Death by Inferior Design Read online

  Randy, it seems, had told Carl that he was familiar with my work by virtue of his having inside information as the editor of a design magazine. As much as my ego begged me to accept that explanation, the photograph burning a hole in my pocket suggested that he’d used his editing job as a convenient ruse. My hunch was that Randy Axelrod had arranged this whole contest as a means to get me to discover my own photograph, which he’d planted there himself. But why? Could he have fathered me? If so, why be so devious? And why had he been conspicuously absent all morning? If this had been a trap, wouldn’t he want to be present to see if I’d take the bait?

  While Carl applied the matte base coat for the faux finish, I returned to my sewing. An hour later, I decided to dash across the street and make sure that Sullivan wasn’t going to keep Taylor so busy on his carpentry projects that the latter neglected mine completely.

  The temperature had warmed to the mid-forties, and the sky above the white-capped mountains was a glorious azure. Even without the Rockies’ majestic backdrop, I’d have moved here for the pleasure of being able to live beneath such a divine shade of blue, I decided as I crossed over to Randy Axelrod’s backyard.

  Taylor was hunkered over his saw, a cigarette hanging from his lips. Pacing nearby, Steve Sullivan seemed to be trying to stay upwind of the smoke. The boards I’d purchased were stacked by the Axelrods’ back door, and on top of the stack were my keys, which I pocketed.

  Steve’s brow furrowed the moment he spotted me, and he stormed toward me. “Nice work, Gilbert.”

  “On what? My bed design?”

  “On making my client nervous about the Barcalounger. I’ll be sure to return the favor, first chance I get.”

  “You can try. It won’t do you any good, though. Carl Henderson couldn’t care less how his bedroom turns out.”

  Sullivan snorted. “So I guess you win this round. But let me warn you: you don’t want to play hardball with me.”

  “Oh? And why is that? Because you have no professional ethics whatsoever, and I do?”

  “Hey, I have—” He stopped his protest and shut his mouth, his eyes blazing. Then he said grimly, “The Cooper job had extenuating circumstances, Gilbert. If it makes you feel any better, though, I’m sorry.”

  I hid my surprise at his having not only admitted to the transgression of having stolen the Cooper account from me, but apologizing for doing so. “What ‘extenuating circumstances’ are you referring to?”

  He shot a glance at Taylor, bent over his noisy saw. “Now’s not a good time to go into that.” He crossed his arms and glared at me.

  His haughty behavior couldn’t spook me. “Fine, but you owe me a full explanation if you expect me to accept your apology.”

  He merely arched an arrogant eyebrow. Taylor shut off his saw, so we both turned our attention to him. “I was wondering how my projects are coming,” I said to the carpenter, ignoring the fact that I could see for myself that all my materials were a few steps away, and untouched.

  Taylor swiped his big palm across his shaved pate. “Haven’t started ’em.”

  “Can you give me a time frame? If you can just cut the pieces for the bed and the TV stand, I could have Carl stain them tonight, so they’d be dry by tomorrow. And I’d love to have the closet shelves today, so we can paint them.”

  Taylor took a long drag on his cigarette, leaned toward me, sneared, and blew the smoke directly in my face. Grinning as if daring me to object, he replied, “No sweat, Gilbert.”

  “Good,” Sullivan immediately interjected, to my surprise. “Because if you can’t handle the work, Taylor, I’ll have one of my people replace you even before you can get your tools reloaded in your pickup.”

  “I can handle the job just fine, dude.” Taylor shot a visual dart in my direction and crushed his cigarette under the heel of his boot. “You’ll have your closet shelves in an hour, Gilbert, soon as I finish with Steve’s project.”

  “Thank you,” I replied in Taylor’s general direction, but I kept my eyes on Steve Sullivan. His bland expression didn’t change. I turned and headed back across the street. Sullivan had just bailed me out of a jam. If he hadn’t been there, I very well might have made the same threat to Taylor, but my threat to replace him would have been a bluff. Sullivan, however, had the connections to back up his assertions. Why was he being so nice? He was probably trying to lull me into a false sense of security.

  Carl was in the living room, rummaging through my fabric pieces. With his tall, thin, and stooped frame, he resembled a curved-over contemporary floor lamp. One that never lit up, that is. “Painting’s done,” he muttered glumly.

  “That’s just the first coat. We’ll put the burgundy coat on for the faux finish later this afternoon. The frottage technique is a two-person job, with one person rolling on the paint and the second person placing the plastic on top of it. It’s a subtractive procedure that . . .” Speaking of glazing, his eyes had started to glaze over. “The point is, I’m hoping that by then, Randy or Myra will come over to give us a hand. I need to hang the wallpaper at some point. In the meantime, I could use some help with the sewing. Especially with the pillows. It’s really a simple job, and I can show you how.”

  Carl grimaced, then grabbed his keys. “I don’t sew,” he declared. “I’ll go get us some reinforcements.”

  “You have more people who can help us out?” I asked.

  “No, I meant I’ll go get us some lunch. What would you like? A burger?” Before I could reply, he continued. “You’re probably more the salad type. How ’bout I get us something from the noodles-to-go place?”

  “That sounds great. Thanks, Carl.”

  The garage door rumbled open and then closed behind his car. It was the first time I’d been left alone in the house, and after a couple of minutes, I decided to take a break. I’d inspect Carl’s painting and the patch job we’d done on the hole.

  Upstairs, I knelt, closed my eyes, and ran my palm over the smooth surface of the repaired wall. To my delight, only the coolness of the still-damp plaster gave me any indication of where Taylor had taped over the new seams. This surface would make a perfect blank canvas beneath the sublime wallpaper that I was so eager to hang. I opened my eyes and admired Carl’s paint job. The gold walls were already catching a lovely slant of light through the windows. This new bedroom was going to be the absolute ultimate Christmas gift, wrapped in luxurious, warm red-and-gold walls.

  The garage door opened again. Carl must have forgotten something: his wallet, perhaps. I grinned and waited for him to enter the house, planning to call down to him that he’d done an excellent job on both the sanding and the painting.

  “Oh, my God!” a woman shrieked. “We’ve caught them in the act!”

  I scrambled to my feet and raced out of the bedroom, making it to the landing of the stairs. Below me, I instantly recognized Debbie Henderson—an attractive, round-faced woman with strawberry-blond hair—from the wedding picture, although her delightful smile was now absent. Next to her stood a rail-thin bleached blonde. She wore a stunning heather pin-striped suit that was obviously an Armani. She had to be Jill McBride, Kevin’s wife.

  “It’s okay,” I said, trying to mollify them. “I’m supposed to be here, Mrs. Henderson. I’m a . . . guest of your husband’s.”

  Debbie cried, “I knew it! Didn’t I tell you, Jill? We caught them in the act! She was coming out of the bedroom.”

  “Your husband was paying me to . . .” Come to think of it that didn’t sound good. “Mr. Henderson hired me to—”

  “We know full well that you’re a designer,” Jill McBride cut in firmly. The woman reeked of old money in her upper-crust Bostonian accent and her every movement. “Don’t deny it.”

  “I wasn’t going to.” How could I? My only other option would have been to claim I was a hooker. One who’d brought a sewing machine and fabric to her trick’s house.

  Debbie grumbled, “I suppose Carl thought I’d enjoy being surprised. As opposed to having s
ome input in what my own bedroom looks like . . .”

  “I’ve got to get home,” Jill said. Her face was ashen. She gave Debbie’s arm a squeeze and drew a shaky breath. “If Carl’s having your bedroom redone, Kevin’s probably destroying my den as we speak. Honestly! He knows I handpick people to do that sort of thing for me!”

  Despite the gravity of the situation, I couldn’t help but smile at the notion of Jill’s handpicking people to destroy her rooms.

  “Go. Hurry.” Debbie gestured Jill toward the door. Peevishly, she brushed past me and marched up the stairs.

  “I assure you, Mrs. Henderson, I’ve been trying to take your personal taste into consideration as I—”

  “Oh. My. God!”

  I raced after her into the room. Although the other walls were already much improved—at once livelier and truly elegant in their new golden hue—my client’s wife was gaping in horror at the blotchy accent wall.

  Debbie Henderson snatched up my crowbar and whirled to face me. “Whatever possessed you to tear out my paneling? What kind of an idiot designer are you?”

  chapter 3

  The aspen paneling was really nice,” I said to Debbie, hoping that “really nice” was apt flattery for something that she’d loved and that I’d just hacked to bitty bits during her brief absence from home. “You and I share an appreciation for unpainted, quality wood. Unfortunately, your husband didn’t mention that the paneling was your favorite part of the room until it was too late. The good news is I’m installing magnificent wallpaper that’s an absolute work of art and is going to look positively sublime. . . .”

  But Debbie was still too agitated to hear me. She was now examining Taylor’s and my patch in the wall as if she were assessing the aftermath of some terrible accident. At least she’d dropped my crowbar to do so, and I toyed with the idea of nudging it farther away from her with my foot. “Why is this here?” she asked me in accusatory tones.

  “It’s a repair job from the hole in the Sheetrock that we discovered when we removed the panels.”

  “Why would there have been a hole in the wall? And why wouldn’t my husband or I have known about it if our walls were crumbling all around us?”

  “The hole was put there deliberately. Somebody had apparently been hiding several letters and a necklace in it.”

  “Letters?”

  “Love letters.”

  Her angry expression instantly changed to a startled one, and then she looked worried. “That’s very strange, to say the least. If there were letters here, they must have been put there long before Carl and I got married and bought the place.” She paused. “Did my husband happen to see them?” she asked, too casually.

  “Yes, he was with me at the time. He put them away in another room.”

  “In the guest room?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She sighed, then muttered under her breath, “I should have seen this coming.”

  Below us, I could hear a man’s heavy footfalls, and Carl’s voice soon called up the stairs, “Erin? You didn’t happen to see my wife, did you? I could have sworn she and Jill took Debbie’s car to the spa, but—”

  With her hands fisted, Debbie marched out of the room.

  “Debbie!” he cried.

  “Carl.”

  I rushed into the hallway behind Debbie. Carl was holding two containers from Noodles and Company and staring up at his wife. His facial expression reminded me of the way my cat, Hildi, had looked up at me when a former neighbor carried her home by the scruff of the neck after Hildi had snuck through a window and attacked his canary cage.

  “What are you doing back so early?” Carl asked his wife.

  “Jill and I got to talking during the drive about some of the peculiar things you and Kevin have been saying lately. We put everything together and realized what you were up to. Then we decided we’d never be able to really relax at the spa anyway, so we turned around and came home.”

  He glanced at the food containers in either hand, then at the front door. I’m pretty sure he was considering dropping the lunches and bolting. Instead he sighed, pointed at me with his chin, and told his wife, “This was supposed to be a Christmas gift. Merry Christmas.”

  “You let her tear down my paneling!” Debbie stomped her foot. “What were you thinking?”

  Carl hung his head. “I didn’t realize why no one else touching the paneling was so important to you, or—”

  “What do you mean, why it’s so important? Because I just happen to like the look of natural wood, that’s why. I didn’t know any more than you did about the cubbyhole in there till just now, when . . . when your designer told me.”

  “Erin Gilbert,” I supplied, realizing that I’d neglected to introduce myself. “Mrs. Henderson, let me just show you the wallpaper and my design for your room, okay?”

  “It looks great to me,” Carl interjected with a careless shrug.

  “You don’t know an ottoman from an armoire,” she scoffed. “You’d be just as happy if our furniture were made out of cinder blocks and particleboard.”

  “Hey! I’ve gone along with every one of your decisions without complaint. I’ve never objected to a single stick of furniture you brought into the house. And I agreed to toss nearly every piece of furnishing I owned before we moved in here.”

  She flung up her hands. “Because all of it was constructed from particleboard and cinder blocks!”

  “And I’m agreeing with you!”

  She rolled her eyes, then sighed and stared at her shoes. After an uncomfortably long pause, she met my eyes. “Hi, Erin.” She held out her hand. “I’m Debbie Henderson. Welcome to our home.” Her smile was sincere.

  We belatedly shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. “I’m sure you can’t tell this from looking around the place,” Debbie told me, “but I have a true passion for interior design.”

  “Sure I can. For one thing, I’m completely smitten with your eight-drawer chest. Not everyone would recognize such high-quality craftsmanship.”

  “Thank you. That was one of the items I purchased specifically for this house, five years ago. I love it. That’s why I put it at the foot of the bed, where it’s the first thing I see when I wake up every morning.”

  Hmm. That chest needed to be moved to one side to improve the overall balance and flow of the room. It would still be the first thing she saw upon waking, though . . . if she didn’t mind tilting her head a little. For the foot of the bed, I’d selected a stunning, gilt-framed oil painting of a narrow cobblestone road in a quaint French village, the terra-cotta housefronts all brimming with colorful flower boxes. I could always return the painting, though, if she preferred having the chest there. I donned my warmest smile. “Let me show you my plans, Debbie.”

  I soon found Debbie Henderson to be every bit as engaging as I’d assumed her to be from the sparkling blue eyes and warm smile in her wedding picture, as well as from the exquisite taste she’d shown in purchasing that eight-drawer chest. We decided to go over my plans for the room at the kitchen table while Carl and I ate our lunches. Debbie liked every single one of my ideas and selections, and actually squealed with excitement when I showed her the new antiqued bronze curtain rods with their ivy leaf finials that echoed the curved lines in the wallpaper pattern. Carl, meanwhile, when pressed by his wife, would give my drawings an occasional nod. They say in the design business that all rooms need “peaks and valleys,” and although Carl was physically built like a peak—or at least like a hat tree—moodwise he provided whatever room he inhabited with a perpetual valley.

  Halfway through lunch, Taylor wordlessly stepped inside the front door and dumped the new shelves in a heap, so I showed Debbie how well they worked in her bedroom closet. She was effusive with her praise and hugged me. Having clients appreciate my ideas for sprucing up their living spaces is one of my favorite things about this job. Having to listen to the occasional bickering between spouses is one of my least favorite aspects, but what job is perfect?
r />   After lunch, we discussed the tasks that still remained to be done, and the Hendersons volunteered to apply the final coat—the burgundy—for the faux finish. Carl wanted to be in charge of applying the paint, so I showed Debbie how to smooth three-foot squares of plastic onto the wet paint, then peel the plastic away, which gives the walls a wonderful marbleized appearance. The two of them were working with confidence and good rhythm. I cautioned them to stick to the same task throughout; switching the painter and the person handling the plastic leads to noticeable differences in the finished appearance. Then I went downstairs to sew the drapes.

  I had purchased premade sheers, but even so, the raw silk drapes would, if left unlined, fade dreadfully in direct sunlight. Carl had told me that Debbie was a light sleeper, so I was using a high-density blackout lining. The panels would use butterfly pleats, and with the sheen of the fabulous fabric, the new curtains would glow like liquid gold against the walls.

  The doorbell rang. It was Myra and Randy Axelrod, who announced that they were “here to lend a hand.”

  “Great,” I replied with sincere relief as I ushered them inside. Randy was such a large man that I had to flatten myself against the wall to allow him to squeeze past me. “I’ll gladly take all four helping hands.”

  “I’ve really only got the one free hand at the moment.” Randy raised the half-full Budweiser bottle he was carrying. He laughed at his lame joke, then headed upstairs to check the progress of the room.

  Although I offered to show Myra the room, she declined. “No, no. That’s quite all right. I can see it tomorrow, when you’re a little farther along.” She was searching my face again with the intensity of an antiques expert studying a potential purchase for signs of fraud. Her avid curiosity about my appearance sent a shiver through me; could she be my mother? Facially, we looked nothing alike. We were both thin, however, and were roughly the same height. Myra had gray eyes, unlike my dark brown ones, but her graying shoulder-length hair held the same hints of auburn hues you could see in mine.