From Port to Rigor Morte

by J. C. Eaton

  Theo laughed. “Easier? If you can sift through all the other babble they come with.”

  “I came prepared to sift. Whoa, those two were fast. Here they come now.”

  Eli and Stuart thundered toward us and plopped themselves on the long wooden bench. “What kind of muffins? They better not be oatmeal,” Eli said.

  “Double chocolate for starters.” I opened the bag, retrieved two of the giant treats and handed them to the boys, making sure they had plenty of napkins. Without waiting to see if they were thirsty, Theo handed them the bottles of iced tea, which they promptly accepted.

  I gave them a few seconds to enjoy the moist chocolaty muffins before I got to the real reason for my trek to Dresden. “We know you guys had to have seen that body up close and personal, especially since you described that tattoo so well. What else did you see? Blood? Like from a gunshot wound? Or something else? It’s really important.”

  “It must be,” Eli replied, “’cause that doofy deputy asked us the same thing. Only we didn’t tell him anything.”

  Stuart used the side of his hand to wipe chocolate from his face even though he had a pile of napkins on his lap. “Yeah. Once you tell them one thing, they have fifty zillion other questions for you, so we just shut up.”

  Hmm, these kids are smarter than I thought.

  “I promise we won’t have a bazillion questions, but we need your help to find out who could have killed Frank Liguori and Davis Brewer.”

  “Brewer,” Eli said. “The stiff from the woods?”

  “Yes. He managed a crew of seasonal workers.”

  “That guy?” Eli’s eyes widened. “I know who that guy is. I mean, was. He was over here yacking with my father in the main office a couple of days before we found him. I remember because I went into the winery building to find the nitro hammer weapon to my Lightseekers action figure. I must’ve dropped it when I was playing around with Stuart in the banquet room.”

  Then, as if to verify, Stuart chimed in. “Yeah, and good thing you found it, too. Under one of the chairs. You’re getting pretty good at launching it with a rubber band.”

  “That’s ’cause my father took my slingshot away. But he doesn’t know I always have a rubber band or two in my pocket.”

  I looked at Theo and rolled my eyes but he didn’t notice. He took a seat next to the boys and leaned toward them. “Was your father talking or was he arguing with Davis Brewer?”

  Stuart gave Eli a kick on the ankle and both boys laughed. “Kind of hard to tell with Mr. Speltmore.”

  “Brewer told my father that if he knew what was good for him he shouldn’t switch teams or he’d be working with a shyster.” Then he crinkled his nose at Stuart. “What’s a shyster?”

  “It’s someone who’s not on the up-and-up,” I answered. “Usually someone unscrupulous in business dealings. Did he say anything else?”

  “Only that Brewer should worry about his own butt.”

  “Your father used the word butt?”

  Eli groaned. “He used the word hide but that’s so jerky. Anyway, Brewer said he already took care of things close to home and that my father shouldn’t get into bed with, with . . . oh, yeah, with ‘someone who had a criminal record.’ The laughs on him. My father doesn’t even get into bed with my mother.”

  At that moment I thought Theo would split a gut. He turned away and feigned a coughing fit. Meanwhile, I checked the time on my cell phone and knew I had to speed things up.

  “Actually,” I said, “we need to talk with you about the other dead body—Mr. Liguori’s.” I opened the second bag of baked goods and placed a few of the jumbo cookies on a paper plate, then held them out for the boys. “Blood or no blood on the body?”

  “It looked like someone poked him in the back of his neck but we could only see him from the side. There was dark red stuff but it was dried up. The rest of him looked okay. For a dead guy. He wasn’t like, full of bullet wounds, and no one slashed him or Stuart would have heaved his guts out.”

  Stuart stuck out his tongue at Eli. “Would not.”

  I remembered the preliminary postmortem for Brewer and he, too, suffered some sort of puncture wound in the neck before the second half of his death equation, aka “the fatal accident,” kicked in. Like it or not, I began to think both murders were connected, but what was the missing piece?

  “Is there anything else you can think of?” I asked.

  “Not about the body but other stuff.”

  “What other stuff?”

  “Well, for one thing, the plastic was ripped off from a stack of cases near the forklift. Like someone was really pissed.”

  Or it was the scene of an altercation and someone grabbed on to it.

  “And a few of the cardboard boxes were dented.”

  “Excuse us for a second,” Theo said, “I need to speak with Norrie.”

  Eli and Stuart kept munching while Theo and I moved toward the edge of the dock and out of earshot.

  “I didn’t see a forklift when we were in the storage area,” Theo said. “And if someone loaded up cases of wine to go on the delivery trucks, they would have noticed Frank’s body, don’t you think?”

  “Inside job?”

  “Maybe. The rear of that building has a huge garage door. Frank’s killer could have entered from there, got into a fight with Frank and used the forklift to deposit the body onto a palette. Then, he or she drove the forklift back to the docking area outside the building. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to drive one of those mini-lifts. Our Linde is so easy I could do it in my sleep.”

  “Eli saw that forklift when he and Stuart found the body. But no one else knows it’s been moved. And as for the ripped plastic sealer, that could go unnoticed, too. Well, I can’t very well say anything to Deputy Hickman.”

  “The good news is that you got the information you were after. We now know Frank suffered some sort of wound to his neck. And we can definitely surmise there was a struggle. That’s more than we had before we trekked over here.”

  “More, but not enough. Anyway, we’d better send the boys on their way before Mrs. Landrow decides to go out looking for them.”

  We turned away from the lake and walked toward the boys. This time it was Eli who used part of his arm to wipe his face.

  “Thanks for telling us about what you saw,” I said. “And be careful not to go snooping around. There’s a dangerous person out there, understood?”

  Good grief. I can’t believe I’m the one saying this.

  Stuart lifted his chin toward Eli. “Aren’t you going to tell them about what we smelled?”

  “Oh, yeah. It was gross. Not like a dead animal gross, and I should know ’cause the dog brings them home, but a yucky old lady perfume gross. Like Aunt Doris.”

  “Perfume? I didn’t smell anything when we showed up.”

  “It was gone by then,” Eli said. “But I bet if you sniffed the guy real close you’d smell it.”

  Then Stuart made a choking gesture with a hand over his throat. “It was gagging gross. If my mother put on that stuff I’d have to sleep outside.”

  I tried not to laugh. “Whatever it was, I’m sure you won’t have to smell it again.”

  Eli furrowed his brow and looked directly at me. “You know how you always know a skunk smell? This was worse and I’ll always know it.”

  “Come on, you two better get going. My car’s a few yards away and you can grab your fishing rods.”

  “I’ll grab one more cookie first,” Eli said. No sooner did he snatch one of the M&M’s shortbreads than he elbowed Stuart and pointed to a man a few yards away. “I think that guy was listening to us. He might’ve been under the dock.”

  “Nah. He was getting his fishing junk together. And he’s carrying a bucket. The dude had better luck than we did.”

  “Yeah, but we got good cookies and muffins.”

  I glanced at the man, who was now a good ten or so yards away from us. Tall, lanky and unmistakable blond hair. A shade m
ost beauticians would have to work their tails off to duplicate. But it was the T-shirt he wore that caught my attention. Mainly because I’d seen the exact same T-shirt on the Coors man seated next to me at the Dresden Hotel on Friday night. It was a faded green shirt but the lettering was still legible—Penn Yan, Est. 1833, New York. Nothing like hometown pride. Either that, or it was on sale.

  “I recognize that man,” I whispered to Theo. “I’ll tell you in the car.”

  The four of us ambled toward my Toyota, too slow to catch up with the man in the Penn Yan shirt. Somehow something didn’t feel right. “Listen, I’ll just give you boys a lift home. And do me a favor, stay close to home, will you?”

  “Geez,” Stuart said. “You’re as bad as my mother. At least Eli’s staying over again tonight and maybe even tomorrow. I think we drive her so crazy that she’s glad when we go outside and leave her alone.”

  I looked at the two of them and sympathized with Mrs. Landrow. One of those boys was enough to drive anyone nuts; both of them were a recipe for disaster. I reminded them again to stick close to Stuart’s house and asked that they not mention the muffins and cookies.

  “We’re not idiots,” Eli said. “But it means we’ll have to choke down that oatmeal.”

  Once we dropped the boys off, I told Theo about the man with the Penn Yan T-shirt. “He sat next to Bradley and me at the Dresden Hotel Friday night. He’s one of the poker players. And awfully chatty with the bartender. Told him Brewer had some run-ins with his workers but nothing that would raise an eyebrow. Also mentioned the woman who came in late to their game. Called her by name—Barbara. I’m positive it’s Barbara Stanowicz, Brewer’s former secretary. According to the bartender, who also knew who she was, Barbara was pretty hot. Especially for being an older woman. And the Coors guy alluded to something going on between her and Brewer.”

  “Won’t be the first time a younger man succumbed to the charms of an older woman.”

  “True, but I don’t think that’s the case. Bradley and I saw her lip-locking another poker player after they left the game. I may be way off base but if she’s the glue that’s holding all of these pieces together, I think I may know one way to find out.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Her perfume. If it turns out to be the same perfume Eli and Stuart smelled in the wine storage area, then I’d put Barbara at the scene of Frank’s death. Or should I say murder, given the puncture wound the boys described?”

  “How do you plan on accomplishing that?”

  “Heavy perfume can linger for weeks or more. When my great-aunt Tessie died, you know, the one who left me the apartment I have in Little Italy? Well, she also left my mother her jewelry box. Her lawyer shipped it to us a month after the funeral. Anyway, when we opened it, we could smell Aunt Tessie’s perfume—Arpege by Lanvin. Real flowery stuff. If what those boys said was true, maybe Barbara’s lingering scent is still on something in Brewer’s office, and if so, all we’d need to do is wave it under Eli’s nose.”

  “That doesn’t even come close to being circumstantial evidence.”

  I kept my eyes on the road but smiled. “It doesn’t have to be. It just has to point us in the right direction.”

  Chapter 28

  Theo and I got back to our respective wineries in plenty of time to get ready for the Sunday onslaught. Like yesterday, none of us at Two Witches came up for air too often. And without Glenda and Roger, it was even tougher. Thanks to Wegmans, I didn’t get hungry until later in the day during the three o’clock lull.

  I took a twenty-minute break, scarfed down a bacon and avocado sandwich, and returned to my tasting room table in time to welcome a new crew of tasters. I didn’t look closely at first since I was intent on setting out the glasses, but when I lifted my head I couldn’t believe who sat in front of me. It was Melissa, the new secretary at the workers cooperative, of all people and from the look of things, she had come with a few girlfriends.

  “Norrie! This is so cool. I didn’t expect to see you here. I mean, serving us. I thought you’d be in a stuffy office somewhere doing paperwork.”

  “Not if I can help it,” I laughed. “I’d much rather chat with customers and find out which wines they like and why.”

  The petite redhead sitting to Melissa’s right gave me a large toothy grin. “We like them all. Trouble is, we can barely get a weekend free together. Heather works at the hospital so her hours are always weird, Stacey’s at Home Depot in Canandaigua so she never knows when she’ll be called in, and I work at the Ford dealership in Geneva. This is one of my few Sundays off. The only one who works nine to five is Melissa, isn’t that so?”

  She nudged Melissa, who in turn poked her back. “Amber’s right. It’s a miracle we were all able to do this wine tasting today. We kind of put it together at the last minute yesterday.”

  As Melissa spoke, my mind did flip-flops. This was the perfect opportunity for me to find out if Barbara’s lingering scent had permeated certain enclosed places in Brewer’s office. Like a storage cabinet or maybe even some files she pored over. Granted, I hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary when I was in her office, but I wasn’t far from the door and she had the windows open.

  “I’m glad you could make it,” I said, all the while trying to figure out how to segue into “Notice any perfumy smells in your office lately?” I handed the ladies a copy of our tasting room sheet complete with a list of our wines going from dry to sweet. I recited the usual spiel, including why dry wines are tasted first. Then I explained that guests could try five wines for five dollars, and if they purchased a bottle, two dollars would be taken off the price. It was an automatic spiel and one I could recite in my sleep.

  Then it hit me—the word perfumy. I needed to use that word to describe one of the wines and maybe it would prompt Melissa to reference it back to her office. I thought I remembered seeing that technique at work during a Hallmark murder mystery but I wasn’t sure.

  The first wine the ladies selected was a dry Chardonnay, and even though it had hints of apples and peaches, it wasn’t exactly what I would call perfumy. The second wine wasn’t much better. It, too, was dry, only it was a Riesling, and ours was crisp and refreshing, not particularly floral.

  I had pretty much made up my mind that if they didn’t select a wine that could be described as perfumy, I’d give them one to taste free of charge in order to stress the magic word. After the third wine they selected, I was resigned to the fact I’d have to introduce a new wine when Stacey suggested Gewürztraminer. I could have hugged her.

  I gave her a nod then focused my attention on Melissa. “Our Gewürztraminer has nuances of roses, spice, and lychee fruit, creating a delightfully intriguing perfume-like quality. And while I don’t use the word perfumy often to describe our wines, because I tend to think of the word as describing something far more personal, like perfume itself, or an area where someone’s perfume has lingered”—Good grief, it’s like I can’t stop—“this wine caresses its floral qualities beautifully.”

  At that moment Cammy walked past me with a tray of clean wineglasses and widened her eyes to the extent that I all but burst out laughing. I quickly turned away from her and looked directly at Melissa. “Funny, how the scent of a perfume can linger. Just like your first taste of our Gewürztraminer.”

  “I could taste this all day,” Melissa said. “In fact, I’ll be purchasing a bottle. I wish the same could be said for the cloying perfume odor I had to deal with in our office. I’m surprised you didn’t notice it when you stopped by. I guess the combination of Lysol and Febreze did the trick.”

  I held the bottle in my hand and all but poured it on the table before I caught myself. “The former secretary?” I asked.

  “Had to be. If Mr. Brewer used aftershave, it was pretty subtle. Which reminds me, I met with the manager of our other office on Cayuga Lake. Nice guy. They’ll be conducting interviews for Mr. Brewer’s replacement but my job is solid. Thank goodness. Oh, and other good news—
look!”

  Melissa rolled up the sleeve of her lightweight cardigan to reveal a lovely ladybug bracelet. “Can you believe it?” she asked. “It had slipped between the driver’s seat and the middle console. I never would have found it except I dropped a credit card in that space, and when I went to retrieve it, I pulled up my bracelet. The clasp must have come loose.”

  Hmm. Ladybugs, not scarabs. Wrong bug. I’ll have to scratch Melissa’s name from my suspect list, or move her to the bottom just in case. And if Zenora’s ritual chant doesn’t work, I’ll have to turn my evidence over to Grizzly Gary.

  “Glad to hear that. Wonderful news on both counts.”

  The ladies finished up their tasting and left Two Witches laden with bottles of wine. Lizzie remarked what an amazing sales job I did but the real feat was me finding myself one step closer to pointing a finger at Barbara Stanowicz. Circumstantial evidence or not, at least I had something to point at.

  Cammy was flabbergasted, too, mainly because she’d never heard a discourse like the one I gave about the Gewürztraminer. “What on earth was going on with you?” she asked when Melissa’s crew left.

  I told her Theo and I had plied Eli and Stuart with enough cookies and muffins to start their own bakery business in order to eke out some information from them. And it worked. Especially Eli’s recollection of a perfumy smell.

  “Talk about giving candy to babies . . . Geez. I hope there’s not a law against what you did. You’re already on shaky ground with the local deputies.”

  “When I figure this out, they’ll thank me.”

  “Or place you under arrest. Do you have a next move planned?”

  “Only pizza with Bradley tonight. And more work on my murder suspect map.”

  “Good. It’ll be something safe.”

  • • •

  My brain was on overdrive by the time Bradley picked me up to head to Uncle Joe’s Pizzeria on Genesee Street in Geneva. The restaurant, established in 1978, was housed in a brick building on a residential street that still kept its nostalgic charm. With its green porch and cozy interior, the place welcomed patrons with its red-and-white-checkered tablecloths, photos past and present of local diners, and a menu that offered an array of scrumptious Italian foods. But it was the aroma of tomato sauce and garlic that wafted through the place that made me hunger for that first bite of pizza.