Days of Wine and Roquefort (Cheese Shop Mystery) (24 page)

I sprang to my feet. “The key.”

“What key?”

“The four-inch-long one that Shelton used to open his wine vault.” I did a mental forehead smack. “How could we have forgotten that?”

Matthew shook his head. “Noelle can’t have meant that key. Shelton wouldn’t have stored any subpar wines in with his private collection.” He resumed pacing. “No, the key has to be something else. Let’s go back to my previous assumption. Noelle stole into the cellar that night and found written evidence that SNW was making inferior batches of wine. Evidence could be
key
. Somehow Shelton, Liberty, or Harold found out she had been there.”

“We’re onto something. Let’s call Urso.” I reached for the telephone on the desk.

“No, wait.” Matthew restrained me. “We have to see for ourselves. We’ll sneak inside. We’ll make certain.”

“But we don’t know what we’re looking for. The police can—”

“Charlotte, I owe her.”

“You
owe
—” My insides tensed. I had glided over Matthew’s past with Noelle. He was happily married now. What did it matter? Whatever his relationship had been with Noelle was no longer possible, and yet something nagged at me. I wrenched free of him. “Matthew, talk to me. The truth this time. What was your relationship with Noelle?”

“I was her boss. She was my assistant.”

“C’mon. It’s me you’re talking to. Did you lie to me before? Were you two romantically involved?”

He drew in a deep breath and let it out. His face flushed crimson.

“Did you date?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Were you in love?”

He nodded.

“When? For how long?”

He glanced over his shoulder as if he thought a tabloid reporter might pop into the room. Ashley Yeats was nowhere near.

I crossed to the door and closed it, and then I returned to the desk and sat down. “No matter what you say, I will not tell Meredith.” I eyed the Tupperware boxes. “I swear on the memory of my parents’ love.”

Matthew’s shoulders sagged. “It was thirteen years ago, before I met Sylvie. Noelle and I were together for about eight months.”

“Boyd was out of the picture?”

“Definitely. Their teen romance was over. They were history.”

“Did you and Noelle move in together?”

“No, which is why I never mentioned her to anyone.” Matthew hesitated. “To you or Meredith. We talked about marriage, but in the end, she pushed me away. She couldn’t commit to me. She was so . . . private. She wouldn’t open up. The thought occurred to me that she might have been abused as a child, but she was very demonstrative and loving. We never talked about her parents. If only I’d known.” He bowed his head. “A month after we broke up, I met Sylvie and you know the rest.”

A whirlwind romance, a hasty wedding, a marriage that lasted less than twenty-four months. Sylvie walked out on him and the twins, and a few years later, he moved back to Providence to make a fresh start.

“You kept in touch with Noelle because you were still in love with her.”

He nodded. “I followed her career. I introduced her to Shelton Nelson.”

“You knew she got back together with Boyd.”

“I told you, I warned her to stay away from him, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”

A restless silence fell between us.

Matthew ran his palm down the front of his face. I could only imagine what was zipping through his mind. Finally, he dropped his hands to his sides and said, “I should have been a better friend. I should have pried the truth out of her. I’m going to the winery, Charlotte. I’ve got to find out what she was investigating.”

I couldn’t very well let my cousin run off on a clandestine adventure by himself. He needed a flashlight, a dark-colored rain slicker, and someone who was thinking clearly—namely, me. So much for my halfhearted promise to Urso. I grabbed my purse and slipped into the Jeep’s passenger seat seconds before Matthew tore out of the driveway.

The rain hadn’t let up. Water teemed in sheets across the windshield of the Jeep. Working at top speed, the wipers couldn’t keep the glass free of moisture.

“How will we get inside?” Matthew whipped around a corner.

“Aha,” I teased. “You didn’t think about that before we left the house, did you? Don’t worry. I can pick a lock.”

His eyes widened.

I hurried to add, “I’ve been locked out of my house once too often, and I carry the requisite tools with me.” I patted my purse.

“We can’t go through the front door.”

“I was thinking we’d go through the cellar. It’s remote and, if I recall, it’s secured with a simple lock. Whoa, swerve right. Parade stand at the northwest corner.” I shot a finger in that direction. “See it?”

Matthew veered; the Jeep skidded. Matthew countered and regained control. “When the heck did those show up?”

“Volunteers have been busy all week. Where have you been?”

“You could’ve warned me.”

“Don’t shout.”

“I’m not shouting.”

“And don’t speed. We don’t want Urso and his deputies pulling us over for a traffic violation.”

Matthew snarled. “Aren’t you Miss Bossy?”

“Sorry.” Nervous energy pulsed inside me and made me feel like I was a live wire flailing in an electrical storm. If only Matthew would be more rational. If only I felt he was on the wrong track. But he wasn’t. The mud on Noelle’s boots mattered. The missing pages in the journal were significant.

Matthew drummed the steering wheel. As if hearing the questions cycling in my brain, he said, “Whatever she was after must have had something to do with that conversation you overheard between Liberty and Shelton Nelson.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Shelton and Liberty argued while we were on the premises. They couldn’t hold off. That means their emotions were running hot. Noelle’s presence triggered something. C’mon, humor me. Review what you heard.”

“They were simply words. Phrases.”

“Tell me again.”

“Liberty said, ‘lover,’ then ‘phony,’
then ‘financial
mess
.
’ It sounded like she was talking about a relationship that might cost Shelton a pretty penny. Right after that, she said, ‘. . . charted for disaster
.
’”

Matthew turned right and headed north of town. “Go on.”

As we passed roadside stores and the many farms we visited on a weekly basis, I continued. “Shelton said it was always about money for Liberty. She’s spoiled.”

“Absolutely.”

“Except now, she appears to be changing for her fiancé. Perhaps to the extreme. It could be an act.”

“Keep talking.”

“The next thing I heard didn’t follow. Liberty said, ‘What label would you put on it?’ It sounded as if she needed to pigeonhole something.”

“She could have been referring to the winery’s artwork. Labels are a big deal in sales nowadays.”

“True, if they were talking about wine. But if they were talking about Noelle, perhaps Shelton didn’t want Liberty to label her a phony.”

“Except you didn’t hear the two phrases together.”

I swiveled in my seat. “You know, maybe Liberty was referring to Ashley Yeats. Where did he come from? Why did he arrive in town on the same day as Noelle? Why did he come to the winery? He bugs me.”

“Me, too. Talk about a fake. Even his accent sounds bogus, not that I’m an expert on British accents.”

“Yeats had some hold over Noelle. He emailed her. She ordered him to back off. Maybe his arrival in Providence triggered the argument between Liberty and Shelton.”

As we passed the Bozzuto Winery, Matthew said, “You mentioned that Shelton said the word
nose
.”

“I think he wanted Liberty to keep her nose out of his affairs, or maybe Liberty thought Noelle was acting snooty, you know, with her nose in the air.”

“Don’t forget nose is a wine term, too.”

“What if you’re right, and this is about poor wine quality, and Harold was the one responsible? He is the manager, after all. Maybe Yeats had an inkling. There’s the winery.” I pointed. “Slow down.”

“I see it,” he barked. “Do you think I’m blind?”

“Don’t shoot the messenger.”

The entrance to the Shelton Nelson Winery abutted the main road. The two-story Victorian home, painted with winery colors of moss green and burgundy, stood to the left of the visitors’ room. Lights were turned off in the lower portion of the house. Two lights shone in windows on the second floor. Liberty’s Camry was parked in the semi-circular driveway. I didn’t see Shelton’s Lexus.

“Ready?” Matthew’s shoulders heaved with anticipation.

I laid a hand on his forearm. “Breaking and entering isn’t as easy as it looks. Why don’t we return to town and talk to Urso?”

“And tell him what? We have nothing except suppositions about the missing journal pages and about Noelle running an investigation.” Matthew squeezed the steering wheel like he wanted to wring the life out of it. “No, we’re going in. If the winery was suffering financially or producing inferior wines and Noelle knew and threatened to reveal it to somebody—”

“To whom?”

“The press, a competitor, anybody. Charlotte, she wrote something in that danged journal.”

“We’re not certain of that. We can’t build a case on
if
.”

“You said Shelton said to Liberty, ‘. . . only when I die,’ which could have meant his daughter demanded an immediate partnership in the winery or she would blab to authorities
.
”

“Except right after, Shelton said, ‘Noelle is here to stay. Live with it,’ which takes us right back to the lover angle.”

“I don’t buy it. Shelton was not her type.”

I shook my head. Matthew was wearing blinders.

After a moment of silence, I said, “If Shelton and Liberty were arguing about ownership of the winery, then that would provide all the more reason for Liberty to kill
him
, not Noelle.”

“I hear you. I do.” Matthew’s voice grew thin. “If something illegal is going on, I’m going to find out. You’re either with me or you’re not.” He drove a hundred yards beyond the winery, parked beside a stand of evergreen bushes, and hurried out of the car. Reluctantly, I joined him. I loved him too much to let him take this next step alone.

Both of us pulled the hoods of our rain slickers over our heads and stole up the driveway.

Matthew darted between the house and the winery’s visitors’ room. I followed. Halfway along the building, he threw out an arm to stop me. We scanned the area to see if anyone had detected our arrival. No additional lights switched on in the house.

“Follow me,” Matthew said. Aiming the beam of his flashlight at the ground, he stole beneath the arbor of leafless vines toward the path that led to what Shelton called his hideout. Any remnants of Noelle’s footprints—if this was where she had gone the night she died—had been washed away by the heavy rains.

When we reached the pair of ironwork-studded oak doors, I said, “Are you sure you’re ready to break the law?”

Matthew craned an ear. “I think I hear someone screaming inside, don’t you? It’s our civic duty to offer assistance.”

I moaned. “Rebecca is a bad influence.”

He gestured toward the lock. “Do your magic.”

As I had remembered, the lock was simple. Perhaps Shelton thought the cellar’s hidden entrance was enough to keep thieves at bay.

Using a hook pick and a tension tool, I was able to unlock the door in a matter of seconds. We entered and paused. A string of low-level lights illuminated the casing around the ceiling. Elegant for a dinner. Perfect for reconnaissance.

We tiptoed down the hall, through the brick archway. We passed the wooden cubbies holding bottles of wine and halted outside the iron gates that protected Shelton’s most expensive wines.

Matthew shook his head. “I repeat, Shelton would not have stored his subpar wine in there. It would be mixed in with the large lots of wine. This is not the key Noelle was talking about.”

“Stubborn,” I muttered.

“But right, and you know it.” He focused his flashlight beam at the floor ahead. “Hey, is that the remnant of a muddy footprint near the bookcase?”

“I think it is.” Behind the bookcase was the secret passage leading to the main house. Excitement coursed through me. “It looks small enough to be Noelle’s.”

Matthew bolted to the bookcase and pressed the handle that Shelton had used. The wall opened and revealed the secret passage. “Look, there’s another muddy print on the stairs, heading in the opposite direction.” He bent to double-check his findings. “Shelton’s office is where he keeps his financial information. Maybe Noelle stole inside. Using a key, she unlocked his desk or possibly a safe—”

“That’s what Rebecca guessed.”

“Then Noelle made notes about his finances in her journals.”

“She carried her journals with her?”

“She always did.”

“Except the night she died.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I found them hidden in the guest room,” I said. “There was no trace of mud inside my house. Noelle must have stashed the journals there before she soiled her boots.”

“You’re wrong. She could have returned to your house, taken off her boots, concealed the journals, and then put her boots back on. She went to the garage to work on the desk so it would seem like she’d never left.”

Except for the telltale mud.

“The missing journal pages,” I said. “What if the torn-out pages are the
key
?”

Matthew moved ahead. “That makes sense. Imagine this. Noelle was in Shelton’s office when she heard someone coming. She thought she was going to get caught.” He did a one-eighty and sped back down the stairs. “She escaped, tore out the pages, and found someplace here to hide them. She would come back later to retrieve them.”

Swept up in his enthusiasm, I added, “If anyone nabbed her, they would merely find her journals with normal labels and notes.”

“Exactly. Same goes for if someone found the journals back at your place.” Matthew scanned the wine cave. “Oh my gosh.” He pointed to the heavy wrought iron gate that we had bypassed minutes before. “What if we’re both right? What if
key
has a dual meaning? What if Noelle took the vault key from Shelton’s office, and she hid the missing pages beneath a fine bottle of wine? Can you pick that lock?”

“Not a chance.”

Matthew raced to the gates and aimed his flashlight beam inside. “We’ve got to get in there.”

“And do what? Search under three thousand bottles?” The wines looked undisturbed.

“Noelle would have chosen the most expensive, believing Shelton wouldn’t drink them,” Matthew reasoned. “Either the Pétrus or the wines from Pauillac. C’mon.” He waved for me to follow him. “Shelton must keep this key in his office.”

“Wait.” I grabbed his arm. “Shelton had the key on him when we visited, and even if Noelle found it, wouldn’t she—”

Something made a scraping sound, whether outside or overhead, I couldn’t be sure.

“Shh,” I whispered.

Matthew didn’t heed the warning. He broke free and hurried up the secret passage.

Safety in numbers
, I heard an inner voice insist, and I darted after him.

No one attacked us as we slipped into the hallway. No one appeared as we crept into Shelton’s office. Perhaps all I had heard was a squirrel crawling in the space between the cellar ceiling and the floor above.

Matthew dashed to Shelton’s desk. “The key to the vault has got to be here.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Why not?” He pulled on a drawer. It didn’t open.

“I tried to tell you a minute ago, even if Noelle did find the key, she was on the run. She would have taken the key with her.”