A Food and Wine Club Mystery Boxset Books 1 through 5

by Cat Chandler

  “I did.” And she had, going from earning her English Literature degree at NYU, straight into a top culinary school right there in the city. Nicki had never regretted a minute of the time she’d spent there, or the cost of the student loans she was still paying off. “So Catherine didn’t usually ask about your family?”

  Mario shook his head. “She liked to talk business, and sometimes about her writing. I’m certain she asked about my son because she understood when I explained this restaurant was his legacy, and eventually she would sell back her part of it.”

  “Why did you sell her an interest in Mario’s in the first place?”

  “The school in New York is very expensive and one of our ovens broke at the same time that we had a leak in our roof. Both had to be fixed and the school tuition paid. What could I do?” Mario spread his hands wide and his mustache seemed to droop even more than usual. “Even though those things were fixed, I knew I’d made a terrible mistake, so I offered to make payments, with interest, until she was paid back every cent of her money.”

  “But she turned you down?”

  Mario shrugged. “She would have changed her mind. I could tell when she asked about my son.”

  Once again Nicki deliberately switched to another subject. “Did she seem a little off that evening? When Rob and I came in, she appeared to be a bit flustered.”

  “I thought the same thing when she didn’t seat the Hobsons at their usual table. I had to move them and apologize, and of course offer them a complimentary glass of wine. When I asked Catherine about it, she said she was distracted because she was expecting someone at her house later that evening.” He gave Nicki a wink. “I think she meant Charlie was coming over to have a drink, and possibly breakfast the next morning, yes?”

  Nicki frowned. “Did she say she was expecting Charlie?”

  “No. But she was so nervous it could only be in anticipation of a wonderful evening.” Mario lifted his hands and suggestively wiggled his eyebrows up and down.

  Nicki fought to keep from rolling her eyes. Somehow a visit from Charlie just didn’t evoke the same blissful images for her that Mario was clearly imagining. The long-time winemaker was too much of an old-fashioned gentleman for her to see him as some kind of elderly Don Juan.

  Seeing Mario glance around the room, Nicki doubted she’d be able to keep his attention any longer, so she thanked the owner for his time and asked if he’d send their waiter over. As soon as he left the table, her friends walked back through the front door, making Nicki suspect they’d been watching the whole conversation through the front window.

  “Well. Did you get what you needed?” Matt asked once they were all settled and their dinner orders had been taken.

  Nicki nodded. “Catherine didn’t have any food with her when she left the restaurant, so she must have already had it at home and simply heated it up.”

  “Which means she left Mario’s to go home and eat leftovers from Mario’s?” Jenna shook her head. “Too weird.”

  “I agree, dear,” Maxie said. “Catherine was no cook, as far as I knew, and she’d said on more than one occasion that there was no point in eating at home if you could eat out. I think she would have qualified even heating up a meal as eating at home.”

  They were interrupted by their waiter bringing their soup and salads. Once he’d set the plates and bowls in front of the proper person, he looked at Nicki with a bare wisp of a smile.

  “I don’t mean to bring up a sad subject to ruin your meal, but I overheard you talking with Mario about Catherine. I only want to say how sorry I am she was killed. And even sorrier that a nice lady like you had to find her like that.”

  “Thank you, Joe.” Nicki gave an audible sigh. “I wish I knew why she’d gone home on her dinner break. It just seemed like a strange thing to do.”

  Joe hugged the large tray he’d carried the food on close to his chest. “Well. She’d been acting strange since she arrived. She called Mario and said she’d decided to come in and hostess that night, so he sent Lisa home. But she only stayed an hour or so before she went on her dinner break. And was more trouble than help during that hour so we all mentioned we were glad she’d taken that break. Now everyone feels really bad about that.”

  Maxie made a clucking noise with her tongue. “There’s no way you could have known what would happen, Joe. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, and you shouldn’t feel that way.”

  “No it wasn’t.” Nicki’s voice was quiet and full of understanding. She knew from personal experience how guilty someone could feel if they thought they could have prevented another person’s death. Hadn’t she carried that same guilt around with her for almost a year after her mother had died? Shutting the thought out, Nicki concentrated on the present. “You mentioned Catherine had been acting strangely? In what way?”

  “She seated too many people at one server station and not enough at another. And like Mario told you, she forgot where some of the regulars like to sit.” Joe looked down for a moment before bringing his gaze up again and offering a smile to everyone at the table. “I need to check on your order. If you need anything in the meantime, just give me a signal.” He sent another sad-looking smile to Nicki before turning around and heading back toward the door leading into the kitchen.

  “So she was acting wonky around everyone,” Jenna observed once Joe was out of hearing range.

  “Did you find out anything else from Mario?” Matt asked quietly.

  Nicki propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin on one hand. “He was trying to buy back Catherine’s interest in the restaurant, but he didn’t have the money, so he offered to make payments with interest.”

  “That sounds like a reasonable offer.” Alex nodded as she took a very small bite off one end of a breadstick. “Did she take him up on it?”

  “Nope. According to Mario, she turned him down.” Nicki paused for a moment. “And he also said that Catherine mentioned she was meeting someone later that evening. Someone who made her nervous.”

  “That could be why she acted so wonky with you and Rob,” Jenna said.

  “Mario thinks it was Charlie.”

  “Oh, good heavens no,” Maxie instantly protested. “Charlie wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Nicki knew that Charlie was a long-time friend of Maxie and her husband’s. They considered the older perennial bachelor part of their family, and he was always present in their home for every holiday and special event.

  Nicki smiled at her. “I wouldn’t think so either, but he is her boyfriend. At least he is according to Suzanne.”

  “I believe Charlie may have mentioned it,” Maxie reluctantly conceded. “But if the person she was waiting for is the one who killed her, then it wasn’t Charlie Freeman.”

  Jenna lifted her wine glass and looked at the others over its rim. “Well, if not Charlie the boyfriend, then who?”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  By an unspoken agreement, they all ate in record time, startling Joe when he stopped by the table and they’d asked for the check less than thirty minutes after he’d delivered their order. After exiting the restaurant, they’d piled into Maxie’s comfortable Lincoln town car and made the short drive back to Nicki’s place, where Alex and Matt had left their cars. Nicki had invited everyone in for a nightcap of their choice, but pleading a forty-minute drive home and an early start to her shift in the ER the following morning, Alex had declined and driven off after a flurry of quick goodbyes. Jenna also turned down the invitation, stating she still had work she wanted to complete on her preliminary plan for her newest client. Giving hugs all around, she strode off to her side of the townhouse, slamming the door loudly behind her.

  Laughing over a habit that Jenna clearly had no inclination to change, Matt and Maxie followed Nicki up the walkway and through her front door. Both women retrieved their cell phones before dropping their purses onto the hallway table and heading to the kitchen. Nicki offered wine to her guests, but they both chose sparkling water instead.

  Whi
le Matt and Maxie talked over Mason’s latest gardening project, Nicki only nodded occasionally as she took three bottles of Perrier out of the fridge and placed them on the counter. She remained silent even after she’d finished filling large tumblers with ice, content to stand on the opposite side of the large kitchen island and sip her water while she turned over everything they’d found out about Catherine.

  “So. Are you going to let us in on it?”

  Matt’s question interrupted Nicki’s train of thought and she wrinkled her nose when she glanced over at him. “Let you in on what?”

  He moved his glass slightly to one side and leaned in, clasping his hands together on top of the counter. “On whatever it is that’s going through that busy mind of yours.”

  “Yes, dear.” Maxie nodded. “I do hope you’re ready to talk. We’re running out of polite conversation while you’ve been reasoning everything out.”

  Nicki laughed. “I haven’t been able to figure out a reason for anything yet.”

  “My dear Sherlock,” Matt began in the worst English accent Nicki had ever heard. “Talking things out usually brings clarity to any thought.”

  Maxie chuckled. “Did Dr. Watson say that?”

  “No, he did not,” Nicki declared. At Matt’s raised eyebrow, she grinned. “English Lit major, and I read every one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. Even The Adventure of the Final Problem, as painful as that was.”

  Matt frowned. “Why was that one painful?”

  Nicki stared at him as if he’d grown two heads. “Because the author killed Sherlock off in that one.” She cocked her head to one side and narrowed her eyes. “Don’t tell me you’ve never read a Sherlock Holmes book?”

  When Matt shook his head, Nicki made a mournful sound in her throat. “You’re really missing out, Dillon. And what kind of Dr. Watson wanna-be has never read any of Sherlock’s adventures?”

  “I’ve never had the time.” Matt shrugged. “But if I keep getting cast in the role as your sidekick to murder investigations, maybe I’ll pick one up.”

  “I guess this means you did not major in English Lit?” Nicki teased, then waited through a full five seconds of Matt’s silence before sending Maxie an amused look.

  The older woman threw up her hands. “Oh for goodness' sake, Mathew Dillon. That was your very obvious opening to tell Nicki what you did major in.” She shook her head at him. “He majored in engineering.” Maxie reached over and gave Matt’s folded hand a gentle pat. “See, dear? That wasn’t so hard.”

  “Thank you for letting me know that little tidbit about you,” Nicki said to Matt with a perfectly straight face. While a streak of red visibly crept up the stubbornly silent Matt’s neck, Nicki gave Maxie a curious look. “I’ve always wondered why you know so much about Matt?”

  “Oh, well now. That’s something we should discuss in private. Would tomorrow morning be convenient?” She winked at Nicki when Matt groaned out loud.

  Sitting up until his back was ramrod straight, he glanced between the two women. “Matt, who I’d like to point out is sitting right here, would like to get back to the discussion about murder.” He fixed a stare on Nicki, his brown eyes softening behind the lenses of his heavily rimmed glasses. “You were saying that you haven’t been able to figure something out?”

  “Quite a few things, actually.” She tore her gaze away from Matt’s so she could concentrate enough to mentally arrange the most puzzling points. Sometimes her editor did have an odd effect on her. “The chief said nothing had been taken from Catherine’s house. Not even her money or credit cards. So the motive wasn’t a robbery.”

  “Unless, like the chief said, you and your date suddenly showing up scared him off,” Matt pointed out.

  “But if someone had run away, where would they have run to? The house isn’t that big. We’d have heard him going through the kitchen and out the back door. It only took us a minute to find Catherine’s body, so the only way someone could have gotten out without us seeing him would have been to leave very quickly, and I’m sure he would have made some noise.”

  “He or she, dear,” Maxie said. She gave a dramatic sigh when Nicki looked over at her. “While we were strolling past the grapes immortalized in bronze in the middle of the square, Alex was proclaiming that we should definitely include Suzanne on the suspect list.”

  “She kept referring to her as ‘interviewed person number one’, in case anyone happened to overhear us.” Matt grinned when Nicki laughed.

  She could just imagine Alex putting on her best doctor voice and listing all the reasons why “interviewed person number one” should be a prime suspect. Not to mention Maxie’s horrified reaction at the thought of one member of her cherished Society killing off another member.

  “She mentioned the very same thing to me as we were driving away after our talk with Suzanne. But as a full-fledged member of our group, Alex can add anyone she thinks has a reason to want Catherine dead to the suspect list on our murder board,” Nicki said, her mouth still curved into a smile and her hazel eyes lit with amusement.

  “I didn’t catch the reason Alex was so sure that Suzanne should be a suspect?” Matt asked. “And she was pretty adamant about it.”

  Nicki schooled her features into a sober look to keep from laughing again. She didn’t want to upset Maxie. “Alex is convinced Suzanne has an obsessive personality and is crazy.”

  “Of course she isn’t anything of the sort,” Maxie instantly declared. “She and Catherine were just very close, is all. And I’m sure this gourmet cooking phase of hers, and her choice of hairstyle and clothing, is simply a coincidence.”

  Matt’s gaze flicked between the two women. “What’s going on with this Suzanne?”

  “It’s a long story, and one of Alex’s stranger theories,” Nicki said. “We should get back to the murder.”

  Matt shrugged. “No problem. I’ll just call Alex and ask her. Or maybe I’ll ask Ty.” He shrugged again when Nicki put her hands on her hips and gave him a hard stare. “So back to the murder. Let’s assume you would have heard some person, male or female, running off. Since you didn’t, what does that leave?”

  “If she wasn’t being robbed, then someone had another motive,” Maxie offered.

  “Someone she knew.” When Matt and her landlady gave her a startled looked, Nicki nodded back at them. “Why else would she let someone get behind her unless she knew them and was comfortable. If it had been a stranger, she probably would have turned her head at least to keep them in sight and then have had a defensive wound of some kind. At least I didn’t see one.” Nicki chewed on her lower lip, thinking through the crime scene. “But if it was someone she knew, why was there only one place setting? Even if they’d dropped in unexpectedly, Catherine would have invited them to share her meal. And if she’d been expecting someone, like Mario said, it must have been for a time after her shift because, once again, there was only one place setting.”

  Matt tipped his head back and closed his eyes. “Maybe someone did drop by unexpectedly, and they started arguing and it got out of hand?”

  “If that’s the case, we should talk to Beatrice,” Maxie said.

  Matt opened his eyes and turned his head to look at her. “Who’s Beatrice?”

  “Beatrice Riley, the neighbor across the street from Catherine. You’ll never meet a bigger busybody. But if anyone ran out of that house, or went in and then had an argument with Catherine, Beatrice would know. She thinks it’s her duty to keep a close watch on everything and everyone from that big picture window in her front room.” Maxie raised her gaze to the ceiling. “I’ve known Beatrice for over two decades. MyMason and I had the unfortunate experience of living next door to her after we were first married and before we bought this property. She’s one of the reasons we decided to build a house where we’d have no neighbors around us.”

  Matt grinned at Nicki. “Since Mario was interview subject number two, Beatrice Riley sounds like the perfect person to be intervi
ew subject number three. She’ll help you hone your skills.”

  Nicki ignored him and went back to concentrating on the puzzle. Why did Catherine go home, only to eat food from the restaurant she’d just left? And if she’d only been on her shift for an hour or so before taking that early dinner break, why did she go into work at all? Why didn’t she simply offer to start the hostess job after whatever it was she’d done whatever it was that she’d needed to have an early dinner break for? Her brow wrinkled in confusion, Nicki relayed her thoughts to her guests. It didn’t take long for them to look as puzzled as she felt.

  “Maybe after the divorce she was at loose ends,” Maxie said slowly. “Any excuse to get out of the house and among other people, even for an hour or so, might have been welcome under her current circumstances. With her daughter living elsewhere, this might have been the first time Catherine had ever lived alone, and she was still getting used to it.”

  Nicki considered that. It sounded like a plausible explanation, but she wasn’t sure because she’d never really lived alone. She’d gone from her mother’s apartment to sharing one with Alex and Jenna. And even now, while technically she lived alone, she and Jenna literally shared a wall. Nicki glanced over at Matt. “You live alone. Do you ever have a burning need to get out among people?”

  Matt scratched the side of his neck as he blinked and scrunched his mouth up. “It’s different for guys. When we want company, we’re not usually thinking of ‘people’, but of hot women.” He sent a sheepish look to Maxie. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Maxie waved him off. “It’s all right, dear. Men thought the same thing when I was your age. But Catherine was a little older, so I’m assuming her thoughts weren’t always turned to the bedroom.”

  “Yes, well, let’s move on,” Nicki declared. “Since the chief took Ramona through the house, I gather Catherine’s daughter is in town. I wonder if she just arrived, or was here when her mother was murdered?”