From Port to Rigor Morte

by J. C. Eaton

  A chorus of “yeah, sure” and “fine” followed.

  “Is that all?” Madeline asked. “I really wanted to talk about the Speltmores’ release event.”

  “Um, one more second.” I reached into my bag and pulled out the scarab bracelet. It was still wrapped in a Two Witches gift towel only now it was in a Ziploc bag. “I’ll pull the towel out and you can see the bracelet. Keep it in the plastic bag.”

  With that, I extricated the fuchsia and mauve towel, leaving the bracelet at the bottom of the bag. Then I passed it along to Stephanie first.

  She took one look and gasped. “This is exquisite, Norrie. Exquisite and expensive. Those are real gems. Looks like the clasp came undone but the little safety chain is still on. Hmm, whoever wore it must have a tiny wrist or it wouldn’t have fallen off.”

  The bracelet made its way around the room, and with the exception of Rosalee and Theo, everyone else oohed and ahhed.

  “Our tasting rooms are mega busy so I seriously doubt any of our employees would remember seeing anything like this, and even if they did, they’d be hell-pressed to remember the person who wore it. Still, it doesn’t hurt to ask,” I said.

  Madeline shuffled the papers in front of her and looked around. “Now, can we get on with the meeting? Unless of course you wanted to talk about Emerson Boyd. I always have time for enlightening information.”

  Or down-and-dirty scuttlebutt.

  “I’m trying to figure out if he would have had a motive for killing Brewer. Who else besides you and Stephanie know anything about him? I mean, other than the fact he’s a wine publicist out of Rochester.”

  “An officious wine publicist out of Rochester,” Stephanie said. “Derek and I met him at a chamber of commerce event in Geneva a while back. He went on and on about the new summer lake house he bought on Keuka Lake’s bluff. Not only that, but he showed us photo after photo on his cell phone. Hard to get out of my mind. Commanding views of both sides of the lake. Said he spent a fortune on these special light-sensitive windows that adjust for all hours of the day. Impossible for anyone to look in. Like that would matter to Derek and me. All they’d see were the kids’ toys scattered all around. Anyway, he’s quite renowned and if he promotes a wine, it’s all but bound to be an income generator. Still, his prices were way out of the Gable Hill Winery budget.”

  “You can find out for yourself,” Madeline added, “at the Speltmores’ reception next Saturday night. They’ll be introducing that tawny port of theirs with enough fanfare for a royal wedding. My eyes glossed over after reading the invitation.”

  “Invitation?” I froze. “Not an email?”

  Madeline shook her head. “Not this time. You should have received that invitation weeks ago. He sent them to all of the wineries.”

  I turned to Theo and gave him a look. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  He shrugged. “I thought you knew. It’s no big deal. New wines are introduced all the time.”

  “But not with a string quartet from Ithaca College,” Stephanie said.

  Catherine, who had been unusually quiet up until now, wrung her hands and looked down. “It would have been the perfect venue for Norrie and Steven to reunite, but Steven’s flight is scheduled for the following day.”

  Let the gods be praised.

  “Um, do you know who’s on the guest list?”

  Madeline nodded. “According to Delia, who I spoke with a few weeks ago, they’ve invited all of the winery owners on Seneca Lake, a number of wine magazine editors, the local press, and the owners of Belhurst Castle, Geneva on the Lake and so forth. Ah, and naturally their publicist. The reception is being catered by Creative Caterers out of Rochester. They have an impeccable reputation and a five-star rating from clients.”

  Poor Eli. They’ll probably ship him off to Aunt Doris so he’s not in the way.

  Suddenly I remembered that stack of mail I had on my desk that I was going to get around to reading but instead moved from one corner to the other. “Was I supposed to RSVP?”

  “Yes,” Madeline said. “By tomorrow.”

  I was pretty certain the Speltmores weren’t about to turn me away if I missed the deadline but it was nice to know I didn’t screw up completely. Then I glanced at everyone around the table. “So that’s it? No one knows anything else about Boyd?”

  A second or two of silence followed my question. And then, out of nowhere, Rosalee lifted her head and looked at all of us. “His mother happens to be a royal pain in the patootie. Always was. Always will be.”

  Chapter 16

  “You know Boyd’s mother?” I couldn’t control the decibel level of my voice. “How do you know her? What do you know?”

  Rosalee stood and returned to the credenza to refill her cookie plate. “Boyd’s her first husband’s last name. She put him in the grave when Emerson went off to college. Harrumph. That must have been about fifteen years ago.”

  Emerson Boyd, age thirty-three, according to the police report. Yeah, that would be about right.

  “Babs, that’s what she preferred to be called, worked for my now-deceased accountant. In order to get tax information to him I had go through her. Might as well have asked for Pentagon clearance. And that wasn’t all. The woman was a regular shrew.”

  Theo kicked my ankle and mouthed, “As opposed to another kind of shrew?”

  “Shh,” I mouthed back.

  Rosalee didn’t notice us and kept talking. “There was something fishy about her but I never could put my finger on it. Dressed to the nines with the latest fashions, wore jewelry that didn’t strike me as knockoffs, and had her hair styled weekly.”

  Catherine immediately chimed in. “Lots of women have their hair done weekly. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It does if you have to drive to a hotsy-totsy beauty parlor in Brighton and then insist on telling clients all about how much they charge for highlighting the tips of your hair or whatever else nonsense she had done.”

  “The woman’s obviously high-maintenance,” Stephanie said. “That’s all.”

  Rosalee shook her head. “Not just her. She insisted Emerson go to a prep school in Pittsford instead of public school in Penn Yan. Said she didn’t want him to grow up with ‘all those local yokels.’”

  “No wonder he became a wine publicist,” Theo said. “That sounds like the perfect career if you want to mix snobbery and culture.”

  “Hey, don’t knock it,” Madeline replied. “Face it, if we could afford wine publicists, we’d all have them.”

  Learning that little tidbit about Emerson Boyd made it more unlikely that he’d have any kind of relationship with a seasonal employee manager. Still, there might have been a connection I was unaware of.

  “What about Davis Brewer? Does anyone know anything about him? I mean, as long as we’re talking murder victim and possible killer?”

  “Possible killer? You think Boyd killed Brewer?” Catherine asked. “What on earth for?”

  “Isn’t it a bit too coincidental that Boyd would have had a fender bender right near the woods where Brewer’s body was dumped? I’m not saying he killed the guy, but maybe he helped the other passenger in his car. Whoever that was. Gladys Pipp at the sheriff’s office didn’t know.”

  “You don’t know either, Norrie,” Theo said. “It’s a theory. I’ll grant you that much, but the sheriff’s office will toss it out the window.”

  “That’s why I need to know if anyone has any salient information about Brewer.”

  I studied everyone’s face beginning with Rosalee, and other than Catherine, who looked as if she might cry again, none of their faces registered anything.

  “Sorry, Norrie,” Madeline said. “Seems other than Catherine, we don’t know a thing about him, only the occasional correspondence that wafts our way. We use local seasonal employees and some of the Mennonites from time to time.”

  “Well, I don’t know what I can tell you,” Catherine muttered. “It’s not as if I knew him personally. All I ever
did was say hello, offer him coffee or something, and then leave him to talk with my husband. How was I going to know the last time they met would result in a fracas? I mean, sure, they’ve quarreled before, but not to that extent. Oh, heavens! I have no idea how I’m going to get through the next week.”

  Then Catherine sobbed. Soft little sobs that gradually morphed into bellowing that sounded like sea lions off the coast of California. I gave Theo a nudge with my elbow and whispered, “Do something.”

  He stood, walked to where she was seated and tapped her on the shoulder. “It will be fine, Catherine. I’m sure you and your husband have nothing to worry about.”

  Catherine dabbed her eyes with a crumpled tissue. “I’m not so sure. If we don’t show up for the Speltmores’ wine release, you’ll know we’re behind bars at the county jail.”

  Yeesh. Catherine’s getting the drama queen award for the day.

  “And do you know what the worst part is?” she went on. “I bought a lovely Ann Taylor braided-sleeve dress for the occasion. You know, the kind Kate Middleton wears.”

  Stephanie and Madeline nodded but Theo and Rosalee exchanged glances before Theo returned to his seat.

  “Well then,” Madeline said, “what do you say we get on with the rest of our meeting? I have a list of summer activities around the lake and we need to see how WOW can take advantage of them in terms of attracting more visitors.”

  “Hold on a second,” Stephanie said. “I asked my husband if he knew anything about Brewer and he said yes. Of course, it was rumor and stuff, but Brewer used to run these poker games in Dresden. Maybe that was still going on and that’s what got him killed.”

  “How did your husband find out?” I asked.

  “Because once in a while the places that employed Brewer’s crew also hired hourly workers. Face it, men gossip, too.”

  I wondered if maybe Boyd was at one of those games and had gotten stiffed, but without concrete proof, I had nothing. Madeline cleared her throat and glanced at me. “May we please get back to the original agenda?”

  “Uh, sure.” I practically zoned out for the next ten or fifteen minutes but jumped back to life when she asked me if Two Witches planned on doing anything special.

  “Um, not that I know of, but once Francine and Jason get back, they may put something together.” Or not.

  The meeting ended with everyone offering words of comfort to Catherine and me imploring them to call if they found out anything more about Boyd, Brewer, or the white SUV. Theo and I walked out together while Stephanie, Catherine, and Madeline continued to chat. Rosalee was already ahead of us and at her car.

  “Holy cow!” Theo said. “Don warned me about Catherine’s penchant for the overly dramatic, but I thought he was exaggerating. Guess I owe him an apology.”

  I looked back at the women who were still talking. “She may have a right to worry. Once Grizzly Gary gets an idea in his head, there’s no changing it. And what do you think about the gambling angle? That’s a motive for murder if I ever saw one. Especially if Boyd was sitting at the other end of the table.”

  “True, but how would you ever find out?”

  “Stephanie said her husband heard about it from some of his vineyard workers. Maybe our vineyard managers did too.”

  “Okay. I’ll ask our guy and you can check with John. It won’t hurt.”

  “If I can match motive with opportunity, I’ll be headed toward third base.”

  “Only if the batter is Boyd. If not, you’d better be scouting for a new team.”

  • • •

  When I got back to the winery, I thought about what Theo said. Like it or not, I was as bad as Deputy Hickman. I zeroed in on Boyd to the exclusion of anyone else. But honestly, he was the only suspect I had. Unless of course I could learn more about those poker players in Dresden.

  Even though I had filled up on cookies at the WOW meeting, I grabbed a chicken salad sandwich from our bistro before shooting off the RSVP to the Speltmores, like I should have done in the first place. It was to be held at their winery and I wondered which lucky person would get guard duty for Eli. I didn’t imagine his father would trust him anywhere near that gala. Most likely Stuart’s mother would invite the kid for a sleepover and Henry would need to regale her with wine for the next century.

  It was a toss-up as to which stack of correspondence I wanted to deal with first—the snail mail or the email. I looked at the computer monitor and then at a small stack of mail, but before I could make up my mind, Lizzie rapped on the doorjamb and stuck her head inside the office.

  “Sorry to bother you but I wanted to let you know that while you were at the WOW meeting someone picked up that red baseball cap you found. I would have mentioned it when you walked in but I was ringing up a sale.”

  “Um, sure. Thanks.”

  “It was strange, Norrie. That’s why I’m mentioning it. Usually people look through the bin if they’re in search of something particular. Oh, maybe it’s true that some people pilfer items, but in most cases they’re after their own misplaced belongings.”

  Like those dentures?

  “What was strange?” I asked.

  “A man and woman placed a few wine bottles at the counter for purchase, when the woman suddenly looked to her left and noticed the lost and found sign on our bin. She left the man to pay for the wines and zeroed in on the cap that was on top of everything else. Then, with the thing in her hand, she rushed over to me and asked, ‘When was this found? Where was it found?’ I told her I couldn’t be certain but I seemed to recall it being found in our vineyard on the lower end nearer to the Grey Egret or the road. And as for when, I was fairly certain it was a few days ago.”

  “Maybe she wanted to make sure it belonged to her. Those caps all look alike.”

  Lizzie stepped into my office and moved toward my desk. “Oh, it was theirs, all right. Next thing I knew, she grabbed the man by the wrist, showed him the cap and said, ‘It’s yours for sure. Even has the crease mark on the rim where Henry grabbed it. So much for tossing it out the car window when we left his winery.’”

  “You sure she said Henry?”

  Lizzie nodded. “I’m sure. Can’t mistake a name like that. Then she handed the cap to the man and he said, ‘Damnable thing. As if I’m going to wear it to promote his winery. Especially after his refusal about that tawny port. Harrumph. What were the odds it would blow off somewhere only to be found and turned into another winery’s lost and found?’ And the woman said something about penalties for littering and that it served him right.”

  I widened my eyes. “Whoa.”

  “Whoa is right,” Lizzie went on. “I asked the man if I should continue ringing up the sale and he said yes. As I finished up, I overheard him say, ‘The old blowhard’s going to be sorry.’ And then they were out the door.”

  “The old blowhard must be Henry Speltmore. Did that man pay by credit card? We can track his name.”

  “No. He paid with cash.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Older man, well-dressed. None of that day-old stubble that men seem to find so attractive.”

  “And the woman?”

  “In her late forties or early fifties. Hard to tell these days. Not heavy. Not thin. Dark chin-length hair with a few strands of gray. Oh, she wore a short-sleeve denim jacket with those adorable little pearls sewn on it.”

  Great. The poster children for AARP.

  “So, two average-looking people, huh?”

  “Except for the tattoo on the wrist.”

  “What tattoo? Whose tattoo? The man or the woman?”

  “The man. I saw it when he paid for the wine. Very unusual. It was a tattoo of an ancient Greek or Roman wine decanter, tipped on its side with liquid pouring out.”

  “Libations. If I’m not mistaken, I think the word refers to the ancient Romans pouring out wine for sacrifices. I had to look that up a while back for a screenplay that took place in Italy. You know what this means, don’t you?” />
  “Apparently your screenplays require some research. I never would have guessed.”

  “Not my screenplays, Lizzie. That tattoo. Libations. The man with the red baseball cap most likely is one of that liquor chain’s head honchos. Who else would sport a tattoo like that? I don’t suppose you saw what kind of car they got into?”

  “I didn’t have time to look. Other customers were waiting for me to ring up their sales. Do you think Mr. Speltmore’s in danger? Maybe I should call the sheriff’s office.”

  “No! I mean, no, it’s probably an idle threat. If Henry was in trouble, he’d call the sheriff’s office. Anyway, thanks for letting me know.”

  “Any time, dear.” Lizzie smiled, walked out of the office and closed the door behind her. I plopped my elbows on the desk and let my head sink into my hands. Funny, but no matter how much I wanted to dismiss the whole thing, the words “The old blowhard’s going to be sorry” plagued me. An awful image of Henry Speltmore lying facedown in the woods with blowflies buzzing around his corpse, a result of an altercation with someone from Libations, popped up in my head and refused to disappear.

  Chapter 17

  I went back to my email, and of all things, a new one appeared from Henry Speltmore and I jumped. At least the man was alive and breathing when he wrote it. The subject line read, “Hiring opportunities for seasonal workers.” If the email hadn’t come on the heels of Brewer’s murder or the recent incident with the red baseball cap, I would have glossed over it or deleted it altogether. Instead, I clicked it and for once paid attention to what Henry had written.

  In clear and succinct language, Henry informed the Seneca Lake Wine Trail that although he was saddened to hear of Davis Brewer’s death, a new company representing seasonal workers was starting up in the area and would have a temporary office in Penn Yan in a week or so. In the meantime, interested wineries were to contact the owner via his email or cell phone number, which Henry conveniently listed.