A Food and Wine Club Mystery Boxset Books 1 through 5

by Cat Chandler

  Retrieving her cell out of the back pocket of her jeans, Nicki glanced down at the screen and smiled. Jenna wanted to know where she was. Nicki quickly clicked on letters and spelled out “Home. Why?”, which was rapidly answered with a “cause I’m standing in your kitchen”.

  Chagrined at having been caught in her small lie, Nicki stepped through the doorway and into her townhouse, heading toward the back. Jenna was sitting on her usual stool at the kitchen counter, munching on an apple.

  “How did the snooping around go?”

  “What makes you think I was snooping around?” Nicki casually walked over to the refrigerator and made a show of opening it up and peering inside.

  Jenna grinned. “Because I know the sun rises in the east, and I know you. I’m surprised you weren’t over walking around the chief’s crime scene at the crack of dawn.”

  Nicki retrieved a carton of eggs and a loaf of homemade bread. Placing them on the counter, she looked back over her shoulder as she returned to the refrigerator for milk and butter. “The chief hasn’t said it is a crime scene, and I wish I had gone over at the crack of dawn. Then you would have been none the wiser.”

  “Not true, Sherlock,” Jenna said, using the chief’s favorite nickname for her friend. “As your ever-faithful Watson, I would have deduced that you’d been over to Viola’s place.”

  Cracking eggs into a bowl, Nicki plucked a whisk out of a mason jar on the counter. “Well, Watson, as it happens, I did not walk the crime scene, as you so colorfully put it. I merely peeked over the tape.”

  “Why is that?”

  The chef and blogger shrugged. “Because I was only curious, and like I said, it hasn’t yet been determined if there’s even been a crime.” Finished with beating the eggs, Nicki picked up the knife she’d set next to the bread. “I mean, she could very easily have slipped and hit her head before falling into the pool.”

  “Maybe,” Jenna conceded.

  Feeling as skeptical about that as Jenna sounded, Nicki started cutting thick pieces of bread and laying them aside. “Why are you up so early? I thought you’d declared anything before ten in the morning as illegal to be awake and about.”

  “Still feel that way,” her friend sighed. “But it isn’t easy to sleep knowing someone was killed right across the street.”

  “Maybe killed,” Nicki corrected, before adding her sigh to Jenna’s. The fact was, it was hard not to think of it as a murder with all the little inconsistencies that kept adding up. “I mean, there are a couple of things…”

  When Nicki trailed off, Jenna pounced on her unspoken thought.

  “I knew it! You do think Viola Richards was murdered.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think. It’s what Chief Turnlow thinks that counts.”

  “Then we’ll just have to be sure he’s thinking the right way,” Jenna declared. “So what idea struck you in the middle of the night?”

  “That I should take another look at the crime scene,” Nicki admitted. She slid out a rack built into a lower cabinet and plucked out the cinnamon spice and vanilla extract. “But I didn’t cross the crime scene tape.”

  Jenna settled more comfortably on her stool and set her apple down on a napkin. “I’m going to save some room for that French toast you’re making. So, if you didn’t go into the backyard, what did you do?”

  Nicki looked up and grinned at her longtime friend. Jenna really did know her very well. “I took a better look at the room Viola used as her office. And there were a couple of odd things about it.”

  “Such as?” Jenna prompted.

  Since cooking always helped her organize her thoughts, Nicki continued right on with her preparations as she brought up the mental image of Viola’s desk. “Her footrest wasn’t in the right place.”

  “Where was it?”

  “Too far away for Viola to actually put her feet on it. And I would bet the stool she sat on was set too high not to use that foot rest.”

  Frowning, Jenna pushed her glasses further up her nose. “She was definitely on the shorter side.”

  “Yes, she was,” Nicki agreed. “Too short to reach the foot rest, or to comfortably write on the notepad on her desk. It was too close to the outer edge, rather than next to the keyboard.”

  Jenna slowly nodded. “So you think a taller person was the last one sitting at that desk?”

  “Could have been.” Nicki shrugged. “Or one of the last things Viola did was clean her office, and she moved those things around. The room was very tidy. So was the living room.”

  “I hear a ‘but’ in that statement,” Jenna said.

  Nicki pursed her lips and thought about it for a moment. “Okay. But, I didn’t see any vacuum tracks in the carpet. If she’d moved the footrest around because she was cleaning, I’d assume it was to vacuum.”

  “Okay. No vacuum tracks.” Jenna smiled. “Did you see any dust on the furniture?”

  Making a face at the computer geek, Nicki took down a frying pan and turned on the gas burner. “Funny. I’m only saying I didn’t see any signs that Viola had recently been cleaning.”

  “Other than the fact you said the place looked spotless?” Jenna waved a hand in the air when Nicki rolled her eyes. “Just playing devil’s advocate here. But I’m with you. The footrest and the notepad being out of reach is odd for someone who makes their living sitting at any kind of computer doing research.”

  Since that was exactly how it had struck Nicki, she smiled as she slid the first piece of egg-soaked bread into the frying pan. “Maybe she hadn’t used her laptop in a while.”

  Jenna snorted at that. “Not likely. We’re all addicted to our computers.”

  “True, but Viola was here on vacation. Maybe she was taking a technology break.” Nicki laughed when Jenna very predictably looked horrified.

  “Bite your tongue, Nicki Connors. I can’t afford for people to start taking technology breaks.”

  Jenna’s business as a web designer would definitely take a downturn, but Nicki was pretty sure her geeky friend had nothing to worry about. What Jenna had said was very true. People were more prone to be glued to their technology than separated from it.

  She flipped over the first piece of French toast. “Whether Viola was on a tech break or not, she was still on vacation. Which brings up the question of why she came here?”

  Getting up from her stool, Jenna walked around the wide kitchen island and went directly to the cupboard filled with dishes. She lifted down two plates and turned to set them on the counter next to Nicki. “Why is that a big question? People do take vacations. Aren’t you the one who just got back from Paris?”

  “Yes. But we’re talking Paris, not Soldoff. Why would someone who lives in London and has all of Europe to choose from, vacation in Soldoff?”

  Jenna switched over to the silverware drawer and rummaged through it. “Maybe she was tired of traveling in Europe?”

  Nicki raised a skeptical eyebrow. “So she flew right over New York and Chicago, landed in San Francisco and made a beeline for Soldoff?”

  “Could be Maxie was the only person she knew to mooch off of.” At Nicki’s shaming glance, Jenna only shrugged. “What would you call it? She asked for a free place to stay, free food wherever she could find it, and free transportation.”

  “Which is another problem,” Nicki said. “How would the killer have gotten here? I didn’t notice a strange car anywhere near the cul-de-sac when I took my morning run, or when I went out a little later for a carton of milk.”

  “Killed the night before when we were sound asleep, so we didn’t notice a car?” Jenna suggested.

  “If she were killed the night before, I don’t think her back patio and the surrounding plants would have still reeked from the smell of Scotch.”

  The sound of the front door opening and then closing echoed down the hall, followed by the sharp staccato of heels against wood. “Yoo hoo?”

  Maxie’s voice only preceded her into the kitchen by a few seconds. Perfectly gr
oomed and dressed to face a new day, Maxie smiled at the two women in the kitchen as Jenna grabbed another set of silverware.

  “How are you both this morning? I had my Mason drop me off on his way to the town square on what he deemed was an emergency. It seems one of the bushes with some kind of berry on it that he’d planted in the town square had the audacity to die. He’s very annoyed it was only reported to him this morning when it was too late to save the poor thing.”

  “Will there be a memorial?” Jenna asked, making Maxie laugh.

  “Heavens, I hope not. It would be very hard for me to take that seriously, which would no doubt hurt my wonderful husband’s feelings.” The older woman smiled at Nicki. “So, did you come up with anything new at the crime scene this morning?”

  Nicki threw up her hands. “What crime? So far we have no crime.”

  Jenna ignored her completely as she came back around the island and plopped down onto her favorite stool. “She found a couple of interesting things. It looks like someone might have been using Viola’s laptop.”

  “Or not,” Nicki interjected.

  “Really?” Maxie took a seat next to Jenna. “So Viola might have been murdered because of something on her laptop?”

  “Looks that way,” Jenna said with a nod.

  “Or not,” Nicki repeated in a much louder voice. “The footrest was out of place. That’s all.”

  “But it’s something, dear,” Maxie pointed out. “And all these little things add up.”

  Shaking her head, Nicki concentrated on her cooking. She didn’t want to get her landlady all worked up if Viola’s death had indeed been an accident. On the other hand, Maxie was right.

  All the little things simply weren’t adding up. But there was the problem about the car. Or lack of one. Putting it all together, something wasn’t right.

  “Time to set up the murder board,” Jenna said cheerfully, waving her fork over the plate Nicki had slid in front of her. “After breakfast.”

  “Of course. We need our strength.” Maxie took an appreciative sniff of the different aromas drifting up from her own plate. “But accident or not, the murder board will help us sort it all out. We owe Viola that much.”

  Nicki had no inclination to argue with that, but somehow, she didn’t think Matt, or Chief Turnlow, would agree.

  Chapter One Hundred Seven

  Several hours later, Nicki was at her desk finishing up her latest blog post. After setting up the murder board, and Jenna entering what little information they had in her neat block printing, she and Maxie had departed for their own homes, leaving Nicki to start in on her daily routine.

  With a pile of work to tackle, she was happy to be making good progress as she keyed in the final sentence for her blog. Setting it aside to go over and edit a bit later, Nicki picked up the file with her notes for her latest spy novel.

  Her series featuring Tyrone Blackstone, superspy and all-around hunky male, continued to gain a steady following, which was a very nice addition to Nicki’s income from her blog and the articles she wrote for Matt’s online magazine. Glancing at the clock, she calculated she had about half an hour until Matt’s daily phone call, and then three hours to see what kind of predicament her favorite spy got himself into before Suzanne dropped by to talk about the next block of cooking classes.

  Which had also added a boost to her income.

  Her phone beeped with an incoming text. Seeing Matt’s I.D. flash on the small screen, Nicki pressed the button to read Matt’s apology for putting off their phone call until eight that night, and that he had sent her something. Nicki sighed with disappointment.

  She had been looking forward to seeing his grin pop up on her screen and talking everything over with him, but then quickly berated herself for expecting Matt to always be available. It wasn’t fair to him. Thinking about Matt and all that he’d done for her over the last few years, had another idea pop into Nicki’s head.

  She’d been saving up to buy a new car, but that was no longer necessary thanks to Matt’s generosity. As Nicki switched her computer screen over to bring up her novel-writing software, she wondered what she should do with her growing bank account. Of course she’d stash most of it away for a “rainy day”, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t spend part of her latest windfall on something for Matt. He’d been beyond wonderful to her, and she really did love everything about him.

  Tapping a finger against her chin, Nicki thought she’d need to put some real effort into coming up with the perfect gift. But finding something for a guy who could pretty much buy himself whatever he wanted, wasn’t going to be easy. Setting it aside to let it simmer in her mind for a while, Nicki turned her attention to the world of spies and villains.

  She was still immersed in her novel and was just about to have Tyrone involved in a heart-thumping car chase, when the doorbell jarred Nicki back to reality. Frowning at the interruption, she leaned back in her chair and shifted her gaze to the clock at the bottom of her screen. Somehow it had gotten to be mid-afternoon, and the person at the door was most likely Suzanne.

  Clicking on the “save” button, Nicki quickly closed up the file and pushed away from her desk. Less than a minute later she was opening the door to a smiling Suzanne. She was holding a large box, filled to the brim with what looked like different sizes of mixing bowls. Wondering what her cooking class manager had in mind now, Nicki stepped aside to allow Suzanne an unobstructed path to the kitchen. Trailing after her, Nicki slipped to the other side of the large island while Suzanne set her box on top of the counter.

  “I’ve had a brilliant idea about the next series of classes. That’s what everything in this box is for. I have another one in my car with the supplies you wanted for the class tomorrow afternoon. I’ll just run out and get it. Oh, and the local market will be delivering the food tomorrow morning.” Suzanne didn’t wait for a response before turning around and heading toward the front door.

  Nicki shook her head and started poking through the box the always-chatty Suzanne had brought in. Judging by what was in it, Nicki was pretty sure the “brilliant idea” had something to do with breakfast. Which the cooking class business manager had already told her about. When Suzanne breezed back into the room, Nicki smiled at her.

  “Breakfast, right?”

  Suzanne nodded as she set the second box down and then collapsed on a stool. “Only a chef would know that just from seeing a box of cooking utensils.”

  The petite chef in the kitchen laughed. “Also filled with bowls, what looks like every size whisk ever made, and a waffle iron.” She paused before adding, “and you’ve already mentioned it to me.”

  Tilting her head to the side, Nicki studied the woman sitting on the other side of the island. “You changed your hair? It’s very flattering.” Suzanne had adopted the rather strange habit of mimicking everything about Nicki, right down to her wardrobe and hair color and style, although lately, Nicki had gratefully seen a few changes.

  Suzanne beamed back at her. “Do you like it? I thought a darker shade would look better on me than that bland-looking blond.”

  Since that “bland-looking blond” had been a close match to Nicki’s own color, she raised an eyebrow but kept her amused smile. “I do like it.” Noticing the oversized, flowing blouse and light-colored capri pants, it hit Nicki that Suzanne had abandoned her in favor of imitating Maxie. The divorced mom’s choice of attire was most definitely in the Maxie Edwards’ camp. At least Suzanne hadn’t dyed her hair silver.

  Perfectly happy to have Maxie deal with a “mini-me”, at least until Suzanne found someone else to mimic, Nicki raised a hand and lifted it up and down. “I think the whole effect is very eye-catching. It’s a new you.”

  “I think it’s important to change things up a bit from time to time, don’t you?”

  Knowing a loaded question when she heard one, Nicki cautiously nodded. “It can be fun.”

  “Exactly.”

  Suzanne’s enthusiastic response was a clear sign
that she was leading up to something. Nicki braced herself, expecting to hear all about catering out of Eddie’s diner, but was surprised when Suzanne suddenly switched to another topic.

  “Did I see the murder board set up when I walked in?” She leaned forward and dropped her voice to a whisper, as if she expected to be overheard in the middle of Nicki’s kitchen. “I only got a quick look when I walked by your office, but it was hard not to notice with the door being wide open.”

  Nicki would bet that Suzanne had taken more than a quick look, but she kept that thought to herself and simply nodded. “It was an easy way for Maxie to organize her thoughts about Viola’s accident.”

  “Accident?” Suzanne blinked rapidly several times. “I heard that Viola Richards was murdered, and right across the street in one of Maxie’s townhouses.”

  “The chief hasn’t said it was murder. He’s looking at it as an accident.”

  “But you don’t,” Suzanne stated, the finality in her voice making it more of a fact than a question.

  Puzzled as to why everyone kept saying that to her, Nicki frowned. “Why do you say that?”

  “Oh. It’s the look on your face.”

  Startled, Nicki shook her head. “Look? What look? I don’t have a look on my face.”

  “Of course you do,” Suzanne assured her. “It’s the same one you had when you came to my house after Catherine was killed, and those other times too. It’s like you’re concentrating on solving a puzzle in your head that only you can see.” Suzanne’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I don’t know quite how to explain it. I just think of it as your ‘murder look’.”

  “Is Maxie very upset over all of this?” Suzanne asked, switching topics again. “I don’t think she and Viola Richards were close, but the woman was murdered on Maxie’s property. She’s bound to feel some responsibility toward catching the killer.”

  Curious, Nicki leaned her hands against the counter and stared at Suzanne. “What makes you think they weren’t close?”