A Saucy Murder: A Sonoma Wine Country Cozy Mystery (8 page)

“Yeah, but Clare doesn’t think he got past third base. And she would know. Clare and Barry had a thing going themselves. Pre-Lexie during Mrs. Buchanon II’s reign. Now Barry confides in Clare. She said he’s devastated about Natasha. But according to Clare, she took the ring and never delivered the goods.”

“And that wouldn’t be enough to drive him into a jealous rage?” Julie asked.

“Not according to Clare. And not based on anything I’ve ever seen in the guy’s temperament. He’s a depressive. He mopes. He whines. But he’s not a killer.”  Piers shook his head. “I also talked to Chief Tompkins. In fact, I had coffee with him today at the Plaza Café. By the way, the apricot galettes this morning were
amazing
. Anyway, the police are getting a subpoena to search the gypsy’s…”

“Roma,” Emma interrupted.

“The Roma’s,” Piers continued, “trailer. Somebody made off with that ring, and based on something Vera told him, Tompkins thinks the gypsy, I mean the Roma, got it. Oh, get this. Barry reported a few stolen articles from his house last night. Some silver and a couple of Japanese netsuke miniature ivory sculptures from the living room. Guess where they turned up this morning?  In a garbage can near Tonio’s and Carmen’s trailer. When the police tried to contact Tonio about it, no one could find him. Which brings us to you, Emma. What did
you
find out about Carmen today?”

Emma froze. Stolen silver at Tonio and Carmen’s trailer?  If Carmen knew the police had found it, why hadn’t she mentioned it earlier that afternoon, Emma wondered.  All of a sudden, her mouth went dry. She’d started out trying to prove Carmen was innocent. Now she wasn’t so sure. She looked from Julie to Piers.

“Nothing,” she shrugged. “I didn’t find out anything yet. Sorry. I…I spent most of the day in bed.” 

“Mom!”  Julie and Piers exchanged worried glances.  

Emma looked at her watch. “Shouldn’t you two be leaving soon?”  She got up and joined Harry on the couch in front of the TV.

When Julie and Piers returned a few hours later Emma and Harry were still on the couch. Both of them fast asleep.

“Mom,” Julie accosted her before she was fully awake. “I can’t believe you let Harry fall asleep on the couch. Even worse, you fell asleep with him. What kind of a babysitter does that?  You’re deteriorating, Mom. Letting things slip. Piers and I ran into Barbara at the movies.
She’s
worried about you, too. She said you didn’t show up for your volunteer job at the clinic till almost 3:00.”

“Traitor,” Emma muttered, still only half awake.

“She also told us the gypsy showed up,” Julie continued. “And that you talked to her. You lied to us about that, Mom. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I’m fine,” Emma replied grabbing her coat and heading for the door. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Sunday morning, Emma decided to leave her self-imposed house arrest bright and early, and join the weekly Blissburg Historical Society’s Sunday Stroll. Julie’s criticism the night before hurt. So Emma left her house at 8:30, before Julie phoned, or worse, showed up. The Sunday Stroll would surely be better than more of the Julie treatment.

Besides, Emma liked the Historical Society’s Sunday Stroll. After six months she had barely scratched the surface of Blissburg’s history. So far, she had learned that the town plaza, bordered on all four sides by well preserved buildings dating back to the turn of the last century, comprised the heart of the old Molino land grant. Five hundred thousand plus acres of rolling hills, open pastures and fertile soil that the king of Spain deeded to Alfonso Molino over 200 years before.

Molino managed to maintain control of his holding after Mexico won its independence from Spain; only to have it lost by his n’er do well grandson in a game of monte in Yerba Buena (aka San Francisco). The new owner was Eliazer Bliss, an eighteen year old gold seeker who was murdered a year later in a dispute regarding a prostitute at a nearby hot springs. Eliazer’s six brothers and sisters in Utica, New York, who inherited the property when Eliazer died, sold the land off to Moses Stearns on the condition that it include the picturesque town plaza now shaded by maples, sequoias and redwoods, and that it be renamed Blissburg in honor of the family.

No, Emma thought when she heard the story of the town’s founding at her first Blissburg Historical Society Sunday Stroll, Blissburg didn’t boast the illustrious history of a Concord, Massachusetts, home of the shot heard round the world, where her son-in-law’s family originally put down roots after coming to America in the 1600s; or even Pittsburgh or the back breaking quarries of Stonington, Maine where Piers’ family summered on nearby Blue Hill. But it sure was the quintessential history of the California where Emma was born. A place made famous by fortune hunters, crooks, gamblers and quacks. By people perpetually reinventing themselves.

Now, waiting for the rest of the strollers to show up, Emma sat on a park bench next to the plaza’s decorative fountain. With a coffee and a still-warm apricot galette in her hand that she’d bought from the Plaza Cafe, she surveyed the surrounding hills dotted with twenty-five million dollar mansions attached to rolling vineyards protected by electric fences and remote controlled gates. And thought that things hadn’t changed much in a hundred and fifty years. People still came to California to seek their fortunes and reinvent themselves.

Julie and Piers, bless them, lived in a house resembling a Walt Disney French chateau. And what about her Tuesday night date?  Where had Jack, the tough guy turned VC, made all his money?  Emma took another bite of the galette and wondered whatever happened to plain old, honest, hard work. The kind that trendy, modern-day Blissburg
wasn’t
built on?  The kind that meant showing up on the factory line or at the office nine hours a day for forty years. Till the Big D rewarded you with one long endless nap.

Stop that!  Emma slapped her hand. She was happy, right?  And at sixty-five who wanted to worry about a French faux chateau?  A hermit’s bowl and a tent looked more appealing. Apparently Emma’s thoughts betrayed her.

“It’s a beautiful day. You’re alive. These galettes melt in your mouth. Why are you scowling?”

Emma looked up to see the Goodfella, aka Jack, staring down at her, the identical warm apricot galette in his hand. In the Sunday morning sunlight, he looked short and stocky. Compact but not fat. Or maybe it was the well fitting loden-green corduroys, definitely not GAP, and the (did that tiny logo say Paul & Shark, she wondered) tight weave midnight blue sweater with the canvas elbow patches, that made him look so fit.

Before she could answer, Jack added, “You know how to make one of these?”  Except in Jack speak the “these” sounded more like “dees.”

Emma squinted her eyes at him mistrustfully.

“Oh boy!  Sorry,” he said.

Was that a blush?  No, Emma thought, his complexion was too swarthy for a blush. Or was it?

“Now you think I’m one of those chow diggers who’s after you for your cooking.”  Jack covered his face with his hands and peeked out at her through his fat fingers. “Really, no offense intended. I been tryin’ ta make these things at home, but I can’t figure out the, you know. What do they call it?  Pat brisay?”

Pate brisée
?  What planet was this guy from, Emma thought. “That’s because these galettes are made with a
mille feuille
pastry,” she explained. “Not
pate brisée
.
Mille feuille
uses a lot more butter.”

Jack threw his hands out in front of him palms up.

There was another thing she didn’t like. He used his hands too much when he talked.

“See,” Jack winked again, “I knew you’d know.”

Just then, Carter from the Historical Society strolled up to the fountain along with three or four Sunday Stroll regulars.

Jack waved at them. Then he turned back to her and asked, “You here for the stroll? Carter mentioned it to me at the bocce tournament over at da Paolo’s restaurant, the one that has the bocce court. It’s my first stroll, but I figured it was a good way for me to burn off one of these galettes. I’m addicted to them.” 

It had been exactly Emma’s rationale. Why, she wondered, did this guy always seem to be reading her mind?

Emma nodded and smiled. Then she stood up and approached the fountain where the stroll was getting underway.

That day, Carter’s short introductory lecture was about the olive industry that long ago had formed the backbone of Blissburg’s agricultural heritage. It seemed that Don Alfonso Molino had planted some of the first olive trees brought to California from Spain. They thrived in California’s warm climate. Eventually, at the turn of the last century, a young entrepreneur from Tuscany bought a subdivision of the land to start an olive oil business. He brought with him dozens of poor relatives from Tuscany to pick the olives.

According to Carter, there were still old residents of Blissburg who remembered hearing them sing what Carter jokingly referred to as Tuscan rap. One group of olive pickers spontaneously calling out couplets and another inventing refrains. During the olive harvest, this form of entertainment went on for hours.

Eventually, the land where the original trees grew had been subdivided into the nearby popular Molino Mall. The trees were all cut down. But some historically minded descendant had transplanted a small grove of the original Spanish olive trees onto his property at the outskirts of town and turned it into a public park. The park was the destination of the morning’s stroll.

Emma glanced at her companions. She already knew a few by sight. Most of the Blissburg women’s walking group, the Walkie-Talkies, were there: Annemarie who owned the local bookstore; Babs the celebrity hairdresser at Cutters the chic downtown Blissburg hair salon; Lila who owned the gourmet culinary shop; and Trish the local realtor. Along with a couple of other women and two men whom Emma did not recognize.

A few of them waved in her direction, but Emma eventually realized that they were waving at Jack who apparently already knew half of the people there. The other half clearly couldn’t wait to be introduced to him. Emma quickly found herself jostled to the back of the pack, Walkie-Talkies elbowing their way past her to stand by Jack in what looked like a round of Women’s Senior Roller Derby.

The few that did recognize Emma gave her passing sympathetic smiles. Some of them murmured things like “what a pity” or “used to love that sauce,” before putting as much distance as they could between her and them.

Eventually, she found herself walking slowly beside a white haired man with a cane whose elbow she had grabbed when he stumbled at the crosswalk curb.

“Hi, I’m Emma,” she introduced herself hoping to ease the awkwardness of her intervention that prevented a nasty fall.

“Tom Fitzpatrick,” he answered, then added, “I’m a native here in Blissburg. In the garbage business since 1948, when I came back from the war. My father owned the land used for the town dump. I turned it into a business. Did pretty well, too, if I do say so myself. Of course, my son Ronnie runs it now.”

Tom stopped talking for a moment, looked sharply at Emma, and then continued.

“’Course I still worked every day, even after I sold the business to Ronnie for a song (don’t tell the IRS that), until the surgery that is. Last March. Open heart. Had me splayed out like a corpse on the table. Come to think of it, I
was
a corpse. They cut me open from my sternum down to my belly button, stopped my breathing, took my heart clean out of my chest, and put me on one of those heart and lung machines so they could replace a valve. Want to see my scar?” 

Before Emma could refuse, Tom unzipped his North Face windbreaker and unbuttoned the top four buttons of his plaid Woolrich flannel shirt. Emma tried to look away, but not before she clearly saw what looked like a giant red worm crawling in a straight line down his chest.

Emma cringed. Talk about TMI! 

Tom caught her look. “Nope. Pretty it ain’t. But my doctor assured me that come summer, this will fade into such a thin line no one will even see it when the chest hair grows back. Nothing to scare off the ladies,” he assured her with a wink. “If you get my drift. Quite something for an old geezer like me. Dead on the table and still kicking. My son calls me Lazarus. Course I think he and his wife were betting I’d kick the bucket and leave them the family jewels. Sure fooled them, didn’t I?”  He added with a laugh, “Little do they know. There’ll be nothing left once my three exs get through with me.”

Eeeew! Emma tried to keep a poker face. Double TMI!  And why did it seem like all people talked about these days was the Big D?

Emma changed the subject. “So, was that your, I  mean your son’s, company that found the stolen items from the Buchanon Vineyards this morning?”  Emma had no idea how many trash companies serviced the area; but it seemed like a good guess.

“You heard about that already?” Tom replied. “Thought the police were trying to keep it hush.”

Whoops!  Emma didn’t remember Piers saying that it was hush. She shrugged, “Word gets around.”

“Well,” Tom continued, “I guess there’s no harm in telling you. Our guys found the stuff, all right. ‘Course, once it lands in the truck, who knows whose can it really came from?  But they do know
for sure
it was the can nearest to that gypsy’s trailer. Or it was the cans servicing the dry cleaner and the Goodwill store. Or that Mexican grocery on the outskirts of town.”

“Wait,” Emma’s head was spinning. “I heard it was in Tonio’s trash can. No one said anything about the drycleaner, or the Goodwill, or the Mexican grocery store.”

Tom squinted at her. “I don’t know anything about a Tonio. Is he that gypsy?  The one whose wife tells fortunes?  I hear he plays Flamenco guitar sometimes at that Mexican bar in Guerneville.”

Emma nodded. Clearly Tom got around. Then she backed off. “Really, I’m not sure. I just heard someone say the name, Tonio. It sounded sort of foreign, so I took note.”

Tom appeared to relax. She could almost see his foreign sympathizer antennae retreating behind his ears. Hopefully he’d tell her more.

“Look, obviously the stuff was in the gypsy’s trash can. Right?” Tom continued. “With the lid on. He was hiding it there. Unless it was in the Mexicans’ can, but they work for us. They don’t cause trouble anymore.”

Hiding stolen goods in a trash can on trash day really didn’t make sense. But Emma nodded anyway. “So, of course,” she added, “your son didn’t even mention that the trash might have come from anywhere else. Why should he?  We all know the gypsy stole it. Right?”

“Exactly!” Tom nodded, clearly pleased with her analysis. “Why complicate things?  Why throw the police off the track?  Get that Tonio, or whatever his name is, behind bars. Along with his wife, or whatever she is. I don’t think those gypsies even believe in marriage.”

Unlike you, Emma thought to herself. All three of them!

Tom stopped walking and looked at Emma again. They had reached the park and Carter had started lecturing about the old olive trees. Tom leaned on his cane and waved the noise of the lecture away with his free hand.

“Listen, Emma,” he said. “I know more about this place than Carter and that whole gosh darned Historical Society put together. I came here for the company. Not the speeches. So I’m gonna level with you. I recognized you this morning. You’re the lady who wrote that silly cookbook,
Dining with the Stars
. I mean, first of all, who’d want to dine with the gosh darned stars anyway?  What stars?  I leafed through the book at Annemarie’s shop and I didn’t recognize a one of those names in it. What do I care what a bunch of Eyetalians ate a hundred years ago?  But frankly, I like a woman who can cook and I liked your picture on the cover. You’re kind of a fatter, senior version of that lady on the television, Jade.”

“Giada,” Emma corrected him wondering if she should take that as a compliment.

Tom laughed. “Eyetalian name. Like yours if I remember correctly. Anyway, all day yesterday I heard the jokes on the news. About the title of the cookbook and the poor Russian singer who died. Pretty girl from the look of the picture in the paper. And I remembered your photograph; and well, being the sentimental kind of guy that I am, I felt sorry for you.”