Days of Wine and Roquefort (Cheese Shop Mystery) (28 page)

I said, “The question is, is she protecting her father or herself?”

Rebecca removed her apron and slung it on a hook on the wall. “Let’s find out.”

I grabbed her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to slip into the Nelson house and see how thick those walls really are.”

“Are you nuts? U-ey’s got eyes on Matthew and me, and I’ll bet that he’s put Deputy O’Shea on your tail.”

“Oh my gosh, do you think?”

I retrieved her apron and shoved it into her chest. “Back to work. We have customers.”

“But—”

“No argument.”

For the next couple of hours, Rebecca and I served customers while Matthew continued to prepare his wine-tasting event. None of us discussed what we could do to solve Noelle’s murder. The respite for my beleaguered brain felt good. I offered tastings of cheese to customers, I drank in strength from the nurturing aromas, and I listened to local gossip. At one point, I noticed Deputy O’Shea swing by the front of the store and peek in, but he kept moving. Whether he was spying on Rebecca or hoping to catch a moment with her, I wasn’t sure.

After the noon rush was over, my grandfather arrived. He suggested I take a stroll around town and drink in the sunshine. I knew his real intention. With me gone, he could sneak a morsel of imported French Brie.

“I’ll go with you,” Rebecca said. “My legs could use a stretch.” Truth be known, she didn’t want to be the one who saw Pépère divert from his diet. She might accidentally blab to my grandmother, the diet taskmaster.

As we rounded the corner to walk up Cherry Orchard Street, I spied Sylvie walking hand in hand with Ashley Yeats. Surprisingly, she wore a tasteful blue dress that seemed specifically chosen to compliment his blue pin-striped suit. Their heads were tilted inward, as if the two were engaged in an enthralling conversation, and I wondered if she had found her soul mate, after all.

A flare of orange caught my eye. Prudence exited Café au Lait at a clip. She was carrying a bag of goodies while nibbling on a donut doused in powdered sugar. Why was she eating sweets? She rarely did. Was the city council’s injunction stressing her out?

From across the street, Sylvie sniggered loudly enough for everyone to hear.

Prudence looked up. Her face puckered with rage.

“Uh-oh,” Rebecca said.

“Uh-oh is right,” I muttered. All thoughts of a pleasant stroll went bye-bye.

Prudence dropped the pastry in the street and made a mad dash for Sylvie. En route, she sideswiped a ladder, on top of which balanced a volunteer who was hoisting a holiday flag on a lamppost. The ladder joggled; the volunteer shrieked. Rebecca and I raced to stabilize the ladder. Just in time. The volunteer, who was pasty with fright, thanked us.

On the other hand, Prudence didn’t break stride. “Sylvie Bessette.” She darted in front of Sylvie and Ashley, forcing them to a halt. “What was that sound you just made?”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” Sylvie said.

“You snorted. Were you inferring that I am a pig?”

“Tosh.”

Prudence reeled around and glared at me. “Charlotte, you heard her.”

Dang. There was nowhere for me to run.

“You did,” Prudence said. “I know you heard her. She was making fun of me.”

Despite the subdued outfit, Sylvie was still a minx. She winked at me, then said, “You do look like you have put on a little weight, Pru.”

“Why, you!” Prudence lunged for Sylvie.

Ashley darted in front of Sylvie and batted the bag of goodies from Prudence’s hands. Powdered sugar billowed in clouds as the bag opened and the sweet contents tumbled to the ground.

Prudence lashed out.

“Oo-o-oh.” Ashley raised his arms to defend himself. “She didn’t mean any harm, love. Take a load off.”

Rebecca thwacked me on the back. “Did you hear that?”

“What?”

“Ashley Yeats. His accent wavered.”

“Wavered?”

“He sounded . . . Southern. Remember when I told you about that gossipy Internet radio guy, Alcott Baldwin? The one that touts Ashley’s writing? He’s from the South—Alabama, I think. He starts his show every time with this high-pitched, ‘Oo-o-oh,’ just like Yeats did. He’s him. Ashley is Alcott.”

“Are you sure?”

“Ninety-nine percent positive. I told you there was something about the guy that bothered me from the get-go.”

I trotted toward Prudence. “May I have a word?”

“No, you may not.” Prudence thwacked Ashley. “Let me at her.”

“Prudence, stop hitting him,” I said. “Just for a sec. Humor me.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said. “None of you—not one—is worth the effort. You’re all crazy.” She was one to talk. Apparently my grandmother hadn’t made any headway regarding Prudence finding professional help. She kicked her busted bag of goodies and marched off.

I whirled on Ashley Yeats. “Where are you from?”

He gulped. “Huh?”

“Alabama?”

Sylvie ducked from behind Ashley. “What’s going on?”

“He’s not from England, Sylvie,” I said. “He’s putting on an act.”

“For heaven’s sake, Charlotte,” Sylvie said. “Are you trying to ruin my love life? I won’t have it. Matthew put you up to this, didn’t he?”

“Sylvie, listen to me. I believe Ashley Yeats is none other than that gossip Alcott Baldwin from—”

“South Carolina,” Rebecca blurted. “Not Alabama. I was wrong. It’s South Carolina. Charleston, to be exact.”

Sylvie’s eyes sparked with indignity. “Is it true, Ashley?”

The guy stretched his neck. “No . . . she . . . they . . . are making this all up,” he said, his proper British accent restored.

“The heck we are,” I said. I trusted Rebecca’s savvy Internet ear.

Sylvie planted her hands on her hips. “Where were you raised in England, Ashley?”

“Hampshire.”

“With that accent?” Sylvie arched a brow.

“Somerset,” he revised. “Uh, I mean, Sussex. The North.”

“Those are all counties in the south, you buffoon.” Sylvie withered. “Cripes, Charlotte, you’re right.” She scowled at Ashley a.k.a. Alcott. “How could I have ever believed you? And you said you adored me.”

“But, love, I do.”

“Don’t
love
me, you no good, lying fraud.” She thrust out her lower lip. Now I knew where the twins got the move. I had to admit the ploy was impressive.

Ashley looked ready to bolt.

“Not so fast, Mr. Yeats,” I said, “or shall we call you Mr. Baldwin?”

“Aw, heck,” he said in a Southern drawl as he scuffed the soul of his shoe against the pavement. “I guess the cat’s out of the bag. It was a risk, but I needed a leg up as a journalist. I needed someone to plug my career. I needed buzz. Who better to do it than myself?”

“Noelle knew, didn’t she?” I said.

“No.”

“You killed her to keep your secret safe.”

“No.”

“You exchanged emails.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t make me a murderer. I’d been following her career for years. I met her in Cleveland when she was a sommelier. She suggested a wine that I’ll remember to this day. A Haut-Brion that was to die for.”

“I drank a Haut-Brion,” Sylvie said.

“Quiet.” I speared her with a glance and returned my focus to Ashley a.k.a. Alcott. “Go on.”

He ran a finger under the collar of his shirt as if he were roasting under the impromptu interrogation. “When I learned Noelle was giving up her career to move here, I had to know why. I thought her story could be a life changer for me. She was amazing. She could have been working in any of the most elite restaurants in New York. Aw, heck, in the world. She was a big fish moving to a little pond. There had to be something behind that, right? She wasn’t pregnant. I checked. It cost me a pretty penny to get that insider info, I’ve got to tell you. And she wasn’t on the lam from the law. I sensed corruption.” He tapped his nose. “So I called her. We talked once. After that, she snubbed me.”

A thought occurred to me, one that would answer the question that had plagued me since Liberty Nelson had come into The Cheese Shop earlier. “You followed Noelle here weeks ago. You scoped out the winery.”

“No, I—”

I held up a hand. “Don’t deny it. You saw Liberty Nelson talking on her cell phone, and you realized an opportunity.”

“I’m not following.”

“You got close enough to Liberty to clone her cell phone.”

Rebecca knuckled my arm. “Omigosh. You’re right. That’s exactly what he did. I saw a perp do that in an episode of
Law and Order
.”

“You used that number to call Noelle repeatedly after midnight,” I continued. “She answered because Liberty’s name appeared on the readout, but soon Noelle got wise and hung up on you every time.”

Ashley—I couldn’t get used to referring to him as Alcott—looked down and away.

“Answer her, you phony,” Sylvie demanded.

“Okay, yes, you guessed right. I know how to hack into all sorts of things. I’m all about shortcuts. If I can find a way to scoop a story the easy way, I do it. I wanted one of my features to be good.” He grimaced. “No, not just good. Great. Noelle had left a big-time job to work at little old Shelton Nelson Winery. Something bad was going on. I researched her. I found out about her folks. Her past.”

“You blackmailed her.”

“I wanted her to confide in me. I believed, with her insider information, I could go wide with the story, and maybe I would be taken seriously as a journalist.”

But Noelle, believing the only reason he wanted to interview her was so he could expose her parents’ dicey past, shunned him.

Sylvie huffed. “No one will take you seriously ever again, Ashley, not if I have anything to do with it, you two-bit—”

He raised his hand, as if about to strike Sylvie, but quickly diverted his hand to the back of his neck and rubbed hard. “No matter what you think, I didn’t kill Noelle Adams.”

“Grab hold of him, Charlotte,” Rebecca said. “Do what Delilah’s mom does. Divine the truth.”

“I can’t,” I whispered. The moment in the alley with Boyd was a fluke.

“Try.”

“I’m telling the truth,” Ashley said, his face bleak with resignation. He spread his arms, palms up. “Look, I couldn’t have killed Noelle. I have a tight alibi. I was live on my Internet radio program the night Noelle was killed. I took calls. There’s no way to fake that.”

“Why didn’t you say that before?” I asked.

“Because Chief Urso didn’t consider me a suspect. He never asked for an alibi. If he did, I guess I would have told the truth. It’s better to be a fraud than a killer, right?” He attempted a smile, but his lips quivered.

“I’ll say this, Mr. Yeats . . . I mean, Baldwin,” Rebecca said. “You do have a nice voice. Whenever you sing on the show, that seems to get the most call-ins.”

Sylvie groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding. He has a horrible voice.”

“Me?” he wailed. “You’re the one who can’t sing a lick. You’re always singing in the wrong key.” He demonstrated.

Sylvie stamped her foot and told Ashley to keep his opinion to himself.

As they mocked each other, I sank into a quiet funk and returned to the real matter at hand: Noelle. Who had killed her and why?

Later that afternoon, while straightening shelves at Fromagerie Bessette, the words
hell’s key
kept blinking like a neon sign in my brain. Had Noelle given me other clues to determine the meaning? She had gone out of her way to make sure Matthew put her in touch with Shelton so she could get the job. The night she died, she was going on a quest. So much was
at stake
, she had said.

Suddenly the imaginary neon sign burst into a kaleidoscope of color. “That’s it,” I said out loud to no one. Matthew had left the shop to deliver an order, Rebecca had gone to the hothouse behind the shop to fetch some basil, and the last customer had exited the shop minutes ago. I stopped realigning jars of jam and focused on the incident on the street between Sylvie and Ashley a.k.a. Alcott.
I’m all about shortcuts
, he had said,
and then he accused Sylvie of singing in the
wrong key.
The two phrases wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else but, for me, they conjured up a very distinct memory. I recalled the night after the winery tour and coming upon Noelle in the guest room. She had been humming. On key. It wasn’t the singing that mattered. It was what else she had been doing—writing in her journal. We shared a brief exchange. She said Shelton Nelson wasn’t into shortcuts, and then her mouth quirked up. Had she been cuing me in on the fact that Shelton
was
into shortcuts? If so, why hadn’t she come right out and said so?

Next, Noelle slid off the bed and removed a blue thumb drive from her computer. As she did, her journal fell open. Had she intended for me to glimpse one of the pages? There were wine labels and notes.

I closed my eyes and tried to envision her notes. She had written the word
shortcuts
in the margin. In the journal that I found tucked between the mattress and box spring, I had seen only the word
short
. Was the word
cuts
missing? Had Noelle torn out the specific page that she had accidentally on purpose let me see? Did the picture of the man in a noose signify something, or was Noelle just doodling, sort of hinting that when the truth was discovered the man would want to hang himself? What if Shelton was being truthful, and he wasn’t into shortcuts? Did he joke about that at the winery to imply that someone else, like Liberty or Harold, was?

“
Chérie
,” my grandmother called from the doorway. The twins scampered in behind her, their faces flushed from the cold. They let the door slam shut. “Girls,” Grandmère chided.

“Sorry,” they sang in unison.

“We have good news.” Grandmère scuttled to the cheese counter. “The Thanksgiving Extravaganza is ready. It is
parfait.
”

“Perfect,” the girls chimed.

“The duck flies like a dream.”

“And we all know our lines.”

“It is all about repetition, is it not?
Répétér. Répétér. Répétér
.” Grandmère clapped in rhythm.

“No shortcuts for you,” I said, the word emblazoned on my brain.

“
Mais oui
.”

What might shortcuts cause? I wondered. Inferior wine, Matthew had suggested. Anything else?

Grandmère said, “Amy and Clair, you may play with Rags for fifteen minutes, then it is time for homework.” When Grandmère learned that Noelle was coming to town and staying with me, she offered to take over my responsibility of shuttling the children from school to rehearsals. I think she relished the extra time with the twins. As the girls flew to the office, Grandmère settled onto a ladder-back stool by the tasting bar and slipped a morsel of Rogue Creamery TouVelle into her mouth. “I love the smoky goodness.” She purred with contentment and took another slice. Nibbling the corners, she said, “Charlotte, what is puzzling you? Your forehead. It is creased.”

“Nothing,” I said, not wishing to worry her. All I had to go on were words that I’d overheard and suppositions and tidbits of evidence gleaned when Matthew and I had stolen into the winery—footprints, expensive wines stored behind a locked gate, and a cursory view of the insides of a few drawers in Shelton’s office. My thoughts scudded back to the expensive wines. How might Noelle’s note about shortcuts
fit that scenario?

The rear door of the shop opened, and Rebecca waltzed in with two fists full of basil and other herbs that she had collected from the town’s communal hothouse located in the alley behind the shop. “
Bonjour
. Aren’t these gorgeous?” She stopped short of the kitchen and gave me a hard look. “What’s up? Charlotte, your face is all scrunched up.”

“You see?” Grandmère spread her hands.

I grabbed a towel and started cleaning the cutting surface.

“You’re thinking about that skirmish on the street, aren’t you?” Rebecca said.

Grandmère’s gaze swung between us.

I told her about Sylvie and Prudence’s free-for-all.

“Poor Prudence,” Grandmère muttered.

Rebecca recounted the clash between Sylvie and Ashley Yeats, a.k.a. Alcott Baldwin, right through to the final words that I was replaying in my head.

Grandmère said, “Our upcoming play,
Days of Wine and Roses
, will not have as much drama.”

I said, “Battling alcoholism”—the theme of the play—“can be pretty dramatic.”

“
Oui
.”

I flashed on Boyd Hellman, who would battle alcohol the rest of his life, but I put him from my mind. He had an alibi for the night Noelle died. Though it was quirky, it was solid. Alexis confirmed it.

“But life. That is the real drama,” my grandmother said.

Rebecca flaunted the herbs. “If you ask me, that Ashley-Alcott guy is lucky he has an alibi, because he has the best motive to kill Noelle so far. Keeping his secret hidden.”

“Except Noelle didn’t know his secret,” I said. “I think she was avoiding him to keep her parents’ illegal activities buried.”

Grandmère held up a finger. “Seneca said, ‘If you wish another to keep your secret, first keep it to yourself.’”

“Wait, wait, I know the book that came from,” Rebecca said. “
Hippolytus
.”

“
Oui. Bravo.
You are becoming a true student.” Grandmère glanced at her watch. “Oh my, we must go.” After giving Rebecca and me kisses, she collected the girls.

The remainder of the afternoon sped past. With the arrival of a passel of tour bus customers as well as a pair of women frantic to put together a cheese plate for their evening game of mahjong, I didn’t give my musings another thought.

However, as Rags and I headed home, leaving Matthew to attend to his wine tasting alone, the notion of secrets swelled again in my mind. Who had the best secret to keep? Was Ashley’s alternate identity a secret worth killing for? Hardly. I focused on the father/daughter argument that I had overheard at the winery. Had I fabricated a soap opera from Liberty and Shelton’s words when really they were talking business? If so, then why had Liberty seemed so upset that I had listened in? I strung the words together in no particular order:
label, lover, nose, charted for disaster.
As Matthew and I had discussed, a few were words that could apply to the wine business—the label on a bottle; a lover or connoisseur of wine; the nose or bouquet of the wine. If the winery was strapped financially, it could be charted for disaster. How did the word
phony
fit in?

“Here you go, Ragsie.” I entered the kitchen and released him from his leash. He galloped to his bed and retrieved a jingle bell. While he batted it, I threw together dinner. Cooking for one could make a girl feel lonely, but I was dead set against dining on leftovers. I wanted fresh. My brain needed energy as well as flavor. A chopped Italian salad with homemade dressing, sweetened ever so slightly with sugar, would do the trick. I sliced mozzarella into cubes, diced Genoa salami, and opened a can of garbanzo beans.

As I stood at the sink chopping cherry tomatoes that I had collected from the hothouse before leaving the shop, I peered through the kitchen window at the garage and thought again about Noelle’s final words:
hell’s
key
or
Shel’s key
. Which was it? The day we toured Shelton Nelson’s cellar, Noelle had cleared her throat before asking him whether he kept a log of his precious wines. A log, or register, could be a kind of key, essential to keeping things organized, like a color code for a painter. Had she cleared her throat to clue in Matthew or me to her plan to expose Shelton? Expose him for what?

The word
phony
popped into my mind again. What if Noelle discovered the winery was intentionally creating a counterfeit wine?
Phony
,
label
,
nose.

I recalled Matthew telling me about a wine scam where a vintner duplicated a very expensive wine. The vintner sold it at auction, and a few wine snobs, not willing to reveal that they couldn’t tell the difference between the wines, lost a lot of money. The story made the wine journals.

Boyd said that, thanks to her parents’ lifestyle, Noelle didn’t take kindly to scam artists. If my theory was correct, when Noelle realized someone at SNW was swindling the public, she made it her mission to blow the whistle.

I flashed on the brief moment I had spent in Shelton’s office rummaging through his top desk drawer, which held a collection of items: blank labels, ink, specialized pens, corks, and what had resembled a branding tool. Were those the tools that could help perpetrate a fraud?

Noelle had devised the job for herself. She had begged Matthew to introduce her to Shelton. She had given up a cushy job to work for SNW. Had she discovered the winery’s scam while working as a sommelier? If I was correct, was Shelton, Liberty, or Harold the culprit? After Matthew and I had raided the winery, Liberty had come to The Cheese Shop to find out what we had discovered. She hadn’t told her father about our foray. Was she afraid of what he might do to her if he found out that she and/or her possible lover Harold were bastardizing his wine?

Noelle went to investigate something the night she died. Did she find evidence that would convict someone? Maybe she made notes and took photographs, crafting her own kind of key. Maybe she taunted the killer and told him or her that she had the evidence. Or did the killer figure it out on his or her own? Matthew and I found traces of Noelle’s muddy footprints. The killer could have, as well. Would Noelle have risked leaving her evidence at the winery? I didn’t think so. She returned to my house. She must have hidden it here.

Zinging with pent-up energy, I placed the knife on the counter, wiped my hands on a towel and tossed it beside the knife, then sprinted to the garage, which was cleaner now that Matthew had helped move the furniture back to the office. I stood in what could once again be used as a garage and tried to picture that night. Noelle lying beside the reassembled desk. A screwdriver nearby. No flashlight. Boxes strewn.

I thought again of the desk and flashed on a comment made at the pub the other night. Tyanne said Boyd Hellman had a hollow leg. When I left the garage on the night Noelle died, the legs of the secretary desk were lying on the floor. They were hollow. Had Noelle stuffed whatever evidence she had collected into those hollow legs and attached the legs before the killer found her? Other than me, no one would have known the legs had been off the desk.