She rose, grabbed a mitt, and opened a stainless-fronted oven. Instantly the air filled with pastry smells: chocolate, sugar, yeast, cinnamon. “Want to share one?”

“How long have you known me? Tell me what you heard this morning.”

As Holly cut a dark, glazed donut in half, a thin layer of chocolate cream oozed. I hadn’t taken bite one and I was hooked. She put my half on a napkin and slid it across the counter.

“Some of my customers already knew about Laura’s murder, even though it happened too late in the day to be in the paper. Somehow word traveled.”

“Juniper Grove doesn’t need the Post. We have word of mouth and your bakery.” I took a bite. Mexican hot chocolate, I was familiar with. And Mexican chocolate ice cream. But Holly’s combination of dark chocolate and spice, of cakey donut and creamy filling, was to die for. “This is amazing. Is it a new recipe?”

“Mmm.” She wiped her mouth with a paper towel. “My version of Mexican chocolate donuts. What do you think?”

“I think my cream puffs have found a competitor.”

Her face broke into a smile. “I made a royal boatload, so take some with you.” She held up a finger. “I’ll box them back here while I tell you what I heard. Peter’s going to come looking for me if I don’t move it.”

While she put three of my new favorite, or second favorite (I hadn’t decided), pastries into a box, she told me that a Jane Fisher had told her that Laura hated Dalton, and vice versa, and that the two were competitors in a strange way. Strange because Laura didn’t possess one-quarter of Dalton’s money or notoriety.

“Well, Dalton’s a competitive man,” I said. “And insecure, I think. Laura, I don’t know. At the brunch she seemed more self-assured than Dalton, until she flipped out over the painting.”

“So both Jane Fisher and Drew Goodin—you’ve met him—said that Laura got along well with the Karlsens and Blackwells,” Holly continued, “though Drew said Laura couldn’t imagine why Clay and Isak liked Dalton’s artwork.”

“I’m with Laura. Neither can I.”

“Now, about Charlotte Wynn. You need to talk with one of my customers who works at Town Hall. Joan Hudson in the Records Section. She didn’t have time to tell me much, but she thinks Charlotte’s up to no good. I told her to expect you.”

“Got it.”

Holly grabbed a clean dishcloth from the table and wiped her hands. “That’s the fourth time the bell over the door’s rung.”

“You can hear that from here?”

“It’s a talent. Before you go, Brodie Keegan came in. Here’s where it gets very interesting. I told him I’d heard that not long before she was killed, Laura was furious over a painting at the Blackwells’ brunch. He said he didn’t know why Laura was angry but he intended to find out. I took my time with his order so he’d be the last one in the bakery, and then I said Dalton Taylor had a habit of skewering the locals in his artwork, and that he, Brodie, was in one of the paintings.”

“What did he do?”

“He went blank. That was the first he’d heard about it, Rachel, I’d bet on it.”

“That means he’d never really looked at the painting that upset Laura. Which makes sense since he was in Nebraska until early May of last year. What would he know about Taylor’s Juniper Grove paintings, and why would he care?”

“I said someone who’d seen the painting said it was him for sure, and that he’d been in a car accident and his passenger had been killed or injured. I thought Brodie was going to be sick.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Not a thing. He paid for his brownies and beat it out the door.”

CHAPTER 7

On the sidewalk outside the bakery, I stepped back to make room for shoppers passing by and checked my grip on Holly’s pastry boxes. When I turned to cross the street, Dalton Taylor was smack in front of me.

“Mrs. Stowe-Gilroy, nice to see you again,” he chirped. He looked older somehow. Rumpled and tired. His hair—what was left of it—was uncombed, sifted by the wind, and he wore a faded green polo shirt under a too-large brown suit jacket.

“Have you heard about Laura Patchett?” he asked. “Someone just told me.”

Knowing Dalton fed off the discomfort of others, I kept my response short and my expression neutral. “I’ve heard. It’s very sad.”

“Do you know what happened?”

“No idea. Out shopping?”

“I was thinking of getting a couple baguettes.” He glanced down at my two Holly’s Sweets boxes, pastry pink, tied with twine.

“Definitely do. Holly’s baguettes are extremely special.”

“Actually, I’m glad we ran into each other. I meant to give the newlyweds a wedding present, but yesterday, with everyone taking off so soon . . .” His eyes fluttered shut for a fleeting moment, and as he gave me a just-there smile, he tilted his head to the side. He carried himself like a man who had once thought himself devastatingly handsome and hadn’t yet rid himself of the idea’s associated mannerisms.

Taken aback by the idea of a present—was he being generous or cheeky?—I told him it wasn’t necessary but made an effort to look pleased and sputter a thank-you. Joan Hudson could wait.

“I have several paintings you could choose from, and if I were you, I’d give them a look before you thank me. My studio’s five minutes from here. We could go there now and beat the snowstorm.”

Though wary of his motives, I wasn’t afraid of him, and this was the perfect chance to ask him questions about his art, especially how he selected his subject matter.

Well, maybe I was a little afraid of him. And I needed to be sensible in my sleuthing. On more than one occasion Gilroy had told me it was best to err on the side of caution, even if that made me feel childish or foolish. His years as a detective in Fort Collins and a police chief in Juniper Grove had taught him that. So I said hello to Leslie and Will Horner as they left the bakery and made a point of introducing them to Dalton. Killers didn’t like to be seen with their victims, particularly minutes before they killed, and I knew if I texted Gilroy, he’d tell me not to go.

I think Dalton knew what I was up to, but I didn’t give a fig, and for some reason I didn’t see him as a killer. So I agreed to follow him in my car.

He headed north out of downtown in his black Volvo, occasionally checking his rearview mirror to see if I was still behind him. A Dalton Taylor painting wasn’t my idea of a wedding present, but I could always sell the thing, I thought. Money for house renovations, right? Or I could stick it in the basement and haul it out if Dalton ever paid a visit. Which he wouldn’t.

It was unkind of me, thinking of ways to dump the wedding gift before I’d even seen it, but I knew Dalton had ulterior motives. He didn’t owe me a wedding present. He didn’t know me, and he’d only heard of Gilroy because he was the town’s chief of police.

Passing blocks of older homes, we soon entered a neighborhood of spacious lawns and French country-style houses. Turrets, steep slate roofs, and tall, shuttered windows. Very un-Colorado.

On Appletree Court, Dalton slowed near a honey-hued stone and stucco house and pulled into its semicircular gravel driveway. I parked behind him.

As he got out of his Volvo, he angled back, his expression saying, Yeah, you bet I live here. I smiled pleasantly. I’m not impressed.

Our feet crunched gravel on the footpath to the front door. Tall, arched, and painted a soft gray, it looked, or had been made to look, a hundred years old. This wasn’t a house, it was a chateau. Possibly Dalton’s après-divorce treat to himself.

He dropped his car keys on a bureau inside the door and led me through the foyer and up a staircase to his second-floor studio, a bright room lit by five multipaned windows looking out onto a wide expanse of lawn. There was a squat stone wall where the lawn began its downward slope, and beyond that, another lawn. The entirety was enclosed by a cedar fence and framed by leafless shrubs and trees. Beneath me was a newish wooden deck almost as wide as the house, and on the deck railing, two large, heated birdbaths.

“It faces north,” he said, jamming his hands in his coat pockets. “Sunlight reflects off the white walls, giving the perfect light. This room sold me on the house. I pinch myself when I paint. I still can’t believe it’s mine.”

Moments ago the cocky showoff, now the grateful homeowner. Which was the real Dalton?

My eyes traveled the room. There were two unfinished canvases on easels—one a large, primitive-style work, the other a smaller landscape painted in an updated Impressionist style. The latter showed a heretofore secret talent. On the easel closest to the window was a third work, this one concealed under a drop cloth.

“How long have you lived here?” I asked.