The Design Is Murder (Murders By Design) by Jean Harrington Page A

and the greens and scrolled through the cell again. Naomi used to do calligraphy at an art shop, the fancy kind of penmanship people used on bar mitzvah, bridal shower and wedding invitations. She once said she made more money from calligraphy than from analyzing people’s handwriting. How much more was a good question. Naomi pretty much lived on the edge.
    At the Art Shops listing, I ran a finger along the search results. What was the name of the last place she’d worked at? No...no...no...then there it was.
    You’ve Been Framed.

Chapter Nineteen
    The accident victim had died on the operating table before he could be questioned. In light of that, Rossi rose early the next morning tense and troubled and not in the mood for conversation. Seeing him so worried, I was doubly glad I hadn’t added to his problems.
    After he left for the station, I dressed more or less effectively in a short tomato-red skirt and a taupe cropped top that matched my cork-heeled slides. The emotional cloud that had darkened the day’s opening dissolved as I drove to work under a glorious blue sky. What a stunning ceiling that sky blue would make in our new home, especially in the bedrooms.
    But there I went again, getting ahead of the game. I eased my foot on the gas pedal and rolled down the windows, continuing on to Fern Alley with the scents of gardenia and jasmine floating all around me.
    According to its website, You’ve Been Framed didn’t open until ten, an hour from now. I used the time to leave a call-back message for Tom Kruse at Oceanside Finishes and made an urn of coffee that along with cookies we offered to drop-in customers. After Lee arrived, I helped her rearrange the display tables, and then at ten on the dot, my heart pulsing a bit overtime—would Naomi still be there?—I punched in the art shop’s number.
    “You’re in luck. She’s here today,” owner Jane Walsh said. Her voice trailed off. “I don’t see her right now. Guess she stepped outside for a smoke. You want me to get her for you?”
    “No, that isn’t necessary. Would you just tell her Deva Dunne called? I’m coming right over. Please ask her not to leave until I get there.”
    “Sure thing. Will do.”
    I hung up and reached into the desk drawer where I’d stashed my bag and the journal.
    Busy with our first drop-in of the day, Lee was chatting about the merits of silk pillows over polyester. When I mimed that I had to leave, she nodded and went on talking.
    I flung my bag over a shoulder, opened the center desk drawer and took out the two letters Mike Hammerjack had sent from Florida State Prison. If Naomi could shed some light on the journal’s mystery, why not on mystery man Mike? I already knew he’d been convicted for forgery, but what else might his handwriting reveal?
    * * *
    “Naomi’s out back again,” Jane told me when I arrived at You’ve Been Framed. “She spends more time outside than she does over there.”
    “Over there” was a card table set up in a corner of the shop. Samples of Naomi’s calligraphy were pinned to a folding screen behind the table, and as always, the quality of her work stunned me. She made the most mundane address look like a work of art.
    “You can use the back door if you like.” Jane pointed in the direction of her rear workroom.
    I cut through the cluttered work space and pushed open a door that led out to a concrete slab overlooking a couple of trash cans and a small parking lot.
    Seated in a plastic tub chair, taking in the view, was Naomi, the familiar gray pigtail snaking down the middle of her back much as I remembered.
    “Hi, Naomi,” I said.
    She swiveled around, cigarette in hand. “Well, hi there, girl, where you been lately?”
    “Not too far. Busy, mostly.” I sank onto a plastic chair next to hers, downdraft from the smoke. In her thrift store jeans and outsized T-shirt, she looked older and thinner than she had a year ago.
    “You keeping well?” I asked.
    “As you see,” she