A Food and Wine Club Mystery Boxset Books 1 through 5

by Cat Chandler

  “Hi. Didn’t expect to see you here.” His smile suddenly drooped as he looked through the open front door where the Chief was in plain view interviewing Rob. “Isn’t that your boyfriend the chief is talking to?”

  Nicki sighed and nodded. She had heard more than once, and from more than one person, about Danny’s crush on her. Another benefit of small-town life. Everyone knew everything about everyone else. “Yes. Chief Turnlow wanted to talk to Rob first.”

  “The chief said on the phone that it looked like someone had been murdered.” Danny glanced around the porch. “This is Ms. Dunton’s house. Is she dead? And don’t tell me you found the body?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Nicki sighed at Danny’s I-can’t-believe-it tone, but had hesitated a second before answering. She had no idea if Danny had a personal connection to Catherine Dunton or not.

  “She was a nice lady,” Danny said with sympathy but not sounding overly upset. He took another glance into the living room. “Is your boyfriend the main suspect?”

  Nicki rolled her eyes at the hopeful note in Danny’s voice. “No. He isn’t. He was with me, eating dinner in a restaurant filled with people who saw us both there.”

  “Officer Findley,” the chief called out. “Get in here and bring Miss Connors with you.”

  “Right away, Chief.” Danny picked up the gym bag and wrapped one hand around Nicki’s upper arm. He grinned at her. “This way, Miss Connors.”

  When they entered the small living room, Rob walked over and glared at the young deputy. “Hey! She’s not a suspect, so there’s no point in making her do some kind of perp walk.”

  “Perp walk?” Danny planted his feet apart and returned Rob’s glare. “I’m not doing anything of the sort.”

  “If you two are finished, I’d like to get back to the little matter of the murder that took place here.” The chief stepped forward and removed Danny’s hand from Nicki’s arm at the same time he pushed Rob back a step.

  “Is everything I asked you to bring in that bag you have there?” The chief nodded at the gym bag in his deputy’s hand.

  Danny broke his staring match with Rob to look over at the chief and nod. “Lots of crime scene tape, evidence bags and gloves.”

  “Good. Take that crime scene tape and start stringing it along the gate to the backyard while I talk to Miss Connors.” The chief glanced over at Rob. “You go sit on the front porch. There’s a nice rocking chair in the far corner. I’ll send Nicki out when I’m through and the two of you can go on home.”

  “Suits me fine,” Rob muttered and strode across the living room to the front hallway.

  Danny slowly followed, sending Nicki a glance over his shoulder.

  She turned to the chief and crossed her arms. “You can’t blame me for the way those two behaved.”

  The chief shrugged. “I’ve seen grown men act worse over a woman. Just make sure you don’t get your other boyfriend riled up so I have to take more angry phone calls from him. I don’t need the headache.”

  “Matt is not my boyfriend, he’s my editor,” Nicki insisted. “And I don’t want to talk about it,” she added when the chief opened his mouth. “What have we got so far?”

  “We? Listen, Sherlock. ‘We’ don’t have anything. What I have is a crime scene that you happened to stumble upon. And once you’ve given your statement, there isn’t anything else for you to do here. Your boyfriend can take you home. And I’m talking about the one sitting on the porch.”

  “Of course,” Nicki agreed with a smile. “I just need you to excuse me for one minute.”

  She rushed out of the room before the chief could object. When she returned several minutes later, she found him standing over the body in the dining room.

  “You ready to give your statement?” the chief asked over his shoulder.

  “Yes. Then I’ll go right out and wait on the porch,” Nicki said.

  The chief turned and frowned at her as he retrieved his little notebook from his shirt pocket. “You can go home, not hang out on the premises.” He walked back into the living room and indicated for her to take a seat on the couch.

  “Okay. Start from the last time you spoke with the victim.”

  Nicki went over the same story she was sure the chief had just heard from Rob about seeing Catherine in the restaurant.

  “Why did you give her a recipe?” Chief Turnlow asked. “Did she like to cook?”

  “The recipe was for a muffin, so it requires more baking than cooking, but no. I’ve never heard her mention it. She was supposed to pass the recipe along to her friend, Suzanne Abbott. Suzanne wanted it for a charity bake sale our writing society is putting on in about a week.”

  The chief nodded and turned to a previous page in his notebook. “Mr. Emerson said he didn’t notice anything unusual about the victim when he saw her this evening. How about you?”

  Nicki pursed her lips. “She seemed very distracted. She didn’t remember a conversation we’d had this morning, or that she was supposed to get the recipe for her friend, Suzanne.” Nicki thought back over the brief conversation she’d had with Catherine at the restaurant. “Oh. She also mentioned that a client had canceled an appointment this afternoon.”

  “Did she seem distracted when you talked to her at your society meeting this morning?”

  “No.” Nicki shook her head. “Not at all. She was very excited about investing in Mario’s.”

  “Oh?” The chief looked up from his notebook. “Ms. Dunton has a stake in Mario’s restaurant?”

  “That’s what she said, Chief. It came as a surprise to me too,” Nicki confessed. “I hadn’t heard through the gossip mill that Mario was looking for a partner.”

  “Is that why she’d suddenly taken up hostessing there?”

  “I don’t know,” Nicki said.

  “Anything else you’d like to add to your statement?” When Nicki shook her head, the chief tucked his notebook back into his pocket. “Then you can go on home. I’ll be in touch if I have any more questions.”

  “Okay.” Nicki put a bright note into her voice. “I’ll just sit on the porch and wait for a ride.”

  The chief glanced out the front window. “What happened to your boyfriend?”

  “He found this all very upsetting, and had a long drive back to San Francisco, so he left.” Nicki was all innocence when the chief gave her a hard stare.

  “He just left you stranded here?”

  Nicki shrugged. “I told him I’d call a cab or maybe Uber.”

  Chief Turnlow snorted and rolled his eyes. “He’s expecting you to find a cab or an Uber in Arson at this hour of the night?”

  “He doesn’t have a lot of experience with a small town. Jenna is out of town and Alex lives forty minutes away, and besides, she’s working tonight. And I won’t bother Maxie. She had a very long day with getting ready for the Society meeting at her house, and at her age, that can sap the energy right out of you. I’m sure someone will drive by soon who I can flag down and beg a ride from.”

  The chief held up a beefy hand. “Enough. I’ll have Danny take you home as soon as the crime scene boys and the coroner arrive.” He sighed and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “In the meantime, you can walk the scene with me.” He gave her another hard look. “Since that’s what you were angling for anyway. You may as well make yourself useful and tell me what you see.”

  Nicki followed him into the dining room, trying not to smile behind his broad back. After all, that didn’t seem proper under the grim circumstances.

  She avoided looking at the blood spread out on the floor beneath the body, concentrating on the table instead. With only one place setting, it didn’t appear Catherine had been expecting any company. There was a partially filled glass of wine next to a plate that had noodles and a creamy-looking sauce dripping over the sides from under Catherine’s head. Nicki frowned and leaned in for a closer look.

  “See something interesting?” the chief asked.

  “I don’t know why she
’d come home to eat her dinner,” Nicki said.

  “Because she was hungry? Or maybe she preferred her own cooking to Mario’s?” the chief speculated.

  “But this looks like a langoustine.” Nicki pointed to a curled-up lump of white meat lying next to Catherine’s dinner plate.

  “So she likes shrimp. Why is that unusual?” The chief frowned when Nicki shook her head.

  “It’s not shrimp. Langoustine is more like lobster. It mostly comes from the sea north of Ireland and is very expensive.” Nicki’s forehead wrinkled in thought. She looked over at the chief. “The only place that serves it anywhere in this area is Mario’s.”

  “All right. She could have brought her dinner home to eat in peace,” the chief speculated.

  Nicki nodded, but the longer she stared at the body, the more she felt that something was off. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  “Are you okay?”

  Since the chief sounded concerned, Nicki stepped back and smoothed out her features. “Something’s bothering me about this.” Her hand swept out toward the dinner table and its one occupant. “But I don’t know what.”

  The chief moved to stand between her and the dinner table, effectively blocking her view of the body.

  “Well, when you figure it out, you let me know. Why don’t we take a look in the kitchen? Maybe something in there will tell us why Mrs. Dunton chose to bring her dinner home and eat alone.

  Nicki nodded but she wasn’t at all convinced. Catherine had sounded too thrilled to be a part of Mario’s to want to take a dinner from the restaurant home to eat it, especially if she intended on going back to her hostess job after her meal.

  She walked into the kitchen and stood behind the center island, looking around as the chief came up and stood beside her. It was as neat as a pin. Not a single pot, pan or dish was out of place. Nicki glanced over at the deep farmhouse sink. Several reuseable plastic containers where neatly stacked to one side. She walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door. Except for the basic necessities, and a couple of bottles of wine which was pretty standard for any refrigerator in town, it was empty.

  “Well?” The chief said from behind her.

  Nicki tapped one finger against her chin before she walked over to the pantry and took a quick peek inside. There wasn’t much to see in there, either. Closing the door, she turned and faced the chief.

  “I’m fairly certain that Catherine wasn’t a cook.”

  The chief made a note in his little book. “Then she probably brought her dinner home with her. Which is pretty obvious since she’s lying facedown in it.”

  Nicki nodded, but something about this nagged at her. It just didn’t seem right.

  “Look. This has been a long and not so great night for you.” The chief put an arm around Nicki’s shoulders. “I gather none of your usual co-conspirators are around since you made a point of telling me that, so I want you to promise me you’ll call Matt. You’ll need someone to talk to.”

  “I’m fine,” Nicki insisted, but was both mortified and surprised when her lower lip began to tremble. Biting down on it, she smiled at the chief. “Thanks for letting me look around. I’ll leave the investigation to you.” When he gave her a skeptical look, she laughed and held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  “Uh huh. I’m not going to ask you if you ever were a scout. You use that door over there so you won’t have to walk through the dining room and look at the body. Believe me, you’ll have enough nightmares without parading past it again. Just wait on the porch while I get Danny.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “Thank you for the ride, Danny.” Nicki smiled at the young deputy. He really was a nice guy, and she was sure once he’d gotten over his crush on her, he’d have no trouble finding a wonderful girl to plan a future with. Something she sincerely hoped would happen soon. She remembered another visit to Mario’s just a month or so ago when she’d thought that Danny and Lisa, Mario’s daughter, would make a nice couple. She’d meant to mention it to Maxie, her matchmaking landlady, but in all the chaos of the winemaker’s murder, she’d just plain forgotten about it. Now she decided to write it down on a sticky note the minute she got inside so she wouldn’t forget again. She hoped Maxie could fix it so Danny’s puppy-dog looks would get directed elsewhere, to someone who would appreciate them.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come in and take a look around?” Danny asked. “Make sure everything is okay? Finding a dead body can spook a person.”

  Nicki opened the door to the police cruiser as she shook her head. “I’m fine. Really. And it’s not the first dead body I’ve found.”

  Danny grinned. “You do seem to have a knack for it.” He put his mouth into a serious line when Nicki let out an exasperated snort. “Chief wanted me to remind you that you should call someone and talk things out.” Danny made a point of looking at his watch. “Your boyfriend’s had time to get back to San Francisco by now. Guess he didn’t need to call to find out how you got home.”

  Yep. She definitely needed to write that reminder note about Danny and Lisa.

  Nicki ignored his none-too-subtle comment and stepped onto the sidewalk.

  “Thanks again for the ride.” She shut the car door and made short work of digging out her key and letting herself into her townhouse before Danny decided he should come in and “check around” after all. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate his concern or thoughtfulness, she simply didn’t want to deal with any more questions about her boyfriend. The fact is, she hadn’t expected Rob to call, and probably wouldn’t have been very happy if he had. She really did not want to rehash all the evening’s events with him. At least not tonight.

  Telling herself she was too tired to placate another stubborn male tonight, Nicki set her purse and keys on the hallway table and wandered back to the kitchen. It was spacious, with a big island that had room for four stools on one side, and an eat-in table just beyond it. But more importantly to Nicki were the beautiful quartz countertops, six-burner gas stove and whole rows of cabinets ending with a walk-in pantry on one end and a double-door refrigerator on the other. Always feeling content in her kitchen, she grabbed a wine glass off an upper, open shelf and bent over to look at the selection in her wine refrigerator. After glancing over her choices, she decided to stick with the wine she’d had earlier that evening and slid out a bottle of pinot noir. The very same brand and year that she’d enjoyed at dinner with Rob. Which ended in finding Catherine Dunton’s very dead body.

  Nicki sighed, finished pouring the wine, and took the glass into her office. Despite everything, she couldn’t talk herself into being tired enough to go to bed. She automatically powered up her desktop computer and looked at the clock at the bottom of the screen. It was almost one in the morning. She remembered Danny’s comment and felt a twinge of guilt. She should probably have called Rob and made sure he got home all right. He’d had a traumatic experience since, unlike her, this had been his first dead body, and then had to do a good hour’s drive to get home. But it was late, and she didn’t want to wake him, so she settled on being sure to call him at a more decent hour.

  She pulled a pad of sticky notes toward her, grabbed a pen from the holder on the desk and scribbled out two notes — one to call Rob, and the other to talk to Maxie about Danny and Lisa. Peeling them off the pad, she pressed them to the base of her desk lamp where she’d be sure to see them in the morning, then leaned back in her chair and tapped her finger on the smoked glass surface of her desk. The chief was right. She was too much on edge from the night’s unexpected events and needed to talk with someone.

  But her two good friends had lives of their own, and important things going on in them. Jenna had to meet with her hugely potential client in a few hours, and Alex was busy saving lives in the emergency room of the Santa Rosa hospital she worked at. She could call Maxie, but aside from not wanting to rouse her landlady from what was probably a sound sleep after such a hectic day, Nicki al
so didn’t want to face the lecture she’d probably get from myMason, Maxie’s husband. Since Maxie always referred to the retired police chief, now master gardener, as “my Mason”, running it together as if it was all one word, everyone else did too.

  Nicki thought it was adorable, but since the former police chief was a man of few words, she had no idea how he felt about his new name. But she was sure she knew how he’d feel about her finding another dead body and then calling his wife about it in the middle of the night. He hadn’t been happy at all about Maxie becoming so entangled in the last murder Nicki had become involved in.

  Having run through her list of friends that only left Nicki with one possibility.

  It was almost three in the morning in Kansas City where the editor-in-chief of Food & Wine Online, Matt Dillon, lived. She did quite a bit of freelance work for Matt’s magazine, and he’d become a good friend. Of course everyone else she knew, including Chief Turnlow, thought he wanted to be more than just friends, but he’d always been professional and polite with her, so Nicki always dismissed the knowing looks and broad hints from her friends as wishful thinking on their part. And well, okay, he had flown out to California after she’d solved George Lancer’s murder, but only because he didn’t want her to go work for another magazine. It was as nice to have her writing talent appreciated by her editor as it was to have her cooking appreciated by her friends. Besides, she had a boyfriend, and Matt certainly knew that.

  She looked at the clock again. At this hour, her editor would be sound asleep and was very likely facing a busy day when he woke up in a few hours. She sighed and shut down her computer before retrieving her cell phone from her purse in the hallway. Taking it, and her glass of wine, back to the kitchen, she sent Matt a text message from her phone, then settled onto one of the high stools at the counter to finish her wine. She’d barely had a sip when her cell phone rang, causing her to jump up and dart a look around the kitchen. Putting a hand to her chest to help still her racing heart, she glared at the phone and picked it up, surprised to see Matt’s name floating across her screen.