Dying on the Vine

by Marla Cooper

  I tried not to look too nervous as I checked the stairs. The brass dial indicated the elevator’s progress, but why did it have to go so slow?

  Eight.

  Seven.

  Six.

  I could have run down the stairs in the time it took the elevator to come. C’mon!

  Five.

  Four.

  As the wrought-iron elevator compartment descended into view, I could see a pair of women’s shoes, followed by a pair of women’s legs, followed by—“Oh, Margot!” Linda said as Margot slid open the antique elevator door. “Good! I’d like to introduce you to—”

  “Kelsey?” Margot said, stepping out of the elevator.

  Linda looked from Margot to me and back again. “You two know each other?”

  “Hi, Margot.” I tried desperately to come up with some explanation for my presence that would make sense. “Yes, of course. I hadn’t realized…”

  You know how sometimes someone will start talking and they say so many different things that you can’t follow any of it and eventually you give up?

  Yeah, that was pretty much my strategy. I started talking—babbling really—about crown molding and renovations and my current lease, and by the time I stopped neither of them could remember what they had meant to ask me.

  “So you were hoping to rent office space?” Margot asked, looking unsure. “Here?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Well, I’m looking at my options anyway.”

  Margot’s eyes narrowed. “Uh-huh. And you were hoping to move into this building?”

  “Sure! It’s a great building.”

  “Right on the heels of my sister’s death?”

  “I’ll admit the timing is a little…” I waved my hand instead of finishing.

  Margot stared at me matter-of-factly. “And you’re not scared off by her murder?”

  Linda looked at Margot and gasped. “I thought we weren’t telling anyone about that?”

  “Oh, Kelsey knows,” Margot said. “In fact, she’s the one who found my sister.”

  “What?” Linda’s voice echoed down the hall. “You pretended you’d never set foot in this building before.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply—”

  “What are you really doing here, Kelsey?” I couldn’t read Margot’s expression, but I knew it wasn’t good. What if she told Stefan? He’d have a field day with this information.

  “Look, guys. I’m sorry. This was a bad idea. I didn’t mean to be insensitive. I just … well, to be honest, I always loved Babs’ office. I didn’t know what you were planning on doing with it, and I knew it was too soon to ask. I just thought maybe I’d see what else you had.”

  Linda seemed unmoved by my speech. “Then why were you asking so many questions about who owned the building? Sounds like you already knew.”

  “Is that true, Kelsey? Because I don’t think what we’re planning on doing with the building is any of your business.”

  I took a shot in the dark: “Babs told me she owned this building, so I figured there might be some changes, that’s all.”

  Margot’s eyes narrowed. “I think you need to go.”

  “I’m sorry, I thought that’s what she’d said. Does that mean you’re the owner?”

  “Unless you’re ready to sign a lease, I’d say that’s none of your business. Now I don’t know what your game is, but I think it’s best if you leave before I call the police.”

  I wasn’t sure exactly what she was going to tell the police: I’d like to report a rental inquiry? Nonetheless, I apologized for the intrusion and left.

  Had Margot killed her sister over real estate? If so, she knew exactly why I was there. And if not, then I probably looked pretty guilty myself—returning to the scene of the crime and all that. Of course, if I’d really had nefarious intentions, would I have made an appointment?

  What had made me think I could just waltz in there, ask a few questions, and have someone blab the whole family history to me?

  Too many reruns of CSI, that’s what.

  CHAPTER 11

  If my encounter with Margot and Linda was any indication, I seriously needed to rethink my approach. I’d verified that the Nortons owned the building, but that was about as far as I’d gotten. I still didn’t know how the two women had gotten along, what Margot stood to gain from Babs’ death, or even whether electricity was included in the rent.

  I still had a couple of hours before it was time to drive up to the wine country for my meeting at Higgins Estate, so I headed back to the office to regroup. I also wanted to spend a few minutes researching the winery. Based on their website, Higgins Estate really seemed to be pushing weddings and events. There were tons of beautifully lit photographs of happy couples toasting in the vineyard and a contact form that promised someone would be in touch within twenty-four hours.

  From the “About Us” page, I learned that Lucas was the CEO and business manager, and his brother, Miles, was the winemaker. There were a couple of pictures of Lucas, but Miles seemed to be more of a behind-the-scenes guy. His focus was on Zinfandels, for which he’d won several awards. Higgins Estate looked like it had changed a lot since I’d been up there last. Formal gardens, a brand-new tasting room—this place was high-end all the way.

  By 1:00, I was cruising up Silverado Trail toward St. Helena. It was a beautiful day, with blue skies, fluffy clouds, and the lightest of breezes. In other words, wedding weather.

  I pulled through the entrance to Higgins Estate and headed up the hill to the château looming in the distance. Rows of old-growth grapevines lined the road, with scarlet roses in full bloom at the end of each row.

  Wineries didn’t plant the rosebushes just for looks. They used them as an early warning of plant fungus, which, I’d learned, showed up on the rosebushes earlier than on the vines. Not that I’d ever share that trivia fact with my brides. Most of them don’t want to hear the word “fungus” while we’re talking about nuptials.

  I pulled my car into the parking lot and headed up the sidewalk. The château was even more impressive up close, with its turrets, balconies, and patios with views of the rolling hills. A chalkboard easel pointed me toward the tasting room and invited me to meet inside for a 2:00 tour.

  I swung open one of the large wooden doors and found myself in the gift shop, where visitors could load up on coasters, fancy condiments, and epicurean accessories to take home with their cases of Chardonnay and Zinfandel. Smart to filter everyone through here on their way in and on their way out.

  A twentysomething woman with long, dark hair and a nameplate reading Zara greeted me at the door. “Hi, welcome to Higgins Estate.”

  “Hi, I have an appointment with Lucas. My name is Kelsey McKenna.”

  She smiled and picked up the phone. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”

  I waited by a rack full of aprons and oven mitts embroidered with a sprig of ripe olives. Come to think of it, I could use an oven mitt. I checked the price tag. Twenty-four bucks? For an oversized mitten with no mate? I didn’t even want to know what the matching tea towel cost.

  “Kelsey,” said a deep voice behind me.

  I turned to see Lucas standing there. Although he was dressed much more casually than when we’d met, he still had a refined elegance to him. I wasn’t surprised the family had chosen him to be the face of Higgins Estate. He certainly dressed the part.

  “Hi, Lucas, good to see you,” I said, bumping into a display of wineglasses with a picture of the château etched on to them. The glasses tinkled together merrily, and for a second I thought I was about to buy a matched set of broken drinkware, but they quickly settled back down again.

  “Thanks for coming in. I was thinking I could give you a quick tour and then we could sit down and talk, if that’s okay with you. Would you like a glass of wine?”

  “Oh, no thank you. Maybe later, but I’m afraid business and wine don’t mix.”

  “That’s too bad. I think they go together rather well, myself, but t
hen again…” He smiled broadly and gestured toward the front door. “Anyway, shall we?”

  He led me down the hallway, our steps echoing off the marble tiles. “We have weddings here almost every weekend during the busy season. The courtyard patio holds about eighty, and there are picnic tables under the oaks up there for smaller, more casual gatherings. Now, I checked my calendar and your couple is supposed to be on the Vintners Terrace.”

  He led the way through a pair of French doors to a large outdoor space that overlooked the vineyards. It was indeed impressive, and I immediately started making a mental checklist of things we would need to furnish it. I walked over to the railing to check out the view, and Lucas pointed to the top of a hill. “Up there is our wine cave that we built last year. Remind me to take you there later. We built a dining room inside it for special events.”

  “How cool. I definitely want to see that.” Wine caves were becoming more and more popular in the wine country. Not the naturally occurring kind with stalactites and tales of hidden treasure, but the newfangled kind that wineries excavate out of the hills to make underground wine cellars that stay cool all year long. Instead of hauling the sixty-gallon barrels of wine off to a commercial cellar, they just store them under the very ground where the grapes had grown—and who doesn’t need extra storage space?

  But more importantly—okay, well, at least for me—caves make a great setting for small weddings and rehearsal dinners. They’re dark and atmospheric and don’t require much more than a bunch of candles to create instant drama.

  After showing me the rest of the château, Lucas led me to his office, a high-ceilinged room on the second floor with sweeping views of the vineyard. He sat down at his antique banker’s desk and motioned for me to take a seat in one of his elegant leather guest chairs that probably cost about two thousand dollars each.

  I had a feeling he didn’t spend much time at Ikea.

  “Thanks for the tour,” I said, settling in. “You have a beautiful winery.”

  “Thanks,” said Lucas. “I’m glad to hear you say that. I’m hoping I can convince you to spend more time up here. But first, you had some questions?”

  “Well, yes. I’m coordinating a wedding that Babs had planned before … well, you know, before.”

  Lucas nodded gravely.

  “And I’m afraid I don’t have much information on what she’d been planning. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to coordinate with Stefan”—I was super proud of my diplomatic skills on that one, and it wasn’t technically a lie—“so I was hoping you might be able to fill in some of the blanks?”

  “Hmmm … we kind of let Babs do her thing. What do you need to know?”

  “Oh, basically, everything.” I explained my predicament in more detail, but I didn’t get much more than sympathetic nods.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know much—but I might be able to help narrow it down for you.” He walked over to a credenza in the corner of the room and opened a drawer, then dug through some papers until he produced a printed list. “These are the caterers who are approved to work here,” he said, handing the list to me. “It would have been one of them.”

  “Thank you,” I said, scanning the list. “This will definitely help.”

  “As for the rest, I can’t really say. I guess she did so many weddings here, I stopped paying attention after a while.” There was a pause. “Speaking of that, how do you feel about taking over some of her workload?”

  “I’m definitely open to that,” I said.

  “If you can hold on one second,” Lucas said, picking up his cell phone. “I’m going to try to call my brother Miles real quick. I was hoping he could join us.” A few seconds later he shook his head. “I’m getting his voice mail.” Another moment passed as he waited for the beep. “Miles, I have Kelsey in my office. Come on up if you can.” He clicked off the phone and laid it on his desk. “I apologize. I really wanted him to meet you.”

  “Tell me more about what you’re looking for,” I prompted.

  “The long and short of it is, we got so used to sending inquiries to Babs, we never really tried to bring in anyone else. So now that she’s gone, it’s left a pretty big hole in our team. Eventually, we’ll probably hire someone to be our on-site planner, but in the meantime, we need to get some new referrals lined up.”

  I pictured the calendar hanging on the wall of my office. Weddings, weddings, and more weddings. “I’d love to help out, but wedding season is about to hit and we’re pretty booked up.”

  Lucas shook his head. “I get it. The irony is, anyone who’s available isn’t that good, and anyone who’s good isn’t available.”

  I paused. I was dying to know where Stefan fell on that spectrum. “But what about Babs’ assistant?”

  Lucas sighed. “Who, Stefan? The verdict’s still out on that one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Honestly? I was surprised to learn at Babs’ funeral that they were still working together.”

  “Really? Why? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I was surprised she even hired him in the first place, but that’s neither here nor there.”

  “I don’t want to go into too much detail, but he screwed up one of our weddings pretty badly. It caused a lot of problems for us.”

  “So wasn’t he working with Babs on this wedding?”

  “No, after that whole debacle, she promised to personally oversee all of our events, so we hadn’t seen him around in months. She kind of hinted that he was on his way out, but I guess it never happened.”

  Wow. Stefan and Babs were on the outs? That was news to me. If she had intended to fire him, that would certainly be motive—and definitely worth adding to the murder board. “So where does that leave you with the weddings she was doing?”

  “That’s what’s ironic. The contracts were with her company, not her specifically, so now he’s back up here. Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do about it except keep a close watch on him. But I sure don’t want to refer more business to him.”

  I nodded diplomatically, glad he’d already come to that conclusion on his own. “Of course.”

  “So you can see why I wanted to reach out to you,” he said. “I know you probably aren’t interested in the on-site position since you have your own business, but I’d love to add you to the list of approved vendors.”

  I was definitely interested. Not everyone has the budget to fly off to Reykjavík to get married under the aurora borealis or to have an underwater scuba-diving wedding in the Maldives. Adding more wine country weddings to our portfolio would certainly help pay the bills.

  Before I could reply, the door to Lucas’ office swung open. I twisted around in my chair to see a sunburned man in his forties wearing grungy jeans and a fleece pullover embroidered with the Higgins Estate logo. His hair needed a trim and he was sporting a three-day stubble—a shaggy contrast to the clean-cut Lucas.

  “Oh, good. Miles, this is Kelsey. She’s a wedding planner. Kelsey, meet my brother Miles.”

  “Hi,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Hey,” he grunted, plopping down into the seat next to me. Don’t ask me how, but I knew there would be no pleased to make your acquaintance to follow. I’m kind of psychic that way.

  “I’ve been talking to Kelsey about helping out with our wedding program,” Lucas said, “and I thought you might like to meet her.”

  Miles looked at me and shrugged as if to say, She’ll do.

  Lucas smiled patiently. “Kelsey comes highly recommended, and I’m trying to charm her into saving our backsides, so maybe you could help me out a little here and talk to her a little about our wines.”

  “You mean the wines I should be making right now instead of sitting in here in your overpriced office talking about weddings?”

  “Now, Miles, play nice.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Miles—not sounding sorry at all—“but you know how I feel about weddings.”

  “And you know how important they are to our bu
siness,” Lucas said, irritation edging into his voice.

  Miles scowled. “I don’t know about you, but I’m in the wine-making business. Not the ‘be nice to spoiled brats’ business.”

  “Be that as it may, we have a pile of contracts, and unless you want me to put you in charge of hand-holding the brides, we’re going to need someone to take over for Babs.”

  Miles’ face turned red at the mention of her name. “If there’s one thing this place doesn’t need, it’s another Babs.”

  “Kelsey isn’t ‘another Babs.’ Maybe if you stopped being so damned stubborn, we could work out a solution that we’d all be happy with.”

  This was getting interesting. What did Miles have against Babs Norton? Was it the mere fact that she was a wedding planner and he didn’t like our kind in general, or did he specifically have a beef with her?

  I turned in my chair to face him. “I take it you’re not a fan of weddings?”

  Miles’ scowl softened into a glower. “I don’t even know why we do them. If I had my way, I’d return every one of their deposits and tell them to go find someone else’s vineyard to stomp around in.”

  “Is there anything specific?” I asked. “Maybe it would help if we could implement some guidelines?”

  “How about ‘no brides, no grooms, and no wedding planners coming in here acting like they own the place’?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, then quickly closed it again. If only I had done that in the first place. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to overstep.”

  Miles turned in his chair and made eye contact with me for the first time since he’d entered the room. “I guess there’s nothing I can do to stop my brother from letting people hold weddings here. So I’ll tell you what: you stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours.”

  I blinked a couple of times and nodded. “That seems fair.”

  And with that he got up and stalked out of the room. I stared after him as he slammed the door with a loud bang.

  “I think he liked you,” Lucas said, a big grin spreading across his face.