Diva 03 _ Diva Paints the Town, The (31 page)

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Authors: Krista Davis

Tags: #Murder, #Winston; Sophie (Fictitious Character), #Mystery & Detective, #Fiction, #Women Sleuths, #General, #Dwellings

BOOK: Diva 03 _ Diva Paints the Town, The
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Camille appeared at my elbow. “I’m so glad you stopped by. I’ve been wanting to show you something for your room.”
I trailed after her to a huge armoire, painted in earthy Tuscan colors with a surprising touch of bittersweet coral, that would be ideal with the sofa. Out of sheer habit, I turned the price tag and staggered backward at the hefty five-figure price.
Camille laughed. “It would be a huge favor if you would display this. Maybe someone will see it and we can finally unload it. I think it goes with your color scheme and Tuscan feel perfectly. I’ll have it delivered tomorrow morning.”
“Are you manning the store?”
She beckoned me to a table, sat down, and wrote a receipt for me. “Nolan’s still playing the wounded victim.” She slid the receipt in my direction. “Sophie, are you still in touch with Wolf ? According to gossip, you’re not seeing him anymore.”
Oof
. I didn’t like to lie to Camille. But I wasn’t sure I dared spill the beans, either. There was no telling who might tell Detective Kenner the truth. “We’re just friends. Why do you ask? Do you need to talk to him?”
She looked aghast at the thought. “Good heavens, no. Has . . . has he said anything about progress in solving Tara’s murder?”
“I think they figured out who was following her.”
A little shudder coursed through Camille.
THIRTY-FIVE
From
“Ask Natasha”
:
Dear Natasha,
I can handle the basics of decorating but I’m lost when it comes to accessorizing. How do I choose what to display? Nothing I do looks as polished as in the magazines.
—Accessory Challenged in Cheektowaga
 
Dear Accessory Challenged,
Accessories reflect the interests of the owner. Let your inner decorator guide you. Get out the glue gun and adorn the things you love with beads, shells, and crystals. Mount old shutters or trellises on the wall as eye-catching backdrops, and arrange glittery keepsakes in front of them in groups of three.
 
—Natasha
I thought I heard a tremor in Camille’s voice when she asked, “Who was the stalker?”
“My friend Humphrey. But I’m sure he didn’t murder her. He’s very meek and mild-mannered.”
Camille slid a hand across her brows and up her forehead.
“Are you all right?”
“Sophie,” she whispered, “what would you do if you thought Mars murdered someone?”
“Mars?” The very idea sent a chill up my spine. “That would never happen.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“You think Mars killed Tara?” I had to ask, although I knew it wasn’t likely.
“Nolan had an affair with Tara.” She held perfectly manicured hands to the sides of her face. “I’m the one who was tailing her, trying to catch them.”
“Nolan?! So he’s the married man she broke up with.”
“
Hah
! She might have been blabbing about Wolf, but I caught them at the hotel where we held Rooms and Blooms. They had the nerve to meet in a room upstairs, when they knew I was nearby. Can you imagine? I hardly think it was over.”
I sat back, confused. Did Tara tell everyone she and Wolf were a couple to throw them off the truth about her relationship with Nolan? Or had she really broken it off with her married man, as Posey claimed? “You have to tell the police, Camille. It might get Wolf off the hook.”
Her entire body sagged, and for the first time since I’d known her, she looked old and tired. “Would you turn in Mars? I can’t do that to Nolan. Besides, I don’t know that he killed her, only that they were involved. I will divorce him. I will close down this money-draining shop of his, but I can’t turn him in.”
I hated to admit it to myself, but I did understand Camille. It would be hard to report a husband, even a philandering scoundrel of a husband. And she didn’t have any proof that he killed Tara. “Do you think Nolan knew you were on to him?”
Camille grimaced. “Is that a nice way of asking if I think he killed Tara so he could stay with the cash cow?” She moaned and sat up straighter. “I don’t know. It’s certainly possible. And if I go to the police, we’ll both be suspects. I imagine that his mugging wasn’t a fluke, though. I’d be willing to bet that it’s connected with Tara’s murder somehow.”
Reeling from Camille’s revelations, I stood to leave, but she grabbed my hand. “I know one thing for sure. On the day before the Rooms and Blooms banquet, I was tailing Tara—and she was following Nina.”
Snowflakes danced through the air the following morning, and if I hadn’t been worried about two murders, I would have enjoyed the short walk to Mordecai’s house. Nina still slept, and her guardian, Humphrey, snoozed on the sofa in my family room.
When I opened the front door to Mordecai’s house, a chorus of voices cautioned me to enter with care. Bernie shut the door behind me.
Happily, it wasn’t Beth standing on scaffolding to install Natasha’s wallpaper on the foyer ceiling. Three men had taken on the onerous job. They must have worked the day before, because they were almost finished.
An incredibly ornate cream diamond shape adorned with golden emblems surrounded a new light fixture of opaque glass. Like a fancy Oriental rug, a border around the diamond led to a larger surrounding square with a detailed pattern incorporating the cream and gold and introducing turquoise shells. Another border boxed it in, and beyond that, turquoise became the background color. If Natasha had shown it to me, I’d have protested that it was too busy, but I had to admit that it was very impressive and transformed the dark, dingy foyer into a grand entrance.
Iris watched the workers, her mouth turned down at the corners. “Natasha hired Nolan’s men to put it up.”
“It’s certainly eye-catching,” said Bernie.
“
Hmmph
. It’s called overdecorating.” Iris shook her head. “Does she think this is the White House? That’s the problem with people who aren’t real designers. They don’t understand creating a room that people want to live in. It has to be beautiful but livable. No one wants all that junk on the ceiling. And she took down the best part of the foyer—the chandelier.”
I smiled, relieved that she wouldn’t be able to make that complaint about the family room. If anything, it was too comfy and not sufficiently high style.
Bernie beckoned to me, and I followed him into our family room. Nolan’s guys must have started at the crack of dawn, because the armoire and side tables already waited. Bernie and I shoved them aside to make room for the sofa, and not a minute too soon. When the bittersweet coral pieces were in place, even Iris approved. The three of us nestled into the comfortable seating and discussed placement of accessories.
“There’s an old wooden door in Mordecai’s garage that Mars and I could beat up a little bit.” Bernie gazed around. “Can’t work inside anymore with all this nice furniture in here. If it gets warm enough outdoors to stain it, the door would make a great coffee table.”
“Very Tuscan. Good idea. Iris, where’s Bedelia?” I asked.
“Packing. I hate to see her go. It’s been such fun having her here.” Iris rose to arrange candlesticks of three different heights together. “I’ve asked her to live with me, but she doesn’t want to leave Florida.”
I was making a mental note that I needed cushions for Bernie’s window seat when a loud bang thudded through the house, and the lights went out.
The three of us rushed to the foyer, where Natasha’s workmen climbed off their scaffolding, looking around anxiously. Voices in the kitchen drew us in that direction.
We arrived in time to see Ted and Mike fly out the back door. We followed them to the garden and discovered Beth consoling a distraught Natasha.
Ted knelt at an electrical outlet and said, “It’s okay. Just an electrical overload. This is what happens when amateurs take on more than they can handle.”
Natasha drew herself completely erect. “I am not an amateur. It’s this house. It’s just—old.” She stood next to a preformed pond liner.
“You’re installing a water feature when it’s snowing?” I asked.
“Ted said he didn’t have time, so I took it upon myself. Like everything else in this house. I have a co-chair, but all she’s done is her own little room upstairs. Meanwhile, I have coordinated the kitchen, the foyer, and a bedroom, and I’m determined to get this water feature in.”
I held out my arm to prevent Iris from launching herself at Natasha. “Ted, do you think you can fix it?”
“Probably. Anybody have a flashlight?”
I hurried home through heavily falling snow to retrieve a couple of flashlights. On my return, Mike and Ted disappeared to the basement to repair the damage Natasha had inflicted. Those who lived farther away and couldn’t walk home took off before the streets became slick. The rest of us resumed our decorating tasks.
Bernie was helping me hang simple curtains when Bedelia swished into the family room. “Darlings, I’m off to the ancestral manse in the land of the sun.”
“Have you called the airport to check on your flight?” I asked.
“It’s already tapering off. Don’t worry about me.” Bedelia waved a hand as though she wasn’t concerned. “Iris’s master bedroom is gorgeous. If she doesn’t win the Guild Award, I’ll know that Natasha cheated somehow.” Bedelia scooted over to Bernie and waggled a gnarled finger at him. “I want you and Iris to go out to a romantic dinner—on me. Iris is just like me. If only I were forty years younger—I’d stow you in my luggage and take you back to Florida with me.”
Bernie laughed and kissed her on the cheek. That appeared to satisfy Bedelia, and she departed with a grand flourish.
A short time later, Bernie was called to the restaurant about an emergency, and I took a break. In the kitchen, Beth was handing Natasha a collection of colorful pitchers to place on a shelf above the window.
“I see you’re sticking to your new romantic country idea.” I picked up a straw hat with blue and lavender silk flowers attached to the band.
Natasha smiled. “I don’t know why I didn’t do this before. I’m a natural at it. Did you see that gorgeous bedroom upstairs? Iris won’t tell me who decorated it. It’s not my style, but there’s something so romantic about it.”
Beth shot me a nervous glance. She needn’t have worried, I wouldn’t betray her confidence.
The door to the basement was open, probably for the small amount of daylight that would be provided. Holding the rail, lest I trip in the dark, I stepped down carefully. At the sound of my footsteps, a flashlight swung in my direction. “It’s only me, Sophie. How’s it going?”
Ted or Mike grumbled in response. I reached the bottom and realized just how much of the basement Mordecai had given up for his little art gallery on the other side of the wall. I didn’t have a light, but I ran my hand over the rough surface of the wall. “Mordecai built this out of concrete block. It must have taken him ages to build everything.”
“Hence the amontillado,” said Mike. “He didn’t build the wall around a live person, like in the Poe story, but it was a clue to the fact that he’d walled off the basement.”
“What I still don’t understand is why Mordecai wanted five students he presumably liked to find the grave under the house. He went to so much trouble to build this wall, not to mention the ornate wall unit upstairs,” I mused. “Then he guarded it, was almost obsessed about leaving it alone.”
“I think you’re on the right track when you say he was obsessed,” offered Ted. “He killed someone, and the trauma caused him to lose touch with reality. He constructed his own world here and imagined things that didn’t exist.”
“I don’t think so, Ted,” said Mike. “Beth and I have been talking about it. Sophie’s right. Mordecai wanted his bequest party to bring back memories of the party all those years ago. There was something odd about that day, something he wanted us to remember, but we can’t put our fingers on it.”
“No mystery there,” said Ted. “What could possibly be more uncomfortable than finding the host’s wife in the arms of another man? I’m sure they’ll find that the bones belong to Mordecai’s wife. He probably flipped out and killed her, then couldn’t live with himself.”

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