Theo and I got back to our respective wineries in plenty of time to get ready for the Sunday onslaught. Like yesterday, none of us at Two Witches came up for air too often. And without Glenda and Roger, it was even tougher. Thanks to Wegmans, I didn’t get hungry until later in the day during the three o’clock lull.
I took a twenty-minute break, scarfed down a bacon and avocado sandwich, and returned to my tasting room table in time to welcome a new crew of tasters. I didn’t look closely at first since I was intent on setting out the glasses, but when I lifted my head I couldn’t believe who sat in front of me. It was Melissa, the new secretary at the workers cooperative, of all people and from the look of things, she had come with a few girlfriends.
“Norrie! This is so cool. I didn’t expect to see you here. I mean, serving us. I thought you’d be in a stuffy office somewhere doing paperwork.”
“Not if I can help it,” I laughed. “I’d much rather chat with customers and find out which wines they like and why.”
The petite redhead sitting to Melissa’s right gave me a large toothy grin. “We like them all. Trouble is, we can barely get a weekend free together. Heather works at the hospital so her hours are always weird, Stacey’s at Home Depot in Canandaigua so she never knows when she’ll be called in, and I work at the Ford dealership in Geneva. This is one of my few Sundays off. The only one who works nine to five is Melissa, isn’t that so?”
She nudged Melissa, who in turn poked her back. “Amber’s right. It’s a miracle we were all able to do this wine tasting today. We kind of put it together at the last minute yesterday.”
As Melissa spoke, my mind did flip-flops. This was the perfect opportunity for me to find out if Barbara’s lingering scent had permeated certain enclosed places in Brewer’s office. Like a storage cabinet or maybe even some files she pored over. Granted, I hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary when I was in her office, but I wasn’t far from the door and she had the windows open.
“I’m glad you could make it,” I said, all the while trying to figure out how to segue into “Notice any perfumy smells in your office lately?” I handed the ladies a copy of our tasting room sheet complete with a list of our wines going from dry to sweet. I recited the usual spiel, including why dry wines are tasted first. Then I explained that guests could try five wines for five dollars, and if they purchased a bottle, two dollars would be taken off the price. It was an automatic spiel and one I could recite in my sleep.
Then it hit me—the word perfumy. I needed to use that word to describe one of the wines and maybe it would prompt Melissa to reference it back to her office. I thought I remembered seeing that technique at work during a Hallmark murder mystery but I wasn’t sure.
The first wine the ladies selected was a dry Chardonnay, and even though it had hints of apples and peaches, it wasn’t exactly what I would call perfumy. The second wine wasn’t much better. It, too, was dry, only it was a Riesling, and ours was crisp and refreshing, not particularly floral.
I had pretty much made up my mind that if they didn’t select a wine that could be described as perfumy, I’d give them one to taste free of charge in order to stress the magic word. After the third wine they selected, I was resigned to the fact I’d have to introduce a new wine when Stacey suggested Gewürztraminer. I could have hugged her.
I gave her a nod then focused my attention on Melissa. “Our Gewürztraminer has nuances of roses, spice, and lychee fruit, creating a delightfully intriguing perfume-like quality. And while I don’t use the word perfumy often to describe our wines, because I tend to think of the word as describing something far more personal, like perfume itself, or an area where someone’s perfume has lingered”—Good grief, it’s like I can’t stop—“this wine caresses its floral qualities beautifully.”
At that moment Cammy walked past me with a tray of clean wineglasses and widened her eyes to the extent that I all but burst out laughing. I quickly turned away from her and looked directly at Melissa. “Funny, how the scent of a perfume can linger. Just like your first taste of our Gewürztraminer.”
“I could taste this all day,” Melissa said. “In fact, I’ll be purchasing a bottle. I wish the same could be said for the cloying perfume odor I had to deal with in our office. I’m surprised you didn’t notice it when you stopped by. I guess the combination of Lysol and Febreze did the trick.”
I held the bottle in my hand and all but poured it on the table before I caught myself. “The former secretary?” I asked.
“Had to be. If Mr. Brewer used aftershave, it was pretty subtle. Which reminds me, I met with the manager of our other office on Cayuga Lake. Nice guy. They’ll be conducting interviews for Mr. Brewer’s replacement but my job is solid. Thank goodness. Oh, and other good news—look!”
Melissa rolled up the sleeve of her lightweight cardigan to reveal a lovely ladybug bracelet. “Can you believe it?” she asked. “It had slipped between the driver’s seat and the middle console. I never would have found it except I dropped a credit card in that space, and when I went to retrieve it, I pulled up my bracelet. The clasp must have come loose.”
Hmm. Ladybugs, not scarabs. Wrong bug. I’ll have to scratch Melissa’s name from my suspect list, or move her to the bottom just in case. And if Zenora’s ritual chant doesn’t work, I’ll have to turn my evidence over to Grizzly Gary.
“Glad to hear that. Wonderful news on both counts.”
The ladies finished up their tasting and left Two Witches laden with bottles of wine. Lizzie remarked what an amazing sales job I did but the real feat was me finding myself one step closer to pointing a finger at Barbara Stanowicz. Circumstantial evidence or not, at least I had something to point at.
Cammy was flabbergasted, too, mainly because she’d never heard a discourse like the one I gave about the Gewürztraminer. “What on earth was going on with you?” she asked when Melissa’s crew left.
I told her Theo and I had plied Eli and Stuart with enough cookies and muffins to start their own bakery business in order to eke out some information from them. And it worked. Especially Eli’s recollection of a perfumy smell.
“Talk about giving candy to babies . . . Geez. I hope there’s not a law against what you did. You’re already on shaky ground with the local deputies.”
“When I figure this out, they’ll thank me.”
“Or place you under arrest. Do you have a next move planned?”
“Only pizza with Bradley tonight. And more work on my murder suspect map.”
“Good. It’ll be something safe.”
• • •
My brain was on overdrive by the time Bradley picked me up to head to Uncle Joe’s Pizzeria on Genesee Street in Geneva. The restaurant, established in 1978, was housed in a brick building on a residential street that still kept its nostalgic charm. With its green porch and cozy interior, the place welcomed patrons with its red-and-white-checkered tablecloths, photos past and present of local diners, and a menu that offered an array of scrumptious Italian foods. But it was the aroma of tomato sauce and garlic that wafted through the place that made me hunger for that first bite of pizza.
“Eli Speltmore was a veritable treasure trove of information,” I said to Bradley as soon as we were seated and had given our drink orders to the waitress. “But to get to the prize, it was like digging through a box of Cracker Jacks.”
“How old did you say he was?”
“Eleven or twelve. He still plays with action figures but has an uncanny knack of understanding exactly what’s going on with the adults around him. Anyway, he overheard a very telling conversation between his father and Brewer a few days before Brewer was found dead. According to Eli, Henry was about to dump Brewer’s seasonal worker cooperative for another one. One that, according to Brewer, was run by a crook. At least that’s what I could ascertain by putting the pieces together.”
The waitress returned with our drinks and took our order. When she turned away, I continued to talk. “That’s not all. He described Frank Liguori’s dead body in perfect detail. Complete with the puncture wound on the neck, same as Brewer.” I paused and stifled a laugh. “And to think Eli’s mother is concerned he might be traumatized. Traumatized, hell. He and his little buddy are one step away from applying for the next forensic examiner position.”
This time Bradley laughed.
“That’s not all,” I said. “He gave Theo and me a rather disturbing clue—said he smelled a yucky perfume odor near Frank’s body. From the description, and from what I found out from Davis Brewer’s new secretary, that perfume could belong to Barbara Stanowicz, Brewer’s former secretary. If that’s the case, those murders are linked.”
Bradley took a sip of his drink and tapped his teeth. “Hmm, two similar murders if the cause does turn out to be that puncture wound, and two men in the wine industry, but it’s really a stretch. I mean, Brewer ran a cooperative for seasonal workers and Frank Liguori was the regional manager for a large liquor store chain. I can’t fathom how they could possibly be connected.”
I reached for a garlic roll and tore off a piece. “Not all murders are business-related, even though those men fall under the same business umbrella. What if it was something else? Something far more personal that connected them?”
“Like a family matter or a romance gone sour?”
I nodded. “Exactly. Remember when you and I overheard that Coors drinker mention something about Brewer and his secretary? About things going south? Maybe they went south when she took up with Frank.”
“If nothing else, you’ll have plenty of fodder for your next screenplay.”
“Ugh. That’s one of the pitfalls with my profession. I want to turn everything into a romance or mystery. But the real mystery is what Henry Speltmore’s got to do with any of this. Or the Troberts, for that matter.”
“Good point. I’m sure the county deputies are wondering the same thing.”
At that moment our waitress appeared with a giant pepperoni pizza and all conversation ceased. Ten or fifteen minutes later, when we had done justice to the pie, I suddenly remembered about the Speltmores’ tawny port release gala. I was about to ask Bradley to be my plus-one when he put his hand on my wrist and said, “Marvin’s got another hellacious case going. This time in Rockland County. I hate driving down that way. I might as well go the extra few miles and wind up in Manhattan.”
“When? This week?”
“Unfortunately, yes. We’ve got a meeting with our clients on Thursday and I may get stuck working down there over the weekend. I won’t know until Thursday night or even Friday. Isn’t that the big tawny port hoo-hah?”
“Uh-huh. I was about to ask you when you mentioned Marvin.”
He gave my arm a squeeze. “I’ll put a firecracker under Marvin but no promises.”
“That’s okay. I plan to make an appearance and dart out of there as soon as I can. Besides, I’ll have plenty of company with Theo, Don, and the WOW ladies.”
“I’m sure it will be a memorable affair.”
I pictured Henry getting arrested and carted out of there along with the Troberts, but that wouldn’t have been as memorable as the events leading up to the Speltmores’ wine release.