“When he was seventeen. In our own ways we all did stupid things when we were younger.”
Like Parker Blackwell, I thought. His stupid thing had led to his mother being ripe pickings for a blackmailer and to the Post upending lives through so-called news. But was there even more to it than that? Was the blackmailer connected to the deaths of Laura Patchett and Dalton Taylor?
Holly, Julia, Royce, and I had a wicked web to untangle.
CHAPTER 10
Back on Finch Hill Road, I cooked dinner for Gilroy—a quick beef and black bean chili with corn bread and blueberries on the side. He’d already phoned to say he wouldn’t be home until late, so I took it to the station and brought extra for Underhill and Turner. Underhill was single and ate like a teenager, while Turner, though married, ate like he was still single, at least when he was on the job.
I’d grown fond of both young officers, as had Gilroy, and I wanted to mother-hen them a little, but I had two secondary motives in mind. If they ate my dinner, they were less likely to kid Gilroy about a wife who brings him food on late nights and they wouldn’t grumble about having to order greasy burgers from Wyatt’s. Time saved and station harmony maintained.
The snowstorm, which had fizzled out momentarily, was in full force now, the wind driving snow against my windshield. I drove cautiously down Main Street, my wipers carving half-moons.
Underhill was on the front desk phone when I entered the station, asking someone on the other end about financing the Aspen Leaf Gallery and then jotting a few notes. He smiled, and I motioned at the food containers in my arms, mouthing, For all of you.
He smile grew and he mouthed a thank-you back at me.
I set the containers by the coffee machine, shook the snow off my knit beanie, and looked around for Gilroy. His office door was open but he was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Turner.
“They’re out,” Underhill said. He’d returned the phone to its cradle.
“Oh, darn.”
“They’ll be back in forty-five minutes.”
I ambled up to the desk. “The chili is warm now, so if you have to stick it in the fridge for a while, wait until it cools off. You can leave the cornbread out. Heat the chili on high in the microwave for about a minute.”
“Yes, ma’am, will do. It smells great.”
“I’ve discovered I’m not a half-bad cook.”
“I thought we’d be stuck ordering takeout, so I really appreciate it, Rachel.”
I looked around again. “Where are they?”
“They’re policing. Investigating a couple murders you may have heard about.”
“I imagine Gilroy and Officer Turner passed along my information about the change Dalton made to Hidden Little Town Number 8.”
“Yup.” Underhill picked up his note pad. “And even with cornbread on the line, I can’t tell you anything.”
“Dalton didn’t strike me as the kind of man who would easily make a change to one of his masterpieces.”
Underhill looked up.
“I wonder if someone coerced him,” I went on, “or maybe he thought it’d be fun.”
“Fun?”
“He got a kick out of painting nasty half-truths about Juniper Grove and its people. True enough that people recognized what he was trying to convey, fictional enough that he could deny he meant any such thing.”
“Plausible deniability.”
“Like a politician.”
Underhill dropped his note pad. “A coward’s tactic. Not surprising.”
“You didn’t like Dalton Taylor.”
“He was a mean, talentless jerk.”
Recalling the ethereal charm of Dalton’s winter landscape, I made a counterargument. “His talent depended on what he was painting. His Hidden series is overblown and just a vehicle for petty revenge, but I saw some landscapes of his at his studio and they were lovely. He even gave me the best of them as a wedding present.”
Once again I’d brought up the wedding gift. When I heard the harsh and standard criticism of the man, true as most of it was, I wanted to flesh out his personality for those who couldn’t get past the snarky crank who had been far too full of himself. There had been more to the man.
Dalton’s fleeting expression when I’d told him his landscape was no cheeseburger had been a revelation. There had been more to the man than bitterness and ego, but he’d kept it hidden. His own hidden little town. He had played the timeless and brilliant artist whose art transcended life itself, but inside he’d simply wanted to create beautiful things. And he’d wanted people to like his paintings. Far better aims.
“If that’s true, why did Taylor paint garbage?”
“Money. Recognition from other artists. From what I understand, landscapes sell well but don’t inspire the art-critic world. His reputation hinged on his primitive paintings.”
“Did it give him a sense of power?” Underhill asked. “Painting people as fools?”
“Or worse than fools. He painted me as a murderer.”
Underhill tried—and failed monumentally—to quash a grin. “I heard.”