Fatal Feng Shui (17 page)

chapter 20

T
he pain in my head was horrid. Hildi sat two inches
from my nose. Maybe I was hallucinating…. Then I remembered where I was and what had happened: I’d been knocked unconscious.

My vision swam as I struggled to my feet, ignoring Hildi. The door was open behind me. The intruder had to have run out that way. I could only have been unconscious for a couple of seconds; the air wasn’t even cold from the open door. I kicked it shut and staggered over to the sidelight. Through the beveled glass, I couldn’t see anyone running or starting up their car. My purse was on the floor. I sat down beside it, retrieved my cell phone, and dialed 911.

Linda Delgardio and her partner arrived in less than ten minutes.

“You told the dispatcher not to send an ambulance?” Linda asked.

“I’m fine. I already called Audrey; she’ll be home any second. She can drive me to the hospital if necessary.”

“Did you get knocked out?”

“No,” I lied. I didn’t intend to sit in the emergency room for half of the night. “At least, I don’t think so. I got knocked to the floor, and I shut my eyes for a moment. But I heard the storm door slam behind whoever did this.”

I’d gotten a bag of frozen green beans out of the refrigerator. It was now icing the lump on my head.

“Is there any chance you’re wrong about that?” Linda persisted. “About the intruder leaving through the front door, I mean?”

“No, I’m positive that I heard…” I paused and reconsidered. “I guess there’s always the chance that I dreamed that part. When I first started to get up, I had a moment of confusion, where I thought I’d gotten up and run to the door to try to catch whoever conked me, then that I lay down on the exact spot where I’d fallen, and opened my eyes.
That
had to have been a dream.”

“Yeah. Which you experienced when you were knocked out,” Linda said with a scowl. “Be sure you have Audrey take you to the hospital. Head injuries aren’t anything to dismiss.”

Or
I could have Audrey watch me for signs of a concussion, or worse, tonight. I knew that Linda knew I wasn’t going to the hospital if I had anything to say about the matter.

Mansfield strode toward the French doors. “I’m going to check the house for signs of the intruder.”

“Okay, take me through what happened again,” Linda demanded of me in her investigator’s voice. “You unlocked the front door and stepped inside. Did you look around at all?”

“No, I entered and shut the door behind me.”

“So someone could have been standing behind the coatrack, and you might not have seen him or her?”

I glanced at the offending coatrack. It was a monstrous item that Audrey had purchased at a garage sale. Maybe I should pounce on this opportunity and suggest to Linda that they take it with them as evidence. “It’s possible, yes. That’s the direction I think the intruder rushed at me from.”

“Here’s how he got in,” Mansfield called. “The back door’s been jimmied.”

“Call for CSI to come out,” Linda called back. “Maybe we’ll get lucky for once and be able to lift some fingerprints.”

I was reconsidering my statement about the coatrack. “On second thought, Linda, all I really know is I didn’t hear anybody come through the door. So whoever did it was hiding in the foyer.”

“The intruder could have been hiding in the closet, then.” She glanced at my clothing. “And you still haven’t taken off your coat?”

“No. I’m cold.” Not wanting to get carted off to the hospital, I added hastily, “But not because I’m hurt, only because I’ve been holding frozen vegetables against the lump on my head.”

“Was the closet door open when you came home?”

“No, I started to take my coat off, but changed my mind. Then I thought I heard a noise—a small thump, which could have just been the cat.” I paused as a Gilbert and Sullivan lyric—“Silent be, it was the cat”—raced un-bidden through my addled brain. “At that point, I went over to the doors and called for Audrey, then Hildi.”

“Could the noise have come from behind you?”

“It felt like it came from over there somewhere.” I waved in the general direction of the den. “But maybe the intruder banged against the back of the closet. And I merely assumed the sound came from the other room.”

Linda pursed her lips. She put on plastic gloves and began examining the double-wide closet. She seemed reluctant to change the spacing on any of the coats and held them in place as she ran the beam from her flashlight over each one. She focused her attention on my London Fog raincoat. “Is this yours?” she asked.

“Yeah. It’s been too cold to wear it the last few days.”

She patted down my coat, then reached into the pocket. “Is
this
yours?”

Dumbfounded, I stared at Linda’s discovery. “Oh, my God! How did a
gun
get into my raincoat pocket?”

Her partner rushed into the foyer and gaped at the gun in Linda’s hand. She frowned at him. He said, “I searched the main level and basement. No signs of the prowler.”

She nodded and gave a slight glance at the staircase.

“I’ll go check the upstairs,” he said.

Linda returned her attention to me. “I’ll bet someone was framing you and broke in strictly in order to put this firearm in your coat.”

“But…framing me for
what
? Taylor was killed with a nail gun. And Shannon was stabbed with her sword.”

She hesitated. “Friday night when your window was shot out? There’d been a related burglary in town, earlier. A forty-four Magnum was stolen.”

I watched as Linda slipped the weapon into an evidence bag, which she labeled. “And
that
’s a forty-four Magnum?”

She didn’t answer.

“Whose house was it stolen from?”

Mansfield returned. He must have “searched” the upstairs at a dead run. Linda told me, “I’m not at liberty to say. Sorry.” She gave me a sad smile. “I’ll take this into ballistics for testing. I have a feeling it’s going to match the slug and casing for the bullet that was fired through your window.”

“So somebody broke into a house and stole a handgun? Then shot a bullet through my window Friday and broke into my house tonight, just to hide the gun in my pocket? That makes no sense.”

Audrey had made a noisy entrance through the back door, and now she swept toward us. Her camel wool coat was unbuttoned and her face was flushed. Mansfield straightened his shoulders. “Evening, ma’am.”

She focused her laser glare on him. “This is
unacceptable
! If not downright
appalling!
I told you to keep a keen eye on my house, and this happens, three nights later!”

“Sorry, ma’am.”

She curled her lip at him, then turned her attention to me. “Why would someone do this to you? Did you interrupt a burglary?”

“I don’t think so. The person who hit me stuck a handgun in my raincoat pocket. Apparently it’s the same type of gun that fired the bullet Friday night. Linda thinks someone’s trying to frame me.”

“For shooting out your own window? That’d be idiotic.”

“It’s possible whoever did this is trying to make it look as if
Erin
was trying to shift suspicion away from
herself,
” Linda explained. “If Erin hadn’t come home right when she did, the original plan probably would have been to plant the weapon and then place an anonymous call to us, reporting a prowler in your house.”

Audrey let Linda’s words sink in, then looked at me. “You have no idea who attacked you?”

I started to shake my head, which was a mistake. It hurt. “No, it was dark. And he or she was behind me the whole time. I think I might have been clocked with a flashlight, though. So if we see someone using a dented flashlight, we can arrest him on the spot.”

Audrey put her hands on her hips. “I don’t see how you can be so cavalier about all of this, Erin. You could have been killed. Or
I
could have been, if I’d been the one to walk through that door.”

“No chance of that. You always use the back door.” My knees were wobbly. I needed to lie down.

She gave me a withering look, and I held up a hand in apology. “Point taken,” I muttered hastily. I started to edge my way through the French doors, craving the chance to sprawl on the beloved sage sofa and restore my strength. “I
was
lucky…in that I wasn’t hurt any worse.”

Audrey shed her coat and started to reach for a hanger. “Stop,” Linda said. “A pair of crime scene investigators will be here shortly to test for fingerprints.”

“Oh. Of course.” Audrey folded the coat over her arm.

Linda gestured to her partner. “While we’re waiting, Officer Mansfield and I will walk you through the house, just to double-check that nothing’s missing or out of place.”

Audrey nodded grimly.

“I’m going to sit down for a minute,” I muttered, and made a beeline for the sofa. Hildi was already perched on a cushion and meowed at me.

Audrey followed me into the parlor and draped her coat across the wingback chair. “You persist in sticking your nose into murder investigations, Erin. It’s like an obsession with you! One of these days you’re going to get yourself killed!”

“Audrey…I’m an interior designer, not a mob boss or a drug dealer. I don’t pose a threat to anybody.”

“Tell that to whoever mugged you.”

The next morning, Sullivan was on his best behavior.
For once, I’d been timely and remembered to tell him about my bad experience, so as to spare myself from having to hear his we’re-partners-and-blah-blah lecture. He was downright charming as we worked to complete our plans for a bedroom remodel in the foothills. He was unwilling to argue with me on anything, quickly acquiescing to my every suggestion. It was a little creepy, frankly. Till that moment, I hadn’t realized how beneficial it was to have such an exacting, snarky sounding board and devil’s advocate.

After a while, I caught him staring at me instead of at the fabric samples I was holding up for comparison. “My head’s still reasonably round,” I snapped at him. “Or were you waiting to see if horns would pop out?”

“Pardon?”

“I had a big lump for a few hours last night, but that mostly went away. It’s a little tender to the touch still, is all.”

He frowned. “Wouldn’t it have been smarter for you to take some time off today? I can hold down the fort, you know. Did you have X rays taken? A CAT scan?”

“My head is perfectly fine. There isn’t a thing wrong with meatballs. Constant kadoodles for being so wahwah bedoink.”

Although I managed to keep a straight face while spouting gibberish, I cracked up when his eyes widened in horror. “Just kidding.”

“Real funny, Gilbert. It’s no wonder somebody smacked you upside the head.”

Still laughing, I said, “True. Thanks for worrying about me, though.” He was fighting back a smile. “And please stop being so nice to me. It helps my creativity when—”

I broke off as the door opened. Pate Hamlin was wearing a tailored jacket over a rumpled white shirt and blue jeans. “I was in the area. Thought I’d better discuss things with Erin.” He gave me a small smile. “About her getting mugged, I mean.”

“How did you hear about that?” I asked, startled.

“The police paid me a visit last night.”

Sullivan rose and stepped toward our pseudo living room by the gorgeous palladium window, saying, “I think we’d better
all
have a little discussion. Pronto.”

The words struck me as so much macho posturing, but Pate didn’t take the bait; he merely sat down on one of the slipper chairs. Sullivan eased reluctantly into the leather chair beside him. I had no choice but to move to the love seat across from the men. “I had a break-in at my house last week,” Pate said.

I studied his face.
Now
I knew who owned the handgun that Linda found in my pocket last night. Had his gun truly been stolen, or had Pate staged this break-in himself? “I’m sorry to hear that. I wonder if it was the same person who broke into Audrey’s.”

“That’s what I need answers about,” Pate replied, glowering at me.

“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.

“The police investigated when my office at home was ransacked. All of the fingerprints they found there were easily explained. Except for one set of prints.” He held my gaze. “Yours.”

“
Mine?
I’ve never as much as set foot in your office.”

“And yet
your
fingerprints were on a hanging file folder. Which had been emptied.”

“Pate.” I leaned forward to emphasize the sincerity of my words. “That’s simply not possible.”

“Unless it
wasn’t
really your folder, but one of Erin’s,” Sullivan interjected.

It took me a moment to make the connections. “Oh, of course! That’s the only logical explanation!”

“I’m not tracking any of this,” Pate said irritably.

“Last week,” I began, “somebody stole a standard-issue, khaki-colored hanging folder out of my desk. It would have been covered in my fingerprints. Easy enough to swap tabs with yours…and make it look like I’d been handling that one file in your desk.”

“Exactly,” Sullivan said. “But why would you think Erin had any interest in going through the records in your desk?”