Poisoned by Gilt (24 page)

chuckling as he spoke.

"No, we shouldn't. Burke's obviously upset."

"Poor guy," Sullivan said sarcastically, clearly enjoying

the notion of Burke's discomfiture.

"I'm sure he's worried that the ugly lawn and tree ornaments so close to his house will have an adverse affect

on the contest judge."

"On Audrey, you mean," Sullivan said. "Or did you

manage to talk her out of it last night?"

"I wish. I think she's secretly too enraptured at the

thought of helping me to ferret out the killer to say no.

Plus I'm sure it was immensely flattering to her to be singled out as the one and only person who could help keep

the contest going."

"Low self-esteem has never seemed to be an issue with

Audrey."

"Don't make snide remarks about Audrey!"

"Sorry, but it's true."

"I know, but that doesn't mean it's all right to say so."

Sullivan glanced at his watch. "We've got some free

time before our next appointment. Want to head over

there right now?"

"You sound almost cheerful. I thought you were positive Burke was a murderer."

"He's a smart man . . . a doctor. Doesn't make sense

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he'd be so stupid as to shoot Walter in his own backyard.

So, yeah, some of my doubts have returned."

"Good, because I'm still positive he's innocent. Let's

go see what Ms. Crabapple has done to him."

Asia had allowed the front yard's property line to re-

main undisturbed. Burke led us to the side yard, which

bordered the pond, where the three of us stood staring at

Burke's property in unabashed awe. The only thing to be

said for the riot of bright, cheap plastic excess was that it

was infinitely more pleasant than the crime-scene tape

that had cordoned off Burke's backyard two days ago.

"Kind of like being transported to a tourist trap in

Florida," Burke said, "without our snow and ice, that is."

"More like what the artist Christo would do if someone dared him to work with only tacky toys instead of

brightly colored fabric," I said. "Or maybe a yard sale at a

dollar store."

Between her line of trees and her three-rail fence, Asia

had installed what looked like the type of mesh that golf

courses used on their driving ranges. Hers was twelve feet

high and extended from the front post of her side yard to

the pond. A second mesh began at the other side of the

pond and ran to the back corner of the fence. She hadn't

stopped at flamingos and wind chimes, although she'd

used plenty of those. Her rule of thumb seemed to be that

if it was cheap, garishly colored, and plastic, it was on her

fence. She'd stuck a toilet bowl brush on the mesh, along

with combs, an inflatable rooster, a backscratcher, horseshoes, an inflatable Santa with at least four of his reindeer, and several oversized bubble wands. Virtually every

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square inch had something ugly and gaudy hanging

from it.

"She's trying to get your goat by displaying so many

nonrecyclable plastic products," Sullivan surmised, stating the obvious.

"And she complains about my windmill ruining her

view," Burke said. "This is one hell of an eyesore, for her,

too."

"Cutting off her nose to spite her face," Sullivan

agreed.

"Her pond decorations are almost pretty," I remarked

quietly. Both men glared at me. "Well, they are. It's kind

of like a floating conga line of bath toys." She had strung

all sorts of children's floating devices together, from neon

green frogs to electric blue dinosaurs. Together they

formed a straight line atop the iced-over pond, and appeared to delineate the halfway point between the two

properties.

"She didn't secure it very well," Sullivan said. "She

just used tent stakes. The next windstorm we have, that

string of toys could get wrapped around some bush in the

next county."

"I think it's a safety hazard," Burke said. "It's going to

lure kids to try to jump onto the ice, and it won't support

them. We should take the toys down, don't you think?"

Burke was obviously looking for a viable excuse to do

just that, but he did have a point. "I'm going to take a

closer look at the pond," I said.

I made my way down the slight incline and started

walking along the water's edge toward Asia's house.

Something caught my eye in the shallow water ahead of

me, about halfway to the starting point of Asia's colorful

contraption.

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"That's odd," I said over my shoulder. "There's something in the water--between the ice and the bank."

"Probably a dead carp," Burke retorted.

It didn't look like a fish to me; it was dark and shiny

and metallic-looking. My heart started to race. I found a

long stick. After a few failed attempts, I managed to snag

the object in the pond and drag it to the shore. By then

both Burke and Sullivan had joined me and could see it,

too.

"My god," Sullivan said.

Sullivan grabbed it with his gloved hand as Burke

watched, looking horrified. It was a handgun.

The police finally allowed Sullivan and me to leave

Burke's by the time I'd rescheduled all of my client appointments. In less than an hour, Audrey would have me

chauffeur her to the finalists' homes. Sullivan and I had

agreed that, if there was even a remote chance that my

presence might help to keep Audrey safe and sound, my

time would be well spent.

Matthew Hayes called and asked me to stop by his

store at my convenience. Sullivan was with a client in a

neighboring town, so I made the short drive to Matthew's

store and found a space. His siding looked especially

pretty in the bright sunlight. It was a chalky blue-green,

like the copper patina of the Statue of Liberty.

Inside, a young man with long hair and droopy eyelids

greeted me with a lazy, "Hey, how goes it?" When I asked

for Matthew, he said, "Oh, yeah. He's in the workshop.

Go on back." I thanked him and headed through a

tangerine-colored door. There was a marked drop in temperature between the two spaces, but for me, the scent of

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fresh-cut lumber was made all the more delightful by the

crisp air.

I found Matthew using a lathe, carving what appeared

to be a pedestal for a table out of a six-by-six piece of yellow oak. As I approached, he spotted me, smiled, and

shut off the motor, the spinning piece of wood gradually

slowing to a stop. Beneath a light coating of sawdust, he

was wearing jeans, a mustard-colored T-shirt, and a black

backward-facing baseball cap.

He promptly removed his safety goggles. "Morning,

Erin. Wasn't expecting to see you quite so soon. You must

have dropped everything and run right over here, eh? It

wasn't anything urgent, you know."

"Sure, but I had some free time."

He wiped the sawdust from his hands and sturdylooking forearms. He truly was a nice-looking guy. Too

bad he was also a major jerk. "I wanted to show you the

desk you ordered. It's almost good to go. Just wanted to

give you the chance to inspect it before I invested a

whole lot of time in the sanding and finishing work." As

he led me toward the desk, he put his hand on my back,

which annoyed me. "I used the boards from the local

lumberyard, just like you and Dr. Stratton wanted, so I

was stuck with pine. There was only so much I could do

with the pine, you understand."

"Of course. But it's a lot better for the environment

when materials are being processed and used all from

within the same small geographic area."

"Maybe so, but it's bad for the craftsmanship. I can do

wonders with mahogany."

"From the rain forest. But Burke would never have

supported that. You'll just have to use a dark stain."

"One that has zero off-gassing. Yippee. Might as well

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hand me a mahogany crayon. Anyways." He gestured at a

desk against the wall. "Here you go."

Matthew was so arrogant and short-sighted that I

wanted to hate the desk. But I couldn't. He'd made wonderful use of the knotty pine and incorporated the whorls

into his overall designs. The rhomboid shape of the desk

would hug the corner of Burke's bedroom. I loved the

lines, the cabriole flair in the legs, the playful echo of

those gentle curves in the front piece and drawers. "It's

beautiful."

He shrugged, but there was no small measure of pride

in his smile. "It's okay. It'll look much nicer as I continue

to sand it between coats of finish. 'Course, if your client

would quit obsessing about off-gassing, I could use the

best varnish on the market . . . make this pine look like

rare wood."

"Right, Matthew. You could do just that. But if you'd

change your attitude and promote your skill at using

woods from your own backyard, you'd turn a big profit by

appealing to the major green contingency in this town."

"Exotic woods are what sell." He pointed at a lovely armoire a few feet away from us. "I can charge three times

more for that piece of case furniture because nobody can

get it at some 'Cheap Furniture R Us' chain store."

I walked over to the armoire and opened a drawer.

"Nor could you buy this quality dovetail joinery from a

discount factory."

"True, but believe me, exotics are what set my work

apart from other furniture designers."

"Maybe that's because those other designers have a

conscience."

He smirked. "You know, Erin, it's easy for you to be

high and mighty. If your customer requests something

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that contributes to pygmy hippos dying in Botswana, you

can just tell yourself: 'The customer is always right. It's

his big money and his fat butt that's going to sit on it.'

Meanwhile, the American furniture business is a sixtyfive-billion-dollar industry, with killer international competition. As a craftsman working for myself, I'm either a

cut above, or I'm cut off at the knees."

"So that's why you took it so personally when Richard

Thayers called attention to things like this ivory inlay?" I

asked, testing his reaction.

"Yeah. Of course I took it personally. He was threatening my livelihood! If my sales slip, I go under, and I'm

out of work. Period. And those ecology groups are ruthless."

"Groups like World's Watchdogs, you mean? The one

Walter Emory founded?"

"Yeah. I had a couple of run-ins with Emory. He and

Richard were taking turns harassing me for a while. But it

stinks that somebody offed the guy."

My vision was drawn to a chest of drawers that looked

to be made out of rain forest wood. "I couldn't help but

notice that this wood is merbau."

"Very good. You know your woods."

"I always recognize this deep red, gold-flecked color.

But I steer my customers away from it whenever possible

because of the damage its harvesting is doing to the rain

forests in Indonesia."

"I got it from a legal dealer."

"Within the United States, the dealer was legit, sure,"

I retorted. "But it's doubtful that the original exporter of

the lumber was legal."

He made a derisive noise. "I'll bet if your partner,

Steve-o, were to present you with a diamond one of these

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days, you wouldn't ask about its exporter, or anything

about its origin. More blood's been shed for diamond

mining than for conflict-wood foresting, as World's

Watchdogs calls it."

"And I'll bet if you were to have a customer ask you to

surround the mirror of a dressing table with a hundred diamonds that you had to purchase yourself on the black

market, you wouldn't hesitate."

"You got that right. Now, that is something I could

make a bundle on. If you can talk one of your rich customers into buying it from me, I'll split the profit right

down the middle."

I started to turn away in disgust and spotted a green label on a can on the shelf along the adjacent wall. I

crossed the room to investigate. Surprised, I turned back

to look at him and exclaimed, "You have one of Richard's

Earth-Friendly Wood Finish products."

"Just bought them yesterday," he said with a shrug that

looked like a forced attempt at indifference. "I knew

you'd want to use a nontoxic product."

"There are others on the market. Why did you choose

to help out Richard's business? I thought you resented his

sales tactics in his class."

"It seemed like the decent thing to do, now that the

guy's dead."

And buying Richard's products was an easy way to gain

access to his labels, then glue one onto the can of toxic

paint that Richard had been tricked into drinking.

c h a p t e r
1 7

some ninety minutes later, I found myself negotiating congested traffic while driving Audrey's

Mercedes. Impatient and annoyed, I snapped, "I should