Poisoned by Gilt (20 page)

come of it. As long as the judges believe me when I say I

didn't hook the damned thing up myself. What do you

think my chances are of that happening?"

Sullivan cleared his throat. "You've got Erin and me to

vouch for you. You're our client, so Earth Love will know

we have a vested interest, but it can't hurt."

Burke said, "Thanks, man," and gave him a friendly

jab on his arm.

I gave Sullivan a grateful smile, which he didn't acknowledge. It killed him, I knew, to have to admit to himself that his mentor's intense rage at Burke might very

well have been completely misplaced. Which in turn

meant Sullivan's suspicions about our beleaguered client

might have been misplaced, as well.

Walter, accompanied by another man, arrived about

an hour after Sullivan had called him. Walter had been

somber at the service earlier, but his usual cheery demeanor had since been restored. "So, my friends," he

said. "Another power tap line, eh? Don't you hate it

when this happens?" He chuckled at his silly sarcasm,

then introduced his companion as Earth Love's security

chief and investigator, Bob Jones.

"I didn't do this," Burke immediately implored.

"Someone is framing me."

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"That's what the last guy said," the investigator replied.

Walter chuckled and nodded.

"What last guy?" Burke asked, his voice desperate.

"I've judged more than twenty of these contests

across the country in the last few years," Walter replied.

"This is the third time a power line was run from an external source."

"That's . . . appalling!" Burke said. "But this is the first

time the home owner was set up."

"Second time, actually," Jones said.

"Yeah," Walter explained. "We had a really jealous

maniac over in Dallas. Eating too much tofu, you ask

me." He drew air circles around his ear. "That's when

Earth Love started the policy that all semifinalists had to

provide their fingerprints."

"That guy had the ugliest kids I've ever seen," Jones

muttered.

"Okay. So there's precedence, at least," Burke said.

"Provided you can be open-minded about my innocence."

"Oh, sure," Walter replied with a wink. "I'm always

open-minded."

"Even when your friend and colleague was murdered?" Burke asked incredulously. "And withdrew from

judging because of me?"

"Let's examine the evidence, shall we?" Walter said

evenly. "Fear not, my friends. We'll get to the bottom of

this."

Sullivan and I explained that we had to get back to work.

Burke merely shrugged his shoulders when we said goodbye to him, saying that he was resigned to his fate. The moment we were alone, I asked Sullivan, "So are you starting

to have doubts about Burke having killed Richard?"

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"Some," he grumbled. "Right now, we both have to

concentrate on getting caught up at work."

All told, our remaining meetings for the day didn't go

well. One carpenter had put a nail through a pipe, and

another client had changed her mind completely, causing us to start over from scratch. At home afterwards,

Audrey and I were both cranky. We snapped at each

other as we ate our microwaved dinners. Feeling exhausted and discouraged, I went to bed early, calling it

another exciting Friday night. But the phone at my bedside rang a few minutes after eleven P.M., awakening me

from a deep slumber.

"Erin, are you awake?" the caller asked.

"I am now." I tried to rouse myself. Hildi was meowing

in protest, and I agreed with the sentiment. "Who is

this?"

"It's Burke Stratton."

"Burke? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. Sorry to be calling you so

late, but I just got home and listened to a phone message

from Walter Emory. I'm going to be cleared!"

"Cleared?"

"Eventually. It was Margot Troy!"

"You're . . ." I stopped, shaking off my brain fog enough

to realize that he wasn't talking about the murder, but

rather, the running of the illegal power line. "That

doesn't make any sense."

"Maybe not, but her fingerprints were found on the

cable itself and on my meter box. And there's no way for

them to have gotten there innocently."

"That's great news." I yawned. "I'm glad to hear that

they're getting this resolved."

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"Me, too. Sorry for waking you. Sleep well." He hung

up.

I returned the phone to its cradle, now wide awake

and with the sinking feeling that I was going to stay that

way for quite a while to come. For Margot Troy to have

pulled such a stupid, ugly stunt, she must have hated

Burke. Maybe she'd framed him for Richard's murder,

too.

The following morning, I called Steve Sullivan to tell

him what Burke had reported to me the night before.

"Jeez, that's weird," Sullivan grumbled. "Seems way out

of character for her."

"Yeah, it is. But like Burke told me last night, there's

no other viable explanation for her prints being on his

electric meter." I hesitated, then said, "I'll be setting myself up for more than one major tongue-lashing, but I've

got to know what's behind this. I'm going over to her

house and asking her point-blank what's going on."

"Let me know what she says."

To my pleasant surprise, Margot quickly agreed to

have me come over, so I went directly there from my

house, and we took seats on her living room sofa. Wasting

no time on small talk, which I knew Margot appreciated,

I asked, "Did you hear from Walter Emory about what

happened yesterday?"

"About my fingerprints being on Burke's meter, you

mean? I heard, obviously, but I was merely checking out

my competition's power consumption. Nothing sordid

was going on."

She was avoiding my gaze. "Margot, things just aren't

adding up for me."

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"What do you mean?"

"For one thing, I can't imagine you really being so interested in your competition's electrical usage that you

went sneaking around his house, checking his meter

readings. You could have asked someone at Earth Love to

tell you what his consumption rates were. It wasn't privileged information or anything."

"I had my reasons, Erin."

"What reasons?"

She sighed and pursed her lips, but I was determined

to wait her out. Eventually she frowned and said, "I

couldn't ask Earth Love about Burke's meter readings

without possibly tipping my hand about . . . my concerns.

Jeremy has more riding on this contest than anyone else."

"How so?"

"Having his design win this contest could finally give

him the respect for his work that he's deserved and craved

for years now."

"I can see that being true. But . . . he'd have had a lot

easier time explaining his fingerprints on Burke's power

meter than you would. He's the architect, after all, and

he's working on the sunroom design even as we speak.

Why did you take it upon yourself to check it out?"

"Because . . . I needed to see for myself if the energy

consumption was really as low as Jeremy was bragging

about. I didn't believe him. And, as it turned out, with

good reason."

She was now fidgeting so badly that I half expected her

to start digging the upholstery tacks out of her vintage

linen sofa. Only one explanation came to mind. "Do you

suspect Jeremy ran those auxiliary power lines?" I asked.

She winced and answered dejectedly, "The latest figures that Jeremy bragged to me about were impossible.

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Unless Burke's windmill was operational, that is. After I

saw for myself that the windmill hasn't been fully installed, I confronted Jeremy and he confessed to me privately. But please don't repeat that to anyone."

"He had to know the engineers at Earth Love were going to realize the numbers were impossible. In fact, he's

incredibly lucky that the engineer who spoke at Burke's

hearing didn't pick up on the discrepancy."

Margot nodded. "That's why Jeremy waited till the last

minute to hook everything up . . . on the very day Richard

Thayers was officially named judge. The final round was

only supposed to last a week. Jeremy gambled that it

would be just long enough to make Burke's meter readings first-rate, but not unduly suspicious. And Jeremy

never would have felt forced to hook it up in the first

place, except that things kept going wrong with the installation of Burke's windmill."

"And so . . . Jeremy siphoned power from Burke's nextdoor neighbor?"

She nodded. "When it was clear the windmill wasn't

going to be operational in time, Jeremy calculated that,

even so, the tower and the blades would be in place. So

he ran the cable, planning on hooking it up the minute

the shell of the windmill was in place. That way, he

could siphon power but make it look like the windmill

was producing it. Except the supplier botched the job

and had to backorder most of the tower and the blades.

Jeremy knew by then that he'd get caught in the act if he

pulled out the cable, so he waited till the last minute to

hook it up, thinking it would boost Burke's chances of

winning, but not lead to his getting the boot. In retrospect, he knows full well how stupid that was, but he was

desperate."

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"Was Burke in on the deception?"

"I asked Jeremy that, and he says no."

"Do you believe him?"

"Yes. Jeremy would have no reason to take full responsibility. It would speak better for him if he'd merely been

acting on his client's behalf."

I took a moment to digest the information. "Margot,

this is too serious for you to keep quiet. This could easily

turn into a criminal investigation. A man is dead! Right

after he was publicly seeking answers to those very improprieties at Burke's house! You've got to tell the police

about this."

She pursed her lips, and her eyes misted over. After a

long pause, she gritted her teeth and said defiantly,

"Who's to say I didn't?"

"Did you?"

"Jeremy would kill me if he knew this, but yes, I told

them."

"I haven't heard any news about his being arrested."

"I doubt he was. Burke called me right after you did

this morning, and apparently he'd already told the police

he didn't want to press charges against Jeremy. Burke

wanted to know if I was the snitch who'd turned him in. I

lied and said no. But I don't know what will happen with

whatever home owners he was pilfering power from.

Maybe they'll have Jeremy arrested, I don't know. They

were the ones who were actually getting ripped off."

If Asia McClure failed to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law, I'd be shocked. And suspicious about her

motives. "What about the utility company? Are they

pressing charges?"

"They've been getting paid and didn't know there was

a problem. Frankly, the greatest damage at the moment is

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to my and Jeremy's relationship. He hasn't called me

since the Earth Love people first talked to him about this

yesterday, and he hasn't been answering any of my--"

She broke off at a soft thump against an outer wall of her

house. "What was that?"

"I don't know, but--"

I'd been about to say it was probably nothing, but she

leapt to her feet and raced out the back door, grabbing

something from the kitchen cabinet en route. I followed

a few paces behind her and grew alarmed when I heard

her cry: "Stop right there! I'm armed and dangerous!"

I rounded the corner after her, petrified that she'd

grabbed a gun. She'd shouted at Walter Emory and the

investigator, Bob Jones. "Whoa," Walter said, as Bob and

I gaped at her. "We're just running an unscheduled inspection of the finalists' meters to make sure everything's

copacetic. No need for the pepper spray. Or mace. Or

whatever you've got there."

"You were right the first time." Margot put the little

bottle into her pocket. "You scared me."

"Likewise, ma'am," Walter replied with a chuckle.

"You're not going to find any cable splices or whatever

at my house. I'm a very capable watchdog." She hesitated. "I mean in reference to a Doberman. Not to your

ecology group, World's Watchdogs."

"So I gathered."

"Everything checks out fine," Jones said to Walter.

Walter grinned at me. "Hi, Erin." He feigned wiping

sweat from his brow. "This is just not my day for stealth.

Second time in one day."

"Did you have trouble at Burke's house?" I asked.

"No, but I sure did at Mr. Campesio's. Scared me so

bad I decided to save Burke's house for later. Campesio

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came popping out at me, wearing this guerrilla-warfare

outfit. I half expected him to shoot me on the spot."

"Not with me there, he wouldn't," Jones immediately

stated.