Pressed to Death

by Kirsten Weiss

  “Male and female?” Chuck asked.

  “But the grape press wasn’t burnt.” The storage room was airless and I struggled for breath. “It wasn’t inside the cottage when the building was set on fire. Photos from the crime scene prove this. So if a man and woman were shot beside the grape press, how did their bodies end up inside a burned-out cottage?”

  “I don’t know,” Chuck said. “How?”

  Leo angled the dolly back and tested the press’s stability. He lowered it to the ground and wiped his brow, his pale forehead beaded with sweat.

  “The killer gave himself away during the cover-up.” I raised my voice enough to carry into the tasting room. “And I think it might have been Alcina’s father. I think her father wanted her to marry someone else, a Harvard man, not a lowly worker in his vineyards. But you can’t force something that’s not meant to be, and the Harvard guy wasn’t with the program. He married someone else a week after Alcina’s murder. Maybe Alcina had been jilted and found comfort with Luigi. Or maybe she had no intention of marrying the man from Harvard either. After her death, her father was wracked with guilt, so much so that he ended up in a sanatorium.”

  “He went crazy?” Leo asked, his voice thin.

  “And in his journal, after the murders, he wrote that it was his fault. Everyone assumed he felt guilty because he hadn’t been able to protect his daughter. But what if it really was his fault? What if he killed them both? He might not have meant to kill Alcina. Maybe she just got in the way. By all accounts he was devastated by her death.”

  A tightness I hadn’t known I’d been carrying released. I wobbled, light.

  “It’s a good story,” Chuck said. “Good luck proving it.”

  Leo straightened, shoulders back.

  I smiled, a thin line. “It’s probably not possible after all these years.” But I did know a certain detective with a fondness for cold case files.

  Together, Leo and I got the press into the back of my pickup, and we drove to the museum. We hauled it inside beneath the watchful gaze of GD and set it in the center of the main room.

  GD sneezed and curled up on the rocking chair, closing his eyes. No hissing, no growling, no bristling fur. Had figuring out the crime been enough to banish whatever was hanging on to the press?

  “Do you really think your story about the murder is true?” Leo asked.

  “Murders, plural. I may not have all the details, but I think I’m pretty close.”

  “That Chuck guy is right. It will be tough to prove.”

  “Maybe.”

  Leo left. Through the window blinds, I watched him slouch down the street. I drew my cell phone from my bag, made a call.

  “Hello?”

  I took a deep breath. “I think someone’s going to try and kill me again. Tonight.”

  twenty-four

  I paced the distressed wood floors of my garage apartment. In the windows, I saw only my own reflection, hazy in the glass, black against the night. The butterflies in my stomach had escaped, cannoning inside my skin, the blood in my veins throbbing.

  Catching my foot on the blue rag rug for the fourth time, I sat on the overstuffed couch and picked up my e-reader. A minute later, I set it down on the coffee table. I couldn’t read, not when I knew what was coming.

  I was certain about the how’s and who’s and why’s of last week’s murders. But as with those deaths in the far-off past, I had no real evidence, only a story that made sense. The police had the resources to uncover more, and I didn’t doubt they would, eventually. But the killer had already made one attempt on my life, in the museum. My actions today might have been crazy—I’d practically told the killer that I knew—but I was tired of waiting.

  A branch scraped against a blackened window, and I winced.

  Picking up the e-reader, I read about how to drop ten pounds simply by changing my habits. Ha. As if habits were easy to change. I’d already eaten my way through half a box of lemon bars, but if there ever was a time for emotional eating, this was it. I’d broken up with my boyfriend and taunted a killer. All in the same freaking day. I felt sick, from lemon bars and fear.

  Footsteps creaked on the outside stairs.

  I froze, rooted to the couch. My heart thumped, frantic, against my rib cage. I angled my head, listening.

  Two sets of feet padded up the steps.

  I’d miscalculated. The killer had an accomplice. What had I done what had I done what had I done?

  Gripping the e-reader, I rose from the couch on shaky legs. I’d committed to this course. My only choice was to see it through.

  Someone pounded on the door. Even though I’d been expecting it, my muscles contracted with dread.

  I trudged to the door, steps dragging as if slogging through molasses. “Who is it?” I called, my voice hoarse.

  “We have pizza,” Adele and Harper sang out.

  I blinked, fumbled the lock, yanked open the door. “What are you two doing here?”

  Adele fluttered past me, her pale blue Parisian-style jacket and tulip skirt swishing.

  Harper, holding two pizza boxes, followed.

  Hastily, I shut the door behind them.

  Adele laid two bottles of zinfandel on the coffee table and hugged me. “We heard about you and Mason.”

  I pried myself free of her embrace. “What? How?” I hadn’t told anyone, and I was certain Mason hadn’t said anything.

  Harper grimaced, tugging at the collar of her caramel-colored turtleneck. Her nearly black hair hung in casual waves about her shoulders. “The waitress at the Wok and Bowl has a crush on Mason.”

  “Poodle skirt? But how did she hear us in all that racket?”

  “She has one of those super-hearing devices,” Harper said. “You know, the kind you see on TV for picking up conversations in crowded rooms.”

  “She spied on us?”

  “No,” Harper said, “she uses it to listen in on if customers want more coffee. Can I put the pizzas in the kitchen?”

  “I’ll get plates,” Adele said.

  “Wait, no,” I said. My friends were going to ruin everything. “I really appreciate this, guys. But I just don’t think—”

  Adele and Harper exchanged knowing glances and walked into the kitchen.

  I trotted after them. “Look, I already ate half a dozen lemon bars. I just want to be alone tonight to digest.”

  Adele opened the sky-blue cupboard and pulled out three dishes. “We know you, Maddie. You’re just going to sit here and eat and feel sorry for yourself. You’re thinking you’ll never find another man like Mason again. You’re worried you’ll grow old and alone except for your dozen cats. That when you die, no one will find you for days and your cats will feed on your rotting corpse. But you’re wrong.”

  My ears grew hot with embarrassment.

  “I’m pretty sure GD’s cured her of any desire for a dozen cats,” Harper said.

  So had the visual of being eaten. I had to get rid of my friends, and I really wanted to stop talking about my relationship status.

  “I think the lemon bar binge snapped me out of it. I’m okay.” The scent of pepperoni and melted cheese coiled around the kitchen. My treasonous mouth watered.

  “You’ve been a wreck all week worrying about Mason.” Adele scrounged in a drawer for silverware. “And now the worst has happened. But you’ll get through this.”

  I covered my face with my hands. The hurt of having broken up with Mason was a solid, steady ache. But it was something I knew would come to an end, and that beat the insecurity and confusion of the week before. I had made the right decision. Maybe I’d broken up with him because I was flawed and weak, but I knew my flaws and understood how this situation would affect me.

  “It’s okay to cry,” Adele said. “I know how much you cared about him.”

  “I’m not cryin
g,” I said, dropping my hands. “I’m okay. Breaking up with him hurt. It still hurts. But it was the right call. You don’t have to stay.”

  “But we want to stay,” Adele said.

  “I’m sure you have better things to do.” I ground my teeth in frustration.

  “Sadly,” Harper said, “we don’t.”

  “You’re both great friends,” I said, “and I appreciate what you’re trying to do. But I need to be alone tonight.”

  “We’re not leaving you,” Adele said, “and that’s that.”

  “You really should leave,” I said.

  “Yes, Adele.” Chuck aimed a gun at us through the open kitchen door. “You really should have left.” His moustache curled like a cartoon villain’s, but there was nothing funny about the gun he aimed.

  Adele squeaked, her dark eyes widening.

  Harper stilled, hand poised in the act of lifting a pizza box lid.

  “Chuck!” I sputtered, scared and furious. “Why couldn’t you wait until they’d left? How can you be so damn impatient?”

  “I considered waiting. But then I thought, with Adele dead, the ‘precious heritage’ her parents ruined my deal over wouldn’t matter.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Adele whispered, face pale.

  “The wineries,” I said, inwardly cursing myself. I should have told my friends to get the hell out and not worried if I’d upset them. But no, I had to be selfish and put our friendship before their safety. Stupid!

  “He’s desperate to sell CW Vineyards,” I continued, watching Chuck, “but he can’t sell unless all the wineries involved agree. Romeo wouldn’t sell, so he tried to pressure him by sabotaging him. But it wasn’t hard for Romeo to guess who the guilty culprit was, was it, Chuck? He took off in his truck and drove right through the CW Vineyard gates to get to you.”

  “He had that hot Italian temper,” Chuck said.

  “So you killed him, and used his truck and his keys to dump his body at the festival.”

  “It wasn’t my fault,” Chuck said. “It was self-defense.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but Jocelyn’s death wasn’t. You thought she’d sell the winery. But she had second thoughts about selling Leo’s inheritance.”

  “What does that have to do with me?” Adele wailed.

  Chuck snarled through his beard. “I came here for Maddie, not you. I had to stop her before she went to the police. She’d obviously figured it out.” He looked back at me. “I knew it that first time I saw you at the haunted house, when you were dropping those hints about the Mafia and conspiracies.”

  “That’s why you dropped the wine barrel on me?”

  “Too bad it missed,” he said. “But you kept pushing it, twisting the knife. You never should have made that crack about the cover-up giving it away.”

  “And the Buick?”

  “What Buick?”

  “The one in the parking lot outside the festival grounds.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Oh. You mean that really was an accident?” So it was true. Not everything is about me.

  “But what does that have to do with me?” Adele asked again.

  “Chuck thinks your father is holding on to the winery because of you,” I said.

  “Am I wrong?” he asked.

  Adele didn’t respond.

  “I thought not,” he said. “With you gone, he’ll sell.” Gun steady, Chuck edged into the kitchen.

  Dammit, this wasn’t the plan. I wasn’t action hero material. There were too many variables now. I might succeed in dragging one of my friends out of the line of fire, but the odds of saving them both were low.

  “Get out while you can, Chuck,” I said. “You’ve left too many bodies, too much evidence. If I figured it out, the police must be close as well, and unlike me, they have crime labs. You don’t need to add more murders to the list. Just go. Run.”

  “Shut up.”

  Harper hurled the pizza box. It arced through the air like a throwing star.

  Chuck raised his arm, deflecting it. A gunshot blasted, and plaster rained from the ceiling.

  I flinched, involuntarily shutting my eyes, my ears ringing.

  Adele shrieked.

  “DROP IT,” Detective Slate roared.

  I looked.

  Slate stood in the kitchen doorway, gripping a gun between two hands, his eyes hard as agates.

  Laurel skidded into view in the pass-through window to the living room. She aimed her weapon through it.

  Chuck gripped Harper by the hair, his gun wedged beneath her chin. Cheese and pepperoni dripped off the front of his khakis and puddled on the floor.

  Harper whimpered, an ugly sound.

  I had to think. It was my fault Harper was in this. Aside from Harper, I was the person nearest to Chuck. My fault, my responsibility. I edged closer.

  “It’s over, Chuck,” Slate said. “The house is surrounded. You’re not getting out of here. You may as well drop the gun.”

  “Back off,” he snarled. “I have a hostage.”

  Harper grabbed his wrist and pushed, jerking her head away.

  I lunged, clutching Chuck’s gun arm. My feet slipped in pizza. Wrapping both my arms around his, I pulled his wrist to my chest. We both went down, Chuck landing on top of me. I gasped, the air knocked from my lungs.

  The gun fired, Chuck’s arm jerking against my chest. Wood and dishes exploded.

  Adele screamed.

  Chuck went limp atop me. Our arms and legs tangled. After what seemed an age, he was rolled off me and I could breathe again.

  Against the sink, Harper sat, panting, one leg extended along the linoleum floor. Adele brandished a wine bottle like a baseball bat, her nostrils flaring.

  Detective Slate crouched beside Chuck, who was unconscious on the linoleum. The detective pressed two fingers against Chuck’s neck. “He’s not dead, but he needs medical attention. Nice swing, Miss Nakamoto.”

  She nodded, her chest heaving, and lowered the bottle.

  Unclipping a radio from his belt, Slate called for an ambulance.

  In seconds, the kitchen swarmed with cops. They’d heard everything. I thought of Adele’s lecture on my miserable love life and flushed. Yeah, everything. Laurel lined Harper, Adele, and me up on the couch: Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil.

  Adele’s head rotated toward me. “The next time you tell us to leave,” she said, “we’ll leave.”

  Dazed, I looked at Harper. “I can’t believe you attacked a gunman with a pizza. Pizza really is the ultimate food. You can put all four food groups on it, and it can be weaponized.”

  “Someone had to do something.” Harper slumped. “Even if my follow-through was a failure.”

  “Excuse me,” Adele said. “I did knock him out cold with a wine bottle. Maybe wine’s the ultimate beverage.”

  “No talking,” Laurel snapped.

  “I’m really sorry about this,” I whispered.

  Harper waved her hand. “Not your fault.”

  Except it sort of was my fault. I stared at my sneakers.

  There was a scuffle at the door. Dieter burst past two uniformed officers. His tie was flung over one shoulder of his navy business suit, his face pale. “Adele!”

  “Dieter!” She sprang from the couch and raced into his arms. They covered each other in kisses.

  Harper and I gaped, open-mouthed. I wasn’t sure what stunned me more, the embrace or Dieter’s suit.

  “Huh,” Harper said. “What were the odds of that?”

  twenty-five

  My mother rose from her seat at the Fox and Fennel. The peak of her witch’s hat brushed a light fixture, and she straightened the brim. A dozen women in witchy attire sat around the wide round table littered with teacups and scone crumbs. Bats on near-invisible wires danced
around a centerpiece of miniature pumpkins.

  I leaned against the granite counter, thumbing through a newspaper. I was an invited guest at the Witches’ Tea, but one of Adele’s waiters had unexpectedly gotten sick, so I’d pitched in as a server. Now I was perusing the Historical Association article I’d coauthored: Who Killed Alcina Constantino? It was still speculation, but the evidence of her father’s guilt was compelling.

  And the spectral evidence? Harper had checked out the grape press and proclaimed it haunt-free. GD concurred.

  My mother cleared her throat, raising her hands in benediction. “To paraphrase Shakespeare: By the pricking of my thumbs, something wonderful this way comes. Thank you all for your hard work on this year’s haunted house.” She smiled wickedly. “This lets you hard workers off the hook for the upcoming Christmas Cow event. However, I’ll be there, and we need volunteers, and it’s a fun and, frankly, easier event than the haunted house. So please see me if you’re interested. Happy Halloween!”

  The ladies cheered.

  Mrs. Gale rose from her chair, applauding. “And let’s hear it for our new president!”

  The other ladies rose as well.

  Adele braced her elbows beside mine on the cream-colored counter. “How on earth did your mother wrest control from that old battle axe, Bigelow?” she whispered.

  “No idea.” But Cora Gale and her splinter group had returned to the Ladies Aid fold once my mother was in charge.

  “What a harvest.” Adele arched, pressing her hands into the small of her back. She smoothed her apron over her black silk top. “Thank God the worst is over.”

  “I hope so.” Life did seem to be getting back to normal. I gazed through the front windows. The gauzy curtains blocked the setting sun.

  I saw Mason and Anabelle walk past on the sidewalk. He smiled at her and ruffled Jordan’s hair.

  A ribbon around my heart snapped, came undone. I drew a deep breath. It had been the right decision.

  Straightening off the counter, I turned to my friend. There was one more thing I had to set right. For some reason I wasn’t clear on, for the past few weeks we’d all been tiptoeing around what had happened. It was guilt that choked my throat, caused me to avoid the gazes of my best friends and skip our regular girls’ nights out in favor of working the haunted house.