Days of Wine and Roquefort (Cheese Shop Mystery) (10 page)

“I know,” I said. “I’m a little on edge.” I shook the dice. “Four points.”

The door to the kitchen swung open. Rebecca entered with a plate of food. “Wait a second,” she said.

“That’s the right count,” I said.

“I can see that.” Rebecca indicated with her index finger. “Two dice show twos and one die shows three. We’re in the second round, so only twos count. Four points.” She scooted an extra chair between Meredith and me, sat down, and balanced her meal on her knees. “But that wasn’t why I said
wait
. I arrived late, so before we play any more, tell me if you discussed the murder, because I have another suspect in mind.”

Delilah cut me a look. I glowered at her. Did she expect me to be the one to enforce the rules of Bunco night? I wasn’t the one who had set them.

Meredith clicked her tongue. “Sorry, Rebecca, but there’s no talking business during Bunco.”

“But this isn’t business,” Rebecca said. “It’s life.”

“Or death,” my grandmother whispered.

“Ladies,” Meredith said.

Grandmère spanked the table. “I am sorry, Meredith, but this is a dire situation. If our illustrious police cannot solve the crime, then we must do so. Our town needs to heal. Go on, Rebecca. Who do you suspect?”

“Harold Warfield,” Rebecca said.

Meredith sat straighter. “Why him?”

Rebecca placed her meal on the table and bounded to her feet, obviously delighted that she had captured Meredith’s attention. “On my way home, I was thinking about what Liberty Nelson said, that Noelle was gunning for Harold’s job.”

“She said that?” Meredith asked.

“She said those very words to Charlotte in the cellar below The Cheese Shop.”

Meredith gawked. “She did?”

I nodded.

Rebecca edged closer to the table. “You don’t like Harold, do you, Meredith?”

Meredith gnawed her lower lip. “I barely know the man.”

“But . . .” Rebecca wiggled her fingers, luring Meredith to confess more.

“Okay, he’s sort of cagey, that’s all.”

“Cagey, how?”

Meredith drummed her fingertips on the tabletop. The Bunco dice jiggled. “I bumped into him at the pet store. I happen to know he owns cats, but he was buying a dog collar.”

Delilah said, “I think his sister in Georgia owns a dog.”

“Or maybe he acquired a dog,” I offered. “Our local pet rescuer can be very persuasive.”

“No, it’s more than that,” Meredith said. “When he saw me staring, he dropped the leash and hurried out.”

“That doesn’t make him guilty of anything,” I said.

“I know. It’s just . . .” Meredith flicked her hand. “Nothing. Back to the game.”

“Not so fast.” Rebecca turned to me. “Charlotte, right before closing, Harold’s mousey wife came into the shop. You had already left. That’s what made me think about him. He didn’t enter. He never does. He remained outside on the sidewalk.”

“His wife has him on a strict diet,” I said.

“Coming into the store and smelling the fabulous aromas won’t put on weight,” Rebecca countered.

“Maybe he has no self-control,” Delilah said.

Grandmère pointed at Rebecca. “It is not that he waited outside, is it,
mon amie
? It is what he was doing while he waited that drew your eye.”

“Yes, exactly.” Rebecca clapped. “Harold stood outside tapping messages via his cell phone. He looked really suspicious. I tiptoed to the window and caught sight of what he was doing. He was texting pictures to someone.”

“That’s harmless,” I said. “I text pictures.”

“Sexy pictures. Of him wearing”—she bit her lip—“leather. What if he’s having an affair? What if he’s got a lover?”

“A lover who owns a dog,” Meredith chimed in.

“How would that have anything to do with Noelle?” I asked. “You can’t believe she was his lover.” The very thought gave me the willies.

“No,” Rebecca said. “Of course not. But what if Noelle knew about the lover and took compromising photos?”

“Why would she do that?” I said.

“Because we have our theories mixed up. Noelle wasn’t gunning for Harold’s job; Harold was gunning for Noelle’s. She took compromising photos of him to get him to back off. He demanded those photos, and when she didn’t hand them over, he killed her. Then he searched her things, found the photographs, and fled.”

Judging by the bagginess of his clothes, Harold had lost a lot of weight. Was he getting in shape to impress another woman? Was he sending her messages via his cell phone? Noelle had an expensive Nikon camera. Had she gone out that night and taken pictures of Harold and his lover? And then blackmailed him?

“No.” I shook my head. “I only knew her for a short time, but blackmail doesn’t sound like something Noelle would have done, and it doesn’t explain why she would have said
hell’s key
.”

“Okay, what if”—Rebecca held up a finger—“
hell
was a slurred version of
Harold
?”

“Oh no!” Matthew yelled like the house was falling down.

Everyone bolted from the Bunco table and, bumping shoulders, dashed into the kitchen. We halted as a pack. Delilah giggled; so did I. Meredith and Grandmère gasped. Water was spraying everywhere. On the ceiling, the floor, and the window above the sink. Matthew tried in vain to snare the loose hose.

My grandfather scuttled through the opened door leading to the backyard and said, “
Dieu m’aider.
Matthew,
I leave you for one minute to empty the trash, and this is what happens?”

“I thought I could . . . I . . .” Matthew sputtered. “Aw, heck. I didn’t think.”

“Sometimes that is all it takes,” Pépère said. “One lapse in judgment and an accident happens.”

“Don’t worry. It’s only water.” I fetched a pile of towels from the pantry. “Everyone, grab one.”

While all of us, including Matthew, who was soaked to the skin, mopped the kitchen floor, Pépère managed to wrestle the wayward plumbing tube into submission. Soon the water was capped off, and the sink was working as it should.

“Renovations are a pain,” Meredith groused as she returned to the pantry for more towels.

“Speaking of renovations,” Delilah said, “I heard Noelle was helping you with some.”

“We refinished the secretary desk—or at least it’s standing on its feet ready for its final finish. She did beautiful work. She . . .” I sighed. “I can’t believe she’s dead. If only I’d arrived sooner.”

“Girlfriend, you can’t berate yourself. You are not omniscient.” Delilah clutched my hand. “By the way, why didn’t you tell me what Noelle said to you?”

“I didn’t think Urso would want me to.”

“Point taken. But now it’s out. So talk. She said, ‘Hell’s key’?”

I nodded. “She spoke so softly I thought I’d imagined it.”

“Rebecca might be right.
Hell
could be a slurred version of
Harold
, but what if each word stood alone?”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe each was its own phrase, its own sentence. Noelle said the word
hell’s
and more of that sentence was to follow, but she couldn’t get it out. The same happened with the word
key
.”

I related the many variations of
hell’s key
that Matthew, Rebecca, and I had come up with.

Delilah wadded up her wet towel and tossed it onto the heap accumulating by the kitchen door. “You know, that boyfriend of Noelle’s, the one who has been hanging around the diner? His last name is Hellman.”

“Urso has Boyd in his sights.”

“Good, because he’s a little . . . Wait.” Delilah whacked my upper arm. “Do you need a key to open the desk you’ve been overhauling?”

“No.”

“Maybe Noelle thought you did. Maybe she was steering you to look in a drawer. Maybe she put something important in one of them for safekeeping, assuming only you had the key.”

“Like a set of compromising photographs or a digital card from inside her camera?”

“Exactly.”

I wondered if Urso or his deputies had found Noelle’s camera in her BMW.

“Did you rummage through the desk?” Delilah said.

I didn’t, but I couldn’t imagine, given the chaotic state of my garage after the murder, that the killer hadn’t gone through it. On the other hand, perhaps he didn’t notice the secret drawer.

• • •

Eager to find out, I bid Delilah and my family a hasty good-bye. As I raced home in my Escort, Rags curled into me with worry. He knew I was impetuous, but he had never seen me this obsessed. I assured him I was obeying all the laws of the road. I wasn’t.

The moment I pulled into the driveway and exited the car, something didn’t feel right. I didn’t smell anything weird, and I didn’t see anyone—no unrecognizable vehicles on the street, no figures running in the shadows—but something was wrong. My skin prickled with fear.

“Do you sense it, Ragsie?” I whispered.

His ears perked and his eyes widened, but he didn’t utter a sound. His silence made me feel a teensy bit better. I assured myself that I was imagining things; however, while I had every right to be edgy, I didn’t like when I was that way. I preferred Confident, You-Can-Handle-Anything Charlotte, the Charlotte who didn’t see the worst in everyone and everything, the Charlotte with unwavering hope and courage. Where was my Wonder Woman persona when I needed it?

Sprinting to the workshop, I talked myself through the unease. I did a pretty good job convincing myself that all was right with the world until I reached the side door. It had been jimmied open. I listened for movement inside. Hearing none, I opened the door and switched on the light. My stomach clenched.

Someone had rummaged through my things again. Cans of paint and wood stain sat on the floor, not on the tarp. Paintbrushes and wood dowels were strewn helter-skelter, like someone had played Pick Up Sticks with them. I snatched a screwdriver from the scattered tools and spun right and left in one-hundred-and-eighty-degree arcs. A kid in a street fight couldn’t have looked scrappier.

After the frightened herd of elephants in my chest stopped using my ribs as their stomping ground, I set aside the screwdriver and inspected the drawers of the desk, first the left and then the right. All were bare. I perched on my knees and craned my neck to look at the underside. The secret drawer was intact. I pawed it open and peered inside. It was also empty. Had Noelle put something there for safekeeping, expecting me to find it? Had the killer returned and discovered whatever he—or she—had been after? If so, the killer was done with me, right? I was safe. On the other hand, I still felt anxious. I should call the police and have them look around.

I pulled my cell phone from my purse and started to dial, but I paused when I caught sight of the Tupperware boxes that held my parents’ love letters. Seeing them made me think of Noelle sitting on the guest bed, her back to the door while scribbling notes in her journals. Diaries often needed keys. Did hers? Did she write something incriminating in them, something that a killer needed to keep secret?

Urso’s deputy said he confiscated Noelle’s computer, cell phone, and address book. He didn’t mentioned taking her journals. Did the killer steal the books, or did Urso’s staff miss seeing them? If the latter, Noelle’s journals could still be there. I remembered her bragging to Shelton and the rest of us that she learned the art of hiding things when she lived at the orphanage. I hadn’t searched Noelle’s things—not last night before fleeing to the bed-and-breakfast and not this morning after returning to change clothes.

Breaking speed records, I dashed to the house. The door was secure; the lock hadn’t been jimmied. I entered using my new key, Rags followed, and we both paused to listen for an intruder. I didn’t pick up any errant sound. Rags didn’t seem to, either.

Even so, I dialed 911 as I took the stairs, two at a time, to the second floor.

While waiting for someone to answer at the precinct, I bolted to the writing desk in the guest room, switched on the lamp, and surveyed the room. I tried to think like Noelle. If I were going to hide something from nuns, where would I put it?

In plain sight.

As a cozy touch, I had inserted envelopes and stationery in the cubbies at the back of the desk. I fanned through the paper and found a wine reference guide and one of Noelle’s journals, one with
Dear Diary
etched in gold on the front.
It was keyless. Even so, sensing I might discover something of importance in Noelle’s writing, I shuffled through the pages. Each was dated and contained a handwritten sentence that appeared to have been copied straight from a positive-thinking book, with quotes from Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Oprah Winfrey.

And on and on.

In addition, Noelle had written messages around the pages, starting at the bottom and routing to the top, reminding her to change her attitude, to see things differently, and to trust herself. There were no tawdry, sexy revelations about a relationship with Shelton, nor were there any comments about the breakup between Boyd and her. And there were no references to any key.

When I reached the end of the diary, I noticed frayed remainders of paper near the binding. Were pages missing? I checked the date. Entries ended the day before she arrived in Providence. Had Noelle or the killer torn them out?

Hoping that Noelle had stashed the missing diary pages in her other journal, I searched for it under the pile of clothes by the closet door, on the shelf above the hanging clothes, in the bureau drawers, and beneath the bed. I emptied the bag filled with gifts that Noelle had bought onto the quilt and fingered through the embroidered kitchen towel, decorative wine stoppers, yarn, and crochet hooks. The journal was not among them. I rummaged through the lining of her suitcase but paused halfway through my search when I realized her chic leather briefcase was missing. Did the killer steal it? Were the missing pages tucked inside? Was my search for naught?

I didn’t remember Urso’s deputy mentioning a briefcase.

Urso
. I glanced at my cell phone. Why wasn’t anyone answering? So much for a quick emergency response. Feeling that I wasn’t in immediate danger any longer, I hung up and shoved the phone into my purse.

I perched on the edge of the bed, the pluck drained out of me, and leaned forward on my elbows to rest my forehead in my hands. Something pointy jabbed the backs of my knees. I shrugged off my purse, scooted from the bed, lifted the hem of the quilt, and spied the corner of a book poking from between the mattresses.

Excitement coursed through me as I tugged Noelle’s other journal free. Revitalized, I flipped through it. Wine labels were affixed to page after page. As in her diary, Noelle had sketched memos around the edges of the pages. None of the ink touched the wine labels. She noted the flavors and the aromas and whether the wine was a varietal or blend of grapes. She added opinions like
yummy
,
flat
,
good value
,
and
pure perfection.

When I reached the end of the journal, I was surprised—though not shocked—to find pages missing. I searched between the mattresses for them but didn’t find them. Someone had torn them out. Why? It wasn’t like the labels were original works of art. Some were beautiful, others ordinary. On the remnants of the first missing page, Noelle had scrawled words about the nose and aromas, and she had written the word
short
. Squeezed onto the paper, in the crease of the binding, was a doodle of a stick figure, its head looped by a noose. What did it mean?

I heard something skulking outside the room. I dropped the journal and leaped to my feet, ready to defend myself with my fists. Rags burst into the room. Yowling. He skittered across my feet and did a cha-cha behind my ankles. I gathered him up and set him in my lap. His heart revved like a motorboat. “What happened, fella?”

He squalled some more.

“Are you scared or hungry?”

This time he offered a plaintive meow.
Hungry.

“How is that possible? I know the twins fed you at their house.”

He mewed louder. I could decipher that meaning, too:
Starved.

“Okay, fine. Let me change into my pajamas and then we’ll both get dessert.”

I gathered both journals and headed to my bedroom wondering if I should show the journals first to Matthew or to Urso. As a former sommelier, Matthew might make sense of Noelle’s notes. He might even understand the progression—if there was a progression—of wine labels and which were missing. On the other hand, Urso was in charge of the investigation. Would he consider Noelle’s journals valuable?

I set Rags on the bed and placed the journals beside him. Like a good watch cat, he laid his forepaws over the books, reminding me of a fat cat that I had seen in an Internet video that actually growled like a lion at anyone approaching its treasure. While I fetched a pair of Victoria’s Secret pajamas, I heard the ticking of the clock on the nightstand beside the bed. Could the ticks be any louder? All at once, I felt alone and extremely vulnerable.

I glanced at Rags. He raised his chin, ears perked.

“C’mere, fella.” I tossed the pajamas on the bed and swooped my sweet cat into my arms. He purred into my neck. I strolled to the window to look at the crescent moon. The notion that Jordan, no matter how far away, could see the same crescent moon filled me with comfort.