Death by Inferior Design (20 page)

He glanced at the “Interiors by Gilbert” on the side of my van and then at the “Sullivan Designs” on Steve’s as he stopped in front of us. “You Erin Gilbert?” he asked me, a hint of a smile on his face.

“Yes, I am.” My stomach was instantly in knots.

“And are you Steve Sullivan?”

“Yeah. Can I help you with something?”

“Maybe. I’m Detective Martinez.” He fished out a pair of business cards from his pocket and handed one to each of us. The half smile remained. “I’m investigating a possible homicide in this neighborhood.”

“Yeah, we know about that . . . Randy Axelrod,” Sullivan said. “Erin spoke with the police already. A detective told her Randy died from arsenic poisoning.”

Martinez’s expression didn’t change. “Come down to the police station this afternoon. We’d like to ask you both some questions.”

“Together?” Sullivan asked.

“Or separately. Whatever works best for you.”

Never
would work best for me, but I wisely kept the thought to myself. The concept of the police possibly considering me a suspect in a murder terrified me into silence.

Detective Martinez turned to walk away. Sullivan looked at me with raised eyebrows, as if to ask if he should mention the arsenic. When I shrugged in reply, he said, “Officer? You might want to get a look in the McBrides’ basement workshop. I was down there earlier and spotted a bottle of arsenic on the second shelf of their bookcase.”

The detective eyed Sullivan for a long moment. “Be sure to come to the station house.
Soon.”
He stabbed at the McBrides’ doorbell.

Sullivan made a poor show of unlocking his van in super-slow motion while we watched to see what would happen next. Jill answered; she and Martinez spoke quietly, then she and I locked gazes for an instant before she ushered him inside. The fierceness in her expression chilled me to the bone.

Sullivan and I stood there in silence for a moment or two after the front door had been shut. Sullivan chose to ignore our brief exchange with the detective entirely and said, “We’re still on with Myra at five tonight, right?”

“Right.” That was when we had scheduled our initial visit with Myra to take “before” pictures, measure the rooms, and get a feel for what she was looking for in her redecorated household. Sullivan hadn’t repeated yesterday’s suggestion of dinner, but if he remained mum on the subject by the time we left Myra’s tonight, I vowed to myself that I would take the initiative. He was being a true gentleman now, and it was high time for me to forgive his boorish behavior last year and make nice.

I drove home, my mind in a whirl. I wasn’t going to go back to the police station of my own volition. Detective Martinez hadn’t set an exact time or stated that my visit was mandatory. No way was I willing to sit in that sterile environment and be stared at like bacteria under a microscope. The police could come to me if they wanted more information, and anyway, there was nothing more for me to tell them, was there?

chapter 12

In the blink of an eye, our babies become adults, and minor keepsakes from their childhoods become our greatest treasures.

—Audrey Munroe

“Splendid,” Audrey cried as she rushed into the foyer before I could even close the front door. “You’re home precisely when I need a practice audience.”

She waited impatiently as I removed my coat and stored that and my purse in the closet. I rarely had the chance to watch Audrey’s show and enjoyed my occasional gig as guinea pig for her five-minute show segments. This, however, was a rare break for me in the middle of an intense day, and I weighed the notion of telling her that I had too much on my mind. Realistically, though, all I felt up to doing for the next five minutes or so was sitting and staring at a wall, so I might as well stare at Audrey. I followed her into the kitchen, and we took our standard positions—Audrey behind the island and me seated in the breakfast nook. Today her sewing machine was out, so obviously this segment had something to do with fabric.

With no how-are-you-doing-today preamble, she flashed me her TV smile and launched into her show persona. “If you’re like most parents of young children, you dearly enjoy recording your little ones’ heights. You can buy premade plastic charts for upward of twenty dollars, or you can make and personalize one for the cost of a couple of yards of fabric, a measuring tape, and a few odds and ends such as rub-on letters that you probably already have in your junk drawer.”

Who has rub-on letters in their junk drawer? I wondered, but knew better than to interrupt. Audrey would tolerate criticisms after her demo, but not during.

“And for us aunts, uncles, and farther-up-the-growth-chart parents, personalized height charts make a wonderful baby shower or Christmas gift.” She reached below my line of sight and lifted up some off-white fabric. “My first tip is to be sure that you make separate growth charts for each child. We parents well know that the last thing children need is one more source of comparison and competition. Besides, the chart that you make will be a lovely, wonderful keepsake you’ll always treasure . . . with pictures of your child and his or her name on top. One chart for two or more children simply won’t do.”

I couldn’t help but smile and nod.

“You’ll want to buy thick, heavy fabric with a coarse weave, such as this stiff interfacing or this canvas.” She showed me the fabrics as she spoke.“Purchase two linear yards of fabric. With the standard thirty-six-inch widths, you can cut the fabric in half lengthwise for two eighteen-inch-wide charts—the perfect dimensions.” She unfolded the canvas to reveal that it was actually two pieces. “We’ll attach a measuring tape to each chart. Plan on mounting your finished chart on the wall so that the bottom of the tape is precisely twelve inches above the floor. Unless you’re measuring the height of Fido, Fluffy, or your ficus, those bottom inches are wasted space. And if your child is well over six feet tall, chances are that he or she is too busy playing basketball to be measured anyway.”

I chuckled, but then my mind started to wander as Audrey demonstrated how to hem the fabric and put eyelets in the top corners. Audrey was the only person I knew who actually preferred to sew standing up like this; she’d once explained to me that it felt better on her back, though Audrey had so much excess energy, she probably simply couldn’t stand to sit down long enough to sew.

Talking loudly over the whir of her machine, she showed how to attach the measuring tape along the right edge of the fabric. She’d first lopped off the bottom foot of the tape, altered the numbers one through twelve on that piece to read sixty-one through seventy-two inches, then fastened it to the top of the tape.

Audrey continued. “If you need to pinch pennies, rather than purchasing tape measures from your local fabric store, you can print a free measuring tape from Web sites such as
LLBean.com
. Just be sure to use high-quality cloth paper, or to laminate your everyday paper when you print out your measuring tape.” She held up a second chart that she’d already started using this method, which she completed by gluing the last segment of tape into place on the interfacing.

She gave me, as the virtual camera, a beatific smile. “Let me show you the wonderful keepsake I made from my son’s growth chart.” Again she reached down, retrieving a beautiful cedar container, roughly the size of a shirt box. “As you’ll be able to tell from his six-one height, Michael inherited my first husband’s genes.” She removed a folded cloth from the container.“By the way, I’m expecting him to be available quite soon. He lives near Washington, D.C. He married this shrew of a woman two years ago, and naturally the marriage is falling apart. I tried to warn him that he should never choose a woman whose main hobby was—”

“You’re going to talk about your son’s marriage on TV?” I yelped.

“Of course not, dear. That was an aside to you.”

As she spread out the wall hanging, I was so impressed that I rose involuntarily and stepped forward for a closer look. “Audrey! That’s absolutely adorable!” She’d sprayed a clear polyurethane over the surface of the cloth to keep the dates and marks preserved and had lovingly cut out pictures of her son at two- to three-year stages. She’d embroidered his name at the top and done a lovely cross-stitch pattern along the entire edge of the piece. She’d also used fabric paint to augment some of the blank spaces with delicate designs. From bottom to top, the photographs began with her newborn son at the hospital and ended with him looking very, very handsome in his cap and gown.

“Thank you, Erin. That’s truly sweet of you to say. But you know, my real audience isn’t allowed to leap up and rush the stage for a closer look.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh, shoot! You’ve thrown off my timing.”

“Surely that was already thrown off when you started trying to fix me up with your son. Michael’s still a married man, you know. Even if he gets divorced tomorrow, he’ll need to decide on his own when and if he’s ready to start looking again. He’s a grown man of—”

“You make a good point, Erin,” Audrey interrupted. “No need to keep jabbing me with it.”

“Sorry. Please continue.” I meekly reclaimed my seat while Audrey cleared the counter of everything except the sewing machine.

A dazzling smile was instantly back on her face, and I recognized it as her we’ve-just-returned-from-commercials expression. With the identical intonations that she’d used before, she began, “If you’re like most parents . . .”

chapter 13

Three hours later, I arrived at Myra’s house a minute or two early and rang the doorbell. Though there still wasn’t any snowfall despite this being mid-December—Christmas was just a week away—there was a decided chill in the air, and I didn’t feel like waiting for Sullivan to arrive and having to idle my motor to keep the heater going. Now that I was no longer required to move or stain furniture or paint walls, I had dressed up in autumnal colors—an A-line wool skirt suit, silk blouse, and silk scarf.

Myra, her complexion ruddier than usual, threw the door open and said, “Oh, look, everybody! It’s Erin.” Her words were slurred. “Come on in.”

I entered, hung my red blazer on the coat tree, and saw that “everybody” consisted of Debbie and Jill, seated on Myra’s faded floral sofa. “Ladies’ tea party,” Debbie explained, “ ’cept with strawberry daiquiris instead of tea. Want to join us?”

“No, thanks. I’m afraid I don’t drink very much alcohol.”

“Oh, well, alcohol is nothing to be afraid of, my young friend,” Jill said. “Especially not at a time like this.”

“Sit. Sit,” Myra demanded of me. Her gestures at the turquoise overstuffed chair were considerably broadened by her alcoholic buzz. I noted that Myra had been serving the drinks in brandy snifters, which were nice and large but not exactly ideal for daiquiris. One quick glance at Jill and Debbie assured me that they were already a few sips past caring about their glassware, however.

As I dropped into the well-worn chair, Myra explained, “We’re having a send-off party for me.”

“Oh, Myra,” Debbie chastised, “we are
not
!” She clicked her tongue and then explained to me, “This afternoon, a police detective managed to give Myra the impression that she’s going to be thrown into jail at any moment. But they don’t have enough evidence to do anything of the sort.”

“Of
course
they don’t,” Myra said sternly as she knelt down on the rug and picked up her glass from the clunky coffee table, “because I am
innocent.”
She looked at me. “The coroner says Randy was poisoned. They cleared out my refrigerator to take everything to the lab for testing. Everything they took will have my fingerprints on it, since
I’m
always the one who puts the groceries away. Randy can never be bothered to—”

She broke off abruptly, set down her glass and gripped the edge of the table as if for ballast, then hung her head and started to weep. In a small voice through her tears, she moaned, “Oh, God. Listen to me, still carping about him. I keep expecting him to walk through that door any minute now and tell me this was all just a big mistake. You know?”