I smiled and grabbed my cup—my leaky-window handwarmer—again. “I’ll have to think about where.”

“Over the other couch?”

“Mmm. It’s a bare wall, so . . .” My mind had ricocheted, landing on Dalton’s murder. “Shasta said it looked like there’d been a fight in Dalton’s studio, or someone had gone crazy, breaking his paint jars, throwing his paintings everywhere.”

He laid Dalton’s painting on the coffee table. “It didn’t look like a fight.”

“He didn’t struggle, then.”

“Blood evidence shows that when Taylor was stabbed, he fell backward into an easel and hit the floor. No defense wounds. He didn’t fight back.”

“Was he stabbed with a palette knife? Shasta described something with a wood handle.”

“Yes.”

“Palette knives in both cases.”

“It’s not the best weapon. It’s unwieldy, inefficient.”

“Could a woman have done it?”

“We don’t have the medical examiner’s reports yet, but the neck is soft tissue. I don’t see why not.”

“So why did the killer dig through Dalton’s studio? They even smashed his Buddha statue.”

“No idea. Anger? It appears the damage happened either as he was dying but unable to move or after he died. Someone he knew took him by surprise. Same thing with Laura Patchett.” Gilroy stopped and looked sideways at me, pulling in his chin. “Shasta Karlsen told you about the Buddha statue?”

“Yeah, she did. The paintings thrown around too. I wouldn’t have remembered anything but the knife and blood.”

“Makes me wonder if she went through his things before calling. Or took photos of the scene.”

“She was seriously shaken, though. Unlike Isak, whose only worry is the gallery.”

“That’s Clay’s worry too. Their relationship with Dalton was based on business, not friendship.”

“Dalton didn’t have any friends.”

My words hung in the air like a tolling bell. To be friendless because everyone he met fell short of his absurd standards. To have an ex-wife who hated him, even left the state because of him—and apparently with reason. To know that people wanted to associate with him solely because he could make them money. And he believed his paintings could compensate for all that. It was sad, I thought, but the word didn’t begin to describe the loss.

“I’m not sure he wanted any friends,” Gilroy said.

I cast my mind back to Dalton in his studio. Proud of the paintings in his Hidden Little Town series. Filets mignons. Ashamed of his landscapes and smaller paintings. Cheeseburgers. Clay’s paintings were cheeseburgers, too, according to Dalton, but I’d never seen Clay’s work. Clay wasn’t slow and meticulous, Dalton said. He went for quantity.

“Did you know Clay paints?”

“No,” Gilroy said. “I haven’t seen a painting of his.”

“Dalton told me. He said Clay isn’t meticulous in his work. He goes for quantity. Funny thing, though, when I was in Dalton’s studio, he was working on three paintings simultaneously. If that’s not going for quantity, I don’t know what is.”

“He could crank them out as well as anyone.” Gilroy’s expression changed. “How do you know he was working on three paintings?”

“There were three easels, a painting on each of them.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. There was his tenth Hidden painting, an unfinished landscape, and a third painting covered with a drop cloth.”

Gilroy bounded from the couch and returned seconds later with his phone. He sat down on the coffee table, facing me. “Do you think you could look at a photo of the scene? I want you to point to where you saw the easels.”

“Sure.”

“It’s not pleasant. But it’s a wide shot and his body’s not the main focus.”

“I can do it.”

Gilroy found the photo and gave me his phone. He pointed. “This is the one he knocked over during the attack.”

Dalton’s body was in the lower left portion of the photo. I partially covered it with my thumb. “That was his Hidden painting.”

“Right. And the unfinished landscape is over here. Is that the one you saw? In that same place?”

“Yeah, that’s it, and that’s where it was.”

“The third?”

“It was right here.” I tapped the screen, on the spot by the window where Dalton had placed his third painting. “The third easel was here. The canvas was rectangular, but more square than his other two canvases. Almost a square.”

“Did he say what he was working on?”

“No, and I didn’t ask. But it was the only painting in his studio that was covered. Now that I think of it, it’s strange. If anything he would’ve covered the unfinished landscape. He wasn’t proud of those.”

“Anything else stand out?”

I studied the photo. “Someone made a mess. They tossed his paintbrushes and landscapes everywhere. Did they damage the Hidden painting?”

“It has blood on it, but it didn’t appear to have been deliberately damaged. The landscape wasn’t touched.”

“Do you know how many landscapes were in the studio? Dalton said he’d finished four and was working on that fifth one. Mine was one of the four finished paintings.” I handed back the phone. “That left three against the wall and the unfinished one on the easel.”

Gilroy tapped and swiped. He read. “There were three landscapes total, including the unfinished one on the easel.”

“Then the killer took one of the landscapes Dalton had propped against the wall. And he took the covered canvas.”

“Or someone who came in after the killer did. I think another interview with Shasta Karlsen is in order.”

CHAPTER 13