Chapter 15

 

Ada Mae gasped. “A murder?”

“It appears that way. I’m a friend of Rosalee Marbleton’s and I’m trying to piece together some information.”

“A murder you said?”

“Uh-huh. I’m surprised sheriff deputies from Yates and Ontario counties haven’t spoken with you about it.”

“Oh, they spoke with me yesterday but they didn’t say anything about a murder. They asked if I had seen anything unusual on Thursday and retrieved a guest’s room key from the manager.”

“You can’t breathe a word of this to anyone, although I’m sure the news media will make an announcement any day now. By any chance did you happen to see if anyone joined Mr. Donovan Brin while he was in the lounge Thursday night? He’s a writer for a wine magazine and he’s here with his assistant, a young woman. I know the lounge is visible from the front desk. Perhaps something caught your eye.”

“Mr. Brin? Was he—Oh, dear. Can you tell me what he looked like?”

I described Donovan as well as Adrienne. Ada Mae acknowledged she saw them both and that Adrienne left the lounge at a little before eight. Said she knew the time because that was when she took her gastro pill.

“Did anyone else join Mr. Brin when Adrienne left?”

“Not in the corner where he was seated. But a stocky middle-aged gentleman with wavy brown hair and black rectangular glasses had words with him as Mr. Brin exited the lounge.”

“Words, what words? And what middle-aged gentleman? Was he one of the guests?”

“Oh, dear. I couldn’t say if he was one of the guests because I don’t register all of them. But I did catch snippets of their conversation.”

“Like what? What snippets? This is really important.”

Ada Mae took a breath that sounded more like a hum. “I don’t know who said what, because I only heard the words. They were faced away from me.”

“That’s okay. What did you hear?”

“One of them said something about false advertising and deceiving the public. And the other one said, ‘It’s going to end now.’ Then they left. I could still hear them talking in the corridor but it was all garbled.”

“Did Mr. Brin return to the lounge?”

“Not while I was still here. I get off at nine. Guests who need assistance after I’ve gone home push a button for the manager on duty. But the bartender is on duty until one. Give me a moment, I can tell you who worked that night.”

I waited a few seconds and Ada Mae was back on the line. “Marsha Whitman. She works Mondays through Thursdays.”

“Thanks so much, Ada Mae. You were a terrific help.”

“Tell Rosalee hello from me.”

“Shall do. And thanks again.”

When the call ended, I had more puzzling questions than before. However, I also had another suspect I could add to my very scant list—the middle-aged man with the wavy brown hair. If the last time Adrienne saw Donovan was around eight, then perhaps the last person to see him alive was the brown-haired man. Then again, who knows who Donovan could have spoken with after that encounter? Especially if he went back to the hotel’s bar. I knew I’d need to chat with Marsha, but it would have to wait until Monday since I was on ghost story detail for the next two nights.

While I was still at my desk, I grabbed a piece of computer paper from the printer and jotted down a list of people who had been in Donovan’s circle for the past few days. That included Adrienne, who pretty much had a solid motive for giving her boss the send-off; Whitney, whose stay at the Belhurst seemed a tad too coincidental; and now the wavy-haired man who had words with Donovan. I also penciled in Ronny. Given what she told me about Adrienne, I doubted there was any love lost between Ronny and Donovan. And while she did say she flew in from Charlottesville, she could have lied. Heck, she could have been in cahoots with Adrienne.

The list was ridiculously short but Donovan didn’t wind up in our cauldron by himself. He had help. And I needed to find out who before Two Witches became noted for murders rather than wine.

That, in and of itself, should have been plenty of motive for me to stick my nose into the investigation, but when Lizzie knocked on my door with a cryptic note someone had dropped off by the cash register a few minutes ago, I knew whoever wrote it wasn’t messing around. Lizzie told me she had no idea who placed it there but that I should “use my best Nancy Drew deduction skills.” Ugh!

The note was printed on plain white paper in Times New Roman and it read, “When Donovan’s name gets plastered all over the news, back off or all fingers will point to you.”

I couldn’t call the Grey Egret fast enough. Luckily, Theo answered the call after three rings and told me they had gotten the exact same note. They were about to call Stephanie and me but it was too frenetic in their tasting room.

“What kind of diabolical message is that?” I asked him. “Someone’s idea of a prank?”

“More like someone’s idea of a threat. Look, it’s nuts around here but we’ll try to give Stephanie a call in a bit. We’ll touch base sometime between five thirty and dusk when the bonfire starts. Meanwhile, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Think I should call Deputy Hickman?”

“Only if you want to add more chaos to this event. We can call him later. It’s unnerving, but it’s not a death threat.”

“Thanks. That’s reassuring.”

Theo chuckled. “Anytime.”

I tromped back into the tasting room hoping to chat with Cammy but once again, Lizzie approached me. “Stephanie Ipswich is on the phone. Sounds hysterical.” I followed Lizzie to her spot at the cash register, where the ancient landline phone was located. A wall phone, of all things. I picked up the receiver and got an earful before I could say a word.

“Is that you, Norrie? Someone dropped off a horrible note at our hostess station. I think it constitutes blackmail, or some sort of threat.”

“Did it say back off or someone will point a finger at you for Donovan’s death?”

“Yes, but how do you—”

“The Grey Egret got the same note and so did we. Someone must have overheard us last night at Port of Call.”

“I don’t know how anyone could have heard anything with all that noise in there.”

“I asked Theo if he thought we should call Deputy Hickman but he didn’t think it was such a good idea.”

“He’s probably right. We don’t want to call any more negative attention to our wineries. At least not until this weekend event is over. Besides, what’s the sheriff’s office going to do?”

“I’ll tell you one thing, whoever’s behind it doesn’t want us snooping around. What better way than to threaten us? Listen, while you’re on the phone, have you seen Adrienne or Whitney today?”

“No, but I’ve been so busy in the kitchen I wouldn’t have noticed Elvis if he walked in.”

“Too bad you’ve got your own bonfire to deal with. Theo and I plan to talk before the bonfires get started.”

“Let me know if anything more comes up.”

“Okay. And just think, Halloween isn’t until tomorrow.”

Stephanie groaned before ending the call.

If I had any great hopes of Whitney showing up to discuss a podcast, they fizzled out by a little before five. Our staff looked totally whipped and Cammy told me if she had to take one more photo of someone in a costume, she’d puke.

With sunset at a little past six and twilight not until after seven, it didn’t give anyone a whole lot of downtime if they wanted to attend the bonfire. And, with the exception of Roger, who had a prior commitment, Lizzie, whose bedtime was shortly after dusk, and the part-time college students, who had other plans, everyone on staff planned to be at the bonfire.

At least Cammy and I had the good sense to think ahead. We ordered four giant pizzas from Cams in Geneva and had them delivered to the winery at six thirty. The entire tasting room crew dug in along with Fred and Emma. I made sure to put slices of the meat-lovers pie aside for John and his crew, who were getting the bonfire going.

“Are you ready to scare the daylights out of our guests?” Sam asked. “No wimpy stuff. I’m looking for some blood-curdling, bone-rattling stories.”

I winked. “You’ll get them. I dug up an old copy of terrifying Spanish ghost stories, left over from my high school Spanish class.”

“Are you sure it’s not a copy of the homework assignments you turned in?”

“Laugh now, but all of you will be shaking in your boots later.”

I didn’t realize it at the time, but as it turned out, I was the one shaking, and I wasn’t alone.