An Artful Assasination

by Susan Harper

  “Oh, I would just love a soft pretzel as well,” Samantha said as she sat beside Iris.

  Kendell grinned, and the two of them left Iris and Pauline behind by the blankets to save their spots for the laser show that would be starting soon. The sun was setting, and bits and pieces of the park were slowly closing down for the night. Thankfully, most of the places that served food were still open for business in expectation of the laser show crowd. Kendell got herself a hamburger and fries along with a soda, as did Felicity. They got pizza and a drink for Iris, Pauline’s hot dog and fries and soda, and eventually, they found a place serving soft pretzels for Samantha and Iris.

  “Good thing you came with me,” Felicity said as the two of them slowly made their way back to the hillside, worried that they were going to spill everything.

  “You’re not kidding. We should have made Iris come too,” Kendell said. “I appreciate you two being so hospitable. I’ve really enjoyed my time here in Georgia. And this trip to Stone Mountain has been a blast.”

  “Are you kidding me? You have been putting up with my grandmother—I know she can be a little abrasive at times. I’m amazed she hasn’t gotten you two into a bunch of trouble!” Felicity exclaimed.

  “Um…sure, let’s just pretend we haven’t gotten into any trouble at all,” Kendell said, and Felicity laughed.

  “I mean more trouble than what she, I assumed, did,” Felicity said. “I’m so glad she found a friend during her travels. I know it’s been pretty hard on her since my grandfather passed away, so I know she has probably really enjoyed the company.”

  “I’ve enjoyed it,” Kendell said. “She’s really made me realize just how much of a stick in the mud I had become. And I think you’ve inspired me a good bit as well. I am contemplating getting into detective work like you.”

  “Really?” Felicity asked, smiling.

  “Yeah, but I still love to travel, and it doesn’t look like you get to do a whole lot of that,” Kendell said. “I want to see the world, but at the same time, there is something very intriguing about what it is you do. I guess I want to find a way to do both?”

  “Why not do both?” Felicity asked.

  “How could I possibly make that work?”

  “Well, find a career that allows you to travel,” Felicity began. “And then you can get certified to start your own practice. You can get some sort of certification, I’m sure, that would allow you to take up jobs in more than one state—or around the world, for that matter.”

  “Maybe…but I already have a job that allows me to travel, but the problem is the lack of flexibility. I’ve got to be on my flights on time, and after this trip with your grandmother is over, I’m going to be maxed out of vacation time. I don’t see how being a flight attendant is going to work if I’m wanting to become…a traveling detective?” Kendell shook her head. “Plus, who would hire me to work a case? I don’t have any real experience. I need to find a job that allows me to travel that is more flexible while I’m working toward some sort of certification.”

  “What about travel writing?” Felicity suggested. “You can go where you want. You could do blogging.”

  “I don’t know about supporting myself through a blog…” Kendell muttered. “But I do like writing. That might be fun. Traveling, getting paid to write about my journeys, and then picking up private investigative work wherever I’m at.”

  “If that’s what you’re thinking you would enjoy, I’d go for it. Life is too short to be spent in a career you hate,” Felicity said. “Maybe start small. Start up a blog while you’re traveling now and see if people respond to what you’ve got to say. That would at least get you some practice and give you a chance to see if it’s something you would really want to do.”

  “I think that’s an awesome idea,” Kendell said, smiling confidently. “A blog writer… I could do that… Hmm… I wonder what my boyfriend would think of that.”

  “Grandmama told me you were dating someone,” Felicity said. “Sounds like a good guy from what she has told me.”

  “Really?” Kendell was surprised. “She’s never actually met him, and from what I told her, she didn’t seem too thrilled about him.”

  “Well, I think she’s trusting your decision-making skills,” Felicity said. “She told me he was missing you really bad and had given you a hard time about being gone?”

  “Yeah, it was so weird. He started getting all grumpy with me about it and then all of a sudden started acting like Mister Supportive,” Kendell exclaimed. “It was so random. I think one of my friends might have gotten a hold of him about it, but I’m not so…” Kendell stared at Felicity. She had this I-know-something-you-don’t look about her. “Oh my gosh, please don’t tell me…”

  Felicity’s face turned bright red. “What?” she asked.

  “Did Pauline… Did Pauline talk to him?” Kendell asked.

  Felicity looked away. “Okay, so… Grandmama may have mentioned to me that she got a hold of your cell phone while you were sleeping and decided to call your boyfriend and chew him out…”

  “Oh my gosh!” Kendell exclaimed. “I can’t believe she would do that!” For a moment, it made her angry. It was a major invasion of privacy, but then she smiled and laughed. Pauline had just been trying to look out for her, after all, and, frankly, whatever she said had obviously straightened Jack up. “Your grandmother is so crazy, but I love her to death,” Kendell said, and Felicity smiled, glad she hadn’t gotten Kendell angry with the woman.

  They arrived back at the blanket just as the lights at the base of the mountain were starting up and an announcement was being spoken over the loudspeakers about the laser show. Soon, loud country music started to boom, and colorful light images displayed up on the mountain. Kendell sat next to Pauline on the blanket as the woman fed Dot bits of hot dog. She smiled. She felt so fortunate to have met this crazy old coot. It was nice having someone look out for her the way she did.

  After dropping Samantha and Iris off, Pauline, Felicity, and Kendell headed back to Felicity’s home. Kendell went straight to bed, exhausted after the trip. Pauline headed to Felicity’s room, where she had been staying. Her granddaughter sat up on the bed after changing, yawning and stretching. Jefferson had been passed out on the couch when they had arrived back from Stone Mountain, so they had all tip-toed back into the house.

  “Tired?” Pauline asked.

  “It was a long day,” Felicity said. “Aren’t you tired?”

  “Most definitely,” the woman said, peering out the bedroom door into the living room where Jefferson was sound asleep. “Sweet man. Looks like he tried to wait up on you.”

  “I would hate to wake him. I sent him a text letting him know we had made it back,” Felicity said.

  “You know, Felicity, he really is a good boy,” Pauline said. “One I wouldn’t mind my granddaughter marrying one day.”

  Felicity’s cheeks turned bright red. “Oh, well… I don’t know… I mean…maybe one day…”

  “Felicity,” Pauline said sternly. “You know why I came to Georgia, don’t you?”

  Felicity frowned. “Yes, Grandmama, I know. You made it pretty clear you came to knock some sense into me.”

  “What’s the problem?” Pauline asked.

  “I guess I’m just scared,” Felicity admitted. “After what happened to Brian, I’m just worried about getting hurt like that again. It would kill me if something happened to Jefferson.”

  “Do you love him?” Pauline asked.

  “I do.”

  “Then you can’t keep living in fear,” Pauline said. “Please tell me you are going to stop stringing that poor boy along. He loves you so much, you know?”

  “I know,” Felicity said. “And he is such a great man. He really cares about me. He loves me, and I do love him too. I need to snap out of this funk I’m in.”

  “That’s right, you better,” Pauline said. “What happened to Brian was just awful. I’m sorry you had to go through that. It was not right. But
Jefferson is a good man who deserves more than just a casual dating experience.”

  “I know,” Felicity said. “And I’ve been working on that. I think we’re going to be okay, Grandmama. I have been opening up to him more lately. And we’ve gotten more serious. It’s just kind of weird. We’ve been friends for so long, and now we’re in a relationship. It’s like you skip a bunch of steps when that happens.”

  “I imagine so,” Pauline said. “Just don’t scare him off by being distant.”

  “I won’t. I promise. I would be foolish to do something to chase him away,” Felicity said. “He’s one of the good ones.”

  Pauline smiled at her granddaughter and leaned down, kissing the woman’s forehead. “Yes, Felicity, I do believe he is. I’m so glad I came to visit with you. It has been so wonderful.”

  “I’m glad you decided to stop by,” Felicity said. “Although, I hate that part of your trip was ruined.”

  “Ruined!” Pauline exclaimed. “Missing out on Peru is nothing. I got to see my girls. That’s all that matters.”

  11

  The following day, Kendell and Pauline met Samantha for lunch at a local Irish pub just across the street from the event shop. Kendell enjoyed a shepherd’s pie. Unfortunately, Samantha had to run out of lunch early when the contractor coming to work on their ruined carpet called saying he would be early. She was having to replace the carpet in their guest room after the upstairs bathroom flood.

  After lunch, Pauline and Kendell headed across the street to Overton Family of Companies, where they saw that the shop was full of people. Jefferson and Trixie were of course helping out the abundant number of walk-ins they had unexpectedly gotten, but even Fix was downstairs with Felicity. Felicity was on the phone, talking to Jack upstairs. “Well, we can’t all go,” Felicity said into the phone as Pauline and Kendell approached.

  Felicity smiled at them. “Jack, I’ll go. You just man the phones in the agency, and let Fix help Jefferson and Trixie down here with the crowd that just came in… I’ll be fine. Jack, I said I’ll be fine.”

  “Tell Jack we’ll go with you,” Pauline whispered. Kendell raised a brow, not sure what it was Pauline had just signed them up for.

  “Jack, my grandmother and Kendell are here. They will go with me,” Felicity said. “It’s just a witness. I can handle it. It’s not like I haven’t gone on my own before. Just man the phones.” Felicity hung up and shook her head. “Things got crazy, and I’ve got to go meet up with Lonnie and Sheldon.” She grabbed her purse out from under the counter. “Grandmama, are you sure you want to go with me to that?”

  “We told you we wanted to help with the case,” Pauline said firmly.

  Kendell nodded in agreement. Truthfully, she would take any experience she could get. She was really starting to think that becoming a private investigator could be something she was legitimately interested in doing. It would be a major career change, and she wasn’t sure how she was going to make it work with her dreams of traveling. She liked Felicity’s idea of doing travel writing as well, but it was a risky business design—a traveling private investigator.

  Felicity bid farewell to Jefferson, Trixie, and Fix, then led Pauline and Kendell out the door. They loaded up into her car and headed up to Fayette County. “So, where are we going exactly?” Kendell asked from the back seat.

  “Sheldon and Lonnie are at Barbara’s house right now. They agreed to let us come by to interview them and talk about their mother,” Felicity said. “But it got really crazy at the shop today, and we needed someone to stay in the office because we might have some more people coming by for a cheating husbands case we’re working on.”

  “Did Jack interview Tim again?” Kendell asked.

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t very helpful,” Felicity said. “We didn’t really learn anything that we didn’t already know. He isn’t really making it a secret that he doesn’t like Barbara, but that hardly qualifies as actual evidence against him.”

  “You would think if he was guilty, he could be trying to make it sound like they were best buddies to avoid being busted,” Kendell said.

  “Exactly,” Felicity said. “It’s weird. Same with Ariana. People are smarter than that, even killers. If you had just killed someone, you wouldn’t go around telling people what your motive could be.”

  A few more minutes went by, and soon they were pulling up outside of a large house off a main road in Fayetteville. There was a white picket fence around the entire property, and a long-abandoned horse stable in the back. There was a moving van out front as well as a couple of vehicles and a giant ‘for sale’ sign. “Looks like Lonnie is moving everything out of his stepmother’s house,” Kendell said. “He sure did jump on selling this place.”

  “I wonder how Sheldon feels about that?” Pauline asked as they exited the vehicle and began walking up to the house.

  Felicity knocked on the door, and Lonnie answered it. He smiled sadly. “Hey,” he said quietly. “Come on in.” He opened the door wide, and the women entered the house.

  Sheldon was just inside, loading some items up into a carboard box. He looked sad and a bit broken. “Hey, Sheldon, Felicity is here,” Lonnie said, and the man looked up from what he was doing.

  “Hey,” he said, approaching the women.

  “I appreciate you agreeing to speak with us,” Felicity said. “I imagine you all have a lot to worry about right now. I noticed the for-sale sign in the yard… Was your mom selling the house?”

  Sheldon frowned. “No… Lonnie decided to sell the place.” He sounded sad but not too annoyed. “It was necessary. It’s a pretty big house to keep up. We’re clearing some stuff out we want before the estate sale he has set up.”

  “I’m letting Sheldon go through to get any sentimental stuff he wants before I put everything up for sale,” Lonnie said.

  “Yeah, I appreciate it,” Sheldon said uncomfortably.

  Lonnie’s shoulders slumped. “I’m really sorry, Sheldon. I know this is weird…”

  “It’s not your fault,” Sheldon said. “I need to run out to the store in a bit and get some more boxes.”

  “Okay, that’s fine,” Lonnie said. “I’ll be here all day.”

  “I’m going to grab some more photo albums right now to fill up this last box.”

  “Yeah, go ahead. Take all the photo albums if you want. If there are any pictures I want, I’ll get photocopies from you later,” Lonnie said.

  “Thanks,” Sheldon said, dipping out of the room and returning a few moments later with the photo albums that he began working to fit into the box.

  “I’m going to go rearrange some stuff in the truck so we can get the rest of those boxes in there,” Lonnie said, heading out the door.

  “So, Sheldon, I hate to ask this, but it’s imperative for the case,” Felicity began once Lonnie was out of the room. “Now that there’s been a little time to think, do you have any idea why your mother would leave everything to Lonnie over you?”

  “None,” Sheldon said, looking as though he felt quite betrayed. “Like I told you already, Mom and Lonnie were never that close. She married his dad when Lonnie was sixteen. He moved out at eighteen, and they really just saw each other around the holidays. He would come and help out around the house if she needed anything out of respect for his dad, but they weren’t close. I don’t know why Mom would do this. It just doesn’t make sense. I mean, it would have made sense to a certain extent, she was his stepmother, but I was expecting her to leave him stuff that belonged to his dad. He got a lot of money and belongs after his dad passed away. So, I just wasn’t expecting this.”

  “I imagine not,” Pauline said.

  The door opened and Lonnie returned, wiping sweat from his brow. “Okay, I got the boxes put into the back of the van. There is plenty of room for more if you want to go get some more boxes.”

  The doorbell rang moments later, and Lonnie excitedly scurried to answer it. Kendell wasn’t sure who she was expecting to be on the other side of the
door, but it sure wasn’t Ms. Lark. The tall, slender woman slipped into the house carrying a briefcase and looking quite smug. Her hair was pulled up in a tight bun, and she nodded approvingly at Lonnie. When she saw Sheldon, she nodded in his direction as well and calmly stated, “Ah, Mister Sheldon. I wasn’t expecting you to be here. I would like to offer you my deepest sympathies for your loss.”

  Sheldon stared at the woman curiously. “I appreciate the sentiment. Pardon me for sounding so forward, but why are you here?”

  “She wants to buy your mom’s paintings,” Lonnie said. “All of them.”

  “All of them!” Sheldon exclaimed. “Lonnie, you can’t sell all of Mom’s paintings.”

  Ms. Lark raised a brow. “Is there a problem, Lonnie?” she asked.

  “Um, no. No problem,” he said. “Why don’t you head on into the kitchen. Some of her paintings are hanging up in there, and you can have a look. I’ll meet you in there in just a moment.”

  The woman nodded and left the room. Sheldon stared at Lonnie. “You can’t seriously sell all of my mom’s paintings,” Sheldon said. “I would like to keep some.”

  “Well, Sheldon…” Lonnie muttered. “Look she left them to me, and Lark is offering a lot of money. Like, a lot of money. I can’t pass that up. I’m going to give you some of what I make off them.”

  “I don’t care about the money, Lonnie. I want to keep some of my mom’s paintings,” he said.

  “Sheldon, she offered two grand for one painting,” Lonnie said. “I’m sorry, bro, but I’m selling them.”

  “There has got to be seventy something paintings in this house, and you’re going to sell every single one of them and not let me keep any?” Sheldon demanded.

  “It’s nothing personal, Shelly,” Lonnie said. “Look, Miss Lark is not a particularly patient woman. I’m going to go talk to her. I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t worry, Sheldon, I’m going to cut you in on what I make off the paintings.”

  Sheldon watched Lonnie leave, looking very heartbroken.