Chardonnayed to Rest

by J. C. Eaton

  “Easy. Stay on Route 14 until you get to North Street. Then make a left and then a right on Genesee. It’s up there.”

  “Left. Right. Thanks. Er, was there something you wanted?”

  “If any of you were up real early this morning, did you happen to see if someone cut through your property to get to a car?”

  “Sorry. None of us got up before nine. Of course, that’s real early for us. Why? Is someone missing?”

  “Not exactly. Hold on a second.” I ran back to the car and asked if Theo had a pen and paper. He handed me an old gas receipt and a pencil from his console. I raced back to the blonde.

  “Here’s my name and phone number. I own Two Witches Winery in Penn Yan. If any of your friends remember seeing anyone, or even the car, please call me and let me know. It’s really important. That’s all I can tell you.”

  She raised her eyebrows and winked. “Someone’s boyfriend cheating? Sure. I’ll ask and if I hear anything, I’ll let you know. We were at your winery a few days ago. Love that Cauldron Caper. I bought four bottles!”

  “Wow. Thanks. And thanks about the other thing.”

  “On to the next house,” I said. “The girls weren’t even up, but the blonde will ask around and call me.”

  The occupant of the stone house wasn’t as forthcoming. It was an elderly man who was hard of hearing and kept asking, “What?”

  At the very moment when I decided it was a lost cause, a middle-aged woman, with her hair pulled back by two fashion clips, came rushing over to the door. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I was down in the cellar getting the laundry. My father’s pretty much deaf. How can I help you?”

  I figured she’d probably caught the evening news or, most likely, would catch the late night news, so I gave her the abbreviated version of the incident and asked if she was up early and if she saw anyone.

  “I’m up with the roosters and enjoying my coffee with the sunrise. It’s my only private time. Sorry, but I didn’t see or hear anyone. Wish I could be more help.”

  I thanked her and trudged back to the car. The sun was setting, and I figured we had about fifteen, maybe twenty, more minutes of daylight.

  “That figures,” I said to Theo. “The last house on our list just so happens to be the dilapidated Victorian hidden away in the brambles. I’m not walking up to their front door alone.”

  “Don’t worry. I had no intention of letting you. I’ll park the car and we can both get snatched up and thrown into the oven by the witch.”

  “Very funny, Hansel.”

  “Make sure you’ve got your cell phone and let’s move it. We’ve got less than a half hour before dark.”

  “Terrific. The creepy house on the lake at dusk. If I wrote horror screenplays, it would be my next title.”

  Chapter 6

  At one time the house might’ve been a Victorian charmer, but it looked as if years of neglect had rendered it one step above an old shack. Well, a large old two-story shack. The windows were boarded up and there wasn’t a spot where the paint wasn’t chipping. Theo and I stood in front of it and shook our heads.

  “No sense going to the front door,” I said. “Besides, for all we know, the wood on that porch might be ready to give way. I wonder who owns this place. The lakefront alone must be worth beaucoup bucks.”

  Theo swatted at a few small flying insects. “It’s probably tied up in probate. Forget the house, let’s look around back and see if there’s a path to the lake. And let’s do it quickly. These bugs are going to get worse.”

  The right side of the house was impossible. Too many overgrown bushes and fallen tree limbs. It was highly doubtful anyone traipsed through there. Especially someone who had recently committed a murder. We skirted around the porch and saw what once was a gate to a small garden area. It was lying on its side against a rusty fence. It looked as if there might have been a path to the lake a few feet from where we stood.

  It was as if we read each other’s minds and walked to the back of the house. Old metal lawn furniture, with deteriorating cushions, was strewn everywhere—on the patio, off to the side of the building, and even next to some of the larger trees. A partially inflated beach ball, that might have been red when new, was perched against the remains of an old bike so old it was impossible to tell what kind it was.

  “If I’m not mistaken,” Theo said, “it looks as if we can get right down to the lakefront from here. It’s a narrow path but, at one time, it had to be the access to the lake. You can still see the sand and gravel in between the weeds, unlike the rest of the property.”

  “We’ll be eaten alive,” I moaned, swatting the small insects like crazy. “You know, Jason could’ve had himself a field day with these bugs. They probably bite as much as the ones in Costa Rica.”

  Theo gave a quick laugh and headed toward the lake. I remained a good three or four feet behind him. At first it was a gentle slope but, about ten yards down, it reminded me of that scene in Romancing the Stone.

  I shouted for him to slow down. “We’re going to land on our butts. I just know we are.”

  “Then it’ll be a soft landing. Come on.”

  My sneakers skidded against the gravel but somehow I managed to remain upright, even if Theo had beat me to the lakefront by more than a minute or two. At one point I thought his foot might have caught on something because he appeared to bend over. Stumbling maybe? Hah! Soft landing my you-know-what. We’d have gravel scrapes all over our arms and legs. At least he never fell.

  As far as I was concerned, I was relieved when I reached level ground. “You do realize we have to make our way back up that steep path, don’t you? No wonder that house is deserted. The prior owner probably had a coronary getting down here.”

  “Yeah, but it was worth it. Look what I found!”

  He held up a small object and, at first, I couldn’t make it out. “What’ve you got?” I asked.

  Theo grinned. “If it wasn’t for the soles of my sneakers being so worn, I never would’ve felt this bad boy. The metal all but cut through the ball of my foot. Tomorrow I’m buying a new pair of Nikes.”

  “Enough about your feet. Show me what you found. Better yet, hand it over.”

  I opened the palm of my hand and he let go of the object. It was a small silver hang-tab with the manufacturer logo. The kind that was on the front pockets of expensive windbreakers and jackets. This one had some blue threads dangling from it.

  “Look carefully, Norrie. There’s no dirt on that thing. None whatsoever. If it’d been here a while, you could bet your bottom dollar it would be caked with dirt. This is recent. Even the threads are clean.”

  “My gosh. You don’t suppose—”

  “I do. Whoever stabbed Roy Wilkes came down to the lake the same way we just did. He or she must’ve known Roy would be walking the shore. Maybe it was something our victim did all the time. Anyway, his killer didn’t simply walk up to him and let loose with a sharp object. When we saw the body, it looked as if there was a struggle. I’ll wager Roy grabbed ahold of that hang-tab and it got loosened in the melee. That tab was so loose it probably fell off by the time the killer made it back to the path by that house. That’s why we found it here and not by the body.”

  I looked carefully at the design. “It’s an Eddie Bauer. The name’s etched right into the metal. They all do that. LL Bean, Denim and Company, Cabela’s…”

  “Man’s or woman’s jacket?”

  “I can’t tell that from a hang-tab, but I do know the metal ones are usually on the more costly jackets. And, in this case, one that has to belong to our killer. It makes absolute sense. Now what? We can’t go to the sheriff’s office. Grizzly Gary will have my head. Besides, we kind of contaminated the evidence by touching it.”

  Theo rubbed his ear and swatted at more insects. “If it is evidence, then our killer was wearing a blue windbreaker when he or sh
e got into it with Roy. That’s more than we knew a few hours ago.”

  “A zillion people own blue windbreakers. I think it’s a law around these parts. So now what?”

  “We can get the unofficial word out to the wineries to be on the lookout for someone wearing one that’s missing the hang-tab on one of its front pockets. It should be pretty obvious. We’ll go back to my house, stage the tab on a light background, and use our phones to send the photo to the wineries. By now, they’re sure to know what happened by Rosalee’s pump house.”

  “You can say that again. Between Rosalee calling the WOW women and the TV news making a big deal of it, Roy Wilkes’ murder is bound to be a hot topic of conversation tonight.”

  “Don’t forget Marilyn Ansley. She probably has her senior center on speed dial. God knows what she told those folks.”

  The uphill trek back to Theo’s car took less time. We were somewhat familiar with the path, and it wasn’t as slippery as when we were headed downhill. It was, however, getting darker and the insects were vicious. I swore I could feel blood trickling down my face and neck from all the bites. I had just gotten back into the car and buckled my seatbelt when a wave of doubt all but choked me. “What if the killer was a passenger on Roy’s motorcycle? What if this hang-tab belongs to someone who took a shortcut up from the lake?”

  Theo was silent while I went on and on. Finally, he groaned. “Slow down. Think about it. If the killer was the passenger, wouldn’t those women joggers have seen him or her? The killer had to have come from the opposite direction. Besides, with Roy dead and his motorcycle parked, how was the murderer going to get out of there? I still think he or she used their own vehicle. I think we are on the right track.”

  “I suppose you’re right. I tend to overthink things.”

  Don was sitting on their porch when Theo pulled up. The second we got out of the car, he ran toward us. “It’s about time! While you two were playing ‘Gumshoe Detective,’ I did some real investigating. You can thank me later. Either that or split the fourteen ninety-five I paid to do a background check on our victim. Oh. And I still had time to heat up some calzones. Come on in. And do tell. What did the both of you discover? Or dare I say, ‘uncover’?”

  Theo gave Don a hearty slap to the shoulder and held out the hang-tab. “Evidence, my man. Evidence! Norrie can explain. I’ve got to snap a decent photo and get the word out to the west side wineries. Give me your phone, Norrie, I’ll get a snapshot for you, too.”

  No sooner did I hand over my cell phone to him when he flung open the door to the house and ran inside.

  “Okay. I’m game,” Don said. “What was that thing Theo was holding?”

  “One of those metal hang-tabs that you see on fancy windbreakers or jackets. They’re usually on the front pockets.”

  I then proceeded to give him the long version of the story, including our theory about the pull-offs on the road and a getaway path for the killer. Finding the little hang-tab all but clinched it as far as Theo and I were concerned.

  “You two might actually be on to something. Still, what do you plan to do if someone at one of the wineries sees a person wearing a windbreaker without both of its hang-tabs on the pockets?”

  “Uh, um, we haven’t gotten that far in our thinking, but I suppose we’ll have to call the sheriff’s office to tell them.”

  By now Don and I had gone inside and were sitting at the kitchen table, where Theo had just finished taking the photos. He handed me back my phone, told me he e-mailed the WOW women and planned to do the same with his winery managers. I immediately started messaging my own contacts.

  “Let’s hope the two of you don’t get chewed out for interfering with an investigation.” Don took the calzones from the oven. “I hate to use the oven when it’s hot out, but microwaving Italian food makes it taste like plastic.”

  I tapped my foot and turned toward him. “It’s not really interfering. For all anyone knows, we’re simply trying to return a hang-tab to the owner of an expensive piece of clothing.”

  “Oh brother. Never mind. Listen, are you guys interested in hearing what I found out about Roy Wilkes or not?”

  Theo and I all but drowned each other out with our Yeahs.

  “Fine,” Don said. “Here goes: First of all, I went to the public records online from a nifty little site I found. After that, I shelled out the money for more information.”

  “Go on already,” Theo groaned.

  “Roy Wilkes is, I mean was, fifty-five and—”

  “Wow! Rosalee guessed the age right,” I blurted out. “Sorry. Go on. Go on.”

  Don cleared his throat. “Believe it or not, he was born in Penn Yan but moved to Pennsylvania before completing high school there. He went to school for industrial technologies and worked for Beecher Rand, an industrial manufacturing company, in Athens, Pennsylvania, up until a year ago. Never married. No children. No criminal record.”

  “Did he retire from the company or was he let go?” I asked.

  Don shook his head. “Don’t know. But get this—there are no records for any mortgages for his properties. He must’ve paid cash. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m curious as hell. Why did the guy decide to move back here? It’s not as if this town is the pinnacle of excitement.”

  Theo quickly grabbed some plates from one of the cabinets and silverware from the drawer nearest him. The napkins were already on the table. “The question I’d be asking is what did he do that got him killed. Let’s face it, we don’t need the deputies to tell us it wasn’t a robbery. But yeah, what the hell was it?”

  After putting the calzones on the table, Don opened the fridge and took out sodas, water, and a recently opened bottle of their Merlot blend.

  I poured myself some wine. “The worst part about this is Rosalee. She’s convinced herself I can find the killer. So far I have a hang-tab and a headache.”

  “Eat, you’ll feel better,” Don said. “Seriously, the sheriffs may have access to forensic clues, but good old-fashioned sleuthing often yields better results.”

  The calzone was enormous and when I cut into it, the aroma of tomatoes, sausage and cheeses almost made me drool. “I wish we had access to Roy’s house. Imagine what we could learn about him.”

  Theo and Don didn’t say a word. Not at first. But I could read the expressions on their faces. A combination of shock and fear.

  Theo spoke first. “Don’t even think it. We don’t have enough bail money put aside for breaking and entering.”

  I wiped some of the warm sauce from the side of my lips. “Don’t worry. I’ll stick to…” What was it Don said? Oh yeah, “gumshoeing.”

  The three of us agreed to spread the word about the hang-tab on the off chance the killer decided to pay one of the wineries a visit. It was more likely he or she would attend the Federweisser since that was a major event that drew out tourists and locals. Of course, that meant waiting, since it was three weeks from now. Anything could happen between now and then.

  It was after nine when I got home. Theo insisted on driving me up the hill. Charlie was waiting for me on the porch and all but knocked me over when I got out of the car.

  “Oh my gosh! Did I forget to feed you?”

  I remembered putting kibble in his bowl first thing in the morning, but the dog was used to eating another meal in the early evening. I raced inside and immediately fed him, making a mental note to buy one of those large self-serve pet dispensers just in case.

  As I put the food away and stashed the hang-tab in a safe place, I noticed the red light blinking on the answering machine. I immediately pushed the button. It was Cammy.

  “Hey, Norrie! Got your e-mail about that hang-tab. Call me if it’s not too late. I’m up ’til ten thirty. I called my aunts about Roy Wilkes and you’re not going to believe this. A few weeks ago, he was at Rosinetti’s and got into a fight with another guy.
It was the first time they’d seen him at the bar, but Roy used a credit card and my aunt Luisa remembered the name. Call me.”

  I looked at the microwave clock and it read 9:23. I was dying to chat with Cammy but whenever someone says, “I’m up until whatever time,” what they really mean is, “Don’t call me unless hell is freezing over.” It was a no-brainer. I decided to shift my morning writing schedule around and be at the tasting room when she arrived for work tomorrow. At last we were getting somewhere.

  Chapter 7

  Saturdays are usually crazy at the wineries and this one didn’t appear to be any different. Cars were pulling into our parking lot as if we were Costco. I didn’t even want to think about next Saturday because that was Labor Day Weekend.

  To add to the zaniness, an army of vineyard workers were fast at work with the first harvest—the Chardonnay. In addition to our regular crew, we had hired a number of migrant workers who operated under a cooperative in Dresden, a few miles from Two Witches.

  The grinding and spitting sounds from our harvesters were unmistakable. I remembered Peter Groff, our former assistant vineyard manager, showing me the tow-behind harvester and the self-propelled one.

  Chardonnay was always the first grape we harvested. Mainly because we used it to make champagne as well as wine. In less than three weeks, I’d be sampling a bubbly, frothy version of it at our Federweisser.

  I had to walk past Alvin’s pen in order to get to the tasting room’s entrance. Sure, I could’ve skirted it, but the goat was busy eating from his bucket of grains, so I figured I was relatively safe. The minute he heard me approaching, he trotted over and leaned forward. I knew he liked to be petted but, for some reason, he got particularly ornery around me. Leaning as far back as I could, I managed to extend my hand and rub his nose as he pressed his face against the fence. So far so good.

  “Don’t you spit at me. Nice goat. Nice Alvin.”

  Suddenly, a few tourists approached and he trotted over to greet them. I watched as he nuzzled and rubbed against their hands.