The Design Is Murder (Murders By Design) (15 page)

Chapter Thirty-Six

Stroking through the turquoise water, a man in white pants and a Hawaiian shirt swam straight for us. In slow motion, like an old 1920s movie, he raised his right arm and smacked Stew on the jaw.

At the impact, Stew let go and groped for his chin. The instant he released me, Rossi thrust an arm around my waist and pulled me toward the surface. We shot up to the air and filled our starved lungs. Then, turning turtle, Rossi dove back down.

“Help!” I screamed. “They’ll drown.”

“It’s okay, Deva,” Tom yelled. “He’s got him.”

Treading water like mad, I glanced across the pool. With Stew splashing and panting and spitting all the way, Rossi towed him over to the shallow end. Dazed, Stew stood in water up to his knees, clutching the tiled apron with both hands. I had a feeling he’d just developed a mortal fear of bathtubs.

Rossi heaved himself up over the edge and stared down at him. “You all right?”

“Yeah. That was a close call. Thanks, Lieutenant.” He choked out a wheezy cough and spit into the pool.

“Don’t mention it.”

Dripping water, Rossi strode over to James and said something I couldn’t hear. Then he raised the sheet off Kay’s body and studied her. I wondered if he noticed the bruises on her neck. Though little escaped Rossi, I’d be sure to mention them to him, just in case.

His examination finished, he lowered the sheet. The medics pushed the gurney up the slope and James followed. Stew, eyes lowered, made no attempt to stop them.

Rossi strode along the apron toward the deep end where I was alternating between paddling and floating.

“You staying in all day?”

Actually, now that I was out of danger, the water felt wonderful, but I extended a hand. Rossi helped me up and out, the sodden shift clinging to my body like a second skin.

He eyed me, head to toe. “You make quite a mermaid.”

“Thank you, and thanks for rescuing me. You’re my barefoot hero.”

He looked down at his feet and smiled. Tom, standing to one side, shaken and pale, held Rossi’s gun upside down in one hand and his loafers in the other.

“Too bad I forgot about the tape recorder,” Rossi said, removing the ruined device from a pocket. He shrugged. “Oh well. Let’s get up to the house. I have work to do.”

He took the gun and his shoes from Tom and glanced over at Stew, who was still standing in the pool. “Help Mr. Hawkins out of there, will you, Tom? We don’t need another drowning here today.”

I retrieved my pumps, and together Rossi and I started up the slope. As soon as I had him alone, I whispered, “Kay didn’t drown. She was murdered. Didn’t you notice the bruises on her neck?”

He nodded. “I did, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she was murdered.”

I stopped mid-stride, arms akimbo, the stiletto heels in my hands jutting out left and right. “Why do you always do that, Rossi?”

His brow furrowing like a country road, he said, “Do what?”

“Tell me my tips are no good.”

“I don’t do that.” He paused. “Not every time.”

“Of course you do. Remember when I found the Monet everyone thought was lost forever? And what about the drug stash I discovered, and how that led you directly to the killer? And then there was the—”

“Stop,” he said, using his no-nonsense cop voice. “You know the house we’re building?”

“Yes, but what’s that got to do with this?”

“I want, ah...orange...that’s it, orange shag rugs in all the rooms, purple walls and a lime-green lounge chair, the kind with the footrest that goes up when you press a button.”

“Those are lousy suggestions, and you know it. On the other hand, my tip is right on target.”

“Only partly so.” He resumed his trek up the slope. “What isn’t on target is the conclusion that you—as usual—jumped to.”

“But—”

“End of story, Deva. You’re the decorator—”

“Designer.”

“And I’m the detective.”

I heaved a sigh and lowered the stilettos. No point in arguing further. The morning had been stressful, to say the least. James and Stew had suffered a tragic loss, and Rossi, in sopping wet clothes, had a crime to solve, whether he wanted to admit it to me or not.

We had nearly reached the top of the slope when Teresa came rushing past us. I glanced over a shoulder as she whizzed by. Moving slowly, with Tom following him, Stew trudged toward the house. Teresa ran to his side and put a hand on his arm. He shrugged it off and continued on alone, ignoring her as she fell into step behind him.

What Stew was going through at the moment, Teresa couldn’t share. From her expression, she knew it and hung back without making another attempt to touch him. His reaction to Kay’s death sure was a far cry from the detached emotion he’d shown when poor little Connie Rae died. Then what he’d seemed most upset about was the possibility that he’d be blamed for her death. This time he appeared to be genuinely grieving. Though appearances, I reminded myself, could be deceiving...

As we stepped onto the terrace, Eileen hurried over to me. “Would you like to get out of that wet dress? I have a dry uniform you can borrow.”

Anxious to ditch the clammy shift, I accepted gratefully. In the powder room, I peeled off the shift and donned the uniform over my damp underwear. Not good, but better.

Rossi settled for a large beach towel, knotting it around his waist over his wet clothes, most likely hoping it would soak up most of the moisture from his wet pants.

Outside, slumped in a deck chair, Stew dripped pool water onto the terrace pavers. Alert to his every move, Teresa stood at attention behind him, but without the happy diamond-glow of earlier in the day.

While a fatigued-looking Tom sprawled on the top step and gazed toward the boxwoods, Eileen hovered near the sliders, wringing her hands on her apron.

“Would you please ask Mr. Stahlman to join us?” Rossi asked her.

“Yes, sir,” she said and hurried inside.

A demoralized group, we waited for several tense minutes until, finally, James came out, holding Charlotte as if she were a lifeline. Which I guessed she well might have been. Avoiding eye contact with Stew, he sat as far across the terrace from him as possible, stroking Charlotte nonstop, his expression as controlled and rigid as ice. His quiet suffering was difficult to watch, and I longed for Rossi to finish his questioning so I could leave. How I could ever transform this house into a cheerful home with an air of carefree elegance loomed over my head like
Mission:
Impossible
.

With his tape recorder rendered useless, Rossi asked Eileen for a pen and a pad of paper. When she brought them to him, he said, “Would everyone please write down your name, address and a number where you can be reached. Also I need to know where you were and what you were doing for the past few hours.”

As the pad circulated among us, Rossi, with the towel still wrapped around his waist, glanced over at Stew. “How did you know your former wife had drowned?” He asked the question abruptly, hoping no doubt to catch him off guard.

His eyes lifeless, Stew raised his chin off his chest. “I saw the ambulance and was afraid something had happened to her. So I ran over here and one of the medics told me a woman had drowned. Who else would it be? The maid?” He cast a glance at plump, middle-aged Eileen in her white uniform and sensible oxfords. “I’ve seen you coming and going, ma’am, and you didn’t look like you’d skinny-dip during your workday.” He shook his head. “No, I knew it was Kay.” His voice faltered. “I knew.”

“Yeah, he knew,” Teresa said, a hint of sarcasm coloring her tone. “I did too, that’s why I came after him.” She finished writing and passed the notepad to Tom. “Can we leave now? Stew needs to get out of those wet clothes before he gets sick.”

“You’re both free to go.”

As if Stew were an invalid, Teresa took him by the arm and helped him out of his seat. She was behaving like a wife. Though this morning the odds seemed stacked against her ever becoming the next Mrs. Hawkins, the situation had changed since then, drastically so. Now that Stew had lost the woman he claimed was the love of his life, he might well turn to Teresa for consolation.

Before Rossi could ask him a single question, James said, “I was at my divorce attorney’s office this morning. I put his name and number on the pad along with my own. He can verify my whereabouts.” He cast a lethal glance at Stew’s retreating back. “Should that be necessary.”

Eileen swore she’d been in the kitchen all morning, except for a few minutes serving coffee to Tom’s two painters. They, of course, had never left the living room, and Tom and I vouched for each other’s whereabouts the entire time we were here.

Rossi collected the statements and slid them into the manila envelope that Eileen had thoughtfully provided. “Was anyone else on the property today?”

Still stroking Charlotte nonstop, James nodded. “My...wife...Marilyn came in for a swim. That was several hours ago.”

“Did you speak to her?”

“No. I didn’t see her. Eileen told me she’d stopped by.”

“When was this, Eileen?” Rossi asked.

“About eight o’clock,” she replied in a small, frightened voice, her hands wringing the life out of her uniform apron. “I remember because that’s when Mr. Stahlman has his coffee, and I had just brewed a fresh pot.”

“Did you talk to Mrs. Stahlman?”

Eileen nodded just once, in a scared, jackrabbit kind of way. I wondered what she was so frightened of.

“Yes,” she said, “Mrs. Stahlman said she wanted to go for a swim. She hadn’t been practicing much lately and was getting rusty. I offered her coffee, but she refused and went outside. I assumed she was going to the pool. She never came back in. So if she did have a swim, she must have left in a wet suit.” A puzzled frown wrinkled Eileen’s forehead. “Come to think of it, I didn’t hear her motorcycle start up. Usually you can hear it all over the neighborhood. I must have been busy in the laundry and didn’t pay attention.”

“When did Kay Hawkins go for a swim?”

Eileen bit her lip as she struggled to remember. “I really have no idea. She must have slipped out quietly. I don’t recall seeing her this morning.”

“Mr. Stahlman, do you know?”

James shook his head. “No. I only know she wanted to go for a swim. That was about eight-fifteen.” His voice faltered. “And then I kissed her goodbye.”

“Were there any other visitors today?”

“Just the tile men,” Eileen said. “They wanted to make sure the grout on the terrace stairs had dried properly.”

“When was this?”

“Oh, later. Around ten o’clock. I think Mrs. Stahlman had already left. They were working two houses down and stopped by during their break.”

“Were they here long?”

Eileen shook her head. “No, not long at all. I saw the rugged one, you know the one with the shaved head, leave a minute or so after they got here. And the other man, the tall thin one, followed him.” She flushed. “He waved goodbye, that’s how I remember.”

“Thank you,” Rossi said, and to James, “Do you have a number where your wife can be reached?”

James rose from his seat. “It’s on the desk in my study.”

Rossi whipped off the damp towel and laid it on the back of a deck chair. “I’ll get that number from you then I’ll be off. I’d like to have a word with the tile men—Tony and Mike I believe their names are—before they leave for the day.”

When he said Mike’s name, Rossi arched an eyebrow at me. He didn’t need to say another thing. Sometimes body language said more than words. And this was one of those times.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

After calling Lee and asking her to manage the shop alone for the rest of the afternoon, I went straight home. I tossed Eileen’s uniform, the shift and my under things in the washer and stepped into the shower, letting the warm spray ease away the tensions of the day.
Kay was dead.
Hard to believe. She’d been such a vital, energetic woman with a lifetime of living left to enjoy.

Something evil had happened to her. I was sure of it, and proof or no proof, my mind began playing with the nasty possibilities.

Teresa’s name popped up first. In love with Stew—or with what he could provide—she had a strong motive for wanting Kay out of the way. A shrewdy, Teresa would have recognized Stew’s infatuation with his former wife...if that was the reality of it. Who knew for certain? Kay had said they’d had a battling marriage. Yet this morning he’d sobbed inconsolably, cradling her body in his arms and then fighting over her with James.

In short, Stew had acted like a broken-hearted lover.
Acted like?
Was that it?
Was
he simply acting? After all, love and hate were two sides of the same coin. And Kay was about to marry his arch rival. For a jealous lover, that alone might be a motive for murder. The If-I-Can’t-Have-You-No-One-Else-Can Syndrome.

Perhaps. But according to that yardstick, bridegroom James was innocent. In love with Kay, too, and about to make her his own, he had no reason to kill her, at least none that I could think of.

I stepped out of the shower and toweled dry.

What about Marilyn? Maybe she hated having Kay replace her as Mrs. Stahlman. Technically, James was still her husband. Hmm. For an entire year, she’d let the whole world believe she was dead, and then on the brink of James’s remarriage, she’d returned just as abruptly as she had left. Strange. But since she had a lover, chances were she didn’t want James back. Certainly not enough to commit murder for him. On the other hand, I knew practically nothing about Marilyn...except that she had a mole on the left cheek of her butt. Halfway down.

I ran the towel over my hair, rubbing the curls until they rioted around my head. Black bra and panties, denim cutoffs and a loose BU T-shirt, and I was good to go. Actually I wouldn’t be going anywhere in this outfit and with this wild hair, but the casualness was comforting, kind of like what mac and cheese were to dinner.

Mac and cheese.
That would be perfect for tonight. With a salad...

That left only Eileen unaccounted for, but she was hardly the violent type. Besides, she had no motive for killing Kay.

I took some romaine from the fridge and separated the leaves.

But suppose, just suppose, that behind Eileen’s placid exterior beat the heart of a passionate woman? If she were in love with her boss, she might have been tempted to bump off his fiancée and be the only female in the house. No. I shook my head. That was downright silly.

I dropped the romaine into a colander and ran cold water over it. Or as cold as tap water ever got in Florida in July.

Yes, silly. For openers, Eileen wouldn’t have the strength to strangle a fit woman like Kay.

The water dripped over the lettuce leaves and ran into the sink.

Or would she? Anger could give anyone abnormal strength. Look at how courtly, refined James had knocked hefty Stew right into the pool. Nobody would have believed
that
without seeing it. Much as I didn’t want to, I had to face the uncomfortable truth that my work was bringing me into daily contact with a host of possible murder suspects. To deny it would be foolish, and, suddenly scared, I left the lettuce to drip dry and hurried into the living room. I needed a security blanket—the Cobra pistol locked in the lower drawer of my desk. I retrieved it and dropped it in my tote where it fell to the bottom with a satisfying
clunk.

Feeling calmer, I returned to the kitchen where, with a little rummaging, I found a box of elbow macaroni in the pantry and Nana Kennedy’s recipe for mac and cheese. It had been my favorite meal throughout childhood and beyond, though I hadn’t made it in years. Not since my husband Jack died.

I stared at the pot of water I’d just placed on the stove. Days had gone by since I last thought of Jack. Once he’d been my first thought each morning and my last each night. A spurt of sadness shot through me as the loss of him came rushing back with all the ferocity of new grief. Unlike Kay, Jack hadn’t died with bruises on his neck. He’d been killed by an icy highway. The foul play had been Mother Nature’s, but he was gone just the same. I’d loved him and lost him.

Then, to my great joy, life had brought me a new love. And he’d be home soon. I shook off the sadness as I knew Jack would want me to, found a brick of cheddar cheese in the fridge and began cooking in earnest.

I was chopping the lettuce, so engrossed in my task I didn’t hear Rossi come in, and suddenly there he was, standing in the kitchen doorway with a big white Chiclets grin on his face and his arms open wide.

I hurried to him and was rewarded by a kiss with a beginning and no end—the kind that segued from one into another and another. When we finally parted, leaving barely enough room to slide a piece of paper between us, I said, “You’re still wearing your pool clothes. No time to get to Countryside and change?”

“No need. They dried on me. Florida in July. Nothing like it.” He sniffed the air. “Something smells terrific.”

“Yup. Comfort food. I thought I’d surprise you.”

If anything, his grin widened. “And I have a surprise for you.”

My heart skipped a beat. “The bruises on Kay’s neck didn’t mean a thing? She wasn’t murdered, after all?”

A cold silence chilled the air. “No. That’s not it.”

“That’s not what?”

“The surprise.” His voice didn’t warm things up a bit.

“Okay, I do want to hear the surprise, but first tell me about Kay. Was my theory correct? Was she murdered?”

He dropped his hands to his sides and gave me one of those long detective sighs he churned out whenever I prodded him for information. “If you must know, foul play is the probable cause.”

“Officially? Did the ME verify it?” Now that I had him talking—sort of—I’d keep him going. With Rossi you never knew when he’d clam up, a trait I found both exasperating and endearing.
Exasperating.

“Yes. She was dead before she hit the pool. There wasn’t any water in her lungs. He’s citing strangulation as cause of death.”

Wow. I’d gone back to chopping lettuce, but stopped for a moment to digest what he’d just said. Believing the bruises meant bad news and knowing it for certain were two different things. Poor Kay. Like Connie Rae, she’d been a woman with so much to live for, and yet she’d come to an untimely end. A violent end.
They both had.

The knife forgotten in my hand, I stiffened as the insight struck home. Connie Rae had been murdered too. Again I had no proof, nothing to go on. Just a sudden, soul-deep conviction that like Kay, someone’s hatred had killed her. But
whose?
And
why?

No question about it, a murderer was on the loose, and chances were good it was someone I knew, someone I saw every day. So it was a good thing I had the Cobra stashed in my tote.

Rossi’s arm stole around me. “Deva, you okay? You kind of went pale just then.”

“Sorry.” I sagged against him for a moment. “The truth took my breath away, but I’m all right now.” The last thing Rossi would want to hear was one of my hunches, or that from now until this case was solved, I’d be packing. So I stood straight, inhaled and changed the subject. “Tell me your surprise.”

His grin returned, megawatt wide. “You’re about to gain a star boarder.”

“Meaning?”

“I sold my house.”

Uh-oh.
“Omigod, so fast?”

“Yeah. I can’t get over it. The second couple who saw the place put down a deposit. Didn’t even argue price. Isn’t that great?”

“That’s absolutely wonderful.” I smooched him on the cheek before peering into the oven. The casserole was as bubbly as Mauna Loa. “Any idea when they plan to move in?”

“As soon as the ink dries on the sales agreement. They’re paying in cash. No mortgage. No bank involvement. Just an inspection, a title search and the sale goes right through.”

I cleared my throat. “We have a problem, Rossi.”

His happy grin disappeared. “What’s the matter? I thought you’d be pleased.”

“Oh, I am. But everything’s happened so fast, I haven’t had a chance to tell you my news. I have a surprise too.”

“Yeah?” His voice guarded, he waited for me to spring it on him.

“I sold the condo to Lee and Paulo. Guess when they’re planning to move in?”

“Don’t tell me next week or something.”

“Bingo!”