Death by Inferior Design

by Leslie Caine

  Without thinking, I grabbed on to the eight-by-thirty-inch piece of wood just below the breakfront doors and pulled it toward me. The drawer slid open easily.

  Inside was an unlabeled baby-food jar half full of white powder. Beside the jar was a stainless-steel All-Clad kettle, identical to Jill’s kettle, currently occupying the left back burner on her stove, and identical as well to the one that she’d given Myra five years ago as a housewarming present.

  I had to stifle a gasp. My mind raced. In a heartbeat, the whole murder scene flashed before my eyes. No wonder the police hadn’t found poison traces in Myra’s kitchen. The tea water had been spiked. The tainted kettle had been swapped in and out of the Axelrods’ home. Myra had told me that the McBrides had copies of her keys.

  Myra had been the big tea drinker, not Randy. Had she been the killer’s target all along? Randy’s poisoning could have been an accident; Emily had said something to me the other day about his drinking ginger tea when his stomach was upset, and he’d felt ill that afternoon.

  Kevin had had access to this drawer, too, but there wasn’t a doubt in my mind now that Jill, and not Kevin, was the killer. She was standing right behind me, well aware that I’d just stumbled across the contents in that little jar of baby food, as well as evidence that revealed how she’d gotten away with murder.

  Now all I had to do was pretend that I was clueless, get the hell out of here, and call the police. I shut the drawer, rose, pasted a broad smile on my face, and turned back to face Jill. “Looks like you’ve got some pots and things you stuck in the drawer at some point and forgot you had.”

  To my horror, she had donned latex gloves. Reaching into the inner pocket of her jacket, she removed a small, silver gun.

  She aimed it at me.

  chapter 24

  Pity, my dear,” Jill said. “I truly liked you. I should have known better than to let you examine that particular antique. My mistake. I can tell by the look on your face that you just now put it all together.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

  “That’s the difficulty of your being in a career in which you make a living by noticing all the trivial nuances that the rest of us tend to dismiss. To my credit, I did try hard to scare you off, you realize.”

  She must have meant by shooting bullets into my van. Yet she was the one who’d hired me for this party planning job. Had she expected to just scare me away from Myra, all the while keeping an eye on me? “I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” I tried again. The longer I could keep her talking to me, the longer I could stay alive.

  She chuckled. “Oh, come now. I’d been planning this for quite some time. Kevin’s undying love for her had gotten ridiculous . . . intolerable. Even Debbie noticed. So I had to get rid of Myra. That damned support beam didn’t seem to want to fall, even after I nearly sawed clean through it in two places during Thanksgiving. When Kevin and Carl presented Debbie and me with tickets to the spa, it was perfect. I wouldn’t even be here when Myra drank her standard two cups of tea on Sunday morning. I was going to tell Debbie that I’d had a premonition so that we’d come rushing home and I could sneak over there to get rid of the evidence.”

  At least she’s still talking to me. She had the key to the front door in her pocket. Maybe I could get out through the back door in the kitchen. She was blocking my exit to the kitchen, though.

  “The trouble was,” Jill continued, “for whatever reason, Myra didn’t have tea that Sunday, probably because she was so flustered at your impending arrival. And, as luck would have it, Randy apparently started feeling sick to his stomach. So, apparently, the die-hard coffee drinker in the family made himself a cup of ginger tea.”

  She let out a puff of indignation and shook her head as if expecting me to share in her disgust at her misfortune. “I had no choice but to lie low for a few days, swap the kettles, and stash the contaminated one back into its secret place. Then that damned husband of mine had to go and force my hand by plotting his escape with his beloved widow, despite having you and the police snooping about. As if I would simply step aside . . . let them humiliate me like this . . . and leave me for another woman.”

  “So you killed Myra rather than lose Kevin to her?”

  Through clenched teeth she growled, “Didn’t I just explain that to you, Erin? Weren’t you listening? I am younger, prettier, thinner, and wealthier than Myra! How would it look to have my husband leave me for someone like that . . . that cow? My life would have been ruined. You, of all people, should understand that much!”

  “Why would I understand?”

  She raised an eyebrow and scoffed. “Your entire living is based upon self-image. You give your clients the illusion that they can rub shoulders with gentility . . . with old money, like my people. You should understand how crucial a person’s image is. Without it, we all might as well never have left the Cro-Magnon cave.”

  I wondered if she was right, if my career was a sham. I mustered up the nerve to state firmly, “You’re not going to be able to get away with any of the murders if you kill me, too.”

  “Oh, but there’s where you’re wrong, Erin. I was prepared for this. I always prepare for all possible contingencies. I’ve planned everything down to the last detail.”

  She took a step toward me. I backed into the hallway. I desperately needed a weapon. My purse was in the foyer. I’d removed the bulky items from last night’s repair job, including the scissors.

  Jill continued. “There’s that ridiculous expression ‘God is in the details.’ Quite the opposite is actually true. It’s the devil who’s in the details. Such as your happening to notice the minor detail of the false bottom in my buffet. That, too, was a contingency for which I prepared myself.”

  Think, Erin! There had to be a way for me to get out of this! Jill must have been planning to make shooting me look like self-defense. She was a deadeye shot with her gun. What if I turned and ran? Shooting me in the back wouldn’t be self-defense.

  Try as I might to convince myself to turn and run, my eyes remained riveted on the gun in her hands. “Randy’s death was an accident, and you had extenuating circumstances for killing Myra,” I said, taking a step backward. “Every woman juror will be on your side. A good lawyer will paint you as . . . as another Princess Di. But if you shoot me in cold blood like this, it’s all over for you.”

  She shook her head. “It will look like self-defense. The gun will go off as I try to wrestle it away from you. Myra told me about how you were her long-lost daughter and that Randy had put your baby picture in the paneling. That will be the headlines—embittered young woman takes revenge on her biological parents for deserting her and abusing her late, adoptive mother.”

  “Abusing my mother?”

  She sneered at me. “Myra told me that Randy was his typical belligerent self when your mother was working for them as a live-in au pair. I tearfully told the cops that Myra once confided in me that Randy raped your mother, and that I’d unfortunately had a little too much to drink in your company and let that slip. You took the news so hard. You hated Randy, and Myra, too, for not stopping him.”

  “Those are bald-faced lies!”

  She cocked her eyebrow. “Anyone who can refute them is dead. Or will be soon.”

  “Except Myra isn’t my biological mother. My mother’s alive and well. She’ll tell the police that I knew who my true parents were. If you kill me, the autopsies will prove every word of her story. Your manufactured motive for me as a murderer goes right out the window.”

  She paled a little and her lips parted in surprise. “Oh, my God. You’re Emily Blaire’s daughter. Of course! I should have recognized it myself. You look just like her.”

  “Face it, Jill. Your best chance is to let me go and turn yourself in . . . plead temporary insanity.”

  “I have my daughters to think about. I cannot allow myself to be arrested for murder, let alone have everyone think my beautiful daughters are the product of a crazy m
other.” She smirked. “With your background, you must know precisely what that would be like.”

  I clenched my teeth, enraged.

  “Emily can be bought off,” she said decisively. “I’m quite certain that’s how Myra got custody of you in the first place. I’ll simply pay Emily to keep quiet about your having been aware that Myra wasn’t your mother.”

  I was still a full twenty yards from the foyer. Damn these oversized houses! “That’s never going to work, Jill. I already told the police—”

  “I’ll make it work! I get whatever I want!” Her eyes flashed. “Your birthright doesn’t change my story of what Randy did to your adoptive mom and why you killed them. If anything, it makes your motive for killing them stronger. So you came to my house; we argued when you realized I knew you’d killed the Axelrods. Then you pulled a gun out of your purse. You threatened to shoot me, and, when I tried to get the gun away from you, it went off.”

  My last hope for talking her out of this was lost. Heading to the tile foyer was a risk. She probably wanted me to get off her precious white rug before shooting me.

  She chuckled as she came toward me. “I don’t know what good you think backing away from me is going to do you. Did you forget? I’ve got the key to the deadbolt in my pocket.”

  I spun on my heel and raced to the foyer, grabbing my purse as I ran to the front door.

  “Really, Erin! Are you going to smack me with your purse now? You never carry so much as a nail file in your purse!”

  Keeping my back turned so that she couldn’t see, I grabbed my X-Acto knife and flipped the blade into position. The one-inch blade wouldn’t be lethal, but it would sure hurt.

  “Reaching for your cell phone? You’ll be dead before you can get the first word out.” She stood directly behind me, just a step away. “Now be a dear and turn around, and we’ll get this over with.”

  “You won’t be able to explain bullets in my back.”

  “Turn around, or I’ll make you turn around myself. I work out for a solid hour each and every day, Erin. Everyone’s always underestimating my strength. Yet another reason the police would never suspect that I’d be able to saw through a support beam directly over my head.”

  I gripped the knife tightly in my fist, praying that this would end peacefully—that I wouldn’t have to fight for my life. “Don’t do this, Jill. There’s still time to turn yourself in and get leniency from the courts.”

  To my astonishment, there was a pause. In a choked, small voice Jill said, “You’re right. My God. What am I doing?” There was a metallic click. “I’m putting the safety on the gun and putting it down.”

  This was a trap. She’d cocked the gun, I was sure. She wanted to trick me into turning around of my own volition.

  In one motion, I brought my arm back and whirled to face her.

  The gun was still pointing right at my face. I slashed at her neck and then stabbed her in the chest. My unexpectedly swift pivot distracted her for the fraction of a second that I needed.

  Crying out in shock and pain, she pulled the trigger as she staggered backward. The bullet whizzed past my ear.

  She dropped the gun and sank to her knees. Screaming in pain, she looked up at me, in an obvious state of shock. “You stabbed me. I’m bleeding.”

  I snatched up the gun and pointed it at her. Then I retrieved my cell phone and dialed 911. “Stay right there. The paramedics will be here soon.”

  Hours later, I returned home from the police station. I’d told my story countless times. All I wanted to do now was pour myself a glass of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, draw myself a steamy, lavender-scented bath, and do my best to drown out all memories of the worst day of my life.

  Unfortunately, two weeks ago, Audrey had temporarily converted the house’s only bathtub into a terrarium, and I’d brought my last bottle of my favorite red wine to a dinner party two weeks ago and didn’t want to resort to dipping into Audrey’s wine-cellar stock. I would have to settle for a shower. Afterward, I decided I’d curl up on the velvet sofa with a good book, my great cat, and a bottle of Michelob.

  There was a padded envelope beside Audrey’s door with UPS handling tags. Probably a Christmas present for Audrey—a book or a couple of CDs—and then I read the labels. The envelope was addressed to me, from a lawyer’s office in Denver. Judging by the contents’ size and weight, there was something bulky inside.

  In haste, I let myself into the house, tore open the mailer, and removed a videotape and its accompanying typed note. In legalese wording, the note explained that this had been sent to me in fulfillment of the wishes of Randal James Axelrod upon the event of his death.

  I went straight over to the VCR in the den and, still wearing my coat, was soon seated in front of the television set.

  After a few seconds, the screen showed an empty Chippendale side chair with celery-and-white striped upholstery. I had not seen such a chair in his house, and the background was a blank white wall. Randy, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and jeans, rounded the camera and sat down in the chair. He looked to be the same age as he was at the time of his death. His hair was neatly combed. He appeared to be a bit nervous as he stared into the camera.

  “Erin Gilbert. Hello. You may or may not recognize me by the time you see this tape. If you don’t, that probably means the end came for me sooner than I’d hoped. You see, I have a serious heart condition, and my life expectancy doesn’t look so good right now. Anyway.”

  He chuckled a little and shook his head. “Whew. This is even harder than I thought it’d be. Let me introduce myself. My name is Randal Axelrod. My friends call me Randy.” He scoffed and said under his breath, “Actually, everybody calls me Randy, at least to my face. I’ve done some things I’m not very proud of in my life, but I’m thinking, maybe there’s time to make amends, starting now. . . . Or maybe not. I can’t figure out how to approach you.”

  I tried to merely listen and to quiet the sarcastic voice in my head that was retorting: Whatever you do, don’t put my baby picture inside the paneling of a room I’m remodeling.

  “See, it’s tough,” Randy’s taped image explained, “because my wife, Myra, isn’t at all well, and sometimes she does stuff to herself . . . hurts herself and makes up these wild stories. But”—he gestured nervously with both hands—“I guess that’s my problem, and you must be thinking, ‘Who is this moron, sending me a tape of himself? ’ ” He smoothed his mustache. “Anyway, Erin, what I’m trying to tell you is . . .”

  He leaned toward the camera and stared straight into the lens. “The point I’m trying to make is, Erin, I’m your father. I know that’s a title I don’t deserve. I realized a long time ago you were best off way the hell away from . . . me.” Again, he shook his head and laughed. His smile faded quickly. “But you should know I did at least arrange to provide a scholarship for you at that school in New York you went to.”

  I was so shocked by this revelation, I paused the tape, rewound, and listened a second time. I hadn’t misheard. My full scholarship at Parsons had come courtesy of Randy Axelrod. My eyes misted.

  He dragged his hand over his mouth and along his jaw. “Anyway. If we never meet, I just wanted you to know that it’s not like I never did anything for you, all these years. I know, paying for your college anonymously sure wasn’t much. But, well, that Jeannie Gilbert . . . she just seemed like the kindest, most loving young lady I’d ever met, and I knew she’d be a much better parent than . . .”

  He stopped, seemingly unable to continue. Finally he cleared his throat and muttered, “You take care, now.” He got up and came toward the camera. The picture faded to black.

  I sat there staring at the black screen, stunned, numb, unsure of how to react. Maybe I was just too drained from the events of the day to feel much of anything just now. I decided, though, to simply take his word for it that Myra had injured herself and not continue to believe that he had abused her. Randy Axelrod might not have been nearly as bad a person and a husband as she, and everyone els
e, had led me to believe.

  Hildi, meanwhile, decided to come join me on the sofa, and I welcomed her warm, sleek little body onto my lap. I pressed the rewind button and watched the entire tape a second time, looking for myself in Randy’s features, mannerisms, speech patterns.

  Questions whirled in my mind; I knew they would likely remain unanswered. If Randy knew Myra was as unstable as she was, why didn’t he come to my office in private, like any reasonable person would have done? Why play the game of hiding everything in the wall? Maybe he was just so hopelessly stuck in the rut of his own manipulative, controlling behavior that, try as he might, he couldn’t change.

  I shut off the tape. Picking up on my vibes that I was about to get up, Hildi hopped off my lap and pranced toward the bedroom. I garnered the strength to remove my coat and hang it up. I picked up the phone and listened. The dial tone indicated that I had a message on my voice mail. Though I silently chastised myself, as I dialed my voice mail I foolishly hoped that the message would be from Steve Sullivan.

  “Hi, Erin,” the message began. “I was just thinking about you and decided to call.” My father. “My wife and I were talking . . .”

  I rolled my eyes at the “my wife.” He always called Angie that, “my wife,” as though I didn’t know my own stepmother’s name. Which was not to say that I knew much else about her, even after their having been married for thirteen years now.

  “. . . if you’d like to come out to Los Angeles for Christmas. I know it’s short notice, with Christmas just three days away, but you might be able to catch a flight from Denver tomorrow or the next day. We’d be happy to pick up the tab. My wife pointed out that it’s been . . . well, that I should have been more accommodating, as far as your getting to spend time with her and my daughter. Anyway, I don’t suppose you can manage to take me up on my offer at this point, but maybe next year. I’ve got to run, but think about it. See if you can get a flight. If not, Merry Christmas. Maybe you could call me . . . us . . . tomorrow, and let us know if you can come out.” There was a pause, then he said, “Bye,” and the message ended.