Silenced By Syrah

by Scott, Michele

  “Did they think so?” Nikki asked.

  “Georges and Baron? Oh, no. They didn’t know.”

  Nikki set her fork down after taking another mussel from the shell and savoring the flavor. She followed up with a little more wine. “Neither one knew that you were sleeping with the other?”

  “No. Why would I do that?”

  “Wait a minute though, Baron and Georges were friends, Georges had to have told Baron about you.”

  Lauren tilted her face toward the sun. “I sort of used the fact that I was married to Anthony at the time to my benefit in that case. I really didn’t want Georges telling people about our affair. I was helping him build his career, and a famous chef carrying on with his publicist sounds so seedy.”

  Because it is.

  “I told Georges not to tell a soul. Made him promise, which he did.”

  “And you don’t think he told Baron?” Nikki asked.

  “No. Baron is so Irish Catholic that every time we slept together he’d go to confession. He felt so ashamed but he couldn’t help himself. We were compatible in that way. He would have never told Georges because he was completely ashamed, which I found charming.”

  At first Nikki had thought she liked this woman, but now she saw her for what she was—sick and twisted. The last thing she would want to do was plan a marketing campaign with her.

  “How do you know that Baron didn’t find this out, about you and Georges? How do you know that Baron didn’t kill him because he really did know that the two of you were sleeping together?” Was Baron at the church to confess more than just sleeping with an almost-divorced woman, for having sex out of wedlock, for adultery? Or, was he there to confess to murdering his best friend?

  Lauren polished off her wine, took off her glasses, and looked Nikki straight in the eye. “Because, Nikki, Baron and I were in bed together that afternoon.”

  Salmon with Black Bean Sauce

  with Beaulieu Carneros Chardonnay

  The wine to pair with salmon in black bean sauce would be Beaulieu Carneros Chardonnay. This wine contains subtle flavors of green apple, pear, citrus, and hazelnut. It’s not a huge, oaky chardonnay, which allows the fruit to linger on the palate. Chardonnay can be a hard wine to pair with foods, but Nikki finds this one pairs well with seafood, mild cheeses, or a chicken salad.

  2 tbsp soy sauce

  2 tsp sugar

  2 tbsp olive oil (divided)

  2 tbsp cornstarch

  11⁄2 cups chicken stock

  4 salmon fillets (6 oz each, 1 inch thick)

  2 garlic cloves, minced

  1 tbsp peeled, minced fresh ginger

  2 tbsp jarred black bean sauce (available at grocery

  stores or Asian markets)

  2 tsp rice wine vinegar

  In a large bowl, combine soy sauce, sugar, and 1 tablespoon of the oil. In a small bowl, combine cornstarch and chicken stock.

  Make three slashes on skin side of each salmon fillet, cutting halfway into fish. Place salmon in shallow dish and pour soy-sauce marinade over it. Cover and refrigerate 30 to 60 minutes.

  In a medium saucepan, heat remaining tablespoon of oil and add garlic, ginger, and black bean sauce. Cook 1 to 2 minutes or until garlic is golden. Add vinegar and the cornstarch mixture. Bring to boil, then reduce to simmer. Cook 10 minutes, remove from heat, and keep warm.

  Remove fish from marinade and place on foil-lined broiler pan, about 3 inches from heat. Broil 4 to 6 minutes per side, or until cooked through. Serve salmon over rice topped with sauce. Serves 4.

  Mussels in Ancho Chile Butter Sauce

  with Château de la Ragotiere

  Muscadet de Sevre et

  Maine Cuvee M

  The wine to drink with this appetizer is Château de la Ragotiere Muscadet de Sevre et Maine Cuvee M.

  All the wines produced by the Couillaud brothers, Bernard, Francois, and Michel, are among the finest and most complex that the Muscadet appellation has to offer. This rare Cuvee M, however, is in a class by itself. According to AOC law, only wines aged on the lees for two years or less can include “sur lie” on the label. Cuvee M is aged for far longer. It is a rich, stony, mineral-driven wine. It’s outstanding with steamed clams or mussels.

  2 large dried ancho chiles

  2 cloves garlic

  1⁄2 cup butter

  20 fresh, live mussels

  11⁄2 cups dry white wine

  Note: New Mexico, pasilla, or California chiles can

  be substituted for ancho chiles.

  Put chiles in a bowl and cover with boiling water. When they are rehydrated, drain them and put them and garlic cloves in a food processor or blender; process until finely chopped.

  In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, melt butter. With machine running, add hot butter to chiles and garlic in a fine stream. Blend until color is homogeneous and mixture is smooth.

  Heat a sturdy pot until very hot, and add mussels. Once they start to “spit,” add wine, cover pot, and keep at high heat. Reduce to low after a minute or so, and continue to steam for 3 to 5 minutes, until mussels open; discard any that do not open. Serve with ancho chile butter sauce and French bread. Serves 4.

  Chapter 18

  Two hours later, Nikki drove back to Malveaux after having a cup of coffee and putting Lauren into a cab. The woman was smashed by the time lunch was over. Hell, she’d obviously been halfway there before lunch had started! Nikki pondered Lauren’s story. She could be telling the truth and nothing but, or everything she said could be a total fabrication, except for the part about who she was playing bed games with.

  A thought came to Nikki that churned up the paella digesting in her gut and gave her the willies. Baron saw her the other night at the church. What if those two—Lauren and Baron—were in cahoots on this thing? What if Baron did know about Georges? They were good pals, but what if Baron had a lot to benefit from Georges being dead—not just the woman, but something more? Nikki needed to hunt down Georges’ wills and trusts attorney and see who the bulk of his estate was going to. Probably Janie, but Georges seemed a generous guy and there was no telling what he was worth. He had a couple of restaurants, a couple of cookbooks garnering royalties, and the release of the new cookbook he’d worked on with Derek—Georges at the Vineyard Cookbook. Nikki intended to find out Georges’ worth and who was going to benefit from his death. Money and greed were among the primary motivations people killed for, and murder victims were usually killed by someone they knew.

  Baron and Lauren liked hooking up, and together could have decided that once Georges was out of the picture, they could get even more than, umm, just mere satisfaction from being together—some cash. Maybe the two planned the murder, used each other as an alibi, and now Baron, being the good Irish Catholic—which Nikki found nothing short of amusing—had to absolve himself of his sins behind confessional drapes. Or one could be far more the deceiver and using the other. One of them could stand to inherit a bundle, so the other with this knowledge could have calculated the whole thing, hooked the other into a relationship, did away with Georges, and the other none the wiser. But then that would blow the alibi thing out of the water.

  Unless it was all Lauren. Yes, Baron could be in the dark, and Lauren, with her own ties—though they be loose, from what she’d told Nikki—could have really been in bed with Baron at the time of the murder and had someone else do the dirty work. All of Nikki’s theories seemed plausible to her. Should she share them with Detective Robinson? Ah, but then the jerk would know he’d been dead-on when he’d accused her of being nosy, and he might even arrest her for . . . For what she didn’t know, but she wouldn’t put it past him to come up with something. Well, if he found out about the thing at the airport she was pretty certain there were at least a couple of laws she’d broken. No, she wasn’t going to go tattling to the detective until she spent some more time on the hunt. Because right about now, it was getting good.

  She pulled into the vineyard around three and
planned to go into the office for a few minutes just to touch base and check her messages, even though she was still officially off. The office gave her some sense of normalcy. Sure, Derek was giving her some time off, but she had obligations to her job, which was something she truly did love, and to stay involved would help her get through all of the insanity. She knew that if she slowed down for a minute, she would be haunted by thoughts of watching her place burn down, and she couldn’t even go there right now.

  She pulled up next to the offices, which blended nicely with the rest of the winery, done up in the same Mediterranean style. Odd that Derek’s Range Rover was parked there, and next to it, a silver blue convertible Beemer. Nikki’s dream car. Visions of cruising down the 101 with the top down, her hair blowing in the wind . . . Ah well, the Camry got good gas mileage and if it ever needed any work it wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg. But still, one of those little Beemers would be nice.

  She parked her car and went in. All was quiet. The office slowed down in the late afternoon and probably the events over the weekend had brought the day-to-day operations to a near standstill. Nikki couldn’t help wondering who Derek was with.

  She started to breeze by his office, the door half open, enough for her to hear a woman laugh. The owner of the dream car? Nikki picked up her pace. Get in, get messages, get out. Derek didn’t tell her about any meeting he had and she hadn’t seen anything on the schedule. She must be a friend.

  “Nikki? Is that you?”

  Nikki stopped, tightened her fists, released them, and peeked inside his office. His baby blues looked right at her.

  “Hey, Nikki, this is Renee Rothschild.”

  Renee turned around and smiled. Nothing short of beauty-queen gorgeous with her stupid sea green eyes, caramel-colored long hair, flawless beige skin—yeah beige, but the kind that is almost the color of a latte. A suit that Nikki knew came straight from the BCBG store, because she’d had to stop and gawk at it in the window when she’d been in the city yesterday preparing for her “deep undercover” stint. The suit—summery green, with a cream camisole underneath. The skirt—straight, at the knee, with a slit up the back, as Nikki knew. Very businesslike, with the perfect amount of sex appeal. Yep indeedy, Ms. Rothschild had to be the owner of the blue Beemer, and surely her hair blew in the wind while cruising down the 101 looking like Carmen Electra meets Jennifer Aniston, just enough brass with the class to look like a model in a Puff Daddy music video.

  Nikki smiled back and stepped in, her hand outstretched. Boy, did she feel meek in her J. Crew tee and jeans! “Nikki Sands. Nice to meet you.”

  “Ms. Rothschild is, I mean was, Georges’ editor at Rothschild Publishing.”

  “My father is the publisher,” Renee said.

  Of course. The Beemer, the suit, the fact that Renee looked under thirty and was a senior editor at a publishing house in the city—a job handed to her by good ole dad.

  “Renee came out to talk with me about Georges and the book,” Derek said.

  “Oh,” Nikki replied.

  “Why don’t you have a seat? I think maybe you should be in on this. I know I told you to take some time off, but Renee didn’t have a lot of time, and so I agreed to meet with her today.” Derek clasped his hands behind his neck and leaned back in his leather swivel chair. “Renee, you want to tell Nikki what you were just telling me? She’s my assistant and the winery manager; she may have some thoughts.”

  Renee nodded all of her caramel tresses in Nikki’s direction and again flashed her perfect smile. “Sure. I came out because, as you know, Georges’ new cookbook that he did in conjunction with Derek on the wines is scheduled to be released next month. Obviously, we have a problem because now with Georges gone we don’t—”

  Nikki interrupted, “You don’t know if you should print it.”

  “No, that’s not it. We’re definitely going to print it, but the thing is, we now have issues with the royalties. My assistant, Scotty, was able to get us an appointment with Georges’ attorney, Leonard Kingston, in the city for Thursday morning, but I’d really like to have my ducks in a row before we go in and meet with him. See, per our contract with Georges, the royalties in case of death would go to an heir, and I don’t know who that would be. I know he doesn’t have children, so it all depends on who he’s named in his will.”

  Nikki bit her tongue, not ready or prepared to bring up Janie. “What does this have to do with Malveaux?”

  “I needed to come out and meet with Derek to be certain that this is a venture he’s willing to go forward with and not break contract.” She looked at Derek and winked. “Which I know he wouldn’t, but now we have to get with whoever is going to be receiving the royalties and have them made aware of how things will work and so forth.”

  Nikki shifted in her chair, not really sure why she’d even been asked to join this meeting.

  “Did Georges mention anything to you about an heir, Nikki? I know you worked a bit with him on the cookbook,” Renee said.

  “Actually all I did was dictate notes from Derek, organize them for Georges, and pass them on. We didn’t get into anything personal. He didn’t say anything to me about an heir.” Well, he didn’t, but his daughter did.

  “No problem. He didn’t say anything to Derek either. I didn’t figure that he would, but it was worth a try. I really wanted to drive out and see the place, too. I know what it meant to Georges, and obviously it means a great deal to his coauthor.” Renee looked at Derek and uncrossed her long, tan legs. Nikki couldn’t help notice Derek glancing at them. “I’m certain when Scotty and I meet with Kingston on Thursday we’ll be able to get this all figured out.”

  “Scotty?” Nikki asked.

  “Yeah, as I said, he’s my assistant—Scott Nielsen. We go everywhere together. I need someone to keep me organized. He’s out sick today. At least that’s what he claims. He better be back in by Thursday or I don’t know what I’ll do. He’s the best, but he does this moonlighting thing, you know”—she lowered her voice—“he’s a female impersonator.”

  What was it with this woman? Just ’cause she drove a Beemer, looked like God’s gift to men, and her daddy provided her with endless amounts of cash under the guise that she had a real job, she couldn’t pick up the phone and make inquiries on her own? No. She had to have some poor schmuck named Scott do it.

  “I would deal with Leonard Kingston myself but he’s a really unpleasant bastard. I’ve dealt with him over the phone before, in a similar situation with an author’s estate. I’ve never personally met him, and the phone call was enough to turn me off. I want to go into his office with my guns loaded. My weapon of choice is Scotty. He has a way with people. I don’t know what it is with gay men, but they all seem to have that schmooze factor. I refuse to go meet Leonard Kingston without him.”

  Okay, so maybe she was a smart woman after all, or maybe a manipulative one, and she hadn’t been anything but nice to Nikki. However—and the pointer finger was raised here—Nikki could not help but notice the white-hot chemistry between Renee Rothschild and Derek.

  “You and your assistant go meet with Kingston then, and if there’s anything I can do on my end, let me know,” Derek said. “Why don’t you have Scott give either me or Nikki a call, since she’s now been made aware of the situation, and we’ll go from there.”

  “Sure. One other thing,” Renee said. “You know, I really liked Georges a lot. He was fun to work with and I’ll miss him. Rothschild Publishing specializes in cookbooks and some of these chefs can be difficult, but Georges wasn’t. He could be kind of silly if he’d had more than his share to drink, but he was a good man.”

  “I agree. I think Nikki would, too,” Derek replied.

  “That said, I know this might be short notice, but he told me how excited he was to be opening the restaurant here and how he wanted to have the book launch here. He was really enthusiastic. I understand that his body is being flown back to France for burial next week and since there won’t be an official cerem
ony here, I was wondering if Friday we could do something in his honor?”

  Oh, jeesh. Not only was she pretty, smart, and owned the dream Beemer, she was thoughtful, too.

  “That’s a great idea. We’ll do a dinner in his honor at the restaurant.” Derek smiled. “Make it informal, seeing how that’s only four days away, but I’m sure he would have liked that.”

  “Me, too,” Nikki said. Brilliant. That sounded brilliant. Here Renee goes on and eloquently discusses a tribute for Georges, Derek follows up with the right kind of input, and Nikki only adds a “me, too .” Yep, brilliant. “I can handle the arrangements,” Nikki added.

  “No. I’ll do it,” Derek said. “You’ve got enough things going on right now, and since you’ll probably be heading to Spain for a few months, I should get used to taking on some extra work.”

  “Spain?” Renee turned to her.

  “With her boyfriend,” Derek answered.

  “Sounds terrific. You’ll be coming back here though, I take it?” Renee asked.

  “Of course,” Nikki replied. She could feel embarrassment mixed with maybe a tad of anger stinging her cheeks. “I actually haven’t decided yet. I love my job here and don’t want to lose it, and Andrés isn’t really my . . .”

  “Now Nikki, we discussed it; you won’t lose your job here. You’re a valuable employee to me, and I’ve already told you that I’d like you to check out the countryside, see if there’s a plot for Malveaux over there.” Derek shifted in his chair and eyed her.

  Renee tossed her hair behind her shoulders. “Sounds like a dream. Not only Spain, but the job. How could you pass something like that up? You have to go.”

  Nikki stood and smiled. “Yeah, well, I need to check on a few things in my office and then, um, head over to my room.”