A Design to Die For

by Kathleen Bridge

She got out two plates from behind a glass cupboard door, placed them on the counter, and then cut two slices of pie. After putting the knife in the sink, she used a sterling pie server to remove the slices, then put one on each plate. She put the pie server in the sink, grabbed a couple of forks from a drawer, then brought the plates and forks to the table.

  “Well, it’s a blessing that Montauk Manor had surveillance cameras,” she said, taking a seat across from me. “And, as to the other thing, yes, Roland Cahill was the cause of all of Emma’s developmental problems. I had already moved out of the house and was at Stony Brook University when my mother, stepfather, and Emma, only a toddler at the time, moved into Roland’s condo of horrors.”

  “So, Emma is your half sister?”

  “Yes,” she said, glancing at my uneaten pie.

  I quickly took a bite. She got up and returned with two napkins, not paper but pressed white linen napkins. She handed me one, and I wiped my mouth. Raspberry filling stained the napkin, looking like blood. Hopefully not a foreshadowing of the rest of my visit. “Oops, sorry.”

  “Don’t worry, Emma’s live-in caretaker, Rosie, loves to do laundry and iron. I don’t know what I’d do without her. She also loves Emma like she’s her own. After what that monster did, concealing all that poisonous lead and paying off the building inspector, it wasn’t surprising when I heard that Frank Holden had been arrested for killing Roland. People are still suing Roland for other things he’s done: not removing asbestos, faulty wiring, gas leaks. The only blessing in the whole mess was that Emma wasn’t part of any class action lawsuit. Her case was the first. And so far, she’s received the most money. Every penny going to her care. But money can’t change what’s happened to her.”

  I glanced again at Emma’s art on the refrigerator. The page had come from the adult coloring book titled Exotic Birds—the same title listed on a receipt from East Hampton Bookworks. The same receipt I’d found in the garbage bag I’d taken from Vicki’s room at the Amagansett beach house. I’d gone online and put the names Emma Post and Roland Cahill into the search bar and found that Roland had been sued for covering up the existence of lead paint and lead pipes in a prewar building he’d renovated into high-priced condos. The name of his company back then was Five Star Construction. I’d also found a news article explaining that Emma had been exposed to lead paint after peeling the wallpaper next to her crib and eating it. The toxicity of the lead paint that had been clinging to the backside of the wallpaper caused her severe mental and physical damage. I also found a photo of Emma in her wheelchair, along with a couple who must have been Freya’s mother and stepfather, standing next to the lawyer who’d won the lawsuit.

  Now I was in a quandary. I’d just lied to Freya about Frank Holden being on Montauk Manor’s surveillance camera. And Freya had just proved that she was guilty of killing Vicki by naming Montauk Manor as Vicki’s hotel. I hadn’t told anyone but Morgana and Elle where Vicki had been staying Saturday night; I’d even booked it under my name. It must have been Freya’s voice on Vicki’s iPad Sunday morning. I’m sure a forensics team would be able to match it.

  On the way to Freya’s house, I’d told everything I’d learned about Freya to Morgana. Morgana had warned me not to confront Freya, saying she was sending a patrol car to Freya’s address. Of course, I hadn’t listened. Before the police arrived to arrest her, I had to make sure Freya was guilty.

  And if she had killed Vicki, then I wanted to know why. Not, however, at the price of becoming her next victim. I had to tread carefully. One thing I’d learned from the past, never back a killer into the corner.

  “Thanks for the pie,” I said, standing up, wanting to leave before the police arrived. Freya was guilty, and I needed to vamoose.

  Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, because as I was putting my plate in the sink, I heard sirens. Darn! I glanced into the sink at the knife covered with red gel, half thinking of grabbing it and running for the door.

  Too late.

  Freya tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to see she had a clean knife from the knife holder. Not as big as the one in the sink, but big enough.

  She said, “I’m not letting them arrest me for killing someone who should have been sent to prison for life. Roland Cahill didn’t deserve to live. He laughed when I told him who I was and what I wanted. Which was for him to apologize to Emma and to use his new wife’s money to pay out all the other victims’ families he’d destroyed. He’d filed chapter eleven after Emma’s case, and since then, not one person has received a penny in any of the cases that followed Emma’s settlement.” Beads of sweat bloomed above her upper lip. “When we were at the pavilion, I took advantage when Roland turned around to answer a call about another lawsuit he was involved in. I pulled the extension cord from the socket and slipped it around his neck. And pulled.

  “At first, he thought the choking was some kind of amorous Fifty Shades of Grey move. I’d been leading him on since I joined the decorators for the showhouse. Just to watch him fall. I planned on tricking him onto my show as an up-and-coming Hampton contractor, then instead, doing an exposé on all his heinous past acts. Destroying him where he lived—inside his inflated ego. I heard him arguing with Jenna the night before, so I knew she wouldn’t miss him. She’d be better off.”

  “But you set Jenna up by sending that text.” I inched my way toward the open doorway.

  “I had to. You don’t understand how important I am to Emma. With a strength I didn’t know I had, I dragged Roland’s body down the steps to the beach. He was still alive, so I took off my jacket and used it to pick up his head, not wanting to leave prints or DNA. Then I banged the back of his head against a sharp rock to finish him off. Then I unwrapped the extension cord from his neck and threw it into the ocean. I hadn’t counted on it washing onto shore. Later in the afternoon, I sent Jenna the text from Roland’s phone, climbed down to the beach and put the phone in his cold, dead hand.”

  I tried to bite my tongue, but it still wagged, “Why did you kill Vicki?”

  “Saturday morning, Vicki saw me with Roland in the pavilion. And then when I left Enderly Hall Saturday night, she was waiting for me. She told me she was happy that I’d killed him. But that didn’t mean she’d keep quiet about things. She wanted money. That wasn’t initially what set me off. It was when Vicki saw Emma. Rosie came to pick me up from Enderly Hall because I’d come in the morning with the camera crew so they could do some test shots. Vicki saw Emma in the backseat and said she looked familiar. I knew then, I couldn’t spend the rest of my life waiting for her to blackmail me. Emma needed me.”

  “But wasn’t the trial fifteen years ago? What were the chances Vicki would recognize her?” I asked, trying to keep her talking until the police arrived.

  “I realize that now. I wasn’t thinking straight. I just knew I couldn’t go to jail and leave Emma. Vicki called me from her hotel room later that night and said she changed her mind, she couldn’t keep quiet about me and Roland. She said after she checked out of her room at Montauk Manor, she planned to go to the police. I pretended to understand, saying it was better if it was all out in the open, all the while maintaining my innocence.

  Early Sunday morning, I went to her room with ten thousand in cash and a promise to feature Veronica’s Interiors on my show. I even offered to make her my cohost. She fell for it. I talked her into getting in my car to go to the studio and do some headshots, telling her I had a team waiting.”

  Freya stepped closer, knife in hand. I pivoted to the right and said, “When she got in your car, you grabbed the scarf around her neck and choked her with it. Then dumped her body.”

  “The narcissistic thing. She was primping in the car’s vanity mirror. Didn’t see it coming. Why couldn’t it have been her that ate the lead paint in one of her former stepfather’s buildings, not Emma? Her mother, Veronica, was married to Roland during the time of the trial. After getting rid of her, I drove her pink van to Manhattan. I parked it in front of Veronica’s Inte
riors, then took the Hamptons Jitney back to East Hampton.”

  “How come Roland didn’t recognize you as Emma’s sister?”

  “I was in Europe, finding myself, when the case finally went to trial. It took five years after my mother and stepfather filed for the case to be settled. Roland’s lawyers kept postponing and postponing. I wasn’t here for her or my mother, but after my mother and stepfather passed, I made up for it by taking care of Emma.”

  Another thing I’d learned. Well, maybe not. When a killer started confessing and you were the only one in earshot, you better make a move. Dead men, or women, tell no tales.

  I pushed her back against the table and headed for the door. But she grabbed me by the back of my sweater. The sirens sounded close. Just not close enough.

  She held the tip of the blade against my jugular. “I’m sorry, Ms. Barrett, but Emma needs me.”

  “The police are minutes away. How will you explain things?”

  “Hand me your phone!”

  I did. She turned it off. “Now your car keys. Move slowly.”

  I reached in my pocket and handed them to her.

  “Now move it. Hurry.”

  “Which is it? Slowly or hurry?” I was trying to buy time, but she wasn’t going for it. She pressed the tip of the knife into the middle of my back.

  “You were never here. They have no evidence I killed Roland or Vicki.”

  I tested her by staying put. I shouldn’t have. I felt the blade make contact with flesh, and then there was a wet searing sensation between my shoulder blades.

  “Move.”

  “Freya,” a voice said from behind us.

  We turned to see a woman standing in the open doorway that led to the dining room. She was elderly, with short gray curly hair and a pudgy wrinkled face. Behind her round wire-rimmed glasses were kind, tear-filled eyes. She held something white in her hand that had a green light at its base. “I heard everything on the monitor, Freya. You can’t do what you’re thinking.”

  I saw Freya look to the top of the refrigerator, where a baby monitor stood, its green light matching the one in the elderly woman’s hand.

  “Rosie, I have to. I can’t go to jail. What about Emma?” Freya sobbed.

  “I won’t leave Emma. Now, give me the knife, dear.”

  Freya dropped the knife. It clattered to the floor, just as the door opened and Officer Morgana Moss, dressed in a hospital gown, robe and slippers, stepped in, gun drawn and pointed at Freya. She was followed inside by three uniformed East Hampton Town Police officers.

  “You lucked out this time, Ms. Barrett,” Morgana said. “Now we’re even.”

  I ran to her and gave her a big hug, feeling a trio of IV tubes under the robe’s fabric on her right arm.

  It was good to have friends in high places.

  Chapter 35

  I handed Elle the top from the blanket chest, which had been split in half by Frank Holden when he’d been looking for his treasure. She moaned, “Such an atrocity, I’m surprised at how great Jenna is handling everything. Heck, I’m surprised at how great you are handling everything.”

  “Almost losing your life makes you realize how important the people in your life are. Not things.”

  “Does that mean you don’t care about decorating your Cottages by the Sea cottages or going vintage pickin’ with moi?” she asked. “Just teasing. I know exactly what you mean. I’ve learned to cut Arthur a break. I know he’s working hard. I just hope he shows up for the engagement party.”

  “He will,” I said.

  It was a week after Freya Rittenhouse’s arrest. Roland’s wake had been a small one, and so had Vicki’s. Jenna hadn’t combined them, but she did pay for them. She retained Emma’s caretaker, Rosie, to take care of Emma, and set up a trust fund for Emma that would finance her care until her death. Jenna also planned to settle all the lawsuits against Roland with her own money. I’d seen a change in her. And it was a good one. She wasn’t a wishy-washy hypochondriac who always played the victim anymore. Life events like she’d just gone through had a way of making you stronger. I could vouch for that.

  “Think that’s the last of it,” Elle said, surveying Shepherds Cottage. “You basically have to start all over, but you have plenty of time for that. One suggestion, though,” she said, looking toward the ornate bed. “I’d get rid of the bed, maybe even have Jenna find a place for it in Enderly Hall. It just doesn’t fit this primitive cottage.”

  “I agree. But it’s the only original piece that came from Gardiners Island. What if we moved it to the west wall? Then the sun would at least shine on it in the morning, lighting up all that dark mahogany.”

  “Can’t hurt to try,” Elle said as she walked to the footboard, grabbed one of the posts and pulled. “It’s a heavy sucker.”

  “Elle Mabel Warner, do I have to remind you of all the heavy things the two of us have moved. Remember the—”

  “Yes, I remember them all. So does my aching back. I just don’t want to scratch the floor.” She glanced down at the chipped and gouged plank floor, and we broke into laughter. “Okay, you get the headboard, I’ll get the footboard. We’ll shimmy it left and right to get it away from the wall. Then we can each grab one of the posts on the headboard and drag it.”

  The first part of Elle’s plan worked perfectly. The second part, not so much. When I grabbed hold of the tall post, topped with a carved wood pineapple finial, it broke off in my hands.

  Elle laughed. “It’s a sign the bed doesn’t belong in here.”

  I tried to bang the pineapple finial back in place. A big mistake. The entire post broke off the bed frame and rolled to the floor. From the post’s hollow interior, a rolled document slid out, along with a small yellow stone. The stone hit the toe of my boot, then bounced under the bed.

  I went scrambling for the stone. Elle untied the string around the sheaf of papers.

  Surprise. Surprise.

  Captain Kidd’s missing yellow diamond.

  And Enderly Hall’s architectural renderings, signed and dated, by none other than Stanford White, the American Renaissance man himself.

  Chapter 36

  It was the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend. The weather couldn’t have been better. Maurice and I stood outside my walled garden, waiting for Elle to arrive. She didn’t know it, but her fiancé was already inside, and he’d brought with him a surprise guest.

  “Hope we can pull this off, Miss Doolittle,” Elle’s shopworker said in his British-accented Henry Higgins voice.

  “I’m sure you made the perfect choice, you always do,” I said, glancing at the puffy garment bag he held in his arms.

  Music from a small quartet filtered over the garden walls. Peonies and jasmine scented the salt air. There was only one thing that could go wrong.

  “Here she comes,” Maurice said.

  Elle pulled up in her pickup, parked, turned off the engine and opened the door. She ran, more like galloped, toward us. “Is he here? Is Arthur here? I can’t believe all the cars.”

  “Yes, he’s here,” I said, laughing.

  “Meg,” she said, pointing to my ice blue chiffon gown, “isn’t that from my closet? One of the copies of the dress Grace Kelly wore in To Catch a Thief? The one Edith Head had given Aunt Mabel?”

  “One and the same,” Maurice answered. “You see, my dear, Miss Doolittle here”—he looked down his aristocratic nose at me—“didn’t know that when I sent out the invitations for your engagement party that I’d said it was black-tie. She called in a panic when she saw our first guest arrive and I flew right over with the Kelly dress. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  “Of course not,” Elle said. “Well, that would explain why you’re wearing a tuxedo, Maurice. But it doesn’t explain why no one told me it was black-tie.”

  I laughed. “Elle, you always dress black-tie for every party you go to.”

  “True,” she said, “but I didn’t this time. You said it was a garden party, so I dressed for that.”
She twirled in a circle, showing off her mid-century cotton dress sprouting three-dimensional fabric daisies and an assortment of brightly colored flower brooches.

  “Well, my little crumpet, Uncle Maurice to the rescue.” He held up the garment bag. “Go into Meg’s cottage and change. Your guests are waiting for you.”

  “But I have to see Arthur,” she protested.

  “You’ll be with him soon enough,” Maurice answered. “You don’t want him to see you in that, do you?”

  I grabbed her arm and Maurice handed me the garment bag, saying he would tell Arthur that Elle had arrived. Then I dragged her toward the cottage with little protest. Elle liked a good party dress more than anyone I knew.

  When we walked inside my cottage, Sally from Montauk’s Cut ’n Curl had turned my kitchen into a pop-up beauty salon.

  “What’s this?” Elle screeched in excitement. “Boy, Meg, you sure know how to throw an engagement party.”

  “Have a seat,” Sally said, holding a curling iron.

  Elle sat on a bar stool that faced the great room. “I wish great-aunt Mabel was here to see all this. And my parents.”

  “I know, sweetie. But you’ve got me,” I said, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. “And you’ve got Arthur.” I hung the garment bag from a kitchen cupboard and watched the pros go to work. When they were finished, I said, “You look beautiful, Elle.”

  “How come there’s no mirror? Let me run into the bathroom and take a look. Not that I don’t trust you, Sally.”

  “No time for that,” I said in my sternest schoolteacher voice. “You have to get your dress on. Can’t keep everyone waiting.”

  Sally handed me a silk hood to put over Elle’s head. Elle didn’t protest—she knew not to get makeup on one of her vintage gowns. I unzipped the bag, took out the dress, the shoes, and even the small box of jewelry Maurice had packed. Then we went to work like we were the mice in the Disney animated cartoon Cinderella.

  “Okay,” Elle said, “you can take the hood off. I’m having a hard time breathing.”

  “Hold on. You need your shoes.” I slipped them on. “Okay, stand up.”