A Photographic Death
Page 24
“How long do you think it will take you to tell us what they’re worth?” he interrupted. “This horse has to run.”
“Well—it depends on how many there are.”
“We have no idea,” Bianca said. “They’re in his studio covered in dust. The door’s been padlocked since the day it happened.”
“The studio’s been locked since the accident?” It came out before I could censor it.
She rounded on both of us. “Why does everyone keep saying what happened was an accident? It was no damn accident!”
Claude made a protesting sound in his throat.
Bianca gave her brother a scornful look, her eyes as pale and hard as my amethyst birthstone. “Go on, just sweep it under the rug like everything else.” Then she strode away, pushing the director’s chair over backward as she went.
Claude righted the chair quickly. “I don’t know why she says crazy things like that,” he muttered. “Even the autopsy said they drowned.” He started down the hill after her.
If this had been a Nate Erikson illustration, a serpent would have peered out of the bushes with a quizzical look.
I drove away feeling lightheaded, either because I would be spending time with Nate Erikson’s books and getting paid, or because it was nearly ten o’clock and I had not yet eaten anything. I decided to stop for a bagel and cream cheese, something I could eat on my way to the next sale.
More than anything, I was shocked by what Bianca Erikson had said. If what happened wasn’t an accident, what were the choices? Surely a man with Nate’s talent and sensibilities would not have committed suicide, much less drowned his own granddaughter. Even if in despair, I couldn’t imagine him inflicting that pain on his family.
That left murder.
Yet as Claude Erikson had pointed out, the police had been satisfied. Something else occurred to me: Had it been her daughter who drowned? Maybe Bianca was unable to accept the fact that life was so precarious that a single moment of inattention could have fatal and permanent results.
Tell me about it.
About the Author
JUDI CULBERTSON draws on her experience as a used-and-rare-book dealer, social worker, and world traveler to create her bibliophile mysteries. No stranger to cemeteries, she also coauthored five illustrated guides with her husband, Tom Randall, starting with Permanent Parisians. She lives in Port Jefferson, New York, with her family.
Visit Judi online at www.judiculbertson.net.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
By Judi Culbertson
A Photographic Death
An Illustrated Death
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from An Illustrated Death copyright © 2013 by Judi Culbertson.
A PHOTOGRAPHIC DEATH. Copyright © 2014 by Judi Culbertson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition MAY 2014 ISBN: 9780062296351
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062296368
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
http://www.harpercollins.com