[M. by D. #5] The Design Is Murder Page 4

  “Mark my words, he will be. It’s just a question of time.”

  Charlotte was whining at his feet. He scooped her up. “Am I neglecting you, darling?” he asked.

  She licked his face. Yes.

  “What worries me the most,” he continued, “is that Kay is terrified. Positively terrified.”

  Under the circumstances, who wouldn’t be? “Would you consider selling and moving?”

  “Kay asked me the same thing. Begged me, in fact. But I had to refuse her. What kind of man allows himself to be forced from his home? A home, I might add, that I’ve lived in since the late eighties.”

  Thought so! I experienced a moment of professional triumph, then forgot about it when James went on, “I was almost equally shocked when you called yesterday from the Hawkins house. I couldn’t believe it, in fact. Had you really considered taking on both Hawkins and me as clients?”

  “Of course. There was no reason not to. Though when Stew contacted me, I had no idea of your past...shall we say history together.” I paused for emphasis. “I trust you understand that I never work exclusively for any one person.”

  “Perhaps not.” He sniffed. “But I would prefer you work either for me or for him, not for the both of us.”

  “I can’t promise you that, Mr. Stahlman,” I said and stood. “Naples has several excellent designers. I’m sure you can find one to suit your wishes.”

  As I bent to pick up my purse, James put Charlotte back on the floor, a sure sign he was upset. “Please don’t take that attitude, Deva. There’s no need. You’re my designer of choice, and I will not be deterred by Hawkins or anyone else. I simply needed to state my preference. That’s all it was, a preference. Apparently Hawkins and I are already sharing a tile repair service. I saw the truck in his driveway yesterday. So why not share a designer?” He nodded at the chair I’d just vacated. “Do be seated. I’ll ring for tea. I think we both need a little refreshment before we tour the house.”

  While I sorted out my reaction to being lumped in with Tony the Tile Guy, James raised a small silver bell from the table beside his sofa and rang it. Like wind chimes caught in a breeze, its tinkle echoed throughout the room.

  A moment later, a stocky middle-aged woman with sturdy, no-nonsense legs appeared from what I guessed was the kitchen. She wore her hair in a bun, and like Teresa was dressed in a white uniform. As if acting in an English farce or something, she said—so help me God—“You rang, sir?”

  “Yes, Eileen. Our tea please.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Stunned, I sat back as far as the wing chair allowed. This should be interesting.

  Our repast must have been ready and waiting, for in the short time it took to boil a kettle of water, Eileen reappeared, pushing a tea wagon laden with a silver service, blue and gold porcelain cups and saucers and a mouthwatering array of luscious-looking morsels.

  In years past, I’d enjoyed one or two formal teas at the Copley Hotel in Boston, and the Copley, I decided, perusing the tea wagon, had nothing on Eileen.

  “Would you do the honors, Deva,” James asked as Eileen pushed the cart up to my chair and quietly left.

  The challenge was awesome. This was dowager stuff, pouring tea. You can do it, I told myself, and gripping the silver pot by its curvy handle, I poured James’s tea into an exquisite Limoges cup.

  With the devil urging me on, I asked, “One lump or two?”

  James, however, didn’t get the humor in that. “Just lemon, please.”

  The tension over, I poured tea for myself and passed a dish of precisely cut finger sandwiches to my host. Getting prison-made furniture in here sure was going to be tough.

  As we munched and sipped, he asked, “What do you make of the house so far?

  I put down my cup and cleared my throat. “Its bones are wonderful, and it’s aging well, but if you’ll pardon my saying so, it could benefit from a facelift.”

  He fed Charlotte a nibble from his plate. Unsatisfied, she sat in front of him and gazed up expectantly, her big brown eyes wide and waiting.

  “No more,” he said.

  Ha!

  And to me, “Would you explain what you mean by facelift?”

  If I were reading him correctly he was annoyed at the analogy. What a shame that tact and truth were such poor bedfellows.

  “Let me answer that with a question.” I pointed at the living room walls. “How long has this paper been here?”

  “Oh, since...” he fed Charlotte another bite—I knew he’d cave, “...1990 perhaps.”

  “And the upholstery on the chairs and sofa?”

  “The same.”

  “The draperies?”

  He held up a palm for silence. “I see your point.”

  I believe he did, but to nail it in firmly, I said, “Are you aware that colors in home décor wax and wane in popularity, much like colors in the clothes we wear? Oh, some classics—the little black dress, the tailored white shirt—remain eternally in vogue. But many do not, and those date us. Do you recall tie-dyed T-shirts and neon orange minis?”

  “Hardly. But I understand what you’re saying. The colors in here are dated.”

  “I’m afraid so. And badly faded. If the rest of the house is the same, then what you need, James, is a clean sweep, and that calls for a master plan.”

  “I like the way you think, Deva. Let’s finish our tea and then complete the tour.”

  “Fine.” Now that James and I had an initial meeting of minds, I was enjoying my cucumber sandwich when the front door opened and a pair of stiletto heels clicked briskly along the hall.

  Alarmed, James glanced up. “Oh dear,” he said, absent-mindedly popping a morsel meant for Charlotte into his own mouth. “We’ve been caught red-handed. I think that’s Kay.”

  Chapter Nine

  As James and I watched—with bated breath, for some reason—Kay Hawkins strode into the living room. Tall, lithe and late thirties, she had streaked brown hair falling to her shoulders, and though not beautiful like poor Connie Rae, she was nonetheless stunning. And in her purple dress, carrying a lime-green straw bag, she was clearly a woman who wasn’t afraid of color.

  At the sight of us she stopped short. “Tea for two. How charming,” she said in a bitchy tone that meant exactly the opposite.

  James scrambled to his feet and held out his arms. “Darling,” he said in the same voice he used on Charlotte. “What a surprise.”

  “Indeed,” she said, eying me without moving into his outstretched arms. “One doesn’t know whether to leave or to stay.”

  Oh heavens. Time to jump in. I stood and held out a hand. “I’m interior designer Deva Dunne, Mrs. Hawkins. Your fiancé—” I might as well establish the correct pecking order, “—is planning a surprise for you. And I seem to be it.”

  We shook briefly, fingertip to fingertip. Then I rummaged in my bag for my card case, removed one and gave it to her. With a show-me frown on her face, she took the card and glanced at it. Tapping it on a thumbnail, she turned to James. “You’re planning to redo the house for me?”

  “Yes, darling,” he replied, his voice loaded with relief.

  “How lovely, Jimmy, but did it not occur to you that I might like to be part of any changes?”

  His face fell. “But that would negate the surprise.”

  “Precisely,” she said.

  “I thought while we were on our wedding trip, Deva here could sweep in with her crew and give the rooms a...a facelift. Then when we returned, you’d have a wonderful new look awaiting you.”

  “But, Jimmy,” she said, pointing a cerise fingernail at the house across the lane, “haven’t we had enough surprises? And besides, how do I know Deva’s changes would suit me? We may have totally different taste.”

  “That would not be a problem,” James said. “I intended to direct the project from the get-go.” He waved a rather thin arm around the living room. “As I did years ago when I purchased the property and redid the interior.” He flicked
an imaginary fleck of lint from his shorts. “Pardon me for boasting, but I do have a gift for this sort of thing.”

  Kay shot a quick glance my way, and our eyes locked. We were on the same page. I knew in that moment we’d work around Jimmy—I mean James—and that together Kay and I would make a good team.

  I fake-checked my watch. “I do have another appointment this afternoon,” I lied. “So if it’s convenient, shall we begin our tour?”

  * * *

  Afterward, I drove back to the shop, delighted with the Stahlman meeting. Decisive and direct, Kay had wasted no time informing both her fiancé and me about her color preferences. As a concession to James, she would include cobalt blue as an accent, and loved my idea of combining that with coral and white and adding touches of black for sheer drama. Recently I’d seen a gorgeous Thibaut paper in coral with silvery birds that would make a sensational dining room, especially with James’s silver pieces polished and on display, perhaps on a mirrored sideboard. We’d agreed to retire two of his brown dining chairs and replace them with upholstered host and hostess seating, and re-cushion the others. And that was just for openers.

  I was actually humming when I opened the shop and took down the Closed sign. At my desk, I sorted through the mail, tossing circulars and opening bills and a few checks. An envelope with a familiar crabbed handwriting embellished with fancy flourishes caught my attention. I slit it open, removed a thin sheet of lined paper:

  Good news, Mrs. Dunne,

  The parole board finally came through and granted my release. Thought you’d want to know in case you need to contact me about the Help-a-Con Program.

  Not to worry. I have brochures and price lists for all the prison furniture and will stop by your shop and drop them off. That might not be for a few days, though.

  Once I’m sprung, I’m getting in on the last week of the Python Challenge, so I’ll be in the Everglades by the time this reaches you.

  See you soon. Wish me luck with the snakes.

  Yours truly,

  Mike Hammerjack

  Chapter Ten

  Egads, the Python Challenge. I shuddered, unable to believe people actually went into the Everglades—the biggest swamp in the world—and searched for Burmese pythons. Just the thought made my skin crawl.

  According to the Naples Daily News, the pythons were decimating the Everglades’ native wildlife. In an attempt at control, the state was sponsoring a month-long hunt for the critters. Some were seventeen feet long and strong enough to kill an ox or a deer or a grown man, slowly by constriction.

  As an incentive, the hunter who caught the most snakes would win a prize of fifteen hundred dollars. Not nearly enough in my opinion. To up the challenge, the pythons had to be killed or captured humanely by snare or net, not by blowing their heads off with a pistol or stabbing them in the throat.

  Anyway, since no guns were allowed in the hunt, I guess the fun had been okayed by Hammerjack’s parole officer. Then fresh from tangling with the snakes, Hammerjack would pay a visit to Deva Dunne Interiors. Terrific. Rossi had been so upset about the Hawkins case last night, I wouldn’t mention receiving letters from Florida State Prison. Why upset him further?

  On the other hand, Hammerjack didn’t necessarily mean trouble. He could simply be a reformed man wanting to reach out and help others. Wasn’t it a well-known fact that people with the least were the first to offer assistance to those in need? They understood from personal experience what being in harm’s way really meant.

  I folded the letter with the prison return address and put it in a desk drawer with the first one. Yesterday, Kay had mentioned she’d like to turn one of the guest bedrooms into a personal study. That would mean installing a computer station, a desk, bookcases. Maybe I could put the Help-a-Con Program to use in there after all.

  Pythons. Funny, I’d lived in Naples for several years now, and the only snake I ever saw was a little black garden runner. The diameter of my pinkie finger, it was maybe seven inches long, but when I spotted it on the lawn I’d screamed like I was in mortal danger and jumped onto a patio chair.

  Snakes that were seventeen feet long boggled my mind and raised goose bumps on my arms. I shook my head, relieved when the Yarmouthport bells on the shop door jangled.

  A woman who looked strangely familiar stepped in and gave me a radiant oh-there-you-are-again smile. Had we met before? I got up from behind my desk to greet her and realized—no, she couldn’t be—yes, she was—Teresa in the flesh and looking spectacular.

  Fluffed-out Big Hair cascaded past her shoulders, and red-tipped nails matched her movie star lipstick. Hugging her curves, a mini sheath careened to a stop just above her knees, and platform stilettos added inches to her height. At her throat a rhinestone leaf sparkled like a Broadway sign at midnight. Va va va voom! A filled up Brassy de Bra in the exuberant flesh. So long, white nylon uniform and sensible oxfords.

  “Teresa,” I said, extending a hand as I strolled toward her. “Is this really you?”

  She laughed, pleased, I think, at my confusion. “Yes. This is me all right.”

  “You’re not deaf, are you?”

  She shook her head. “No. I never was.”

  “Then why pretend to be?”

  “Oh, it’s a game Stew and I...I mean Mr. Stew and I play.”

  “Really?”

  At my question, or maybe my quizzical tone, the confidence a tight skirt and stilettos can give a girl wavered for an instant. An instant only, then her mouth turned down at the corners. Way down. “I pretended to be deaf when Stew...Mr. Stew was married to that Kay woman.”

  That Kay woman. I recognized female animus when I heard it. Teresa clearly hadn’t liked Kay.

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “They fought so much, shouting matches night after night...oh, it was awful...so I began acting as if I couldn’t hear a thing. It made life easier for all of us. Mr. Stew—” she got it right that time, “—liked me for pretending and kind of made a joke out of it.”

  The stilettos must have been killing her. She shifted from one foot to the other then back again as she dug around in her shoulder bag. “I have something for you. From him.”

  She rummaged in the purse a while longer, searching for whatever it was. “I can never find a thing in this bag.”

  Two women could bond over that alone.

  “I know the feeling. Do come and sit down.”

  She teetered after me and perched on the Eames chair in front of my desk. After a few more seconds of poking, she produced a white envelope and handed it across to me.

  “For you. A retainer from Mr. Stew. He wants you to work on his house, but not until this, this...mess is over.”

  “Mess?” I asked, knowing full well what she meant. Who was this woman, really?

  She nodded. ‘Yes, his new wife’s death. The police are questioning him, acting as if he caused it. He can’t sleep. He can’t eat. Not even when I cook him his favorites. It’s not fair.”

  I tossed the pewter letter opener onto my desktop. “A woman is dead, Teresa. A very young woman. The police want to find out why. For that they have to get at the truth.”

  “The truth?” She actually scoffed. “The truth is Stew should never have married that bimbo in the first place.”

  Stew. Interesting. The word Mr. was apparently a frill she’d decided to abandon.

  While she looked on, I slit open the envelope she’d given me and gasped. Sight unseen, without even hearing a single one of my design ideas, Stew had sent me a check for ten thousand dollars. What a show of confidence. Frankly I was thrilled and wrote him a receipt on the spot.

  “Please give this to Mr. Hawkins with my thanks,” I said, handing it to Teresa. “I’ll be awaiting his call after the funeral is over and he’s recovered from his grief.”

  “I don’t think there’ll be a funeral. Stew needs to forget all this and get on with his life.” She dropped the receipt into her bag and stood, smoothing the mini over her thighs
.

  Hmm. Where did she come off displaying an attitude like that? I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit and indulged in something I despised, a nasty female barb.

  “When Stew gets on with his life, as you put it, you think he might get married again? With you as his new bride?”

  She looked me straight in the eye. “That’s exactly how I see it.”

  To that I had no response. Her brass-plated nerve took my breath away. Plus her recklessness. If the autopsy showed Mrs. Connie Rae Hawkins was the victim of foul play, then Teresa had just revealed a perfect motive for murder.

  Chapter Eleven

  At closing time I was at the computer logging in initial design ideas for the two Whiskey Lane houses when the Yarmouthport bells swung into their happy dance.

  I glanced at the door. “Rossi!” I leaped up from my chair and hurried over to him.

  He turned the lock in the shop door and took me in his arms right in front of the plate glass window. After kissing me breathless, he said, “I have a surprise for you. So get your purse and close up for the night. We need to leave while there’s still plenty of daylight.”

  “This time of year, the sun doesn’t set until about eight o’clock. So what on earth is your hurry?”

  “If I tell you, there’s no surprise.”

  “You know something? You sound like James Stahlman.”

  His hand on the light switch, Rossi frowned. “The guy whose wife disappeared a year ago? The accidental drowning?” His frown deepened. “Accidental until proven otherwise.”

  “He’s the one.”

  “You know him?”

  “We met the other day. He’s my other client on Whiskey Lane.”

  “Your other client? You mean you’ve taken on Stew Hawkins after I warned you to stay away from him?”

  “I hate to be crass, Rossi, but a ten-thousand-dollar retainer trumped your warning. The business needs the cash infusion. I simply can’t afford to turn him down. Besides, Stew hasn’t been accused of a crime, has he?”