The Corpse With the Golden Nose

by Cathy Ace

  I stopped myself from pointing out that psychologists are divided on the topic of stages of grieving, because I thought that, on balance, it probably wasn’t the right moment to toss around an academic chestnut.

  “I tell you what,” suggested Bud, more brightly, “How about Cait and I get Bonnie, downstairs, to organize a tour of the winery for us, while you take some time for yourself. We can either all go to the MacMillans’ for lunch together, if you’re feeling up to it, or Cait and I will organize getting ourselves to their house alone.” Ellen nodded. Bud looked at his watch. “Hey, it’s only ten forty-five now, there’s lots of time before we have to get there—it’s a one o’clock lunch, right?” Again, Ellen nodded. “Okay—that’s decided then, right?”

  Finally, Ellen looked up, and managed a smile. “Yes, that’s a good idea. You go on. I’m sure I’ll be fine. I mustn’t miss the luncheon too. Tell Bonnie to give me a call when you’re done, and I’ll come down. I’ll just calm myself down and tidy up a bit.”

  We all nodded. Bud and I took our leave of the once-again sobbing Ellen. I tottered down the staircase, concentrating on my feet and willing myself to not fall. I was relieved when I finally made it to solid ground, but I was still a bit shaky.

  “Good job up there, Cait. It was tough, but someone had to do it. You made her face facts, by simply stating them. Well done. I’m proud of you!” Bud gave me a lovely kiss, which was very nice, but, sadly, undeserved.

  When he released me from his strong arms, I made a big show of straightening myself up, then I said, “I really enjoyed that kiss, Bud, but I hope you don’t want to take it back when I’ve said what I’m about to say.”

  Bud looked apprehensive as he replied, “And that would be . . . ?”

  “Well, I rather cherry-picked the bits I wanted to highlight from the coroner’s file, to allow Ellen some sense of acceptance.”

  “But . . . ?”

  “Okay, to begin with, Annette weighed one hundred and sixty pounds: if she’d drunk that entire bottle of wine—that empty bottle they found beside her in the truck—even over several hours, she’d have had a blood alcohol level of something over 0.10. Annette’s actual blood alcohol level was 0.015, and that’s a lot lower—the equivalent of drinking a glass of wine over about an hour, not a bottle of wine over an evening. Certainly not drinking a bottle in the way you might expect a suicidal woman to do it—by the neck, and in big hits. There was no trace of wine spillage on her clothes . . . Bud, just try drinking wine straight out of the bottle, especially if it’s a final, defiant act, without getting a drop on you. I’m pretty sure it can’t be done.”

  “And?” Bud could tell I wasn’t finished.

  “The coroner mentions that he asked Ellen about an empty cabinet in the living room of the deceased, and she said it had contained Annette’s snuff box collection, but that Annette had sold it all, a couple of weeks earlier. Ellen was right, there wasn’t anything missing, but it begs the question, Why did Annette sell her cherished collection?”

  “Because she was planning to kill herself?” suggested Bud.

  “No, I don’t think so. I think she might have sold the collection to be able to afford the James Sandy snuff box that Colin told us she’d found in Newfoundland. As snuff boxes go, if she’d found an original James Sandy, signed, with a good provenance, which is all I can imagine she could have meant when she spoke of the box as her ‘grail,’ she might well have rid herself of every other box, just to be able to own one perfect specimen. Don’t ask how I know all about James Sandy—I read it somewhere. Anyway, there’s always been this rumor that there was a signed box made by Sandy toward the very end of his short life, in 1819, from the wood of the bed in which Robbie Burns died. Sandy was a Scottish cripple from Laurencekirk who invented—or at least perfected, depending on which source you believe—a very specific sort of airtight hinge that allowed snuff boxes to be made from wood. His hinge invention led to an entire box-making cottage industry in early nineteenth-century Scotland. If she’d found it, it’s a unique piece. It could be worth a lot of money. I mean a lot. You’d only need two collectors bent upon owning it to bid each other up, and there you are. Collectors are like that, you see. They begin with it being a hobby, something they enjoy; then they learn more, and gather more objects about them then; then it becomes an increasingly important part of their life, and sometimes it even ends up defining them. Finally, for many, there’s that one elusive, exquisite, or perfect piece that they’d give almost anything to own. It’s not dissimilar to criminal psychopathy in many respects.”

  “Oh come on, Cait, you’re just guessing now. Signed boxes. Robbie Burns. It’s all smoke and mirrors,” replied Bud dismissively.

  “I understand why you might say that, Bud, but what you don’t know is that the coroner also recovered a slip from Annette’s purse that showed she’d made a cash deposit of twenty-five thousand dollars into her account the day of her death. That’s a lot of cash.”

  Bud nodded. He started to scratch his chin. “I wonder where she got that sort of cash . . .” he mused.

  “As I suggested, Bud, the snuff boxes are gone, the cash has appeared, she told Colin she’d found the ‘grail.’ I’d place those facts together as a group. While we’re at it—the suicide note had a spelling mistake in it.” Bud looked suitably curious. “Yes, it was word for word what Ellen told us it was, but whoever typed it, had typed the word ‘perfectly’ as ‘prefectly.’ The words ‘Love always’ and the signature ‘Annette’ were handwritten. Now, just trust your local, friendly psychologist on this one, Bud: anyone, and I mean anyone, however much distress they might be in—and, if we’re going with Ellen’s theory, this was a pretty carefully planned suicide, not a spur of the moment thing—anyone would check their suicide note. They wouldn’t allow their last words to not be exactly what they meant them to be. I just don’t buy it. The more I find out, the less this adds up.”

  “You’re obviously on a roll, Cait, so go on,” said Bud, grimly scratching his head.

  “Her will. The new one?” Bud nodded. “It says she leaves everything to ‘Rajan Michael Pinder,’ then it gives his address at SoulVine Wines, and then it adds, get this—‘and thereafter to his firstborn child.’ Annette basically tried to entail her half of the winery to Raj’s first child, after him, when he’s gone. Now, I’m no lawyer, but I have a suspicion you can’t do that, legally, but, there it is, in her will, and Ellen hasn’t contested it. Any of it. The will was one of those pro-forma things you can buy at the store and do yourself. It might be of interest to note, too, that in the whole of that typewritten document—which your theory of suicide supposes that Annette typed herself—there’s not one mistake. And the witnesses?” Bud shrugged. “The Wisers. They must have ‘forgotten’ to mention that they witnessed Annette’s new will when we were talking to them, and asking about her behavior in the run-up to her death.”

  “Still,” pressed Bud, “the new will and her death? That will alone points to intent to kill herself. Right?”

  “Not if someone forged it, or knew about it,” I replied.

  “Only Raj Pinder benefits by the will. Do you see him as the murderer?” Bud looked puzzled.

  “I’m not ruling him out, just because I like him,” I replied hesitantly, “but now, whoever is his ‘firstborn’ stands to do well out of it too.”

  “He doesn’t have any kids.” Bud sounded cross.

  “Well, not that we know of, but he might have, back in the UK, or he might be planning one soon—which would bring the mother, and her family, into the picture.”

  “What do you mean, ‘planning one soon’?”

  “Oh come on, Bud. Raj and Serendipity? You must have noticed. She’s trying to give up smoking, which might mean she’s getting ready for kids . . .”

  “Raj and Serendipity aren’t a couple!” Bud sounded quite certain. “Are they?”

  “Oh dear, for a cop, you sometimes don’t see the things right in front of you, do you?”<
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  “Oh, damn, Cait. It’s all so confusing. Why are you doing this to me?”

  “I’m not doing it to you, Bud! It’s not like this is some personal crusade for me. I’m just looking at the information and working out what it means. And, you’re right, it is confusing. A straightforward suicide shouldn’t be, and probably wouldn’t be, which is why I’m now more certain than ever that it was a murder.”

  Bud sighed. “Why did you do all that stuff up there, to convince Ellen you thought it was a suicide? I can’t wait for the answer to this one . . .” He was almost smiling under the tone of complaint.

  “Because Ellen Newman has found out that I’m a criminal psychologist and I don’t want her putting that out there on the street. I want her to think we’re off the case, that we’re just relaxing and enjoying the Moveable Feast, and then we’ll go home. I don’t want her opening her mouth and putting her foot in it, like she did last night. I will find out more. I will push this, Bud. Someone killed Annette Newman and worked damned hard to make it look like a convincing suicide. Because everyone, and when I say ‘everyone’ I mean everyone, including Ellen at the time, thought it was a suicide, there was no autopsy. Now there’ll never be one, because Annette was cremated a week after her death. That’s a pretty clever murderer, Bud. We’ve got a whole lot more leads to follow now than we did this time yesterday, don’t you agree?”

  “Damn you, Cait. I do.” Bud looked worried, but at least he’d stopped messing with his hair. “This doesn’t seem cut and dried anymore,” he added. “There are too many unanswered questions, and too much weirdness surrounding Annette’s death for it to be a simple suicide—though I should warn you that I’m not giving up on the possibility that she did kill herself, forced to a place where she saw it as her only move. So, maybe manslaughter, not murder—which doesn’t mean a lack of culpability on the part of a possible perpetrator, and it might even constitute a more devilish form of seeing someone dead.”

  I reached around Bud’s neck and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. “Oh, I love it when you use words like ‘culpability’ and ‘perpetrator,’ because it means you’re coming around to my way of seeing things. Not that I’m happy that Annette was killed, but—oh you know what I mean, Bud.”

  “On this occasion, yes, I do,” he replied, smiling wearily, “but don’t take that for granted, because sometimes I have absolutely no idea what you’re up to, or why you’re up to it.”

  “Good!” I said. “That’ll keep you on your toes, then.”

  “True,” was Bud’s pithy response. I pulled him toward the tasting store to find Bonnie and arrange tour of the winery before it was time to leave for lunch.

  The sun was getting higher in the joyous blue sky, and there were a couple of cars pulled up in front of the store. I felt as though the snowy piles we’d seen at the side of the highway just twenty-four hours earlier were a world away. I wished I hadn’t a care in the world, and that I could just enjoy a wonderful break in this magical micro-climate for a few days.

  I was back on the case though. And now, with Bud on my side, I had no doubt that we’d work out what had happened to Annette Newman, and why.

  A Flight of Reds and a Flight of Whites

  AS BUD AND I APPROACHED the Mt Dewdney Family Estate Winery tasting room’s front door, we had to literally jump out of the way of Colin MacMillan, who was free-wheeling down the hill toward us on his bicycle, happily screaming “woo-hoo,” and furiously ringing his bell. Despite the fact that it was still early in the year, a trail of dust shot up from his wheels as he passed. Bud and I spent the next couple of minutes brushing its remains from our clothes and, in my case, trying to dislodge it from my lipstick.

  Finally making our way into the wine tasting room, Bonnie greeted us with a friendly wave. She said, “He’s a devil on that bike, isn’t he? Haven’t seen him here for an age, now he’s back again.” She returned her attention to a well-dressed young couple who were paying for a case of wine.

  Bonnie whispered, “Back in a minute!” as she passed us to help them to their car.

  Bud looked at his watch. “It’s gone eleven now, do you want a trip around the winery, or do you fancy a tasting?”

  “Let’s see how long a trip takes,” I replied. Bud nodded.

  Bonnie bustled back into the room. Keeping an eye on another older couple who were standing at the bar sipping from their tasting glasses, she said, “So, good meeting with Ellen? How’s she doing? Didn’t look very good when she arrived. Raj hasn’t shown up at all, but he’d be the one I’d expect to see with a sore head.”

  “Well, Raj was at the breakfast at Anen House,” I offered, “but I don’t know where he went after that. Does he come here every day? Does he have his own office here—or does he share with Ellen?” Picturing the desk isolated amid the boxes upstairs, I couldn’t imagine where he’d fit into Ellen’s space.

  “Oh no, not every day, because he’s often away, at weekends and that, so then he’ll take the odd weekday off to compensate—not that he has to punch a clock or anything. I mean, he owns half the place. He’s got his own office, downstairs, in back of the winery. Of course,” she drew conspiratorially close, “Ellen and Annette used to share the office upstairs, but Raj said he’d prefer his own space. I don’t think Ellen liked that.” Bonnie’s voice dropped so low that she almost mouthed her last comment.

  “Oh, why’s that?” I asked. Bonnie was obviously dying to tell us everything she knew—or thought she knew.

  “Well,” she said, checking to make sure the tasters were still sipping, “I think Ellen’s a bit over-protective of Raj. Always making sure she knows where he is, and what he’s doing. She fusses around him like I don’t know what. I don’t think he’s keen on it, but he’s polite. Always. Such a gentleman. And that funny accent? Oh, he says some real cute things sometimes. And he’s pretty easy on the eye too, eh?” She winked at me as she nudged my arm.

  Bud cleared his throat. “Ellen’s a good deal older than Raj, right?”

  Bonnie rolled her eyes in my direction and said, “Ah, bless him!” nodding at Bud. I smiled and shook my head. Sometimes it was hard to believe that Bud had been a cop as long as he had.

  “But enough chitchat,” said Bonnie, turning toward the bar. “Fancy something to taste?”

  “We wondered if we might have time for a tour of the winery?” ventured Bud.

  “Well, the next organized tour is at noon,” said Bonnie, looking up at the clock on the wall. “It takes about an hour, and you end up here for a tasting.”

  “Oh dear, we need to be at the MacMillans’ by one,” I replied. “Could you tell us something about the wines and let us have a tasting here, now?”

  “Oh, absolutely!” Bonnie was delighted. She handed us each a laminated card. “Why don’t you two have a look at the wine list while I help this lady and gentlemen? Then we’ll get you sorted out, okay?” Bud and I nodded our agreement.

  We spent a few moments reading. Everything sounded delicious.

  “So how do you want to do this?” asked Bonnie upon her return. “We usually serve three or four wines for tasting, but, you are friends of Ellen, and I don’t think that either of you are driving, right?” We nodded. “Okay then, how about a Full Flight of Five? Each.”

  “Can I do all red?” I couldn’t imagine she’d say no.

  “Oh yes, whatever you want—some red, some white, all red, all white—it’s up to the customer. By the way, this is on us. Ellen’s orders.”

  “In that case, if Cait’s going to do all red, I’ll do all white . . . then we can always taste each other’s if we want.” Bud smiled cheerily as he spoke.

  “You think I’m going to share?” I couldn’t believe he’d even think I’d share my reds. We turned our attention to the ten glasses Bonnie lined up in front of us. I have to say, it looked like a lot of wine! Although each of the glasses held only a small amount, it was the overall vision that was a bit daunting.

  “You’ll want
to go from light to full for red,” Bonnie announced, “and from dry to sweet for whites. Both work from your left to your right. If you look at the list it’ll tell you what you’re drinking: this is the Luxe Full Flight of Five. It’s at the very top of the sheet. The tasting notes are there. Now, is there anything else I can do, or shall I just hover and listen in, like I usually do?” Bonnie grinned wickedly—clearly a woman who enjoyed every aspect of her work.

  “Oh yes, please stick around,” I replied, “I’m sure we’ll have a lot of questions. But I can see you’re needed by those guys, so we’ll see you in a minute.” Bonnie moved away to help the potential buyers, who seemed to be trying to work out how to split a case of twelve bottles between five different wines.

  I read the wine tasting notes, noting the author’s initials beside each one, and found that the taste descriptions with “AN” next to them were better at hitting the mark for me than those with an “RP.” I guessed that my palate was more in tune with Annette’s than Raj’s. Carefully sniffing and swirling as I went, I dutifully took one sip, washed it around my mouth and swallowed, then took the first true tasting sip of each wine. I worked from one wine to the next. Finally, as I’d suspected, it was the most robust of the wines that really caught my tastebuds and set them alight: described as having “aromas of blackberry, cherry, plum, and dark chocolate with raspberry, blackberry, coffee, layering soft smoky notes on the palate,” the Anen Nightshades really was “a full-bodied red wine that displays soft tannins and a lengthy finish.” I loved it! I could imagine sipping it with a steak, or with strong cheeses or, frankly, just all on its own.