by B. J Daniels
Laramie said nothing, just letting her talk, as he tried to make sense of what she was telling him.
“When the Old West Artists Coalition was started, my father just assumed they would invite him to join.” She stopped pacing to let out a laugh. “He would have turned them down flat. He hated organizations. But instead, they shunned him, saying that while his paintings were all right, his character was lacking.”
Laramie thought he could see how that might affect a man like the one she’d described. “He was angry?”
Sid barked out another laugh. “He was furious. He swore he would show them that he could paint so much better than any of them that they wouldn’t be able to tell his forgeries from their own work.” She nodded. “He became obsessed. He quit painting his own work, determined to show them up.”
“They found out and tried to stop him,” he guessed.
“He must have bragged to someone about what he was doing. He planned to expose them at their annual conference.”
Laramie saw where she was headed with this. “The forgeries were in the studio the night of the fire?”
She nodded. “I’ve always questioned why he would go to all the trouble of painting the copies only to change his mind and destroy not just them, but also himself.” Sid met his gaze. “That’s just it. He wouldn’t have.”
“So whoever took the forgeries...”
“Killed my father.”
Laramie blew out a breath of air as he leaned back. “And you think you know who took them. If you’re right, then you do realize how dangerous this pursuit of yours is, don’t you?”
She smiled at that.
“Right,” he said, feeling foolish. This was a woman who ran along rooflines in the middle of the night, broke into houses, chancing everything to get these forgeries back. This was his cat burglar.
“So have you figured out who is responsible?”
“I suspected it was one of the four founders of OWAC, but now I’m thinking all four of them were behind it. They are the ones who kept my father out of organization, the ones he despised the most. They are the ones who had the most to lose by his plan to expose them and their organization. They’d been pulling some fast ones, using the organization to raise money for charities and pocketing most of it. They had reason to fear him. By then my father was being recognized as a great artist. Once he revealed the forgeries, there would have been a lot of bad publicity that would have hurt them and shone a light on their organization. They would have been lucky if they hadn’t ended up in jail.”
Laramie closed his eyes for a moment, glad that the aspirin seemed to be doing the job of relieving his headache a little. “What I don’t understand is why did the person who killed your father take the forgeries? Why not leave them to burn?”
“I assume the killer was worried that the fire might be put out before all the evidence burned. Maybe they planned to destroy the copies. If I’m right and all four of them were in on it, then one of them must have been responsible for getting rid of the forgeries—but didn’t.”
Laramie nodded. “You’re sure these are forgeries that your father painted?”
“Yes.”
He thought about what Taylor West had told him. There was only one artist who was so good that he could make a forgery that even the artist believed was his painting—H. F. Powell. That explained why West got so upset once he realized the significance of the painting Laramie had brought to him. It was one of the forgeries.
“Still, it makes no sense,” he argued. “Why would one of them take the chance of letting these forgeries get back on the market?”
Sid shrugged. “Money, would be my guess. Also, maybe he thought enough time had passed that the duplicate paintings wouldn’t come to light.”
He studied her beautiful face, realizing what she’d been doing. “So you’re stealing back the forgeries.”
She didn’t deny it.
“So you have all of them?” Laramie asked.
“With the one you have, yes.”
“And with them, you’ll be able to prove who killed your father?”
She looked away. “I thought I would, but it isn’t going to be as easy as I’d hoped. And now I have one more forgery that has turned up that I need to get. Unfortunately, I don’t have an original to trade.”
* * *
“WAS THAT HIM?” Zander asked as Sid came in the back door. Her sister was sprawled on the couch, a half-empty bottle of wine on the floor next to her.
She was already furious with her sister. “What?”
“The man you’re falling for,” Zander said, grinning as she sat up. “Don’t try to deny it. I saw the way you were with him.” She shook her head. “I can’t see any way this is going to turn out well.”
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Not really. You never told me why you went there tonight.”
She had no patience for this. “Guess.”
“Another so-called forgery.” Zander shook her head. “I was hoping you had turned into a real cat burglar. I guess it was too much to hope for. Seriously, when are you going to stop this?”
“When I’m finished with what I started. Thanks to you, I didn’t get away clean tonight.” She turned her back to her sister, too angry to deal with her right now. “I had to tell Laramie what I was doing.”
Zander swore. “That was a mistake.”
“Maybe.” She trusted him, probably a mistake. But she’d had no choice, thanks to her sister.
“If you’d told me what you were doing, I could have helped you.”
Sid turned. “Helped me? You could have helped by staying away.”
“Isn’t it possible that I want justice for our father, too?”
“I thought you didn’t believe he was murdered?” Sid demanded. Then she saw her sister’s expression. “You do believe it.”
Zander’s gaze met hers. “Does it matter? I still can’t see how any of this is going to help. He’s gone. Nothing you do can bring him back.”
She didn’t want to argue about this. It wasn’t revenge. It was simple justice. But maybe it would end just as her sister had predicted and she wouldn’t be able to prove who killed him—let alone see that the men responsible got what was coming to them.
“Just let me finish what I started.”
Zander got up from the couch. “Tonight aside, you’re pushing your luck. I don’t even want to know what you told Laramie Cardwell after I left. If any of this gets out and the killer finds out you’re after him... The way I see it, you need my help.”
Sid would love to have argued that her sister was wrong. Unfortunately, if she had any hope of pulling off the next part, she could use Zander’s expertise.
Seeing her weaken, her sister smiled. “You know I’m good because I taught you everything you know.”
“Not everything. If I thought I could trust you...”
Her sister looked excited. “Whatever it is, I’m in.”
“You might not be when I tell you my plan.”
* * *
LARAMIE DIDN’T KNOW what to think after Sid left. She’d trusted him with her story. He’d believed her. And while he’d done his best to talk her into going to the marshal, she’d refused, telling him that while she had all the paintings, she didn’t have any proof. Yet. She made him promise he wouldn’t go to the authorities, either.
“I went to the police when the first forgery turned up,” she’d said. “I saw it at a gallery in Bozeman. The police didn’t believe me.”
“How can you be so sure it was one of your father’s?” he’d asked, hating how skeptical he sounded.
She’d gone to the painting she’d left leaning against the wall by the stairs and brought it over to him. “I know this looks identical to the original, but my f
ather had too much ego to copy it exactly. He had to leave his mark on it.” She’d cocked the painting so the overhead light fell across it. “It’s very small but if you look closely,” she’d said pointing to a spot.
“It looks like a wolf’s face.”
Sid laughed. “Like I said, my father’s ego made him leave a little something of himself behind. The lone wolf. But it is camouflaged and easily goes unnoticed—unless you know what to look for and where.” She’d seen his still-skeptical expression and had left the painting to go upstairs to retrieve the original. “See for yourself.”
He had.
Now he found himself pacing the floor as she had done. He couldn’t help being worried about her. Like he’d told her, this was dangerous. It probably explained why someone had tried to run him off the road after his visit with Taylor West. He was reminded as well of Cody Kent’s reaction to the painting as well as Taylor’s. Had Taylor called Cody as soon as he’d left? He probably called all of the others, if Sid was right and they were responsible for H. F. Powell’s death.
“They know now that the forgeries were never destroyed,” Laramie had told her. “They’ll be running scared and who knows how far they’ll go to keep this from ever coming out. It isn’t just about ruining their reputations. We’re talking murder.”
Sid had smiled. “If I’m right, they’ll start turning on each other—if they haven’t already.”
“Or they’ll all come after you.”
“They don’t even know that I am H. F. Powell’s daughter,” she’d said with a shake of her head. “But I’ll be careful.”
He had seen that she was touched that he was worried about her. He had moved to her, cupping her cheek with his palm. “Let me help. Two of my brothers are private investigators and I—”
“No.” She’d moved away before turning to look at him again. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am that you are involved at all.”
“Sid, can’t you see that I... I care about you?”
She’d smiled and nodded. “But now I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”
He’d said he could. “But if you need me—”
Sid had stepped to him to give him a quick kiss. “I’m almost finished with this. Any interference now could destroy all the work I’ve done.”
Against his better judgment, he’d agreed to stay out of it. What choice did he have? Go to Hud with what he knew? He couldn’t do that to Sid. Nor did he know how to help her—other than letting her finish what she’d started.
Getting to his feet now, he walked into the kitchen and saw the wet cloth on the counter. Frowning, he picked it up as a flash of memory came rushing at him. Sid leaning over him, pressing the cold washcloth to his forehead.
More of the memory teased at him. Sid with something else in her hand, only...only something was wrong. He shook his head, regretting it as he felt his headache kick in again. The bottle of aspirin was also on the counter. She must have gotten it from the medicine cabinet upstairs.
A slice of memory wove its way in. He’d heard a sound upstairs, like someone dropping something on the hardwood floor. Or was it behind him? He remembered turning. The falling snow in the doorway. He’d seen a woman’s face the instant before he’d felt the blow. Sid’s? No.
His pulse jumped.
It hadn’t been Sid who’d hit him.
Chapter Sixteen
Laramie had believed Sid. But if there’d been someone else in his house last night, another woman who looked like Sid, then Sid had left out a key part of her story.
The problem was that this morning, in the light of day, he couldn’t be sure of what he’d thought he’d seen before taking the blow. Wouldn’t Sid have mentioned it if someone else had been there last night before he came to?
He’d quickly checked the security cameras he’d had installed. And hadn’t been surprised to find the cameras had been turned off during the burglary. The woman knew how to cover her tracks. That should have given him some assurance that she knew what she was doing going after her father’s killers.
His headache had subsided, but he still had a knot on his skull from where someone had nailed him. A mystery woman who looked enough like Sid to fool him? Or Sid herself?
He’d had trouble getting to sleep last night under the weight of what Sid had told him. He reached for his cell phone. Last night, he’d promised to stay out of it. But how could he? If he did and something happened to her—
Sid’s number went straight to voice mail.
“It’s just me. I was thinking about you this morning.” He disconnected knowing there was no reason to ask her to call him. He doubted she would anyway. She’d been pretty clear last night.
Gingerly touching the bump on his head, he tried to remember what exactly he’d seen. He’d barely pocketed his phone when it rang again. He hoped it was Sid.
“It’s Dana,” his cousin said cheerfully. “I hope I’m not calling too early. I just wanted to remind you that the ball and auction is tonight.” He groaned silently, having forgotten about it. “I took the liberty of having them hold three different costumes, but you need to let them know which one you want.”
He swore silently. “Thank you,” he said.
“I promise you will be glad you went to it,” Dana said. “Everyone will be there.”
Not everyone, he thought, thinking of Sid.
“I’ll go and pick up my costume this morning,” he told her.
“See you tonight. Let us know if you need a ride.”
He had to smile as he pocketed his phone. There was no one quite like Dana. Whether or not he’d be glad he attended the ball was debatable, but he would go nonetheless because he adored her. Not because he thought for a moment he would enjoy it.
He couldn’t get his mind off Sid and what she’d told him last night as he went to pick up his costume for tonight. She was so sure that the four founding members of the Old West Artists Coalition had been involved in her father’s death.
They’d apparently stolen the forgeries and trusted one of them to destroy them. He hadn’t. At least that was Sid’s theory. Now she thought they would turn on each other. Laramie wished he believed that. They’d kept quiet about what they’d done, if Sid was right, for all these years.
It wasn’t until later in the day, after running errands, that he turned on the television. He made up his mind that he couldn’t sit back and do nothing. He would find out everything he could about the artists she thought were involved, he told himself, as he dressed for the ball.
That’s why, when the local news came on, he couldn’t have been more shocked. Maybe Sid was right after all.
* * *
ROCK JACKSON’S MURDER topped the news. Even more shocking was the arrest of Taylor West.
Laramie stood in front of the television, having a hard time believing what he was hearing. Taylor West had apparently been found passed out in his vehicle outside the Jackson residence, holding what was believed to be the murder weapon.
West had been intoxicated, resisted arrest and was now charged with multiple offenses, including homicide.
“The cowboy artist’s death has now been linked to a counterfeit money operation,” the broadcaster was saying. “It is uncertain if West was involved in the counterfeit operation with Jackson. But items found at the scene along with that found in a storage unit implicates artist Rock Jackson in the counterfeiting operation.”
The broadcaster cut to an interview with Cody Kent and another man identified as cowboy artist Hank Ramsey. He recognized Cody and turned up the volume. Cody was saying he was shocked by the turn of events. He said he hadn’t seen either man in some time.
“What a tragedy,” Cody said. “Two such talented artists. They’ll both be missed.”
Hank Ramsey was as dark as Cody Kent was blond. Unl
ike Cody, he was clean-shaven with his dark hair cut short. He nervously turned the brim of his Stetson while he talked, his voice breaking at times.
“A tragedy. I only know what I heard on the news this morning. I talked to Taylor recently. I knew he was upset, but I never dreamed... Just a tragedy.”
The television station cut back to the broadcaster, who moved on to other news. Laramie’s phone rang.
“I assume you’ve seen the news,” his brother Austin said.
“Do they know why Taylor West killed him?” Laramie had to ask. His head swam. Did this have something to do with the forgeries?
“I talked to Hud. Apparently Rock was having an affair with Taylor’s wife. Taylor swears he didn’t kill the man, but his gun appears to be the murder weapon, and he was in possession of it at the time of his arrest. Hud thinks it might also have something to do with the counterfeit money operation. Taylor swears he had nothing to do with that, either.”
Laramie thought about telling his brother what had happened at his house last night. But apparently it had nothing to do with the murder or the counterfeit operation. At least he hoped to hell it didn’t.
“Glad Hud caught the counterfeiter,” he managed to say, wondering if anyone else was involved. And if Taylor West was telling the truth about not killing Rock, then who did?
He tried Sid’s number again only to have it go straight to voice mail. He didn’t leave a message. As he pocketed the phone, he feared she might be up to her neck in all this.
* * *
THE HOLIDAY BALL and Art Auction was held each year at the Big Sky Pavilion. Laramie saw the lights from miles away. Valets parked cars in one of the huge snowy lots above it. Along with arranging for a costume, Dana had made sure that Laramie had his ticket.
She had a one-in-three chance of figuring out who he was, given that she had arranged the costumes. But he wasn’t sure what she and Hud would be wearing. His brothers had been equally secretive.