Poisoned by Gilt Read online

  P o i s o n e d b y G i l t 63

  "Good. Thanks."

  "Just don't push me away. I'm on your side."

  He ignored me and went on. "By the way, I crossed

  paths with the woman who cleans the office. She threw

  out the grape I gave you."

  "Oh, no! I meant to take that home last night."

  He still wouldn't look me directly in the eye. "Was that

  drawing okay?" he asked solemnly.

  "Which drawing?"

  "My alterations to Burke's solarium. I figured when

  you said there were iron pieces you wanted to use for

  building the bench, you meant the grating we got at the

  salvage yard for him last week."

  "Yes, that is exactly what I was thinking. It's fine,

  Sullivan. Thanks." The drawing he did, especially the inset showing the bench he'd designed, was much better

  than fine, actually. But it was difficult to praise someone

  who was actively shutting the door in my face.

  Fortunately, I was able to get lost in my work that

  morning until some ninety minutes later, when a portly

  middle-aged man stepped through the door. He was

  dressed in low-riding jeans, a flannel shirt, and a denim

  jacket. He scanned our posh surroundings as he dried his

  construction boots on the mat with the enthusiasm of a

  child trying to build up a charge of static electricity. He

  gave me an affable grin. "Hello, there." His voice was

  halfway to a shout. "Have I got the right place? Is this

  Gilbert and Sullivan Designs?"

  "Sullivan and Gilbert Designs, actually," Steve

  quickly corrected, rising.

  "Ah. Come to think of it, there's probably a sign on the

  door. Should've read it." He opened the door, craned his

  64 L e s l i e C a i n e

  neck to peer at our nameplate, then shut the door again.

  "Which one's Gilbert and which one's Sullivan?"

  "I'm Erin Gilbert."

  "Steve Sullivan." Steve stepped forward with proffered

  hand. "And you are . . . ?"

  "Name's Walter Emory," the visitor said, his voice still

  booming as he pumped Steve's hand. His name sounded

  familiar to me, but I couldn't place it. "Pleased to meet

  you. I'll probably be seeing you two quite a bit in the next

  week or two."

  As he shook my hand, the name clicked. "You're the

  original founder of Earth Love, aren't you?" I remarked.

  He was also the head of World's Watchdogs, a much

  more controversial association, as I recalled.

  He beamed at me. "That's right. Here to act as the

  new judge for the contest. Earth Love felt it'd be best to

  move forward quickly . . . then maybe to set up some sort

  of memorial fund in Richard's memory."

  Sullivan peered at him. "You're heading up World's

  Watchdogs now, right?"

  Walter Emory chuckled. "I can tell by the way you're

  both looking at me that you've heard the rumors that we

  have some dangerous ecoterrorist members. Rest assured, those are just rumors. No basis in fact. I haven't

  done anything the Feds consider a crime since I was a

  wild teenager." He had an endearing twinkle in his eye.

  "Quite a ways back, as you can see." The man had to be

  pushing sixty.

  Sullivan took a seat in the leather chair facing him,

  and I sat down in my usual spot. "Richard was a friend of

  mine, too," Sullivan said. "How'd you meet him?"

  "He worked as my consultant while I was forming

  P o i s o n e d b y G i l t 65

  Earth Love. We met over the Internet, something like ten

  or fifteen years ago. I was still in Juneau at the time."

  "I hear it's beautiful up there," I remarked.

  "Sure is. My parents were hippies and raised me in

  Alaska. A commune, actually." He chuckled. "We never

  had a TV. Took me till I was in my late twenties to discover that most folks in the lower forty-eight figured getting a piece of the good life was all that mattered, and

  natural resources be damned. Now someone's killed one

  of the world's true guardian angels. All I've heard about

  his death is he was teaching a conservation class and poisoned himself with paint, thinking it was nontoxic."

  "That's about the extent of our knowledge, too,"

  Sullivan said. "Someone replaced his can with a toxic

  one. He was murdered."

  "And earlier that same day, he'd filed charges against

  your client to boot him from the competition. True?"

  "We don't know if those two things are related," I interjected firmly. "What we do know is that Burke Stratton

  would like to clear his name as quickly as possible." I exchanged glances with Sullivan, realizing too late that I

  must have sounded cold and even heartless to him.

  "I should have figured out this could happen," Walter

  muttered. "To recognize that there'd be some problems,

  at the very least."

  "Pardon?" I asked, confused.

  "Never mind. Just thinking out loud. I should have advised Richard not to agree to be judge. Hindsight's always

  twenty-twenty, as they say."

  "Judging the contest might not have had anything to

  do with his death," I said, pressing my point. "For all we

  know, the police might be on the verge of arresting some

  bitter ex-employee or jealous lover."

  66 L e s l i e C a i n e

  "Did Richard say anything to you about Burke

  Stratton?" Sullivan asked, ignoring me.

  Walter shook his head. "Name means nothing to me.

  You two must know him pretty well, though. You think

  he's nuts enough to kill a man just because he caught

  him cheating in a contest?"

  "Not in my opinion," I answered quickly.

  Walter fixed his gaze on Sullivan, who had merely

  clenched his jaw. "You disagree?"

  "They'd had a major blowup a few years ago."

  "Ah. Sure. Sure."

  Walter shifted his attention to me as if expecting a rebuttal, but no way was I going to get into a big disagreement right now. It was disconcerting that Walter's

  energies appeared to be much more focused on investigating Richard's death than on judging the contest.

  "Have you had a chance to examine whatever reports

  Richard filed with Earth Love about Stratton's violations?" I asked.

  He rolled his eyes. "What there is of them. He cited

  Stratton for tampering with his meters and with his water

  allocations. But he doesn't list any of the actual evidence

  that led him to those conclusions. Guess he figured he'd

  be presenting that at the hearing."

  "When's that going to take place?" I asked.

  "Soon as possible. We're hoping for Monday, if that

  works out for Dr. Stratton."

  "Is that going to be enough time?" Sullivan asked.

  "You're going to need the police to release whatever evidence Richard had collected, and then examine it yourself."

  Walter lifted his palms. "Vanished. If it ever existed in

  the first place."

  P o i s o n e d b y G i l t 67

  "Wait." Sullivan gaped at him. "You mean, all of

  Richard's belongings have been searched in the past

  twenty-four hours, and you're already certain Richard's

  evidence against Burke can't be found?"

  "According to the officer I spoke with this
morning,

  Richard had all the files from Earth Love with him in his

  car. Not a single report regarding Dr. Stratton's violations, though. His latest notes in his journals were examined. Nothing about Stratton. The contents of his desk

  and file cabinets were inventoried. Under the circumstances, we're just going to have to go with what little

  we've got. If more information turns up, we'll hold a second hearing and reexamine the issue."

  "Why hold a hearing at all?" Sullivan grumbled.

  "You're obviously going to clear him."

  "Earth Love's trying to follow their own contest guidelines as best they can, I guess," Walter replied. He patted

  his thighs twice, then rose. "Good meeting you both.

  Thanks for chatting with me. I'll be seeing you again, I'm

  sure."

  I got up and shook Walter's hand. I thanked him for

  stepping in to help out with the contest, then offered a

  few words of condolence for the loss of his friend.

  Sullivan shook his hand as well.

  Just a few seconds after Walter had closed the door,

  Sullivan turned to me. "That proves it, as far as I'm concerned. The evidence that Burke was cheating had to

  have been stolen from Richard. And only Burke would

  benefit from its sudden disappearance."

  More likely there was no evidence in the first place, I

  thought glumly. "Burke isn't necessarily the only one

  who'd have benefited. I had an interesting conversation

  with Jeremy Greene yesterday evening. There's something

  68 L e s l i e C a i n e

  fishy going on with him. Did you know that several months

  ago, Richard was suing him for an inadequate design of his

  foundation?"

  "Whose foundation?"

  "Richard's. Jeremy was his architect for the house that

  he built five years ago."

  "Huh. That's . . ." He let his voice trail off.

  "Jeremy said it was the builder who loused up and

  nothing was wrong with his design. The strange thing is,

  though, that Richard was suing Jeremy, not the builder.

  In any case, I'm worried about Burke's basement now."

  Steve paced. "Jeremy stood to lose invaluable publicity for his design, if Richard kicked Burke out of the contest," he said thoughtfully. "Still, though, Burke was the

  only one who would have been publicly accused of

  cheating when Richard's evidence was presented in the

  newspapers."

  I considered arguing the point, but held my tongue.

  He started to collect his things, including his portfolio

  case. "I've got to head to Jennifer's house."

  "Jennifer Fairfax? Our presentation for her isn't till

  noon, is it?"

  "No, she moved it up. She wanted me to show her our

  design, then take her to the Denver Design Center this

  morning."

  "Really? When did she suddenly decide all of that?"

  And why was I being cut out of the equation?

  "Uh, yesterday. I ran into her downtown. She said she

  was free all morning and wanted to move our presentation up. I figured the least I could do after you covered

  for me all day yesterday was to do it solo and free up your

  lunch hour today."

  "Great," I said in a monotone. "Thanks."

  P o i s o n e d b y G i l t 69

  He did a double take. "You don't have a problem with

  this, do you? I'm just taking her to the Design Center,

  not the Brown Palace."

  My problem was that Jennifer Fairfax was a gorgeous

  divorcee who blatantly flirted with Sullivan every chance

  she got. And should I point out that he hadn't as much as

  mentioned the change to my schedule till now, after I'd

  pried the information out of him? If this had been a

  simple case of a client changing an appointment, he

  wouldn't be acting so defensive.

  Apparently it wasn't just Burke who had a potentially

  crumbling foundation. I forced a smile. "No problem.

  Have fun."

  c h a p t e r 6

  You can't help but take special pride

  in home-improvement projects when

  you've done them yourself. On the

  other hand, if you're all thumbs, you

  can take pride in being smart enough

  to hire good help.

  --Audrey Munroe

  "I'm really not sure about this base color,

  Erin." Audrey crinkled her nose and stood with

  BLISS her hands on her hips by the dining room table,

  peering at my handiwork."It's a little too beige."

  I took a deep, calming breath and counted

  to ten. Truth be told, I hadn't been pleased with

  the beige myself, but this was Audrey's house,

  after all, so I'd proceeded after checking with

  her repeatedly about the color--back when it

  would have been a snap to repaint."That's because it is beige."

  "Oh, I know. But this is a linen beige. I think I'd

  have preferred a lemon beige."

  DOMESTIC

  "Lemon versus linen. Interesting difference in

  enunciation." I was babbling, trying not to lose

  D o m e s t i c B l i s s 7 1

  my temper. She'd made up both of those names. The

  nicely descriptive name of the muted yellow that she

  should have allowed me to use was "buttermilk."

  Audrey, meanwhile, was rifling through my books of

  paint chips. She paused and studied one. "Here." She

  tapped it with her fingernail."This is perfect."

  With a sigh, I set down my little one-inch roller. Just

  three feet remained unpainted on my final stripe in the

  entire room. I wiped off my hands and joined her. She

  was leaning against the buffet. We'd moved all the

  furniture to the center of the room and, on Audrey's insistence, had draped drop cloths over it in an unnecessary step of caution. If only she'd taken this much care

  with her paint selections.

  I glanced at the paint chip. Buttermilk. "That's the

  one I recommended when we first started." That color

  would brighten this sometimes too dark northernexposure room. It would also make a lovely contrast with

  the forest green upholstery of her chairs.

  "Is it?" She held it up to the sunlight."Oh, so it is. Excellent recommendation, Erin. I should have listened."

  "Thank you." I started to put away the paint for the

  accent stripes.

  "No, wait. I love the navy blue and the lilac stripes you

  painted. Those colors are perfect."

  I continued to tap down the lid with my hammer. All

  paint cans seem to have an amazing resistance to being properly resealed. At least by me, that is. "They're

  painted on top of the beige, Audrey."

  "What are you saying?"

  72 L e s l i e C a i n e

  "That it might be time to hire a professional painter.

  And that, in any case, it's time to call it a night."

  She winced."In other words, all the stripes have to be

  redone, too? Oh, dear. I should have said something

  much sooner."

  "It's all right, Audrey."

  She surveyed the room, turning a slow circle. "You

  know what, Erin? I was wrong. This beige is just fine. Let's

  keep it as is."

  "No. We can change color schemes completely, or

  rethink the faux wallpaper, but keeping this paint is the

  one option that's off the ta
ble."

  "I mean it," Audrey protested. "It's fine. I like the

  beige."

  "You don't call anything 'fine,' Audrey.You're not one

  to settle. And there is no way I'm going to let you

  change your . . . spots now."

  "But I don't want you to be angry at me."

  "I'm not. And in any case, right now, I'm working as

  your designer, and I've got to handle this situation the

  same way I would at any other client's house. No designer worth her salt wants her client to cave merely for

  the sake of not causing trouble. We would much rather

  redo something five times than do it just once but leave

  the client less than thrilled with the results."

  "You're sure?"

  "Absolutely. And especially in this case, because I

  agree with you. That buttermilk color will not only set off

  the design, but it will also complement the yellow tones

  in your kitchen."

  D o m e s t i c B l i s s 7 3

  "Which is precisely what you told me at the start. I'm

  sorry."

  "It's really all right, Audrey. But I do think it's best at this

  point to hire a professional. For painting the base color

  only; I'll still do the stripes. This way we'll have a nice

  clean--and wonderful--canvas for painting the faux

  wallpaper design, and I won't feel like I need to rush

  things, which is when painting mistakes happen."

  "If that's really what you want."

  "Just don't let the pros talk you into hiring them for

  painting the stripes and the roses. I really want to do that

  myself."

  "Deal." She peered at me and to my surprise, gave

  me a hug, which was a little out of character for her.

  Afterwards she held my gaze for a moment."This isn't exactly the way you wanted to be spending your Friday

  night, is it?"

  An understatement. Right around now, Sullivan and I

  should have finished a romantic dinner in Denver and

  been walking hand in hand in Larimer Square to the

  concert venue. "It's not how you'd like to be spending

  yours, either, I'm sure."

  "Well, but my heart isn't invested in any one man, so

  it's different. I've got my little black book at the ready

  anytime I choose to access it."

  "Good for you."

  "If you want to consider dating considerably older

  men, I can let you borrow it."

  I laughed."Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

  I resumed putting away the painting supplies. Even

  74 L e s l i e C a i n e