The Deadly Art of Deception

by Linda Crowder

  “Cara, it was just a dream.”

  “I know, but it’s true. If someone wanted to come after me, they’d know I’d be here. If they come after me, they could come after you.”

  “Nobody’s coming after any of us,” said Bent, walking into the room. “I’ll put in some extra locks on the door tomorrow, and if I know Dan, some of those guys who’ve been watching Dan’s back are watching ours.”

  “You think?”

  “I wouldn’t be asleep if I thought you or Mel were in any danger, would I?”

  I looked at Mel. “Was he sleeping?”

  “As far as I know. Didn’t you hear the snoring?”

  “That was you, not me,” said Bent.

  “Don’t say mean things about the mother of your child.”

  I smiled, appreciating the effort they were making to calm my fears. Still, that dream had been so vivid. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was afraid if I tried to go back to sleep, I’d be right back on those steps with Taylor and her knife.

  Mel didn’t need me to say the words. She pushed me over and crawled into the bed beside me. “Well, you’re not going to be able to sleep tonight, and I’m too tired to stay awake. Honey, pull up a chair and keep Cara company, will you?”

  “What, with your snoring? How’s a guy supposed to hear anything over that?”

  She stuck her tongue out at him but was asleep before he could retaliate. I looked over her to Bent. “She really does snore. Always has, even when we were kids. I used to think it was a bear breaking into the house.”

  “I’d go for freight train myself. Go to sleep, Cara. I’ll take this watch.”

  “It’s not fair to you.”

  “Walking in on that scene at the mill would give anybody nightmares. I’ll sleep when the season’s over.”

  “You’ll have a new baby. You won’t be sleeping then.”

  “I can do a lot of sleeping in five months.” Bent reached over and switched off the lamp Mel must have turned on when she came in to see why I was screaming. I burrowed into the blankets and tried to focus on the familiar and safe sounds around me.

  I must have been able to sleep because when I woke up again, I was alone, but the door was open and the light was on in the hallway. Bless Mel for knowing it would frighten me to wake up in the dark and find her missing after that horrible nightmare. She must have gotten up at her normal time and sent Bent to bed so he could at least get a little sleep before daylight.

  I forced myself out of the bed and into the shower. I stood, letting the warm water rush over me until I felt it start to turn cold. I washed my hair in record time and stepped out just as the water was getting icy. Nothing like a cold shower to wake you up. I ran a comb through my mop of red hair and dressed for work. I spared a quick look out the window, was relieved to see the forecasted snow had not fallen, and hurried down the stairs.

  Mel was singing to herself in the kitchen, and I stopped in the hall to listen. Bent was the more outgoing of the two, so Mel generally left the singing to him, but this morning she was belting out Aretha Franklin with abandon. She was making casseroles for the breakfast crowd, and I could smell pecan rolls in the oven. She whirled around, wooden spoon for a microphone, and stopped dead when she saw me. Instantly, her face turned red, her singing stopped, and her shoulders slumped.

  “Oh, don’t stop,” I told her, coming into the room. “I like seeing you happy. I can’t remember the last time I saw you sing.”

  Her face back to its normal hue, she switched off the radio. “That’s because you sound like an elephant coming up the back porch every morning.”

  “Well, I must not be an elephant today.”

  “No, oddly enough. I heard you in the shower though. Bet you finished that one blue as a glacier.”

  “Just a little.” I went over to check on the ovens. “You must have gotten up an hour ago.”

  “Had to. You were flopping around like a fish.”

  “I was not.”

  “I have the bruises to prove it.”

  I sat down on the chair I’d vacated yesterday. “Sorry. You start the coffee yet?”

  “As soon as I heard the shower go on. Don’t feel bad, Cara. You know I’m just teasing you. Truth is, I kept waking up to check on you, and, finally, Bent told me I may as well get started if I wasn’t gonna get any sleep. I told Bent he could sleep in.”

  “I can stay and help you.”

  “You have to get to the gallery.”

  “I don’t have a shipment to get ready this morning, and there’s nothing left in storage, so whatever gaps I have on the floor are gonna stay gaps. All I have to do is unlock the door before the tender docks. I’ll head out when we hear the whistle blow.”

  “Then I’ll be happy to have your company.”

  Neither one of us said what I’m sure we were both thinking. I didn’t want to be alone in the gallery until there were enough people around town to give me at least a sense of security. I went out to the dining room to set up the tables. I hated this fear. I was used to going where I wanted, when I wanted. I loved my little apartment, and I loved The Broken Antler. I didn’t want fear to take that away from me, but I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to face it this morning.

  I was setting table three against the front window when there was a knock on the glass. I jumped, dropping a tray of silverware. Mel came running into the dining room, shotgun in hand. “What was that?”

  “It’s just Dan. He knocked on the window and it startled me. You look like Annie Oakley.”

  “Annie Oakley had a rifle, not a shotgun,” said Mel, but she retreated back to the kitchen.

  I stepped over the tangle of silverware and unlocked the door for Dan. “You scared the crap out of me.”

  “Good morning to you too.”

  “Good morning, Dan. You scared the crap out of me.”

  He laughed, which somehow made me laugh too. I stooped to pick up forks and spoons. Dan stepped around me and grabbed a fork or two and tossed them on the tray as we talked. “State lab boys are up at the mill.”

  “Already? It’s not even light out yet.”

  “They dropped everything when I called last night. Look, I need you to keep this under your hat. I don’t know who all may be involved in this, and I don’t want word getting back to them that we’ve found the scene of the crime.”

  “I’m not anxious to tell anybody about it, but the gossip mill’s gonna go crazy when they see the state police boat.”

  “They won’t see the boat. It only docked at the cannery long enough to drop off the team and their equipment.”

  I sat back on my heels and stared at Dan. “Why the secrecy?”

  Dan stood up and held out a hand to me. I picked up the tray and offered him my elbow to help me up. “Up to now I’ve had nothing solid about this man Ms. Lennon married. All I’ve had was a piece of paper, no picture, no description, nothing else to even say he existed, let alone had ever been in Coho Bay.”

  “And now Taylor knows that I saw him.”

  “She saw us together, coming back from the mill, so likely she put the pieces together anyway. They’ve gotta know the noose is closing in. That could make them desperate.”

  “More desperate than killing a man and cutting up his body? I still can’t see Taylor doing something like that.”

  “I think you’d be surprised what people will do if they have the right motivation.” He held up his hand to stop my protest. “I’m not saying she cut him up and tossed him overboard any more than she did the dirty work with Johnny.”

  “But this mythical husband of hers may have done both.”

  “He’s not mythical. You saw him yourself.”

  “But we don’t know he’s her husband.”

  “We know that he was. What we can’t prove is whether he still is.”

  “You said there was no record of a divorce.”

  “That I’ve found. Doesn’t mean it isn’t out there somewhere. Judge has ordered her to produce i
t, but as far as I know, she hasn’t.”

  “If she did get a divorce, why can’t she produce a copy of the decree?”

  Dan took the tray and motioned for me to go ahead of him into the kitchen. “That’s the fifteen-million-dollar question, though if she’s convicted of complicity in Johnny’s murder, it won’t matter. She wouldn’t be eligible to inherit.”

  “If it’s Jack who’s dead and for some reason Taylor is disqualified, what happens to the money then?”

  Dan put the tray down next to the dishwasher and said hello to Mel. “For now, I need to know whose blood is at the mill, whether it matches our victim in the bay and whether that victim is Frank or Jack.”

  “I guess that’s enough questions for one morning,” I agreed. “While you’re figuring that out, I’d better start making up new place settings so I can set the tables.”

  “When are you going to the gallery?”

  “When the whistle blows.”

  “Call me when you’re ready, and I’ll take a smoke break.”

  “You don’t smoke.”

  He grinned at me. “I could start.” He nodded at Mel and headed back out the way he’d come.

  “He likes you,” she said after we heard the door chime.

  “Tammy thinks I should go for him.”

  “Well then, I’ll start picking out china patterns.” That sent us both into peals of laughter.

  Business was slow. There were lots of shoppers but not many buyers. End-of-season cruisers are bargain hunters, and none of the art I had on display was available for the prices that were being offered today. One or two collectors came in, and I negotiated deals on pieces I knew the artists didn’t want to see back in their studios, but most of my day was spent making sure nothing walked away or got bumped off a pedestal or knocked off the wall.

  There was an e-mail from the man who’d been interested in Johnny’s work, but the price he opened with was far too low. I let him know that one had been taken off the market, so there was only one piece left. I knew he’d up his offer substantially, and even if he didn’t, I owed it to Johnny to hold out for the best possible price. He was beyond caring about things like that, but I wanted his work to have the lasting respect it deserved, and high prices ensured the art world wouldn’t forget about him. As I sent the e-mail, I wondered whether Taylor had really had something to do with Johnny’s death.

  If she’d been married before, I wondered why she hadn’t told me about it at the time. She wouldn’t have had any reason to cover it up. She’d said something about having a fight with her boyfriend, but Taylor was always having fights with boyfriends. She was forever falling in and out of love, but I’d never known her to be serious about anybody before Johnny. It had knocked me flat when she’d told me they were getting married. I’d had a hard time picturing her giving up her many men and settling down, but that’s exactly what she’d done. Unless Dan was right and it had all been an act to get at Johnny’s money.

  Fifteen million dollars. The sheer enormity of that sum shocked me, but Johnny had never been much interested in the trappings of wealth. I wondered how Johnny’s mother had come by that kind of money and why the inheritance had bypassed Jack and gone to Johnny. I’d have to ask Dan about that. Father and son had grown closer after she’d died, not what I’d expect if your own spouse had disinherited you. That would give Jack a motive, maybe not to kill his own son, but certainly to discredit Taylor. Dan said he’d validated the marriage license, but what if he was in on it with Jack? What had Jack offered him to get Dan to stand up in court and tell a judge that what was clearly an accident might be murder? If they had the marriage license, that should be enough to disinherit her, as long as she couldn’t produce a divorce decree. Why accuse her of murder?

  None of it made sense. Yesterday had been the first real fight Taylor and I had ever had. If I were going to be honest, I’d have to admit it was more because I bit my tongue a lot around her than because we always saw eye to eye. I don’t like conflict, so I turn away from anything that bothers me until whatever it is fades away. You can’t be picking fights with people who annoy you in a town the size of Coho Bay, or pretty soon you’ll be eating alone every night. It isn’t that we never disagree, but most of us are of the “live and let live” persuasion.

  Except somebody wasn’t letting live anymore. I wondered how long it would take for the state lab to tell us which one of the two missing men was the victim and which was the killer. I’d been happy last night at the thought that Frank might not be dead, but now that I was thinking clearly, I realized if he was still alive, it meant he must have killed Jack. My head was aching, and it wasn’t even lunchtime. The crowds started to thin early in the afternoon. It was cold, and many of them went back to their ship sooner than they might have had the weather been nicer. There was only one person in the gallery when Dan came in.

  “Afternoon, Dan.” Since I had a customer, I kept my voice light, as if our one and only policeman stopped by the gallery every afternoon just to say hello. The customer never looked up from the watercolor he’d been examining.

  “Afternoon, Cara. Good day?”

  “Always good when you stop by,” I answered, unwilling to let the one customer I had think it had been a slow day. Slow days drive down prices. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

  “I’d appreciate that, thank you.”

  I walked over to my customer. “Sir, I’m pouring if you’d like some.”

  “I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble. I see you’re enjoying these watercolors. I know the artist would be happy to know she put a smile on your face.”

  “Is the artist from around here?”

  “She lives just north of here.”

  “It’s beautiful. Are you at all negotiable on the price?”

  “I have a little wiggle room. Why don’t you think about it while I’m getting your coffee, and let me know what you decide?”

  “Thanks, I’ll do that.”

  He went back to looking at the paintings. I smiled at Dan on my way to the back room, returning a few minutes later with three steaming mugs. One I left at the counter, one I gave to Dan, and the third I carried to the man who’d moved to the miniature of the town’s massive sculpture.

  I handed him his coffee and told him about the sculpture and the good work the proceeds were making possible. Except for some of the jewelry, the sculpture was the least expensive work in the gallery since it wasn’t original. He ended up buying both the sculpture and the watercolor, for which he offered to pay full price. “I like what you’re doing here, Miss King,” he said as I rang up his purchase. “I’ve seen lots of galleries on this cruise, but none had the same feeling as I get in your Broken Antler. You care about the art and the artists, and it shows.”

  “Thank you, Mister...?”

  “Bancroft. Steven Bancroft. Here’s my card with the shipping information. It’s been a pleasure.”

  “The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Bancroft. I hope you enjoy the rest of your cruise.” One of the nicest things about running a gallery was running into people like him, who appreciated art and who didn’t begrudge the artist a fair price.

  Hearing the ship’s whistle announcing the last tender would soon be leaving, I followed behind him and locked the door. I took down the “Open” painting and replaced it with the one that read “Closed.” They had been a gallery-warming gift from Johnny when The Broken Antler had opened.

  “One more day,” I said to Dan. He’d stepped away during the transaction to give us privacy, and he was standing in front of Johnny’s paintings. His face was thoughtful.

  “I’m not busy,” he said, “if you want company for dinner.”

  “Dan, I don’t need a bodyguard.”

  “Who said anything about being a bodyguard? Maybe I don’t feel like eating alone.”

  I laughed. “You been talking to Tammy?”

  “What’s Tammy got to do with it?”

 
“Nothing. She was trying to fix me up with you when I stopped by yesterday.”

  “Really? I’ll have to thank her.”

  “You might not feel that way when I tell you why she thought I should go out with you.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because there’s nobody else.”

  He put his head back and roared. Not the “that isn’t funny, but I know you think it is so I’ll laugh anyway” kind of laugh, but an honest-to-goodness belly buster. I didn’t know Dan had it in him to laugh like that. I’d always seen him as a very serious, almost militaristic man with a permanent grimace from working with criminals all day.

  His laugh subsided, and he rubbed the corner of one eye. “I needed that.”

  “I imagine it was a rough day for you. What did the lab guys say?”

  “Not saying anything official until the report comes back, but they do think our victim lost his head at the mill. Who that victim is, we still don’t know.”

  “Did you search the house?”

  “Did that last night, but there was nothing surprising. Jack’s hunting gear is gone, but everything else is there. The sign looked like the ones I’ve seen him make in the past.”

  “Which he would want us to think if he killed Frank.”

  “Or which Frank would want us to think if he killed Jack.”

  “True.” I finished making out my deposit slip and slid it into the bank bag. My contracts with the cruise lines promised the gallery would be open every week of the season, but the first and last week were usually a bust. At least I hadn’t missed having Taylor’s help. “Shall we go?”

  “In a minute. This guy you saw with Ms. Lennon. Are you sure it couldn’t have been Frank?”

  “We thought of that, but he was too short.”

  “How tall was he?”

  “Taylor’s about five-two and the top of her head was about chin level. I guess that would make him about my height or yours.”

  “Mine?”

  “Had a coat like that tan one you wear with the wool trim. I’d have thought it was you except for the hat. And the fact that he was obviously on affectionate terms with Taylor.”