“Hey, Tessa! What’s wrong?” Jerry shouted as he ran out of the house and across the backyard toward her.
“There was someone inside,” she said. “Wait here.”
She slipped through the door, found a light switch, and flipped it. An overhead light turned on. She scanned the living room and kitchen. Sofa cushions were overturned. Drawers hung out of a small desk. Books littered the wide-planked wood floor.
The intruder had been busy.
She recovered her gun from the corner. Even knowing the intruder had fled, she systematically cleared the rooms anyway. The high-ceilinged space had been divided loft-style into a few large rooms. The living room and kitchen were one giant open space. The single bedroom had an attached bath. A large, sunny room served as an art studio. There was one more room next to it, where it appeared Dante stored his paint supplies and drying canvases. The bedroom and studio areas were tidy, so the intruder hadn’t finished his search.
Bruce was still tied up reviewing evidence. Kurt hadn’t called, which meant he was still on the mainland. Tessa pulled out her phone and dialed Logan’s number. He answered on the first ring.
“Are you busy?” Tessa asked.
“I was just going to call you and see if you needed help,” he said. “Murder investigations are your expertise, but the state park is my turf. I’d like to work with you on the case.”
“That’s perfect.” Tessa told him about the intruder at the barn.
Logan swore under his breath. “You’re not injured?”
“No.”
“He was looking for something.”
“Seems like it.”
“I’ll be right there.” Logan ended the call.
She returned to the main room. The window in the eating nook overlooked the woods. She walked closer, noting the broken latch.
Jerry stood in the doorway. “Hey, Tessa. You’re bleeding.” He pointed at her leg.
A dark stain colored her uniform pants below the knee. She returned to the little porch, lowered herself to the front stoop, and rolled up her pants leg. Blood ran from a gash across her calf. The minute she saw the cut, her leg began to throb.
Tessa limped to her vehicle. On the way, she called Bruce, told him about the break-in, and gave him a description of the suspect. “Male, approximately five feet, ten inches tall, wearing jeans and a dark-colored leather jacket layered over a hoodie, possibly riding an ATV or motorcycle.”
“Do you want me to come out there?” he asked.
“Is Kurt back?”
“No. His daughter had a complication.”
That didn’t sound good.
“Then I need you to keep sorting through the evidence.” Tessa would not drag Kurt back if his family needed him. “I’ll manage.”
In Seattle, she would have issued a BOLO alert. Every patrol car would have been looking for the suspect. But she and Bruce were the only deputies on Widow’s Island today. She debated calling the ferry terminal and giving the operator a description of the man so they could keep him on the island, but she hadn’t seen his face. She wouldn’t recognize him if she saw him again. She doubted he’d ride up to the ferry terminal on a quad.
After opening the cargo area of her SUV, she unzipped the first aid kit. With her boot propped on the bumper, she applied a disinfectant wipe to her wound, breathing through the eye-watering sting. Then she covered the gash with a thick layer of gauze and bound her whole calf with an Ace bandage. She’d need a few stitches, but at least for now she wouldn’t bleed on the crime scene. She gathered the wrappers, removed her gloves, and stuffed the trash inside one of them.
When she set her foot on the ground, pain shot up her leg. For a wound she hadn’t known she’d had five minutes ago, it hurt like it was on fire.
Donning fresh gloves, she went back to the barn. She put her hands on her hips and scanned the mess.
“Tessa?” Logan’s voice called.
“In here,” she said.
Logan walked in. He’d showered and changed since the previous night. His face was freshly shaved, and he smelled good. Really good. Like fresh cedar and citrus.
Tessa resisted the urge to lean closer and inhale.
He’d think I was nuts.
She thought she was losing it.
This felt nothing like the innocent teenage crush she’d had on him. Their relationship dynamic had shifted, and the sniff she wanted to give him was nothing like the one she’d given Bruce. But then, she and Logan had both changed.
His gaze roamed over the room. “Looks like someone gave the place a good toss.”
More comfortable with the case than her sudden notice of Logan, she agreed. “It seems I interrupted him before he got to the bedroom or studio.”
“Do you know how he got in?”
“He jimmied the kitchen window.”
“Prints?”
Tessa shook her head. “He was wearing gloves.”
“Assuming he was still inside because he hadn’t found what he was looking for, we should probably start in the rooms he didn’t have a chance to search.”
“Agreed.” Tessa limped into the master bedroom.
“What happened to your leg?”
“Just a cut. It’s not a big deal. I’ll stop and see Henry when we’re done here.”
Tessa started with the nightstand and dresser, checking in and under drawers and behind the furniture. They worked their way around the bedroom methodically. Logan lifted the mattress, then the box spring. He pulled the bed away from the wall and looked behind the headboard. In the closet, Tessa checked the pockets of coats and clothes.
Logan emerged from the bathroom. “So far, I don’t see anything unusual.”
Just inside the closet, a hamper overflowed with dirty clothes. Tessa began lifting pants and shirts and checking pockets. Underneath the dirty laundry, she found a duffel bag. She unzipped it. The bag was stuffed with bundles of cash, each bundle about an inch thick.
“Now this is interesting.” She crouched, picked up a bundle, and removed the rubber band. Fanning the bills, she whistled. “Mostly twenties, and there are a lot of them.” She did a rough count of the cash. “Looks like about three thousand in this stack.” She reached into the bag and flipped through the ends of a few more bundles. They seemed to be the same mix of bills. “Assuming the other stacks are about the same, there could be a hundred thousand dollars here.”
Logan’s brow rose. “Then he wasn’t a starving artist.”
“I doubt he made that much money painting landscapes of Widow’s Island.” Tessa rocked back on her heels. “No one except a major drug dealer would keep this much cash on hand. I wonder what Dante was up to.”
She set the duffel bag aside to be logged in to evidence, then stood and walked through the doorway into the studio. Light streamed in from a bay window. A chaise lounge stretched out in the patch of light that fell in front of the window.
Tessa turned in a circle. There were a dozen paintings lined up against one wall. An orca surfacing in the bay. Ruby’s Island in the center of a sparkling Widow’s Bay. Waves crashing on rocks below Widow’s Walk.
An easel stood in the center of the brightly lit space. It held a half-finished painting of a cove. Moonlight shimmered on the water and rocks. Tessa stopped in front of the painting. A half dozen photographs of the same beach were pinned to the wall next to the easel.
“This is the beach where he was murdered,” Tessa said. “It looks like he painted from photographs. He had a camera with him. Maybe he was taking pictures when he was killed.”
“Makes sense.” Logan leaned over her shoulder. “He was no Van Gogh, but he had talent. Do you have any idea how much he asked for one of these paintings?”
“The last time I was in the art shop, I believe the price on a canvas this size was around five hundred dollars.”
“How many did he sell a month?” Logan asked.
Tessa pulled out her phone and called Rachel Abbott, the owner of the art store. “Hi,
Rachel. This is Tessa.”
Logan walked into the adjoining storage room.
“Oh, my God,” Rachel said, sobbing. “I heard about Dante. How did this happen? He was such a nice young man.”
Tessa heard the sound of Rachel blowing her nose. “Did you know of anyone who didn’t like Dante?”
Rachel sniffed. “No. Everyone liked him. He was sweet and thoughtful.”
“How well did his art sell?”
“Tourists loved it. I sold twenty paintings last summer.”
“What about during the off-season?” Tessa asked.
“You know it’s slower in the winter. Maybe two or three a month at best, depending on the tourist traffic.” Rachel’s breath hitched. “I can’t believe he’s dead.”
“It’s horrible,” Tessa agreed. “Thanks, Rachel.”
She lowered her phone and relayed the information to Logan. Dante definitely hadn’t accumulated $100,000 by selling local landscapes.
Logan emerged from the storage room. “Have you looked in there?”
“No.” Tessa followed him in. Canvases leaned on the wall. Tessa had assumed they were blank canvases, but Logan turned one around. It was a portrait of a woman, reclining on the chaise in the studio, clad in nothing but a long string of pearls. It was a tasteful depiction, with her legs strategically angled. Her hair cascaded over her shoulder and across her breasts, showing just a hint of flesh.
Tessa recovered from her shock to look at the subject’s face. “That’s Shannon Moore.”
Logan stared at the opposite wall, as if uncomfortable looking at Shannon’s portrait. “Is Shannon still married to Brad?”
“Yes, and they still own the Naked Sheep Winery.” Tessa linked her hands behind her back and studied the painting. “The painting is amazing. I mean, Shannon looks great for her age, but . . .”
Dante had made the most of her best traits. He hadn’t made her look younger or super skinny. He’d smoothed and accentuated her curves, but he hadn’t painted away her flaws. Tessa could see the edge of a stretch mark along Shannon’s hip and a spider vein on her leg. But the small imperfections didn’t detract from her beauty at all. Dante had made her look as if they didn’t matter. Her sexiness came from within. On the canvas, her skin glowed. Her gaze was sensual and direct, as if she knew exactly how incredible she looked. It wasn’t a come-hither gaze. It was powerful, even demanding.
Logan nodded. “There are more.”
“What? How many more?”
“Three.” Logan moved to the other canvases and began turning them around.
Tessa didn’t know the next two subjects, but then Logan spun the final painting.
“That’s Pam Rhodes,” Tessa said.
Like he had done in Shannon’s painting, Dante had portrayed each woman as realistic—and yet incredibly beautiful. Pam’s cesarean scar peeked out from behind her bent leg, and a bit of cellulite mottled her thighs. All three were attractive women in their mid- to late forties, all were nude, and their portraits were stunning. It was the look in their eyes, Tessa decided. It was confidence.
“This was his real talent,” she said. “Making women see themselves as beautiful.”
Logan frowned at Pam’s painting. “I don’t know her.”
“Pam owns Shiny Objects, the jewelry store in North Sound.”
“Is she married?” Logan asked.
“Yes. Her husband, Steve, is some Hollywood big shot. They bought a place here a few years ago, but I don’t see him around much.” She glanced around the studio. “This case has taken some interesting turns. We have an artist using a fake name, with a big bag of cash hidden in his laundry hamper, and paintings of naked local women.”
“I wonder if their husbands knew. Jealousy is an excellent motive for murder.”
“A definite possibility.”
“Tessa.” Logan’s voice was filled with warning. “I found another painting.”
She turned and nearly tripped over her own feet. Her mother.
Thank God, her mom was wearing a long flowered dress in the painting. Her gray-and-blonde hair fell in waves to her shoulders, and her feet were bare. She looked like the aging hippie that she was. But it was the look in her eyes that stopped Tessa cold.
The blue eyes that gazed out of the painting were soft and clear.
Dante hadn’t lived on the island for an entire year. Mom was already starting to decline by the time he’d arrived. Yet he’d managed to paint her exactly how she’d looked before her eyes had gone vague and watery.
“Did you know he was painting your mother’s picture?” Logan asked.
“No.” Tessa wondered what else she didn’t know about her mother’s relationship with the dead man.
5
Logan didn’t believe Tessa’s mother had anything to do with the artist’s death, but the paleness of Tessa’s face told him that she was clearly disturbed by the painting.
“Your mom was at home when you received the call about the murder, right?” he asked.
“Yes.” Tessa’s brow furrowed.
“Then you have nothing to worry about. Your mother wouldn’t hurt a soul.”
“No, of course not. But she could easily be taken advantage of. I have to double check her bank accounts and see if any money is missing.”
“Brad Moore and Steve Rhodes are on the top of my suspect list.” If Logan were married, he would not want his wife getting naked for another man.
Tessa seemed to shake off her shock. She went back into the studio and sat at a desk in the corner. “There’s nothing illegal about painting women in the nude.”
“Jealousy has nothing to do with the law. Was this artist good looking?” Logan had only seen the man dead. Dante hadn’t been at his best after catching a harpoon with his chest.
Tessa pushed a button on the answering machine. There was only one message—Shannon Moore asking when her painting would be dry enough to pick up. Tessa opened a drawer. “He was too young for my taste. I prefer men to boys.” She pulled a manila file out of the desk and set it on the blotter. “But he was certainly easy on the eyes. I imagine plenty of women would have been interested.”
Why did the thought of Tessa being interested in a man irritate him?
She opened the file and flipped through several pages. “Here are the invoices and contracts for the four nude portraits. The women each paid a two-thousand-dollar deposit, with an equal amount being due upon delivery. The two women we didn’t recognize are both from Seattle.”
“Maybe they were tourists.” Logan pulled a bookcase away from the wall and checked behind it.
“It seems Dante’s arrangements with Shannon Moore, Pam Rhodes, and the other two women were the same.” She looked up at him. “This is all on the up-and-up. There’s nothing subversive here. They weren’t sneaking around.”
“I’ll bet their husbands didn’t know.” Logan crossed his arms over his chest.
“We’ll have to interview them and find out.” Tessa tapped her finger on the desk. “There’s no contract for my mother’s painting.”
“Maybe we’ll find it somewhere else.”
“Maybe.” Tessa surveyed the room. “We’ll take the paintings, the invoices, and the cash with us as evidence.”
Tessa’s phone beeped. She read the display and pressed “Answer.” A minute later, she ended her call. “The medical examiner ID’d our body. Dante’s real name was Frank Martin. He was from New Jersey, and he was wanted for fraud. They haven’t found any next of kin yet.”
“So he was a con man.” Logan wasn’t surprised. The whole setup felt sleazy.
“Could be,” Tessa said. “Let’s talk to Jerry.”
Logan followed her out of the barn. Her limp was getting worse.
Jerry was leaning on a tree, his face turned up to the sky. The sun had broken through the clouds. Even the weak winter rays were appreciated.
“Jerry, did you know Dante’s name wasn’t really Dante?” Tessa stopped in a ray of sunlight.<
br />
“No way, really?” Jerry shook his head.
“His real name was Frank Martin. He was from Jersey.” Tessa winced and shifted her weight off her wounded leg.
“No shit?” Jerry barked out a laugh. “If I was Frank Martin from New Jersey, and I wanted to talk a bunch of rich women out of their clothes and their money, I’d have changed my name too.”
“You knew about the women?” Tessa asked.
“Sure.” Jerry nodded. “Dante could turn on the charm. He had a nice little enterprise going. You don’t think he could have actually made any real money painting lighthouses and crap like that?”
Tessa frowned. “Do you think there was more going on between Frank and the women than was strictly professional?”
“No.” Jerry shook his head. “He told me he wasn’t sleeping with them. That was the most beautiful thing about his plan. All he had to do was flatter them and tell them how beautiful they were. He was so good, he didn’t need to sleep with them to get their money.”
“He played them,” Logan said.
“Hey.” Jerry raised both palms to the sky. “He made them feel good about themselves. They would walk out of the barn beaming. They were so happy. What’s the harm in that?”
Logan thought there was plenty, though he couldn’t come up with any specific argument on the spot.
“I’ll need the key to the barn,” Tessa said.
Jerry handed it over.
“Thanks,” said Tessa. “If we have more questions, we’ll call you.”
She returned to her vehicle and found a roll of crime scene tape.
“I’ll seal the door.” Logan went back to the barn and fastened the tape across the entrance.
“We need to talk to Pam Rhodes and Shannon Moore and their husbands.”
“After Henry takes a look at your leg,” Logan said.
She sighed. “Fine.”
They dropped the evidence at the sheriff’s station, then made a detour to Henry’s office. The office was empty when Tessa limped into the waiting room and eased into a plastic chair.
Logan stepped up to the reception counter and called out, “Hello?”
A Bone to Pick (Widow's Island Novella Book 2) Page 4
