“I keep my promises—fini. That’s an end to it.”

CHAPTER 8

I drove south down Oxford Lane, Dalton’s winter fields painting on the backseat of my Forester. After his fini, we’d parted amicably, even though I’d asked him again, just before closing my car door, about his “small addition” to Hidden Little Town Number 8. He’d told me an artist lives by his secrets.

He was so full of it. Full of himself.

Yet his winter painting showed a talent for art. For loveliness—a word and concept for which, it seemed, he had contempt. It was beautiful. Free of spite, free of sinister, lurking figures. It existed for pleasure, and I was going to find pleasure in looking at it. If he’d held the painting in higher regard, I might have felt guilty for accepting it.

Our meeting had been too brief. I hadn’t asked him why he’d painted Connor Morse dealing drugs or how he’d known about Brodie Keegan’s arrest in Idaho. Maybe, like Brodie, Dalton was a professional dirt digger, only while Brodie published his dirt, Dalton painted it. Anyone who got the Juniper Grove Post—that left me out—knew two weeks ago about Morse’s troubles, but how did Dalton know about Brodie so soon after Brodie had moved to Colorado?

I turned onto Main Street, found a vacant space feet from Juniper Grove Town Hall, and headed through the building’s glass front door.

Near the end of the first-floor hallway I readily located the door marked Records. I’d been there before, hunting for clues in another case, and Royce Putnam had talked often enough about the place. Almost a year and a half past his retirement and he still stopped in for coffee and small talk now and then.

A plump woman with red-blonde hair and freckled cheeks looked up from her desk when I walked in.

“I’m Rachel Gilroy. Are you Joan?”

“That’s me. Holly said you’d drop by.” She welcomed me with a smile and pointed me to a chair.

“I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“You are, and bless you.”

I laughed.

Joan took up her coffee mug. “My thoughts on Charlotte Wynn, right?”

“Right.”

“Like I told Holly, that girl is nosy, and it’s my fault for letting her get away with it. She comes in with legit requests or filings from Roche and White, the law firm she works for, but then I find her pawing through other records. I’ve thought about letting them know what she’s doing.”

“What sorts of records does she legitimately handle?”

“She files court and agency documents for her firm, and sometimes she researches town financial records and meeting minutes, land records, birth and death certificates—the usual documents a law firm might need. But she’ll ask for, say, a land survey, and if I’m busy, I’ll point her to the surveys, and three minutes later she’s in petitions or raffle permits or name change certificates.”

“Have you confronted her?”

“Three times. A week ago was the third, and I put my foot down. She wants to be a lawyer, she says, so she gets carried away with research and one thing leads to another. But there’s more to it than that.”

“Name change certificates? You saw her in those?”

“It could have been adjacent records in the same box. She likes looking through permits and licenses, I know that.” Joan took a quick drink of her coffee. “Most of the records here are public information, so she’s entitled to them, and because she works for a local law firm, I’ve let her do searches on her own. But from now on, if she wants a document, she’ll have pass through me.”

“And she’s done this three times?”

“That I caught her at.”

“And you’re not positive what kinds of documents she was looking through?”

“No, sorry. I’ve found her in areas she shouldn’t be in, but I can’t tell you specifically what she’s looked at. Permits and licenses on two occasions. I can’t be more definite than that. Though she did ask for arrest records once. I thought it was funny since Roche and White know those records are kept at the police department.”

Joan’s phone rang. An old-fashioned, multi-buttoned beast, it must have been twenty years old. While she talked—something about fishing licenses—I wondered what Charlotte Wynn was up to. Even I knew arrest records were a police matter.

Was she digging up dirt? And was she the source for Dalton Taylor’s gossipy paintings? It was Charlotte who had told me I was Maureen Nicholson’s killer in one of them. Clay and Mary hadn’t known, or hadn’t wanted to tell me.

Joan set the receiver in the cradle, her charm bracelet clicking on the handset. “Where were we?”

“Do you know if anyone other than a town official has tried to obtain records lately?”

“People from the Post ask for all sorts of records, but I never let them in the boxes or files. No one from the Post sets foot back there.”

“What do they ask for?”

“Town meeting minutes and financial records. But those are legit. Political resignations and appointments—legit. Divorce settlements—none of their business, in my opinion, but in Colorado they’re public records.”

Divorce settlements. I perked up. “Can you remember a specific divorce settlement someone’s asked to see?”

She nodded, a wry grin on her face. “Dalton Taylor and Alison Larkin Taylor.”

Bingo.

“Brodie Keegan filled out a request to see the settlement last year. June.”

“Not long after he arrived in Juniper Grove.”

“Driven by the ambition of a new job.” As Joan set her cup on the desk and laced her fingers, her expression shifted. “People are unbelievable. I don’t care if he works for the paper, divorce is private. And I don’t care if Taylor is a sort-of celebrity. He deserves privacy as much as anyone. Luckily for Alison, she doesn’t live in Colorado anymore.”

“Does Brodie come in often?’

“Does a fox have whiskers? He’s in here like clockwork. Thinks he can charm his way into the records.”

Joan glanced past me toward the door, then pulled her business card from a clear plastic holder and scribbled another phone number on the back. “It’s about to get busy. Try my home phone if you need anything else.”

I rose and slipped her card in my coat pocket. “Has Mary Blackwell ever asked for records?”

A woman hurriedly entered the room, shaking her coat off as she went, and sat behind the only other desk in the office.

“Mary?” Joan seemed puzzled. “Not when I’ve been in the office.”

“Okay, thanks for your time. If you think of anything, let me know.”

“Absolutely.”

I left with the sinking feeling that my question about Mary would make its way back to her in time.