Ellen McKenzie 03-And Murder for Desser (20 page)

Chapter Twenty-four

I didn’t make it home until six o’clock. I stumbled into the house, exhausted and grumpy. Jake was equally grumpy, telling me loudly that dinner was late, and he didn’t deserve to be treated that way. No message from Dan; although my darling daughter, Susannah, had left one, suggesting gently that college was expensive, and could I possibly make a deposit into her account. I sighed, made a note to do so, reached for the wine bottle, poured a glass, and started rummaging through the papers I throw into the drawer under the phone. I had Mark and Sabrina’s new number somewhere, and chances were better than good that it was floating loose, mixed up with the old grocery receipts. I hadn’t heard from anyone since we all split up at the police station. Mark, Frank, and Aunt Mary, with Sabrina in tow, her attorney right behind them, left for their house; I headed to the office. Larry took off for destinations unknown, and I was anxious to know what was happening. The number refused to be found, so I dialed Aunt Mary. I was in luck. She was home and alone.

“How’s Sabrina?”

“Asleep, finally,” she answered. She sounded exhausted as well. “Frank called Dr. Sadler, who got a sedative down her. The poor girl was ready to fall apart.”

“Yeah.” Sabrina didn’t seem to fall apart very easily, unless it had something to do with Mark. This time, however, she had a great excuse. “Tell me what happened. Everything you know.” I had confidence it would be a lot.

“You know Carlton wanted a case of wine.”

“Yes. We covered all that. What happened after she got there?” I pulled a chair from the kitchen table and sat, but immediately got back up. I’d been sitting all day and was way too distraught to do any more of it. Besides, cordless phones were meant for pacing.

“The door was closed when she got there, and she had a hard time getting in. I guess those boxes are heavy.”

I could personally attest to that. “So, she managed to get in the door. Then what happened?”

“She called out, but no one answered. She says she started to get mad and almost left the box on that table in Carlton’s little front office but decided to go into his personal office in case he was on the phone or something. The door was slightly open, and his chair was turned away toward the window. She called out to him, but he didn’t answer. She put the case down on his desk and walked around to look at him, ready to ask what kind of sick game, her words, he thought he was playing, and that was when she saw the knife.”

“It was still in him?” I asked. “Yuck.”

“My sentiments exactly. She said she pulled it out.”

“No!” This time I was really stunned. Didn’t she watch TV? Read mysteries? Besides, how could she? “Why would she do such a thing?”

Aunt Mary sighed, long and hard. There might have been a few tears hovering in the back of that sigh. “She says at first she didn’t realize he was dead. Her only thought was to get that thing out of him and get him some help. Only, he didn’t move. She says the shock was so great she just froze, and then Larry came in.”

“Anything else?” I asked.

“No. I think that covers it. Oh, one more thing.”

“What?”

“Frank got her a lawyer.”

“I know. I saw him. That man in the silver suit who looks like he belongs on ‘The Sopranos.’”

“Light gray,” she said.

“What?”

“His suit, light gray. Yes. Jim De Marco, I think his name is. Anyway, he says there must be a big hole in Dan’s case somewhere, or he would never have let her go without booking her.”

That I had to think about. “What kind of hole?”

“Mr. De Marco had no idea, nor do I,” she answered. “I’m just so grateful she’s not in jail, I’m not even thinking about why.”

I was. “So, if Sabrina didn’t do it, who did?” I picked up the wine bottle while I waited for her to say something. Should I? After the day I’d had? Absolutely.

“I don’t know,” she finally said. “I can’t even imagine.”

“Of course you can. There’s only one real motive for killing Carlton. He had to have seen something the night of the dinner. He was up by the kitchen; he went up the back stairs; he was roaming all over the place looking for someone to bore. Also, Carlton was a bit short of money. Put that together and it says blackmail to me. Someone didn’t want to play.”

“And you’re going to try to find out who that someone is,” she stated, rather grimly. “Ellen Page McKenzie, I forbid it. Two people have gotten killed already. Three is not a good round number.”

“All I’m going to do is make a few phone calls,” I told her, trying to be as matter-of-fact as possible, “get a little background. Help Dan move this whole mess along. It can’t be Sabrina, it just can’t. Besides, if I don’t do something, I’m going to have to call Catherine, and you know what that means.”

“Dan doesn’t want your help. He wants you alive and well, not laid out on a mortuary slab.”

“He doesn’t want Catherine storming into the police station either, yelling and screaming and generally creating havoc.”

“No, I suppose he doesn’t. Well, all right. If you limit it to phone calls and give any information you get to Dan immediately. But I don’t know what you expect to find out that he can’t, faster and better.”

Me either, but I was going to try. After all, I’d found out about Jolene. With another promise to limit my investigations to phone calls, I hung up. I had only one problem. Who was I going to call, and how was I going to get them to talk to me?

Chapter Twenty-five

The next morning Jake and I sat at the kitchen table, me sipping coffee and making a list, him curled up in a chair, reveling in the fact that we were dogless.

First, Mark and Sabrina. I had to be certain Sabrina hadn’t killed either Otto or Carlton. I was pretty sure the answer to that was somehow connected to Mark’s old job. So, I picked up the phone, called Information, and was soon talking to a sweet-voiced girl at Lighthouse Winery.

“This is Ellen McKenzie, and I’m representing the
Santa Louisa Gazette
.” I hate to lie, but sometimes, well, what are you gonna do. “We’re doing a story on Mark Tortelli, the new winemaker at Silver Springs Winery, and something’s come up about why he left Lighthouse. I wanted to verify my facts.”

There was a pause. “Do you mean the fight?”

Fight? Maybe that was exactly what I meant. Crossing my fingers, I said, “Yes, our facts are a little—mixed, and I wanted to make sure I got it right.”

“Well,” she drew this out, “the lawsuit isn’t settled, but I guess it’s all right for me to say that none of us here think Mark was at fault. The mistake about the missing wine turned out to be Giorgio’s fault, and he provoked Mark into hitting him.”

Oh boy. “So, the lawsuit? When will that be settled?” And who was suing whom?

“Soon, we hope. Now that Giorgio’s been fired, we’re hoping he’ll drop it, and then the assault and battery charge will also be dropped. Those charges are plain ridiculous.”

Assault and battery. No wonder Mark and Sabrina were nervous wrecks. “Is it true that Lighthouse fired Mark?” Talk about fishing, but some things were starting to make sense.

“Yes,“ she said, reluctance in her voice. “But I think the owners are real sorry now they understand what happened. Of course, nothing is settled yet.” There was a pause. “You’re not going to quote me, are you?”

I could hear her shut down, and there were still tons of questions I needed answered, but I had just run out of time.

“I’m sorry, Miss Mc—what did you say your name was?”

“McKnight,” I answered hurriedly, “and thanks for the information.”

I hung up and stared at the phone. Jake rubbed against me and purred. I picked him up, put him on the floor, and filled his dish, not really noticing what I was doing. Mark had been fired from Lighthouse because he was accused of stealing wine and getting into a fight with someone named Giorgio, who had to be someone important. The head winemaker? Perhaps. That was easy to find out. But what about this lawsuit? Was Giorgio suing Mark for battery? If so, I could well understand why the Tortellis would want to keep that quiet. No one would want a winemaker who beat up on other members of the staff; especially since I was pretty sure a conviction on such a charge meant jail time. Add the charge of theft, and Mark was a cinch to lose his job. Maybe Sabrina was right. It could cost him his career. But how did that connect with Otto? Easily. Otto hated all things Tortelli. The wine and food world, like so many specialty worlds, was small. Otto had contacts up north; it was more than likely he’d heard every detail, and would have been delighted to share them. Had Sabrina killed him because he threatened to tell Mr. Applby, and had Carlton seen, or heard, something that could prove her guilty? Damn. Sabrina had just landed right back on the chief suspect list, with Mark a close second. Now what did I do? Go to work. I had clients waiting.

Chapter Twenty-six

The morning started out pretty well. My new listing was going to be a winner; a young couple I had given up on resurfaced, down payment in hand, and wanted to start looking again. All the twists and tangles in my existing escrows seemed to be straightened out, for the moment anyway, and around eleven, I sat back and took a deep breath. Dan had finally left me a message on my voice mail suggesting dinner that night, his treat, and I was feeling a guarded relief, mixed with anxiety. I had to decide if I were going to tell him what I’d found out about Mark and his problems at Lighthouse Winery. I knew I should, but it felt a little like pushing Sabrina through the jail cell door. I wanted badly to get past this wall building between us. I’d put down the first course of bricks, but I wanted them torn down, not built higher. Only I didn’t know how to convince Dan of that, and not telling him what I knew wasn’t going to help. This evening was going to be tricky. I was contemplating all this when our secretary buzzed me.

“You have a client waiting for you.”

“I do?” I stammered. “I don’t have anything scheduled. Who is it?”

“He didn’t give a name. Shall I send him back?” It was obvious she wasn’t taking any blame for my ineptness.

“Sure.” I thumbed through my book quickly, wondering how I had missed an appointment. I hadn’t. I walked out of my cubicle, smile firmly fixed, hand ready, excuses forming, to find Larry.

“I hope you don’t mind my barging in like this.” He didn’t look any too sure of his reception. “I had to talk to you, so I took a chance. But if you’re busy…”

“I’m very busy. I’m really sorry, but I have clients in—ah—pretty soon and…”

“Oh. Well, could I talk to you until they come? It’s really important. It’s about the house.”

The house. The bed and breakfast house? He’d said that was why he went to Carlton’s office, to talk to him about the house. Maybe… “Okay. But it has to be short.”

“Can we go somewhere else?” he asked. “It’s sort of…not very…”

“Private?” I finished. “We are sort of crammed together. Let’s see if the conference room…no. Les is in there.”

“How about the Yum Yum?” Larry asked. His blond hair fell over his eyes, and he grinned, just like he had in high school. Very appealing. But not enough to get me to the Yum Yum with him. Dan and I had lunch there almost every day, or we used to, and I wasn’t about to feed the local gossip mill.

“How about the doughnut shop?” I gathered my purse, flung my jacket over my arm, and led the way to the door, not giving Larry any choice but to follow.

It took a few minutes to convince Larry I didn’t want a lemon doughnut, a maple stick, or a whipped cream-laden cappuccino, that plain coffee would be fine.

“What’s this about the house?” I finally asked, pointedly looking at my watch.

“I gave Otto the money to buy it. We were supposed to be partners. Only now everyone talks as if it belongs to Otto’s brother. My name should be on the papers somewhere, but I don’t know how to find out. You’re in real estate. Can you help me?”

I set my coffee mug down very carefully. I’m sure my jaw had dropped about a foot before I closed it and said, “You what?”

“I was a partner.” His hand rested quietly on his coffee mug. His eye didn’t twitch, and his smile was pure satisfaction. “It’s what I always wanted. We were going to be famous. Otto said so. Only he had to go and get himself killed.” He shook his head slightly at the folly of such an act. “Frank acts as if he owns the place, or he did until he lost interest. I don’t have any papers. I don’t know what to do. I thought Carlton could tell me, but he up and got himself murdered also.”

I didn’t really think either of them died to inconvenience Larry, but this didn’t seem like a good time to get into that. Instead, I tried to sort out the house thing. One step at a time. “Did you ever sign an offer?”

“You mean where everybody gets together and agrees on the price? No. Otto did all that. He’d come back and tell me what everyone said, and, if I thought it was all right, then he’d tell Carlton, and we’d go ahead. It all worked fine until Otto found out about the parking. But that worked out, too.”

I was beginning to feel a little light-headed. This was starting to smell like major fraud. “Larry, did you ever go into escrow, sign any paperwork there? Anywhere?”

“I signed something that said I was giving Otto the money. It’s called a gift letter. Otto said he needed it for the bank. That my name would be on the deed after the bank loaned the rest of the money.”

I was afraid to ask the next question, but I had to know. “How much money did you give Otto?”

“Five hundred thousand for the down payment on the house and another two hundred fifty thousand for the kitchen and other things. That wouldn’t be enough, but it got us started so we could open.” He stopped and grinned, as if at some private joke. “You know, my father left lots of money, and it all went to me. He’d have pitched a fit if he knew I was spending it on a restaurant and bed and breakfast. Too bad.”

If there had been any love between Larry and his father, I sure wasn’t feeling it. But that wasn’t my problem. However, the fact remained that Larry may have been—probably had been—royally swindled. I had only been a real estate agent a little over a year and nothing like this had come up. What had they said in real estate school? Had anything like this even been discussed? I couldn’t remember. I had to help him, but how? This was one problem Aunt Mary wasn’t going to solve. But Bo Chutsky, my all-knowing broker, could. I’d dump this in his more than capable, and more than ample, lap. However, Larry seemed to be off on another tangent.

“I don’t know what to do about Frank, either.”

“Frank?” I asked. “What about Frank?”

“He’s been strange, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Frank’s been acting strange. In what way?” I hadn’t seen any evidence of strange behavior from Frank. He looked tired, strained, and seemed to cover it up with effusiveness. He was also, in my opinion, genuinely worried about Mark and Sabrina and way too attentive to Aunt Mary. But none of that added up to strange.

“He came in like a tornado, started ordering new equipment for the kitchen, changed the menu I had set for our grand opening dinner, told me our breakfast ideas were all wrong and re-did all that, completely scratched all the wines I had chosen, and hired a new decorator to work on the bedrooms. You would have thought the place was really his. He even wanted to change the name.”

“I didn’t know it had a name,” I said. It was the only thing I could think to say.

“Oh, yes. Otto was going to call it Ottohaus.”

I almost strangled on my coffee trying not to laugh. When I was able, I asked, “What did Frank want to name it?”

“I don’t think he had decided. But that’s the point. He’s lost interest. He hasn’t even come in since Sunday, and when I ask him about Saturday’s dinner, he won’t answer me. I don’t understand it, and I don’t know what to do.”

Did Larry expect me to do something? I wondered. If so, I couldn’t imagine what. But it did seem strange; not at all like the Frank I thought I knew.

“I think he’s got bill collectors after him,” Larry said, his tone as black as a Halloween cat.

“What?” I asked, putting my coffee cup down too quickly and ignoring the resulting splash. “Frank?”

Larry nodded. He looked like one of those dolls with the loose necks you see in the back windows of cars. “I’ve overheard him on the phone. I think that’s why he sold his restaurant.”

“Are you sure? That’s a pretty damning thing to say about someone if it’s not true.”

“I’ve heard him talking to people about Tortelli’s, saying something about payments. Then another time I heard him talking about Otto. He hangs up or waits for me to leave the room if he thinks I’m listening.”

“I’m not surprised. Why is he talking about Otto?”

“I think he owed Otto money, maybe because of that recipe Otto was always screaming about. I think Frank sold the restaurant to pay Otto off and now that he’s dead, Frank’s getting his revenge by taking over the bed and breakfast. Only he’s going to ruin the dinner if he won’t pay attention.”

“If he had money from the sale of the restaurant, why would bill collectors be after him?” I asked, completely bewildered.

“Maybe he had to give all his money to Otto and didn’t have enough left to pay the bills.” He set his mug down and took a big mouthful of doughnut. Chocolate cream doughnut. The one I’d declined. Oh, well. “I don’t know exactly, maybe its something else,” he said when he could swallow again, “but something’s going on.”

Could any of this be true? If so, oh wow. Maybe Frank killed Otto to—what? Keep from paying him off? And Carlton had seen him, or something, and Frank knifed him to keep him quiet? He was a chef; knives were second nature to him. No wonder he looked so stressed and worried in the police station. Sabrina was about to be arrested for something he did. Mark wouldn’t like that one bit. Wait. I was jumping to conclusions. I didn’t know if any of this was true, from the sale of the restaurant to owing Otto money to murdering two people. I had to go slow, get more information. But it sure would be nice if we could move Sabrina down the suspect list a notch.

“What do you think?” Larry went on. “Should I go ahead, use my own judgment? That dinner has to be wonderful. We have people from half a dozen magazines coming; all of them scheduled to stay in our rooms. These people can make our reputation, or ruin it. It’s very important to make a good first impression.”

Probably true, but that didn’t interest me. Frank did. But I’d bled Larry dry. He didn’t know any more, and he really didn’t know much to begin with. As to Frank’s sudden indifference, I had nothing to offer. “You’ll work it out just fine. Remember, this is your big chance.”

“Yes, it is, isn’t it. I can do it. Thanks.”

Pleading my mythical client’s imminent arrival and telling him I’d consult with my broker about his real estate problem, I pushed back my chair and left. He was still sitting there, staring into his mug, as I stepped out into the street. Probably making up a new menu or something. I walked back to the office, my mind trying to sort out all of these new facts, and passed the Yum Yum. Who should be sitting in the window, heads close together, talking earnestly, but Frank and Jolene. They didn’t look up, and I was sure they hadn’t seen me, but I scurried by nonetheless. What were they doing together? His description of her had been less than flattering, and he’d make it plain that he meant to get rid of her. However, they didn’t look like mortal enemies just now. They looked like a couple of old friends, sharing a cup of coffee. I walked across the street and doubled back so I could take a second look. Yep. Heads together, talking intently, but it didn’t look as if Jolene’s claws were out, and Frank wasn’t showing any signs of giving her the old heave ho. What did that mean? I had no idea, and my slow walk back to the office didn’t produce one.

Sally, our receptionist, asked, “You all right?”

I forced a smile and said, “Pain in the butt client,” and headed for my desk. I sat down, stared at the blinking red light on the phone, and wondered what to do next.