When I showed up at the doorway, Sammy Wendell came out to meet me. His deputy’s uniform looked disheveled, as if he’d been working several shifts without a break.
“This way.” He led me through a living room decorated with mismatched and slightly battered articles of furniture that looked as if they belonged in larger and more imposing rooms. The only things that didn’t look like castoffs from some of Clay’s decorating projects were the paintings—a dark, moody landscape over the mantel, an equally dark and moody bar scene over the sofa, and a huge cityscape filling all of one otherwise empty wall. Were they Clay’s own paintings? Probably. I could see a signature in the corner of each that looked rather like a stylized CS.
“It’s this way,” Sammy said, interrupting my study of the art.
I followed him through a kitchen decorated only with dirty dishes. And finally into the garage.
Chief Burke was standing in the garage, looking down at a collection of twenty or so boxes. I could see my cousin Horace squatting down beside the boxes, writing something down in a notebook. His uniform also looked a little the worse for wear.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“You tell me,” the chief said. “Horace?”
Horace stood up and pointed to a stack of four boxes. I squatted down and looked at them. They were all addressed to Mother at the show house address.
“These are Mother’s,” I exclaimed. “What are they doing here?”
“A good question,” the chief said. “You can think of no legitimate reason for them to be in Mr. Spottiswood’s possession?”
“All four of these packages are ones Mother thought were lost in transit,” I said. “Three of them she had to have shipped again. She’s been bugging me for two days to find this one.”
I held up a small, flat parcel from The Braid Emporium.
The chief turned to Horace.
“And what did the UPS tell us about these packages?”
Horace looked down at his notebook.
“These two were drop shipped,” he said, touching two of Mother’s parcels. “No signature required. These two were signed for.”
“Who signed for them?” I demanded.
“This one was a W. Faulkner,” Horace said. “The Braid Emporium one went to a C. Dickens.”
“We also have signatures from T. Capote, F. S. Fitzgerald, and D. Hammett,” the chief added. “The manager of our local UPS facility will be having a word with the driver responsible.”
“That jerk,” I said. “Clay, I mean. Ever since the designers started working in the house, we’ve had problems with packages taking longer than expected, or getting lost entirely. I assumed someone had figured out that a lot of expensive stuff was being left at a house where no one lived, and was pilfering packages. So a week ago I told everyone that I’d rather they ship stuff to their own offices, but if they had to ship to the house they had to require a signature. We still had a few problems with packages, but not nearly as many.”
“That makes sense,” the chief said. “Most of these packages would have been delivered between ten days and three weeks ago.”
I glanced through the other packages. They came from fabric and trim companies, glass and china vendors, antique stores—all the kinds of vendors the decorators would have used.
“That jerk,” I said. “He’s been sabotaging everyone.”
“That makes you angry,” the chief observed.
“Damn right it does,” I said.
“I imagine the designers themselves would be even angrier,” he said.
“Angry enough to kill him? Is that what you’re asking?”
The chief raised one eyebrow and waited.
“How should I know?” I said. “Maybe. I can’t see killing someone over a bit of braid, or a few yards of fabric. But if one of them realized Clay was deliberately sabotaging them, and had been for weeks? Can I see someone losing it and lashing out in anger? Yes. Don’t ask me who, though.” I waved at the stack of packages. “He’s got at least one from everyone.”
“If Mr. Spottiswood had been stabbed or bludgeoned by something that could readily be found at the crime scene, I could more easily accept the theory that someone lashed out in anger.” The chief leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “But he was shot. Someone had to bring a gun to the scene. Which looks more like premeditation. Unless, of course, Mr. Spottiswood had the bad luck to enrage someone who happened to be carrying a firearm. Were you aware that any of the decorators were armed?”
“If any of them were, it’s news to me,” I said. “Apart from the gun Sarah’s partner Kate tried to get her to take. I assume you heard about that.”