Soul Man by Shari Hearn

Author:Shari Hearn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: cozy mystery ghosts, cozy mystery paranormal, humorous mystery, senior sleuths, southern
Publisher: J&R Fan Fiction
Published: 2018-08-16T16:00:00+00:00

THE GIANT LIME-GREEN, acrylic lips, simply titled Silence, gave me an indication why I chose to be a CIA assassin and not an art critic. That thing was butt ugly.

The Lafayette Connection was housed in an old cannery in an industrial section of Lafayette. It had been renovated with bamboo flooring and drywall partitions to create several small galleries and artists’ studios. Cootie’s studio was in the rear of the building at the far end of Gallery B, where giant lime-green lips and other paintings and sculptures were part of a ‘minimal art’ showing.

We’d arrived at the gallery minutes ago to find a couple of women, one blonde, the other redhead, walking from piece to piece and observing, as only art aficionados can, with their heads bent slightly to the left, then the right, with hands on chins. A glance at the door leading to Cootie’s studio revealed an easy-to-pick lock if these two would move it along and give us some privacy.

We stared at the lips. “Would you say that’s a pout or a sneer?” I asked.

“Holy crap,” Ida Belle muttered as she spotted the $31,250 price tag. “Someone wants money for this brain fart?”

The two art lovers made audible gasps as they came up next to us and gazed at the lips. Both heads tilted to the left, then the right, hands on chins.

“Lowenstein is a genius,” Blondie said.

Redhead nodded. “Once again, he brings me near tears.”

Gertie turned to them and smiled. “Our friend Walter sells wax lips just like that at Halloween. Two bucks apiece. Any color you want. When you’re done wearing them you can chew them like gum.”

The women stared at her a moment. Blondie cleared her throat. “Lowenstein just won the Hugo B. Hugo Emerging Artist Award. His ‘Silence’ is a sad but brilliant commentary on depersonalization in the modern world.” She failed to add “you imbecile,” but her tone of voice said it for her.

Gertie pursed her own human-colored lips and raised her brows. “If Lowenstein were smart, he would have sculpted a giant lime-green butt to go with the lips and called it, Kiss My Lime-Green Ass You Snot Face Bitches.”

The two women shot one another looks of horror and quickly scooted out of the gallery.

“Actually, I think the lips are kind of fun,” Gertie said. “I’d pay a hundred bucks to stick them on the hood of my Cadillac.”

Ida Belle shrugged. “Might cover up that rust spot.” She looked at me. “We’ll guard the entrance to the gallery. You go down to his studio and look around.”

Gertie dug her lock pick set from her purse and handed it to me. She and Ida Belle stood guard at the entrance to the partitioned gallery while I went to Cootie’s door and quickly worked the lock. I slipped inside and shut the door.

It took me a minute to make sense of what my eyes had first spotted inside Cootie’s studio: a painting of a naked woman, propped up against the wall. The woman appeared to be in her thirties.

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