by Thea Cambert
“Me too,” said Alice.
“So, do I,” admitted Franny.
By then, they’d made it as far as Trillium Street. They’d passed numerous artists’ exhibits, food vendors, and fun, artsy activities. There was the Make Your Own Stained Glass booth, the Pottery Wheel Challenge, and the Paint A Cookie Masterpiece kitchen—where Owen would be helping out the next day—to name a few.
“Where did that Ella Paige say her exhibit is?” asked Alice. “I can’t wait to see her paintings of Blue Valley. Plus, I texted Luke and Ben and asked them to meet us there at lunchtime.”
“She said she’d be in the big tent, over there in the park,” said Owen, pointing to a crisp white exhibition tent that had been erected in Town Park near the gazebo.
They were just entering the tent when Franny received a text message from Ben. “Ben says they’re running a few minutes late, but will be here shortly.” Her phone dinged again, and she paused to read. “Wow. That’s bizarre,” said Franny, shaking her head. “The painting’s been returned.”
“You mean Alice Reading a Book at a Cute Café?” asked Owen. “Returned to Hemlock House? Are you serious?”
“Ben says the family found it this morning when they went outside. The painting was wrapped up and sitting on the covered porch, and there was a note of apology attached.”
“That’s amazing,” said Alice. “And it wasn’t damaged or anything?”
“Ben says it’s in perfect condition, and that Bernard doesn’t want to pursue the investigation any further. He’s dropping any charges from his end. His family is arriving in town for Thanksgiving, and he just wants to enjoy their time together.”
“Hopefully he’ll at least get into the habit of turning on his alarm system when no one’s home from now on,” said Owen.
“Look—there’s Ella,” said Alice, pointing up ahead to where the rather large tent veered off into one of several smaller corridors. Ella stood among a selection of small canvases, each one dappled with autumn colors.
“Hey, that’s Great Granddaddy Mountain,” said Owen, walking up to take a closer look at one of the paintings.
“And here’s one of Flora’s Meadow,” said Franny. “And look at this!” She pointed to a gorgeous painting looking down on Blue Valley from up above.
“We saw a view like this on our way up the mountain Saturday morning,” said Alice, smiling at Ella. She looked back at the painting. “I bet the Astors would love to add this to their collection.”
“I had to drive up pretty high to find that view,” said Ella, walking over to join them. “Nice to see you all again. You’re from the bookstore, right?”
“Yes,” said Alice. “We’ve been anxious to see your work. Mr. Foster was right about your talent. These are just spectacular.”
“Ian’s been so good to me, but I’m afraid he built me up too much. I’m glad you’re not disappointed.” Ella nodded graciously. “It helps to have such lovely subject matter.”
“How on earth have you produced so many paintings in such a short time? You’ve only been here for what? Two or three days?”
“About that, yes,” said Ella. “Whenever I come to a festival like this, I challenge myself to produce a lot of good quality work fast. Some of my colleagues think I’m nuts. I’ll often find the right view, snap a photo of it, and then work on the painting from the photo instead of actually sitting and painting on-site. That way, the light doesn’t change. Sometimes I even work through the night. And I only do these little canvases. Nothing major. Being able to venture out, take a lot of good photos, and then go back to my room and paint is key for me.”
“So, you’re a photographer too?” asked Owen.
“Not really,” said Ella. “But I do well enough to get the shots I want to base my paintings on.”
“Had you met Talbot White—the photographer? I mean, before he passed away?” asked Franny.
“No, but I know of his work,” said Ella. “I was very sorry to hear he died.”
“Hey—it’s our lake!” Luke walked into the tent, followed by Ben. “That’s beautiful.” He came and stood next to Alice, planting a quick kiss on her cheek.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Alice smiled. “Look—there’s the town dock, and across the lake you can just make out Cozy Bear Camp and Glamp.”
“We should buy this,” said Luke. “We can hang it in our cabin.”
Alice smiled. “Our cabin,” she repeated.
“Well, it will be, as soon as you marry me. What do you think?”
“I think this would look perfect over the fireplace,” said Alice.
“I do too.” He took her hand and kissed it.
Ella wrapped the painting in brown paper and tied it with string, and after thanking her, they left the tent and went outside in search of lunch.
They ended up at a very hip food truck that called itself The Deconstructed Sandwich, and ordered deconstructed club sandwiches, which were small platters with shaved turkey, crisp bacon, cheddar cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes artfully arranged along with a stack of homemade salt-and-pepper potato chips. Dessert was a deconstructed cream puff, which involved bite-sized airy clouds of choux pastry and small dishes of vanilla custard and decadent chocolate sauce to dip them into.
“How’s your investigation on Talbot going?” Alice asked, popping a cream puff into her mouth.
“As well as can be expected at this point,” said Ben. He shifted his gaze from his sister to his wife. “Good job finding those warm coffee cups in the sink by the way, Franny. By the time we got there, they were cold. But they definitely gave us a clue as to when the killer—” Ben abruptly stopped talking and looked at Luke, who raised a brow at him.
“So, it was murder!” said Owen.
“And you suspect that whoever drank coffee with Talbot is the person who killed him,” said Franny.
“He didn’t look like he’d suffered any kind of trauma,” said Alice. “I mean, we didn’t see any blood or obvious bruising . . . there was no mess in the room, so it didn’t look like there’d been a struggle or anything . . .”
“Poison!” said Owen, triumphantly raising a finger into the air. “Oh! I have it! Poison in the coffee.”
Ben’s eyes were huge at this point. He took off his glasses and wiped them with the corner of his shirt. Alice knew her brother always did that when he was nervous or at a loss for words.
“Ah-ha! You’re wiping your glasses. We’re right,” she said. “Has Doc Howard identified what kind of poison it was yet?”
There was a long pause during which Ben and Luke exchanged exasperated glances, and then finally, Luke said, “It was antifreeze. Okay? Which means almost anyone could’ve done it.” He rubbed his forehead. “We’ve got our work cut out for us on this one.” He looked at Alice, Owen, and Franny. “Now. In exchange for that little tidbit of information, I need you three to tell me everything Talbot was taking photos of up at Hemlock House.”
They quickly thought back to their outing up the mountain.
“He was only shooting Toussaint’s painting of the girl in the café,” said Owen.
“Plus a few of the Astors standing next to it,” added Franny.
“Can’t you look at the photos yourselves, though?” asked Alice. “Weren’t they at Shutter Bug’s?”
This met with another of those telltale pauses where Ben looked at Luke but neither gave an immediate answer to the question.
“They weren’t,” Alice concluded. “Talbot was dead, and his photos and negatives from Hemlock House were gone.”
“Well. I think we’ve done enough damage here,” said Luke, getting up from their picnic table.
Alice grinned at him, knowing how he worried when she got involved in cases. “Don’t worry. We’re not butting in. Not really.”
“That’s right,” said Owen. “We were just curious. You know, because we found Talbot, and . . . ”
“We’d just seen him the day before,” finished Franny. “Alive. Which makes it hard not to wonder w
hat happened.”
“We’ll tell you as soon as we know,” Ben assured them. “We’re going to catch whoever killed him. Meanwhile, you three stay safe.”
“We’re all headed back to our shops until late afternoon,” said Alice. “Then we’re coming back to the festival. There’s a glassblowing demonstration we don’t want to miss at five, and we all have plenty of help covering for us at our shops, so we can pretty well come and go as we please.”
“Good,” said Luke, picking up the wrapped painting of Blue Lake. “I’m going to run this over to the cabin and then head back to the station. Oh—but I’ll stop by the bookshop first. I have a gift for you.”
“You do?” said Alice, a wide smile spreading across her face. “What is it?”
“It’s a surprise,” said Luke. “Ordered it a few days ago, and it’s already come in.” He kissed Alice. “See you in a bit.”
They all walked together as far as mid Main Street, and then parted ways.
Alice stopped just short of the door to the Paper Owl. “Hold on. I want to make a quick phone call,” she said. She pulled out her phone, did an online search for Good Impressions magazine, and scrolled through the staff list to find the photo editor—a Brice Smith. Then she called the number and was relieved when the switchboard put her right through to Mr. Smith. Alice explained to him who she was and how she’d known Talbot White and been with him when he was doing the magazine’s photo shoot. Mr. Smith expressed condolences over Talbot’s death, and Alice felt brave enough to ask him whether Talbot had happened to send the photos of the painting in the mail.
“Oh no,” said Mr. Smith. “He wouldn’t have mailed them. Not Talbot. He was delivering the photos himself. He was supposed to be here on Wednesday. That Talbot was a bit of an eccentric. But his work was exceptional.”
Mr. Smith wrapped up the conversation by telling Alice that if anyone happened to stumble across the photos Talbot had taken for the magazine, he’d still love to have them. Otherwise, they’d plan on sending another photographer to Hemlock House if they could work it out with the Astors.
When Alice got off the call, she turned to Owen and Franny, who were waiting to hear what Mr. Smith had had to say.
“Good Impressions definitely didn’t hear from Talbot. The only copies of those photos were at Shutter Bug’s.”
“And they were the only things stolen,” said Owen.
Alice nodded. “Which means someone thought they were worth killing for.”
Chapter 7
About half an hour later, Owen and Franny wandered into The Paper Owl.
“Theo’s all fed and changed,” said Franny. “Mom’s on her way over to pick him up for the afternoon. And Beth’s got everything under control in the coffee shop. I really have nothing to do. Can you believe that?”
“And Hilda’s manning Sourdough,” said Owen, who was patting Theo’s back gently, eliciting the elusive baby burp. “She ordered me to get out of her way.”
Hilda Becker, Owen’s assistant at Sourdough, was an amazing baker, but tended to be grumpy—especially when a fair or festival was going on in town. And Franny had Beth at the helm of Joe’s on weekends and some weekdays, although Franny never went a day without checking in at the coffee shop, even on her days off. Alice sometimes had help from her mother, Bea Maguire, in the bookshop, but her usual weekend help came in the form of Lacie Blake, daughter of Doug and Barb Blake, who owned Sugar Buzz, a gourmet chocolate and candy shop a few doors down. Lacie and her longtime beau, Zack Spears, attended college in a nearby town and came home most weekends. The two of them were always ready to make a few extra bucks working at The Paper Owl.
“Let me just finish making this order, and we can head back out to the festival,” said Alice. “Lacie’s here until closing.” She glanced over at Lacie, who was busy showing a popup book to a very young customer who’d come in with his mother.
Just then, the bells above the front door jingled and Luke came in, carrying a long cardboard tube. “For you, my love,” he said, handing the tube to Alice.
Alice grinned at Luke, then popped the lid off one end of the tube and slid out the rolled-up paper inside. She slowly unrolled it.
“Woman at Café with Book!” she said. “You got me my own copy! But how did you—I mean, you just found out this is my favorite painting.”
“On Friday,” said Luke. “Quickie shipping. I know it’s not nearly as good as the original, but it was the best version in print I could find. They had to trim the image a tiny bit—I guess to make the dimensions right for a standard print size. Anyway, I thought we could frame it.”
“And put it in the bookstore!” said Alice. “Or even up in our apartment.”
“Our apartment,” Luke repeated, smiling.
“Well, it will be as soon as you marry me,” said Alice, leaning over the counter to kiss him.
“Set. A. Date.” Owen gave them a stern look. “That way, we can start planning the most important part of any wedding: the cake.”
“We will,” Alice promised. “As soon as I get through Thanksgiving.”
Luke looked at the print. “That gentleman who was in the bookstore the other day, who said you look like the woman in the painting? I agree with him. Even though the picture is all fluffy and blurry, there’s something about her.”
“I take that as a compliment,” said Alice. “By the way, is Bernard still intent on dropping the investigation as to who stole the painting?”
“Yep,” said Luke. “He’s just happy to have it back.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to get over to the station. I’m glad you like your surprise.”
“I love it,” said Alice. “Thank you.”
After he’d gone, Alice, Owen, and Franny admired the print a bit longer.
“I still want to know what Talbot’s cryptic text message meant,” said Owen, taking his phone out and scrolling through his old messages. “I’ll show you how photography can be useful in uncovering a forgery.” He paused. “This is all tied together, isn’t it?”
“What?” asked Franny.
“Talbot’s death and the robbery,” said Owen.
“Do you really think so?” asked Alice. “Then why did the thief return the painting?”
“Who knows,” said Owen, tapping the print. “And maybe I’m reaching too far. But it seems like a very odd coincidence that Talbot takes photos of this painting, then says he’s found evidence of a forgery in his photos, then he’s murdered and the photos disappear . . . then the painting is stolen.”
“And returned . . .” said Franny. “So, what do we do?”
“I know what we do,” said Alice, rolling up the print and slipping it back into the tube. “We do just what Talbot did. We compare this print—which is a photo of the real painting—to Bernard’s painting and look for discrepancies.”
“Go back to Hemlock House?” said Franny.
“Yep,” said Alice. “When we get there, I’ll say I think I left my scarf there on Saturday. We’ll look for it in the room with the painting—”
“Because after all, that’s where we were standing around the longest,” said Owen. “So, it makes sense you might’ve taken off your scarf in that room.”
“Exactly,” said Alice. “After all, we can’t waste a free afternoon, can we? Let’s go.”
Owen opened the door and let Alice and Franny go ahead of him. “I’m pretty sure the game’s afoot,” he said.
Chapter 8
The drive to Hemlock House had been quicker and easier this time, since they knew the way. They’d arrived, knocked at the door, and were admitted to search for Alice’s scarf. When Bernard noticed the cardboard tube in Alice’s hands, she explained that her fiancé had given her a print of the Toussaint piece, because it was her favorite painting.
“You know, you remind me a little bit of the woman in the painting,” Bernard had said with a smile. “Feel free to spend some time with it.” He’d given them a wave and excused himself to join his family out
on the terrace.
Alice, Owen, and Franny unrolled the print and compared it with the painting, painstakingly examining every detail, but they saw no difference between the two.
“You know,” said Owen, snapping a quick photo of the painting before they left, “it probably takes an expert to know for sure if a painting’s a fake.”
“Owen—aren’t we not supposed to take photos of it?” asked Alice.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t use a flash.”
They thanked the Astors, and drove back down to Blue Valley just in time to take in the glass blowing demonstration at the art festival.
“That was amazing,” said Owen as they walked down Main Street toward home. “It was like the glass was some kind of magical translucent clay.”
“Did you get some good photos?” asked Franny.
“I think so,” said Owen, scrolling through the shots he’d taken. “Here’s a really good one of the glass blower. I should send a copy of this to Jane for the Post.”
“Speaking of Jane,” said Alice. “Something’s been bothering me—like a mosquito buzzing in the back of my mind, but until this second, I couldn’t remember what it was.” She stopped walking. “Our theory is that somehow, Talbot was murdered for the photos he took of Woman at Café with Book.”
“And he said he’d spotted a forgery through those photos,” added Owen.
“Right,” said Alice. “But he wasn’t the only one who got a photo of the painting.”
“That’s right!” said Franny. “Jane did, too. It was on the front page.”
“Let’s drop by the Blue Valley Post and see her,” said Alice. “She could be in danger, too.”
They walked on up Main Street, hung a right on Phlox, passed the Community Center, the police station, and Town Hall, and came to the newspaper office—which was housed in one half of a small, red brick structure with a striped awning shading the large windows that ran along the sidewalk out front.
Jane Elkin was the publisher, editor, and principal journalist for the newspaper. She was seated behind her desk, tapping away at her computer keyboard when Alice, Owen, and Franny entered.