A Fashionable Murder (30 page)

“But Pamela was also greedy and a snob. She trashed the people who worked on her at Elizabeth Arden when she decided to leave and didn’t need them anymore. And she adopted a wealthy older woman, calling her aunt. But hanging out with the rich and famous wasn’t enough. She wanted far more than she could manage on her share of the profits of the company. So she tried to get extra cash another way. She left her chic, spare apartment and changed her style. Suddenly she was into eclectic furnishings. Because, of course, if you steal a bit here and steal another bit there and hang on to all those bits until you sell them off, eclectic is what you end up living with.”

“You know, you’re probably right about that,” Sam spoke up. “That apartment never made any sense to me. It was so unlike Pamela. She was a very talented decorator. She could create modern interiors as well as traditional ones. She designed very feminine spaces as well as very masculine ones. But, while the period or style of the furnishings may have been different, some things were the same. Pamela loved order and perfect color schemes. Hell, we broke up over a brown chair.”

“You what?” Josie, Carol, and Betty asked simultaneously.

“We broke up because I wanted to put a brown chair in my gray apartment,” Sam said after a momentary pause.

“The chair you have in the corner of your living room at home on the island? The chair you always sit in to listen to music and read? That brown chair?” Josie asked.

Sam nodded. “That brown chair. I saw it in the window of a shop down in SoHo. It cost an arm and a leg. Hell, it cost two arms and two legs and the shop owner assured me it was the latest design from Paris, so I thought Pamela would like it. I didn’t buy it for its looks, of course. It was— it still is—the most comfortable chair I’ve ever owned. Anyway, I ordered it and then forgot about it. It arrived a few months after Pamela had redecorated my place. I rearranged a bit and managed to put it in a corner without interrupting what Pamela would call ‘the flow.’ And then I forgot about it. Until Pamela saw it.”

“I gather she didn’t like it, dear?” Carol asked.

“I think you could say that she hated it. I suspect my neighbors on either side as well as above and below me could tell you just how much she hated it. She screamed and yelled and generally made the biggest stink anyone could possibly make over one single chair. I broke up with her that night.”

“You broke up with her,” Josie repeated, absolutely amazed. “Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t you tell me? I thought . . . I know you told me that the feelings were mutual, that you just stopped caring about each other and broke up.”

“Pride.” Sam said the word as though it explained everything.

“But you broke up with her. She didn’t break up with you,” Betty pointed out.

“I broke up with her because of her reaction to a chair I’d bought. Only a fool would say that. Only a fool would have a long relationship with a woman who would go nuts over a chair the wrong color. Only a fool would have such an odd wake-up call.”

“I don’t think so, dear,” his mother broke in. “Pamela was beautiful and charming, and she was after you from the first time she saw you. You were busy with some important cases and, perhaps, just a bit into the beginning of a midlife crisis. Dear Pamela took advantage of your particular situation the way she did all others. You simply fell into that relationship and it took something rather odd to make you realize that it wasn’t working. I wouldn’t blame you at all.”

“Thank you, Mother. But I blame myself.”

Josie remained silent, relieved by what Sam had just said, but disturbed as well.

“So you were telling us about the new apartment and Pamela’s new method of making money,” Betty reminded Josie, picking up her husband’s sidecar and taking a sip. “Yummy.”

“She sold things and used her apartment as a place to store them. There’s really not that much to it,” Josie said. “She could have made extra money that way for years and years if she hadn’t agreed to allow the photographer from
New York
magazine into her home to take pictures. I’ll bet Shepard Henderson went crazy when he saw that cover.”

“I’m sorry to be so dense, but how did Pamela and Shep Henderson both end up at Sam’s place?” Betty asked.

“Sam kept copies of Henderson and Peel’s contracts there. And probably some of those contracts Shep Henderson didn’t even know about. Pamela did those jobs on her own, and made all the profit. Anyway, I think Shep wanted to see the copies Sam kept to make sure they matched up with the ones kept back at the office. Pamela, of course, wanted them herself. She was probably going to destroy the evidence. You see, when she ran into Sam that first day he was in the city, he told her he was going to sell. She knew she had to act if she wanted to get rid of the contracts.”

“Get rid of them?” Betty asked. “You would have destroyed them?” she asked Sam.

“No. I would have sent them back to Henderson and Peel.”

Jon nodded. “Standard procedure,” he explained to his wife. “But what I don’t understand,” he continued, “is how they both got keys to Sam’s apartment.”

“Sam gave Pamela one for her personal use and she had one made to give to the workers who needed to get in and out during the time the place was being redecorated,” Josie explained. “The second key was probably kept in Henderson and Peel’s office—available to Shep anytime he wanted to use it.”

“So they ran into each other at my place . . . And Shep killed her and hid her body in the window seat,” Sam said slowly.

“Yes, that’s what I think happened,” Josie said. “It worked out well for Shep because there was no reason for the police to suspect him and maybe more than a few reasons for you to be a suspect. Of course, all that changed when you dropped off those old contracts with a friend at the police department. Shepard Henderson moved right to the top of the shortlist of suspects.”

“Jon says he was arrested this afternoon,” Betty spoke up. “After you and Sam went to the police with this story,” she added to Josie.

“Yeah, word down at the office is that Sterling Henderson has been buying up all the high-priced defense lawyers he can find,” Jon said.

“I should have known it was him,” Carol said. “I ran into him on the sidewalk after I left the building that afternoon. I should have realized he was waiting for everyone to leave so he could head on upstairs.”

“You were there? At Sam’s apartment that afternoon?” Jon asked.

Sam answered the question. “Yes, she was.”

“How do you know that?” Carol asked, surprised.

“I saw you. And if you had just told me that you were there . . . I didn’t even have to know why you were there . . . if I had just heard from you that you were there, I wouldn’t have been so horribly worried, Mother.”

“And Sam would have answered my questions about what he was doing that day,” Jon added. “And I wouldn’t have been so worried about what he was hiding.”

“I saw Mother coming out of my apartment,” Sam began.

“Sammy, where were you?” his mother asked.

“Sam was using the tradesmen’s elevator to come up from the basement storage area,” Josie explained.

“It wasn’t that you were there that bothered me, Mother. It was that you didn’t tell me you were there. At first, I just thought it was one of those things. After all, I know how much you like to take care of me so I thought that perhaps you had been dropping off something you had cooked. But there was no food in the place, and, when you didn’t mention it, I thought it was odd, but figured I’d understand eventually. But then we found Pamela’s body, and I kept wondering what you had been doing in my place and, well . . .” Sam stopped, looking sheepishly down toward the floor.

Josie grinned. Sam looked adorable. “So why were you there?” she asked Carol.

“I was there to drop off some pâté and a bottle of champagne. I was just trying to make sure this week went as perfectly as possible for the two of you. But then I heard the shower running and just left without leaving anything behind.” She looked across the table at her son and scowled.

“Frankly, Sammy, I’ve waited long enough to be a mother-in-law. For the last week, I’ve been doing whatever I can think of to get you married to the best woman you’ve ever known!”

EPILOGUE

JOSIE AND SAM were sharing his comfortable brown chair. The windows were open to cool breezes coming off the ocean, blowing away the heat of the August day. The television was on, a video in the VCR, and they both leaned forward watching intently as Tyler, looking incredibly grown-up in his tuxedo, escorted a gorgeous blond bridesmaid down the church aisle.

“He looks so handsome, doesn’t he?” Josie asked, sighing.

“Like mother like son,” Sam answered, kissing her shoulder.

“You’re so sweet,” Josie said, jumping up to turn off the set as picture turned to snow. “It was nice of Taylor Blanco to send the clip of the scene from the movie that Tyler is in, wasn’t it?”

“It was even nicer that he and Toni with an I asked both Tyler and Tony with a Y to usher at their own wedding down in Santa Fe—and to send them tickets and make arrangements for them to spend the weekend at a nearby dude ranch while the celebration is going on,” Sam added.

“Yes. It was.” Josie walked over to the sliding doors that would lead to the new deck that Island Contracting would build as soon as the busy summer season ended. “And you know, I’ve been thinking.”

“And?”

“And now that Tyler has had all this practice . . . you know, playing an usher at a wedding in a movie and then being an usher at a real wedding . . . well, we wouldn’t want all that training to go to waste, would we?” She turned back to Sam, a smile on her sunburned face. “I was wondering, Sam . . .”

“About what?”

“Well . . .”

“Take your time, Josie. You know I don’t want to rush you. I’ve never wanted to rush you.”

Josie took a deep breath and plunged in. “I was wondering if you’d like to marry me.” She smiled.

He returned her smile and got up to join her before answering. “I’d love it,” he answered, putting his arms around her. “I’ve just been waiting for you to ask.”

Don’t miss these other Josie Pigeon mysteries
by Valerie
Wolzien!

MURDER IN THE
FORECAST

With a signed contract for remodeling the grandest old house on the island, contractor Josie Pigeon figures her summer is made. But before she can lift a hammer, she finds her new employer— wealthy New Yorker Cornell Hudson—murdered on the premises with a strip of drop cloth twisted tightly around his neck.

When Hurricane Agatha sweeps away both the house and the body, Josie would like to forget she ever saw them. But she cannot. Now, through rain and wind, and through a past that refuses to die, Josie pursues the truth—and nails down a killer who is tougher than boards. . . .

Published by Fawcett Books.
Available wherever books are sold.

THIS OLD MURDER
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When the production crew for Courtney Castle’s Castles invades contractor Josie Pigeon’s job site to shoot a PBS remodeling series, Josie’s fifteen minutes of fame seem imminent. Unfortunately, the confusion of taping compounds the chaos of construction, and Josie is soon ready to kill.

Which is why, when a bludgeoned body appears on the premises, Josie is a top suspect. That’s when she decides to make her own suspect list. But the more Josie hammers down the facts, the closer to home she hits. . . .

Published by Fawcett Books.
Available wherever books are sold.

And look for Wolzien’s delightful
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AN ANNIVERSARY
TO DIE FOR

Susan and Jed Henshaws’ anniversary celebration promised to be a night to remember . . . for all the wrong reasons. By evening’s end, Ashley Marks became the ultimate party pooper. She was dead, apparently poisoned, her body hidden beneath a pile of gifts on the bed in the Henshaw’s room.

Following a cold trail of clues, Susan tracks down a killer whose roots may be buried deep in Ashley’s past, along with deadly secrets. . . .

Published by Fawcett Books.
Available wherever books are sold.

DEATH AT A DISCOUNT
A Susan Henshaw Mystery

As her wealthy friends knew, Amanda Worth wouldn’t be caught dead in a discount store. But she was. Susan Henshaw found her in a dressing room with a Hermes scarf knotted murderously tight around her elegant neck.

What possibly could have lured Amanda to the grand opening of the new outlet mall? Susan shops around for the answer and discovers that in this pristine Connecticut suburb, murder is suddenly the fashion. And one size fits all. . . .

Published by Fawcett Books.
Available wherever books are sold.

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