by Penny Warner
The screen shot changed to a large, red-faced man standing in front of what looked like a rustic cabin, leaning on a cane. Next to him was a female reporter holding a microphone near his lips as he spoke.
“JoAnne’s death is a great loss to our community,” he said in a gruff voice, “but our fine police department has arrested the heinous person responsible for her murder, and justice will be served. That’s all I have to say.” The man pressed his lips together in a gesture of finality.
The name captioned at the bottom of the screen read, “Angus McLaughlin, President and CEO of Napology Corporation.”
Why had they interviewed the head of Napology for the story? I wondered. What did he have to do with JoAnne Douglas?
I didn’t have time to ponder that. Brad turned off the TV and temporarily helped me forget about JoAnne Douglas, Rob Christopher, and everything else associated with murder. And he did it better than any bottle of wine could ever do.
When I woke up the next morning, Brad was already up, dressed, and packed. He held two Fiestaware coffee mugs in his hands.
“What time is it?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.
“Seven thirty,” he said, handing me a coffee.
“Too early,” I muttered, setting the mug on the nightstand. “Need more sleep…”
“I got a cleanup call, so I’m heading back to the city now. I’ll see you when you get back to the island. Drive safely.” He leaned over and kissed me.
“Don’t go!” I whined, then grabbed his arm. “Come back to bed…”
Brad laughed. Could he be any cuter? I thought.
“If I do, I might never get up again,” he said. “Besides, I want to get out of here before I’m caught shacking up with the hired help.”
“I think that ship has sailed,” I murmured.
He rubbed my bed hair. “Come on. Marie’s in the kitchen. I’m sure you want to see her.”
That did it. I sat up, patted down my hair, retrieved my coffee, and took a sip.
“Okay. Call me when your job’s done.”
He bent down and kissed my coffee mouth, tousled my hair again as if I were an impish child, and left the room with his overnight backpack. I took a few more sips of coffee—enough to make me human—then got in the shower, dressed in black jeans and a lavender Purple Grape T-shirt Rob had given me, and checked on Mother. Still asleep, she was softly snoring. Lucky girl.
I headed for the kitchen with my nearly empty coffee mug and found Marie sitting over a plate of untouched toast, staring out a window. Allison was nowhere in sight.
“Marie, I’m so glad you’re back,” I said. What do you say to a person who may have tried to commit suicide the night before? “Life is good”?
My presence seemed to bring her back from wherever her thoughts had wandered. “Morning, Presley. Did you sleep well?”
In spite of everything, the pleasantries continued.
“Great, thanks. How’re you doing this morning?”
“Better, thanks, although my throat still hurts from that darn tube.” She looked down at her cold toast.
“Can I get you something else? Yogurt, maybe? Some fruit?”
“No, I’m not hungry. I’m waiting for a call from Kyle about Rob. He said he’d let me know what’s going on.”
I nodded. “Well, Mother and I’ll be out of your hair soon.”
Marie reached across the table for my hand. “Presley, don’t go,” she said. “I meant what I said last night. You’re no trouble at all. And I could use the company now that Rob’s…” She left the sentence unfinished but implied.
“I’d love to, Marie, but I need to get my mother back to her facility,” I said, feeling a twinge of guilt at the thought of abandoning Marie. “But listen. I’m going to do more background research and I promise to come back in a day or two.”
She looked glum but forced a smile onto her sad face. “I understand. I just don’t know what’s going to happen with Rob. You’re such a take-charge kind of woman—I was hoping you’d help me find out who really killed JoAnne. I know he’s innocent.” A tear rolled down her pale cheek.
I’m a sucker for tears. “I promise—I’ll do what I can, Marie. I’ve already talked to quite a few people who were at the party. Now it’s time to do some background research—and that I can do from my office. But I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry.”
More tears. “Thank you, Presley.”
She reached out to take my hand and suddenly froze, looking over my shoulder.
I turned to see what had caused her to tense up so abruptly.
Allison stood in the doorway holding a cup of coffee. She was wearing an oversized blue madras camp shirt, unbuttoned, over a too-small white tank top and too-tight jeans. The shirt looked vaguely familiar. “Good morning, ladies,” she said.
Marie rose from the table, her face twisted in anger.
“Take that off!” she screamed at her sister. “That’s Rob’s shirt!”
Chapter 17
PARTY-PLANNING TIP #17
Another popular—and inexpensive—corkscrew is called “the Waiter,” since so many waiters prefer it. Use the serrated knife blade to remove the foil cap, insert the screw (also called the “worm”), and pull out the cork. Sounds easy, but you may want to practice so you don’t bend the worm inside the cork and end up with chunks of floating cork in the wine.
On the drive back to San Francisco, I thought about the significance of Allison wearing Rob’s shirt—and Marie’s angry reaction to seeing her in it. Why had a shirt provoked such a visceral response?
By the time we reached Mother’s care facility, I still didn’t have an answer. And while I’d had an “interesting” time in the wine country, I was eager to resume my real life back in the city. I missed my cats, my condo, and my co-workers. I dropped Mother off with a promise to take her to lunch soon, and drove home to Treasure Island.
After taking the exit off the Bay Bridge, I opened the sunroof on the MINI Cooper and inhaled the familiar salt air. TI sits in the middle of the San Francisco Bay, completely surrounded by water, a floating relic of the city’s past. The location was convenient, the rent cheap, and I loved the nearly three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view.
I drove by the huge rusty anchor left by the navy when it departed in 1997 and past the concave Building One that once housed exhibits during the 1939 Golden Gate Expo and now served as my office building.
I whizzed by the ginormous hangars once harboring the Pan Am Clipper Ships—now rented by movie studios—and on beyond the skeletal remains of naval housing that was soon to be demolished. High-rises were planned for the future of Treasure Island, something I could not imagine for this gem of the sea.
Turning into the small housing area, I pulled up to my condo, parked the MINI in the carport, got out of the car, and unlocked the front door of my home, hoping my neighbor had remembered to feed my three cats.
The moment the door opened I was attacked.
Thursby, my black watch-cat, leapt at my feet and tried to kill them. Fatman, my white longhair who could live on his fat for a month if no one fed him, tried to trip me while dodging between my ankles. And Cairo, my orange scaredy-cat, hightailed it for cover under the living room futon. He wasn’t a cat; he was a chicken.
“My babies!” I said, hoisting Fatman and snuggling my face into his fur. I set him down, scratched Thursby’s back, then called to Cairo, cajoling him into facing his fears. The sound of cat food rattling into bowls eventually brought him out from his hiding place.
“I missed you guys! Were you good boys while I was gone?”
What was it about cats that turned a grown, independent woman into a mushy, baby-talking idiot? While contemplating that, I refreshed the cats’ water, made a mental note to thank my neighbor (a bottle of wine from Napa?), and threw my suitcase on the bed.
An hour and three cat massages later, I drove back to my office at Building One, a homemade latte in hand. I parked the MINI and walked up the steps to the gla
ss entry doors, past the Rubenesque statues that had stood guard over the building for seven decades.
“Hey, Raj,” I said to the TI security guard currently manning the front desk. “Have you recovered from the party the other night?”
He raised his animated dark eyebrows. “I am no longer surprised at what’s happening at your parties, Ms. Presley. By the way, are you catching the killer?”
“Not yet,” I said. “The police have Rob Christopher in custody, but his wife is certain he didn’t do it. Frankly, I don’t think he did either, but I have no idea who did.”
“You are helping him, I suppose?”
“I’m doing what I can,” I said, then moved on to my office a few steps beyond the desk.
The door stood open and I found Delicia, dressed in leggings, a denim skirt, and a long, gauzy top, working at her laptop.
“You’re back!” she said with theatrical delight. As a part-time actress, she couldn’t help adding drama whenever she could.
“Finally,” I said, plopping my purse down and picking up the “while you were out” forms piled on my desk.
“Those are just the ones I took for you while you were gone. You’ve got a dozen more messages on your machine.”
I dropped into the seat at my desk, which faced hers. “Great. Getting back to callers should keep me busy for the next year. So what are you up to? Looking for an acting job?”
“I’m looking for wine. That merlot at the Purple Grape was awesome, but I can’t afford it. Someone told me about this site called ‘CheapbutGood.com,’ where they have all kinds of name brands at way lower prices.”
“Name brands…,” I said, remembering the rumor that JoAnne was selling wines online under a different name—and a lower price. I turned on my laptop. “I wonder…”
“Believe it or not,” Dee said, “I found Two-Buck Chuck for a buck!”
I typed in “CheapbutGood.com” and the site appeared. The opening page showed a wine bottle with a dollar sign on the label, circled in red with a line through it. I did an on-site search for Douglas Family Wines, but nothing came up. Of course, she wouldn’t use the name of the winery, not if she was trying to sell her wine cheaply on the Internet. So what was her “boutique” wine called?
No clue. But before I left the site, I typed in the name “Purple Grape,” just to see what might happen. Seconds later a link to “Purple Great” came up.
Purple Grape equals Purple Great? I wondered.
I tapped ENTER, which brought me to another Web site. This time a picture of a wine bottle with the label “Purple Great” appeared, along with a description: “Made from great grapes grown in the Napa Valley, this marvelous boutique merlot, comparable to the Purple Grape’s signature wine, is available to you at a deep discount. Join our wine club and order a case or two today!” Below was a request to fill out information, such as name, address, credit card number, and so on.
A wine “comparable to the Purple Grape’s signature wine”? Was someone at the winery selling the wines at lower prices too? Maybe in an effort to stay afloat in the winery business? If JoAnne did it, maybe Rob thought he could too. How hard would it be to create a new label, set up a Web site link, and undercut your prices, selling directly to the consumer?
Or was someone else trying to rip off the Purple Grape?
JoAnne?
“Dee, would you do me a favor?”
“Depends,” she said. “Will you pay me in chocolate?”
“How about in wine?”
“Works for me!” she said, sitting up. “Who do I have to kill?”
“No one. At least, not yet. I’m going to send you a link to a site called ThePurpleGreat.com, and I want you to join their wine club and order a case. Use my credit card.” I gave her the number.
“Sweet!” she said. “But why don’t you order it yourself? Is there a catch? Will my name be sold to a penis-enlarging site?”
I laughed. “Because I don’t want the seller to recognize my name. Use your home address, not this one, okay? And overnight it.”
Moments later she was typing information into the site. “Must be good stuff if you want a case,” she said. “I better start planning a party!”
“Good idea.” I got up from my desk. “I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t forget to write where you’re going on the message board,” she called, referring to the annoying whiteboard she’d hung on the wall. Too late. I was already out of the office. Besides, I was only going down the hall.
“Hey, Duncan,” I said to our neighboring computer savant when I entered his office. Apparently it was casual Monday, because he’d come to work in SpongeBob pajama bottoms and a threadbare Star Trek T-shirt riddled with holes.
The part-time deejay and game player looked up from his computer, where he spent most of his time when he wasn’t helping me with a party. I wondered whose secret site he was trolling at the moment. The FBI? CIA? TMZ?
“’S’up, Pres?” he said, typing at rapid-fire speed.
“Got a question for you.” I sat down in Berkeley Wong’s vacated chair at the desk opposite Duncan’s and swiveled back and forth. Berkeley shared office space with Duncan and the two spent much of their time battling each other online. Apparently he was out videotaping something.
“Uh-oh,” he said, still typing.
“I need some information.”
“Like what?” Still typing.
“Like how to find out more about people using the Internet.”
“Oh, you mean you want to find a needle in a haystack? Like who murdered that lady at your party?”
“Maybe,” I said coyly, fully aware that he saw right through me.
“So you don’t think that winery owner did it?”
“Rob? I’m not sure, but my gut says no.”
Duncan finally stopped typing, sat back, and folded his hands in front of him. “Okay. Well, there are lots of ways to find out stuff about someone—as long as you’re using the information for good instead of evil.” He raised a devilish eyebrow.
“Like you?” I said, sarcastically.
He grinned. “Yeah, so if you want to check out, like, a potential employee, or a possible date, or find out if your new roommate is a serial killer, you can pay a professional investigation site to do the work for you. But if you want to save money and do it yourself, try ZabaSearch.com—it’s free if you want to track down names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addys, birth dates, stuff like that. If you want more info, you can pay them or go to another site like NetDetective.com and find out about criminal backgrounds, sex offenders, home values, court records, long-lost relatives. Then again, you could just Google them or use Facebook to find them. You’d be surprised how much you can learn that way.”
“Okay, what do I need to know besides the person’s name?”
“Their relatives’ names. Friends. Their interests or hobbies. Any clubs they might belong to. Professional organizations. News clippings. What school they went to.”
I jotted down his tips on a piece of scrap paper on Berk’s desk.
“If you have a phone number, Google it or use a reverse-directory Web site. Try Craigslist and eBay using their names. And Classmates.com will tell you all kinds of things—if the person has signed up for it.”
“Thanks, Duncan. This is great. A little overwhelming, but helpful.”
Duncan spun back to his computer and resumed his bullet-speed typing. “Let me know if you find anything interesting—or you get stuck.”
I spent the next two hours in my office trying to find out more information about anyone closely associated with JoAnne, including Rob—Allison, Javier, the Briens and Madeiras, even Kyle Bennett. When Brad peeked in the door two hours later and said, “Lunch?,” I was surprised at the time: two o’clock. I’d forgotten all about eating.
“Hi!” I said, sitting up in my chair and stretching my weary back, hands, and fingers. Everything ached from all the typing I’d been doing.
&nbs
p; “Welcome home,” he said. “You hungry?”
“Starved, as usual. And I could use a break.” I rolled my head to loosen my stiff neck. “How did your cleanup go?”
“Don’t ask, or you won’t want lunch. I need something to get the smell of cleaning fluids out of my nose.”
I turned off the computer and stood up. “Can we keep it short and simple? A burger and garlic fries from the Treasure Island Grill would be perfect. After that dinner last night, I swore I’d never eat again. Besides, I’ve got so much event-planning work to catch up on.”
I grabbed my purse and we walked the few hundred yards to the tiny café next to the yacht club, ordered the food, then sat out in the covered patio to enjoy ice-cold beers and a view of the windsurfers.
“Do you have a lot of party requests?” Brad asked after a sip of beer.
“Yeah, and I haven’t gotten back to any of them.”
He frowned. “What have you been doing?”
I nodded toward the windsurfers. “Surfing.”
“Oh. So you’re trying to find the killer online?” he asked smugly.
“Very funny. Duncan gave me some tips on how to search for people on the Internet.” I opened my purse and pulled out several printed sheets of information.
“So whodunit?”
“Aren’t you the comedian today,” I said. “Well, for one thing, JoAnne Douglas’s winery was about to go into bankruptcy, according to county records. She was hurting for money.”
“A reason for her to be murdered?” Brad asked.
“Don’t know.” The hamburgers arrived and I ate a couple of French fries before continuing. “I also found out Rob Christopher and Marie Michaels attended Napa High School, according to the online yearbook. Rob played football, Marie was a cheerleader. Rob went on to study wine at UC Davis, while Marie majored in marketing there. All of this was on UCDAlumni.edu. After they got married, they started their winery and seemed to be doing well, although last year they lost money, no doubt due to the economy. That was from the business section of the Napa Times.”
