Blue Smoke and Murder

16

SEPTEMBER 14

8:00 A.M.

Lee Dunstan hung up the phone with a curse and wished he could have a whiskey with his breakfast eggs.

Damn doctors. Get a few fast heartbeats and they make you give up everything worth living for.

“What’s wrong?” Betty asked.

Ken Dunstan looked at his father with concern. Lee was a stubborn old man who refused to slow down and let his son manage what was left of the family art appraisal/reprographic business. Lee wouldn’t have known an opportunity cost if it crawled up his leg. Hanging on to the Dunstan paintings for an extra quarter century had been foolish.

And then selling one to a single collector without soliciting other bids had been stupid.

“Whatever it is,” Ken said, “take it easy. It’s not worth getting a heart attack over.”

“I’m not having any damn heart attack,” Lee said, ignoring his wife. “You’ll have to wait a long time for your inheritance.”

Ken looked at the ceiling and shook his head. “Yeah, like I’m counting the days.” And like there will be anything left by then.

“You should be,” Lee retorted. “Only five days to the auction.”

Under the table, Tiffany Dunstan put her hand on her husband’s thigh, silently telling him to let his father’s sniping go.

“Now, Daddy Dunstan,” she said, “you know a few dollars will never replace you.”

“Huh,” was all Lee said.

Betty sighed, picked up the thermos beside Lee’s plate, and poured another cup of decaf for her husband. She’d be lucky if he didn’t throw the coffee into the fireplace. He hated decaf almost as much as he hated green vegetables, blood pressure meds, and getting old.

“That goddamn bitch!” Lee growled.

Nobody asked who the bitch was. In the Dunstan household, there was only one bitch that redlined Lee’s temper in nothing flat.

Justine Breck.

“She’s been dead for decades,” Betty said, handing Lee the decaf. “You’re alive. If that isn’t revenge, what is?”

“Dead, but not buried. Not deep enough.” He looked like he’d been chewing on bitterweed. “Troublemaking slut.”

With that, Lee took a drink from the cup his wife handed him-and almost spit it back. He slammed the cup down and went to the kitchen for the other pot of coffee, the one everyone else drank from.

“Don’t tell me that was her on the phone,” Ken said dryly.

Tiffany gave him a look.

“Lee, you know what the doctor said about caffeine,” Betty murmured.

“It’s my life, damn it.” Returning to the table, Lee took a swig of coffee and wished it was whiskey.

But he knew better than to start drinking when he was angry. Nothing good came of that, and a whole lot of bad.

He didn’t want to end up like his father.

“The bitch ruined my daddy,” Lee muttered.

Betty started to tune out. She’d heard enough about her father-in-law’s old lover to last several lifetimes.

“He should have killed the bitch,” Lee said.

Instead, Thomas Dunstan had killed himself.

Betty bit back a sigh. She was tired of the past getting in the way of the present. Real tired.

“So, who called?” Ken asked, wondering what had set his father off.

“Some gallery owner, wanting to know if I’d been approached about some new Dunstans.” Lee’s lip curled.

Ken didn’t ask what that had to do with the bitch. He was just glad his father had switched the channel. The past couldn’t be changed. The future could. He knew it even if his father didn’t.

Tiffany got to her feet and hugged Lee. “I’m so sorry. Why can’t galleries just accept that you and Mr. Crawford have all but two of the privately held Dunstan paintings? Why do unsavory people keep making trouble for you?”

Lee grunted and patted Tiffany’s thin shoulder. “Don’t you worry, sweetie. I know how to protect Ken’s heritage.”

Ken grimaced. If his father screwed this up the way he had everything in the past, there wouldn’t be anything left to protect.

Tiffany smiled at Lee. “I’m sure you’ll protect everything just fine.”

Betty wished she was equally sure. “I’ll be glad when this auction is over.” She pushed her scrambled eggs around on her plate. “Most people in the West are land poor. We’re art poor. It gets old.”

Nobody said anything. It was the simple truth.

Lee drank more coffee. A retired teacher’s pension, plus the occasional income from authenticating his father’s paintings, didn’t add up to the high life. But Tal Crawford was nobody’s fool. At the end of the auction, Lee would be rolling in the kind of green cows didn’t eat.

Assuming nothing went wrong.

Nothing will, Lee told himself. Tal Crawford didn’t get where he is by backing three-legged ponies.

“You want diamonds, I’ll get you diamonds,” Lee said gruffly. “After the auction.”

Betty pushed a few more yellow bits around her plate and didn’t say a word of another simple truth ringing in her head.

In the closed world of Western art, nothing was a sure thing.