Interior Motives (4 page)

“I can’t wait, Darlene. When would you like to start?”

I heard the ruffle of pages as she checked either a calendar or a date book. “How does Thursday sound?”

“Excellent.” I fought to keep the impatience out of my voice.

“Will four o’clock work? That’s Jacob’s usual nap time.”

“How is he this week?”

She sighed. “He’s never really well, but he’s had a less difficult week than the last few.”

“I’m glad to hear that, for your sake as well as his.” I wondered if I should ask after her health, but I decided that for once I’d dredge up some tact.

“Then it’s a date,” Darlene said. “I’ll see you Thursday afternoon.”

“Thank you so much for your trust. I won’t let you down.”

“Of course you won’t, dear. You’re a very, very gifted young woman.”

I launched the countdown—days, hours, seconds—after I hung up.

It was a too-long week. By the time Thursday finally got around to showing up, I was as ready to roar as an orbital sander on a fresh-milled board.

I got to the Weikerts’ gorgeous Queen Anne Victorian five minutes early. What can I say? I am impatient. Then I sat in my Honda and salivated until it was time to slip to the other side of the ornamental wrought-iron gate in the decorative fence, climb the porch steps, grab the brass doorknocker, and put it to use.

While I waited for someone to come to the door after I knocked, I turned around to admire the original gingerbread trim along the roofline of the wide, graceful porch.

“Who’re you?”

I spun at Jacob Weikert’s question.

“Jacob?”

“No, you’re not Jacob. I’m Jacob. Who’re you?”

He should have been in bed. “Ah . . . I’m here to see Darlene.”

“Darlene . . . ?” He glanced over his shoulder. Then he looked out to the street. “Darlene who?”

A tiny woman, maybe all of five feet tall, rushed up behind the befuddled man. “You’re supposed to be resting, Jacob. What are you doing down here?”

“Well, I heard a ring . . .”

She tsk-tsked and took his arm. “That’s no reason to get up. I can take care of the door. Let’s go up to your room again, okay?”

He frowned, scratched his head. “Where’s my room? I don’t remember.”

“I’ll help you.” As she led Jacob across the foyer, she called out. “You must be Haley. I’m Cissy Grover. Darlene’s expecting you. I’ll let her know you’re here.”

I stood in the doorway, unsure of what to do. I could always do my usual and barge right in. The aged mahogany woodwork around the two doorways that led off the foyer was calling my name. And the leaded glass window at the stair landing begged me to go check it out.

But this wasn’t my house. And I hadn’t been invited inside.

True, Darlene had hired me to restore the parlor and dining room, but she hadn’t come down yet, and with the memory of her exquisite manners fresh in my mind, I decided not to do anything to put her off.

I heard Cissy call Darlene upstairs. I waited for the response but heard nothing.

“Darlene honey,” she said again. “Your designer’s here.”

The same.

I couldn’t have gotten the day mixed up—Cissy had said Darlene was expecting me.

As the minutes ticked by with no response from my new client, uneasiness lurked around my gut. Something wasn’t right here.

A little voice in the back of my mind screamed, “Go!” but I chose to ignore it. I wanted the job.

More time trickled by.

With every beat of my heart, my anxiety grew.

Then, “Oh no! Darlene! Please wake up. Please, honey. Please!”

The little voice morphed into a table saw’s roar. But by then I couldn’t take a single step. Memories battered me. Icy chills racked me. I stood frozen in place.

As if from a great distance, I heard Cissy run partway down the grand staircase. “Please call an ambulance. I can’t wake Darlene—she’s not breathing. I think . . . I’m afraid . . . oh, Haley, hurry, hurry, hurry! I think Darlene’s dead.”

I still couldn’t move.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This can’t
be.

“What am I saying?” Cissy wailed. “She’s dead. I don’t want her to be dead, but she is. No pulse . . . no breath . . . cold. She’s dead.”

I dragged myself out of my numb state, reached in my backpack purse for my cell phone, and hit a number that was altogether too familiar by now.

Don’t ask me why.

It’s a long story I don’t like to rehash.

But I didn’t call the ambulance just then. I called the Wilmont PD instead.

3

Wilmont PD Homicide Detective Lila Tsu and I have met a number of times, but never under pleasant circumstances. This time was no different.

The moment she drove up in her plain-vanilla four-door sedan, she stabbed me with that razor-sharp stare of hers. “I should have known you’d be here.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Let’s see here.” She began to tick off fingers. “We have a big, old house in Wilmont, Washington. We have an interior designer. And we also have a dead woman on the premises. In my experience, that adds up to Haley Farrell.”

“That’s so not fair, Lila. I didn’t find the body. As a matter of fact, I haven’t even seen it. I’ve yet to set foot inside the house.”

The elegant detective pulled her trademark silver pen and a notepad from her chic black handbag. “Who is the victim?”

I frowned. “You know, I’m not sure she
is
a victim. At least, not of anything more than some form of cancer.”

“Do you mean to tell me there’s been no crime? And you called me?”

Swallow me, earth.
“Ah . . . maybe.”

“Why? Why would you call me?”

“I . . . I can’t really say. Maybe it was a knee-jerk reaction. You know—the big, old house, the dead female, and the designer.” The only thing missing was Dutch, but I wasn’t about to mention him.

She tucked her notepad and pen back into her bag. “You’re certifiable. But while I’m here, I guess it doesn’t hurt to check things out.”

Lila’s shoes rapped sharply on the aged floor. My knees decided to quit on me, and I collapsed on the top porch step. How could this happen again? And to me?

I turned to prayer. And while I leaned on my reemerging faith, the shivers and shudders never stopped. I’d really wanted to work with Darlene. I hardly knew her, but I did know I’d met a woman of enviable character who didn’t hesitate to show the depth of her love. I felt cheated by her death.

Darlene hadn’t met with foul play, had she?

After a while the front door opened again. “I’m happy to report,” Lila said, “Mrs. Weikert appears to have died in her sleep. Their live-in nurse, Mrs. Grover, told me about the recurrence of the liver cancer. There’s not much doubt as to the cause of death, Haley. You can relax.”

“That doesn’t make it a whole lot better, does it?”

“I understand.”

We didn’t talk for a bit. Then Lila broke the silence. “Just so you know. We’re now related in a strange kind of way. We’ve been adopted by brothers.”

A spark of humor caught fire. “Woo-hoo! You sure took your time. How’s the pup?”

“He’s terrific—and a terror! But then they all are.”

“That means you don’t spend every waking minute at the cop shop anymore.”

“No, Haley. I don’t spend every waking minute at the department these days. But I do have to get back. There’s nothing here for me.”

“Can’t say I’m sorry to see you go.”

“I’ll give you that. Will I see you at Tyler’s
dojo
anytime soon?”

“I’m there every Thursday night. How about you?”

“I still teach the Wednesday morning lesson. It doesn’t look as if our paths will cross.”

“Well, then, take care.”

“You too.”

Weird. I wasn’t thrilled to see her go. As Tyler Colby, our
sensei
, once said, the detective and I have more than a few things in common. And even though she tried her best to pin a murder on me when we first met, I’ve since come to respect her determination and her devotion to her job.

She’s also a killer sparring partner.

And speaking of sparring, two men made their way up the walk toward me, their faces red, their voices raised, their pace fast and furious. Both punctuated their arguments with jabs and stabs of raised arms.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Tommy,” the one on the left said. “Mother knows about your dirty little secret.”

“What dirty little secret? I have nothing to hide.”

From the sideways shift of his murky blue eyes, I’d bet he had more than a thing or two to hide.

“What secret?” not-Tommy bellowed. “Hey, I know how you tinker with the odometers down at that dealership of yours—”

“Those are fighting words, Larry. I take my business very seriously, and all a businessman has is his integrity.”

Larry hooted.

Tommy sputtered.

I cringed. Who were these two?

“Hey!” Larry called out. “Who’re you?”

Since I was alone on the porch, they must’ve meant me. “Ah . . . the interior designer.”

That stopped them.

Wow! What power.

I took advantage of their stunned silence. “And who might you two be?”

“I’m Larry Weikert, and this clown’s my younger brother, Tommy. But we don’t need an overpriced decorator.”

These were Darlene’s sons? Darlene, the genteel Victorian, raised these two?

You’d think some of her dignity would’ve rubbed off—at the very least some of her sense of style should’ve trickled down.

But no. Tommy wore a sleazy, mega-slick emerald silk shirt—untucked—and a snazzy pair of skin-tight pinstriped dark denim jeans. His loafers looked butter soft, and I suspected they started life in a custom footwear designer’s atelier in Italy. Larry, on the other hand, had on the stereotypical computer nerd’s uniform—a faded T-shirt embellished with code gobbledygook, ratty jeans, and sneakers with vent holes at the toe. A plastic protector full of pens poked out from the T’s puny pocket.

“Did Cissy call you?” I asked. They didn’t look like grief-stricken offspring.

“Cissy?” Larry asked. “Nah. She’s too busy keeping dear old Dad out of trouble.”

I stood, afraid the ugly job of breaking the news sat square on my shoulders. “Then you don’t know yet.”

Larry’s glasses wiggled on his long nose. “Know what?” “I have bad news.” It wasn’t going to be easy no matter how I worded it, and before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “Your mother’s dead.”

“Huh?”

“What?”

“You’d better go in. Cissy can tell you more. But I can tell you your mother passed away sometime this afternoon.”

Tommy went primer white.

Larry blinked behind his bottle-bottom lenses.

I’d botched it, so I scrambled for alternatives, fell back on years of training, and used my best preacher’s daughter’s voice. “I’m so sorry for your loss. But come on. Come on inside. Cissy’s going to need help with the decisions that must be made.”

The sons came onto the porch like a pair of zombies. They stared at the door, which was still ajar, each step they took slower than the last. On their way in, Tommy muttered something about bankruptcy and jail time.

My heart ached for Darlene. What these two must have put her through . . . But now she was beyond pain. I wondered about her faith. I hoped she’d placed it in the Lord.

I almost made it to my Honda.

“Haley!” Cissy called from the porch. “Hold on a minute, please.”

The petite woman hurried down the steps, past the iron-grill gate in the fence, and across the small lawn to where I’d parked in the driveway. Grief ravaged her plain features; tears poured from her swollen eyes.

She held out her right hand. “I’m glad to finally meet you.”

Her fingers were ice cold. “Really?”

“For days Darlene talked about little else but what you’re doing at Dr. Rodriguez’s office and how much she wanted to hear your ideas for her family home.”

“I see.”

“No, I don’t think you do.” A sob shook her, but she closed her eyes, then stood tall and firm. “The last few years have been a day-to-day nightmare for Darlene. She watched the man she loved descend into an ever-thicker fog, and the liver cancer she battled and believed she’d beaten returned. Then the boys . . . well, she never could count on them for anything.”

I sensed her need to speak, to release some pain, so I murmured a vague “hmm . . .”

“She did listen when the oncologist urged her to seek counseling. For a while the depression went so deep that I . . . I thought it would take her rather than the cancer.”

She glanced at the house and sighed. “I can’t believe she’s gone. Especially now. She was doing so much better. She was ready to fight the malignancy, and her spirits . . . well, you know? It’s been years since I’ve seen her as excited as she was about working with you. She loves—loved—this house.”

My throat knotted up.
Why, Lord? Why now?

We studied Darlene’s home, each consumed by private thoughts. Then, down the street, a car horn honked. I dragged in a gulp of air, and Cissy shook her head.

“Oh, would you just look at me?” She wiped her eyes with shaky fingers. “I didn’t want to believe it, but somewhere inside I knew it was just a matter of time. Now that it’s happened, I’ve turned into a blubbery old woman. And I’m holding you back. I’m sure you have better things to do than listen to a silly old fool bawl over something that can’t be changed.”

“Oh, no! Please don’t think that. I only met Darlene that one time, but she made a huge impression on me. I doubt anyone could’ve met her and not admired her. I wanted to work with her, and I’m so sad I won’t have the chance to know her better.”

It must’ve been what Cissy needed to hear. She gave me a watery smile. “Everyone loves—loved—her. Even the nurses and lab techs at the doctor’s office, and they don’t speak much English.”

“That’s strange. I’ve never heard that the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Institute staffs that many non-English speakers.”

Cissy bit her bottom lip. She glanced again at the house, then shrugged. “I guess I don’t need to keep her secret any longer. Darlene supplemented her standard chemo from the oncologist at the institute with HGH—human growth hormone. She believed, as lots of researchers do, that it’s the key to healing and longevity.”