by J. C. Eaton
“Didn’t I mention,” Lavettia said, “Thane Eldridge happens to be the man Arnold swindled in that real estate deal.”
Chapter 27
“Prissy little coward, too, that Arnold,” Thane Eldridge said. “When I took over as the CEO for Seneca Lake Communities Bank, he couldn’t get his monies out of there fast enough. Got news for you, Arnold. You can’t take it with you, but we can. We’ll be on that plane long before Yates County decides to send a sheriff’s car to this location. What will be it be, Marvin? That iPad you’ve got in your briefcase or do I need to make Miss Ellington boot up the winery computer?”
Marvin didn’t get a chance to respond. Clayton stood up, put his hands on his hips, and stomped his foot. “This is so unfair! Unfair I tell you! I was supposed to get that inheritance. Do you mean to tell me we’re all bound to that old will?”
“I’m afraid so,” Marvin said.
Then, out of the blue, Rob Tapscott lit into Miller Holtz. “I thought you said you were getting the money Uncle Miller. You had it all planned. The wine manipulation…the money…the…”
“Shh, now’s not the time, Scottie.”
Scottie? Scottie? Where did I hear that name before? Oh my gosh—Tapscott!
It all began to make sense. Too bad there was a nutcase with a gun pointed our way. Scottie, aka Rob Tapscott, not only made cheesecake deliveries for the nuns, but he was also the part-time limousine driver responsible for telling his mother’s friend about the Pinot Noir scarcity. Was that what Theo had been trying to tell me? And to think our own rep was responsible for that diabolical plot and his nephew was the one who used the nuns’ van for the stolen wine. Hope you enjoy your jail time, Miller. Absorb our losses, my butt!
“You have three seconds to get your hands on your iPad.” Lavettia pointed one finger at Marvin while aiming the gun with her other hand.
Just then, one of those little wispy pieces of fake snow landed on her neck and she moved her finger-pointing hand to that spot.
“STOP!” Godfrey yelled. “DON’T MAKE A MOVE. THAT’S A BROWN RECLUSE SPIDER ON YOUR NECK. I SHOULD KNOW. I’M AN ENTOMOLOGIST FROM CORNELL. DON’T MAKE A MOVE!”
Lavettia remained perfectly still, but everyone else in the vicinity began to back away, moving their chairs or, in Sister Gloria Mae’s case, making a dead run for it.
Godfrey, who was directly behind Lavettia, lowered his voice, but not his tone. “The brown recluse from the Loxoscelidae family is a highly venomous spider. Don’t move. Whatever you do, don’t move. One bite and it’ll produce a necrotic skin lesion. That is, if you’re lucky. Otherwise, it will result in a viscerocutaneous reaction in the bloodstream. Whoa! Don’t want to go there.”
The high-pitched scream practically shattered the windows. It was followed by shrieks of “Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!”
No one dared make a move. Except Godfrey. He took a step closer to Lavettia and held both hands out in front. “Stay still. I’m going to find a broom or something so that I can get the spider off your neck. Oh, I forgot to mention. If you’re nervous, the brown recluse will sense it and begin to bite like crazy!”
No sooner did he say that than Lavettia lost all control and waved her arms in the air, forgetting momentarily she had a gun in one of them. It thudded on the floor at the very second the power went out. I figured the winds must have downed a power pole somewhere along the road.
“Help me!” she shouted. “Will someone please help me!”
At first, it seemed as if the room went totally black, but as my eyes adjusted to the absence of light, I realized the battery-operated tea lights on the mantels gave off enough hazy illumination for the chaos that ensued. Lavettia was still screaming her lungs out but thankfully, without the gun.
The gun was somewhere on the floor. Godfrey and Bradley were on all fours, desperately trying to retrieve it. Two seconds later, they were joined by Sam and Roger.
“Does this place have a back-up generator?” Thane Eldridge demanded.
“No,” I said, “only the winery lab.”
“Get a flashlight,” Clayton yowled. “That damn spider could’ve gotten off of Lavettia and jumped to one of our shoulders.”
His remark was followed by screams, shrieks, and howls.
“I tried to warn you, Glenda,” Zenora announced. “The tea leaves told me a dark spirit would descend on this place. It’s not too late. I have matches.”
The words came bellowing out of my mouth as I tried to locate Zenora. “No matches! You’ll burn the place down. I don’t care how many brown recluse spiders are holed up in here for the winter.”
“Spiders? You mean there’s more than one?”
I wasn’t sure which one of the nuns asked that, but the minute she did, the screaming reached an entirely new decibel.
“It’s still on me,” Lavettia shouted. “Get it off! Get it off! I can feel it biting me. It’s biting me. I’m going to die of blood poisoning.”
At that point, the crowd was all over the place and a few of our folding chairs were knocked to the ground. Oddly enough, I didn’t hear a word from Cammy, Glenda, or Lizzie. I glanced at the back corner, where they were standing, and not one of them made a move. I figured they were too petrified to budge.
“Got it!” Sam exclaimed. “I’ve got the gun! Oh crap! Now my fingerprints are on the damn thing! Hey! What the hell? Get your foot off my hand! Someone’s stepping on me!”
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll hand me that gun.” Thane’s voice was oddly devoid of any emotion.
“Can’t hand someone a gun with broken fingers,” Sam replied. “Besides, I’m not that stupid.”
Thane bent down to reach for the gun and, in a flash, Sam used his free hand to land a nasty punch to the guy’s groin. I didn’t know which was worse, Lavettia’s screams to get the spider off her or Thane’s primordial howl. In seconds, Bradley, Theo, and Don had wrestled Thane to the ground while Sam’s shaky hand held the gun.
“Don’t point it at anyone,” I said. “And, for heaven’s sake, whoever has a cell phone, call the sheriff’s office. Maybe the reception is back.”
“Good for you!” Lizzie cheered. “Safety first. That’s one of Nancy Drew’s basic tenets.”
I felt like punching Nancy Drew in the face.
Then, like something out of a bad horror movie, Lavettia kicked over the nearest chair and started to tear her clothes off. The coif and wimple surrounding her neck and chest came off first. Her platinum wig got caught up in the fabric and it, too, came off, revealing her naturally curly brown hair.
“I’m…going…to…die…of…that…necrotic…blood thing…” she sobbed, gasping for breath, “and no one’s helping me.”
Godfrey covered his mouth and turned away.
“It will be a fast, gruesome death, won’t it?” Lavettia asked between sobs.
“I can’t let this continue,” Godfrey said before bursting out laughing.
“You think it’s funny?” Lavettia shot back at him. “You’re a horrible, sick individual to watch someone die in front of you!”
And look what the pot’s calling the kettle!
“You’re not going to die,” Godfrey said. “That wasn’t a brown recluse spider on your neck. It was a piece of that cottony snow from those mantel decorations. In fact, the brown recluse spider isn’t even native to this part of the country. They’re mainly down south and in the western states.”
I’d heard of people going ballistic but, up until that minute, I never really knew what that meant. Lavettia picked up the nearest folding chair, held it over her head, and made a mad dive at Godfrey. The Wildlings from Game of Thrones had nothing on her.
Fortunately, Godfrey stepped aside, but the chair came plummeting down on the rectangular table that housed the framed homage to Arnold Mowen. Broken glass from the picture frames scattered al
l over the floor.
Still, that didn’t stop Lavettia’s rampage. The only thing that did was when Sister Gloria Mae crawled on the ground and grabbed Lavettia’s ankle, causing her to tumble over a few more chairs before she landed between Marvin Souza and the buffet table.
Suddenly, the lights flickered and the power came back on. The banquet room looked like it was last used for a fraternity party and not the reading of someone’s will. Bradley, Theo, and Don were still restraining Thane Eldridge, but at least they no longer had him in a headlock.
Sam was a few feet away, the gun still firmly in his grip. As for Lavettia, Sister Gloria Mae was standing over her, one foot on her back. The young nuns were out of their seats and huddled together near Sister Mary Katherine, while my employees and Godfrey Klein were doubled over laughing.
I gave them a quick shrug, to which Cammy replied, “We knew it was the fake snow all along. Your buddy gave us a wink before he caught Lavettia’s attention with that spider ruse.”
Behind me, I heard Clayton and Marvin arguing.
“Arnold meant for the new will to go to me,” Clayton said. “I’m the real beneficiary.”
“Not according to the state of New York,” was Marvin’s reply.
“I’ll contest it. I’ll fight it. I’ll…”
I stepped away and scanned the room. Everyone was accounted for, except for two people—Miller Holtz and Rob Tapscott. I was about to ask if anyone had seen them when Fred and Emma came into the room, followed by Deputy Hickman and a female deputy sheriff, who looked to be my age. Fred charged toward me and grabbed my arm.
“When we heard a ruckus in here, I took a peek and saw the nuns fighting. Then one of them pulled out a gun, so I phoned the sheriff’s office and gave them a blow-by-blow description of what I saw. Looked like total chaos.”
“It was,” I answered. “Did you tell them Lavettia was the killer? Did you hear her confess?”
“Oh, yeah. She’s got a voice like a longshoreman.”
Emma quickly caught up to her husband. “They’ve got Miller Holtz and that other guy in one of the sheriff’s cars out front. What the heck did they do? Yates county sent two cars, and another showed up from Seneca County.”
“Wine theft,” I replied. “But how did they know? Miller only let it slip a few minutes ago, before Lavettia had a meltdown.”
“Fred’s was the second phone call,” Theo shouted. “Hey, will someone please cart this guy away? My hands are getting tired.”
“Second phone call?” I asked, as the female deputy zip-tied Thane’s wrists and took him into custody.
Deputy Hickman walked toward me and gave Theo a glance. “Mr. Buchman phoned our office about a suspicious conversation he overheard in your restroom. Normally we wouldn’t respond to that sort of thing, but apparently, Mr. Buchman recorded it.”
“Huh?” I was flabbergasted. So that’s what he was trying to tell me. “Recorded it? How?”
“With some sort of an app on his phone. We’ve got enough evidence to book him for those wine thefts and the wine sabotage. Seems Mr. Miller had quite the plan to manipulate wine prices by tightening the supply and hyping the demand.”
“Lavettia Lawrence is alive and well.” My voice rose to a fever pitch. “She’s the one who murdered Arnold Mowen and then pretended to be her sister, a nun at the Convent of the Holy Sepulcher. Did I mention she killed her sister? It was all about money. Money and revenge. Oh, and she had a cohort, too. Thane Eldridge, the guy your partner handcuffed.”
Meanwhile, Sam was still holding Lavettia’s gun when Deputy Hickman’s partner drew out her own weapon and pointed it at him. “Drop it before I shoot!”
“I’m the good guy!” Sam exclaimed. “You want to arrest someone, go for the fake nun on the floor.” He dropped Lavettia’s .22 and kicked it toward the deputies. “That’s a hell of a thanks!”
Deputy Hickman pulled Lavettia up and read her the Miranda Rights. She, in turn, threatened to sue Godfrey for misrepresentation. Meanwhile Marvin and Bradley were head-to-head, and I imagined they were trying to figure out whether they should continue with the reading of the will.
As it turned out, they did. It was at a little past two, after the Seneca County deputies took Miller and Rob (aka Scottie) into custody and Deputy Hickman and his partner did the same with Lavettia and Thane.
“Dessert anyone?” Fred asked, once the Sisters of the Holy Sepulcher were informed that God had indeed answered their prayers, and everything had been left to them. Clayton, however, was totally bereft. It was only when Sister Mary Katherine informed him they would pay him generously to run the Lake-to-Lake Wine Distribution business that he perked up.
With Rob Tapscott under arrest, Sister Gloria Mae volunteered to drive the school bus back to Lodi. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I drove camp buses during the summers when I was in college.”
The winds were still in full force, but, as predicted, the snow held off until the next day. Marvin and Bradley headed out with the nuns. Bradley pulled me aside in the foyer and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Dinner Friday?”
“You bet.”
Theo, Don, and the Two Witches Winery crew, along with Godfrey, cleaned the kitchen and straightened out the banquet room. Theo swept up the broken glass from Arnold’s picture frames. Even Zenora helped.
“You’d enjoy working at this winery,” I overheard Glenda telling her. “Much better than selling those essential oils. That business is becoming too bourgeois.”
I gritted my teeth and shuddered. If both of them worked here, it wouldn’t be Two Witches. More like Two Wackos. Then, I suddenly realized what Arnold had meant by insisting his will be read at our winery. He told Marvin “It was all in the name.”
That was when I realized what, or should I say, whom, he was referring to—Lavettia and Luella Lawrence. They were his two witches. Reading his will here was definitely apropos, if not unsettling.
Chapter 28
Fred and Emma made all of us “care packages” from the leftover food on the off-chance the major snow event that was predicted actually happened.
As the entourage walked to the front door, I said “Turn on your radios tomorrow. Oh my gosh. It is tomorrow. Yikes. It’s past three. Anyway, check the forecast. If that storm arrives early, we may need to open late. I’ll post it on our website and Facebook page.”
“Do you want us to wait while you set the alarm and lock up?” Theo asked.
From behind me, I heard Godfrey. “I can do that. You folks go ahead.”
Theo gave the door a pull and it latched behind him. I turned to Godfrey, who was standing a few feet away. “Thanks. I just need to set the alarm and turn off the lights.”
“That was one hell of a show. No one in their right mind would ever believe me.”
“You’re not going to say anything to Jason and Francine when you get them on the satellite phone, are you?”
“Of course not. The Satphone can be used only for official research station business and updates on the global invasive species map.”
“Um, about species…that was really clever of you to pull that stunt. I seriously thought Lavettia was going to wind up shooting one of us.”
“Yeah, that thought crossed my mind, too. Hey, do you need a ride back up to your house?”
“No, I parked my car near Alvin’s pen. Goat’s got enough hay to last through the storm, if we get one. So far, it’s only wind and some light flakes.”
“It could’ve been worse, you know. That storm could’ve arrived early and trapped all of us in here.”
“Aargh. Perish the thought.”
Godfrey walked me to my car and even held the door open for me. “This probably isn’t the best time to ask, but have you given any thought to my invitation for Christmas? It’s at Alex’s place this year, so you already know the host.”
“I
, er, I…”
And then, he offered up that smile of his. Call it an impulse or a sudden lapse in judgment, but I leaned toward him and brushed his cheek with a quick kiss. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
* * * *
The winds continued all night, but the light snowflakes turned to rain, and the rain got heavier. Then the temperature dropped. When I turned on the radio in the morning, I heard the following announcement:
“Expect damaging winds and some power outages. All roads in Yates, Ontario, and Seneca Counties are closed. Repeat. All roads in Yates, Ontario, and Seneca Counties are closed.”
I poured out some kibble for Charlie and made myself a cup of coffee. “It was all about greed and money,” I said to the dog. “But there’s one bit of good news. If we ever decide to hold a costume party at Two Witches, I know just the guy to call.”
Sneak Peek
While waiting for Norrie Ellington’s next adventure in the
fourth book of THE WINE TRAIL MYSTERIES (March 2019)
don’t miss J.C. Eaton’s bestselling
The Sophie Kimble Mysteries!
STAGED 4 MURDER
by J.C. Eaton is available now from your
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Turn the page for a quick peek!
Chapter 1
Sun City West, Arizona
The wet sponge that hung over the Valley of the Sun, sapping my energy and making my life a misery for the past three months, wrung itself dry and left by the end of September. Unfortunately, it was immediately replaced by something far more aggravating than monsoon weather—my mother’s book club announcement. It came on a Saturday morning when I’d reluctantly agreed to have breakfast with the ladies from the Booked 4 Murder book club at their favorite meeting spot, Bagels ’N More, across the road from Sun City West. I arrived a few minutes late, only to find the regular crew talking over each other, in between bites of bagels and sips of coffee.
