An Artful Assassination (Flight Risk Cozy Mystery Book 6)

by Susan Harper

  “With the obvious,” Felicity said. “Tim and Barbara don’t have a good relationship. It’s best to start there, to rule it out or confirm it early on. I saw him out back in the parking lot a minute ago taking a cigarette break.”

  “Then let’s go,” Kendell said, and they headed out back to where the event was still going on. Stephanie was announcing winners into a microphone while TJ counted cash and handled all the transactions for people taking home art. Kendell spied Tim a short distance away in the parking lot, smoking a cigarette as Felicity had said. The two women headed across the parking lot, meeting Tim, who put out his cigarette politely as they approached.

  “Can I help you ladies?” he asked.

  “I was hoping to talk to you about Barbara,” Felicity said. “Her son Sheldon hired my team to work her case.”

  “Case?” Tim questioned. “I thought she fell?”

  “The police believe she was pushed,” Kendell said.

  “Dang,” he said, shaking his head. “Knowing Barbara, she probably smarted off to the wrong person.”

  “I’m guessing you weren’t a big fan of hers?” Felicity asked.

  “Truth be told, no,” he said. “But that was just a stupid feud. We always wind up at the same art events and get on each other’s nerves is all. She says I’m a grouchy old man, and I say she’s an uptight old woman. I think I’ll actually miss it.”

  “So, who destroyed the painting and the sculpture earlier?” Felicity questioned.

  Tim sighed. “I never would have admitted it to her…but that one was on me,” he said. “I was moving my sculpture, and I pushed it too close to the edge of the display table. I told her she bumped her easel because I know her—she would have made a huge scene and tried to make me pay for her canvas. And she wouldn’t have ever let me live it down.”

  “I appreciate your honesty,” Felicity said.

  “Ruining her painting was an accident,” he said. “I wouldn’t ever do anything like that.”

  “Does Barbara have problems getting along with other artists apart from you?” Felicity asked.

  “She’s talented,” Tim said. “And she knows it. Sometimes she would get a little arrogant. In fact, one of my favorite sculptures was one I did of her that displayed that arrogance…”

  “You made a sculpture of Barbara?” Kendell asked, having a hard time imagining someone wanting to do a sculpture of someone you were feuding with.

  Tim snickered and dug around in his pocket for his phone. “Hold on a second, and I’ll show you. Give me a second, I’m an old fellow, and it always takes me a minute to remember how to pull up pictures…” He played around on his phone for a moment and then showed them a sculpture made entirely of umbrellas of what looked like an angry fat woman. “Sold this for two thousand dollars. Best sale I had made in nearly a decade.”

  “Why did you make a sculpture modeled after Barbara?” Felicity asked.

  “Told you—to display her arrogance. At one of the first art shows we were both at, Barbara got into it with the curator of the event. Told him her artwork needed to be displayed up front because it was better than most everything else there. It was kind of true, but it was just so prideful that it ticked off the curator and he told her no. She smacked him with her umbrella, so at the next show, I displayed this beauty—” He shook his cellphone, showing off the picture of the sculpture. “Ooh, wee… She sure was mad about that one, but the curator bought the statue and put it in his museum up in Atlanta.”

  “That’s kind of hilarious,” Kendell said.

  “So that’s it? You two were just in a friendly feud?” Felicity asked.

  “I wouldn’t say friendly,” Tim said. “But it was fairly innocent. She did a painting of me that next year and gave me a cat face to make fun of my cat statues.”

  “Well, I appreciate the information, Tim,” Felicity said, shaking the man’s hand. She exchanged information with him and headed back toward the event, Kendell following close behind.

  “You’re good at this,” Kendell said.

  Felicity smiled. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

  “I’m curious as to how a party planner got into detective work?” Kendell asked. “I mean, you kind of already told me, but I’d really like to get the whole story sometime.”

  Felicity nodded. “It’s quite a tale. But, honestly, I just sort of fell into it. I had done a little bit of investigative journalism in college, but I dropped out after my party planning business really started to take off. Jefferson and I eventually opened up a physical location for the shop, and it really started to pick up steam after that. During one of our first events for the city, a friend of ours was wrongly accused of a murder, and I wanted to do what I could to help out.”

  “And so after that, you just realized you had a knack for it?” Kendell asked.

  “No, not exactly. I still was focused on my party planning at that point. Jack was still a cop for Senoia back then. He was also my ex, and he liked to give Jefferson and I a hard time. This was before we became pretty well reacquainted with each other, and Jack and Jefferson became friends. Jack’s little sister was killed at one of our events. I think that’s the case that finally started to pull me into this line of work. I was so angry. She was just a kid, and Jack was pulled off the case because of how close he was to it. Jefferson and I helped him find out what happened to her. The three of us became close friends after that, and a few other cases fell into our laps. Jack finally decided he had enough working for the local chief, and he and Jefferson approached me about expanding. It sort of just happened.”

  “Well, that’s really interesting how it just fell into place, isn’t it?” Kendell asked.

  “Life is funny like that,” Felicity said. “I’m looking forward to working with you and my grandma on the case. This should be…different.”

  Kendell laughed. Yes, she imagined this would be one for the memory book.

  6

  Kendell decided to stick by Felicity. The woman seemed to have a system down for this sort of thing. She walked like she was on a mission, and this very much intrigued Kendell. While she herself had never considered doing detective work, the past several adventures she’d had with Pauline had been more fulfilling than her five years of working as a flight attendant. It had been fun and rewarding. And, much like Felicity, her early cases had just fallen into her lap. Maybe the universe was sending her a sign? Kendell decided to follow Felicity closely on this case to see how a real detective worked it. Felicity might have just been an amateur, but she was making a living off of this. Kendell figured that she could get a good idea of just what to expect in this line of work.

  Jack, Jefferson, Trixie, and Fix met just inside the museum while the Hornsbys finished passing out artwork people had purchased out on the back porch. Pauline and Kendell stood by as Felicity gave her team the rundown. “Okay, so Sheldon has just hired Overton Detective Agency to handle Barbara’s case.”

  “I thought she just fell?” Fix asked. Word had not quite gotten around just yet that the incident was turning into a homicide investigation.

  “I’m afraid not,” Felicity said. “Sheldon informed me that police told him that bruises were found around her wrists and that it appeared as though she had been in some sort of a struggle with an attacker.”

  “Aw, man,” Fix said, shaking his head. The kid crossed his arms. “So, are you going to let me work on this case more so than filling out paperwork?”

  “Of course, Fix,” Felicity said. “You’re in training still. This will be a good case for you to get some more experience.”

  Me too, Kendell thought. There had been an inkling in her lately, like she had been wanting something more out of life. Obviously that inkling had led to her traveling around the world with a complete stranger, but eventually that was going to have to come to an end. She needed to find that thing that fulfilled her the way that Pauline’s granddaughter had. So, Kendell was thinking of this case as a sort of test run. She wasn’t s
ure how her boyfriend back home would feel about her making a sudden career change, but it was ever present on her mind lately.

  “What’s our first move, Felicity?” Jack asked.

  “First things first, we are in the middle of an event,” Felicity said. “Jefferson, you and Trixie do what you can to salvage this event. Let’s consider ourselves lucky that the police haven’t cleared the Hornsbys out of here already. The police are probably going to start rounding people up for interviews soon. In the meantime, I want you two to work on making this as pleasant of an experience for everyone as possible. We don’t want the Hornsbys’ art group’s reputation to suffer.”

  “We’re on it,” Trixie said, and her and Jefferson headed out the back door to go help Stephanie and TJ with keeping the guests occupied.

  “We’ll get one of the bands to entertain everyone,” Jefferson suggested on their way out the door.

  “All right, what about us?” Jack asked.

  “Divide and conquer,” Felicity said. “Let’s see if we can find any clues lying around. Jack, go check around Barbara’s booth. See if there’s anything she left lying around. I’m going to go talk to the police to see what sort of information they can give me.”

  “I’ll go check out the scene of the crime,” Fix said. “If the police will let me, that is.”

  “I’ll come with you, dear,” Pauline said to Felicity.

  “I guess I’ll go with Fix,” Kendell said.

  “Okay, go team,” Felicity said, heading around back with her Pauline.

  Jack nodded to Fix and headed toward where Barbara’s paintings had been on display. Fix and Kendell headed out the front door where some crime scene tape had already been put up. A forensic scientist for the police department was kneeling in the bushes where Barbara had landed. “Have you found anything?” Fix asked.

  “Hey, kid, this is a crime scene,” one of the officers said.

  “I apologize,” Fix said. “I work for the Overton Detective Agency. My boss just asked me to come make nice with the police.”

  The officer rolled his eyes. “Stay on that side of the tape.”

  “Yes, sir,” Fix said.

  “You guys always play nice with the police?” Kendell asked.

  “Sometimes,” Fix said. “Felicity says it’s a lot easier to have them on our team than to be competing against them.”

  “Makes sense,” Kendell said. “Do you guys do a lot of homicides?”

  “Some. We mostly get the cliché cheating husband cases. We did work a case a while back for the Georgia senator. That was pretty cool. He was receiving death threats, and we solved that case,” Fix explained.

  “Sounds exciting,” she said.

  “It was,” Fix said. “I got stuck in the van watching security cameras for that one, but I was the one who spotted our would-be assassin in time, so I guess I felt pretty useful after that one. Jack and Felicity have me stay back a lot to answer phones at the agency. So, it’s always nice when I get to do some actual detective experience.”

  The police were starting to clear out. Fix gave them a lingering look. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead, kid,” the cop said, and Fix jumped over the crime scene tape.

  Kendell came and sat down on the front stoop, watching Fix as he dug around in the bushes. “You aren’t going to find anything we didn’t, kid,” the cop said as they began walking toward their vehicles parked out in the street, blocking the road.

  “So, what kind of stuff are you looking for?” Kendell asked.

  “Anything, really,” he said. “But the police are probably right. If they found anything, it’s probably already in evidence bags. But if we play nice, they might let us take a peek.”

  “Important to have a good working relationship with local law enforcement—noted,” Kendell said.

  Fix snickered. “You thinking about getting into detective work?”

  “I don’t know. Not really sure if it’s my thing, but I’m starting to think that being a flight attendant isn’t really my thing either. I wanted to travel the world. I have a sort of adventurous soul, you know? That’s why I became a flight attendant. To travel. To see things that I had never seen before. Five years later, and the only thing I’ve seen is the inside of different airports,” Kendell explained.

  “That stinks,” Fix said. “So, you signed on for adventure, but instead, you just got a lot of rough hours serving people on an airplane.”

  “I’m a glorified waitress in the sky,” Kendell said. “And my airline just recently decided they were going to change their approach. They’re calling it vintage, but really it’s just some less than appropriate attire to give creepy customers an excuse to stare at our behinds.”

  “Aw, man,” he said, shaking his head. “Sorry.”

  “Yeah, I broke my high heels they were making us wear on day one,” Kendell said. “Ridiculous three-inch heels. How do they expect us to walk up and down the aisles like that? I don’t know… The company I work for just isn’t what I thought it was going to be.”

  Fix suddenly stood upright, a grin on his face. He glanced toward the officers a short distance away. “Come on,” he said softly, suddenly scurrying toward the door.

  Kendell raised a brow, following him inside. “Did you find something?” she whispered as though she thought they were in trouble.

  “I did,” he said. “Let’s go find Felicity and the others.”

  They found them out on the back porch. Pauline, Felicity, and Jack had gathered already. “Did the police you spoke to tell you anything useful?” Kendell asked.

  “Not really,” she said. “And Jack didn’t find anything either.”

  “Yeah, the police by the crime scene weren’t particularly chatty either,” Fix said. “But we found something.” He dug around in his pocket, pulling out a cell phone. “This was in the bushes.”

  “Way to go, Fix,” Felicity said, taking the phone from him. “Did you sneak this away from the crime scene, Fix?”

  “Maybe,” he said with a smirk. “We can turn it into the police after we have a look.”

  “Agreed,” Felicity said as she began snooping around on the phone. “This is definitely Barbara’s.”

  “You see anything good?” Jack asked.

  “She’s got her email pulled up… She got an email from Stephanie,” Felicity said. “There’s a bunch of emails about the art show. Looks like she doesn’t really use her email for much else. There is an email to Stephanie from Barbara saying she didn’t want to be put anywhere near Tim at the art show. It sounds pretty petty.” Felicity took a moment to send the email to herself. “Okay, that’s all, I think… I should really go give this to the police.”

  “Boo,” Fix grumbled, and Felicity laughed.

  “Good job, Fix,” Felicity said, walking off to go find an officer.

  Jack nudged Fix. “Let’s you and I go help Jefferson and Trixie. They got to start cleaning up now that the event is about over.”

  Fix sighed and followed Jack, leaving Kendell and Pauline standing on the back porch. “So, what now?” Kendell asked.

  “I think we should go speak to one of the Hornsbys,” Pauline said, pointing toward TJ who was currently helping some of the musicians pack up their gear. “They probably know Barbara fairly well. They seemed familiar with each other like she had been to some of their events before.”

  “Take the lead,” Kendell said, following Pauline as she marched up to TJ.

  “Hey, ladies,” he said politely as he placed a guitar inside a case. “Can I help you?”

  “We were wondering if you could tell us more about Barbara,” Pauline said as she sat Dot’s carrier down. The little dog came crawling out of the bag to stretch her legs.

  TJ chuckled. “My brother-in-law has a dog like that. Holly. They’re good dogs.”

  “My little Dot is an angel,” Pauline said.

  “Focus, Pauline,” Kendell said, and TJ snickered a bit.

  “Not sure if I can tell you a whole lot. Bar
bara is a good artist. She comes to a lot of our shows. Has been coming to them for the past year or two,” TJ said. “I didn’t want her to come to this show.”

  “Really? Why?” Kendell asked.

  “As soon as we started getting emails from Barbara and Tim about being picky about how close they were going to be to each other, I told Stephanie to tell them both not to come. I didn’t want to deal with it again. They’re always at each other’s throats. You saw what happened with the painting and sculpture. It’s ridiculous, but Stephanie is little miss peacemaker sometimes, so she redid our whole setup to keep them as far away from each other as possible. Then one of the volunteers set them up next to each other by mistake, and you saw what happened. Ruined their artwork over some stupid, petty stuff,” TJ said. “It’s ridiculous.”

  “I imagine that that is very frustrating,” Pauline said.

  “Very. And something almost always happens every time those two are in the same room together,” TJ said. “I would have preferred to just tell them both to beat it. It was getting old. Our group is all about art collaboration and networking—artists helping artists, you know? But those two just made it difficult for everyone.”

  “Is there anything more you can tell us about her?” Kendell asked.

  “Not really. We didn’t know Barbara that well. She just came to the art shows and would leave when they were over,” TJ said. “I hope you all find out what happened to her. Felicity told me she is taking on the case. I’ve heard she’s good at what she does, so hopefully Barbara will get some justice.”

  “With my granddaughter working the case?” Pauline smirked, her chest rising pridefully. “I know that she will.”

  7

  The next morning, Kendell rolled out of bed fairly early. She got dressed and headed out, deciding to walk to Main Street to get herself some breakfast. It hadn’t seemed that far away, but she was very soon regretting the decision. A five-minute car ride in rural Georgia took you a lot further than a five-minute car ride in New York. She had greatly over-exaggerated her physical capabilities. By the time she arrived on Main Street, she was panting. “That was so stupid,” she said under her breath, slowly making her way to the coffee shop on the corner. Felicity and Jefferson had told her how wonderful the coffee shop’s breakfast was, and she had been craving a taste for it. “This better be delicious,” she growled as she entered the shop. She had enjoyed their coffee the other day, so she assumed the food had to be good as well.