Murder at the Falls by Stefanie Matteson Read Free Book Online

they had limped along pitifully for several years trying to redefine their relationship on the basis of some kind of long-distance friendship. He had finally stopped calling her when he came to New York (after her first encounter, she had never gone back to Minneapolis), and their relationship simply petered out. She had heard from Marsha that he was now courting another woman, the widow of a fellow member of Minneapolis Old Guard.
    “What brings you here?” she asked them, thus rescuing Arthur from his obvious discomfort at having asked an awkward question.
    “I’ll show you,” said Randy. He led the the way to the next group of paintings, which were his, and nodded at the label affixed to the wall next to the first one, which read: “‘Falls View Diner’, by Randall Goslau. From the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur W. Lumkin.”
    Like Spiegel’s, the painting was exact down to the finest detail: the quilting in the stainless steel, the pattern in the Formica tabletops. But unlike Spiegel, whose palette ran to grays and browns, Randy leaned toward colors that looked faded with age.
    “Where are the people?” asked Tom.
    “I take them out. I call it the neutron-bomb school of painting.” He laughed, a high-pitched, nervous cackle. “They detract from the diner. I also take out the electric lines, the adjoining buildings, the automobiles. Just the diner, pure and simple.”
    “It reminds me of an old postcard,” said Tom.
    “That’s a very astute observation,” Randy commented. “I’ve been collecting postcards of diners all my life; I have over five hundred.”
    The painting had a folk-artish kind of appeal, and Charlotte could readily see why a diner lover would pay thirty thousand for one. But it lacked intellectual depth. It was like a Norman Rockwell: a sentimental portrait of a favorite subject.
    Her thoughts were interrupted by a greeting from a short, balding man with a warm smile. “Why, Morris!” she said. “What a delightful surprise! I didn’t expect to run into anyone I knew here, much less three people.”
    Morris Finder was another collector of contemporary art, but of a different stripe from the Lumkins. A lifelong employee of the Social Security Administration, he had amassed an astonishing art collection on a salary that was probably less than what Arthur Lumkin made in a day. His fellow collectors joked that his name stood for his ability to “find” new talent before it was generally recognized by the art world. Charlotte liked him and his wife, Evelyn, who worked as a secretary for a brokerage house, enormously. They were simple, unassuming people whose lives were governed by one overriding passion: their love of art.
    “What brings you here, Morris?” asked Xantha, after Charlotte had introduced him to Tom and Randy. He was already well-known to the Lumkins.
    Xantha’s question stemmed from more than just polite curiosity, for Morris’s quiet pronouncements regarding the talents of up-and-coming young artists were closely heeded by more affluent but less discriminating collectors like the Lumkins. Like those of many others, the value of the Lumkins’ collection had soared as a result of their following Morris Finder’s leads.
    “I came to see Ed Verre’s paintings. Do you know his work?”
    “No, I’m afraid we don’t,” replied Xantha in her cute Cockney accent.
    She was wearing a low-cut garment—a playdress, a sunsuit, a romper?—of hot-pink taffeta to match her hair, with a tightly laced bodice that uplifted her ample bosom, and ballooning shorts that buttoned just above the knee. The style might have been called punk bordello.
    “But I might ask the same question of you,” Morris responded.
    “We’re here to see Randy’s paintings. Arthur and I just love his work. How many of your paintings do we now have, love?” she asked. “Eight, is it?” As she spoke, she grabbed Randy’s hand in an intimate gesture that led Charlotte to wonder if he was the