Mousse, Moscato & Murder

by Jamie Lee Scott

  Hattie was starting to scare me. This woman was more devious than I had ever given her credit for.

  “This means you should call Saylor. She can get us into the house.”

  Goodness, the last thing I needed to do was involve Saylor in this mess. In her line of work, having the police on your side was a good thing. And she had Deputy Ballic. “Do we really want to involve her?”

  “Yes! If she gets in that lockbox, we get in the house. Then we can have a better idea of what’s going on.”

  “Don’t you think the police have already gone through the house?”

  Hattie turned off the motor and grabbed her phone. “Are you going to call Saylor, or should I?”

  Leave it to Hattie to ignore me completely. “I’ll call her.”

  I dug my phone out of my purse and scrolled through my contacts to find Saylor. I tapped the screen and put the phone to my ear and waited.

  “Hey girlie, have you heard the latest?” was how Saylor answered the phone.

  “Hello to you, too. Have I heard the latest on what?”

  “They found blood on Becca that wasn’t hers. They sent a sample in for DNA.”

  I couldn’t believe how much Deputy Ballic was telling Saylor about this investigation. I wondered how much of it was going to be public information. Was Saylor being made aware of classified information? “That’s awesome, but it’ll take weeks, possibly months to get that back.”

  Saylor’s bubble had deflated. “I know, but still, it’s something. And then when they get the DNA profile, they’ll have to have a match of some kind.”

  Hattie nudged me. “Ask her.”

  “Hattie wanted me to call you, because apparently Becca’s house went up on the market. I don’t remember seeing a for sale sign on it when Peter and I were here. Can you look up the address?”

  “Give me the address and tell me who has the listing. I can look it up right now.” I could hear Saylor’s fingers tapping on the keyboard.

  “Do you have me on speakerphone?” I asked.

  “Of course. I can’t type and hold the phone at the same time. Give me the information, I’m ready.”

  I gave Saylor the address, and told her that the name on the for sale sign in the front of the house was Smith & Associates. Then I waited.

  “What did she say?” Hattie asked impatiently.

  I held up one finger. I didn’t have an answer yet, but I didn’t want to be talking to Hattie when Saylor came back on the line.

  On Saylor’s end, I could hear her fingers on the keyboard still, and I could also hear rustling paper. “Do you have anything yet?”

  Sounding flustered, Saylor said, “Give me just a second, Miss Impatient.”

  In order to not have to repeat everything to Hattie, I decided to put my own cell phone on speaker. That way, when Saylor came back on the line with the information, Hattie wouldn’t be pestering me.

  “Okay, I’ve got it. The house is owned by Quentin Cane and actually went up for sale thirteen days ago. I don’t know why the sign was just put up, but it may have had something to do with notifying the renters. Anything else I can do for you?”

  Hattie said, “Yes, you can contact the realtor and get the code for the lockbox. I’m interested in purchasing this house.”

  Saylor’s laugh was low and deep, but from the sound of it, her entire body was probably shaking. “Hattie, that is such a crock of crap. There’s no way you’re looking to buy this house. You aren’t a real estate mogul.”

  Hattie shot back, “And if I bought this house, I still wouldn’t be a real estate mogul. But I am interested in looking at it. How soon can you get the lockbox code and get here?”

  “Let me call the agent. But we do have to give the renters notice. We can’t just walk in.”

  Hattie turned her entire upper body to look out the back window of her car. “There’s no one home. You can just say that you tried to get in touch with them, but assumed they were at work, so you decided to show the house. And you only have to say that if they show up while we’re here.”

  I hated to remind them, but I did. “The person renting the house is dead, ladies.”

  “True enough, sadly.” Saylor blew out a breath. “You’re not really good at taking no for an answer, are you, Hattie?”

  Hattie didn’t respond. She just glared at me like I had anything to do with it.

  “It’s not exactly how it works in the real estate business, but I’ll see what I can do. Give me five minutes and I’ll call you back.” Saylor didn’t wait for a response and disconnected.

  Hattie stuck her phone in her pocket, then opened the door to get out of the car.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  Hattie turned to look at me. “I’m going to knock on the door,” she said as if I was an imbecile.

  “I really don’t think this is such a good idea. What if Chief Hicks, or one of her officers, or a detective stops by? How are we going to explain ourselves?”

  Hattie stepped out of the car, and just before she slammed the door, she said, “We’ll worry about that when it happens.”

  I sat there for a moment and contemplated how the tables had turned. It was usually me diving in head first and not worrying about the consequences, with Hattie reminding me to keep my head on straight. In this particular case, there was no reminding Hattie of anything. Once she had her mind set, there would be no stopping her. And somehow, I had let myself get sucked in by her determination to investigate this murder. Turnabout was fair play, I supposed. I got out of the car and walked across the lawn. I arrived on the porch just as Hattie started knocking.

  We looked at each other when there was no answer after a minute or so. She knocked again, this time harder.

  “Ring the doorbell,” I said.

  “I already did before you got here. I don’t think it works.” She pressed the button a couple of times. “See? It’s either really quiet, or it doesn’t work at all.”

  I nearly jumped out of my skin, when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and answered.

  “I’ve got the code. I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes,” Saylor said.

  The terseness of her response let me know that she wasn’t happy about this. But no one wanted to be on Hattie’s bad side. It probably took everything for Saylor not to say no. No way was she going to risk her reputation for Hattie, and yet she was coming to the house. This made me wonder if maybe she was as curious as we were. She had taken time out of her day yesterday to join the search for Becca.

  “It’s going to take her twenty minutes to get here. What do you want to do in the meantime?” I said.

  “We can just look around the house on the outside. If someone comes up, we can say we’re interested buyers.” Hattie had an answer for everything.

  “And if the person who happens by is someone you know, they will know that is a blatant lie,” I responded.

  “Fine, we’ll just sit here on the porch and wait.”

  The twenty minutes passed in almost complete silence as Hattie tapped and swiped at her phone screen. I assumed she was checking in on business.

  “Aren’t you worried that you’re not at Hats Off or the winery to make sure everything’s going okay?”

  “Please, you know as well as I do that that place runs perfectly fine without me. I’m a figurehead. I just like to make people think that it doesn’t run without me.”

  I laughed at that. Never in a million years did I think I would hear Hattie admit to that. “Hattie, you are full of surprises.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  I debated whether to be perfectly honest or not, but as long as we were having a bonding moment. “Never would I have expected you to admit that the winery or any of the properties could run fine without you. Nor did I ever expect you to get involved in a murder investigation.”

  Hattie put her phone down beside her and put her hands on her lap. “First of all, I’m an extraordinary businesswoman. I hire the right
people, so I don’t need to be there. I’m there because I want to be, and I want people to know that I care about my businesses. I’m not there so I can hover over everyone and tell them how to do their job. Second of all, if it wasn’t for that snooty chief, I wouldn’t be involved in this. Sure, Becca worked for Peter, but I didn’t know her. She’s not a friend of our family, and she didn’t die on our property. But that woman… well, she just got under my skin.”

  I guess it really was a bonding moment because I really did not expect Hattie to come clean.

  Saylor drove up moments later and pulled her BMW into the driveway. Before she got out of the car I told Hattie, “This is it. I have to get back to my studio after this. I have a photo shoot for a client that is due at the end of the week.”

  Hattie stared at me. “You have a project due at the end of the week for a client? And you’re just now starting it? That doesn’t sound very professional. What if something goes wrong, and since you’re doing it at the last minute, you don’t have everything ready in time?”

  Ouch. That stung. It probably stung more because she was right. Anything could go wrong with this project, and it could take me an extra day or two to get it finished. And I do mean anything: from setting up the food, taking the photos, or having my computer crash. She was right, I’d been slacking for months and letting things go until the last minute. I needed to rethink how I was running my business. But right now, I needed to see what was inside that house.

  We both stood as Saylor walked up to the porch. She picked up the lockbox, opened it, and removed the key. As she opened the door, she called out, “Hello, is anyone home?”

  We all stood on the porch for another minute, waiting for a response. It reminded me of those television shows, when the cops are warning someone that they are going to send the K-9 in. They let themselves be known over and over before actually releasing the dog. I felt as if Saylor was giving that warning now. Hello, is anyone there, I’m going to release Hattie on you. I chuckled to myself.

  “Hello, we’re coming in,” Saylor said, and stepped inside the door.

  There are just some things you expect from a rental house: white walls, tan Berber carpet, and yet, it somehow doesn’t quite feel like home.

  The outside of the house had been simple stucco with a tiny yard and only one small pot on the porch. The interior, however, looked very homey.

  We entered into the living room, and I immediately felt as if someone loved this house. The couch, loveseat, and chair were all covered with a pale floral print slipcover and dotted with throw pillows in pastel colors, polka dots, plaids, and solids. The contrast of patterns should have been jarring, but they weren’t. The walls had been painted pale violet, almost so pale it looked white. But when I saw the white around the door trim, the violet was more prominent. The living room would have been perfectly adorable if not for the beer bottles and overflowing ashtray.

  Somehow, though, even with the ashtray spilling over with cigarette butts, the living room didn’t reek of cigarette smoke, and it didn’t look as if the nicotine had stained the curtains or the walls. This made me wonder if a smoker lived here a long time, or had recently moved in. I had the guy from a couple of days ago in mind. This made me think he hadn’t been living in the house long.

  “Since you’re not really looking to buy this house, what are you expecting to find?” Saylor asked.

  “I’ll know it when I see it,” Hattie said.

  I saw something, but I didn’t dare mention it for fear Hattie might touch it. The place was cute, but it was obvious Becca, or whoever, hadn’t cleaned recently. I could see a dust ring where a lamp or bowl had been on one of the end tables. I leaned more toward a lamp, because the other end table had one, and it was Decorating 101 to have lamps on neither or both tables, wasn’t it? I tried to look closer without being too obvious. There was something shiny on the carpet, halfway covered by the couch’s slipcover. I looked away and said, “Just let us know when you see it.”

  Saylor looked at me and I shrugged. What was I supposed to say? I had no idea where Hattie was going with this. We knew Becca was dead, we knew the police had searched the house. Back up, we didn’t know for sure that the police had searched the house, but I assumed they had.

  “I wonder if the guy we talked to the other day was telling the truth. He said Becca had moved into town and no longer lived at the house. If she had moved to town, her stuff would no longer be here, right?”

  “I already told you, she didn’t have an apartment. I know the man who owns the apartments off Main Street, and I called him. He’s not renting to a Becca, Rebecca, or a Roundhouse.”

  Saylor drifted around the room, picking up various objects, looking at them and then putting them back down. “I can tell you this: that guy didn’t decorate this house. No guy in his right mind would decorate in shabby chic. But whoever did decorate this house made it look very nice on a very small budget.”

  “I absolutely agree with you,” I said. “How many bedrooms and bathrooms are there?”

  Saylor unfolded the piece of paper she’d been holding in her hand and scanned it. Reading from it, she said, “It’s a two-bedroom, one bathroom, seven-hundred square feet, with a detached two car garage. The lot is fifty feet by one hundred feet.”

  Hattie said, “I’m going to check the bedrooms.”

  If I wanted to know whether or not Becca was still living here, the bedroom would be the first place I’d look. I also didn’t think that it was Becca who had left the overflowing ashtray or the empty beer bottles on the coffee table. The house had a slight stale smell to it, but not like it hadn’t been lived in. Maybe the stale smell was like an antique store. Maybe Becca had purchased her furniture from an antique mall or a resale store. I think Hattie was right. Becca still lived here, but not alone. Maybe the guy from the other day was her boyfriend and he didn’t want us nosing around. But wouldn’t he be worried that she missed work or hadn’t come home? He hadn’t acted like a boyfriend, or even a friend.

  Come to think of it, I didn’t even know if Becca had a boyfriend.

  The missing lamp and shard of whatever was sticking out from under the couch weighed on my mind. I also wanted to check the garbage. Had it been a broken lamp that had been tossed in the garbage bin?

  Hattie had gotten a pretty good start on the bedroom before Saylor and I joined her. I looked around the room to see the same tasteful décor and same style as in the living room. Becca had done the best she could with the money she had to make this house feel like a home. She had refinished several old furniture pieces to make them look new, yet still old, with beautiful aqua colors that had been sanded at the edge to make them look well used. She’d even spent the money on an antique looking duvet. The dead giveaway was the brand-new knobs on everything, including the bedroom door. I pulled open the closet door and saw Becca had a section in her closet for her work clothes. Black pants and a white shirt for Vendredi, and there were several of each of those, and a section for The Bent Fork. She was neat and organized. Apparently, the employees were responsible for their own laundry, because Becca had five aprons hanging in the closet. I looked down at the floor and saw that her work shoes were there. I couldn’t tell you if she had more than one pair of work shoes, but somehow, I thought these were the ones she wore the last time I saw her. I’d made up my mind. Becca had not moved out of this house.

  “Hattie, I think we’ve seen enough. Let’s get going.” I turned to leave the room and in the doorway stood a young woman.

  Chapter Eight

  I looked her up and down realizing she was the girl Becca had the fight with at The Bent Fork the last time I’d seen her. The girl Vicki had said was Becca’s sister. Ivy Roundhouse stood there, looking stunned. With her hands on her hips and her legs spread wide, she said, “Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my house?”

  She wore skin tight faded and torn blue jeans that actually fully covered her butt, and strappy leather sandals that showcased
her ragged and chipped toenails and polish. I couldn’t see her shirt because she wore a tattered hoodie with the sleeves pushed up. A pretty emerald bracelet graced her right wrist, and the color complimented her eyes. But it was the hoodie that I recognized, only this time it wasn’t over her head. With the hoodie down, I could see Ivy was a pretty girl, and didn’t look much older than Becca. She had blonde curly hair that fell just below her shoulders, and a sweet face with a button nose. If not for her tight thin-lipped mouth, she would be beautiful. I guessed that under different circumstances, I would have seen her as beautiful anyway.

  Always the consummate professional, Saylor turned and stuck out her hand. “Hi, I’m Saylor Griffin with Griffin & Company. I’m the realtor showing this house.”

  Ivy was hesitant, but she reached out and gave Saylor a limp handshake. I could almost feel Saylor cringe as she shook the tips of Ivy’s fingers. If there’s one thing Saylor and I couldn’t stand, it was a limp, cold-fish handshake.

  “Aren’t you supposed to call or something? You can’t just drop by anytime.”

  “I’m sorry, and who are you?” Saylor oozed sweetness.

  “I’m Ivy Roundhouse, and I live here.” Her lips almost disappeared as she pursed them.

  Saylor pulled out her cell phone, swiping and tapping as if she was looking for something, though from my vantage point, I could see that her screen was blank. “I’m so sorry, honey, I have a Rebecca Roundhouse living here. She was the contact for the realtor who has the listing. The owner of the home and the realtor both expected the house to be empty.”

  Let me buy that girl a drink. Saylor could improv on the fly like no one I’d ever seen. But then again, maybe Becca was the contact for the realtor. And she was definitely dead.

  “Yeah, it’s not like you could call her or anything.” Ivy’s attitude dripped with sarcasm.

  “I don’t see anywhere on my sheet that this place has been sublet, so that would be why we wouldn’t have contacted you. Again, the realtor thought the house was empty. But we’ll just look at a few more things, wrap it up and be out of your hair.” Saylor reached back over her shoulder and waved her hand forward, indicating that we should be leaving the room right away.