“Shelly Todd found the body.”
I angled in my seat to face him. “I’d really like to talk with her, James.”
“She’s not a suspect.”
Gilroy’s code for I can’t stop you. “Laura wasn’t blind. She was staring at Dalton’s painting at the brunch, she was driving a car. So why did she go ballistic over a cane and why did Dalton add it to his magnum opus?”
“Try not to ask her about the crime itself, okay? If she offers, fine. Remember you’re a civilian.”
“I’ll remember.” I faced forward again and rested my head on his shoulder. “Laura knew Dalton used his paintings to spread gossip.”
“I remember what she said. How it was amazing he’d found so much to gossip about.”
“But painting Brodie’s car accident was cruel, even for him.”
“The two had no connection prior to Keegan moving to Juniper Grove. Not family or friends, not work, nothing. I don’t know why Taylor would harbor that level of animosity. Seems like he was a bitter man.”
“When we talked, I saw a glimmer or two of kindness in him.” Suddenly I remembered Gilroy hadn’t seen the winter landscape. I put my cup on the coffee table, hurried into the kitchen, and returned with the painting, holding it in front of me, waiting for his judgment.
“Taylor painted that?”
“I know, right? It’s so different. It’s even different from his other landscapes.”
“It’s not half bad.”
“Half bad? It’s beautiful. He captured winter itself on canvas. I’d like to hang it in the house. In my office, if you’d rather.”
Gilroy sat forward and held out his hands. I relinquished the painting.
He studied it, at first taking in the whole thing, then focusing on its parts.
“What do you think?” I asked.
He took a moment to answer. “This reminds me of something.”
“That’s the feeling I get too. Nostalgia, almost. Do you know this place?”
“I don’t think so. There aren’t any mountains.”
I sat next to him. Why did the painting affect me so? Perhaps it was its melancholy aspect: the perfectly executed clouds, the winter-gray fields, the huddling birds. “Isak and Charlotte want me to sell it through Aspen Leaf Gallery. And before you ask, I went to see how Shasta was doing. Isak was there, and Charlotte came over with a letter from Roche and White stating that it’s legal for the gallery to show Dalton’s paintings.”
“That was fast.”
“Charlotte’s fast. She said Harry Davis, the attorney, wanted to put the Karlsens’ minds at ease so she volunteered to bring the letter. Roche and White didn’t send her. They easily could’ve called or emailed or even sent a courier. The only hitch is, Roche and White don’t know for sure if the gallery can sell any of the paintings.”
“I imagine that would depend on Taylor’s will.”
“Exactly.”
“But they could sell your landscape.”
“I’d get seventy-five percent.”
“Are you tempted?”
“Nah. I’d like to help Clay and Isak, but this was a gift, and I really like it.”
“Keep it. Hang it anywhere you want.”
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.”
