by Dawn Dugle
"She's a Bad Mama Jama..." Bodie started singing and dancing as I walked out of the dressing room. "Damn girl, you look amazeballs. Here, put these shoes on."
"Stilettos? No way."
"Put. Them. On. I need to see how they look with the dress."
Did I mention, it's hard to argue with Queer Eye for the Straight Gal? I put on the shoes and, in the words of the sales gal and Bodie, they were so darling I had to buy them too. I think darling means shoes that cannot be worn for any length of time but I was outvoted by my partner and the sales associate.
I barely had enough time to run home, shower and change before we had to turn around and go back Downtown to the gallery. For a moment, I considered keeping the tags on the dress and returning it, but when I got a look at myself in the mirror, I knew I'd be keeping it. I was feeling pretty sassy with my new look and even made sure to shave all superfluous hair from my body.
I hunted for a matching bra and panty set in my dresser. There was a time capsule from my 30s when I had hope in such things. I cracked it open, pulled out the set, dusted the years off and checked for moth damage. There was none. Score one for a vintage lady.
In my mind, I could imagine bumping into a handsome stranger at the gallery, we would laugh over glasses of Champagne as his multicolored eyes met mine, then he would take me home to his house....
No. No. No. I already tried that and not only ended up way out of my league, but the whole thing was a disaster. Plus, with shaved legs and a matching bra and panty set, I knew that nearly guaranteed I would not meet anyone tonight.
Plus, it's a wake. Tacky, Wysdom. Tacky.
I flicked my non-existent long hair, batted my eyelashes at my reflection and said: "That's just the funniest thing I've EVER heard."
Nope. Can't do it without gagging.
I sighed. It was worth a shot.
∞∞∞
Chapter Fourteen
The Campbell Gallery was packed and everyone in the place look like they were shaken off the pages of GQ or Cosmo. So much botox and silicone, so little patience from me.
Bodie and I decided to split up and work the room, eavesdropping on conversations to see what we could pick up.
"I heard she wasn't really dead and this was all just a publicity stunt..."
Nope. She's really dead. I kept moving.
"I heard she caught her husband cheating with that assistant of his and he shot her in a fit of passion..."
Try again. Moving along.
"That business manager of hers is to DIE for..."
I froze.
"I haven't ever seen him with a woman on his arm. Do you suppose he's gay?"
Don't think so, although I'd like the chance to prove that theory wrong once and for all. I turned to make my way to another part of the room and tripped over my darling death traps they call shoes. I would have fallen flat on my face, if it weren't for two giant hands that reached out and grabbed my hips to hold me steady.
I looked up into a beautiful pair of mismatched eyes and my body temperature went from normal to surface of the sun! It was the God Among Men himself, Luke Nelson and he was smiling down at me. "Just the woman I was thinking about, and right where I want her."
"Right where you want me?"
"In my hands."
Oh my.
I motioned to my hips. "I'm hard to miss, I have a lot down there."
Luke leaned in to whisper. "I love curvy women. And your hips seem to be tailor-made for my hands."
I fanned my face. "Is it me in here or is it just hot?"
He laughed, pulling his hands away from my hips. I was just about to be disappointed, when he pulled me toward him with an arm around my waist and leaned in to whisper again.
"You here to check me out?"
I made a noise that sounded like someone was strangling a cat. Sweet Oprah he smelled good. "What is that cologne you're wearing?"
"I'm not wearing any."
Damity-Damn-Damn!
I needed to change the subject before I forgot my mission and dragged the God Among Men out to the parking lot for round three of kissy face. Or four. I wasn't sure what number we were on. Damn hormones.
"I need your help with something," I said.
"Anything for you."
"I want you to introduce me to Seth Campbell, but don't tell him my real name or what I do for a living."
"What name would you like to use?"
"Dealer's choice," I replied.
For the record, never let a hot guy choose your name when you're going under cover. It's in the Top Five Hall of Fame for Bad Ideas.
With Luke's hand at the small of my back, we slowly made our way across the room. I didn't miss Bodie's raised eyebrows which meant I had a lot of 'splainin' to do later.
Every woman in the place was looking at me with a mixture of curiosity (what the hell does he see in her?) and anger (why the hell is he with her?). I kind of liked it, but also wondered the same things.
Luke was gracious and stopped to talk to nearly everyone along the way. He looked people in the eye and listened. His handshake was firm, but not too tough. When he introduced me as his date, "Ginger", I gave him the old Abreo Stare, but he just asked me if I had something stuck in my eye. Ugh. I'm never going to learn how to do that right.
We finally made our way to Seth Campbell who was holding court near one of Claire Rousseau's master works. Five feet long by seven feet tall, the canvas was ginormous.
"As you can see, Claire used a lot of blues and greens in her work. She wanted the art to be tranquil and peaceful, a release from the day-to-day stress of modern life," Campbell pointed out parts of the painting as he over-emphasized every other word.
"What's that painting worth?" I whispered to Luke.
"When she was alive? It was on the market for thirty grand. But this one just sold tonight for a hundred."
My mouth dropped open. "A hundred thousand dollars?"
"Yep."
"Does the cousin make any money on that sale?" I asked.
"A standard gallery commission is 50 percent. But because he was Claire's cousin, he only took thirty," Luke shrugged.
"He made thirty-thousand dollars on that painting? For doing what?" Man, I am in the wrong business.
"Well, he frames it and markets it. People come from all over the country to buy art in his gallery, which has overhead, so..."
"Still seems like an awful lot of money for swirls of paint," I grabbed a glass of Champagne off a waiter's tray, looked at it and set it back down again.
"Wise choice," Luke winked at me.
"Is this the only way Claire sold her art?"
"No. She only hung a few pieces in Seth's gallery, just to help him out. The rest she offered online, where she would keep 100 percent of the profits," Luke explained. "Claire would ship out the ones that weren't going to be picked up locally."
"That sounds like a lot of work for an artist of her caliber."
"Oh Monica sometimes helped her."
"Monica, as in Vern's assistant Monica?"
"Yes. She had extra time on her hands while he was in virtual meetings or on conference calls, and we didn't ship art all that often, so she volunteered to help."
The phone in my tiny baby purse buzzed. It was a text from Faith: You were right. A palette knife was indeed the murder weapon!!
Now we're getting somewhere! I returned my phone to the purse that was only slightly larger than it was.
"Everything okay? Luke's eyebrows knitted together. Damn. There ought to be a law against someone looking so perfect and concerned at the same time.
"Lucio!" A voice behind us cut through the din. We both turned to see Seth Campbell walking toward us.
Seth was about the same height as Luke, but without the muscle. He had dark hair, pulled into a ridiculous man bun and was wearing a bright yellow suit, with a Mandarin collar jacket. He was dripping in diamonds. Huge diamond studs in both ears. A diamond tennis bracelet and two diamond pavé rings, one
for each hand. Even though it was nighttime, he was wearing cat's eye sunglasses. The kind of sunglasses that don't really protect your eyes from the sun, but are just tinted enough you can't see someone's eyes. At the corners of the glasses were clusters of diamonds.
"Dear Lucio, so grand of you to make it," Seth said breathlessly as he air kissed both of Luke's cheeks. As warm as he was to Luke, the temperature dipped to below zero when he turned a critical eye to me. Well, I suspected it was a critical eye, if I could see his eyes at all. "And whom did you bring to our little gathering?"
"This is my date, Ginger."
"Charmed, I'm sure," I said in my breathiest Badge Bunny voice and held out a weak hand, which he grabbed and kissed. His lips were cold and slimy against my skin. It was all I could do not to yank my hand back in horror and wipe it on the back of Luke's jacket.
Luke slipped his arm around my waist and pulled me closer. "Looks like a good turnout."
"Isn't it brilliant? So many people wanted to pay their respects, we had to turn scores of them away at the door!" Seth was ghoulishly gleeful, looking around the room and waving to people. "Just this afternoon, I did interviews with CNN and NBC and the phone has been ringing off the hook."
"I'm glad so many people want to pay their respects," Luke started.
"What?" Seth stopped scanning the room and looked at Luke. "Oh yes, their respects... to Claire. Terrible tragedy that."
Seth bowed his head for a microsecond then looked up at a couple waving to him from across the room and smiled at them.
"Oh, if you'll excuse me, the Stevensons are here. They're in a bidding war over one of Claire's master works and I must attend to them, darlings. Nice to meet you, Grainger."
"Ginger," I said to Seth's retreating back. "What a douche."
"People grieve in their own ways," Luke said without any enthusiasm.
"He gives me the creeps and seems all too happy that his cousin is dead."
"Can't argue with that."
"What's with all the diamonds?"
Luke shrugged. "Business must be good."
I looked over at the back of the gallery. "What's down that hallway?"
"Restrooms and Seth's studio."
"HIS studio?"
"Yes. Seth doesn't just own the gallery, he is an artist too," Luke led me over to a wall that held a handful of smaller paintings. "These are his."
I looked at the paintings on display and compared them to Claire's bigger pieces around the gallery. People were clustered around the dead artist's master works, while Seth's canvases were largely ignored.
"I'm no art expert, but Claire seems to have had the bigger talent in the family," I remarked.
"Indeed she did. The interesting thing is, she didn't start painting until she was about 45."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Her first career was as a real estate agent, then Seth asked her to run his gallery. At the time, he had a decent career as an artist and the sales of his work started to pick up, so he opened a gallery," Luke said. "The original one was next door, where the dog bakery now stands."
"Interesting. Did he teach Claire how to paint?"
He laughed. "Oh no. She taught herself. She is what's called an 'intuitive artist', one who just knows what to paint. She didn't know how to do it, necessarily, but she experimented. And the more she listened to her intuition, the better the paintings got."
"How did you two meet?"
"Well, that's a story for when we're alone."
"Because you dated."
"Um... not exactly."
Claire sounded like an extraordinary woman and the results of her artistic talent were all over the walls. Well, most of the walls. Her paintings had texture and depth and interest. I was drawn to a particular piece that looked like a whale bursting through the ocean.
"What's that one called?"
Luke blushed and looked away. "Lucio."
"Ah," I slumped a little. "I need to use the ladies' room."
He turned to face me. "Wysdom, listen..."
"I'm fine. I've just have had too much water and a little bit of Champagne. That stuff runs right through you," I tried to laugh, but it came out choked.
I patted him on the chest, turned and walked away. I had no right to be jealous of a dead woman. I wasn't sure what the history was there, but it was really none of my business. How long had I known the God Among Men? A few days and two of those he sat in jail!
Here I was feeling jealous of someone he knew, before he met me. Plus, what were we to each other? Not much of anything, when it came right down to it. And that pissed me off.
Of course, that's likely the PMI talking - Peri-Menopause Irritation. It's a thing. Probably.
I slipped through the door and found the restrooms down a dark hallway. Inside, I splashed cold water on my face and soaked a paper towel in cold water to press at the back of my neck. These hot flashes were kicking my ass. It was still technically the middle of winter in Florida, which could mean temperatures from 30 degrees to 80, but today had been a cool one, with a "feels like" temperature of 50.
"It's hot out there, isn't it?" A voice said from beside me.
I turned to face a tall, skinny brunette with bookish glasses. She had Plain Jane written all over her, but I couldn't stop feeling like I knew her from somewhere. "It is, and the hot flashes are murder."
She laughed with me and turned on the water to wash her hands.
"You look so familiar, do I know you?" I asked.
"My name is Monica."
"You're Vern Reddy's assistant. I've been meaning to come see you. I'm Wysdom Ward."
"The cop?"
"Right."
"Oh no. Did I do something wrong?" She clutched her hands to her chest.
I cocked my head and slipped into Cop Mode as I stared at her. "I don't know, did you?"
She got really nervous and was wringing her hands as she dried them. "I did. I confess. I did it."
I narrowed my eyes. "Did what?"
"I eavesdropped on Claire when I shouldn't have," she started to cry. "I knew better, but I just wanted to hear what the hot guy was talking to her about."
"Mr. Nelson?"
"He makes me so nervous, I can never seem to string a coherent sentence together when he's around," she started whimpering.
Crap on a cracker.
I hate it when other people cry. I'm just not the best person to comfort you if you're having a meltdown. Do I hug her? Pat her on the back? Slap her? Just give her a tissue? I reached up and grabbed another paper towel, and thrust it towards her face. "Here. Everything will be okay."
"He's probably mad at me because I told the other cops about them arguing," she sniffed.
"He's not mad," I assured her.
"Really?" Her face brightened up as she looked at me. I guess I can be comforting.
"Well, yeah. You told the truth, didn't you?"
"I did," she nodded. "He was so mad about her retiring."
"What did he say, exactly?"
"She told him she was tired of the spotlight. She just wanted to go back to painting for fun," Monica dried her tears. "He said he would support her in any way possible. Then she said she had an idea that would bring her some... oh what was it called... something money."
"Something money."
"Right. Where you do something and then money keeps rolling in month after month."
"Mailbox money?"
"YES! That's it!"
Hmm. A passive income stream. Interesting. "What did she want to do for this mailbox money?"
"Something to do with licensing her art to a third party, who would mass produce it," Monica said. "That's when Luke got mad and started yelling at her because Claire had already drawn up the paperwork."
"And she hadn't consulted him?"
"Right. He said 'I'm your business manager, and I'm trying to help you make good business decisions.' And then he knocked over something in the studio. The noise freaked me out, so I went back to boxing up th
e paintings that were getting shipped out that day," Monica finished.
"And where was Vern during the night of the murder?"
"Oh, he was on back-to-back conference calls all night," Monica said.
"Thank you. That is helpful."
"You're sure Mr. Nelson's not mad at me?" She asked. "I've been hinting around to him for months that he should ask me out, but he hasn't picked up on any of my hints. I thought he was more perceptive than that."
Looking at Monica's plain brown dress that went all the way to her ankles, no makeup and mousy brown hair, I hated to tell her that Luke is that perceptive, he just wasn't interested.
But then again, what did I know? I was tall with boobs and hips that no amount of running in the world would make get smaller. My hair was short, fire-engine red and never looked the same two days in a row. That was the beauty of the haircut, I didn't have to mess with it too much. And with short hair, I never had to worry about a suspect grabbing my non-existent long hair and yanking me down to the ground, or worse.
"If a man isn't smart enough to pick up what you're laying down, then you need to go find a smarter man," I smiled.
"That's a great idea! I've always thought Claire's cousin was hot. Maybe I should go flirt with him?" She started towards the door then turned back to me. "Is that tacky to flirt with someone at a memorial?"
Since I had been considering that very thing just a few hours ago, I told her no, and as she bounced out of the restroom I wondered how long it would take her to realize Seth played for the other team. Best not to burst her bubble right now.
I was walking back to the main gallery and spied a side door that was slightly ajar. I looked through the crack and on the floor I saw plastic. A familiar kind of plastic. I pushed the door open and walked inside Seth's studio.
The floor was covered from wall to wall with what looked like the same kind of plastic that had covered Claire's body. There were no windows in this room, so the walls were covered in plastic too. I could see dark specks on the plastic and I bent down to take a closer look. Cursing myself for leaving my tiny blacklight at home, I used my fingernail, scraping up one drop and bringing it closer to my face. Blue paint.
