by J. C. Eaton
“Yesterday. In Ithaca. The cellar of an apartment building in Collegetown. Buffalo Street, to be exact.”
I went on to give him the details about Alex Bollinger’s cockroach study and his subsequent discovery in the basement.
“Do you know the address?” Bradley asked.
“Not offhand but I can get it for you. Why?”
“It’s probably nothing, but one of our clients owns apartment buildings there. Real slums, if you ask me, but no code violations so he stays in business. Listen, the reason I called was to make sure you were all set for Saturday night. You know, the food, the drinks…”
“The crazy lunatics who’ll be scratching each other’s eyes out if they’re not the beneficiary to Arnold’s will?”
“Yeah, them, too.”
“Don’t worry. We’re all set. By the way, I asked Theo and Don to join us since Arnold’s body was found on their property, too.”
“No problem.”
“Oh, and Godfrey Klein from the entomology department at Cornell. He’s acquainted with the nuns.”
A short silence followed by, “Sure, why not? Actually, Norrie, if I could invite the Marx Brothers, I would. From what Marvin told me, this week is shaping up to be a real sideshow.”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember a while back when you pestered me for the name of the VIP whose plane was met by Deputy Hickman? I wondered how you even knew about that. Anyway, it’s no secret now. It’s been all over the news. The VIP happens to be the CEO for a large community bank operation that includes Penn Yan and Seneca counties.”
“The embezzlement. I did hear about that from one of my employees. But only the headline, so to speak. I don’t know anything else. Your firm is handling that?”
“No. We’re family law, but our clients seem to think we’re Johnnie Cochran, Alan Dershowitz, and Gloria Allred combined. Marvin’s in the process of securing a topnotch defense lawyer for our banker.”
“Banker or murderer? I heard Arnold Mowen had a falling out with one of the bigwigs at that community bank. Maybe things went too far…”
“Um, about that…oh, never mind. I’d really love to stay on the line and talk with you, but Marvin will have my head on a plate if I’m even a second late for his nine o’clock briefing. Let me know if you need anything for Saturday’s will reading. I’m bracing myself for anything, including a damn PowerPoint presentation. Thank God Arnold didn’t leave us an old VHS tape to show.”
“If Marvin does go high tech, we have Wi-Fi. See you Saturday.”
I poured milk in my coffee while I waited for my raisin bread to toast. At least two mysteries were solved—the identity of the VIP whose plane landed in Penn Yan the night of my date with Bradley and the whereabouts of the stolen wine. If this was a puzzle, I’d still be looking at missing edges and a giant gap in the middle. It felt as if I had everything I needed to solve the murders and yet everything was as cloudy as my coffee after I stirred the milk.
With the screenplay deadline looming, I knew I should boot up my laptop and go directly to the file. Instead, I pulled out the delivery log Sister Gloria had slipped me and stared at it. Granted, Deputy Hickman had probably reviewed it looking for a connection between the wine thefts and the cheesecake deliveries, but he certainly wasn’t about to share his findings with me.
I’d scrawled the dates of the winery incidents on the wall calendar, beginning with the first hijacking. I worried the thieves would target us next. And yeah, we were hit, but not with a hijacking. From that point on, I noted everything. Not quite as detailed as Francine would have, but thorough enough for me. The first heist took place on a Tuesday in mid-November. Theo called to tell me it was on the news and the delivery truck was on its way to our side of the lake.
Immediately, I looked at the convent’s delivery log to see if there was a match. Hard to tell. They made one delivery to a restaurant in Seneca Falls, followed by two others in Geneva. Impossible to pinpoint anything. I grabbed the calendar off the wall and transferred the incident dates to scrap paper. No sense jumping up and down to look at the calendar every few seconds.
Next to every incident date, I noted where the delivery van stopped. Each stop was in the range of possibilities, but, while I had the time of each delivery, I didn’t have the exact time for each incident. I did note something of interest, though, and I kept my fingers crossed Deputy Hickman would notice it too. The van made deliveries to upscale restaurants in Ithaca. It didn’t necessarily translate to unloading stolen wine at a cockroach-infested apartment building, but given the addresses of those restaurants, it did put the drivers coincidentally close.
Knowing that if I were to share my theory with Deputy Hickman he would admonish me beyond belief for my sleuthing, I took another approach—the back door. Aka Gladys Pipp. Before I had time to talk myself out of it, I grabbed my cell phone and called her.
“Gladys? It’s me, Norrie Ellington. Is Deputy Hickman anywhere within earshot?”
“No, why? What’s going on?”
“I may have a lead on those winery thefts, but I can’t tell him. He has to believe he’s the one who thought of it.”
“Good grief. How are you going to do that?”
“Um, well, er…actually…I was kind of hoping you would. Just tell him you liked that idea of his about the delivery van from the convent in Lodi hiding stolen wine in a nearby apartment building. When he tells you he doesn’t remember saying anything about it, tell him he said something like that after the Ithaca Police Department got in touch. Trust me. I know they would have gotten in touch and I know his ego will take it from there.”
“I hope you’re right, Norrie, or he’ll think I’m the one who’s touched!”
“So you’ll do it?”
“If it can get him closer to solving all these crimes, I sure will.”
“Thanks, Gladys. You’re the best.”
I had enough on my mind with the upcoming reading of the will and my determination to ferret out Arnold and Lavettia’s killer. All Deputy Hickman needed to do was follow the clues and catch some thieves. So what if I gave him a little push? And while I was doing the pushing, something else occurred to me—Bradley wasn’t the only one who could benefit from getting the address of that cockroach-laden building. If Deputy Hickman didn’t grab the bull by the horns on this one, I’d need to be prepared as well. Drat! So much for screenwriting deadlines.
I was right next to the phone, so I called Godfrey Klein at his office.
“Hi! It’s me. Norrie. Sorry to bother you again so soon, but I wondered if you could give me the address of that building Alex was working in.”
“Sure. Hold on a second, will you? It’s in our field work files. Don’t tell me you plan on snooping around over there since that’s where the stolen wine was discovered.”
“Ew! Not on your life. The attorneys handling Arnold’s will have a client who owns lots of those buildings in Collegetown. It might turn out to be him.”
“Okay. Give me a second.”
I held the phone and glanced out the window. With the light snowfall on the ground and the seasonal decorations surrounding our tasting room building, it really was beginning to feel like the holidays. That thought gave me a pit in my stomach. I hadn’t gotten back to Godfrey’s invitation to join him and his entomology crew for Christmas.
It wasn’t the thought of bugs that held me back, or the fact I had an open invitation with Theo and Don. It was something else and I couldn’t quite figure it out. Just then, Godfrey got back on the line.
“Here you go—567 East Buffalo Street. I’d love to stay on the line and chat, but I have to finish a field study report regarding the pheromone treatment on the Boisea trivittata. Say, is there anything I should be bringing to Arnold Mowen’s will reading?”
“Yeah. Aspirin and a big bottle of Tums.”
Godfrey laughed, and I thanked him for the address. I was certain Deputy Hickman would take the bait and look for a correlation between the convent delivery van drivers and the list of tenants occupying that building. I knew sheriff departments had access to all sorts of databases, but there was one database I could tap into and I didn’t waste any time.
City and county tax records were available to anyone and everyone, but it was a nightmare to navigate through the web of information the assessor’s office provided. All I really wanted to find was who owned the damn place. Two hours and countless websites later, I got my answer. When I saw the name staring me in the face, I almost choked. It was the last person I expected. And now, the first on my list as the mastermind for the wine sabotage.
Having secured that information without leaving my kitchen table, I felt kind of ashamed for sending Deputy Hickman on a wild goose chase. Then again, there was absolutely nothing linking the owner of that building to the cheesecake guys, Rob and Derek. My pulse raced with the latest discovery, and there was no way I could keep it to myself.
The faster I tried to tap Theo and Don’s number into my cell phone, the more mistakes I made. I forced myself to slow down, take a breath, and move my fingers slowly.
“Don? Theo? Whoever you are, you won’t believe this!”
“It’s Don, and what won’t I believe?”
“I found out who the owner of that roach-infested building is, and it’s none other than Miller Holtz. It must be our Miller Holtz. How many Miller Holtzes can there be?”
“Holy Cow! That would explain a whole heck of a lot. Who better than a wine rep to manipulate the market by removing the wines that carry the highest price tags. Tell me everything you know.”
“I just did. Except for the fact I found out by doing a hellishly long internet search on city and county tax files. No wonder real estate attorneys get paid so much.”
“Do you think Miller’s the murderer, too?”
“Nope. Not at all. I’m totally convinced Clayton LeVine deserves all the credit for that. Listen, we only have three days until all hell breaks loose over Arnold’s will. We have to act fast.”
“We?”
“You don’t expect me to do this alone.”
“I’m afraid to ask,” Don said.
“A plan. We need a plan that will force Clayton to confess.”
“Even the most ruthless governments have some sort of trial before they convict someone of murder. How can you be so sure?”
“Lavettia was convinced Clayton had something on Arnold. Whatever it was, Arnold had to keep Clayton satiated for fear of being found out. Lavettia was petrified Arnold was going to leave everything to him. Let’s be honest. Clayton had motive, means, and opportunity.”
“So did everyone else in Arnold’s circle.”
“True, but no one could come up with disguises the way Clayton could. You should see his Pinterest site. It’s spectacular. That absolutely had to be him pretending to be Lavettia’s cleaning woman.”
“So, what are you proposing?” Don asked.
“It’s really quite simple. When Clayton arrives for the reading of the will, someone mentions that the Seneca County Sheriff’s Department has a surveillance tape of him sneaking into Lavettia’s apartment to wipe his fingerprints from the chairs. They called our winery to let us know that a Yates County Deputy was on his way to arrest Clayton.”
“And which lucky person gets to break the news to Clayton?”
“Not to Clayton. That’s way too obvious. No, we make sure Clayton is within hearing range, and you and Theo have that conversation. Or…if you prefer, you and me. Or Theo and me. It doesn’t matter.”
“All right. Suppose we agree to this one-act show. Then what?”
“Sit back and watch. Clayton will have no choice but to make some flimsy excuse and bolt out of there. If he’s smart, he’ll head for the nearest airport. We’ll call our county sheriff for real this time.”
Don groaned. “Before or after the reading of the will?”
“Before. If we wait until after the will is read, his disappearance could be attributed to sour grapes if he wasn’t the beneficiary or sheer, unadulterated bliss if he was. No question about it—we have to enact this little charade before Marvin sits everyone down for the grand finale. So, do you think Theo will buy it?”
“Oh yeah. He’ll buy it, all right. He’s just as kooky as you are when it comes to these little schemes.”
“You won’t be sorry. Everything will work out.”
If I could’ve erased those last four words from my vocabulary, I would have. How was I supposed to know that my little plan would take a back seat to one over which I had absolutely no control, beginning with an idiotic storm named “Brutus” that was brewing somewhere on the West Coast.
Chapter 23
I woke up Thursday morning prepared for a productive day of screenwriting and that was exactly how the morning began. However, everything changed when I got a call from Theo a little after nine.
“Want to share a ride over to the WOW meeting? I can pick you up if you want.”
“The WOW meeting? That’s today? When did that happen?”
“When they announced it at the last meeting. Honestly, Norrie, you need to start writing stuff down or get one of those Amazon Echo things to remind you.”
“Yeesh. I’ve been so preoccupied with everything else, I totally forgot about the meeting. Is anything important on the agenda?”
“The official agenda items that Madeline Martinez emailed include updates on ‘Deck the Halls around the Lake,’ and some sort of charity benefit for the Humane Society. But you know how it’ll go. Everyone will talk about the stash of stolen wine that was found. Did you plan on dropping the Miller Holtz bombshell on them? Don told me about it. Of course, once you do that, there’s no turning back. They’ll spout off theories like nobody’s business. Should be one hell of a meeting.”
“Well, I didn’t plan to go that far. Look, I identified Miller Holtz as the owner of that building and I only had access to public records and the slow internet access around here, so the sheriff’s department should already be aware of it. In fact, they’re probably questioning him right this minute. I know this sounds terrible, but truthfully, Miller Holtz is the last of my concerns right now. True, if it turns out he was the one who stole that wine to manipulate market profits and all that, he deserves everything coming his way. Especially Deputy Hickman and any WOW gossip that follows. But my gut tells me Miller’s not our killer, Clayton is. So, did Don talk to you about my plan to get the little weasel to snap and run on Saturday?”
“He did. Were you planning to provide us with scripts or do we wing it?”
“I can give you an entire screenplay if you want. I’m just glad you’re going to do it.”
“Yeah. You’ll be way too busy with everything else. Besides, it might be fun to see if I have any acting talent.”
“Don’t overdo it. Try to sound nonchalant but focused. Intent but not too driven.”
“Okay, Mr. Coppola. Or are you more the Steven Spielberg type?”
“Very funny. Hey, Catherine mentioned something about trading recipes for holiday cookies if I remember the last meeting.”
“The only thing they’ll be trading are rumors but, what the heck, it should be interesting. I’ll pick you up at nine forty. Okay?”
“Works for me.”
* * * *
Much as I hated to admit it, Theo had summed up the meeting before it even started. A dull headache had formed in the back of my skull and morphed into a real pounder by the time the women had run out of things to say. I really couldn’t blame my headache on the WOW get-together, as annoying as it was. Given the pressure on my temples and the relentless hammering at the base of my neck, it was a bona fide tension headache. It would most likely disappear after the reading of A
rnold Mowen’s will. At least I hoped it would. Meanwhile, I resigned myself to limping along with Tylenol or whatever other over-the-counter pain reliever I could find.
“We’re keeping our fingers crossed, Norrie,” Catherine said, as Theo and I put on our jackets and headed to Madeline’s front door. “If all goes well, Steven will be here in plenty of time for the next ‘Deck the Halls around the Lake’ and the two of you can finally meet up.”
Theo balled up my woolen scarf and thrust it at me, trying not to laugh.
“Um, yeah,” I said to Catherine, “uh, that would be something.”
Next thing I knew, Theo all but shoved me out the door and shouted, “See you later” to anyone within hearing range.
“It never stops,” I whined when we got in his car. “Personally, I’m hoping Steven Trobert will have a revelation he’s on your team and will break the news to his mother.”
“Don’t count on it, but we’re always glad to welcome new members.”
I wasn’t hungry when I got back from the meeting. I attributed it to my headache and the lemon cake and streusel I had eaten. I was, however, freezing cold. The temperature had dropped into the high twenties and, unless snow was in the forecast, which usually meant temps above freezing, I had to resign myself to thermal underwear and lots of scarves.
The Weather Channel had predicted some sort of a snow event, but it wasn’t supposed to materialize until Sunday. I didn’t bother to check out the details. When they used the word “event,” it was their way of saying, “Who knows what to expect? Rain? Snow? Sleet? Wind? More snow?” When I used the word “event” to describe the gathering of money-hungry vultures at our establishment for the reading of some narcissist’s will, I envisioned a scenario so replete with lunatics and crackpots, it left little to the imagination: unlike The Weather Channel.
I popped into the tasting room late in the day to make sure Cammy had all the arrangements made for midnight Saturday. Last thing I needed was a snafu regarding the food. She reassured me it would be a simple, yet plentiful, canape menu that wouldn’t feature any spicy or weird food combinations that might make anyone nauseous at such a late hour. No, the reading of the will was bound to do that.