Ellen McKenzie 03-And Murder for Desser (8 page)

Chapter Seven

Frozen, I stared down at Otto, or what had once been Otto. The sound of the French doors opening and the scrape of footsteps defrosted me quickly.

“Ellie? What’s going on? Sabrina?” Dan’s voice was merely curious.

“Don’t come over here!” Sabrina jumped between Dan and the railing.

“Why?” Dan caught her by the shoulders and gently moved her aside. “Okay, Ellie. What’s wrong?”

“Oh, lots. Look down there.”

“Son of a—How did he get in that tank?”

“How would I know?”

“Sabrina?” Dan asked.

“I don’t know.” Her hands flew to her face, and she gasped. “The dessert. It’s time to serve. Damn that Otto. I just knew he meant to ruin everything.”

“I doubt if he meant to do it by dying,” Dan said.

“Are you sure he’s dead?” But I knew better.

“Am I—Come on, Ellie. Look at the man.”

I already had.

“I need to call it in. Sabrina, I need Mark’s office. That one?” He pointed toward one of the closed doors. She nodded. “You two, stay here. No, don’t stay here. Come with me.”

“Dan. Don’t call it in yet.” Sabrina was almost in tears. “Let me finish the dinner. This will ruin everything.”

“Sabrina, the man is dead. And something about the dent in his head makes me think he didn’t jump. I am a cop, remember? What’s more, I am the Chief. Come on.”

Sabrina and I followed Dan back through the dining room. I rolled my eyes at Aunt Mary as we passed our table. She started to push back her chair but I shook my head at her, and she stopped. She looked puzzled and a little alarmed. Exactly how I felt. It was clear Dan didn’t think Otto had hit himself on the head and then jumped into the wine tank, which left murder, and that meant a long and uncomfortable night.

“In here?” Dan asked Sabrina, pushing open one of the doors.

“Yes. Can you at least ask them not to come with sirens blaring?”

A reasonable request, I thought, but Dan didn’t respond.

“You two, don’t move. And if anyone asks you any questions, don’t answer. I’ll be right back.” He closed the office door behind him.

“Sabrina.” It was Larry Whittaker. “We’ve cleared all the plates, and I think we should serve the dessert, but I can’t find Otto.”

“Oh, Lord,” Sabrina said faintly.

“Is something wrong?” The anxious look he’d worn when Otto was having his temper tantrum in the kitchen had returned.

“Why don’t you go ahead,” I said. “I’m sure Otto won’t mind.” I was more than sure. I was positive.

“How true,” murmured Sabrina. “Go on, Larry. Serve it.”

“If you’re sure.” Larry looked doubtfully from one of us to the other.

“I’m sure,” Sabrina told him. “Very sure.”

“All right.” He started to leave, stopped, and turned back. “What are you doing out here? Ellen, I really want you to try this dessert. Aren’t you going back to your table?”

“Oh, yes. It’s just that Dan had to make a phone call. I’m waiting for him.”

“Oh. Well, all right.” He finally left, and we could hear muffled voices and clinking plate noises from the room next to the kitchen. Almost immediately, the first waiter appeared with a loaded tray.

Dan appeared at the same time, almost knocking the waiter down.

“What are they doing?”

“Serving the dessert. You aren’t going to let any of those people go until your minions arrive and you’ve had a chance to question them. They might as well be happy until then.”

He scowled and started to say something, thought better of it, and nodded. “Not a bad idea. People have a tendency to leave if they think they’re going to get mixed up in something unpleasant.”

“And you think this is going to be unpleasant?”

“It already is. Come on. Let’s go revisit the folks at our table.”

***

Full dessert plates, dessert wine, coffee, and Larry were waiting for us.

“I couldn’t wait to see how you like this. It’s my own creation.”

I had no choice but to take a mouthful of rich, yummy, unwanted dessert. Mousse, made of both light and dark chocolate, rested on a bed of raspberry sauce, topped with fresh raspberries surrounded by tiny green leaves. Any other time I would have been in ecstasy. Now, I could hardly swallow it.

“It’s wonderful. Best I’ve ever eaten.” I hoped he’d go away, or at least stop leaning over the back of my chair. Sabrina was directing the waiters, helping to pour coffee, and smiling at guests who kept stopping her. I didn’t know how she did it. Maybe reality hadn’t set in yet. It had for me. My hand was shaking as I picked up my coffee cup.

“What’s the matter with you?” asked Aunt Mary.

“Nothing,” I said, switching to Muscat Canelli. “Nothing at all.”

“Oh, yes, there is, and you’d better tell me. Dan, what’s going on? What are those sirens?”

“We have a little problem.” Dan now had the attention of everyone at our table. “It seems that Otto has met with a mishap. The sirens are the ambulance and my police.”

“Mishap?” asked Ian Applby. “What kind of mishap?”

“Ambulance? He’s hurt?” Mark asked.

“Apoplexy. I knew it would happen some day,” said Frank, holding up the wine to the light.

“Counn.” Jolene paused, refocused on her wineglass, and managed to connect with it, then tried again. “Couldn’t happen to a better guy. Appa, appoploxy. Appaplexy?”

Mr. Applby pulled away from Jolene a little; his face a careful blank. Carlton waited to move in.

“Now, we don’t know yet what happened,” he told Jolene, in one of those condescending “let’s not upset the little woman” tones. He turned to Dan, fake concern in his voice. “I hope he’s going to be all right?”

“Actually, no,” Dan said. “He’s bobbing around out in the fermenting tank, dead. You’re all going to have to stay here while we try and find out who helped him into it.”

“The fermenting tank? My fermenting tank? No. He can’t; he wouldn’t,” Mark said. He looked horrified. He started to push his chair back, but Dan, who was already on his feet, put his hand gently on Mark’s shoulder, forcing him back down.

“I doubt if it was Otto’s idea,” he said, shedding the last of his party demeanor and putting on his official deadpan expression. “It’s time for me to go to work.”

The sirens, which had gotten very loud, stopped. The room filled up with uniforms. The other guests started to get up, panic and excitement in their voices. Dan walked to the end of the room, in front of the French doors, and in a commanding voice explained to the crowd that there had been an accident, and, if they would all be patient, someone would come around to each table to get their names and phone numbers. They would need to know where each person was sitting, and would they all please hold themselves available for questioning.

“Why?” someone called out.

“We always need to place our witnesses,” was his cryptic reply.

“What does that mean?” I asked Aunt Mary.

“I have no idea,” she said.

“Otto dead!” Once more Larry made me jump. He had taken Dan’s chair, and I hadn’t even noticed.

“Who will take over the restaurant? Or the bed and breakfast? Our grand opening dinner is scheduled for a week from Saturday. Jolene was staying with us just so she could cover it.”

“S’right,” Jolene acknowledged.

Aunt Mary eyed Jolene a little quizzically. “You’re staying there, aren’t you?”

“S’right,” Jolene said again.

Aunt Mary and I looked at each other. She raised one eyebrow, and I shrugged. I thought they hated each other. Evidently Aunt Mary did also.

“Grand opening?” Frank sounded surprised. “I didn’t realize Otto had come so far. Hmm. That soon.”

“I suppose I could do it.” Larry was sitting rigidly upright. “I do most of the prep anyway, and I know all Otto’s recipes. What do you think, Ellen? Do you think I could?”

How would I know what you can do, I wanted to snap. Last time I saw you, we were trying to figure out how to do geometry. And how could he talk about cooking when his employer was bizarrely dead in a wine tank?

“This will not do the winery any good,” Ian Applby said. “This kind of publicity, good God. Think of the headlines. And the TV cameras! Somehow we’ve got to keep them away. Sabrina. That should be her job.”

“Where is Sabrina?” Carlton jumped right in. “She should be here, taking charge.”

“The police seem to be doing a good job of that,” Mark said. Stress lines were deepening around his mouth by the minute.

“Still, Sabrina should be here, doing something.”

“Shut up, Carlton.” I gaped in amazement. I had never in my life heard Aunt Mary use that phrase. But she had spotted Sabrina, and so had I. She was standing against the wall next to the kitchen, her expression terrified, her eyes teary, watching a grim-faced Dan come through the French doors. He carried the empty champagne bottle, dripping red wine, on the end of a pencil, and headed straight toward her.

Chapter Eight

Voices seeped through my sleep-soaked brain. A dog barked. Someone shushed it. The phone rang. Someone quickly picked it up. I turned over and pulled the pillow over my head. It didn’t do any good. I was awake.

I rolled back and looked at the clock. Seven o’clock. On a Sunday morning I didn’t want to face. Last night had been horrible. Police all over the place, asking questions, taking notes. Dan put on his official face and hid behind it until, somewhere around two o’clock, he seemed to run out of questions and let us go. Frank had taken Aunt Mary home earlier, so it was Mark, Sabrina, and me. None of us had said anything; there was nothing more to say. We all climbed the stairs, fell into bed and, in my case, instantly fell asleep. But the sun was up, so were Mark and Sabrina, and I had better be also. Sighing, I slipped on my long terrycloth robe, knotted the sash, and headed for the kitchen.

Coffee. Fresh made. An omen. Probably the only good one this day would offer, but I was prepared to take it. I paused long enough to let Jake out the front and shove Paris out the back before joining the others in the kitchen.

Mark was on the phone, running his fingers through his hair, and pacing around the kitchen table where Sabrina sat staring into a mug. She looked up briefly as I entered, then again looked down. Her eyes were red and puffy, the way they get when you’re exhausted. Or when you’ve been crying.

“Okay. Pete is between crushes. I can use his? Great,” he said, jamming the phone into its cradle. He barely glanced at me as he said, “Hi, Ellen. See you.” The screen door slammed, then immediately reopened.

“Here. Keep this dog in until I leave, will you?” and he was gone. Paris immediately lay down in the middle of the kitchen floor.

“What was he talking about?” I asked, stepping over the dog to get to the coffeepot.

“He has grapes coming and no place to crush them. The police still have our crush pad, the tasting room, the whole damn winery shut down. Pete Brown over at Oak Valley is letting him use his pad. Mark’s been on the phone since five trying to find something.”

“They’re still there?” I asked, meaning the police, not the grapes. “When are they going to be through?”

“Who knows?”

“Who knows what?” The screen door slammed again and Aunt Mary sailed in.

“When Dan’s people will let everyone back into the winery. Coffee’s hot.” I pulled out a chair and sat across from Sabrina. Aunt Mary took a mug off the hutch, filled it, stepped over the dog, and took up residence beside me.

“Why don’t you ask Dan?”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“You will,” Sabrina said grimly. “And soon.”

“How do you know that?” Aunt Mary asked.

“Because he thinks I killed Otto,” Sabrina said, letting gloom drip from every word. “Not that I wasn’t tempted. Only I would have waited until dinner was over. Now everything is ruined. Mark will probably be fired. I know I will be, and neither of us will ever work again.”

Aunt Mary and I looked at each other. I shrugged. She said, “That seems a little, well, dramatic, Sabrina. After all, none of last night was your fault.”

“Do you mean the murder?” Sabrina asked bitterly, finally looking up from her coffee cup, “or Frank’s sudden appearance. Or perhaps you’re talking about getting stuck with Jolene Bixby? Of all the luck. And then there’s that prize partner, Carlton Carpenter, telling everyone who’ll listen that Mark is a thief.”

I must have shown my surprise because Sabrina almost smiled. “Oh, we know what he’s saying. It’s not true, of course, but rumors can do as much damage as truth. More. And believe me, we know.”

“How? How do you know?” I paused, looked at Aunt Mary, who nodded encouragement, and proceeded to press my point. “What happened at the last winery; what was it?”

“Lighthouse,” supplied Sabrina.

“Right. What happened there that has everyone in a flap?”

“Nothing.” She looked down into her mug again, a light flush staining her cheeks. “But I’m sure Mr. Applby thinks something did, thanks to Carlton. And Otto. He never let up all night about how he was going to ruin Frank Tortelli and his whole family. I’ll be held responsible for all that. Going to jail might even be a relief after last night.” She put her head in her hands and groaned. A really good groan.

Something had happened at Lighthouse Winery, but I decided to ignore it, and Sabrina’s self-pity, for the moment, and instead picked up on something that interested me. “What do you mean, getting stuck with Jolene? I thought she was some hotshot wine and food writer.” I wanted to know about Frank, also, but Jolene and her relationship with Otto had me confused. I didn’t get an answer. Instead, the screen door slammed. This time it was Dan.

“Have you seen your front lawn?” he asked, reaching for a mug and emptying the pot. “You’re out of coffee.”

“What’s wrong with my front lawn?” I took the pot out of his hand and started to fill it with water. He didn’t answer right away, just handed me the coffee out of the refrigerator, topped his mug off with cream, and opened the cupboard next to the sink.

“The sugar is on the table. What’s wrong with my front lawn?”

“It’s full of reporters. Also, one TV truck, and I’m pretty sure I spotted another coming over the bridge.”

“Probably waiting to see you take me out in handcuffs,” Sabrina muttered.

“Dan, you’re not going to arrest her!” Aunt Mary exclaimed. “Why, you wouldn’t!”

“I’m only going to talk to her,” Dan said, his gaze steady on Sabrina’s face. “But, Ellie, if you want to save those pink flowers you’ve got out under the elm tree, you’d better get going.”

“What?” I almost yelled. “My petunias. What are they doing to my petunias?”

“Walking on them.”

“Oh. Oh!” I headed for the front door, Aunt Mary right behind.

Dan was right. There were people milling around on the sidewalk, chatting with each other, scribbling something in notebooks, peering through camera lenses toward my front door. No one was in my flower bed, but that looked temporary. I reached for the front door handle.

“You can’t go out there.” Aunt Mary grabbed my hand.

“Why not? It’s my lawn they’re on.”

“Because you’re not dressed. Look at you.”

She was right. No one was going to see me in this disgusting old robe.

“Stay here and keep an eye on them. The first one steps in my flowers, let him have it.”

“With what? And what are you going to do?”

“Get dressed. Yell at them. Threaten them. Tell them we have the police chief in the kitchen and we’ll turn him loose on them. Sic Paris on them.”

“Nothing would make that dog happier than to pose for pictures. He’d probably end up on every news broadcast from here to Atlanta.” She looked down at the dog. He looked back, his tongue rolling out of the side of his mouth. Aunt Mary sighed. “Go on, get dressed. I’ll stand here and watch.”

I ran up the stairs, pulled back the bedroom curtain to get a better view of the slowly building group, said a really good four-letter word, pulled on some pants and a tee shirt, ignoring my hair and abandoning any thought of makeup. I had reached the bedroom door when I remembered what Aunt Mary had said. Pictures. Newspapers from here to Atlanta. That certainly included Southern California. I knew people down there. Brian and his girlfriend lived down there. Damn. Back to the bathroom I went, ran a comb through my hair, checked the mirror to make sure I didn’t look as beat-up as I felt, and raced back down.

“They aren’t doing much,” Aunt Mary observed. “And they’re staying on the sidewalk.”

“Hmm. Well, I guess we can go finish our coffee. But we had better keep checking. I can’t believe all this. Why are they here, anyway?”

“I told you.” Sabrina was sitting alone at the table. “They think they’re going to see the murderer, me, come out the front door in handcuffs.”

“Where’s Dan?” I asked.

“Gone.” No basset hound in the world ever looked sadder. “He said what he had to say and left.”

“He left?” I asked. His empty mug, still sitting on the table, was proof she was right.

“What are you talking about?” Aunt Mary asked. She walked over to the table and took a closer look at Sabrina. “Have you eaten this morning?”

“Eaten?” She looked as if she’d forgotten what that meant. “No.”

“No wonder your nerves are frazzled. Ellen, do you have any juice?”

“In the refrigerator. What did Dan say?”

“I don’t want any juice. That my fingerprints are on the gate latch.”

“You’re having some anyway.” Aunt Mary put a full glass of apple juice in front of her. “Drink. Now. Did you touch the gate? You must have. When?”

Sabrina drank. She finished half the glass before she answered. “Right before I saw Otto in the tank. I was on the cellar floor collecting empty glasses. I remembered I’d left a dirty dish tray on the deck.” She paused. “Remember, Ellen? We set it down on the deck when we moved the table, and I forgot to take it inside.”

I thought back and nodded.

“And then what?” pressed Aunt Mary. She put a glass of juice in front of me, also, and headed for the stove with what was left of my bacon.

“I walked up the ramp past the crush pad and over the lawn onto the deck. The gate was slightly open, so I put the glasses on the tray and went over to close it. That’s when I saw him.”

“But,” Aunt Mary said, looking puzzled, “that’s not enough to arrest someone.” She turned down the fire under the frying pan and faced us. “Besides, what about other prints? Surely lots of people have opened that gate.”

“Evidently mine were the only ones.”

“Aunt Mary’s right. That’s not enough to arrest anyone. But it is odd.” I thought back. Had either Dan or I touched the gate? I couldn’t remember. “What else did Dan say?”

“That the champagne bottle wasn’t the one that hit Otto on the head.”

“Sabrina, if you don’t stop this and tell us everything, I’m going to do a little head bopping of my own.” I didn’t bother to hide my irritation. My nerves were starting to go fast. Murder, reporters, my niece a possible suspect; the smell of cooking bacon was the only normal thing about this whole morning.

Sabrina actually smiled. “You sound just like my mother.”

There was nothing to smile about in that statement. “I have never sounded like your mother. How do you know it wasn’t the champagne?”

“They’ve already done some tests. No blood or tissue on it.”

By tissue, I assumed they meant part of Otto’s skull. Yuck. “Then what was he hit with, and how did he get into the tank?”

“That’s what Dan asked me.” One look at my face and she hastily went on. “He thinks it was another wine bottle. He was asking me questions about how we track the wine we pour, and what we do with the empty bottles.”

“What do you do with them?” asked Aunt Mary. The bacon was out of the pan and draining on paper towels. My last four eggs were about to be scrambled.

“Put them back in the case boxes. They aren’t corked anymore, so we know they’re empty. We count them later. It’s the same system we use at tastings. We know how many bottles we start out with, what varietals, so we know how many bottles of wine we used.”

“So you’d know if a bottle was missing?”

“Sure. We have to keep close tabs on our inventory. Alcohol, and wine is alcohol, is something the government takes seriously, and we have to report all sales.”

“Okay,” I said. “So how would you go about finding a missing bottle?” I thought for a minute. “Or, more to the point, if you were a murderer, where would you stash a bottle you just used to bash in someone’s head?”

“Well, you wouldn’t drop it casually in the dumpster,” said Aunt Mary. “Ellen, can you get some plates?”

I got up, went to the hutch and took down three. I also took out the toaster. She started serving eggs and bacon. “Do you have any more of that apricot jam I made? And make some fresh coffee. We’re going to need it.”

We were all back at the table, munching, before she returned to the wine bottle. “Could you wash a bottle off and put it back in the box?”

“I’ve no idea,” said Sabrina. She laid down her fork, her eggs barely tasted. “All I know is I had nothing to do with Otto’s death, and neither did Mark.”

“Mark?” I asked. “Who said anything about Mark?”

I glanced over at Aunt Mary, who was looking at Sabrina with a puzzled expression. “What makes you think Mark might have done it?”

Sabrina lifted her chin indignantly, a great gesture spoiled because her eyes met neither of ours. “I don’t think anything of the kind.” She put more jam on her toast, looked down at it, then fed it to Paris. “But that dreadful Otto kept saying things, ‘like father like son,’ and Carlton kept dropping nasty comments about Mark, so he could be—” She stopped and looked around helplessly.

“A suspect?” I finished.

“No one in their right mind would suspect either one of you.” Aunt Mary picked up Sabrina’s plate, looked at the food left on it, shook her head a little, picked up her own empty one, and put them both in the sink. She watched the coffee slowly dripping into the pot, then turned and headed back for the table, almost tripping on Paris, who had followed her, evidently hoping for more leftovers. I thought she was going to grab his collar to pull him out of the way, but she walked around him and sank heavily into her chair.