Death by Inferior Design (23 page)

Hadn’t the hiding spot been built just a few months ago? By Taylor? Trying to weigh Debbie’s mood against the possibility that she was lying to me, I asked, “You didn’t read them yourself?”

“Carl wouldn’t let me. But I glanced at them when Taylor was trying to revive Randy, and it looked like Emily’s handwriting.”

“But . . . just today, Carl gave me the distinct impression that he thought they were yours . . . written
to
you. He found some stationery in Randy’s desk that he thought was the same paper.”

She shook her head. “In a weak moment, after a fight with Carl, I wound up in Randy’s arms—for all of two seconds. Literally. Ever since then . . .” She shuddered. “Anyway. Emily’s handwriting and mine are very similar. I wouldn’t be half surprised if Carl’s gotten us confused in his head once again. In any case,
Randy
didn’t write them. As if that man would ever write a love letter!”

I tried to make sense out of her explanation. If Emily had written the letters to Carl, he would be intimately familiar with their contents. He couldn’t possibly think that his
current
wife had written them. “Could they have been from Emily to some other man? To Kevin, perhaps?”

“Then what would they have been doing inside
our
wall? Emily and Carl were, of course, already divorced when Carl and I got married and bought this place.”

I frowned. This wasn’t any of my business. Even so, the letters seemed to be a major factor behind the terrible troubles in the Hendersons’ marriage, and the two of them could erroneously be pointing fingers at their spouse. “Maybe Kevin wrote them and put them there to get Carl’s goat for some reason.”

Debbie shook her head again. “Kevin is an incorrigible flirt, but he would never do anything so foolish as to write love letters to another woman. If one of those letters were to find its way to Jill—aka Miss Moneybags where Kevin’s concerned—he would lose his precious funding for his vast plans.”

She released a heavy sigh and dabbed at a tear. “It’s not as though I could blame him, really. Dreams are important. You lose them, and what’s left? You find yourself in your fifties with no goals, no plans, no children or grandkids to dote on. You just . . . do what I did, eventually. Marry some man you think you love and hope he’ll fill in what’s missing. When that’s impossible. What you’re missing is your own soul, and nobody else can find something like that for another person.”

I felt horrible for this woman. I watched helplessly as she struggled to regain her composure. “Are things really that bad for you, Debbie?”

She nodded, blinking back tears. In a halting voice, she said, “I shouldn’t talk about this to you; we barely know each other.”

“Maybe that’s why you
can
talk to me about it.”

There was a considerable racket around the corner as the three men came down the stairs and Carl ushered the officers out the door. I wanted to give them a few seconds to get in their patrol cars, then I intended to beat a hasty retreat myself. The Hendersons needed some privacy.

Carl lumbered into the kitchen and began to pace in front of us. “Well, crap,” he said before I could excuse myself from the house. “Looks like Taylor’s in big trouble now. They did some sort of test where chemicals they put on the inside of the wall changed color if there were drugs—even the smallest of traces—and it turned, all right. Taylor had been stashing drugs in our wall, just like he said he was.”

I was confused: Taylor had already served time for the drug possession. Right now, however, I was more concerned with getting out of here. I pushed my chair back from the table. Debbie looked up at him, a blank expression on her face, and said, “I want a divorce.”

As if Debbie had never spoken, Carl continued. “They didn’t find anything other than the drug traces. But they only came clear through the wall the two times . . . when you were there, too, and saw it. Erin, you’ve got enough on that extra roll to replace two pieces, don’t you?” His face was slowly growing flushed as he spoke. I wanted desperately to get out of here. Unfortunately, Carl was standing directly in front of the doorway, blocking my exit.

“Carl, I want a divorce,” Debbie repeated firmly.

He pushed his glasses against his nose and looked at her. “Stop saying that, Debbie! If you’d wanted a divorce, why would you have sent me across the street to get you some free furniture?”

“Do you think I’d stay married to you just because you got me a
free
desk?”

He spread his arms. “Why would you ask me to remodel the bedroom one day and then leave me the next? I didn’t care what the damned room looked like in the first place!”

I got up from the table and muttered, “I’ll let myself out.”

“I’m coming, too,” Debbie replied, rising.

Carl snorted. “No, you’re not. You can’t just say, ‘Carl, I want a divorce,’ and then leave with the interior designer. You don’t even know each other from a hole in the wall. That doesn’t make any sense!”

She swept up her purse from the kitchen counter. “I’m going to ask Myra to let me stay with her for a couple of days.”

“But I built you your damned bedroom! Why would you want to leave me
now
? I thought you’d finally be happy!”

“Carl, we’re a terrible match. You don’t care about anything. I care about too many things at once. It’s better this way.”

A marriage was breaking apart in front of me, and there was nothing I could do to reverse the tide. Yet another situation that had never been covered in my education at Parsons. “Sorry to run out on you like this, but I’ll call about the . . . wallpaper.” I strode out the door as quickly as social decorum allowed—just short of an all-out sprint.

Reading the
Crestview
Sentinel
had kept me informed
of the key details regarding Randy’s funeral. Though I’d been so exhausted that I had finally slept solidly, my nerves were shot throughout the morning service. There was a twitching muscle beneath my left eye that was driving me nuts, and I kept rubbing at it, to no avail. At least that gave me the appearance of having to dry my eyes, unlike anyone else in attendance. My raw feelings were probably due to my deep suspicion that we were laying my biological father to rest.

A total of twenty people had come, including myself and Sullivan, Debbie and Carl Henderson—sitting at opposite corners of the room—and Jill and Kevin McBride, along with Detectives O’Reilly and Martinez. I much would have preferred my one threadlike connection to the Crestview police—my fellow glassware aficionado—Officer Linda Delgardio.
She,
at least, was a warm, easy person to talk to.

I still hadn’t spoken to Sullivan about the Jamesons— our former mutual clients—even though my recent insight into Sullivan’s and my past history had changed the tint of my recollections the way that a sunbeam changes the color of wall paint. I’d merely told him in passing that we needed to talk later, left the service, and headed to my tiny—but very nicely decorated, if I do say so myself—downtown office.

My office was a one-room, loftlike space; the flight of stairs leads directly into my room, and I’d just begun my bookkeeping when I heard someone coming up the stairs. It was Steve Sullivan, who muttered, “Thought I might be able to catch you here.”

Knowing how much he deserved my apology, my nerves were instantly on edge. “Yeah. Hi. I’m just getting caught up with my paperwork.”

“You took off kind of fast from the service.” He sat down in the beautiful Sheraton armchair in front of me. My mother and I had refinished that chair ten years ago; she’d done the floral cross-stitching on the cushion and padded seatback, a wonderful Victorian design. “I would have sat next to you, but when I saw how few people were there, I thought it’d look better attended if we spread out a bit.”

I nodded. “It was a sad situation.”

“Pathetic, even.”

“His wife must have been his entire family.”

“Yeah. And
she
was almost cheerful. Not a wet eye in the place, in any case.”

Everyone had at least worn dark clothing. Steve was dressed in a black turtleneck, black jacket, and black jeans. I was wearing a black cable sweater and my brown suede skirt and leather boots. “At least the Hendersons and McBrides came.” Albeit the Hendersons had arrived separately and stayed that way throughout the service.

“Along with a dozen people from his magazine. I did a bit of networking.” He pulled a half-dozen business cards out of the breast pocket of his black jacket and sorted through them in silence. Watching him, I reminded myself that he wasn’t all
that
much less at fault over our misunderstanding than I was. Here he’d been trolling for work at a man’s funeral service.

“And two detectives,” I grumbled. “I recognized them, sitting in the back.”

“Yeah. I talked to them yesterday.” He glanced again at the business cards in his hand, frowned, shook his head, and tossed them into my trash can. Then he made a derisive noise and grumbled, “Time to get a grip on myself, once and for all. This was what I’ve lowered myself to . . . looking for work at a man’s funeral like some kind of ambulance chaser. Not to mention revealing to the Coopers that Evan had left me high and dry in order to gain their sympathies. And—”

“Wait. Didn’t you tell the Coopers that Evan had
died
and you were left . . . bereft?”

His eyes widened. “Come again?”

“Mrs. Cooper told me that you were grieving over Evan’s death, so she just couldn’t bear to hire me instead of you.”

“God, no! I told her the truth . . . that he’d given me the shaft and left town. She must have misunderstood. Or was so embarrassed about changing her mind that she overstated my situation to you. I’m not
that
desperate for work.”

A perfect segue. “Speaking of misunderstandings, Sullivan, I owe you an apology . . . long overdue, as it turns out. I didn’t know until yesterday, when I happened to talk to Susan Jameson’s husband, that they were already under contract with you when I accepted my first job with them. Almost two years ago.”

Obviously perplexed, Steve furrowed his brow and held my gaze. “Yeah, you did, Gilbert. Come on. I told you that myself, when I . . . kind of barged into your office that one time.”

Kind of? I shook my head. “Actually, I never picked up on what you were talking about. I thought you were just griping at me in general terms. About locating Interiors by Gilbert two blocks away from Sullivan Designs.”

“But I’d have to be some sort of raving lunatic to . . .” He paused. As if thinking aloud, he said, “That was just the second time you and I had met. I was sure you knew about the Jamesons’ mix-up, but figured you’d just look the other way. I mean, you were being so self-righteous and everything when—”

“I
was being self-righteous? Excuse me?” Livid, I gripped the edge of my desk.
“You
were the one who came storming into my office like, as you said yourself, a raving lunatic, accusing me—”

“Hey!” He shot to his feet and stabbed his finger at me.
“I
wasn’t the one who had clients already under contract with another designer sign a new contract and give a new deposit! I mean, how could the Jamesons
possibly
not have known you were separate from Sullivan Designs?”

Unwilling to yield the power position, I stood up, too. “They
didn’t
know, though. They thought the whole agreement with you was null and void because they’d reneged a year earlier!”

Sullivan whacked his chest with his palm. “How would I have known that?”

“I can’t hardly answer for you at this point, now
can
I? All I know is, yesterday Jameson said that Susan
told
you that at the time!”

He threw up his hands in disgust. “Jeez, Gilbert! In other words, you assumed I just flew off the handle and made baseless accusations. Just like you think I would sink so low as to outright
lie
to the Coopers about someone’s
death
just so that—”

He broke off as someone banged open the door and noisily tromped up the stairs. Taylor Duncan entered. He hadn’t come to the funeral and was wearing a bright red T-shirt that sported a cartoon mouse holding its middle finger aloft, a tattered and faded plaid shirt as a jacket, and grungy-looking jeans. At least the cooler weather had inspired him to wear a shirt. There was a slight hitch in his step when he spotted Steve. “Oh, hey. You’re both here. Cool.”

Considering that Sullivan and I had been on the verge of throttling each other, Taylor’s words struck me as so ironic that I had to smile. I reclaimed my seat, and Sullivan followed suit. “What can I do for you, Taylor?”

“Came to ask for some work, actually. I was hoping one or both of you could use a carpenter or woodworker for some contract jobs, maybe.”

Surprised, I replied, “I don’t think I have anything for you right at the moment, but if you leave your card . . .”

He snorted. “Yeah, like I have business cards.” He folded his impressive—although tattooed beneath the flannel—arms and looked at Steve. “What about you, dude? I’m a little short for Christmas. I’d take just about anything at this point.”

“Let me make some phone calls, then get back with me tomorrow and we’ll see.”

To my surprise, Taylor let out a puff of indignation. “Aw, come on, man! At least be honest about it! You have no intention of helping me out . . . neither of you does.” He dragged his palm across his again clean-shaven scalp. “I can’t even get shit jobs now that I’ve got this damn police record hanging over my head.”

Why, I wondered, was he suddenly so talkative about his arrest record? Could he be intoxicated at two thirty in the afternoon?

He dropped into the Windsor chair next to Steve. “This is all that asshole’s fault!” Taylor growled. “None of this would have happened in the first place if he’d have just minded his own damn business!”

“What are you—”

“Axelrod set me up!” he interrupted. “Oh, sure, I was dealing a few drugs. So what’s the big freakin’ deal? I wasn’t hurting anyone. And it’s not as if I had customers follow me into the neighborhood and traipse across his lawn.”