Dying on the Vine

by Marla Cooper

  “You make it sound so easy!”

  “It is pretty easy, honestly. I’d be happy to make a list of everything you need.”

  Jake looked surprised. “You would?”

  “Sure! I’ve rented enough venues that I can tell you exactly what information wedding planners would be looking for.”

  “Wow, that would be great. I mean, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Easy-peasy. Brody could take some shots while he’s here.” An idea tickled at the back of my brain. “Oooh! You know what we need?”

  “Floors?” he said, kicking at the loose, brownish-gray dirt.

  “Nah, you can rent those. We need pictures of it all set up for a wedding so potential clients can visualize it better.”

  “Okay, that makes sense, but where do I get a wedding on short notice?”

  I glanced over at Jake—which I’d been trying not to do because every time I did I found it hard to look away. “We stage one.”

  “We do?”

  “Sure! It’s easy. I can help you figure out the details. Mostly decor, like flowers and lights, but that stuff’s easy. Maybe we even borrow a Styrofoam dummy cake.” Without having an actual bride and groom stressing about every detail, I could plan this in my sleep. All I’d have to do was make a few calls, and then it would just be a matter of setting everything up. Besides, it would be a nice diversion from everything else going on in my life.

  “So who will attend this fake wedding? You want to be my date?” He smiled playfully, and my heart did a flip.

  “No guests necessary,” I regretted to inform him. “It just has to look like everyone will be arriving at any moment. Not that I wouldn’t love attending a fake wedding with you.”

  He paused and looked around the room again. “If you’re serious, I think this is a fantastic idea. I don’t know what it would cost, but I’d be happy to pay you for your time.”

  “Honestly, it won’t take that long. Besides, it’ll be fun. You can just trade me some wine or something.”

  “Or something,” he said. He smiled and held my gaze for a moment until I blushed and looked away.

  CHAPTER 15

  “I can’t believe you’ve been keeping Jake a secret from me!” I told Brody as soon as we pulled out of the driveway of Prentice.

  “What are you talking about? I’ve been trying to set you two up for ages.”

  “I guess I’m going to have to start listening to you.”

  Brody glanced over at me and smiled. “I am pretty wise.”

  “What did you say?” I asked, pulling my phone from my purse. “I wasn’t listening.”

  “Just that you can thank me by paying for dinner.”

  “Fair enough.”

  On our way to Cask and Vine, I made a list of staging ideas for our photo shoot. I’d need flowers. Place settings. And lights, lots of lights. It would be fun planning a wedding without having to get everything approved by the bride and groom. Not to mention having an excuse to go back and see Jake again.

  The restaurant was packed, but luckily, I’d made a reservation. The hostess assured us our table would be ready soon, and I took a seat on the patio near the outdoor fire pit while I waited for Brody to go wash up.

  The couple next to me were enjoying a before-dinner beverage and what looked like bacon-wrapped figs. My stomach growled appreciatively. I was in the middle of weighing how rude it would be to ask how the figs tasted in the hopes they’d offer me one when Brody came trotting back to the table, a gleam in his eye. “You’ll never guess who I was just talking to.”

  “Who?”

  “Guess,” he said, sliding into his chair.

  “C’mon, Brody, just tell me.” We knew hundreds of people in common, and the odds of me figuring out who he’d bumped into were slim.

  “Oh, okay, spoilsport. Corey. He’s one of the bartenders.”

  The name didn’t ring a bell, but Brody clearly thought I’d be excited about the news. “Does this end with one of those cocktail thingies? Because suddenly I’m interested.”

  “Oh, you’re definitely going to be interested in hearing this.”

  I motioned for him to continue. “All right, go.”

  “Corey is a friend of mine who I know from around the neighborhood. And you’ll never guess who he used to date.”

  “Who?”

  “You’ll like this: Stefan.”

  “Nuh-uh!” I sat up, my focus fully on Brody. “Stefan Pierce?”

  “Yep. There’s no accounting for taste. Anyway, you want to meet him?”

  “Disgruntled ex, ready to blab? Heck, yeah!” I hadn’t known exactly how to proceed with my suspicions about Stefan. After all, I had to be careful around our mutual colleagues. But who knew what sort of intel the ex-boyfriend could provide.

  “I told him we’d stop by after dinner,” Brody said.

  I eyed the bacon-wrapped figs longingly. “Good idea. I hate being nosy on an empty stomach.”

  Soon enough the hostess called our name. She led us through the dining room to a table near a large stone fireplace. Nice place. Upscale, but not stuffy, with exposed brick walls, soaring ceilings, and a warm glow given off by candles at every table.

  Not only did Brody and I get our own plate of bacon-wrapped figs, we also sampled so many starters that we didn’t have room for entrees. I sighed contentedly as I leaned back onto the banquette. Yep, they would definitely do.

  After I paid—and no, Brody didn’t even reach—we headed for the bar.

  “Kelsey, this is Corey,” Brody said. “Corey, this is Kelsey.”

  The bartender stopped moving long enough to shake my hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Same here,” I said as I pulled up a chair. “Brody tells me we have a friend in common.”

  “You mean Stefan?” He rolled his eyes. “Or Lord Voldemort, as my friends now call him.”

  “Nice. We call him the Ankle Biter.”

  Corey laughed an easygoing laugh. “That works, too.”

  Brody’s phone rang and he checked the display. “It’s Jake. If you don’t mind, I’ll step outside and take this and you two can chat amongst yourselves.”

  “Jake?” Maybe Brody would get some scoop. “You should definitely take it. And tell him yes.”

  “To what?”

  “To whatever he asks.” I sat down at the bar and turned my attention back to Corey. “So, you and Stefan. I take it things didn’t end well?”

  “You could say that. You could also say that he is an evil jerk who made my life hell.”

  That sounded about right. “Why? What did he do?”

  “How much time do you have?”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “He not only dumped me over text message, but he got me kicked out of my rent-controlled apartment. What did he do to win you over?” While he talked, he continued to buzz around the bar area, pouring, shaking, stirring, and garnishing an endless string of cocktails.

  “Well, he accused me of stealing his clients a couple of times now.”

  “Yikes. So you’re a wedding planner, too?”

  “Yep. Our paths don’t cross that often, though, since I’m a destination wedding planner.”

  He paused and stared at me for a second. “I think he might have mentioned you before. He had wanted to get into destination weddings himself.”

  Great. That’s all I needed: Stefan vying for my job.

  “Anyway,” Corey said. “So he thought you were stealing clients?”

  “Yeah, and he’s also trying to sabotage one of the weddings because the couple I’m working with had fired him and Babs.”

  Corey looked up from the bottle of wine he was uncorking. “Oh my God, are you serious?”

  “Yep. Oh, and speaking of Babs, he accused me of murdering her at the funeral.”

  “He did not!” Corey grabbed a glass and poured the wine, then replaced the bottle on the bar behind him.

  “Oh, he did. The police showed up at my house and everyth
ing.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “Can I get you a drink? On the house?”

  I was enjoying our bonding session, and besides, Brody was driving. “Sure, why not?”

  “You like gin?” he asked, pointing to the backlit bottles on the shelf behind him. “I’m working on a new recipe.”

  I nodded enthusiastically and Corey started grabbing ingredients. “I can’t believe he accused you of killing Babs. That’s extreme, even for him. The police didn’t believe him, did they?”

  “I don’t know. They didn’t arrest me, so there’s that. But in the meantime, people are starting to talk.”

  “That really sucks. I’m sorry. I wonder if he just needed to blame someone because he was upset? I know I sound pretty bitter toward him, but he really isn’t all bad. If he was, I wouldn’t have stayed with him as long as I did.”

  I managed a weak smile. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

  “I know, I’m probably not very convincing.” Corey finished my concoction and set it on the bar in front of me. “Taste that.”

  I took a sip. Sweet, but not too sweet. Hints of elderflower. Something citrusy that I couldn’t identify. “Mmmm. Perfect. Thank you.”

  Corey nodded as I took another sip. I stirred my drink and thought about what Corey had said. Maybe Stefan was acting out of grief. But it sure seemed like there was more to it than that. “The thing is,” I said at last, “it’s occurred to me that maybe he’s pointing the finger at me to deflect attention away from himself.”

  Corey scrunched his face into a quizzical expression. “You mean, you think he might have had something to do with it?”

  “I don’t know. It’s crossed my mind.”

  “Wow, I don’t know.” Corey picked up a tray of freshly washed glasses and began polishing them. “Just because he’s a jerk doesn’t mean he’s a murderer.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. I just wish we knew what happened. Not just because of Stefan, but because it was Babs. I really want them to find out who did this.”

  “Do they have any other leads?”

  “You mean besides me?” I shrugged. “I don’t know. Someone told me Babs’ sister might have had something to do with it.”

  “Who, Margot?”

  “Oh, you know her?”

  “Yeah, we used to have dinner with them sometimes.”

  “So what do you think? Any chance there’s anything to that?”

  Corey leaned against the bar and folded his arms in front of his chest, still for the first time since I’d sat down. “It’s hard to imagine. They weren’t best friends or anything, but she seemed like a pretty okay person.”

  “You never know what people are capable of when there’s money involved.”

  Corey tilted his head to one side. “How do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s just that there’s a motive, you know? All that real estate?”

  “Real estate?”

  “Yeah, you know, the buildings they’d inherited from their parents?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He shook his head. “No. Those are long gone.”

  Now it was my turn to be confused. “I thought they still owned them.”

  “Oh, well, Margot does, but Babs sold her share years ago.”

  “So she doesn’t own anything with Margot?”

  “Nah, Margot bought her out. Babs wanted to focus on wedding planning, so she took a payout and reinvested it in her business. Seems to have paid off, too.”

  I thought about Babs’ Mercedes and the extravagant clothes she always wore. I’d assumed she’d figured out the secret to a wildly lucrative career in wedding planning, but it sounded like it was more the good luck of being born to parents with a knack for snatching up real estate.

  I knew I was grasping at straws, but I wasn’t ready to cross one of my prime suspects off the list. “But surely Babs still had some assets. And since she didn’t have any children, wouldn’t it all go to Margot?”

  Corey shook his head. “Babs was doing okay, but Margot has cash to burn. That house she lives in? Totally paid for. Plus, she still owns several office buildings that bring in tons of cash every month, including the one where their office was. I’m telling you, she had nothing to gain from Babs’ death.”

  Well, there went that theory. Without a motive, I had nothing. “So I wonder who gets the business now?”

  Corey froze for a second. “Oh, wow.”

  “What?”

  “Well, I don’t know what ever came of it, but I know Stefan had been trying to talk Babs into making him a partner.”

  That was news to me—although I wasn’t surprised Stefan had tried to grab a share of the business. “So, did she?”

  “Not that I know of. She said she wasn’t ready to take on a partner. Stefan complained about it a lot. Sometimes to her face, but usually just to me. He said that if anything ever happened to Babs, he wouldn’t be able to afford to keep the business open.”

  “It doesn’t exactly sound like he won the lottery in this deal.”

  “I just thought of something, though. Babs told Stefan that if anything ever happened to her, he’d be taken care of.”

  I set down my drink. “She said that?”

  “Yeah. At first, he thought she was just blowing smoke, but a couple of weeks later, she told him she’d had her lawyer set up a life insurance policy—and I’m talking one with a sizable payout—in case she died. Apparently, CEOs do it all the time.”

  “Sizable? How sizable are we talking?”

  He blew out a breath as he realized the full impact of his words. “Motive sized.”

  Wow. An insurance policy? I’d thought that if Stefan had killed Babs, it was probably in the heat of the moment. But if what Lucas had told me was true—that Babs was considering firing Stefan—then that gave Stefan a pretty big incentive to take control of the situation before she had a chance to cancel the policy.

  “So I realize that a bitter ex might not be the best person to ask—”

  He looked surprised. “Bitter?”

  “Sorry, poor choice of words.”

  “No, that’s fair. I’m probably kind of bitter.”

  “Anyway, we’ve established that Stefan has a temper, but…”

  “But do I think he’s actually capable of hurting someone?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  He ran one hand over his chin, then made a noncommittal movement with his head, neither yes nor no. “I wouldn’t necessarily have thought so before.” He folded a towel he’d been wiping the bar with. “But between you, Margot, and Stefan? My money would be on Stefan.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Turns out, bartenders make great confidential informants. Not only had Corey convinced me that it was time to cross Margot off the murder board, he’d also given me plenty of material to add under Stefan’s name. Well, only one thing, really, but it was an all-caps, double-underline piece of intel.

  Babs had wanted to make sure that Stefan would be taken care of, and how had he shown his thanks? By making sure Babs was taken care of—permanently.

  My list of things I wanted to talk to Stefan about was growing by the minute: I need Haley and Christopher’s catering deposit back. Also, please kindly cease and desist with the wedding sabotage. And oh, yeah, by the way, Did you kill your boss?

  Luckily, today was the day the fictional Kate and Will were supposed to have their consultation with Stefan. And with any luck, I’d be able to get some answers.

  Wedding planners always show up early, so Laurel and I got to the coffee shop half an hour ahead of time.

  Laurel tucked her long blond hair up under a hat and donned a pair of oversized sunglasses, then took an outside table so she could act as my lookout and text me when Stefan arrived. Inside, I found a corner table that was out of view of the counter. Perfect.

  I settled in with my newspaper and a caramel latte. When Laurel gave the heads-up, I’d hide behind the newspaper until Stefan walked in. Then, when the moment was right,
in I’d swoop. Why, Stefan, what a coincidence, I would say as I pulled up a chair. Who knew if he’d actually talk to me, but I was hoping the imminent arrival of Kate and Will—bless their make-believe hearts—would keep him from bolting.

  I took another drag off my coffee and noticed my hands were shaking a little. I wasn’t sure if I was nervous about our little sting operation or just hopped up on caffeine. I’m really going to have to switch to decaf. I took a few deep breaths, glad I had extra time to calm my nerves.

  By the time 4:00 arrived, I was ready. I was surprised Stefan hadn’t gotten there early. You never want the client to beat you there. Babs would have had a fit.

  Having already caught up on all the front-page news, I flipped through the entertainment section and skimmed a profile on a Cuban funk band for lack of anything else to do. Huh. Still no sign of Stefan.

  At 4:05, I texted Laurel.

  Nothing?

  My phone buzzed immediately.

  Not yet

  I wrote back:

  Have Kate text him

  I’d already read the entire paper, so I chose the sports section to hide behind for the rest of my wait, figuring he’d never suspect to find me reading about a blocked punt return that apparently was really fascinating to people who care about such things.

  I checked the time. Ten after four. I was getting antsy and my coffee was cold. I drank it anyway. Great. Now it was empty and I had to pee. How did policemen do it? Well, I kind of suspected how policemen did it, but policewomen must be at a severe disadvantage when it comes to stakeouts.

  I sat for another twenty minutes, jiggling my leg and checking the time. Laurel and I texted back and forth a few more times. She’d gotten no response texting from the burner phone, and when she tried calling him it went straight to voice mail.

  We’d been made.

  I tossed my cup in the recycling bin, then wondered if it was meant to go in the compost bin, then decided not to worry about it as I tossed my newspaper in after it. After a much-needed bathroom break, I met Laurel outside.

  “He must have recognized you,” I said, eyeing her hat.

  “No way. I was watching for him. I would have seen him coming way before he saw me.”