Romancing the Brush: An Austin, Texas Art Mystery (The Michelle Hodge Series Book 3)
Romancing the Brush
An Austin, Texas Art Mystery
Roslyn Woods
Contents
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
About the Author
Also by Roslyn Woods
Copyright © 2015 Roslyn Woods
All rights reserved. No part of this
book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording,
or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the author.
This is a work of fiction.
Any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
Chapter 1
There are neighborhoods in Austin, Texas, even those whose populations are fairly packed in, that can be surprisingly still in the very early morning when other parts of town are already beginning to hum. Hyde Park is not one of those neighborhoods. By six o’clock the joggers are out, getting in their exercise before the workday. The traffic on I-35, about three miles away, begins early and never really stops. Closer yet is the sound of delivery trucks making stops at the restaurants, bakeries, and other businesses in the vicinity, and their various noises, including the squeaking of brakes and an occasional backfire, soon becomes a background noise hardly heard at all. At least, it was just background to Garrett Hall, who, for the very last time, was taking his little dog for her morning walk.
It was still fairly dark when he turned back from the corner of 43rd and Avenue H at six-thirty that Friday morning in late April, and he was more than a little preoccupied. His own street was fairly still. The air was moist and cool, the lawns damp with dew, and it was getting lighter by the minute while his thoughts swirled around the problem of the day. He turned his silver head in the direction of the little dog on its longish leash and called to her. “Come on, Penny! Keep up with Papa.”
He always called himself “Papa” to the Papillon, and he wasn’t sure why he had kept up the practice. He really had no inclination to defend the idea to himself. Penelope had been a gift to him two years earlier from a very special friend who had called himself “Other Papa” at the time. Even though the relationship had ended, the dog had remained Garrett’s, and he loved her very much, but he knew part of that love was probably due to a lingering attachment to the man he couldn’t stop caring about.
This morning he wasn’t thinking much about the calico-colored creature as she yapped at an oblivious cat on the front porch of a yellow house just a few doors up the street from his own. Garrett had been thinking about the meeting at the gallery when he took Penny out for her walk, and he was thinking about it now as he went up his porch steps, an agile, striking man of a mere fifty-eight years. He intended to get some work done at home before going in later this morning. Estelle Travis would be there, and the buyer from Arizona, Enrique Mendoza, would be there, too. The partners needed and wanted this sale, but Garrett’s own misgivings about the paintings were going to make it impossible for him to keep from speaking candidly to this buyer. It would be dishonest to do otherwise.
He turned the key in the lock of his brightly painted purple door and pushed it open before bending down to pick up the little dog.
“Penny, darling, calm down!” he said absently as he rubbed her soft head. He went into the cozy living room with its many Tiffany lamps and ticking cuckoo clocks, and he put her down in his comfy, leather chair on her very own blanket. “Let me get Mr. Squeaky Duck,” he added as he searched behind the chair for her favorite toy. In a few moments the dog had her toy but refused to settle down on the blanket, and Garrett decided to give up for a moment and put on the teakettle.
“Papa’s going to have a cup of Earl Grey and try to get some work done,” he said over his shoulder, “and you don’t need to think I’m going to enjoy your yapping when I’m trying to accomplish something.”
He turned on the stove and got down his favorite mug and took a teabag from the canister before returning to the living room. He pushed a button on the CD player, hoping the music would calm the dog, before he sat down in the chair in front of the drafting table near the green-shuttered window, turned on the lamp, and put on the glasses that sat atop the little Shaker lamp table. He leaned forward as Jackie Evancho’s voice wafted through the air. She was singing “All I Ask of You” from The Phantom of the Opera, and the song always made Garrett feel emotional. He leaned toward the painting and looked through the magnifier as his eyes filled.
“God, I miss you,” he whispered to no one. He swallowed and waited for the moment to pass as he continued to ignore Penny’s yapping. He told himself that it was just that he was tired and the brushstrokes were worrying him. Okay, it was that song, and being tired, and the brushstrokes were wrong. They just didn’t seem consistent, and much as he wanted them to be right, there was something wrong here, just as there had been something wrong with the paintings Leonardo had sold right after opening the gallery.
He had mentioned his problem with the new paintings to the partners, and only Shell had taken it seriously. Even she, however, needed to hear his final verdict, and he still didn’t have one. It was nearly impossible to convince people by telling them you had a feeling something was off. He needed some evidence that was precise and obvious, something the three of them could all see, something he could point to and say that this proved his intuition right.
“It might be the brushstrokes,” he had said, pointing to a corner of an enlarged photo of one of Wes Travis’ paintings from the late sixties. “See how he has this sort of X pattern through the whole thing? Now look at this newer painting. There’s an X pattern, but the starting stroke is backward, and it’s not the same down in this corner. It’s as if the painter consciously changed his stroke.”
Shell had leaned closer to the work and then stood to the side to see how the light caught the brushstrokes from an angle. “Okay, I do see what you mean, but does that prove it’s not genuine? I doubt that my brushstrokes are consistent.”
“They’re more consistent than you know. Artists make very typical repetitive movements wh
en they paint.” Shell had nodded. He had seen that she believed him. She had told him the paintings gave her “a bad feeling” the first time she had seen them. She had a keen intelligence, and he was convinced she was gifted with second sight, especially where art was concerned. His plan was to teach her everything he knew about authenticating paintings, but he had only chosen to do so because he had seen her gift. “I know it’s not enough to tell them something’s off about the brushstrokes,” he had continued. “I’m just saying I have doubts, so I’ll research it till we can convince the others with something they can see for themselves.”
Penny just wouldn’t stop barking, and Garrett leaned sideways and turned up the volume on the CD player. “Penny, dear, you have to calm down or I’m putting you in your crate in the bedroom,” he threatened. He knew he probably wouldn’t do that, but he also knew she understood the word crate. He looked back at the canvas, and the swell of the music was making his eyes ache.
Memories from a night two years earlier pushed their way into his consciousness. They were at The Majestic Theater in New York, and another voice was singing the song. It had been a special treat, that trip, and it was this song and these words that had meant so much. No, he thought. Maybe they just meant so much to me.
He was looking through watery lenses now, but he saw it anyway. It was a line in the signature, just a line that was wrong, but strikingly so. Why hadn’t he seen it before? He leaned closer to the canvas, removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, allowing his near-sighted focus to begin at about five inches from the surface. Yes. There it was. It was the brushstrokes, too, but this was precise. This was his answer.
He didn’t even know what happened next. There was a loud, cracking sound, and there it was again. Somehow he was on the floor, and he could see the nubby, red and gold fibers of the wool carpet. There was dust under the little lamp table. He could hear Penny’s continued, high-pitched bark, and Jackie’s voice in his ears…It’s all I ask of you...
Chapter 2
Shell was tossing a tennis ball for Bitsy while Sadie waited her turn and whined. The morning was a little cool for Austin in late April, and the slender, blond woman with the tennis ball was enjoying the pleasant temperature while it lasted.
“It’ll be your turn in a minute, Sadie,” she said. “Just one more throw for Bitsy.” But when the Chihuahua mix came back, she refused to let go of the ball she had retrieved, and Shell reached in the basket behind her for another. “Come on, Sadie. Your turn!”
The big, golden, German Shepherd mix bounded in the direction of the fence as Shell threw the ball. Sadie made a flying leap into the air and caught it. “Good girl!” Shell was saying when she heard the door open behind her.
“I’ve brought your coffee,” said the tall man with a newspaper under one arm and two steaming cups in his hands. Shell looked back at him and smiled as he put the mugs on the patio table. His dark hair shone with a copper glint in the morning light. “You gonna have breakfast with me?” he asked.
“Of course,” she answered before throwing the ball another time for Sadie.
Shell was happy. She wasn’t just exhilarated the way a person often is at the beginning of a new relationship. She was truly happy, the way someone who has had a rough time can feel when she learns she is being given a chance at a life she has never dreamed possible. Dean seemed to really love her. He hadn’t exactly said it yet. But he had said he needed her. He made her days and nights a constant blur of delight, and she had to stop and pinch herself every now and then. They hadn’t been together but six months, and she knew it was early to expect more. But she was ready to hear him say the three words that would make everything seem more permanent.
“I’m going to need that coffee,” she said. “I’ve got a busy day ahead.”
“And we’ve got strawberries and Greek yogurt,” he added. “I’ll just get the tray.”
“One more throw and I’ll come in and help you. Shall I toast a couple of bagels?”
“Done. Just wash up and come back out and join me. I’ll get the rest.”
Dean’s life hadn’t been all that easy during the past few years. He had married Amanda. She had turned out to be someone he couldn’t imagine being with. His mother, for whom he’d had a deep affection, had died of heart failure, and his divorce from Amanda was in the works when she was murdered. It hadn’t taken Austin’s police department long to arrest Dean for the crime, and if Shell and Dean’s sister Margie hadn’t come along and proved him innocent, he might be serving a life sentence right now.
Shell knew Dean was recovering from the trauma of the previous year, and she was happy to be a part of his recovery. He had said he liked having her near him. He hadn’t wanted her to go to work because, as he had said last November, “A person with as much artistic ability as you should paint. Period. I’m willing to support that. I want to support that.”
“But Dean, I have my rent. I have bills,” she had responded.
“Shell, you were my tenant, but I’ve moved in with you. You don’t think I’m going to accept rent, do you? No, Shell, just let me pay the bills. Let me do this little thing so you can be what you’re meant to be.”
“And what am I meant to be?”
“A painter,” he answered without hesitation, before adding, “among other things,” and he had drawn her into his arms.
Shell had resisted fishing for clarification about the among other things part of the answer. “The problem is, Dean, I really don’t feel comfortable being completely dependent on you.”
“Shell, I’m the one who’s dependent,” he had said. “I need you.”
She was remembering the conversation now and marveling at the way things had gone just as Dean had wanted them to. Somehow, she had given in and fallen into a life of painting every morning and afternoon. For their first three months together they had enjoyed long lunches, long walks along Lady Bird Lake, and late, luxurious dinners followed by nights wrapped in each other’s arms. Shell’s plans to hunt for work had, somehow, melted into the atmosphere, but she had worried about it, and she had begun to think seriously about showing her paintings somewhere.
For a while she considered Dallas. She knew some people there who would have been glad to show her work, but her ex was a prominent member of the art community in Dallas and Fort Worth, and she didn’t like to think of using the same channels for showing her work that he had introduced her to. Even now, five of her paintings remained at Brad Bauer’s gallery in north Dallas. She hadn’t retrieved them when she had broken up with Brad seven months earlier, and somehow, it had seemed unnecessary to go through the trauma of doing that before now.
Dean had continued to urge Shell to keep up her painting. He said it was work. But the fact that he was paying all the bills became more and more uncomfortable to Shell, and she had begun to hunt for work when, in mid-January, she had an opportunity she couldn’t pass up. She was invited to join, as an equal partner, a gallery that was starting up in Austin.
Sadie barked for another toss of the tennis ball, and Shell sent it sailing and waited for the golden creature to return it before rubbing the dog’s beautiful head. Sadie had saved Shell’s life six months earlier when a man with a gun had it aimed at her heart. Sadie had attacked him and shifted his aim enough that Shell had only received a bullet in the bicep of her right arm. She couldn’t look at Sadie without feeling love and gratitude.
“Okay, Sadie. Let’s go eat!” she said, and she led the dog into the laundry room just inside the door and filled her dish with dog food. Bitsy, the black and white Chihuahua mix, was soon at their heels with her tail wagging, and her bowl was filled as well. Then, after a quick wash at the sink, Shell returned to the patio and seated herself across from Dean.
He smiled at her again, his blue eyes focusing very directly on her face. “There’s something I need to talk to you about,” he said.
Shell looked across the table and wondered what this was about. “Oh?”
“I
’m wondering when you think you might be able to take a week off. I want to take you to California.”
“Really? This is a surprise.”
“I know. I was thinking it would be better to wait for later this summer, but the more I thought about it the more it seemed like sooner is better,” he said directly.
Shell swallowed. Dean had never mentioned a California trip before now. “I had no idea you were thinking about this—”
“I think we’d enjoy it, Shell. You could show me the house where you grew up, take me all around Old Sacramento, and I’d like you to meet a few of my friends in the Bay Area. We could do some wineries.”
“It sounds lovely,” she answered, smiling. “I’ll have to get the partners to cover for me.”
“They will,” Dean said confidently.
“When are you thinking?”
“Two weeks from now? I was thinking I’d buy the tickets today when I get back from my meeting with Melinda Gardner.”
“It sounds exciting. But what’ll we do about the dogs?”
“Carmen said she’d come over and check on them for a couple of days, and Margie and Donald can keep them the rest of the time.”
“You’ve already asked Carmen?” Shell asked, surprised. Carmen was their cleaning lady and a very close friend. They felt as if she was almost a relative to Dean as she had been his mother’s friend and house cleaner for years. It was Carmen who had helped Shell and Margie to paint all the rooms in the little house, and Carmen was the person who had told Shell that Dean’s deceased mother wanted her to be in his life. Shell liked to think the lady had a sixth sense.
“I did ask her. She thinks it’s a wonderful idea for us to get away for awhile.”
“But Dean, what if Margie’s baby comes early? They wouldn’t want to be dealing with the dogs when—”
“You’re right. We could do a kennel, I guess. I know of one that’s supposed to be really good. And if the baby comes early, we’ll jump in a plane and come back to Margie.”