  “I was thinking you might’ve been hiding something of a completely different nature. Back when you were house-sitting while Debbie ’n’ I went to Europe last summer.”

  A different nature?

  “I was staying in the guest room, not your room.”

  “That’s beside the point. You were alone in my house for over a month.”

  “Get real, Carl. I told you, I got set up! By that big, fat sack of shit you seem to be too scared of to—”

  “Watch it, Taylor!”

  After another pause, Taylor told Carl, “Mom believes me. Why don’t you?”

  “Because I can see you more clearly. She’s your mother. She lets you get away with murder.”

  “You saw for yourself! All that was in there were those stupid letters and some dumb necklace. It’s not like Gilbert found my bong or anything. That sucker’s still missing.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Taylor! You promised your mother you were off the drugs!”

  “I am! I was just kidding! Jeez, it’s like nobody can take a joke anymore!”

  “Not about you and drugs, no, we can’t. Not just three months after you got out of jail.”

  I clicked my tongue. So Taylor had a problem with drugs—or he had once had a problem. That was all well and good, but couldn’t they get back to discussing the hidden compartment? I wasn’t eavesdropping to give my ears a workout; I wanted to learn the who and why behind my baby picture having been stored in the wall of people I barely knew!

  “Tell me the truth, Taylor. It doesn’t matter now, either way. Did you put that hole in my wall?”

  “Thank you,” I whispered, craning my neck toward the stairwell.

  The doorbell rang, and I jumped in my seat and pricked my finger with a pin. The conversation upstairs became unintelligible murmurings. The doorbell rang again. Carl called down, “Erin? Can you get that?”

  I called back, “Sure thing,” then stuck my bleeding finger in my mouth. This was what I got for eavesdropping. Later, I would just come right out and ask Carl if he’d figured out who put the hole in the wall. Not that he’d tell me the truth. Or that, without revealing my own vulnerability, I’d be able to offer a reasonable explanation for why it mattered so much to me who owned the love letters I’d discovered there. Oh, well, you see, Mr. Henderson, I’m simply dying to know whether or not your wife is cheating on you, and your voices just weren’t projecting over the doorbell. Speak up, man!

  Kevin McBride was at the door. He gave me his usual lascivious once-over as I invited him inside. With his eyes riveted to my breasts, he said, “Sullivan asked me to come over here and fetch Taylor. As a matter of fact, he insisted that I tell you to—quote, unquote—‘quit hogging the carpenter.’ We’ve got an entertainment center for him to build.”

  Typical of Sullivan, to try to sabotage my progress by grabbing Taylor. “How do you like Steve’s room design so far?”

  “It’s great. Though I gotta admit, all I really care about is the new, top-of-the-line Barcalounger.”

  “Steve Sullivan is putting a Barcalounger into your den?” I all but shrieked. Sullivan’s designs were usually so sleek and clean-lined—something of an Americanized Asian style. It was not like him to choose a chair with that much bulk and curvature. “Was that at your request?”

  “You bet. And it’s going to be fantastic! Leather, built-in footrest, and storage places under the armrests for a couple of beers and the remote control. Steve says it’ll be delivered tomorrow. I can’t wait.” Grinning, Kevin added in a conspiratorial voice, “Sorry to tell you this, sweetie pie, but Steve described the chair to Randy, and it’s all over for you. The guy’s ten shades of green. Randy practically started drooling on the spot!”

  “Maybe his weak heart was acting up,” I snapped. Damn it! If I was going to lose this competition to Steve Sullivan, it had better not be on the basis of one testosterone-soaked recliner! “Those chairs are really expensive. I’m surprised he had enough money in the budget for materials for an entertainment center.”

  Still grinning, Kevin said, “I know. But he said somebody owed him a favor and sold it to him at cost. He said it was a real steal.”

  I ground my teeth. It’s a truism in this business that a designer is only as good as his or her sources. Trust Sullivan to suck up to exactly the right one.

  “Just wait till I rub this in Carl’s face!”

  “Congratulations, Kevin. I’m sure your wife will love her new chair.”

  “My wife?” The compact, muscular man froze on the staircase and pivoted to face me. “But it’s my chair! It’s . . . leather. You know. Leather. Cattle hide.” He made a motion as though he were cracking an imaginary whip. “Manly stuff. Cowboys and Indians, and all that. Besides, Jill doesn’t even like beer.”

  “But the room design is your Christmas present to Jill, isn’t it?”

  “Not the Barcalounger, though. I mean, she couldn’t possibly . . .” His face had paled visibly. “Cripes! You’re right. If I claim the major new item in the room, Jill’s going to have a hissy fit.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I should’ve asked Sullivan if he got us any other new seats for Jill.”

  “Even if he didn’t, you can always ask Steve to change his design, you know. Maybe he could provide matching recliners for you and your wife. After all, maybe his friend at the Barcalounger store owed him two favors.” I fought back a grin at the idea of Sullivan being forced to integrate not one but two Barcaloungers into his design.

  Looking a little panic-stricken, Kevin stomped upstairs to find Taylor.

  Okay, that hadn’t been very nice of me, and I especially had to assign myself negative brownie points for chuckling the moment Kevin had left the room. Having the homeowner get cold feet about a plan in progress is one of a designer’s toughest challenges.

  Upstairs, Kevin grumbled, “Taylor, Steve needs you to put in equal time here. He’s got some stupid entertainment center and a . . . coffee table, or something. He’s waiting for us at Axelrod’s.”

  “Yeah, all right. See you later, Carl.”

  “Jeez,” Kevin muttered at me as he slunk down the stairs, Taylor lumbering ahead of him. �
��I can’t believe you ripped out the paneling I put up.”

  “You installed the paneling?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Myra asked me to, a few years back. The Axelrods used to own this place. Randy never got around to putting the stuff up himself. But Debbie loved that paneling, big time. She even had me come over and spruce up the finish on the wood just a few months ago.”

  My heart sank. A half-dozen people had apparently had access to the paneled wall. With that lack of privacy, the letters and necklace might as well have been stuck to the refrigerator door. I said to Kevin, “Since you and Taylor are heading across the street anyway, would you two mind unloading the lumber in the back of my van?” Earlier I hadn’t gotten anywhere with this request to Taylor, but a brief stint as my pack mule was the very least Kevin owed me for leering at me so rudely.

  He said, “We’d be happy to.”

  “Thanks. Please be especially careful with the bedposts.” The tiger-maple legs and headboard posts had been the one item I’d managed to have premade, despite the busy time of year, and I was protective of them and proud of my design. I tossed Kevin my keys.

  Taylor had been waiting at the front door listening to our exchange. Now he asked Kevin, “So I’m s’posed to build an entertainment center? What, like, a shelf unit for the stereo and TV?”

  “No, Taylor,” Kevin grumbled as Taylor opened the door. “We want you to build us an entertainment center, as in a series of trapezes and a water slide. My wife, Jill, happens to be a chimpanzee.” He rolled his eyes at me as he shut the door behind them.

  An hour later, Carl had finished sanding the wall, and we primed it with an acrylic wallpaper primer. Carl wasn’t a naturally chatty person, and I eventually gave up on trying to draw him into conversation, most of which had been geared to my private agenda about determining who was responsible for the hidden photograph. The only salient points that I managed to glean were that it had been Randy Axelrod who’d insisted upon hiring me to work on this house, and that Randy and Myra had always lived alone.