Poisoned by Gilt (28 page)

that quickly faded when he saw it was just me.

"Afternoon, Erin."

"Hi, Matthew. I was in the area and thought I'd check

on the progress with Burke's desk."

"Should be ready by the end of the week."

"Great."

"Will the contest still be going on by then?"

"I'm not sure. Why?"

He frowned and muttered, "Nobody seems to know."

"Who else have you asked?"

"Burke, actually. I was hoping to make a deal with

him . . . to give him a discount in exchange for his pointing out the desk to the judge to prove that I can do green

designs."

That could explain Jeremy's having spotted his truck

at Burke's on Monday morning. "Did you go to Burke's

house, or call him on the phone?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Just curious. I wondered if you felt compelled to visit

Burke in person. After all, you've pretty much burned

your bridges with conservationists . . . and contest judges."

He made a derisive noise. "No comment, Officer

Gilbert." He held my gaze. "I don't suppose you'd be

willing to talk me up to Audrey Munroe, would you? I'd

love to do a segment on her show about local furniture

makers."

I wasn't about to say straight out that he'd be one of the

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last people I wanted to help. "An appearance on her show

can really boost sales."

"Lucky you to be living with her."

"Yes, I am lucky. But the publicity is the least of my

good fortune. She's a terrific person."

"I'm sure she is."

Which is why I couldn't bear it if someone killed her!

"As was Walter. Between you and me, Richard struck me

as being a bit of a loon."

He chuckled. "It's nice to hear you say that. The papers are making him out to be a fallen saint."

"Either way, he didn't deserve his fate."

"No. He didn't," Matthew admitted. "Just because the

guy was such a stupid show-off as to drink his own paint

doesn't mean someone should've taken advantage and

poisoned him."

"You don't feel guilty for egging him on?"

"Actually, I do. But I'm also angry. Some bastard

turned me into his henchman."

"His? Do you know for certain that the killer was a

man?"

Matthew shrugged. "No idea." He leered at me. "But

now that you mention it, poisoning someone does seem

more like something a woman would do."

c h a p t e r
1 9

he phone was ringing when we returned to the ofTfice. It was Burke. He was upset about his conversation with the structural engineer. I put him on

speakerphone so that we could have a three-way conversation. Apparently, the engineer had asked Burke over

the phone to describe the crack and had surmised that he

was right to be concerned about it. Burke had pressed

him further, and the engineer had said that, yes, it was

possible that a whole new basement might need to be

built.

"I can't do that," Burke shouted at us. "I mean, sure, it

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can be done physically--the whole house can be jacked

up and a new basement can be built underneath it, but

that would be almost as expensive as building a whole

new house from scratch!"

"The engineer hasn't even seen the house yet," I said

reassuringly. "He only told you it was possible that you

might need a new foundation, right? So he was giving

you the worst-case scenario because you asked him to do

so."

"This has got to be the all-time biggest irony," Burke

replied. "Here I've been thinking I'd struck this shrewd

deal, saving thousands of dollars, by agreeing to give my

architect all of the proceeds from an energy-efficiency

contest in exchange for designing my house. I figured

that he'd work his butt off to make my house the best in

the city. Instead, he does such shoddy work that the entire place is going to sink into the muck!"

"It's not anywhere near that bad," Sullivan said.

"I'm sorely tempted now to just surrender to Asia and

tear down my windmill. Hell, I should just give her my

entire property and make a clean start in some other city.

Some other state, even. Let her be the one to sink with

the ship. It was her flooding me with sewer water that

sped up the whole process in the first place." He chuckled bitterly. "Hey, global warming might even be my

friend. It might dry out this basin my house was built in."

"If it's any consolation," Sullivan said, "I doubt there's

any way Audrey is going to be able to overlook the seepage in the basement and award your home with first

place."

"That's supposed to console me?" Burke growled.

"Only in that Jeremy won't be earning all that prize

money now."

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"Yeah. The incompetent boob who caused my misfortunes now has to share in them. I'll start doing my happy

dance any day now."

"Speaking of Jeremy, I need to run home. He's meeting with Audrey to discuss his plans for the kitchen remodel right about now, and I want to sit in on their

meeting."

"Hurry Erin out of there, Steve," Burke said. "Jeremy's

a quack. Maybe Erin can stop him from taking advantage

of Ms. Munroe."

I was relieved to discover that Audrey was alone in the

dining room; I'd gotten home ahead of Jeremy's visit.

"Something smells good," I said.

"It's lamb stew, heavy on the basil," she explained. "A

good thing about the whole kitchen-tree fiasco is that it's

encouraged me to use my Crock-Pot more often."

"Wonderful. I'm looking forward to it already. Have

you heard anything from Jeremy Greene?"

"No, why?"

"Things haven't been going well for him at Burke's."

"That crack in the basement is looking like his fault?"

"Yes, and now I have serious doubts about the caliber

of Jeremy's work in general."

"Do you think I made a mistake by hiring him?"

"Yes."

The doorbell rang. "Shoot. Well, that's him now. I

suppose we could just ignore that and tell him we've

moved away."

"It's your call. I'm willing to act irresponsibly if that's

what you want to do."

"Fine." She headed toward the foyer. "Let's see if his

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design is so wonderful that it changes your mind about

him."

"I hope so," I replied, although I suspected I'd see a

pig fly over Audrey's demolished kitchen first.

I stood sentinel in the parlor as Audrey and Jeremy

made small talk. She hung up his coat in the foyer closet

and then started to walk past me, saying, "Let's sit down

in the . . . parlor."

"Good evening, Erin," he said with great cheer, which

was in striking contrast to the mood he'd been in when

we parted company a few short hours ago. He held up his

rolled-up cylinder of oversized papers. "I've got the blueprints right here, and this is my all-time best work. You'll

love it, Audrey."

"Excellent. Let's all have a seat." She gestured at the

sofa.

Jeremy hesitated as he eyed the small oval glass coffee

table. "I could use more room to spread out the drawings." He glanced around. "Dining room table, maybe?"

He strode as far as the entrance to the dining room,

caught sight of how the kitchen contents had monopolized that space, and said, "On second thought, the coffee table's fine." He unrolled his set of four drawings.

"Now, these are just preliminaries, of course. I didn't

want to start ringing up the charges on you till you had

the chance to give your approval."

With the briefest of glances, I was irate. "You're doubling the room's floor space?" I asked.

Looking at Audrey, he replied, "I want to move back

your west and south walls, so that we can give you both a

bigger kitchen and a bigger dining room. As you can--"

Audrey flipped through the drawings and said, "It

looks to me like you'd be gutting my entire kitchen."

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"Yes, but in return, you'd have a professional-style

kitchen, suitable to prepare feasts for the queen."

"I can do that now. Or rather, I used to be able to, before half of a cottonwood tree took up residence in my

kitchen. Erin has enlightened me about how building

green means reusing what you've already got wherever

possible. All I want is a separate solarium, big enough for

a small eating area."

"You'd just be wasting my talents that way," he stated

flatly.

"But we'd be wasting all of my perfectly good cabinetry your way. All that needs to be replaced is the sink

cabinet and the island. And the countertops, of course."

She looked at him pointedly, but he said nothing and

looked right back at her. Apparently he hoped to win a

staring contest with Audrey. The guy did not know how to

pick his battles.

Jeremy sighed and shifted his attention to me. "Erin,

could you and I have a word in private?"

"Certainly." I rose. "Let's step into the den."

Before I'd even had the chance to shut the door behind us, Jeremy uttered the same curse word three times.

"I knew you'd turn her against me," he snapped at me.

"You had no intention of actually hiring me in the first

place! I did all this work for you for nothing!"

"Jeremy, I told you when I went to your office the

other day that we just wanted you to add a solarium for

us!"

"And I came up with a better plan. Obviously your

scope is too narrow to see that."

"Obviously your vision is too hard-wired for you to listen to your clients."

"I sure hope you're not planning on getting any more

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referrals from Margot. We're back together, you know.

She can appreciate a good design when she sees one."

I followed him as he marched back into the parlor and

gathered up his things. His cheeks burned a deep magenta as he said to Audrey, "I'll let myself out, Ms.

Munroe. Thanks anyway."

"I'm sorry you were unwilling to listen to Erin. What

she says goes for both of us. Frankly, I'm surprised you

took it upon yourself to assume otherwise."

Jeremy gaped at her for a moment, then pivoted on his

heel and left without another word.

"Well, that didn't go especially well," Audrey said. "I

had hoped to pick up some clues from him, but all I

learned is that he has the temper of a crabby old man and

the attention span of a teenager. On the plus side, he

didn't kill me on the spot for telling him off."

She wandered into the dining room, and I followed to

see if I could help get dinner on the table. Or, to be more

accurate, on our laps; the surface of the table was obscured beneath all the dishes and cookware.

"What time is your stew going to be ready?" I asked.

"Will I have time to run to the store for some dinner

rolls?"

"I think so. Let me look at the recipe . . ."

She glanced at her watch. "Hmm. This takes longer

than I thought. I'd better turn it all the way up." She

cranked the dial on the Crock-Pot as far as it would go.

She looked again at the recipe. "Oh, that's much better.

Now it'll be ready by . . . nine-thirty tonight."

"On the bright side, I have plenty of time to get to the

store."

"Several times over," she said.

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"How very stylish of us to eat late. This officially turns

us into metro-singles, you realize."

"Good of you to put a positive spin on my bad planning. By the way, you're now in full charge of the kitchen

remodel. Whatever you say goes."

"Wonderful!" My mind's eye was instantly agog at the

colors and textures and lines I could integrate, all the

while maximizing the sunlight from the solarium and

skylight. I'd recently spotted cinnamon-colored tiles in

the salvage yard that would make a divine backsplash. It

would look stunning against her cherry cabinets, and the

reddish hue would complement the slate floor in the solarium.

"I want you to re-create Margot's kitchen, except with

my cabinetry."

"Ah."

"And I want less green in the recycled glass backsplash. I probably want to go with cement countertops.

Or maybe granite. We have to start from scratch with the

countertops, no matter what, so you can take me around

to the kitchen design stores, and I'll tell you what I want

when I see it."

"I wouldn't have it any other way, Audrey."

"Which is what makes you so good at your job. You

don't impose your taste on your clients, you merely steer

your clients toward the very best in their tastes."

"Thank you, Audrey! That's exactly what I try to

achieve every day at my job."

"Let's hope you succeed here. And quickly. The

longer I have to cook with this Crock-Pot, the longer

we're going to be eating dinner at midnight and living

like bats."

I snatched up my purse. "I'll run out to Safeway now."

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"You might want to wait another minute, just in case

Jeremy is still out there, fuming in his car about how this