Days of Wine and Roquefort (Cheese Shop Mystery) (25 page)

“You’re right. Shoot.” He spanked the desk. “Hey, I remember seeing an object gleaming outside the cellar, under the vines. Maybe she tossed it there so she could retrieve it later. Find those financials while I search.” He hurried out of the office.

“Come back,” I rasped.

But he didn’t. His footsteps echoed down the hall. Dang.

All the drawers on Shelton’s desk were locked, which made me snicker. Why have security on some of the doors but not all the doors? But then I quieted. I couldn’t point a finger. At Fromagerie Bessette I only had locks on the front and back doors and a combination lock for the safe that held the day’s returns. There were no locks on my cheese cases, refrigerators, cellar door, or office door.

I worked my lock-picking magic on the center drawer and drew it open. Inside were pencils, erasers, fine writing implements, iron stamps that resembled mini branding irons, fresh corks, bottles of ink, and blank labels. Nothing looked like financial data.

I jimmied the lowest drawer on the right. As it clicked open, Matthew howled at the top of his lungs. From the cellar.

“Matthew?” I sprinted from the office, down the stairs, and into the wine cave. I found him lying on his side, arms at an odd angle, legs sprawled. Blood seeped from beneath his head. “Oh no.” I knelt beside him. “Matthew, are you okay?”

He was breathing. His eyes fluttered open. “Catch . . . him.”

The door to Shelton’s hideout stood ajar. Grabbing a bottle of Shelton Nelson chardonnay from a cubby and wielding it like a cudgel, I flew to the door and arced my flashlight into the gloom outside. Rain pelted the area, obscuring my view; I couldn’t see a soul. An engine sputtered to life and tires screeched. Whoever had hit Matthew was fleeing. Dang.

I rushed back to him. He had raised himself to a sitting position; he was rubbing the back of his head. I said, “I’m calling 911.”

“No. And have Urso find us here? Uh-uh. I can stand.”

I replaced the bottle of chardonnay and helped Matthew to his feet. “Did you see who hit you?”

“No.”

“You said, ‘Catch him.’ Was it a man?”

“I can’t be sure.”

Well, I was sure of one thing. Meredith was going to kill me.

Meredith didn’t want to kill me, but she sure wanted to throttle me. Sitting next to Matthew on the bench outside the hospital emergency room near the reception desk, she—and he—held an ice pack to his head. From where I stood a safe distance away, I could swear I saw angry fumes rising from her scalp.

“What were you thinking?” she hissed. Not at him. At me. I couldn’t remember ever hearing her hiss. It wasn’t pretty. Her sun-kissed nose was scrunched; her eyes blazed with fury. “Why didn’t you call U-ey?”

“Because . . .” What could I say without getting my cousin in trouble?

“You investigated on your own,” she continued. “And you dragged my husband along.”

My husband.
What happened to
We’re best friends forever; no man will ever come between us
? So much for an eight-year-old’s vows.

“It’s my fault.” Matthew offered a weak smile. “I dragged Charlotte.”

“Are you nuts?” Meredith responded.

Certifiable, I wanted to say, but I wasn’t a licensed therapist. I muttered, “Meredith, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry isn’t good enough.”

A nurse, who looked like she swallowed a daily dose of starch, rushed from the reception desk. “Hush, all of you. We have real patients who need quiet.”

“I won’t hush,” Meredith roared like a tigress protecting her cub. “This woman—my best friend—endangered my husband. Her cousin. And he’s a real patient, too.”

“Meredith, honey, relax. I’m going to be fine.” Matthew patted her thigh. “It’s nothing that a couple of aspirin won’t fix.”

“How can you be sure? How do you know there isn’t bleeding on the brain? What was the weapon, a brick?”

“Whoa, honey, slow down. I’m fine. Really. I figure it was a wine bottle,” he said.

“A wine bottle?” Her voice skated up an octave.

“One that didn’t shatter.” He kissed her forehead then rapped his knuckles on his own. “Hard head.”

On the way to the hospital, I had kept Matthew talking so I could make sure he was all right. We discussed the weapon and decided that a wine bottle made the most sense. It also suggested that the assailant had come unarmed and had chosen a weapon on the spur of the moment. Even though Matthew had said
Chase him
, and my first suspicions had flown to Boyd, Harold, Ashley, and Shelton—even though Shelton didn’t seem the kind that would get his hands dirty by using blunt force; he’d carry a gun—we had determined that Liberty Nelson was the one that attacked him. She had been at home; she would have been justified as a woman protecting her property. On the other hand, would Liberty have run from the scene? I had heard an engine start. Whoever hit Matthew had fled. Flustered and anxious to race Matthew to the hospital, I had failed to check whether Liberty’s Camry was still in the driveway or not.

“
Chérie
.” Grandmère sat nestled on the bench beside Meredith. While driving, I had called her and asked her to fetch Meredith and the girls and meet us at the hospital. “
Crois-moi
.” She slung an arm around Meredith’s shoulders. “
Il va guérir cent pour cent
.” The fact that my grandmother spoke French to Meredith meant she was as nervous as my best friend.

I hurried to translate. “What Grandmère said—”

“I know what she said,” Meredith cut me off. “‘Believe me, he’ll heal one hundred percent.’ Have you forgotten I took French and aced it?”

“Ouch.” I raised my arms and backed up a space. “I’m not the enemy.”

“I’m sorry. It’s only . . .” Meredith released her hold on the ice pack and threw herself into Grandmère’s embrace.

Pépère, who was standing to the side holding hands with the twins, said, “Charlotte,
mon amie
, tend to the young ones.”

“Yes, of course.” I reached for the girls. “I’m so sorry, Amy and Clair, but don’t worry. Your daddy is going to be fine.” My words did not do the trick. They squinted skeptically at their father, who appeared about as healthy as a zombie in a horror movie. “Really,” I assured them. “Grandmère is right. Your dad is going to heal one hundred percent.”

“Can we kiss him?” Clair asked.

“Yes,” Matthew said. “I won’t break.”

He bent forward and moaned slightly as the girls pressed their lips against either cheek. I ached at the sound. His injury was my fault. I should have talked him out of breaking into Shelton’s cellar and office. I knew the risks. How could I have let him browbeat me into being a follower?

“We brought you a sandwich, Daddy,” Amy said. “Your favorite. Turkey and Swiss cheese with pesto sauce.” She pulled a sandwich wrapped in foil from her backpack and offered it to him. “It’s a little squished.”

Matthew cradled it in his lap. “I’m sure it’s delicious.”

Meredith edged away from my grandmother. “Matthew, if something horrible had happened . . .”

Grandmère said, “
Chérie
, as King Lear would say, ‘The worst is not, so long as we can say, “This is the worst.” ’
Non?
”

Meredith sobbed some more.

But not nearly as loudly as Sylvie. She tore into the hospital looking and bleating like a fire engine. “Matthew,” she cried, arms outstretched, her blazing red raincoat flying open, the soles of her Dalmatian faux fur boots slapping the linoleum. “Matthew, sweet, sweet Matthew.”

Matthew put up a hand to block her. “Don’t touch me.” His ex-wife’s distress might have been real, but he didn’t need a hug from her to add to the headache with his bride. “I’m fine, Sylvie.”

“But you’re so pale.”

“Who called you?”

“Why, Nurse Nenette, love.” She glanced over her shoulder at the starched nurse. “She’s been so wonderful with the girls, and she adores me.”

Matthew cut a look at the nurse and back to Sylvie. “How does Nurse Nenette know the girls?”

Sylvie bit her lip. “There have been a few scrapes and bruises I haven’t told you about.”

“What?” Meredith yelped.

Amy fudged her foot. “Don’t blame Mum. It was me. I’m the klutz. I ran too fast on our outing the other day. I was showing off to Clair.”

“To Mr. Yeats, you mean,” Clair said.

“I slid down the hill and scraped my arms.” Amy’s tone was so plaintive I wanted to scoop her up. “I didn’t want to tell you—”

“You have to tell us,” Meredith said. “You—”

Matthew grabbed her arm to rein her in. “It’s okay, girls,” he said gently. “You’re not to blame. But from now on your mother and you have to agree to full disclosure.”

“Yes, sir,” Amy and Clair chimed.

Sylvie held up a hand as if on the witness stand. “I promise, too. Oh, love, I’m so glad you’ve got your tough guy demeanor back. That relieves me.”

Meredith rolled her eyes. I smirked. Yeah, Matthew was a tough guy, all right. Mr. Pussycat.

“Whatever were you doing at Shelton Nelson’s place, anyway?” Sylvie asked.

“How did you—”

“Nurse Nenette has ears, love.”

Meredith shot another if-looks-could-kill glare at the nurse.

So did Matthew. “I ought to report her for eavesdropping.”

The prim nurse wisely ducked out of sight.

Sylvie hitched her Dalmatian faux fur purse higher on her shoulder. “So, what were you doing there?”

“We were checking out Shelton’s wine collection,” Matthew lied.

My grandparents exchanged a look. Neither said a word.

“Ooh, I’ve heard it’s quite extensive,” Sylvie said in an animated voice that indicated she’d forgotten all about Matthew’s pain. “Ashley showed me the article he’s writing about Shelton Nelson. He has an incredible stash of wine. Did you know I’ve tasted one of them? A French wine. The Château Haut-Brion Blanc.” She flourished a hand. “Back in the days when Mumsie and Dad were flush, they entertained so much.” Her parents had invested poorly in the past few years. Both had needed to return to work. “My father hobnobbed with some of the most vigorous investors in Europe. We had lavish dinners and wine tastings like you throw, love. I remember the wine had the flavor of ambrosia and pineapple with hints of honey and melon. It was so sweet.”

“You’re lying, Sylvie,” Matthew said. “You’ve never tasted that wine. It’s a dry white wine.”

“No, no, I tasted it.”

“What color was it?”

“Deep amber.”

“Wrong. It’s the color of pale yellow straw.”

Sylvie blanched. “I’m sure I drank it. I believe it was a 1985 vintage. Somewhere in the range of a thousand dollars a bottle at the time. Maybe it had turned color.”

Matthew sneered. “Bottles like that don’t turn.”

The door to the emergency room swung open and Urso marched in, rainwater dripping off his overcoat and hat. “Well, well, well. Here we are again, except this time it’s Matthew that’s bruised. I thought you had more brains.”

“Apparently, I don’t,” he joked.

Urso faced me. “What in the heck were you thinking, Charlotte?”

“How . . . What . . .” I stammered. I knew for a fact that neither Meredith nor my grandparents had called him. Nurse Nenette, who had reappeared and was hovering in the archway by the check-in counter, thumbed her chest and vehemently shook her head. I didn’t believe her for a second.

“Liberty Nelson is quite upset.” Urso removed his hat and ran a finger around the brim slowly. Ever so slowly. Not good. The move was a clear sign he was reining in his temper. “It seems Miss Nelson has video footage of a pair of upstanding Providence citizens breaking into her wine cellar.”

His words clanged in my head:
her
cellar, not
her
father’s.

I peeked at Matthew, who winced. We had been so concentrated on searching for Noelle’s footprints that we hadn’t searched for surveillance cameras. How stupid were we?

Urso clicked his tongue. “Miss Nelson asked me to arrest you two.”

“Liberty?” I said. “Not her father?”

“She hasn’t told him.”

Why not? I wondered. Did she have something to hide?

Adhering to the belief that a good offense was better than a good defense, I said, “How about you arrest her, instead? She attacked Matthew.”

Urso scoffed. “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”

“Did she admit to assaulting my cousin?”

“Quite the contrary. She was home reading
The Last Time I Saw Paris
when she heard wheels squealing on the pavement.”

How much did the woman read? With my schedule, I could barely manage to get in a couple of chapters of a good mystery each night.

“She told me she heard something, ran to the security room, and on the screen, saw two people sprinting from her place.”

More like hobbling from her place, but I didn’t correct him.

“Look, Charlotte, let’s talk straight. You broke into the Nelsons’ property. Care to tell me why, after our recent conversation at the pub?” Urso flattened a palm. “No, don’t bother. I’m taking you in.”

“But—”

“You broke into someone’s home.”

“Cellar.”

“A man’s castle,” he argued.

“U-ey, we think either Liberty or her father is hiding something. We think Noelle went there to investigate. The mud on her shoes”—I pointed to the gunk clinging to mine—“might have come from there. Possibly, she gleaned evidence and threatened to reveal the problem.”

“Did Miss Adams seem like a blackmailer to you?” he asked.

No, actually she didn’t, but she had said:
So much is at stake
.

“Chief Urso, please don’t arrest our aunt,” Clair said.

“Or our daddy,” Amy cried.

Urso released the tension in his shoulders. “It’s all right, girls. I’m not going to. Miss Nelson withdrew the request. She said these two”—he waggled a finger at Matthew and me—“were under such duress and not thinking straight, seeing as Miss Adams had been staying with your aunt and was a close friend of your father’s.”

I glowered at Urso. Why had he baited me? Better yet, why had Liberty Nelson forgiven us? Was she entirely innocent, or had she withdrawn charges to divert suspicion from herself? Or, more to the point, to keep her father from finding out the truth about her blind ambition?