How to Dine on Killer Wine: A Party-Planning Mystery

by Penny Warner

  Rocco took a deep breath, set down his coffee, and began. “I came back to get one of the platters I left behind. Gina noticed it was missing. When I got here, I thought I heard Marie cry out from down the hall, so I went looking for her. I found her in her bedroom, white as a ghost, still holding her cell phone as she sat on the bed. I asked her what was wrong and she told me Kyle had just called and that Rob was being held for the murder of JoAnne Douglas. I couldn’t believe it.”

  “Poor thing,” Mother said, shaking her head and biting her lip.

  “How did Marie end up in the hospital?” I asked Rocco, puzzled at how she got from her bedroom to the emergency room.

  “After she hung up, she said she wanted to lie down,” Rocco said. “I offered her a ride to the police station, but she said Kyle had told her it would be pointless and to wait because she wouldn’t get to see him for hours. He promised to call when he could arrange a visit. So she asked for a glass of water and I brought it to her. I watched her take a couple of what I assumed were Valium or sleeping pills that were on the nightstand. Then she lay down on the bed and told me to close the door on my way out. It…it never occurred to me that she might…take the whole bottle.” Rocco grimaced at the thought.

  “How did you find her?” I asked.

  “By chance,” Rocco said. “When I got back to Gina’s place, she told me I’d picked up the wrong platter and had brought one of Marie’s instead. The ones from the Culinary College are Fiestaware, like Marie’s, but they use the burgundy, not the plum. Marie’s are plum. So I came back to switch them and thought I’d check on Marie while I was here. I peeked in, and that’s when I noticed the overturned bottle. When I picked it up, all the pills inside were gone. I tried to rouse Marie, but she was unresponsive, so I called 911.” His hands trembled as he recalled the experience of finding Marie.

  Brad brought me a cup of coffee, and one for my mother. He offered Rocco a refill, but Rocco shook his head, then went to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of white wine. “I need something more medicinal,” he said, pouring the wine into a stemmed glass. Eschewing his usual wine-tasting standards, he essentially gulped it down, then closed his eyes and visibly melted into the effects of the alcohol.

  “I needed that,” he said, smacking his lips.

  “Presley,” Mother said. “I’m going to go lie down for a few minutes. I have a bingo game tonight. Will you all excuse me?”

  She took her coffee with her and ambled down the hall to her room. After she was gone, Brad took me by the hand. “Come here. I want to show you something I found.” We left Rocco sitting on a bar stool, enjoying his “medicine,” and went outdoors to the table where we’d discovered the body of JoAnne Douglas only that morning.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Normally the police do a thorough job before they leave the scene of a crime,” Brad said. “But I asked to handle the cleanup since I was already here.”

  I glanced at the site just beyond the crime scene tape. “I remember. So what did you find?”

  Brad ducked under the tape and pointed to a bed of bright red geraniums just beyond where the body had lain. I followed him and knelt down and lifted some of the ruffled leaves and petals.

  “There’s nothing here.” I stood up.

  Brad knelt down and pointed to a metal rod poking out of the ground.

  “A sprinkler head?” I asked. “So?”

  “Check again.”

  I looked closely at the silvery object. While it appeared to be similar in size, color, and material to the many sprinkler heads that protruded out of the ground, this one was definitely different. It was shorter and smoother and there were no openings at the top.

  I reached for it.

  “Don’t touch it!” he said.

  “Why not? What is it?”

  He leaned over to access one of his pockets and pulled out a metal object. He held it up for me to see.

  “That’s one of the Christophers’ cheese knives,” I said, recognizing it instantly. I’d seen several on the serving tables, lying next to the cheeses. A light went on. I looked down at the metal object poking up from the dirt. “You mean…that’s a cheese knife?”

  “Yep. Camouflaged by those flowers, it looks like another sprinkler head. Easily missed. I happened to notice it while cleaning up the area.”

  “You think it’s important?” I said, rising to standing.

  “Could be. One of Detective Kelly’s men is on his way to pick it up.”

  I thought for a moment, trying to visualize what might have happened. “Are you thinking that someone stabbed JoAnne with the cheese knife first, and then inserted the corkscrew?”

  “Possibly. We should know more when the ME’s report comes back.”

  “But why?”

  “Good question.”

  “Can they get fingerprints from it?” I asked, my mind spinning at this new turn of events.

  “They should be able to get at least a partial print, maybe more.”

  “And what if it has Rob’s print on it? Won’t that just make things worse for him?”

  “But what if it doesn’t?” Brad suggested. “What if it has someone else’s print?”

  I looked at the knife stuck in the ground. “Then Rob is off the hook.”

  “Bingo!” he said.

  I shook my head at his play on words. At the moment, I’d had just about all the bingo I could take.

  While Brad showed the newly arrived officer where the cheese knife was, I went in and checked on Mother. I found her lying on her bed watching Cupcake Wars on the TV provided in her room. Brad had suggested we head to the Napa Police Station to see what we could find out about Rob’s arrest. I told her our plans and that if she was hungry, there were plenty of leftovers in the Christopher refrigerator.

  “Will you bring me back a cupcake?” she said, not taking her eyes off the screen.

  “I’ll try,” I said, knowing she would forget her request by the time I returned. Still, if I ran into a cupcake along the way, I’d get one for her. And two for me.

  Brad drove us downtown in his SUV and pulled into the tree-lined parking lot of 1539 First Street. We got out and headed for the gray concrete building that the police shared with the fire department, located next door to city hall. When we arrived, past five, the office had reduced staff, but Brad had called ahead and he held his ID up to the window for the officer to check. I recognized Detective Ken Kelly immediately.

  Once we were let inside, Brad and Ken shook hands, and Detective Kelly led us back to his office behind a set of locked doors. He took a seat behind a cluttered desk and gestured for us to sit opposite him in a couple of metal chairs. I glanced around, curious about the kinds of crimes the detective might be working on, but there were no whiteboards filled with suspect names or “Wanted” posters of dangerous felons visible. Just walls of smoked windows that looked onto the parking lot, a serene view without a hint of criminal activity.

  “I’m talking to you as a courtesy,” Detective Kelly said to Brad, ignoring me, “because you work with SFPD. But I can’t tell you much, other than what you already know. Rob’s being held on murder one. He’ll be arraigned on Tuesday. Until then, I can’t discuss the case.”

  “I understand,” Brad said. “Thanks for seeing us. You say you found fingerprints on the vic’s shoe—and the shoe was hidden under Rob and Marie’s bed, right?”

  The detective nodded, tight-lipped.

  “Don’t you think that’s kind of strange? If Rob killed JoAnne, why would he take her shoe off and then hide it in his own room, under their own bed? Likewise with the corkscrew. Sounds like a setup to me.”

  “We’ve considered that,” the detective acknowledged. “But after working this job for over twenty years, I’ve found most criminals don’t belong to Mensa. They do stupid things, especially when they commit crimes that are spur-of-the-moment, like this one appears to be.”

  “You’re right about stupid criminals,” Brad sai
d, “but Rob seems pretty intelligent. I heard he graduated from UC Davis. So why would he be so careless about something so potentially harmful to himself?”

  “Like I said, in states of panic or stress, criminals don’t always plan things logically.”

  “But how could he have planned it? He didn’t know she would be at the party. If he killed her, why not just stab her with a cheese knife and leave it at that? Why use the incriminating corkscrew?”

  The detective looked down at his desk. He wasn’t telling us something.

  “What?” I spoke up after listening to all of this. “Is there something else?”

  Detective Kelly pressed his lips together, then said, “The ME said she was hit over the head with something blunt and heavy before she was stabbed. I’m guessing it was a wine bottle. My guys are searching the trash bins at the Purple Grape.”

  “A wine bottle?” I asked.

  “I figure Rob killed her sometime during the party,” the detective continued, “first by bludgeoning her, then stabbing her with that knife you found, and finally with the corkscrew—to send a message. Her shoe must have fallen off at some point, so after she was dead, Rob grabbed it and hid it, thinking no one would suspect him of being a murderer. Unfortunately, his prints were all over the corkscrew and the shoe. And I’m betting they’re all over the cheese knife you found, as well.”

  He placed his hands on his desk as if he were about to rise. “By the way, I’m only telling you this because you work with Luke Melvin,” he said to Brad.

  Up until this point, I’d pretty much been ignored. Now that we were about to be excused, I said, “Can we see Rob?”

  “I’m afraid not. He’s over at the Napa Country Department of Corrections. Right now he can only see his lawyer.”

  I knew we weren’t going to get anything more from this tight-lipped, by-the-book detective. Not even Brad would have much influence on him, since he hadn’t worked with the Napa Police Department. I wondered if his friend Detective Luke Melvin of SFPD could find out more.

  “Okay, well, thanks,” Brad said, standing. He leaned over and shook the detective’s hand. I kept my hands to myself.

  I had a sinking feeling about the cheese knife. If the cops found Rob’s fingerprints on it, that would only increase his chances of being convicted of this crime. But Brad, having once been a cop himself, would never consider withholding evidence from the police. Then again, what if Rob had actually committed the crime, in spite of what anyone else thought?

  The phone rang just as we reached the office door.

  “Kelly,” the detective said into the phone.

  I turned back to listen to the detective’s end of the conversation, wondering if it might be something about Rob.

  “Yeah…,” he said. “You sure?…Good work.”

  He hung up and stared at the phone for a few agonizing seconds, then looked up at us.

  “That was the tech. They got a print from the knife.”

  I blinked. “Well?” I asked, holding my breath.

  “It’s a match,” the detective said. “We’ve definitely got our killer.”

  Chapter 14

  PARTY-PLANNING TIP #14

  Spitting, swishing…now swirling! Teach your guests the value of swirling the wine in the glass to see whether it has “legs”—how long it takes the wine to trickle down the inside of the glass after it’s been swirled. This also introduces more oxygen into the wine, alters the tastes, and balances out the flavor. Plus it’s fun!

  Brad held the door of his SUV open for me, but before I hoisted myself in, I turned to him and asked, “Can we go to the hospital and check on Marie?”

  He nodded, helped me into the car, and closed the door. There were several things I could count on from Brad, and one of them was the way he listened to me. Sure, he gave me a hard time sometimes, especially when he didn’t agree with my requests, but he always supported me when I needed him to.

  He pulled out his cell phone and got directions to Queen of the Valley hospital—the “Queen,” as Detective Kelly had called it—in downtown Napa. It took only a few minutes to reach the white, flat-topped, fifties-looking structure and find the emergency room entrance. Brad followed me inside and we stepped up to the clerk manning the reception desk just off the waiting room. I asked if we could visit a patient, Marie Christopher, half expecting the woman to say “Relatives only” or “She’s still in intensive care,” but to my surprise she gave us the room number and directions.

  As we made our way down the hall, I couldn’t help but peek into the open doors of the patient rooms. It was like being at a car wreck—curious to look but afraid of what I might see. When we reached Room 112, I peered in, then entered quietly in case Marie was sleeping or the doctor was there. I found her in bed, sitting up, her head turned toward the slatted windows that looked onto a lighted courtyard.

  She turned when she heard me approach her bed. I was stunned at the paleness of her skin, her unkempt hair, her lack of makeup.

  “Presley,” she said, her voice sounding hoarse. Her mouth looked dry and red.

  I glanced back for Brad, thinking he was right behind me, but he’d hesitated at the door.

  I’ll wait, he mouthed and pointed down the hall toward the waiting room. I nodded and returned my attention to Marie.

  “Hi, Marie,” I said. I moved in closer until I was standing right next to her bed. “How are you feeling?”

  She shrugged. The shoulder of her loose hospital gown slipped down, revealing more pale skin, and she pulled it up modestly. “Sleepy, but I can’t sleep. My throat hurts.”

  I sensed that the sore throat was a result of having her stomach pumped but decided not to mention it. “Do you need anything?” I mentally cursed myself for not bringing some magazines or flowers.

  “No. They’re going to let me go home as soon as the doctor finishes rounds and officially releases me. I need to get back to the winery. I can’t afford to be away.”

  I blinked, surprised. “Really? I thought…” I shut my mouth when I realized I was about to refer to the seventy-two-hour psychiatric hold that hospitals imposed on suicidal patients so they can do a mental-health workup. Brad called it a 5150.

  “This was all a big misunderstanding,” Marie said, looking down at the white blanket that covered her and picking at some lint with her non-IVed hand. “I don’t know how I ended up taking all those pills. It was just an accident.”

  “You mean, you didn’t try to…commit suicide?” I asked bluntly.

  “Of course not,” she said, still not meeting my eyes. Maybe she was too ashamed to look at me. Or maybe she wasn’t telling the full truth. I knew from teaching abnormal psychology that many people who attempt suicide often deny it later out of embarrassment.

  “So what happened?”

  Marie bit her lip, then said, “I’m not sure. It’s still a little fuzzy. When I heard the police were charging Rob with murder, I just wanted to go to sleep, hoping I’d wake up and it was all a bad dream.” She sighed.

  “But Rocco said you took a whole bottle of pills. He found the empty bottle when he went in to check on you. You weren’t responding when he spoke to you.”

  She shrugged and the gown slipped again. “I remember I took a couple of pills, but not as many as he said I did. I don’t know why he found the bottle empty. Maybe there were only a few pills left. Or maybe I woke up and took some more pills without really thinking about it. Or maybe…” She paused, frowned, and blinked several times.

  “What, Marie? Do you remember something?”

  She rubbed her forehead as if she had a headache from trying to sort it all out. “I don’t know. All I remember is drinking some tea that someone had put on my nightstand. Maybe there was something in the tea…”

  Rocco hadn’t mentioned finding a cup of tea.

  “Marie, are you saying someone might have drugged you?”

  She shook her head and readjusted her gown again. “I don’t know. I…I thought I hear
d someone come into the room while I was sleeping. I heard my name…I woke up, or I thought I did…Maybe I drank the tea…I just don’t remember. I’m sorry.”

  Tears welled again, and her hands balled into fists. She leaned back on the pillow and closed her eyes, as if forcing herself to relax.

  Or maybe I’d upset her and she was shutting down.

  “I’m so sorry, Marie. I’ll let you rest. Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do for you? Do you need a ride home?”

  Her moist eyes fluttered open. “No. Allison is coming. She’ll take me home.”

  “Well, then. Mother and I will pack up and be out of there before you get there. I’m sure you’ll want your privacy.”

  Marie reached out and took my hand, squeezing it with an urgency that surprised me. “No, please don’t go, Presley. Stay. The house is so big—I’ll never know you’re there, so you won’t be bothering me. And I need you. Rocco says you’re quite dogged when it comes to finding out the truth when…” She paused. “I know Rob didn’t kill JoAnne. I’d be so grateful if you could help find out who did.” She gave my hand another squeeze.

  “All right. I’ll do what I can. Now, you rest. And when you get home, I’ll have Rocco whip up some of his wonderful chicken soup for you. He’ll have you back on your feet in no time.”

  She released her grip on my hand, nodded, and closed her eyes again. I still wasn’t sure she should be released from the hospital so soon, but if the doctor felt she was well enough to go home and was no threat to herself, who was I to argue? What I could do was make her feel comfortable when she got back home.

  And do what I could to find out more about JoAnne Douglas’s death.

  Like who—if anyone—might have come into Marie’s room and spiked her drink.

  Brad was on his cell phone in the waiting room. “Thanks, buddy,” he said and hung up. “How is she?” he asked, walking over to meet me.

  “Apparently fine. She claims she doesn’t remember taking extra pills. She says the doctor is releasing her soon.”