Death by Inferior Design

by Leslie Caine

  I returned the phone to its stand. This was a first—an invitation to come visit during the holidays. He was, of course, ambivalent about the idea or he would have made the offer sooner so that I could actually accept. Still, he’d opened the door a crack. . . .

  My mother’s words returned to me. Whenever I lamented about having such an absentee father, she used to tell me: “Just because someone doesn’t love you the way you wish to be loved doesn’t mean that they don’t love you with all that they’ve got.” Although it had taken me years, and sometimes the wound still festered, I had finally come to accept that basic truth. My father loved me as best he could.

  I curled up on the sofa, hoping Hildi would return to the room and join me. It struck me that finding a family, a home, a safe haven, was really what my life was about—what had motivated my choice of careers. I’d been trying to find a way home, to help my clients find their way home. That might not be as noble an occupation as some, but neither was it as trivial—as driven by image and mere status seeking—as Jill McBride had made my career choice sound.

  The doorbell chimed. I swung open the door without looking through the sidelight, figuring it was probably a police officer with yet some more questions for me. On the doorstep stood a young woman. She held an enormous arrangement of exotic flowers in a large porcelain vase. “Erin Gilbert?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “These are for you.”

  She handed them to me. Surprised and delighted, I carried them over to the side table in the parlor, near the French doors, saying over my shoulder, “Wow! They’re absolutely stunning!” I stared at the amazing flowers and the outstanding, elegant arrangement—bird of paradise, protea, red anthurium, dendrobium orchids, heliconia. The elegant design looked like something that I might have assembled for my wealthiest of clients. Audrey’s oak table was suddenly boasting some three hundred dollars’ worth of exotic tropical flowers.

  The delivery girl stepped into the foyer. “Here’s the card.” She handed me an unmarked envelope in the standard two-by-three-inch size. She smirked. “The guy who sent them insisted that the plastic spear we stick into our arrangements would ruin the lines or something, so he wouldn’t let us use one.”

  My God! There was only one person I knew would possibly care about a removable card holder ruining the lines of a floral arrangement. I opened the envelope and read:

  Hey, Gilbert—Keep in mind that my

  offer to form sullivan & GILBERT

  Designs stands.

  Have a merry Christmas.

  Sullivan

  I beamed at the card. Compared to the bottle of cyanide on my birthday from my ex-boyfriend, this was the proverbial gift of the Magi.

  The delivery girl fidgeted with a lock of her spiky maroon-dyed hair and said, “My shift ended a while ago, but, you know, everyone loves flowers. I just figured I could make one last trip before I called it a night.”

  A hint for a tip, if ever there was one. “Thank you so much for bringing this out tonight. Let me just grab my purse.”

  As I fetched my bag, I glanced over the girl’s shoulder at the darkening sky. “Oh, look! It’s starting to snow! And the forecasts all week call for the temperatures to stay below freezing. This is going to be just what I pictured . . . a white Colorado Christmas!”

  She gave a quick glance back and shrugged. “Nah. We never get a white Christmas in Crestview. It’ll prob’ly quit in another ten minutes.”

  She gestured with her chin at the flowers. “Your boyfriend insisted on doing the arrangement himself, so he came in the shop first thing this morning and did it. You’re lucky. He’s really hot.”

  I found my wallet and extracted a five-dollar bill, saying, “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “He isn’t?”

  I met her gaze. She had a glint in her eye. Aside from her unnatural hair color and excessive body piercings, she was attractive. I knew at once that she was thinking about getting Steve’s number and address off the receipt and contacting him. Almost simultaneously came the realization that I wanted to discourage her from doing so.

  I raised my eyebrow and said with artificial significance, “Steve is an interior designer.”

  “Oh,” she said casually, then said, “Oh,” again in a lower, disheartened voice.

  I felt guilty enough to grab a second five from my bill-fold and double her tip, but not so guilty as to correct for having deliberately misled her. The man had just sent me flowers; I was under no ethical obligation to fix him up with the delivery girl.

  I lost track of the time as I stood and stared out Audrey’s front window at the falling snowflakes. The sky had turned from royal blue to black. A halo of light from a streetlamp in the distance carved its own miniature world of falling snow out of the darkness.

  Before I could make any excuses and change my mind, I retrieved the handful of letters Emily Blaire had sent me, the child she had never known. I brought them downstairs, and curled up on my favorite sofa. Hildi promptly hopped onto the far cushion, then tucked herself into my lap. I unfolded the first letter.

  My hands were trembling. I took a calming breath, murmured to myself, “Confidence and optimism,” and began to read.

  about the author

  Leslie Caine was once taken hostage at gunpoint and finds that writing about crimes is infinitely more enjoyable than taking part in them. Leslie is a certified interior decorator and lives in Colorado with her husband, two teenaged children, and a cocker spaniel, where she is at work on her next Domestic Bliss mystery, False Premises.

  If you enjoyed the debut of the Domestic Bliss

  mystery series, DEATH BY INFERIOR DESIGN,

  you won’t want to miss the next mystery featuring

  the design team of Gilbert & Sullivan—and their

  wonderful decorating tips!

  Read on for a tantalizing early look at

  Leslie Caine’s second Domestic Bliss mystery

  FALSE PREMISES

  a domestic

  bliss mystery

  by

  Leslie Caine

  Coming summer 2005

  in paperback from Dell

  FALSE PREMISES

  On sale summer 2005

  For the second time in the past thirty minutes of our girls’ night out, the waitress arrived bearing drinks that Laura Smith and I hadn’t ordered and didn’t want. Within those same thirty minutes, we’d also been approached by two less-than-sober men asking if we were sisters. With Laura’s drop-dead-gorgeous looks, that question was, at least, flattering to me, and, thankfully, Laura hadn’t paled in horror. However, this latest drink offer was an unwanted interruption of a serious conversation.

  Laura frowned slightly and asked the waitress, “Are these from the same guy as the last time?”

  The baby-faced waitress, who had to be at least twenty-one in order to work in a bar in Colorado but looked all of fifteen, indicated with a jerk of her chin that the drink buyer was seated behind her. There, at a long brushed-aluminum bar illuminated with futuristic halogen lights, the wall completed the large room’s interesting color transition from the lemon yellow of the opposite wall, through peach, apricot, orange, and pumpkin, into tomato red. “Nope. A new one. And he has a buddy.” She cocked her eyebrow and grinned. “They’re both kind of cute, I gotta say.”

  Without so much as a curious glance in the men’s direction, Laura replied, “Please tell them thanks, but no thanks . . . and that we’re lesbians.”

  I hid my smile. The girl gave a slight nervous laugh, as if unsure of whether or not Laura was serious, said, “All rightly, then,” and turned away.

  We were no more lesbians than we were sisters—just friends grabbing a quick bite and a glass of wine before we dashed off to hear a talk on home decor. After a dry spell, I had a new man in my life, and Laura was living with Dave Holland, a bespectacled thirty-something with a receding chin and hairline. Judging from the fortune that Dave had amassed, he must resemble Bill Gates
in more ways than just phsycially. I’d met Dave and Laura nearly six months ago, when Laura had hired me to decorate their gorgeous home in the foothills of the Rockies.

  Laura leaned closer. “Getting back to our conversation, Erin, this was your adoptive mother who died, right?”

  “Right. Just over two years ago from a congenital lung disease. How long ago did your mother pass away?” I asked.

  “Fifteen years ago.”

  Because we were the same age, my mental math was automatic, and I cried, “So you were just twelve at the time. How awful!”

  Laura merely nodded, so I persisted. “She must have been fairly young. Was it an accident?”

  Laura shook her head, her gaze averted. She adjusted her signature silk scarf a little, drained the last of her Chablis, then answered quietly, “Murder.”

  I fought back a shudder. “She was murdered?”

  The pain the recollection had brought to her was plain to see in Laura’s expression. “By my father. He killed my little brother, too, then took his own life.”

  “Good Lord. That’s horrible! I’m so sorry.” Reaching for the only possible positive spin, I said, “Thank God you were all right, though.”

  She gave me a sad smile and didn’t respond. In a near whisper, she said something that sounded like “I’m a slow bleeder.”

  “Pardon?”

  She hooked a manicured finger in the knot of her gold-and-indigo scarf, slowly untied it, and reaveled the puckered skin that ran across the base of her neck.

  Her throat had once been slit.

  Another chill ran up my spine. In that instant, I vowed never again to feel sorry for myself and my lonely and at times difficult childhood. My heart ached at the unfathomable pain and horror that she had endured.

  “Oh, my God,” I murmured. “Laura. I’m so sorry.”

  In the light of her personal history, I was all the more impressed at how warm and welcoming she’d been to me from day one, when she’d hired me as her interior designer. Since that time, Laura had become more of a personal friend than a client. She’d been remarkably knowledgeable as we’d selected the million dollars’ worth of antiques for her home. And yet, when she’d suggested that we go bargain hunting at a Denver flea market, she’d been every bit as comfortable and in her element while dickering over the price of a stained porcelain teacup as she was selecting a hand-crafted seventeenth-century armoire.

  Now I understood the origin of the depth that I’d sensed in her and had found so compelling—the occasional sadness that passed over her features during quiet moments. She seemed to be unaware and unaffected by all the heads that turned her way whenever she walked by, and she noticed and found joy in the same details I did—in the beauty of sunlight catching an aubergine glass vase, the hue of purpleheart wood, the softness of the finest chenille, the amazing artistry and craftsmanship of Scalamandré wallpaper.

  With the color rising in her cheeks, she retied her scarf.

  “Did you want to tell me about it?” I asked, all the while thinking that if she said yes, I might have to signal the waitress and say that I’d changed my mind about accepting those drinks.

  Laura sighed and fidgeted with a lock of her shoulder-length brown hair, a slight tremor in her fingers. “No, but thank you. Talking about it only brings back all those memories I try so hard to forget.” She put her hand on top of mine on the table and, with forced gaiety, said, “Let’s never mention it again, all right?”

  “Of course.”

  She glanced at her watch. “Oh, shoot! We’re late for your landlady’s presentation!” She hopped to her feet and briefly insisted on leaving an overly generous tip, until she accepted my reminder that this evening was completely my treat. The waitess benefited from Laura’s and my exchange; I now felt compelled to give her the same oversized tip.

  “Actually, there’s no rush,” I told her as we left. “I’ve been to a couple of these events before, and Audrey’s always too busy signing autographs and chatting with her legions of fans to begin on time.”

  Audrey, my landlady, hosted a local television show three mornings a week, Domestic Bliss with Audrey Munroe. The name of her Martha-Stewart-like show was more than a little ironic. Having shared Audrey’s mansion on Maplewood Avenue for nearly six months now, I knew her to be indefatigable, irrepressible, and endlessly entertaining—but her domestic life was far from blissful. Audrey allowed me to live there rent free in exchange for the never-ending task of helping her to redecorate her home, which she did on frequent and often- bewildering whims. (It took three months until she finally realized that it had been a mistake to turn the one bathtub in the house into a terrarium.) A former ballerina with the New York City Ballet, she was now in her mid-sixties, although she’d recently informed me that she’d decided to welcome her birthdays by “awarding myself negative numbers each year from here on out.” I’d replied that, some thirty years from now, she was going to be a very old-looking thirty-five-year-old, indeed. She merely shot back: “But a wise one!”

  It was a beautiful April evening, and the crisp air lifted my spirits, so I did not mind that the gentle breeze occasionally blew my auburn hair into my eyes. The sky was a lovely indigo; the slightly deeper violet shapes of the mountains were just discernible in the distance. Laura and I meandered along the brown-brick pedestrian mall, window-shopping as we made the journey to Paprika’s. I soon realized that were were being followed: a bearded and dreadlocked man in Birkenstocks, grungy blue jeans, and a wrinkled, once-white long-sleeved shirt and sheepskin vest had left Rusty’s Bar and Grill seconds after we had and was now lingering behind us, matching our pace stride for stride.

  In mock secret-agent tones, I said to Laura, “Psst. Don’t look now, but someone’s on our tail.”

  She immediately looked back, as did I. The man turned away casually, as if waiting for someone to catch up to him.

  “I wonder if that’s our would-be drink purchaser, who now thinks we’re lovers.”

  She laughed, “Oh, heavens, I hope not. I might have to ask you to kiss me.” She again glanced back as we continued on our way. “Although by the looks of him, he’d probably be turned on.”

  “Oh, he looks harmless enough to me . . . though he’s sure not your typical Rusty’s patron.” Rusty’s had become the latest hot spot in Crestview; our midsized college town seemed especially prone to sparking trendy hot spots.

  “True. And he really doesn’t look like the crystal-stemware, copper-pot type, so I’m sure we’ll lose him when we get to Paprika’s.” She added as if in afterthought, “Not that I could blame him. The personnel there isn’t up to snuff.”

  “What make you say that? I love the staff at Paprika’s.”

  Laura gave me a warm smile as she opened the door for me. “That’s only because you love everyone, Erin.”

  A moment later, the man followed us inside the up-scale kitchen store. Annoyed and slightly disconcerted, I whispered to Laura, “I’m going to confront the guy and ask why he’s following us.”

  She touched my arm. “Let’s just ignore him.”

  In the center of the first floor of the store, merchandise displays had been removed or shoved aside, and in their place sixty folding chairs had been set up to face the table where the illustrious Audrey Munroe was soon to hold court. Only three chairs were empty. As an interior designer, I, too, had been featured at a couple of these special evening presentations but hadn’t drawn one quarter of this crowd.

  We rounded the seats toward two available chairs in the front row. From the back of the makeshift auditorium, Audrey was currently entertaining a large percentage of the customers, who were craning their necks to listen in as she joked with an elderly couple. My landlady was wearing an elegant two-piece black dress, perfectly tailored to flatter her trim, petite frame. She gave me a little wave. Beside her stood Hannah Garrison, the manager of Paprika’s. I could tell by Hannah’s plastered-on smile that she’d been trying in vain to urge Audrey forward to begin her
talk.

  Hannah spotted me, grinned, and started to head over to say hello. Her smile faded mid-step and mutated into a glare when she saw my companion. Puzzled, I glanced over my shoulder at Laura. She was eyeing Hannah with a haughty smirk. Her expression seemed odd; I’d never seen Laura act the least bit haughty. Apparently Laura’s dislike for the “personnel” included the store manager— and was mutual.

  Hannah hesitated for a moment but was soon beside me as we reached the two empty chairs. Tonight she had strapped herself into an ill-fitting skirt suit that wasn’t flattering to her short, buxom frame. “Thank you so much for coming, Erin. It’s always so great to see you.” Her body English hinted that she was trying hard to ignore Laura’s presence on the other side of me.

  The implication that it was never great for Hannah to see Laura seemed to hang in the air. I replied, “Likewise, Hannah. I love to come here.”

  “How are you, Hannah?” Laura asked pleasantly.

  Although Hannah’s smile was rigid, she replied, “Fine, Laura. And you?”

  “Things couldn’t be better. Thanks for asking.”

  As if it were a facial tic, Hannah’s lip curled for just a split second, then she shifted her gaze to me. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest, and Laura still wore the Cheshire-cat grin. The tension was so palpable that I babbled, “You’ve got quite the crowd here tonight.”

  “Yes, we do,” Hannah replied in hushed tones. “Which is really good timing, because we’ve had a bit of trouble lately.”

  “Oh?”

  “Paprika’s has managed to become the target of a . . . “ Her voice faded as she caught sight of the new patron in the second row, directly behind us. The bearded, scruffy man who’d followed us from the bar was apparently having some trouble getting comfortable. The front leg of his folding chair was missing its inch-tall base.

  Hannah grimaced and said under her breath, “Speak of the devil.” While Laura and I took our front-row seats, Hannah rounded our row and said quietly but firmly, “Please, sir. Not tonight. It isn’t fair to Ms. Munroe, and there’s no way she’s going to mention you or your cause on her television show, no matter how big a scene you throw.”