2 Death at Crooked Creek

by Mary Ann Cherry

  Jack’s soft padding went unnoticed until a paw snaked out and claws hooked onto the turquoise boot bracelet. Jessie gave a start.

  “Hey! Watch it.” She carefully unsnagged the orange paw and scratched behind his ears. “I’m getting maudlin, Jack.” She looked at the clock on the dresser. “And I need to go.” Jessie pulled a catnip mouse—one that emitted a high-pitched squeak—out of the bag of cat paraphernalia and tossed it onto the rug. Jack pounced on it and looked at Jessie expectantly. She threw it once more, then opened the door to go.

  “See you later, Butter Tub.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Expo Reception

  Jessie picked a chicken teriyaki skewer and a brie-stuffed mushroom cap from the tray as the server offered the assortment of hors d’oeuvres. She popped the small mushroom into her mouth and looked around the room as she chewed appreciatively. Right now, a classical guitarist was playing, but soon it would be Esther’s turn to entertain the crowd. She spotted Esther arranging her sheet music at the piano near the bar area. Jessie moved toward the baby grand, snagging several more canapes as she went and accepting a glass of white wine from a smiling steward.

  Max Watson might be cheap with his advertising budget and mailing costs, but he puts on a nice event for the art enthusiasts.

  Wonder where he is.

  She scanned the reception area. Everywhere she looked were art enthusiasts dressed in their western best. Tables of various heights draped in elegant black cloths were dotted across the room. Some were high and only large enough to set down several glasses while the guests stood to chat. Others were low, round and wide, large enough to seat six or more people while they enjoyed their canapes and wine. Jessie spotted Max across the room, but before she could head in his direction, a gallery dealer strode purposefully toward him and tapped him on the shoulder. The woman was waving her hands in the air as she spoke. Even from a distance Jessie could see her agitation.

  Someone isn’t happy, Jessie thought. Well, I’m not happy with Max either. Not if he shorted last year’s charity.

  She made a mental note to ask for an appointment. She still hadn’t spoken to him about the proceeds from her donated landscape of the previous year. Using a toothpick, she stabbed a small piece of pineapple and put it in her mouth. It would be smart to find out what else had been consigned to the event and how high the winning bids were before she asked about a possible discrepancy in the funds. Maybe there were other auction lots that should have sold in the five-figure range. She bit into a chocolate covered strawberry, then took a sip of wine. Mmmm. Both were excellent. But she suspected Arvid would want to go out for dinner when Esther was finished playing, so she’d chosen only a few hors d’oeuvres from the tray when the server stopped to tempt her.

  She munched a celery stick as she wondered where she could get a copy of last year’s auction catalog. Surely someone working the show committee table would have a couple.

  Placing her empty plate on one of the rolling carts supplied for that purpose, she meandered through the crowd, stopping to say hello to old friends, on her way to the ticket desk.

  “Hey, Jessie.” Glen Heath stepped in front of her and greeted her with a Cheshire cat grin. Wearing a suede vest over a deep green, heavily embroidered western silk shirt and caiman boots, the sculptor looked every inch successful and self-assured. Then he met Jessie’s eyes. “Esther told me you were singing tonight. I’m delighted to hear it.” He took a healthy sip from the delicate wine glass he held in his broad hand. “I haven’t heard you belt out a song since the time we were both,” he gulped, “at the show in Carefree. Carefree, Arizona.” He waved his wine glass around, the liquid creating its own little whirlpool. “At that little karaoke bar. Wasn’t that on the corner of Easy Street? Man, what wouldn’t I give to be on Easy Street for real,” he slurred, “And then I’d be delighted.”

  Delighted was obviously his word of the day, Jessie mused. “Um ….no…I’m not singing. I don’t know where she got that idea.”

  Glen waved his wine glass again. “I’m going to find Max and tell Max that you’ll be deeeelighted to sing.” He drawled his word of the day, and started to turn away from Jessie, but just then Camille joined them, putting her free hand on his arm. She was dressed in a calf-length white leather dress, with cut fringe trailing down one side seam, a necklace comprised of several loops of turquoise beads with matching hoop earrings, and a wide silver bracelet. The high heels on her tooled boots brought her eye to eye with Glen. She looked magnificent.

  In fact, Jessie thought, she looks downright intimidating. She gives me a bad case of the frumps.

  “I think someone should have had dinner before he had, oh, about four or five glasses of wine, don’t you?” Camille tugged him toward a nearby table and placed her own heaping plate of hors d’oeuvres in front of him. “C’mon, Glen. Come and sit with me and eat a bite.” She pursed her lips at him, then glanced over reassuringly at Jessie as she told him, “You’re not going to coerce Jessie to sing. Eat. Then you’ll have a cup of coffee, or I’m going to tell Max that you’ll sing.”

  Glen looked stricken. “Aw, Camille. You know I can’t carry a tune. If I could carry a tune, I’d be delighted to sing.” He looked at the plate and his eyes widened in appreciation. “Oh look, chicken.” Then he frowned. “Every blamed art show serves the same chicken on a stick.” He looked accusingly at Jessie. “Do you think this is the same chicken? God, that had to be a huge chicken. And why aren’t you singing?”

  “Sorry, Jessie,” Camille said ruefully, looking down at Jessie.

  “It’s okay,” Jessie said. She looked at the wine in her hand, and then at Glen. Resolutely, she placed her own half-empty glass on the nearest dish trolley. It was great wine, too. “Farm Dog Red” from the Ten Spoon Winery in Missoula, Montana, according to the bartender. “I didn’t get time to eat either. And Glen knows that I sing at a lot of the shows.” Jessie gave him a stern look. “But not tonight.”

  “You owe me a motorcycle ride,” Glen grumbled between bites. “Wait and see. It’ll be—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Camille said, rolling her eyes. “It’ll be so delightful.” She looked at Jessie. “You looked like a woman on a mission when I saw Glen waylay you. Were you ducking out of the reception?”

  “No. I was just going to talk to the workers at the ticket desk, then come and listen to Esther play. It’ll be so different from her usual music. I heard they asked her to do a mix of jazz and country western. Can you imagine Esther doing country western?”

  “Oh, please.” She chuckled. “No, I really can’t. I’ll have to hear that to believe it. Now, Beethoven I could believe.” She shook her finger at Glen, who looked about to speak. “Eat,” she commanded. “But if Esther is doing country western, you know it’ll be good. And I heard they booked an incredible guitarist to play with her.”

  “It sounds like fun.”

  “It is.” Camille looked at Jessie with a thoughtful expression. “I know you’ve sent work to the auction in the past, but isn’t this the first time you’ve come to the show in person and displayed in a room? I hate to tell you that this is the night nobody—well almost nobody—sells art. We’re all down here listening to the music and schmoozing potential buyers. Then, when the rooms open tomorrow, here they come.”

  “We hope so anyhow, right?” Jessie asked.

  Camille smiled. “Oh, they do. You’ll see.”

  “Get along little dogies,” Glen supplied, waving a non-existent lariat over his head. “Head ‘em on in.”

  “What were you going to ask the show committee about?” Camille asked.

  “I wondered if they could find a catalog from last year’s auction. I had a piece in it and couldn’t recall how much it sold for. I was just curious.”

  “Heck, I have an old catalog up in my room. And it has all the winning bids listed. I always bring the previous year’s catalog, so I can compare current prices on similar work. At every auction I write down the winn
ing bids, and the no-sales that don’t meet the reserve, or lowest minimum, price. I like to know where the art market is headed, don’t you?”

  “Yes, exactly.” Jessie didn’t want to voice any suspicions she couldn’t back up with facts. “Do you mind if I borrow it? I can return it before tomorrow night’s auction.”

  Camille nodded. “Sure, no problem. I’m staying in my display room, 145, right down the hall. Let’s walk over and get it now.”

  Glen started to rise and Camille pushed down on his shoulder, effectively re-seating him. “Sit,” she commanded. “Eat. We’ll be back in five minutes and we’ll bring coffee.”

  As Jessie and Camille walked off, he was muttering about pushy women and chewing the chicken off a teriyaki skewer.

  *.*.*

  “Don’t think too badly of Glen,” Camille said, as they entered her hotel room. “We’ve been friends for over ten years and I tend to look out for him a bit at shows. It’s nothing romantic.” She hesitated. “At first, I wanted it to be. I gave up that idea when I realized how much he drinks. He’s his own worst enemy when he hits the booze, and it’s been worse lately. He’s been grumpy at the last two shows. Maybe he’s depressed. It’s sure hard to figure out.”

  “Have you asked him what’s wrong?”

  “Yeah, I have. One day he said his fingers are getting arthritic. He claims he isn’t kicking out the large body of work he used to, and pain in his fingers and thumb is affecting his sculpting.” Camille shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t see a big difference in his new sculptures, but he says he can. He swears that because of his stiff fingers, the quality of his work is sliding downhill fast.”

  “But he’s so young. He’s only in his late forties, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, but he worries he has rheumatoid arthritis. It’s an inherited disease and his mother has it. But the big goof won’t go to the doctor and get it confirmed. Maybe it’s just stiffness from pressing the wax or clay he uses. It’s hard on fingers and hands, that repetitive motion.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Jessie automatically flexed her fingers, thinking how scary any loss of fine motor control would be to an artist. Not as terrifying as loss of vision, perhaps, but frightening nevertheless. “That’s awful.”

  Camille nodded. “Yes, but then the next day, he’s in high spirits and says he’s going to get himself a new studio. A big space where he can sculpt monumental pieces—life-sized horses and such. He has some wonderful, well-heeled clients.” She met Jessie’s gaze. “I’m talking people with their own planes and lots of cash. Old money. New money. They treat him like family. You’d be surprised how much traveling he’s done just this year. Some of the clients fly him to their ranches to take reference photos or meet the bull or horse he’s supposed to sculpt. It’s crazy.” She shook her head, making the blond curls shimmy.

  Jessie was immediately lost in the color and movement. What a great portrait study Camille would make. She closed her eyes, imagining the play of light. She’d pose her on a vividly colored chair near a window, letting the effect of backlighting warm the edges of Camille’s—.

  “You okay?” Camille was staring at Jessie with a worried expression.

  “Oh, sure. Sorry. I…uh…I was just thinking Glen must be doing very well with his sculpting.”

  “But you know how Glen is. He hasn’t saved much money over his career. He accepts all the plane rides and the down payments. Then he blows the money. Now he’s worried he won’t be able to fulfill commissions because he needs a huge space to work on some of the large pieces. And, what if the arthritis flares up?”

  Jessie gave her a sympathetic glance. “Scary. I’m not sure what I’d do if I couldn’t paint. It must be frightening for him to think about not being able to take a piece of clay and make something wonderful.”

  “Yes. I know it is.”

  “But if he hasn’t saved enough for retirement or emergencies, where does he think he’ll get the funds to build a huge studio?” Jessie heard the words coming out of her mouth and would have loved to recall them. It wasn’t any of her business, but she continued. “And if he’s worried about his health, why does he want to take on more debt?”

  Camille threw out her hands. “Exactly. When I ask him he just glowers at me. Or, typical Glen, he laughs and says, ‘It’ll work out fine. I have a plan.’ Sometimes he mimics George Peppard from that old ‘80s TV series, you know, The A Team, who says, ‘I love it when a plan comes together.’” Camille gave a good impression of Glen pretending to chomp on a cigar while he gave the old tag line. “But serious, logical ideas? A decent business plan?” She shook her head again. “It just isn’t in his make-up. Sometimes I think half the artists I know are dreamers. Smart, creative, but without good heads for business. Have you ever noticed that some of the best artists seem to sell well, but they aren’t good marketers? If they were, they’d be household names.” Then Camille looked at Jessie, and her face reddened. “Present company excepted.”

  Jessie laughed, but dropped the subject and looked around the room. Camille’s art was scratch-board, sketches created with an engraving technique in which the artist uses a pointed tool to scratch through a black ink surface to reveal white or colored paper below. After making the initial sketch, Camille used acrylics to add lifelike color to her delicate renderings.

  Her pieces were displayed on floor to ceiling black panels that covered three walls of the room. Right now, none of her display lights were turned on to illuminate the artwork. Jessie would come back in the morning take a better look. She had long admired her friend’s art and would love to own a piece. A small wall in her Santa Fe home practically cried out for one of the artist’s tiny bird pieces. Maybe a hummingbird.

  Even if her display lights had been on, it would have been difficult to maneuver around the queen-sized rollaway bed, which took up the free space in the small hotel room. Regular hotel furniture—desk, table, chairs, regular bed—had been removed to allow visitors to go through the rooms and look at the art. Artists who didn’t want to pay for an extra room for sleeping nearly always opted to bring their own sleeping bags, or use the economical rollaway beds supplied by the hotel that staff folded up and stored each morning.

  The tall blonde squatted down and rummaged through the open suitcase on the bed. “Here’s the catalog.” She stood and handed it to Jessie. “Let’s go back to the table and take the big dope a jumbo cup of coffee. We can sit and go through the auction listings while he sobers up a little.”

  “Fine with me.”

  They stepped out into the hall. Camille mentioned, “There were some surprises in the winning bids, and one or two things at the end of the auction never made it into the print catalog.”

  “Really? Why not?”

  “Just added too late, I suppose. Late donations to help support the charity, maybe. I wrote the titles and description down. It seems like that happens nearly every year. At least here it seems to. And they never sell well that late in the evening. All the good buyers have gone, not realizing there are more lots at the end. I call them bargain basement pieces.”

  Interesting, Jessie thought. Donated paintings whose proceeds don’t reach the charity, and add-ons that don’t show up in the auction catalog.

  *.*.*

  Ten minutes later, Glen sported a wide, whipped-cream mustache and loudly sipped a mocha grande. “You coming to my art-room in the morning to see my new pieces, Jessie? If they plow the roads, we’ll take a cold ride. Cold, but mighty fun.”

  “I’d love to come and see your work,” Jessie replied. “But we’ll see about the ride. Sounds pretty chilly to me.” She sat down beside Camille.

  Camille pointed out artwork in the previous year’s catalog that had brought more than double the price estimated. She lamented over a few pieces she’d wanted to bid on, but the price had rocketed upward past her budget. “Here’s your Glacier Park landscape.” She pointed to an image titled, View from Going to the Sun Road. “It was gorgeous. Of course, I didn’t
even try to bid on it. Bidding was fierce. It was a three-way contest between a local collector, Max Watson, and a collector from Boston.” She consulted her notes. “It went for $32,500.”

  “That’s what I was told, except I didn’t know Max bid on it,” Jessie said. “Those proceeds were supposed to go to the Humane Society.”

  “Yes, I know. See here?” She pointed to an abbreviation she’d added next to the painting. “I added ‘DN’ next to the price on those pieces that Max announced were full donations to the Creekside Humane Society. Some buyers with big bucks purchased pieces simply to help fund a spay-neuter program and support a new addition to their facility. At one point, a husband and wife didn’t realize they were bidding against each other.” She waved her hand in the air. “It was a riot. Anyway, some of those pieces sold for double their normal value. They shouldn’t have put yours so far back in the auction or it might have brought even more. Max said his idea was that it would keep buyers in their seats until the end of the auction, but the crowd was pretty thin by then. Personally, I think he was hoping for that. I think he wanted it himself and hoped it would go low since it was at the end. The local collector dropped out early on, but the guy from Boston was more determined than Max and had a bigger wallet.” Camille chuckled. “He also bought a small piece added to the end of the auction. Now that made Max livid. I was watching his face when he was deciding whether to raise his paddle. He was apoplectic.”

  Jessie smiled. Over the loudspeaker, she heard Max announcing Esther’s stint at the piano. It was time to go over and listen to her friend’s performance.