Blue Smoke and Murder

62

SEPTEMBER 16

2:56 P.M.

You drive,” Zach said, getting into the passenger side of the too-small rental car. Last-minute reservations were a pain in the butt. Literally.

Jill took off her belly bag and threw it in the backseat. The car had been designed for a planet where people’s legs were shorter than their arms.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Same airport we came from.”

“And then?”

“Depends on what I find in the files.”

While Jill left the town of Blessing in her rearview mirror, Zach transferred photos from his camera to the computer. Before he opened the first file, he copied everything and sent it to St. Kilda.

More fire insurance.

Then he began to read.

“Hello?” Jill said after a while. “I’m part of this dynamic duo, remember?”

Zach looked at her. “So far it’s just Breck family history. I figured you already knew it.”

“You figured wrong.”

Smiling slightly, he went back to the first document and began summarizing for Jill.

“Your grandmother, Justine Breck, and Thomas Dunstan were arrested by Deputy Joel Purcell near the City Tavern.”

“Where’s that?”

“Just outside Blessing city limits,” Zach said.

“Figures. It’s called the Watering Hole now. Canyon County is dry. Technically it’s a private club, because private clubs are allowed to sell booze. In the real world the entry fee you pay at the door is called a cover charge.”

He snickered. “Can’t figure out which chaps you the most-hypocrisy or patriarchy.”

“I’ll let you know when I decide.”

“Seems like your grandmother and Dunstan had been celebrating the Fourth of July, but things went south.”

“What happened?” Jill asked.

“Well, according to the bartender-can you believe his name was Truly Nolan?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Zach shook his head. “Anyway, the bartender heard Justine and Dunstan arguing. A real shouting match.”

“Over what?”

“Didn’t make sense to anyone listening, but that’s the way it goes with a lot of drunken brawls. According to the bartender, Dunstan ‘took it’ for a bit. Then he hauled off and backhanded Justine across the mouth.”

Jill’s hands flexed on the steering wheel. “Sweet guy.”

“You know how those artists are. Real sensitive. He hit her so hard her chair fell over backward and she was tossed into another table’s drinks. Then he jumped on top of her and tried to strangle her. Things got real lively after that.”

“Strangle her?”

“Yeah. He lost it, big-time. This was in the days before air-conditioning, and something tells me it gets real hot around Blessing on the Fourth of July,” Zach drawled.

“Well over a hundred degrees. And that doesn’t include the wind, dry as sandpaper and hot as hell,” Jill said. “Wonder what they were doing in Blessing?”

“Besides drinking and fighting? Painting. At least that’s what Dunstan said, and his clothes had the stains to prove it. Seems he loved to paint the area around the Breck ranch, from Blessing to the canyon rim, Indian Springs to the places where sagebrush died and creosote took over.”

“Is that in the report?” Jill asked, surprised.

“It’s called reading between the lines. And some research I did while we were waiting to see if Frost would make it out of surgery.”

“Dunstan’s catalogue raisonné. You were reading it like it held the secret of life or death.”

Or maybe just sanity.

All Zach said was “Good old Truly Nolan broke up the brawl with the ax handle he kept under the bar. When the dust settled, Justine was gone. Dunstan took off after her. He was about fifty feet inside the city limits when she started yelling, ‘You’ll never hit me again, you son of a bitch!’ Then she shot him with a.22 rifle.”

“The Breck family snake gun,” Jill said. “Modesty still used it-when it didn’t jam, which was most of the time.”

“It didn’t jam that night. Justine fired and kept on firing until she ran out of bullets.”

“Or it jammed.”

“Other than burning Dunstan’s butt with a shot, she missed,” Zach said.

“Pity. If I’d been around, I would have given her my Colt Woodsman. Or I’d have shot the bastard myself.”

He slanted her a sideways look. “Remind me never to piss you off.”

“Don’t worry. The family snake gun didn’t survive the fire.”

“It’s your Woodsman I’m worried about.”

She smiled crookedly. “I pawned it to get money for school books.”

He wanted to hug her. Instead, he kept talking. “Once Justine ran out of ammo-”

“-or the rifle jammed,” Jill said.

“-the deputy arrested her and hauled her off in cuffs.”

“What about Dunstan?” Jill demanded. “He was the one trying to strangle her.”

“Oh, they got around to arresting him, too,” Zach said. “Just as soon as the local doc finished pouring whiskey over the bullet burn and bandaging Dunstan’s butt.”

“Then what?”

“The patriarchy you know and love kicked in.”

“Meaning?”

“Justine was charged with attempted murder. Dunstan went down for public drunkenness. He got a night in the cooler.”

The knuckles on Jill’s hands showed white on the wheel, but all she said was “Strangling doesn’t count as attempted murder?”

“Not when she was a mouthy bitch who had it coming.” Zach’s lips twisted into something a lot colder than a smile.

“You sound like you agree with Dunstan,” she said.

“More like I’ve read one too many domestic disturbance reports. Makes me wish I had a time machine.”

“Why?”

“I’d finish what Justine started. I have no patience for a man who belts women around.”

The very neutrality of Zach’s voice made Jill’s stomach clench. She hoped he never used that tone on her.

She let out a long breath. “Sorry. I was taking out what I was feeling on you.”

The back of his fingers skimmed over her jaw. “It’s okay. I don’t wilt if a woman gets mad.”

“A lifetime of older sisters?”

“Real good training,” he agreed. He stroked her again, then went back to the computer. “When the deputy checked on Dunstan at breakfast, he was dead. Hung himself with his belt.”

“A great painter and a miserable human being,” Jill said.

“R.I.P.”

There was silence while Zach read more documents.

When he finished with all the court papers he said, “Nothing new. Just bureaucracy at work. Justine pleaded self-defense. The judge slapped her wrist for public drunkenness and discharging a firearm within city limits, and limited the punishment to time already served, plus a year of probation, blah blah blah.”

“Like Sheriff Purcell told us-the judge was new to Canyon County. Is that all that was in the file? What about the handwritten letter?”

“It was listed under Dunstan’s property. Must have had it on him when he was arrested.”

“So read it to me,” Jill said.

“Handwriting is spidery. The light wasn’t real good when I took the picture. Ink is faded.”

“Meaning you can’t read it?”

“Meaning I’ll have to PhotoShop it.” Zach called up another program, ran the JPEGs of the letter through the works, and came out with something that was close to readable. “Okay, here we go. It’s dated about two weeks before Dunstan died.”

Jill let out a long breath. And waited.

And waited.

She glanced over. Zach was reading with an expression of shock on his face.

“What is it?” she demanded.

“If it’s what I think it is, the last half of the pin just came out of the grenade.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Be glad you’re sitting down. The letter is from Justine to Dunstan.” Zach started reading aloud. “‘By the time you read this, I will be gone. My mother and grandmother both had husbands who raised their fists to their wives. Even if you were my husband, I would not take your beating with folded hands and pleas for mercy from you or your God.’”

Jill muttered something and flexed her fingers. “I wish she’d shot him in the balls.”

“Way too small a target.” Zach continued reading, “‘Whatever we had is as dead as yesterday’s fire. I should never have taken you as a lover. Not because it was a sin against God and society, but because you are a liar and a cheat. You used me for your own ends; then you beat me because your pride was humbled by my talent. We both know the truth, even if we never spoke it aloud. Without me, your fame as an artist is at an end, for I am far more than your Scarlet Muse.’”

Jill made an odd sound.

Zach kept reading aloud. “‘To paint honestly I must live honestly. Do not think to write me and tell me how much you love me. Do not think to beg forgiveness for something you will surely do again if I permit it. It is not within me to forgive any more than it is within you to leave your loveless, respectable marriage.’” Zach shook his head. “It’s signed Justine.”

“Now what?” Jill asked.

Instead of answering, Zach went back to the computer, opened files, compared JPEGs from the arrest with the best photos he’d taken of the bottom edge of Frost’s Dunstan paintings. Frowning, Zach zoomed in and compared some more. He was no expert, but it looked to him like a match.

He started laughing softly.

“What?” Jill asked.

“Just thinking of Worthington and his oration about the essence of masculinity and Duncan’s iconic status in Western art. Guess Justine must have clanged when she walked.”

“Are you saying…?”

“I sure am. Justine wasn’t Dunstan’s Scarlet Muse,” Zach said. “The thumbprints on the paintings are hers, not his. She was the artist. All he did was put a man’s name on the finished canvas.”

“That’s why the family paintings weren’t signed by Dunstan,” Jill said “But they’re as much a Dunstan as anything he did sign. What is the going rate for ‘Dunstans’ in the auction catalogue?”

“Enough to make murder real profitable.”