Authors: Leslie Caine
"Why are you here?"
"I just wondered if you were willing to talk about the
contest with me."
"Why would I want to do that?"
"I'm trying to help Burke, if I can. I want to clarify
some things about his past relationship with the deceased, Richard Thayers, the judge of the competition."
"In other words, you're part designer, part private investigator?" He snorted.
"I guess you could say that."
"You're also part fool if you think I'm going to allow
you to pick up any energy conservation tricks by letting
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you inside. The guy's already copying my new windmill!
Isn't that bad enough?"
"I have no intention of picking up tips at this late date.
Besides, didn't you say that you were examining Burke's
house just last week?"
"Good day, Miss Gilbert." He shut the door.
Baffled by his belligerent behavior, I walked back the
way I'd come, passing Asia's property by staying dead center on the path and not so much as taking a sideways
glance at the trees behind her backyard.
At Burke's back door, I glanced behind me and did a
double take. "Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,"
I muttered to myself. Darren had followed me partway
down the path and was now watching me through huge
binoculars. Annoyed, I plastered on a phony smile and
waved. He shifted his lenses to the tree, as though he
were merely bird watching.
Burke had gotten home just then and followed my vision to his nosy neighbor. Burke stood in front of me protectively. "Hey!" Burke yelled, gesturing emphatically for
him to get back. "Go mind your own business, would
you?"
"That's exactly what I'm doing," Darren shouted back.
"Everyone knows you're under investigation! I'm not letting a cheater steal the contest!"
"A, I was already found innocent by the judges, and B,
get a life!"
Darren said nothing and walked back toward his
house.
"Can you believe that guy?" Burke muttered, shaking
his head.
"Neither of your immediate neighbors was especially
friendly to me."
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"I could have predicted that. Let's just say that this
isn't exactly Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. What were you
talking to them about?"
"I was trying to get a feel for whether or not they had a
motive for killing Richard and if they could have taken
the paint can from your garage."
He gave me a grateful smile. "I'm so glad I have someone on my side. Now if I could just get the police to believe me when I say I'm innocent."
The next morning, there was a chill in the air, and the
western sky had that pearly gray color that foretold snow.
Sullivan and I arrived at our parking spaces at the same
time and walked in together, chatting about the predicted snowstorm that evening. A business card was on
the floor when Sullivan opened the door. I picked it up,
expecting to see a card that a rep had slipped through our
mail slot.
"What's that?" Sullivan asked.
I stared at the card in surprise, wondering why someone had splattered red ink on our Sullivan and Gilbert
card. An instant later I realized the card had deliberately
been altered. The red ink was supposed to resemble
drops of blood. "Oh, damn it," I muttered as I flipped it
over.
"What?"
I held it out so Sullivan could see. On the back, handwritten in block letters, were two words: YOU'RE NEXT!
c h a p t e r
8
sullivan and I decided to call my police officer
friend, Linda Delgardio, immediately. She said
she'd come to our office as soon as she could and arrived
about twenty minutes later. Linda was a warm, pretty, vivacious woman, and when she was off duty, she had a
droll and infectious sense of humor. Right now, however,
she was all business. "Someone could have picked up
one of your cards almost anywhere?" she asked as she
sealed the doctored one into an evidence bag.
" 'Fraid so," Sullivan replied.
"Do you have any way of telling how long this
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particular card has been circulating? Did you make a
new print run of cards, for example, at some point?"
Sullivan shook his head. "We just made the one big
printing more than six months ago. And we gave a hundred or so of them away at the open house for the green
home contest, over a week ago."
"We set stacks of them in several rooms at Burke
Stratton's house," I explained, "and Margot Troy gave
them away at her place, as well."
"She did?" Linda and Steve asked in unison.
"I designed her kitchen a couple of years ago, and she
told me she was willing to help me advertise."
"That was nice of her," Sullivan said.
"Is it possible to lift fingerprints from the card?" I
asked Linda.
"I'll take it to the lab, of course, and we'll hope for the
best. Realistically, I don't see much chance. It's likely
whoever did this only handled your card by its edges."
She shrugged. "But sometimes we get lucky."
"I've got to say, I don't feel especially comforted by the
thought that we might 'get lucky,' " I said. "This is serious.
It can only be a threat from the killer."
"Not necessarily," Linda replied. "It could simply be a
prank. Murder always brings out the nutcases in the community. Some people seem to crave the thrill of making
veiled threats."
"People who just happened to know that Richard
Thayers was a friend of mine?" Sullivan countered skeptically.
"The papers carried that article about your work on
Burke Stratton's house and its being a finalist in the
Green Design contest," she countered. "And Thayers
was announced all over the local media as the judge."
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"But still," I objected, "why would we get singled out?
Why not one of the contestants, for example?"
"There's really no way to answer that question, Erin,"
Linda replied. "But then, it doesn't have to make sense to
us, just to whoever wrote 'you're next' on your business
card."
"Come to think of it, there's our link to the Earth Love
Web sites," Sullivan said. "And to Richard Thayers's site."
"You added links to our Web pages?" I asked, annoyed.
I never once failed to notify him when I made significant
changes or additions to our site. I fired up my computer.
"Sure. And they linked to ours. For mutually beneficial business referrals."
I pulled up our Web site and the "Links" page, and
Linda looked over my shoulder. Sullivan had added several sites to our list. "I don't even know who half of these
people are," I grumbled. "I doubt that we'll get any business from them at all."
"It doesn't hurt."
"Actually, it might, if it established a connection between us and Richard Thayers in the mind of some
homicidal maniac." As I scanned the list of links, I gaped
at one of them. "M.H. Custom Furniture?" I asked in
amazement. "You linked to Matthew Hayes?"
"I did?" He sounded equally surprised and rushed next
to Linda to peer over my opposite shoulder. "Jeez, I did!
I'm taking that one down. I must have added that a couple of months ago, when we ordered the dresser from
him. For that client on Sable Road."
"Matthew Hayes is the guy who heckled Richard
Thayers the night he drank the paint," I explained to
Linda.
She nodded. I could tell by her demeanor that she'd
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already recognized the name. "The link to Richard
Thayers's site could be the connection, all right, which
encouraged some random jerk to target you." Linda
peered at the screen.
"I guess," I muttered.
"Or it is the killer trying to scare us," Sullivan said,
"and he or she is out for Erin."
"Excuse me?" I bristled. "Your name is on the card,
too, you know."
"That is a possibility, Erin," Linda said, touching my
shoulder. "The article mentioned the assistance you gave
us in solving the murder cases last year." She held my
gaze and said evenly, "It's hard to know how the killer
took that news."
I sighed. "That was just a throwaway line . . . the reporter insisted it would beef up the human-interest angle."
"Nevertheless. Who have you been in contact with
who had a possible motive for killing Mr. Thayers?"
Linda asked me.
"What do you mean?"
"Come on. I know you, Erin. There's no way you
haven't been asking questions. You seem to be incapable
of removing yourself from any murder investigation in
town."
"That's a little harsh."
"Yeah, yeah." She flipped open her notepad. "Sorry to
offend. Just give me the names."
That was a simple enough question to answer.
"Burke Stratton, of course. Margot Troy. And Darren
Campesio."
"The three finalists," Linda said.
"Right."
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She waited for a second or two, then studied my features when I didn't continue. "That's all? You haven't
spoken to Jeremy Greene, Stratton's architect, about the
murder?"
"I've talked to him since then, yes."
"But not about Thayers? Even though there was an article about them in the paper a few months ago? About
Jeremy Greene and Thayers having a legal squabble concerning the design of his house?"
"Well, sure. Thayers's name came up. For one thing, I
wanted to ask if our client's basement is similar to
Thayers's since his was apparently substandard."
"And is it?" Sullivan asked, which, come to think of it,
was a darned good question that Jeremy hadn't actually
answered sufficiently.
"Meaning he's on the list," Linda said before I could
answer Sullivan, making a notation in her pad.
"Also, Erin was flirting with Matthew Hayes," Sullivan
said. I glared at him, but he continued casually, "After
Richard's final class."
Linda looked at me expectantly, pen poised.
"I was making conversation, not flirting," I said to
Linda. "But it's possible that Matthew's guilty, and if so,
he would certainly know that our business is connected
to Richard. But now you've got the complete list.
Definitely." I paused. "Well, not counting Asia McClure.
She lives in the house right between Burke's and
Darren's. But as far as I know, she has no connection to
Richard Thayers, other than an obvious grudge against
environmentalists."
Linda scribbled in her pad and then put the pad in her
pocket. "Okay," she said with an officious nod. "Take
care. I'll keep you posted as best I can."
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"Thanks, Linda."
"No problem. Let me know right away if you get any
more threats." I could read frustration in her every little
gesture. She detested my connection to yet another murder case. I'm sure I detested my entanglement even
more.
Sullivan released a sigh the instant Linda left. "She's
right. You're an incorrigible snoop."
"Thanks so much."
"I didn't mean it as a knock against you. I am, too.
Occupational hazard. We have to have an intense curiosity about what makes people tick, and we enjoy poking
around in people's homes. Otherwise we wouldn't be in
this business."
"That's true, I suppose," I said, relieved that this wasn't
going to turn into a quarrel.
"It's the killer who made this personal . . . who's threatening us now. All the more reason to get the bastard before he gets us. We need to focus."
"On the investigation, you mean?"
"Yeah. It's great of you to try to gather information
about who killed Richard. Even though I think you'll
eventually draw the same conclusions I have about our
client. Which reminds me . . . I'm sorry about how I acted
at Earth Love. It was too late for me to testify, by the way,
so I just had an informal chat with Walter about Richard
and my suspicions about Burke. Nothing I said changed
his opinion in the least. We were already on the same
page."
He paused and looked at me with an anguished expression. "But Gilbert . . . right now, I feel like I've got so
much bottled-up rage in me. I've got to make sure this
killer pays for what he . . . or she did. That's just how it is."
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"I know. I understand how you feel."
He leaned back against my desktop. "So what have
you found out so far?"
"Not much. Like I told Linda, I talked to those people,
and while nobody dropped any huge clues in my lap, nobody struck me as being incapable of the crime. Darren
Campesio is a belligerent kook who seems to equate the
green home contest with Homeland Security. And my
exchange with Asia McClure, Darren's and Burke's
neighbor, was also pretty nasty."
"She has a bad relationship with Burke, right? Hates
the windmill he's erecting?"
"Right. She grew especially hostile once she gathered
I'm pro-conservation. She acts as though ecology is a personal affront to her. And she was so unpleasant that she