Designed for Death (5 page)

As he raced down the beach, his heels kicking up the sand, I strolled back home. The
Naples Daily
in its plastic sleeve was propped against my front door. As I bent to pick it up, footsteps came clattering down the outside stairs.

“Deva, I was hoping I’d see you.” Neatly dressed, with a fresh bandage on his left hand, Neal hurried toward me. He held up a bag from Publix Market. “I was going to leave this at your door. When you see what’s inside, you’ll kill me.”

I shook my head. “Never.”

A flush mounted his cheeks. “Figure of speech only. You wouldn’t hurt a soul. I know that.” He peered into my face. “How’re you feeling? You’re a little pale today.”

“Didn’t sleep much last night.”

He nodded. “I don’t think anybody did. Between the throbbing in my hand and thinking about Treasure, I was up most of the night too. And Dick sat out by the pool until all hours.”

“No wonder we can’t sleep. Our home’s been violated.”

“Yes, it’s so sad. Treasure was such a sweetheart.” Tears shimmered in Neal’s eyes. He glanced away as if he hoped I hadn’t noticed. “Have to run. I’m late for an appointment.” He handed me the Publix bag. “A note inside explains everything.”

He brushed a kiss on my cheek and with a “take care,” strode toward the carport. I loved the look of his BMW roadster and watched him drive away before opening the bag and peeking inside.

The iridescent shimmer of a Thai silk pillow shone back at me. I’d used that plaid fabric in Neal’s condo.

A note pinned to the pillow read,
Deva, The electric drill fell on the sofa. Look what it did. Can you order me a replacement? Neal.

I took out the pillow and turned it over. A gash slit the silk square in two. Next to the slit, half-concealed by the multicolored plaid, I saw a tiny stain. I held the pillow closer.
Dried blood.

Of course there would be blood on the pillow. A self-styled klutz with power tools, Neal had injured himself with an electric drill…hadn’t he? He was a numbers cruncher, not a craftsman. He’d told me that right from the start of his condo redo. Still, that hadn’t stopped him from going for an all-out change. “Let’s be brave not beige, Deva,” he’d said. I’d taken him at his word, and together we’d transformed 204 into guy space, a deep-toned retreat with flashes of vibrant color here and there. Like the pillow in my hand.

Coming to my door yesterday with blood on his shirt and now leaving the pillow proved he couldn’t be guilty. He must know about DNA evidence. Kids all over the country did. No wonder. Every cop and private eye show talked about it.

I stared at the damaged silk. The colorful plaid made the stain nearly invisible. If not for the brilliant morning light, I wouldn’t have noticed it.

So maybe Neal hadn’t, either.

I picked up the paper, keyed my way in and dropped the pillow on a chair. I checked the lanai sliders, the closets and under the bed before kicking off my running shoes and grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. This routine was getting old fast, but I didn’t dare drop it.

I padded into the bathroom. Uh-oh. Hadn’t the shower curtain been open when I left? Sucking in a deep breath, I braced myself, ready to sweep the curtain aside when the doorbell pealed.

Da da da DA.

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

A glance through the front shutters revealed Lieutenant Rossi in the same Hawaiian shirt he’d had on yesterday and an all-night stubble on his chin. At least he was no one to be afraid of, and I flung the door open so fast he jumped back a step. So I wasn’t the only one with jittery nerves.

“Good morning,” he said, poker-faced, pretending I hadn’t startled him.

“It could be, but it isn’t.”

He nodded, leaving off a smile. “Want to let me in? I have some more questions.”

Not surprised, I stood aside and he sauntered in as though my living room were his personal precinct. With a single glance, he took in the whole room, then my orange shorts and, just as he was beginning an assessment of my legs, his eyes sliced to the right and riveted on the damaged pillow. That really caught his attention, and his gaze lingered on it longer than it did on my legs.

More slowly, he eyeballed the room again before coming back, like a homing pigeon, to Neal’s pillow.

“That doesn’t belong in here,” he said.

“Very good, Detective. The plaid’s wrong for this room.”

Like designer Mario Buatta, the famous Prince of Chintz himself, he nodded. “Somebody slashed it. I’ll bet it was expensive, too.” His attention swiveled back to me. “Is it from one of the units in this building?”

“You here for pillow talk?”

I guess he didn’t think I was much of a comedian. Deadpan, he replied, “If need be. Everything’s grist for the mill.” He tried smiling. It didn’t work. “You don’t want to talk about that pillow?”

“You make it sound like I’ve got something to hide.”

He held up his palms. “Something’s out of order, I ask questions.”

I took a deep breath and motioned him toward the kitchen. “Coffee?”

At my kitchen table, a steaming mug at his elbow, he flipped open his notebook—apparently he didn’t go anywhere without it—took the pencil stub out of his shirt pocket and laid it on the table.

I sat across from him, cradling the bottle of water in both hands.

He must have decided the pillow was unimportant because he asked, “You remember any names? Friends of the victim? Male friends in particular.”

Between his heavy-lidded eyes and the shadow stubble on his chin, he looked so tired I felt sorry for him and wanted to help. “Like I told you yesterday, Treasure mentioned lots of men’s names, but I never took her seriously. Never paid much attention to them.”

“Why not?”

Torn between loyalty to Treasure’s memory and the need to find her killer, I hesitated, but truth won out. A lie about this wouldn’t be the same as shaving a few pounds off my weight. “She exaggerated sometimes.”

“You mean lied?” He had the stubby pencil poised over a page. He’d worn the tip down to a faint nubbin until no lead showed. Teeth marks in the yellow made me grimace.

I pointed to them. “You need a new pencil?”

For the first time since we’d met, a real smile creased his face. “Positively not,” he said, showing square white teeth.

Men.

“Well, did she lie?” he asked.

“You want me to say something bad about the dead?”

“If it’s true.”

To delay the moment, I took a long swallow of water, then gulped a second one before admitting, “About her love life, yes, she might have lied.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Nothing serious, just that every date she had sounded more glamorous than the last. Every guy was an airline pilot or a brain surgeon. They all drove Porsches or Maseratis. That kind of thing.”

He scribbled with the stub. How he’d be able to read that hen scratching I had no idea.

He jerked his head toward the living room. “So who owns the pillow?”

Talk about changing the subject. “It’s just a pillow, for God’s sake.”

“So if it’s no big deal, tell me about it. Where did you get it?” He ladled three heaping spoonfuls of sugar into his mug, took his time stirring them and waited for my answer.

I exhaled. One of those heavy breaths you can hear across a room. Should I tell him about Neal? About the blood on the pillow? I liked Neal and hated to draw him into a crime I couldn’t believe he’d committed.

My hands began to tremble. To hide them from Rossi, I squeezed them together in my lap. Not knowing who to trust was throwing me off balance. Way off.

Rossi’s eyes never left my face. He had no intention of easing up on me.

“You don’t want to talk? Okay. Then I’ll talk. You got that pillow from Neal Tomson.”

I gasped. “How do you know?”

He cocked an eyebrow at me. “I saw the mate to it an hour ago when Mr. Tomson showed me his trophy room. So why didn’t you admit it was his? What are you hiding?”

With another sigh to show how much I disliked his inquisition, I said, “There’s a bloodstain on it.”

“Excellent.” Warm with approval, his sleep-deprived eyes flicked over me. “I’m borrowing it.”

“You have a warrant? I’ve seen slasher films. I know the drill.”

The look he flipped me could have passed for a lethal weapon. “Give me a break. I’m trying to find a killer.”

“If the stain
is
blood, it’s bound to be Neal’s. Makes sense, doesn’t it? So what’s that going to prove?”

He didn’t flinch from my question, but he didn’t answer me, either. Not in words, but he answered, all right. If the stain was blood, and it matched samples from Treasure’s carpeting, that meant Neal had… Oh, God.

“What else can you tell me about this Neal?” Rossi asked. “Work. Hobbies. Friends. Anything you can think of.”

“Not much. He’s an accountant, plays semi-pro golf. I heard he has a great swing. But he’s no good with tools. He tried to put up a display shelf for his trophies, and you know what happened.” I stopped, reluctant to say more.

Poor Neal. With a friend like me, who needed enemies? I tried to squelch the guilt, telling myself the situation was too dangerous to conceal anything from the police. Except for one little fact. Treasure’s key. But that didn’t matter. I wasn’t the killer.

Rossi gulped down the rest of his coffee. Seeing as it was still hot and strong enough to fell an ox, I don’t know how he could. Lack of sleep, no doubt. He flipped his notebook shut, pocketed it with the stub and stood. “I’ll be around most of the day talking to your neighbors, but I’ll take the pillow before I leave. You think of anything else, you know what to do. Nice kitchen, by the way. Great appliances.”

He’d only taken a few steps when he turned back. “One more thing. Call a locksmith. Have dead bolts installed on both doors. When you’re inside, keep them on at all times. Day and night. Be careful who you let in.”

“I appreciate the warning, Lieutenant, but Simon was here yesterday.” My cheeks flushed as I thought of the wet T-shirt scene. “Neal, too. Are you telling me I shouldn’t have let them in?”

“As I told you yesterday, anyone who knew the victim is under suspicion.” A second smile finally lifted the corners of his lips. “That includes you.”

Chapter Six

The nerve of that Rossi. As if I’d ever kill anyone. Besides, he knew I couldn’t have overpowered a tall gal like Treasure. So why tell me to get a locksmith? Then in the next breath call me a suspect? The whole time giving me the eye while acting as if he only had murder on his mind. I’ll admit he was attractive in an alpha male way—if you like alphas—and as different from Jack as night from day.

Well, anyway, I did call a locksmith. The next morning, he installed shiny new dead bolts strong enough to keep out an army of Jack the Rippers. But new locks or not, I had no intention of hiding in my condo. I had work to do. Dick had reserved Unit 101 as the Surfside Clubroom, and he wanted me to finish up in there. It would spur sales, he’d said, and he sure needed a few more in order to climb out of his financial bind. Maybe then he could afford to pay me.

Since no one would be around, I dressed down. Way down. Leaving my heels and power suit in the closet, I opted for Keds, shorts and a BU T-shirt. Going to work in such easy clothes felt great. Or would have if I weren’t so jumpy, seeing a villain in every gecko.

In the clubroom, hooked on a bad habit that refused to die, I peeked into the first bedroom. Dick would turn it into a fitness center as soon as he could afford the exercise equipment. Quiet as a tomb. I sucked in a deep breath before checking out the closet. Empty. Sucking in another lungful, I pushed open the door to a second bedroom that did double duty as the condo association office and supply room. Half-filled paint cans stood stacked near a battered filing cabinet. A power drill, a hammer and a box of nails lay on the desk. The closet in this room held security keys to every condo. To my relief, the closet was locked.

I wandered out to the kitchen. To economize, we’d kept it pretty much intact, but I’d convinced Dick to spray-paint the dated appliances the same shade of muted yellow as the walls. He shook his head over the choice, but once painted, they sort of disappeared instead of standing out like aging behemoths.

In the main living area, for the Surfside get-togethers Chip planned to cater, Dick let me splurge on four rattan tables and a matching server. Surrounding the tables were high-backed wooden chairs, each one painted a different color—umber, black, rusty red, all tones plucked from flecks in the carpeting. Mismatched that way, the chairs made the room jump with a certain gaudy happiness.

As for the carpeting, I avoided looking down at it. A few short days ago, its spatter pattern had seemed like good spatial design. Footprints wouldn’t show. Spills wouldn’t show. The perfect choice for a much-used public space.

Not anymore. The rusty red flecks were so much like dried blood drops, I shuddered. But a replacement was out of the question. So I ignored the carpet as much as I could and concentrated on hanging the acrylics.

The biggest, a Pop Art concoction that echoed the room’s colors, would show up well on one of the two long walls. I was tapping in a hook when a loud “yoo-hoo” upped my pulse into code orange.

“Yoo-hoo. Anybody home?” a fluty contralto voice called.

I shot a startled glance over a shoulder at the open doorway. In a drift of My Sin, an Amazon stood there, teetering on stilettos. Adrenaline spiking, I twitched and hit my thumb with the hammer.

“Ow!”

“You hurt, lovey?” she asked.

Hanging onto the hammer, I lowered my arms. “No, not at all. You looking for someone?”

“I’m Faye LaBelle, Treasure’s friend.” She stepped inside and peered at me through sunglasses the size of pizzas. “I think I know who you are. Treasure mentioned a little redhead.”

“I’m five six.” Not exactly a troll, I stood up straight to prove it.

“Of course you are. You must be Deva the decorator.”

I made a face.
Decorator
is not one of my favorite words. It sounds ditsy, as if all I do is match tea towels to draperies, but good interior design involves so much more than that. Sometimes the tea towels don’t match a damn thing. But I wasn’t about to argue with this giantess and eyed her cautiously.