Days of Wine and Roquefort

by Avery Aames

  “Then get a badge.”

  I sighed. “I won’t do anything crazy.”

  “That’s a relative term.”

  I patted his arm. “I know.”

  Exhausted and in need of a good night’s sleep, I returned to the booth, ate two quick appetizers with my friends while sharing my encounters outside, and then bid them good night.

  I had dropped off Rags at home before heading to the pub. When I returned, he greeted me with a rousing yowl. He wasn’t scared. He was communicating that someone friendly was in the house. Silly cat didn’t realize that I had already spied my cousin’s car in the driveway.

  “Matthew?”

  “In here,” he called.

  I strode to the office; Rags followed. Before I reached the doorway, the strong odor of fresh paint hit me like a rousing tonic. My fatigue vanished. I peeked in. “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like?” Matthew crawled atop carpet padding while smoothing the padding with his hands to unfurl it. “I’ve painted the walls and resealed the cans.” A stack of paint cans stood in the far corner. All of the furniture that I hadn’t moved to the garage, including the antique file cabinet, a pair of Queen Anne’s chairs, and a floor lamp, were pushed to the side and covered with tarps. My sweet cousin had draped the mahogany bookshelves with tarps, as well. “I promised to help you with this project,” he said, huffing. “It’s the least I could do.”

  “Urso put you up to this.”

  “Did not.”

  “He wants you to watch over me.”

  “Haven’t spoken word one to him.”

  “Then Jordan or Meredith.”

  Matthew frowned. His eyebrows merged. “This was my very own idea. I have a few, you know.”

  “I didn’t mean . . .” I grinned. “What can I do to help?”

  Rags circled my ankles; his tail batted my trousers.

  “Grab the cat and stand to the side to watch my next magic trick.”

  I picked up Rags, who chugged his satisfaction. Matthew unrolled the newly dry-cleaned Persian carpet. I couldn’t believe how gorgeous and rich the blue central medallion had turned out. Amazing when dust was removed how a color could shine.

  “It’s stunning,” I said.

  “Now,” Matthew said as he removed the tarps from the furniture, “let’s put this stuff in place, and then we’ll fetch the desk. It’s okay to disassemble the crime scene, right?”

  I nodded.

  Ten minutes later, after rearranging what was already in the room, I set Rags into a Queen Anne chair and told him to stay. “Back soon.”

  As Matthew and I traipsed across the yard to the garage, I noticed his shoulders were tense and his neck rigid. I assumed he was tamping down the feelings that would boil up once he reentered the crime scene. I had visited the garage a number of times. I wasn’t inured, but I could breathe normally.

  When Matthew crossed the threshold of the garage, he halted and his back stiffened.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “I will be.” He strode to the secretary’s desk and ran his hand along the edge. “It’s beautiful. You and Noelle . . .” His voice caught. “You did good work.”

  “She said her paps—her grandfather—was a master builder.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Matthew moved to the far end of the desk and lifted. “I’ll walk backward.” As we carried the desk to the office, he said, “I keep thinking about the night she died, Charlotte. It haunts me. Her death was so brutal. And I can’t help thinking about those missing journal pages. They have to hold the key that she referred to. She was steadfast when it came to making notes. What if a Shelton Nelson Winery wine she tasted was bad? What if she wrote that in her notes?”

  “And that would be worth killing over because . . . ”

  “Subpar wines might be predictive of the winery’s future. That happened to Beaulieu Vineyards back in the 1990s when they released a batch of wine that tested positive for TCA, which is usually attributed to bad corks. It created a lot of bad press and consumer backlash.”

  “You’re suggesting that Shelton removed the journal pages to keep a tainted batch of wine a secret.”

  He nodded. “Or Liberty or Harold could have.”

  We positioned the desk on the carpet where it had stood before, then fetched the other office furniture and the Tupperware boxes filled with my parents’ love letters. After we set everything in place, I took in the room.

  “It looks beautiful, Matthew. Thank you. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  He turned to me, his eyes filled with moisture. “Charlotte, may I see Noelle’s room? Maybe something will jog my memory.”

  “Jordan encouraged me to do the same. Review every detail.”

  “When did you talk to him?”

  I paused. Heat rushed up my neck and cheeks. “Actually I saw him. He sneaked into town last night. He left before dawn.”

  “The devil he did.”

  Jordan’s clandestine visit made me think of Noelle and Shelton. “Matthew, the other day at your house, when you and Pépère were repairing the plumbing, you seemed surprised to hear Pépère say that Noelle and Shelton appeared intime.”

  Matthew grunted. “For all we know, Pépère misinterpreted the gesture. You know what I mean; either Noelle patted Shelton’s hand or whispered in his ear. Innocent, except to the observer.”

  “That’s not why I’m bringing up the subject. It bothered you that you didn’t know about her visit.”

  “Yes, of course it did.” He sighed. “But you know how it is. When you go to a town where you know a lot of people, you can’t always see everyone. And, honestly, wouldn’t you agree that people are an enigma? There are all sorts of things we don’t know about someone else’s life. You don’t know everything about Jordan’s. I don’t know everything about Meredith’s. But I intend to learn. That’s an investment of a lifetime.”

  He was right. I let the matter go.

  We climbed the stairs to the second floor. I swung open the door to the guest room. Matthew edged past me and stood in the middle of the room, pivoting as he scanned the space. I hadn’t found the wherewithal to pack up Noelle’s things yet. I didn’t have a clue where I would send them.

  “Where did you find the journals?” Matthew asked.

  “The diary was slotted into the cubbies of the desk. The wine journal was tucked between the mattresses.”

  “And both were missing pages?”

  I nodded. “Urso claims his guys have reviewed them and found nothing. Do you see anything I might have missed?”

  Matthew shook his head then pinched his lips together to prevent tears from falling from his eyes. The sight made my heart wrench.

  I said, “Let’s get something to eat. How does a smoked trout and Gouda sandwich on pumpernickel with sliced apples sound?”

  “Fine. In Noelle’s honor, I’ll open a bottle of the Maison Champy Bourgogne. She loved that wine.”

  After our meal, we adjourned to the office for an after-dinner drink. Matthew sat behind the desk; I nestled into one of the armchairs with Rags curled on the floor beside my feet. Over a tiny glass of port, we rehashed what Noelle could have written in her journals.

  “So many pages of her personal diary were dedicated to inspirational quotes,” I said. “Telling her not to quit and never give up. That might have been her way of exorcising her past.”

  “Her past?”

  “If she was a scam artist—”

  “A what? No way,” he said with force. “She was as honest as all get-out.”

  “Not even as a child? If coerced by her parents?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You really don’t know.” I filled him in about Noelle’s parents being grifters.

  “Wow.” Matthew rubbed his neck. “I had no clue. Maybe that’s why she was so rules-oriented as an adult. I remember once, when a customer used a counterfeit credit card, Noelle chased the guy for blocks to appre
hend him.” He sank into himself, looking even more discouraged than before. The woman he thought he knew had so many secrets. “Talk to me about the journals again. Describe them.”

  “On the last page of the wine-related journal, she had jotted the usual notes around the edges, as she was inclined to do. She wrote about the nose and aromas. A word was cut off: short. I guess she could have been hinting that the wine was short on flavor. The label was gone, but there was a stick figure drawing of a guy in a noose. Maybe the word short was part of a hangman game. A doodle.”

  “Or she was suggesting that whoever made an insubstantial wine was going to hang for what he or she did.”

  “That’s a hefty penalty, don’t you think?”

  Matthew set down his empty snifter and rose from the chair. He paced in front of the desk. “I keep thinking about the mud on her boots. Would she really have gone on a hike to Kindred Creek at night?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, too. Boyd said she wasn’t a nature girl.”

  Matthew stopped pacing mid-carpet. “What if she went somewhere else? The day we toured the winery, Shelton told us to be careful because the path was slippery. What if Noelle went there?”

  “Lois believed Noelle was investigating something. What if, on an earlier visit to town—the visit you didn’t know about—Noelle saw Harold meeting a lover clandestinely in Shelton’s tasting room?”

  “Harold has a lover?”

  “Boy, I thought you were up to date on all the gossip. Yes, he might. I’m not sure. But what if he does, and on the night Noelle died, she went to the tasting room to take compromising photos of Harold and his paramour?” I took a sip of port. “On the other hand, I remember Noelle saying that going on a hike would be like going on a quest. Taking photos of an affair doesn’t seem to fall into that category. What if she went to find something else, like evidence of the subpar wine you mentioned?”

  Matthew snapped his fingers. “The day we toured the place, Shelton was acting strangely. You know, showing off, as if trying to impress Noelle. I had expected some swagger—he’s a peacock of a guy—but his behavior was beyond normal for him.”

  “He was flirting with her.”

  “No, it was more like he was taunting her. You know, by revealing the secret passage and bragging about his extensive wine collection.”

  I sprang to my feet. “The key.”

  “What key?”

  “The four-inch-long one that Shelton used to open his wine vault.” I did a mental forehead smack. “How could we have forgotten that?”

  Matthew shook his head. “Noelle can’t have meant that key. Shelton wouldn’t have stored any subpar wines in with his private collection.” He resumed pacing. “No, the key has to be something else. Let’s go back to my previous assumption. Noelle stole into the cellar that night and found written evidence that SNW was making inferior batches of wine. Evidence could be key. Somehow Shelton, Liberty, or Harold found out she had been there.”

  “We’re onto something. Let’s call Urso.” I reached for the telephone on the desk.

  “No, wait.” Matthew restrained me. “We have to see for ourselves. We’ll sneak inside. We’ll make certain.”

  “But we don’t know what we’re looking for. The police can—”

  “Charlotte, I owe her.”

  “You owe—” My insides tensed. I had glided over Matthew’s past with Noelle. He was happily married now. What did it matter? Whatever his relationship had been with Noelle was no longer possible, and yet something nagged at me. I wrenched free of him. “Matthew, talk to me. The truth this time. What was your relationship with Noelle?”

  “I was her boss. She was my assistant.”

  “C’mon. It’s me you’re talking to. Did you lie to me before? Were you two romantically involved?”

  He drew in a deep breath and let it out. His face flushed crimson.

  “Did you date?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Were you in love?”

  He nodded.

  “When? For how long?”

  He glanced over his shoulder as if he thought a tabloid reporter might pop into the room. Ashley Yeats was nowhere near.

  I crossed to the door and closed it, and then I returned to the desk and sat down. “No matter what you say, I will not tell Meredith.” I eyed the Tupperware boxes. “I swear on the memory of my parents’ love.”

  Matthew’s shoulders sagged. “It was thirteen years ago, before I met Sylvie. Noelle and I were together for about eight months.”

  “Boyd was out of the picture?”

  “Definitely. Their teen romance was over. They were history.”

  “Did you and Noelle move in together?”

  “No, which is why I never mentioned her to anyone.” Matthew hesitated. “To you or Meredith. We talked about marriage, but in the end, she pushed me away. She couldn’t commit to me. She was so . . . private. She wouldn’t open up. The thought occurred to me that she might have been abused as a child, but she was very demonstrative and loving. We never talked about her parents. If only I’d known.” He bowed his head. “A month after we broke up, I met Sylvie and you know the rest.”

  A whirlwind romance, a hasty wedding, a marriage that lasted less than twenty-four months. Sylvie walked out on him and the twins, and a few years later, he moved back to Providence to make a fresh start.

  “You kept in touch with Noelle because you were still in love with her.”

  He nodded. “I followed her career. I introduced her to Shelton Nelson.”

  “You knew she got back together with Boyd.”

  “I told you, I warned her to stay away from him, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”

  A restless silence fell between us.

  Matthew ran his palm down the front of his face. I could only imagine what was zipping through his mind. Finally, he dropped his hands to his sides and said, “I should have been a better friend. I should have pried the truth out of her. I’m going to the winery, Charlotte. I’ve got to find out what she was investigating.”

  CHAPTER

  22

  I couldn’t very well let my cousin run off on a clandestine adventure by himself. He needed a flashlight, a dark-colored rain slicker, and someone who was thinking clearly—namely, me. So much for my halfhearted promise to Urso. I grabbed my purse and slipped into the Jeep’s passenger seat seconds before Matthew tore out of the driveway.

  The rain hadn’t let up. Water teemed in sheets across the windshield of the Jeep. Working at top speed, the wipers couldn’t keep the glass free of moisture.

  “How will we get inside?” Matthew whipped around a corner.

  “Aha,” I teased. “You didn’t think about that before we left the house, did you? Don’t worry. I can pick a lock.”

  His eyes widened.

  I hurried to add, “I’ve been locked out of my house once too often, and I carry the requisite tools with me.” I patted my purse.

  “We can’t go through the front door.”

  “I was thinking we’d go through the cellar. It’s remote and, if I recall, it’s secured with a simple lock. Whoa, swerve right. Parade stand at the northwest corner.” I shot a finger in that direction. “See it?”

  Matthew veered; the Jeep skidded. Matthew countered and regained control. “When the heck did those show up?”

  “Volunteers have been busy all week. Where have you been?”

  “You could’ve warned me.”

  “Don’t shout.”

  “I’m not shouting.”

  “And don’t speed. We don’t want Urso and his deputies pulling us over for a traffic violation.”

  Matthew snarled. “Aren’t you Miss Bossy?”

  “Sorry.” Nervous energy pulsed inside me and made me feel like I was a live wire flailing in an electrical storm. If only Matthew would be more rational. If only I felt he was on the wrong track. But he wasn’t. The mud on Noelle’s boots mattered. The missing pages in the journal were significant.


  Matthew drummed the steering wheel. As if hearing the questions cycling in my brain, he said, “Whatever she was after must have had something to do with that conversation you overheard between Liberty and Shelton Nelson.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Shelton and Liberty argued while we were on the premises. They couldn’t hold off. That means their emotions were running hot. Noelle’s presence triggered something. C’mon, humor me. Review what you heard.”

  “They were simply words. Phrases.”

  “Tell me again.”

  “Liberty said, ‘lover,’ then ‘phony,’ then ‘financial mess.’ It sounded like she was talking about a relationship that might cost Shelton a pretty penny. Right after that, she said, ‘. . . charted for disaster.’”

  Matthew turned right and headed north of town. “Go on.”

  As we passed roadside stores and the many farms we visited on a weekly basis, I continued. “Shelton said it was always about money for Liberty. She’s spoiled.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Except now, she appears to be changing for her fiancé. Perhaps to the extreme. It could be an act.”

  “Keep talking.”

  “The next thing I heard didn’t follow. Liberty said, ‘What label would you put on it?’ It sounded as if she needed to pigeonhole something.”

  “She could have been referring to the winery’s artwork. Labels are a big deal in sales nowadays.”

  “True, if they were talking about wine. But if they were talking about Noelle, perhaps Shelton didn’t want Liberty to label her a phony.”

  “Except you didn’t hear the two phrases together.”

  I swiveled in my seat. “You know, maybe Liberty was referring to Ashley Yeats. Where did he come from? Why did he arrive in town on the same day as Noelle? Why did he come to the winery? He bugs me.”

  “Me, too. Talk about a fake. Even his accent sounds bogus, not that I’m an expert on British accents.”

  “Yeats had some hold over Noelle. He emailed her. She ordered him to back off. Maybe his arrival in Providence triggered the argument between Liberty and Shelton.”

  As we passed the Bozzuto Winery, Matthew said, “You mentioned that Shelton said the word nose.”