Frank shook his head again. “You still think Sandra?”
“At the very least, I think she knows something.”
“What’s your plan?” Frank asked.
“I’ll take a group riding—retrace our steps again, see what we can discover,” Dustin told him. “I particularly want to check out the stream.”
“My partner and I will be at the Horse Farm,” Jane told him quickly.
Frank looked at Jimmy. “Go pay Sandra Cheever a visit. Tell her you’ll be watching over her so that she can get some rest. See if you can stay inside at her place, rather than out in the car.”
“Yep, you got it.” Tipping his hat to Jane, Jimmy left the room.
“Is this crazy, or what? Is everyone at that place supposed to die in some kind of presumed accident?” Frank asked.
“Could be. What’s still eluding us is the reason,” Dustin muttered.
“You’ll be watching over Olivia, right?”
“A killer would have to get to her over my dead body,” Dustin assured him. “And you know that Malachi Gordon—Olivia’s cousin—is here, too.”
Frank nodded. He walked around to his desk and rummaged in his bottom drawer, then handed Dustin an outdated walkie-talkie. “You can reach the station with this. Keep me apprised of your movements.”
Dustin agreed to do that. As they drove back to the Horse Farm, he asked Jane, “There was nothing else you could get from that image of the general?”
She shrugged. “I’ve just spent a couple of hours with Frank Vine. We’re working with the facts, sir, just the facts. Like I said, the artist was decent. The rendering seems relatively accurate, judging by some of the Civil War photographs I looked at online. And some of the shading was really nice. This artist probably does have a career in his or her future.”
“So, you’d say a young artist?”
“I think so. Although art is—no pun intended—a sketchy field. It might be an older artist who’s a better technician than he or she is at finding a personal style. That’s my opinion. I work with reconstruction a lot. Or doing sketches from someone’s description. This seems to be along those lines. There must be a portrait of the general like that somewhere. I didn’t come across it in my online research but I’ll keep looking. The artist almost certainly copied the painting—or maybe even a photograph. I asked Frank, but they weren’t able to lift any fingerprints, nor did they find hairs or fibers or anything that might help.”
“So, we have to locate the artist.”
“We have to locate the artist,” Jane agreed.
*
It wasn’t that she’d been away for any length of time, but Olivia was glad to be at the Horse Farm. Everything was in good shape, just as it always was. Stalls were clean; horses were well fed and watered. Drew told her that Sydney had even gone on a cleaning binge in the office.
The two of them knew Malachi from other visits he’d made over the past several years, and they seemed to like Abby Anderson when they met her, as well. While they waited for Jane and Dustin to return, Drew and Sydney took them by the stalls, introducing them to each of the horses, the cats prowling around and the Horse Farm dogs. By the time Jane and Dustin returned, they were ready for their ride. Olivia, of course, would be on Shiloh. Dustin would take Chapparal. Malachi would ride Zeus, the big paint—a horse he’d ridden before—and Abby, who hadn’t been on a horse all that often, would be on the palomino mare, Carina. Carina could move when needed; she was also extremely gentle.
But while Olivia rummaged around in the cupboards below the coffee machine in the office, gathering supplies, Jane told them about the rendering of the general she’d studied.
Olivia paused. “You think it was a copy of another work?” she asked.
“Yes. The general appeared to be posed—as if for a picture,” Jane said.
“I think I might know the painting, then. Of course, I haven’t seen this particular rendering. But there’s a Civil War picture of the general in the county archives. It was actually taken by Matthew Brady—according to local lore. And it’s possible, since the general had been assigned to different fields of battle during the war, although legend has it that Brady did take the picture of him somewhere in Tennessee. Both he and the general were at Chattanooga. I’m sure there are copies of the picture here and there. I only know of one, but it’s in a coffee shop near Vanderbilt University.”
“So it’s likely any art student might see it?” Jane asked. “And copy it...”