Death by Inferior Design Read Online Free PDF Page A

wall to wall with furniture, so I went downstairs in search of a temporary sewing room. I needed to assemble the drapes, skirts, pillows, and duvet.
    Once alone, my thoughts returned unbidden to the photograph. What kind of person would hide a baby picture under a piece of paneling for the grown child to discover? Was the whole thing a cruel joke? Or was someone trying to draw me into some weird psychological game? In any case, I vowed, would not renege on my promise to my mother.
    Furnishings and wall treatments absorb the auras of their inhabitants as surely as heavy kitchen curtains soak up cooking smells. The less-than-ideal ambience of the Hendersons’ home now struck me. This place all but screamed of marital friction, of two people existing more apart than together within the same quarters. Although Christmas was right around the corner, there wasn’t a speck of holiday decoration. There were no conversation nooks, no groupings of chairs in this house. The wear marks and cushion indentations on the left side of the sofa indicated that Carl was a television junkie—and that the Hendersons didn’t rotate their cushions with enough frequency. The cheery yellow and robin’s-egg blue chintz love seat in the sunroom was obviously where Debbie came to relax and dream; the brass floor lamp was adjusted to aim its light over one armrest, and a fluffy periwinkle-and-gray crocheted afghan had been draped over the sofa back. Their bedroom makeover might prove to be taking place in the nick of time, and I vowed that I would focus all my thoughts and energy toward the job at hand.
    I decided to put my sewing machine on the oak dining room table at the base of the stairs. There I could avoid most of the airborne plaster particles but still have convenient access to the front door for hauling supplies, and I could also race up the stairs whenever necessary. I wanted to begin with the draperies, knowing the new ones would be a massive improvement.
    Debbie Henderson—or perhaps one of the Axelrods, if the window treatments had come with the place—had made the common mistake of neglecting to pay attention to the curtain rods themselves. Floral fabric had been hung on metal hoops from a two-inch-diameter chocolate-brown rod, which sported oversized plastic finials on either end that resembled horizontal pagodas. That curtain rod had the same effect as a long, black heel mark in the center of an otherwise stunning travertine tile floor.
    After a few minutes, while I was immersed in pinning and cutting, I overheard Carl say, “Hey, Taylor, I’ve been thinking. You know anything about that hiding spot?”
    I instantly pricked up my ears.
    “Course not. Why would I?”
    Carl replied, “It just doesn’t seem like something Myra or Debbie would do . . . build a secret compartment in a wall. Randy either, for that matter.”
    “You think I’d put love notes and some chick’s necklace in your wall?”
    There was a pause. I didn’t move a muscle for fear that I’d miss their words. I hate to snoop on my clients, but my personal investment in their not-so-private conversation had been purchased in full by the photograph of me now tucked in the back pocket of my khakis.
    “I was thinking you might’ve been hiding something of a completely different nature. Back when you were house-sitting while Debbie ’n’ I went to Europe last summer.”
    A different nature?
    “I was staying in the guest room, not your room.”
    “That’s beside the point. You were alone in my house for over a month.”
    “Get real, Carl. I told you, I got set up! By that big, fat sack of shit you seem to be too scared of to—”
    “Watch it, Taylor!”
    After another pause, Taylor told Carl, “Mom believes me. Why don’t you?”
    “Because I can see you more clearly. She’s your mother. She lets you get away with murder.”
    “You saw for yourself! All that was in there were those stupid letters and some dumb necklace. It’s not like Gilbert found