What Evil Lurks in Monet's Pond: A by Sara M. Barton

artist’s passion behind the effort, no desire
to save the museum. It was good, old-fashioned greed that drove the
crime, and the goal was to shut down the Tattinger once and for
all, so those trust funds could remain in the dirty hands of the
thief.
    Of course, even as I drove back to Bothwell
Castle, I wondered where the missing paintings were. What would an
embezzler do with minor works of art?
    Half way up the long driveway, I suddenly
braked. I was so stunned by the idea that popped into my head, it
took my breath away. What happens when you cut a painting from its
stretcher? You change the size of the painting. And when you change
the size of the painting, you obscure the connection to its
original condition. A lot of artists nowadays take their paintings
and have them professionally photographed to become Giclée prints
-- done with special inks and archival quality canvases and papers,
the limited editions often sell for hundreds of dollars. The art
reprint field is enormously profitable for an artist who has a
popular painting. But a limited edition is only valuable if it’s
truly limited to a certain number of reprints.
    In the middle of the driveway, on a sunny
winter’s day, a good quarter mile from the castle, I stopped the
car. I believed I solved the motive behind the art theft. What I
hadn’t solved was the murder of the man by the pond. Monet’s Pond.
That’s what Nora called it when she and Andrew first bought the
place. “Maybe someday we’ll build a red bridge across the little
brook that feeds it,” she once told me. “We’ll add some lily pads
and let the artists come to paint, and then the visitors will have
a taste of what it’s like to be amongst serious painters in an
artist’s colony. Will you come, Maisie, and paint your wonderful
pictures?”
    I had promised my sister that if she ever
detangled the overgrown woods and prettied up that little pond, I
would be happy to take my chair and easel kit up there. And she had
spent the last two years doing just that. Or rather the landscape
architect she hired had.
    A sudden rap on the passenger window startled
me. With beating heart, I glanced up to see Ross appear. He pointed
to the door lock and I popped it.
    “Penny for your thoughts,” he greeted me.
    “What are you doing here?”
    “I asked you first.”
    “I think I know why there was an art heist,
and I think it has something to do with my sister’s plans to create
Cadell’s Castle, an event space and intimate inn. She wants to
bring business to this little burg, and I think whoever’s been
embezzling from the Tattinger wants to stop her.”
    “Hence the dead body on the trail?” Ross was
studying me carefully.
    “And I also think I know why it was an artist
who was killed.”
    “Do you?”
    “I think he must have been a part of what was
going on. If the embezzler has the paintings and plans to market
reproductions of them, he or she stands to make a fortune on the
museum quality limited editions.” I shut off the idling engine.
“People will pay a lot for really good reproductions, Ross,
especially limited editions.”
    “But why not just take photographs for the
museum and let it profit from the sales?”
    “I think the embezzler wants to shut down the
Tattinger and sell the masterpieces. I have to wonder who profits
from the demise of the Tattinger.”
    “That’s an easy question to answer,” he said
with a grin. Oh, how I missed those beautiful eyes looking at me
that way. As I felt my resolve slip away, as I felt that old tug
towards Ross, I fought hard. Keep to your plan, Maisie. You want
more. A few hours of lovemaking isn’t enough anymore. “The
money goes to Viktor Szabo’s family.”
    “The phony count? How is that possible?”
    “They were legally married,” the experienced
CIA officer told me. “And about ten years ago, his heirs in Hungary
got together and sued to have one of their members placed on the
board of directors. Did you know that the