Corked by Cabernet

by Michele Scott

  Simon and Marco typically helped run the front desk during the evening, but since they were busy doing her dirty work—at least they were supposed to be—and Alyssa had taken off to be with Petie, one of the part-timers, an elderly woman named Edna, was at the desk for the evening.

  Edna reminded Nikki of what a grandma should be—sweet disposition, gray hair, crepe-like skin that framed pretty blue eyes, and always wearing pastel colors. She walked with a little hunch to her back, which Nikki figured had to be osteoporosis setting in. Edna was a doll. The only negative was that Edna could be forgetful, and Nikki at times wondered if she was fighting senility. But she was always willing to fill in when they needed some extra help.

  “Hi, Eddie.” Nikki used the nickname everyone around the winery had for Edna.

  “Hi, Nikki. Beautiful night, isn’t it?”

  “It is. I’m sorry to bother you, but there’s a guest staying here named Mizuki, um, gosh, I don’t know her last name. She’s staying under the Yamimoto reservation, I believe.”

  Edna brought her hand up to her mouth. “Oh! That was the man who was killed on the wine train.”

  Nikki nodded. “Yes. I’m looking for his, his . . . well, I’m looking for Mizuki. She’s probably about five feet, very petite, a Japanese woman. Doesn’t speak any English. Did she by chance stop by here, or did you notice anyone like that?”

  “No. I’m afraid I haven’t, dear.”

  “Hmmm. Okay. I’m worried about her is all.”

  “Why don’t you try calling her room?” Edna suggested.

  “Good idea.” Nikki picked up the house phone and dialed the suite number. The phone rang until it went to the hotel voicemail. She decided to try again. Still no answer. She could understand Mizuki not answering the phone because of the language barrier, but still Nikki redialed the number enough times that anyone would have picked it up had they been in the room. Nikki placed the receiver back on the phone.

  What to do? Here was the thing: there could be something in Mizuki’s personal belongings that could help find the killer, and if she was not in the room, Nikki would have an opportunity to check it out. It seemed like Robinson would have already searched the room himself. He could do that, couldn’t he? Probably not without a search warrant, but had Mizuki’s room been a top consideration yet? Nikki didn’t believe so. Nevertheless, searching private belongings really was wrong—plain and simple. Yes, she’d asked Simon and Marco to do it, although for some reason having them search Kensington’s stuff hadn’t seemed as wrong as it would be to go through Mizuki’s things. She was a nice woman who’d been thrown into this horrible mess. Robinson should really let her go home. Man, she was overthinking this stuff. Her frazzled brain only made everything more confusing and complicated.

  “Are you okay, dear?” Eddie asked.

  “Fine. I’m fine.” She smiled at her. “You know, I think I might check on her, take her some tea. If she isn’t in her room, I can leave it for her as a treat.”

  “That would be nice,” Eddie said. “I’ll get you the key to the room. You know a funny story. I left my house keys here the other day, and when I got home, I couldn’t get into the house. My neighbor came over and reminded me that I keep a key under a potted plant.” She laughed but looked kind of sad at the same time. “Getting old is a bitch.”

  Nikki put an arm around her. “Aw, Eddie. Come on. You’re not getting old. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Everyone gets forgetful sometimes.”

  “I am getting old, hon, and it’s not sometimes. It’s happening more often. Soon I may have to retire for good.”

  “I hope that’s not the case, but we’ll understand. You let me know what you need from me and Malveaux, okay?”

  “You’re a good girl.”

  A few seconds later, Eddie came from the back room with a key for Nikki to enter Mizuki’s suite. “Here you go.”

  Nikki told her they would have coffee next week when the event was over and talk about the future. She thanked her and went outside to head back up the stairs. Then she knocked again on the hotel door. Still no answer. She looked around, put the key in the hole, and turned. The door opened and she pushed it slightly, calling out Mizuki’s name. She opened the door wider. No one was there, but Mizuki’s suitcase was on the bed and looked to be half-packed.

  The clothes in the suitcase all looked expensive. Nikki peered down at them—designer labels, including the shoes. Was Mizuki headed home? Had Robinson told her that it was okay to go?

  She hesitantly lifted up some of the clothes. Wait a minute. Here was a DVD case. Maybe this was the DVD that Iwao kept trying to hand to Alan. There was no one around so Nikki opened the case. There was a DVD in it, but there was no label. It was just blank. What could be on it? Nikki wanted to know but she couldn’t do that. This was the woman’s private belonging. She squeezed her fists together and closed the case up, placing it back down on the clothing.

  Nothing in the room seemed out of the ordinary. It was quiet except for the roaring of the gas fire. Why had she left that on? She must not have gone far. Nikki also spotted a silk robe over one of the chairs facing the fireplace.

  Nikki looked a little closer around the room. Typically, in every room, a bottle of Malveaux wine would be on the console table. Every day, if it was empty, a new one would be replaced by the staff. There wasn’t one there. Nikki looked around the room; it wasn’t anywhere. She’d have to talk to Housekeeping about this. She ran her finger over the desk for dust. There was a little. Whoever had been cleaning this room would have something to answer for. While she was at it, she figured she’d better check the bathroom and make sure they’d replaced the towels.

  When she came around the corner, she stopped. The room started that spinning thing it did whenever this type of thing happened to Nikki—which was becoming far too often. There, lying on the floor, with her eyes wide open with a corkscrew lodged into her chest and a wine cork stuffed into her mouth was Mizuki. Dead.

  Nineteen

  ROBINSON looked as disgusted as Nikki felt. He had to be thinking exactly what she was: how could this have happened right under their noses? He was in the room now with the investigation unit that consisted of himself, a crime scene investigator, another homicide detective, and a few other people—Nikki hadn’t a clue what their roles were, but she knew to stay out of their way.

  Nikki leaned back against the wall outside the suite trying to remain calm and not conjure up that image of Mizuki dead. Nikki now felt confident that whoever had killed both Iwao and Mizuki was involved with the S.E.E. members. It hadn’t been a deranged killer loose on the wine train. Nope, the killer was right here at the hotel and in plain sight. Why would that person seek out Mizuki?

  If the motive was clearer as to why Iwao had been murdered, then the motive as to why his mistress was now being zippered into a body bag would also become clearer. But as of now, Nikki hadn’t figured out any concrete motives.

  She figured Mizuki had had information that might have led to the killer and the killer had also banked on that and silenced Mizuki before she had a chance to communicate her tale in her native tongue. That had to be why she’d been killed.

  Once Nikki had found Mizuki and placed the 911 call, and the police had first arrived, an officer went down to the tasting room, where the fun was still going on. He’d informed them there had been a death and that all the members were to go to their suites until someone came by to interview them. They hadn’t a clue as to what had happened at that point. Nikki figured at least one of them would have some idea, because one of them had to be a killer.

  The members were all accounted for, except for Simon and Marco. Where in the heck were those two, and what if something bad had happened to them? She picked at her nails and worried herself sick.

  Robinson came around the corner. “We need to talk.”

  “Okay.”

  “Not here,” he replied. His face drawn and unsmiling, he grabbed her arm.

  “Hey.”
>
  “Hey, nothing. Come on.”

  She wasn’t about to argue with him. They went down the stairs and headed to the café. No one was there and they went back into the kitchen, passing the hanging rack of pots and the professional gas stove and oven. He finally stopped in front of the wood fire oven, let go of her arm, and turned toward her. “I thought you were hiring security,” he said.

  “You suggested it, but no, I haven’t had a chance. I didn’t think this psycho would kill someone else.”

  “He did.”

  “No kidding. Why am I getting the feeling that you’re blaming this on me? You’re the cop.” She put her hands on her hips.

  He crossed his arms. “I’m not blaming you, Sands. But here’s the deal. You run this place, and from what you told me, you coordinated this whole event. Okay, so I got one dead guy on a train. I’ve been working every angle of this investigation on Yamimoto, talking to everyone I can who was on the train that might have seen something. Then I got the CSI people on the train, and I can tell you the train company isn’t too happy with having to shut down a train and lose business. I thought maybe I had some decent leads, thought there could be answers there. I put myself out and asked for a little help from a friend, and now the dead guy’s geisha winds up corked to death on the bathroom floor. What up?”

  She made a face at him. “What up? I don’t know what up. I’ve done everything you asked me to do. I’ve looked, listened, and told you everything.” She didn’t like his tone at all. “What up? God, why don’t you tell me?”

  He rubbed his face and blinked a few times. “Sorry, this is not going to go well back at the department. I gotta take the heat for it. I know I asked you to help and you’re not even a trained cop. Hell, if we could get some support from all the taxpayers’ money, that woman in there might not be dead. I could have had a detail on this place.”

  “Detail?”

  “Trained officers watching.”

  “Oh.”

  “Man, I really thought that Yamimoto’s death was isolated. I even suspected Mizuki of killing him.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. What I haven’t been able to rectify is everyone’s whereabouts at the time of his death, which I’ve narrowed down to be between eight and nine that night.”

  Robinson looked tired. “What do you know about this Juan Gonzales cat?”

  “He’s different and he did some business outside of the S.E.E. members with Iwao.” She didn’t want to tell him that it was Simon who’d initially provided her with this information. “He and Iwao did some king-fu-type movie together that Juan helped produce and distribute in the States and Mexico. But I don’t think the deal benefited Juan much. Actually this evening at the wine tasting, he made no bones to me about his feelings toward Iwao, and they were not exactly positive. Then he clammed up. Even got angry at me when I tried to pry.” She told him about getting the call from Derek and how it had interrupted her from further pursuing a discussion with Juan, but that she noticed him talking to Ruben Pearlman and they looked to be tight.

  He nodded. “Good. That’s confirmation of what I’ve learned. There is a connection between the three of them. After you told me what Pearlman told you on the hike about his being involved in media and music production, I checked him out. I made some calls. Looks likeYamimoto, Pearlman, and Gonzales did that movie venture that bombed together, and Yamimoto took more money from these guys than he needed. Looks to me like Yamimoto was stealing money from them. I don’t have the full scoop yet, but I’m bringing them both in for a little talk. Any idea if either one of them went missing while this tasting event went down?”

  “No. Is that when you think she was killed?” Again she couldn’t help thinking about Simon and Marco. Had they seen something and had the killer taken them out, too? That was too horrible even to consider. Damn, where were they?

  “I think she was killed earlier this afternoon.”

  “That would be far more feasible. It could have happened when we were setting up the tasting.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. Here I was on the premises and this went down, right after I interviewed her. Or tried to.” Detective Robinson looked understandably distraught and angry.

  “Did she give you anything that you could go on or even understand?”

  “Nothing. She gave you more by showing you those photos of Yamimoto, his nephew, and Sierra Sansi. I tried to ask her about that and she acted like a deer caught in the headlights.”

  “That could also be an angle to explore—Sierra and the nephew. Something isn’t kosher there.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. You think you can talk to her?”

  “I could try. I’ve hardly seen her at all since she found Iwao. Didn’t you interview her?”

  “I did,” Robinson replied. “She was pretty shaky last night and I haven’t had a chance to talk to her today. It might be easier for her to talk to you than me.” He picked up the long pizza handle next to the oven and twirled one end of it. “Whoever did this wanted to be sure Mizuki wouldn’t be able to tell us anything else. This killer is cunning. He’s laughing at us right now, and this is the second time with the cork in the mouth. That’s some type of signature or symbol. My guess is it represents something you’ve already mentioned—put a cork in it.”

  “He? You think the killer is a man?” Nikki asked.

  “I do. Take Yamimoto first. The guy was taken out by slicing his throat. He had to have been jumped from behind and by someone strong. The cut is clean. I’ve talked with the medical examiner and she agrees with me. Then you have this killing here with the mistress. Granted, she was a petite thing, but the killer stabbed her with a corkscrew. Here’s the thing with that, again—you need strength and either he got lucky and hit the heart muscle or he knew exactly how to hit it. The cork is the icing on the cake for him to taunt us with.”

  “It makes sense. So, you’re narrowing in on Gonzales and Pearlman?”

  “I’m checking their background right now, and I’ll be questioning them personally again. I think they could even be in cahoots.”

  “What about Kurt Kensington? Maybe he’s deranged enough that he thinks he could get away with it.” Nikki crossed her arms.

  “You’re right. Everything I have so far on someone like him would be only circumstantial evidence. Maybe he’s a pro of some sort and knows it’s hard to build a case based on circumstances. This is a tough one, and now we have some serious safety issues. I need to talk with Alan Sansi. I can’t make him shut down his workshop for the week, but I’ll suggest it again. The problem is that I need these folks to stay around here. I can’t have them leaving Napa and going back home. Not until I’ve thoroughly interviewed them and checked them out.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Let me see what I can do about having an officer here at the winery. If there is a police presence, it should deter this guy from killing again. But something tells me he won’t. He’s done his job. He killed Yamimoto for one reason, which I will figure out, and he killed the mistress to make sure that if she knew anything at all, she couldn’t tell anyone.”

  Nikki wondered. Robinson’s reasoning made sense. She hoped he was right that whoever had committed these murders was finished.

  But Robinson had been wrong before.

  Twenty

  NIKKI knew that the members were in their rooms. Some had already been interviewed. She had to finesse those member applications that Hayden told her about on the hike out of Hayden’s hands and now was the time to do it.

  She knocked on Hayden’s door. Rich answered. “Hi, Nikki.” He shook his head. “We can’t believe this. Hayden and I are shocked.”

  “Have the police already spoken with you?” she asked, figuring they had because she doubted Robinson would allow anyone who was a part of the S.E.E. group to spend any time with another member or facilitator until after they’d been questioned.

  “Yes. It’s really unbelievable. First Mr. Yamimoto and now his
. . . ” Rich fumbled for the appropriate term. “His other half.”

  That was a delicate way of putting it.

  “Would you like to come in?” he asked. “We were having a glass of wine, trying to digest this.”

  “Sure. Thanks. That would be nice.”

  Nikki entered the king suite. Like all the rooms at the hotel, this one was nothing short of pure elegance. It was a two-bedroom suite and had a fireplace, as all of them did. The room had been painted a soft peach hue, and candles were lit on the end tables. Maybe she’d interrupted something. Hayden was curled up n one of the chairs, wineglass in hand.

  She turned as Nikki came in and looked about as tired as Nikki felt. “Hi, Nikki. Rich and I were sitting here talking about what happened with Mizuki and how horrid all this is. Even my father is completely shaken and nothing shakes him up.” Hayden took a sip of the red wine. She’d changed clothes since the wine-tasting event, where she’d had on an argyle-type vest over a white button-down and a nice pair of pressed jeans. Now she wore a pair of gray pajama bottoms and a T-shirt that read SANSI KNOWS THE WAY.

  Rich still had on his khakis and button-down. The two of them defined yuppiedom from the nineties.

  “Here, Nikki.” Rich handed her a glass of wine and sat down on the edge of the fireplace. “Have a seat.” He pointed to the empty chair next to Hayden.

  Nikki thanked him and sat down.

  “What do you make of all this?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. My guess is that the police are looking heavily into the members here. It was one thing to have Iwao murdered last night on the train with the belief that it was someone outside the group being a killer . . . but now with this second killing, I’m sure the focus will turn to the members and our staff.”