A Food and Wine Club Mystery Boxset Books 1 through 5

by Cat Chandler

  “How come yours tastes so much better?” He frowned at her. “I have a sneaking suspicion I’m not going to like normal coffee anymore.”

  “My coffee is perfectly normal,” Nicki protested.

  Matt didn’t bother to answer but looked around the square instead. “So where’s this art gallery located?”

  “Down that little side street over there.” Nicki pointed to their left. “He usually comes in early so he should be there by now.”

  “Then you’ve been to this gallery before?” Matt asked as they slowly walked toward the next corner. “What kind of art does he feature?”

  Nicki shrugged. “Mostly his own, although occasionally he’ll display another artist’s work.”

  “Great. Then I won’t mention that I’ve never heard of the artist when he points out one of his own paintings.”

  “Here we are.” Nicki stopped in front of a whole wall made up of one big window with large red letters shadowed in black spelling out The Walter Gifford Gallery across the entire front. Two potted palms stood in heavily glazed ceramic pots on either side of the entrance, along with a short length of red carpet making a splash of color against the drab sidewalk.

  Matt rolled his eyes when he spotted the red carpet. “A nutcase for a best friend, the worst winemaker in America for a boyfriend, and now some guy full of himself for an ex-husband. Catherine wasn’t much good at judging character.”

  “Suzanne’s just upset and lonely without her best friend, Charlie may not make good wine but he does grow beautiful roses, along with being a very nice man, and all artists have huge egos. You should know that since you’ve interviewed enough of them,” Nicki pointed out.

  Matt smiled at her. “You’re right. No judgements here.” He opened the door to the gallery and ushered her inside.

  Walter Gifford sat behind a small writing desk located in the center of the room. He looked up when the bell over the door tinkled. A thick fall of deep brown hair was tucked behind his ears and hung down to his shoulders. A prominent brow and forehead gave him the look of an artist, which he played up even more by wearing a black cape with red satin lining over his t-shirt and jeans.

  “Nicki isn’t it?” His deep voice boomed out across the floor. “You have an entertaining little blog on the local establishments, and write for that magazine on the internet.”

  He stood up and waited for Nicki and Matt to cross over to him.

  Nicki politely held out her hand only to have it enveloped in his much larger one as he smoothly flipped it over and placed a lingering kiss on the inside of her wrist. Not comfortable with the intimate gesture, Nicki quickly snatched her hand back. Beside her, Matt went perfectly still.

  “This is Matt Dillon,” Nicki politely made the introduction.

  “Her close friend,” Matt put in, with an emphasis on the word “close”. Nicki had no intention of correcting Matt’s hint that he was more than just a friend. Not if it would encourage Walter to keep his hands, and his lips, to himself.

  “He’s also the editor and owner of that magazine on the internet.” Nicki kept her voice and her stare cool as she looked around. The wall was adorned with abstract paintings, all done in bold colors. Despite his poor manners and oversized opinion of himself, there was a reason a Gifford painting sold very well. They really were striking. “You have some lovely paintings. Are they all yours?”

  “Naturally. I had another artist’s work in here last week, but it was overwhelmed by my paintings, so I had to take them down.” Walter sat at his desk and pointed to the two chairs in front of it. “Have a seat. I doubt if you’re here to discuss art.”

  “Is there something else you think we should be discussing?” Matt asked. Once Nicki sat, he took up a position behind her chair, standing with his arms crossed and his gaze fixed on the artist.

  Ignoring him, Walter addressed Nicki. “Suzanne called a few days ago. She told me you were looking into Catherine’s murder and I should expect a visit. Since Chief Turnlow’s already been here, I’ve just been waiting for your arrival.”

  “Oh good,” Nicki said with a quick nod. “Then we can get right to our questions and not take up any more of your time than necessary.”

  “Or ours,” Matt said, not bothering to keep his voice low.

  Nicki cleared her throat. “Yes. We do have a full schedule today. Maybe we could start by asking where you were on the night Catherine was murdered?”

  “Right here, conducting a private showing for three potential buyers. They’d admired my work in Dallas and happened to be in town on a wine tasting tour. I’ve already given their names to the chief if you’d like to check with him on whether or not my alibi holds up.”

  Nicki mentally marked alibi off her list and moved on. “I understand there were bad feelings between you and Catherine?”

  Walter gave her an amused look. “Hence the reason we got a divorce.”

  “I meant specifically over some investment losses,” Nicki clarified, raising one eyebrow when his lips and jaw tightened. It looked like she’d hit a nerve. “Suzanne talks to us too.”

  “And about private matters, it seems,” Walter groused. “One of her more annoying habits. And yes, I was understandably put out when the investment money I entrusted to Catherine dropped significantly in value.”

  “How significantly?” Matt asked.

  Walter gave him a hard look. “About one hundred thousand dollars’ worth, not that it’s any of your business.”

  “People have been killed for less than that,” Matt said.

  “Not by me,” Walter shot back before deliberately returning his attention to Nicki. “Is that all your questions?”

  Nicki turned around and shook her head at the man standing behind her. “Behave, Matt.” All she got in response was a grunt.

  Looking amused, Walter leaned back in his chair with a smirk on his lips. “I didn’t try to hide my feelings on the matter. Catherine knew how I felt about her negligence in handling my money.”

  “Your money? Weren’t the two of you married?” Nicki asked.

  The flamboyant artist laughed. “That’s a very charming and very outdated concept, Nicki. Being married doesn’t mean you have to share your assets. Since I was her second husband, and she was my third wife, we chose not to.” He glared up at Matt. “And before you start putting out the theory I had my ex-wife killed as revenge for costing me so much money, Catherine and I had already come to an agreement about that, and it’s all written down and legally filed as part of the divorce settlement. I didn’t fight her on retaining a number of my paintings she’d acquired by various means through the years, and she had it put in her will that their ownership would revert to me. Their worth should cover the monetary loss I suffered at her hands.”

  “Which you couldn’t rectify until she died. Which she did. Very convenient.”

  “Matt!” Nicki’s sharp tone rang through the gallery. “I asked you to behave.” She turned back to Walter and smiled. “I’m sorry. Just one more thing.” When the artist raised a questioning eyebrow, she went on. “What do you know about the trust set up by Ramona’s father?”

  He shrugged. “There isn’t much to know. It was set up under Catherine’s oversight to distribute as she saw fit. I believe her daughter will come into the bulk of it when she turns thirty.”

  Nicki nodded. That’s exactly what Maxie had said. “What about now? Since Catherine can no longer administer the trust?”

  Walter frowned and ran a hand down the side of his face. “I have no idea. I suppose the timetable would be stepped up and Ramona would get the money now. Or maybe someone else will be appointed to oversee it until her thirtieth birthday.”

  “So you’ve never seen Catherine’s will?” Nicki asked.

  “I’ve seen it. A copy is part of the divorce settlement. But I’ve only read the parts that pertain to me. I really am not interested in what Ramona does or doesn’t inherit.”

  “Then you didn’t know that Cynthia is the n
ew administrator for the trust? She said she had a copy of the will and it specified that.”

  Walter chuckled and shifted his cape so it hung down the sides of his chair. “Catherine giving Cynthia a copy of her will is shocking. The two of them shared very little, at least not while Catherine and I were married. Except of course going to those auctions together.” Walter made a point of looking at his watch.

  “I saw a receipt from an auction house on Catherine’s desk,” Nicki said quickly. “It listed the purchase as a doll.”

  Walter nodded. “Catherine collected them, if the price was right. I suppose Cynthia did too, although she must have spent a great deal more than my former wife did because a couple of times a year she’d ask Catherine for more of her share of the money under old man Dunton’s trust.” He gave a distinct sniff. “I guess a librarian’s pension for collectible items doesn’t stretch too far.”

  “Cynthia asked Catherine for money?” That took Nicki by surprise. She thought Suzanne has been exaggerating when she’d mentioned that. Especially after meeting Cynthia. Nicki would’ve bet that Catherine’s twin lived very modestly, and probably by choice. So why would she need more money in addition to her pension and what was most likely a regular allowance from her father’s trust?

  “Whenever she asked, Catherine always gave it to her, as far as I know. Probably because she didn’t ask as nearly as often as Ramona did. That girl must have sent her mother a request every month for more money to buy something or other, or to travel somewhere. She’s a definite money pit. Once she does get her hands on the bulk of her trust, I don’t expect it to last very long.” This time he didn’t just glance at his watch but held it up for Nicki to see. “I really need to wrap this up. I have another appointment.”

  Nicki rose and walked around the chair, taking Matt’s hand in hers. “Thank you for your time, Walter.”

  At the other man’s curt, bordering-on-rude, nod, Matt’s mouth turned down into a scowl. Seeing it, Nicki quickly tugged on his hand and pulled him toward the door. Without even a backwards glance, she got her annoyed editor back out onto the sidewalk in front of the gallery. She dropped his hand and turned to face him, her own hands now on her hips.

  “What is the matter with you? You can’t be my sidekick if you alienate our suspects.”

  Matt’s scowl turned up at the corners. “Hey! I sat in Beatrice’s rickety chair, put up with Suzanne almost plastering herself all over me, drank Charlie’s foul-tasting wine, and just now I didn’t deck Walter I’m-a-pig Gifford. I’d say I’m a great sidekick.”

  Nicki rolled her eyes and started walking back toward the hotel.

  Matt fell into step beside her. “Am I detecting a sudden interest in Cynthia on your part?”

  “I don’t know,” Nicki admitted. “She doesn’t have an alibi and maybe even has a motive if you count her own trust, but from what Walter said, it doesn’t sound like it. But then there was the Trident program.”

  “What’s the Trident program?” Matt asked.

  Nicki proceeded to explain the astonishing results from matching Catherine’s hair and make-up onto Cynthia’s face, finishing up by repeating a good part of the discussion she’d had with Jenna about it.

  Matt was silent for a moment, and Nicki was content to stay the same way while he thought it all through.

  “Well,” he finally said. “I guess the similarity is to be expected since they are, or I mean they were, twins. But then like you said, looks aren’t everything.”

  Nicki smiled up at him, sure he was completely unaware that he’d voiced a sentiment near and dear to her own heart.

  “No. They aren’t.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  “I hope you don’t mind that Matt isn’t coming along with us to call on Ramona.” Maxie said from the passenger seat of Nicki’s small Toyota.

  “Of course not,” Nicki assured her. “Despite his firm belief we need a guy with us at all times, he doesn’t need to tag along every place we go.”

  Maxie’s mouth turned down at the corners. “He’s such a nice boy. I thought you liked him.”

  Nicki took her eyes off the road just long enough to frown at her landlady. “I do like him. A lot. You know that.”

  The older woman smiled. “Of course I do, dear. I just wanted to make sure that you knew it too. He’s quite taken with you, if you don’t mind the use of an old-fashioned term. ‘Taken’ falls somewhere between like and love, although he’s leaning well toward the love side.”

  “Maxie!” Nicki closed her eyes and prayed for patience. Really. Talking about Matt and love in the same breath was crossing way too far over the line. “If you say anything like that to him, he’ll probably keel over from a heart attack. You’re reading too much into our friendship, because that’s all it is.”

  “And you’re still reading too little into it, dear.” Maxie shook her head. “But no matter. You’ll come around. That’s our turn right past those large trees.”

  Nicki maneuvered her little car around the corner, onto a quiet residential street with small houses on large lots.

  “Cynthia lives in the third house down on your left. Yes. I believe that’s Ramona’s car in the driveway. She told me it isn’t in working order at the moment.”

  Nicki pulled in beside the black Honda. She waited the usual five seconds after she’d turned the engine off for it to stop sputtering and completely shut down. Telling herself for the hundreth time that she really was going to need to replace her car sometime next year for sure, Nicki pushed open the door while Maxie did the same on the opposite side. After their short, separate wrestling matches with the doors, they both managed to get out of the vehicle and step onto the driveway. Nicki paused to take a look at the house and yard. The lot was spacious and sparsely landscaped, with only a single small tree growing between the house and the road. The house itself was very much in the same box-like, cookie-cutter plan used in mass-produced, subdivision housing.

  Nicki hurried over to take the carton filled with programs that Maxie had hauled out of the back seat. On the front of each one was a picture of Catherine, wearing a jaunty pillbox hat and smiling into the camera. Maxie put a gentle hand on Nicki’s shoulder.

  “Ramona picked out that picture and selected some very appropriate and tasteful music for the service. I think you were right about her hiding her real feelings over her mother’s passing.”

  “I know how she feels,” Nicki sighed. “There were days after mom died that I just wanted to ignore the whole thing.” Her smile was thin and sad. “I thought if I didn’t acknowledge it, then it never happened. I think Ramona is going through the same gamut of emotions, and she really thinks she can outrun the pain by going to Europe.”

  She stopped at the front door and waited for Maxie to ring the bell. It wasn’t long before Ramona swung the door open, her green-striped hair pulled back into a ponytail making her look closer to a teenager than twenty-six years old. Her red-rimmed eyes told Nicki that she’d been crying.

  Ramona stepped back and jerked a thumb toward the interior of the house. “Come in. Aunt Cynthia isn’t here. She’s been gone for a while, and I’m not sure when she’s coming back. I think she went to see about her hair again.” Nicki and Maxie followed her down a short hallway which opened up into a compact living room. There was a TV sitting on top of a stand that looked as if it first landed in that spot sometime in the 1950s. It was flanked on either side by two display cases while the opposite wall had a sofa and La-Z-Boy recliner. Aside from a couple of tables and lamps, that was all there was to the room.

  Ramona hunched her shoulders slightly and followed Nicki’s gaze. “My aunt doesn’t like to throw anything away or buy new things if the old ones are still working.”

  Nicki set the box down and wandered over to the display case nearest the opening that led into the dining room. The case had probably been an open bookshelf at some point, but now it held five Madame Alexander dolls. Nicki recognized a couple of them as the same
ones on display at Catherine’s house. Nicki glanced over at the second case. It was tall with glass doors and held several shelves of books. Not surprising since Cynthia was a librarian, Nicki thought. She walked back to the recliner and took a seat on its edge as Maxie reached for one of the programs from the box Nicki had set on the table.

  “I hope you like this, dear. I think it came out very well. And everyone loved the picture and the music you picked out.”

  “They did?”

  Ramona sounded so surprised that Nicki had to smile. She guessed the young woman wasn’t used to much praise from her mother’s friends. Nicki had a suspicion that Suzanne didn’t think much of Ramona and probably let it show.

  “I think your mother will be very happy with what you helped arrange,” Nicki said gently.

  Ramona shrugged. “I think I should have done more, but Suzanne was so….” She paused and shook her head.

  “Pushy? Opinionated? Forward?” Maxie supplied, making Ramona laugh.

  “Yes, she was.” Ramona wore the first genuine-looking smile Nicki had seen on her. Thinking that was progress, Nicki gave her a warm smile in return.

  “It’s been hard,” the young woman confessed in a small voice. “Suzanne’s been kind of over the top. She acts like she’s lost her soul mate, while Aunt Cynthia doesn’t seem to care much at all, and mom was her twin.” Ramona shook her head, making her ponytail bounce across the tops of her shoulders. “But all my aunt seems to care about is her collection.”

  Nicki glanced over at the dolls. “I saw some of the same ones in your mom’s house, so I guess that was something they had in common.”

  “I think she just bought those dolls to bug mom.” Ramona waved a hand toward the other side of the TV. “It’s her book collection she talks about all the time. But then what would you expect out of a librarian? Books are all she’s ever talked about.”

  Nicki could hardly take issue with that since she’d had the very same thought herself only a few moments ago.

  “Yes, librarians do seem as obsessed with books as I am with family letters and photos when I’m doing my genealogy research.” Maxie gave Nicki a long look. “Would you mind bringing a glass of cold water to me, and maybe one for Ramona as well. I can see the kitchen right though that doorway.” She turned her smile on Ramona. “Where does your aunt keep her glasses?”