And information, of course, because I had precious little of it. On my computer I pulled up a search engine and typed in “Dalton Taylor.”
Wonder of wonders, the Last Artiste on Earth possessed a thoroughly modern website. “Not so Henri Rousseau, are we?” I said aloud.
Twenty-three paintings were pictured on his site, under a “Portfolio” tab, but twelve of them weren’t for sale. For those, potential buyers were instructed to visit the Aspen Leaf Gallery’s website. As expected, Dalton and the gallery had come to an exclusive arrangement.
I scrolled down. It was a clean and bright website, nicely arranged. Not much in the way of text—there was no bio, for instance—but anyone wishing to buy one of Dalton’s works could do so easily.
At the bottom of the home page, a credit line caught my eye: “Website Design by Shasta Studios.” The Shasta? Clay hadn’t said what Shasta did for a living when he’d introduced her, probably thinking that if I knew Isak, I knew her. Was she a website designer?
A quick search revealed that Shasta Studios was a one-woman enterprise run by none other than Shasta Karlsen, freelance IT expert and website designer.
I sat back in my chair. Maybe Shasta and Dalton had struck up an affair when she was working on his website. Maybe she was clever at hiding her affections and, as Gilroy had speculated, the affair was ongoing. To my mind that scenario wasn’t likely, but I wasn’t ready to discount it.
“On to Aspen Leaf,” I said. Now that I was a married woman, I seriously needed to stop talking to myself, but it was a hard habit to break.
Aspen Leaf’s website had also been designed by Shasta, which wasn’t surprising. It featured all twelve of Dalton’s exclusive paintings, six of them in the Hidden Little Town series. Luckily, those six were high-resolution images, which would help in my search for clues. I started with Hidden Little Town Number 3, a four-foot-square oil painting set on what looked like downtown’s Main Street. The word “Sold” was plastered over images for the first, second, and ninth paintings in the series.
I moved on to Number 4, Number 5—the one in the Blackwells’ sunroom—and Number 6. By the time I glanced away from the screen, the juniper trees across the street were throwing long shadows against the office window’s afternoon light. I thought about making dinner, but Gilroy hadn’t come home yet, or called to say when he’d be home.
Pizza. I’d phone in our order as soon as he walked through the back door.
Half an hour later, worry got the best of me and I phoned the station.
Officer Derek Underhill, the police force’s unofficial second-in-command, said Gilroy had just left. Normally Underhill enjoyed chattering like a magpie about a new case, especially when I promised to bring morning donuts to the station, but my offer of pastries was having no effect on the man, and the tone in his voice had me worried.
When I asked how Laura had died, he said to ask Gilroy. Then he stopped me from hanging up. “Give him time, Rachel. He’s wiped out. Let him decompress.”
CHAPTER 6
I woke early to muffled sounds coming from downstairs and the smell of coffee and sausages. Rolling on my side, I checked the alarm clock—6:05—then flopped on my back and pulled the comforter to my chin.
Gilroy had managed a whole four hours of sleep last night. Maybe. And I hadn’t done much better. He’d lain awake much of the night—I could tell by his breathing—and at one point, about two in the morning, I’d heard him creak down the stairs.
Wind rattled the bedroom’s single-pane windows. Get up, get up. I reached out and flicked on the nightstand lamp. Why are January mornings so blasted dark?
“Stupid question,” I mumbled. I tossed back the comforter. Braving the cold wooden floor, I got up, got dressed, and went downstairs.
“We need to replace our windows,” I said, pouring myself a cup of coffee. “Thanks for making this.”
“Sorry if I kept you up,” Gilroy replied. He looked brighter this morning, even under our kitchen can lights.
“I wasn’t sleeping that well myself. Nothing to do with you.” I took a long sip.
“Sausages,” he said, pointing at the cast-iron pan on the stove top.
“I’ll make some toast.”
Gilroy took his coffee and plate to the kitchen table. He blew across his steaming coffee and started drinking before he touched his sausages, an act of boldness that, at forty-four, I could rarely manage without digestive upset. While I could down an astonishing amount of coffee in the course of a day, food had to come first.
I made toast for both of us and joined him. “Holly, Julia, and I discovered a few things yesterday that might be connected to Laura Patchett’s murder.”
There. I’d said it.
He slathered butter on a piece of toast. “Thanks for not bringing it up last night.”
“Talk murder over that delicious pizza? Sacrilege.”
“No mushrooms next time?”
“You got it.”
He laid down his toast and took up his coffee cup. “Tell me what you found out, and I’ll let you know what I can.”
i was at a corner table in Wyatt’s Bistro, thinking about Laura’s brutal murder—that’s how Gilroy had described it—and drinking coffee when Mary Blackwell entered. She ordered tea and reminded me she was taking a break from work, an hour earlier than usual. She had fifteen minutes before people started wondering where she’d gone.
“Then we don’t have time to waste,” I said, irritation working its way into my voice. She’d asked for my help, not the other way around, and I was taking time away from writing my latest mystery novel. “Let’s start with Connor Morse. Who do you think gave you his arrest record?”
“I don’t have a clue. I’ve thought about it. Morse was arrested in Denver, so maybe someone who has access to Denver court records.”
“He was seventeen at the time, a juvenile.”
“As a dealer, he may have been charged as an adult.”
True enough. “Why do you think you were the recipient of that information, and why did you agree to give it to Brodie?”
“I didn’t have a choice.” Her fingers played nervously over the rim of her cup. “In the envelope that came with the photocopy of his record, there was a note.” She looked away, toward a slew of breakfast seekers coming through the front door. “My son, Parker, graduated from high school last summer and started classes last September at the police academy in Austin—do you remember? That’s where he wants to live. The heat must be oppressive.”
