An Artistic Homicide (Lainswich Witches Book 11) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  “An Artistic Homicide”

  A Supernatural Witch Cozy Mystery

  Lainswich Witches Series Book 11

  Raven Snow

  © 2017

  Raven Snow

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner & are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Products or brand names mentioned are trademarks of their respective holders or companies. The cover uses licensed images & are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any person(s) that may be depicted on the cover are simply models.

  Edition v1.02 (2017.07.11)

  http://www.ravensnowauthor.com

  Special thanks to the following volunteer readers who helped with proofreading: Andrea Rose, Michele Beschen, Claire Boland and those who assisted but wished to be anonymous. Thank you so much for your support.

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  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Authors Note

  Books by Raven Snow

  Chapter One

  “Who actually goes to these things?” Rowen asked, frowning at the location that had been chosen for the art show. It was an old video rental store she had visited often in her youth, before everything had gone digital and those kinds of establishments had died off. Rowen had fond memories of her aunts taking her there, taking turns with her cousins in deciding which video they rented. Years later it was still standing, now thinly disguised by a fresh coat of white paint and a big banner that read: SERAPHINA CELESTE MEMORIAL ART SHOW - COMING SOON: 3/19 - 3/21.

  “Cultured people,” said Rose, parking the car out front. “Cultured people go to these things.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “People who like art,” Rose said, which was not, Rowen thought, the same thing. Plenty of people liked art. Who hated it? Rowen didn’t. Just the same, she wasn’t about to pay for tickets to get in.

  “They’re for buying art, aren’t they?” Peony asked from the back. She and her camera had tagged along. They needed pictures for the paper, and she had been quick to volunteer when Rose asked who wanted to come with her. The upcoming art show was the biggest news in town right now. The Lainswich Inquirer loved public interest pieces like this. It was a given that they would be showing up for an interview.

  “Like Darren Hawthorne needs the money,” Rowen muttered, still eyeing the place with disdain. Darren Hawthorne was the richest man in town. He had been the head of their rival news source, Channel 2, until all but resigning. He was only something of a figurehead for the place now.

  Rose rolled up an errant physical copy of the Lainswich Inquirer and bopped Rowen on the head with it. “You didn’t even read that e-mail I sent yesterday did you.”

  Rowen had not. “Of course, I did.”

  “Then you should know that he’s donating the money to the Lainswich Historical Society. Ticket sales are for a good cause.”

  “Ah.” Rowen’s annoyance eased off a bit. “I forgot.”

  “They still let the artists keep the money they earn if someone buys their piece though, right?” Peony asked, leaning forward to poke her head between the front seats.

  Rose looked at her younger cousin, raising an eyebrow. “I guess so. I can’t imagine they would force artists to donate to charity. Hawthorne might take a cut.”

  Peony frowned and leaned back. “That’s not very cool of him.”

  “Well, come on and you can tell him yourself.” Rowen opened her door and got out. She didn’t have a whole lot of time for this. She had volunteered to come along simply because she hadn’t helped out at the paper in a long while. She had been too busy with her husband’s private detective services. He had a shoplifting case for a privately-owned business he was working on, and he needed someone to help him go through the footage he had collected. She tried to split her time between the newspaper she and her cousins ran and the detective business Eric ran next door. It didn’t always work out that way. Normally, she had to split her attention solely between one or the other.

  Rowen pushed her fingers through her hair as she walked to the front door, trying to smooth it out. It was a humid day and she could feel her hair frizzing already. She caught a look at her reflection in the glass front door. Sure enough, her hair was a muddy red lump. Just great.

  Rose looked terribly professional in comparison. Her black hair was long and smooth. She hadn’t inherited any of the Greensmith family traits, having been adopted by Lydia when she was very small. As an Asian American, she couldn’t have looked more different from the rest of the family. Her differences had made her shy for the longest time, but she had really come into her own after being chosen to lead the Inquirer.

  At least Peony stood out a bit more than Rowen appearance-wise. She had dyed her hair purple again and hadn’t bothered to change into anything fancier than a t-shirt and jeans. She was out of the car and right behind Rowen, fumbling with her phone instead of the camera.

  “Get some shots of the front of the building,” Rose told Peony while Rowen knocked. “But wait until we get inside,” she added quickly as Peony took a step back to go ahead and do just that.

  As it turned out, getting inside was actually a lot more difficult than expected. Rowen knew the gallery wasn’t open to the public yet, but Margo had assured her that Channel 2 was fine with them reporting on it. After all, any attention to the event was good attention, after all. Her
cousin Margo worked mostly in the public relations side of things. The Lainswich Inquirer and Channel 2 had gotten along a lot better ever since Margo invented a job for herself.

  Rowen knocked again, harder this time. There still wasn’t a response. She tried to open the door herself, but it was locked. She immediately regretted trying to do that when a man showed up rather suddenly. He frowned at the wiggling handle and reached down to unlock it himself. “What do you want?” he asked, opening the door only a crack. “We’re not open to the public yet.”

  Rowen didn’t recognize the man. He was an older gentleman with gray hair and dark circles under his eyes. He wore a single latex glove and gray coveralls. “We’re not the public,” said Rowen. “We’re the press. Is Mr. Hawthorne here? I’m pretty sure he’s expecting us.”

  The man’s frown deepened. “I don’t know. Wait here. I’ll go ask him, I guess.” He looked annoyed as he turned and headed deeper into the building, like he was being dragged away from his regular work. Rowen could only assume that the man was a janitor.

  Rowen cast a sidelong look at Rose. “Are you sure Margo set up an interview?”

  “She said she did,” Rose said with a sigh. They both knew that wasn’t saying much. Margo had been known to drop the ball for them on occasion. With any luck, that wasn’t the case this time.

  After a minute or two, Darren Hawthorne emerged from the back of the building. The janitor disappeared through a door as Darren approached to let them in. “I thought you were coming tomorrow,” he said, opening the door wide. He was a handsome older man. His hair was gray, but his beard was well groomed. He had broad shoulders and impeccable taste in clothing.

  “Probably a communication error on our end,” Rose said with an apologetic smile. “Margo was the one who set everything up. You know how she can be.”

  Darren had had enough run-ins with the Greensmith family by now to have a decent idea of how they operated. “It’s fine. I just don’t want any pictures taken of the exhibits yet—at least not most of them. You understand. Lure them in, but leave something to the imagination. Make them want to pay for a ticket.”

  “Of course.” Rose was already pulling out her recorder. “Mind if we sit down and have a chat somewhere?”

  Darren glanced back in the direction of the door he had come from. “There’s a room back there that I’m using as an office. I’m very busy right now, but I suppose I can spare a few minutes.”

  “I would appreciate it.” Rose looked back at Rowen. “Can you wait for Peony to finish out front and help her figure out where we should take photos in here?”

  Rowen shrugged, taking a look around. Everything was very austere and white. What art there was, was widely spaced out. She wasn’t sure this was a job that needed doing, but she wasn’t going to refuse Rose on the grounds that she’d rather be the third wheel in an interview. “Sure,” she said.

  “Julia is here,” said Darren. “I’ll have her show you around.”

  Rowen cringed when Darren turned away from them. Julia Martinez was the lead correspondent and, as of recently, the now de facto director of Channel 2. The Greensmiths had had a lot of trouble with her in the past. She could be merciless when it came to getting a scoop. She had brought a lot of grief and negative attention the Greensmith’s way in the past. More recently, she had been easier to deal with. They had helped her and Darren out more than once. Most recently they had helped figure out who murdered Seraphina, Darren’s ex-wife. Darren and Julia had both been under suspicion for that one.

  “Julia! Would you mind coming in here for a moment?” Darren called.

  Julia emerged from a back room. She was looking at her phone but did a double take when she noticed Rose and Rowen. “You weren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow.”

  “So I hear,” said Rowen, closing the distance between them. “Mind giving me the tour anyway?”

  Julia took a step away from Rowen and looked at Darren. “Show her just a few pieces; the ones we talked about.”

  “Fine,” Julia said with a weary-sounding sigh. “Come this way.”

  “I take it you’re helping out around here?” Rowen asked, giving Julia a once over as she followed her.

  Julia cast a look back at Rowen, wearing a frown. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. It looked very much like she hadn’t planned on working today. She was just here doing Mr. Hawthorne a personal favor. They had an on again, off again relationship. Given that she was here, Rowen couldn’t help but wonder if it was on again. “I’m just helping him finalize the floor plan and getting calls out to important people.” She stopped at a picture of what might have been someone standing atop a mountain. It was vague. The colors were wild and the style could only be called abstract. “Here, you can take a picture of this one.”

  Rowen tilted her head, trying to take the thing in from a different angle in case she was missing the appeal. “Are you sure? Maybe you want to lead with something a little stronger?”

  Julia crossed her arms over her chest. She looked up at the painting, tilting her head a bit herself. “You might be right. This one’s by some guest artist. I think it’s called, The Ascent? The Descent? I don’t know. I’m not really an art person. I just prefer it to most of our pieces.” She heaved a sigh and led Rowen to another painting.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Rowen fought away laughter when she looked up at the painting. It featured Seraphina as an angel, fluffy white wings spread out, silhouetted against the sun. Rowen had known the woman. Despite the name, she was about as far away from an angel as a person could be.

  Julia’s face stayed impassive, but Rowen thought she could see a touch of disapproval in her eyes. “Darren had it commissioned. It’s one of several pieces for this show. You should get an interview with the artist before you leave today. He really is good at what he does.”

  Rowen couldn’t argue that the painting was well done. “Sure,” she said, motioning to the piece. “But why this?” Darren had seemed well adjusted when last she had spoken to him. He hadn’t seemed like he was especially missing his wife or anything.

  Julia glanced at Rowen. She was chewing the inside of her cheek, a torn look on her face. “Can I trust you to be discreet? I don’t want anyone reading too much into this.”

  “Of course.” Rowen meant that, too. The Lainswich Inquirer and Channel 2 were getting on a little better as of late. She didn’t want to jeopardize that.

  Julia threw a look at Darren’s office door. It was still closed. She looked back at Rowen and lowered her voice. “He’s selling his house on the edge of town. He hasn’t really been comfortable there since Seraphina’s murder. He says it brings back too many bad memories.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  “Yes, but I get the impression that buyers are a little put off by what happened with his wife. First, he cheats on her, and then she’s murdered.” Julia motioned to the painting. “He’s hoping this will paint him in a more sympathetic light.”

  Rowen looked back at the painting. Even knowing why it was there, it was still a bit ridiculous. “Okay, but will this actually help?”

  Julia shrugged. “How should I know? He seems to think it will, and who am I to say that it won’t?”

  “You know, we have that statue of Seraphina outside of Odds & Ends.”

  “What?”

  “The New Age shop my aunts and uncle run. Seraphina left some money for them in her Will under the condition that they set up a statue of her out front.”

  “Oh, God. That eyesore I see when I drive downtown?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “No, thank you. We already have our own statue.” Julia led the way to a large curtain. “It’s our star piece… or something.” She pulled the curtain open, revealing a life-sized statue of Seraphina seated in a wingback chair. It stood in front of a portrait it looked to have been sculpted. A reed thin man in skinny jeans and a paint-splattered t-shirt stood to on
e side of it, buffing out the arm of the chair. Julia looked surprised to see him. “I thought you were done with this one.”

  The artist frowned at the interruption. “I decided it needed a little extra work. Do you mind?”

  “Kind of. We’re not paying you extra for this.” Julia looked to Rowen. “Honestly, I’ll be shocked if we break even on this thing… You can put that in your paper, but phrase it the right way. Put something like, ‘we spared no expense.”

  “Got it.” Rowen took a good look at the sculpture. It really was bizarre, likely painting Darren as something of a crazy person rather than a man who simply missed his wife. “Can we take a picture of this?”

  “No,” said Julia and the artist at the same time. “Like I said, this is our star piece,” Julia added quickly.

  The artist scoffed. “I have a few of my own works here that I expect will be more popular. Mind that you don’t take any pictures of those either.”

  “Was that yours back there? The one of the mountain?” Rowen pointed to the abstract painting Julia had showed her earlier.

  The artist’s lip curled. “Goodness, no. That’s the work of some hobbyist. You’ll know mine when you see it.” He held out his hand. “Dayveed.”

  “David?” Rowen asked, shaking his hand.

  “No, Dayveed. Long ‘E’. One ‘y,”

  “I didn’t know there was a ‘y’ in David.” Rowen pulled out a pad and paper, jotting that down to make sure that she got the spelling right. “Last name?”

  “No last name. Just Dayveed.”

  “Gotcha.” Rowen looked at the sculpture again. Even if the subject matter was questionable, you couldn’t say it wasn’t well done. “How much did you end up spending on this?”

  “Not as much as you would think,” Julia conceded, even though she had been complaining about it moments ago. “We came to a mutually beneficial agreement that I believe everyone is happy with. We’re showing quite a bit of Dayveed’s work. We have an entire back room dedicated to his original stuff. A lot of well-to-do people will be at this thing. Dayveed and I are very confident that his work will sell very well in the days to come. Aside from that, we did pay him a rate for his commissioned work that we feel is fair.”