Page 16 of The Aura Answer
“Maybe one piece,” she acknowledged as Nick moved more junk to see the other sections of shelving. “I’m so sorry to hear about your brother. Albert was a talented artist.”
Sam’s grin transformed into a scowl. “We all knew it would happen sooner or later, but Ma’s pretty broken up. We thought he’d got clean lately, and that he’d come home for the holiday. He said he had a Christmas surprise for Ma, and I know he’s been giving her cash from his new stuff. I useta wanna beat the crap out of Bertie for making Ma cry, but now I wanna pound those dealers.”
She patted his arm, sorry she’d upset him. She’d never make a good detective. “Don’t we all? I don’t suppose any of his friends know who was selling him drugs? Can’t the sheriff do something?”
He shrugged. “Bert didn’t have many friends left. I figure they’re all druggies ’cause he never brought them home. My guess is he traded his surprise for one last crack and did himself in when he realized what he’d done.”
Changing the subject, he turned to Nick. “Those came from an estate sale outside Charleston. Some nice wood in there. Might make a decent shelf or two if you take it apart.”
Gracie could almost see Nick choking on a violent objection. Or maybe that was her too-vivid imagination. Talking about Bertie and all that lost talent had unsettled her.
“Exactly what I was thinking, sir,” Nick finally croaked in that plummy accent certain to make Sam think he’d landed a sucker. “But the ladies are a trifle short on cash. They thought they might trade one of their valuable Victorian pieces for the shelves they need.”
All professionalism now, Sammy straightened his bulk. “Do you have a photo?”
“Better, we have the piece in the truck, if you would like a look.” Nick started for the door with the arrogance of someone certain he’d be followed.
Gracie would like to smack him upside the head, but Sammy accepted haughty authority. She really needed to curb her irritation. Nick hadn’t even said whether her choice was good or not. It didn’t matter, she decided. The shelves weren’t cardboard, they were pretty wood, and she liked them.
Now that the other junk was out of the way, she could see that there were three separate sections. One of them was actually a kind of secretary, with a pull down desk and a cabinet below. The staggered shelving didn’t have sides, but the airy openness allowed ideas to percolate.
She wandered around and found some gorgeous marble bookends. Her boxed classics didn’t need much support, but she loved the idea of adding books and pretty ornaments to the shelves. It wasn’t as if her tiny library would even begin to fill them.
With all the open space, there might even be room for some small paintings. She poked around the walls where most of the smaller artwork rested on tables, leaning against the wall and each other. In the back, she found a treasure trove of Bertie’s sketches, amazingly all framed. Her heart tugged. Sammy must have been paying his brother, then framing the works, and selling them for little more than the value of the frames. The prices were much too cheap for the talent.
Remembering Evie wanted to know who Bertie’s friends were, she found a few sketches of card players and men gathered around an old car and so forth and picked out what appeared to be recent ones. In more decent light, she might identify some of these people. She found one where he’d used a touch of watercolor and chose that for herself.
Evie could darned well pay for these out of her reward money. Gracie was texting her sister when Nick and Sammy returned, apparently great friends and having settled on a sum that satisfied both of them.
She added her finds to the invoice Sammy wrote up while his hired hands helped haul the hall tree in and the shelving out. “That was sweet of you to buy Bertie’s work,” she told him, admiring the watercolor. “I’ve never seen him use color before.”
“That’s one of his new ones. He had an artist friend encouraging him. Don’t know who he was. Bertie didn’t like talking. I was thinking maybe I should take that to Ma and tell her it was his surprise, but I guess I shouldn’t lie.” He tallied the invoice and charged her for only the bookends. Apparently Nick had made a really good trade.
“Unless your mother knows the people in the sketch, it probably wouldn’t help,” she said sympathetically. “But if you want it...”
He shook his head. “That’s Toby Block, Teddy Turlock, the Shepherd boys, and some skank they must have hired. Or maybe she’s just one of Toby’s do-gooder pals. Don’t know why Bertie would sketch that lot. They all think themselves too good for the likes of us. But it’s a pretty picture if you don’t know them.”
Gracie groped for a polite response. “I imagine Bertie’s surprise would have been a family portrait, don’t you think?”
Brooding, Sammy nodded. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Do you know when the funeral will be?”
He shrugged and rang up the sale. “Can’t say until the cops release him. We’ll probably just have the reverend say a few words over the grave. Pa bought a cemetery lot a long time ago, so there’s that covered.”
Nick loped up and hugged her before grabbing up the frames. “Perfect! You have excellent taste, Cinderella.”
She was too stunned to swat him for taking liberties.
He held out his hand to Sammy before she could react. “Pleasure meeting you, friend. We may do more business in the future.”
She took a deep breath, refrained from levitating the frames over the ass’s head, picked up the box of heavy bookends, and marched toward the door.
Oblivious to his potential frame-maiming, Nick followed her out. “Those shelves are genuine vintage, Danish-modernteak, my girl. You have a brilliant eye! You’ll have to fling out all the other clutter in the library and start modernizing the entire house.”
Eager to study her acquisitions, Gracie didn’t answer but allowed him to open the back of the truck so she could add the heavy box. Then she took the frames and settled in the front seat. She studied the pencil sketch with brushes of color first, the one with the sons of some of the town’s wealthiest, most respected families. The Shepherds were farmers and no one thought of them as wealthy like the former mayor’s family, but they owned a lot of land.
She didn’t recognize the lone female. She was wearing short shorts, so it must have been drawn in summer. Leggy, with a long French braid of indeterminate color, she was leaning over the hood of what appeared to be a vintage Corvette. Teddy Turlock Jr., the son of the local attorney defending the late mayor, sat behind the wheel. Teddy Jr. had been a year or two ahead of her in school, had gone off to Auburn, and she’d lost track of him until he’d recently returned to Afterthought to open a sporting goods store. It must be doing well to afford a car like that.
