False Premises (24 page)

“Henry bought a gorilla’s paw?” Sullivan asked me. “What a jerk.”

“I’d call him a lot stronger names than
that.
Come on. We’re leaving.”

Sullivan, however, stayed put. Just as I was about to protest, Henry came puffing back inside, carrying the grotesque ashtray. “This isn’t mine, honey. Someone must have made a mistake.”

I didn’t believe him for a second. “Give me the shipping order. It’s got to be among the things the ashtray came with, or it couldn’t have been delivered. I’ll call the store and double-check the order.”

Henry winced, looked at me, then said meekly, “Okay, you got me, darlin’. It
is
mine, but I told them specifically to ship it directly to the house next week, so you wouldn’t see it. The store loused up my order. I
knew
they’d do that, the idiots!”

I wasn’t sure how or when he’d sneaked this particular delivery past me; it certainly hadn’t been there when Sullivan and I checked everything less than a week ago. For now, there was a more important matter to resolve. “I need to know where you bought that horrible thing, Henry. A gorilla’s paw is illegal to import. Whoever did so needs to be turned in to the authorities and have their operation shut down for good.”

“Uh, well . . .” Henry tugged on his white dustcover of a toupee. “I got it from an independent source. Don’t even remember the guy’s name.
He
approached
me.
He was just another customer in that furniture store on the mall. He had a catalogue of stuff like this, and he handled everything.” He looked up at Sullivan, still standing on the stairs. “He was a real scruffy-looking guy. Maybe even homeless, for all I know. I guess I shouldn’t have trusted him.”

The description made me uneasy. “What did he look like exactly?”

“I dunno. White guy with a beard. Average height. Thin.”

“His name wasn’t Jerry Stone, was it?”

“He never told me his name. The company’s name was African Trading Company, though.”

“There was a man wearing grungy jeans and a ratty-looking gray sweater who left here just a couple of minutes before you arrived. He was hitchhiking back to downtown Crestview. Did you see him on your way home just now?”

Henry shook his head. “There wasn’t anyone out there hitchhiking.”

“He must have already gotten a ride.”

“I only passed one car on the main road. A beat-up Chevy. I didn’t see any passengers in it.”

I rubbed my forehead, frustrated. Could Jerry have lied about how he’d gotten here? Had he simply tailed the delivery van? “Someone
butchered
a gorilla to make your ashtray, Henry. How could you buy such a thing?”

He spread his arms. “Because it’s . . . comical. Like you said when you were designing the place . . . it’s whimsical. You’re the one who told me you like a touch of whimsy in your design.”

“Then wallpaper a bathroom with funny pages! But don’t buy from some poacher who would kill a gorilla just to amuse some heartless American businessman who wants to snuff out his cigarettes in some poor primate’s foot!”

Henry threw up his hands and said, “Okay, okay! If it bothers you that much, I’ll send it back.”

“Good,” Sullivan interrupted. “You do that. Immediately. Or else the authorities are going to hold
you
personally responsible.” He touched my shoulder and said, “Let’s get back to work, Gilbert. I’ve got the whole master bedroom to install yet, and now there’s just the two of us.”

Enraged, I gaped at him. “I’ll do no such thing! Don’t patronize me, Sullivan!”

“Henry said he’d send the ashtray back. There’s nothing more he can do at this point. It’s not like he can go to Africa and sew the gorilla’s paw back on.”

“But what about the zebra and the leopard? Henry assured me they were from a company that only sells fakes, and I believed him! He duped me into supporting the slaughter of animals!”

“And just where do you think the leather comes from for the recliner in the living room, Gilbert?” Sullivan fired back. “You’re wearing leather shoes! Where do you draw the line between what kind of animal you’ll allow to be killed to produce the goods that you yourself use?”

“There’s a big line between using cowhide products and knowingly supporting poachers, Sullivan, and you know it!”

He averted his gaze and said nothing.

I stormed outside, shouting, “I need to get some fresh air and clear my head!”

“I’ll get
your
work done for you in the meantime,” Sullivan shot back.

I paced next to my van. Furious, I repeated to myself: “ ‘It’s not like he can go sew the gorilla’s paw back on.’ ” I kicked a pebble. “What a jerk!” To think that I was trying so hard to
help
Sullivan!
John Norton is a terrific guy and
the absolute perfect match for me. John was right, damn it
all!
If only I’d met the two men in reverse order, I could well have been in love with John by now, instead of harboring a stupid crush on his stupid surly friend, who was, in turn, harboring a stupid grudge against all womankind simply because he’d stupidly fallen for a deeply disturbed woman. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

It took me nearly twenty minutes on the phone until I
was satisfied that a wildlife inspector from the Denver office of the Fish and Wildlife Service would drag the full information out of Henry and try to shut down this “African Trading Company” black-market business. By then I had calmed down enough to suspect that Sullivan was simply playing devil’s advocate and befriending Henry so that he could continue to pry information from him. Which was not to say that I would forgive Sullivan, only that I could understand where he was coming from.

Resolved, I returned to the house, and saw that Henry was arranging the dining room on his own. “Hello, darlin’. I’ve got the ashtray all packaged back up and ready to be returned. You over your hissy fit yet?”

“I
was,
up until this moment. For your information, Mr. Toben, that was
not
a ‘hissy fit,’ that was
rage
at having been duped into supporting the import of illegal contraband from poachers. I could have lost my business license if I’d knowingly purchased such an item.” I wasn’t actually sure if that was true, but it certainly
should
be. “I’ve already contacted the proper authorities. They’ll be in touch with you soon.”

Henry paled. “I just thought it was a gag item. You know . . . a joke.”

“Where’s Steve?”

“In the garage.”

“No, he isn’t. I walked right past the open doorway.”

“He’s in the storage area above the garage. He could probably use some help, in fact. That’s where we stashed the few items from my original household that you allowed me to keep.”

I decided not to quibble with Henry’s wording; I didn’t wield sufficient power to control which new items I purchased on his behalf, let alone “allow” him to keep only a few old ones. I went to the garage. A flight of pull-down attic stairs was just ahead of me. “Sullivan?” I called.

“Yeah?” He started to come down the stairs, carrying a chair, and I waited, telling myself not to haul him over the coals, but rather to see things from his perspective. After all, he’d had to absorb a lot of heavy personal defeats in the past year.

Just as he put his weight on the next step, it gave way. I screamed, and watched helplessly as he crashed to the concrete floor.

Chapter 17

I shoved the chair Steve had been carrying out of my way and rushed to his side. He was writhing in pain, clutching his leg.

“Steve? Oh, my God. Are you okay?”

“Cripes! Does it
look
like I’m okay?”

My heart was pounding. I didn’t know what to do. He tried to get up, but dropped back down and again grabbed his leg at the knee. “Shit! My leg. Broken,” he managed, obviously in too much pain to say more.

Henry appeared, panting, in the doorway. “What happened?”

“Stair broke,” Steve gasped. He was attempting to rise on his good leg, and I helped him up.

“His leg’s broken.” My throat was tightening.

Unexpectedly, Henry took charge. “Let’s get you to the hospital. Get out of the way, Erin.” Calculating that he probably was a little stronger than I was, I let him take my place and allow Sullivan to lean on him.

The stair must have been on the verge of giving way and only cracked through as he stepped on it a second time with the added weight of the chair. I looked at the stair and cried, “No wonder you fell! The stair didn’t break; it was partially sawed through!”

Henry and Steve looked at the sabotaged stair. Steve cursed under his breath at the sight.

“Let’s get him to my van,” I growled at Henry, not trusting him behind the wheel. “I’ll drive to the emergency room.”

Steve continued to stare at the sawed stair as if transfixed. “Jeez! Look at that! Somebody was trying to kill me!”

“Or
me.
As the original designer, I was probably the likeliest person to be climbing up and down those stairs.”

“This trap was obviously set for me,” Henry protested. “Whoever sawed through those steps was gunning for me, not some designer, for cryin’ out loud.”

The next morning as I let myself into my office, I had
the unshakable sensation that I was being followed. In fact, I’d been feeling that way ever since leaving the emergency room the night before to drive Sullivan to his home. With his tongue loosened by the trauma of his bad fall, he’d admitted that he, too, had been horrified by the ashtray, yet had hoped that he could “buddy up to Hammerin’ Hank” and get more information from him about Robert Pembrook. Sullivan suspected him of Laura’s murder. I’d asked if he’d gotten any information out of Henry yet, and he grumbled, “Nope. Just a broken leg.”

Steve was, at least, going to be able to walk in his cast in a couple of days. He had a break in his tibia.

Now, as I stepped through the doorway, I noticed a manila envelope had been slid under my office door. I swept it up, assuming it was from a client, but began to worry a little when I flipped it over and saw that it was unmarked. I opened the envelope as I climbed the steps.

As I reached the top step, the contents chilled me—a black-and-white photograph of a middle-aged man kissing a much younger woman in front of the door to what looked like a motel room. The second photograph showed their faces in profile. The man was Henry Toben—with thinning dark hair—and the woman was a very young-looking Laura Smith. A third photograph clearly revealed that Henry was groping Laura under her skirt. She, meanwhile, was smirking directly at the camera.

When these photographs were taken—and I was guessing that was roughly ten years ago—it would have been bad news for Henry Toben. His wife would still have been alive.

I had an hourlong meeting with a supplier, then
locked my office and headed straight for Steve Sullivan’s home; I’d already called and told him about the photos, and he told me to let myself in. Nevertheless, I knocked, cracked open the door, and said, “It’s just me.”

“Come on in,” he called.

He lay on his chaise longue in his underfurnished living room. It had been less than twenty-four hours since I’d seen him, but his face looked drawn. His hair was in need of a combing, and I longed to straighten it for him. He was wearing jogging shorts, and despite the cast from the knee down, it was hard not to stare at his sexy, muscular thighs.

Totally unnerved, I took a seat on his mushroom-colored sofa. The sight of him convalescing was bringing out the nursing instincts in me, and I had to battle ludicrous fantasies about how I could distract him from his pain. I focused on the envelope in my hand, determined not to act flustered. “Look at this.” I handed him the pictures of Henry and Laura.

“Someone just shoved this under your office door?”

“Yes.”

He made a derisive noise. “You should have someone look at that door of yours, you know. Install a weather strip, at least. You’re wasting energy without one.”

With forced sweet tones, I replied, “I’ll take that into consideration. Thanks.” The good thing about his smug nit-picking was that Sullivan had already managed to wring the mothering instinct right out of me.

He studied the three photos, then returned them to the envelope. “This could be a setup of some kind. Maybe Laura’s killer just wants to throw light on another possible suspect. So he or she had some dirt on Henry, and is using it to full effect.”

“But if that’s the case, why not send the photos to the police? Why give them to me?”

“Good question. Did you tell your policewoman friend about this?”

Her name’s Linda. How hard is that to remember?
“Not yet.”

Steve handed the envelope back to me. “When you do, you’d better explain that you assumed whoever sent them wore gloves and didn’t get fingerprints on the photos and envelope. We’ve both been handling them and have probably smudged any of the sender’s prints.”

I peered at him in dismay. Though I managed to keep the comment to myself, I considered saying:
Maybe you
should check the label of your pain medication and see if
“tendency to behave like a pretentious know-it-all” is a
known side effect of the drug.

“Granted, Sullivan, I should have been more careful handling the envelope and its contents. Till I opened it and saw the photographs, I’d assumed a client had just slipped an innocuous letter under my door when they happened to be downtown.”

Sullivan was drumming his fingers on the arm of his chaise, lost in thought. “Knowing Laura, she probably hired the photographer and set up Toben for blackmail. He’s been broadcasting his TV ads ever since I moved to the Denver area to start college—some twelve years ago— so we know that he was wealthy back whenever this liaison took place. Plus, he was married and in the public eye. My hunch is he paid big bucks to keep this away from his wife.”

“Probably so.”

Steve stared at me without comment.

“Are you okay?” I finally asked.

“Sure.” He shifted his position but continued to study my features.