Death by Inferior Design (10 page)

Randy’s face was ice blue. Scattered on the floor around him were the love letters and the cameo pendant.

chapter 6

Randy!” Myra cried. “Oh, my God! Randy!” She stood frozen in shock, the Hendersons flanking her. Wordlessly, Taylor rolled Randy over onto his back. I knelt and felt his neck for a pulse, but my hands were shaking so badly, I couldn’t trust my judgment. Other than my nursing stint at my mother’s bedside, I knew nothing about medical care or first aid.

“He’s not breathing,” I told Taylor. “Do you know CPR?”

He said, “Yeah,” and tilted Randy’s head into position.

“I’ll call nine-one-one,” I said, rising and dodging past Debbie, Carl, and Myra, who merely gaped mutely at Randy with ashen faces.

I sprinted downstairs, grabbed the phone in the kitchen, and dialed. I told the dispatcher what had happened and gave her the Hendersons’ address. She told me to stay on the line till the paramedics arrived, but I insisted that I needed to tend to Randy myself, which felt true in spirit; I couldn’t stand being downstairs on the phone while a man was clinging to his life just a short distance away. I hung up and rushed back upstairs.

Taylor was bent over Randy, still trying to resuscitate him. If his efforts were having any effect at all, I couldn’t tell; Randy looked lifeless. Myra was clutching her husband’s hand and crying—a low, keening moan that sounded almost inhuman. Debbie was at her side, patting her back, reassuring her again and again that everything would be fine. Carl still lurked by the doorway, looking both flushed and flustered.

“The ambulance is on the way,” I told Myra, kneeling beside her.

She murmured, “I
knew
he shouldn’t be here, climbing up and down those stairs all the time. His heart wasn’t strong enough.”

I felt helpless. Was this my fault for not confronting Randy and instantly refusing to continue work the moment I found that picture of me? Had I done so, he probably wouldn’t have kept coming here, climbing up and down the stairs. I glanced over at the letters and necklace, still scattered on the tan carpeting. The only thing missing from the secret stash was my photograph, which I’d confiscated.

Randy still wasn’t breathing on his own, even though Taylor appeared to be doing an excellent job at CPR. “Taylor, do you need a break? Should I try to take over for you?”

He gave me the finger and kept ministering to Randy.

“I’ll take that as a no,” I muttered.

Myra stared at the items on the floor next to her husband, only just now noticing them. She reached across her husband and grabbed one of the letters and the necklace. “What’s this?” she asked.

“I found those inside the wall when I removed the paneling,” I explained, surprised that she hadn’t heard about the discovery from one of her neighbors, if not from Randy himself. She dropped the letter and cameo onto the floor again, disinterested.

Carl said, “I stashed that stuff in a dresser drawer yesterday in the guest room for safekeeping. I don’t know why Randy was going through our things.”

“That’s the least of everyone’s worries right now,” Debbie said rigidly, watching Taylor’s attempts to resuscitate Randy. “When he recovers, we’ll ask him.”

Myra pursed her lips and said nothing. Despite Taylor’s efforts, Randy didn’t seem to be breathing. I felt sick.

Outside, sirens wailed. “Thank God! I’m going to go down and let them in,” I said, seizing the opportunity to leave this appallingly silent room.

My thoughts whirled. Randy, as I’d already suspected, had to have been the one to stash everything in the wall, after Taylor had built the hole in the first place. Otherwise, how could Randy have known to search through the Hendersons’ drawers?

The ambulance tore into the driveway. Two paramedics emerged and rapidly unloaded equipment. “Hurry,” I told them. “He’s not breathing.”

Carl had apparently followed me downstairs and was now sitting on the single step that made the living room sunken and delineated it from the dining room. He said nothing as I ushered the two men upstairs, and after a moment’s hesitation, Debbie told Myra that she thought it would be best to keep out of the way. Leaving Myra with the paramedics, Debbie and I went downstairs to join Carl. The three of us waited in anxious silence in the living room, listening as the paramedics questioned Myra about her husband’s medical history.

After a minute or two, Taylor thumped down the stairs. There were beads of perspiration on his shaved head. I rose and said to him, “Thank you for your efforts up there. You might have made all the difference.”

He wiped his brow and grumbled, “Whatever. I’m going home. Don’t nag me about your damned headboard, and tell Steve to lay off, too, or I’ll tell you both where you can stick your furniture.”

Brusque as he was, he’d earned the right to vent, and I merely replied, “No problem.”

“We’re not going back to work today, Taylor.” Debbie’s voice and expression conveyed a sense of bone weariness. “I wouldn’t dream of asking anyone to soldier through. Not after what’s happened . . .”

Taylor ignored her. “Carl, I’ll check in with you in the morning,” he muttered. The door closed behind him.

The room fell silent once again. Moments later, the doorbell chimed. Almost simultaneously, Jill and Kevin McBride burst inside. “We heard the ambulance,” Jill cried. “What’s going on? What’s happening?”

“Randy collapsed,” Debbie answered. “The paramedics are upstairs with him and Myra now.”

“Must be his heart. Is he still alive?” Kevin asked Carl.

“I don’t know. We were all in the garage when we heard him collapse. Taylor tried his best to revive him, but . . .” Carl’s voice faded.

Kevin patted Carl on the back, then sank down in a chair at the dining room table.

Jill called up the stairs, “Myra? Is Randy doing any better?”

Grim-faced, Myra came down the stairs. “I’m going to the hospital with them.” She didn’t, I noticed, answer Jill’s question about Randy’s condition.

“He’ll do great, Myra,” Kevin said, rising. “Randy’s strong as an ox. Remember how he insisted on driving himself to the hospital during his first heart attack? He’ll do great.”

Myra, face pale and eyes blank with shock, simply nodded.

The paramedics were carrying Randy out on a stretcher, awkwardly navigating the stairs. At the sight, Myra’s composure shattered. She began to sob. Turning to us, she wailed, “Quit being such hypocrites! I know you’ve always hated him! Well, he’s still my husband, and he’s all I’ve got in this world! You miserable people should have thought of that before you treated him the way you have!”

Chagrined, confused by her violent outburst, and not knowing what else to do, I held the door for the paramedics and mutely watched as Myra stabbed a finger at Carl and Kevin. “You don’t think we both knew about your cruel side bet? Of seeing who was going to have to be
stuck
with his company during the Super Bowl? Well, it seems neither of you turds will have to worry about
that
now.”

Kevin moved toward her as if to embrace her but froze when she shrank back from him. Gently, he said, “Myra, we’re sorry. If there’s anything we can do . . .”

Myra took a halting breath and scanned our faces; the McBrides and the Hendersons were staring at her with jaws agape and color rising in their cheeks. “You people put him in this condition in the first place! I’d say you’ve done plenty. Wouldn’t you?”

She stormed out the door. Through the glass, we watched the ambulance tear away, siren slicing through the Sunday morning quiet.

Silence reverberated accusingly in her wake. Debbie sank her head into her hands and murmured, “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this bad about myself before.” Her voice was choked with tears. “What have we done?”

“None of this was your fault,” Carl said, but he made no move to go to her side. “That Super Bowl bet was
my
idea.”

“That’s not true, Carl. It was mine,” Kevin said firmly. “I was the one who got just the one ticket on eBay and decided to throw it into the kitty.
I’m
the one who should feel bad.”

“Let’s go home,” Jill said quietly to her husband, who nodded. They brushed past me and out the door.

I had no idea what to do now. How to react after having someone collapse in the very room that you were in the process of redecorating was not a topic that had been covered in any of my design classes at Parsons.

Fueled by the disharmony in this neighborhood, a horrible thought now wormed its way into my brain.
Was
this really a heart attack? Could Randy have been poisoned?

I felt sick with fear that the paramedics and everyone else’s assumptions could be wrong—that Randy hadn’t fallen ill due to cardiac arrest but rather because of cyanide poisoning. But that was absurd, I told myself, and surely just the insane by-product of my sleep-deprived brain. Even so, a man’s life was at stake, and I couldn’t let my knowledge that there had been a container of potassium cyanide on Randy’s property go unreported.

No way would I risk possibly fueling a killer’s fire by talking about poison in front of the McBrides and the Hendersons. “I have to use your bathroom,” I muttered. I turned the corner and entered the family room. Giving a quick glance over my shoulder to ensure that my actions weren’t observed, I grabbed the cordless phone and Crestview directory from the open shelf by the fireplace and brought them into the bathroom with me, closing and locking the door behind me. I looked up the number for Crestview Community Hospital and dialed, turning on the fan to drown out my words. Thankfully, the phone was answered by an actual person and not an automatic system. In a half whisper, I said to the woman, “My name is Erin Gilbert. I called nine-one-one a few minutes ago for Randy Axelrod, who appears to have had a heart attack. The ambulance is on its way to the hospital now. I just want to let the emergency room staff know that there was an open bottle of cyanide on his premises earlier this morning.”

After a brief pause, the woman said, “Let me transfer you to the police, ma’am.”

“No!” I cried in a harsh whisper. There was no way I could pull off a prolonged phone conversation. “I’ll contact the police myself. I just wanted the emergency room personnel to know that it’s possible Mr. Axelrod was poisoned.”

“What was your name again?”

“Erin Gilbert,” I replied, and hung up.

I splashed water on my face; my hands were trembling. I opened the door and peered out. The family room was empty. I tiptoed inside and returned the phone book and phone. If it was poison, Taylor was surely innocent. He wouldn’t have worked so hard to resuscitate Randy if he’d poisoned him himself. Or would he? Had that merely been a show? Had his CPR techniques been
intentionally
ineffective?

Debbie and Carl hadn’t changed positions in the living room when I returned. “I’m sorry,” I told them, “but I’m going to go home now, too.”

“Of course you should, dear,” Debbie said with so much kindness that tears filled my eyes. “You can’t possibly think about decorating at a time like this, and neither can we. Carl and I will make do with our bedroom as is for as long as you need.”

“As long as it’s ready by bedtime tomorrow,” Carl amended. “Sleeping on the guest bed is killing my back.”

“Oh, honestly, Carl!”

“We’ll compare everyone’s schedules tomorrow and try our best to make that happen,” I intervened, before another marital spat could explode.

“Good,” he replied bluntly. “I’ll take the day off and give you a hand. I’ll call my boss at the agency first thing in the morning and let him know I won’t be in.”

“You work at an agency?” I asked in surprise. Somehow the image of the staid, uncongenial Carl Henderson as a real estate agent was utterly incongruous.

“Insurance agency. I’m an actuary.”

The thought popped into my head: Carl might know about Randy’s life insurance beneficiaries. I pushed it away; this was, after all, probably natural causes, a heart attack. I said my goodbyes and left.

To my surprise, Steve Sullivan was pacing on the sidewalk just beyond sight from the Hendersons’ living room window. The collar of his pea coat was pulled up. The wind had tousled his hair even further and brought color to his cheeks. His body English indicated he’d been waiting for me.

“You heard about Randy, I take it,” I said to him.

He gave a slight nod. “From the McBrides, when they returned home. Are you all right?”

“Not really.” I glanced up at the window of the master bedroom and spotted Carl watching us. He must have raced upstairs the moment I’d left. He instantly stepped back out of view, as though I’d caught him with his hand in the cookie jar.

That was the final straw. If I didn’t tell someone soon what was happening to me, I would go crazy.

I searched Sullivan’s eyes, hoping to discover some kindness there. “Can we please bury the hatchet . . . preferably not in anyone’s back?”

“Of course. You look like you need to talk. Can I take you out for lunch?”

I was stunned: Sullivan seemed to have read my mind. “Okay. Thanks,” I said lamely.

“My pleasure. McDonald’s or Burger King?”

“Can’t respond to jokes right now. Sorry.”

In a somber voice, he replied, “There’s a decent Mexican restaurant just a mile or two from here. Let’s take my van. We’ll come back for yours afterward.”

I moved my van out of the driveway, checked that the damned cyanide was still in the back, then locked the doors. We drove to the restaurant in silence. At eleven thirty on a Sunday, we had the place almost to ourselves. Cumin and chili spiced the warm air inside, which, despite the morning’s trauma, I couldn’t help noting was decorated in a predictable southwestern style—maroon, tan, and forest-green upholstery over lodgepole pine.

The waitress came over with a basket of chips, salsa, and two ice waters in red plastic glasses. I declined a menu and told Sullivan, “I’m not really hungry. I think I need to break my usual rules and have a liquid lunch.”