“So for what I have in mind, a set of drawings won’t take you long?”
“No. A few days at most. Now I have a question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“During preliminary planning sessions, I like to meet with both clients. But the lieutenant chose not to join us today?”
That one was a question. Time for me to take an acting lesson from Teresa.
“He’s so terribly busy...he said you’d understand...one hardworking professional to another.”
He frowned but nodded. “Very well. Ultimately, the lady of the house is the one I aim to please. So what do you have in mind, Mrs. Dunne?”
He leaned across the drafting table, and if I were the susceptible type, those dazzling blue eyes with their impossibly long lashes—no five coats of anything on those babies—would have had me in a flutter. But with Rossi in my life, I reacted to Harlan Conway as if I were a piece of wood. All I wanted from him was a set of house plans.
I cleared my throat and plunged right in.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Life was seldom perfect, and when it was—watch out. I learned that lesson a few days later when I had:
Two major projects under control.
Plans for a jewel of a new house in the works.
An Audi dealer who promised Tony’s insurance would cover repairs to my car.
A knee that had stopped throbbing and a forehead without a lump.
And last, but far from least, I had Rossi to love.
Then Tom Kruse called me at the shop and stole the line I’d used on him the other day. “We have a problem.”
“What’s wrong now?”
“I can’t tell you over the phone. I think you better get over here. Make it fast, okay?”
Ready for high fives a moment earlier, I hung up not wanting to slap anything except my own forehead. Lee took one look at me and hurried over to the desk.
“Everything all right?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I thought so earlier. Now I’m not so sure. I hate to leave you alone in the shop again today, but the painting contractor needs me. Sounds like he has an emergency.”
“Don’t worry about a thing, Deva. I’ll manage just fine.”
“I know you will. You always do.”
“Besides,” she added softly. “I won’t exactly be alone...”
Busy retrieving my purse from the lower desk drawer, I didn’t recognize the import of her words immediately. It took a second, and when the message hit home, I let the bag flop back into the drawer and leaped to my feet. “Are you having a baby?”
Her smile beamed from ear to ear. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re having a baby! Omigod!” I caught her in a bear hug and held her tight. Too tight? I let go. “Did I hurt you?”
She laughed. “Paulo said the same thing this morning. I’m fine. Just fine.”
She looked it too. Always lovely, she had taken on a radiance hard to miss. Why hadn’t I noticed it before now? Too busy with my own concerns, that was why. For shame.
“When?” I managed to ask while I swiped a finger at the tears springing into my eyes.
“In December. Around Christmas.”
“What a wonderful time to have a baby.” Especially in southwest Florida. The days were cool, the nights cooler.
“We wanted you to be the first to know. And Paulo asked me to mention something else.”
“Yes?”
“The bank has approved us for a mortgage.”
“Wonderful!”
“Yes, we’re thrilled.” As if to prove it, her smile went from ear to ear. “So are you still willing to sell us your condo in Surfside?”
“Of course. I’d love for you to have it. That would be a perfect solution all around. Let me speak to Rossi. He won’t be putting his place in Countryside on the market anytime soon, so I’m pretty sure I can move in with him until the new house is ready. Don’t worry. We’ll work something out.”
I reached back into the desk drawer and lifted out the purse. “You’re going to be a beautiful mother, Lee. And just for the record, I want to be called Aunt Deva.”
She nodded. “I wouldn’t have him call you anything else.”
Him. This time I needed tissues to mop up my tears. “I’d like to have a baby too some day. A little boy maybe. I don’t know if I’ll ever be that lucky but I’m hoping so. I can see him now. He has red hair and a tough-sounding name. Rocco Rossi. What do you think of that?”
“I think you’ve picked out a daddy.”
“I have. So maybe I better marry him and find out what life has in store.”
“That’s what my momma would say.”
I hugged her again—more gently this time. For sure, her news had shaken up my thinking. Planning a house was one thing. A good thing. Planning a whole life was better, far better. After all, my doctor hadn’t said I’d never have a child, just that the odds were greatly against it. Who knew? I might just beat those odds.
Humming “I Will Always Love You,” I left the shop already making plans for the future—a baby shower for Lee and a small, intimate wedding for Rossi and me. On the lanai of a brand new house overlooking a Gulf inlet with an orange sunset gilding the water.
But those ideas were for a golden tomorrow. With an effort, I yanked myself back to today as I drove the loaner over to Whiskey Lane and a house with a more immediate wedding in its future. Usually calm in the face of any job-related glitches, Tom had sounded beyond harassed. I couldn’t imagine what had gone so wrong he needed me there for immediate back-up.
I found trucks clogging the driveway of 590. I’d expected to see Tom’s vehicles parked there, but why Tony’s Tiles? I shrugged and, with my stomach in a knot, parked on the street behind a gorgeous Honda Gold Wing.
Though not a biker, I stepped out of the car and gave the Honda an awestruck once-over. Lustrous and gleaming in the sun, the bike had every bell and whistle possible. It even had a helmet sitting on the seat as if the owner knew no one in the neighborhood would bother to touch it. Still, a motorcycle, no matter how glamorous, seemed out of place on hushed, elegant Whiskey Lane, and I wondered who owned it.
Inside, the house hummed with activity and looked as if it were peeling; wallpaper, loosened by hand-held steamers, hung in strips everywhere. What a beautiful sight! If the men removed all the paper in the public rooms today, the painting could begin in earnest tomorrow. Encouraged, I asked the same lanky young painter of the day before if he’d seen Tom.
“Earlier,” he said, zapping a wall with a burst of steam. “He was talking to some lady. They might be out in back.”
A lady? Kay might have dropped by to check on the job. Dealing with her demands was probably what had Tom so agitated.
Wrong.
I found him in the kitchen on his cell phone. Eileen was there too, slumped in the breakfast nook, a cup of green tea sitting unnoticed on the table in front of her.
“He’s not picking up,” Tom said. “I got his voice mail again.” He closed the phone and stashed it in his pants pocket. “I know the dog had to be walked, but this is an emergency. If we don’t hear from him in five minutes, I’m calling the cops.”
“What’s going on, Tom?”
“I wish the hell I knew.” Hell? From Tom-who-never-swore? He glanced over at Eileen. “You tell her,” he said. “I’ve got wallpaper to strip off.” He stomped across the kitchen toward the door. “Boy, you sure got us mixed up in a good one this time, Deva.”
“Eileen?” I asked.
“She’s not dead,” Eileen said in a toneless voice.
“Who’s not dead?”
“Marilyn Stahlman.”
“James’s wife? The one who was lost at sea?”
Eileen, the color of the
tea in her forgotten cup, nodded. “She’s come back. Like a ghost.”
“Where’s Mr. Stahlman?”
“That’s the problem,” Tom said, pausing in the doorway. “We can’t reach him. He’s out somewhere with that mutt of his.”
Mutt. Charlotte with her impeccable ancestors would woof at that.
“Where is this woman? This Mrs. Stahlman?”
“She said she wanted to take a shower,” Tom said, “and ordered me and the crew out of the house.”
“Whoever she is, she has no right to do that.”
“Understood. But just so you’ll know, dealing with long-lost wives isn’t part of my job.”
Beyond agitated, Tom was positively angry. Having him walk off the project would be a full-blown disaster. So in the interest of damage control—and to satisfy my curiosity—I headed for the master suite and a look at this woman who had come back from the dead.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I knocked and, without waiting for an invitation, opened the bedroom door. Wrapped in a towel and nothing else, a woman stood in front of a mirror brushing her hair.
Letting the air whoosh out of my lungs in one big breath, I closed the door and leaned against it for support. “Who are you?” I asked.
She swung her long, damp hair over her shoulders. “No. I ask the questions. Who are you?”
“I’m Deva Dunne, James’s interior designer.” I stood up straight. “Now it’s your turn.”
For a second there, she looked as if she’d refuse to answer, then surprised me. “I’m Marilyn Stahlman. James’s wife.”
“He’ll be interested to know you’re back...Mrs. Stahlman.”
She hung on to the brush but let the towel drop to the floor and strutted, butt naked, over to the bed. Though approaching forty, like Kay she had a great body, not an unnecessary curve anywhere and all the necessary ones in perfect position. Wherever she’d been for a year, she obviously had ample opportunity to work out. Radiating health and strength, she was a far cry from a ghost.
Unfazed at being naked in front of a virtual stranger, she unzipped a leather backpack and pulled out a pair of black jeans and a black T-shirt.
No underwear? I smiled, thinking of what Nana Kennedy would say about that.
“Where’s Jimmy, anyway?” she asked, as she slid into the jeans. “I thought he might be at home when I arrived. It’s not like he has to go to work or anything.”
“I don’t think he was expecting you, or I’m sure he’d be here,” I said, wondering if she’d see the humor in my reply.
From the quick flash of her blue eyes, I think she did. She gave her hair a final brush—it was drying to a deep honey blond—and sans bra, sans panties, sans makeup, sans embellishment of any kind, she looked ravishing. Jimmy...I mean James...sure had polished taste in women. But whether or not he’d be happy to see Marilyn was anybody’s guess. After all, with her reemergence he risked losing both Kay and the fortune he’d inherited from a supposedly dead wife. As for me, Marilyn’s reappearance meant I risked losing an important client—no need now to rush getting the house ready for a wedding.
But there I went again, letting what I didn’t know race ahead of what I did—until a moment later, when she flung down her brush and proved that sometimes suppositions were right on target.
“Well now, Deva, whoever you are,” she said, “I want you to get the hell out of my bedroom and out of my house.”
“Oh, really?” I squared my shoulders and raised my chin, Dorchester style. It had worked with bullies in grammar school, so why not here? “I happen to be in Mr. Stahlman’s employ, and until your identity is confirmed, I have no intention of leaving.”
Sheer bravado. Eileen had already identified her, and having been with the family for years, Eileen would know. Furthermore, weird as the woman’s sudden reappearance might be, my gut told me she really was the long-lost Mrs. Stahlman. All we needed was James’s confirmation. He had been gone quite a while now. How long did it take a little thing like Charlotte to pee, anyway?
That question never got answered. Someone knocked on the door, and hoping it was the master of the house, I yanked it open.
Bingo! James Stahlman stood there with Charlotte in his arms. Staring past me, he gazed straight across the room at Marilyn, utter disbelief sagging his jaw to his chest.
“You,” he said, and nothing else. His face the color of putty, he looked as if he could use a chair or a few fingers of cognac. Probably both.
Charlotte squirmed in his embrace. His arms must have gone limp, for he dropped her suddenly—dumped her really. She landed paws down, appeared dazed for a second, then, tail waggling, she scampered over to Marilyn, who promptly picked her up and kissed her. Which was a lot more than she’d done for James.
His arms free of dog, James clung to the open door jamb. From the pale look of him, he’d be dropping to the floor next.
Marilyn glanced across at him, her face devoid of sympathy. “You’re shocked. I guess I can’t blame you.”
He passed a hand over his eyes, as if trying to clear his vision. “Where have you been all this time?”
She shrugged. “Did you miss me?” When he didn’t answer, she patted Charlotte and murmured in her ear, “I know you did.”
“I asked where you’ve been? I thought you had drowned. The whole world thought you had drowned.”
She placed Charlotte on the floor, rather carefully, and strode closer to her husband, though staying well out of arm range.
“What does it matter where I’ve been? That isn’t important. Our marriage was over long before I left. And if you’re wondering why I came back, blame the media. I read about your engagement.” She laughed. “To Kay Hawkins of all people.”
“Where have you been?”
“Hiding in plain sight.”
He hadn’t let go of the door frame, not for an instant, and he clung to it still, her non-answers plainly adding to his shock. “Why these months of hell? Why didn’t you just divorce me?”
A strange, dreamlike expression floated across Marilyn’s face, and she hesitated before answering. “That night when I swam from the yacht, I never intended to stay away, not in the beginning. It just...happened. The farther I went, the less and less I wanted to return—to you, to this house, to the life I was bored sick of. Without realizing it at first, I think I intended to die that night.”
“Good God.”
“Yes.” She raised her arms then let them fall, like broken wings, to her sides. “But as you can see, I didn’t.”
“What happened? We were several miles out. You’re a strong swimmer but—”
“I was rescued. Whether against my will or not, I still can’t say. He was fishing for tarpon and caught me instead. I’m going to marry him. And since I have a reason to live after all, I’ll need my money.”
James bowed from the waist. “Of course, my dear.”
Grace under pressure. I’d never seen such a display of consummate good manners and was totally impressed, if somewhat confused. Never mind clinging to the door jamb, any other man would have had Marilyn by the throat demanding answers. How could he manage to be so calm, so courtly, in the face of such a profound insult?
A timid cough. James swiveled around. “Yes, Eileen.”
“Sorry to bother you, sir, but I’m leaving for the grocery store, and there’s a gentleman here to see you and Mrs. Stahlman. He’s waiting in the kitchen.”
“Who is it?”
“A Lieutenant Rossi of the Naples police.”
“Please tell him we’ll be right with him.”
“Very good, sir,” Eileen said and took her leave.
“Oh, heavens.” Marilyn heaved a long sigh. “I suppose the inquisition is about to begin. Can’t I just be left alone?”
Nope. Get
ready, honey. The police, the Coast Guard and your investment bankers will all want to chat it up with you.
James swept a hand to one side and, ever the gallant, said, “After you, ladies.”
What I wished he’d do, instead, was show some emotion. Yell, swear, punch a hole in the wall, cry, seize Marilyn in his arms and kiss her passionately. Act as if he were over the moon with happiness or ready to kill her with his bare bands. But no, flat as a table top, displaying no emotional highs or lows, he followed us from the master suite into the living room past Tom’s crew who were ankle deep in damp wallpaper, and out to the kitchen.
As we walked in, single file, Rossi didn’t seem surprised to see me. He’d probably spotted the loaner sitting out by the curb. All professional and noncommittal, he flashed his badge at the Stahlmans and gave me a brief nod.
“I’m Lieutenant Victor Rossi of the Naples Police Department,” he said to James. “I’ve already met Mrs. Dunne, but you are?”
“James Stahlman.” He gestured at Marilyn. “This is my wife, the reason you’ve been called here, I presume.”
“That is my understanding.”
“Please forgive the appearance of my home, Lieutenant. But I’m undergoing—”
Rossi held up a finger. Just one. “No need to explain. I’m well acquainted with Mrs. Dunne’s work.”
I’ll say.
“I don’t believe her testimony will be required,” Rossi went on. “So if you wish, Mrs. Dunne, you may be excused.”
Excused? Darn it. Rossi should know I wanted to hear every word. I shot him a quick, appalled glance. He knew, all right. He was smiling, the fox. We’d have to discuss this tonight—before bed.
But James came through for me. “I prefer that Deva stay. For the past year, in the court of public opinion, I’ve been tried and convicted of murder. I’m happy to have people know I never harmed my wife.”
Ah, a show of bitterness. Not the jolliest of emotions, but proof that James had some steel in his spine. I treated Rossi to a triumphant grin, and we all sat cozy as four old friends in the breakfast nook.
While Eileen served coffee, and Rossi readied his tape recorder for Marilyn’s testimony, I glanced out the kitchen windows. A slight breeze riffled the palm trees, a relief, no doubt, to Tony and Mike, who were on their knees replacing the stones on the slippery set of terrace stairs. A good move on James’s part.
The Design Is Murder (Murders By Design) Page 13