Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

took the photos instead.”
    He stood up and went to the table where he had set aside his smallcomputer. He turned it on, called up the electronic files, and carried the computer back to the coffee table, where everyone could see the screen.
    “What is it?” Brody asked. “A fire?”
    “A car accident,” Lacey said. “It happened on Savoy Ranch at a place called Cross Country Canyon.”
    “I ran the license plate I found just to be sure,” Ian said. “I was right. Three Savoy died in the wreck.”
    Brody shot a narrow look at Ian. “Are you saying it was murder?”
    “Alcohol, according to the authorities,” Ian said. “Apparently, Three liked to get ripped and then race around the ranch in his old hot rod.”
    Dottie started to speak, then closed her mouth and looked away from the screen.
    “What is it?” Ian asked.
    “Nothing,” Dottie said.
    “Nothing is what we have,” Ian said. “What we need is information.”
    “Oh, just old gossip,” she said, waving her hand. “My mother’s sister married a Moreno County developer. She mentioned something…” Dottie frowned, then shook her head. “I can’t remember. Just the fact that there was gossip. Go on. It will come back to me sooner or later.”
    Without saying anything, Ian clicked through the other wreck paintings. Brody and Dottie looked baffled.
    “Why would he paint so many?” Dottie asked after a moment.
    “We were wondering the same thing,” Ian said. Then, to Brody, “Was your father big on the Savoy-Forrest family?”
    “I don’t understand,” Brody said.
    “Was he a fan, a groupie, an enthusiast?” Ian asked. “Did he follow the society pages or clip out pictures or talk about the family a lot?”
    “Not to me.” Brody looked at Lacey. “How about you? You spent more time with him than anyone.”
    “Not one word,” she said simply. “He never talked about Moreno County, either. In fact, until Susa identified some of the paintings as depicting the ranch, I thought that he’d only painted in San Diego and the desert and Santa Barbara, with a few side trips to L.A. and San Francisco. Which, come to think of it, is odd.”
    “San Francisco or L.A.?” Ian asked. “What’s odd about that, the fact that they’re cities?”
    Lacey shook her head. “I meant it’s odd that he never painted ortalked about painting on Savoy Ranch. It had, and still has, a lot of cachet with the gallery set. But he obviously did paint there sometimes.”
    Mentally Ian added that fact to the growing list in his head under the category of David Quinn, artist, grandfather—and murderer?
    “Okay, here’s a new take on a way to die,” Ian said, opening the file holding photos of all the burning house paintings. “We believe it depicts the death of Lewis Marten.”
    Brody hissed something under his breath. “Why do you think that?”
    “The date on the front matches Marten’s death date,” Ian said. “The scene matches the small amount of information we’ve gotten on where Marten lived and painted.”
    Lacey’s parents looked at the screen and then at Ian. He clicked through the rest of the burning house paintings.
    “I fail to see the point,” Brody said.
    “Marten died on Savoy Ranch,” Lacey said. “The ranch that Grandfather never talked about and supposedly never painted. The ranch that is central to California Impressionism.”
    Brody made an impatient gesture, but before he could say anything, Ian did. “Lacey calls this one Scream Bloody Murder .”
    As he spoke, Ian opened the drowning file. If the idea of murder had been merely whispered in the other paintings, it was brutally clear in this one.
    Dottie’s breath came in with a hissing sound. “Dear God.”
    Brody’s mouth turned down. “ Scream Bloody Murder . Aptly named, Lacey. Mother of God. Whatever possessed my father to paint this?”
    “We think this depicts Gem Savoy Forrest’s murder,” Ian said evenly. “She died on the ninth of February.” As he spoke, Ian tapped a fingernail on the screen, indicating the numbers that had been painted in red: 9.2.
    Dottie recognized the name before her husband did. “But she wasn’t murdered. She died of an accidental overdose of alcohol and medications. That”—Dottie flicked a glance at the computer screen—“is the imagination of a sick mind.”
    “Always a possibility,” Ian said before Lacey could fall into her reflexive defense of Grandpa Rainbow. “Note the bracelet.” He clicked on that area