Wined and Died: A Home Crafting Mystery

by Cricket McRae.

  “You’re probably right. Never mind.” What was I thinking, asking her to do that? Sheesh.

  Felix turned back to us.

  I kissed Tootie on the cheek. “Thanks for sharing your garden, and the information.”

  As I turned to go around to the front of the building where my Land Rover waited in the parking lot to ferry me to the next stop on my to-do list, Felix called from the doorway. “I don’t know what you want with ol’ Normal, but you be careful, Sophie Mae. And that Jakie is a mean one, too. Stay away from him.”

  My Winding Road obligations called to me, but I couldn’t resist taking a detour on the way back home. Slightly cloudy turned to completely overcast on the short drive from Caladia Acres to the Blackwell Building, and by the time I’d found parking on the street, a few scattered drops were spattering my windshield.

  Who—or what—the heck was Jakie, I wondered as I hurried down the block. Felix made him sound like a badly behaved Rottweiler.

  The Blackwell Building was a former residence, a large Victorian house on the edge of Cadyville’s downtown historical district. The scrolls and gingerbread and curlicues boasted garish colors seemingly chosen for their unique ability to jar the senses and induce a mild feeling of nausea. Chartreuse warred with fuchsia and orange, bright against the gray sky.

  Offices and workspaces filled the interior now. The only time I’d been there had been to pick up Barr from a meeting. I turned the knob, ducked in out of the rain, and paused to get my bearings. Teal and green paisley carpet stretched wall to wall in the entryway. It continued up the stairs on my left and spread down the short hallway ahead of me as well as the longer one to my right. The wooden sign on the wall listed a homeopath, a lawyer, a photographer, an accountant, and a nonprofit environmental group on the first floor. I turned toward the stairs and saw Elizabeth Moser listed, along with three other names and an arrow. All the other names were followed by various strings of letters, presumably indicating their vast qualifications. Elizabeth, however, had apparently dispensed with such hubris.

  All the office doors on the first floor were closed. Classical music drifted through the tiny lobby. Straining, I detected the low murmur of voices from down the right-hand hallway. I was reluctant to disturb the air of quiet and found myself tiptoeing up the steps.

  At the top of the stairs I rounded the corner into an expansive waiting area. An oversized mahogany desk dominated the back of the room. Five doors, all closed, marched around the perimeter of the space, four of them with nameplates mounted on them. An exit sign hung over the fifth. Fabric chairs that matched the dark green in the paisley carpet backed up against periwinkle walls. Magazines and boxes of tissue covered the side tables, and luxuriant palms reached out to an assortment of indefinite watercolor paintings in more greens and blues. A microwave, coffee maker, and ceramic cups sat on a table next to the water cooler. The room smelled like coffee and patchouli.

  A large woman with spiked red—as in vermillion—hair sat behind the desk. She looked up, revealing a pleasant face unadorned by makeup. Quickly closing her New Yorker, she tucked it somewhere below the surface.

  “Hello! Do you have an appointment?”

  I recognized her voice.

  “No, I’m afraid I don’t.” Now closer, I could see the silver stud in her left nostril. That couldn’t help but be unsanitary. It looked nice with her earrings, though.

  “Would you like to make one?” she asked.

  “Thanks, but no. I’m here to talk to you, actually. It’s Bonnie, right?”

  Puzzlement replaced solicitousness. “Yes, that’s me.”

  “We spoke earlier this morning, on the phone. About Elizabeth Moser?”

  Her gaze cleared. “Oh, yes.”

  I approached the desk and placed my fingertips on it. “I have something that belonged to Dr. Moser. Can you tell me who has taken over her practice?”

  “No one.”

  “No one?”

  “I’m afraid Ms. Moser wasn’t all that popular with her fellow therapists.” Her hand swept out to indicate the doors that surrounded her.

  “Everyone up here is a psychotherapist?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Each has their own specialty.” She pointed at the first door. “Trauma, PTSD, depression, and addiction.” Then the next door. “Family counseling.” Then, “Hypnosis and retrieval of blocked memories.” And finally, “Body-mind therapy, our newest addition.”

  “Body-mind therapy?”

  “Processing emotion that’s stored at a cellular level.”

  I felt my eyebrows knot. “So what happened to Dr. Moser’s clients?”

  “Ms. Moser did not possess a doctorate. In fact, Ms. Moser did not possess a master’s degree, and her BA was in interior design.”

  “I don’t understand. How could she see patients then?”

  “The state of Washington doesn’t require psychotherapists to have any particular training. Of course, there are varying levels of certification, and most have an educational background to support their specialties, but anyone can hang out a shingle and purport to be a professional therapist.”

  “Ah. And that’s what Elizabeth did.”

  She sniffed. “Indeed.”

  “And that’s why her colleagues didn’t care for her.”

  Bonnie gave a small nod of acquiescence.

  Interesting. From those three tapes, I’d gleaned the flavor of how Elizabeth handled her clients and their problems. She sure seemed to know what she was doing as she dealt with a variety of situations. Degree or not, she’d struck me as both practical and professional. I wondered how much the others knew about how she worked. And I wondered which one, if any, she would ask for advice.

  “Everyone seems to have a niche,” I said. “What was Elizabeth’s?”

  “She didn’t have one. She thought she could help everyone by listening and nodding. Told me once she was the kind of person other people like to talk to.” Another sniff.

  Not the most friendly work environment, if Bonnie was any indication. “So what happened to her clients after her death?”

  “I contacted everyone on her client list to let them know what happened. Many asked for referrals, which I passed on to my doctors here to handle.”

  “Did some of them take on her clients?”

  “Only a few of them continued with my doctors.”

  My doctors. Bonnie Parr sounded possessive yet maternal regarding the professionals she worked for.

  She continued. “Some clients probably changed to other practitioners. And some may have dropped the idea of psychotherapy altogether.”

  “That seems unfortunate. So you know who all your doctors’ clients are?”

  A veil of discretion descended over her features. “I can’t divulge that information.”

  “Oh, I understand. Believe me. But what if I told you that one of Ms. Moser’s clients could be dangerous? Is there a protocol to deal with that?”

  Her chin jerked up. “Dangerous? How so?”

  “They threatened to kill someone.”

  “Oh.” She waved her hand. “That’s not unusual. People blurt out stuff like that all the time. It’s kind of why they’re here.”

  “To threaten others?”

  “To get things off their chests.”

  Oh, for heaven’s sake. What kind of thing was that to say?

  Bonnie asked, “But how would you know about such a threat?”

  I ran my hand through my hair. “It was on a tape.”

  Now she looked alarmed. “Of a client session?”

  “No. Elizabeth’s notes about her sessions. She said something about going to the police.”

  Bonnie Parr didn’t look happy.

  The door to my right opened then, and an older woman with stick-thin arms and weathered features darted out. “See you next week,” she called over her shoulder, fumbling in her purse. As she brushed by me I saw a pack of cigarettes already in her hand. If I remembered correctly, that was the door behin
d which the hypnotist worked his magic.

  “Dr. Simms, do you have a few minutes? This woman has a few questions about Elizabeth Moser,” Bonnie said.

  I stuck out my hand. “Sophie Mae Ambrose.”

  He shook it. “Garth Simms. Were you one of Elizabeth’s clients?”

  “No. I’d never even heard of her until I came across some of her recorded notes.”

  “Recorded notes?”

  “Mini-cassettes we found at the thrift store.”

  One side of Simms’ mouth rose in a half-grimace. “The tapes probably got mixed in with the other items they hauled over there. The landlord came in and cleared everything out of Moser’s office two weeks back so the new tenant could move in soon.”

  “She wasn’t married?”

  He shook his head. “Getting over a nasty divorce. Wasn’t even interested in dating yet—I know because I asked her out once.”

  So much for her coworkers disliking Elizabeth. I shot a glance at Bonnie’s careful poker face.

  Simms continued. “Her sister stopped by, but she didn’t want to deal with Elizabeth’s office. Said she had enough to deal with taking care of her house.”

  Charming. It sounded like Elizabeth Moser was quite alone in the world. It made her death all the more sad.

  “Did she die at home?”

  The expression on Bonnie’s face indicated that perhaps I should show more decorum. I didn’t care.

  But Simms responded. “She did. The pizza delivery man found her.”

  I winced. Simms nodded his agreement.

  Okay, time to regroup. “What happened to her other records?”

  “When I contacted her clients, I told them to come pick up their files,” Bonnie said. “Most did. Unfortunately, some were unable to.”

  “I’d think there would be enough personal information—

  sensitive personal information—in those files that people would climb all over themselves to retrieve them.”

  Simms half-sat on the edge of the desk and began flipping through a pile of mail.

  His receptionist bobbed her head in agreement. “That’s true, of course. But you see, there was a break-in. A box of hard-copy files was removed. So anyone whose information was in that box was out of luck.”

  A break-in? “Before or after her death?”

  “Oh, right after.”

  Coincidence? Right …

  “How many client files were in the box?ˆ

  Her chin rose. “A good half-dozen as I recall.”

  “They must have been furious,” I breathed.

  “Oh, yes. Furious. Frantic. Embarrassed.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did the burglar take anything from the other offices?”

  “No. We were very lucky. The police thought perhaps something had frightened him away.”

  I had a feeling it had less to do with luck than the fact that the intruder got exactly what he—or she—wanted and left.

  Dr. Simms now watched me with interest. “You know Ms. Moser died from a heart attack, right? There was no foul play indicated.”

  “So I heard. Did she seem healthy?”

  “She seemed like a hottie, if you want to know. Took good care of herself, jogged, the works.”

  But a heart attack wasn’t suspicious?

  “Were the files in alphabetical order?” Bonnie asked.

  “They were.”

  “And which letters were missing?”

  The receptionist looked the question at Simms, who looked at me. His head tipped forward a fraction, giving her permission to tell me.

  “Q through S,” she muttered.

  Bingo.

  “Do you still have her client list?” I asked.

  She looked scandalized. “I can’t show you that!”

  “Can you tell me if one particular name is on it?”

  “I don’t think—”

  Simms interrupted her. “What’s the name?”

  “Swenson,” I blurted. The anticipation was killing me.

  “Doctor—”

  “She’s already heard Elizabeth’s notes. Take a look.”

  Looking grieved, Bonnie rooted around in a desk drawer. “Fine.” She pulled out a file folder and opened it. Frowned down at it, then smiled up at me. “Sorry, Mrs. Ambrose. Nobody by that name on here.”

  I’d been hoping to learn the first name of the potential killer. I hadn’t been prepared to be stopped in my tracks altogether. “I don’t get it. That’s the name Moser used when referring to the client who threatened murder.”

  “Hang on,” Simms said. “What’s this about murder?”

  “Elizabeth had a client who threatened to kill someone. She was going to call the police and the client’s family members. Elizabeth also said she was going to ask advice from a colleague. Did she mention anything about it to you, Doctor?”

  He looked thoughtful. “No, she didn’t. And if she’d talked to one of the others here about such a thing, I would have at least heard of it in a general way. We all confer together. Did she contact the police?”

  I shook my head.

  A quiet relief flooded his face. “Then she no doubt learned the threat was empty.”

  “Or she had a heart attack before she had a chance to tell anyone.”

  Simms and the receptionist looked at each other, and something passed between them. Finally he gave a kind of facial shrug, mostly eyebrows, and she turned back to me. “It’s possible this Swenson could be one of her after-hours clients.”

  “After hours.” That sounded downright sordid.

  “She told us a few of her clients could only come at night. Because of jobs, family obligations, whatever. She wanted to be available to them.” Bonnie pointed to the fifth door, the one with the Exit sign over it. “That’s the back stairway. It’s unlocked during the day, and some of our clients prefer to use it exclusively. In the evening the front and back doors are both locked, but the back door is equipped with a buzzer. That’s how Elizabeth let her evening clients in and out.”

  I could tell Bonnie hadn’t liked the arrangement. It went against her tendency toward control. Dr. Simms’ bemused expression betrayed his own awareness of her disgruntlement.

  “Are you saying Elizabeth Moser had clients you never met?” I asked.

  A nod. “I felt it was quite unsafe, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “But they were just regular psychotherapy patients, right?”

  Simms laughed. “I doubt Elizabeth was doing anything untoward.”

  Bonnie sniffed. “Who knows? I mean, now you’re telling me one of these people might be a killer.”

  “Now, Bonnie,” Dr. Simms said. “I’m sure it was just someone crying wolf.”

  Yeah. And we all knew how that worked out.

  A royal blue PT Cruiser was parked in front of the house when I pulled up. The door opened and Penny Turner stepped to the street as soon as I turned off my engine. She smiled through maroon lipstick and waved at me, enthusiasm personified.

  I got out of the Land Rover. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “No problem. I was here on time, though. Just so you know.” In her mid-fifties, Penny had been looking for something to do after her two sons had graduated college and finally moved out of the house. I’d met her through a mutual friend, and when I mentioned that I was looking for a part-time helper, she jumped at the opportunity. I’d always had teenaged employees before, and while they’d worked out very well, I was looking forward to having someone a little older and wiser working for Winding Road. No doubt I’d be able to give her more responsibility, and her life experience would dictate a certain amount of common sense.

  “Come on inside, and I’ll show you where everything is and what we’ll be doing.”

  Her wispy white-blond hair didn’t budge despite her vigorous nod of agreement. Puffy appliqués of cats decorated her quilted cardigan. She smiled again, revealing large teeth. Her blue Bette Davis eyes crin
kled deeply at the corners.

  “I’ve really been looking forward to this. I’ve been so bored without my boys around.”

  “Well, I think we can do something about that. Plenty to do here.” I unlocked the door and led her inside.

  We had three hours before Erin came home from school. My seventeen-year-old helper, Cyan, would arrive shortly after that. That should be plenty of time to show Penny the ropes and set her to a task. Having good help would make all the difference to that delicate balance between my work and my marriage.

  I made tea, and we took the cups down to my basement workroom. She paused upon entering, taking in the spacious room and the windows that lined the back wall to take advantage of the natural daylight. One end was outfitted with cupboards and shelving, with a stove and sink in the middle, and an industrial bread mixer I used to mix lye soap. The large island counter hunkered in front of them, close enough for convenience, far enough away for three or four people to move around comfortably. At the moment, the surface of the work area was covered with bath melts, still in their molds. I’d left them to cool overnight and hadn’t had a chance to get back to them before I had to leave for Caladia Acres.

  “I love the way it smells in here,” Penny said.

  “Me, too,” I admitted. “It’s one of the perks of the job. Lots of nice, relaxing aromas all around, all the time.”

  “Smells like mint. And something else.”

  “Peppermint, rosemary, eucalyptus, and tea tree oil. These are bath melts specially designed to ease colds, flu, or allergies.”

  “I’ll have to try one. This time of year I get terrible allergies from the Scotch broom that grows along the highways. Now what’s back there?” She pointed to my storeroom.

  I waved her in. “This is where I keep the computer and printer. A lot of Winding Road business is conducted online. This is also how we create invoices, packing lists, orders, and keep track of inventory and supplies. But I’ll continue to deal with all that for now.”

  No need to confuse the poor woman on her first day with a bunch of specialty programs and my own arcane system of spreadsheets. It would be nice to be able to offload some of that work down the road.