Gilt by Association

Caprice quickly searched through the first floor, then called up the wide stairway, “Louise?”

She received no answer.

Louise had said she was going to putter in her greenhouse this morning. Caprice gardened and her mom gardened even more. She knew how easy it was to become distracted by watering, examining, sorting. Maybe Louise was still in the greenhouse and was unmindful of the time.

“I'll check the greenhouse,” she told Nikki as she passed her in the kitchen, her head deep in the refrigerator.

Caprice hurried to the greenhouse and saw the door was almost closed, but not completely. She pushed it open, calling, “Louise?”

There was no answer.

When she stepped inside—

She spotted Louise crumpled on the floor. She let out a loud “No,” ran toward the older woman, and stopped at her prone form, aghast at what she saw.

She was
dead
.

STAGED TO DEATH

 

 

 

DEADLY DÉCOR

 

 

 

GILT BY ASSOCIATION

 

 

 

Karen Rose Smith

KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Officer Greg Berry and Officer Patrick Heron, my law enforcement consultants.

 

Thanks also to chemist Kenneth Smith, Ph.D., for helping me understand plant-based substances and their effects.

Chapter One

If her sister could run away, she probably would!

At least that's what Caprice De Luca thought after glancing at the expression on Bella's face, as well as the total disarray in Bella and Joe Santini's home.

This kind of chaos probably wasn't unusual for a mom with a three-week-old baby because
everything
changed when a baby entered a house. A baby . . . or a pup.

Caprice patted her hip to bring her dog, Lady, to her side. But Lady's head swung back and forth between Caprice and the newborn infant in Bella's arms who began to wail again.

Caprice wished she had more time to stay and help her sister, but shortly she was due at an appointment with a client. During February in Kismet, Pennsylvania, houses sold slowly. On the other hand, if a house hunter was looking at this time of year, the prospective buyer was usually serious. When Louise Downing, her mom's best friend, hired Caprice to stage her house, Caprice was more than ready with a Valentine's Day idea. An open house in conjunction with the popular holiday would be different than anything she'd done before. Louise's home already was all about hearts and flowers so that would be the underlying home-staging theme.

All at once, Bella's son Timmy yelled at his sister Megan, “You don't know how to play hide-and-seek.” At eight, he was an expert.

Although Megan was only six, she still knew the rules. “You didn't count. You cheated.”

Their squabbling was born out of restlessness and change. The letdown after the holidays had segued into welcoming their new brother into their home. Caprice supposed that they'd expected a newborn baby to be more fun. Since their mom had to give most of her attention to little Benedict, they were antsy and looking for trouble. That's where Aunt Caprice had come in. But she wasn't sure she'd done a very good job this Saturday afternoon. Bella was sleep-deprived and cranky, even though she loved her baby to bits. Trying to help out, Caprice had decided to keep them all company, do a little cooking and laundry.

Suddenly the front door to the modest ranch-style house opened. Cold winter wind blew in with Bella's husband, who'd been shoveling melting slush from the driveway so it wouldn't freeze. He looked as if he wanted to turn around and return to shoveling when Benny wailed again.

Suddenly Megan squeaked, “Oh, no,” just as Lady squatted under the table and . . .

She'd obviously been trying to tell them she needed to go out and no one had listened.

Caprice sighed. No, babies and pups weren't that different sometimes.

She rushed over to Lady. “Eh-eh,” she said in a nonthreatening but even tone. Then she patted her hip, said, “Come,” and headed for the door.

Joe called from the middle of the living room as he unzipped his coat. “She's not going to want to go out there any more than you will. There's snow in the air again.”

“She knows we have to make this quick. I'll clean up when we're done,” she assured him, grabbing her sixties-style pea coat from a kitchen chair along with a paper towel and a plastic bag from the counter.

After pushing her straight, long, dark brown hair over her shoulder, Caprice dropped the paper towel on the puddle, grabbed Lady's leash, and headed onto the back porch, patting her hip so her dog would follow her.

Caprice's bangs blew in the wind and she knew that she should be wearing her hat, but it was in her van. She attached Lady's leash and had to laugh as the cocker romped in the snow patches and turned around to look at Caprice as if asking her if she wanted to play. After all, she
was
wearing boots. She ran to the edge of the yard with her, said, “Go potty,” and waited as Lady did her business. She praised her while she did.

After Caprice cleaned up, she followed the five-anda-half-month-old pup back inside. Lady shook herself, leaving sparkles of water on the kitchen floor.

“I'll get it,” she told anyone in the vicinity. She wasn't going to cause any extra work here today.

Taking care of a newborn wasn't easy in the best of households. Joe had seemed to form a new cooperation with Bella since little Benedict was born, but you never knew when that could end.

While Caprice cleaned up the kitchen floor, she saw Joe had taken the baby from his wife and was walking him.

Bella held up a bottle. “He just won't take it from me. And he has to or I'll never get any sleep.”

Her sister had been breastfeeding but was trying to transition her newborn to a bottle so Joe could handle some of the feedings . . . or a babysitter could.

Joe assured her, “Maybe he's just not hungry.”

“He's a baby. He
has
to be hungry,” Bella insisted.

Lady whined at the anxiousness in Bella's tone.

Focusing on the situation at hand, Caprice realized the best thing she could do for her sister was to take her older kids out of the house, maybe ice skating, sometime soon.

“I thought Lady would entertain the kids,” she said. “But we're adding to the commotion.”

“And you didn't want to leave your dog home alone too much,” Joe added, as if he'd heard it all before. “She's a pup. She can't be alone all the time, or she'll develop bad habits. I've got three kids. I know all about bad habits.”

His expression was even, and Caprice couldn't really tell what he was thinking. Actually, she used to be able to tell better. Not that she could ever read his mind. But he'd turned over a new leaf last summer, and now it was hard to tell exactly what he was feeling . . . or thinking.

She crossed to Bella who looked close to tears. “Bee, you just fed Benny not so long ago.”

Bella shook her head and her black curls flew. “But he's crying again.”

Caprice was at a loss. Pups and kittens she understood. Babies, not so much. “Maybe he just needs a little walk or something.”

Bella glanced around her house. “It's not as if we have that far to walk, and I don't want to take him outside when it's this cold. I just wish the snow and sleet would stop and the sun would come out.”

Bella had deep blue smudges under her eyes. Her hair didn't look as if it had been washed today. Her slacks and sweatshirt weren't anything a recent fashion magazine would advertise. Caprice wondered if Joe had been helping at night or if—

As if Bella could read her thoughts, she assured Caprice, “Joe's been getting up with me at night. He's been great.” She smiled up at him.

Caprice had noticed that Joe had been kind and attentive soon after he and Bella had started counseling with Father Gregory last summer. He'd been by her side during every minute of her labor and delivery. He really
had
seemed to change from the arrogant man he'd once been. Caprice wondered, though, if he had changed for good, or if he'd changed for Father Gregory's approval. . . or the De Luca family's approval, for that matter. Eight months ago her sister's marriage had almost fallen apart when Bella had found out she was pregnant again . . . and soon after when both she and Joe had become suspects in a murder investigation.

Now Caprice and her family just weren't sure what to think about the couple. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst, she thought. Wasn't that the Italian Catholic motto?

Joe jiggled his youngest son and repositioned him on his shoulder. “It's really okay if you leave, Caprice.”

She should. Leaving was better for them and better for her. As it was, she might be a few minutes late for her meeting with her sister Nikki—who was catering the Hearts and Flowers open house—and Louise Downing.

“I made a mac and cheese casserole,” she explained to Joe. “With Mom's creamy cheese sauce you like so much. Put it in the oven, ten minutes later shove in the chicken fingers, and everything should get done about half an hour after that. I even steamed broccoli and all you have to do is warm that up in the microwave. It's a semi-healthy meal. I brought along some new cookies I whipped up for Valentine's Day, too. Give them a taste and let me know if you like them.”

“What's in them?” Joe asked suspiciously.

“White chocolate, dried cranberries, orange zest, and a secret ingredient,” Caprice answered jovially, learning that was the best way with Joe.

The infant had quieted now and Joe said to Caprice, “I'll walk you out. Can you get the dog okay?”

In no time at all, Caprice had buttoned her jacket, rounded up Lady, and clipped on her leash once more. After giving the kids and Bella kisses and hugs, she walked to the door.

In a low voice, Joe thanked her. “I appreciate everything you're doing. Don't think I'll forget it.”

“We're family, Joe. We stick together, good times and bad. You and Bella have had enough of the bad.” She added, “Just remember, she could still be going through some postpartum baby blues—”

“You have to meddle, don't you?” he asked in a resigned, almost amused tone. “But I guess I can accept that now because I know it's for her own good . . . and mine. I'm making sure she does something for herself each day, even if it's just to take a bubble bath.”

Perhaps Joe really had changed.

Lady was dancing around, keeping near to Caprice's legs.

Caprice squeezed her brother-in-law's arm affectionately. “Thanks for taking care of my sister. I'll see you soon.”

Once outside, Caprice opened her van. Because Lady was still a pup, Caprice enclosed her in a crate in the back. She used this one solely in the van and when they traveled. That kept her safe. Fortunately Louise and her husband, Chet, liked animals. They especially liked Lady, so she'd been a welcome guest at their house as they'd talked over strategies for staging their house to sell.

Caprice tossed a treat into the crate and Lady went in after it. When she turned around again, Caprice made a fuss, praising her, saying “Good dog” over and over. She gave her another treat from her pocket and closed the door. They'd worked on crate training early on. Lady didn't mind being closed inside because they went to fun places and had new adventures.

Snow was falling softly as Caprice climbed in the driver's side of her vehicle. She always smiled when she saw the swirling turquoise, fuchsia, and lime psychedelic colors painted on the side along with a few large flowers and turquoise lettering that read
CAPRICE DE LUCA—REDESIGN AND HOME-STAGING
. She loved the sixties and it showed in her fashions, in her home-stagings, and especially in her home-decorating. No matter who she was decorating or staging for, she chose colors because of the emotions they evoked. Sixties colors made
her
happy.

She switched on her windshield wipers but didn't really need them. The flurries were teeny dots that didn't even leave wet spots. She hoped the snow wouldn't fall heavier until much later. Then neither she nor Nikki would have to worry about driving in it.

With her own catering business, her older sister Nikki always helped with Caprice's home-stagings, and together they made them events. This was a busy time of year for both of them. They'd be helping with Kismet's Give-from-the-Heart Day food and clothing drive, as well as the Valentine's Day dance. The next two weeks would be nonstop activity.

Dusk was wrapping itself around the town as Caprice drove her van down slush-filled streets. The temperature hovered around thirty-two.

Crossing White Rose Way—the main street arrowing through the center of town—she headed for the outskirts of Kismet and the Downings' neighborhood. The streets hadn't been cleaned as well in this section where snowbanks lined the road. Expensive houses stretched along Middlebrook Drive where Louise lived. These homes weren't quite mansions, but they sprawled across acre lots. Many of them were older, unlike the new estates in the Reservoir Heights area. Country club patrons inhabited the homes on Middlebrook and had lived in them for more than one generation.

Louise and Chet Downing's property was elegant and pleasing to the eye. The house covered about forty-eight hundred square feet. Caprice knew almost every square foot since she was in the process of staging it. She drove around the front of the property, whose boundary was delineated by an intricate brick and stone wall. Sturdy brick pillars stood at ten-foot intervals. A broad lawn, now mostly snow-covered, led up to the front entrance with the floor-to-ceiling unique window treatments, arches, and multipaned glass. A four-story sycamore, its branches still prettily snow-covered, draped over the front lawn. Multilevel roofs and gables lent character to the house, and evergreen shrubs gave color to what could have been a drab winter landscape.

Louise was quite the gardener and had a hand in the landscaping. Come spring, color would overflow from every planter, border, and manicured garden surrounding the house. Since she enjoyed dabbling in a greenhouse of her own out back, every January she started plants from seeds—impatiens, geraniums, and petunias.

Caprice drove toward the garage side of the house and the greenhouse, entering the driveway in the rear of the property. She appreciated the architecture of the back of the house almost as much as the front. French doors on the first and second floors provided panoramic views of the gardens. Now, however, she parked her van, exited, and released Lady from her crate. After attaching the leash, she watched the pup jump from the van onto the snow-cleared driveway. Every day, Caprice spent time training Lady with gentle, reward-earning incentives. They were working on “heel” and Lady was learning how to walk on a loose leash beside her. Together they ambled up the flagstone path to the kitchen entrance. This is where friends and family usually entered.

Louise's maid, Rachel Cosgrove, answered the melodic chime of the back door. She was about Caprice's age, thirty-two, with honey-blond hair she kept restrained in a low ponytail. “C'mon in. Nikki and Mrs. Downing have been chatting. It's surely cold out there, isn't it? I'll take your coat.”