Poisoned by Gilt (7 page)

because I was so wrapped up in you and that Matthew

Hayes joker."

"Oh, Steve! You can't seriously be blaming yourself for

not reading Richard's mind, can you?"

He was grinding his teeth, avoiding my eyes. "I know

in my gut that Burke's guilty."

"But . . . Burke's a successful M.D. He's well respected

in the community. All this green design stuff he does is

just a sideline for him. He doesn't need the winnings.

And he's already won community service awards, so he's

got whatever respect and status he could want."

He sighed. "Maybe that was the problem, Erin." He

was finally calming down a little, thank goodness.

"Maybe he couldn't stand to lose his lofty status. His rep-P o i s o n e d b y G i l t
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utation was going to get damaged, thanks to Richard.

He's got his pride on the line."

"So you think he decided to murder the contest judge?

Seriously?"

"Image is everything for some people. He loses his

self-image, he's dead. He killed to protect it."

"I guess there have been worse reasons to take someone's life. But . . . he might be innocent." My heart ached

for poor Steve. I felt strongly that he was being much too

hasty to condemn Burke, but at the moment, he needed

my support, not my critique. "We have to honor our contract with Burke, but I think it's best if I handle all our interactions myself, for the time being," I suggested gently.

"Okay?"

Sullivan sighed again, his shoulders sagging. "Why

the hell didn't I insist on taking Richard to a doctor?

What was I thinking?"

He'd already answered that question. He'd been thinking that I was flirting with Matthew Hayes. "I know this is

harsh, but the fact is, Richard was the only person who

could have known for sure how sick he was feeling. His

pride got in the way of asking for help, even when his life

depended on it."

Steve gave me an anguished gaze. "I've got to get out

of here for a while. Clear my head." He grabbed his coat

and headed out the door without a backward glance.

I sank miserably into my chair. Why had I argued with

him? Just once, couldn't I have said what I'd really been

feeling? Thrown my arms around him and told him how

much I cared?

Even as I asked myself those questions, an answer niggled at me. I'd been afraid to test his reaction. It would

have been unbearably painful for me if Sullivan had

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pushed me away and blamed me for distracting him from

Richard's plight last night.

A minute or two later, the door opened, and I whirled

around, hoping Steve had already returned. Instead it

was Burke Stratton. I remembered we had an appointment this morning and as usual, he was right on time.

His face looked ashen, though his complexion was always quite pale. He was a bookish man in his early forties

with Nordic coloring--blond with gentle blue eyes behind his thick wire-framed oval lenses.

With no preamble and without removing his parka,

Burke asked, "Did you hear what happened to Richard

Thayers?" He winced immediately and held up a palm.

"Never mind. You must have." He dropped into the

Sheraton chair in front of my desk. "I bumped into Steve

just now. He wouldn't talk to me. He barely even looked

at me."

"He's upset."

"The two of them were friends?"

"Yes. Thayers used to be his favorite professor, and

they'd kept in touch over the years." I peered at him,

thinking how ironic it would have been if Richard had

made it to the emergency room last night, and if Burke--

his arch enemy--had been there. "How did you hear

about his death so quickly? Were you at the hospital

when they found him?"

He shook his head. "I phoned Earth Love first thing

this morning, trying to get a handle on when they're going to hold my hearing. The receptionist was in tears."

"I wonder how they found out."

"The police. Richard probably had a business card in

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his wallet." He searched my eyes. "Is this going to be a

problem?"

"Pardon?"

"Steve Sullivan. And his friendship with Richard

Thayers. The way he looked at me . . . the glare on his

face . . . it was as if he thought I had killed the guy."

"I'm sure that's not true," I lied. "He glares all the time

when he's thinking. It's one of his standard facial expressions."

Burke stared at the maple flooring by his feet. "If

somebody actually murdered Richard, it wasn't me, Erin.

I'm a doctor, for God's sake. I save lives. Or at least, I used

to, and will again. I've been doing medical research the

past few years."

"You have? I thought you worked at the hospital."

"I do. But in the lab. I used to be a pediatrician, but

when my son died, I needed to take a break from patient

care."

"Your son died? Oh, how horrible! I'm so sorry to hear

that!"

He nodded. "Almost four years ago. Before I moved

here from Denver. Childhood leukemia. I thought I'd

mentioned that when you were looking at the pictures in

my house."

"No. You'd just said it was your ex-wife and your son. I

assumed your wife had full custody." It had been a reasonable conclusion; I'd seen for myself already that he

had no boy's bedroom or toys in his home, just a Raggedy

Andy doll in the corner of the master bedroom.

"I wish that was all there was to it. Then Caleb would

still be alive." He was battling such sorrow that my heart

ached for the poor man. "But in any case, Erin, I swear. I

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could never take a life. I'm not a killer. I don't have it in

me."

"I'm so sorry. I've dealt with a couple of clients over

the years who've lost a child, and I know there's no

greater loss."

He nodded, wringing his gloved hands. "There's nothing more painful. If I could have switched places with my

son, died instead of him, I would have gladly done so.

Your hopes are gone. You lose your future. Gone."

"I'm so sorry," I repeated quietly.

"Thanks." He squared his shoulders and looked at me.

"That's what led to my rift with Richard. Now he's suddenly dead."

"Your falling out with Richard was related to your

son's illness?"

He closed his eyes and nodded, swallowing hard.

"Truth, Erin? Richard had good cause to hate me. We'd

hired him to help us rid the house of carcinogens. Caleb

died anyway, of course. We all knew it was going to happen. But . . . I stiffed Richard on the invoice. He presented it to me the day I got back from intensive care,

when they told me Caleb wasn't ever coming home. I

was crazed. I . . . took it out on him. Called him a con

man."

"And was he?"

"No. He did what we hired him to do. He'd told my

wife and me up front that there was nothing he could do

to reverse the cancer . . . but we all hoped he could slow it

down. He taught us what we should have done originally

with our interior paints, and so on. He lowered the radon

emissions in our basement and garage. Hooked us up

with a dietitian." He shrugged. "About a year ago, I paid

him what I owed. I tried to apologize, but he wouldn't lis-P o i s o n e d b y G i l t
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ten to me." He frowned and added under his breath,

"Though he cashed my check."

"You told me yesterday you fired him for his shoddy

work."

"That was just the easiest explanation. And was partly

true. I did fire him . . . but I only claimed it was shoddy

because I needed to blame him . . . blame somebody for

my loss. And he does hate me."

"Why did he hate you, though? Anybody in his position would have understood how . . ." I let my voice fade

as the color rose in Burke's cheeks. "Oh. Did you damage

his reputation afterwards?"

He averted his eyes and said, "At the time, I felt I was

justified in telling people he was a fraud, you know?

Then, once I returned to my senses, I told myself my behavior was understandable. I'd lost my only child. My

marriage was in ruins. Who wouldn't need to lash out?

But after a year went by . . . things finally dawned on me.

Right around the time I was building my house in

Crestview. That's when I discovered that I'd managed to

hire the same architect as Thayers, so--"

"Jeremy Greene was Richard's architect?"

"Yeah. Of Greene Home Architecture. Guess the

name appealed to both Richard and me. Anyway. It finally hit me that personal tragedy doesn't give anyone the

right to verbally abuse others. What I'd done to Richard

was just like if I'd lost a terminal young patient, and the

parents had sued me or made me into a scapegoat for not

being able to perform a miracle. Yet . . ." He paused and

hung his head. "I hate having to talk about this. But. For

the first few weeks after Caleb's death, I really went out

of my way to spread the word that Stratton's products

weren't actually reducing carcinogens. I'm a doctor, so

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people think I know what I'm talking about on all healthrelated subjects. I've since felt horrible about my behavior. Ironically, last night, it occurred to me that maybe

this whole thing with Richard becoming my judge was

paving the way out for me . . . for Richard to get even, or

for me to get him to accept my apology and put it behind

us. But now that's never going to happen." He closed his

eyes. "Instead, this just brings some of those feelings back

to mind. Of holding my dead son in--"

He couldn't continue. I retrieved an unopened bottle

of water from my desk, handed it to him, grabbed a tissue

for myself, then slid the box over toward him. He availed

himself of both. I could only imagine the paralysis he

must have felt as not only a grieving parent, but a children's physician as well. After a lengthy pause, he rubbed

his forehead and said, "Enough of this subject. But . . .

do you know how it happened? The receptionist said

Thayers had been poisoned."

"He drank what he thought was his own nontoxic

product, but the cans had apparently been switched and

relabeled."

He gaped at me, incredulous. "What product was it?

Paint? Varnish?"

"It was a can of gold paint."

"Gold paint! Oh . . . crap!" He sank his face into his

hands. "My God. I'm being set up."

"What do you mean?"

He took a few seconds to collect himself. He rose and

paced. His eyes remained wide with fright, and he kept

clenching and unclenching his fists. "Do you remember

the cans of generic paint we had on display in my garage

for the green-home open space last weekend? How I'd se-P o i s o n e d b y G i l t
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lected gold, because it was more toxic than nonmetallic

colors?"

"Yes." We'd put a display together for the open

house--the dos and don'ts of home building. I put two

and two together. "Someone took the paint can out of

your garage?" I asked incredulously. "The 'don't' can was

stolen?"

"Right. I'd noticed it was gone, but I figured it just got

mislaid someplace. Or that the cleaning crew I hired after the open house had put it away in the wrong spot."

"The police didn't say anything about fingerprints."

"That doesn't mean they didn't find any." He hugged

himself, even though he was still wearing his heavy

parka. He sighed, looking weary and defeated. "Maybe

it'd be best if I went to the police station myself to tell

them this. Instead of waiting for them to come to me."

My heart ached for the poor man. "That might be

wise. And . . . I'd get a lawyer, if I were you."

He gave me a grim smile and headed toward the door.

"I'm so sorry about all of this, Burke. I'll try to help in

any way I can."

"Thanks, Erin. I appreciate that. I just hope it isn't going to cause friction between you and Steve."

"I'm sure it won't," I lied again.

Fifteen minutes later, Steve returned. "Burke was

here," I told him. "For our scheduled meeting this morning. He says he ran into you."

"Yeah. Erin? We need to cut him loose. I can't give

him the kind of service he deserves."

"Like I said before, I'll handle our interactions for the

both of us, but I don't think I can drop him as a client.

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Not after what he told me. He says his only child died of

leukemia. He'd hired Richard to try to help extend his

son's life. But when he died, Burke was so grief-stricken

that he took things out on Richard. He went so far as to

lie about Richard's products and skills. He'd tried to apologize later, but Richard wanted nothing to do with him."

"He's lying. That doesn't sound like Richard."

I held my tongue, wondering how well Steve could

possibly know his professor, considering their limited

contact during this past decade. "Steve, maybe you

should take the day off."

"Maybe I should," he said. And just like that, he left.

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