A Fashionable Murder Read online

  “Well, maybe not a decorator as such, but there was this lovely man in the furniture department at Bloomingdale’s who was such a big help with the place I had before this. Back when you were living at home, I didn’t have enough money to spend on decorations, much less pay for a decorator.”

  Josie stopped shoveling food into her mouth long enough to ask a question. “How does a decorator get paid?”

  “Well, it depends,” Carol answered. “When I worked with a decorator employed by a store, they were paid by the store. I mean, I didn’t pay anything extra for their services.”

  “But did they make a commission on what you bought or were they just paid a salary?” Josie asked.

  “I have no idea.” Carol examined a huge shrimp before popping it in her mouth and chewing thoughtfully. “I did sometimes feel that I was being steered toward the most expensive items though. And at Bloomingdale’s that can run to a whole lot of money.”

  “Peel and Henderson worked on an hourly and cost-plus basis,” Sam spoke up. “And on some of their larger projects they insisted on a retainer up front.”

  “How did all that work?” Josie asked. She wasn’t surprised at Sam’s knowledge. She had been asking him to check out Island Contracting’s contracts for the past few years.

  “They had a flat hourly rate—about two hundred dollars per when I left the city, but I suspect it’s more now—for planning the job, travel to stores and galleries, time spent with the client, stuff like that. They also got wholesale prices on furniture, accessories, even artwork, and they added a standard markup before billing the client. They added twenty percent to the bills of subcontractors as well.” He looked up from his food and over at Josie. “Sound like a lot to you?”

  Josie grinned. “It does.”

  “But a decorator is a lot like a contractor,” Sam explained. “You get money up front when you start a job, right? Usually a third of the final payment.”

  “Yes, but I need that money to pay for supplies. It sounds like the retainer is just to keep the decorator working on your project. And if I ever tried to charge an hourly fee for time spent traveling back and forth to the lumberyard, or meetings with clients, I’d be laughed right out of a job. It sounds to me like being a decorator is pretty cushy.”

  Sam leaned back, lifted his arms over his head and stretched. “You might have trouble finding decorators to agree with you.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a different type of work than you do,” Sam replied. “It depends more on the whim of the employer, for one thing.”

  “What do you mean?” Carol asked.

  Sam answered her question with a question. “How many times did you change your mind about fabric for the curtains in your bedroom?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe three or four . . . possibly more, I guess.” His mother frowned. “Did Pamela complain about me?”

  “No, she just mentioned it. As I recall, she said you were better than most clients. She used to tell stories of clients who had entire bathrooms ripped out because they didn’t like the floor tiles. Or . . . I remember she told me about a woman who had two dozen pillows made up in different upholstery fabrics because she couldn’t decide which she wanted to use.”

  “What did she do with the pillows in the fabric she rejected?” Carol asked.

  “She gave them away to a thrift store and took a substantial tax deduction. I remember Pamela telling me that the woman wanted a receipt from Henderson and Peel so she could take a tax deduction. A receipt for twice the amount she had actually spent.”

  “Did they give it to her?” Carol asked.

  Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably. Pamela knew that I didn’t want to hear about anything illegal. I have my law license to protect, after all.”

  “I’ve had difficult clients who want to make changes,” Josie said.

  “Yes, but your clients know what you’re going to do— pretty much—when you start a job, right? You have blueprints of the job. And they know they have a certain amount to spend on materials. And if they go over that amount when they pick out appliances or whatever, they have to pay extra, right?”

  “Sure. What else?”

  “What else is that clients frequently try to get decorators to get discounts for them. Pamela always said that a good decorator can save a client money, but more than a few of her clients wanted discounts that were unreasonable. And, in this city, a firm’s reputation is its future. High-profile clients can be pretty demanding and they do tend to get what they want. I always suspected that some of Henderson and Peel’s less prominent clients were charged a bit more to compensate for the lower fees charged to the rich and famous.”

  “Really?” Carol looked around her apartment as though wondering for what, if anything, she had been overcharged.

  “Island Contracting would never treat clients like that!”

  “I seem to remember a family who got a great discount on the addition at the back of their bungalow just a few years ago.”

  “I . . . oh, I remember. But that was different. The Giambrettis are some of the last fishermen on the island. They really couldn’t afford to build anything, but they were expecting triplets at the time. I just gave them a discount and took a loss on the project. I didn’t—I wouldn’t ever—add to a rich person’s bill to make up for it.”

  “But you could give the Giambrettis a break because you had done a few big jobs for wealthy summer people in the same year,” Sam reminded her.

  “I suppose.” Josie wasn’t at all willing to put herself and her company in the same corner as someone who would give a financial break to those who need it the least. “But my reputation, Island Contracting’s reputation, doesn’t depend on working for a few wealthy or prominent people.”

  “Really? Weren’t you enthusiastic about remodeling the Point House because you thought the job was going to be covered in Architectural Digest? Don’t I remember you telling me that?”

  Josie couldn’t do anything but admit the truth of that. Of course Hurricane Agatha had destroyed the Point House and probably Island Contracting’s only chance for fame.

  “Things are different in the city, Josie dear. There are so many decorating firms, so much more competition than on the island. Henderson and Peel were always in danger of becoming one of the lesser firms and no longer being offered the best jobs.”

  “And that would have killed Pamela if someone hadn’t already done it,” Sam said and then added, “but let’s stop talking about Pamela, or Henderson and Peel, or decorators, or murder. Let’s just enjoy the food and the company and the evening.”

  Carol and Josie exchanged meaningful looks; so much for their well-laid plans!

  EIGHTEEN

  A MAZINGLY ENOUGH, THAT night turned out to be a lot like the nights Josie had imagined when Sam first suggested she accompany him to New York City. Slightly drunk and certainly more than well fed, they had left Carol’s apartment with their arms around each other and strolled slowly back to Sam’s place. The city had been enchanting: lights glowing in the crisp, cold air. Everyone seemed to be well dressed and everyone appeared to be hurrying off to have fun.

  They walked down Park Avenue, peeking in windows. Restaurants—tables covered with glasses, silver, linen, and flowers—were full of people, leaning toward one another over plates of food, all talking at once.

  They walked a block over to Madison Avenue and window-shopped, making jokes about the expensive, desirable, and not so desirable objects on display. They talked and laughed, relaxed as though they didn’t have a care in the world. When Sam suggested they stop in at a little café for a nightcap, Josie readily agreed, not wanting to pass up an opportunity to be part of the New York nightlife she had always heard so much about.

  Sam asked that they be seated near the window so Josie could look out at the crowd passing.

  “It’s marvelous,” Josie said after they had ordered, at their waiter’s suggestion, two Big Apple martinis.

  “Havi
ng a good time?” Sam asked.

  “You know it!”

  “This is what I wanted our time here to be like,” Sam said, a bit wistful.

  Josie reached across the tiny table and took his hand. “It isn’t your fault that Pamela Peel was murdered.”

  “No, but I do keep wondering why she was in my apartment. Except for Mom and a few friends, I don’t have any real contact with the city anymore. Jon keeps asking who hates me so much that they wanted to connect Pamela’s murder to my life, and the only answer I have is that I don’t know,” he ended sadly.

  Josie had an inspired idea. “Sam, maybe this had nothing to do with you. Maybe it has to do with selling your apartment. Maybe the body was placed there to be found by someone looking around. Maybe someone doesn’t want that apartment to be sold.”

  Sam looked skeptical.

  “Sam, it is an idea, right?”

  “I suppose, but—”

  “So let’s think it through. You told me last Christmas that you were going to sell your condo, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that when you decided to do it?”

  “Pretty much then. I’d thought about it once in a while since leaving the city. There is a certain amount of annoying paperwork that goes with being a landlord. But I had a great tenant who kept the place up and who paid enough rent to cover all the monthly fees and taxes. Real estate prices in this part of town are only going to go up. Keeping the place made financial sense. And, to begin with, it made emotional sense as well.”

  Their waiter returned with two huge martini glasses topped with shimmering, thin, sugared apple slices. Josie waited until he’d left to ask another question. “What do you mean, ‘emotional sense’?”

  Sam smiled across the table at her. “Josie, the first few days I was on the island, I came close to turning around and running back to New York.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, in the first place, almost every single person I knew had told me I was doing the wrong thing. Two of the men I worked closely with for years had spent what seemed like every lunch hour for the last month I was here telling me that I was acting like an idiot, that my move was just the result of an exaggerated case of male menopause and I shouldn’t make spur-of-the-moment decisions that could change my life forever. I suppose that may be part of the reason I rented my place out instead of putting it on the market right away. There was a part of me that doubted my decision.”

  “Sam, you weren’t running off to Tahiti to paint naked women. You were moving less than two hundred miles away and buying an established business, a business you knew a lot about.”

  “But I was giving up my career. And I admit it: I was burned out, not just professionally but personally. I no longer enjoyed living here. But there were days when I thought that my friends might be right, that I was just another male becoming involved in a flurry of activity to try to forget that I was getting old.

  “I arrived on the island on a day in early spring when icy rain was falling and the winds were high. I went to check out the store I’d bought and discovered that the roof leaked. Rain had poured right down onto shelves full of expensive imported liquors. My house, which had seemed perfect when I’d bought it less than a month before, looked bleak and inhospitable. I didn’t know anyone on the island. If I hadn’t been so exhausted, and so worried about the strange clanking sound my car had started making sometime around exit fifty-nine on the parkway, I think I would have turned around and come right back.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t,” Josie said quietly.

  “I’m glad I didn’t too. But, until the day that you came into my store looking for a phone, I had doubts. Serious doubts.” He picked the candied apple slice off the side of his glass and popped it in his mouth. “Anyway, I told myself that I was keeping the condo as an investment, but for a while there it was also my fall-back position. But then my tenant was transferred overseas sometime around Thanks-giving and, after thinking about it for a few weeks, I decided to sell.” He looked up at Josie and smiled. “My future’s on an island a bit smaller than Manhattan.”

  Josie sipped her drink. It was slightly sweet and very strong. But she didn’t need it; she was feeling wonderful.

  “But I don’t see how selling or not selling my apartment could possibly have anything to do with Pamela’s murder,” Sam continued, and her elation vanished.

  “What if a potential buyer had opened that window seat?” Josie asked. “Don’t you think that would have stopped the sale?”

  “But, Josie, it didn’t get that far. And it wouldn’t have. No apartment goes on the market without all sorts of inspections. Someone would have found the body before a potential buyer did.”

  “So why was the body there?”

  “Josie, you know why. It was placed there to implicate me in her murder.” He leaned across the table and stared at her. “What else?”

  “I don’t know,” Josie admitted.

  “There can’t be any other reason,” Sam insisted, sounding angry.

  Josie bit her bottom lip. They had been having such a nice time and it was unlike Sam to respond in this manner. “How many people knew you were going to be selling your place? The man who was renting it from you?”

  “No, he told me he was leaving the place vacant. But he never asked if I had any plans for it. He’s been in Singapore since the first week in December. I think we can assume he is out of the picture.”

  “Did your Realtor list it anyplace?”

  “Not yet. I wanted to come clean everything out before she even looked through it. I didn’t think I’d left anything of value here, but I wanted to check before it was officially put on the market.”

  “Why did you leave those photo albums in the closet? I would have thought that you would have had to clean everything out before you left.”

  “I did. They weren’t there when I left. That closet was empty.”

  “Then where were they?”

  “You know, I think I may have left them in the window seat.”

  “Where I found Pamela?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You know,” she said slowly, “it’s a perfect place to hide a body. It’s almost as though someone built it for that reason.”

  Sam chuckled. “I used to keep records, case files and the like, in it. Before the place was redecorated, I had four old oak file cabinets in the living room. Pamela hated them. Said they made the place look like an office in a trashy noir detective film. The window seat was built so I’d have a place to store paperwork. Anyway, I put a lot of my personal things, records and so on, in my storage locker in the basement when I rented out the place. But I didn’t want to leave photos down there. It’s supposed to be dry and all, but photographs deteriorate so easily. I brought most of them along with me to the island. But I think I left some of them, the most recent albums, in the window seat.”

  Josie picked up her glass and peered at the remaining golden liquid. She realized the import of what Sam had just said. He had brought many of his photo albums to the island with him, but not the ones he had most recently filled. Not the ones with photographs of Pamela Peel.

  “You had your hair cut, didn’t you?” Sam asked, changing the subject.

  “Yes. Do you like it?”

  “Sure. You know I always like the way you look.”

  “Speaking of looks, did you really like what Pamela did in your apartment? It’s so different from your place at home,” she added.

  “Well, it’s not me, that’s for sure. But, Josie, you know me. I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to things that don’t matter to me. And the way that apartment was decorated was one of those things. I chose it because of the location, the building, and because I could afford to buy it. And, when I lived there, I furnished it pretty much the way I’ve furnished my house. I bought things when I needed them. I sure don’t buy anything I think is ugly. But when I buy furniture, I care how functional it is—whether it fits my spaces, whether it wi
ll do what I need it to do.”

  “I guess that’s not the way Pamela liked things,” Josie said. She was a bit hesitant. This was the closest they had come to actually talking about Pamela.

  “I don’t think many decorators furnish a place the way I do. Even the ones that claim to be interested mainly in functionality want to buy all new functional things. And, remember, my apartment wasn’t exactly like the house you know. My house now is nice because I can afford nice things. When I was starting out, I bought mostly junk because that was what I could afford. And, to tell the truth, once I live with something for a while, I don’t really see it. What I replaced, I replaced because it fell apart, not because it was ugly or in bad taste. But all that changed when I started seeing Pamela. I’m afraid she took my apartment as a personal affront. And I could see what she meant. After all, every time anyone came over, they commented on the fact that the hand of a talented and well-known designer had rather obviously not been at work in my home.”

  “So she got tired of hearing those comments?” It was something Josie understood. Sam was not only furnishing his house in the dunes, but also remodeling it. And he didn’t always ask for her expertise.

  “Yes. And then she gave me the decorating job as a Christmas present.”

  “That’s what your mother said. She also said that Pamela announced the present at a party . . . in front of all your guests.”

  “Yes, so, of course, I couldn’t refuse.”

  “Sounds a little manipulative,” Josie responded without thinking.

  “Oh, I think she was just trying to be generous. It was really very sweet of her.”

  Josie wasn’t about to change her first opinion, but she wasn’t going to speak up again. “So you liked the way it turned out?”

  For the first time, Sam hesitated before answering. “Not particularly. I did hate the whole decorating process. To tell the truth, after Pamela had tried to drag me to furniture showrooms two weekends in a row, I protested and refused to go. So Pamela did what she wanted without any input from me. Well, not a lot of input. I did tell her that I needed to have files somewhere in the place and a few other things. I really have no one to blame for how depressing that place turned out but myself. Every time Pamela asked me a question, I told her to go ahead and make the decision herself. She was the professional, after all. Now, of course, thanks to you, I know that I placed a real burden on her.”