by Cat Chandler
“Because I knew the chief would be sure I got home, and I was hoping he’d let me see the crime scene while we were waiting for the coroner.”
“Which he did,” Maxie confirmed with a nod to Jenna. “And he suggested she call Matt. Which I’m now happy to hear that Nicki did.”
“Must have been pretty late in Kansas City.” Jenna grinned. “Did your wanna-be boyfriend answer the phone on the first ring?”
“No, he didn’t,” Nicki sniffed. “As a matter of fact, I woke him up, so we didn’t talk long at all.” Nicki felt like she should cross her fingers. They hadn’t talked long, at least not if you considered an hour as a short conversation. “And he doesn’t want to be my boyfriend,” she added out of habit.
“Of course he does,” both Maxie and Jenna sang out in perfect unison, causing Nicki to roll her eyes heavenward. The two of them, along with Alex, were like a broken record when it came to her relationship with her editor.
“No he doesn’t,” Nicki stated firmly. “And we need to get back to business. I think Alex and I should talk with Suzanne first.” She smiled at Maxie. “Would you like to come along?”
“Oh no, dear. I’m sure Suzanne would be much more open around the two of you without me along. But I will set up an appointment for us to talk with Walter.”
“All right. And I’ll get started on some double fudge brownies,” Nicki said.
Jenna laughed. “For Suzanne, I take it?”
“Nothing helps get you through a sad time like chocolate,” Nicki declared.
“Uh huh.” Jenna winked at Maxie. “Nicki could get a stone statue to talk by offering it one of her double fudge brownies.”
“It’s an excellent idea,” Maxie agreed. “And with Alex coming tonight, that should complete the conversation.”
Nicki frowned. “I’m not sure if Alex had a chance to meet Suzanne at the meeting yesterday.”
“Oh no, dear. I’m not talking about Alex having a conversation with Suzanne. I meant your wonderful doctor friend’s conversation with you.” Maxie stood up and smoothed out the lightweight jacket she was wearing. “There’s no one better than Alex to get to the bottom of that early hours’ conversation you had with Matt.”
Jenna laughed while Nicki slapped a hand to her forehead and groaned out loud.
Pulling her phone out of her back pocket, Jenna sent her friend a wicked smile. “I’ll just text her now to let her know she needs to ask you about it.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Nicki and Alex chugged along in Nicki’s old blue Toyota. Alex was concentrating on her cell phone as she tapped in the address of Suzanne Abbot’s house into the GPS app on her device.
“There. I think I’ve got it.” Alex nodded in satisfaction as the tinny-sounding, programmed voice began to give out directions. Placing her cell on top of the cracked vinyl of the dashboard, she glanced over at Nicki and smiled.
“As much as I can’t believe you tripped over another dead body, I can’t tell you how glad I am not to be out dress shopping today.” She pushed back a lock of her dark brown hair that had fallen across her forehead. “Although if mom calls you, be sure to tell her that we have your dire emergency under control, and she shouldn’t worry.”
“Dire emergency?” Nicki made a tsking sound. “Are you saying you lied to your mother?”
“Not lied. I’d say a dead body is definitely an emergency.”
Nicki shot her friend a skeptical look. “So you want me to tell your mother that I found a dead body?”
Alex gave a hard shake of her head. “Absolutely not. Tell her a friend passed away, and you needed help to make the arrangements.”
“What arrangements?”
“Well. We did arrange to meet with Suzanne this morning, didn’t we? That counts.”
“That’s really stretching it Dr. Kolman, soon-to-be Doctor Johnson, unless of course there’s no ceremony because you never bought a dress.” Nicki negotiated the turn from Maxie’s property onto the highway, as the GPS chirped out directions from its precarious position on the dashboard.
“Stretching, maybe,” Alex agreed cheerfully. “But not a lie. And it turns out one of the local boutiques has a website, so I’ll do my shopping online and simply order a dress in my size, and that will take care of that. Mom can come along for the fitting so she can have her mother-of-the bride experience.”
Nicki bit her lower lip and kept her eyes glued to the road in front of her. Every once in a while she was reminded of all the things she would miss out on, like arguing with her mom over wedding dress shopping. But she wasn’t going to have that chance, and her mom would never be the mother-of-the-bride.
“I’m sorry, Nicki,” Alex said softly. “I know you’d give anything to be able to go wedding dress shopping with your mom.” Alex reached over and squeezed one of Nicki’s hands that was tightly gripping the steering wheel. “I miss her too.”
Nicki managed a shaky smile for her friend. “I know you do. And so does Jenna. And I don’t want you to hold back telling me anything about your wedding because you’re worried it will make me sad. I’m so happy for you and Tyler that I want to hear everything.” Her smile grew steadier. “Promise me you won’t hold back?”
Alex held up her right hand. “I solemnly swear to tell one of my best friends in all the world, who is also going to be one of my maids-of-honor, to bore her to tears over every little detail of this wedding.”
“Well you can leave out a few,” Nicki laughed. “I don’t want to hear about any celebration moments between you and that hunky fiancé of yours.”
“From what Jenna texted, we might be exchanging a few celebration stories, or was she kidding when she wrote that you spent an hour on the phone with that adorable editor of yours in the wee hours of the morning.” Alex leaned back and arched one eyebrow at her friend. “I’m supposed to get every detail out of you.”
“There aren’t any more details,” Nicki insisted. And there really weren’t. She’d already told Jenna about the call, and she knew Jenna had relayed the information to Alex. “I called him when I got home after finding Catherine. We talked about it and he gave me the expected lecture on not becoming involved in police matters. I didn’t make him any promises on that.”
“Hmm.” Alex pursed her lips. “So you don’t find it unusual that he answered the call?”
“Why wouldn’t he answer the call?” Nicki asked. “He’s my editor.”
“Maybe because it was three o’clock in the morning and you didn’t call and leave a message on his office phone. Or are you going to tell me he was at work?”
“No,” Nicki groused. “He wasn’t at work.”
“Was he alone?”
“That, Alex Kolman, was none of my business, It would have been beyond rude for me to ask him something like that.” Nicki lifted her chin and put a tinge of outrage in her voice. Unfortunately her friend knew her too well.
“Well, did you ask him?”
Nicki deflated a bit and sighed heavily. “Maybe. But it’s not any of your business either.”
“Maybe,” Alex echoed. “But any man who is so interested in you to be alone on a Saturday night and take your phone call at three in the morning is definitely my business. And Jenna’s and Ty’s, too. And Maxie certainly feels she has some say-so in your life as well.”
“And,” Alex continued before Nicki could open her mouth. “We have a say-so because we all love you. It’s the same reason why you grilled Tyler the first time you met him.”
Unable to deny that little fact, Nicki gave an exasperated snort just as the voice from the GPS warned her to make the final turn onto the street where Suzanne lived. A minute later she stopped the car in front of a neatly landscaped house in the old Spanish-style architecture favored throughout the wine country.
“This is her house.” Nicki twisted around and reached into the back seat for the plate filled with double fudge brownies before she stepped out of the car and joined Alex on the walkway.
A large archway led to the double-sided front door. Nicki pressed the doorbell, then waited as she heard heels clicking across tile on the other side.
When Suzanne opened the door, the first thing Nicki noticed were the tears in her eyes. Judging by the puffiness in her face, Nicki guessed the poor woman had been crying from the minute she’d been told about Catherine’s untimely death.
“Come in,” Suzanne sniffled, holding a tissue to her nose.
Nicki stepped inside and gave Suzanne a half smile. “Thank you for seeing us. I’m so sorry about Catherine.”
“Thank you. I made coffee.”
Alex and Nicki followed Suzanne down a long hallway and into a large living space with a fireplace at one end and the kitchen at the other. Suzanne stopped at the dining table where there was a tray with cups and a large silver pot sitting on its highly polished surface.
When Suzanne stood and stared at the pot for several long moments, Nicki put an arm around her shoulder and urged her to sit down.
“Why don’t you let me pour that out? We can have it with the double fudge brownies I brought.” Nicki set the covered plate on the table and telegraphed a look to Alex. Not needing any words to understand, Alex immediately reached for a cup and the coffeepot.
“Here, let me pour this out. You’ve both had a very difficult couple of days.” Alex set a cup in front of Suzanne and arranged the creamer and sugar bowl next to her while Nicki unwrapped the plastic from the plate holding the brownies.
“Chocolate doesn’t cure anything, but sometimes you just need a bit of it,” Nicki said gently.
Something between a laugh and a sob escaped from Suzanne. “Catherine would have so approved of that. She was always trying to get me to indulge in desserts, and I was always giving her lectures about healthy eating. I’m going to take up running in the mornings very soon. Catherine was trying to talk me out of it. She thought I was crazy. She said I’d probably drop dead from a heart attack and then what would she do without her best friend?” Suzanne paused and dragged in a ragged breath. “She never told me what I was supposed to do without mine.”
Nicki’s eyes went moist. Suzanne was clearly grieving deeply about Catherine’s death, and she just could not bring herself to ask her questions and possibly overwhelm Suzanne with memories.
“We wanted to stop by and let you know we were thinking about you as well as Catherine.” Nicki smiled. “I liked her very much, too, and just wanted to say that.”
“She liked you.” Suzanne looked up and nodded at Nicki. “She always said you were smart and kind and pretty. She called it the perfect combination. Is what you said at the Society meeting true? Did you really figure out who killed that winemaker?”
“Yes she did,” Alex put in quickly.
“I helped Chief Turnlow solve it,” Nicki corrected. “And I’m sure he’ll do everything he can to find out who killed Catherine. He was a homicide detective in Los Angeles for twenty years, so he knows what he’s doing.”
“That’s right, he does,” Alex added her assurances as well when Suzanne turned her head to look at both of them.
“But you’re going to help him, aren’t you? I mean, you helped with that winemaker and you said you didn’t even know him. But you knew Catherine. And you liked her. You just said so.” Suzanne’s hand grabbed onto Nicki’s wrist. “Someone in her family did this. Or someone she knew, and you have to find out who it was.”
Nicki leaned away and blinked several times before raising an eyebrow at Alex.
“It could have been a passing stranger,” Alex pointed out, then did her own raised eyebrow when Suzanne violently shook her head.
“Someone ungrateful killed her, I’m sure of it. No one in her family appreciated what she did for them. The same can be said for a few people outside of her family.” Suzanne grabbed a brownie and took a good-size bite, chewing and talking at the same time. “Well, except for Charlie. He never said a mean thing to her. If he had, she would have told me right away.”
“Charlie?” Nicki prompted.
“Her boyfriend. For the last few months she’d spent a lot of her spare time at his winery.”
“Charlie Freeman?” Nicki found herself blinking again when Suzanne nodded as she popped the last of the brownie into her mouth and, without missing a beat, reached for another one.
The lovable older man who owned Charlie’s WineTime Winery was Catherine’s boyfriend? Charlie was one of the truly beloved locals who’d made Arson his home for several decades, and had been making the worst wine in the state, and probably the country, for almost as long. He also brought it to every wine event he was invited to, and since he was such a long-time resident, Charlie was invited to them all. He always offered a glass to everyone, and if you were his friend, or wanted to be accepted as a member of the community, you drank every drop.
Nicki had tried a number of his blends and had even visited his winery. Fortunately the setting for the tasting room was beautiful enough, and the small bites offered to go along with the wine tasty enough, that she had given it an honest mention in one of her articles for Food & Wine Online. At least for the ambiance and the food. She’d diplomatically not mentioned the wine at all.
“He isn’t at all like Walter I’m-so-much-better-than-all-of-you Gifford. Now he’s a real piece of work.” Suzanne stabbed at the air with her forefinger, as if she was poking the man in the chest, or an eye. She practically glared at Nicki. “Isn’t the ex-husband usually the culprit? That could certainly be true here.”
“Divorces can get very nasty,” Alex quietly agreed. “But it doesn’t lead to one spouse killing another as often as you’d think.”
“It might when you mix it with money.” Suzanne finished the second brownie and picked up a third, studying it for a moment before taking a bite. “Catherine was his wife and his financial planner. When one of the funds she put his money into took a bad turn, he lost at least one hundred thousand dollars before she managed to get him out of it. He was so angry he went out and had an affair with some bimbo half his age, and then asked Catherine for a divorce when she found out about it and went ballistic. He said she wasn’t being reasonable. Who has an affair and then claims his wife is the unreasonable one?”
Suzanne’s eyes were lit with fire and her mouth twisted downward. She left no doubt that she had less than zero love for her best friend’s former husband.
“So the ex-husband is definitely on the list,” Alex commented in a dry tone, earning her a warning glance from Nicki.
“You said she had other family?” Nicki prompted when Suzanne had settled into fuming silently.
“Ramona. Her ungrateful daughter she had with her first husband, Stewart Newton. She’s a twenty-six-year old brat who seems to think she’s entitled to live off on her own with the bucks from home as long as she enrolls in a class or two and claims to be a student. Seven years she’s been at college, and she came home last month and told Catherine she was going to change her major. Again. Threw a tantrum like a two-year-old when Catherine told her she wouldn’t pay for it anymore.” Suzanne reached for another brownie. “My own daughter is getting ready to leave soon for college. I’ve already warned her about pulling that same stunt on me.”
Suzanne’s eyes narrowed as she chewed. “And Catherine should have told Cynthia the same thing she told Ramona when her sister asked for extra money from their father’s trust to buy another of those first-edition books she likes so much.”
“Cynthia is Catherine’s twin, isn’t she?” When Suzanne’s eyes opened wider, Nicki smiled. “Maxie told me that Catherine had a twin. I was surprised since I’d never heard Catherine mention a twin before.”
“She rarely mentioned Cynthia to anyone,” Suzanne said. “They didn’t look alike, and certainly didn’t act alike. About the only time they communicated was over the phone once a month when they went over the balance of the trust their father left to them. He’d named Catherine as the executor, but she made sure Cynthia got a regular re
port along with a monthly allowance. Other than that, they weren’t close. But then she didn’t see or talk to her daughter much either. Unless Ramona wanted money.”
Suzanne shook her head, so her heavily highlighted, honey-blond hair swung back and forth over her shoulders. “The people who should have cared about her the most, didn’t really care about Catherine at all.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
An hour later Nicki slid gratefully into her little Toyota and pressed the door-lock button so Alex could climb into the other side. Nicki leaned back and silently gripped the steering wheel. She’d had no idea that visiting Suzanne would be so exhausting. The woman had constantly bounced between tears, smiles and rage. Once Alex had settled into her seat, she also tipped her head back against the headrest.
“That was certainly intense. And a little on the weird side.” Alex’s eyes were closed and her arms hung limp at her side.
“It definitely had a high level of stress.” Nicki rolled her shoulders before turning the key, doing her usual, automatic prayer that the engine would start. When it coughed, sputtered for a moment or two, and then died, she sighed and tapped her fingers against the steering wheel.
“If it won’t start we’re walking from here, because I am not going back into that house to ask for a ride into town.” Alex crossed her arms and shook her head.
“Fine talk from someone who took a full rotation in psychiatry.” Having waited the mechanic-recommended thirty seconds, Nicki turned the key and tried again. This time the engine started right up and purred as if it had just come off a new-car lot. Nicki shook her head. If cars could have persnickety personalities, hers definitely had one. “She’s understandably upset and having a really bad reaction to losing her best friend.”
“That behavior was more obsessed than upset,” Alex said. “And trust me, I know, since I did take that rotation on the psychiatric floor during my second year of residency.” She turned to look at Nicki. “Did you notice the way she was dressed?”