If Shasta knew Laura had been murdered in the same or a similar manner, she wasn’t letting on.

“His paintings—knocked to the floor, all over, everywhere,” she went on, her sentences disjointed as she relived the horror. “The paintings he stored on the wall—leaning them on the wall—he did that with finished ones—tossed around. Tossed. Vindictive, I think. His stupid Buddha, smashed on the floor. Like there’d been a fight or someone had lost his mind.”

Her memory for detail was impressive, I thought, especially considering the circumstances. My attention would’ve been fixed on the jutting murder weapon. “Did you tell Chief Gilroy all this?”

“Everything. I thought I was going to pass out, so we talked in Dalton’s back yard. He asked a lot of questions.”

Isak wandered into the kitchen, coffee cup in hand, his blond hair as disheveled as short hair got, as though he’d been scuffing it with his fingers. “The chief called me while Shasta was still there,” he said. “He asked me a ton of questions too.”

“He has to do that,” I said.

“I realize.” At the counter, Isak set down his cup and turned back to Shasta. “Harry Davis at Roche and White is unsure about selling Dalton’s paintings. He thinks showing them is okay since Dalton signed a contract, but selling them, now he’s dead, depends on his will and his heirs. We can’t pay Dalton.” Dejected, he slumped into a stool next to Shasta.

She laid her hand on his forearm—the first sign of physical affection I’d seen between the two. “Let Roche and White do their job. You all have time to figure this out. Don’t stress about it now.”

“I’m waiting to hear back from Clay.”

“He’ll call or drop by when he can. Eat something, have some coffee.”

“Does Dalton have heirs?” I asked.

“He doesn’t have kids,” Isak replied, “but he has nephews and nieces in another state. He once said he never sees them, and I got the impression he didn’t get along with them. Maybe his ex-wife is an heir or beneficiary, but it’s not likely. He could’ve left everything to the town of Juniper Grove for all I know.”

“Yeah, I doubt that,” Shasta said. “He didn’t like the town or the people.”

Shasta had given me my opening. “Dalton skewered half of Juniper Grove in his paintings. At first I thought I was the only target, me killing Maureen Nicholson, but now I know Dalton ridiculed and accused others.” I tipped my head toward Isak. “Even you, which surprised me.”

“That,” he said. “Yeah, the labels on the jam.”

So he knew. “Why would he do that to you?”

He forced a smile. “I like to think it’s not me in the painting.”

“But it is you, Isak, and Dalton told me so. I spoke to him not long before he was murdered.”

Shasta’s eyes went wide. “You didn’t say that.”

“He invited me to his studio to give me a painting as a wedding present.”

“That was unusually generous of him,” Isak said.

I was about to comment on the complexity of Dalton’s personality when the doorbell rang and Isak shot out of his seat.

“Probably Clay,” Shasta said. “I’ll make that coffee now.”

A little less shaky than she’d been a few minutes ago, she returned to filling the basket with coffee, and by the time she’d snapped the basket shut, Isak was showing Charlotte Wynn to a stool at the kitchen island.

“An envoy from Roche and White,” Isak said. He handed what appeared to be a typed letter to Shasta.

A hatless Charlotte, her brown hair dusted with snow, laid her executive-style leather briefcase on the island and plopped onto a stool. “Harry—Davis—wanted to put your and Isak’s minds at ease about the gallery opening, so I said I’d bring that by.”

After giving the letter a cursory look, Shasta gave it back to Isak. “I’m not sure what good showing his paintings is if we can’t sell them. Isn’t that the point of the gallery? Isn’t that why we sank our savings into that place?”

“We’re working on sales,” Charlotte said. “At this point Harry thinks it’s doable, with the same percentage as agreed on. The only difference would be where Dalton’s portion of the proceeds go.”

“Really?” Isak said. Animated, and slightly less morose, he sat across from Charlotte.

“He signed a contract,” Charlotte said. “It’s probable that the only thing that changes is who gets the seventy-five percent.”

“But Aspen Leaf still takes in twenty-five percent?” Isak asked.

“We think so. In any case, we don’t foresee a problem from his heirs once we contact them. Your gallery puts in the work and supplies the venue, they take seventy-five percent. Who would turn that down?”

“Yeah, who would be stupid enough to do that?” Shasta said, her words laced with irony.

As if seeing me for the first time, Charlotte asked me if I’d heard about Laura Patchett. I told her I had and left it at that.

“Dalton gave Rachel one of his paintings as a wedding present,” Isak said.

“Lovely!” Charlotte exclaimed. “He gave it to you?”

“I’ve got an idea,” Isak said brightly. “You could sell it at the gallery opening. It’s yours outright, so you don’t need his or his heirs permission. It wasn’t a Hidden Little Town painting, I take it.”

“No, a landscape,” I replied. “Funny, though. I think he would’ve preferred me to take a different landscape.”

Glancing from me to Isak, Charlotte said, “I like his landscapes so much more than his other work. It’s almost as though someone different painted them. Like he had a split personality.”

“Dalton had real talent,” Isak said. “But I agree, it didn’t show up in everything he did. In my opinion, his less popular work was better. Shame he wanted his Hidden paintings heavily promoted at the gallery. We’ll have other paintings of his there, but they’ll be in the background, in a way. We could use a few landscapes. They tend to be popular.”

It wasn’t as if I’d fallen in love with my painting, but seeing the claws come out for it, and hearing Dalton already referred to in the past tense, I suddenly felt possessive. Little more than an hour ago, Dalton Taylor had been alive. Now I was going to sell his wedding gift?

“What do you think?” Shasta asked me. “I’m sure Clay and Isak would give you seventy-five percent.”

“I’m not ready to sell it,” I answered, “but I’ll let you know if I change my mind.”

Shasta pressed her lips together. “Sorry. It’s ghoulish to ask. For crying out loud, his body’s still warm. It’s just that, well, that would be one sale we could count on.”

“I think you can count on the twelve oils you contracted for,” Charlotte said. She spoke with a certainty born of the need to reassure a client. She couldn’t possibly know what Dalton’s heirs would think of selling his work now that he was dead. The cynical side of me thought they’d fight to keep his art off the market until, with its scarcity and his death, it increased in value. If it didn’t decrease, that is. Who knew what would happen?

The doorbell rang again, and once more Isak sprang from his seat, eager to answer the door, or escape the kitchen.

When Clay Blackwell strode into the kitchen, he zeroed in on me, and again I was struck by his unfashionably huge glasses and a face so angular it seemed as though his cheekbones and jaw were at war with one another. He forced a smile and pretended surprise at seeing me, though I was sure Isak had warned him I was there.

“Good to see you, Rachel,” he said. He caught himself. “Well, not good, but you know what I mean. The circumstances—I’m sure you’ve heard about Dalton.”

“We were just talking about him,” Isak said. “He gave Rachel one of his landscapes as a wedding present.”

Clay stared open-mouthed at Isak before turning to me. “How . . . how really kind,” he stammered.