Death by Inferior Design (36 page)

“Please don’t bother. I noticed that, too, I’ll admit, but Carl sure won’t.”

“It won’t take me long, and I just can’t knowingly leave a mistake like that.”

“Suit yourself, but there’s no need to do it right this minute.” She shut the packing box, grabbed her coffee mug, and headed, once again, for the living room, as if she could only handle the task of packing in short spurts. “I’m sure the outlets won’t show up in the photographs that the
Denver Lifestyles
photographer’s taking.”

“Pardon?” I followed her.

“He’s coming at two o’clock this afternoon.” She reclaimed her seat. “I’m now officially editor in chief at
Denver Lifestyles,
so I can dictate the photo shoots. Now that Myra, the in-name-only owner, has passed away, I no longer feel obligated to keep my role secret.”

“Myra
was the owner of the magazine?” I asked, dropping back into my seat on the sofa, stunned.

Debbie nodded. “Though it was Randy’s money. He and Myra had temporarily split up, and I guess Randy’s buying a business for her was part of his means for winning her back. Although he gave me quite the shaft in the process.”

“Randy bought the magazine from
you
?”

“He didn’t buy it, no. When we bought the Axelrods’ house and first got to know them, Myra told me that he was independently wealthy. I’d already come up with the idea for starting the magazine—back before I’d even met Carl, let alone Randy. I couldn’t get the financing I needed, though, so . . . one day I mustered up all my courage and presented everything to Randy to see if he’d be willing to invest in it. He said he’d look into it and let me know. He kept putting me off for months, then he finally let on that he’d already gotten everything off the ground and had made himself editor in chief and would hire me as his ghostwriter only.”

“Jeez! You couldn’t sue him?”

“He said that people couldn’t copyright their ideas alone, so there was no way I
could.
At first I told him where to shove it, of course, but my technical writing business wasn’t going well, and he assured me that he’d help me find work plus pay me very generously as long as I kept quiet, et cetera. And he told me that if I
did
try to sue, I’d only be hurting Myra, since he’d made her the owner.”

“That must have made you furious.” I wondered if I’d misjudged Debbie; maybe she was hiding a murderous rage.

She set her coffee mug down. “Yes, but that’s all ancient history. An amazing thing happened. Apparently Randy wrote a codicil to his will at some point. In it, he confessed that he’d gypped me out of my idea for the magazine and that I’d been his ghostwriter for years now, so he wanted ownership of the magazine and some back pay the company owed him to go to me instead.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“Well, it’s
good,
at least. We aren’t talking about a huge amount of money, but it will be enough for me to cover my rent and deposit on my one-bedroom apartment in Longmont.” That was a small town nearby.

She managed a small smile. “What this means as far as you’re concerned is a bit of good news during a dreadful day. We’re going to run a feature story about you and Steve Sullivan and the rooms you two completed. Originally my story was going to include your design in Myra’s house as well, but for obvious reasons I’m just going to nix that part and run the story of the contest, which I’ve officially declared a tie.”

“Thank you, Debbie. It will be a terrific boon to both Steve’s and my businesses. I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear about this.”

“That reminds me. Jill wasn’t certain that she would allow photographs to be taken of Steve’s work, since she says the room is her least favorite in the whole house.”

Poor Steve! He needed all the publicity he could get, or his business might fold. “That’s going to be a major stumbling block to your magazine piece on our contest, won’t it?”

“I think Jill can be persuaded to change her mind easily enough. I can always agree to run a separate story next year that shows her entire house, and—”

The doorbell rang, and Kevin McBride burst inside. He was panting and flushed. He was wearing a jogging suit and was sweating profusely. For once, he didn’t give me a leering eye. Rather, he ignored me, gripped the short length of railing that ran adjacent to the door, and gasped, “Debbie! What’s happened at Myra’s house?”

Debbie clasped her hands and held them to her lips, studying Kevin’s face, her eyes tearing up once more. “Oh, Kevin,” she said. “You’d better come in and take a seat. I’m afraid it’s Myra.”

He stayed put but tightened his grip on the rail. “What does that mean, ‘it’s Myra’?
What’s
Myra? Is she missing? Did she have an accident?”

Debbie looked at me with pleading eyes.

“She died this morning,” I told him. “I found her when Steve Sullivan and I went to her house for an appointment.”

He shook his head. “No. No. She can’t be dead.” He doubled over and plopped down on the hard tile in front of the Hendersons’ door. Debbie rushed to his side and knelt in attempt to put her arms around him. Pushing her away, he cried, “What the hell is happening? I don’t understand any of this!”

“I know,” Debbie soothed. “It’s impossible to fathom.” She got to her feet and returned to her chair, hanging her head.

Kevin rose, supporting himself with the banister as he made the short trip into the living room to join us. He took a seat beside the La-Z-Boy on the carpeted step to the living room. He looked at me, his expression tight. “Was it natural causes? Or was she . . . killed?”

“I don’t know,” I replied quietly. “There wasn’t any blood, but she may have ingested poison.”

He rocked himself slightly, saying nothing. Debbie reached down to put her hand on his shoulder, and he held it there, his hand on top of hers. At length, he said to her, “I need to speak to Erin alone for a minute.”

Debbie gave me a quick glance, then said, “I’ve got some more boxes to pack up in my office. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Kevin promptly got up and began to pace in front of the smoked-glass coffee table between us. “This has something to do with those letters you found in the wall upstairs.”

“I don’t know if that’s the case or not. What makes you think so?”

“Myra said as much. A couple of days ago. That time that you and Debbie came into the kitchen right when I was trying to slip out the back door. Myra said she could never tell me what happened right after she and I broke up, but that it had something to do with you.” He stopped directly in front of me, his hands fisted, his expression one of fury. “What the hell was she talking about? Was it all spelled out in those letters?”

“I don’t know. I never read them. All I know is that when I spoke to Myra last night she told me something strange.”

“What?”

“That you and she had a baby together. Twenty-seven years ago. And that
I
was that baby.”

His anger promptly deserted him. He shrank into the recliner that Debbie had just deserted and muttered, “Oh, my God. Myra. She’d had some . . . troubles with . . . delusions and depression. I had no idea it was that bad.”

“I feel so sorry for her,” I said in a near whisper.

He met my eyes. “Myra taught my chemistry class my freshman year at CU. Thirty years ago. We fell in love. When she got pregnant, she didn’t know if it was Randy’s or mine, but she told me we had to end things . . . that either way, this was going to be her and Randy’s baby. Only the baby died within a few days of her birth.” His eyes flew open wide. “Hey. Come to think of it, they named the baby Erin. Maybe that’s why Myra got it into her head that you were really
her
child, when she deluded herself into believing that her baby had lived.”

“You were just a college student then, right, and not a neighbor? So . . . are you positive that Myra’s baby died?”

“Absolutely. I went to her funeral.”

“Huh,” I muttered, though my mind was racing.

“I’ve always loved Myra. All these years.” His bark of laughter was hollow. “She’d made it perfectly clear it was over as far as she was concerned, and I never forced it, but I’d drive through her neighborhood sometimes. . . . When a house went up for sale just a couple of doors away from hers fifteen years ago, I insisted to Jill that we move. Jill was furious—our other house was much more to her liking, which is to say, godawfully ostentatious.” He shook his head. “I guess I always believed that one day, Myra would leave Randy for good and we’d run off together. But it just wasn’t meant to be.”

Debbie cautiously entered the room. “Actually . . . I’m pretty much finished packing up the basement.”

Kevin squeezed his eyes shut. “I can’t believe she’s gone,” he said softly. “Myra was a wonderful lady. She was just too fragile, and life never gave her a decent break.” He grimaced. “My car’s still two miles away, over at the gym. I’ve got to jog back, get cleaned up, and get home. Jill will be sending out a search party before I know it.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said to him, though the whole matter of stringing his wife along while he professed to be in love with Myra was reprehensible. Maybe he didn’t love either of them, but merely their money— money that Myra hadn’t actually possessed until she inherited it from Randy.

As Kevin let himself out, he said to someone outside, “Carl’s not here, but Debbie’s in the living room.”

There was one quick rap on the door, and Taylor strode into the house. He gave a little nod and said, “Hey, Debbie.” Apparently nobody used proper etiquette when entering this home. “Kevin practically bowled right into me just now. He’s sure in a mood.”

Debbie’s eyes had widened in surprise. “Taylor. What are you doing here?”

“Carl didn’t tell you? He hired me to move you and your stuff out in my pickup.”

“No, he didn’t tell me. I already hired movers.”

“Looks like I wasted a trip,” he grumbled.

“It’s okay,” Debbie said. “You can keep Carl’s money and take a load of books over for me, since you’re already here.”

“Fine by me.” Taylor eyed me, then waggled his thumb over his shoulder. “What’s going on across the street? There’s a shitload of police cars over there.”

“It’s Myra,” Debbie said solemnly. “She died this morning.”

He frowned. “Jeez, that’s too bad. She was pretty friendly to me. Lately she was, I mean. It was weird. Before her old man got offed, she acted like she hated my guts. Now all of a sudden she’s all ‘Taylor, how nice to see you again!’ ”

“She seemed to be a bit unpredictable,” I muttered.

“Yeah. If by that you mean she’s, like, totally wacked.”

“Taylor!” Debbie chastised. “Myra Axelrod was a good person and a personal friend of mine. Don’t talk about her that way!”

“Sorry. But, shit, you know as well as anyone that she was one of the crazier people on the planet.”

“Is that true?” I asked Debbie.

She sighed. “In a way, the poor thing.”

Taylor pulled out a chair from the dining room table and dropped into it, straddling its banister-style back. “One time, back when I was house-sitting, she wandered into Carl’s house. She was—”

Debbie snorted. “When you say ‘Carl’s house,’ you mean mine as well, don’t you? Meaning the house we’re all sitting in right now?”

“Yeah, but, like, you’re moving out.” He returned his attention to me and continued. “It was the middle of the night. She’s wearing, like, this shiny red bathrobe and pink fuzzy slippers. She looks at me, and she says, ‘What time is it?’ And I go, ‘Nine thirty,’ or whatever, and she says, ‘Is it that late? I was looking for my daughter. Is my daughter here?’ I just want her out of there, so I tell her, ‘No, but I’ll send her right home if I see her.’ Then she just thanks me and leaves.”

“Oh, that poor woman!” Debbie cried. She looked at me and explained, “She lost a baby girl in childbirth many, many years ago and then could never have another child. Randy said the whole thing made her mind just snap, and when she got stressed, she’d get delusional and . . .” She shook her head. “This all seems so disrespectful.” She scowled at Taylor and asked, “Why didn’t you tell Carl and me about Myra when we got back from Europe?”

Taylor growled, “God, Debbie. I don’t know. Maybe I was a bit distracted by being
hauled off to jail
at the time! Must have slipped my mind!”

Debbie winced. “Of course, Taylor. I’d forgotten.”

“Yeah. Just like you forgot to warn me about your Looney Tunes neighbors. If you’d told me how weird the Axelrods were and that they had a key,
I
would never have been arrested. I wouldn’t have been so casual about leaving my stuff out.”

She clicked her tongue and bolted upright in her seat. “Taylor Duncan! One of these days you’re going to have to learn that to be an adult means taking responsibility for one’s own actions. It is nobody’s fault but your own that you got arrested for selling drugs! Not mine and certainly not your stepdad’s for not warning you about Randy. Not Randy’s for turning you in.
Yours
for committing a very serious crime in the first place!”

“Hey! You’re not my mother! You’re not even my step-mom once removed anymore!”

“Thank God I’m
not
your mother, because if I were, your drug use and dealing would have broken my heart! Just like you broke Emily’s heart! And Carl’s, too, for that matter! They’ve given you everything, and if you ask me, which nobody ever does, that’s been their only failure in parenting. And what have you
ever
given them in return, Taylor? Aside from grief, I mean. You’ve given them lots of grief.” She shot to her feet and took a step closer to him. “Since I’ll soon no longer be distantly related to you through marriage, it’s high time I told you something that’s been festering in me for the last couple of years. Get your head out of your ass and
act like a man
! Take responsibility for yourself. Start doing the right thing by your family members!”

Taylor sat in stunned silence. It was clear from the red-cheeked expression on his face that her words had hit him hard.