The second article had appeared in the Post-Dispatch four years later:
WELL-KNOWN INTERIOR DECORATOR
FOUND DEAD; APPARENT SUICIDE
Laurence Coulter, president and founder of Coulter Designs, was found dead in his Central West End townhouse yesterday. The popular interior decorator, whose clients included members of many prominent St. Louis families, died of a single gunshot wound to the head, apparently self-inflicted. He was 44 years old. Police entered Coulter’s townhouse and discovered the body after his longtime personal secretary reported him missing. Coulter had failed to show up at his office that morning and then missed several appointments in the homes of his clients, according to St. Louis Police Lt. James Moran. Coulter’s personal secretary, Harry Amber, told police that Coulter had been despondent for several weeks for no apparent reason, according to Moran.Two years ago Coulter formed his own interior design company after more than a decade with Gateway Designs. In a cover-story profile that appeared last year in St. Louis Magazine, Coulter was described as “the hottest interior designer in St. Louis, with a waiting list of names from the rolls of the most exclusive country clubs in town.” He is survived by his mother, Anna, 78, and a sister, Blair, 56, both of Indianapolis.
“Did your mom find anything else on them?” Benny asked between crunches.
“All she found on McGee was his obituary.”
“Was he married?”
“Nope. On Coulter, all she found was an article on his estate sale. It was about a month after he died, with all the proceeds going to his personal secretary.”
“Harry Amber?”
“Right. He’s dead, too,” I said.
“No shit?”
“Mom tried to track him down. He moved to Memphis right after Coulter killed himself. He died of AIDS two years ago. The Post-Dispatch ran his obituary.”
“Your mom’s a goddam bloodhound.”
“She’s on another date with Tex,” I said.
“Good for her.”
“I’m still trying to get used to a dating mom.”
“Hey, she’s got a lot of life ahead of her.”
“I know.”
There was a pause followed by the sound of cardboard tearing. Then coal tumbling down the chute, then stones getting crushed.
“Not another box, Benny.”
“Helps me concentrate. So did Harris Landau agree to see you?”
“He sure did.” I filled him in on my meeting.
When I finished, Benny asked, “What’s he like?”
“Nothing like his son. Nothing at all. He’s smooth and polished and elegant.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“I can’t get a read on him,” I said. “I’ll wait to see whether he comes across with the information on the corporate structure of those holding companies.”
“Hey, how was your second visit to that storage outfit?”
“Oh, Benny, a total disaster. I felt like the star of Nancy Drew Gets A Frontal Lobotomy.”
He was laughing. “What happened?”
I told him the whole sorry tale.
“Hey,” he said, “nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
“I guess,” I said glumly as I noticed that Gitel’s food bowl was empty.
“So where are we?” he asked. “Give me some of that women’s intuition.”
I walked over to the cabinet and pulled out the box of Cat Chow. “For starters, call your friend at the insurance company tomorrow.”
“Why? Ah…you really think?”
I poured some Cat Chow into Gitel’s food bowl and put the box back in the cabinet. I realized that I hadn’t seen her the whole night. She probably was prowling around outside. Before long she would be meowing at the back door. Her internal food clock brought her home every evening around nine-thirty.
“Someone killed Andros,” I said. “The police think a jilted lover is the link. But maybe the real connection is somewhere up there in that parent company. The company that owned Firm Ambitions also owned Arch Alarm Systems and Coulter Designs. All three were essentially one-man operations. Take out the main guy and the business collapses. What if Capital Investments had a key-man life insurance policy on those two other guys?”
“That’s not necessarily sinister, Rachel. You said yourself these were essentially one-man operations. If that’s the case, you could argue that a prudent investor would insist on an insurance policy to protect his investment.”
“I know. You sound just like Harris Landau. Just see what your girlfriend can find out for us. And if she does turn up a policy on one of them, be sure to have her find out who the insurance agent was.”
“Good point. Damn, wouldn’t that be something? Hey, you’re getting good at this, Rachel.”
“I’m getting lost at this,” I groaned. “By the way, my mom is going to ask Tex to help out.”
“Tex? Oh, brother, how the hell is he going to help?”
“Benny, he’s a state court judge. He can get access to records that we might never be able to get at.” I paused. “He’d better treat her right.”
“Rachel, your mom’s a class act. For chrissakes, it’s not like she’s going out on a date with Richard Speck.”
“I know. Wait a minute.”
“What?”
“She’s home. His car just pulled into the driveway.”
“At nine forty-five?”
“He’s an early riser. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Kiss Ozzie good night for me.”
***
I hadn’t run in three days and was starting to get antsy. When Benny called I was actually putting on my jogging outfit and was lacing up my Nikes. So after checking in with my mother—who confirmed that she and Tex were going to start digging into the police records on George McGee and Laurence Coulter beginning tomorrow during the lunch hour—I kissed her good night and stepped out into the dark. Our house is close enough to a busy street to make jogging after dark not as reckless as it sounds. Nevertheless, as I passed under each lamppost and watched my shadow appear, swing from back to front, and disappear, I realized again how much more relaxing a nighttime jog can be when you are running alongside a big, healthy, vigorous, and fiercely protective golden retriever. I resolved again to get this cat-versus-dog problem straightened out. Either Gitel the cat was going to learn to put up with Ozzie or I was going to have to do what I had been putting off, namely, move out of my mother’s house.
The second option no longer seemed as difficult to implement. We had both viewed my moving in as a temporary arrangement when I returned to St. Louis, but my mother’s depression during the first months after my father’s death made the prospect of moving out of the house seem an act of abandonment. That had changed, thank goodness. She was getting back into the swing of things, and even had a boyfriend, which was more than I could say for myself.
Charles Kimball popped into my head. Maybe, I said. Maybe. First get Ann’s situation straightened out. Then you can think about dating an older man.
As I made the turn at the three-mile point, I went over tomorrow’s schedule. I needed to talk to Eileen about Harris Landau’s settlement proposal. If she decided to accept it, I would have to arrange a meeting with Tommy Landau’s obnoxious divorce lawyer to try to close the deal. I also needed to check back with Harris Landau to see if he had learned anything about the investors in Capital Investments of Missouri and whether he would disclose what he had learned. If he stonewalled me, as I suspected he would, I’d have to consider trying to persuade a court to order him to disclose that information.
I sprinted the last two hundred yards, pretending it was the gun lap of the fifteen-hundred-meter in the Olympics. The crowd roared as I once again won the gold for the United States.
The house was silent. My mother’s bedroom was dark as I climbed the stairs, sweaty and panting and triumph
ant. I kicked off my running shoes in my bedroom, opened the door to the bathroom, turned on the shower, shed my jogging clothes in a pile on the bathroom floor, closed the bathroom door, and stepped under the hot spray. Thirty minutes later, clean and relaxed and ready for bed, I wrapped a bath towel around my body sarong-style, clicked off the bathroom light, and stepped into my bedroom.
Yawning, I pulled open the top drawer of my dresser to select a pair of pajamas. As I did I glanced at myself in the dresser mirror and noticed the cat in the reflection. She was on the bedspread by the pillow, facing me.
“Hello, Gitel,” I said as I sorted through the drawer.
Something must have seemed slightly awry, because I glanced at her again in the mirror. She was studying me with her usual inscrutable stare. I selected a pair of red silk shortie pajamas and loosened my towel.
Red. It clicked.
“God!” I gagged as I spun around, stumbling backward against the dresser. The force of my body knocked over the bottles of perfume and nail polish and deodorant. Several clattered off the dresser and fell to me floor. I pressed my fist against my mouth.
Gitel was studying me through sightless eyes. Sightless eyes in a severed head. She’d been decapitated. Her body was nowhere in sight. The head had been pressed back against the white pillowcase. It was surrounded by a growing stain of red.
I took a step toward the bed, reaching to the floor for my towel, never taking my eyes off the head. Then suddenly I straightened up.
My mother. My God, my mother.
Frantic, I ran down the hall and yanked her door open. The light from the hallway flooded the room. My mother was on her side facing me, her eyes closed. I moved closer, straining to hear the sound of breathing over the pounding inside me. She opened and closed her mouth, frowned in her sleep, and turned onto her other side.
Thank God.
I scanned the room for a sign of the cat’s body. Nothing.
And then the full significance hit me. Someone had been in the house.
In my bedroom.
While my mother was sleeping.
While I was in the shower.
There had been an intruder in our house.
Had been? Or still was?
He could be in my mother’s closet right now, or in her bathroom, or anywhere in the house.
I had to call the police.
There was a telephone on my mother’s nightstand. I lifted it carefully, quietly.
Damn.
It was dead. He’d cut the telephone lines.
Then the other telephones started ringing—the one in the kitchen and the one in my bedroom. The jangling startled me. I moved toward the door and stopped.
My bedroom was down the hallway. I would have to pass two hall closets and another bedroom. He could be waiting in one of those closets, or in that bedroom. He could be waiting in my bedroom.
“Rachel?”
I jumped as I spun around. My mother was sitting up in bed. “Sweetie, why are you naked? Is that the telephone?”
“Ssshh. I think there’s someone in the house.”
“What?” she said with a frown. “Who’s calling at this hour? Plug the phone in.” She pointed to the cord by the nightstand. The end of the cord was on the floor near the telephone outlet. Then I remembered: she unplugged the phone every night before she went to bed. I knelt and quickly plugged it in.
“We have to call the police,” I hissed as my mother lifted the receiver.
“Hello? No, this is her mother. Who is this? Do you have any idea what time it is? Who is this?” She shook her head. “He won’t say.”
“Give me it,” I said, reaching for the phone. I held it to my ear. There was static on the line. “Hello?” I said.
No response. “Hello?” I said again.
“I guess your pussy isn’t feeling so good, huh?” It was a male voice—muffled, disguised.
“What do you want?”
“That was a hint, bitch.”
I gripped the telephone. “Who is this?”
“That’s what happens to nosy little pussies.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Figure it out. Hey, talking about pussies, you got one hell of a bush on yours. Nice titties, too. Too bad I didn’t have a camera ready when you dropped your towel. Maybe next time, eh?”
There was a click, followed by a dial tone.
Chapter Twenty
“Where did he do it?” my sister asked with a wince.
“In the backyard,” I said. “He either caught her back there or he brought her back there to do it.”
It was the morning after. Ann and I were drinking coffee in her kitchen. I think I’d had a total of one hour of sleep the night before.
“Was there a lot of blood in the house?” she asked.
I shook my head. “The police think he brought the head upstairs in a plastic bag while I was in the shower. He had enough time to arrange it on the pillow before he left.” I closed my eyes for a moment. The image was burned into my brain. “He even made sure her eyes were open.”
Ann shuddered. “That is so sick. And he was, like, watching you the whole time from the backyard?”
I nodded grimly. “The police found a lot of footprints back there.”
Ann pressed her palm against her forehead. “Oh, God, Rachel, I feel so horrible.”
“Don’t, Ann.”
Her eyes were red. “That sicko terrorized you and Mom, killed and mutilated her poor cat, snuck around your house, and…” She paused, her lips trembling. “And it’s all my fault.”
“It’s not your fault, Ann.”
“Of course it is,” she said, her voice cracking. “I was the one who had the affair with that creep, I was the—”
“Ann, Ann,” I said, “don’t punish yourself. You’re a victim, too.” I reached across the table and grabbed hold of her arm. “You’re not to blame for what’s happened. Dozens of women had affairs with him.”
“Then why’s this happening to me?” she demanded. There were tears trickling down both cheeks. “To us?”
“Why?” I said with a shrug. “Why do serial killers kill the people they kill? Just bad luck. There’s no reason for any of it. Whoever killed him decided you were a convenient fall guy. It’s not some cosmic punishment. There’s no one out there balancing the scales of justice. The world doesn’t work that way.” I stood up. “Let me get you some Kleenex.”
After I got her the Kleenex I poured us both a fresh cup of coffee.
“How did he get in the house?” Ann asked after she blew her nose.
I shook my head in resignation. “You know how flimsy that back-door lock is. He just popped it open, probably with a screwdriver.”
Ann wiped her eyes with a fresh Kleenex. “Mom’s got to get deadbolt locks.”
“I called the locksmith at seven this morning. He’ll be there before noon.”
“Good.”
“And,” I said with a contented grin, “Ozzie has already moved in.”
She smiled through her tears. “That’s even better. You two need a big dog around the house.” Ann sighed and shook her head. “Mom sounded terrible,” she said.
I nodded sadly. “It really freaked her out,” I said, “and she’s really broken up over Gitel. How old was she?”
“About four, I think.”
“Didn’t Dad give her Gitel for her birthday?”
Ann nodded miserably.
“Poor Mom,” I said softly, my eyes suddenly welling up. I reached for a Kleenex.
We sat together quietly, sipping our coffee.
“You know,” Ann finally said, “I didn’t realize you can see into your window from the backyard.”
“Sure,” I said. “Remember we used to watch Mom hang the laundry from up there?”
/> “God,” Ann said with a shudder. “He was out there watching?”
“Judging from the static on the line when he called, the cops think that he may have been standing back there with a cellular phone.”
“That is so creepy,” she said.
I nodded. “You know what was almost as bad?” I said with a grimace.
“What?”
“Having to tell those two cops exactly what he said.”
“Were they guys?”
“Yeah. Both in their twenties. Young studs. You know the type.”
Ann made a face. “God’s gift to women.”
“I almost didn’t tell them.”
“But you did?”
I nodded. “They were okay. The one asking the questions, I looked him right in his eyes and told him exactly what he said to me. Word for word. I swear, if he had looked down even once—at my boobs or lower—I would have kicked both of them out of the house. But he was cool. So was his partner.”
“What are they going to do?”
“Probably not much. They’re going to send a couple crimelab guys around this afternoon. I can’t wait,” I said sardonically. “Believe me, it’s not going to be a high priority with them.”
“You must be kidding,” Ann said in disbelief.
I shook my head. “Think about it. At any given moment they have way more unsolved crimes than detectives to solve them. They have to run a triage operation. When the captain has to choose between assigning one of his detectives to catch a cat killer and assigning that same detective to catch a rapist or murderer or burglar, you know what he’s going to do.”
Firm Ambitions Page 21