by Jen Carter
I followed her inside and grabbed another high top while Holly continued to hold the door. Outside, Amy and Jules had appeared at the other table we had set down moments before. Amy had a carrier filled with four coffees, and Jules had a basket of muffins.
“How did it go this morning at Snapdragon?” I asked them. “Any guests asking where the Berkes were?”
Amy and Jules looked at each other and shrugged as Stella and I each grabbed a cup of coffee. Holly pulled a chocolate chip muffin from the basket.
“It was fine,” Jules said. “No drama. We didn’t even see anyone.”
“Right,” Amy said. “We just went in and set up the coffee and pastries, and that was it. We left the front office locked, though. We know the Berkes normally leave it open, but today the guests will just need to use their keys if they want to go in and out.” She dug in her shorts’ pocket and pulled out Snapdragon’s front door key. “Here you go. I don’t want to lose it.”
“Thank you.” I pocketed the key and grabbed a muffin. “Luckily, the Berkes should be back home today anyway.”
“Oh?” Amy said, her eyebrows raising.
“Hey, guys, let’s chat about all this later,” Stella said, looking at her watch. “We only have two hours to finish setting up.” She raised her coffee cup as though toasting our friends. “Thank you so much for this.”
“Stella, the festival doesn’t start for three hours,” Holly said. “There’s no reason we have to be ready an hour early.”
“The people staying here in Otto Viti will be out and about before the festival technically begins,” Stella said. “We need to be ready. Let’s go get another table.”
As she walked back toward the tasting room, I rolled my eyes. “She’s right,” I said. “I hate that she’s right, but she’s right.”
“Darn her work ethic and attention to customer-service detail,” Holly sighed.
“We’ll help set up while you talk,” Amy said. “We’re working together down the street and are done.”
“Great,” Holly said. “You all move tables, and I’ll take Jason his coffee.” She pulled a cup from the carrier and turned toward the barn.
The rest of us walked back into the tasting room.
“How are you already set up for the day?” I asked Amy and Jules. “I feel like we just started here.”
Amy shrugged. “Well, I don’t know.” She glanced at Jules. “Neither one of us are particularly organized. Maybe we aren’t ready.”
Jules chuckled as we entered the tasting room. “True,” she said. “But we have food prepped and coffee out, and Amy confirmed the author for this afternoon, so isn’t that about it? It’s sort of like a regular day for us, except that we’re doing it outside. You guys have more to do. You’re doing the important parts.”
“Yeah, you’re doing the wine part of the wine festival,” Amy said.
“Jules, can you just hold the door?” Stella said as she took one side of a table and waited for me to grab the other. “And Amy, can you grab the stack of tablecloths over there? This is the last table we need for the festival.”
We all followed her instructions.
Outside, Morrie Flash and Artie Brow were standing next to the muffin basket, helping themselves. Holly was wandering back over from the barn, still holding the coffee meant for Jason. He must not have been in there.
“Our favorite girls!” Artie said, raising his arms toward us. “So glad to see you. Stella, I have a question about when the kids’ activities are starting in the park. I want to make sure my grandkids don’t miss anything.”
Stella pulled her phone from her back pocket and began tapping and scrolling to find an answer.
Morrie swallowed the last of his muffin and turned toward me. “Jill, I found some items that the bachelor party left behind in Vendemmia. What’s the best way to get them back to those young gentlemen?”
Gentlemen, ha. I kept the sarcastic remark to myself and said, “Shane might actually be up here today for the festival. I bet I’ll see him. I can tell him to go see you at the hotel.”
“What if I brought the stuff to you? It’s just one bag. Could you give it to him?”
I nodded. “Sure, that’s a better idea. If I see him, I’ll just hand it over. And if I don’t see him, I can take it back down to Carlsbad with me tonight.”
“Tonight?” Jules asked. “Why are you going back down tonight?”
I made a face. “I forgot to send our new principal my teaching philosophy, which was due yesterday. I’ve got to get back to my computer and email it over.” I turned toward Holly. “Speaking of that, want to come with me? Keep me company while driving?”
Holly’s eyebrows furrowed. “Um, let me think.” She paused. “I think Stella needed me to do something for her tonight.”
My eyebrows furrowed to match my sister’s. “What does she need you to do?” I glanced across the table where Stella had been talking to Morrie, but she had disappeared, and Morrie was left there gobbling down another muffin. Where had she gone?
“I don’t remember. I’m not sure,” Holly said. “I’ll just double check with her and let you know.” She glanced around and then pointed across the street. I followed her line of vision and saw Stella standing in front of Checkmate talking with Katie Foxx from Chocolat. “When she’s not so busy, I’ll ask.”
I nodded and was about to say okay, let me know, when I noticed a familiar figure approaching Stella and Katie. It was Detective Fitts.
“I’ll be right back,” I said to no one in particular. I grabbed my coffee cup and trotted across the street.
I reached my sister just as Katie walked away and Fitts said to Stella, “Where’s your husband?”
I winced. No hi, how are you? It seemed like such a simple way to start a conversation and show some semblance of good manners.
Stella didn’t answer aloud. She looked at her phone and pointed across the street toward our winery.
“Detective,” I said, “what do you need? Maybe I can get it for you.”
“I need Jason to let me into the Snapdragon Inn so that I can do my job.”
“I have a key,” I said. “I can take you down there and let you in.”
Fitts glared across the street at the winery as though weighing his choices. Should he waste time looking for Jason—whom he probably preferred working with—or right away with me?
“Okay,” he said. He turned and started down the street.
“Stella, I’ll be right back,” I said.
“While you’re going in that direction, can you check on the grapevine wreath-making station in West Park before you come back? I’m not sure Katie knows how to set it up.”
I gave her a thumbs-up and then turned to catch up with Fitts.
“I wanted to talk to you anyway,” Fitts said as I reached his side. “We need to discuss that ex-boyfriend of yours.”
TWENTY-FOUR
“What about him?” I asked as we crossed the street diagonally toward Chocolat and continued on toward Snapdragon.
“You’re still friends with him?”
I shook my head. “I would definitely not call him a friend. We broke up six years, ago, and until a week ago, I had no contact with him.” I paused, watching the sidewalk squares pass beneath my feet. “I guess we’re friendly at the moment, but that’s only because of the bachelor party coming here and everything that’s happened since. I’m sure that friendliness is going to fade away pretty fast.”
Fitts nodded. “I never stay friends with my exes either.”
Oh, it would have been so easy to say no surprise there, but I managed to keep my thoughts to myself. In fact, maybe this was a rare opportunity to learn more about the detective and get on friendlier terms with him. Why not? It couldn’t hurt.
“Are you currently, um, attached?”
“No,” he said. His voice was suddenly gruff. “No time for that. Not when cases like this are plaguing our community.”
Well, okay. So, he wasn’t goin
g to share the specific details of his last relationship, but that answer was still honest and respectable. And he hadn’t managed to insult my family in the process of giving it, so I couldn’t really complain.
“What’s the problem with Shane?” I asked.
“I think he’s keeping something from us. Do you think you could get him to confide in you?”
“You think he’s involved in Marlo’s death?”
Fitts pursed his lips and squinted, his eyes fixed on the park at the west end of the street. “I think he might suspect something. He might have seen or heard something, and he’s worried about someone close to him having something to do with her death.”
“What do you mean?” I said, still keeping up with his long strides the best I could. His steps were even longer than Stella’s. “Like, you think that Angelia might have had something to do with it? And Shane might know?”
Fitts pointed to the entrance to Snapdragon Inn, which was just steps ahead of us. “You’ve got the key?”
I fished the key out of my pocket and walked up the path to the front door. “What do you think happened?” I asked. “What do you think Shane might know?”
“There’s not time to talk about that now. I’ve got to get this video verified so we can determine what to do with those hippie sisters.”
I unlocked the front door, and tried to tamp down my frustration. Why couldn’t he just tell me what he thought happened? I really hated when people brought up something important and then didn’t offer details. No wonder Stella hated being his math partner back in high school. His attention was fleeting and his personality was overbearing. Quite a combination.
I let Fitts into the lobby and then pointed toward the dining room. “Through there,” I said. “That’s where they had the wine and cheese that afternoon.”
The room was deserted, though the guests had clearly made a dent in Jules and Amy’s breakfast spread.
“You stick around,” Fitts said over his shoulder. “I’ll let you know when I want to talk to you again.”
I thought about following him into the dining room, and then decided against it. I’d sit at the front desk to think about what he had just said about Shane.
Shane.
Shane.
Nico had said something about Shane on the phone last night. What had he said? That he thought we needed to look into Shane—and the people close to him? Had he said something similar to what Fitts just said?
I pulled out my phone and texted Nico.
What did you say about Shane and Angelia before I fell asleep last night?
I didn’t expect an answer right away, but hopefully he’d get the message in the next couple hours. And who knew? If he responded before the crush festival and had some good insights—and if Shane showed up for the festival—maybe I could ask some questions that might help the investigation.
In the dining room, Fitts played a recording—one that was very noisy and chaotic sounding. There was laughing, screeching, clinking glasses, more laughing, more clinking, whooping, and giggling. My curiosity was piqued. I ventured into the dining room where Fitts was sitting at the table with his back to me. I stood over his shoulder so I could watch the video playing on his tablet.
On the screen, the bachelorette party was goofing around in the very same room where we stood. Just as Jason said, one girl was trying different types of cheeses and making faces. Her reactions weren’t the most interesting part of the video—what was happening in the background was far more intriguing.
Behind the bachelorettes, at the far end of the table, Carolina set down a bowl as Katia said, If anyone has trouble sleeping, we have some wonderful herbal supplements that may help. The words were hard to hear over the giggles of the bachelorettes, but they were not unclear. The Berkes then disappeared from view. Not three seconds later, Janelle and Marlo appeared next to the bowl. Janelle grabbed a handful of the pills and dropped them in her purse. I’ll save these for later, she said. Marlo whacked Janelle’s shoulder and said, Don’t be ridiculous. Never take pills from anyone, not even from sweet old ladies. She picked up the bowl, walked it to the fireplace behind the table, and tossed all the pills into it.
Fitts stopped the recording there. He rose and crossed the dining room to the fireplace. I followed. Crouching down and looking inside, he said, “This fireplace hasn’t been used all summer.” He reached in and grabbed some capsules from behind the fake log. “That just might work in your hippie friends’ favor.” He held up the pills to me. “Do these look like the sleep aids your buddy down the street sells at her fru-fru-healthy, organic store?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
He stood and then walked past me into the lobby. Over his shoulder, he said, “I’ll check it out.” He went straight for the front door, and I scampered after him.
“Wait, so what does that mean?” I said. “Did you actually arrest the Berkes last night? How does this whole questioning-arresting-custody-charging thing work? Can they still get in trouble for something if you release them?”
He didn’t answer. Reaching his side, I pressed on.
“What about Alex? Did you confirm he was at school Saturday night?”
“Yes, he’s clear. D’Angelo, you ask too many dang questions.”
“Hey, can you stop for just a second?” I wanted TO yank his arm and make him stop walking, but I didn’t dare. “Can you explain your suspicions about Shane? Why do you think he knows something? I might see him today, so if there’s something you want me to do, tell me now.”
Fitts shook his head. “Later. I need to check one more thing first. We’ll be in touch.”
I stopped walking and pressed my palms against my temples. That man made me nutty. Why bring it up and then not give me the full story? Holding my tongue, I turned and strode toward West Park to check on the grapevine wreath-making station.
I found Katie Foxx standing in the middle of West Park watching the bouncy houses and slides inflate—nowhere near the wreath-making station.
Over the noise of the blowers, I asked her, “How’s it going here? Need any help?”
Katie looked at me, her arms crossed, and shook her head hard enough to flip her brown hair over her shoulder. “Nah, I think we’re set. We have the little carnival-style games set up along the perimeter.” She pointed her finger to the edge of the park and swept it across the length of grass. “We have the bounce houses behind us.” She pointed over her shoulder. “And the dance floor right there.” She pointed in front of her. “We’ll have someone leading the kids in little dancey-dance activities a couple times an hour, and then we’ll also do some hula-hoop contests and potato sack races.”
“Fantastic,” I said. “And how’s the wreath making? Need any help there?”
Katie’s eyes narrowed. “Did Stella send you here to check on me? I told her I had it under control. I have Shannon’s mom taking care of it.”
If I remembered correctly, Shannon Issley’s mom helped with wreath making last year, so Katie’s answer was good enough for me. Stella and Katie rubbed each other the wrong way, and I didn’t want to make it any worse.
“Great! It sounds like you’ve got this all under control,” I said. “If you need anything, text me.” I started walking toward the sidewalk.
“Oh, Jill?” Katie called after me. “That reporter who’s been snooping around was just here. She was looking for you.”
I whipped around and pointed at myself, continuing to walk backward. “Me, specifically?”
Katie nodded. “She said she was going to look for you at your family’s tasting room.”
“Thanks, Katie.” I turned toward Via del Corso and picked up my pace.
That reporter had been bugging me all week. Sure, I hadn’t actually gotten to talk with her, but her negative articles weren’t making me a fan. Why did she want to talk to me? Did she really think that I—or anyone else in Otto Viti—would give her an interview, especially after how she had tried to boycott the festival?
I didn’t know what I wanted to say to her, but I did know I wanted to say something.
“Jill!”
I heard my name called from across the street. It was Morrie Flash. He was standing outside Deseo restaurant talking to Eduardo Salizar. I waved and crossed the street toward him.
“Can we go grab that bag of bachelor party stuff from Vendemmia? Do you have time? I’m afraid if we don’t do it now, we’ll get too busy to do it later.”
“Sure, Morrie.” It would only take a minute, and maybe we would see the reporter on the way.
I checked my phone to see if Nico had written back.
No message.
As we passed D’Angelo Winery on the other side of the street, I waved at Stella who was staring at me and holding her palms upward as though to ask, where are you going? I called, “I’ll be right back. Just going to grab something from Vendemmia.”
She nodded and gave me a thumbs up.
“Are you excited about the festival?” Morrie asked as we continued down the sidewalk.
“I am,” I answered. “But this whole police investigation still has me unnerved.”
Morrie shook his head at the ground. “Who’d have thought something like this could happen in Otto Viti? I thought it was pretty strange that we had a bachelorette and bachelor party here to begin with—I couldn’t believe that would happen here. And then to think it led to someone dying—it just knocks me off my feet.” He shook his head again. “That bachelor party must have been pretty wild, too. You know where I found clothes after the gentlemen left? On the roof!”
I’m sure the look on my face betrayed my surprised. “On the roof?”
“Yep. My handyman was cleaning the gutters all of last weekend, and on Sunday he found three shirts up there. I figured that the guys must have been inebriated Saturday night, decided to climb the lattice on the side of the hotel, and spent some time on the roof. Who knows what they might have been doing up there?” He shrugged. “Perhaps it wasn’t them, but it seems most logical that if any guests were to be up there Saturday night, it’d be the bachelor party guys.”