by Cat Chandler
Madge was standing behind the counter. Even taller than Jenna, she towered over the register, her gray hair sporting a wide streak of blue down one side. Nicki grinned. When she’d seen Madge at the supermarket the week before, that streak of hair had been a neon pink.
Maxie leaned over the counter and gave Madge a hug. “I’m happy to see you. We missed you at the last planning luncheon for our upcoming charity event.”
“Couldn’t be helped. My son and his kids were visiting.” The shop owner waved at Nicki. “How are you doing? Met that friend of yours. Jane? She came in here yesterday and told me you’d be by. She spent some time back in the Historical Society. Then she left without buying anything.” Having made that point clear, Madge crossed her arms and waited.
“I know. She told me she forgot to pick up a coffee cup she’d seen.” Nicki glanced at the shelf directly behind her. “The one with the dancing grapes.”
“Well that’s fine.” Madge unfolded her arms and tapped a finger on the counter. “You go ahead and grab one and leave it right here until you’re done shopping.”
Nicki picked up the large mug with grapes sporting arms and legs doing high-kicks and showing off their tennis shoes. Thinking Jane would definitely be taking it home with her because it wasn’t staying in her kitchen, Nicki walked over to another display rack and picked up a wine glass with gold accents around the rim. She already had about a half dozen of them. Carrying them back to the register, she set the two items down, right next to the package of napkins that Maxie wanted.
“Will that do it for you, then? I’ll hold them while you take a look in the back. And don’t forget the rules. No packages or purses can be taken into that back area.” Madge started to ring up the purchases as soon as Maxie handed her two twenty-dollar bills along with her purse.
“I’ll be paying for Nicki’s since she’ll be buying lunch today.”
“That’s fine by me. I hope you have some luck back there. That Jane friend of yours couldn’t find the picture the other one asked me about.”
Nicki held her breath. “What other one, Madge?”
“That short lady with the frizzy bottle-blond hair. Said she was a guest of Maxie’s, so I didn’t get too upset when she didn’t buy anything. But I wasn’t sorry I couldn’t help her.”
“Do you remember the picture at all?” Nicki asked, keeping her fingers crossed behind her back.
“It looked like some wine event. Had a bunch of pictures all on the same page. The one she wanted to know about had Charlie in it and a couple of other men standing next to some grapevines. They were probably wine people. I don’t drink anymore. Haven’t been in a winery in over a decade. So if they were winery people, I wouldn’t know them. Especially if they don’t come into my shop. They were hard to make out, but I don’t remember seeing them in here”
Nicki looked toward the back where the town’s tiny Historical Society housed its collection. “Did the woman bring a book over and show you this picture?”
“Nope.” Looking slightly offended by the question, Madge stood up straighter so she towered over Nicki. “But she couldn’t do that, now could she? There’s signs posted in there that say you can’t take anything past the orange line.”
“So, she had the picture with her?” Nicki persisted.
Madge pursed her lips and pointed at a shelf near the front window. “Maybe that friend of yours would like a nice coaster to put under that coffee cup?”
“I’m sure she would,” Nicki quickly agreed. “Could you add that to our pile here?”
All smiles again, the shop owner nodded. “I’ll do that right now. Oh, and that other woman did have a paper with her, as I recall. The picture she pointed at wasn’t very big, so it was kind of hard to recognize anyone, but like I said, I’m almost sure I saw Charlie in it.”
“Almost sure?” Maxie smiled. “That’s certainly good enough for us. Thank you, dear. We’ll just go on back now.”
Knowing there must be hundreds of pictures in the society’s records, and no guarantee any of them would be the one Viola had brought with her, Nicki dutifully laid her purse on the counter. Heading straight for the back, she took the small step up, with a bright orange line across it, that separated the Historical Society’s space from the rest of the shop.
Since she’d looked over the collection of books there before, Nicki went right to the section where the history of the local wineries was shelved. It was only a few minutes later that Maxie joined her with a pile of books in her arms, and the two women took their separate finds to the only table with its two chairs in the room. A half hour later, Maxie leaned back in her chair and tapped a polished nail on the open book in front of her.
“Didn’t you say you’d found a reference to Enfui, Marie Fabron’s winery?”
Looking up, Nicki reached for a small volume she’d set apart from the other books in front of her. “In here. Why? What have you found?”
Maxie’s eyebrows drew together as she continued tapping her finger. “What did your book say about Enfui’s current owners?”
The book wasn’t very long, so Nicki easily located the short paragraph on the small boutique winery.
“Enfui,” she started to read out loud. “A small boutique winery known for its chardonnays, is located just outside the town of Soldoff in the heart of the Sonoma wine country. It was originally owned by the Stansons, one of the oldest families in the valley.”
Nicki paused and skimmed down the paragraph. “It says the winery was bought by Marie Fabron in 1988, after she migrated to the valley from the commune of Nuits-Saint-Georges in the Burgundy region of France. She turned over the daily management to her son, Christophe Fabron, when she retired, and he still runs it to this day.” Nicki paused again as the paragraph gave a few compliments to the wine produced by Enfui, and concluded with the information that the winery itself was not open to visitors, but had a tasting room located in town.
When she was finished, she looked at Maxie who was nodding in satisfaction. The genealogist picked up her book and started reading.
“The Maison du Vin was established by Henry Ingram over sixty years ago when he came to the valley from the commune of Nuits-Saint-Georges in France. It is currently run by his grandson, Adam Ingram.” Maxie took off her reading glasses and set them on the table before folding her hands in front of her and looking at Nicki. “Isn’t that a coincidence?”
Nicki couldn’t argue with that. “I’ve heard of Nuits-Saint-Georges. I think it’s the end point of one of the stages of the Tour de France, as well as producing very good wine grapes.” She frowned, searching her memory. “It isn’t a very large town.”
“About five thousand,” Maxie said, tapping on her book again. “A very small place for two different winery owners to just happen to land in another very small town thousands of miles away.”
“But thirty years apart,” Nicki said. “Marie Fabron came here in 1988, and Adam’s grandfather arrived much earlier than that if he came sixty years ago.”
“So you think it is simply a coincidence?”
“No, not really,” Nicki admitted. “I just can’t see how they’re connected.”
Maxie closed her book and put her glasses away. “Well, I can certainly tell you this. Henry Ingram may have come here from France, but that is a very English name.”
She rose and picked up her stack of books, carefully returning them to their appropriate places on the bookshelf. Still thinking about what Maxie had said, Nicki followed suit and put her books away. After they’d picked up their purchases and said their goodbyes to a smiling Madge, the two headed out toward Maxie’s car.
“What do you make of it?” Maxie’s question broke the silence as they walked along.
“I don’t know.” Just then Nicki’s stomach growled again. “But whatever it is won’t come to me until I eat something.” She smiled at Maxie. “I’d be happy to treat us to lunch, or I can make us a ham and cheese sandwich back at my place.”
“Where we can talk much more freely.” Maxie smiled. “A ham and cheese sandwich it is.”
They’d almost reached the spot where they’d left the car when Nicki heard her name called out. She briefly closed her eyes. She’d recognize Chief Turnlow’s voice even if he tried to disguise it. Which of course he never did. Putting a smile on her face, she turned around.
“Hi, Chief. How are you today?”
“Oh, fine, just fine.” The big man stuck his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “I understand you paid a visit to the station house yesterday?”
“Now that you mention it, Jane and I did drop in to check on whether or not you had any follow-up questions. But, you weren’t there.” Nicki laughed. “As you already know.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Uh huh. Why don’t we take a little walk?” He glanced over at Maxie. “I’m sure Mrs. Edwards won’t mind waiting in the car for a few minutes.”
“There’s no use trying that formal police tone on me, Paul. And I’m not senile.” Maxie snorted. “I don’t need to wait in the car like someone’s elderly grandmother. I’ll just stand right here to make sure you don’t bully poor Nicki.”
The chief smiled. “I’m only going to talk to her, Maxie. No bullying involved.”
Nicki sighed. That might very well be, but she knew she’d been caught pumping Fran for information, so she was sure the police chief wasn’t happy with her at all. Resigned to the stinging lecture she was no doubt going to get, she kept her smile in place.
“Lead the way, Chief.”
Chapter One Hundred Eighteen
The chief kept walking until they reached an empty bench. It was relatively secluded behind a ring of bushes just off the center of the square. He propped one foot on the wooden seat and leaned his forearm across his raised knee.
“I thought I told you and your friends to stay away from this one, Nicki.”
Nicki sighed before she took a seat and scuffed her tennis shoes back and forth in the dirt. “I know you did. But Viola Richards was murdered right across the street, and she was here, well, sort of at Maxie’s invitation, and certainly with her agreement.”
“What do you mean she was ‘sort of’ here at Maxie’s invitation?”
“I think if you asked Maxie, she’d say Viola invited herself to Soldoff, for a vacation that wasn’t a vacation.” Nicki shrugged. “She also invited herself to use Maxie’s car, and to dinner every night at my place.”
The chief grunted. “Sounds like she was either very tight with her money or she didn’t have any.”
“It turns out that she was working pretty hard at trying to drum up a few clients here in Soldoff, which is why she went to see Sam.”
“So most likely no money.” The chief watched the people strolling along the path leading past the grapevine statue. When he caught Nicki studying him, he chuckled. “Old habit, looking at everyone as a potential suspect.”
He set his foot back on the ground and ran a hand over the top of his head. “Doesn’t sound like she was on a vacation, which means she was either broke and looking for any free place to stay, or she deliberately came to Soldoff.”
Everything inside Nicki said Viola’s trip here was deliberate. But she had nothing to back that up except a feeling.
“I wanted to ask you a follow-up question about the morning the victim died.”
Nicki shook off her thoughts about why Viola Richards came to Soldoff and put her attention on the chief. “Yes?”
“You stated that you had gone out running that morning and then drove to the market. Is that correct?”
All too aware of where this line of questioning was going, Nicki took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That’s correct, Chief. And no, I didn’t see anyone on the road into Maxie’s property, or in front of Viola’s townhouse. No person, no car, no motorcycle. I didn’t see anything or anyone that morning. Not even a gopher.”
The chief nodded. “Didn’t think so. Maxie said the same thing when I asked her the same thing, since she’d driven over to your place that morning. But I’ve sent Danny out to search the field and the stretch of woods behind the townhouse. Maybe he’ll find tracks of some sort.”
“It’s quite a walk in from town,” Nicki said. “And if someone cut through the woods, I would have noticed a car parked on the side of the road when I went to the market.”
“It’s a long shot, but we’ll check it out.” Chief Turnlow took up his usual pose of standing with his legs braced slightly apart and his hands in his pockets. “Now, you want to tell me what you managed to get out of Fran?”
Immediately coming to the defense of the longtime police department clerk, Nicki held up her hands in denial. “She didn’t tell us anything, or leave anything on the counter, or post anything to the bulletin board…”
“… or make a copy,” the chief finished for her. “Good to know my clerk actually heard all of my instructions. So what did I miss?” When Nicki remained silent, he frowned. “Okay, Nicki. Let’s have it.”
She leaned back against the bench and crossed her arms. “She might have read the crime scene report out loud while I happened to be standing at the counter filling out a form.”
“And you just happened to overhear it?” He rolled his eyes upward. “Have to hand it to all of you for creativity. What form did you fill out? I don’t remember seeing any new complaints come across my desk.”
Squirming a little, Nicki did her best to sound as casual as possible. “For a missing pet.”
“Have you suddenly acquired a dog or a cat?”
Taking issue with the amusement in the chief’s voice, Nicki stubbornly held her ground. “Not yet, but I was thinking about it.”
“Uh huh. Well I can understand why you’d want to report it missing before you even got one.”
“I was practicing,” Nicki said, then relented and smiled when the chief laughed.
“Hear anything in that report that stuck out for you?” the chief asked.
“Just that everything around the desk was wiped clean of fingerprints, and that you checked what time Viola had set her alarm for that morning.”
“Eight thirty,” the chief stated. “So she wasn’t expecting company. At least not first thing in the morning.”
“I guess not.” Nicki was back to thinking about why Viola had come to Soldoff in the first place, when an odd thought crossed her mind.
“You were waiting for us just now.” She tilted her head back to look up at the chief. “How did you know where to find us?”
He smiled. “I was a pretty good detective before I was a police chief.” He chuckled when she gave him a skeptical look. “I went out to visit Charlie. He told me he’d sent you to Madge’s shop to take a look at the historical records. Find anything interesting?”
“Just an odd coincidence,” Nicki admitted. She gave him a shortened version of how Maxie had discovered that the founders of two of the wineries on Viola’s calendar had come to Soldoff from the same small town in northern France.
“But thirty or so years apart,” Nicki concluded.
The chief didn’t look impressed. “Too much time for there to be a tight connection between them. I asked Adam Ingram how well he knew Marie, or Christophe Fabron, or Charlie. He said he’s friends with Charlie but his only contact with Christophe is through a couple of professional associations they both belong to. Said the guy has always kept to himself, and he doesn’t know Christophe’s mother, Marie, at all. He’s only met her a couple of times since she was more in his father’s generation of winery owners than his.”
“Everyone’s friends with Charlie,” Nicki said absently. “Nuits-Saint-Georges is the only connection we found between any of the wineries or their owners.”
The chief took a small notebook with a pencil attached to it from his shirt pocket. “How do you spell that?” When Nicki obligingly spelled it out, he scribbled it down then put the notepad back into his pocket. “I’ll have Fran check her cell phone for any calls made there.”<
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Nicki’s eyebrows winged upward. “Cell phone? You have Viola’s cell phone?”
Chief Turnlow nodded. “Yep. It was in the nightstand next to her bed. Luckily she used the same password for the cell phone as her laptop.” He rolled his shoulders and Nicki could hear the small creaking noises as he moved. “The only calls she made outside of Europe were to that assistant of hers, who lives in Buffalo, New York. No other domestic calls in the last few months. Not even after she was set up in Maxie’s townhouse. Maxie said they communicated solely through email.”
“Which was erased along with the files, I suppose?” Nicki asked, not at all surprised when the chief nodded.
“That’s right. And along with any other emails she may have sent to someone here.”
“Do you think she came to Soldoff to meet with someone she already knew?”
The police chief shrugged. “That’s the most likely scenario. Someone who didn’t want her around. Charlie’s made a couple of trips to Europe in the last few years, and so has Sam. Adam Ingram’s wife, Allie, went to France on a girls’ trip last May with a couple of her friends according to her husband, and I haven’t gotten around to talking to Christophe Fabron yet.” He shifted his weight and stared down at Nicki. “Which reminds me. How far down the victim’s calendar have you gotten?”
“Not as far as you have, Chief.” Nicki pursed her lips. “I was thinking about doing a little wine tasting here in town tomorrow.”
“I understand Allie Ingram will be working in their winery’s tasting room. She’s been staying in town during the day so she can pick up their teenager after school. It seems their son has landed in hot water over hacking into the school’s computers. I still need to make it out to talk to Marie Fabron. I understand she doesn’t leave her home much anymore.” He paused and considered his audience of one for a moment. “I meant to tell you that Melinda Orker is flying in tomorrow.”
That took Nicki by surprise. Melinda? Viola’s assistant from Buffalo?
