by Aames, Avery
“She’s here!” Amy and Clair chirped as they scampered toward me.
“Aunt Charlotte.” Amy clutched my hand. “Meredith wants you to come to the kitchen. Delilah is making stew, and Meredith is fixing an autumn salad with pears, cranberries, and Cowgirl Creamery Pierce Point.”
“What is that?” Clair said.
I petted her shoulder. “That’s their fall/winter cheese. Its rind is washed with Muscato, a sparkling Italian wine, and then dredged in dried herbs.”
“Will I like it?”
I tweaked her nose. “Yes.”
“And Grandmère is baking gluten-free cookies,” Amy added. “Chocolate cherry mascarpone bars.”
“Sounds yummy.” Following the girls, I traipsed down the hall drinking in the rich scent of bacon and onions simmering in red wine.
“Pépère is working on a project,” Amy said.
“What kind of project?”
“He’s renovating the plumbing beneath the sink. We’re a little worried.”
“For heaven’s sake, why?” I asked. My grandfather was adept with every tool.
“Daddy’s helping out.” Amy winked.
I laughed. Matthew was proficient with a corkscrew but not much else. “Pépère isn’t letting him take the lead, is he?”
“No.”
“Then relax. They’re having a guy’s bonding time. Go play with the animals.”
Amy and Clair thundered upstairs. In minutes, youthful squealing joined yipping and meowing.
When I entered the kitchen, my grandmother drew me into her arms. “Bonsoir, chérie.”
“Bonsoir, Grandmère.” I pecked both of her cheeks.
She held me at arm’s length. “How are you managing?”
I treasured her concern, but I didn’t want her to worry. “I’m fine.”
“C’est tragique. Noelle was a lovely girl, non?”
“Oui.”
She widened an eye. “And you? Did you sleep at all last night?”
“I stayed at Lois’s Lavender and Lace.”
“What about tonight?”
“I’ll sleep at home, in my own bed.”
“But the killer—”
I broke free. “I’ll be fine. Promise.”
“Hi, Charlotte,” Meredith said. “Welcome to girls’ night out. But boys are allowed.” She strolled to me and handed me a glass of red wine. “For you. Matthew tells me this is terrific. It’s a pinot noir from the Evening Land Vineyards in Oregon. It’s fresh and light with cherry and pepper overtones.”
“Pepper?” I wrinkled my nose.
“Don’t mock it.” Matthew peered up from where he sat on the floor near the sink. Pépère was doing the work; Matthew was providing the tools on demand. “It’s good with hearty dishes like stew.”
“And that’s what we’re having. Beef bourguignon.” Delilah, who was standing at the stove, pointed to a cast-iron pot. “It’s Julia Childs’s recipe, but I’ve tweaked it. She never added enough bacon for my taste.”
I took a sip of the wine and definitely detected the flavors.
“Have a bite of the Nuvola cheese your grandfather brought,” Meredith added. “The wine goes great with it, too.”
Nuvola di Pecora—the name meant sheep’s milk cloud—had a snowy crust and ivory interior, rich with the aroma of damp caves. A gal who taught cheese appreciation classes in San Francisco had introduced my grandfather and me to the cheese.
I slipped a morsel of Nuvola into my mouth and savored the mild mushroom flavor. “Thank you, Pépère.”
“For the cheese?”
“For installing new locks on my doors.” After working a short stint at The Cheese Shop earlier, he had switched out all the locks on my house.
“De rien. I like to be busy.”
“Ladies.” Grandmère clapped her hands. “Let’s move to the dining room for our dinner and dice. We have five players, so one will have to be a ghost partner.” She traced a finger along the back of Pépère’s neck. “Mon ami, when you and Matthew are ready to eat . . .” She made a grand gesture to the two places she had set at the knotty pine table in the kitchen nook. “Serve yourselves. Charlotte, do you know where Rebecca is?”
“She’ll be along. She wanted to swing by her house and get a jacket.” The air had cooled to a brisk forty with promise of more rain in the forecast. As the women shuffled out, Matthew beckoned me.
I crouched beside him and patted his back. “How’s it going, Mr. Plumber?”
“Fine. Listen, after today’s wine tasting, I went to have a chat with Urso.”
“About?”
“What you and Rebecca and I spoke about—Shelton’s finances.”
Uh-oh. Urso would not appreciate knowing that I was encouraging others in our fair town to, um, theorize. “What did he say?”
“He’s being tight-lipped.”
Big surprise.
I said, “Did you also raise the theory that Liberty might have been jealous about her father having a relationship with Noelle?”
“No. I still don’t agree Shelton and Noelle were involved.”
Pépère glanced over his shoulder. “I believe they were.”
“You do?” I said.
“Oui.” He asked Matthew for a wrench and hunkered beneath the sink, his voice echoing as he spoke toward the pipes. “I saw Noelle and Shelton together on one such occasion. A month or so ago.”
“She was in town?” Matthew said. “She didn’t call me.”
Pépère nodded. “I believe they were having une liaison amoureuse.”
“Where did you see them?” I asked.
“At the park. And again at the Country Kitchen diner. Ils ont regardé intime.”
“You think everyone looks intimate, Pépère.” Matthew buffed our grandfather’s lower back then eyed me. “He’s become the town crier. Mr. Jones is having une liaison with Mrs. Smith. Mr. Doe is playing footsie with Mrs. White. Why, Prudence Hart and my ex-wife have nothing on you, Pépère, when it comes to gossip.”
Pépère scuttled backward and sat on his haunches. “You chide, but it is so. I know of what I speak. I see with my eyes. At the diner, they were sitting at a corner booth. Their faces were close together.” He indicated with his fingertips. “Their eyes were lit with amour.” He laid a hand on his chest. “I am sorry.”
“For what?” Matthew said.
“If I have upset you.”
“You have a right to your opinion, you romantic fool. Now, back to work.” Although my cousin sounded jovial, when he returned his attention to the toolbox, he was grinding his teeth. He had to be wondering the same thing I was wondering. If Noelle and he had been such close friends, why hadn’t she told him she was in town? Why had she kept her relationship with Shelton a secret from him?
• • •
Rebecca whisked through the front door of Meredith’s home, a winter scarf riding the wind behind her. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, out of breath. “I got distracted. I turned on the TV for a minute, and the next thing I knew I was hooked on a show. Have you ever seen Homeland? It’s all about conspiracy and lies. I think it’s in its second or third season. I can’t keep count of all these shows.” She removed her scarf and coat and set them on the back of a chair in the dining room. “Anyway, I’ve started watching reruns of the first season, and the show is addictive.” She pointed at the kitchen door. “I’m going to grab some dinner, okay?” She didn’t wait for a response.
“Speaking of addictions,” Grandmère said, setting out the Bunco tally sheets, dice, and a bell, “I have chosen a drama for our winter play. Days of Wine and Roses. I am casting over the next few weeks.”
“I’ve seen the movie,” Delilah said. “Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick starred in it. Both were nominated for Academy Awards.”
“First it was a teleplay,” Grandmère said. “The author got the title from an 1896 poem.” She shut her eyes and recited: “They are not long, the days of wine and roses: out of a misty dream our path emerges f
or a while, then closes within a dream.”
“You don’t normally put on a drama unless it has a wicked twist to it,” I said. “Why are you doing this one?”
“I have been thinking lately of the difficulty of not being able to change one’s past.” Often, my grandmother alluded to a painful past that she could not escape. I hoped one day she would share the details.
Delilah said, “That’s the theme of this play. The leading man changes his path in life, but the leading woman cannot. It breaks his heart.”
I flashed on Noelle. Her face had clouded over when we were chatting that first night. She said so much was at stake. Had she hoped for more than a boost to her career when she came to work for Shelton Nelson? Had she banked on changing her life’s path by marrying him? The use of a heart-shaped corkscrew as the murder weapon felt significant.
“Charlotte, you’re up first,” Delilah said. “Come on, partner.”
We sat at the table opposite each other. Rebecca was learning the game and would occasionally sit in for one of us. Otherwise, she would circle the table and observe.
I grabbed the dice and shook. Of the three, two showed single pips. Spots on the die were called pips, a British term. Because we were playing the first round, only dice showing one pip counted. “Two points.”
“It’s a start,” Delilah said. “Meredith, your turn.”
Meredith shook the dice and said, “Two, as well.” She pushed the dice to Delilah.
“Your mind, it is wandering, chérie.” Grandmère petted my hand. “Are you thinking about Jordan?”
I loved how she said his name, with a soft J and the accent on the second syllable. “I was thinking of your play and how difficult relationships can be.”
“Especially long-distance ones,” Meredith inserted.
“Didn’t you talk to Jordan recently?” Grandmère said.
“Yes, but it isn’t enough, not with all that has transpired since then.”
“Why can he not call tous les jours?”
“He can’t risk using his cell phone every day,” I said. “As it is now, he uses a disposable telephone.”
Grandmère grumbled. I knew she worried about me, and she was concerned that whatever Jordan was involved in might follow him back to Providence, but Jordan assured me, once the trial was over, he would be a man who could roam freely, and I would never have to look over my shoulder. He wanted to show me the world. We planned to taste every cuisine and swim in every lake or ocean.
“Five,” Delilah said. She had shaken three sixes, which would have been Bunco if we were in round six, but we were still playing the first round. At least three of a kind, difficult to roll, earned five points. She pushed the dice to my grandmother.
Grandmère shook and scored one point for one pip, then passed the dice to me. “Round two. Seize the moment, chérie.”
Her words shot me back to the night Noelle died. Someone had seized the moment. Noelle had been new to town. Who else but someone who had known her could have killed her? Had Liberty killed Noelle out of jealousy, or was Boyd Hellman the culprit? What if Boyd had found out about Shelton and Noelle? Boyd could have waited for me to leave for the theater that night and then pounced. On the other hand, if he loved Noelle, wouldn’t he have killed Shelton? And Noelle had mud on her boots. Where had she gone?
Footsteps pounded the upstairs hall overhead. I startled.
Grandmère clutched my forearm. “Chérie, it is only the animals and the twins.”
Amy and Clair shrieked with laughter. Rocket barked.
“I know,” I said. “I’m a little on edge.” I shook the dice. “Four points.”
The door to the kitchen swung open. Rebecca entered with a plate of food. “Wait a second,” she said.
“That’s the right count,” I said.
“I can see that.” Rebecca indicated with her index finger. “Two dice show twos and one die shows three. We’re in the second round, so only twos count. Four points.” She scooted an extra chair between Meredith and me, sat down, and balanced her meal on her knees. “But that wasn’t why I said wait. I arrived late, so before we play any more, tell me if you discussed the murder, because I have another suspect in mind.”
Delilah cut me a look. I glowered at her. Did she expect me to be the one to enforce the rules of Bunco night? I wasn’t the one who had set them.
Meredith clicked her tongue. “Sorry, Rebecca, but there’s no talking business during Bunco.”
“But this isn’t business,” Rebecca said. “It’s life.”
“Or death,” my grandmother whispered.
“Ladies,” Meredith said.
Grandmère spanked the table. “I am sorry, Meredith, but this is a dire situation. If our illustrious police cannot solve the crime, then we must do so. Our town needs to heal. Go on, Rebecca. Who do you suspect?”
“Harold Warfield,” Rebecca said.
Meredith sat straighter. “Why him?”
Rebecca placed her meal on the table and bounded to her feet, obviously delighted that she had captured Meredith’s attention. “On my way home, I was thinking about what Liberty Nelson said, that Noelle was gunning for Harold’s job.”
“She said that?” Meredith asked.
“She said those very words to Charlotte in the cellar below The Cheese Shop.”
Meredith gawked. “She did?”
I nodded.
Rebecca edged closer to the table. “You don’t like Harold, do you, Meredith?”
Meredith gnawed her lower lip. “I barely know the man.”
“But . . .” Rebecca wiggled her fingers, luring Meredith to confess more.
“Okay, he’s sort of cagey, that’s all.”
“Cagey, how?”
Meredith drummed her fingertips on the tabletop. The Bunco dice jiggled. “I bumped into him at the pet store. I happen to know he owns cats, but he was buying a dog collar.”
Delilah said, “I think his sister in Georgia owns a dog.”
“Or maybe he acquired a dog,” I offered. “Our local pet rescuer can be very persuasive.”
“No, it’s more than that,” Meredith said. “When he saw me staring, he dropped the leash and hurried out.”
“That doesn’t make him guilty of anything,” I said.
“I know. It’s just . . .” Meredith flicked her hand. “Nothing. Back to the game.”
“Not so fast.” Rebecca turned to me. “Charlotte, right before closing, Harold’s mousey wife came into the shop. You had already left. That’s what made me think about him. He didn’t enter. He never does. He remained outside on the sidewalk.”
“His wife has him on a strict diet,” I said.
“Coming into the store and smelling the fabulous aromas won’t put on weight,” Rebecca countered.
“Maybe he has no self-control,” Delilah said.
Grandmère pointed at Rebecca. “It is not that he waited outside, is it, mon amie? It is what he was doing while he waited that drew your eye.”
“Yes, exactly.” Rebecca clapped. “Harold stood outside tapping messages via his cell phone. He looked really suspicious. I tiptoed to the window and caught sight of what he was doing. He was texting pictures to someone.”
“That’s harmless,” I said. “I text pictures.”
“Sexy pictures. Of him wearing”—she bit her lip—“leather. What if he’s having an affair? What if he’s got a lover?”
“A lover who owns a dog,” Meredith chimed in.
“How would that have anything to do with Noelle?” I asked. “You can’t believe she was his lover.” The very thought gave me the willies.
“No,” Rebecca said. “Of course not. But what if Noelle knew about the lover and took compromising photos?”
“Why would she do that?” I said.
“Because we have our theories mixed up. Noelle wasn’t gunning for Harold’s job; Harold was gunning for Noelle’s. She took compromising photos of him to get him to back off. He demanded those photos, and when
she didn’t hand them over, he killed her. Then he searched her things, found the photographs, and fled.”
Judging by the bagginess of his clothes, Harold had lost a lot of weight. Was he getting in shape to impress another woman? Was he sending her messages via his cell phone? Noelle had an expensive Nikon camera. Had she gone out that night and taken pictures of Harold and his lover? And then blackmailed him?
“No.” I shook my head. “I only knew her for a short time, but blackmail doesn’t sound like something Noelle would have done, and it doesn’t explain why she would have said hell’s key.”
“Okay, what if”—Rebecca held up a finger—“hell was a slurred version of Harold?”
“Oh no!” Matthew yelled like the house was falling down.
CHAPTER
8
Everyone bolted from the Bunco table and, bumping shoulders, dashed into the kitchen. We halted as a pack. Delilah giggled; so did I. Meredith and Grandmère gasped. Water was spraying everywhere. On the ceiling, the floor, and the window above the sink. Matthew tried in vain to snare the loose hose.
My grandfather scuttled through the opened door leading to the backyard and said, “Dieu m’aider. Matthew, I leave you for one minute to empty the trash, and this is what happens?”
“I thought I could . . . I . . .” Matthew sputtered. “Aw, heck. I didn’t think.”
“Sometimes that is all it takes,” Pépère said. “One lapse in judgment and an accident happens.”
“Don’t worry. It’s only water.” I fetched a pile of towels from the pantry. “Everyone, grab one.”
While all of us, including Matthew, who was soaked to the skin, mopped the kitchen floor, Pépère managed to wrestle the wayward plumbing tube into submission. Soon the water was capped off, and the sink was working as it should.
“Renovations are a pain,” Meredith groused as she returned to the pantry for more towels.
“Speaking of renovations,” Delilah said, “I heard Noelle was helping you with some.”