The Design Is Murder (Murders By Design) Read Online Free PDF Page B

a problem.”
    He had dressed down this time, in linen shorts and a starched white shirt. He struck me as older and more nervous than I remembered. On the other hand, Charlotte looked exactly the same, frisky and relaxed, the pink bow still riding the crest of her topknot.
    Curious as to what I’d find, I entered the foyer and glanced around. Spacious but nondescript rooms opened off both sides of a central hall, and at the end of the hall James ushered me into a glass-walled living room that extended across the back of the house. A typical Florida layout would feature a pool outside that rear glass wall, but from the look of the terrace and garden area, there wasn’t one. Strange. James’s last wife had been a champion swimmer. She’d have wanted a pool, wouldn’t she?
    “I’ve arranged for tea,” he said, stroking Charlotte as if her life depended on it. “But first I thought you’d like a tour.”
    “Yes, by all means.”
    “Though before we tour, we must talk. So please sit down.”
    No question about it, James was tense. If he kept patting Charlotte so vigorously, she soon wouldn’t have a topknot left to love.
    He waited politely until I took a seat on a living room wing chair before sitting across from me with Charlotte on his lap. He’d been right about the interior needing a redo. One quick look around the room revealed that it was stuck in a time warp. Somewhere in the late eighties. That faded blue wallpaper would have to—
    “Imagine how I felt,” he began, his voice throbbing with emotion. “Just imagine. I’ve never been so shocked in my life.”
    “I’m not following you, James.”
    “I’m referring to the circus that went on across the lane yesterday. You were there. You know all about it. Although possibly not everything.”
    In his distress, he dumped Charlotte onto the floor. “Go play, sweetheart,” he ordered in a tone I doubt sweetheart was accustomed to.
    “I know Mrs. Hawkins passed away at a tragically young age.”
    “Mrs. Hawkins!” James actually snorted. “My fiancée is Mrs. Hawkins. At least for the time being.”
    “You’re confusing me, but that’s easy to do,” I fibbed, striving for some levity. Actually I’m not easily fooled—at least not all the time.
    “My fiancée, Kay Hawkins, is that man’s former wife.”
    Startled by his unexpected revelation, all I could think to say was, “Oh my.”
    “Exactly. Now why, I ask you,
why
did he choose to buy a house directly across the street from mine?”
    “I have no idea.”
    “Well, I do. Surveillance, Deva, surveillance. He wants to spy on us. On our comings and goings, to be a constant presence and threat to Kay every day of her life.”
    “Surely you’re exaggerating, James.”
    “No, I am not.” His emphatic tone left no room for argument. “The police are aware of how he treated Kay. The many calls she made for help. Her black eye. It’s all on record.”
    True. Rossi had told me about Kay’s marital woes, but I don’t think Rossi was aware that she would be living across the street from Stewart Hawkins, her former husband and the very cause of those marital woes.
    “I knew 595 had been sold,” James was saying, “but I was too busy with my own interests to inquire as to the buyer. A mistake. Had I known, I would have purchased the property myself and resold it to someone suitable. Someone less
lethal.
”
    At the venom in his voice, I stiffened. What on earth had I gotten myself into? In an attempt to defuse his anger, I said, “Stewart Hawkins hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing. Not in his wife’s...that is, Connie Rae’s...death.”
    “Mark my words, he will be. It’s just a question of time.”
    Charlotte was whining at his feet. He scooped her up. “Am I neglecting you, darling?” he asked.
    She licked his face.
Yes.
    “What worries me the most,” he continued, “is that Kay is terrified. Positively terrified.”
    Under the circumstances, who wouldn’t be? “Would you