Death, Dismay and Rosé

by J. C. Eaton

  “I’m not sure. But I’ve got it under control.”

  I charged back to Cammy before Lizzie could launch into one of her Nancy Drew lectures.

  “Here,” I said. I handed Cammy the paper. “It’s Godfrey’s number. Phone him for me and tell him I’m on my way.” Then I used Cammy’s own words when we first met. “Please and thank you.”

  “Call me when you know something. And don’t worry about the winery. We’ll be fine.”

  I was so frazzled I don’t even remember driving to the public safety building. I could have run over a cow for all I knew. This entire arrest, as far as I was concerned, was a knee-jerk reaction that made absolutely no sense. Thankfully, I spotted Godfrey’s car right away.

  It was parked to the left of the lackluster gray building and shaded by the only decent tree in the parking lot. As I pulled up next to it, I had to remind myself to stay calm and not go off the handle as far as Grizzly Gary was concerned.

  A glass enclosure separated the visitors from the building’s staff and I had to show identification to the woman who was seated behind the panes.

  “I need a few minutes with Gladys Pipp,” I told her. “I’m Norrie Ellington.”

  She gave me a nod without saying a word and buzzed Gladys’s office. A few seconds later, I was allowed to enter Fort Knox and make my way to the all-familiar cubicle that was Deputy Hickman’s office.

  Gladys was at her desk in front of his closed doors and ushered me over. “Heavens. I had no idea he was off making an arrest. I thought he was somewhere in the building.”

  “What about Dr. Klein? Dr. Godfrey Klein. He’s one of Dr. Alex Bollinger’s coworkers in the entomology department. I got word from him that Alex was arrested.”

  “Dr. Klein is in with Deputy Hickman at the moment.”

  “And Alex?”

  “On the other side of the building. In lockup.”

  The last time someone I knew was on the other side of the building in lockup was when Rosalee Marbleton’s vineyard manager was held here.

  “He’s innocent, you know. It’s all circumstantial evidence. The guy’s an entomologist, for crying out loud. Their labs are loaded with chemicals.”

  Gladys rubbed her hands together and widened her eyes. “I’m afraid I’m not the one who has to be convinced. And unless other, more compelling evidence surfaces in the very near future, I daresay Dr. Bollinger will stand trial for the murder of Vance Wexler.”

  “I really need to talk with Deputy Hickman.”

  Gladys stretched out her neck, looked at the closed office door and returned her gaze my way. “I’m not so sure that’s the best idea.”

  “What if I had evidence to the contrary?”

  “And you withheld it?”

  “Um, how about if I just found it?”

  “Evidence or theory?”

  “Burgeoning evidence with strong theory.”

  “The best thing you can do for Dr. Bollinger, which I presume his colleague is taking care of, is to secure legal counsel. Hold off until you have a burgeoning theory with strong evidence.”

  “Can Dr. Bollinger receive visitors?”

  Gladys shook her head. “Only his legal counsel. And by that, I mean his attorney or someone from his attorney’s office.”

  Last time I needed to speak with a suspect, Bradly snuck me in. Too bad he was on his way to the Thousand Islands thanks to Marvin’s sister-in-law.

  “I suppose you’re right. I’d better duck out of here before your boss opens the door and―”

  At that exact moment, Godfrey emerged from the office followed by Deputy Hickman.

  “What is it? Some sort of radar with you, Miss Ellington?” the deputy asked.

  “Radar? I was only paying Ms. Pipp a social call.”

  “I’m afraid that’s true, Deputy Hickman,” Gladys said. “Norrie dropped by to give me her sister’s recipe for cold cucumber soup.”

  Deputy Hickman moaned and turned back to his office, but not before glaring at Gladys and me. “Next time email your recipes. This isn’t the nineteenth century.”

  Chapter 25

  “I didn’t expect you to race down here,” Godfrey said once we were out of the building and in the parking lot. “I wanted to inform you what was going on and tell you that I contacted our department head, who, in turn, secured legal counsel for Alex. His attorney should be arriving this afternoon from Rochester.”

  “Are they going to post bail?”

  “Doubtful. They haven’t even had a bail hearing. According to the deputy, that will take place anytime between forty-eight and seventy-two hours, but I’m not hopeful. It’s a murder charge, not a burglary.”

  “What happened exactly? Cammy mentioned a search warrant and chloroform and I found out from Gladys that chloroform may have been used to knock Vance out before killing him, but why suddenly rush in and arrest Alex? It’s all circumstantial.”

  “Except for the eyewitness.”

  “The what?”

  “Come on, let’s talk in my car where we won’t be overheard.”

  I was so stunned I didn’t say a word until Godfrey held the door open to his sedan and I got in the passenger seat. “What eyewitness?”

  “One of the board members for the Geneva Historical Society went to the police station in Geneva with a volunteer from Vance’s little arrowhead-hunting group. The volunteer claims he left his tent to make a nature call when he spotted Alex leaving Vance’s tent.”

  “He’s lying. He was paid off. Or got bought off. Or blackmailed. Or―”

  “Calm down, Norrie. It’s not helping.”

  “Look, if that volunteer saw anything, he would have said something right away. Not waited a week or so. Did Deputy Hickman tell you which board member orchestrated this little charade?”

  “According to him, a very reputable woman by the name of Agnes Merryweather.”

  “Reputable my patootie! Theo and I overheard her when we snuck into the historical society. She was ready to frame Madeline Martinez. I wonder what made her change her mind. He didn’t happen to tell you the name of the volunteer who was taking a leak, did he?”

  “Uh, no. Look, I really hate to rush off but I’ve got to cover for Alex at Kashong Point with his field study. His assistant, Cassie, was too flustered to handle things. I knew there was a reason I never saw her outside of the lab. Aargh. Hopefully things will go well and we’ll be able to wrap up the study in a few days.”

  “Is there anything I can do in the meantime?”

  “Yes. Keep yourself out of trouble. I don’t want to get another call from the Yates County Sheriff’s Office.”

  Then he leaned over and took my wrist. “Seriously, if anything happened to you, I don’t know what I’d do. And I’m not just saying that because I swore to Jason I’d keep an eye on you.”

  My God! Who didn’t Francine and Jason commandeer for “Norrie duty”?

  I gave his hand a quick pat and got out of the car. “Don’t worry. And keep me posted, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Walking back to my car, I felt like grabbing Agnes by the shoulders and giving her a good shake. It was obvious she and the other Geneva Historical Society board members wanted to cast aspersions on others so they wouldn’t be scrutinized as possible suspects, but this went way too far. It seemed as if every time I turned around, someone else had something to hide, including Vance.

  That vintage Karmann Ghia of his had to be his prized possession. Why else would he use it as a computer password and keep a framed photo of it on his desk? That, coupled with the fact it disappeared from Kashong Point the night of his death, gave me all the more reason to believe that grand theft auto was the motive for murder. Theo and Don would tell me it was preposterous, but that old adage People have killed for less stuck in my mind and wouldn’t leave.

  Gladys was right about one thing. I didn’t have any substantial evidence to prove Glen Foreign Motors stashed Vance’s car in their old barn. The tire tracks, although
promising, weren’t enough. I’d need to get inside that barn myself, but the question was how?

  I couldn’t ask Stephanie to join me again. She might risk chipping one of her fingernails. Besides, it wasn’t fair to keep taking advantage of her mother-in-law. Godfrey was a definite no and Bradley was out of town, although something told me he’d be a definite no, too. That meant Theo. And I’d have to be very persuasive. Persuasive with an ironclad plan.

  I turned the key in the ignition and drove out of the parking lot. If I was going to be persuasive, I’d need to chart the suspects and their actions in such a way that Theo couldn’t possibly say no.

  Unlike the last time, when I opted to create an oval suspect chart on the mirror in my guest bathroom, I decided to go really old-school and dredge up heavy-duty construction paper for a different approach.

  The minute I got in the door, I poured kibble in Charlie’s bowl and some horrid organic granola in mine. At least it balanced out the donut I ate at Walden’s. Then I scurried around the house gathering paper and markers. With a quick sweep, I moved everything off of the kitchen table and got to work on my chart.

  Top of the list was Agnes. And that was because she got some unsuspecting dolt to lie for her. Underneath her name I added Curtis and Mildred. Then it was on to Jerome, along with his “nameless buddy” from the unfortunate dock incident. Farther down on my chart, I wrote, “Glen Foreign Motors” with a question mark. Finally, I added the name of the man whose request for a backyard swimming pool had been denied by Vance’s architectural committee. The same man Don thought he recognized that night at Port of Call. Next to the denial Vance had written, “Not enough Prozac for this whack-job.”

  Satisfied I had accomplished what I set out to do, I opened a bag of potato chips and compensated for the lousy granola lunch I had eaten. I simply couldn’t shake the feeling that Vance’s car was somehow implicit in his demise and hidden under wraps in that old barn. It was the why that didn’t make sense. And no suspect chart was going to answer that.

  At this juncture I figured I had two options: convince Theo to help me break into a barn or find out more about Agnes Merryweather. Since I didn’t want to upset Godfrey any more than he already was today, I chose to focus on Agnes, figuring whatever was beneath that tarp in the barn would still be there for the next few days. Boy, was I wrong.

  I started my Agnes search in the usual way, pulling up Geneva Historical Society articles from the internet as well as visiting the society’s website. Sure enough, there was a lovely biography about Agnes, who was born in Horseheads, New York, and along with an older sister worked as a secretary for the now defunct Dairylea Company. She moved to Geneva in the 1980s and became active in their historical society. Yawn and double yawn.

  Naturally the historical society was going to have a whitewashed version of Agnes Merryweather. I took my chances on social media, only to discover that she was nonexistent on any of the sites, including Pinterest, which is fairly benign. Still, I wasn’t about to give up. If Agnes was a Geneva local, then maybe Cammy’s family would know more about her.

  It was a little past two, and having reached the proverbial dead end, I closed my laptop and walked to the tasting room.

  “You just missed Franz,” Lizzie said as soon as I stepped inside. “He had us try that new rosé of his.”

  “The rosé? That can’t be. It’s not bottled yet. They’re waiting for label approval. Are you sure it wasn’t something else?”

  “It was the rosé, all right, and it was spectacular. Fruity but not overdone. I detected notes of melon and citrus. Lovely. Absolutely lovely.”

  “He brought over a bottle?”

  “No, not a bottle. One of those wine containers. What do you call them? Boxcars?”

  “You mean carboys?”

  “It was a clear glass gallon jug with a special pourer on top.”

  “A carboy. Whew. For a minute you had me scared. We’re not allowed to bottle and use unlabeled wines. Anyway, have you seen Cammy?”

  “In the kitchen. Washing glasses. It’s been pretty steady in here today.”

  “Thanks.”

  I swung the door open to the kitchen and walked toward her. “Godfrey’s a basket case but he’s trying not to show it. Alex won’t be arraigned for forty-eight to seventy-two hours, but I don’t think they let murder suspects out on bail.”

  Cammy wiped her hands on a terry-cloth dish towel and shook her head. “My God. That’s awful.”

  “You know how Deputy Hickman is once he finds a suspect. That man is so myopic in vision, he refuses to look anywhere else. Meanwhile, I’ve got two leads to follow and one of them is Agnes Merryweather from Geneva. She’s on their historical society board and she was the one responsible for pointing the finger at Alex. Um, is there any chance you can check with your aunts at Rosinetti’s and see if they know anything about her?”

  “For sure. That family bar’s been in business forever and my aunts have had their ears to the local gossip for at least as long. If anyone remotely connected to Agnes set foot in the bar and restaurant, they’d know.”

  “Good. I can’t figure out what she’s hiding, but for someone to do something like that, it’s got to be pretty important.”

  “You’re not thinking this Agnes person is the killer, are you?”

  “Honestly, no. But I think she may know who the real murderer is and that’s why she set up Alex.”

  Chapter 26

  I barely finished my thought when Glenda came into the kitchen with another rack of glasses. “Norrie. I didn’t see you walk in. Zenora sent me a text a few hours ago. She located letters from some of the original Benton residents. Now she has to decipher them.”

  “What do you mean, ‘decipher them’?”

  “Have you ever read something written in the early eighteen hundreds? The handwriting’s nearly impossible to figure out. All those wide-swept curves and curls. Zenora said it will take her all night.”

  “Yeesh. I don’t expect her to stay in that basement until the wee hours.”

  “Oh, she won’t. She bought herself a new iPhone X and took photos of those letters.”

  I gasped. “Won’t she get fired for doing something like that?”

  Glenda laughed. “Half the staff is petrified she’ll put a curse on them and the other staff isn’t that far behind. I doubt anyone will question what she does.”

  “If you say so. But please tell her not to do anything risky.”

  I, apparently, have dibs on doing that.

  “By the way,” I asked. “Has a guy named Jerome called?”

  Glenda shook her head, while Cammy blurted out, “Not a new love interest? How many guys can you string along?”

  “Only Bradley. And I’m not stringing him. I’m dating him. More or less.”

  “And Godfrey?”

  “Friends.”

  She pulled the deep green ribbon tighter on her bun. “Uh-huh. So who is this Jerome?”

  “Not someone any of us wants to deal with, but I think he may know something about Vance’s missing car. He’s the guy who pushed me off the dock at Kashong Point. Believe it or not, Stephanie and I ran into him when we were in Watkins Glen.”

  Cammy took a step closer to me. “You drove to those auto dealers after all? And with Stephanie Ipswich?”

  “I, uh . . .”

  “Much as I’d like to hear this,” Glenda said, “I’ve got to get back to my table. Sam can only cover for me so long before he gets twitchy.”

  With that, she left the room and Cammy motioned for me to continue. She didn’t say a word until I had given her the full rundown.

  “You see, until I can learn more about Agnes, I need to focus on the other suspects. I can’t afford to waste time.”

  She put her hands on her hips and did the best imitation of Francine I’d seen in a long time. “Do you have any idea what kind of danger you’re putting yourself in? And I don’t mean the skunk. The mess you’re getting into won’t be solved
by a can of tomato juice and a hose!”

  “First of all, Jerome would be meeting with me, on my terms. Here at the winery. With a zillion people around. That is, if he shows up. And as for the barn, well―How are we going to know if it’s Vance’s car under that tarp unless we look?―And you know as well as I do that without reasonable cause, no sheriff’s office in this state will issue a search warrant.”

  “So, Theo, huh? Think he’ll go with you to that barn?”

  “He and Don just bought a new toy. It’s a telescoping ladder with comfort treads. Suppose to feel like stairs even though it’s a ladder. If I know Theo, he’ll want to test it out.”

  “Yeah, in their winery, not on the backside of a barn. What were you thinking? Climb in from the hayloft?”

  “I didn’t know you knew anything about barns.”

  “I don’t, but I’ve seen Bonanza and The Waltons.”

  “Then you know most of those lofts have wooden sliders on the outside. All I intend to do is lift the tarp once I’m inside and see what’s underneath.”

  “And if it turns out you’re right?”

  “Then I’ll get photos on my iPhone and confess all to Grizzly Gary. He’ll be so happy I found the one clue they’re looking for, he’ll probably forget about reading me the riot act.”

  “No, he’ll be too busy placing you under arrest. Try to contain yourself. I’ll speak with my aunts and see if they know anything about Agnes. That’s as good a lead as any. Hey, before I forget, there’s a vintage car race at Watkins Glen the same weekend as the winemakers dinner. That’s going to bring in some larger crowds. We’re definitely going to need you Friday through Sunday.”

  “No problem.” My barn-busting expedition will need to be put on fast-forward.

  Cammy grabbed a clean rack of glasses and I held the door open for her as she returned to the tasting room. Then I plunked myself at the table and called the Grey Egret. After two rings, Theo picked up.

  “Theo, good. I’m glad I got you. I need your help. Alex has been arrested for Vance’s murder thanks to Agnes from the historical society. It’s too involved. How about if you and Don come over to my house for pizza after work? I’ll explain then. Seven o’clock okay? I’ll call Cams and pick up two house specials.”