Death by Inferior Design (40 page)

“Good thinking,” she replied cheerfully.

Lucky that
one
of us was thinking. Normally, I would never dissuade a client from throwing a Cinco de Mayo party on December 31, but the idea of sombreros and piñatas and salsa music seemed totally out of character for the blue-blooded Jill McBride. What she
really
wanted was just to get as far away from her original vision of the party hosted for her husband as possible.

“Let me get you a nice cup of coffee, and we’ll get started,” she announced.

Again with the beverages,
I thought, as she led the way to the kitchen. The pocket doors to the den Steve had decorated were shut, delaying me from seeing if her portrait was now hanging over the fireplace. “Just a glass of tap water would be fine,” I said as we reached her glorious kitchen. I watched her pour herself a cup of coffee and me a glass of water from the tap on the refrigerator. “Jill, what do you think about decorating each main public room with items from a specific country? The party theme could be New Year’s celebrations around the world.”

“Oooh. I love that idea, Erin!” She grinned at me. “No wonder Debbie is so fond of you. You’re a creative
genius
!”

“That’s more than a little overstated, but I’m glad you like the idea. It will be fun.”

“I know just the place to start.” She gestured for me to lead the way through the doorway ahead of her. “My formal dining room is French provincial.”

Rococo, actually, but I was more than willing to go with the philosophy that the customer is always right now that she’d anointed me with the creative-genius title. We entered the room. She had a stunning Savonnerie rug under the elegant walnut table, which, even without its leaves, seated eight.

“I’ll talk to the caterers. Heaven knows I’m paying them enough to buy me their flexibility.” With dramatic gestures, she said, “In here we’ll serve bonbons, French champagne, petit fours . . .”

“And,” I interjected, “we can put a cake on the table, with the phrase ‘Let them eat cake’ written in frosting.”

She raised an eyebrow and curled her lip, and I added humbly, “Or not.” This woman had a rather hefty dose of attitude for someone who, left to her own devices, would have her guests in sombreros and wielding sticks.

Jill indicated the buffet behind me. “I told the caterer that he could use my French Louis the Fifteenth buffet from which to serve hors d’oeuvres. Of course, that was with the understanding that I’ll have
his
head if he damages it.”

I considered pointing out her pun about “having his head” and Marie Antoinette but decided her reaction to “Let them eat cake” didn’t bode well for her sense of humor. Turning my attention to the buffet, I replied, “That’s a beautiful piece. Mind if I take a closer look?”

“Not at all.”

I opened the center breakfronts and glanced at her impressive array of fine china. “You’re just going to allow him to use the marble surface on top, right? You’re not going to want to remove your china, surely.”

“Heavens, no. That would be far too impractical.”

“I agree.” As I started to close the doors, I noticed how elevated the cabinet bottom was compared to the outside bottom edge. “Oh, wow! I’ve never seen this done on a buffet before! This has one of those hidden drawers underneath, like some Chinese wedding cabinets.”

She chuckled. “Oh, that’s right. So it does. Very astute of you, Erin. I’d all but forgotten that was there. We’ve never used it.”

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 mother.” 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.”