Rooms to Die For Page 4

  “Lopez and José, they were countrymen...both from Cartagena, Colombia.”

  “I’m confused, Beatriz. What are you getting at?”

  “José learned something about Raúl. And now the police know. It’s no secret anymore. But—” she put a finger to her lips, “—the lieutenant said not to tell anyone. It might prejudice the case should charges be brought against Raúl.” She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “My husband is gone. Will charges bring him back?”

  That Rossi would probably have a fit when he found out she’d confided in me, I didn’t bother to mention. To my knowledge, Beatriz wasn’t aware Rossi and I were seeing each other, and this wasn’t the time to tell her. She had enough to deal with, never mind having to worry about alienating the police. “I’ll tell Rossi we’ve talked. What you’ve told me will go no further than that.”

  “Yes, Rossi, that’s his name. A fine man. A strong man, but—” she thrust her hands in the air, “where does he find those horrible shirts?”

  “They’re everywhere, Beatriz. Everywhere.” I had to smile at her outrage. No matter what the circumstances, execrable taste was as inexcusable to Beatriz as it had been to José.

  Though none of this outpouring was any of my business, I hoped she’d keep talking. What José knew had probably caused his death. And I’ll admit I was dying to know what that might be.

  “How could my husband do such a thing? It was wrong, so...so, what is the word...tacky.”

  Okay, now I had to know. Was it more than blackmail? “What did he do, Beatriz?”

  She leaned over the desk and whispered again. “He hired a man, a private man.”

  “Investigator? Private investigator?”

  She nodded. “To learn all he could about Raúl. This man found out that he’s an illegal, a Colombian citizen with no passport. Without a passport how did he get to America? One way only. He paid drug lords. They sneaked him into the country like a bundle of contraband. All his documents are from the black market. But that is not the only reason he feared José.”

  “No?”

  Beatriz shook her head. “No. Raúl laughed when José told him he knew he was illegal. But he stopped laughing when José said he knew about the robbery.”

  “What robbery?”

  “In Cartagena. Raúl stole from his patron. Gold from a safe. That’s how he paid his passage. For that he could be deported. And with that, José frightened him.”

  My head reeled. How could the man I knew—or believed I knew—be involved in such things? All I could think to ask was, “What made José suspicious?”

  “Three years ago, his cousin came to visit and saw Raúl. Everyone in Cartagena thought rebels had killed him for the gold he stole. Even his madre did not know where he had gone. He just disappeared. When he saw José’s cousin, he pretended they were strangers to each other. Raúl had been a young man when he left, and the years had changed him. But José’s cousin recognized him anyway and swore he once knew him by a different name. That’s when my husband hired the investigator.”

  Beatriz pointed to the open ledger. “The proof is here. Our sales were not enough. The money Raúl paid for silence helped keep our shop going.” A shadow of anger crept into her eyes. “José wanted me to have beautiful things and go to beautiful places. He became a blackmailer to make me happy. The fool,” she said, spitting out the words. “The fool.”

  I slumped in my seat, stunned by Beatriz’s revelation. Raúl Lopez had a wife, a business, a successful life here in Florida. What would happen to him now that the police knew he was an illegal and wanted in his own country?

  Worse, far worse, had he killed José to cover his tracks? Was Beatriz right about that? Had she nailed her husband’s killer? If so, Rossi should be relieved. Beatriz had handed him an open-and-shut case.

  Chapter Seven

  As drained of energy as a dead battery, I left Beatriz to her ledger and her memories and rode the elevator down to the atrium. Her bitter “I’ve learned to hate love” echoed in my mind like a mantra gone mad.

  José had broken her heart, leaving her with only beautiful objects for solace. And objects weren’t enough, not nearly enough. Not for anybody. More than anything else, we all needed love in our lives. Yet only after losing one’s love did its irreplaceable value shine forth. Beatriz knew that all too well. And so, I had to admit, did I. Jack had vowed to love me forever—”or until death do us part”—and he had, oh he had, but then death did part us.

  A woman with a Ralph Lauren tote filled with pillows bumped into me and murmured, “Sorry.” I was glad she wasn’t carrying a bag full of frying pans.

  I moved out of the line of foot traffic and pretended an interest in a furniture display window for a few moments while I tamped down my sad memories. Then I shook my head and moved on. Needing a pep infusion, I went to the Library for an espresso before driving back to the shop.

  The lunch rush had ended and a midafternoon lull had settled over the cafe. I gave my order to Dan the counter boy and sat at one of the small round tables to wait.

  I didn’t see the man at first, not until he dropped some change on the counter, sending coins bouncing onto the floor. A quarter rolled over to my table and stopped next to my foot. He bent over to pick it up.

  Though oddly dressed for a design mall customer in running clothes and sneakers, his face unshaven, he looked somewhat familiar. Of course.

  “Hey,” I blurted. “I know you. We met yesterday morning. On the lawn outside the mall. Remember?”

  Clutching the quarter in his fist, he gazed at me with bugged-out eyes as if he were seeing a ghost. He backed up a step. Then another. Was he afraid of me? What a weird reaction to a friendly greeting.

  “I hope you’re feeling better today,” I said.

  He shook his head.

  “No? Sorry to hear that. But you’re out jogging anyway?”

  He nodded. Couldn’t the man speak?

  “For a while there yesterday you looked like you were in some kind of trouble. Then you leaped up and ran away before the medics could help you.”

  He took a tentative step closer. “You helped me.”

  So he did speak.

  “Well, I tried to, but I couldn’t do much except call 9-1-1.”

  “You were nice to me.” He took another step forward and smiled. Trapped between the table and the wall, I felt a stab of panic. Who was this strange man?

  “You’re pretty,” he said. “Pretty red hair too. I don’t know many pretty ladies. You’re the only one.”

  Where was my espresso?

  The man stretched out a hand. A scream rose into my throat, but I swallowed it as he laid the quarter on the tabletop. “A present for you.”

  “Oh. Thank you. That’s lovely.” I cleared my throat. “What’s your name?”

  “Austin. My name’s Austin. You helped me. Now I’ll help you.”

  Palms out, I waved my hands back and forth in front of my face. “Thanks, Austin, but the quarter is more than enough. I’m fine, really.”

  He looked left, right, then over his shoulder, but we were alone. Dan had to be busy in the kitchen. Austin leaned over the table. I tried not to flinch. “Don’t go upstairs,” he whispered. “The third floor. Stay away from there.”

  A heavenly hazelnut aroma wafted in the air. “Here’s your espresso,” Dan said, his deep voice booming in the quiet cafe.

  Like a gazelle startled by a jungle cry, Austin stiffened for an instant and then took off, running out of the Library and racing along the atrium toward the bronze entrance doors. Seconds later they opened and slammed shut with a bang that echoed throughout the building.

  Phew. “Who is that man?” I asked as Dan placed the frothy glass on the table in front of me.

  He shrugged. “I have no idea. He comes in every day. Or
ders a bottle of water and gulps it down standing up. He’s in here five minutes, tops, then takes off running. The management would like to get rid of him, but he doesn’t cause any trouble. Just comes and goes without talking to anybody.

  “Once, though, I went into the men’s room and found him there. Nearly scared me to death. He didn’t say a word, just did his thing and took off without speaking.”

  “Does he ever go into any of the shops?”

  “Not that I know of. But he’s creepy enough to do anything. Looks like he spent the last twenty years in an attic. Never leaves a tip either. How normal is that?”

  Dan sauntered back to the kitchen, and I sipped the espresso slowly, letting its warmth chase away the chill that had invaded my spirit. Austin had spoken to me. Not casual chitchat either. He’d warned me about danger on the mall’s third floor. I smiled. He’d even left me a tip. As I sat enjoying the luscious coffee, I wondered if someone as strange and unworldly as Austin could possibly know anything about José’s death.

  Chapter Eight

  “You were right, Deva. I’m so glad I trusted you.”

  I switched the shop phone from one ear to the other. “Right about what, Imogene?”

  “My new look. The black dress and all. No bling. No glitz. Harlan loved it. He said I never looked lovelier. Can you believe that? Those were his exact words. And I thought I looked so plain.”

  “You couldn’t look plain if you tried.”

  “Thanks, but you know what I mean.” Her voice dropped to a spy-in-a-telephone booth whisper. “We have to talk.”

  “That would be good. Let me see when I’m free.” Flipping through my appointment book with one hand, I held the phone with the other. “I’m glad you called. Your fans will be installed tomorrow morning, and I have photographs of some light fixtures I think would work. Also some paint samples. How’s Thursday sound?”

  A sigh echoed through the line. “I can’t wait till Thursday. You have to come over today. Wear a wig or a hat or something, and don’t park in the driveway. Pull onto the yard next to the garage. Out of sight.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll tell you when you get here. Hurry, Deva. I need you.” The phone went dead.

  My curiosity piqued to the max, I shook my head and hung up. I’d had some colorful clients in the past, but on the color chart, Imogene was Day-Glo.

  Lee, busy with a customer searching the sample books for drapery fabric, glanced over when I retrieved my bag from under the sales counter. She murmured something to the woman and came over to me. “Y’all leaving?”

  “Yes. A client has an emergency.” I stood, smoothed the string-colored mini over my thighs and picked up the bag—an outsized tote in orange canvas.

  “If I’m not back by five, lock up, okay? And just so you’ll know, I’m thrilled you’re back, Lee. I love our shop talk and the girl talk, too. Not to mention that without you here the Closed sign would have been in the window all day.”

  She laughed and went back to her customer who was about to settle on a floral chintz. While they discussed her choice, I slipped out the back service entrance and climbed into the Audi for the half-hour drive to East Naples’s Fisherman’s Creek area.

  Thank God for Lee. I’d meant what I said. Without her the doors to Deva Dunne Interiors would be closed more often than they were open. Here I was out of the shop again today, and most of yesterday I’d spent at the design mall. Since then I hadn’t been able to shake off that strange encounter with Austin, especially his parting warning. I gave a mental shrug. It might mean nothing at all, but I’d make a point of telling Rossi about it the next time I saw him. I hoped that would be tonight.

  A boater’s paradise, the Creek was actually an estuary that fed into the Gulf of Mexico. On both sides of its bank, a medley of fishing boats and pleasure craft filled the narrow mooring slips. Behind them, houses in a hodgepodge of styles, sizes and prices gave the area a funky, offbeat look. “A beer is fine” look. “Just don’t spill any on my Maserati” look.

  I wasn’t surprised that the devil-may-care atmosphere of Fisherman’s Creek suited Imogene to a T. That it also suited Ivy Leager Harlan Conway did surprise me, and I wondered which of the houses was his. Not the apricot stucco with the terracotta mushrooms sprouting on its sparse lawn, not the Tara re-creation, and surely not the faux Tuscan villa. More likely the glass-walled rectangular structure floating like a boathouse over the estuary water.

  I pulled up on the far side of Imogene’s property and parked on the gravel. The lattice-sided garage pretty much concealed the Audi from view. Her house, a featureless box, except for its Pepto-Bismol paint job, was the last one on the street—an unpaved, two-lane road—and raised, like most new construction, on stilts. The theory being that, in a storm, tidal water would pass harmlessly underneath.

  I climbed out of the car and took a deep breath of salt-laden air. A faint odor of fish mingled in the breeze. The tide must be low. My instructions were to wear a hat or a wig, but what was I doing, breaking and entering? My head bare, I sprinted up the stairs and pressed the bell. The door opened on the first ring, and Imogene yanked me inside.

  “I thought you’d never get here,” she said.

  “I ran a red light hurrying over,” I lied.

  “Just one? When you knew I had to see you.”

  “You can kill somebody running red lights.”

  As if brushing away gnats, she waved an impatient hand in the air. “And you’re not wearing a hat.”

  Okay, time to get out the big guns. I slung the tote over a shoulder and, arms akimbo, shrew style, let loose. “When I was starting my business, Imogene, I had the pay scale of a janitor and the schedule of a hooker. But even then...even then...I wasn’t anybody’s slave. Understood?”

  She stared at me with wide, incredulous blue eyes. “I can’t believe you’re talking to me that way. When I’m so desperate.” She covered her face with her hands and, sinking into a black plastic beanbag chair, cried as if her heart were breaking.

  Oh God, I’d been too hard on her. I tossed the tote on the magenta-colored sofa with pink fringe and slumped down beside it. “What’s the problem, Imogene? Tell me, please.”

  Shoulders heaving, sobs shuddering in and out of her mouth, she struggled to gain control. At least she looked as if she were struggling. In the nick of time I remembered that Imogene was a performer. B. J. (Before Jimmy) she’d earned her living as a lounge act, so how much of the weeping was histrionics and how much grief? Seventy-five/twenty-five? Maybe eighty/twenty?

  I was prepared to cross my legs and steel my heart until she calmed down, but when she couldn’t catch her breath, I rummaged in the tote for a packet of tissues and pressed some into her hands.

  “Blow,” I said. “You’re all clogged up. How can you tell me what’s wrong if you can’t breathe?”

  She blew her cute retroussé nose and, dropping the damp tissue on the floor, gazed at me with tragic eyes.

  A pang of guilt assailed me. This woman was in distress, and I’d been treating her anguish lightly. Ashamed, I moved to the edge of the couch and bent over the beanbag.

  “So tell me. What’s troubling you?” I kept my voice to a soothing murmur. “What’s the emergency?”

  She sniffed and picked up the sodden tissue.

  “Here’s a dry one,” I said, forking over a handful.

  She took them with a grateful little smile. Had she lost a parent? A sibling? Was she ill? Something serious was going on. But what?

  “How can I help if you won’t tell me what’s wrong?” I kept my voice kitten soft.

  “I’m going to lose him.”

  “Who?” Though I knew.

  “Harlan. Who else? He’s the only man in the world.”

  Debatable, but I understood where she was coming from. As a thought s
truck me, I straightened up on the couch. Back stiff as a plank, I asked, “Is he...is he dying?”

  “What?” That did it, stopping her tears and bringing a smile to those voluptuous Nefertiti lips. “Not from the way he performed...acted last night.”

  “Look, I’m a busy woman. If you have something to tell me, please get to it so we can move on to sexy stuff like lighting fixtures.”

  “Don’t get mad. I mean it, I’m desperate.”

  “Why is that?” Even to my own ears my voice sounded irritated.

  “Because last night everything about me was fake. And I can’t keep on faking without help.”

  “Are you talking about cup size again?” I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. There isn’t a bra in the United States that isn’t padded.”

  “No, not that.”

  “You wore a Spanx under the black dress?”

  “What’s a Spanx?”

  “Okay, you didn’t.” I shrugged. “You have to get specific here.” I glanced at my watch. “I hate to be crass, but I do charge by the hour.”

  “Like a shrink.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m happy to pay you, Deva, if you’ll to do what you did yesterday. Make me over into someone Harlan will admire. Like he did last night.”

  I sighed. “Please. You wore a black dress. No big deal. You don’t need me for that. Besides, I’m an interior designer, not a personal shopper.”

  She stared at me without blinking. I could see she wasn’t getting my point.

  “Well, I’m not a personal shopper for clothes anyway. For furniture, yes. Accessories, ceiling fans, lighting fixtures, paint. Not clothes,” I repeated, hoping she’d take the hint, but she shook her head.

  “I won’t get it right. I know I won’t. He’s taking me to a play at the Sugden Theater tonight. A Streetcar Named Desire. I have to look plain. And afterwards I’ll have to discuss the play too.” Her voice rose into a wail. No question, Imogene was scared. “If I don’t shape up, I’ll lose the love of my life. If that happens, I’ll die.”