Rooms to Die For

by Jean Harrington

  “So who’re you for?”

  “Conway, Conway, Conway!”

  Eyes shining with amusement, Rossi leaned across the table. “The Conway guy, he know about this?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  Rossi laughed. “Wait’ll he finds out. Though maybe he’ll like it. The crowd’s sure eating it up.”

  I glanced around the terrace. People were laughing and clapping, thoroughly into the music. Imogene said she was an entertainer, and she was—if for all the wrong reasons tonight. I glanced over my shoulder to see how the patrons in the screened-in bar behind us were reacting. A familiar figure sitting on a stool with a martini glass in front of him caught my eye.

  My turn to lean across the table. “Rossi, I was wrong. See that man over there, the one sitting alone at the bar? That’s Harlan Conway. He does know about the show.”

  “Maybe he’d like to join us,” Rossi said, clearly enjoying himself.

  I looked back at the bar. “Too late. I think he’s leaving.”

  As we watched, Harlan gulped the rest of his drink, flung some bills on the bar top, and stomped out.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  After the dinner crowd thinned out and the boutiques closed, the Miss Understood slipped her moorings, performed the watery equivalent of a U-ee, and motored down the Gordon River out to Naples Bay. Imogene might have headed for home after that, or gone on to be ready for her next gig. Wherever she had gone, I felt certain that somehow, someway, Harlan would put a halt to her show. For the Harlan Conway I’d seen storming out of Baywalk was a man on a mission. And unless my guess was totally wrong, that mission was to take Imogene’s guitar and smash it against the wall. Or against his anger.

  I was worried about her. Harlan’s anger had to have an outlet. I was pretty sure the man was too controlled, too rigid to harm her, but words could lash, even kill. And poor Imogene was so in love, striving so hard to please.

  No wonder I found it hard to concentrate on work the next morning, though now that fall had officially arrived—despite the steamy temperature—business had picked up. A woman wanting her living room revamped for the holidays called, and we made an appointment for me to see it. A promising location, too, in the north end of town, a penthouse in a Pelican Bay high-rise. An upscale enclave, exactly the kind of contact Deva Dunne Interiors needed.

  Pleased, I put down the phone and went back to my paperwork. A short while later the Yarmouthport bells jangled. I looked toward the shop door and leaped up from behind my desk.

  “Imogene!”

  “Don’t you Imogene me,” she said, pounding across the shop floor on her stilettos, the skirted tables swishing as she hurried past them to get to me.

  Egads, she’s on a rampage.

  Trapped in the corner, I sat back down in my swivel chair, pretending to be calm. Alarmed, Lee stood up from behind the bureau plat. Luckily at the moment, except for the three of us, the shop was empty. I gestured to the front entrance. As always, Lee understood and hurried to put the Closed sign in the window and lock the door. The general public heard an earful last night. No need to continue the floor show today.

  “Well, are you happy now?” Imogene demanded, storming up to my desk, her arms akimbo, her chest...even sans implants...heaving up and down.

  “No, something’s obviously the matter,” I said using my cool Boston voice, which I hoped made me sound like a shrink. I pointed to the chair in front of my desk. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

  “Something’s wrong, all right. You should have stopped me. You knew Harlan wouldn’t like that show. I know you did. But you didn’t tell me not to do it.”

  Imogene’s voice had risen an octave. I didn’t think she’d resort to anything physical, but I already had ten stitches in my scalp and didn’t want any more. I pushed back the swivel and stood, shoulders squared.

  “Either you speak to me in a different tone or I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

  “Oh you will, will you? Just try it. I’ve been thrown out of better places than this.” She whirled around to stare at Lee for an instant then swiveled back to me. “And you can tell your bouncer to lay off too.”

  “You’re out of line, Imogene. Lee, call the police.”

  Lee reached for the phone.

  Without taking her eyes off me, Imogene said, “Go ahead, honey, make the call. I haven’t been in a raid in five years. I can use the excitement.”

  “I’ll give you one more chance. Sit down or Lee will make that call. And what will Harlan think when the cops haul you out of here and into jail?”

  No point in delaying the subject of this visit. Might as well get it out in the open and lance it like a suppurating wound.

  An enameled dagger, her fire engine red fingernail pointed straight at my eye. “You’re fired,” she yelled.

  Lee gasped.

  “It happens,” I said as Imogene slumped onto the chair in front of my desk, covered her face with her hands and sobbed into them.

  “But not often,” I added, reaching into a desk drawer for the emergency box of tissues that I kept next to the emergency bottle of gin. The tissue box was open, the gin bottle was not. Maybe today would be the day.

  “Here,” I said, leaning across the desk. “Tissues.”

  She lowered her hands from her face long enough to grab some from my fingers and mop at her tears. Wait till she saw the mascara tracks.

  “What did Harlan say?” I asked.

  Lee chose that moment to go into the back room. She’d straighten shelves or something and give Imogene a modicum of privacy for the true confession she was about to launch into.

  “He...he...wants nothing to do with me. Nothing. Not ever again. He called me white trash. Said I belonged in a trailer.” She swiped at the tears, swirling the mascara into a kind of mud pie. “The nerve of him. I haven’t lived in a trailer since before I married Jimmy. And then I wished I was back in one. Syd and I had good times in that trailer.”

  A fresh deluge streamed from her eyes. I took out the box of tissues and laid it on the desktop where she could reach it. I left the gin in the drawer.

  “Was it the show that set him off?” I asked, knowing full well it had been.

  She nodded. “He wants it stopped. Immediately. One more show and he’ll have me arrested. Arrested. All I was trying to do was help him.”

  And tell him how much you loved him. For without question her performance had been a love song, the whole sorry, entertaining mess.

  “So there’s no point in wearing black dresses and having a drab house.”

  That got me where I live. “Your home is far from drab. It’s tasteful. Energetic and calm at the same time.”

  She shook her head and dabbed delicately at the mud pie. “No use, Deva. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  “You going back to pink walls?”

  “No, I’m over that. Besides repainting is too expensive. I’m stuck with your design.”

  Humph. I’d worked on mansions in Port Royal, Naples’s mega-money neighborhood, without hearing anything remotely as insulting. “Did the contractors install the cypress wall yesterday?”

  “Yes. It’s hideous. All knotty and holey. No shine to it at all.”

  “I have more good news for you, Imogene. My upholsterer called this morning. Your canvas slipcover is ready. For the sofa, remember?”

  “Who cares? My life is over.” She snatched out a handful of tissues and did a pretty good job of smearing the mascara some more.

  “When did Harlan spread his goodwill?”

  “What?”

  “When did he tell you he was...ah...through?”

  “Last night. He was waiting for us outside my house.”

  “Us?”

  “Syd and me. After Harlan
finished telling me how much he hated the show, he said Syd and I belonged together. We deserved each other.” She sniffed. “That’s when Syd hit him. I couldn’t believe it. Syd always takes such good care of his hands. For fingering, you know. But not last night.”

  That skinny little violinist took on six-footer Harlan Conway? Maybe there was more to Syd than met the eye. “What happened then?”

  “Harlan said he never, ever...” She broke down, unable to repeat the unthinkable.

  I blew out a breath. “Maybe this is all for the best. Maybe you and Harlan really weren’t good for each other.”

  “What you mean is I’m not good enough for him.”

  “No! I don’t mean that at all. What I mean is you’re too good for him in a great number of ways.”

  Her eyes narrowed as if this were some kind of joke at her expense. “That’s not true.”

  “Every word is gospel. I swear.” Holding up my right hand, I counted off on my fingers. “You’re beautiful. You’re twenty years younger than he is.”

  “Eighteen.”

  “You’re warm. You’re loving. And you’re talented. Very, very talented. I could see that last night.”

  She stopped mopping her nose. “You were there?”

  “Absolutely. The lieutenant and I loved your show.” Little white lies didn’t count, and parts of it we did love. “You’re a wonderful entertainer. So why don’t you go back to performing? There are clubs all around southwest Florida that would love having you. You could have a whole fresh career. A full life without Harlan. An authentic one. One that’s really you. You know that song you sang last night, ‘My Baby Loves Me?’”

  “‘Course. It’s one of my favorites.”

  “Remember what it says? She’s loved just the way she is. She doesn’t have to phony herself up to keep her man.”

  Imogene heaved a bosomy sigh. “That’s what Syd said. He has a couple of gigs lined up too. But—”

  “Why make yourself over, Imogene, when you’re perfect the way you are?”

  “That’s something else Syd said. He spent the night,” she added somewhat irrelevantly.

  I nodded. “You needed someone.”

  “Yeah. I still do. He’s out in the car waiting for me to finish firing you.”

  “And are you finished?”

  She dropped the pile of sodden tissues in her purse—the huge gold lamé one. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to fire you after all.”

  “Good. You still want that slipcover?”

  She nodded. “Might as well. The inside of my house is wrecked anyway.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  So I hadn’t been fired after all. Though Imogene could hardly be called a dream client, I was pleased. She paid her bills on time and was fun to work with. Still, the sooner her house was finished, the better. Our tastes were so divergent I really didn’t think I could make her happy. What troubled me the most was the possibility that I had imposed my taste on hers—something a designer should never do. My job was to listen and interpret what the client tried to articulate. What her dreams were. What she really wanted beneath the words she spoke.

  When a woman asked for a romantic bedroom, you created a room with silk pillows and lacy bed coverings, soft colors and soft lighting, even if fluffy nests were not your thing. I huffed out a sigh. When Imogene said she wanted to impress Harlan Conway, not please herself, I believed her and based the design on second-guessing a man I’d never met. How wrong I’d been.

  No wonder a twinge of guilt needled me. Had I ever asked Imogene what she wanted? No, though I knew pink walls made her happy. Even if Harlan detested them, her preference should have been my guide.

  Now what? With its open floor plan, her house was largely one big room with a wall of glass overlooking the estuary. Except for the apricot wash in the bedroom and the cypress installation, it was really a white envelope. Tabula rasa right down to the new bleached canvas slipcover.

  Okay. So what would be wrong with a few pink and oranges touches? Two orange chairs flanking that living room sofa. Pink and orange pillows. And for some drama, an oversized ottoman in pink faux leather. It could double as a coffee table.

  Excited, I yanked my tote out of the bottom desk drawer and said to Lee, “You’re a blessing, do you know that? An absolute, bona fide blessing.”

  She sent me a startled blue-eyed stare. “Whatever made y’all say that?”

  “Because you’re here, Lee. Because you’re here. I need to go shopping for stuff in pink and orange. Be back before closing”

  “But I wanted to ask you something. It’s about—”

  “Can it possibly wait? I’m in such a rush.”

  “Well, yes...”

  “Good. Tell me about it tomorrow, okay? Ciao.”

  I blew an air kiss her way, shut the door, and with the Yarmouthport bells ringing in my ears, hurried out to the Audi. So Imogene’s house was wrecked, was it? Well, I’d see about that.

  * * *

  Though I had some misgivings about returning to the mall without police protection, no other venue in town offered as many alternatives for finishing Imogene’s house quickly and with a flourish. Once again I sent up a silent prayer that this wonderful resource would continue to thrive despite everything that had happened there lately.

  Midday traffic was light, and I reached the mall in fifteen minutes, record time. Heeding Rossi’s warning to have the Audi valet parked, I pulled up to the bronze entrance, but Phil the doorman was nowhere in sight.

  I waited a minute or so until a car drove in behind me, and I had to move. I looped around the circular drive again, but still no Phil at the entrance. Well, I couldn’t wait all day. I had work to do. Besides life’s dangers couldn’t always be avoided, not without turning into a wimp, and that wasn’t an option.

  So I drove into the half-empty parking lot and turned off the ignition. Wimpiness was one thing, sensible caution another. I peered out the rearview mirror and the side windows to my left and right but saw no one lurking. Just a couple up ahead strolling toward the mall entrance. With the tote bag gripped in my right hand like a weapon, I unlocked the car door and stepped outside. The humid air, so wonderful for the complexion, so bad for the frizzies, clung to me like a damp sheet but with less intensity than a week ago. Perhaps fall had arrived at last, though the circle of palms in the grassy space fronting the mall didn’t seem to care whether the temperature had cooled or not. They waved as languorously, as seductively, as ever, lulling me into enjoying the moment, making me forget to remain on red alert.

  Footsteps coming fast behind me. The mugger?

  I whirled around, tote at the ready.

  “Hi, Deva.”

  Phil.

  He eyed the paisley scarf wound around my hair. “How you doing after your...ah...accident?”

  “Not bad at all. Where’ve you been? I promised Lieutenant Rossi I’d valet park, but I couldn’t find you.”

  “Sorry about that. A customer on the other end of the lot had a flat. She was in a rush and needed her tire changed.” He held out his hands. “Got the grease to prove it. I better hurry up and wash this off. Been gone from the doors long enough. See you later.”

  He sprinted away, and I continued on toward the mall entrance, staying clear of the cars, holding the tote at the ready. All this vigilance was probably silly. I didn’t see a single soul anywhere nearby. Except for a man asleep behind the wheel of his convertible, a sporty little BMW with the top up and the windows down. His wife was probably shopping in the mall, and he got bored with waiting.

  Whoever he was, he slept with his mouth open. I smiled. He looked funny, so abandoned and uncaring of what anybody thought. I kept on walking, glancing over a shoulder as I passed his car.

  Wait a minute. Wasn’t that Hugo? I laughed ou
t loud. No wonder I hadn’t recognized him right away. I’d never seen him asleep, and with his jaw sagging like that. Did he snore too? Grateful he hadn’t seen me, I ran up to the mall door and hurried inside.

  * * *

  There are happy hours and then there are happy hours. And I’d just had two great ones. Shopping at the mall was so satisfying. In that short space of time I found everything on Imogene’s to-do list except for the outsized pink ottoman. That I put on special rush order at Baker Furniture.

  Before leaving, I left my packages at the entrance under Phil’s care and stopped in to see Beatriz. Though little more than a wraith in a narrow black dress, she was busy helping a customer examine a gilded candelabrum and exhibiting all the dignity and poise she had always shown. Either she was healing, or giving a good impression of doing so. When she saw me, her face lit up, and excusing herself from the customer, she hurried over to greet me.

  I threw my arms around her and hugged her close, her frail bones sharp under the silk.

  “Are you eating?” I asked, holding her at arm’s length.

  “Every day. Do not worry your head. Your poor head,” she said, eying the scarf. I hoped it passed muster. “What is more important, I have news.”

  “Oh?”

  She glanced back at the client, a middle-aged woman my shopkeeper’s instinct told me was just a browser. Sure enough, as I watched out of the corner of my eye, she strolled away from the candelabrum and left the shop without speaking. Beatriz shrugged. The name of the game.

  “The lieutenant has been in touch,” she said. “He tells me my José was not poisoned.”

  “No?” I didn’t know quite what else to say. Beatriz still wasn’t aware that Rossi and I were more than casual acquaintances and that he might have confided a few details to me, so I just nodded. Some day, when this nightmare ended, I’d tell her about us but not now.

  “José had been drinking. Scotch whisky.”

  “But he never drank.”

  “Not only did they find whisky, something else was in his blood. Sleep medicine. Ambien.”

  “Then he was asleep when he was killed?”