Sweet Masterpiece - The First Sweet’s Sweets Bakery Mystery

The oven timer went off just then and Sam jumped up to check her cake layers. By the time she pulled them out and turned off the oven, Zoe was antsy to go. She’d left Darryl with the impression that she was bringing home ice cream and she still had to deliver on that promise. Sam poured her a little jar of fresh raspberry filling to use as a topping and they walked out to the driveway together. Sam retrieved the boxes of books and medicine bottles from the back seat of her truck and Zoe headed off, happy with her new treasures.

  Sam watched her taillights retreat down the quiet lane, thinking how glad she would be to offload the rest of Bertha Martinez’s stuff, with stops at the thrift shop and the county landfill. Her glance slid sideways to the trash bag that held the stuffed snake. Shape-shifter indeed.

  Cake layers occupied her mind for a few more minutes, as she removed them from the pans and laid them out on cooling racks. While they cooled she blended the truffle cream filling for one of the layers, and cooked the raspberry syrup down until it was thick and spreadable for the other layer. The best thing about baking was that little tasks like grating fresh coconut were the perfect way to relax and escape all of the day’s other stresses. Before she knew it, she had more than double what she needed for the coconut frosting. Into the fridge, it would be there for something else.

  While the layers cooled completely, Sam brought her laptop computer to the table and did a little research on the artist, Pierre Cantone. A search brought up at least a dozen websites devoted to his work and she knew this was more than she could absorb that night. She bookmarked the ones that seemed most interesting and turned back to assembling the torte before exhaustion overtook her.

  Sam woke up early, probably because she’d completely crashed around nine o’clock. Today would be a busy one and that, too, contributed to the fact that she was staring wide-eyed at a clock which said it was 5:38.

  Over coffee she took up her research on Pierre Cantone where she’d left off last night. The artist, born in 1937, raised in Provence, was best known for the amazing quality of light and shadow that he brought to an otherwise-fuzzy impressionistic style. He’d come onto the art scene when Picasso was grabbing all the attention with cubism, just a young wannabe when tastes were moving away from the style so popular a generation earlier. But Cantone ploughed onward and garnered, if not critical praise, popular attention. The elite called him a hack but buyers flocked to him. By the time Picasso died in 1973, Cantone was at the top of his game. Then tragedy struck.

  His lovely wife Adele and their two children died in a train derailment, the only three fatalities when hundreds of other passengers escaped nearly unscathed. It crushed Cantone. Ranting against the world for the gross unfairness of it, he took to drinking heavily and he stopped painting. A corrupt business manager may have raided the successful artist’s life savings—no one seemed to know. The man disappeared, leaving Cantone living alone in a squalid New York tenement, in poverty.

  At some point the Frenchman met a woman, another artist who raved about the art scene in New Mexico. Georgia O’Keefe was living there. Perhaps Cantone would be newly inspired if he were to meet the great lady artist. The record was never clear on whether this woman was a lover or simply a friend with Cantone’s best interests at heart, but she did carry enough influence to convince him to give New Mexico a try. He moved to Santa Fe and lived in the guesthouse of a patron. But, sadly, his work was never the same and he barely produced enough to live on. Then he vanished.

  Sam followed other links in the search but everything written about Cantone seemed to agree. No one knew where the artist went after a dozen or so years in Santa Fe. He’d either died ignominiously or simply dropped out of public life. Since then, of course, his remaining known works had skyrocketed in value, with several of them bringing high six-figures at auction. She studied photos of the paintings and felt her pulse quicken. The little mural they’d found was certainly in the same style, and yet it was not a duplicate of any of Cantone’s known works. Had she found Cantone’s mysterious hiding place? And where was he now?

  She would probably never know the answers, but she’d drained two cups of coffee by this time and was antsy to get on with the day. By nine a.m. she was on her way to the landfill with the bags of trash from the Martinez place (never so glad to see something thrown away as when she tossed the snake bag over the edge). The few useful items went to the thrift shop on her way back into town and she popped back by her house to pick up the raspberry torte and deliver it to the Taos Heritage place just as the women were beginning to arrive for their luncheon.

  Declining a half-hearted invitation to stay for their lunch and presentation (really, did they want her here fresh from the landfill?), she picked up a sack of tacos at Taco Bell and headed back home. They were going to the soggy side by the time she finished unloading the truck—no sense in cleaning herself up twice. She washed her hands of the dust and carefully placed Pierre Cantone’s sketchbook out of harm’s way on the kitchen table. Beside Bertha’s old wooden box, the two items looked like a pair of artifacts from another era.

  Sam downed three tacos without blinking and chided herself for not being a more conscious eater. How was she ever going to lose the spare pounds? She crushed the paper sack with the two remaining tacos and threw them in the trash, like that would make any real difference before tonight’s dinner with Beau Cardwell. But as long as she was feeling a little bit virtuous she also poured out the soda she’d bought and drew a glass of fresh water from the tap.

  The phone rang and she flinched. Zoe would be happy to lecture her on the evils of fast food and too much sugar, eating habits being the one source of contention between them, but a glance at the caller ID told her it was Rupert instead. Now there was a man who would never give you a hard time about calories. In his mind butter is one of the essential food groups.

  “Hey Rupert, what’s up?”

  “Honey, I got twenty-three pages written today, which is a real miracle because I can hardly concentrate on work. Esteban sent some photos of the mural to New York and they are very excited. I mean, very. He’s crating up the painting today and shipping it out for authentication. If we have a real Cantone here, it’s going to be such a boost for Taos. I mean, that’s proof positive that he lived here, right here in our little town.”

  Considering that several famous artists and writers lived here over the years, it’s not like this one thing would put Taos on the map. But it would still be exciting news.

  “I read up a little, this morning, but Cantone’s history gets blurry at the end. No one seems to know where he went or what he did. If he’s still alive, he should get the mural back, or get the money when it sells. And if he’s not living, I wonder if there are relatives. Maybe there’s a will.” Sam had to pause for a breath. “Do you know of any way to find out?”

  “I’ll ask around in the art community. If Cantone lived here for awhile, maybe someone in town knew him.”

  Sam hung up, feeling a little guilty that she’d not told Rupert about the sketchbook. It was certainly a treasure and further evidence that the mural was genuine. But somehow she didn’t want to talk about it quite yet. Meanwhile, she was still curious about the body buried on the property. Was it Anderson, the homeowner, or was it the younger man who’d lived with him? And how did he die? She shook off the thoughts. It might have been someone else entirely, and even though the grave looked fresh to Sam maybe it wasn’t; maybe the burial happened years ago.

  So, what to do with the sketchbook in the meantime? She gathered it, and the wooden box, and carried them to her bedroom. Since no one knew of the existence of the sketches, she decided she could get by with stashing the book between her mattress and foundation. That wasn’t going to be good enough for the long term and she would probably have to end up either turning it over to the authorities or renting a safe deposit box at the bank. But for now, it would do.

  The puff-textured wooden box sat on the bedspread, staring at her. She placed her hands on the sides of
it. The wood was cool to the touch, the cabochon stones dull in color. She closed her eyes and ran her hands over the smoothly rounded mounds of the quilted sections. The surface immediately warmed. Whoa. Her eyes popped open; her fingers tingled.

  Did she imagine it, or were the stones brighter? The blue, red and green pieces were nearly glowing. The wood surface also seemed different, with a golden patina to it, a softer, nicer color than the previous sickly yellow. When Sam brought it home she thought she would work on it with some polish, but now it shone as if she’d already done that. She looked at her hands. Did body oils have the ability to polish wood? Nah. Not like this.

  She wiped her hands on the tail of her shirt and picked up the box. Maybe it would look nice on the dresser. She could use it as a jewelry box. She set it in place and stepped back to admire it. Yes. That was a good spot for it. She lifted the lid. The stiff hinges creaked, as before, but as she closed and reopened it a couple of times they loosened considerably. Soon, the lid was operating as smoothly as if she’d just applied oil.

  “You’re a strange little thing,” she said. “What is your secret?”