A Case of Syrah, Syrah

by Nancy J. Parra

  I frowned. “It could be anyone. The thing is, I think Dan is the least suspicious since Ivy was murdered. His actions seemed to say that he truly loved his sister. You should have seen his anger and grief when he learned she was dead.”

  “Hmm, the yoga teachers might be easiest to crack since there are three of them,” Holly said.

  “We need a plan,” I said.

  “We’ll work on that,” Aunt Jemma said. “In the meantime, are you sure you want to attend Ivy’s funeral?”

  “I feel like it’s the right thing to do,” I said and stood.

  Holly and I were dressed in simple black dresses. Ivy’s funeral was in an hour, and we were heading out.

  “I’m curious to hear who shows up,” Aunt Jemma said as she gathered up the tray and walked with us back into the house. “Maybe the killer . . .”

  “I’ll take notes,” I said and put my coffee cup in the sink. Holly followed suit.

  “You girls try not to make a scene.”

  “I realize it will be a bit awkward,” I said, “but if we show up and are respectful, it should be fine.”

  “You can’t simply ‘show up’ places anymore,” Aunt Jemma said. “You are a bit of a celebrity, you know. People are coming up from San Francisco to see you.”

  “Listen, I can’t control what others do,” I said. “I’m innocent, and I’m going to pay my respects.”

  “Yes, we know you are innocent,” Aunt Jemma said. “But if an innocent person can be on trial for murder, that means that anyone can find themselves in that situation at any time. It’s like waiting for a train wreck or seeing an accident at the side of the road. Everyone wants to know what really happened.”

  “Maybe I should start telling them,” I said, half in jest. “I should give Chelsea an exclusive and see if that’ll draw the real killer out.”

  “You can’t cast accusations without proof,” Aunt Jemma said.

  “I know, I know,” I said. “It’s a recurring theme in my life, but that said, I can tell everyone what happened from my point of view. Let them think what they want. If I get my story out there, then perhaps the jury will be a little more willing to hear me during the trial. If it goes that far. I’m calling Chelsea after the funeral.”

  “Call Patrick as well,” Aunt Jemma advised. “You don’t want to make things worse by trying to make them better.”

  “I don’t see how anything could get worse.”

  * * *

  Ivy’s funeral was small. We entered the funeral home, and there weren’t a lot of people there. Amy was there with Dan. The preacher had already started the service by the time Dan spotted me. His gaze shot daggers at me, and I wiggled uncomfortably.

  “Oh, he’s upset you’re here,” Holly whispered.

  “I figured he might be, but I needed to pay my respects,” I said. “Let’s be as quiet and respectful as possible.”

  “Okay,” Holly said, “but I’m taking notes on who else shows up.”

  It was hard to sneak out of a funeral. Dan and Amy were the first to follow the casket out. There were maybe ten other people there. Rashida, Juliet, and Emma were present, along with Sally. They all looked at me with various amounts of horror or interest.

  Holly got up to leave, and I held her down. “Let’s wait until they all go to the cemetery.”

  “Oh, good idea,” Holly said. “Did you notice the grief and anger on Dan’s face?”

  “I did,” I said. “Amy’s attention was all for Dan.”

  “I didn’t expect the yoga teachers to come.”

  “Well, we know they knew Ivy pretty well. If what Dawn said was right, they were working with Ivy.”

  “All three looked pretty torn up,” Holly observed.

  “Sally was the only one not crying,” I pointed out. “Do you think that’s suspicious?”

  “No, she’s in human resources. She’s probably seen everything,” Holly said.

  “Excuse me, ladies, but everyone is leaving for the burial,” the funeral home attendant informed us.

  “That’s our cue to leave,” I said, and we got up. Upsetting anyone further was the last thing I intended.

  We stepped out into the sunshine and watched as the cars pulled away.

  “Well, that was interesting,” Holly said. “I’m bummed we didn’t learn anything new.”

  “We learned that everyone was closer to Ivy than we thought,” I pointed out. “I wonder why she wasn’t in business with her brother. Or at the very least, invited to the retreat.”

  “You told me that she and Laura didn’t get along. Remember?”

  “Right,” I said, “that’s when we thought Ivy might have killed Laura.”

  “And now Ivy’s dead.”

  “Pretty convenient, don’t you think?”

  “Only if the killer was trying to cover their tracks,” Holly said.

  “So there’s still a chance that we can find out who really killed Laura,” I concluded. “I’m calling Patrick to let him know I’m going to talk to Chelsea. I’m hoping that by sharing my story with the press, someone else who knows something will come forward.”

  “Good luck with that,” Holly said and hugged me. “I’m leaving to prep for a gallery showing tonight.”

  “Take care,” I said. “I’ve got a tasting for Aunt Jemma. It seems she was right. People are coming down to catch a glimpse of the murder suspect.”

  Holly rolled her eyes. “Don’t let them get you down.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Watching the procession leave, I realized it bugged me to not see the whole picture. Maybe, if I was careful, I could watch the rest of the funeral from a distance . . . I smiled and got in my car.

  * * *

  Patrick did not get back to me so I went ahead and called Chelsea.

  “I have a better idea,” Chelsea said on the phone after I explained everything. “Let’s do a stakeout and follow the new Mrs. Scott for a while.”

  “I don’t want to get into more trouble,” I said.

  “There won’t be trouble. You will be with me. I’ll be your alibi.”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “What can it hurt? I’ll pick you up, and you can sit in the car with me and tell me your story. If we happen to run into Amy Scott, then we run into her.”

  “But we’ll be sitting outside her new home.”

  “Actually, her place of business,” Chelsea said. “They bought the house to start the brain wave–training business out of.”

  “Fine.” I didn’t really care about their business. “We’ll talk about Amy outside her new place of business. What if she sees us?”

  “Then we ask her how things are and leave,” Chelsea said. “Trust me. She won’t be looking for us.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Good,” she replied. “Wear black in case we need to follow someone on foot.”

  * * *

  “So you went to the bank, came out, and saw Amy walking this way,” Chelsea said as we sat in her car.

  “Yes,” I said. “I wanted to ask her some questions, so I followed her, but then I saw her meet Dan. She kissed him, and they went inside the building.”

  “Then what happened?” Chelsea faced me and took notes. I faced the house and tried to keep an eye out for Amy or Dan.

  “I called Holly. I mean, what if they were having an affair this whole time? Wouldn’t that be motive for murder?”

  “Sounds like motive to me,” Chelsea said. “Suspicious, anyway. What did Holly say?”

  “She came right down and knocked on the door on the pretense of wanting to rent the building. She spoke to Amy and learned that she and Dan were newlyweds and that they had first dibs on the property.”

  “Wow, and now we’re sitting outside the house on a stakeout.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Despite my better judgment.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Chelsea said. “I brought donuts.”

  “Right.”

  We sat and chatted about nothing as tim
e passed. The sun went down, and I felt as if we were wasting time.

  “What if they don’t come out?” I said.

  “We’ll spend the night in the car,” Chelsea said, unfazed by the prospect. “We’ll follow Amy around during the day and see what she’s up to.”

  “What if it’s nothing?”

  “Then we’ll give her a few days,” Chelsea said. “She has to slip up sometime.”

  “I don’t think she will,” I said. “My case is going to trial. She’s married Dan. All is well as far as she’s concerned.”

  “Wait. Is that her?” Chelsea said.

  I watched as a woman came out of the back of the new house. It was dark, so I couldn’t be sure if it was Amy or not.

  “Duck,” Chelsea said, and we both scooted down to avoid being seen. My heart beat fast as I listened to footsteps on the sidewalk. They came closer and closer, then passed by without pausing. We both sat up and looked to see the woman turn down the street.

  “Do we follow in the car or walk?”

  “Car,” Chelsea said and started the engine. She wheeled us in a fast U-turn, then drove down the street to see the woman cross the next street. We stopped at the stop sign and watched as she continued down the street and turned right. Strange, but it looked like she was carrying a shovel and something else . . . a tote bag with something in it? It was hard to tell at this distance.

  “I’ll go up the next block and then turn onto that street,” Chelsea said. We got to the street to find that the woman was walking into the cemetery where Ivy and Laura were buried. “That’s interesting,” Chelsea said, found the closest parking space, and parked. “Come on.”

  We got out of the car and crossed the street, following the figure ahead of us.

  “She’s going to Ivy’s grave,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I went to the funeral,” I said. “I stayed back out of respect for Dan, but I wanted to see who all showed up.”

  “Who showed up?”

  “Dan and Amy, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Emma, Rashida, Juliet, and Sally from the yoga company. Then a few men I didn’t know—I assumed they were Dan’s family.”

  “Did Ivy have a boyfriend?”

  “I don’t have any idea. For all I know, she didn’t have any friends except for her best friend, Dawn, who was charged with identity theft. There was some talk that she was the one who killed Ivy, so she wasn’t there.”

  “Sad not to go to your best friend’s funeral.”

  “I agree,” I said softly. “Anyway, Dan was really upset I went to the funeral, so Holly and I left after everyone. I intended to go home, but decided to see if Dawn showed up at the burial.”

  “Did she?”

  “No,” I said. “So I left. But it’s how I know we’re heading for Ivy’s funeral plot.”

  We walked through the dark toward the spot where Ivy was buried. The ground was still freshly disturbed. They had rolled sod on top to help it blend in, but there was still a bit of a mound from where the casket was lowered.

  We stopped, and I grabbed Chelsea’s arm. The woman was digging in Ivy’s grave.

  “Get out your cell phone and record this,” Chelsea said. She took out her phone, turned on the camera, and motioned for me to go to the opposite side and get some video. I walked as silently as possible. I didn’t need to. The woman was busy digging. She had moved a swatch of sod from the top of Ivy’s grave and dug a small hole about two feet deep. I videoed her placing something wrapped in a pillowcase inside the hole and covering it with dirt. She replaced the sod and stomped on it.

  Chelsea sneezed, and I caught the woman’s face as she looked around. It was Amy.

  “Who’s there?” Amy called.

  I kept quiet and hid my phone light but kept the video recording.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello,” I heard Chelsea say as she walked out into the light outside the grave site. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Chelsea McGartland.”

  “You’re that reporter.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I was visiting Laura’s grave, and I noticed she had fresh flowers. Then I came over to see Ivy and saw you standing there by the grave. I see you have a shovel. Are you planting flowers?”

  Nice save, I thought.

  “No,” Amy said. “I . . . I found the shovel. One of the workers must have left it. I was missing Ivy and came to talk to her,” Amy said.

  “Oh, so you knew Ivy well?”

  “She was my husband’s sister,” Amy said. “I worked with her for three years before she moved onto other business ventures.”

  “Your husband is Ivy’s brother? Dan?”

  “Yes,” she said. “We’re newlyweds.”

  “Didn’t his first wife die recently?”

  “Laura was found murdered,” she said. “I know it seems fast, but Dan and I have been in love for years. We didn’t do anything about it because he was married.”

  “Why didn’t he get a divorce?”

  “Laura had terminal cancer,” she said. “He couldn’t abandon her in her time of need.”

  “But I thought she was building a yoga empire.”

  “Teaching others how to improve their business was Laura’s passion. She wanted to do as much as she could as long as she could. Dan and I supported her. We knew our love would last, so we waited patiently.”

  “Did Laura know about you?”

  “I don’t think so,” Amy said. “I’d like to think she felt loved up until the end.”

  “Don’t you think that your love for Dan might be a motive to murder Laura?”

  “Why? She was already dying. All we had to do was wait. He was caring for her. She knew she was terminal. They tried several doctors, but the prognosis was the same. So she set about eating well, meditating, and doing her yoga.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Ivy was as big a loss for Dan as Laura,” Amy said. “Bigger because it was unexpected.”

  “I heard they had a fight the day Ivy was killed.”

  “Who?” Amy asked, suddenly looking guilty.

  “Dan and Ivy,” Chelsea said. This surprised me. I hadn’t heard anything about Dan and Ivy fighting. “I’ve got an eyewitness who tells me that they were overheard fighting before Dan stormed out. Do you know what the fight was about?”

  “I don’t know anything about a fight,” Amy said, her face darkening with fear.

  “Neither did I,” I said as I approached.

  “What are you doing here?” Amy screeched. “Are you two together? Did you bring this woman here?”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said. “What were you burying with Ivy?”

  “I wasn’t burying anything. Why are you here? Don’t you know that Dan doesn’t want you near his family?”

  “I didn’t kill Laura, and you know I didn’t kill Ivy,” I said. “Let’s see what you buried.”

  “Get the police out here,” Chelsea advised.

  “No!” Amy said and threw herself on the ground as if to cover what she’d buried with her body.

  I nodded at Chelsea, who dialed 9-1-1. “I recorded you with my phone. Chelsea is calling the police. What did you bury, Amy?”

  “It’s nothing,” Amy said. “Go away.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, and neither is Chelsea. You might as well tell us what’s going on.”

  “There’s nothing going on,” Amy said. “I wanted Ivy to have something. The ground wasn’t settled yet. I don’t know why you have to dig it up.”

  “I’m not digging it up—you are.”

  “I refuse.” She crossed her arms.

  We waited uncomfortably in the cemetery, Amy refusing to speak, until the authorities arrived.

  “What’s going on?” Sheriff Hennessey asked as he walked up the drive. “We got a phone call about suspicious activity.”

  “We found Amy burying something in Ivy’s grave,” Chelsea said. />
  “Taylor, what are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Chelsea and I were talking. We saw Amy coming this way so we followed her.”

  “That’s stalking!” Amy pointed a finger at me.

  “It’s not stalking,” Chelsea said. “It’s a public cemetery.”

  “We caught her burying something,” I said and showed him my phone. He took it and watched the video.

  “It’s not a crime to bury something, is it?” Amy said. “It’s a memento for Ivy.”

  “Let’s see what you buried,” the sheriff said. “Then we’ll talk to the cemetery keeper and see if it’s okay to bury it or not.”

  “I’d rather not,” Amy said and held her expression firm.

  The sheriff pushed his hat back so that his full face was showing. “What you’d prefer is not my concern here,” he said. “Let’s take a moment and see what you buried.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll get a crew of forensic specialists to come out. Do you really want to make me do that?”

  “If you can justify the expense, then go for it.” Amy was quite stubborn.

  “Fine.” He made a quick call to his dispatcher.

  “I’m not sticking around for this ridiculousness.” Amy started to walk away.

  “Oh, no,” the sheriff said. “You aren’t going anywhere until we get this figured out.”

  “I’m calling my husband and my lawyer,” Amy said.

  “You’re free to do that,” he said as another police vehicle appeared. Two deputies got out and came over. Chelsea took pictures with her phone.

  “This is great for my story.”

  “What if she was burying a memento like she said?” I whispered to Chelsea. “Then you don’t have a story, and we both look stupid.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  Dan showed up next and rushed to Amy’s side and hugged her. They locked hands and he scowled at me. “Why is it you’re always messing up my life?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said.

  “You followed my wife. You called the sheriff. What is wrong with you?”

  “She wouldn’t tell us what she buried,” I pointed out. “So this mess is her fault.”

  He turned toward Amy. “What did you bury?”

  “Don’t answer,” an older man in his midfifties said. He was portly and walked up wearing jeans and a dress shirt. His gray hair stood up on one side as if he’d been in bed and hastily dressed.