“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.
“I thought so,” I said.
Shasta poured steaming coffee into four mugs and topped off Isak’s mug, and I used the lull in conversation as a chance to ask Charlotte about the Hidden paintings.
“Thanks for telling me I was a murderer in one of Dalton’s paintings,” I began. “He packed so much into his artwork, I never would’ve seen it.”
“You’re welcome, I guess,” she said with a grin.
“Dalton concocted stories about other people in Juniper Grove,” I continued. “My friend Holly saw her bakery in one painting, and then there’s this former high school teacher, Connor Morse.”
Coffee mugs were lowered. The room went quiet.
“You’ve heard of him?” I asked.
“Most people have,” Shasta said. “Years ago he was arrested for dealing drugs, but somehow he was allowed to teach at Juniper Grove High. You’re saying he was in a painting?”
“Hidden Little Town Number 8, the one that disturbed Laura. He was in fictional form, of course. A man with man-bun hair wearing round glasses and selling drugs in a high school parking lot.”
“That sounds like Connor Morse, all right,” Charlotte said.
Shasta was flabbergasted. “Isak? Did you know?”
“I remember a person like that in the painting, but how would I know who it is? I haven’t really looked at it since Clay and Mary put it in their living room.”
“So Dalton read the Post, collected gossip, and painted all the dirt he harvested?” Shasta asked.
“Trouble is, he painted Hidden Little Town Number 8 before the article on Morse was published,” I replied. “At the time, Morse was still teaching at the high school and no one in town knew about his past.”
“Clearly someone knew,” Isak said. He looked to Shasta. Shasta looked to Charlotte.
Charlotte’s jaw dropped. “Well, sheesh, I don’t have a clue. I graduated from JG before Morse even taught there. Dalton must’ve known the guy. Where’s Morse from?”
Not a bad question, that. The Mystery Gang had some background investigations to carry out. Not just on Morse, but on Laura, Dalton, and everyone who was at the brunch.
“I don’t know where he’s from,” Shasta said, “but I heard he moved to Denver after the article.”
“I felt a little sorry for him,” Isak said.
“He dealt heroin,” Shasta said.
