Ghost in the Gallery

by Kathi Daley

  Alaric wanted to stay and continue to look through the old newspapers for a couple hours, but he promised to be back to the inn for dinner, so we called Nikki and asked her to come and get us and give us a ride back to the inn since Alaric had brought us into town in his rental car. I was sorry we didn’t find a definitive answer to Alaric’s mystery, but I supposed that was the way some mysteries ended up. There was a point where you’d learn all there was to learn, and whether you had your answers or not, you simply had to let it go and get on with your life.

  Chapter 14

  It was three days until Halloween, and while most of the events sponsored by the inn during the month had already taken place, we still had the big Halloween blowout to look forward to. Georgia and I had invited friends from town in addition to the guests we had staying at the inn. The weather had cooled a bit, so we planned to move the party indoors with the exception of the main patio right off the back door, which Jeremy would cover with a canopy that should hold the heat provided by the patio heaters. The event was an adults-only affair, and there would be an open bar and live band. Costumes were encouraged, and it seemed like everyone planned to comply.

  Colt had been busy the past couple of weeks trying to figure out who’d killed Damian, if it hadn’t been Elena. He’d attended the murder mystery dinner as my guest, and had spent the night on Saturday, but otherwise, it had been over a week since we’d spent any time together. November was a slower month at the inn than October, and it looked like we’d have some breathing room to take some time off. Georgia planned to take a long weekend away with Tanner the weekend following Halloween, and Jeremy talked about taking Annabelle and Mylie to Disney World for a few days the week after that. The reality was that the period between Halloween and Thanksgiving before the craziness of the Christmas season descended upon us, was actually pretty dead. In fact, there were a lot of days when the inn was totally vacant and free of guests. I just hoped Colt would get his murder case wrapped up so we could spend some time really getting to know each other as a couple before the next wave of tourists descended upon us.

  “So, are we ready for the party on Saturday?” I asked Georgia and Jeremy as the three of us met over a cup of coffee. Today was a down day. Everyone who’d stayed with us last weekend had checked out, and the first arrival for Halloween weekend wasn’t due to arrive until tomorrow.

  “I think so,” Georgia said. “I have flowers on order, which I plan to use to refresh the decorations we’ve had up all month. I have a plan for the food and will go shopping tomorrow. I finally decided on a costume, and I plan to pick it up while I’m in town tomorrow. I feel ready.” She glanced at Jeremy. “Do you feel ready?”

  He nodded. “I’m going to wait to install the canopy and bring out the heaters until Saturday. The weather looks like it’s going to cooperate, but you can never be sure about what Mother Nature will decide to do during this time of the year. I’m going to have Annabelle and Hannah carve some new jack-o’-lanterns for the driveway leading up to the inn, but we’ll wait until Friday to do that.”

  “Is Annabelle staying overnight with Hannah on the thirty-first?” I asked.

  “She is,” Jeremy answered. “Hannah’s parents are taking a small group trick-or-treating, and then they plan to have a slumber party. Annabelle is really excited about it, and I don’t think she’ll miss having Uncle Jeremy along for the trick-or-treating, but I am feeling a bit sad to miss it. Maybe next year. If we have a party at the inn, it will likely be on the thirtieth since Halloween is on a Sunday.”

  “Maybe we’ll mix things up a bit next year,” I answered. “The murder mystery dinner is set, but the dates for the other events won’t be set in stone for months.” I glanced toward the horizon, which was dark with storm clouds. “I think I’m going to head into town for a couple hours. I need to pick up my costume, and I want to check in with Vanessa to make sure she got the books I had my publisher send to her, and, if so, sign them for her. If you need anything, feel free to call or text.”

  Jeremy indicated that he had work to do, and Georgia headed inside to work on her menus for the following week.

  I’m not sure why it occurred to me as I stood at the counter in the costume shop waiting for the costume I’d preordered to be delivered to me that Nikki had mentioned that Damian had a room in the gallery that he used to restore damaged pieces. Suddenly an idea took root that I couldn’t quite shake, so I paid for my costume and then headed to Colt’s office. Luckily, he was in.

  “Abby. What a nice surprise. I didn’t know that you’d planned to come by.”

  “I hadn’t,” I answered, taking a seat across from him. “I was in town picking up my costume when a thought occurred to me. I haven’t worked it all out yet, but I wanted to run it by you and see where the conversation might go.”

  He leaned back and gave me his full attention. “Okay. What’s on your mind?”

  “We know that Elena admitted to working with artists in the past to help them to steal their own work to commit insurance fraud.”

  He nodded. “Yes, she has admitted to running the scam while working at the gallery in Los Angeles and the gallery in Chicago.”

  “We also know that she denied running a similar scam at her own gallery with Bloomfield’s work.”

  He nodded. “I’m following you so far.”

  “When we spoke to Liv, she informed me that the gallery had taken out insurance riders for each piece of work Bloomfield had lent to the gallery. It was also suggested that perhaps Bloomfield needed cash, but that all his wealth was tied up in his artwork that might not have been selling for one reason or another.”

  “Yes, the argument was made that Bloomfield had agreed to display his work in Elena’s tiny gallery since it would be much easier to orchestrate a theft from her gallery than the gallery in New York, but if we are to believe Elena, she didn’t carry out the insurance scam at her own gallery.”

  “You pulled Bloomfield’s financials. Would you say he was cash poor and might have welcomed an infusion?”

  “Actually, yes,” Colt answered. “If Elena had been looking for an artist to work with, he would have been a good choice.”

  “I remember Nikki saying that after the first two paintings went missing, she expected Bloomfield to totally freak out, but he didn’t. In fact, Nikki said he was very casual about the whole thing, and didn’t seem at all worried. He even mentioned something to Nikki about the pieces being insured.”

  “So you think Elena is lying. You think she was working the scam here at her own gallery.”

  “Maybe, but it also occurred to her that someone else might have been working the scam. Someone who’d most likely partnered with her on the two occasions she did act as an inside link to art thefts in the past.”

  “Damian.”

  I nodded. “We know Damian worked with Elena in both Los Angeles and Chicago where the two thefts occurred. It stands to reason that the two might have been a team. Maybe when Bloomfield was looking to orchestrate his own insurance fraud, he went to Elena, but this time she wouldn’t play the game because it was the reputation of her own gallery at stake. Maybe Bloomfield went to Damian, or perhaps Damian went to Bloomfield.”

  Colt was quiet, but I could see that he was working the idea around in his mind. “Okay,” he eventually spoke. “So Elena acted as the inside woman to art thefts supported by the artist in two instances we know of. She got her cash and opened the gallery in Holiday Bay. Bloomfield, who needs to raise some quick cash, goes to Elena with a proposal to do much the same thing she has done at other galleries, but she says no. Damian, who’d worked with her in the past and understood the scam, steps in.”

  “Exactly. Nikki said that Damian had a room he used to repair and refurbish damaged art. We also know that in addition to being a decent artist, he went to art school in Paris, where he probably picked up additional skills. Maybe that’s where he learned about art restoration. Anyway, Georgia had mentioned early on that perhaps the stol
en paintings were being covered with the canvas of a local artist and being transported that way. Maybe Damian took Bloomfield’s work and then layered his own over the top. Perhaps he could only manipulate two canvases in the amount of time he had to work with on any given night, so he only stole two at a time. Maybe he was at the gallery in the middle of the night to sneak the Bloomfield pieces that had been camouflaged to appear to be his own work out the cargo door when someone came in, realized what he was doing, and hit him over the head to stop him.”

  Colt teepeed his fingers. “Okay, say all that is true. Say it was Damian who was working with Bloomfield and not Elena. Wouldn’t Elena have realized what was going on when the first two paintings went missing?”

  “Probably, but perhaps she wasn’t in a position to do anything about it. Damian knew about her participation in similar schemes in the past, so Elena knew he’d bring her down with him if she had him arrested. Bloomfield was a willing participant, so the only real victim was the insurance company. Maybe she decided it wasn’t worth making a fuss.”

  “Okay, so how do we prove any of this?” Colt asked.

  “We need to get Elena to confess what she knows. I know she told you part of it, probably to deflect your attention from the murder charge, but if Damian had acted on his own, you know she had to have realized what was going on.”

  “Okay.” He stood. “Let’s go and have a chat with her.”

  As it happened, Elena was at the gallery when we arrived. She planned to reopen the following week and was putting everything in order. She didn’t look at all happy about seeing us, but she did open the door and let us in when we knocked on the glass. She even showed us back to her office and offered us seats. I watched her closely as Colt outlined the theory we’d come up with. I could see by the emotions she tried desperately to hide that we were very close to the truth.

  She didn’t speak at first, but eventually, she must have realized that it was only a matter of time before Colt found the proof he needed to back up his theory.

  “You’re mostly right,” she eventually said. “I was the inside person in the art thefts from both the gallery in Los Angeles and the one in Chicago, and in both cases, the artists whose pieces were stolen were in on the plan. And Bloomfield did indeed come to me about a similar operation after he realized that the gallery in New York was actually going to grant my request to borrow some of his work for a showing, but as you already guessed, I turned him down. I didn’t realize that Bloomfield knew that I’d worked with Damian in the past, and I certainly didn’t know that he would bypass me altogether and work the scam with him after I refused to cooperate. I suspected what was going on when the first two paintings turned up missing, but both Damian and Bloomfield denied it, and I couldn’t exactly go to the cops. I did anticipate that additional pieces would be taken the following night, and I did stay behind rather than going home as everyone thought. I wanted to catch Damian red-handed. I couldn’t let him go to the cops, but I couldn’t have him damage the reputation of the gallery either.”

  “So you waited for him and killed him when he showed up,” I said.

  “I didn’t kill him. The thought entered my mind when I realized what he was doing, but I loved Damian. I would never hurt him. I’d been hiding in the room he used for restoration, which is connected to the storeroom where he’d stacked the four paintings in preparation for transport. I was about to confront him when someone else came in. I waited to see what happened and probably should have intervened earlier, but by the time I realized that Damian was in danger, the whole thing was over.”

  Someone else killed Damian? “Bloomfield?” I asked.

  “No. Damian wasn’t killed because of the insurance scam. At least not directly. He was killed by someone who knew what was going on and wanted to protect me. Someone who was afraid that having a theft at the gallery owned by me would lead to questions about the thefts in the past I actually had been responsible for. Someone who wanted to be sure I wouldn’t end up in jail.”

  Colt had a blank expression on his face, and I had to admit that I felt confused too, but then it hit me. Who would care about Elena enough to kill for her?

  “Liv,” I said.

  She nodded. “Liv and I have been together for a long time. She never liked Damian, but she has always loved me. She could see that Damian’s actions were going to hurt me, and she tried to help. I know I should have turned her in, but I just couldn’t.” She looked at Colt. “She’s gone. Out of the country. I’m already going to jail for the theft, so I suppose if you want to pile on additional charges such as aiding and abetting or interfering in an investigation, I can’t stop you. Maybe I should have gone with Liv when she left. But I chose to stay and face the consequences of my actions.” She held out her wrists as if she fully expected Colt to arrest her right then and there.

  “I’m not going to take you in,” he said. “If you wanted to run, you would have. I’ll talk to the DA, and we can chat again tomorrow.” He started to stand up. “So, where are the missing paintings now?”

  “In the gallery in New York where they belong. I made sure all the pieces we borrowed for the exhibit got back as agreed.”

  He nodded. “Okay. I’ll be in touch.”

  Chapter 15

  By the time Halloween rolled around, Colt had turned the results of his investigation into Damian’s death over to Elena’s attorney and the DA, who were working with Elena on some sort of a plea deal. I had no idea at this point if Liv would ever be brought to justice, but Colt had been able to convince Elena that if she wanted to get the minimum sentence, she was going to have to share everything she knew, including Liv’s current whereabouts. It took some persuasion on his part, but eventually, he was able to convince Elena to do the right thing.

  The gallery had closed. According to Nikki, there was talk amongst some of the local artists about going in together and trying to buy Elena out, but I seriously doubted that would end up happening. Without someone steering the ship, it was likely the whole enterprise would go under. I was sorry about what happened to Damian but happy that Nikki hadn’t gotten pulled into the whole thing.

  Halloween day dawned bright and sunny. There was a storm forecast for next week, but the weekend weather looked to be perfect. I was excited about the party this evening, but just a tiny bit sad that Colt and I weren’t going to have much we time together. He had promised to bring his little black bag for the weekend, and Georgia had indicated that she planned to stay at Tanner’s after the party, so perhaps we would get the time together I craved if I could make it through the next eight hours.

  Picking Rufus up, I headed toward the inn with Molly on my heels.

  “I received a call from Ainsley, letting me know that she arrived in Washington and should be settled in Gooseberry Bay by nightfall,” Georgia informed me as I entered the kitchen where she’d been working.

  “I’m glad to hear she made the trip okay,” I answered as I set Rufus down near Ramos. “I guess it might take her a few days to settle in, but I’m anxious to find out what she’s able to discover about the house and the three people standing in front of the house.”

  “She said she’d stay in touch,” Georgia assured me. “I think she appreciates the help and support we’ve offered. She even mentioned coming back to Holiday Bay for a visit this summer.”

  “I’d like that. And I do support her quest. I just hope she’s able to live with whatever it is she finds. No matter how many different outcomes I imagine, any possibility that ends with a three-year-old being abandoned and alone in the middle of a burning building is probably not a story with a happy ending.”

  “Yeah,” Georgia agreed. “I get why she needs to know, but I suspect she’s in for some heartache. I just hope she’s able to enjoy some happiness along the way.”

  “Ainsley is friendly and outgoing, so I’m sure she’ll make friends who will help her during her journey.” I smiled at Georgia. Having her in my life really had made all the difference
in my own journey. “Colt should be here soon. I think Jeremy and I are finished outside, so I’m going to head over to the cottage to shower. I don’t want to put my costume on until the very last minute in case there are a lot of little things to do at the last minute, but I figure I can otherwise get ready now.”

  “We should be good to go by the time the guests start arriving. I have the dinner buffet all prepped, which I plan to serve around seven-thirty. The bar will open at six-thirty, and I have a bunch of appetizers to set out.”

  “I love how you transformed the inn into a spooky mansion,” I said. “I really think this party is one that is going to go down in Holiday Bay history.”

  She opened the refrigerator and began digging around for something she wanted to add to the dip she was making. “Did you see the hay wagon Jeremy borrowed and decorated with scarecrows and pumpkins?”

  I nodded. “I really love the coffin he added to the back and the lanterns he hung near the front. I can’t wait until it gets dark. It’s going to look awesome.”

  “We’ll need to go up and down the driveway lighting all the jack-o’-lanterns once it gets dark, but if we all pitch in, it shouldn’t take long.”

  “It’s nice we have such a large family to help with the last-minute details.”

  I smiled as I said the words large family. When I’d arrived in Holiday Bay, I’d been a broken woman. My son and husband were dead, and my only sister wasn’t speaking to me. I remember feeling so alone, but after moving into the house by the sea and meeting so many wonderful people who I’d welcomed into my heart, I knew in my soul that I’d never be lonely again.

  Something new from Kathi Daley Books

  Follow Ainsley’s story as she heads to Gooseberry Bay in search of answers to her past while building endearing friendships and embracing the magic of life by the sea and small town holidays.