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

by Dianne Harman

  “Thanks, we’ll share that. I assume it’s enough for both of us,” Kelly said.

  “It certainly is. I’ll be back in a few minutes with your plates and napkins.”

  Mike turned to face his wife. “Kelly, how was your morning? We talked about my golf game, but I believe you said you were going to go to the shoe store this morning.”

  “I did, and it was very interesting.” She told him about her conversation with the owner and that she’d bought a pair of the sandals like the wine people seemed to prefer.

  “What a strange thing. I wonder if Sheriff Dawson knows about the distinctive soleprints on those types of sandals. Let’s be sure and tell him when we go there.”

  “Okay. Looks like lunch is here,” she said as the young woman placed a large platter between their two plates. “This looks wonderful,” Kelly said to her. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Well, let’s put it this way. If you don’t enjoy it, I think you’ll be the first person who hasn’t.” She walked over to where two men and women were sitting with five wine glasses in front of them and carefully poured wine into the second glass in front of each of them. They could hear her explaining to the foursome the exact same details about one of the wines she’d just poured for them.

  A few minutes later a beautiful young woman walked up to the bar and waited until their server had left the foursome. They spoke for a couple of minutes and then the young woman took off her red sandals and put them on the floor next to the bar, not far from where Kelly and Mike were sitting.

  For several minutes, Kelly and Mike enjoyed their lunch with an occasional sip of wine. “Kelly, you have to try this cheese and this meat. They’re amazing. I also recommend this jam. The combination is really good. This is something else I bet you could serve at the coffee shop. I know Josie said she was going to give you the information on the different cheeses we had at the winery. Did she?”

  “She did, but I haven’t had a chance to look at it. This is excellent, but if you’ll excuse me for a moment, I need to go to the restroom. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Okay, I’ll pay while you’re gone, and then we can head over to the sheriff’s station. After that I might take a little nap. Between the big dinner last night and the golf game this morning, to say nothing of wine with lunch, it sounds like a good idea. Actually, I don’t see our server, so I guess I’ll have to wait until she returns from wherever she went. See you in a few minutes.”

  Kelly followed the sign that indicated the restrooms were down the hall and opened the door to the ladies’ room. She heard someone talking from one of the two stalls and thought how strange it was that people would feel the need to talk to someone on their phone when they were in a restroom. She entered the other stall and locked the door.

  “Lexie, I tell you something is really off with Alessandra. The last two nights she’s been having nightmares and crying out in her sleep. I haven’t gotten any shut eye, and I’m exhausted. It’s kind of freaking me out. She keeps saying she killed someone, and it was all for nothing. It was something about how she’d called some guy named Matteo and told him that they could get together now that his wife was dead. She screamed that he’d told her he wanted nothing to do with her and hung up on her. It was pretty garbled, but that’s pretty much the gist of what she said.”

  At the word, Matteo, Kelly’s attention was immediately riveted on the conversation. It was quiet in the adjoining stall for a few moments and then the voice, which she recognized as being that of their server, saying, “She’s here now. She just went into her uncle Carlos’ office. Matter of fact, she left her sandals by the bar, because he won’t allow anyone to walk on his Oriental rug with their shoes on. Anyway, I don’t know what to do. I don’t think I can spend another night with her. I get off work pretty soon, and I’m seriously thinking about packing up and getting the heck out of Dodge.”

  Again, it was quiet, then she heard the server say, “Thanks, Lexie. I really appreciate it. Honest, it will just be a for a few nights until I figure out what to do. I’m happy to sleep on the couch. See you after I finish my shift.”

  Kelly didn’t make a sound. A minute later she heard the door to the restroom close. She waited several more minutes then crept out of the restroom. Down the hall, she saw a door with the words “Carlos Romano” on it. She heard a woman’s loud, nearly hysterical voice, coming from the room. She walked a few feet down the hall to see if she could hear what was being said, wondering if the raised woman’s voice was that of Alessandra.

  “You’re the one who suggested that Angela might fall into the vat,” the voice screamed. “Remember when Matteo and I were here? Why are you acting so high and mighty with me about it now? No one will ever know it was me.”

  Kelly heard a man talking in low tones, as if he was trying to calm the woman down, but she couldn’t make out his words. She didn’t want to get any closer to the door, because she was afraid of being caught eavesdropping.

  When she returned to the tasting room Mike was standing by his stool, waiting for her. “We have to leave now,” he said in an urgent tone of voice, yanking her by the arm. “Start walking. I’ll tell you all about it on the way to the B and B.”

  “Ouch! I thought we were going to the sheriff’s station.”

  “No, there’s been a change of plans. What are you doing?” he asked as she bent down and picked up the pair of red sandals that the young woman who she now assumed was Alessandra, had left next to the bar. She put them in her purse.

  “I’ll tell you all about it later,” she said feeling his hand on her back, pushing her towards the front door.

  “Kelly, hurry up,” he said taking long strides towards their rental car.

  “I am, Mike, but I can’t walk as fast as you can. What’s the rush? Why are we going to the B and B and then the sheriff’s station?”

  “My chief deputy, Brandon Wynn, called while you were in the restroom. Half of my staff is out sick, and he said the rest of them look like they will be by tomorrow. He said I need to get back as soon as possible.” Just then Mike’s phone rang, and he said, “Were you able to get us on a plane?” He listened to his secretary for a moment. “That’s fine. Three hours from now will be perfect. We can make it. Tell Deputy Wynn I’m on my way and tell him to go home. He sounded horrible when I talked to him.” Mike was quiet again and then said, “Yes, you go on home, too. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

  CHAPTER 27

  When Kelly and Mike got back to the B & B, Mike said, “Kelly, you go up and start packing. I’ll settle our bill and be up in a few minutes.”

  “10-4,” Kelly said and practically ran up the stairs two at a time. As soon as she entered the room, she began to throw things in their suitcases. Mike came up in a few minutes and double-checked that she hadn’t missed anything in the closet or the bathroom. “Looks good, Kelly. Thanks.” They hurried down the hall to the stairs and a few moments later were on their way to the sheriff’s station.

  “We just barely have enough time to stop at the sheriff’s station on our way out of town, but I want to let him know why we’re leaving,” Mike said, hitting the gas pedal. “I feel like I’m letting him down, but unfortunately, as an elected official, I have an obligation to my constituents, and having a sheriff’s station understaffed with less than the needed number of deputies on duty would really be a disaster. As it is, I hope I can make it back before everyone has gone home. I’ll have to go into the station as soon as we get back to Cedar Bay.”

  “I understand. Your being there takes precedence. So your secretary had no problem changing our tickets?” Kelly asked.

  “She said we had to pay a little bit more to change them, but it wasn’t much, and really, there was no choice. Good, I see the sheriff’s car is parked in the lot, so that probably means he’s here.”

  They walked into the station and Mike said, “I’m Sheriff Reynolds. Would you please tell Sheriff Dawson I’m here? I have some things I need to r
un by him, and I have an airplane flight I need to catch in Sacramento, so I’m sort of in a hurry.”

  After the young officer at the desk had called the sheriff, he said, “Please go back to his office. He said you’ve been there before.” Kelly and Mike opened the door and walked down the hall to Sheriff Dawson’s office.

  “Come in,” Sheriff Dawson said in answer to Mike’s knock. “Good to see you. How are you both doing today?”

  “Been better, Sheriff. There’s a flu bug going around back at my office, and half of my staff is out with it, and the other half is expected to come down with it momentarily. My chief deputy called and told me I really need to get back. I feel like we’re abandoning you, but I don’t have a choice. I’m sure you’d do the same thing under the same circumstances, but we have found out a few things.” He turned to Kelly and said, “Why don’t you start?”

  Kelly told him about her conversation with the owner of The Shoe Salon and then removed a pair of small red sandals from her purse. “Sheriff, I have a feeling that the soleprint on these sandals will match the soleprints that were found on the stairs leading up to the top of the vat, and I think I know who they belong to and who the killer is.”

  “Kelly, you never told me that,” Mike said with a look of surprise on his face.

  “I never had a chance. We had to leave the Romano Winery Tasting Room in such a rush I didn’t have time to tell you what I found out while I was in the restroom.” She told both of them about the conversation she’d overheard when she was in the restroom as well as the conversation she’d overheard coming from Carlos Romano’s office.

  Sheriff Dawson sat back in his chair and twirled a pencil between his fingers. “Kelly, I agree with you. I think you’ve discovered that Alessandra Romano murdered Angela Lucci, but it’s an awful lot of circumstantial evidence. The soleprints on the red sandals, what you overheard, all of it points to her, but I don’t think the District Attorney will consider it enough to bring charges.”

  “I might be able to help you there, Sheriff,” Mike said. He turned to Kelly and said, “I haven’t had a chance to tell you this either, but when I was on the golf course this morning I got a call from Jim Barstow, the manager of the Moretti Winery. He told me he’d gotten a call last night from Juan Sabbatini, the man who’s in charge of his vineyards and the hiring of the help. He said one of his workers had called yesterday at the urging of his wife, because he’d seen a woman go into the vat barn about the time Angela was murdered.

  “Jim asked if the man could identify the woman, either in person or from a photograph, and he said yes, because it was still light out. He was waiting for his wife to pick him up, and he didn’t recognize the woman, so he watched her as she walked from her parked car down to the vat barn. He said what he thought was strange was she didn’t walk in a straight line, but kind of tried to hide behind some of the grape vines. She’d crouch down behind one and then go from one to another. He said she reached down and petted a dog tied to a post just outside the vat barn door, and then she disappeared inside. He said his wife was late and he was still waiting for her a few minutes later when he heard the dog barking frantically. He said he saw the woman’s face when she hurried up the lane to where her car was parked. She got in it and drove away real fast.

  “Evidently the man was taking the next morning off to attend the funeral of a relative. His wife had heard about the murder and asked him when he returned if he’d seen anything. That was when he told her about seeing a strange woman enter the vat barn. She told the man he should call Juan, that maybe what he saw would be of help.”

  “Are you kidding? Sheriff Dawson said. “If he could identify the woman going in and out of the barn at the time of the murder, we’d have an eyeball witness, and that may be the tipping point for circumstantial evidence we already have.”

  “Knowing what we know now, I agree,” Mike said. “I planned on going out to the winery this afternoon and talking to the man. Based on what Kelly told you, maybe you could get a picture of Alessandra and see if he can ID her.”

  “I’m sure I can get a picture one way or another. Excuse me, but my secretary never puts a call through when I have people in my office unless it’s an emergency. I need to take this one.” He listened for several minutes, hung up his phone, turned to Kelly and Mike and said, “I think you two solved the murder.”

  Sheriff Dawson abruptly stood up and grabbed his hat. “I need to leave. Here’s what just happened. A 911 call just came in from the Romano Winery Tasting Room. It was from Carlos Romano. All the big-time wine growers have a panic button under their desk that’s wired to 911. There have been a lot of robberies at the tasting rooms in town. After he pushed the button he called 911 and said his niece, Alessandra Romano, was having a mental breakdown, and he’d instructed his security guards to restrain her. He said to send an ambulance as well. He said she was screaming she’d killed Angela Lucci, and she was threatening to commit suicide. The Angela Lucci case may be over shortly. I’m on my way there now. I’ll call you later on and let you know what happens. Thanks for everything,” he said as he rushed out to his car and tore out of the parking lot, red lights blinking and siren screaming.

  Kelly and Mike stared at each other for several moments in disbelief. Mike was the first to break the silence. “Well, we could have scripted a lot of outcomes to this whole thing, but this was one I never saw coming. Let’s go. We really do need to hurry. Don’t forget, we’ve got to turn in our rental car and then try and catch our flight. It’s going to be a close call.”

  EPILOGUE

  The following day an exhausted Mike called Kelly and said, “Just call me General Custer, because I think I’m the last man standing. Pray nothing major happens in the county that needs the attention of the sheriff’s department. I should have a few people back tomorrow. This had to be about the most contagious flu that’s ever been around. Anyway, I got a call from Sheriff Dawson, and I wanted to fill you in on what’s happened.”

  “I’m all ears. I don’t think I’ve thought of anything else since we left his office yesterday. Well, I take that back. When we were running through the Sacramento airport trying to catch our flight, I wasn’t thinking of it. In fact, we were in such a hurry, I didn’t even have time to wonder why the airport authorities decided to hang a fifty-foot-tall modern art rendition of a rabbit from the ceiling in the terminal next to the escalators. Talk about some weird versions of public art. I think the dumb rabbit wins.”

  “Yeah, making it onto our plane was an adventure.” Mike began to laugh. “Being the last people to get on a plane has never been the cause of a lowered blood pressure, and mine sure wasn’t very low by the time we got seated. You better sit down. This is going to take a few minutes.”

  “Okay, I have my glass of iced tea. I put Lady, Rebel, and Skyy out, and you have my undivided attention. Shoot.”

  “Alessandra Romano continued to scream that she killed Angela Lucci, because she loved Matteo. She even blurted out how she crept up the stairs of the vat, grabbed Angela from behind, held her face over the carbon dioxide gas coming from the vat until she passed out, and then pushed her into the vat. The paramedics finally gave her a strong sedative to calm her down. Evidently, they were afraid she was going to break through her restraints. That’s one thing. Sheriff Dawson had a long talk with Carlos Romano, who is grieving not only over his niece’s mental breakdown, but also about the fact that he blames himself for what happened. He said if he hadn’t made a casual offhand comment about Angela falling into the vat, it never would have happened.”

  “I doubt that. He might have planted the seeds, but it sounds like she was pretty unstable to start with.”

  “You’re right. He told the sheriff that the reason the family had sent her to Carlos in the first place was because of her instability. They were hoping that a new environment and the psychiatrist she was seeing would help her. It didn’t.”

  “What about the sandals and the vineyard worker?” Kelly ask
ed.

  “The soles of the red sandals you gave to the sheriff matched the soleprints that were found on the stairs. The sheriff took a picture of Alessandra and had one of his deputies, who was fluent in Spanish, drive out to the vineyard and meet with Juan and the worker. The worker identified the woman in the picture as being the same woman he had seen go in and out of the vat barn.”

  “Mike, if they just showed him one picture, wouldn’t he naturally identify her as being the one he’d seen?”

  “Yes, if they had done that, he probably would have, but they wanted to cross all their t’s and dot their i’s, although unless Alessandra’s condition changes radically, she’ll probably never be able to stand trial but instead will wind up in a mental institution. Anyway, the worker was shown five photographs of women, one of whom was Caitlin, the intern. He absolutely confirmed that Alessandra was the one he’d seen.”

  “Well, that pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, except for one thing which I think you’ll find quite interesting. As we found out, there can’t be any down time at a vineyard. In other words, there must be a winemaker and guess who Carlos Romano hired?”

  “I haven’t a clue, since I don’t know any other winemakers in the valley or really, anywhere else, for that matter.”

  “Well, I’ve got news for you. You’ve met her.”

  “Seriously? It can’t have been the woman who owns the shoe shop, and I think the only other woman I talked to for any length of time was Josie. Was it her? Although I don’t see her leaving the Morettis and going over to the Romano Winery.”

  “You’re getting warmer. Remember the young woman, Caitlin Sanders, who was so anxious to become a winemaker that she’d even called Signor Moretti when she found out that Angela was dead? Well, she called Carlos Romano, and the timing must have been right. He called the university and talked to the dean of the department who he knows well. I guess all the winemakers know him. Anyway, he said Caitlin was a brilliant young woman and would probably make an excellent winemaker. Kind of a full circle, huh?”