Fine Art of Murder Read online

  “We're here because you can't stay out of trouble,” Uncle Jim informed me. “And Leroy brought us. Please stop crying. Even when you were a little girl, I couldn't bear to see you cry.”

  “We were worried about you, dear,” Aunt Mattie, said. “Leroy has gone to get you some flowers. Clean clothes are in the duffel bag Jim shoved into the closet.”

  “I'm so happy to see you, but how did you know I was in the hospital?”

  “Zach's mother, Natalie, called me so upset I'm worried about her, too. She called Zach in California and since he finished his shoot, he should now be on his way back to Indianapolis,” Aunt Mattie said.

  About that time, Leroy Andrews, a childhood friend and Monroe County Sheriff, walked in carrying a basket full of roses, lilies, tulips—so many flowers I couldn't see all the varieties—an arrangement so huge it completely covered the bedside table.

  “I've talked to Detective Spencer and got most of the story so you won't have to repeat it,” Leroy said. “We won't stay long since you no doubt have a bad headache, but your neighbors weren't going to rest until they could see with their own eyes that you were alright. We'll take care of your animals and be back tomorrow to take you home if you can be released. The doctor said she thought you'd be fine, but need to take it easy so your head can heal.”

  “Thank you for coming. I'd be fine if this headache would stop, but I know it's going to last for a long time. Kind of puts in perspective those holes I've had to fill in on skulls whose faces I've reconstructed in clay. I was lucky. Hope they catch the jerk. Can't imagine why he wanted that painting so badly.”

  We said our goodbyes and I felt exhausted. I squirmed around, trying to make myself comfortable on the pillows, but nothing stopped the pain. I tried to think about my neighbors who had just left. I've known them all my life, since I grew up down the road from where we all live now. They're both well into their nineties, but like to think they take care of me. I call them aunt and uncle out of respect, but they're not blood relatives.

  I had barely shut my eyes when someone spoke my name. It was my friend, Natalie, Zach's mother.

  “I've been terribly worried about you, Lettie Sue. There was a lot of blood.”

  “Lots of blood vessels in the head. I'll be fine.”

  “I was bringing you lunch since you were there all by yourself and have been so nice to help out, but I found you on the floor. I didn't know if you were dead or alive.”

  “Zach needs to put a buzzer that sounds when the door is opened and a lock on his studio door. I'm sure the thief snuck in while I was in the back and hid in there.”

  “It should have been me there. I feel so guilty.”

  “Don't feel that way. I want to know what's so special about that painting that would prompt someone to steal it.”

  “I can't imagine. Let's hope the police catch the thief. But I'm not going to stay. You're awfully pale and I'm sorry they had to shave your head. You had such beautiful long brown hair.”

  “You mean I'm going to be bald, too?”

  “They had to treat the wound. The doctor said it's only a bald patch under the bandages. It will grow back in no time.”

  “Thanks for coming to cheer me up, Natalie,” I chuckled. “See you later.”

  I dozed between nurse checks during the night and thought morning would never come. But it did and after I ate a light breakfast and had a quick check by the doctor, I was released. My friends arrived to take me home about eleven A.M. I was positive they had come by horse and buggy, but was assured they were held up by a traffic accident.

  * * *

  The pain in my head was annoying, but bearable, and I was anxious to sketch the face of the man who had been in the gallery prior to the attack and theft. Bailey and Catcher, my chocolate Labrador and black cat, clung to my side like pirates guarding their treasure.

  “I'm happy to see you guys, too,” I said, “but I was gone for less than two days. Give me a break. I need to sketch while the memory's still fresh.”

  The sketch pad was on my easel and as I picked up my pencil to draw, the phone rang. It kept ringing and I muted the sound. While I appreciated the “how are you” calls, they broke what little concentration I could muster.

  Fueled by a headache, the itching of the bald spot and wound on my head, and plain, unadulterated anger, my hand moved quickly across the paper. When satisfied I'd captured the likeness of the man, I scanned the picture into the computer and emailed it to Detective Spencer in Indianapolis.

  Leroy called a couple of days later to tell me the IMPD had asked the FBI to help with the investigation of the art theft, but that was all the information he had been able to learn. Since it wasn't a high profile case, he said I shouldn't expect it to be solved anytime soon.

  * * *

  About three weeks later, as I was putting the finishing touches on a facial reconstruction I was completing for a client, Detective Spencer called to tell me the painting had been recovered and asked if he could drop by to tell me the fascinating story connected to the theft. It was his day off and Leroy had invited him to go fishing since the two had become fast friends. They thought it would be a good time to fill me in on the story. I told him to come on out.

  The men arrived in Leroy's SUV a short time later with Aunt Mattie and Uncle Jim in tow.

  Detective Spencer told the story. “The Maloney relative who consigned the painting to the gallery had told several friends in Midland the painting was for sale since he knew Randy Maloney's art was well known in the area and he was hoping for a quick sale. The FBI interviewed those people and showed them your sketch. One of them recognized the man as Jim Baxter, a dealer in Native American artifacts in west Texas and southern Arizona. Baxter was easily located. He had an apartment out toward Seminole. While checking his records in Arizona, we learned he had been a person of interest in an unsolved murder in Mesa, but there had not been enough evidence to arrest him. When confronted in Texas, he had The Shepherd Boy painting in his possession. It had been removed from the frame and Baxter had been examining it with high powered magnifying equipment. He claimed he had purchased the painting from a man he met in Oklahoma, but wasn't given a receipt. The equipment was for studying the artist's painting techniques.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “He actually expected the FBI to believe his story?”

  “I'm just getting to the interesting part,” Detective Spencer said. “After confessing to stealing the painting and transporting it to Midland, he also owned up to killing the man in Mesa. It seems the friend had told him a tale originally told to him by his father, about an old prospector named Jack Maloney, a great-uncle of Randy Maloney's husband, who had a cabin up in the hills. The old man was a legend in that part of Arizona. He used to rob the train to steal tobacco. Anyway, the old man said his niece had painted a picture of a shepherd boy in which she'd hidden clues he had revealed to her about the location of the Lost Dutchman Mine. These two good ol’ boys decided to track down the painting and get the gold. They got drunk and started arguing about how they were going to divide the riches. In a fit of rage, Baxter hit the other man on the head with a geode and killed him. Then he started tracking the painting. The ole boys obviously weren't the brightest stars in the sky. You were lucky he didn't kill you, Lettie Sue.”

  “If the statue had been bronze instead of terra cotta, he might have. Will the Maloney's get the painting back? I'd still like to buy it.”

  “Yes, they'll get it back, but they're not in the market to sell it anymore. Zach, your gallery owner friend, made a film about the attack, the heist, and the legend of Jack Maloney and put it on YouTube. It's gone viral—a million hits so far—and people from Europe, Australia and New Zealand want to buy the painting. The price being offered is astronomical, but the Maloney's think with the family legend and heist, they need to keep it in their family for posterity,” explained Detective Spencer.

  “Well, has anybody checked out what might be in that statue of the shepherd bo
y?” I asked.

  “Oh, no, Lettie Sue, you leave that mystery alone,” Leroy said.

  Author's note: Randy Maloney was a real artist who lived in Midland, Texas. She painted The Shepherd Boy and it hangs in her son's house. Jack Maloney, a great-uncle of the artist's husband, was also an actual person who lived in Arizona and about whom many legends have been told. The rest of the story is from the author's imagination.

  Alberta Rehm Miller Shulz (1892–1980)

  N. W. Campbell

  Alberta Shulz admired the beauty of nature and, according to her cousin, “She revered all life, even the existence of the birds and the bees. For her, there was so much in Nature to admire and learn.” Her paintings of Brown County established her as one of Indiana's most gifted landscape artists.

  Born Alberta Rehm Miller in Indianapolis, she studied music from the age of six, but turned to art when she realized she could not sustain a music career. She enrolled in the arts program at the University of Texas. There she married, gave birth to daughter Emilie, and later divorced her husband. In 1922, Miller and her daughter moved back to Indiana to join the Brown County Art Colony. She rented a cabin from fellow artist Mary Murray Vawter and studied with various Brown County artists and at the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis.

  Miller's most important instructor was Albert Robert Shulz, a landscape painter and founder of the Brown County colony. His style would powerfully influence Miller's work. He was married to artist Ada Shulz at the time, but in 1926 made the decision to divorce her and marry Alberta Miller. This set off a scandal that plagued the new Mrs. Shulz for the rest of her life.

  Miller Shulz's work is characteristic of American Impressionism, and her subject was the rural landscape of Brown County. She and her husband spent winter months in Sarasota, Florida, where she continued her studies at the Ringling School of Art and added Florida and Georgia landscapes to her body of work. Prior to her death in 1980, she donated the land for the Brown County Art Gallery, where several of her works are on display.

  Pride and Patience

  Shari Held

  Charles Hartford Clarriage III stood in the middle of the magnificent library. It had been his father's center of operations until 12:43 that morning. He stroked the top of the enormous, polished mahogany desk. Then he eased into the butter-soft leather chair, propped his legs up on the desk, smiled like a Cheshire cat, and lit a cigar.

  Mine, all mine—the estate, the investments and the business—now that dear old Dad is gone. He blew smoke rings with more abandon than he normally allowed himself. And he poured an indulgent slug of Macallan sixty-year-old scotch from its Lalique crystal decanter, closing his eyes as the heat of the peaty concoction reached his belly.

  Charles was roused from his state of near slumber when he heard Clarisse, the prettiest girl in the county—maybe the whole state—and the one he'd decided he'd marry, speaking to someone on the other side of the library door. The housekeeper must have let her in. It sounded like—no, wait. It couldn't be. What was Daniel doing in the house? He certainly couldn't be making a social call. He was their gardener's son, for God's sake. Correction: their former gardener. And while Charles knew his estate was no Downton Abbey, it was the gem of the county, and that put him a step or two above the help.

  “Oh, Charles, I'm so sorry to hear about your father,” Clarisse said as she rushed into the room and wrapped her arms around his neck. “You look dreadful. How are you holding up?”

  Charles unfolded her arms, rubbing his thumbs down the length of her arms before he relinquished them. When he looked into her eyes, his face expressed nothing other than the pain of a grieving son. “I'm doing as well as can be expected,” he said with a slight quiver in his voice.

  She grabbed his hand and patted it. “If there's anything you need—anything at all—you know where to find me.”

  Was that an open invitation? It certainly sounded like it. Well, well. She was coming round at last. Amazing how owning an estate could open doors. And the heart of a greedy woman.

  “Please accept my condolences as well,” Daniel said. “I know what it's like to lose a father. Your father was a good man. Always treated everyone well.”

  Treated everyone the same, no matter who they were, you mean.

  His father had encouraged, and then financed, Daniel's artistic endeavors, down to letting Daniel use one of the buildings at the edge of their property as a gallery—for free.

  Oh, how I look forward to seeing Daniel's face when I pull the plug on that.

  But for now Charles must appear to be the bereaved son.

  “Charles, why don't you come to Daniel's show tonight?” Clarisse asked. “It isn't good for you to sit in this big, old house alone with your thoughts. It'll do you good. Please say you'll come.” Clarisse looked at him expectantly like a spaniel begging to be walked.

  Well, why shouldn't I go? Daniel's art show may not be my first choice of venues, but if Clarisse wants to fuss over me, who am I to deny her the pleasure?

  “Thank you, Clarisse,” Charles said. “I think a little diversion would do me some good. What time should I pick you up?”

  “Oh, no need to pick me up. I'm going to the gallery early to help Daniel set up. But why don't you come around six-ish. We'll see you then.”

  Daniel put his arm around Clarisse to guide her through the door. Then he turned and said, “Yes, Charles. We'll see you there.”

  * * *

  Charles hadn't set foot in the building since Daniel started using it. The current exterior was washed in a gray-blue that complemented the pale blue walls of the interior. The inside glowed with thousands of inviting twinkle lights and whimsical sayings were calligraphed on the interior and exterior walls.

  Charles frowned. He'd arrived late and the gallery was well-attended. Neither Clarisse nor Daniel were in sight. Then he heard a lilting laugh and they emerged from the back room, Daniel's arm around Clarisse as he bent and gave her a kiss.

  “Hello, everyone,” Daniel said. “Thank you for attending the show. If you haven't been here before, I specialize in portraiture—paintings of wives for husbands, husbands for wives, children—and I've even been known to do paintings of the family dog. Although I charge extra for that! But this evening it's all about my miniatures. In our ancestors’ time, it was quite the rage for a woman to commission a miniature to give to her lover or for a husband to carry a pocket-sized version of his wife. Of course that was long before the iPhone!

  “Miniatures are much more intimate, and make a statement of permanence and intent. That's why I'm on a personal, one-man quest to bring them back. The miniatures are in the side room of the gallery.” He nodded to a woman who stood in front of the closed door. “We'll open the door in just a minute. But first,” he began. He put his hand on a black cloth that covered a display on a pedestal, then swooped it off. “Here's one of this beautiful lady beside me. Doesn't it capture her very essence? A miniature is like a meaningful caress. An iPhoto is like an impersonal handshake.”

  The miniature in the display case was projected on two TV screens at opposite ends of the room. Clarisse's miniature was bathed in shimmering light. And amid the “oohs” and “ahs,” Clarisse and Daniel embraced and kissed once more.

  * * *

  Charles survived the evening through sheer willpower. No one expected him to be gregarious, for God's sake. He was sure his tamped-down anger appeared as nothing more than heartfelt grief. Perfectly natural, given his recent loss.

  He wadded the program he'd picked up at the door until it was the size of a walnut.

  How dare that money-mooching loser think he could capture Clarisse's heart as easily as he captured her likeness. Girls like Clarisse respond to one thing. Money. And I have that in spades now that dear old dad is no longer around.

  Of course, Charles had helped that along by adding the medication to his father's drink. A simple suggestion to the coroner that his inebriated father had accidently taken the azithromycin ins
tead of his heart medication was all it took. Everyone knew his father was prone to partaking too much upon occasion. And everyone adored his father and didn't want to sully his reputation.

  The Z-Pak an obliging doctor had prescribed for Charles while he was vacationing at Lake Tahoe was on the kitchen counter along with all the other vitamins and medications. Right there in full sight.

  The big question now was, what to do to get Daniel out of the picture?

  His fingers traced the delicate pattern on the Limoges vase in the study. Then he threw it at the opposite wall and watched as it smashed into bits, the shards raining down like deadly raindrops from the sky.

  * * *

  “What a surprise to see you here, Charles,” Daniel said, looking up from his desk in the back room of the gallery. “I hope you're enjoying the excellent weather we've been having. And all the beautiful summer flowers. Those showy yellow lilies were your father's favorites, you know.”

  Like I care about the blooming vegetation.

  “Let's dispense with the small talk, Daniel. We've never been, and never will be, friends.”

  “Then why are you here? And why'd you come to my show?”

  “I came to your show because Clarisse invited me. You didn't think it was because I wanted to support our up-and-coming community artist, did you? Not a chance. You've received all the support from the Clarriages you're going to get. Trust me on that.”

  “You didn't enjoy the show?”

  Daniel's wide-eyed look of innocence didn't fool Charles. No matter how naïve he appeared, Daniel knew how to play the game. When Charles's father was desperate for attention, he'd turned to the gardener's son instead of Charles.

  “You hoodwinked my father into letting you use one of our properties for your gallery,” Charles said. “He even paid to have it outfitted just to serve that purpose. I bet you enjoyed having him chip away at my inheritance to finance your little whim.”