twenty

A gray wall of fog pressed against the Gallery’s windows Tuesday morning. I stooped to refill GD’s food and water bowls. Licking his chops, the cat nudged me aside and got busy crunching kibble.

I rolled up the sleeves of my fitted blouse—white with tiny blue flowers that matched the color of my jeans. “You’re welcome.” Cats.

In the Gallery, I surveyed the black shelves. They were delightfully empty. I made notes on my inventory list, then retrieved boxes of chocolate and tarot cards from Adele’s storeroom.

GD came to supervise as I constructed pyramids of chocolate bars. He leapt to the top of my alchemy display and wound sinuously between fake cocoa pods and grinding stones.

I adjusted a stack of chocolate-themed oracle decks. Wine and Chocolate Days had been a good promotion. I needed to thank Penny at the Visitors Bureau for organizing the event.

Penny, who knew all the wine-related business gossip. Penny, who I suspected had been holding back when she’d taken me to Lola’s tea. Penny, who like me was obsessed with her work and would no doubt be locked away inside the Wine and Visitors Bureau, which, like my museum, was closed today.

Oh yes, a thank you call was definitely in order. Purring with satisfaction, I ruffled GD’s fur.

The cat hissed with surprise.

“See ya!” Grabbing my blue faux-leather jacket off its peg, I sauntered out the front door. I had to jump to sidestep Mason on the brick sidewalk.

“Oh, hey.” He stuffed his fingers into the front pockets of his worn black jeans. “Going somewhere?”

“To …” Shut it down. If only I knew how, or even what I was shutting down. “Uh-huh.”

“How’s the haunted milano you’ve been promoting?”

“The molinillo?” I asked, surprised. “Good. I mean, it’s an inanimate object, so it doesn’t have an emotional state, but I think I have most of its story.” With both Felicitas and her boyfriend dead, it was unlikely I’d learn more. But that was life. Not every mystery was completely resolved. Sometimes you had to rely on guesswork and intuition.

He crossed his bulging arms over his chest. “What’s the story?”

“It looks like Felicitas—the woman who owned the molinillo—was murdered, likely by her boyfriend.”

“So why does it rattle when someone lies?”

I was starting to hate this story. “Because her boyfriend lied to her. He kept it secret that he was a drug dealer. But the real betrayal was that he lied about loving her. You don’t murder someone you love because they get pregnant.” I shivered in the fog. Poor Felicitas. I couldn’t even imagine the pain she must have felt. Her lover’s hands around her throat, the breathless agony …

Okay, maybe I could imagine it a little too well. “If only he’d just let her go.”

Mason smiled faintly. “Like you let me go.”

“That wasn’t the same,” I said, feeling myself color. “I—” I’d had real feelings for Mason. But had I been in love? Letting him go hadn’t been easy, but maybe it should have been harder. “Anyway,” I said, brusque, “honesty is better than the death-by-a-thousand-cuts of little relationship dishonesties.” Or in Felicitas’s case, it was better than actual death.

His gaze shifted to the brick sidewalk. “Right. Hey, there’s something—”

The door to the motorcycle shop opened and Belle leaned out, her hair swinging past her shoulder. “Mason, a customer has a question I can’t answer.”

He nodded to her. “Right. I’ll be right there.” He turned to me, a question in his eyes.

“Mason …” Get it over with. Ask him what’s going on.

He glanced over his shoulder toward the motorcycle shop. “Yeah?”

I chickened out. “I’ve got to go. Good luck with the customer.” I hurried to my pickup and drove off.

At the Wine and Visitors Bureau, I walked through the twisting fog to the brick building’s side door. I tested the latch. The metal door creaked open, a melancholy whine that raised the hair on my arms.

“Hasn’t anybody in this town heard of oil?” I muttered.

I leaned inside the long hallway. Cardboard wine boxes sat stacked along its walls. “Penny? It’s Maddie.” My voice echoed off the tile floor.

I walked inside. “Hello?”

Above me, a fluorescent lamp flickered and pinged. Penny’s office was at the far end of the hall, which was lined with closed doors.

“Penny?” I called more softly.

I crept down the hallway. Penny’s office door stood open. Inside—a desk overflowing with papers. Stacks of boxes. A purple cardigan slung over the back of her rolling chair.

But no Penny.

Maybe she was in the restroom.

I edged from the office and toward the opening to the tasting area. My thigh struck a box, rattling the bottles inside. I cursed, rubbing the muscle, and limped forward.

The overhead light flickered, and I glanced up.

Motion blurred at the edge of my vision. A woman shrieked.

I gasped and stumbled backward, shielding my face. “No!” When I didn’t get clobbered, I peeked through my fingers.

Penny lowered a near-black wine bottle and clutched one hand to her heaving chest. “I thought you were a burglar!”

I straightened out of my crouch. “I called out. Didn’t you hear me?”

“I was in the ladies’ room.” She placed the bottle on a nearby box. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you.” I eyed her. Penny’s long-sleeved black tee read: Wine Rack. The sentiment seemed racy for grandmotherly Penny. But she took her duties at the Wine and Visitors Bureau seriously.

“Did you need something?” she asked.

“Sort of. I felt like there was something you wanted to tell me last week about Reign, but that you were being polite.”

“Ah.” She tugged down the front of her tee. “Come into my office.”

I followed her inside.

She shifted a stack of manila folders off a chair, then settled herself behind the desk. Primly, she folded her hands. “What did you want to know?”

“What didn’t you want to tell me at Lola’s?”

“I probably told you too much,” she fretted. “I never should have been talked into joining that wine tasting beforehand, but they were old college friends of mine. It seemed wrong to refuse. I always gab too much after a glass or three.”

“Would you like one now?” I half-joked. Maybe it would unstick her tongue.

She stared over her cat-eye glasses. “No, young lady, I would not.”

“Look, if you don’t want to tell me, then tell the police. Two people are dead, and someone phoned a bomb threat in to my museum.”

“You think the bomb threat is connected to the murders?”

“I’m not certain, but … yes, I do.”

She frowned. “But you’re an associate member of the Wine and Visitors Bureau!”

“Ye-es.”

“That’s outrageous! An attack on one member is an attack on all. We’re like NATO.”

Whoa. Maybe Penny took her duties a little too seriously. I hoped I hadn’t unknowingly signed on to any containment pacts. “So, will you help me?”

She leaned back in her chair. It creaked beneath her bulk. “I wish I could.”

Oh, come on. “Penny, please. NATO!”

“It’s not that I don’t want to. I just don’t think I’ll be much help. I told you about the late payments from Reign to that farmer?”

“Yes.”

“Well, as you know, I’ve been working with the wineries to help them organize the wine and chocolate tastings.”

I nodded, encouraging.

“And since Reign is such a big name, getting their shop on board seemed like a huge coup. I mean, they’ve been in national newspapers and magazines.”

“Sure.” I nodded encouragingly.

“But Orson could be difficult to work with.”

“Orson?” I asked. “Not Atticus? I thought he’d be the liaison with the Visitors Bureau.”

“Atticus was our point man, and he was a dream, but he wasn’t always available. They’re still a small shop, you know.”

So small they were artisanal. “And Orson?”

“I suppose he was so busy with the chocolate-making, having to deal with the sales side was frustrating.”

“Hmm.” Disappointed, I studied my tennis shoes. She was right. This didn’t exactly illuminate the crimes.

“And then there was that argument.”

My spine snapped into alignment. That sounded more promising. “What argument?”

“I stopped by Reign one morning. It was early. They’d just opened for the day, and they weren’t expecting me. But I needed their approval on some flyers.”

“Yes?” I asked, bracing my forearms on the knees of my jeans.

“I mean, I couldn’t print it without approval. What if something was wrong? We couldn’t afford to reprint. Do you have any idea how much color printing costs?”

“Roughly a dollar a page.” I’d become a fixture at the local copy shop with my flyers promoting Gallery exhibits.

“Exactly! It’s crazy! But I can’t use our printer.” She motioned toward a corner of the office and a printer buried beneath a Vesuvius of paper. “The colors always get strange.”

I crossed one leg over the other and jiggled my foot. “Penny, what was the argument about?”

“Orson and Atticus were shouting. Atticus said something about being compromised. And then they noticed I was there and clammed up. Orson told me some of the cocoa beans had been ruined—that’s what had been compromised. Apparently, cocoa beans are even more expensive than color printing.”

“You’re sure it was Atticus who said they were compromised?”

“I might be getting older, but I can still tell who’s who.” She glared over her glasses.

“I just meant …” I sucked in my cheeks. “It seems a little strange Atticus was complaining about cocoa prices and bad beans. He was marketing, not chocolate-making.”

“They were business partners. A financial loss would affect them both.” Penny twisted in her chair and plucked the purple cardigan from its back.

“Hmm …” It was my go-to noise of dissatisfaction. Something wasn’t right.

“I attended one of their chocolate-tasting workshops.” She shrugged into her cardigan. “Honestly, I couldn’t tell the difference between one bar and another. I thought I had a good palate—I used to be a sommelier, you know.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said, impressed. Becoming a sommelier wasn’t easy.

“But my favorite chocolate is still See’s.”

It was mine too, and we paused, silent, lost in misty recollections of those white chocolate boxes.

“Butter creams.” I sighed.

“Summer berries.”

“Cranberry truffles.”

“And wine,” we said in unison, and laughed.

“I don’t suppose that gives you any better idea of who killed Atticus and that poor woman,” she said.

“Not really. Have you told the police about any of this?”

“Do you think I should? The argument I heard seemed so minor. Maybe you could tell that boyfriend of yours. If he thinks it’s important, he can call me.”

“Actually, Detective Hammer is in charge of the case.”

“Oh.” A look of consternation crossed Penny’s broad face. “Maybe I’ll call the police hotline then.”

“Call the police about what?” my mother asked from behind me.

I started guiltily in my chair.

In the doorway, my mother gazed down with a forbidding expression. She folded her arms over her pale blue wool coat.

“Something odd I overheard at the chocolate shop,” Penny said. “Maddie was giving me some advice.”

My mother’s brows pinched. “Was she now?”

I shrank in my seat. Eeek!

“Because I was under the distinct impression,” my mother continued, “that she had promised to stay out of the Reign murders.”

“Had I?” I squeaked.

“You had.”

My chin dipped to my chest. “I don’t actually remember that,” I mumbled.

“I do. Quite clearly.”

Penny cleared her throat. “Well. What brings you to the Wine and Visitors Bureau, Fran?”

“Ladies Aid.”

“Ah, yes,” Penny said. “The charity event.” The two began rattling off statistics on ticket sales and table costs.

I lifted myself from my chair and attempted to make like a ninja and slink past unnoticed. But that was impossible in a room this small, especially with my mother blocking the door.

“Just one moment, Madelyn.” She raised her index finger. “Are you free for lunch today?”

“Um—”

“Good.”

I waited awkwardly beside a tottering pile of boxes. Honestly, I was an adult. It’s not like I needed my mother’s permission to talk to Penny about the murders.

Finally she and Penny wrapped up their conversation, and I followed my mother into the mist-shrouded parking lot.

She stopped beside her Lincoln SUV. “I hope you know why I asked you to lunch.”

To yell at me some more? “I have no idea.”

Her brow lowered. “Madelyn, we need to talk.”