Pressed to Death

by Kirsten Weiss

  She nodded, her eyes dark with sympathy.

  “I’m not overreacting, am I?”

  She patted my hand. “You did the right thing,” she said. “You found out what was going on, and you didn’t react in anger. Of course the situation has thrown both you and Mason.”

  The wall phone rang, startling me. I picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Maddie, it’s Harriet. I was so intrigued by your little mystery that I began researching the mysterious Mr. Paul Wesson right away. It wasn’t hard—I really don’t think I should charge you for this. He’s all over the Internet.”

  “Of course, I’ll pay,” I said faintly.

  “A wedding announcement in Cambridge, Mass. I’ve just emailed it to you. October 15, 1922. He married someone else. Later, he went on to become a rather successful chemical manufacturer on the east coast. The wedding took place only a week after Alcina was killed.”

  “Huh.”

  “I wonder if he even knew she’d died?”

  I wondered if he even knew that he and Alcina were engaged. “Thanks. That’s helpful.” We murmured goodbyes, and I hung up.

  “What was that about?” Adele asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. Just the grape press mystery.”

  She angled her head to one side. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll call Harper. You can drive me home, and we’ll uncork a bottle of reserve wine.”

  “I’m not up for a pity party.”

  “There will be zero pity, I promise. Why should there be? You’re not a wronged woman. There’s nothing pathetic about the situation. It simply requires large quantities of friendship and wine.”

  Her family’s reserve wines were awfully good. And I really didn’t want to deal with the grape press. “All right. Let’s go.”

  We locked up. Adele called Harper, and I drove. We stopped at the local doggy daycare to pick up Adele’s pug, Pug. She clasped him to her chest. He wriggled, shedding tawny fur across her black turtle­neck.

  “Did you miss me?” she cooed, scratching the dog’s fawn-colored head.

  We drove out of town, into the vineyards. The temperature had dropped and I rolled up my window. The setting sun blinded me, turning the sky to fire.

  Wincing, I lowered the truck’s visor. “Adele, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

  “Oh?” She arched her neck, evading Pug’s pink tongue.

  “Mrs. Bigelow from Ladies Aid said there was something odd going on among the local vintners. She thought you might know something about it.”

  “Odd?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t want to pry, but I overheard an argument between your parents. Is something happening at the winery?”

  She blew out her breath. “I’m not supposed to say.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t have the heart to push.

  “Someone made Daddy an offer,” she burst out.

  “An offer?”

  “To buy the winery. And he’s actually considering selling! Can you believe it?”

  “Is it a good offer?”

  “Of course it’s a good offer. That’s why he’s considering it. Daddy has always been a businessman first, a vintner second. He’s in it because he likes being his own boss, and my mother’s in it because she loves making wine. They’re a perfect team. I guess I didn’t understand that to him, it’s not the family business, it’s just business. But I grew up on Plot 42, and he and my mother spent so much time building their Haunted Vine label. I’m trying to be objective, but selling out feels like a betrayal.”

  “Who’s the buyer? Not the vampire?”

  “The vampire? What are you talking about?”

  “Tall, pale, good-looking in a you-can-never-be-too-rich-or-too-thin sort of way?”

  She snorted. “Oh, him. Yes, he’s the one. He represents one of those big international wine conglomerates.”

  I frowned. Others had told me outsiders wanted to invest in San Benedetto’s wine industry, not buy it up. Was it the same investor? Or had I misunderstood?

  I slowed, turning down a long dirt driveway and parking beneath an oak tree.

  Adele stepped out, setting Pug on the ground. On stubby legs, he bounded up the porch steps of her wedding-cake Victorian. He raced back in forth in front of the screened front door, his tongue hanging from his mouth.

  I followed, my feet hollow on the steps as she unlocked the door. The setting sun made long prison-bar shadows of the rows of grapevines. An oak trembled in the uneven breeze, drizzling dried leaves atop my truck. I zipped my hoodie higher. It felt like autumn, the last traces of summer warmth vanished with the darkening sky.

  Pug raced inside, through the all-white living room and into the kitchen. Crunching and snuffling sounds drifted through the house.

  “Don’t they feed him at that daycare?” I asked.

  Adele laughed. “You know Pug. There’s never a bad time to eat.” She headed for the kitchen.

  I sank onto the snow-white couch and stared into the unlit, white-brick fireplace. A branch scraped against the window.

  “Mind if I start a fire?” I asked.

  “Go right ahead. There’s wood in the basket beside the fireplace.”

  I set up the fire. By the time I had it crackling, Harper had arrived. She’d changed out of her pinstripes and into jeans and a caramel-colored knit top.

  Harper took two glasses of blood-colored wine from Adele and passed one to me.

  I rose in front of the fireplace, and we clinked glasses.

  “To good friends,” Harper said.

  Adele and I echoed the toast. I sipped the wine, savoring the flavors of dark berries and black pepper and licorice. “Reserve” meant “expensive,” and one didn’t gulp reserve wine like cheap beer. Not that I have anything against cheap beer.

  “What’s going on, Maddie?” Harper asked.

  We sat on the snowy couch and I told her about Mason. Adele puttered in the kitchen, heating hors d’oeuvres. “Mini quiches?” she called out.

  “Yes, please,” Harper shouted back. Scratching her jaw, she turned to me and sipped her wine. “So what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t see a whole lot of options. Either I go along with the program, or …” Or what? Break up? My mouth went dry and I took another sip. Was breaking up really a possibility? I wasn’t a fan of the first option, but the second sickened my stomach. I couldn’t make a decision tonight. I’d sent myself halfway to Crazy Town because of Mason’s silence, and I wasn’t sure I was thinking clearly now.

  Someone knocked on the front door.

  “Can one of you get that?” Adele called from the kitchen.

  I lurched off the couch, setting my goblet beside a stack of wine and travel magazines on the coffee table. Trotting to the door, I opened it.

  Mr. Nakamoto stood on the porch. The chill breeze ruffled his thinning gray hair. A Haunted Vine windbreaker flapped around him, too large on his narrow frame. “Maddie. Hi. I was looking for my daughter.”

  I stepped away from the door. The Nakamotos often popped in and out of each other’s homes. “She’s in the kitchen,” I said.

  He strode past me and into the kitchen. I returned to my warm spot on Adele’s couch and reached for my glass.

  A shriek from the kitchen split my ears, and my hand jerked. The goblet tilted. Fumbling, I caught it before zinfandel could spill onto the white shag rug.

  Harper winced. “Did I miss something?”

  Adele ran into the living room, her father following more slowly behind her. “We’re not selling! Plot 42 and Haunted Vine are still ours!” She clapped her hands together, doing a little dance. Pug hopped around her heels and barked.

  Mr. Nakamoto grimaced. “So you girls heard.”

  “I didn’t,” Harper said. “You were thinking of selling the vineyard?”
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  He nodded.

  “I heard there were investors in town,” I said. “And a big investor?”

  “I don’t know about the others, but the group I spoke with is certainly big. They’re trying to buy up a collection of vineyards.” Mr. Nakamoto frowned. “The other vintners won’t be happy.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “It’s an all-or-nothing deal. If one winery doesn’t sell out, no one can. For this to work, Pryce needs a large block of land—not little pieces of vineyard here and there.”

  “Which other vineyards are involved in the deal?” I asked. Chuck hadn’t said anything about selling, but the vampire had been hanging around his place as well. And he’d been talking to Jocelyn.

  Mr. Nakamoto shook his head. “The company rep played things close to the vest. They made us sign a confidentiality agreement. He wouldn’t tell me which other wineries were involved, and no one else is talking.”

  “This is the guy who looks like a Regency-era vampire? He was at your house a few nights ago when I came by to pick up Adele?”

  Mr. Nakamoto’s dark eyes twinkled. “Pryce, a vampire? No wonder you agreed to take on the Paranormal Museum. What an imagination.”

  “I thought Pryce looked like a consumptive Victorian dandy,” Adele said.

  Laughing, he kissed her on the top of the head. He said goodbye to us and left, the door snicking shut behind him.

  “This calls for a celebration,” Adele said. “It’s time to break out the reserve wine.”

  “I thought this was reserve wine.” Harper eyed her glass askance.

  She faltered, biting her lip. “Oh. Right!”

  “Adele …” I began.

  She crossed her arms over her chest, her cheeks pinking. “Well, the reserve is expensive, and I’m a small business owner on a budget.”

  I reached for my phone, wanting to talk this over with … the thought stumbled in its tracks. Mason. I couldn’t call him. Not now.

  My vision blurred. What had happened to us?

  twenty-two

  Mason didn’t call.

  Not that night.

  Not all the next day.

  Sunday arrived, and the setting sun slanted through the blinds, illuminating everything that was wrong with my museum. The floor in the main room looked shabby next to the new linoleum in the gallery. The photo frames lining the walls were cheap, battered. The brass skull needed polishing. But I’d known this would never be a high-class establishment. That was part of its paranormal charm.

  And no customer likes a mournful museum curator. So I sat in my long-legged chair and smiled at the milling customers.

  The wall phone rang, and I pounced on it. “Paranormal Museum, this is Mad—”

  “You promised to pick up that grape press on Friday!” Mrs. Bigelow shouted.

  I winced, holding the phone away from my ear. The museum was busy, tourists clotting the rooms thanks to the haunted house.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Something came up.”

  “I did not accept excuses from my children, and I assume your mother does not accept them from you.”

  “Mrs.—”

  She hung up.

  I checked my watch, flipped the sign to Closed. It was past five o’clock. Time to shoo out the crowd and leave.

  They trickled from the museum, their arms loaded with goodies. I sold three coffee mugs, a painting of a pumpkin patch, and a Ouija board. Normally, the sales would make me cackle with capitalist glee. Today I just shoved the money in the register and slammed it shut. Thank God the day was over.

  I locked up after the last of the customers and checked the cat’s food bowl. A quick search assured me GD hadn’t escaped into the tea room (he was sleeping on top of the spirit cabinet). I whisked a broom around the linoleum floor and escaped.

  I pulled out of the alley and braked to a stop, sinking my head onto the steering wheel. That damned grape press. I needed to get it from the haunted house.

  But I didn’t like being shouted at by Mrs. Bigelow. Mason hadn’t called. And I was exhausted.

  “Screw it.” Bigelow could wait one more day.

  I drove home, settling in with a delivery pizza and a bottle of wine.

  Past midnight, I stumbled into bed, trying not to think of Mason. Each time my thoughts wandered in his direction, the muscles in my neck and shoulders bunched. So I pondered the murders instead.

  Did the police know about the vineyard deal? From what little I’d heard about Romeo, he didn’t seem the type to sell. But the sabotage at his vineyard had cost him dearly, which would have increased the pressure on him to take the deal. Had that been the motivation for the sabotage, or was it more personal?

  Assuming Romeo had been asked to be part of the deal, there were plenty of suspects who’d have wanted him to sell. Other vintners. Jocelyn, perhaps, but she was dead and out of the running as a murder suspect. Leo? With his father and Jocelyn dead, he could sell out, do whatever he wanted with the money.

  I wasn’t sure if Elthia had a dog in this particular hunt. But her family owned a small vineyard. What if they wanted to sell out, and she, being Romeo’s mistress, knew he was scotching the deal?

  I rolled over, and the bed creaked beneath me. Moonlight streamed through the window and made eerie silhouettes of the oak branches outside.

  And speaking of vineyard owners, what about Chuck and the vampire, Pryce? I’d seen them with Jocelyn in the wine tent—sealing the deal once Romeo was dead? If Jocelyn had been ready to sell, how would her death have affected the deal?

  Frustrated, I fisted my hands in the warm sheets. There were too many suspects with too many motives. Please, please, let the killer not be Leo.

  My thoughts tumbled to the grape press mystery. If Romeo’s murder had been a crime of finance, Alcina and Luigi’s murders appeared to be crimes of passion.

  Or were they? Back in 1922, air travel was in its infancy. Poor roads made cross-country travel by car a long and bumpy proposition. Alcina’s fiancé couldn’t have committed the crime and made it back to Harvard a week later for his wedding. But someone had moved and set fire to those bodies.

  I had a dark suspicion who the killer was, but I feared it would take a séance to prove it.

  I rolled over, knocking a pillow to the floor.

  And what if I was wrong about Romeo’s murder being a crime motivated by money? He’d been having an affair with Elthia, and love made a depressing motive for murder. Just ask poor, long-dead Alcina.

  Past and present crimes jumbled together. I fell into an uneasy sleep and dreamed of grape vats and vineyards and vampires.

  Eyes gritty, I dragged myself from bed late on Monday. The night had brought me clarity, and I knew now what I had to do.

  I showered and dressed in beige drawstring slacks and an army-green tank top. Then I called Mason.

  “Maddie, it’s good to hear from you.”

  His voice was a warm rumble, and I squeezed my eyes shut. “Hi, Mason. How are things going?”

  “Yesterday I took Jordan and Anabelle to Old Town Sacramento. We stuffed ourselves on fudge.”

  In spite of myself, I smiled. It was hard to imagine Mason of the rippling muscles as a chocoholic. “Are you free for coffee this afternoon?” My mouth went dry. It felt like I was asking for a first date.

  “When and where?”

  I considered the Fox and Fennel, but we needed privacy. “Three o’clock? The Wok and Bowl?” A 1950s-themed bowling alley and Chinese restaurant, the Wok and Bowl brewed rocking java. Plus, it was noisy, so no one would overhear our conversation.

  “I’ll be there.” He paused. “It felt strange going out without you yesterday.”

  My throat constricted. “You need time with your family. I’ll see you this afternoon.”

  We hung up, and I blew out my breath.
Next up: present-day murder investigation. I called Dieter.

  “Yeah?” On his end of the line, a circular saw screamed, winding to silence.

  “It’s Maddie, I needed to—”

  “I’m at your mom’s house.”

  Even better. “I’ll be right over.”

  I drove to my mother’s ranch-style home and parked beside Dieter’s truck. A bead of sweat trickled down my neck and I lifted my hair, knotting it into a bun. The circular saw shrieked, cutting the cloudless sky.

  I crunched across fallen leaves, following the noise to the back yard. Waiting a respectful distance away, I watched Dieter cut through a redwood plank. Sawdust swirled in the balmy air. It filmed his goggles, drifted to rest in his spiky brown hair. One end of the board thunked to the concrete patio.

  Turning off the saw, he stepped back, rubbing his palms on the front of his overalls. He raised his goggles to the top of his head. “What’s up, Mad?”

  I stepped out from behind a camellia bush. “What are you doing?”

  The sliding glass door scraped back. My mother, neat in a silky blouse and pressed jeans, stepped onto the patio. “He’s helping with my new low-water garden. What brings you here this morning?”

  “Dieter, you mentioned you repaired the gate at Chuck’s vineyard. What happened to the old one?”

  “Chuck told me one of his workers hit it. He must have hit it pretty damned hard, because the thing was off its hinges and busted into eight pieces. Why?”

  “Just curious.” I turned on my mother. “Mom, what’s really going on with Ladies Aid?”

  She raised a brow. “Really going on? I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You’re up to something,” I said.

  “Madelyn, I explained to you about the lemon bars—”

  “Lemon bars?” Dieter asked.

  “Then why did you insist I investigate Romeo’s murder?”

  She toyed with the silver squash-blossom necklace at her throat. “I was worried about Cora. I knew Eliza would blame her for Romeo’s death and thought it would ease her mind if she knew you were in her corner. Oh! Did I tell you? Your brother Shane got a promotion!”