“Ahh!” Cass and I screamed at the same time.
The person coming up from the trapdoor screamed, too. He looked like a head without a body. We could only see him from the neck up.
When we all caught our breath, a young man with a pencil-thin mustache climbed the rest of the way out of the floor. “This room is for staff only. What are you doing here?”
“We’re waiting for Aubrey,” Cass said. “She was going to talk us through the wines that you have in this rack.” Cass held up the cloth bag Aubrey had sold her. “We are buyers.”
The young man smoothed down his minuscule mustache. “You don’t have to wait for Aubrey. I’ll be happy to talk to you about what’s in this room just as soon as I deliver this bottle to another customer. Come out to the tasting room and we can chat.”
“If it’s all the same to you,” Cass said, “we’d like to stay in here. It’s so much cooler. Bailey doesn’t do well in the heat, and I’m afraid that she suffered a bit of heat stroke out in the sun today. I told her to stay hydrated and keep drinking water, but she rarely listens to me.”
Cass elbowed me, and I put a hand to my forehead. “I’m so hot. I need a cool place to collect myself. This room is just what I need.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the other room. “I don’t want anyone getting sick. Stay here and I’ll be back in a minute.” He went into the tasting room.
When the door closed behind him, Cass bent down to look at the trapdoor. “That’s very well concealed. I wouldn’t have known there was even a door there.”
There was a small hole in the floor just big enough for two fingers. I put my fingers into it, and the door opened easily to reveal a narrow staircase. It was dark inside, and we couldn’t see much farther than the first five steps.
“Whoa,” Cass said.
“We don’t have much time,” I said. “If we want to go through the trapdoor, we have to do it now, before he comes back. He’ll be back soon. He didn’t want to leave us in here alone. I’m sure it’s not allowed.”
Cass nodded and went down the stairs. “It smells musty down here. I can’t see a thing.”
“Use the flashlight on your cell phone.”
“Oh, right.” Her voice was muffled.
I heard shuffling from down below, and then the weakest pinprick of light appeared.
“Come on down. This is cool.”
I looked back at the closed door that led into the tasting room and then went down the stairs.
If the wine room was fifteen degrees cooler than the tasting room, the cellar beneath it was thirty. I started to shiver the moment my sneakers hit the floor. A T-shirt and shorts were not the proper clothing for a place as cold as this. “It’s freezing down here.”
“Not quite freezing but cold. It’s for the wine.”
Around the cellar there were dozens of wine barrels. The names of the wines and the years were written on them in black block letters.
“They should give tours of this place,” Cass said. “This is what someone would imagine a wine barrel room in France looks like. I bet they would sell a lot more wine if they highlighted this space.”
I rubbed my arms. “It is neat.” Then I spotted another set of stairs leading up to a door that looked like it was right out of the pages of The Wizard of Oz. Bright light slipped through the cracks around the door. I pointed at it. “Now we know where Aubrey went.”
Cass nodded.
Above our heads, the hatch opened. “Are you down there?” a squeaky male voice asked. “Hello? This area is off-limits to the public.”
“That’s our cue,” I whispered.
Cass and I hurried up the second set of stairs and out into the sunshine.
We found ourselves on the other side of the building, away from the parking lot. There were rows of grapes in front of us, and two picnic tables. Aubrey sat at one of those tables with a man. They held hands across the table and appeared to be in the middle of an earnest conversation.
“It looks like a where-is-this-relationship-going talk,” Cass whispered.
I agreed, but what caught me off guard about the pair was that I had seen the man before. He was of medium height with spiky brown hair.
I tugged on my friend’s arm. “Cass, that’s the guy who picked Leeza up on Apple Street.”
Cass stared openmouthed at me. “Are you sure?”
“I’m pretty sure.” I shook my head. “No, I’m almost certain.”
“You might want to be more than certain when this guy could very well be the one who tried to blow Leeza up.”
The man made eye contact with me, dropped Aubrey’s hand, and jumped from his seat. He tried to leap away from the picnic table, but his left foot got caught on the seat and he toppled to the ground with one leg still under the table.
“Graceful,” Cass quipped.
Aubrey got up and peered down at him. “Gabe, are you all right?”
Gabe pushed her away. “I twisted my leg.”
Aubrey tried to untangle him from the picnic table.
“Get away from me. You’re making it worse!” Gabe shouted.
Aubrey shrank back from him.
“Doesn’t look broken,” Cass said.
Gabe untangled his leg and struggled to his feet. He winced as he put weight on his left foot.
“Gabe, maybe we should go to the clinic,” Aubrey said. “I can drive you.”
He glared at her. “We aren’t going to the clinic.” He scowled at Cass and me. “Were these the women asking about Leeza?”
“You bet we were,” Cass said. “What do you know about her murder?”
Aubrey gasped, and I groaned. I hope that I would have put it a bit more delicately than that, but Cass’s tactic seemed to do just the trick with Gabe. “I didn’t kill her.” Tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. “I cared about her a lot. This has been very hard.”
Aubrey took another step back. I didn’t know what her relationship with Gabe was or what she wanted it to be, but I was willing to bet all the chocolate in my shop that she didn’t like hearing that he cared about another woman.
“Why don’t you have a seat, Gabe, and tell us about it?” Cass said.
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” he snapped.
“Would you rather talk to a sheriff’s deputy?” I asked. “I can arrange that.”
He glared at me. “You’re not covered in cake now, but I remember you. You were staring at Leeza and me when I picked her up on Saturday. You looked ridiculous, by the way.”
I put my hands on my hips. “What did you do with her?”
“What do you mean, what did I do with her? I took her home. She was drunk, and I wanted to stop her before she made a giant scene.”
“You were a little late for that,” Cass said.
Gabe stared at her openmouthed. “What do you mean?”
“She’d just crashed a wedding before you picked her up,” Cass said. “She ran into the church and yelled at the groom.”
He frowned. “She didn’t tell me that. That’s not normal for her. She was sober for months. She promised she’d given up drinking. I don’t know what happened in the last couple of weeks that changed that.”
Gabe was the second person to tell me that Leeza had given up drinking. Her friend Becca had been the first.
“This is all her counselor’s fault. I told her to stop going there, that she didn’t need that place. Sometimes she’d come home from those meetings all upset. And then she started drinking again. She said there was no point in being sober.”
I winced, knowing the counselor he was talking about was Reverend Brook. I wasn’t going to mention his name, though. I didn’t know what Gabe was capable of.
Gabe bent and rubbed the side of his knee. “That counselor was a terrible idea. All he did was bring up bad memories for her. The best way to deal with a bad past is to bury it. That’s what I’ve always done.”
And he was the picture of mental health, I was sure.
“And now sh
e’s dead. I blame him.” Gabe curled his hands into fists. “She died because she was drunk and careless. When I find out who her counselor was, and I will, I will make him pay for what he did.”
I didn’t for a moment doubt it.
He marched away, jumped in the red car I had seen Leeza climb into the day of the wedding, and drove away. This time I got the plate number.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“See! See!” Cass said as we walked back to my car.
“I knew this winery was connected to the murder.” Cass was this close to jumping up and down over it.
I removed my phone from my pocket. “You were right, and now I have to tell Aiden. He’s not going to be happy we spoke to Gabe without him.”
“He wouldn’t have even found Gabe if it weren’t for us.”
“We didn’t do a great job of finding him. Neither of us got his last name,” I said.
“How many Gabes could be working at this winery? Besides, the license plate number will tell Aiden his last name.”
“At least we got that,” I said and looked back at the purple building, where Aubrey was watching us through one of the windows. There was a love triangle there, I thought. That made both Gabe and Aubrey suspects.
“Do you think he killed Leeza?” I asked.
“He seems like he could get angry enough,” Cass said, and then she lowered her voice. “I think he would like to take Reverend Brook out if he knew his connection to Leeza.”
I thought so, too. I leaned against my car and made the call I had been dreading since I’d followed Cass down into the wine cellar.
“Bailey,” Aiden answered on the first ring. “Where are you? I was just at the candy shop looking for you.”
“Something up?” I asked.
“Yes, something is up. A woman was killed in an explosion in my county.” He took a breath. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. This case is increasingly frustrating. Leeza’s Amish family and bishop won’t talk to me, and Reverend Brook is being decidedly unhelpful, too.”
“Do you think he’s hiding something?” I asked.
There was a pause, but it was a long enough pause that it was all the answer I needed.
“So where are you? I just stopped by Swissmen Sweets to see you. I’ve had a terrible day. BCI is coming in on this case because it involves a bomb, and the sheriff is blaming me for tipping them off.”
“Did you?” I asked.
“No, but the coroner has to file a report with BCI when explosives are used. It wasn’t like we could keep it a secret.”
“I’m sorry, Aiden,” I said, feeling worse and worse that I had more bad news for him. Maybe he wouldn’t take it as bad news. Maybe he would just accept the new information.
“I think you should talk to Aubrey and Gabe at the Stardust Winery on Route Sixty-Two.”
There was a long pause. “Why?”
“Because they know Leeza. Aiden, Gabe is the guy who picked Leeza up Saturday night.”
“What! Where is he? Where are you?”
“Cass and I are at the winery right now—in the parking lot, actually. Gabe left, and he was driving the same car I saw Saturday.”
“Did you get the plate number?”
“I did,” I said with relief. I rattled the number off to him.
“Okay, I will check on this number. Where is the other person? Aubrey, you said?”
“Right. She’s still inside the winery.”
“And you are still there in the parking lot?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Cass and I were just about to leave.”
“Are you safe?” Aiden asked.
“Yes, we are fine. Cass even bought a bottle of wine.”
He sighed. “Stay there, then. I’m jumping into my car now and can be there in twenty minutes. Tell me everything you know about that place and Aubrey and Gabe while I drive.”
Twenty minutes later, Aiden pulled into the Stardust Winery parking lot with all the backstory on the winery I could give him. I’d got an earful for not reporting the matchbook to him the moment we found it.
Aiden parked his departmental SUV next to my car and climbed out.
“Were you able to run the plates?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yes, the car belongs to Gabriel Johnson. My deputies are out looking for him. They should have him in custody shortly, and then maybe this nightmare of a case will be over.” He held the door open, and Jethro hopped out, too.
I stared at the pig. “Wait, what is Jethro doing with you?” I asked.
Aiden looked down at the pig. “Ummm, I didn’t mention that he was with me?”
I put my hands on my hips. “No, you didn’t.” Then, my eyes narrowed. “That’s why you went to Swissmen Sweets looking for me. It wasn’t to make sure I was okay. It was to dump the pig on me.”
“Oh,” Aiden said. “Look at him. You hurt his feelings when you speak like he’s a burden.”
Jethro had his nose buried in a cluster of daylilies edging the parking lot. “He doesn’t look sad at all to me. Why do you have him?”
Aiden sighed. “My mother asked me to take him.”
I should have suspected as much.
“Honestly, I think she wanted to ask you,” Aiden said. “But she couldn’t find you. I was her backup plan.”
Cass eyed him. “Must be tough being a pig babysitter backup plan.”
“It’s better than being a pig first sitter.”
“Point taken,” Cass said.
“Can you just take him for now?” Aiden gave me puppy-dog eyes.
“I know your mother was going to leave him with me for the honeymoon. Does that mean it’s back on?”
Aiden nodded. “I was able to clear Reverend Brook. The sheriff said they could go. I think he’s so upset about BCI pushing its way into this case that he wants to remove as many of the suspects as possible.”
“Can they go without BCI’s permission?” I asked. “I don’t know if they want to thumb their noses at the state like that.”
“I wondered the same, so I had the reverend talk to the investigator from BCI today. BCI gave its blessing. They don’t believe the bombing was related to Reverend Brook, and I tend to agree with them.” He looked down at Jethro, who had moved from smelling the daylilies to eating them. “Can you take him? I’ve got my hands full with this case.”
“Why didn’t you just leave him at Swissmen Sweets?” Cass asked. It was a fair question. My grandmother and Charlotte had become accustomed to caring for pets while in the shop. I took Puff the bunny in every day, and Jethro was also a frequent visitor. As long as the animals stayed out of my grandmother’s kitchen, she was fine with it.
Aiden blushed. “I tried to leave him at the candy shop, but Emily was working and she doesn’t like it when Jethro is there.”
I knew this, too, but it made me smile that a young Amish woman could intimidate Aiden enough to convince him to take a pig on patrol with him.
“I don’t know why Emily has an issue with Jethro,” Aiden complained. “He’s a perfectly clean pig. My mother makes sure that he has all the best soaps and beauty products. I think she spends more time and money on caring for him than she ever did on me when I was a child.”
There was probably some truth to that.
“Fine, I’ll take Jethro,” I said, not that there was ever much chance of my giving him any other answer. It was always going to be fine.
Aiden beamed.
Behind us, there was chatter as the side door of the winery opened and the black-clothed servers came out in a line. Aubrey was among them.
I pointed at Aubrey, who walked to a compact car. “That’s her, the one with the black bun. She was the one who we spoke to about Leeza.”
“Miss,” Aiden called as he walked over to Aubrey. Her coworkers jumped in their cars and scattered as Aiden approached. It didn’t look to me as though she had many friends at the winery.
She clutched her right earring, as if it had so
me special power to protect her from Aiden. He reached her and showed her his badge, but they were too far away from Cass and me for us to overhear their conversation.
“Do you think it would be bad form if we just walked over there and eavesdropped?”
I scooped up Jethro before he could completely decimate the winery’s daylilies. Also, I didn’t know what plants might be poisonous to pigs. The little bacon bundle wasn’t getting sick on my watch. Juliet had enough anxiety about him as it was.
“I think it would be very bad form,” I said.
“Darn. I was hoping it would be fine.”
Aubrey waved her hand and shook her head, and then she burst into tears. Aiden looked over his shoulder with pleading eyes.
“It looks like he wants your help,” Cass said.
It certainly did. I walked over to Aiden just to have Aubrey thrust herself into my arms. “It’s my fault she’s dead,” she sobbed.
I widened my eyes at Aiden over her head. “Shh, shh.” I patted her back. “I think you need to tell Deputy Brody what’s going on here.”
“I can’t. It’s just too horrible.”
I glanced at Aiden. “You’re going to have to,” I said. “This isn’t about you. It’s about Leeza, who was murdered. Don’t you want to find out who is responsible?”
She straightened up but still held onto my arm as if she needed support to stay upright. “I know who is responsible. It’s me. Leeza would still be alive if it weren’t for me. I can’t believe I did this to my friend.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“You and Leeza were friends?” I asked as gently as
I could.
Aiden looked as if he wanted to arrest Aubrey that very moment, and he even made a move for the cuffs on his belt. I shook my head.
“How long had you known her?” I asked.
“Not very long, just as long as she worked here. A few months maybe? However, we were together every day. Both of us needed extra money for bills and things. We both were willing to pick up extra shifts if someone called off.”
I nodded.
“We had a lot in common. We worked hard and had big dreams.” She glanced at Cass. “I have already told you mine about wanting to move to New York, but Leeza had dreams of owning a business of her own, too. She said once that she wanted to show her family she’d turned out all right.”
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