I tapped on the glass. “Do you mind if I come in?”
She smiled and opened the door wide. “Sure. Anything for a new friend. What do you need? Have you come back to purchase one of the gorgeous pieces you saw last night?”
“Sorry, but no. I was hoping I could speak to Sasha.”
Her forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Sasha? What for?”
It occurred to me that Avery might not appreciate me bothering her niece when she was already depressed. I said, “I’d…um…like to ask her…if she’d be willing to do a commissioned painting of the B&B. It would be nice to have on display, or even sell prints to guests.”
A portrait of the B&B was actually something Delilah and I had talked about getting for Papa Sal for Christmas, so it wasn’t a total lie. But based on the price of the painting we’d seen last night, Sasha would be way out of our price range.
“Oh, I’m sure she’d be interested in the extra work. I’ll get her for you.” Avery disappeared into the back hallway, coming out moments later with a surly-looking Sasha. “I’ll leave you two to your business.” With a wave, she headed toward the front door.
“Hi, Sasha,” I said, wishing I’d waited so Delilah could have accompanied me. Sasha wasn’t the easiest person to talk to.
“What do you want this time?” she groaned.
I noticed that Avery had stopped to straighten a canvas on the wall and wasn’t out of earshot, so I went with the commissioned painting angle. “I wanted to know if you’d be interested in doing a painting of the B&B, and I wondered what the cost would be.”
Unimpressed, she asked, “Why me? I’m just a student. Don’t you want a real artist to do it?”
“Sasha, you’re a real artist. The paintings of yours that I saw last night were fabulous. You have a great talent.”
She seemed to relax a little. “Oh, uh…thanks. Well, I guess I’d charge…four hundred.”
“That’s it? I thought your paintings were worth thousands.”
Shaking her head, she said, “Not that kind.”
I saw Avery finally head out the front door, I presumed on the way to the nearby door to her upstairs apartment. Now that I was alone with Sasha, I said, “I also wanted to bring something else up. You’d mentioned that you didn’t know the bookie who’d given Jason the black eye. I went to see him tonight. From what he told me, he met you last week when you paid off a large debt for Jason. Surely you remember that clearly.”
Sasha stared at me. “I don’t know what in the world you’re talking about. And I don’t appreciate being accused of something I didn’t do.” Without another word, she turned on her heel and stormed back toward the studio.
After hesitating for a moment to try to collect myself, I followed her. “Sasha, wait. I don’t understand. Please help me.” She quickly covered up the canvas next to her, exactly like she had with the other one last night, but not before I saw it. This one was a half-finished version of the Signac painting that was the centerpiece of last night’s event. It was an amazing reproduction. It looked identical to the real one. She then turned to face me, lips stuck in a frown and arms across her chest. She really didn’t want anyone seeing her works in progress.
I couldn’t hide my amazement. “Wow. Your copy of the Signac piece is perfect. Is it for a class project? If so, you’re definitely getting an A.”
She flinched. “Yeah. Can you just get on with it so you’ll leave me alone?”
“Okay. I need you to help me understand why this man I met, this bookie named Ed Bristow, gave a perfect description of you and said you came to him at Fred’s Bar at the end of last week. You offered to pay Jason’s five-thousand-dollar debt and said it was because you wanted to own him.”
Sasha threw her hands in the air helplessly. “I don’t know! Did he say my name?”
My phone buzzed in my pocket, but I ignored it. I felt like I was sitting on top of something huge here, and I didn’t want to be interrupted.
“No, he only described you. What other gorgeous blonde wearing paint-splotched clothing is close enough to Jason to want to pay off a debt of five thousand dollars?” As I said that, something clicked in my head. “Unless it was your aunt…Wait. Did she know about the affair between you and Jason?”
Sasha shook her head. “No. She would have killed us both.”
I was beginning to get a picture in my head, and it wasn’t pretty. “You’re sure she wouldn’t have killed just him?”
Her jaw dropped. “Are you nuts? That was a figure of speech. You think my aunt would actually kill someone? Just…Seriously, get out.”
I could hardly believe it could be true, but it made such perfect sense all of a sudden. My phone buzzed again, but all I could concentrate on was wrapping my brain around the idea of Avery Harper of all people killing Jason Green.
I said almost to myself, “Jason was a married man. You were an impressionable young college girl. He was your boss, and…took advantage. You lived under your aunt’s roof, so it stands to reason that she’d feel the need to watch over you, even if it meant going to drastic measures.”
Sasha griped, “Okay, if you won’t leave, I will.” She brushed past me and stormed out.
Guessing I had really overstayed my welcome this time, I turned to leave as she’d asked, thinking my next stop would be the police station. But another canvas caught my eye, this one stacked against the wall with some other paintings. It was The Garden at Saint-Paul, and it had a SOLD sign on it. But I had walked past the real painting on my way in here just now. That didn’t make a lot of sense until I tipped this painting forward and looked at the one behind it. There was another copy of the same painting, also with a sold sign on it. There were three more behind it, all sold to different people, with addresses from around the country.
In other news, it looked like Sasha and Avery were making and selling forgeries of famous paintings. I didn’t think I could take many more surprises tonight. Anyone who was forging art and unloading it to unsuspecting collectors didn’t have a lot of scruples. Add to that a huge motive to kill Jason Green, and I was officially scared to be in this place alone.
I hurried through the gallery, only to be stopped before I could get to the door by none other than Avery Harper. And she had a gun pointed right at me.
Chapter 29
I began trembling all over. I’d never had a gun pointed at me before. Granted, it wasn’t that big of a gun. In fact, it was one of those tiny little purse pistols. But any size bullet in the right spot could do a deadly amount of damage.
Avery said, “I honestly didn’t think you’d figure it out. You bumbled so badly at the event last night, I thought you were miles off. But when you showed back up tonight, I had a feeling you were closer than I’d realized. If the police couldn’t figure it out, I didn’t figure anyone else would, but clearly I was wrong. Brava.”
“Um…thank you?” I squeaked. How was I going to get out of this without getting shot?
“I have an idea. Let’s go next door where we’ll have more privacy.” She gestured to the side door near the rear of the gallery. “Go to where it all began.”
Not knowing what else to do, I went out the door ahead of her and headed down the narrow walkway between Oeuvre and Green, toward the alley. I opened the gate to Drew and Jason’s backyard and walked into the dark garden, trying to get a grip on my nerves. My phone buzzed again, but I knew I could never get away with answering it.
Something sharp hit me in the middle of my back. “Ow,” I said, turning to see what Avery had thrown at me. It was a large ring full of keys.
“The green one opens the door to Green,” she said. “Clever, no?”
“Why do you have keys to the restaurant?”
“Like you heard from that blabbermouth bookie, I owned Jason. He did whatever I said.”
I picked the keys up and went t
o unlock the door. “If that was the case, then why didn’t you tell him to quit messing with your niece? Seems like that would have been an easier answer to your problem with him.”
Before I knew what was happening, I felt her hand hit the back of my head, which slammed my forehead into the solid metal door. My glasses cut into the bridge of my nose. I cried out, seeing only stars and black blobs.
“Shut up! I gave him everything. Money…catering jobs…myself. We were partners in every sense of the word. And how did he repay me? Sleeping with my own niece behind my back!” she cried. “Get inside.”
Holding my aching head, I opened the door and went ahead of her into Green’s kitchen. She flipped on the lights and gave me a rough shove into the center of the kitchen. The place looked like a bomb had gone off in here, probably a result of Ava and her boyfriend’s attempt to rob the place. Kitchen items were strewn everywhere as if they’d been picked through, and half-packed boxes littered the floor. Even though this mess wasn’t nearly as disconcerting as the mess I’d found in here on Monday night, the same sick feeling I’d had then washed over me again, and I thought I was going to be ill. I wished my throbbing brain could process the bombshell Avery had just dropped about her tangled relationship with Jason. She was the business partner we’d been looking for all this time.
“Any bad memories returning?” she asked, smirking at me.
“Probably not as bad as the ones you have of sticking a knife in the back of another human being,” I spat, being able to think a smidge more clearly as my vision began clearing up. “A human being who was your business partner as well as your side piece. Tell me, does no one in this town respect the sanctity of marriage vows anymore?”
Something flashed in her eyes. “I told you to shut up!”
“So did the money you gave Jason come from your forgery business? Does your husband know about your forgery business? He seems like a very nice man.”
She laughed mirthlessly. “He’s a clueless old coot.” Frowning and shaking her head as if to clear it, she barked, “No more talking! Get on your knees!”
“Why?” I asked warily.
“Why do you think? I can’t risk you telling my secrets. It will ruin me.”
A cold sweat erupted all over my body. This was not happening. How could I have missed how crazy Avery was? I lowered myself onto my knees, thinking if I were going to get myself out of this, now would be the time.
I had a thought. “Is that gun registered to you?”
“Yes, why?” she asked impatiently, coming a little closer, still with her gun pointed at my chest.
I gathered my courage. “Because forensics. The police can easily trace a bullet back to a gun. With your gun being registered, they’ll know the bullet that killed me came from your gun.”
That was seriously stretching the small amount I knew about forensics from the mystery novels I’d read. It wasn’t magic—they couldn’t match a bullet to a gun arbitrarily. They had to be in possession of the gun to be sure. But maybe Avery didn’t know that.
She clearly didn’t know that, based on her reaction. Her eyes became huge, and her jaw dropped. “What…”
“Yeah. You can’t shoot me, or they’ll know.” I stood, my confidence returning in full force. “Any way you play it, this doesn’t end well, Avery. Just turn yourself in. You don’t want two murder charges against you—or two murders on your conscience.”
Her eyes were wild. “I could still shoot you…and say…and say it was self-defense! Yes! You came at me and I had to defend myself.”
“Why would I come at you? I barely know you. You’re going to have to come up with a better story than that. How did I even get in here? You’re the one with the key, not me.”
“I’ll…I’ll…break a window and say you broke in…and I came over here as a concerned neighbor to…to check on things. With my gun.”
I had to admit, that was a better plan. While she was talking, I happened to notice that a big hanging pot rack full of large copper skillets was swinging directly over her head. I glanced up to where it was attached to the ceiling and noted that two of the cup hooks holding it were beginning to pull out of the drywall. If the pot rack and all those heavy skillets fell on her head, she’d be down for the count. But how could I manage to give the thing a good tug while being held at gunpoint by a woman who was trying to convince herself it was okay to shoot me?
There had to be another way. I inched toward a skillet lying on the counter next to me. “I think you can only get away with shooting people who trespass on property you own.” I didn’t know if that was true, either, but it was worth a shot.
One of the swinging skillets made a clang above Avery’s head, and she took her eyes off me to glance up. I grabbed the skillet next to me, but before I could launch it, the two cup hooks suddenly gave way. One end of the pot rack swung down, crashed into Avery, and tossed her to the floor, out cold.
As I exhaled a sigh of relief, the back door burst open. Tucker came through the doorway, followed closely by Delilah. They were both white as sheets, looking like they were scared out of their wits.
Tucker reached me in three strides and swept me into a tight hug. “I thought I’d really lost you this time.”
Delilah got behind me and hugged me from the other side. I thought they might crush me, but it felt so good to be safe again that it didn’t matter. I could hear my sister crying softly into my hair, unable to speak.
The wail of a police siren cut through the silence, and they pulled away from me.
Delilah wiped her eyes and looked down at Avery. “I never would have guessed.”
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it. Do I have a story for you,” I said.
She wrinkled her nose. “What? That Avery was Jason’s mystery business partner, his lover, and also the one who paid off his debt to Ed the bookie? And that she killed him because he had an affair with her niece?”
My jaw dropped. “How did you know all that?”
“Uncle Frank. He followed you over here and got worried when he saw you were being held at gunpoint in the gallery. He came back to the B&B and told us the whole story with no cryptic stuff this time. We called the police and ran right over. I also texted you, but you were probably a little tied up.”
I rubbed my forehead gingerly, wondering if that conk on the head had addled my brain. “Did I hear you right?”
Tucker said, “Um…actually, yes. I know you think Delilah’s been feeding you a line all these years about your uncle Frank, but…I saw him tonight, too. I thought I was going nuts, but…now I’m a believer.”
I groaned. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me she’s recruited you for her crazy train.”
Tucker held up his hands. “Hey, seeing is believing.”
“Wait. How did you know I was over here, then?”
Delilah said, “When the gallery was empty, we noticed the light on in here and raced over, hoping. We looked through the window and saw Avery pointing a gun at you.”
Tucker said, “We also saw…your uncle Frank…” He trailed off. It was like he thought what he was saying was coming off crazy. It was.
Delilah cut in. “Uncle Frank dislodged the pot rack from the ceiling. You can thank him for that.” She gestured down at the unconscious Avery.
I gave them both a disbelieving stare. “I can thank gravity and old drywall. That pot rack was probably too heavy for those flimsy hooks in the first place. It had a dozen heavy skillets hanging from it. It was dumb luck that it fell when it did.” Granted, I had to admit that it was an awfully big coincidence that it fell at that precise moment.
The sirens were practically deafening now, and lights flashed in the windows.
I said, “I’ll agree to disagree with you two right now if you’ll both promise that when you tell your stories to the cops, you leave the ghost part out.”
<
br /> * * *
—
The place was a circus, and I had to tell my story to the first responders, to Rufus, to Detective Flynn, and even to an FBI agent, who was only interested in the art forgeries. It was a long, drawn-out process, and by the end I was so ready to do nothing more than sleep for days.
Rufus and Detective Flynn came over to speak with me one more time.
Rufus said, “Quinn, you’re free to leave. Go home and get some rest. You deserve it. I’ll be the first one to say that we were wrong. If it weren’t for your tenacity and Delilah’s, we wouldn’t have caught the real killer. Thank you.”
Detective Flynn said, “The same goes for me. Great job.”
I smiled. “Thanks for saying that. See how far off base you were by threatening to charge me with being some sort of accomplice to murder?”
Flynn gave me a blank look. “Wait, you thought you were an actual suspect the whole time? I was only blowing smoke up your—” He cleared his throat, stopping himself before completing his vulgar sentence.
Staring at him, I said, “You told me I was a person of interest. And you told Drew that I was a suspect—that you thought he and I were in on it together, or that I was covering for him. It sounded dead serious to me.”
Rufus rolled his eyes and muttered, “I knew that would backfire.”
I frowned. “It wasn’t just what Detective Flynn said. You both kept telling me if I didn’t quit visiting Drew in jail that it would look like I was conspiring with him.”
Rufus shook his head. “That was me trying to scare you into staying out of the investigation for your own safety. I couldn’t think of a better way to do it.”
Flynn still thought the whole situation was hilarious. Laughing, he said, “You honestly thought you were on our radar?”
I turned on him and raised my voice. “You told me I was on your radar! You accused me of killing Jason, too!”
Holding up his hands, he said, “Settle down now. Are you talking about our conversation on the night of the murder?”
Southern Discomfort Page 23