From the Publisher: “Delia Ford is Port Kenneth’s newest social media darling, a young woman with a camera and a habit of showcasing what she views as the best of the city’s people in a social media series she calls Populated Portraits.
But Delia Ford is very much alone.
When an art thief breaks into the Woolslayer Art Gallery and steals all of her art-and only her art-and then inexplicably leaves some of it in public places, often with taunting notes attached, Delia fights back the only way she knows how: By engaging her thief in a game of cat and mouse that elevates the entire Port Kenneth art scene, including elementary school artists and knitting bombers.
People flock to Delia’s cause: her parents and brother, her neighbor, city influencer Tess Cartieri, the cop working the case, and one Meter Shaikovsky, her casual man who offers more benefits than friendship-or so it seems.
By the time the art thief is revealed, Delia has become a force for change in Port Kenneth, and her world has become strangely populated.”
More info About the Author: Susan Helene Gottfried is the heavy-metal-loving, not-disabled enough divorced Jewish mother of two. A freelance line editor to authors of fiction by day, her select roster of clients tend to hit bestseller lists, and more than a few have quit their day jobs. It’s not entirely her doing, but like does attract like.
Tales from the Sheep Farm is her offer to her fellow diverse authors to create a world in which all are welcome. Come dream and build it with her.
Susan holds a BA (University of Pittsburgh) and MFA (Bowling Green State University) in English Writing and Fiction, respectively.
She lives with a couple cats in the Pittsburgh suburbs, just West of Mars. Visit her at http://WestofMars.com and http://TalesFromTheSheepFarm.com.
Author Q&A
There was only one other person who had the key to Delia’s place: her younger brother, Leon. That was because Leon was the only person she could trust with it; if she’d given it to her parents, her dad would have come by to paint and change lightbulbs, and her mother would clean the kitchen and do her laundry.
And other than her parents and her brother, Delia didn’t have anyone left in her circle. Not anymore.
So when someone jerked her out of an alcohol-induced sleep—not a drunk sleep, but the after-effects of hitting the sweet spot of just enough—she didn’t freak out the way she might have if she’d still been seeing Chad. She was safe. She could trust Leon.
And he did have a reason for being there.
“Stevie needs you down at the gallery, like an hour ago.”
“Why?” Delia rolled over and put an arm on her forehead. She had no responsibility at the Woolslayer gallery. She made sure new things were delivered as promised and picked up the checks for the old. That was it. Nice and simple.
“You just need to get down there,” Leon said and twisted around, looking for, probably, clothes he could throw at Delia.
Too bad for him she’d learned to actually put her clothes away. Even what she’d worn to Journey’s End the night before had been summarily deposited in the dirty laundry basket. Or, more likely, the floor in front of her very small laundry machines. Small was better than not in the condo, though. She’d take small.
“Is it really a national emergency?”
“Apparently,” Leon said.
When he started opening the drawers in her dresser, she stopped fighting him. After all, he’d come across town, used his key to get in, and wasn’t backing off. Whatever this was, it was real.
“Can I shower?”
“No.”
“Eat?”
“I’ll fix you something. Just put some clothes on and let’s go.”
He had a package of Pop-Tarts ready for her when she came out of her room dressed in ripped black jeans and a dark purple t-shirt. She was trying to both walk and tie her Docs at the same moment, and that wasn’t going so well, so she jammed the laces inside, grabbed the Pop-Tarts, her wallet, camera bag, and then her own set of keys, and followed him downstairs to his car. Like usual, he was in the loading zone out front.
The gallery was hopping, Delia noticed as Leon drove past and turned the corner so he could park. Whatever this was, she thought, maybe it wasn’t so bad, even if the gallery was really only open on Sundays during the December shopping season.
As they walked over, Delia decided hopping wasn’t the right word and that yes, it was as bad as Leon had hinted at. Stevie was in the center of the thick group of people who’d gathered, and she was talking to a cop.
And Tess Cartieri.
“Whoa,” Delia said, stopping in her tracks. Leon bumped into her, fumbling as he swung around her body, grabbing her upper arm and starting to tug her forward.
“I told you.”
“Yeah, but Tess?”
“Nothing happens in Woolslayer without her knowing,” Leon said, like it was no big deal.
Rumor had it that Tess had her fingers in the finances of the gallery, like she did with almost every other woman-owned business in the neighborhood. And there were a lot of women-owned businesses these days—thanks to Tess.
“Delia, there you are,” Tess said as Leon pulled her through the people who’d gathered to sightsee, most with their phones held up, possibly to get pictures of Tess, although that didn’t make perfect sense. From what Delia knew, Tess didn’t keep a low profile in the neighborhood. She looked Delia over, then turned back to the cop and made introductions.
Delia paused. She’d never met Tess, but clearly the other woman knew who she was. Or maybe it was that Leon had escorted her through the onlookers and Tess wasn’t stupid. Leon had said they were waiting for her.
Even though she knew it was stupid, she was glad Tess didn’t react to her clothes. Then again, she was wearing an electric blue oversized hoodie, dark yoga pants, and a pair of sneakers that were probably more expensive than Delia’s last grocery run—although, to be fair, Delia still shopped at the discount grocery. Tess’ dark hair was down, as always, spilling over the hood and, in spots, into it. It had the perfect look of carelessly messy and Delia would have thought it was arranged except that as Tess turned her head, her hair moved in and out and around the hood.
Delia itched to pull out her camera, but this didn’t seem to be the right time for that. She didn’t even want Tess’ face in the shot. Just that hair.
“I’ll let you two talk,” Tess said, touching Delia’s elbow gently before she turned to Stevie and pulled the other woman aside.
The cop commanded Delia’s attention. “Pissed anyone off lately?” he asked.
Delia blinked in surprise. “N-not that I know of.”
“Break up with someone? A one-night thing that maybe didn’t end the way you thought it did?”
“Just Chad Flaherty, but that was months ago and he wouldn’t be caught dead in Woolslayer.” In some part of her brain, she heard his disdainful sniff. “What’s this got to do with the gallery?”
“Got any fans who’ve asked you to give them some of your work because they can’t afford it?”
“No,” Delia said slowly. That question, at least, was worth considering. But anyone who’d asked for freebies, other than her family, hadn’t come around since before Chad. That was a year now. A lot of bridges had been burned in that year. “Why are you asking me all this?”
“Someone broke into the gallery last night. They jimmied the door and managed to disable the alarm, then stole all of your items.”
“All?” Delia tried not to smile. That was kind of flattering.
“All. And nothing else.” The cop wasn’t smiling.
It was useless. Delia let herself grin. “Well. I’ve got a fan.”
“Who’s committing crimes.”
“Yeah,” Delia said and managed to erase the grin. “That’s not cool. I mean, stickers sell for a buck. Who can’t afford a buck?”
Stevie came back over, hugging herself. “Any ideas?”
Delia looked at her, speechless. A wave of sympathy rolled through her. Having the gallery robbed must feel like an invasion on the scale of a rape, she thought. Violent, unwanted, unwelcome. A power play.
“About what I thought,” Stevie said. She had dark circles under her eyes, which turned them from brown to almost black, although maybe the thin eyeliner helped with that. Her hooped nose ring glinted gold against her dark brown skin, made even more obvious by the fact that her impossibly dark hair was, like Tess and Delia’s, down around her shoulders—which wasn’t Stevie’s norm. She wore jeans and a patterned shirt that was probably from India, like many of her tops were. She finished it with simple brown ballet flats.
“Whoever it was, they knew what they were doing,” Stevie told Delia, then turned to the cop. “Can I show her?”
He motioned to her to lead the way, wrapping his free hand around his utility belt. That, too, would make a great shot, Delia thought, wondering how she could make it happen. Could you ask a cop if you could take pictures of his hand?
She was aware of the cop behind them as she and Stevie walked into the gallery.
“What?” Delia gasped when they got inside. This was beyond anything she had imagined, even though the cop had said all.
The gigantic picture, which had been fully framed and had needed a forklift to mount, was gone, too. It had been a picture of the street the gallery sat on, black and white, gritty, full of people—and definitely not for sale. It had been a gift to Stevie when she’d started carrying Delia’s photography.
Stevie put her hands on her hips. “Like I said, they knew what they were doing.”
Delia couldn’t argue.
“And they must really like you,” Stevie went on. “That had to have taken multiple people more than an hour to get down.”
“Could it have been someone who used to work here, then?” the cop asked.
“It’s been me and Georgie ever since I opened.”
“Georgie?”
“Not our guy,” Delia said. She pointed to another picture of Woolslayer on the wall. “That one’s his.”
“Professional jealousy?” the cop pressed.
This time, Delia and Stevie laughed.
“Georgie used to follow me around, asking for tips,” Delia told him.
“And you snubbed him?”
“Hell no. Kid’s got talent. Remember the water main break about a year ago?”
The cop gave her a look.
“Remember the alligator? That was Georgie’s work. All of it. I helped him sell those pictures to the paper.” She snorted. “Jerks weren’t going to pay him for them. Trying to pull one over on the inexperienced kid.”
“Doesn’t mean he couldn’t have done this. Or helped whoever did.” The cop turned in a circle, as if taking in all the artwork. “Where is he this morning?”
“Probably at church. With his mother,” Stevie said and Delia looked down at the floor and scuffed her toe on the spotless surface. So she wasn’t the only one annoyed by this cop. Good.
“You think I haven’t seen that one before?” the cop asked.
“Have you met Bettina?” Stevie tossed back. “If I have to go get Tess so she can tell you, I will. There’s no way this was Georgie. There’s a reason his isn’t a name you know.”
“Who else knew how to disable the alarm and get the picture off the wall?”
“Georgie didn’t know how to get the picture down.”
“Do you need me?” Delia asked. She looked at the cop. “I have things to do, so maybe give me your card, tell me not to leave town or something?”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“Well, however it works,” she said, reminding herself it probably wasn’t a good idea to roll her eyes at a cop. “I didn’t do this; why would I take my own things?”
“For the publicity.”
“Please.” This time, she didn’t bother to stop the eye roll. “I’m doing just fine. And I can promise you Georgie didn’t do it and if you keep looking at him, someone around here will hit you with a racism charge, and it might even be Tess herself who does it.”
The cop glared at her but didn’t say anything.
“We don’t need to hide behind Tess,” Stevie said after the silence had started to stretch.
“You sure?” Tess herself asked. She stood in the doorway with a silver travel coffee mug in one hand and a white bakery bag in the other. “Because I was walking past on my way home and was surprised to see you’re still here.”
“He thinks Georgie did it,” Delia said, tilting her head at the cop.
Tess laughed.
“That’s what we said,” Delia said. She glanced at Stevie, wondering why she’d gone quiet, and realized she and the cop were still glaring at each other.
Slowly, Stevie raised one eyebrow. “Would you care to listen to more reasons why Georgie couldn’t have done this?”
“And if I didn’t check out everyone, would you be satisfied?” the cop answered. His calm manner set Delia on alert.
“Fair point,” Tess said. She was leaning against the doorframe, as relaxed as anyone Delia had ever seen. She could have been watching a tennis match, she was so mellow.
“It’s one thing to talk to the people with access to the gallery,” Stevie said, “and another to pin it on a seventeen-year-old high school kid just because he seems convenient.”
“Fair point,” Tess said again and sipped at her coffee. “Officer? You’re up.”
“I don’t answer to you.”
“Oh, but you sort of do,” Tess said with a smile that suggested she wasn’t as mellow as she seemed. “Taxpayers and all that.” She held up the hand holding the white bag, almost as if she were offering it to whoever jumped for it first. Delia wondered what was in it; Pop Tarts weren’t much of a breakfast after a night at Journey’s End. “But we understand you have procedures and hoops to jump through. Maybe we should all get out of here, let Stevie close up, let you go poke around at everyone, and we can all get on with our days.”
The cop didn’t look happy, but Delia didn’t much care. This was Tess Cartieri setting him in his place, and it was kind of fun to watch. She hadn’t pulled on any of her connections, or her identity, or anything. She’d just stated some basic, true facts in a very calm, quiet, reasonable way.
It was an impressive show, an impressive lesson to absorb.
Stevie motioned them out of the gallery. By the time Delia got outside, Tess had rounded the corner, presumably headed to her place.
Delia figured that was the smartest retreat. She pulled out her phone, intending to ask Leon for a ride, and decided to hop the bus instead. That way, she wouldn’t have to answer Leon’s questions.
Small favors, she reminded herself. Be thankful for small favors.
This excerpt is published here courtesy of the author and should not be reprinted without permission.
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