Death by Inferior Design (37 page)

“I’m going to finish packing up the kitchen now,” Debbie said to me in a calmer voice. “Are you sure I can’t get you anything?”

“No, thanks.” I rose. “I should get going. Any minute I’m sure the police are going to want to talk to me again about Myra’s poisoning.”

Taylor’s jaw dropped. “She was
poisoned
?”

“Actually, I don’t know whether she was or not. I simply assumed she was.”

He leapt to his feet, dragging his palm over his shaved scalp, and went to the front window. There he parted the sheers to look at Myra’s house.

Confused at his reaction, I followed his gaze. There were now a half-dozen official-looking cars and vans parked by the house, including an unmarked white van. Myra’s body was being put into the van; I could see the black body bag from here. “Taylor, maybe she wasn’t poisoned. All I really know is that she looked similar to how Randy was when we found him.”

He gestured at the activity across the street. “Which officer is in charge?”

“I don’t know. Probably the guy in the brown suit. But what’s going on, Taylor? It’s far too early to know if Myra was poisoned. Her death could have been from natural causes.”

He ignored me, threw open the door and marched outside. Though dumbfounded by his behavior, my instincts warned me that he was about to do something dreadful. I charged after him.

“Taylor!” I shouted. “Stop!”

He continued to storm toward Myra’s house and the man in the suit, whom I began to suspect was merely the coroner; he was obviously anxious at a man of Taylor’s titanlike stature striding toward him and was giving nervous glances to either side as if hoping for police support.

“Taylor? What are you doing?” Debbie called, trailing behind us.

“I have a confession,” Taylor said as he neared the man in the suit. “I did it. I killed them.”

“Them?” the man in the brown suit repeated, glancing back at Myra’s house in obvious confusion.

Taylor was visibly trembling. “Randy and Myra Axelrod,” he said. “I poisoned them both.”

chapter 22

Taylor, don’t say another word!” I cried. What was going on in his thick head? His confession was rubbish; just minutes ago he’d had no idea that Myra was even dead. He suddenly decided he’d murdered her only
after
I’d blurted out that she’d been poisoned. He must have assumed she’d ingested something he’d targeted for Randy, but the food and cooking implements had been thoroughly tested last week. How could that be possible?

The man in the brown suit was gaping at us. Three uniformed officers drew closer, frowning. The eldest officer—a burly, bald man—asked Taylor, “You murdered that lady?”

“No! He’s talking crazy.” I grabbed my cell phone out of my coat pocket, gesturing for Debbie, who raced across the street toward us. “Do you have Emily’s number?”

She grabbed the phone from me. “She’ll be at work at her Pilates studio by now. I know that number by heart.”

Swatting at Debbie’s hand in an attempt to knock the phone from her grasp, Taylor shouted, “Don’t call my mother! Leave her out of this!” Debbie took a step back and continued to dial. Taylor grabbed his head, looking panic-stricken.

“How old are you, son?” the officer asked him.

“Twenty-one.”

“He’s only twenty,” Debbie interjected.

The officer muttered, “Legally an adult, either way.”

Where was Linda Delgardio?
She
would listen to me.

Debbie thrust the phone back to me. “It’s ringing. I’m going to go grab
my
phone and get Carl out here. He’s just talking nonsense,” she told the men. “He didn’t kill anybody.” Then she turned and asked, “Did you, Taylor?”

“Don’t answer that!” My heart was pounding. I couldn’t bear the thought that my talking through my hat had inspired Taylor to make a false confession.

The phone was ringing at Emily’s Pilates studio. I gestured emphatically at Debbie to hurry back across the street. “Tell Carl that Taylor needs a lawyer.”

The officer said to Taylor, “Let’s just head down to the police station. I’m going to put some handcuffs on you. No big deal—it’s standard procedure.” He looked over his shoulder. “Lennie? You want to pat him down and read him his rights?”

I covered my ear as a woman answered the phone.

“Emily?”

“Yes.”

“This is Erin Gilbert. Taylor just confessed to the police that he killed both the Axelrods.”

“What!?” she shrieked. “That’s not
. . . Myra’s
dead, too?”

“I found Myra’s body this morning in her house. And a minute ago I mentioned to Taylor that she may have been poisoned, and he suddenly charged up to the police and confessed.”

“Where is he now?
Where’s my son?
”

The burly officer was guiding him through the patrol car doorway with one hand supporting the top of Taylor’s head, and he was so large that getting him into the backseat was a tight fit. “They’re putting him in a police car now.”

“Stop them! Erin, he’s your kid brother! Don’t let them do this to him. He’s innocent!”

I swore aloud. What exactly did she expect me to do? Throw myself down in front of the patrol car? Launch myself spread-eagle on the windshield? “Emily, I don’t see how I can stop this.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake! Do
something
! Let me talk to whoever’s in charge!”

I sprinted up to the nearest officer—a younger-looking man with a full head of hair. I thrust my phone out, and said, “This is the mother of the person you’re arresting. She wants to talk to you.”

He took the phone from me. Mr. Brown Suit, meanwhile, got into the unmarked white minivan and drove away, no doubt anxious to get as far away as possible from this insanity.

I wrapped my arms around my chest, wishing I could get Taylor away someplace private to speak to him. Debbie jogged back across the street, announcing, “Carl’s on his way.” She stopped beside me. In a half whisper that none of the officers could overhear, she continued. “He thinks Taylor must be tripping . . . blaming himself because of a drug-induced hallucination.”

“Taylor seemed completely lucid to me.” By his standard, at any rate. He must be trying to protect his mother or his stepfather. That was the only reasonable explanation I could come up with.

The young officer returned and handed me my cell phone. Debbie started to say that Taylor’s stepfather would arrive soon, but the officer cut her off. “He’ll be at the station on Thirty-third and Chestnut.”

We watched the patrol car drive away, Taylor turning his face away from the window. Debbie stamped her foot. “He must be protecting his mother,” she said, as if reading my mind. “I mean, yes, it was terrible of him to get into drugs and everything. But Taylor?
Kill
somebody? No way.”

“You think Emily Blaire
is
capable of murder?”

“I think that woman is capable of any number of things,” Debbie growled.

I shivered, not entirely due to the cold. I didn’t want to believe that my birth mother had actually poisoned the Axelrods. That possibility was far more upsetting to me than my belligerent half brother Taylor as the prime suspect. I buttoned my coat, my mind racing.

Emily had been here that first day, when Taylor was unloading the wood and found my container of cyanide. Maybe
Emily
had actually been the one to take the cyanide out of my van. She could also have made some remark about the Axelrods to Taylor. He could have been provoked into making a false confession to protect his mother.

“You didn’t see Emily in the neighborhood this morning, did you?” I asked Debbie.

“Well . . . no, but then, I wasn’t watching. I was packing up my basement office—which, as you’ve seen for yourself, gives me no view of the street whatsoever—then I went to Safeway.”

“That probably
is
what Taylor’s got in his head, though . . . the thought that he’ll take the rap for his mother.” I didn’t want to add that he was probably trying to do the right thing by his family, as Debbie had recently harangued him to do. Or that it was every bit as likely that he was protecting his father, Carl, not Emily.

Had Taylor rashly confessed to a crime he didn’t commit, in the mistaken fear that his mother was guilty? Or did I just not want to believe that my biological half brother, not to mention my biological mother, could be guilty of such a heinous crime?

Debbie gave my arm a gentle squeeze. “Erin, I really don’t want to be here when Carl comes home. I’m going to take a couple of boxes of stuff out to my new place. Couldn’t you please stay and talk to him?”

“But can’t we call him on his cell phone and tell him that now to save him from—”

“He never turns it on when he’s driving. Just tell him that they’ve already taken Taylor to the police station. Please?”

That seemed the least I could do, considering that if I’d never blurted out my theory that Myra was poisoned, Taylor wouldn’t be in this mess. “Okay.”

“Thank you, Erin. I promise I won’t forget to come back by two to show the photographers your and Steve’s rooms.”

She fled into her house, and less than a minute later, she was backing out of the garage. My attention was soon drawn to the McBrides’ house. Jill was dumping armloads of clothing into the front yard. She noticed me and gestured for me to come over. I tentatively ventured toward her. The mounted fish was on the lawn, along with what had to be Kevin’s entire wardrobe.

I didn’t know what, if anything, she knew about Myra and hoped with all my heart that she wasn’t calling me over to ask. If so, I cut Jill off at the pass and asked, “What’s going on?” despite its being quite obvious that she was tossing Kevin out.

“I’m hastening my husband’s departure.” Her voice was even and calm, although her eyes were red. She took a couple of steps toward her house, where the beautiful coffee table that Steve had designed was now wedged in the doorway. “Myra’s death was the last straw.”

“Why?”

“Please be a dear and help me with one end of that table. The twins will be home from their ski trip tomorrow afternoon, and they can help me move that silly new chair of Kevin’s outside then.”

Damn it! The photographer would be here soon. Just because she was emptying her husband’s closets didn’t mean she had to immediately tear up Steve’s impeccable den design. “Jill, I just . . . wouldn’t feel good about helping you to move your husband’s things.”

“I’ve already carried the table out to the front porch,” she said, as if my concern were merely one of logistics.

“It’s really not my place to get involved in any sense in a marital dispute. And didn’t Debbie contact you about the story she wanted to run featuring Steve’s and my room designs? The photographer’s going to be here in just a couple of hours.”

She scoffed. “Do you honestly think that
I
would allow a room in
my
house, one that has a
dead fish
over the fireplace, to be displayed in a magazine for all the world to see?”

“Steve could replace the fish temporarily with something more . . . reflective of your refined tastes.”

“I can’t be bothered.” I bit back my response as she continued. “If you’re reluctant to choose between Kevin and me, I must remind you to consider which side of your toast bears the butter. You haven’t forgotten about our meeting tomorrow morning to cement the plans for the New Year’s party, have you?”

“But the purpose of the party was to raise capital for your husband. You’re . . . still going to hold that party?”

“Of course. I’ll simply change the theme. We’ll go back to the traditional idea of—” She stopped abruptly as a silver BMW pulled into the driveway. Leaving the motor running, Kevin got out of it.

“Hey! That’s all my stuff!” he cried as though his wife had to simply be confused about its ownership.

“I heard about you and Myra!” Jill shouted back. “I’ve known all along!”

He started to come toward her, protesting, but she held up a hand. “Stay where you are. You come any closer, I’ll get a restraining order against you!”

“But . . . it’s my house! What on earth are you talking about?”

“You killed Randy, Kevin! You wanted Myra so badly, the two of you cooked up this plot to get rid of him. Then something backfired on you and she wound up dead as well.”

“That’s nuts! I did nothing of the kind!”

Her features twisted with rage. “I’ve put up with your games long enough, Kevin! I had our phone tapped. I’ve got recordings of you and Myra, making your plans. I’ve already turned them in to the police!”

“You what?! That’s just . . . Jill! I never once discussed murdering Randy with Myra! Or with anyone!”

“Save it for the police when they play back those tapes for you. I’ve lived with this knowledge of you and your affairs for years now. I won’t live with the knowledge that you’re a murderer.”

Kevin gaped at her.

Jill leveled her finger at him and continued. “And if you think I’m going to let you stay here, share my home with a murderer, you’re even a bigger bastard and fool than I believed!”

Just then, car tires squealed as someone made too fast a turn onto the street. Carl’s red Subaru whizzed past us, came to a stop in front of Myra’s house, then backed up the half block to pull even to us.

Carl rolled down the window on the passenger side of the car. “Erin, is Taylor inside?”

Before I could answer, Kevin thrust himself between us, gripping both sides of the open car window. “Carl! Jill’s thrown my stuff outside on the lawn! Can I stash everything at your place till she calms down?”

“Yeah, sure. Just let me talk to Erin.”

“Do you have a spare key?” Kevin asked him.

Carl tried to wave him aside. “Use the combination and go in through the garage—six-three-eight. I have to find out where Taylor is!”

“He’s at the Crestview police station,” I called to him over Kevin’s shoulder. “I think Emily is on her way there, too, if she hasn’t already—”

Carl tore off, swinging the car around. Jill whirled and stomped back into her house. Kevin got back into his car and sat behind the wheel in shock.