Pressed to Death

by Kirsten Weiss

  Something fluttered in the darkness above me. A bat.

  “Gagh!” Flapping my hands above my head, I darted inside and slammed the door. Bats eat mosquitoes, so are useful flying rodents. But I didn’t want one tangled in my hair. In fact, this whole setup seemed less like a charming Tuscan villa and more along the lines of Castle Dracula. Who built a castle in flat-as-a-tabletop farm country?

  Swallowing, I edged farther inside. “Jocelyn? It’s me, Maddie Kosloski!”

  I stopped at the low table in front of the couch. Squares of lemon bars stacked, pyramid-style, on a platter. Paired with a … I lifted the cold wine bottle, beaded with sweat: a dry, bubbly Prosecco. Good pairing.

  I returned the bottle to the table and it clunked on the mahogany. “Sorry,” I said to no one, wincing. She’d obviously been waiting for me and must have popped into a back room. I was creeping myself out for nothing. Just because I’d found one dead body in a grape vat, and the door was open, and the house appeared deserted, didn’t mean that Jocelyn was lying in a bloody heap somewhere. Like behind the couch.

  I checked behind the leather couch.

  No body.

  A strange, Peter Lorre giggle issued from my throat and I clapped my hands over my mouth. Now who was being outré?

  The air conditioner hummed. On one wall, picture windows glinted black against the night. A bookcase filled another wall. A wide entry cut through it and led into a larger room with cream-colored couches, soft chairs, a massive stone fireplace. A fire crackled, drawing me forward. Jocelyn was burning a fire while running the AC? The rich really did live differently.

  The castle’s interior looked modern and luxurious, not haunted. But that unnaturally chilled air gave it an eerie atmosphere.

  I dragged my palms down the legs of my jeans. Yeah. That was why my heart pounded and my palms had grown moist. The cool air. Not the fact that I was alone in a cavernous castle, my hostess nowhere in sight.

  And besides, the castle was too new to be haunted. Romeo had built it when he bought the vineyard. I knew this because neighbors tend to take note when a castle rises outside of town. It had been built at the old Constantino winery and vineyards, where the murder-

  suicide had occurred all those years ago. I knew what the ghost hunters who regularly investigated my museum would tell me: get a plan of the original winery and overlay it on the existing one to see if the castle had been built literally atop the old murder site, or if the murder had occurred elsewhere on the vineyard grounds.

  I shouldn’t leave this room. Just because Jocelyn had left the door open didn’t mean she expected me to go free range.

  Hovering in the open doorway between the two rooms, I gazed, wistful, at the fire. Air conditioning or not, ’twas the season of crackling fires and pumpkin pies and nogs. The fireplace was castle-worthy. Another oriental carpet spread before it, a woman’s shoe standing heel-to-toe upright, and …

  I blinked, looked again, and my heart lurched. The shoe stuck out from behind one of the couches. The only way it could stand at that angle would be if it was leaning against something, or if there was a foot inside it.

  “Jocelyn?” I whispered.

  I swayed, dread locking me in place. Then a voice in my head told me to move, and I hurried forward.

  Jocelyn lay behind the arm of the couch. A knife protruded from her midsection. Her eyes stared, sightless, at the beveled ceiling.

  I gasped, hands to my mouth. Then I ran, not stopping until I was inside my truck. Hands shaking, I smacked all the locks down and fumbled for my cell phone. I dropped it on the floor of my truck and dove for it, hitting my head on the wheel. Cursing, I retrieved the phone and called 911.

  This was not good.

  Cold seeped from the interview room’s cinderblock walls, its concrete floor. I turned up the collar of my cream-colored blouse, of my safari jacket—both useless gestures. They were too light to fight this chill. A wide “mirror” in the wall reflected my pale image. Did anyone brought in here really think it was just a mirror? In this day and age, criminals couldn’t be that unenlightened.

  The overhead fluorescent light flickered, and I glanced at the video camera, high in one corner of the room. A fat spider crawled across its lens, spinning a web. I clenched my hands in my lap, stilling their trembling.

  Detective Laurel Hammer, rumpled and irritated, sat across from me. A coffee stain marked the right breast of her navy suit jacket. “You found both murder victims, husband and wife. How do you think that looks?”

  “Bad.” Poor Jocelyn. The attack must have been terrifying. I couldn’t imagine dying like that. There’d been so much blood. I stared hard at the spider, trying to banish the memory.

  “Mrs. Paganini cleared your name in the theft of the grape press. Did you have to shut her up to make sure her story stayed pat?”

  I could have smarted off but I felt hollowed-out, bone-weary. Finding Romeo’s corpse had been shocking. Finding Jocelyn’s had been terrifying, because now I understood that a predator stalked San Benedetto.

  Oh, God. How would Leo react? My thoughts jumbled. It was my fourth interview of the night. Laurel and Detective Slate had been tag-teaming me. I checked my watch. Morning now.

  “Bored, Kosloski?”

  “Tired. What’s happening to our town? This used to be the place where the most nefarious thing that happened was the annual Christmas Cow arson. I don’t know who killed Jocelyn Paganini. I can’t imagine anyone doing it.”

  “Why did you go to Paganini’s house?”

  “I told you, she invited me. She said she wanted to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “I’m not sure. We were at the haunted house setup yesterday, and we talked about a lot of things—Romeo’s death, how Leo was dealing with it, the grape press. We were interrupted—there were so many people around—and she invited me over for drinks at seven thirty.”

  “You called 911 at seven fifty-two.”

  “I was five minutes late, and I didn’t find her right away. Like I said, the door was open. It didn’t seem right to just wander around the house.”

  “But you went ahead and did it anyway.”

  I knotted my fingers together.

  “Did she want to talk about Leo?” Laurel asked.

  “I’m not sure.” Uneasy, I ran my finger inside my watchband. The detective wasn’t asking this out of concern for Romeo’s orphaned son.

  “I hear he blamed his father for his mother’s death.”

  My brow furrowed. “His mother died of cancer.” Sympathy weighted my chest. The disease had claimed my dad, too.

  “And Romeo didn’t lift a finger to help pay for her treatments.”

  “Are you saying Leo’s mother didn’t get the treatment she needed?” I asked.

  “I’m saying Leo hasn’t been shy about how much he hated his father. I know he’s said things to you.”

  “I’m his boss, not his confidante.” But Leo had said things, and he’d been angry at Jocelyn as well. They’d argued at the haunted house.

  No, Leo couldn’t have done something this brutal.

  “What? You’ve thought of something.”

  “You got me thinking of the museum,” I lied. “I’m trying to remember if I fed GD.”

  Laurel flushed. She lurched to her feet, her metal chair scraping against the concrete floor. Lips pressed in a thin line, she stalked to the metal door, slamming it on her way out. Though I’d known it was coming, my shoulders jerked at the sound.

  At least I wasn’t her only suspect. But Leo? He was only nineteen. And while I knew that didn’t exempt him from being a killer, I didn’t want to believe it. Sure, he had motive—his inheritance from his father would no longer be controlled by Jocelyn. His Gothic, rebel-with-a-cause image wouldn’t help his case. Yes, he’d been open about his turbulent relationship with his fath
er, but at that age, feelings ran hot—an argument the cops would make for Leo being the killer.

  I sighed, scrunching in my chair, and glanced at the video camera.

  The spider was gone. I straightened, looking around. In theory, spiders were good guys. Like bats, they ate other bugs. In practice, I’d rather not get too close.

  At least I could now get Ladies Aid off my back about solving the crime. There was no way they could think Mrs. Gale responsible for Jocelyn’s death too. She might have wanted to sabotage the grape stomp, but she wouldn’t have followed up by murdering Jocelyn Paganini. In any case, murdering a random vintner just to sabotage a charity grape stomp was ludicrous.

  The door opened, a metallic clank. Detective Slate walked in, jacketless, his sleeves rolled up and exposing corded muscles. Dark smudges marked the skin beneath his eyes. “I’m starting to think your museum really is cursed,” he said.

  “The exhibits, not the museum,” I corrected automatically. “Why? Did something happen at the museum?”

  “No, I was talking about you. Why don’t you tell me why you really went to Mrs. Paganini’s home last night?”

  “I already told you. Because she invited me.”

  “Why?”

  “We’d been talking about lots of things.” I crept forward, feeling my way. “She seemed to be under some stress, which I chalked up to her husband’s murder.”

  He nodded. “But now you think it was about something else?”

  “No. Now I think she suspected who the killer was and wanted to talk to me about it.”

  “About Leo.”

  My heartbeat grew loud in my ears. I’d blown it. Slate had led me down the path to the solution that lay at its end. But Leo wasn’t the killer! My blood warmed and I forced a smile. “Leo is not a killer.”

  “But he did come up in conversation before she died.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t lie to him. “But a lot of things came up—”

  “Maddie,” he said gently, “you might not be seeing Leo clearly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your father died recently, and I understand your sympathy for Leo. But could you be projecting?”

  “I don’t … No.”

  “If Jocelyn suspected him in his father’s death, it might explain why she invited you to her home to talk. To warn you.”

  “Or she wanted to talk about the grape press.”

  His brows rose.

  “She asked me if the police had confiscated it. At first I thought she was just being nice, but now I wonder. And I couldn’t figure out why Romeo had reported it stolen. He must have known his wife sold it. It would have been much easier for him to just come to me and ask to buy it back. And it seemed like Jocelyn sold it knowing it would make him angry. She as much as told me so.”

  “So you suspected that Jocelyn killed Romeo?”

  “It was a possibility.”

  “And you decided the smart thing would be to accept her invitation to her haunted castle alone at night?”

  “I think it looks haunted too!”

  He shot me a look, his mouth twisting.

  Right. That hadn’t been his point.

  “There seemed to be some tension between her and Chuck Wollmer, the vintner,” I said. “I noticed it when we were setting up the haunted house. It’s going to be in his tasting room. Building. It’s a big place.”

  “I heard you had a little excitement there.”

  “Excitement?”

  “Your toe. You didn’t just break it. Someone dropped a wine barrel on you. Leo was there at the time, wasn’t he?”

  “No, he’d left.” At least he said he had, but it hadn’t taken him long to return when I’d called. “But there were plenty of other people around—from Ladies Aid, Chuck, Jocelyn.”

  “Who is dead.”

  “I don’t know that anyone dropped the barrel on me. It just fell.”

  “I spoke with Mr. Finkielkraut,” Slate said. “He’s convinced someone pushed it.”

  That big mouth, Dieter! “Well. I can’t speak to his opinion.”

  The detective shook his head. “You were lucky it was empty. Those barrels weigh nearly six hundred pounds when full.”

  “It didn’t land on me. I just caught the bounce.”

  “According to Dieter, it wasn’t your first near miss.”

  “The car?”

  “Funny how Dieter seems to always be on the spot when these things happen.”

  “But he shoved me out of the way.” There was no way Dieter was responsible. Not intentionally, at least.

  “Hmm.”

  A wave of exhaustion rolled through me and I smothered a yawn.

  Slate’s eyes narrowed and he looked at the mirror. “You can go. We’ll be in touch.”

  I opened my mouth to ask about the grape press but thought better of it. Forget the press. I wanted outta here.

  “Thank you.” Grabbing my messenger bag off the back of my chair, I speed-hobbled from the room, then slowed. My pickup was still at the castle, and San Benedetto was too small to support a cab service. I could ask one of the police officers to give me a lift back there, but the thought didn’t appeal. Slate or Laurel might change their mind and have the squad car return me to sender.

  I limped down the steps of the police station to the brick sidewalk. The fog was thick, haloing the iron street lamps.

  Shoving my hands deeper into my jacket pockets, I turned toward the museum and walked. Pumpkins and cheerful Halloween decorations lined the darkened shop windows. The branches of a plum tree rustled above me, and I thought I could hear the trickle of the nearby creek. All else was still, silent. Peaceful.

  The knot at the base of my skull loosened. Maybe I’d grown too tired to be afraid. Or maybe I knew there was nothing to be afraid of. This was my home, my town, and I belonged to it. Logical Maddie said this might no longer be true—two people had been murdered in less than a week. I’d been gone a long time before returning home last year, and life in San Benedetto had changed. But Tired Maddie enjoyed the sting of mist on her cheeks, the soft pad of her footsteps on the sidewalk.

  Ten blocks later, I stood before Mason’s shop. His apartment above was dark. Shaking my head, I let myself into the museum. I slipped through the bookcase door into the tea room and fell asleep in a booth.

  fourteen

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Did your aunt throw you out of her garage?”

  I jerked awake and upright, banging my shoulder on the table. A dozen tiny knives stabbed my abdomen. GD yowled and leapt from my lap. Outside the window, morning fog hung in a sullen gray sky.

  Adele loomed over me, hands on her hips. Not a strand of hair escaped her neat chignon.

  I yawned. “You’re very pink today.” I gestured toward her slim, Parisian-style suit.

  “What are you doing sleeping in the Fox and Fennel?”

  “There was nowhere to lie down in the museum.”

  “And you let that cat inside!”

  “He must have snuck past me.”

  “Maddie!”

  I adjusted my safari jacket. “My truck is at the murder castle. It was after three a.m. and I had to walk back from the police station.”

  Adele paled. “Murder castle? What …? Not Trivia Vineyards? You didn’t find another body!”

  “Jocelyn.” I rubbed my head.

  She sat across from me. “Jocelyn’s dead?”

  I nodded.

  She leaned back in the booth and was silent for a long moment. “How awful. I only knew her to say hello, but she was a lovely woman.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you found her? You were at the police station? The police don’t think you were involved?”

  “I did find both the Paganinis’ bodies. But the police wouldn’t have let
me go if they didn’t have other suspects.” I didn’t want to tell her about Leo.

  “Why didn’t you just call me to pick you up?”

  “At three a.m.?”

  She waved that aside. “Next time you need a lift, call. You’ve stepped up for me in the past. Besides, isn’t that what your boyf

  … best friends are for?” Looking at the ceiling, she pressed her lips together. “Harper would have given you a ride too, you know.”

  “Well, thanks. But it seemed easier to come here. I do need to get my truck, though.”

  Adele checked the slim gold watch around her wrist and nodded crisply. “I got my Mercedes back this morning. Let’s go.”

  After making sure GD was secure in the museum, I followed her to the alley and her Mercedes, parked beside a dumpster.

  I tried not to look at the stairs to Mason’s apartment. Why hadn’t I just banged on his door last night? He would have understood. But I wasn’t sure what I would have found, and the thought that there might be something to find twisted my stomach.

  We drove down the long, winding drive to the Trivia Vineyards castle. Shadows streamed from the Italian cypresses, pointing like arrowheads toward our destination. Adele dropped me in the lot, and when she was sure I was in my truck, drove off. I sat for a moment, staring at the yellow flutter of police tape by the front portal of the building. In the warm morning light, the place looked more like a sandcastle, impermanent, fragile, a sepulcher.

  Shaking off my fancies, I drove to my apartment. I showered, changed into jeans and a Paranormal Museum T-shirt, and returned to the museum, parking in the alley. My head throbbed from lack of sleep, my brain dull, sluggish.

  I stumbled through the tea shop and into the museum. The checkerboard floor swam.

  GD rose on the rocking chair and stretched, yawning.

  “I know how you feel.” Walking behind the counter, I sat and stared at the computer. There were things I should be doing. A quick whisk with the feather duster. A review of the accounts. I turned on the computer. The screen’s glow lulled me.

  The bookcase swiveled open and Adele walked in, carrying a tray. She laid a cup of tea on the counter. “Have you eaten?”