Wall-To-Wall Dead (22 page)

Did she have any family? She grew up in Waterfield—I knew she’d gone to school with Brandon—so she probably did. Although if she’d chosen to live with Jamie instead of saving money by staying at home, they might have problems.

Either way, Wayne or Brandon—or the hospital—would notify them. And if they’d had anything to do with this, the police would find out.

Would anyone notify Mr. Guido?

Not likely, I thought. Jamie probably knew what was going on, but if Candy was trying to keep it secret—and judging from where she’d parked the other night, in the far corner of Guido’s parking lot, almost out of sight under the branches of a tree, she wasn’t eager to broadcast her relationship to the world—Jamie might not mention it. Or could be too rattled to think of it.

Maybe I should make a quick trip out to Wellhaven to tell the guy what was going on. It would be a kindness. If he and Candy were carrying on, he must feel something for her. Even if he didn’t, if she were just a fun diversion, he should know that she was in the hospital, that she’d almost died. That sometime soon, the police might stop by to talk to him.

I ran up the two flights of stairs and into our condo, where I grabbed my bag and headed back out. I was on my way down the stairs again when the phone rang. I fished it out.

“Yes?”

“Where the hell have you been?” Derek asked, without so much as a by-your-leave.

“What do you mean, where have I been? Downstairs, with Brandon.”

“You haven’t been answering your phone.”

“It was upstairs, remember? In my bag? That’s why I used yours to call nine-one-one.”

“Oh,” Derek said, and it sounded like he took a deep breath. “Right.”

“I didn’t even think about it until just now. So are you ready for me to pick you up?” I crossed my fingers that he’d say no.

“No,” Derek said. “Dad’s here, visiting a patient. He’ll give me a ride.”

“Oh.” Well, that was convenient. For both of us.

“They want us to come over for dinner. Cora’s making lasagna.”

Yum. Dr. Ben’s second wife, Derek’s stepmom, is a wonderful cook. “I’ll be there,” I said, mouth watering. “What time?”

He told me six o’clock. “Beatrice and Steve will be there, too.” Cora’s younger daughter was back in Waterfield with her husband after a few years of living in Boston. “Why can’t you come right now?”

“I want to run an errand first,” I explained. “It might take me a half hour or so.”

“Oh. OK. Fine. I’ll see you later.”

He moved to hang up, and stopped when I yelped. I could hear him put the phone back to his ear. “What?”

“What about Candy? She made it to the hospital, right?”

“She’s hanging on,” Derek said grimly. “No news yet on what’s wrong. She came in in a full systemic shutdown, but no one knows why. They’ve managed to stabilize her for now. She’s getting oxygen to help her breathe, and an IV to keep her hydrated, and they’ve pumped her full of medications. All we can do is keep our fingers crossed. And pray.”

“I will,” I said.

“I’ll see you over at Dad’s.” He hung up. I stuffed the phone back into my bag and continued down the stairs.

Two minutes later, I was in the car and on my way to Wellhaven. The gate was still hanging open, and now that I knew exactly where this guy lived, I drove straight to his house, and it wasn’t long at all before I was parked at the curb outside the McMansion.

The wife’s SUV was still missing from the driveway, and now so was the BMW. It had looked to me like the little girls were going to a birthday party, so maybe the wife had stayed there with them. The husband must have gone off on his own after they left. Maybe he was at Guido’s, ready to open the restaurant for the night.

It looked like I wouldn’t be able to talk to him after all. At least not there. Although I could stop by Guido’s on my way back to town and see if he was there.

On the other hand, if the house was empty, maybe I should take the opportunity to do a little bit of snooping. Carefully, of course, since there were neighbors all around. But if nothing else, maybe I could at least come up with a name for this guy.

I turned the Beetle off and got out, pocketing the key. A quick look around assured me that none of the neighbors were out on their front lawns, watching me as I moseyed innocently toward the mailbox at the curb.

It was red and ornately engraved, with a slot at the top where the mailman could deliver the mail, and a drawer on the bottom, with a keyhole, where the owner could retrieve it. In between the two were the words
Cassetta per le Lettere
and
Regie Poste
. Italian. It’s not a language I speak, but I know enough about it to recognize it when I see it written.

The mailbox was the perfect accompaniment to the house, with its Mediterranean look. However, because of that pesky keyhole, I couldn’t open it to see whether there might be mail inside listing the names of the owners. It was Sunday anyway, with no mail delivery, so it had been a long shot, but I’d thought it was worth a try.

All righty, then. I turned to the house. Maybe there was a name on the doorbell. Or on the door itself.

Squaring my shoulders, I started up the shallow steps to the front door.

It seemed to take forever to get there, as I counted each step—thirteen, fourteen, fifteen; there were a lot of them—and felt the skin between my shoulder blades prickle. It felt like someone was watching me, but another look over my shoulder, more thorough this time, showed me no one. Just my Beetle, sitting forlorn at the curb, looking jazzily bohemian and out of place in these refined surroundings.

The front door—or doors, since they were double—were twice my height and made of heavy, carved wood, polished to a high gloss. There was no doorbell that I could see, but an ornate brass knocker hung in the middle of the door on the left. It was almost the size of my head, and
consisted of two mermaids clutching at the feet of a guy I assumed was Neptune, their tails curving down to form the handle of the knocker. Before I realized what I was doing, I found myself casting one mermaid with Candy’s features and blond ponytail, and the other with the strong exotic beauty of the woman I had seen herding the little girls into the SUV earlier today. When I realized what I was doing, I shook my head to dislodge the image, but it was stuck.

Each side of the door had etched glass sidelights, and I stepped over to one and pressed my nose against it. If I squinted just right, maybe I’d be able to see some of the interior through one of the designs.

“Can I help you?” a voice said behind me.

I jumped, and accidentally banged my forehead against the glass. “Ow!”

Swinging around on my heel, I slapped a hand to my brow. And lowered it again when I met a pair of cold, dark eyes.

Oops.

I’d thought it’d be one of the neighbors, someone who had noticed me sneaking around where I had no business being. I hadn’t expected it to be the homeowner. I’d been confidently sure he’d left a couple of hours ago. Obviously I’d been wrong.

“Oh,” I said lamely.

He smiled, but it wasn’t a nice smile. “That your car?”

He gestured to the Beetle. I nodded.

“I’ve seen it before.”

I swallowed. “Lots of green Beetles around.”

He shook his head. “Not in Waterfield. You were here earlier. And I saw you a couple nights ago, too.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“Sure.” He tilted his head and looked at me.

Up close, he must be a just a couple of years shy of forty. And I suppose he was good-looking in an overly macho, Neanderthal way, if one likes the type. Slicked-back black hair, hooded eyes, olive skin. Unfriendly expression.

“Why don’t we go inside,” he said, taking my elbow.
Note the lack of a question mark. That’s because it wasn’t a question.

“No…” I tried.

But resistance was futile. I’m five two; he was almost a foot taller, and outweighed me by at least sixty pounds. Before I knew it—certainly before I had time to weigh the pros and cons of screaming for help to try to attract attention—I was through the door and into the house, with the door closed and, for good measure, locked and bolted behind me.

“Now.” He steered me into a small antechamber off the hall to the right, his hand tight on my arm. “Sit.”

I sat, rubbing my arm, and in spite of the way my heart thudded and my palms were sweaty, I couldn’t help looking around. The interiors of people’s houses are interesting to me, both as a renovator and a designer, and besides, I didn’t want to look at him.

I was in a little sitting room with reproduction furniture of the same quality—and monetary value—as the stuff my former boyfriend Philippe Aubert used to make. The same stuff I used to design textiles for. Expensive, in other words.

(And in case you wondered: No, Philippe had not received an invitation to the wedding. When I’d told Kate I still had friends in New York, friends I’d invited, I hadn’t included Philippe in that description. We had parted on fairly amicable terms the second time, since I’d met Derek by then and had realized I didn’t care quite so much that Philippe had cheated on me. But he had lost the right to partake in the happiest day of my life when I’d learned that he hadn’t been able to keep Little Phil zipped in his pants for the forty-eight hours I spent in Waterfield, and he had gone to get his needs met by Tara, the receptionist, instead. She was twenty-two, vapid, and blond, and now that I thought about it, very similar to Candy in appearance. What is it with middle-aged men and young blondes?)

“Who are you?” this particular middle-aged man asked.

I pulled my attention from the room—a little too presumptuous,
not quite lived in enough, like a photo spread in a home and garden magazine—to the man standing in front of me. “I’m Avery Baker. You?”

He didn’t answer, but his eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. “D’you work for my wife?”

I shook my head. “What kind of business does your wife have?”

He muttered something, but I couldn’t hear what it was. I’m pretty sure it was the Italian equivalent of “stupid idiot,” so I didn’t ask him to clarify. The more time I spent with him, the less I understood what Candy saw in this guy.

“What are you?” he asked next. “A private detective?”

“Of course not,” I said. “I’m a designer.”

He blinked. “Francesca wants to redesign the place? After all the money she spent decorating it in the first place?”

“I have no idea what your wife wants to do. I came to talk to you about Candy.”

At the sound of that, his eyes narrowed again. “You
were
following me the other night.”

“I was following her,” I said. “From home to Guido’s. And then I followed you from there.”

“Why?”

I hesitated. It was probably best, and smartest, not to tell him that I’d overheard Candy’s phone conversation and suspected that he—or they—might have had a hand in killing Hilda Shaw. My situation was precarious enough right now, without telling him that I suspected him of murder.

“Just curious, I guess. That’s not the point.”

He put both hands on his hips, a very girly gesture for such a masculine man. “What’s the point?”

I glanced around the room. “Have you been here all day?”

“At home, you mean? Why?”

“Something happened,” I said.

“What?”

I watched him carefully. “Candy almost died this afternoon.”

I think he may have turned a shade paler, but it’s hard to be sure, since he flushed a deep red almost immediately. A vein beat in his temple. “And you think I had something to do with that?”

“You argued with her on Friday night, didn’t you?”

He didn’t answer, just looked at me. It wasn’t a nice look, and it went on much too long for comfort.

“Sorry,” I said eventually, pressing my back into the chair in an effort to get farther away from him. He looked ready to pop. Either a blood vessel or me.

After a few seconds of heavy breathing through the nose, he pulled himself together. “Why would you think that?”

“I don’t,” I said. And added, “Not necessarily. For all I know, she just had an attack of some kind. Would you happen to know if she suffered from any kind of illness?”

He shook his head. “What happened?”

“I’m not sure. All I know is that when we found her, she was in a full systemic shutdown. My fiancé has a medical degree, and he kept her alive until she got to the hospital. Last I spoke to him, he said she’s on a ventilator and drip, and nobody knows what happened, just that she almost died.”

This time I definitely wasn’t imagining it; he
had
turned paler. “What hospital?”

I told him. There’s only one, after all. He must be fairly new in town if he didn’t know where the hospital was. “If you call them, they might give you her status. If you don’t want to go down there yourself.” And he might not, just in case he didn’t want his wife to know what was going on.

And then there was a tense little moment while we stared at each other. He looked like he was contemplating doing something to me, something I wouldn’t necessarily like. Like bashing me over the head with one of the marble statues of old Etruscans decorating the mantel, or tying me up and stuffing me in the closet until he had time to deal with me.