"I guess," Baker said.
"So, Freddie and his cousin got along?"
Baker looked up from his wineglass. "What do you mean? Why wouldn't they?"
I paused, hesitating to repeat what I'd heard. "Well, Juliet's father just mentioned that they seemed to have a bit of a strained relationship."
He frowned. "Mr. Somersby said that?"
"In passing," I quickly covered, not wanting to seem as if I was spreading rumors. Which, clearly, I was.
But Baker just shrugged again. "I don't know. I never saw anything."
"Well, I couldn't help but notice that Natalie was teasing Freddie quite a bit at the rehearsal," I pointed out.
Baker blinked at me behind his thick lenses. "Sure. But that's just what family does, right? Rib each other?"
"So none of the ribbing had any merit?"
"Like what?" Baker asked with a sardonic laugh.
David shot me a questioning look over the rim of his glass. The smile on his face said he was enjoying watching this little interrogation play out.
"Well," I said, choosing my words carefully, "Natalie was teasing Freddie about finally settling down. Was he a bit of a ladies' man?"
Baker narrowed his eyes at me and pursed his lips, seemingly taking his time to figure out how to answer that one. Finally he settled on, "Freddie was no saint. He was a good looking guy. Charming. Women were drawn to that. So, yeah, sure, he'd been with a few women. In the past. But believe me when I tell you that he only had eyes for Juliet. She changed everything for him."
Something flitted behind Baker's eyes with that last statement, but before I could read what it was, he lifted his glass, obscuring his expression from view. Suddenly I wondered if the best man wasn't a little jealous of Freddie and Juliet's relationship. If he'd been that tight with Freddie since high school, he might not have been thrilled at now becoming a third wheel.
"You're sure Freddie never had interest in another woman?" I asked, thinking back to the way his eyes had seemed magnetically drawn to Ava at the rehearsal. "Freddie and Juliet never maybe argued about other women? Even ones in the past?"
But Baker shook his head. "No, the only ex they ever argued about was Juliet's."
"Juliet, the fiancée?" David clarified, playing catch-up. "She had an ex-boyfriend in the mix?"
Baker nodded, shifting his gaze from David to me. "Yeah. Surely someone told you about him?"
I shook my head. "No. Why would they?"
Baker let out a sarcastic laugh again. "Well, because the guy attacked Freddie just hours before he died."
"What?" This was news to me. "Did you tell this to the police?"
He nodded. "Sure. I told that detective all about it. That the guy hit Freddie at the rehearsal dinner."
That was one key detail Grant hadn't shared with me earlier. Though, whether it made Juliet look more or less guilty, I wasn't sure. "What happened?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Well, the guy showed up at the restaurant just as we were finishing dinner. He said he needed to speak to Freddie. Then the two went outside. Freddie was gone for awhile, so I went out to see what was up."
"And what was up?" David asked, leaning an elbow on the bar.
"He and Freddie were going at it outside."
"You mean they were arguing?" I clarified.
Baker nodded. "Loudly."
"About what?" David asked.
But he just shrugged again. "I don't know. By the time I got there, they were already in each other's faces. And the next thing I knew, the ex hauled off and hit Freddie. I had to pry them apart before someone got seriously hurt."
"And Freddie didn't tell you what it was about afterward?" I pressed.
Baker shook his head. "No. Just said the guy had a jealous streak and a lot of nerve. Said he didn't want to talk about it more than that. He didn't want the guy to ruin his wedding."
Which was understandable. "Did Freddie tell Juliet?"
Baker frowned. "I don't know. I mean, by the time anyone else came outside, the guy was gone."
"You get a name for the ex?" David asked.
Baker squinted up at the ceiling. "Jason? Jackson? Something with a J." He looked back at me. "Sorry, I don't remember. But I'm sure the police are looking into it."
I was sure they were too. But what lens they were filtering it through was another story. If Grant was sure Juliet had something to do with Freddie's death, his fight with a jealous ex-lover could have been the catalyst that pushed her over the edge.
CHAPTER SIX
"Well, it sounds like our Emmy's got another little mystery on her hands," David Allen said once we'd packed Baker and the haul of wedding gifts into his car and sent him back to town.
"What I have on my hands," I said as I watched Baker's taillights disappear down the oak-lined drive, "is a cancelled ceremony and a grieving wedding party. That's it."
"Really." One of David's eyebrow rose into his thick, dark hair.
"Really!" I told him emphatically.
"Then what was all that probing about the victim's cousin? What was her name, Natalie?"
I shrugged. "Nothing."
"Not buyin' it, Oak," he told me with a grin.
"I was just asking a few questions. That's all." I paused. "The police think the bride did it."
David nodded, as if agreeing with that assessment. "It usually is the wife. I guess she's the closest thing in this instance."
"Yeah, but I just think Juliet is innocent. For starters, she was crazy in love with Freddie."
"Crazy people do crazy things," David noted.
"Not that kind of crazy. She was devoted to him. No"—I shook my head—"I just can't see her doing this."
"Okay, so who can you see doing it?" David asked.
I opened my mouth to answer then realized he'd caught me. "Nice try. Like I said, it's not my mystery. I'm not getting involved."
David grinned. "Sure."
"What are you doing up here anyway?" I asked, putting my hands on my hips.
He gave me a look of mock innocence. "What? I can't come have a friendly drink with my favorite vintner?"
"Hmmm." I narrowed my eyes, giving him a noncommittal answer to that one. Mostly because I wasn't ever sure what David's definition of friendly was. I knew his name and family's social status opened just about any door in Wine Country, and I knew that he had acquaintances he often card sharked in the back rooms of the local golf club, and I knew he had family doing a stint in the state prison. But I'd yet to meet any of David's "friends." Which always made me wary when he used the word in conjunction with me.
"Maybe another time," I told him. "I've got to return Ava's car." I gestured to her GTO still sitting in the lot, bathed now in the pale pink hues of the setting sun just off the horizon.
"Cool. Meet you there," David said with a decisive nod toward the car.
"That wasn't exactly an invitation," I protested.
But David was already heading toward the white Rolls Royce he drove while his mother was off on an extended trip to Belize. "You bring the wine, and I'll pick up a pizza," he called over his shoulder.
I might have protested, but as my stomach growled at the thought of a hot, melty slice of pizza, I realized I'd forgotten to eat lunch that day. And my Zinfandel did go great with pepperoni. Having reasoned away my wariness, I ducked back into the winery to grab my purse and a bottle of last year's Zin, and said good night to Conchita and Jean Luc.
Then I hopped into Ava's GTO, only mildly worried I'd put a scratch on her baby and put two decades of friendship to the test. Twenty careful minutes later, I parked in the small lot behind Silver Girl, slipping into a slot near the door designated for Resident.
When Ava had opened the custom jewelry shop, with the help of a small business loan from her parents, she'd been lucky enough to be able to rent the loft apartment above the shop as well. While it vied with my place for the title of "coziest" abode in Sonoma, it was comfortably furnished in a hand-me-down eclectic way that per
fectly suited her personality.
I gave a shave-and-a-hair-cut knock on the door, which was answered by Ava's voice calling from the other side.
"Come in! It's open!"
I did, pushing through it to find Ava and David already on her low burgundy sofa, a box of pizza open on the rattan coffee table in front of them. Ava sat with her long legs tucked up under her, and David had one arm casually draped across the back of the sofa and his legs splayed out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He reminded me of a cat, lounging in such a way that he'd staked his territory.
"I brought wine," I said, holding up the bottle as I shut the door behind me.
"You rock!" Ava told me. "Opener's in the kitchen. Want me to get it?"
"I can find it," I told her, taking the few steps to the right to enter her tiny kitchen that smelled faintly of mint tea and patchouli incense. Truth was, I was almost as familiar with her kitchen as I was with my own. And, thanks to our frequent girls' nights where we binge-watched 90s rom com movies with a bottle of rosé, finding her corkscrew was an easy task.
I quickly opened the Zinfandel and joined the other two in the living room again just in time to hear the tail end of their conversation.
"…punched him before Baker could break it up," David said, obviously filling her in on what Baker had told us at the winery.
"Whoa," Ava said around a bite of pepperoni. "Interesting timing, right? I mean, the guy hits Freddie. Then the next morning he winds up dead."
"Or a coincidence," I said, grabbing a slice and sitting on the leather armchair opposite them. "Remember, Edward Somersby said Natalie and Freddie fought too."
"Yeah, but did she punch him?" Ava asked.
I shrugged. "Doubtful?"
"I'd love to know what the fight was about," David mused, chewing thoughtfully. "Freddie and the ex. You think it was over Juliet?"
"That would be kind of romantic," Ava said. "You know, like Colin Firth and Hugh Grant fighting over Bridget Jones."
"I'm sorry, call me old-fashioned, but bloodshed is never romantic," I said.
"Old-fashioned," David replied, goading me.
I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him. Mostly because I'd just taken a big bite of gooey pizza.
"What I'd love to know," Ava cut in, "is who the ex is." She wiped her fingers on a napkin bearing the pizzeria's logo and pulled out her phone. "Baker give up a name on the ex?"
"I think he said Jason," I told her.
"Or Jackson," David added. "He wasn't totally sure."
"Right," I agreed. "But something with a J."
I watched as Ava pulled up one of Juliet's social media pages, quickly clicking through to her friends list, and moved to look over her shoulder. She typed Jason in, but no one in her list showed up as having that name. Ditto Jackson.
"Maybe they're not friends anymore. She could have purged him. I mean, he was her ex," I pointed out.
"Maybe," Ava said. Then she switched to a screen that displayed all of Juliet's uploaded photos. "But maybe she didn't delete all the photos of him on her timeline."
She quickly scrolled through the past year or so, slowing when she got to older pictures that predated her meeting of Freddie.
I felt my heart clench as I saw dozens of pictures of Juliet's smiling face—at family functions, hanging out with friends, goofing off on vacations. She seemed so happy and joyful that I could hardly stand to think of her holed up at the B&B, grieving the death of her husband-who-would-never-be.
"There!" David said, stabbing a finger at the phone.
Ava stopped scrolling, pausing at a photo of Juliet and another man. His face was partially obscured by the camera angle, but he appeared to be giving Juliet a kiss on the cheek as she took a selfie.
"This was posted on Valentine's Day," David said, pointing to the date. "If she was seeing anyone at the time, it's gotta be this guy."
"Nice," Ava said, giving David a wide smile. "I'm impressed."
David did a mock bow at the compliment.
Ava hovered over the man's face, and a tag popped up displaying his name. Justin Hall.
"Justin!" I said triumphantly. "That's got to be our J guy."
Ava typed his name into the search bar and immediately got a hit, clicking through to his social media page.
As soon as she did, a photo of the man's face appeared, and I felt my heart leap up into my throat. "I know him!"
Both David and Ava turned to look at me.
"I mean, I don't know-know him, but I've seen him before."
"Where?" Ava asked.
"At Juliet's wedding." I thought back, remembering the man who'd bumped into me just before the ceremony had been scheduled to start. I'd taken his attachment to his phone for typical millennial fare then, but in hindsight he'd seemed distinctly distracted. Antsy, even. Though, now that I thought back, he hadn't any reason to be yet—the ceremony hadn't been delayed at that point. I told as much to Ava and David.
"You think maybe he was anxious because he had just killed Freddie?" Ava asked.
"I-I don't know about that. It feels like a leap," I hedged, looking at the photo of Justin Hall again. He looked about the same age as Freddie'd been, but while Freddie was classically tall, dark, and handsome, Justin had a rough-around-the-edges feel to him—his dirty blond hair a little on the shaggy side, the angles of his jaw harder set, and the look in his eyes speaking of a rougher life than Jaguars and champagne.
"What was he even doing there?" David asked. "I mean, I can't imagine inviting my ex to my wedding."
"I can't imagine you having a wedding," I joked.
"Ouch." David put this hand over his heart in mock hurt. "I'm a very romantic guy." He paused, sending a wink Ava's way. "Once given the chance."
I narrowed my eyes. Was David flirting with Ava? I watched as she laughed in response, swatting David playfully on the arm. They certainly seemed chummy.
"But you have a point," Ava said, pointing at the photo again. "What was Justin doing there? He'd just beat up the groom the night before—I can't imagine Freddie being too happy to see him there."
"Maybe he wasn't happy. Maybe they fought again, and this time Baker wasn't there to break it up," David said, stabbing a finger in the air to make his point.
"I don't know," I said, staring at the photo again. "Maybe Juliet invited him. Maybe they broke up on good terms?"
"Or maybe," David countered, "he was still in love with her and was there to stop the wedding. By offing the groom."
"It says here he's an artist," Ava noted, scrolling through his profile. She looked up at David. "Ever run into him at the gallery?"
I knew David often showed his work at the Salavence Gallery downtown. I'd been there on one or two occasions, and while the art was interesting, the price tags were way out of my range.
But David shook his head. "Sorry. Don't recognize him. But I do know that studio space he rents," he said, pointing to a post mentioning a piece for sale at the Art Initiative. "It's just off Broadway."
"Maybe we should check it out," Ava said, her eyes gleaming with a dangerously mischievous light I'd come to dub her Charlie's Angels Look. Whenever she got that look in her eyes, I knew she was envisioning the two of us as hot television detectives with cool cars and feathered bangs. Me? That look had my mind filled with visions of the two of us explaining ourselves to security guards, Lucy and Ethel style.
"No. No checking it out," I decided.
"But don't you want to know what really happened to Freddie?" Ava prodded. "I mean, it did happen at your winery."
"Thanks for the reminder," I mumbled. "And yes, I do want to know what happened, but I'm sure Grant will get to the bottom of it."
"We're still seeing him, huh?" David asked, his tone losing some of its mocking lightness.
"I'm not seeing him," I protested, feeling my cheeks heat. "I mean, I saw him. Once."
"How'd he look?" Ava sent me a wink.
I rolled my eyes. "You two are childre
n, you know that?"
"Then indulge the children, and let's go talk to Justin Hall, huh?" Ava said. "Just talk."
"Please, Mommy, can we, please?" David teased, clasping his hands in a pleading motion.
I sucked in a big breath and was very proud of myself that I didn't call David any of the dirty names running through my head.
"Just talk?" I repeated to Ava.
Ava nodded. "Promise."
"Fine, I'm outnumbered anyway," I mumbled.
Ava clapped. David grinned.
I shoved more pizza into my mouth. I needed all the fortification I could get with these two.
* * *
After we'd finished off an entire pepperoni pizza and half a ham and pineapple, along with the bottle of Zin I'd donated to the evening, we all hopped into David's borrowed Rolls, and ten minutes later we were parked in front of a post-industrial warehouse in a gentrified area of the city. The old building had been converted into a space for commercial businesses, and various shop signs lined the sidewalk in front of it. I walked past a smoothie bar, a used bookstore, and a yoga studio before spotting the Art Initiative mentioned on Justin's social media.
As David had explained to us on the way over, it was a small studio that rented out space to several artists to create and show their works, sort of like a co-op. It was open to the general public, but most of the artists in residence were small time, not big enough to warrant their own showings in a proper gallery yet. As we pushed inside, the scents of turpentine, acrylic paint, and clay hit my nostrils, along with the slightly musty smell of old pipes and reclaimed wood.
A woman with purple hair stood in front of a large, floor to ceiling canvas, throwing splatters of paint at it in seemingly random patterns, and in another corner a man in a pair of stained jeans was molding a piece of clay on a potter's wheel. And against the far wall, I spotted the shaggy blond-haired guy in Juliet's photo, Justin Hall, paintbrush in hand as he carefully applied minute details to a canvas.
"Can I help you?" the purple-haired woman asked, having noticed our arrival.
"Uh, we're just here to look around," I said hesitantly, eyes going to the many canvases lining the walls in different styles, colors, and genres.
Marriage, Merlot & Murder (Wine & Dine Mysteries Book 4) Page 6