Murdered By Wine: A Cedar Bay Cozy Mystery (Cedar Bay Cozy Mystery Series Book 13)

by Dianne Harman

  “That’s probably good advice. I’d hate to get indigestion.”

  CHAPTER 25

  “Good luck with your golf game, Mike,” Kelly mumbled from under the covers. “They start serving breakfast downstairs at 6:00, so you can either grab a quick bite there or take something with you to eat on the course.”

  “Thanks, Kelly. I’m a big boy, and I promise I won’t let myself starve,” he said grinning as he leaned down and kissed her. “Go back to sleep. The town’s quiet, and the shoe store won’t open for a few more hours. You can use a little down time. Enjoy it, and I’ll meet you back here around noon. Loves.” He closed the door softly behind him as he headed for their car in the parking lot.

  Kelly took his advice, rolled over, and promptly went back to sleep. She woke up two hours later and looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand on Mike’s side of the bed.

  Wow. I really did go back to sleep. Guess all that good food needed a little more time to settle in. Time for a shower and some breakfast, although as much as I had to eat last night, think it will be very, very light.

  After she’d showered and dressed, she walked down the stairs to the dining room. The buffet was still set up, but judging by the empty room, everyone else who was staying at the B and B had already eaten. She walked over to a window table and sat down, admiring the display of colorful flowers in the garden outside her window.

  A young woman walked over with a coffee pot and said, “May I serve you some coffee?”

  “Yes, thank you. Those flowers are beautiful, but I’m surprised at how healthy and colorful they are at this time of year.” Kelly watched as the waitress poured and took her first sip of coffee of the day, which was always the best.

  “The owners love butterflies, and one of the flowers in particular, is very butterfly-friendly.”

  “I’m not that familiar with them. If we have them in Oregon, I’ve never planted them, but I’d love to have some butterflies in my yard. Can you tell me what they are?”

  “Yes. You’re not the first guest to be captivated by them, so I’ve had to learn. The purple ones are agastache. They’re the ones the butterflies like the best. We also have peonies, delphinium, and sedum. These flowers like cool rainy weather as well, so they’ll be here most of the winter. They are beautiful, aren’t they?”

  “Exquisite. You must enjoy working in such a beautiful environment.”

  “I love my job. I’m a student at Sonoma State University. Have you had a chance to see it?”

  “No, this is my first time here. Why?”

  “It’s been ranked as having the most beautiful campus of any college in the United States. I like beautiful things in nature, which is probably why I like working here. I’m hoping to go to the University of California at Davis next year and study winemaking.”

  “From what I’ve seen since I’ve been here, that industry seems to support this valley.”

  “That it does, and I’d like the chance to work and be outside in the vineyards. It seems like a perfect thing for me to do career-wise. Anyway, please help yourself to our buffet. The chef is very good, and I think you’ll enjoy it.”

  “Regretfully, I’ll probably only have a bagel or a piece of toast. I’m still full from the meal I had last night.”

  “May I ask where you ate?”

  “Yes, we ate at The Pastel Rose, and we had the tasting menu. I should have just had a salad.”

  The young woman laughed. “You did well. Chef Armand is considered to be the best in the valley, and the tasting menu allows him to really show what he can do. I can’t afford to eat there, but someday I plan to.”

  “My husband told me I’d be better off not knowing how much we spent on dinner, so that, in conjunction with what you’re saying, leads me to agree with him.” Kelly smiled up at the waitress. “Thanks for talking to me. I’ve learned a lot from you. Good luck in your studies.”

  “Enjoy the rest of your stay,” she said as she walked away.

  Kelly walked over to the buffet table and couldn’t resist taking the lids off the various serving dishes to see what was in them. The only thing that kept her from indulging in the superb looking food was the thought that she really did need to talk to someone at the shoe store, and if she was sick to her stomach from overeating, it probably would not be a good thing for either her or whomever she talked to. Reluctantly, she took a piece of dry sourdough bread and lightly toasted it. Her hand hovered over the freshly made peach jam, but as difficult as it was for a foodie, she resisted the temptation.

  When she was finished eating, she walked out to the reception area and asked the young man at the desk if he knew where the Sonoma Shoe Salon was located.

  “It’s on the town square, about a half a block down from a restaurant called The Pastel Rose. It’s got a big sign hanging out from the wall with a shoe on it. You can’t miss it.”

  “Thanks,” Kelly said. Since she already had her purse with her, she started walking towards the square. A few minutes later she saw the sign along with a sign on the door that said “open.” She walked into the shoe store and looked at various different shoes while she waited for the white-haired clerk to finish up with a customer.

  She was kneeling down in front of a pair of sandals similar to the ones Matteo had worn the day before when a voice asked, “How may I help you today?” She stood up and turned to the woman who was dressed in black slacks with a black turtleneck under a brightly colored jacket that looked as if it had been made in Africa. Kelly recognized it from a catalogue she received which had similar clothes in it.

  “I love your jacket,” she said. “It’s so colorful, it makes me happy.”

  “Thank you. That’s exactly why I bought it. I’m glad you agree with me. Are you interested in buying some sandals?”

  “I might be. I’ve seen several people in Sonoma wearing this type of sandal, and I was wondering if it was particularly comfortable or what.”

  “It’s probably our bestselling sandal. I’m the owner of this shoe store, and my husband and I also own a small vineyard. We found that when we were pruning the grapes or doing other work outdoors, our shoes really got dirty, and we didn’t want to wear them into the house. I’d have to unlace them and take them off, then in ten minutes or however long it was before I went outside again, I’d have to lace them back up. The long and short of it was that it took a lot of time.

  “I decided to try a pair of sandals with socks and see how that would work. You’ll notice these have a Velcro band on the back, so they can be slipped on an off easily. Other people began to notice what I was wearing, and one thing led to another. Now I sell more of these sandals than any other type of shoe we have here in the store. Almost everyone who works in the local wine industry, other than the people who work exclusively in the vineyards and need boots, wear them. As you can see, they come in several colors. What size do you wear?”

  “I wear a pretty standard size, a seven. I’d like to try on a pair. Do you have a dark blue?”

  “That I do. Have a seat, and I’ll get a pair from the back. Actually, that size is the most popular,” she said as she walked through the curtain to the back room.

  When she returned, Kelly tried on the sandals. “These really are comfortable. No wonder they’re so popular. I own a coffee shop in Cedar Bay, Oregon, and I’m on my feet a lot. I bet these would work well for me. I’ll take them.” Kelly wondered if she should get a pair for Roxie as well, but decided against it. Mike might have something to say about her generosity, and anyway, it wasn’t often she bought something that no one else in Cedar Bay had. Who knows, she thought, maybe I’ll start a new craze.

  “I don’t think you’ll regret your purchase. As I said, I sell more of these than anything else. I can barely keep them in stock.”

  “I’d think that would be a problem, considering that your shop is not all that big. What do you do if someone wears a strange size?”

  “I have to special order them from the manufacturer,
but that’s pretty rare. I can’t waste my limited storage space with really big shoes or really small ones.”

  “I’m so used to this size, and my daughter wears the same size, so I’ve never considered that some people might be at either end of the shoe size spectrum. What’s the smallest size you’ve ever sold, other than to a child?”

  “A woman was in here several months ago, and she requested a red colored size four of this sandal. That is really tiny, but she was a very small woman, so it wasn’t surprising to me that she wore a size four.”

  “Does she continue to buy from you?” Kelly asked innocently.

  “No, I only sold her the one pair. As a matter of fact, when they were delivered to the store and I called her to let her know they were in, she told me someone else would pick them up for her, because she was tied up with a project. I didn’t ask what it was, and that was the last time I talked to her. She paid in cash when she ordered the sandals. Very few shoe stores carry these, and the manufacturer doesn’t even allow them to be sold on Amazon.”

  Kelly turned the sandals over and looked at the sole on the bottom. “These have quite a distinctive pattern of ridges on the bottom. Do they wear down with use?”

  “A little. The company that makes these sandals does an interesting thing with their soles. All the sizes of one color have the same soleprint. They’re kind of like a fingerprint. I was curious why the owner would do something like that. Seemed like an unnecessary process.”

  “What was the reason?”

  “You have to realize the owner of the shoe company that makes these sandals is kind of a non-businesslike person. He felt the sandals should be distinctive, and even though they all resemble one another, the pattern on the sole makes them different, and he’s right. If soleprints were taken from two different pairs of these sandals, unless they were the exact same color, the soleprints would be different.”

  “I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Kelly said.

  “Nor had I, but the fact that people are willing to pay what these sandals cost, tells me the owner knew what he was doing.”

  “So, theoretically if a soleprint was found, you could match that soleprint with one of these sandals and from that determine the color of the sandal that made it. Am I understanding you correctly?”

  “Pretty much,” the woman said. “If you showed me a soleprint made by these types of sandals, it would be easy for me to tell you what color the sandal was that made that soleprint.”

  “Well, I guess when you own a company you can do whatever you want, and it looks like he did,” Kelly said. “I think I’m going to like these, and I’ve never seen sandals like these anywhere else. If I wanted to order another pair, would I just call you?”

  “Yes. The phone number of my store is on the receipt. Is there anything else you’d like to see?” she asked as two customers walked in the front door.

  “No, thanks. I’m so glad I bought these, and I’m really looking forward to wearing them. You’ll probably be hearing from me.”

  “I’ll look forward to it.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Kelly looked at her watch and decided to take a walk around the square. Although she’d visited several stores adjacent to the square, she’d never taken a full turn around it. The square consisted of a small grassy park in the center with each of the shops on the four sides of the square facing the park. A small wooden bandstand stood in the middle of the green. It presented a nice opportunity to walk and window shop.

  She noticed there were a number of restaurants and tasting rooms and thought, as she had often before, that whenever winegrowing was the major focus of an area, good food was a natural accompaniment. It certainly was that way in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, not that far from her home in Cedar Bay. She and Mike had taken several weekend trips there, more for the food than the wine.

  She’d almost completed her walk when her attention was caught by a sign for a kitchen shop. She remembered Julia had mentioned that there was one on the square. Given that cooking was such a large part of her life, she couldn’t resist entering the shop. She spent a half hour meandering down each aisle, knowing she could spend a small fortune if she allowed herself to, but also knowing she couldn’t carry much back with her on the plane and the amount necessary to ship the items lessened her desire to buy. Even so, she came away with a number of ideas and couldn’t resist a cookbook entitled “Best of Sonoma Cookbook,” particularly since the author was Chef Armand, the chef at The Pastel Rose.

  After Kelly returned to their room at the B & B, she was just putting the cookbook in her carry-on bag so she could look at it while she was on the plane the following day, when the door opened and a grinning Mike entered.

  Kelly looked at him and said, “I take it from that smile it was another good day on the golf course. Would I be right?”

  “I don’t know what’s come over me, Kelly. We might have to move here. I did even better than yesterday. I can’t believe it. It must be the course, because I sure can’t think of anything I’m doing differently.”

  “The Cedar Bay public course is going to seem pretty hum-hum after two days on the Sonoma Golf Club course.”

  “You’ve got that right. I was wondering when I was driving here if it’s the golf clubs. The ones I rented were really good. Maybe I need to get a new set. I’ve had the ones at home for a long, long time.”

  “Mike, I don’t know a thing about golf clubs. Are they expensive?”

  He was quiet for a few moments. “I’m trying to think how to phrase this. Could we say what we spent last night for dinner we did because you own a coffee shop and needed to get new ideas for your menu? Maybe we could write the cost of the dinner off as a business expense on our tax return. If we did that I could justify the cost of my new clubs.”

  “That expensive, huh?” she asked, zipping up her carry-on bag.

  “Yeah.”

  “I think we better table this discussion for another time. Change your clothes and let’s go eat. I had a very light breakfast this morning, and I’m ready for lunch.”

  *****

  When they were outside, Mike walked towards the parking lot and beeped the car key fob in the air in the direction of the car. “Kelly, I’d like to stop by the sheriff’s station after we finish lunch and the tasting for Julia, so I’m going to drive to the square rather than walk.”

  “Sure, that’s fine. Hopefully, he’s found out something by now. I’d think the initial investigation of that terrible traffic accident would be finished by now.”

  A few minutes later they walked into the Romano Winery Tasting Room on the far side of the square. Kelly noticed two security guards standing next to the front door and thought that was interesting. She figured the wines they served must be pretty pricey. Kelly looked around and thought whoever had designed the interior had done a wonderful job. Chairs and sofas in earthy colored plaids had been arranged in seating groups with low oak tables in front of them. The vibe was one of laid back elegance, and since it was lunch time, many people were eating as well as tasting wine.

  At the rear of the very large room was a horseshoe shaped oak bar with stools upholstered in the same plaids as the chairs and sofas. Oak paneling covered the walls and canned lights hung from the ceiling, bathing the room in a soft glow. A hostess was seated at an antique desk in the middle of the room with a computer on her desk.

  “Welcome. May I help you?” she asked.

  Mike spoke up. “My wife and I would like to do a winetasting and have some lunch.”

  “Certainly, sir, but the only seats I have available at the moment are at the bar. As you can see, this is a busy time for us.”

  “No problem. You don’t need to get up. I see two seats on the far side of the bar.” He and Kelly walked over, pulled out bar stools, and sat down.

  A tired looking young woman with a blond ponytail and dark circles under her eyes walked over to them and said, “Would you like to do a flight of wine, or individual glasse
s? And would you like to see our luncheon menu? It’s not very extensive, but people seem to like it.”

  “I think we’ll pass on the flight,” Mike said. “I’d like a glass of your best red, and my wife would like your best white. And yes, we would like to see the menu. Thank you.”

  A moment later she came back, handed each of them a menu, and then returned with a glass of red wine and a glass of white wine. “Let me tell you a little about each of these wines.”

  “Thank you, we’re not connoisseurs, so we’d appreciate it.”

  “The white wine is a sauvignon blanc blend. It has a crisp texture and layers of flavor including lemongrass, citrus, and melon. It’s very refreshing, particularly on a warm summer day. The red wine is a blend of several grapes which give it an aroma of raspberry and spice with the smooth flavor of berries. It has soft supple tannins to finish it.” From the way the descriptions rolled off of the woman’s tongue in a monotone, Kelly thought she’d memorized the words, or maybe her delivery style came with the boredom of repeating the same thing over and over.

  “Although any time is the right time to drink this wine, I personally prefer it when the weather is a little cooler. I’ll be back in a moment to take your luncheon order.”

  Kelly looked at Mike and started to giggle. “Did you understand anything robot woman said? That was so far over my head. Maybe Julia would know what she was talking about, but I sure didn’t.”

  “Sweetheart, I just took a sip of the red, and I didn’t get a taste of anything other than it was good, and by the way, I haven’t a clue what a tannin is. I think we should just tell Julia we’re hopeless.”

  “I have a feeling she already thinks that’s the case. Mike, I enjoyed the cheese platter we had at the winery so much, let’s split the charcuterie platter. It’s got three kinds of cheese, bread, prosciutto, mortadella, and an assortment of pickles and jams. How does that sound?”

  “Perfect.”

  The young woman who was waiting on them walked over and said, “If you’re uncertain about what to get, a lot of people come here specifically for the charcuterie platter. It’s really good.”