A Dubious Delivery (A Seagrove Cozy Mystery Book 9) by Leona Fox Read Free Book Online

Main Street.
    “I bought one for Mr. Bradshaw,” Betty said, indicating a small dish of mostly melted ice cream sitting in the shade on the bench.
    “But I didn’t know what flavor you wanted.”
    “I said she couldn’t go wrong with chocolate,” Lucy said and shrugged, “but Betty didn’t want to make a mistake.”
    “Like any flavor of ice cream would be a mistake!” Sadie said.
    “But I like my mine unmelted, so I’m fine with buying my own. Here, hold Mr. B for me, I don’t think he’d be happy if I dragged him away from his treat.”
    Mr. Bradshaw was nose-down in the vanilla ice cream and wasn’t interested in following her into the creamery anyway. Betty tucked the end of his leash under her thigh, and Sadie sauntered into Frozen Paradise. She was back less than five minutes later with orange cream sandwiched between two scoops of chocolate. More Heaven than Paradise, she thought.
    Twenty minutes later they were back in the Artist Co-op, and Sadie’s new painting was being wrapped in brown paper and tape. Sadie wrote out a check for the amount due – slightly more than she was anticipating because she had purchased the largest of the paintings, but she had no regrets. It was always worth it to buy something you loved.
    Mary Marconi was handing the picture across the counter to Sadie when a man with slightly ginger dreadlocks stormed into the shop. He glared at Sadie and headed straight for her.
    “Sam,” Mary said, the warning thick in her voice.
    “Is that a Roger Orwin painting?” he asked, hostility thick in his voice.
    “Yes,” Sadie said, glaring back at him with her best ‘So what are you going to make of it?’ look on her face.
    “Another sucker takes the bait,” he said.
    He looked as if he might spit, but seemed to recall where he was and didn’t. Sadie was relieved about that. Spit was among her least favorite things.
    "Why am I a sucker for buying a painting I enjoy?" she asked, hoping she wasn't going to regret the question.
    "Because he's a fake, and probably a forger, too. He stole those paintings from me."
    The man gestured to the wall of paintings where Roger Orwin's work hung. "They are direct copies."
    Mary, who was standing behind the young man by this time, rolled her eyes, and Sadie wondered what she knew. Maybe he was a prima donna who thought everyone was stealing his stuff?
    “What is your name?” she asked.
    He looked startled, as though being asked his name had put him off his game. “Sam Cone,” he said.
    “Well, Sam,” she said, “history is filled with a long line of artists that started out by copying the masters. I don’t think it’s like music. Do you?”
    “How do you mean?” he asked. He looked genuinely confused.
    “If a musician is overly influenced by a contemporary’s work and uses a melody that is too much like the original, they can lose a lawsuit. But I don’ think that works with paintings, at least not if the artist signs his own name to his work. Roger didn’t claim to be you,” Sadie said.
    “But he copied my style, my strokes, my compositions,” Sam said. “And now he’s making money from them.”
    “Can I see your work?” Sadie asked. “I’d like to compare them.” He looked surprised.
    “You want to see my work?” He asked. “Now?”
    “Sure, why not?” Sadie said. “No time like the present.”
    She turned to Lucy and Betty. “Want to come?”
    The women said, ‘Why not?’, and then left Sadie’s new painting behind the counter at the shop and followed Sam Cone out the back and over the railroad tracks to his studio.
    Sam threw the door open with a flourish. It was flooded with light, like all the studios in the building, with skylights overhead, and big floor to ceiling windows along one wall. Against the other walls, canvases sat propped three or four deep. Sadie was confused.
    “But these are nothing like Roger Orwin’s work,” she said.
    The paintings stacked along the wall were abstract, and nothing