Speed City Sisters in Crime again sponsored the Flash Fiction Contest at this year's Magna Cum Murder in Indianapolis, one of the nation's best mystery conferences. Here is the second Honorable Mention Flash Fiction Contest winner.
A Question of Aesthetics
By Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Spofforth eyed the artist at his
multi-hued canvas, a coffee cup in one hand, a paint brush in the other.
“I understand the how, Jacobson,”
Spofforth said. “I’ll give you this – it was clever.”
Jacobson nodded, acknowledging the
compliment. “If you’ll forgive the pun, I knew it would take someone with your
palette of experience to catch me.”
Spofforth nodded in return. Only as he
climbed the stairs to the studio a few minutes earlier, alone, had he allowed
himself a self-congratulatory moment. Three detectives had failed to solve the
mystery of the young woman’s stabbing death before they’d called him in from
retirement.
“But why?” Spofforth said. “I’ll, well
confess you have me there.”
“And if I tell you?” Jacobson said.
“It changes nothing. Motive, as you
know, is not required for conviction. Did she spur you advances?”
“Hardly.”
“Owe you money? Or vice versa?”
“Please.”
“A secret, then. Something she
threatened to expose?”
“Perhaps in her imagination. Time is
short. May I explain?”
I’d welcome it.”
“The solution is in the painting, and
the nuances it requires, “ Spofforth said.
“Nuances?”
“I value a particular shade of red that’s
hard to come by,” Jacobson said, reversing the brush to reveal a gleaming blade
at the tip. He leaped forward and plunged it into Spofforth’s chest before the
retired detective could move.
“Simple aesthetics,” Jacobson said,
using the coffee cup to collect the gushing blood. “She – and you- helped color
my imagination.”
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