Poisoned by Gilt (16 page)

Burke and Darren were turning red. Burke kept fidgeting with his glasses, and I half expected him to rip them

off his face and chuck them at his neighbor's face.

"To top it all off, I've decided to get more with the

times, so I'm going to be using an iPod from now on

when I garden. That's going to become a necessity, because I'm taking up a second hobby. Along with raising

carp, I'll be collecting these!" She brought out a ghastly

violet-colored wind chime. "Since both of you have such

an interest in wind, I know how much you'll appreciate

being able to monitor the wind just by listening. I'm

thinking a hundred chimes should do the trick."

"Asia," Burke moaned, "this is a ridiculous overreaction."

"Oh, and I'm installing colored lights along our fence

line, Darren. It'll look just like Mardi Gras, year-round.

Won't that be nice? And, with all those wind chimes going at once, it'll sound like one, too." She turned to glare

at Burke. "And smell like one, thanks to your stinky

shrimp hatchery. Unless my carp do the trick."

"I'm merely trying to develop personal food sources

from the pond."

"You make enough money to buy groceries!"

"That's not the point. It's about sustainability. About

not taking more than we put in."

She looked him over from head to toe. "You're a doctor. If you're that obsessive about maintaining our resources, why don't you reduce the earth's population by

letting your patients die?"

"I don't expect people like you to understand," he

growled.

"No, Dr. Stratton. Because people like me are sane!

Whereas you and that dead judge of yours are both

126
L e s l i e C a i n e

loony." She forced a smile. "You've got one week from today to take your windmills down, or my exterior decorating goes up. Good day, gentlemen. And Erin." She

gathered up her bag of goodies and left, leaving Burke

and Darren staring in stunned silence.

"Would carp really eat shrimp larvae?" I asked Burke.

"Probably." He sighed. "Maybe she's bluffing."

"She isn't," Darren replied. "She hates conservationists. Told me so herself. I spotted her lugging an orange

cooler toward the pond this morning. I asked what was in

it, and all she said was, 'You'll find out soon enough.'

Damn it, we have a right to put up windmills! We have to

stop her! Or at last retaliate!"

"How? She hates everything and everyone. It makes

her unflappable." Burke paused and added thoughtfully,

"Except . . . she does love flowers."

"Yeah, of course she does," Darren grumbled. "But

that's only because they're the only life form that doesn't

actively shrink from her presence."

Burke chuckled, and as the two men smiled at each

other, they seemed to share a moment of friendship.

Darren was the first one who looked away.

"There's another possible course of action," I said.

"Acknowledge her point and take down your windmills."

"I can't allow someone to bully me into giving up on

my plans," Burke retorted. "The windmill's already been

paid for."

"Mine, too. Plus mine's already fully installed. The

thing cost me a fortune. I'll get reimbursed twofold when

I win the contest, though."

"Unless I win," Burke said.

"That's never going to happen."

Burke snorted.

P o i s o n e d b y G i l t
127

Darren shot him a furious glare, then opened the

door. "Never!" He slammed the door.

Burke shook his head and sighed, his shoulders sagging. I didn't know what to say. Both of Burke's neighbors

struck me as being borderline emotionally disturbed.

Asia could have felt that poisoning a conservationist was

mere poetic justice. Darren had so much emotional investment in this contest that if he'd had an encounter

with Richard, he might have killed Richard over a disparaging remark about his house.

And for that matter, Asia or Darren might be so malicious that one of them had taken the paint from Burke's

garage and swapped it with Richard's--just to frame

Burke Stratton for the crime.

c h a p t e r
1 1

he next morning, Sullivan, looking a little out of

Tsorts, entered our office carrying a stack of notebooks, which he shuffled from arm to arm as he hung up

his coat. I was on the tail end of a phone conversation

and nodded to him in greeting, but he paid me no attention. As I hung up, he dropped a stack of nine obviously

well-used spiral notebooks onto his desk. He eased into

his leather desk chair, eyeing the stack all the while.

"Okay, I'll go first. What's up with the notebooks?"

He glanced at me. "Turns out, they're my inheritance.

From Richard's estate. He left specific instructions in his

P o i s o n e d b y G i l t
129

will that I was to get the contents of the top drawer in his

file cabinet." He gestured at the notebooks. "That's what

was in there. Richard's lawyer had to call the police, and

they just now called me and said I could come in and

claim them."

"That's . . . surprising. You and Richard hadn't been in

touch in years."

"I know. He must have changed his will in the week or

two before he died."

"Are they notes from his classes?"

"A couple of them are. Mostly they're just . . . ideas that

he's had. For environmental projects and things. I've

only had the chance to skim through them so far."

"He didn't leave you any instructions about them, did

he? Telling you what he wanted you to do with his

notes?"

"No. I wasn't expecting to get anything at all, of

course. And it just feels strange . . . reading Richard's

words, now that he's dead."

"Have the police examined them yet?"

He nodded, paging through the notebook on top of

the stack. "That's where I got them, just now. From

Detective O'Reilly. Your favorite," he said sarcastically.

I shuddered and made a comical grimace, and he

grinned and said, "He asked about you."

"He did?"

"Of course. The guy's obviously got a big crush on

you."

"Oh, please! He does not! He treats me with nothing

short of contempt!"

"Just calling 'em like I see 'em."

"Have you had your vision checked lately?"

Sullivan ignored my remark and sighed as he flipped

130
L e s l i e C a i n e

through a notebook. "When O'Reilly handed the notebooks over to me, he said, 'Most of this stuff is better than

sleeping pills.' A lot of the notes do seem to be pretty random. But there could be a clue in here someplace, and if

so, I'm going to find it."

As the day wore on, Sullivan was only halfway present.

He made a reasonable showing when we visited with

clients, but he spent every other moment with his nose in

one of Richard's notebooks. I tried hard not to get annoyed, but my patience had worn thin when he told me

to drive--even though he'd insisted we take his van--to

all our joint appointments just so he could continue to

read Richard's notebooks.

"Huh. This is interesting," he muttered as I swung into

the left lane. We were navigating heavy traffic on our return trip from a client who lived halfway between

Crestview and Denver.

"What?"

"Richard wrote down Margot Troy's address and

phone number and circled it."

"In what context?"

"Can't tell. There are a couple of businesses on the

same page. They sound like investment firms."

"Maybe her name's just there because he was going to

judge her house for the Earth Love contest."

"No, these notes are from long before then. Five years

ago." He flipped back and forth through a couple of

pages as he scanned Richard's angular handwriting.

"Yeah. Looks like Margot might have been an investor in

some business venture of Richard's. That was right

around when he was first starting to market his eco prod-P o i s o n e d b y G i l t
131

ucts." He paused. "I noticed she called him Richard in

class. Her fellow classmates were all calling him

Professor Thayers. He paused. "Would Margot be home

this time of day?"

"I have no idea."

He glanced at his watch. "Let's give it a shot, just in

case."

Far be it from me to object to investigating a surprising

link to a murder victim. Truth be told, because Margot

worked out of her home--she had a computerconsulting business--I knew she was quite likely to be

home. "This whole thing keeps getting more and more

strange," I remarked.

"Yeah."

"Richard had prior relationships with two of the three

finalists chosen by the committee. It's odd that he

dropped out as judge for Burke, when he must have already known Margot Troy was also a finalist."

"Which implies he knew he could be impartial toward

her," Sullivan replied defensively. "In any case, he

wouldn't need a second reason, so why mention it as he

was stepping down?"

"Margot skirted the question when I asked if she knew

him personally."

"Maybe she just didn't want to gossip about their relationship."

"It's not gossip when you're talking about yourself." I

glanced at him when we stopped at a red light. His brow

was creased, and he tilted the page at an angle. When he

continued to stare at one spot, I asked, "What?"

"Looks like the two of them might have dated or something."

"He writes about his romances?"

132
L e s l i e C a i n e

"He doodles."

"You mean things like Margot plus Richard enclosed

in a heart?"

"Not exactly, no."

As he flipped the page, I caught a glance of what

looked like a drawing of a naked woman. It hit me then

how little I knew about Richard's personal history. "Was

Richard ever married?"

"For thirty years. His wife died several years ago. Heart

disease." He switched notebooks. Even from the briefest

of glances, it was obvious that this particular notebook

was the most recent; the paper edges were much cleaner,

and a sizable portion appeared to have been unused.

Sullivan thumbed through the pages to find the last journal entry.

"Not to be unduly pessimistic, but I don't know how

forthcoming Margot's going to be. Like I said, she's already dodged my questions about Richard. And when the

police examined the notebooks, they must have picked

up on Margot and Richard's relationship, too."

"True. But we might have an easier time getting information out of her than the police could."

"How so? The police have a legitimate reason to ask.

Whereas, if you're planning on questioning her about obscene doodles in Richard's notebook, I can guarantee

Margot's going to throw us out on our ears."

He looked up from his reading material. For the moment, I'd captured his full attention. "Good point. Now

that you mention it, you'd be better off solo. You can . . .

make girl talk with her. You know. Get her chatting about

former lovers and stuff."

"Oh, sure, Steve," I said with a sarcastic laugh. "That'll

be a snap. I do that with all my clients. Especially the

P o i s o n e d b y G i l t
133

ones who are as friendly and low-key as Margot. We like

to have giggle-fests and pillow fights in our underwear."

Sullivan grinned. "Sounds great to me. Tell you what.

I'll be a good soldier and keep an eye on you through the

window."

I had to smile. It was nice that he was teasing me, at

least. We pulled into the driveway, and he ducked into

the backseat, quickly reabsorbed by his reading. I went to

Margot's door, half hoping she wasn't home, while trying

to think of a viable excuse to draw us into this girly conversation that Sullivan was expecting of us. She opened

the door, sporting her usual frosty expression. "Erin. This

is a surprise."

I could only think: For you and me both. Wanna have

a pillow fight and talk about boys? "I was in the neighborhood and, well, I just wanted to stop by to see if you'd already handled that quick design job you mentioned last

week."

"I mentioned a design job?"

"Yes, you did." I could feel my cheeks warming. It

sounded as if I was desperate for work and had come begging. I wished a better excuse had come to mind. "That

time you called but I put you on hold, you'd mentioned

having reconsidered hiring me."

"Oh, heavens, Erin." She arched an eyebrow. "I'd forgotten all about that. You know how I am."

"I see. Well, since I'm here, maybe we could chat for a

few minutes."

She eyed me suspiciously, but then stepped aside.

"Come on in."

This felt awkward and downright embarrassing. At

least I'd been granted entry. Sullivan owed me, big time.

She led me to what was, hands down, the nicest room in

134
L e s l i e C a i n e

the house, if I did say so myself: her kitchen. Margot held

fast to the rule that everything must be secondhand or salvaged, and so even her modern, energy-efficient appliances had been purchased either at scratch-and-dent

sales or from homes in forfeiture. I sat down on one of her

cognac leather barstools. I'd found them at an ill-fated