Fatal Feng Shui

by Leslie Caine

  I used the speed dial to call Sullivan. Before he could as much as say hello, I demanded, “Did you tell Rebecca about my stage fright on Audrey’s show?”

  “What? No!”

  “She implied that you did!”

  “Maybe you misunderstood her.”

  “No, I think it’s pretty clear that I’m not the one misunderstanding her. I get where she’s coming from loud and clear. Which is more than I can say about you!”

  “About me? What did I do? I told you I was seeing her casually to try to keep up with Pate’s connection to your brother.”

  “You’re so sure you’ve got to keep an eye on Pate. But all the while Pate’s not acting half as suspicious as she is. And you can’t see that because you’re too busy being attracted to her!”

  “Hey! You’re the one who’s always batting her eyes at Pate!”

  “You’re jealous of Pate Hamlin?”

  “No. But you’re jealous of Rebecca Berringer!”

  “The woman’s a viper! You cannot continue to date that woman! Not if you want to stay business partners with me! If that makes me sound jealous, then so be it!”

  “Now, why would your giving me an it’s-her-or-me ultimatum make you sound jealous?” The humor in his voice was humiliating and infuriating. I pressed the disconnect button with as much venom as I could muster, and longed for the good old days when I could slam the phone into its cradle.

  I arrived at Taylor’s apartment building at quarter after five, carrying a couple of flattened empty boxes under one arm. His apartment had been in a three-story yellow brick rectangular structure. The architect seemed to have gone out of his way to avoid providing nice views of the Rockies or adding any appealing design elements whatsoever. The door to the lobby was open, and a sign indicated “Manager” on one of the dozens of push buttons that buzzed the apartments. There was no name by 1C, Taylor’s old apartment.

  I rang for the manager. A gruff: “Yeah?” came over the intercom.

  The manager’s name was J. Slokowski, but from the one-word response, I didn’t dare venture a guess if this was a Mr. or Ms. Slokowski. “Hi. I’m Erin Gilbert, Taylor Duncan’s sister.”

  “Oh, yeah. Good. Your mother called. Said you’d be gettin’ his stuff. Be right there.”

  The owner of the gruff voice turned out to be a gruff-looking elderly woman. She was wearing black stretch pants and an overgrown sweater, with the mottled hue and texture of lint. She suffered from a smoker’s hack, which she could barely control long enough to open the glass front door for me. As soon as she caught her breath, she said, “You really Duncan’s sister? Two a you di’n’t look a thing alike.”

  “He’s my half brother.”

  She nodded, coughed up some phlegm, then shuffled ahead of me down the hall, her slippers clapping against the cheap brown-flecked linoleum with every step. The air reeked of burned popcorn, and two of the four doors we passed had set their TV volume to blare. “He seemed like a decent enough kid. Never gave me any trouble, at least. That’s more ’n I can say for half the tenants here. Always bellyaching ’bout their places bein’ too hot or too cold. Can’t never please ’em.”

  She unlocked a door. The room held just the barest of essentials—a twin bed, its yellow-white sheets and burnt orange wool blanket left unmade, a four-drawer dresser with its fake wood-grain veneer peeling off and a brick to replace the missing foot, a ladder-back chair, and a pair of dark blue plastic crates for a nightstand. The thought of a brother of mine living like this was so depressing that I had to bite my lip to distract myself. Thank God it was me seeing this place and not Emily.

  “All the junk…the stuff in here was his, ’cept the bed and the dresser. Lemme know if you need somethin’.”

  “Thanks.”

  She closed the door behind her. I sat down for a moment on the foot of the bed, the ancient bedsprings squeaking beneath my weight. This hovel had been intended as Taylor’s temporary quarters. It had been an upgrade from his six months in prison.

  What type of a life was it that my brother had led? He’d only been out of high school for two years. He hadn’t even gotten the chance to figure out who he was. And yet the autopsy results had proven that he had been clean. He’d wanted to get his act together for Emily’s sake. He’d deserved the chance to try, damn it all!

  I swallowed my sorrow and retrieved his suitcase from under the bed and packed up his clothing, emptying out his dresser. All of his other possessions fit into the milk crates and the two cardboard boxes I’d brought. He had a handful of photographs of his friends and of our mother. Surprisingly, there was one of me right on top of the stack. It was painful to think he’d had that next to his bed in this dreary little room. I had no pictures of him. I packed up his toiletries from the three-quarter bathroom, then was done.

  I stacked the now-full containers in the hall, managing to prop open an exit door in the back so that I wouldn’t lock myself out. As I returned for the last box, Ms. Slokowski was glaring at me, hands on her hips. “You propped the door open.”

  “I didn’t want to keep having to bother you to buzz me in through the front door.”

  “Yeah, but the alarm goes off when the door’s kept open more’n an inch and more’n a minute. Rings right in my apartment.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

  “Must run in the family.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Caught your brother doing that a couple times. He stopped, once I explained about the alarm.”

  “Had he been loading things into his truck?”

  “Naw. When he kept wanting to go in and out ’cuz he was working outside. He did masonry work for the building owners in exchange for rent. He fixed that wall behind you.” She pointed with her chin. “Di’n’t do a very good job, though. Left a loose brick.”

  “Oh,” I said, trying to feign disinterest. My heart was pounding, however. Could this be another of Taylor’s hiding spots?

  The moment I’d loaded my last box into my rental car, I sneaked back over to the brick wall. I quickly found the loose brick that Ms. Slokowski had mentioned and, after checking to ensure that I wasn’t being watched, removed it. Two unmarked and ordinary-looking house keys were tucked away in the cracked mortar. I hastily pocketed them and returned the brick to its slot.

  I gave the door to the building a quick glance and saw that the keyhole for its lock looked about the right shape and size for one of the keys. Just in case, I tried one of Taylor’s keys. To my disappointment, it fit. If the second key fit Taylor’s apartment door, my discovery was worthless. I tried the second key in his lock. It turned. Damn it! I’d dearly hoped that one of these keys would be to a storage unit where he’d hidden the evidence he’d said he was going to show me, right before he died.

  I looked again at his tiny former abode, wondering if I could have missed a hiding spot. I checked every inch of the bed—nothing—and the dresser drawers—no false bottoms. I looked underneath the dresser, thinking the brick for the missing leg could have been hollowed out, but no such luck. I did my best to return the lopsided drawers to their slots. The ceiling was the popcorn texture that screamed ’70s. No chance for a cubbyhole there. The walls were Sheetrock. No loose baseboards. The shower stall had a plastic liner, which was coated in years of soap scum. Nothing. No baggies in the toilet tank.

  I left and drove to Emily’s home, feeling frustrated and discouraged. I’d let my brother down. As tenuous and fledgling of a relationship as we’d had, it had been something. He and Emily were my only remaining blood relatives in the world. The relationship deserved to have been nurtured. Now he was gone, before I’d ever gotten the chance to fully experience having a brother.

  We need to acknowledge and celebrate the key events in our lives. They should no more be neglected than you would forget your child’s birthday. They show our progress and how we are a part of life’s evolution.

  —Audrey Munroe

  * * *

  DOMESTIC BLISSr />
  That night, I stared at the flickering oranges and yellows of the warm fire in the elegant marble fireplace. Hildi had curled up against my thigh, and I stroked her soft fur. In the background, a lovely flute and piano concerto was playing on the stereo, and the aroma of our delicious meal lingered in the air.

  Despite all the heartwarming trappings around me, a feeling of melancholy clung to me like a burr. I ruminated over what I could do to cheer myself. I bolted upright on the comfy sofa. “We never celebrated my forming a new business with Sullivan!”

  Audrey peered at me over the top of her reading glasses. She was knitting a teal blue baby blanket for her three-month-old granddaughter. She was also reading, having placed her novel on a book stand. Audrey always had to be doing two things at once or she felt her time was being underutilized. “Pardon?”

  “I’ve been a bit blue lately because, on top of everything else, I missed Taylor’s twentieth birthday. I should have made more of an effort to mark these special occasions. And it hit me, we already messed up with Sullivan and Gilbert.”

  She blinked at me, then set aside her yarn and needles. “You’re right, Erin. That was a terrible oversight. I should have thrown you two a grand-opening party! Well, it’s not too late. Your business is still within its first annual season…plenty of time for a semi-grand-opening celebration.”

  “Oh, you don’t need to do that,” I protested.

  She snorted. “If I felt obligated, I’d be too resentful to go through with it. As it is, it’s my idea and it will be my pleasure.” She hopped up and grabbed her Mont Blanc pen and her Tiffany appointment book from a small drawer in the mahogany console. “We’ll present this affair as a kickoff party. Two weeks notice is all anyone will need. We can squeeze it in on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Not ideal, but we don’t want to let this go any longer. After the first week of December, everyone starts getting ready for the holidays, running around like chickens with their heads cut off. My theory is it’s an unconscious show of sympathy for the turkeys they just ate.”

  “So, according to your theory, we could still hold the party in mid-December, provided we invited only vegetarians.”

  Audrey was already scribbling notes. She replied, “Yes, but that would force us to serve only meatless appetizers.”

  “We wouldn’t want that.”

  “I’ll find a way to mention your business kickoff on a show segment. And I’ll, of course, invite all the high-profile locals. Especially the ones with large homes and money to burn. Honestly! I can’t believe I didn’t do this already!”

  Hildi let out a raspy meow from her seat beside me, either an objection to the sudden flurry of activity or simply wanting to get her two cents in.

  “That’s okay, Audrey. Really. It’s totally wonderful of you to be doing it now. That was never my intention. I was just thinking Steve and I could maybe have a few friends over to the office for some tapas and pot stickers and cocktails.”

  “Pot stickers?” Audrey clicked her tongue. “You’re thinking much too small. We’re going to turn this into the after–turkey-day event of the year. An open house to show off your fabulous office, complete with photographs of your biggest triumphs.”

  “Triumphs? We’ve been in business for less than two months. And, let’s face it, a triumph for us is when we design a home…and nobody dies!”

  “That’s not exactly something to put on your business cards, dear. Let’s forget about the photos, then. I’ll hire a couple of members from the Crestview Orchestra to play. No matter what, we have to perform some sort of formal ceremony. Do you think Steve would go along with a smudging ritual? For clearing the space of negative energy, I mean?”

  I laughed. “Sullivan? Shall I get you a ceremonial feather to fan the embers while we’re at it?”

  She arched an eyebrow.

  I said, “That doesn’t exactly sound like something that’s up Sullivan’s alley, no.”

  “We’ll surprise him with it, then. I did a show on open-house rituals last month. Did you know that studies have shown that sage smoke actually changes the polarity of the ions in the air?” She frowned. “Or something to that effect. In any case, there’s plenty of science behind these ancient purification rituals.”

  “But that’s the problem right there, Audrey. We’d lose Sullivan along with half our guests at the word ‘purification’ alone.”

  “In that case, focus solely on the fact that you’re creating a new space for yourself to fill with a new awareness and a new positive direction. I can put myself in charge of the procedure. I’m over sixty and I’m a local celebrity of sorts. People expect me to be eccentric. The ritual isn’t complicated. You simply light the clump of sage leaves, starting at the doorway, and you work in a clockwise direction, steering the smoke along the tops of door and window frames, and the walls.”

  “Any mention of Hare Krishna? And do you chant while you’re doing this?”

  “No, but I’d be happy to make one up just for you.”

  “Throw in a conga line, and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

  She scribbled some final notes, then squinted at me. “Honestly, Erin. Do you mean to tell me that, instead of having any kind of celebration, you moved your office furniture over there, added your name to the sign on Steve’s door, and that was it?”

  “Not entirely. We sent out announcement postcards to both sets of clients and our prospective clients. Then Sullivan and I shared a split of champagne.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re self-employed at a highly competitive start-up business, and you nearly missed this huge publicity opportunity.”

  “Sullivan didn’t think of it either,” I muttered.

  “Of course not. He’s a man. Women are the party planners. That’s what we get in exchange for our sitting in the passenger seat while the men drive. We provide the event; they provide the chariot to get us there.”

  “How sexist.”

  “Maybe so, but you know what they say about the foolishness of trying to fix that which isn’t broken.”

  I thought about her party plans and tried to picture a string quartet and a hundred people jammed into Sullivan’s and my small office. “Maybe we should settle on some sort of candle-lighting ritual to signify Sullivan’s and my…burning passion for our careers.”

  Audrey mumbled something that sounded disturbingly like: “And for each other.”

  “What?”

  “I was reminding myself to invite each mother—yours and Sullivan’s.”

  “Maybe this whole thing isn’t such a good idea, Audrey. As wonderful as all your ideas sound, this isn’t a good time to be throwing a party. Emily will feel like we don’t care about Taylor’s death at all.”

  “Erin, this is important. No friend of mine is going to open a new business without a celebration. Not on my watch. Now let’s get going on your invitation list. Oh, and call Mr. Sullivan and invite him right away.”

  “I’ll tell him to fire up his chariot,” I said with a sigh and grabbed the phone.

  chapter 15

  The next day, a few minutes after noon, a client called the office and rescheduled her one o’clock appointment; we suddenly found ourselves with a long lunch break. I grabbed my coat and told Sullivan that I’d see him at two.

  “You heading home for lunch?” he asked.

  “No, I’m going to pay an unscheduled visit to Shannon’s.”

  “But didn’t they say they’d be gone all afternoon?”

  “Exactly. And David’s crew will be on their lunch break right now. This is the perfect chance for me to snoop around for clues into Taylor’s murder.”

  He grabbed his navy blue pea coat. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Jeez! Someone took the plywood down!” Sullivan was staring at the house as I pulled into the Youngs’ driveway.

  Indeed, someone had removed the covering over the framed-out window, yet there were no cars or trucks in the driveway. I caught a glimpse of someone with white hair ducki
ng out of sight. “I think Pate’s inside.”

  Sullivan cursed under his breath and bolted out of the car before I’d barely come to a full stop. As I trotted after him, he shouted, “Pate! What the hell are you doing here?”

  Pate leaned through the window opening. His cheeks were pink. He looked like the proverbial kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Uh, borrowing some nails.”

  “Cut the crap!”

  He sighed. “I’m undoing a harmless but stupid prank I pulled a couple weeks ago.”

  “What ‘prank’?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

  Sullivan vaulted through the opening for the window to investigate matters for himself. “Let me see that,” he demanded. He snatched a brown paper bag from Pate and rifled through its contents. “Nails and screws,” he muttered. He shoved the bag back into Pate’s chest, who grudgingly accepted it, still looking deeply embarrassed. “You’ve been swapping their supplies with ones that are wrong for the job!”

  “’Fraid so. Like I said. It was just a dumb prank.”

  Sullivan uttered a few choice curse words. He turned toward me. “Erin. Call Officer Delgardio. We need to report this to the police.”

  “There’s no need for that,” Pate said. “It was no big deal. And I’m trying to fix things now.”

  “You’re trying to cover your tracks, you mean,” Sullivan snarled. “So you broke into Shannon’s house.”

  He shook his head. “I’m undoing the damage. Replacing everything I took.” He peered over my shoulder. “Where’s your van, Erin? Are you driving a rental car all of a sudden?”

  I had no intention of answering. “What in God’s name were you thinking, Pate? Were you forcing our carpenters to use smaller nails and screws so that the construction would fall apart?”