A Saucy Murder: A Sonoma Wine Country Cozy Mystery (10 page)

Emma continued along the footpath with the Walkie-Talkies all the way to Little Pete’s Gourmet Grocery, hoping somehow to clear the doubts gnawing at her heart. She’d worked with Carmen. Thought she knew her. Trusted her. Could she really have been that wrong?  Maybe Carmen was just the victim of a bad relationship. Tonio was the killer. But Carmen, not Tonio was at the fundraiser. The ring was in Carmen’s not Tonio’s things. It sounded more like Carmen had set up Tonio, than the other way around.

Still, some things didn’t add up. Carmen only learned of the gig the afternoon of the fundraiser. She didn’t have time to concoct an elaborate plan to kill Natasha and steal her ring. Or did she?  And if Carmen was the killer, why had she admitted to Emma that later that night, she’d returned to the scene of the crime?  It didn’t make sense. Or was Carmen cleverly covering her tracks?

To make things worse, everything the Walkie-Talkies said hammered more nails in Carmen’s coffin. According to Lilah, one of her customers swore that just days before the murder she saw Carmen in Santa Rosa at a shop for the occult buying potions. Babs said that one of her best customers – she couldn’t say who – reported that recently, after reading her palm, Carmen predicted that they would never see each other again.”

“She knew she was leaving town!” Annemarie from the bookstore gasped.

Rumors. All rumors. But what if they were true?

At the intersection where the footpath veered left into the wild life preserve, Emma bade the Walkie-Talkies goodbye saying she needed to buy milk at Little Pete’s. Really, she just wanted to get away. She was starting to sweat. September in Blissburg, she sighed, wiping her forehead. Indian Summer. What did she expect? Every breath of cool morning air had already been sucked through a furnace. By noon the temperature would have climbed into the nineties. She took off the ultra lite parka and tied it around her waist before directing a limp wave to her companions.

“Bye darlin’,” Maureen waved back. She patted her hand over her heart. “You must be soooo relieved. One of the first things I thought when the Chief told me about the arrests was thank goodness for Emma’s sake. She’s been through hell, what with people making fun of her and saying her famous spaghetti sauce killed the soprano. I heard you made that Jon Stewart comedy news show.”  She nodded her head. “Now honey,
that
kind of publicity ain’t half bad.”

Jon Stewart?  Emma didn’t believe it. Surely Julie would have told her if Jon Stewart made fun of her. “No. I don’t think so,” she shook her head.

“Anyway,” Maureen replied, “all of us are just glad that this cloud of suspicion hanging over your head has been lifted. You can get on with your life.”  She wagged her finger at Emma, “Maybe you won’t want to write cookbooks anymore. But there’s lots of other things you can do.”

“You’re right,” Emma answered. “It’s a huge relief to have this resolved.” She turned into Little Pete’s parking lot.

The truth was, she didn’t feel relieved. And why,
really
, did any of them ever think that her pasta sauce actually killed someone? Cloud of suspicion! Emma barreled into Pete’s, grabbed the milk, glowered at the checkout lady, paid for the milk and began to power walk home.

Suddenly, the quaint town plaza shaded by redwood trees, bordered by nineteenth century stucco buildings now housing clothes boutiques, wine tasting bars and three star restaurants, felt claustrophobic. Thank goodness she was going back to cold, foggy San Francisco Tuesday night for that concert. Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough. It was the first time, since she moved to Blissburg, that Emma had felt that way.

She walked up main street past Claud’s. Inside, she caught sight of Jack. What
was
that he was reading?  The New York Times?  Who read the actual newspaper anymore?  Even Piers read four papers on line. But she was tired of running into someone every time she turned around. She didn’t stop to say hi. Instead she practically ran all the way home.

And she didn’t take Julie’s advice and go to the Honorage Spa. Instead, without even stopping at the house, she got into her car. If Carmen really had been arrested because of the ring, someone at the legal clinic would know about it. Maybe Carmen had even called.

As she suspected, when she got to the clinic it was buzzing with news about the arrests. Cameramen milled around the parking lot. Inside, a handful of volunteers discussed the murder at the reception desk.

Barbara greeted her. “You heard, right?”

Emma nodded.

“Steve wants to see you,” Barbara jerked her head in the direction of the glass-enclosed office of the clinic’s only full time attorney. “He’s mad about something. I’m warning you.”

Emma’s stomach started to churn. She tapped on Steve’s door.

“Come in.”  Steve’s usually carefree, for an attorney, voice sounded unusually strained that day.

In the midmorning heat, the young man was dressed in his usual Giants T-shirt and shorts. He said he identified better with his clients that way. Maybe he did, Emma thought. She wasn’t one to judge. But dressed in baggy shorts and a rumpled T-shirt, with his oval face, blue-eyed regular guy features and scraggly hair pulled back into an untidy ponytail, he reminded Emma of the Dude in
The Big Lebowsky
. A far cry from Piers’ tailored lawyer Zegna look. And to think, he and Piers were classmates at Boalt Hall, the prestigious law school at Cal.

“It’s you,” Steve said glancing up from his computer screen. “Glad you decided to show up.”

“I don’t usually come in on Monday,” Emma started to explain.

“I know,” he answered, his tone more unfriendly than before. “That’s why I said I’m glad you decided to show up. I didn’t want to have to track you down. You know, our client, Carmen Havlek, has been arrested for grand theft and murder, right?  Along with her husband, or whatever he is.”

Emma nodded.

“Now let me just say,” Steve continued, his voice still gruff, “I heard some things from Barbara that could make me worry. But I’m hoping, after I talk to you, I don’t have to.”

Emma felt her shoulders cringe. “Can I ask you something?” Emma began.

Steve nodded.

“Did Carmen contact us?  I mean since her arrest?”

Steve nodded again. “Yes, she did. This morning from the police station. The police let her call us because we were her attorneys of record in the Covered California health insurance proceeding. But here’s the funny thing, Emma, that I want you to explain. She didn’t ask for me. She asked for you.”

Emma shook her head. “I…I don’t know.”

“Don’t give me that.”  Steve was starting to look angry. “Barbara told me Carmen came in Saturday and talked to you. To
you
. That’s the part that has me worried. You wanna tell me exactly what you two talked about?  And why you didn’t tell
me
on Saturday?”

Emma felt another involuntary cringe. In fact, she explained, after Carmen left on Saturday, she had peeked into Steve’s office. And he wasn’t there.

That wasn’t exactly true. On her way out, Saturday, Emma noticed Steve wasn’t in his office and was glad. Carmen had asked her not to tell anyone about their conversation. She wasn’t sure what to do. That’s why she didn’t bother to look around the office for Steve before she left. Instead, as she now told Steve, she assumed he was gone for the weekend and decided not to bother him on Sunday at home.

“
Nothing
,” she stressed the word. “
Nothing
Carmen told me couldn’t wait until this morning. At least, that was my best judgment at the time. It
is
Monday morning, Steve. I’m here, and it’s not my regularly scheduled volunteer day. But I came in anyway, as soon as I could, to tell you what I know.”

“Go ahead,” was all Steve said.

“First of all,” she began, “you need to know what happened Friday night.”  With that, she told him about Lexie Buchanon’s request to hire a Roma to read fortunes at the fundraiser, about her call to Carmen, about Carmen’s attendance at the party, including her strange behavior while reading Natasha’s cards. 

Steve interrupted. “Natasha? You mean the victim? The Russian opera singer? I’m not an opera fan. So set me straight.”

“Yes.”  Emma nodded. “Natasha Vasiliev’s the opera singer who was found dead at the party.”

“Right. And then, according to Barbara, there were all those jokes,” Steve added. “About you, right?  About your book. I didn’t know you wrote a cookbook, Emma. I love Italian cooking. Did you know that?  My lasagna’s incredible. Just ask my wife. I even make the dough.”

“The pasta.”

“Yeah, the pasta dough.”

Emma wondered where this was leading. She interrupted him. “To get back to my story, Steve. Just as Carmen started to read Natasha’s cards, Carmen turned white as a sheet. First she said she was sick. Then she kind of slipped away and I didn’t see her again. Until Saturday.” 

That’s when Emma told Steve
everything
. What Carmen had said about seeing the murder in the tarot cards, about rushing home, worrying, and then returning to the party to see a distraught Barry Buchanon holding Natasha’s head in his arms. Emma even explained to Steve that Carmen had told her all this because she thought that Emma was an attorney. That Emma had told Carmen she was
not
an attorney. That Emma advised Carmen to go to the police with her story. And that Emma had
not
, despite Carmen’s urging, promised to keep Carmen’s story a secret.

Emma concluded, “When I told her she
must
go to the police, she ran out the door and disappeared. I ran after her. That’s when I looked for you, but didn’t see you in your office.”  Emma knew she was stretching the truth a little. “But she was gone. Frankly Steve, I was confused. I mean about whether what she told me was confidential, attorney-client stuff. Without researching it, I figured that it
was
because,” Emma tried to remember Piers’ rationale, “because she, the client, intended it to be.”

Steve rubbed his eyes. “It’s a reasonable argument, at least. But you should have told me. That kind of thing was worth a call at home.”

“From hindsight, I completely agree with you,” Emma nodded. “But honestly, at the time, it didn’t even occur to me that Carmen committed the murder. Nothing she said made me think so. I told her what she should do, and thought the rest could wait until Monday. I never dreamed she stole the ring.”

“Did she?” Steve asked.

“It was in her basket,” Emma shrugged.

“Maybe someone put it there. Tonio?” Steve suggested.

Emma threw up her hands. “The garbage men lied about finding those netsukes in Tonio’s trash,” she explained, describing her conversation with Tom Fitzpatrick. “But the theory that someone planted the ring in her tarot basket is a little farfetched, Steve.”

He laughed. “No more farfetched than killing someone to steal a ring, taking a bus to Canada to escape being caught, and leaving the ring in your trailer.”

“
Hiding
the ring in your trailer,” Emma corrected him. “Maybe there was an accomplice planning to pick up the ring and meet them in Vancouver.”

“And maybe the real killer put the ring there to frame her. Happens all the time, Emma. I say we visit Carmen in jail and hear her side. Just one more thing. If you told her you aren’t an attorney, how come Carmen asked for you on the phone today and not me?”

Emma shook her head. “I don’t know, Steve. Because she likes me. Because I’m nice.”

It took Emma and Steve about fifteen minutes to drive to the jail where Carmen was being held on $1,000,000 bail. By the time they arrived, the jail was full of reporters from newspapers and stations all over California, all over the world.

Steve identified himself as Ms. Havlek’s attorney, and Emma as his paralegal from a prior representation of the accused in an unrelated matter. That got them into a holding area consisting of a bare room with two entries, one from the jail and one from the hall. It was furnished with a table and three chairs. After a short wait, two armed sergeants ushered Carmen into the room. From the hall, Emma heard the hum of reporters who had gathered there.

The minute Carmen entered, Emma’s heart sank. The bird-like woman looked ten years older than she had at the fundraiser. She sat down, resignedly, looked at Steve and said, “Thank you for coming.” 

When she caught sight of Emma, however, she glared.

Then to Emma’s surprise, pointing a thin shaky finger at her, Carmen began to scream. “You. The traitor. I curse you. You’re to blame for this. You got me that rotten gig. You had me read those cards. You incriminated me. You told the police that I returned to the party later that night and saw the dead girl with the old man. This is all your fault. You framed me. I’ll bet you even planted the ring. You pretended to be my friend. That you were on my side. But you turned me in. I called you this morning only because I wanted to tell you this. Now get out. I never want to see you again!”

Emma turned white. “Carmen, no!  I didn’t turn you in.”