The Deadly Art of Deception

by Linda Crowder

  “Dies. I know,” said Tay. I could feel my face redden. “Stop it, Cara. You’re the one person I thought I could trust not to treat me with kid gloves.”

  “Nobody was treating you with kid gloves last night.”

  Taylor’s eyes took on a guarded look, and I kicked myself. I have got to stop saying the first thing that comes into my head. To my surprise, she giggled. “It was like being in a cheesy movie. I walked through the door and wham! Silence. I almost laughed.” She shook her head, her smile fading. “Then it wasn’t funny anymore.”

  “They were surprised to see you, that’s all. So was I. I wish you’d let me know you were coming.”

  “So they could pretend to be happy to see me? What’s the point?”

  We put our conversation on hold as the man with the camera approached. “May I help you find something, sir?”

  “I’m interested in those Snow paintings you have. What are you asking?” I named a price, and he raised an eyebrow.

  “Negotiable?”

  “I’m afraid not. There are several museums inquiring about his work, and these are the only pieces I have left.”

  There was silence as we each waited for the other to speak. In negotiations, breaking the silence signals to the other player that you want the deal more than they do, giving them the upper hand. It’s a ridiculous game, but one I had learned to play well. He pulled a business card out of his pocket and handed it to me. “I may have a buyer for you. I’ll have to consult my client and let you know.”

  “That would be fine. Here’s my card. Feel free to call me if you have any questions.”

  He looked at the card. “Caribou King. That can’t possibly be your real name.”

  “It is indeed. I was born in a log cabin about five miles from here.”

  He slid the card into his shirt pocket. “I like it. Real Alaska. I’ll let you know what my buyer says.”

  After he left, Taylor put her head against mine and whispered, “Good thing you didn’t deck him for making fun of your name.”

  I stifled a laugh because the gallery was full of customers. “Good thing he doesn’t know those museums wanted me to donate Johnny’s paintings.”

  Taylor giggled. “Hey, you just said they’d inquired, not that they’d flashed any cash.”

  “Exactly.” We fell into a familiar and comfortable rhythm, me walking the gallery floor, talking to the customers, Taylor working the register and answering an unending stream of tourist questions. When I’d opened The Broken Antler three years ago, Taylor had come up from Seattle to help. She’d fallen in love with a shy young artist named John Lennon. Johnny had been my best friend since grade school, and I’d been working up my nerve to tell him I wanted to be more than friends, but it was clear once he met her that Johnny had fallen hard. It was Taylor who suggested his professional name––Jonathan Snow––and it was that name she’d agreed to take when he’d proposed.

  Midafternoon brought a lull, so I left Taylor in charge and hurried to Mel’s. After a month of working alone from dawn until dark, it was lovely to be walking down the boardwalk in daylight. Mel disappeared into the kitchen as I came in, so I waited for her at the counter. I stood since my barstool was occupied.

  “Sorry, Boo. Want me to move?” Frank Baker was an odd combination of annoying and—no, come to think of it, he was annoying with a side of even more annoying.

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “Oh, come on, it’s cute.”

  “Can I call you Hot Dog? Would that be cute?”

  “Aw heck, Cara. You take all my fun away.”

  “You shouldn’t be having fun in the middle of the day. You should be out on the bay with a boat full of tourists. What happened?” Frank ran excursions, taking cruisers whale watching, salmon fishing, and on bay tours. I’d heard enough of my customers talk about his tours to know he was good at what he did, and his tours were always full.

  “Whales have all gone south. Only doing bay tours now. You’re the one who shouldn’t be here. Don’t you have a gallery to run?”

  Mel came back with my lunch, and I thanked her. “See you, Frank.”

  “Walk you back?”

  “You know, Frank, I might actually like you if you were normal all the time instead of acting like an overgrown frat boy.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?” he laughed.

  I liked the sound of his laughter, but there was no time for that kind of fun during cruise ship season. I waved to Mel and headed back out the door. Frank was a good-looking single man of my age, and that was as rare as diamonds in Coho Bay. He’d been flirting with me all summer, but I had a feeling those days were about to be over. He’d meet Taylor tonight, and he wouldn’t be the first man who lost all interest in flirting with me once he laid eyes on her.

  Another single man was waiting for me at the door to the gallery, only I was pretty sure Coho Bay’s one and only policeman hadn’t come to flirt. “Hello, Dan. What brings you here today?”

  “Heard Taylor Lennon was back in town. Figured she’d be here.”

  “Taylor Snow,” I corrected.

  Dan made a face. He’d never approved of Johnny calling himself by anything other than his given name, so he’d called him Lennon until the day he died. It hadn’t bothered Johnny, but it had bothered Taylor, something that tickled Dan since he’d never liked her. Judging by the look on her face when he followed me inside, I’d say the feeling was mutual.

  “Taylor, you remember Dan Simmons.” She nodded her head but didn’t speak. I put the two plates of quiche on the counter, hidden from customer view. “Dan, what can we do for you?”

  Dan glowered at Taylor until she broke eye contact. “I’m wondering if I might talk to Ms. Lennon.”

  Taylor’s eyes snapped back to his, and her chin went up. “It’s Snow. What do you want?”

  “Just want to ask you a few questions.”

  “About what?”

  My customers had stopped looking at art and were instead watching the scene at the counter. “Dan, can’t this wait?”

  “Sorry, Cara. I’ll come back later.” Dan knew better than to air dirty laundry in front of customers. Whatever he needed to ask Taylor, he knew it took a backseat to providing a warm and welcoming environment for our guests.

  “Let’s get it over with.” Taylor held the back room door open and gestured to Dan. “We can talk in here.”

  “Keep your voice down,” I whispered to Dan as he passed me.

  They disappeared into the back room, and I heard the muffled sound of voices but nothing distinct. I looked around the gallery and faces turned away from me as customers pretended they hadn’t noticed the local police take what appeared to be one of my employees into the back room for questioning. The door jingled a little more briskly than usual as potential sales evaporated. To spend thousands of dollars for a work of art, a buyer must trust the seller, so any hint of scandal kills sales. Dan knew that, and I fumed that he’d come to the gallery during business hours when he could easily have talked to Taylor after the last tender left.

  Stifling my anger, I promised myself I would let Dan know exactly what I thought of him as soon as I could corner him at Mel’s. I popped a forkful of quiche into my mouth and felt my eyes roll back in my head at the melt-in-your-mouth pastry. Mel’s quiche can make a girl forget just about any trouble, and I gave myself up to the enjoyment of my food. I should have been circulating on the floor, talking about paintings and sculptures, calming any qualms about what the police might be doing in the gallery, but I had a feeling it was too late for this crowd and I wouldn’t be attracting buyers again until Dan was gone. The gallery emptied, with more than a few curious glances at the back room door as the might-have-been customers left.

  With an empty gallery and an empty plate, I looked at Taylor’s untasted quiche and hoped she’d have an appetite for it. Taylor was fidgety when it came to food. My ability to eat almost anything and retain my bean-pole figure was one of only two things Taylo
r had ever told me she envied about me—my metabolism and my rock-solid relationship with my parents and Mel. Taylor had lost her parents and her only brother in a plane crash when she was fifteen years old. She’d been at a prep school back east, and they’d been flying out to spend Thanksgiving with her. I hadn’t known her then, but I knew all these years later she still grieved. When she’d first come to Coho Bay, my family had embraced her, and she’d told me it was the first time she felt she belonged since she’d lost her family.

  I squirmed in my chair and checked the clock. Twenty-two minutes. What could they possibly be talking about for twenty-two minutes? It couldn’t be about Johnny’s death since that had been an accident. His body had been found by a pair of hikers at the base of a drop-off below one of the trails Johnny had loved to wander, sketchpad beside him, as if ready to capture a flower or vista that awakened his imagination. Bears generally avoid populated areas during the summer, but in spring and fall, they come closer to town seeking food. To live in harmony with nature in bear country, we use locked, reinforced metal trash bins and we don’t put out food for birds or squirrels since the feeders will attract bears. I don’t exactly fear bears, but I have a very healthy respect for them and the danger they present. A bear will charge you if it feels threatened, and that must have been what happened to Johnny. He should have known better than to let his guard down on that trail. But for all his strengths, Johnny had been prone to lose himself in his surroundings, and that afternoon he had paid for his carelessness with his life.

  Twenty-nine minutes and the bell on the gallery door jingled. I smiled, walking around the counter to greet the couple. At least this pair wouldn’t have concerns about why the police were here. I was standing with them ten minutes later, discussing a bronze sculpture of a moose, when Dan walked out of the back room. He nodded at me as he passed, but his expression was unreadable. I looked to see if Taylor followed him, but the counter area was vacant.

  “I’ll just leave you to discuss your impressions of the works we’ve seen,” I said to the couple. “You let me know if you have any questions.” Deliberately keeping my steps unrushed to prevent the prospective buyers from thinking something might be wrong, I went to check on her.

  She was sitting on my leather love seat and looked up with red-rimmed eyes when I came in, her makeup streaking across her face. I had only taken a step toward her when I heard the woman call to me from the gallery. “Go,” said Taylor. “I’ll be okay in a minute.”

  I returned to the sales floor and found the couple ready to discuss price. Some people assume an art dealer would prefer customers know very little about art, thinking that those customers will overpay, enriching both dealer and artist. That might be true for a few unscrupulous dealers, but for me it’s just the opposite. I love to negotiate with customers who are at least as knowledgeable as I am because they know the value of what they are buying and are willing to pay a fair price. Customers with limited knowledge have no idea why works are priced at a certain level. To accommodate buyers who simply want something pretty and affordable, I try to showcase one or two emerging artists every season. This couple, who had an extensive collection back home in Germany, were a delight to negotiate with, and thirty minutes later, both customers and dealer came away satisfied. If all of my customers were like this couple, I’d be a happy girl.

  As I spoke with the German couple, more cruisers trickled in, and before long, the gallery was bustling again. Taylor came out to work the counter without a hint of her earlier distress. “We’ll talk later,” she said, pushing me onto the sales floor while she ate her quiche as if she hadn’t seen food in days.

  I was dying to know what Dan had said to her that made her cry, but this was no time for a serious discussion. I plastered a smile onto my face and held my arms open. “Welcome to The Broken Antler Gallery, folks. Please let me know if you have any questions.”

  “How come you call it broken antler?” asked a boy who appeared to be about seven or eight years old.

  His mother tried to shush him, but I smiled warmly and crouched down to meet him at eye level. I pointed at a set of elk antlers mounted on the wall behind the counter. One side was glorious, but the other was broken off about three-quarters of the way up. “Do you see those antlers?”

  The boy nodded. “They ain’t real.”

  “They certainly are real. They’re from the elk I got when I went on my very first elk hunt. I wasn’t much bigger than you.”

  He made a sour face. “Girls don’t hunt.”

  “Some girls don’t, but some girls do. We hunt up here or we don’t eat.”

  “But antlers don’t look like that.”

  “Honey, let’s let the nice lady run her gallery,” said the boy’s mother, her face red with embarrassment.

  I smiled reassuringly at her. “He’s okay. I love curiosity; it inspires creative minds.” I turned my attention back to the boy. “Usually antlers will be pretty much the same on both sides, but this elk had broken off one side of his, probably in a fight with another elk over a lady elk.”

  “Girls,” said the boy with a look of disgust. “That figures.”

  Chapter 3

  Every head turned when Taylor walked into Mel’s with me, but the shock from last night had passed, so the noise level only took a momentary dip. When we came in, Mel bumped Frank from a barstool to a table, where he settled into conversation with some seasonal guides. Frank had only been in Coho Bay for a year, so he hadn’t yet earned “butt rights” as Mel called the preference locals had for sitting in the exact same place night after night. Taylor only slightly outranked him, but she was with me and that would have overruled him if he’d voiced any objections.

  I watched Frank’s face closely as he caught sight of Taylor. His eyes moved slowly down her body, as though caressing her, and my heart sank. I’d seen that look before, in the eyes of guys I was dating when they’d met her, and Frank and I hadn’t even gone out yet. There was definitely desire in that look, and a hint of something beneath the desire that I couldn’t quite define. Not that I blamed him. Taylor was a dazzling blond pixie who somehow managed to make the simple “uniform” look like she’d been dressed by a designer. Standing next to her, I suddenly felt awkward and overgrown. I stood a good foot taller, and where her figure curved in all the right places, mine barely broke the surface.

  I caught sight of Dan, who was sitting at his regular table by the front window. His eyes were also fixed on Taylor, but the heat that rose from his gaze was not sexual. At least there was one unmarried man in town immune to her charms. Immune to mine too, if I had any charms. In the years he’d been in Coho Bay, Dan had never spared a second glance at me, and frankly I had never found him too appealing either. Dan was shorter than me and stocky with the body of a wrestler. He had a buzz cut and never grew a beard, not even when most men sprouted facial hair to combat the cold. It struck me that I didn’t know very much about Dan. He’d spent summers here with his uncle, who’d been chief of police, but our paths had rarely crossed. Dan had been the natural choice for the job when his uncle had retired, but even after he moved here, I hadn’t made an effort to get to know him. If I were going to lose what little chance I’d had with Frank to Taylor, I might have to push myself to give Dan another look.

  It was a depressing thought. Maybe love and marriage were overrated. After all, I was happy with my life just the way it was. Could having a man in my life make it any better than it was now? My mother had thought so. It hadn’t taken her six months after Mel and Bent got married before she’d started “noticing” eligible bachelors and pointing them out to me. Fortunately, since single men were few and far between, she’d had limited opportunities to embarrass me.

  Bent rarely served salmon to the locals. Everyone in Coho Bay had a freezer full of salmon, and all winter long we’d eat so much wild game and frozen or smoked salmon that by summer we couldn’t stand the thought of it. The cruisers loved Alaskan salmon though, so Bent always kept some o
n hand. Nobody makes salmon as well as he does, so I was always happy when he made a little too much for the lunch crowd and it spilled over into dinner. When Mel slid the plate in front of me, all thoughts of men and marriage vanished, and Bent’s heavenly salmon filet was all that mattered. Taylor didn’t like salmon, which to me was like not liking air or water, but it was a free country. If she wanted to eat salad instead of salmon, who was I to call her out on it?

  We were splitting a leftover cinnamon roll when the room went silent behind us. I spun around on my stool. “Crap.” I spoke quietly so only Taylor heard me. She turned to look, and the expletive she uttered was a little bit stronger than mine had been.

  A man in his fifties, sleeves rolled up on his flannel shirt, revealing muscular arms earned the old-fashioned way by felling logs and putting them through his lumber mill. Cruise ships hadn’t changed Jack Lennon’s life. Johnny’s father was always busy during the season since any building that needed to be done had to be done during the long, warm days of the summer. They had been as far apart in personality as it was possible for a father and son to be, but when Johnny’s mother had died, they’d been forced to find ways to bridge the gap between them. Johnny embraced the artistic side of his father’s business, building furniture and cabinets while Jack turned out planks and shaved logs for construction. They’d grown thick as thieves until Taylor had swept into Johnny’s life. One look at her, and Johnny lost interest in sawdust and boards.

  “I heard you were back.” The steel in Jack’s tone sent sparks through the room.

  I slid off my stool and stood in front of Taylor. “Evening, Mr. Lennon,” I said, fighting to keep my voice calm. Jack had been furious when Johnny died, blaming Taylor for his death. The fact that Johnny had been walking in a known bear area without bells, bear spray, or a firearm hadn’t mattered to him.

  Jack spared a brief look at me. “Hidin’ behind Caribou’s skirts ain’t gonna help ya. I thought ya had more sense than to show yer face around here again.”

  I shot a pointed look at the table by the window. Dan rolled his eyes, but he got up, his chair scraping loudly. Jack turned to look at him. “Sit yer fat ass back down, Dan. Ya call yerself the law?” Jack spit onto the floor, causing Kenny, who’d been sitting nearby, to pull his feet away and glare up at Jack. Jack looked startled. “Sorry, Ken.”