CHAPTER 17

Shasta had wanted to meet at her house, but since going there alone would qualify as taking a foolish risk in Gilroy’s eyes, I asked if we might rendezvous at Grove Coffee. A little put out, but driven by curiosity, she showed up ten minutes later.

We grabbed a table by the window, the same one, it seemed to me, that Shasta and Dalton had sat at when an unknown watcher had snapped their photo.

“Your husband interviewed me a little while ago,” she said, peeling the plastic top from her Styrofoam cup of tea. “Again.”

“He’ll talk to everyone two or three times in the course of an investigation. It’s normal.”

“Right now he’s interviewing Isak again. So why are we here? Are you going to ask me if I killed Laura or Dalton?”

I balked. I sputtered. “Why—why would I think that?”

“Rachel, everyone in town knows you’re an amateur detective. You’ve actually solved murders, and Mary and I read your mysteries.”

Was she trying to defuse me with flattery? “That’s not why we’re here. Mary asked me to help her. She’s being blackmailed, and I think the blackmail is linked to the murders.”

I wasn’t terribly interested in Mary’s blackmail dilemma, except where it intersected with the murders, but the words Mary and blackmail opened doors with her friends.

Shasta seemed genuinely upset. “She’s being blackmailed? With what and over what?”

“In part, over you and Dalton having an affair.”

Her cup froze halfway to her mouth, but an instant later she recovered like a professional, took a sip of tea, sniffed nonchalantly, and set down the cup.

“I’ve sometimes thought we were an open secret,” she said. “I needn’t have bothered to hide it in this town.”

“It ended?”

“Months ago. I’m not sure why it started. Tragic, huh? Probably I wanted to get back at Isak. It’s not like Dalton was attractive in any sense of the word. I love Isak, don’t get me wrong, but he’s—what’s the phrase?—emotionally unavailable. He loves his gallery, his dream of being an art maven and sponsor, more than anything else, including me. How did you find out?”

“Someone took a photo of you two together, here at Grove Coffee, and sent it to Mary. She was supposed to publish it in the Post.”

Shasta made a face. “Publish a photo of me and Dalton at Grove Coffee? How is that news?”

“It doesn’t make sense, I know.”

“Doesn’t make sense? It’s idiotic.”

“I don’t think the photo was the point. Along with it, the blackmailer sent a copy of Brodie Keegan’s DUI in Idaho. Have you heard about that?”

Shasta perked up. “No, but tell me more.”

“He also sent the cover page of a lawsuit against Isak for sexual misconduct at the Tilton Academy.”

Expecting an adamant denial, I was surprised when she sighed wearily. “That was going to get out too, one of these days. It was inevitable.”

“Who knew about Minnesota?”

“Anyone who tried to find out, I’d think. An online Minnesota paper wrote about it, and the internet never dies. But someone would have to have an inkling to find it, wouldn’t they? They’d have to suspect. Though with Isak, maybe they did have an inkling.”

“Did you tell anyone in Juniper Grove about it?”

“Only Mary. She might have told Clay. I’m positive Isak’s never told anyone. He won’t even discuss it with me. He’s always . . . he’s always gone for younger ones.”

I stared at her in disbelief. “You’re in your thirties.”

“Thirty-four. Verging on too old for Isak. He has eyes for them ten years younger—for girls like Charlotte Wynn.”

Had Charlotte lied about an affair with Isak? “Has he . . . with Charlotte?”

“I don’t doubt he’s thought about it. You must have noticed he fawns over her. I’m sure he flirts. Thank goodness Charlotte likes Brodie. But I’m sure there have been others.”

“Which is why you wanted to get back at him with Dalton.”

“Dalton was the only weapon I had. Isak found out about us, of course, as I knew he would.”

“How do you think he found out?” I asked.

“He wouldn’t say, and I didn’t care to press it.”

I wanted to tell her about the two audio bugs in the studio, but Gilroy would ask Isak directly about those, and if Isak placed them, Shasta would find out from him or the rumor grapevine.

“Is it true—what happened in Minnesota?” I asked.

“Isak said no.”

“You don’t believe him.”

“Sophia Geller was sixteen.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Isak was never accused of sleeping with her. If he touched her or pressured her, that would be low, even for him.”

I could see the pain in Shasta’s eyes as she sought an escape. She’d never fully explored what had happened at the Tilton Academy, and she couldn’t bear to delve as deeply as my questions required.

I recalled Dalton’s painting of Isak putting his labels on jams made using others’ recipes. Good grief, recipe stealing was nothing in comparison to what he’d done at Tilton.

Her long, slender fingers drumming the table, Shasta fidgeted in her seat and nibbled on her lower lip.

“I know this is painful,” I said.

“Oh, you have no idea, Rachel. All right, then. Isak is indecent, weak, and stupid, but he’s not a murderer, and he didn’t want Mary to publish an article about him, so he didn’t tell her about Minnesota. That much is clear. So if you’re trying to help Mary, let’s figure out who sent her the lawsuit cover page. What about Dalton?”

That hadn’t occurred to me. After all, Dalton was dead and thus off the suspect list. “Why him?”

“He was angry with me when I broke it off, and he painted incidents from people’s pasts with the intent to embarrass them. Two and two.”

“He often lied about people’s pasts, or told half lies.”

“That was his cover. Saying he made this and that up.” She spread her hands in a gesture of innocence and mimicked Dalton’s voice. “It’s not reality, it’s fiction.”

I gazed out the window, out over Main Street. White Christmas lights, hanging in other windows and wrapped around tree trunks and concrete planters, glittered as if it were still Christmas.

“What do you think of Isak and Clay’s gallery?” I asked, looking back to Shasta.

“I see financial ruin, like Mary does. Our two little boys are chasing an expensive, ruinous dream, and lying to us about what it costs. They should never have hitched their wagons to a talentless painter the likes of Dalton Taylor. I’m sorry he’s dead, especially that he died so horribly . . .” Shasta stopped, her eyes seeming to look once more on the horror she’d seen in his studio. “But he was a pretentious hack, and our houses were mortgaged for that gallery.”

“Your house too?”

“Clay told Mary he mortgaged their house only after the fact. Isak begged me to take out a second mortgage and I foolishly agreed.”

“That’s why you wanted my landscape.”

“Isak said he’d sell it for twelve thousand. I’d be surprised if it brought in eight, but seventy-five percent of eight is money the gallery doesn’t have. If we cut our losses now, we might survive. Otherwise, we won’t.”

“At the brunch, Clay told me Hidden Little Town Number 7 would bring at least thirty-five thousand.”

“Twenty to twenty-two,” Shasta said.

“Because Dalton’s dead?”

“Because it was never worth thirty-five. You know, I was going to put the sale price for his sold Hidden paintings when I created Dalton’s website—the first, second, and ninth—but Isak said not to, that it would lower expectations. They sold for about twenty-one thousand each. Grossly overpriced, in my view.”

“Still, that’s sixty-three thousand for three paintings.”

“Before taxes.”

“How many paintings did Dalton sell in a year?”

“If he was telling me the truth—and remember, we’re talking about Dalton Taylor—he sold Hidden Number 9 and two mediocre landscapes last year. Maybe thirty thousand?”

“But think of the expenses—his house is huge.”

“Costs a pretty penny.”

When I pointed out the renovations and landscaping Dalton had done in the past three years, totaling, records said, a hundred and twenty thousand, a frown creased her face. “That’s mad. Does he have an inheritance or trust fund? To think that cheapskate would only give the gallery twenty-five percent.” She motioned at the window. “It’s getting bad out there.”

I turned. Snow swirled and rode the wind, sideways and downward, coming to a stop in ever-deepening drifts.

“One last thing, Shasta. After the brunch, Isak and Clay were seen arguing on the street outside their cars. On Willow Court, near Dalton’s house. Any idea what the friction would be?”

She started to shake her head but stopped. “What were they doing there?”

“Mary told me they were meeting with Dalton over changes he wanted to make.”

“Yes, I know that—Isak stranded me, left the brunch in our car. Next time I take my own car. But why were they arguing in the street? They were stressed, starting to see the gallery wasn’t financially viable, but Isak didn’t tell me they’d argued.” She made another face and turned away. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m glad they argued. I hope they part ways.”

“What about Mary? You’re friends.”

“We were. We’re not anymore. I trace it back to when Brodie was hired and she started worrying about her job. She changed. Truth? I don’t like being around her.” Shasta buttoned her coat and unhooked her purse strap from her chair. “I hope you find out who’s blackmailing her, though. Or who was blackmailing her. My money’s still on Dalton.”

“If not Dalton?”

“Then Brodie Keegan. Ambitious little rat.”

I left Grove Coffee right after Shasta. It wouldn’t be long before the Mystery Gang showed up at my house, and I needed to eat some sort of dinner first. I’d planned to cook something for Gilroy, too, but time had gotten away from me and I knew he’d grab something from Wyatt’s.

My back door was locked tight when I arrived, everything in order, but I entered my home hesitantly, listening for out-of-place sounds before I shut the door behind me.

Then, the stolen landscape niggling at my mind, I ate a quick dinner of leftover chili and finished it off with a cream puff.

It was only logical that the same person who stole my painting had also stolen the drop-cloth-covered painting from Dalton’s studio. In turn, it was logical that the thief had killed Dalton and, probably, Laura.

Was Mary’s blackmailer at all connected to the murders?

As I was cleaning my dishes, the land line rang. Gilroy told me to check my cell for a photo he was about to send.

Seconds later it came through.

“What does it remind you of?” he asked.

“Holy cow. Where did you find it?”

“I knew I’d seen something like your painting before. Underhill’s been searching art sites most of the day.”

“Dalton called my landscape a study of a study. Now I see what he meant.”

The photo on my phone was Dalton’s painting in larger form. Barren white fields—only more of them—more tattered clouds, more snow-covered hedges, more shivering black birds.

“It’s Winter Nocturne, by a mid-twentieth-century French artist, Jean-Louis Dumont. Taylor’s painting wasn’t a study, Rachel, it was practice for a forgery.”

Now it fit. Of course, of course. “Was the original stolen?”

“No, it’s in a small museum in France. I think Taylor was practicing Dumont’s style so he could create a newly discovered Dumont.”

“That explains why he was so reluctant to give me the painting. But he did. Why?”

“Because you appreciated his skill? Because he was arrogant and didn’t think you or anyone else who saw it would know about Dumont or make a connection to forgery? Most of Dumont’s work is from the 1950s and 1960s.”

“How did you know it was Dumont?”

“I didn’t at first. I must’ve seen that painting or something similar in a book. I was an art major my first six months in college.”

“You? Knock me over with a feather. Why have you never told me?”

“That sort of thing doesn’t really come up decades later, does it? Anyway, we’ll probably never know why Taylor gave it to you, but this explains why his studio was ransacked and two paintings were taken.”

“To rid the place of forgeries and practice paintings. This is how he paid for all his renovations and landscaping. Did Royce tell you how much those cost?”

“Yes, and he told me about Taylor’s will. I don’t know how he gets people to divulge information, but Taylor had a second bank account, this one in Boulder, and he left half the money in it to Alison Larkin Taylor and the other half to a bird sanctuary in Denver. Several hundred thousand, all told.”

“He liked birds,” I said, recalling the heated birdbaths on his deck. I almost laughed. “Does Alison know?”

“She will tomorrow.”

“Is the money legal?”

“That’s outside my purview, and I intend to keep it that way.”

I gave him a quick rundown on Charlotte snooping in the Volunteer Aid Program records and then we ended our call, Gilroy telling me he’d be home late.

As I turned to readying coffee cups and plating the shortbread cookies I’d intended for the station, I again puzzled over who was blackmailing Mary. She hadn’t given in and published an article on Brodie or Isak. Julia subscribed to that rag of a paper and would’ve told me if she had. Anyway, Brodie would never reveal his Idaho secret, and the paper’s owner, liking Brodie, probably wouldn’t have allowed it.

But I’d mentioned Brodie’s DUI to Shasta. Brodie Keegan’s DUI in Idaho. With that, I’d given her all the information she needed to look it up on her own, and she’d been intrigued. I’d mentioned Brodie to several people, in fact. And I’d brought up Isak’s assault charge in Minnesota and Shasta and Dalton’s affair.

Before long, everyone would know about Isak and Brodie and Shasta’s affair. Targets, all of them. The only benign item in Mary’s packet was the first page of her home’s second mortgage. No one cared about that, and Mary herself had complained about it to Shasta and, probably, others.

Who benefited from the blackmail? No one had asked for money, so money was never the point. That raised two more questions: Who had been targeted, and to what purpose?

And asking myself the latter of those two questions, I realized the purpose had already been accomplished. Newspaper articles weren’t necessary when wagging tongues, my own included, would work.

Mary’s blackmail was meant to destroy enemies. Not just people like Brodie, the young drunk and forward-looking pup who didn’t deserve to lord it over his subordinates, but entities too. Like that despised art gallery, which threatened to bring the Blackwells and Karlsens financial ruin.

Gilroy was fond of saying that past behavior was the best predictor of future behavior. The concept had served him well as a detective in Fort Collins and a police chief in Juniper Grove. And Mary had proven she had no problem lying to me.

I phoned Charlotte Wynn and demanded an answer to the two questions I was about to ask. If she wasn’t straight with me, I’d tell Roche and White what she’d been up to in the Records Section.

“Did you locate Brodie’s DUI police report and Isak Karlsen’s Minnesota lawsuit?”

“Me?” she asked in a masquerade of innocence.

“Or have someone help you locate them,” I said. “Don’t play word games with me—you know what I’m asking.”

The line went quiet. Then, “I told people in Idaho and Minnesota that my firm needed them. They emailed PDFs.”

Though I’d expected her answer, I was gobsmacked. If she’d do that to Brodie, someone she was fond of, what would she not do? “You were paid?”

“Not as much as I should have for the risk I took.”

“Paid by Mary Blackwell?”

“How did you know?”