Art, Wine & Bullets

Art, Wine & Bullets

A Carol Sabala Murder Mystery

By

Vinnie Hansen

For my husband, abstract painter Daniel S. Friedman

Published by misterio press at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 by Vinnie Hansen

This book is available in print at Bookshop Santa Cruz, Crossroads Books in Watsonville, CA or through misteriopress.com.

All rights reserved under international and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Cover photo on 1st edition by Paul Titangos

Cover art on 2nd edition by Book Cover Corner

Background art by Daniel S. Friedman

Although the Open Studios event occurs each year in Santa Cruz, this is a work of fiction. The incidents in this work are products of the author’s imagination. If any characters bear any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, the resemblance is coincidental.

Praise for Hansen’ Work

I love Carol Sabala . . . quirky, gutsy and my kind of gal in an aqua tank top. --Cara Black, author of the Aimée Leduc mystery series

ART, WINE, & BULLETS is a delightful, appealing, and delectable read.

Midwest Book Review

Hansen’s sense of humor and protagonist make for a good read. I particularly enjoyed her faithfully rendered Santa Cruz background.

--Laura Crum, author of the Gail McCarthy murder mystery series

The pacing of Hansen’s story is excellent.

--Chris Watson, Santa Cruz Sentinel on Murder, Honey

I just finished Murder, Honey and I found it splendid.

--Laura Davis, author of Courage to Heal

With edgy precision, Hansen applies all the elements of a good mystery: interesting plot, compelling characters, a finely drawn sense of place, and excellent writing.One Tough Cookie has made me a fan, one who can’t wait to gorge on Rotten Dates.

--Denise Osborne, author of Feng Shui Mysteries and Queenie Davilov Mysteries

In Sabala, Hansen has created a likable sleuth whose many problems readers may readily identify with, and as far as Carol’s mother goes—well, let’s just say I hope we see more of her in the future.

--Michael Cornelius, The Bloomsbury Review

Five silver pens out of five for ‘Tang Is Not Juice.’

--Silas Spaeth, Salinas Californian

Best Book of Fiction of 2005 for Tang Is Not Juice

Oklahoma Writers’ Federation, Inc.

ALSO BY

VINNIE HANSEN:

Murder, Honey

One Tough Cookie

Rotten Dates

Tang Is Not Juice

Death with Dessert

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

Albert Camus

Wine and Cheese Pairings

A lush, full-bodied Pinot Noir paired with Kokos Dutch coconut, cow's milk Gouda and Valhrona dark chocolate.

Moscato Amabile (a sparkling late harvest Muscat wine) with lemon and mascarpone tarte topped with creme fraiche.

A dusky Malbec or Shiraz with La Tur, a creamy Italian goat, sheep and cow's milk cheese, Marcona almonds, and figs.

Pairings offered by Patricia Rain

Author, culinarian, social entrepreneur and Vanilla Queen

Visit the Vanilla Company at www.vanilla.com


Join The Vanilla Company on Facebook


There is absolutely nothing plain about vanilla!

Art, Wine & Bullets

October 2000

Blank Canvas

The peace of October exploded like a Jackson Pollock painting.

October once reigned as my favorite month in Santa Cruz. The tourists finally deserted the beaches, the ocean sparkled like tinsel, and golden light slanted on sails. Olallieberries plumped sweet on vines and persimmons hung bright among waxy leaves.

But the spring David and I decided to cohabitate, he entered a county art event called Open Studios. That October madness and murder splattered down on us.

I had known for the several years of our tumultuous relationship, that David liked to shoot photos, especially of indigenous people from exotic places. I admired his photography, even some of the nude shots for girlie magazines.

However, until we lived together, I’d had no idea how important the hobby was to him, how much he craved an alternate identity to state bureaucrat. That is the way he referred to his job, even though he was an investigator with a license to carry, which I considered several notches sexier than state bureaucrat. Investigator matched his compact body and dark eyes. I would not have logged the hours to become a private investigator myself if I hadn’t considered his job cool.

Way back in April, before we had entirely unpacked into our new jointly owned fixer-upper, David submitted his application for Open Studios, sponsored by the county’s Cultural Council. Artists paid a fee and were juried into the event, which took place over the course of three October weekends.

By May, David was biting his fingernails and despairing. There could be someone on the panel who doesn’t consider photography art.

Lifting his spirits was a challenge when I had my own worries. Sloan’s Investigative Services could fold any day now and take my fledging career with it. I attempted: You got into Open Studios two years ago, and you said your slide sheet was better this year.

Every time has been better. That isn’t the determining factor.

What is? I unbraided my hair and shook loose my heavy auburn mane.

He heaved an exasperated sigh. Competition. Politics. Sex.

Sex?

He nodded. Artists sleep with the judges.

At the time, I had regarded this as wild speculation, not worthy of comment. But by the end of the year, I had a much greater appreciation for the angst and desperation that might motivate an artist to do such a thing.

After a spring of nail biting, in June David bounced up our termite-ridden steps waving a letter. Carol, I’ve been accepted into Open Studios.

I shared David’s joy for his acceptance. Little did I know I was about to be initiated into a select group of my own—those responsible for another’s death.

The Palette

I began to learn what it meant to be the partner of an Open Studios artist. Before David even applied for the event, our first house project was to convert most of the single-car garage into a dark room. One could hardly become an Open Studios artist without a studio.

Everything is going digital, I argued. You need Photoshop, not a dark room. In ten years, no one will be using 35 millimeter.

Except me, David said.

I caved. David supported my endeavors one hundred percent. Besides, who needed a garage? I drove a beat-up Karmann Ghia and David drove a white Escort that had long lost its gleam.

The next project was to install track lighting in the house to display his photographs. Never mind the peeling gray exterior paint and the dead crab grass lawn.

I slowly realized there would be other expectations—that I would attend the Open Studios reception, that I would help host his two weekends of Open Studios, and that I would hone my sales skills. These thoughts made me shudder. I’d managed to reach age forty-two without mastering people skills.

I still work two jobs, I moaned.

Right.

Okay, so they were both part-time.

At Archibald’s, the swanky Santa Cruz restaurant where I was employed, everything had fallen into place serendipitously. Eldon, the kitchen manager, had brought in a second baker, and about the time she pushed for more hours, I had inherited money from my mother. That, and my decision to move in with David, allowed me to reduce my days there.

And, work was perilously slow at Sloan’s Investigative Services. J.J. Sloan, my boss, had decided to stop drinking, not because he had realized he was an alcoholic, but because he wanted to train for our local Wharf-to-Wharf run. Anxious and moody, he remained sober for stretches of a few days, or one time for a few weeks, before going on a binge that took him, and me, into uncharted territory. Our clients didn’t mind a drunk, but they minded an unreliable drunk. J.J. was no longer a smooth, predictable alcoholic. He had become erratic, and so had our revenues, making me anxious and moody as well.

Our last case had involved a missing fourteen-year-old girl. It had taken me all of two hours to track her down to her twenty-year-old boyfriend’s place. The clueless parents held a vision of her frozen in sixth grade. Her equally clueless boyfriend had apparently never heard of statutory rape. The parents didn’t want to pursue the matter since the girl sobbed that she and the boyfriend had never had sex. People believe what they want to believe. I fully expected that the next time I saw the girl, she would be lumbering along Pacific Avenue with a big belly.

The Artists’ Reception was held a week in advance of Open Studios and I’d been drafted as David’s wingman. The things one would do for love.

The following weekend would kick off with south county artists opening their studios. The next weekend would be ours, for north county artists, and any Open Studios artist still standing could participate in the encore weekend. The Cultural Council supplied publicity and sold art-filled calendars with maps for visitors. If everything went according to plan, the visitors purchased art.

On our way down Broadway, we stopped at a newly defaced sign. A phantom tagger known as Art Gorilla had struck again. Stenciled boldly under the STOP was the word SIGNS. I laughed. That’s great. What do you think?

David nervously tapped the steering wheel and gunned the Escort across the intersection. He was amped up for the reception and too preoccupied to pay attention.

Was that art? I asked.

Huh? Oh, the sign. I don’t know. Help me look for a parking space.

I could barely keep up with David as he rushed down Broadway toward the Santa Cruz Art League Gallery, ticking off names of people he wanted to see. And people he wanted to avoid. None of the names meant anything to me.

The lawn of the gallery was set in a dip. It overflowed with people circling food tables and standing in klatches. I felt mildly ill as I followed David down the two flights of steps to the event. He had encouraged me to wear something sexy and we had negotiated my almost-mini denim skirt with a black cotton blouse. I had on some short black boots that David liked, but I thought were seriously out of style.

You look beautiful, David said as he latched on to my hand and eagerly charged toward the crowd. My hair bounced along my back. Down in the hollow, the hum of the reception turned into a chaotic rumble. We wended our way to a small table at the front door of the modest tan building.

David introduced himself to a woman with wild gray hair and flowing batik garments accessorized with chunky silver and amethyst jewelry. In the undisguised act of reading her name tag—Magritte Boswell—he said, I’ve seen your work. You do wonderful stuff.

She beamed and handed him his stick-on name tag. He plastered it on the pocket of his jeans.

I wanted to push myself into the anonymous throng entering the building, but David had his eyes on the food tables.

A young man in skinny jeans, his black hair pulled tightly into a short ponytail, exited the gallery. He held the hand of a delicate woman in a long gauzy skirt that fluttered around her. Genius, he declared.

What do you think this Billy Goat Simms guy is saying? his wispy girlfriend asked.

He’s spoofing the whole thing. The man gestured, indicating he meant all the artists spilling onto the lawn.

Is that enough to call it art? she asked with the earnestness of a college freshman. A piece just has to make a statement?

My heart panged with sadness and joy as I eavesdropped. They reminded me of my cousin Brandon, who now attended the University of California, Santa Cruz. I found myself wanting to see the piece the two young people were discussing.

David whiplashed me in the other direction and nodded toward a squat, balding man dressed in belted khakis. He was flanked by a burly man and an entourage of women.

Who’s that? I asked. The man was apparently important enough to blot out the beckoning food.

Milton Jacobs.

Who’s he?

He paints the cats.

"Oh, that’s him." Everybody, it seemed, had a print of Milton Jacob’s work. His paintings featured cats with flowers, calico cats peeking around tulips, black cats swatting at monarchs taking flight from Mexican sage, tabby cats resting in window nooks under bouquets of pink dianthus. They were realistic and whimsical at the same time. Our real estate agent had two of his works displayed behind her desk. My dentist had one parked directly ahead of The Chair.

We weaved our way through the crowd and stepped into the ring of people surrounding Milton. He was regaling them with a tale of an apparent art deal. He spoke with an effeminate inflection, something my brother had never adopted, which made me wonder how the lisp came to be. Did a person pick it up like an accent?

Milton motioned everyone close and we all leaned forward. He hesitated when he saw our new faces, but delivered his punch line anyway. So he says to me, ‘polka-dots. That would be totally cool. Very Fifties. Call me and we’ll jaw about it.’ Can you believe that? Milton’s effete voice took on a girlish singsong, "We’ll jaw about it." His shoulders moved as though he were teaching the cha-cha.

His audience obediently chuckled and cast glances at a young man, the nucleus of another amoeboid group. The object of Milton’s ridicule looked like someone who had plucked his cleanest tee shirt from a pile on his floor. Scuzzy. Even though he might have been pushing forty, he was dressed in tight pants and high tops, retro punk. The young couple I had seen exiting the gallery gravitated to his circle.

I cupped my hand and asked into David’s ear. Who’s that?

Milton was too intent on his indignation to allow David any entrée into his focused group, so we stepped out.

Ducky! David said.

Ducky?

Ducky.

Ducky who? Most of the artists had spit-polished their personas for the reception. One tall man with long hair had donned a black cape, ebony cane, and eye-patch, but this guy Ducky looked like he hadn’t even combed his hair. He was neither dressed for the occasion nor quite battered enough for the derelict, starving-artist image. Yet his arms flung wide and his fingers danced as he talked, and people congregated around him.

Just Ducky, David said as we moved toward a food table.

Didn’t that go out in the Eighties with Madonna?

How about the Sixties with Cher? He swooped in, dunked a peeled jumbo shrimp into some cocktail sauce, and popped it into his mouth.

I didn’t want to get crackers stuck in my teeth or to have cheesy breath, so rather than eating, I admired the platters of food—bright arrangements of crudité, squares of homemade fudge, and a steaming pepperoni pizza. Across from David, a young couple rode their Vespa right onto the grass. In spite of a few dirty looks, they jumped off their bike and began foraging along the table, bumping into each other, laughing, piling their napkins high.

The eye-patch guy slid in beside me, slathered some Brie on a whole-wheat cracker, and unsolicited, said, They’re at every reception. He pointed his chin at the girl in her snug Levi’s jacket and her lanky partner who appeared to have a whole passage of text tattooed on his arm.

You mean they’re reception crashers?

He laughed. And you? He scanned my body for a name tag.

My better half is the artist. I flicked my eyes toward David, his cheeks bulging, his jaw chomping as though the shrimp on the table would disappear, which they soon would at the rate he was going. I felt sorry for David. Since I was a baker, he might have imagined I could cook. Here was a man who loved shrimp, and yet I never prepared them for him. The way to a man’s heart may have been through his stomach, but I had chosen a path less taken. He was now making up for his deprivation.

My new best friend barely glanced at David. His intense eye bored into mine.

This time he motioned toward the Vespa kids with his own elbow hoisting food like a crane. Expect to see them at your open studio.

I broke loose from watching people eat and headed for the wine. I needed social lubricant if I was expected to make nice with one-eyed cruisers and people named Ducky. Chewing another shrimp and guarding two more in a cocktail napkin, David caught up to me as I sipped some chardonnay. The wine seemed like a safe bet that wouldn’t stain my skirt if I spilled it.

Let’s go, he said.

Home?

Be serious, Carol. He jerked his head toward Ducky’s group. Who followed you around like a smitten idiot and saved your life?

I remembered David following me around like a smitten idiot, and several years ago, he had shown up to cover my back, but our memories diverged on the saving-my-life part. Still, I sighed and asked, How is this guy important?

He runs a gallery downtown, and like Milton, he’s on the panel that judges artists for Open Studios.

You’ve already been accepted, I said, as we wiggled our way into Ducky’s circle.

. . . and so, dude, he comes up to me with this painting of a polka-dot cat.

Polka dots? Again? Both the groups seemed to be on the same topic. Since Milton painted cats, I assumed he had done the apparently ridiculous polka-dotted one, and since Ducky addressed a whole enclave as dude, he was probably the guy who had committed the sin of using jaw as a verb.

I told him to bring me four big ones just like it. The acolytes laughed.

I didn’t get the joke, but smiled anyway, and hated myself for it.

Off to the side of the event, a small man in an army jacket gloomed like a black cloud under one of the shade tents. I tuned out the group and riveted my attention on him. I felt drawn to his straightforward expression of discomfort. I could relate.

As I regarded him, one of my mom’s maxims about the danger of looking under rocks nudged the edge of my brain. I couldn’t remember it completely. I gulped some wine, feeling disloyal and sad that only a couple years after my mom’s death, her words, which had once been my constant companion, were fading.

I showed David my empty glass.

Another one?

They’re dinky.

Stay here until I introduce myself, he said.

I don’t think this guy is coming up for air.

I looked away from Ducky