Murder Adjacent #11: As Is
A Bellwether County Murder Mystery

Quirky Sleuths. Big Murders. Very Bad Alibis. Estate-sale organizer Tilda Reese knows families lie about value long before they lie about murder. During an invitation-only preview at a Heron Cove waterfront mansion, wealthy widow and art patron Helene Ashcroft is found dead in the upstairs gallery beside a painting labeled "decorative reproduction, as is." Tilda's stepson had argued with Helene over authentication, making him an excellent suspect. The mansion is full of wealthy buyers, contested inheritance, old donor relationships, and people pretending not to care about either the corpse or the prices. Tilda cares about one thing: the supposedly worthless painting is secured with museum-grade anti-theft hardware while genuinely expensive works are not. Someone desperately wanted that object dismissed as unimportant. Tilda has spent a career learning that price, value, provenance, and truth are four different things, and one of them has just become motive for murder.