by Leslie Caine
“What?!” He made a noise of disgust at the back of his throat. “That’s bullshit, Erin. We’ve gone out on one date, last night. And I doubt there’ll be a second date, now that I know she’s this wacky.”
“Yet the two of you had your picture taken together?”
“Yeah, but not by my choice. I was at the festival a couple weeks back with my friends Mark and Julie and bumped into Hannah there. I’m a regular customer at Paprika’s, and she’s gone out of her way to be friendly. She latched on to me at the festival, said she happened to have her camera with her, and asked Mark to take a picture of us. So . . . what was I supposed to do? Tell her to shove it?”
I ignored the understandable rancor in John’s voice and said gently, “That’s precisely what I was starting to suspect had happened. I was getting strange vibes from her. She’s probably just staking out her territory.”
He snorted. “I am not her territory, Erin, believe me.”
Thinking aloud, I muttered, “It’s just . . . all so strange. It seems as though everyone even remotely connected to Laura Smith has been . . . comingling, let’s say. You and Sullivan both used to date Laura. Dave Holland was living with her, after divorcing Hannah. Now it turns out that you’re dating Hannah, after me.”
He said testily, “What are you saying? That my going out on one date with Hannah Garrison makes me a murder suspect?”
“No, just that it all feels so weird to me. Even George Wong and Robert Pembrook were apparently once a couple.”
“Robert who?”
“Oh, that’s the image consultant who hired me as a subcontractor. To work for Hammerin’ Hank Toben, who keeps asking Audrey Munroe out. So there’s yet another prospective couple. This is like a soap opera. It boggles the mind.”
“Yeah,” he snorted, then added sadly, “meanwhile, the only two people who belong together just broke up.”
I said nothing, and the silence grew heavy.
“Anyway,” John said, “thanks for the heads-up. Hannah’s got to be manipulative as hell to have put our picture on her desk at work after just one date. What a weirdo.”
“You’re welcome.”
We said our goodbyes and hung up.
Though I detested the fact that my suspicions were still running wild, I couldn’t seem to keep them at bay. It was vaguely possible that John was in league with Hannah in some evil plot hatched back before I’d ever arrived on the scene. Maybe Hannah was a homicidal maniac who killed her rival Laura and now had her sights set on me.
Much more likely, though, maybe I’d dumped the one decent guy who’d come into my life in months.
Already out of the house and on the go on what, for me, was a rare Saturday off, I decided to call a couple of friends and suggest a matinee. We wound up going on a leisurely late lunch as well, and the afternoon proved to be wonderfully restorative. Even better, when I arrived home, I discovered that the parlor had been restored to its pre-centerpiece, pre–coffee-table-sofa-arrangement condition. I felt like singing the Hallelujah Chorus at the top of my lungs.
Audrey was chatting on the phone as I entered through the French doors, and she gave me a wink as she completed her conversation. The moment she hung up, I enthused, “I love what you’ve done with this room.”
“You mean what you’ve done with it. All I did was put everything back the way you had the room originally.”
“True, and I love it. This is a first, isn’t it? The first time you’ve restored a room to exactly how it was, prior to a Dom Bliss experiment?”
“Maybe so. Well, that can’t be good. My creativity must be slipping.”
“Or, maybe my taste in interior design is starting to rub off on you.” Hildi pranced over to me, and I swept her into my arms. “See, Hildi? Isn’t this nice? Our favorite sofa is just where it should be.” I carried her over to said sofa and sank triumphantly into its plush down cushions, feeling immensely better than I had this morning.
“By the way, Erin, that was your and my least-favorite pseudo-Texan on the phone just now.”
“Hammerin’ Hank? Asking you out again?”
She grimaced. “For a late dinner tonight. He was so persistent . . . just will not take no for an answer. But eventually he’ll learn that even when he extracts a maybe out of me, it’s still just a no.”
I grinned at her. “How can you say ‘maybe’ to a date that’s supposed to take place in just a couple of hours? Is he going to arrive tonight and see if you’re willing to get into his car?”
“Essentially.” She fluffed up her ash-blond hair. “He’s going to be attending a business meeting over cocktails this evening, where I’m invited to join him, should I change my mind. Which, of course, is never going to happen. Do you have any plans tonight?”
“None. So I was thinking that—” I broke off as the phone rang, the double ring indicating that the call was for me. I’d been on the verge of proposing that Audrey join me for a marathon evening of watching the home designing shows on cable, during which I loved to play armchair quarterback. “Let me get this. Just a sec.” I picked up and said hello.
“Hi, Gilbert.”
Sullivan, I realized, and my pulse quickened at the surprise of his calling me on a Saturday evening.
“It’s me,” he continued before I could respond. “I’m meeting with Henry and George for drinks at Rusty’s in an hour. Can you make it? They want to negotiate the conditions of our contract as their consultants.”
A little disappointed that he was calling for mere business reasons and even more annoyed that Henry had obviously contacted Sullivan alone in an attempt to cut me out, I snapped, “Our contract?”
“Yeah, Gilbert. No way am I accepting money from those yahoos unless it turns out they’re both innocent and that you get half of everything.” He let that settle in for a moment, then asked, “So, are we in or out?”
Sullivan was acting the complete gentleman, so I quickly softened my tone. And my attitude. “It certainly won’t hurt to see what they’re offering. I’m not going to sign up for some sort of commission deal where they’ll expect us to work as salesmen on the floor.”
“Me neither. But I think I made that clear enough. This is consulting work on the initial setup of their showroom only.”
“Sounds promising. Maybe we can teach them about feng shoe, while we’re at it,” I joked, poking fun at Henry.
Sullivan laughed, then asked, “So, can you make it at seven?”
“I guess. Sure. See you then.”
“See ya, Gil.” He hung up. I glowered at the earpiece for a moment before returning the phone to its stand. I’d come to rather enjoy how he called me Gilbert, but there was no way I would let him nickname me after a fish part.
Audrey was studying me with a cocked eyebrow. I said to her sadly, “Guess I’m not home yet for the night, after all.”
“Oh, dear. Where are you headed?”
“Ironically, I’m meeting your Henry Toben, plus Sullivan and George Wong, for drinks at Rusty’s in an hour. Turns out I’m one of the parties of Henry’s business meeting tonight. Albeit as your basic tagalong little sister. The men are cooking up a deal and actually want to just hire Sullivan, but he’s dragging me along as a conditional clause: ‘You want me, you’re stuck with her, too.’ Really makes me feel ten feet tall.”
Audrey furrowed her brow. “Aren’t all three of those men suspects in these murders? Every one of those names is on the list on the refrigerator that we drew up after that knife was hurled into our door.”
“Actually, only two of them are. At the time, I hadn’t realized Henry Toben knew Laura, too.”
She put her hand on her hip. “I added Henry’s name in big red letters after you were poisoned at his house. Don’t you read my notes on the fridge?”
Wanting to sidestep the issue that I had a personal policy of not reading refrigerator bulletin boards, I said, “This is just an innocuous business meeting.”
“With possible double murderers.” She
crossed her arms. I suddenly realized that we were seeing nearly eye to eye, and looked down to see that, uncharacteristically, she was wearing significant heels.
“Rusty’s is always crowded. There’s going to be a ton of possible witnesses to any . . . funny stuff. Besides, I know Steve Sullivan is innocent. He can be my bodyguard.”
“Doesn’t he have a broken leg?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“What good is a bodyguard in a leg cast?”
“He’s not going to need to do any running or chasing,” I said brusquely. Audrey continued to look worried as she studied my face. “It’s just a business meeting, Audrey. At a downtown restaurant. It’s not like I’m suddenly going skydiving.”
“Obviously not,” she fired back. “Skydiving is fun.”
Ninety minutes later, I was nursing a margarita and attempting to read over a contract in the dim lighting, Sullivan on my left, Henry on my right, and George Wong straight across from me.
“You know, I just realized something,” I announced to Sullivan. “It’s in my contract with Robert Pembrook that I won’t accept any additional design work from Henry on his house for a period of twelve months, or I have to pay a finder’s fee to Robert.” Looking at Henry, I continued, “This isn’t your house, so I’m probably in the clear, but I’m going to have to check with Robert before I sign anything. We’ll be seeing him Monday afternoon. I can discuss it with him then.”
Steve pushed back from the table. “We’re a team on this one, so I’ll have to hold off signing, as well.”
A melodic voice behind me sang, “Well, look who’s here!”
I swiveled in my seat and couldn’t believe my eyes. “Audrey! What are you doing here?”
“Just felt like stopping in to see if there were any familiar faces.” She gestured regally at our table in a way that included the four of us, and gave a friendly wink to George Wong, whom she’d never met. “And here are two and a half.” She bestowed a magnanimous smile upon Sullivan. “Please don’t be offended at being accused of having just half of a face, Mr. Sullivan. I merely mean that we’ve only met once, and quite briefly.” They’d happened to cross paths at my office, before my semi–ill-fated introduction to John Norton.
“Not at all.” Sullivan rose on his good leg and said, “Good to see you again, Ms. Munroe. Why don’t you join us?”
Puffing out his chest like an oversized cookie jar, Henry boomed, “George, this here’s my new lady friend, Audrey Munroe.” Making the introduction in the reverse order for proper etiquette, he continued, “Audrey, this here is my new business partner, George Wong.”
Though Audrey was sure to have noticed the breach, she replied politely, “How do you do, Mr. Wong?”
He not only rose but bowed, deeply. “Just fine, thank you, ma’am.”
She gave him a small curtsy, obviously delighted. “Please call me Audrey.”
“Audrey,” he agreed with a nod. He grabbed an empty chair from the adjacent table and held it for her as she sat down, then reclaimed his own seat. Henry, meanwhile, remained seated, guzzling his beer. Yet another area where sessions with Robert hadn’t done much good. Henry might as well slip himself into the nearest toaster where Audrey was concerned.
Sullivan slowly angled himself back down into his chair. Audrey looked at Steve’s cast and, feigning surprise, said, “My goodness. What happened to your leg?”
“Crashed through my staircase,” Henry answered for him, and shook his head. “Y ’all sure have been goin’ through hell on this earth, ever since y’all started working for me. Steve’s only got the one good leg now. Two people y’all once knew have croaked. It’s just downright eerie. Makes you wonder if you two are cursed, doesn’t it?” He seemed to think his insulting observations were humorous and laughed heartily.
At the thought that I might now be trapped into prolonged socializing with the man, I sprang to my feet. “Audrey, can I have a word with you?”
“Certainly, dear.” She stood up and grabbed my elbow, saying to the men, “We’re going to the powder room. We’ll be right back.”
“Typical,” Henry remarked, waggling his thumb in our direction. “Notice how womenfolk always got to go to the toilet together? Like they’re ’fraid to go anyplace by themselves.”
Although a couple of choice comebacks occurred to me, I waited to allow Audrey to do the honors. When she not only held her tongue but patted Henry benevolently on the shoulder, I knew for certain she was, once again, feeling that she needed to protect me.
The moment the restroom door swung shut behind us, I exclaimed, “Okay, Audrey. What are you trying to pull?”
She gazed at herself in the mirror and began to reapply her blusher before answering, “Well, my dear, if you can play amateur sleuth, so can I. I plan to watch how he handles his steak knife.”
“You’re not serious! You’re going to accuse him of murder if he cuts his meat with too much flourish?”
She snapped her cosmetic case shut. “I want to see how he behaves around you. It occurred to me that if Henry’s the killer, you’re the one who’s in jeopardy. When it comes to women my age—sixty-five and subtracting— he’s used to his late wife’s behavior. She was apparently of the cater-to-your-husband’s-enormous-ego ilk. Henry hasn’t figured out yet that men his age need wives more than women my age need husbands.”
“What if the knife in the door was actually meant for you?”
She arched her eyebrow. “We have the sabotaged stair and the poisoned picture frame to indicate that you were the target.”
“True. And not especially comforting, I might add.”
“Come along, Erin. Let’s see how the broth is coming along, once we stir the pot.”
“Stir the pot?” I echoed in alarm, but she was not to be delayed as she sailed across the room, back to our table.
The moment we sat down, she announced, “Crestview is all abuzz with talk of these murders.” She fixed her eyes on Henry. “Henry, you knew Laura Smith a decade ago, from what I understand.”
He squared his shoulders and shot me a withering glare.
Audrey reached over and patted his hand. “Erin and I do talk to each other, after all, dear.”
He shrugged, chuckled, and replied, “I had some real unpleasant dealings with Miss Smith when she set me up for blackmail that would have destroyed my poor, poor late wife.” Interesting: he’d dropped the phony Texan accent. “I paid her off to spare my dear wife any pain. But that’s all long past, Audrey. I never heard from Miss Smith again, and she had nothing on me, now that I’m a widower.” He wiggled his eyebrows at Audrey, leaning closer. “Besides, I’m a changed man,” he said. “Laura taught me a valuable lesson. I’ve never cheated since and never will.”
Perhaps to move the spotlight off himself, Henry shifted his attention to his new partner and asked, “She didn’t try anything like that on you and Robert, did she, George?”
“Pardon?” Wong said, not successfully hiding his alarm—a very rare show of emotion from the large, unflappable man.
Henry continued, “Robert Pembrook said the three of you knew one another . . . you, Robert, and Laura. When you were all in Chicago, ten-plus years ago.”
George said evenly, “You must have misunderstood. Till the other day, Robert and I had barely spoken in thirty years.”
“But Robert told me privately that he’d fixed you and Laura up on a practice date, back when he was teaching her how to relate to men,” Henry persisted, frowning.
Wong gave him his patented teeth-baring attack-dog smile. “Robert was pulling your leg.”
“But you also told me you started your business in Chicago and . . .” He let his voice fade as he studied George’s expression. “My mistake. You would know, after all.” Donning his Texan accent once more, he said, “As I was tellin’ y’all earlier, Audrey, I got us a prime slice of real estate, just a block down from Paprika’s.”
“And as I was about to mention,” Wong interjected, “I ha
ve been thinking that Wong Furnishings might be a better name than Dwight and Wong. It would be more dignified.”
“But . . . you lose the pun that way.”
“Yes?”
Henry gaped at him, then began in a firm voice, “I’m your full partner, and I really prefer—”
“I have the option of making you my silent partner. I think that would be best, for the sake of the business.”
“But . . . Hammerin’ Hank isn’t the silent type,” he protested. “I’m the big man around town. I got the name recognition. I got the connections.”
George said, “We’ll continue the discussion sometime when we won’t be boring your lady friend.” He rose and bowed graciously to my landlady. “It was nice meeting you, Audrey. I will leave you all to your evening now. Good night.”
The waitress arrived moments later and asked if we wanted a second round. Henry quickly replied, “Audrey and me were fixin’ to rassle up a nice, thick steak and have dinner. Lemme buy you all dinner, too. It’s the least I owe you, after all the challenges you’ve been through fixin’ up my place. What do you say?”
Sullivan looked at me and said, “It’s up to Erin.”
“Actually, I’m pretty tired and would like to”— I got a swift kick in the shin from Audrey’s direction—“call it a night, just as soon as I’ve had dinner.”
It did seem ungracious of me to leave her stuck alone with Yammerin’ Yank like this. Even though she’d brought it on herself.
By wolfing down my dinner and leaving at the earliest opportunity, I managed to beat Audrey home. Though she’d shot me a glare as I made my excuses for having to eat and run, she didn’t kick me again. Sullivan, obviously every bit as eager to leave Henry’s company, had scarfed down the last of his steak and offered to walk me to my car, and we actually had a good laugh at Henry’s expense about our hasty exit.
But just as I headed for Audrey’s yummy sofa to await her return, the phone rang with the two double-short rings that indicated it was a call placed after hours to my office. I answered, “Interiors by Gilbert. Erin speaking.”