An Artful Assassination (Flight Risk Cozy Mystery Book 6)

by Susan Harper

  Sheldon watched Lonnie leave, looking very heartbroken.

  “This isn’t right,” Kendell said.

  Sheldon stormed outside, obviously not in the mood to talk now. He slammed the front door, leaving Pauline, Kendell, and Felicity standing in the dining area alone.

  12

  Kendell crossed her arms as she heard the front door slam shut. She shook her head. “That’s just not right,” she said. “How hard would it be for Lonnie to let Sheldon pick out a couple of paintings?”

  “I agree, but I see where Lonnie is coming from,” Felicity said. “If I had some paintings I could sell for that much, I’d have a hard time just handing them out. I definitely think something is going on here. It makes no sense for Barbara to leave everything to the stepson she barely knew.”

  “Do you think Lonnie could have done something?” Pauline asked. “He is certainly making quite a profit off the death of his stepmother.”

  Felicity nodded. “It definitely gives him a strong motivation for killing her. But, based off of that really big moving truck out front, it’s not like he’s not letting Sheldon have his fair pickings of his mom’s belongings. And other than those paintings, it doesn’t seem like there is a whole lot in this house worth a lot of money. But how would Lonnie have even known he would come across someone who loved his stepmother’s paintings enough to fork out two grand a painting? Unless he knew that long before the art auction, somehow managed to convince his stepmother to leave everything to him, and then plotted to kill her…but how would he have known?”

  “Maybe he knew Lark beforehand?” Kendell suggested.

  “Yeah, but do you think Lark could have conspired with Lonnie?” Felicity questioned.

  “You think she would want a woman dead just so she could maybe get a deal on her paintings?” Pauline questioned. “I doubt that. That’s a bit of a jump.”

  “There is something we are definitely missing here. I just don’t know what,” Felicity said, shaking her head.

  “Well,” Kendell said, leaning back a bit to spy around the corner and make sure no one was within earshot. “They all did just walk off and leave a detective alone in the house. It’s almost like they expect us to go snooping around.”

  Felicity snorted slightly. “I doubt that, but it’s not like we can get busted for breaking and entering when we’ve been invited inside already. Let’s split up and look around. See what we can find. I’m going to go talk to Sheldon, see what he thinks about this whole situation.”

  “Feel him out and see if he thinks Lonnie could have something to do with his mom’s death,” Pauline said. “You don’t just wake up one day and decide to become a murderer. If Sheldon has known Lonnie since their adolescent years, he might know whether or not Lonnie would be capable of something like that.”

  “Okay,” Felicity said. “You two be careful.” Felicity headed outside in search of Sheldon, leaving Kendell and Pauline behind in the house.

  “I guess we should split up too,” Kendell said.

  Pauline nodded in agreement. “Why don’t you see if you can go talk to Lonnie and Lark. Find out from Lark why she is willing to pay so much money for a small-town artist’s artwork. See if you can find out if they knew each other before the art auction.”

  “What are you going to do?” Kendell asked.

  “Well, I figured while you have Lonnie and Lark distracted and Felicity has got Sheldon’s attention, I would use the opportunity to do a little bit of snooping around the house,” Pauline said. “You never know what I might find.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Kendell said. “Watch your back.” Kendell left the dining area and headed toward the back of the house where she had seen Lonnie and Lark walk off only moments before.

  She could hear their voices coming from the kitchen, but she paused before going inside to listen in. “I don’t know,” Lonnie said. “I think this one is worth at least three grand.”

  “You’re trying to overcharge me now,” Lark said, laughing a little. “Your stepmother was a haggler too.”

  “So, exactly how many paintings have you bought from her before?” Lonnie asked.

  “About a dozen,” Lark said. “But I came to the auction ready to write her quite a check this time around for her Marvel-themed paintings. She ensured me they would be worth a lot more. I can’t believe Gerald was there. He kept trying to outbid me on those paintings. Your stepmother was clever inviting us both. And here I thought she was being silly putting these paintings in an auction where people wouldn’t know what they were actually worth. But, she invited several of her past buyers, so we were outbidding each other the whole day.”

  “So, that guy Gerald was a past buyer?” Lonnie asked.

  “Gerald, Beth, Thomas… There were at least twelve or so there, but I outbid them all,” Lark said.

  “I still can’t believe she was keeping such a secret from Sheldon and my dad and me,” Lonnie said, laughing slightly. “I mean, she always played little miss innocent. But, turns out, she was just a retired crook. No wonder she always made so much money off all these paintings.”

  Kendell could not quite figure out what it was about these paintings. Surely, there was something more going on. She entered into the kitchen, making herself known. “Hey, Lonnie,” she said perkily.

  He jumped slightly. “Oh, hello,” he said. “It’s…Kendell, right? You’re friends with the detective Sheldon hired?”

  “Detective?” Lark asked.

  “Yes, Felicity Overton. She’s a local private investigator with an incredible track record,” Kendell said, eyeing them both. “Don’t worry, Lonnie. Felicity is the best woman for the job. She will find out what happened to your stepmother. I can guarantee that.” Kendell stepped toward one of the paintings hanging on the wall in the kitchen. “So, your stepmom’s house is jampacked with all sorts of paintings, I’ve noticed. I’m curious, Miss Lark, about what made you so interested in them to begin with. Not that they aren’t wonderful. This one is particularly beautiful, I’d say.”

  Kendell was examining a painting of a bowl of fruit. Barbara was certainly talented, but she had heard Lark and Lonnie discussing Lark paying anywhere between two and three grand for it. It was good, but it wasn’t that good. Suddenly, the clouds outside must have moved, so a bit of light flooded in through the window brighter than before. While Lonnie attempted to move to block the light, Kendell definitely noticed something peculiar. The painting shimmered. She pretended not to notice.

  “I just know good talent when I see it,” Lark said nervously.

  “Well, I’ll let you two get back to what you were doing, then,” Kendell said. “I’m sure you have a lot to discuss. There sure are a lot of paintings in the house. Whenever you two are finished, I’m sure Felicity would appreciate a one-on-one interview with you, Lonnie. That’s why we came here, after all.”

  “Of course,” Lonnie said, eagerly pointing her toward the door leading out of the kitchen.

  Kendell headed out, thinking about how the painting had glistened in the light. She headed back into the dining room and observed a painting of a bunch of dogs. They looked adorable. Kendell stepped closer and decided to pull the painting down from the wall. She laid it out on the dining room table to observe it carefully. Barbara certainly liked to layer her paint, she noticed. Kendell leaned forward, examining the painting with a keen eye. Yes, Barbara certainly put the paint on that canvas very thick. Kendell touched one of the dogs in the painting right on the nose. Against what she thought to be her better judgement, she scratched the clump of paint right on the dog’s nose. “Crap,” she muttered as a bit of paint chipped off. Then, she saw it. It was, without a doubt, a paint-covered diamond. “Oh…oh my gosh…” she said, picking up the rock. She scratched the paint off the jewel to confirm it.

  She set the diamond on the table and continued to observe the painting. I hate to destroy it, but… Kendell cringed slightly as she used her fingernail to continue to scratch at the beautiful pictu
re of the puppies. She peeled an entire golden necklace out from under the thick paint. From what she observed, Barbara had hot-glued various bits of jewelry and jewels to the canvas prior to painting it. No wonder there was so much paint. Kendell’s eyes widened as she recalled the stepbrothers discussing how there was over seventy paintings in the house. If every painting was secretly stashing gold necklaces and diamonds, they were worth a fortune! And it seemed like Lark and Lonnie both knew this. “I have to find Pauline,” she said under her breath. She took the painting and hid it behind a cabinet in the dining room. Hopefully, Lonnie wouldn’t find it before she had a chance to tell the group what she found.

  Pauline headed up the stairs, Dot napping in the little carrier she had slung over her shoulder. She searched for the master bedroom belonging to Barbara, deciding to search it first. The boys had clearly not been in this room just yet as the furniture, decorations, and a small pile of clothes in the corner had gone untouched.

  Barbara had a beautiful vanity that Pauline could not help but go and sit at. She smiled at herself in the mirror. There was a little jewelry box sitting in front of her, so she opened it up, revealing a beautiful assortment of necklaces. “She’s got good taste,” Pauline said, opening a drawer in the vanity. More jewelry. “My oh my,” Pauline said, eyeing the drawer that as positively packed with expensive-looking necklaces. “This is real gold. Smart woman. That’s the way to invest.”

  Pauline stood up and headed to the closet. There was a collection of shoeboxes in the corner. She opened one up, knowing that she personally used to keep things other than shoes in her boxes back before she owned a home. The first box merely contained a pair of new shoes that had not been worn, but the second box once again contained a bunch of jewelry. “What in the world?” Pauline wondered aloud. She knew that some women had rather extensive jewelry collections, but this was a bit overboard. It seemed like there was nice, elegant jewelry stashed in just about every nook and cranny of her room.

  Even when Pauline opened up the woman’s sock drawer, she found diamonds shoved away inside a folded pair of socks. “How could she possibly afford all this?”

  As she was heading toward the nightstand, expecting to find additional hidden jewelry in there, she stubbed her toe on something sticking out from under the bed. “Ouch!” she said, setting Dot’s carrier on the bed while she bent down to see what she had run into. It was a scrapbook. “Ooh, lovely,” Pauline said, opening it up to find an assortment of newspaper clippings dating back to the fifties and sixties. Every single one of them was on a string of jewelry store robberies throughout the Midwest. From the looks of the papers, the culprit had never been caught. “Barbara was a thief!” Pauline exclaimed. But she was a smart thief, it seemed. The woman clearly had bided her time before ever attempting to pawn the jewelry, otherwise she would have been busted back in the fifties and sixties. Pauline found a booklet sitting on top of her nightstand of an inventory she had done of her jewelry, and it looked as though the book was fairly new. “She waited nearly half a century before she started selling the jewelry,” Pauline said, realizing this was probably the reason she had never been busted. There was no way the authorities would have been able to connect any pawned jewelry all the way out in Georgia to a string of robberies taking place in the Midwest nearly fifty years prior.

  Pauline set the journal Barbara had used for inventory on top of the scrapbook that Dot was now sniffing at, the little dog having crawled out of her carrier. Pauline opened up the nightstand. She found a manila envelope that she promptly opened up. Her jaw dropped. She had found Barbara’s last will and testament, and it certainly had not left her entire fortune to Lonnie. “Jackpot,” Pauline said. “Lonnie must have forged her will…”

  The door opened, and Pauline jumped. However, it was just Kendell and Felicity. “Grandmama, you won’t believe what Kendell found,” Felicity said.

  “Ooh, me first!” Pauline exclaimed, waving the will in her hands. “I found Barbara’s will—the real one!”

  “Real one?” Felicity questioned.

  “Yeah, I bet Lonnie doesn’t know she kept a copy of her original will in her room, or he would have gotten rid of it by now,” Pauline said. “She left all her paintings and her home to Sheldon and left about ten grand to Lonnie in her will, but most everything was supposed to go to Sheldon. I also found an inventory book on a bunch of jewelry that I believe was stolen.”

  “Stolen?” Kendell asked, and Pauline presented the girls with the scrapbook.

  “Barbara was a thief in her younger years. She waited, though, before she started selling off her jewelry until her old age to set herself up with a good retirement plan,” Pauline said. “There’s jewelry hidden all over the place in the bedroom.”

  “That’s not all,” Kendell said, holding up a paint-coated, golden necklace. “Barbara has been hiding the stolen jewelry in her paintings and selling them to people who don’t seem to mind buying stolen jewelry.”

  “You mean like Miss Lark?” Felicity asked.

  “Exactly,” Kendell said. “From what I heard, Barbara had invited a lot of her regular buyers to the art auction. She was putting her jewelry onto canvases to move the stolen jewelry safely to the buyers.”

  “So, what do you think, Felicity?” Pauline asked.

  “I think Barbara kept her little jewelry heists a secret from Sheldon and Lonnie, but Lonnie found out about it and struck a deal with one of her buyers—Lark—to make sure he made off with the money,” Felicity said.

  Pauline grinned. “I think we might just know who killed Barbara.”

  13

  The group of ladies spread all of the evidence they had found out on Barbara’s bed, including the painting from the dining room that Kendell had ripped jewelry from. The bed was covered in jewelry, the book full of newspaper clippings, the painting, and of course, the original will and testament. Felicity was busying herself with taking pictures of all of the evidence. She forwarded the pictures to Jack and then went ahead and gave him a call.

  “Jack!” Felicity exclaimed once she had him on the phone. “Did you get those pictures? Yeah, I agree. Send the police down here. We’re going to let Sheldon in on what we found and see what we can do about making sure Lonnie and Lark don’t go anywhere… We don’t know if Lark was involved, but it’s highly possible, we think. No doubt Lonnie had something to do with the will, which makes him our most viable suspect… Okay… Yeah, we’ll be careful. Let Jefferson know what’s going down, all right? See you soon.” She hung up the phone. “Jack’s calling the police, and he’s heading this way now too.”

  “Oh, how exciting!” Pauline exclaimed, clapping her hands. Dot was circling Pauline with her tail wagging a million miles an hour. Clearly, the playful little pooch was feeding off the excitement from her owner.

  “Should I go grab Sheldon and bring him up here?” Kendell asked.

  “Yes, that’s a good idea, but make sure Lonnie and Lark don’t see you,” Felicity said. “We don’t want to tip them off that we’re on to them before the police get here.”

  Kendell nodded and slipped out of the bedroom. She quietly made her way downstairs where she could hear Lark and Lonnie still arguing about prices in the kitchen. “You told me you would give me better prices than your mother, Lonnie,” Lark sneered.

  “These are better prices,” Lonnie insisted.

  “Hardly!”

  Kendell made her way outside the front door where Sheldon was still sitting and sulking. He was sipping on a soda and munching on some pretzels he had probably fetched from the kitchen. “Hungry?” Kendell asked.

  “I haven’t eaten much since Mom was killed, and I think it’s finally getting to me,” Sheldon groaned. “Started getting a little woozy. I haven’t eaten today at all.”

  “You have to remember to take care of yourself,” Kendell chastised. “I’m sure your mom would want you to.”

  “Maybe,” he grumbled. “I feel completely blindsided by all of this.”
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br />   “Come with me, quietly,” Kendell said. “We might have found something that is going to help us finish up this case.”

  Sheldon jumped up. “Really?” he asked. “You think you might know who killed Mom?”

  “Keep your voice down,” Kendell said as they entered the house. She could still hear Lark and Lonnie bickering away.

  “I can throw in that ugly cat painting upstairs if you agree to the price we’ve set for these two,” Lonnie growled.

  “Well, I’ll have to have a look at this cat painting first, Lonnie, before I agree to that!” Lark countered.

  “Fine. Fine,” Lonnie said. “But tell me what you think of this one first…”

  Kendell and Sheldon headed up the stairs, Kendell shaking her head as they heard Lonnie and Lark’s bickering echoing from the kitchen. They slipped back into the bedroom, and he raised a brow at all the stuff spread out onto the bed. “What’s all this?” he asked.

  “Evidence,” Felicity stated. “Sheldon, were you aware of your mother’s…extracurricular activities from her youth?”

  “What? Like tennis?” he asked.

  “More like robbery,” Pauline said, picking up the scrapbook and handing it to him.

  He skimmed through it. “I don’t know what this is supposed to be,” he said.

  “The articles cover a string of jewelry thefts from almost fifty years ago out in the Midwest,” Felicity said.

  “My…my mom lived out that way when she was younger…” he said.

  “This is only some of the jewelry we found,” Felicity said, waving her hand toward the bed. “There’s more hidden in your mom’s paintings.”

  “The paintings!” he exclaimed, leaning forward and looking at the painting of the puppies that Kendell had ripped up a bit. “I…I have never noticed…”

  “Each canvas seems to be full of stolen jewelry,” Kendell said. “Your mom was moving stolen jewelry this way, selling them to various buyers. There are golden necklaces, and lots and lots of diamonds.”