Death, Dismay and Rosé

by J. C. Eaton

  Vance turned away from the man and started for the door. “Make an appointment with my secretary.”

  “And wait another week? This has gone on long enough.” The man sidestepped Vance and blocked the door. “It’s for a backyard swimming pool, for crying out loud. Backyard! No one can see it from the road. It won’t interfere with your historical preservation or whatever the hell it is you’ve got going on.”

  “I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do. Late-nineteenth-century houses cannot have swimming pools on their property.”

  “I’m not living in the nineteenth century, I’m living now. According to the letter we received about our appeal, you were the deciding voice.”

  “Indeed. And now please get out of my way.”

  “This isn’t over, Mr. Wexler. Not by a long shot. And I’d watch my back if I were you.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s a piece of advice. Take it.”

  The four of us held our collective breaths as Vance hurried out of the restaurant. We didn’t make a sound until the ruddy-faced man had brushed by our seats and was out of earshot. Don stretched his neck and didn’t turn back to the bar for a few seconds. “Hmm, I think I’ve seen that man before, I just can’t place him. Rats. This is going to plague me all night.”

  “Maybe not,” Theo said. “Looks like your order for those garlic butter parmesan wings is on its way.”

  Chapter 6

  If anyone did the plaguing, it was Vance Wexler. For a man I hadn’t met in the eleven months I’d been babysitting Two Witches, he certainly made up for it this past week. Madeline was fit to be tied, the cashier at Wegmans had reached her apex, and the man who wanted to install a pool was one step away from combustion. But none of that compared to the issue that Alex Bollinger from the Experiment Station faced.

  Godfrey called me midweek to see if I wanted to “pop over and check out the field station on Kashong Point.”

  “It’s still drizzling,” I said, looking past the couch at the window that faced the winery. I had moved from my usual couch position with the laptop to a small tray table and high-back chair. “And the ground’s pretty muddy after the past four days of rain. Maybe we can do it another time.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. Besides, Alex is in quite the mood about that historical society expedition. They’re tromping all over the place with no regard for his research.”

  “Historical expedition? Tromping all over? What are you talking about?”

  “I thought I told you. No, wait, come to think of it, I mentioned it to my landlady. Sorry. I’m getting so absentminded lately. Anyway, seems the Geneva Historical Society got approval from the county board to scour and search for Native American arrowheads and similar artifacts that get washed up from the lake. Had the approval for months but were waiting on a solid rainstorm so the creeks would swell and the arrowheads would be more visible on the lakefront.”

  “At least the rain is good for something. I know the grapevines don’t like it when the soil gets wet. If they had their way, those vines would be happy in a dry-weather climate all year-round. And our vineyard manager isn’t all too thrilled either. Something about decreased sugar level and having to spray for more pesky insects . . .”

  Godfrey cleared his throat and continued to talk. “A crew of six or seven would-be anthropologists pitched their tents on the higher ground just below the Kashong conservation area. A stone’s throw from Alex’s setup. According to Alex, it’s been a nightmare.”

  “You mean they’re interfering with the insect study?”

  “If you ask Alex, he’d tell you they’re sabotaging it. Yesterday he got into a huge row with the president of the historical society and wound up telling him that the New York State Conservation Department trumps the city board of directors any day of the week.”

  “The president? Vance Wexler? That president?”

  “Could be. Alex was too busy spouting off. Said he had a good mind to wallop that haughty son-of-a-gun in the face.”

  “Yeah, it had to be Vance. I only met the guy last week and from what I could tell, Alex will need to take a number.”

  Godfrey laughed. “I’ll give you a call in a few days. Maybe the ground will dry out by then.”

  “Sounds good. Hey, if you wind up hearing from my sister, remind her that I only agreed to another week or two.”

  “Think Bastille Day. That’s July fourteenth. The French got their independence, maybe you’ll get yours.”

  “Fine. Not one minute past Bastille Day. Tell her that.”

  Other than my sister and brother-in-law, I think the only one happy with me staying longer in Penn Yan was my subletter. It meant she didn’t have to return to her mother’s house and launch a mega search for a new place right away.

  It was midmorning and I was getting fidgety considering I’d been writing since seven thirty. I was about to get myself a snack when my phone rang. For a second I’d forgotten where I put the darned thing, but the ringtone was so loud I followed it all the way to the kitchen table.

  “Norrie! It’s Cammy. Did you see the front page of the Penn Yan Chronicle Express? Lizzie brought it in.”

  “I only read it when it’s lying around the winery. Why?”

  “Two Witches is on the front page. Not the major headline, but the column off to the right. Where everyone sees it.”

  “Did Franz send them something about our new rosé? He’s supposed to clear that stuff with me.”

  “Not the rosé. The full moon falling on the summer solstice. The headline reads, ‘Will Two Witches Curse Return on the Solstice?’”

  “Oh, crap. What else does it say?”

  Cammy made a half-hum, half-moan sound. “Er, nothing we don’t already know. Explains about the curse and mentions one suspicious death back in nineteen forty-eight. That’s about it.”

  Guess the paper did its homework, too.

  “Think it will keep tourists away or bring out the crazies?”

  “Oh, the crazies for sure. Glenda’s taken to dabbing herself with biblical oils but that’s not surprising. Anyway, just thought you should know. Are you going to stop by here today?”

  “Um, maybe later in the afternoon. I’m still trudging through that screenplay.”

  “No worries. Catch you later.”

  When I got off the phone, I sent a text message to John. Short and sweet. “Rope off those rows ASAP.” He’d understand. They read the Chronicle Express like everyone else in Penn Yan.

  The summer solstice was nine days away, counting the day itself, and it couldn’t come fast enough as far as I was concerned. I just wanted to get the whole stupid thing over with so I could go on with my life without worrying about curses from the beyond. Or more specifically, from our hill.

  • • •

  In retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have been in such a hurry after all. In the nine days preceding the lunar and calendar event, I’d had two dinners out with Bradley and one at Don and Theo’s. I had successfully managed to avoid an outing with Godfrey to check on the Swede midge study at Kashong Point, and was thrilled that our WOW, or Wineries of the West, meeting had been postponed until after the solstice because Madeline, who usually hosts the meeting, was too busy conferring with her lawyer, and complaining to anyone else who would listen, about her letter of architectural denial from the Geneva Historical Society.

  Both Two Witches and the Grey Egret saw an uptick in customers during the few days leading up to the solstice. We also had a record number of sales for our witch-themed T-shirts. Still, I was uneasy. In fact, I found myself checking out all sorts of astronomical websites, including NASA and Space.com, not to mention The Old Farmer’s Almanac. I needed to be prepared.

  According to NASA, the summer solstice would begin at precisely eleven fifty-two a.m. in our neck of the woods. The sun would reach its farthest point from earth at that time and wahoo! That night, the full moon would show up and, if superstition and legend held, some poor unsuspect
ing soul would take his or her last breath. Needless to say, I was so jumpy the morning of the solstice that I couldn’t sit still. Thank goodness I had finished my screenplay and shot it off to my script analyst a few days before.

  “All we have to do is hold our breath until tomorrow morning,” I announced to Cammy, Glenda, Sam, Lizzie, and Roger when I walked into the tasting room at ten.

  Glenda looked ashen. “That’s not all we have to do. We have to purify the room. Cleanse it of malevolent spirits.”

  Sam, who stood next to her by a wine rack, gave her a nudge. “There’s a bottle of Lysol under the sink. Knock yourself out.”

  “It’s not funny,” Glenda said. “I’ll do the best I can by quietly chanting in between customers.”

  I rubbed my temples and walked toward them. “Fine. As long as you don’t scare them off.”

  Given the article in the paper and the nonstop local gossip, our tasting room tables were packed all day long. It was a good thing, because I needed to keep busy. I rotated among the tables, allowing the regulars to take breaks and grab lunch.

  When it finally got to closing time, Glenda grabbed me by the wrist and asked, “Do you want one of us to stay with you tonight? We all live past that five-mile radius but you don’t.”

  “I’ll be fine. Charlie passes gas all night. It wakes me up every hour on the hour.”

  “We could do a phone tree thing. You know, call you every hour on the hour to make sure you’re still—”

  “I know. Breathing. Like I said, I’ll be fine.”

  The five-mile radius. Whoever thought of that! With the exception of Madeline’s place, all the wineries in WOW were in a five-mile radius. And Alex’s crew was at the epicenter. Maybe I should’ve given Glenda his cell number.

  All of us left the winery at the same time and Cammy locked the doors behind me. I took my time walking back up the hill to the house. Although the rains had stopped days ago, it was still humid and miserable outside. So much for those delightful breezes the tourist brochures rave about.

  I stir-fried beef in a combination of soy and oyster’s sauces and added broccoli to convince myself it was a healthy dinner. Healthy or not, Charlie enjoyed the small portion I added to his kibble and sacked out on the floor as soon as he was done.

  When I finished with the dishes, I checked out Facebook, answered some emails, and surfed the internet. Bradley called at a little past eight and was stuck in the office with Marvin. Something about a family trust with tentacles. I briefly considered inviting him over to spend the night but thought otherwise. One thing would lead to another, and I’d be returning to Manhattan by Bastille Day. At least according to Godfrey.

  For the next hour, I moved from surfing the internet to surfing the TV and finally landed on an old sci-fi movie that had scared the daylights out of Francine and me—Invasion of the Body Snatchers. If you didn’t want the Martians, or whoever they were, to get you and destroy your emotions, you had to force yourself to stay awake. If you fell asleep, it would be too late. You’d wake up a virtual zombie.

  I thought about it for a moment and shuddered. Was it that different from the Two Witches curse? Fall asleep and risk being smothered to death. I checked the time on my iPhone and half expected Glenda to call, begging me to pull an all-nighter or douse myself in some foul-smelling herbs. Instead, I switched the channel and wound up watching one of my mother’s favorites, Auntie Mame, starring Rosalind Russell.

  When I woke up, it was past one and I stumbled up the stairs to my bed. I shoved Charlie off to the side and pulled down the lightweight cover. “If anyone or anything comes into this room, growl or something, will you?”

  Chapter 7

  The hazy sunshine cast a direct beam across my bed and into my eyes. Comatose, I reached across the nightstand and checked my iPhone. It read 5:29 a.m. Good. I’ve lived to see another day. I leaned back on my pillow and pulled the worn cotton sheet over my head, too lazy to pull the curtains.

  Another hour slipped by and I had no choice but to get up. Charlie nudged my head with his and made deep guttural sounds. I knew he wanted me to open the doggie door and get him some kibble. Too bad they don’t make an Alexa or Google Echo for that.

  By seven fifteen, I was at the kitchen table with a cup of Dunkin’ Medium Roast in my hand, compliments of the Keurig. Charlie had already returned from his jaunt outside and had gobbled most of his kibble. That’s when the landline rang and the caller ID indicated it was Stephanie Ipswich from Gable Hill Winery.

  My morning voice was soft and creaky. “Hullo?”

  “Oh, good, you’re up. Derek and I didn’t get a wink of sleep. The twins were in our bed all night. Petrified that a horrible witch from your hill was going to murder them. For your information, that story’s been going around the elementary school all month.”

  Stephanie and her husband owned the winery on the next road over from ours. They had twin first-grade boys and a mother-in-law who was a saint to take care of them.

  “Is that why you called?”

  “No, but I thought I’d start with that. I called because a few of Hanson’s cows got out of their enclosure this morning. That’s only a hop, skip, and a jump to our place and yours if those bovines stick to the top of the hill. I wanted to let you know in case that Plott hound of yours sees them and goes nuts.”

  “Yeesh. Charlie won’t go nuts but our vineyard manager will. I’ll send him a text right now. Thanks for letting me know.”

  “Any time. Uh, you don’t put any credence into that stuff, do you? About the full moon and the solstice?”

  “Hey, we’re still breathing and I imagine everyone else is, too, so no, I don’t. Tell your kids those stories are a bunch of bologna.”

  “Already tried. At their age they tend to believe the schoolyard talk before anything Derek and I say.”

  I laughed. “Catch you later.”

  The next call came just as I finished smearing jam on my toast. This time it was from Theo.

  “Hey, Norrie. Don and I wanted to let you know Rosalee Marbleton is alive and well at Terrace Wineries. Don had a funny feeling and insisted we call her this morning. She all but went ballistic. Spouted off that just because she’s, and I quote, ‘a woman of a certain age,’ didn’t mean she was ‘circling the drain.’ Don tried to explain that he was checking on our neighbors over that full moon deal but she didn’t buy it. Anyway, thought you should know.”

  “Stephanie and Derek are still breathing, too. She called because Hanson’s cows got out again.”

  Suddenly, the sound of sirens came from everywhere. I heard them loud and clear from my phone connection with Theo and equally loud from my own living room. The noise seemed to reverberate off of our hill.

  “Can you hear that?” Theo asked. “Looks like an entire brigade’s headed south on Route 14. I see at least one fire truck and two sheriff cars.”

  “Must be one heck of an accident, huh?”

  “Yeah, and so early in the morning. I don’t think it’s a fire or there’d be more fire trucks. Then again, if they’re responding out of Bellona or Penn Yan, they’d be coming from the other direction.”

  “Hope it’s not one of the wineries.”

  “Guess we’ll know soon enough.”

  I went back to my breakfast and followed up with a brisk shower. Since I’d met my screen analyst’s deadline, the only thing I had on my agenda, other than helping out in the tasting room, was to submit a proposal for a future screenplay. I figured I’d work on that for the next day or so and then send it in.

  By nine thirty I had made myself comfortable on the couch and sifted through some old notes from Renee regarding favored locations. Seaside towns. Beachy towns. Coastal towns . . . Atlantic or Pacific, it didn’t matter. I wondered if perhaps she’d changed one litter box too many and got nostalgic. But what the heck. If she wanted a beach-themed romance, that’s what she’d get.

  No sooner had I reached for my laptop than another phone call came in. Usually, I
don’t get as many calls in a week, let alone in a single morning. It was Godfrey and he spoke faster than usual. “I’m on my way to Kashong Point. Alex called. There’s a situation going on.”

  “What do you mean? Some of the specimens got loose or something? Oh, no, don’t tell me those arrowhead scavengers messed with the field lab.”

  “Worse. Much worse. One of those scavengers was found dead in his tent this morning.”

  The words dead and tent had an edge that cut right through me. I immediately thought of Eldridge McComb and gasped. “How? Who? When?”

  “All Alex would say was that someone discovered the body shortly after dawn when their expedition director from the historical society didn’t show up at their campfire for breakfast. It was Vance Wexler, the guy who he had it out with a few days ago.”

  Yeesh. Talk about karma coming back to bite you.

  “Vance Wexler? Dead? Did Alex say what happened?”

  “He said that his crew was scattered between the shore and the field tent. They had already eaten and were fast at work when they heard someone scream, ‘Vance is dead. Vance is dead.’”

  “Then what?”

  “What else? They dropped everything and rushed to the scene. Alex said it was utter chaos. Someone, he doesn’t know who, dialed nine-one-one, and the next thing he knew the place was flooded with sheriff deputies and even a fire truck.”

  The sirens. The barrage on Route 14. That explains it. Not an accident. Not a fire.

  “Everyone’s being held for questioning. The historical society members and Alex’s crew. It doesn’t look good, Norrie. Alex said there wasn’t a single person in the area who didn’t hear him arguing with Vance.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. Lots of people argued with Vance. In fact, Theo, Don, Bradley, and I watched a full-blown shouting fest at Port of Call not that long ago.”

  “But this happened on-site.”

  “Alex didn’t happen to see Vance’s body, did he?”