Corked by Cabernet (19 page)

NIKKI peered back inside the wine tasting and saw that Alan Sansi had taken center stage again. This was good for her. It meant she could head over to Mizuki’s suite.

She knocked on Mizuki’s door, hoping no one from the wine tasting was wandering the halls, but there was no response. This troubled Nikki. Where would Mizuki have gone? Maybe she was resting. Both Robinson and Nikki agreed that Mizuki had information to share. The problem was, no one had been able to get that information because of the language barrier. It was too bad the interpreter that Robinson had requested hadn’t come by when he was supposed to. She knocked again before giving up. It was dark. Ollie needed to get out and be fed. Poor guy. He was used to a lot more attention than what he’d been getting over the past couple of days.

Thoughts of Ollie led to thoughts of Derek. She didn’t like the way their conversation had ended. She figured he was angry and frustrated, which she understood. Here he was, stuck in New York, when this horrible thing had happened. But really, what could he do? The strangest thing about it all was what seemed to be Derek’s jealousy toward Robinson. He had nothing to be jealous about. The detective was just doing his job. Yes, he’d asked her to help and she’d omitted telling Derek that part. Boy, wouldn’t that have really gotten under his skin! She wouldn’t have wanted that.

Speaking of jealousy, what about that Sophia chick who’d been with Derek? A woman with a certain
look
. Hmmm. Nikki would have to Google this Sophia Salvatore character later. Right now she had to find out where Mizuki was. Nikki couldn’t believe that she’d left her room. Maybe she went to the restaurant for some dinner? Nikki checked but she wasn’t there.

Simon and Marco typically helped run the front desk during the evening, but since they were busy doing her dirty work—at least they were supposed to be—and Alyssa had taken off to be with Petie, one of the part-timers, an elderly woman named Edna, was at the desk for the evening.

Edna reminded Nikki of what a grandma should be—sweet disposition, gray hair, crepe-like skin that framed pretty blue eyes, and always wearing pastel colors. She walked with a little hunch to her back, which Nikki figured had to be osteoporosis setting in. Edna was a doll. The only negative was that Edna could be forgetful, and Nikki at times wondered if she was fighting senility. But she was always willing to fill in when they needed some extra help.

“Hi, Eddie.” Nikki used the nickname everyone around the winery had for Edna.

“Hi, Nikki. Beautiful night, isn’t it?”

“It is. I’m sorry to bother you, but there’s a guest staying here named Mizuki, um, gosh, I don’t know her last name. She’s staying under the Yamimoto reservation, I believe.”

Edna brought her hand up to her mouth. “Oh! That was the man who was killed on the wine train.”

Nikki nodded. “Yes. I’m looking for his, his . . . well, I’m looking for Mizuki. She’s probably about five feet, very petite, a Japanese woman. Doesn’t speak any English. Did she by chance stop by here, or did you notice anyone like that?”

“No. I’m afraid I haven’t, dear.”

“Hmmm. Okay. I’m worried about her is all.”

“Why don’t you try calling her room?” Edna suggested.

“Good idea.” Nikki picked up the house phone and dialed the suite number. The phone rang until it went to the hotel voicemail. She decided to try again. Still no answer. She could understand Mizuki not answering the phone because of the language barrier, but still Nikki redialed the number enough times that anyone would have picked it up had they been in the room. Nikki placed the receiver back on the phone.

What to do? Here was the thing: there could be something in Mizuki’s personal belongings that could help find the killer, and if she was not in the room, Nikki would have an opportunity to check it out. It seemed like Robinson would have already searched the room himself. He could do that, couldn’t he? Probably not without a search warrant, but had Mizuki’s room been a top consideration yet? Nikki didn’t believe so. Nevertheless, searching private belongings really was wrong—plain and simple. Yes, she’d asked Simon and Marco to do it, although for some reason having them search Kensington’s stuff hadn’t seemed as wrong as it would be to go through Mizuki’s things. She was a nice woman who’d been thrown into this horrible mess. Robinson should really let her go home. Man, she was overthinking this stuff. Her frazzled brain only made everything more confusing and complicated.

“Are you okay, dear?” Eddie asked.

“Fine. I’m fine.” She smiled at her. “You know, I think I might check on her, take her some tea. If she isn’t in her room, I can leave it for her as a treat.”

“That would be nice,” Eddie said. “I’ll get you the key to the room. You know a funny story. I left my house keys here the other day, and when I got home, I couldn’t get into the house. My neighbor came over and reminded me that I keep a key under a potted plant.” She laughed but looked kind of sad at the same time. “Getting old is a bitch.”

Nikki put an arm around her. “Aw, Eddie. Come on. You’re not getting old. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Everyone gets forgetful sometimes.”

“I am getting old, hon, and it’s not sometimes. It’s happening more often. Soon I may have to retire for good.”

“I hope that’s not the case, but we’ll understand. You let me know what you need from me and Malveaux, okay?”

“You’re a good girl.”

A few seconds later, Eddie came from the back room with a key for Nikki to enter Mizuki’s suite. “Here you go.”

Nikki told her they would have coffee next week when the event was over and talk about the future. She thanked her and went outside to head back up the stairs. Then she knocked again on the hotel door. Still no answer. She looked around, put the key in the hole, and turned. The door opened and she pushed it slightly, calling out Mizuki’s name. She opened the door wider. No one was there, but Mizuki’s suitcase was on the bed and looked to be half-packed.

The clothes in the suitcase all looked expensive. Nikki peered down at them—designer labels, including the shoes. Was Mizuki headed home? Had Robinson told her that it was okay to go?

She hesitantly lifted up some of the clothes. Wait a minute. Here was a DVD case. Maybe this was the DVD that Iwao kept trying to hand to Alan. There was no one around so Nikki opened the case. There was a DVD in it, but there was no label. It was just blank. What could be on it? Nikki wanted to know but she couldn’t do that. This was the woman’s private belonging. She squeezed her fists together and closed the case up, placing it back down on the clothing.

Nothing in the room seemed out of the ordinary. It was quiet except for the roaring of the gas fire. Why had she left that on? She must not have gone far. Nikki also spotted a silk robe over one of the chairs facing the fireplace.

Nikki looked a little closer around the room. Typically, in every room, a bottle of Malveaux wine would be on the console table. Every day, if it was empty, a new one would be replaced by the staff. There wasn’t one there. Nikki looked around the room; it wasn’t anywhere. She’d have to talk to Housekeeping about this. She ran her finger over the desk for dust. There was a little. Whoever had been cleaning this room would have something to answer for. While she was at it, she figured she’d better check the bathroom and make sure they’d replaced the towels.

When she came around the corner, she stopped. The room started that spinning thing it did whenever this type of thing happened to Nikki—which was becoming far too often. There, lying on the floor, with her eyes wide open with a corkscrew lodged into her chest and a wine cork stuffed into her mouth was Mizuki. Dead.

ROBINSON looked as disgusted as Nikki felt. He had to be thinking exactly what she was: how could this have happened right under their noses? He was in the room now with the investigation unit that consisted of himself, a crime scene investigator, another homicide detective, and a few other people—Nikki hadn’t a clue what their roles were, but she knew to stay out of their way.

Nikki leaned back against the wall outside the suite trying to remain calm and not conjure up that image of Mizuki dead. Nikki now felt confident that whoever had killed both Iwao and Mizuki was involved with the S.E.E. members. It hadn’t been a deranged killer loose on the wine train. Nope, the killer was right here at the hotel and in plain sight. Why would that person seek out Mizuki?

If the motive was clearer as to why Iwao had been murdered, then the motive as to why his mistress was now being zippered into a body bag would also become clearer. But as of now, Nikki hadn’t figured out any concrete motives.

She figured Mizuki had had information that might have led to the killer and the killer had also banked on that and silenced Mizuki before she had a chance to communicate her tale in her native tongue. That had to be why she’d been killed.

Once Nikki had found Mizuki and placed the 911 call, and the police had first arrived, an officer went down to the tasting room, where the fun was still going on. He’d informed them there had been a death and that all the members were to go to their suites until someone came by to interview them. They hadn’t a clue as to what had happened at that point. Nikki figured at least one of them would have some idea, because one of them had to be a killer.

The members were all accounted for, except for Simon and Marco. Where in the heck were those two, and what if something bad had happened to them? She picked at her nails and worried herself sick.

Robinson came around the corner. “We need to talk.”

“Okay.”

“Not here,” he replied. His face drawn and unsmiling, he grabbed her arm.

“Hey.”

“Hey, nothing. Come on.”

She wasn’t about to argue with him. They went down the stairs and headed to the café. No one was there and they went back into the kitchen, passing the hanging rack of pots and the professional gas stove and oven. He finally stopped in front of the wood fire oven, let go of her arm, and turned toward her. “I thought you were hiring security,” he said.

“You suggested it, but no, I haven’t had a chance. I didn’t think this psycho would kill someone else.”

“He did.”

“No kidding. Why am I getting the feeling that you’re blaming this on me? You’re the cop.” She put her hands on her hips.

He crossed his arms. “I’m not blaming you, Sands. But here’s the deal. You run this place, and from what you told me, you coordinated this whole event. Okay, so I got one dead guy on a train. I’ve been working every angle of this investigation on Yamimoto, talking to everyone I can who was on the train that might have seen something. Then I got the CSI people on the train, and I can tell you the train company isn’t too happy with having to shut down a train and lose business. I thought maybe I had some decent leads, thought there could be answers there. I put myself out and asked for a little help from a
friend
, and now the dead guy’s geisha winds up corked to death on the bathroom floor. What up?”

She made a face at him. “What up? I don’t know what up. I’ve done everything you asked me to do. I’ve looked, listened, and told you everything.” She didn’t like his tone at all. “What up? God, why don’t you tell me?”

He rubbed his face and blinked a few times. “Sorry, this is not going to go well back at the department. I gotta take the heat for it. I know I asked you to help and you’re not even a trained cop. Hell, if we could get some support from all the taxpayers’ money, that woman in there might not be dead. I could have had a detail on this place.”

“Detail?”

“Trained officers watching.”

“Oh.”

“Man, I really thought that Yamimoto’s death was isolated. I even suspected Mizuki of killing him.”

“You did?”

“Yes. What I haven’t been able to rectify is everyone’s whereabouts at the time of his death, which I’ve narrowed down to be between eight and nine that night.”