Looking for Midnight

By Helen Chappell

Sculptor Jane Constant is artist-in-residence at Green Gardens, an ancient seaside mansion turned artist’s colony.

This summer’s crop of eccentrics and other creative types include the handsome actor Gabriel Hardy rehearsing for Hamlet, the stoner musician Dink Sheldrake with an opera to write, the alcoholic abstract impressionist Ted Mitran and Midnight Bunting, a retired madam who wants to spend her summer writing a tell all memoir about her rich and famous clients. Then there’s politically ambitious next door neighbor Barbara Barkley, who wants Green Gardens closed down as a disgrace to the upscale seaside community and a Chief of Police who’s interested in more than Jane’s art.

When Midnight Bunting is found dead in Gabriel Hardy’s bed, suspicion falls on everyone, and things look desperate for the continued existence of the beloved old artist’s colony. . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Write Words Inc.
• Release date: Nov 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9781613860373

Helen Chappell

Helen Chappell lives on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where she tries to keep a low profile and stay out of the line of fire. She has written about the area for forty years. In addition to her fiction and non-fiction, she has also written a produced play and a novel about Oysterback, A Whole World of Trouble. Her Sam and Hollis mystery series garners positive attention. Her journalism and articles have appeared in the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun, in addition to many magazines. She is currently a columnist for Tidewater Times and at work on a new book.

Book preview

1

Looking for Midnight

by Helen Chappell

Published at Smashwords by Write Words, Inc.

© 2011 Helen Chappell. All Rights Reserved

ISBN 978-1-51386-037-3

Chapter 1

Jane Constant.

New Works.

Polly Crockett Gallery East.

Castle Island.

June 5—July 31st.

Opening June 5, 5-8 p.m.

By invitation only.

Polly Crockett Galleries.

New York and Castle Island.

Chapter 2

"But dearest, yours is the opening of the summer! Gallerista Polly Crockett, soignée in leather and dreads, swanned through the crowds to embrace Jane Constant. Lookee, lookee, darling, all the little red stickers? You’re selling, selling tonight! And it’s only the opening!"

Jane glanced around the gallery at her sculptures, then took a giant swig of Cristal. I can’t believe you sold Big Pink! I thought that thing would never move out of the corner of my studio.

"Trust Aunt Polly, darling heart. The very latest wife of Dr. Barenstein snapped it right up. Maybe it reminds her of where her husband’s money comes from. It does look like a giant breast implant. And all the money that paid for it is walking on half the chests in here. No wonder they call him Boobenstein. You can tell his implants from across the room."

Jane grinned. One of the many reasons I love being in your galleries is that you have a totally irreverent sense of humor, Polly.

And you were right—opening a summer gallery out here was the smartest move I’ve made since I signed up Wally Stubbs.

Who knew puke paintings on vinyl siding would be so hot?

Jane mused. And when I told you Castle Island was going to be the new Hamptons, I’m glad you listened. With a show here in the summer and a show at your SoHo gallery in the winter, I’m breaking even for the first time in my career.

It’s a win-win situation, darling heart, Polly agreed. She squirmed a little inside her skimpy leather top. "Jesus, this outfit is hotter than a crotch. Still, dear Alexander McQueen made it just for me, so it’s a sort of a memento mori."

Keep smiling, Poll. You look divine, just like a major art diva should. Besides, think of all the pounds you’re sweating off inside that pelt. It will mean one less workout with that personal trainer of yours!

Workouts aren’t the reason I keep him around, dearest, Polly shot out of the side of her mouth. Oh, look who just came in! There’s Rosebud.

Jane looked over the crowd, toward the door. "So what’s the deal with Rosie? I’d kill her if she didn’t show up. She’s my landlady, not to mention best friends!"

"No, no, no, darling heart, not Rosie. Lookee, lookee who’s with Rosie!"

Jane squinted at the fair- haired man in a shabby sports jacket. He looks vaguely familiar, she agreed, then gasped and grabbed Polly’s arm. Is that the Millers’ butler?

"Oh, my poor media- innocent blossom, you need to get out of the studio and go to a movie or a play or watch TV something! That’s Gabriel Hardy, the hottest thing to come out of England since, well, nothing hot ever comes out of England, but anyway, Gabriel is buzzed to get best supporting Oscar for Intoxicated, and he’s going to be doing Broadway this fall, and he’s the next big thing. D’you think she’s like, doing him?"

No! If she were, I’d know about it. I live right on her place. I’ve never even seen him before. An actor?

They’re calling him a young Cary Grant. If I weren’t happily married to Leonard, I’d do him, Polly said, all but licking her lips. ‘God, the man just exudes testosterone. Take a deep breath, darling and let’s go meet the star!"

Lady Rosebud Mitford was the daughter of a man known in his youth as The Hippie Peer and a spark plug heiress. You could always pick her out in a crowd, for she had a head of flame red hair.

Rose stood on tiptoe and waved over the heads of the crowd at Jane and Polly, They made their way slowly through the rich, the famous and the lovers of art. That night, everyone wanted a piece of Jane.

‘Fabulous show, Jane!"

Some of your best work yet!

I love the plush! The fabric, the colors, the shapes! What a statement!

"Jane! Come see us!

Jane, can I get a quote from you for my article?Hey, Jane! What does it all mean?

Frank You came! Jane hugged the Chief of Police of Castle Island. Frank Russo, tanned and dark, hugged her back.

Well, I owed it to you, didn’t I? he asked. One of the island’s own?

Jane smiled up at him. "I’m glad someone local came. No one else did, not any of my local friends. I guess I shouldn’t have expected them to come, but, you know, I’d hoped."

Frank shrugged. You know they don’t much like to mingle with the summer people. A lot of folks are too proud to rub shoulders with people they’ll be serving drinks to later in the evening. You know how they feel.

Yeah, I do, Jane nodded. It’s like living between two worlds out here in the summer. But you came, Frank, and I thank you.

He looked around the room. I just stopped by on my way to my moonlight job. Just wanted to show the flag, so to speak. I gotta say, Jane, these things look real artsy here, more than they do in the studio.

Oh, come on! Admit it! You’d rather I painted geese in flight over Great Marsh or carved decoys.

Yeah, but that’s just me. You— Uh-uh, here comes the Wicked Witch of Castle Island.

A solidly built woman in her mid-forties with a head of honey blonde helmet hair and the discontented expression of someone whose shoes were too tight was making her way through the crowd. Her short- sleeved linen suit was just a shade too tight, too. In fact, reflected Jane unhappily, everything about Mayor Barbara Barkley was a little too tight. But evidently, the Castle Island locals liked ’em tight; they’d voted her in on her platform of unrestrained fisheries, lots of new development and family values.Whoa, Frank said. I have to go before she sees me and asks why I’m not catching underage college students drinking. You have a good time tonight, okay?

They exchanged a hug before Frank disappeared into the crowd. Several women turned to give him a second glance, and Jane didn’t blame them. With his dark eyes and thick black curls, he was one good-looking man. And he worked out.

There you are! The Honorable Barb Barkley parted the crowd like an ice cutter. I want a word with Rosebud about Green Gardens. As your next door neighbor, it’s my right and my duty to inform you that the town council is seriously considering taking up a motion about those hippies she has there every summer.

They’re not hippies, Barbara. They’re established working artists, and many of them have international reputations. Do we have to go through this every summer ? Jane sighed.

I won’t have the noise and those strange people wandering onto my beachfront, especially when I’m entertaining important people. Barbara’s lips thinned into a tight line of indignation. Indignation was what Barbara did best. She had absolutely no sense of humor.

"The beach is public to the tide line, Barbara. You know that.

And since you put up that spite fence, no one has accidentally strayed anywhere near your house." It was on the tip of Jane’s tongue to say she was glad it blocked the view of the modern monstrosity that the widowed mayor had erected next door.

I have to think about my property values, Barbara retorted.

If I’m called to higher office, I might have to sell.

Barbara, I’m not going to fight with you tonight. And I doubt Rose will either. It’s my opening. Can’t you just be happy for someone else for once?

"Well, I certainly wouldn’t call this art, " Barbara retorted.

And I intend to take up the issue of Green Gardens at the next town council meeting.

The mayor turned on her stiletto heel and walked away, leaving Jane staring at the way her jacket was stretched too tightly across her shoulders, as if it were holding all that anger in.

No one invited her. She’s got some nerve just turning up like that, Polly said, dragging Jane onward. I want you to meet a couple of people- - -Rose, where have you been? You’re hours late!

Oh, I am so sorry, Rosie exclaimed, shaking all her gold bracelets in greeting. But I had to go out to the airport and pick up Gabriel. He’s just flown in from the Coast, you know. Between Rosie’s Transatlantic accent and her Jackie O whisper it was hard to hear her above the music and the crowd chatter.

But it wasn’t Rosie that Jane was watching. Gabriel Hardy was not classically handsome, but there was something about him that was magnetic. Perhaps it was his eyes, light green, framed with black rims, beneath dark brows. Perhaps it was the set of his mouth, as if he found himself and the world around him to be secretly amusing. And those shoulders. And that tight butt. Or maybe, Jane decided, it was just that she found him incredibly attractive and way out of her league.

Not that she held his looks against him. Rather she sensed that he was perfectly aware of the effect his appearance had on women and he enjoyed it immensely. But as an artist, she appreciated comeliness wherever she found it, sizing him up with a critical eye as Rosie made the introductions. Blonde and handsome was just the tip of his iceberg.

Gabriel’s going to be one of the guests at Green Gardens for a while, Jane. He’s an old friend of mine. We were at RADA together. I dropped out, but Gabriel stayed on and became quite a success, didn’t you, old friend? Rosie gazed at the actor fondly, the same way she looked at her dogs.

Clearly platonic, Jane thought and wondered why she was so relieved. People who were well aware of their own good looks were not her type. And she just knew he was that type. He was, after all, an actor.

She watched as he was charming to Polly, in that polished, professional way show business people can be charming, and was surprised to watch the hardened businesswoman practically melting in his handshake. Polly, who had an enormous Rolodex full of celebrities. Polly, who had a room full of the rich and famous right here, right now. Swooning over some British actor. The man did have testosterone.

"So very glad to meet you, Ms. Crockett. What