I balked. I sputtered. “Why—why would I think that?”

“Rachel, everyone in town knows you’re an amateur detective. You’ve actually solved murders, and Mary and I read your mysteries.”

Was she trying to defuse me with flattery? “That’s not why we’re here. Mary asked me to help her. She’s being blackmailed, and I think the blackmail is linked to the murders.”

I wasn’t terribly interested in Mary’s blackmail dilemma, except where it intersected with the murders, but the words Mary and blackmail opened doors with her friends.

Shasta seemed genuinely upset. “She’s being blackmailed? With what and over what?”

“In part, over you and Dalton having an affair.”

Her cup froze halfway to her mouth, but an instant later she recovered like a professional, took a sip of tea, sniffed nonchalantly, and set down the cup.

“I’ve sometimes thought we were an open secret,” she said. “I needn’t have bothered to hide it in this town.”

“It ended?”

“Months ago. I’m not sure why it started. Tragic, huh? Probably I wanted to get back at Isak. It’s not like Dalton was attractive in any sense of the word. I love Isak, don’t get me wrong, but he’s—what’s the phrase?—emotionally unavailable. He loves his gallery, his dream of being an art maven and sponsor, more than anything else, including me. How did you find out?”

“Someone took a photo of you two together, here at Grove Coffee, and sent it to Mary. She was supposed to publish it in the Post.”

Shasta made a face. “Publish a photo of me and Dalton at Grove Coffee? How is that news?”

“It doesn’t make sense, I know.”

“Doesn’t make sense? It’s idiotic.”

“I don’t think the photo was the point. Along with it, the blackmailer sent a copy of Brodie Keegan’s DUI in Idaho. Have you heard about that?”

Shasta perked up. “No, but tell me more.”

“He also sent the cover page of a lawsuit against Isak for sexual misconduct at the Tilton Academy.”

Expecting an adamant denial, I was surprised when she sighed wearily. “That was going to get out too, one of these days. It was inevitable.”

“Who knew about Minnesota?”

“Anyone who tried to find out, I’d think. An online Minnesota paper wrote about it, and the internet never dies. But someone would have to have an inkling to find it, wouldn’t they? They’d have to suspect. Though with Isak, maybe they did have an inkling.”

“Did you tell anyone in Juniper Grove about it?”

“Only Mary. She might have told Clay. I’m positive Isak’s never told anyone. He won’t even discuss it with me. He’s always . . . he’s always gone for younger ones.”

I stared at her in disbelief. “You’re in your thirties.”

“Thirty-four. Verging on too old for Isak. He has eyes for them ten years younger—for girls like Charlotte Wynn.”

Had Charlotte lied about an affair with Isak? “Has he . . . with Charlotte?”

“I don’t doubt he’s thought about it. You must have noticed he fawns over her. I’m sure he flirts. Thank goodness Charlotte likes Brodie. But I’m sure there have been others.”

“Which is why you wanted to get back at him with Dalton.”

“Dalton was the only weapon I had. Isak found out about us, of course, as I knew he would.”

“How do you think he found out?” I asked.

“He wouldn’t say, and I didn’t care to press it.”

I wanted to tell her about the two audio bugs in the studio, but Gilroy would ask Isak directly about those, and if Isak placed them, Shasta would find out from him or the rumor grapevine.

“Is it true—what happened in Minnesota?” I asked.

“Isak said no.”

“You don’t believe him.”

“Sophia Geller was sixteen.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Isak was never accused of sleeping with her. If he touched her or pressured her, that would be low, even for him.”

I could see the pain in Shasta’s eyes as she sought an escape. She’d never fully explored what had happened at the Tilton Academy, and she couldn’t bear to delve as deeply as my questions required.

I recalled Dalton’s painting of Isak putting his labels on jams made using others’ recipes. Good grief, recipe stealing was nothing in comparison to what he’d done at Tilton.

Her long, slender fingers drumming the table, Shasta fidgeted in her seat and nibbled on her lower lip.

“I know this is painful,” I said.

“Oh, you have no idea, Rachel. All right, then. Isak is indecent, weak, and stupid, but he’s not a murderer, and he didn’t want Mary to publish an article about him, so he didn’t tell her about Minnesota. That much is clear. So if you’re trying to help Mary, let’s figure out who sent her the lawsuit cover page. What about Dalton?”

That hadn’t occurred to me. After all, Dalton was dead and thus off the suspect list. “Why him?”

“He was angry with me when I broke it off, and he painted incidents from people’s pasts with the intent to embarrass them. Two and two.”

“He often lied about people’s pasts, or told half lies.”

“That was his cover. Saying he made this and that up.” She spread her hands in a gesture of innocence and mimicked Dalton’s voice. “It’s not reality, it’s fiction.”

I gazed out the window, out over Main Street. White Christmas lights, hanging in other windows and wrapped around tree trunks and concrete planters, glittered as if it were still Christmas.

“What do you think of Isak and Clay’s gallery?” I asked, looking back to Shasta.

“I see financial ruin, like Mary does. Our two little boys are chasing an expensive, ruinous dream, and lying to us about what it costs. They should never have hitched their wagons to a talentless painter the likes of Dalton Taylor. I’m sorry he’s dead, especially that he died so horribly . . .” Shasta stopped, her eyes seeming to look once more on the horror she’d seen in his studio. “But he was a pretentious hack, and our houses were mortgaged for that gallery.”

“Your house too?”