Read Online Murder at the Falls by Stefanie Matteson - Free Book Online Page B

artists—and then he left. That was sometime around eleven. He never slept in his bed. Besides that, we know exactly zip.”
    They decided to talk with Diana Nelson first. Or rather, Tom decided to talk with Diana Nelson first. As a local art dealer—the only local art dealer, as far as Charlotte could tell—she would have the inside scoop, Tom said. In reality, Charlotte suspected that he had other motives; she had recognized Diana right away as being Tom’s type. He had a weakness for tall, slim brunettes. Diana was a little less dramatic in appearance than his usual type—with her long neck, lovely smile, and wide blue eyes, she had the all-American prettiness of a beauty pageant contestant—but she fit the general mold. In fact, except for the color of her eyes and her hair, which was cut very short, she was almost a dead ringer for Daria Henderson, who had been Tom’s most serious love interest to date. They had met several years ago in Maine in the course of another murder investigation in which Daria had almost become the second victim, and split up last year over nothing, at least in Charlotte’s opinion. But she was hardly one to talk. With four marriages and more affairs than she cared to admit to on her record, she wasn’t in a position to comment on other people’s relationships.
    After parking in the museum lot, they walked up to the Ivanhoe Gallery, which was located in an old mill, the Ivanhoe Wheelhouse, at the head of Spruce Street. The Ivanhoe sat at the foot of an escarpment next to the tailrace of the Upper Raceway, which ran along the base of the hill, and into which the spent water from the millwheels had once been discharged. The headrace, which delivered water to the mills through a series of water troughs, ran across the upper part of the hillside. The head and tailraces were linked by a man-made waterfall, or spillway, which fell into a lily-studded pool adjoining the Ivanhoe. From this pool, the Middle Raceway carried the water under Spruce Street to a line of mills on the other side, of which the Gryphon, where Randy had lived, was one.
    Given that it was nearly five, they half expected the gallery to be closed, but the wide double doors here still swung open to the warm afternoon. They found Diana inside, talking with a customer about the current show, which featured a Paterson ceramic artist named Louise Sicca.
    While they waited for Diana to finish with her customer, they looked at the ceramic sculptures that were displayed on pedestals. The sculptures also had a diner theme, planned no doubt to coordinate with the museum’s show, but the subject was diner food rather than diners themselves. They might have been called photorealism in ceramics: one pedestal displayed a glazed ring cake, complete with cake stand and plastic cover; another displayed a still life of a jar of Heinz ketchup, a napkin holder, and a pair of salt and pepper shakers.
    “Here’s your lemon meringue pie,” said Tom, who’d been browsing among the paintings hanging on the brick walls, and had stopped at a ceramic work displayed on one of the pedestals. He gestured for Charlotte to join him. “Look at those peaks!” he said. “Andriopoulis would definitely approve.”
    The pie was realistic right down to the beads of moisture that had congealed on the surface of the meringue. Charlotte had never seen anything quite like it.
    Having finished with her customer, Diana wandered over.
    “This stuff is great,” said Tom. “What do you call it?”
    “Well, I would call it trompe l’oeil ceramics, but the artist prefers the term material illusionism.”
    “It makes you think you’ve never really looked at a pie before,” Tom said.
    “That’s the idea,” said Diana with a smile. “The artist’s goal, to quote her, is to reawaken the dormant joys of observation.” She cocked her pretty head and asked: “What can I do for you?”
    “We just came in to chat about Randy,” Charlotte said, after