by Avery Aames
The reassuring musky scent of ripening cheeses met me as I opened the cellar door, but as I descended the staircase, a chill gripped me. The temperature in the cellar stayed at a cool fifty-eight degrees. I wished I had grabbed a shawl. Shivering, I stopped three stairs shy of the lower level and peered around the corner. Matthew, Shelton, and Liberty were sitting at the mosaic table in the alcove.
“. . . and then Chief Urso asked me about my alibi for last night,” Shelton said.
So Shelton Nelson was a suspect? Wow. What about Liberty? She was quivering like a cat eager to find refuge from a storm.
“Don’t worry,” Matthew said. “I imagine Urso will question everyone who knew Noelle at some point. Do you have an alibi?”
“I was at home working out,” Shelton said. “Every evening, I ride my stationary bike and walk at least five miles on the treadmill. It’s a ritual. Then I shower and read until bedtime.”
“Any witnesses?”
“The housekeeper was there the whole time, but she’s Danish and doesn’t speak very good English. Not to mention she’s as deaf as a tombstone.”
Bad choice of words, I thought.
“I was home, too,” Liberty said. “In my room. I heard Daddy singing in the shower.” Her cheeks blushed a soft pink. “His room abuts mine,” she added quickly as if the notion that she knew her father was in the shower was a little odd. “I was reading Jane Austen for the umpteenth time. I adore Mr. Darcy.”
“Did you tell Chief Urso, Liberty?” Matthew asked.
“I wasn’t around this morning when the chief arrived. My fiancé and I had to meet with Tyanne. She’s our wedding planner.” Her face flushed a deeper red. “We were going over last-minute details, the cake and the flowers, and well, you know, Matthew. You just went through it. There’s so much to think about.”
“So you haven’t gone to the precinct to tell the chief?” Matthew said.
“Not yet. Daddy wanted . . .” Liberty raked the collar of her furry vest with her fingernails. “Daddy wanted to talk to you first.”
I took the last few steps of the stairs loudly so my appearance wouldn’t be a surprise. “Hi, sorry to intrude. I need to fetch some blue cheese right away.”
“Gosh, I apologize,” Matthew said. “I meant to—”
“No worries.”
“Charlotte.” Like a gentleman, Shelton rose partway. “Sit, please. For a minute. I’m so . . . Noelle . . . I can’t believe . . . in your house.”
“My garage.” I perched on the front of the chair opposite him.
“Noelle was”—his voice broke—“a special woman. An expert in her field. With her qualifications and background, she brought so much to the table. It’s such a loss.”
“Daddy had high hopes for her.” Liberty whisked a tissue from her huge tote bag and dabbed her eyes, which looked pretty darned dry. Left unsaid was that she didn’t have the same high hopes.
I thought of how she and her father had argued after we toured the vineyard. Noelle believed they were fighting about her. Was I wrong to think that Boyd Hellman had killed Noelle? Was Liberty or Shelton capable of such an act?
Liberty put her hand over her father’s and squeezed.
Shelton pressed back then removed his hand. “Chief Urso said you found her, Charlotte.” His chin trembled. “He said she spoke to you. What was it she said? Something like hell’s key?”
Aha. Urso was the one leaking the words Noelle uttered. Why would he reveal that much unless he hoped to judge suspects by watching their reactions?
“It sounds religious to me,” Liberty said.
“Religious?” Shelton scoffed. “Everything sounds religious to you, now that you’re marrying that—”
“Daddy,” Liberty cautioned.
“God-fearing man.”
“We all should be half the human being he is.”
“You know, darlin’, speaking of religion”—Shelton folded his hands in front of him—“wasn’t Noelle raised in a Catholic orphanage? Maybe her last breath was about needing some spiritual key to avoid going to hell.”
“You could be right, Daddy.”
“Interesting,” Matthew said.
Personally, I thought the theory was a stretch.
“I’m going to mention that to Chief Urso,” Shelton said.
Liberty huffed. “Like he’ll listen. He’s so bullheaded.”
“Now, darlin’.”
“You said so yourself. The chief—”
Shelton tapped a firm finger on the table. “Let’s keep those thoughts to ourselves.”
Liberty flicked her hair off her shoulders. “I’ll bet that horrible Harold Warfield sicced Chief Urso on you, Daddy.”
“Harold?” Matthew said. “Why would he do that?”
“He’s mad that Daddy hired Noelle. He told me so when we toured the vineyards.”
Harold clearly didn’t like Liberty. I doubt he would have revealed anything so intimate. I tried to recall his introduction to Noelle—or rather, reintroduction. She said they had met before. He was polite yet distant. I said, “What exactly did he say, Liberty?”
She sat taller in her chair. “He said she was gunning for his job.” Her eyes blinked rapidly; she was lying. “He said that if he had the chance, he’d wring her scrawny neck.”
Except Noelle hadn’t been strangled. She had been skewered.
• • •
After locating a dozen wheels of the last of our blue cheese stock, Rogue River Blue, a scrumptious blue cheese that was aged in caves that had been crafted to emulate the ancient caves in Roquefort, I returned upstairs, set the cheese in the kitchen, and went to the office to make an immediate reorder of cheeses we needed. Luckily, no early snowfall was in the forecast that might delay deliveries.
Rebecca followed me. “Well?”
“Shouldn’t you be attending to customers?” Before heading to the office, I had counted at least a dozen roaming the shop.
“Your grandfather came in for a snack. Afterward, he asked if he could tend the counter. You know how he loves to help out.”
I slipped into the office. Rags, who lazed on the desk chair, lifted his head and perked his ears.
Rebecca shut the door. “Come on, spill.”
I recounted what I had heard in the cellar, ending with Liberty’s alibi.
“She loves Fitzwilliam Darcy?” Rebecca squeaked, totally off topic. “How could she? I mean, he’s so rude and obnoxious.” When Rebecca left her Amish community, she decided to educate herself. Following my grandmother’s recommendations, she had read many classic plays. Now, she was blasting through classic novels denied her when she was a girl: Little Women, Gone with the Wind, Pride and Prejudice.
I tilted my head. “Um, have you read the whole book?”
“I’m halfway through.”
“Finish it and then we’ll talk about the fabulous Mr. Darcy.”
“Fabulous, shmabulous.”
“Back to Shelton Nelson,” I said. “He acted bereft.” That was the only word for it. Trembling chin, white knuckles, a break in his voice.
“And he knew Noelle spoke to you?”
“Urso must have revealed that to him.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. Ultra-secret Urso? Ha!”
I scooped up Rags and slumped in the chair, blown away by the last twenty-four hours. Rags must have sensed my melancholy. He stood on his hind legs and climbed up my chest with his forepaws, seeking a kiss. I obliged. Then I sought a kiss of my own. A different kiss. I kept a stash of Hershey’s Kisses—my mother’s favorite candy—in a desk drawer. I unwrapped the silver foil and plopped the morsel into my mouth. Delish.
Rebecca stomped to the desk. “Charlotte, what’s wrong? You’re keeping something from me.”
“No, I’m not.”
She folded her arms and tapped her foot, a set of moves she had learned all too well from my grandmother.
“What if . . . ?” My voice trailed off.
“What if what?”
“Nothing.”
“Out with it.”
“What if Noelle was saying Shel’s key, not hell’s key. Noelle only uttered the first blend of my name: Ch. That sounds like Sh. Add that to hell, it becomes Shel’s key.”
Rebecca shot up a finger. “You could be right. She was dying. People in pain aren’t always able to say exactly what they mean.” Her mouth tightened, making me wonder what she had witnessed as a girl. Her mother had died young.
“But I still don’t know what she meant.”
“What if”—Rebecca inhaled; her eyes blazed with intensity—“Noelle was saying that Shelton was key to knowing the truth about who murdered her, namely, Liberty.”
“Liberty?”
“You said Liberty’s alibi was hearing her father singing. Doesn’t that seem strange?”
“People sing.”
“You’re not following me. Doesn’t it seem odd that the whole case could rest on testimony like that?”
“What case?”
“Think like an attorney.” Rebecca tapped her head. “You’ve got a daughter as the sole witness for a father. Remember that movie Legally Blonde? Remember how the daughter’s alibi about taking a shower with recently permed hair blew the case wide open? Spoiler alert: she was the killer.” In addition to being an avid reader and television viewer, Rebecca had plowed through AFI’s 100 Years . . . 100 Movies and AFI’s 100 Years . . . 100 Laughs. Now, she was intent on watching the complete bodies of work of her favorite female stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Meryl Streep, and Reese Witherspoon—an eclectic mix to say the least.
“If only cracking the case were as easy as proving Liberty’s alibi was false,” I said. “What’s her motive? Why would she kill Noelle?”
Rebecca paced in front of the desk. “Jealousy.”
“I would buy jealousy if Noelle was hitting on Liberty’s fiancé, or if Liberty had wanted Noelle’s job, but she didn’t.” Unless that was what Liberty and Shelton’s argument had been about.
“If you ask me, Liberty is a daddy’s girl,” Rebecca said. “She doesn’t want to share him with anybody. Did you see her when she came in? What was that fanning thing she was doing to move Shelton to the cellar?” She mimed Liberty’s fingers crawling up her father’s back.
I recalled Liberty doting on him downstairs, too. She had placed her hand on his. But that didn’t mean anything. Lots of daughters held their fathers’ hands. “She’s getting married.”
“Fine, so she’s betrothed. So what?” Rebecca perched on the corner of the desk. Rags eyeballed her. She hissed, “Cool it, buddy boy. I live here, too.”
Rags grumbled and hunkered down.
Rebecca smirked, the victor. “What if Liberty was afraid her father might abandon her for another woman?”
“You mean Noelle.”
“She was beautiful.”
“And his junior by a ton of years.”
“Fifteen, tops. That’s not so far apart.” Rebecca flicked her hand. “Let me remind you that Delilah’s beau is at least twenty years older.”
“They broke up.”
“No!” She patted her chest.
“Staying on point, Liberty and her father did have an argument, right after Shelton gave us a tour of his private cellar. I couldn’t catch everything, but I heard Liberty say the words lover, phony, and charted for disaster.”
“That sounds like Liberty was talking about a doomed love affair.”
I couldn’t dispute that. “At the end of the disagreement, they neared the door, and I heard every word.”
Rebecca did an arm-pump.
“Liberty was protesting something. She said, ‘Noelle,’ but Shelton cut her off, saying Noelle ‘is here to stay.’”
“That confirms it.” Rebecca hopped to her feet and began to pace. “Noelle was his lover, and Liberty was jealous.”
Forgive me if I wasn’t one hundred percent sold, yet adrenaline took hold. I rose, set Rags on the chair, and paced alongside Rebecca. “If Shelton and Noelle were in a relationship, that could have angered Boyd Hellman.”
“You know, Deputy O’Shea might be grilling Noelle’s ex this instant.” She jabbed a finger at the door. “When he’s done, I might be able to ply him for information.”
Matthew rapped on the door and opened it. He poked his head inside. “Am I interrupting?”
“Not at all. C’mon in.” Rebecca pulled him by the shoulder. “The more heads the better. We’re theorizing.”
“About Noelle’s murder?” he asked.
“Yes.” Rebecca brought him up to date with our speculations.
When she concluded, Matthew said, “Do you think Urso has something on Shelton? Is that why he questioned him at the precinct?”
I said, “Shelton was Noelle’s employer, however briefly, but rest assured, if Urso has something concrete, he’ll—” I paused and searched my cousin’s face. “You look worried for Shelton. Why?”
“SNW was one of my first accounts in Providence. Shelton and I have been friends for longer than that. He sold his wines at the restaurant where Noelle and I worked.”
“And he knows that you’re friends with U-ey.” Rebecca jabbed his chest with her finger. “He might be playing you so you’ll be his buffer.”
Matthew’s mouth fell open. “You don’t really think he killed Noelle, do you?”
“My money is on Liberty,” Rebecca said.
Not willing to rule out a soul, I said, “Can you think of any reason Shelton might have wanted Noelle dead?”
Matthew shook his head emphatically. “Absolutely not.”
“Were they lovers?” Rebecca asked.
“What?” Matthew’s voice thinned. “No. At least I don’t think so. She hadn’t visited town more than three times.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of love at first sight?” Rebecca said.
I fell hard for Jordan the moment I met him.
Matthew swiped a hand down his face then massaged the back of his neck. “Okay, what if they were? He’s single; she’s single.” He bit his lip. “Was. She was single. When I introduced them, he was over the moon because she knew so much about wine. He called her his guardian angel.”
I wanted to be gentle with Matthew, but other than Boyd Hellman, Matthew was the one person who knew the most about Noelle. “You said she fashioned the job for herself and asked you to pitch her to Shelton.”
“That’s right.”
“Didn’t her wish to move to a small town seem odd?” I reiterated what Boyd had yelled at Noelle. “He said she was not a small-town girl. He thought she had something up her sleeve. Why would he say that?”
“I don’t know.” Matthew sighed. “Noelle told me that she hoped the switch might add a layer to her résumé and boost her career to another level. Sommeliers can get stuck doing the same thing. Sometimes you have to take a step sideways to get on the right path.”
Her death had ended that prospect.
After a respectful moment of silence, I explained Rebecca’s theory that Liberty, being a daddy’s girl, might have killed Noelle out of jealousy. “What do you think?”
Matthew worked his teeth back and forth.
“Wait a sec.” Rebecca slashed the air. “How about a different theory? Charlotte, you heard Liberty argue that the winery was ‘charted for disaster.’ Matthew, do you know of any financial problems at the place?”
Matthew eyed me. “You heard what they were saying? I couldn’t pick up a word.”
“Good ears.” I tapped my left one. “After my folks died, Grandmère and Pépère whispered for months. I trained myself to listen well.” I repeated what I’d heard at the winery.
Rebecca said, “I’ll bet Noelle asked for a large paycheck. Maybe large enough to break the bank.”
I concurred. “Maybe Liberty demanded her father fire Noelle so they could remain solvent. Liberty said to Shelton that it was ‘always about money.’”
Matthew waved away the thought. “Noelle had a contract. If Shelton
had wanted out, he could have paid her off with a minor penalty. I had the same kinds of contracts for all my full hires back at the restaurant. If business went down the tubes—” He paused.
“What?” Rebecca and I said in unison.
“While we were touring the winery, I spotted some financial breakdowns on Shelton’s desk. I only caught a glimpse, mind you, but they appeared bleak. No futures. Little demand. You’ve got good ears. I have fast eyes.”
I edged toward my cousin. “Were they recent?”
“I can’t be sure.”
“Is his product bad?”
“No, it’s good. Excellent, in fact. The winery makes delicious wines. Not plentiful, mind you. Only two hundred barrels, which tips the price upward. Vineyards all over the world do this.”
Rebecca pivoted. “Charlotte, maybe you were right.”
“I was?”
“You said earlier that hell’s key might have been Shel’s key.” She recapped my earlier theory. “Maybe Noelle saw Shelton lock up financial information in a desk or a safe that required a key—”
“Hold it.” Matthew raised his hands. “What if the winery was struggling, and Liberty thought Noelle, the new kid on the block, was spurring her father to sell?”
I nodded in agreement. “What if Liberty killed Noelle to prevent the sale?”
“Shel’s key could mean that Shelton knew the truth,” Rebecca said. “He was the key witness.”
Matthew smacked his hands together. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this, no matter what.”
Rebecca patted him on the shoulder. “Welcome, Matthew.”
“To what?”
“The Snoop Club.”
CHAPTER
7
That evening, as I was closing up shop, Meredith called and demanded my presence at her house for a game of Bunco, a dice game that had been popular in the United States since the Gold Rush. She promised it would be an evening of fun, food, and laughter. She said she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
When Rags and I entered Meredith’s baby blue Victorian, Rocket, the Briard that had doubled in size since Sylvie had gifted him to the twins, danced around us and whimpered with joy. I set Rags on the floor with a strict order to both animals to be good. The two romped away like bosom buddies—Rags scampering in and out beneath Rocket’s legs like the dog was a moving bridge.