by Diana DuMont
“I guess I can’t be too hard on her for being psycho,” I said with a laugh. “After all, she was spurned by love. She dated Theo’s dad, you know. But Theo’s dad probably saw right through her craziness and knew she just wanted his money.”
I expected Todd to laugh at this as well. But instead, he frowned. “Well, I’m not pretending to be an expert on the families in Sunshine Springs. But I don’t think Violet was after old Mr. Russo for his money. I heard that Violet is from one of the wealthiest families in town. Apparently, she was heiress to a large fortune.”
“Well, she was. Was being the operative word here. Grams told me that her family lost their fortune, and that’s a big part of where all her anxiety issues come from. She went from being wealthy and not having a care in the world to having to worry about how to keep the electricity on in her house.”
Todd’s frown deepened. “She must not have lost everything. Look how well-dressed she is.”
I looked over at Violet. She wasn’t dressed as flashily as Grams. Violet wore a simple black dress as she often did, but her dress did look like it was made of a high quality material. Her shoes looked like they were real leather, and she also had diamond studs in her ears. The earrings matched a diamond-studded gold necklace around her neck. But the jewelry could have been fake, and since she wore pretty much the same thing all the time, she might just have one or two high quality black dresses that she rotated through.
I shrugged, and looked back at Todd. “She is dressed nicely. Maybe she’s getting back on her feet a bit. But I don’t think she has much. She probably only has a few nice outfits, you know?”
“Yeah, a few nice outfits that cost more than my monthly rent in San Francisco. Look at this. I was looking through photographs before you got here, and Violet is in quite a few of the ones I took the day Caitlin was murdered.”
Todd pulled his laptop out of his messenger bag and set it in front of me. As the screen came to life, I saw that he’d been looking through thumbnails of his photographs. He furrowed his brow and scrolled for a moment until he found what he was looking for.
“Aha! There!” He double clicked on the thumbnail to open a photo. The photo showed Violet in her usual barstool at the tasting room, with her usual large glass of wine. She was wearing a black dress, but a different one from the one she was wearing today—and her jewelry was different as well. Still diamonds and gold, but a different design.
I frowned. “I guess she does have a few nice outfits. But saying they’re worth more than your monthly rent is probably a bit of a stretch.”
“Are you serious? Look at her bag in that photo.”
I squinted at the bag, but it didn’t mean anything to me. “And?”
Todd widened his eyes at me. “Are you serious? You don’t recognize that bag? It’s a Louis Vuitton, and it’s huge. That thing must have cost a fortune. And look at the bag she has right now.”
I glanced over and took a peek at Violet’s bag. But aside from looking as though it was made of nice leather, nothing about the sleek black tote stood out to me. I shrugged my shoulders helplessly.
“Sorry, I guess I’m not up on the latest handbag designers. I spend half my life covered in flour, so it doesn’t make much sense for me to spend money on an expensive purse that’s only going to get ruined. And when I worked as a lawyer I saved every last penny for my dream of opening a pie shop.”
Todd gave me an exasperated, long-suffering look. “That bag over there is a Hermes—more expensive even then a Louis Vuitton. Don’t tell me that woman has no money. Maybe she’s playing up the fact that her family lost their business to get sympathy, but if she’s really having trouble paying for her electricity, all she has to do is sell one of those bags. She’ll have enough money to pay her electric bill for the entire year, if not more. She’s just trying to milk her past misfortunes for all they’re worth. I also don’t think her nervous shaking is as bad as she makes it out to be, because it doesn’t happen all the time. I’m not saying she doesn’t have anxious tendencies, but I think she overplays them quite a bit.”
I glanced over at Violet again, taking in her expensive handbag, pricey dress, and glistening diamonds. Todd was right. Her shaking wasn’t as constant as I’d thought it was. Even though she’d been shaking violently when I walked away from her and Grams, she wasn’t shaking at all at the moment. Her hand looked quite steady as she lifted her wine glass and laughed at something Grams had said.
I frowned. “You’re right. She isn’t shaking at all right now. That’s weird.”
And then, suddenly, everything clicked for me. A horrible, sickening feeling rose in my stomach, and I swayed a bit in the barstool.
“Oh my gosh,” I said. “How could I have not seen this before?”
“Seen what?” Todd asked. “Hey, are you all right? You look quite pale.”
Just then, Scott and Molly arrived. As they walked up to Todd and me, they also must have been struck by the pale color of my face.
“Izzy?” Molly asked, reaching out a hand to steady me. “Are you alright?”
I jumped down from the barstool. “I’m fine. Will one of you please call Mitch and tell him to get over here right away?”
Scott pulled out his cell phone, but paused. “Okay. But why?”
“Just do it!” I said. “And tell him to hurry!”
I started walking away from the barstool.
“Wait!” Molly said. “Where are you going? What are you doing?”
“I’m doing something I should have done a long time ago. I’m going to have a little chat with Violet.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ignoring the confused questions that Scott, Molly and Todd continued to throw my way, I marched over to where Violet was sitting and pointed my finger straight into her face.
“It was you! All this time, you’ve been playing the victim and acting like this whole ordeal has been so hard on you. You’ve been pointing fingers at Josie and Todd because it gave you a convenient someone to blame. I’ll bet you’re even happy about Theo being falsely arrested, even though you feel guilty at the trouble you’re causing for old Mr. Russo’s son.”
Predictably, Violet immediately started shaking. “Agnes! Contain your granddaughter! What is this madness she’s attacking me with?”
Grams gave me a sharp look. “Izzy? What’s going on here?”
“What’s going on is that I’ve finally solved this murder like you thought I could. Violet did it. She’s been stealing money from the city for who knows how long. When she thought she’d get caught, she panicked and took Caitlin out.”
“I would never!” Violet exclaimed. “Sunshine Springs is my home. It has been my home for my entire life. And I don’t appreciate some outsider like you coming in and accusing me of such horrible crimes!”
“Then you shouldn’t have committed those crimes,” I said.
In the distance, I heard the sound of police sirens. Violet heard them too, and looked toward the door with unmistakable panic in her eyes.
“You’re wasting your time, child,” she said. “All you’re doing is making a fool of yourself. Do you think anyone will accept you in Sunshine Springs as a local after you falsely accuse me? I’ve been here decades longer than you’ve even been alive.”
“Then you should be older and wiser than your actions indicate,” I told her. “Did you really think that no one would notice your expensive clothing, jewelry, bags and car? Did you really think you could steal money from the city, spend it on such extravagant items, and not get caught?”
“I have a few nice things, yes,” Violet said. “They’re left over from the time when my family actually had money. I’ve had a very hard life, as everyone in Sunshine Springs knows. No one else begrudges me a few luxury items here and there.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Grams frowning in Violet’s direction. “But Violet, dear, you were just complaining to me that you don’t know how to pay your electric bill. Are you telling me those
diamonds are real? I’d always assumed they were fakes, since you talk about money like you have none. But surely if you don’t have money for electricity and food, you could sell some jewelry to pay for it.”
“These are family heirlooms! I can’t be expected to sell them away!”
I scoffed. “I highly doubt they’re family heirlooms. The truth is that you couldn’t stand the fact that you’re no longer wealthy. After your family lost their business, you stewed about it for years. Decades, even. At one point, you must have thought that marrying the elder Mr. Russo was the answer to your troubles. You went after him hard, thinking that if he married you, you’d be set for life once again. But he proved to be harder to catch than you thought.”
“You hush your mouth!” Violet said. Her face was turning a shade of purple that closely matched her name. “I wasn’t after old Mr. Russo for his money. I loved him!”
“Oh, I’ll give you that,” I said. “I think you really did fall in love with him. It may have all started as a scheme to get his money, but I think you did develop a soft spot for him. That’s why you always talk about him with such glowing praise. And I think it’s why you felt it was your duty to defend Theo when the murder first happened. But at the end of it all, no matter how much you may have cared for Mr. Russo, your love for him still wasn’t enough to make you admit to the murder to keep Theo safe. That’s why Theo is still in jail right now, while you’re walking free.”
At that moment, Mitch burst into the tasting room with a couple of his officers on his heels.
“What’s going on in here?” he asked, his sharp eyes scanning back and forth across the room. “I got a call from dispatch that someone here called the station and said they’d caught Caitlin’s murderer.”
I raised my arm. “That’s right. Your murderer is right over here.” I pointed at Violet.
Mitch looked at me like I was crazy.
“Violet?” he finally managed to choke out.
I could see the doubt in his eyes. He was beginning to think that I was crazy, and that he’d come down here for nothing. I supposed that everyone in town would think that at first, but they would learn the truth soon enough. I nodded in Mitch’s direction.
“Yes, Violet. Get a warrant to search her home. I’m sure you’ll find that she has records of emails about the money stolen from the city. Oh, it might all be encrypted on a laptop or something, but I promise you it’s there. She couldn’t stand not having money, so after her attempts at winning over a rich husband failed, she began scheming other ways to get it. I don’t know who exactly on the City Council has been helping her, but she managed to convince someone there to pilfer money from the city and give it to her. I would imagine that whoever it is was getting a generous cut of that money.”
“This is all lies!” Violet shouted.
I ignored her and continued. “It was easy enough for Violet to hide the money. She complained so loudly about her poor state of things that everyone believed her. And people here in Sunshine Springs probably don’t pay much attention to fashion brands, so they didn’t realize how expensive her purses and clothing are. By not being too flashy, she got away with things. Adding in the fake nervous shaking was a nice touch.”
“What are you talking about?” Violet demanded. “You think I enjoy this anxiety that plagues me? You think it’s all an act? Agnes! Silence your granddaughter! She’s making a fool of herself.”
Grams raised an eyebrow at Violet. “Actually, I’m inclined to let Izzy speak. Especially since there seems to be some truth in what she’s saying.”
“Truth?” Violet spat out. “There’s no truth in what she’s saying! You’ve known me for years! You know that none of this is an act.”
“Do I?” Grams asked mildly. “Because it seems a little strange to me that you’re not shaking right now. I can hardly think of anything that would be more stressful than this moment, but you’re steady as an arrow right now.”
Grams nodded at Violet’s hand, which was still holding her wine glass. The wine in the glass was almost completely still. Violet wasn’t shaking at all. I looked over at Mitch, and saw that his suspicion was starting to grow.
“Violet?” he asked with a crack of his knuckles. “Do you want to explain all of this?”
“There’s nothing to explain!” she insisted.
“Yes there is,” I said. “Violet’s been stealing money, and she’s been faking anxiety and poverty to get away with it. But then Caitlin somehow got wind of a possible scandal. Of course, everyone thought it was the winery stealing money. But even though the investigation wasn’t aimed at Violet in the beginning, she still got nervous. She decided, like her little City Council friend suggested, that the best thing to do was to take out Caitlin. She poisoned Caitlin, thinking she could easily blame Josie and Todd since they argued with Caitlin so much. She made up that story about Josie putting pills in Caitlin’s drink. She even went so far as to run over Caitlin when Caitlin collapsed in the street from the poison. She must have been quite happy when Caitlin fell right in front of her. She could make doubly sure the girl was dead, and no one would suspect her. After all, who would point fingers at a little old lady who’d been here in town forever?”
“But how did she poison Caitlin?” Todd asked, breaking into the conversation. “Don’t get me wrong. What you’re saying makes sense, and she is acting awfully guilty. But I was with Caitlin all day the day she died. Sure, I saw Violet around both here and at the Drunken Pie Café. But I never saw her get close enough to where she could have snuck something into Caitlin’s drink.”
I raised an eyebrow at Todd. “Oh, she didn’t have to sneak anything into Caitlin’s drink. She just had to make sure Caitlin drank from a special, poisoned bottle of wine. A bottle of wine that I’m sure is still sitting on the shelves back there somewhere. Let me ask you this, Todd. Did any of the employees here ever offer Caitlin a glass of the special 2016 reserve?”
Todd furrowed his brow. “Come to think of it, one of them did offer the special reserve to Caitlin at one point. She tried to wave it away by saying she’d had enough wine, but he insisted. He said it was the best wine here, and that if she was going to write a report on the winery then she absolutely had to try it.”
I nodded, and looked back at the tasting room employees. “So,” I asked. “Which one of you is getting paid off by Violet to serve a special 2016 reserve whenever she requests it?”
I thought I saw one of the employees go pale, but before any of them could speak, Violet lost it.
“You horrible, horrible child! I can’t believe that you would go after a poor old woman like me! All I was trying to do was live the life of comfort that I deserved—the life of comfort I would have had if I hadn’t unfairly lost my fortune to my father’s idiocy! Everything was going fine. Even after Caitlin came, everything was going fine. I would have easily eliminated her and that would’ve been the end of it. But no! You had to come in and start nosing around. No matter how much I tried to throw blame on other people, you couldn’t leave it alone, could you?”
Violet’s face was definitely a hue of purple by this point. I glanced back at Mitch and saw his mouth hanging open. All around the tasting room, everyone else was staring at the drama unfolding—the employees, Scott, Molly, Todd, and Grams. Not to mention all of the tourists, who were getting quite a bit more than they’d bargained for when they came to the Sunshine Springs winery for a tasting.
Mitch started to step forward, motioning to his officers to follow him. I saw him reach to grab the pair of handcuffs hanging from his belt. Violet saw it too, and started screaming at me again.
“I should have given you the special reserve, too! The only reason I didn’t was I thought your grandmother would keep you in line, but I guess she’s not as loyal as I thought she was! I should have taken you out when I had the chance!”
The next thing I knew, Grams’ fist was connecting with Violet’s face, and Violet was tumbling off her barstool onto the ground. Grams
hopped down from her own stool and stood over Violet.
“You listen to me,” Grams yelled as she shook her fist above Violet’s face. “Don’t you dare accost my granddaughter! I am loyal—loyal to her. I push her hard, yes. I want her to be a strong woman and take care of things herself, because she’s very capable, as you’ve seen. But if you think for one moment that I wouldn’t step in to protect her with my very life if she was truly in danger, then you’ve really learned nothing about me over the last several decades.”
Now my jaw hung open in shock. “Grams! You stood up for me.”
Grams stood tall and brushed some imaginary dust off of her highlighter yellow blouse. “Of course I did, Izzy. I’ll always stand up for you when it really counts.”
Violet sputtered, but she didn’t have a chance to get another word in before Mitch was pulling her up and reaching to put her hands behind her back. “Violet Murphy, you’re under arrest for the murder of Caitlin Dixon. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…”
I saw a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. Molly was digging in her purse to pull out her phone. As Mitch started to lead Violet out of the tasting room, Molly held up her phone and took a selfie with Violet and the police officers in the background. I shook my head as I walked over to her.
“Really?” I asked. “A selfie of a murderer being arrested?”
Molly grinned. “What can I say? I can’t pass up an opportunity like that. Think of all the likes and comments I’ll get for that one!”
I started to laugh, but my laugh was cut off by an unexpected hug from Todd. When he pulled back, he looked a little bit embarrassed, and his eyes might have been tearing up.