The Corpse With the Golden Nose (17 page)

I bit my tongue. I could tell that Bud knew how much I was dying to speak, and he squeezed my hand even tighter. I couldn't hold it back any longer.

“So Faceting for Life is a simple lifestyle choice, and you just, sort of, do it all on your own?” I heard Bud “tut” as he let go of my hand in disgust.

Both the Jacksons laughed. I wondered if that was all the laughing they'd have to do that day to have buffed that particular Facet.

“Oh no. We're not strong enough to do it as well as we might, completely without help and guidance. That's what we use ‘The Gem' for.”

“What's ‘The Gem?'”
Well, I had to ask, right?

“Oh, that's the place in Sedona where we Facetors can meet, live for a while, learn from each other, and fortify ourselves with supplies that help us in the outside world. It's where we met, eh, Lizzie?” replied Grant, blissfully unaware of the vibes coming from the back seat. Lizzie nodded at him lovingly.

“Lizzie had been there many times, but it was my first pilgrimage.”
Oh, come on!
“She was so much more powerful than I, and I learned a great deal from her. We Faceted together for many days and, eventually, we both knew that our future path should be walked together. That's when Lizzie sold up in Phoenix and came to Canada, and I sold up my little business too, in Vancouver. We set up the store, the restaurant, and Lizzie's healing practice, right here. Together.”

“Oh yes, I've been told that you help people give up smoking, Lizzie. Cait could do with your help on that one, right, Cait?” Bud was getting back at me for breakfast.
Damn and blast!

Lizzie turned as much as she could in her seat to look toward me. “Oh my dear, I certainly can. I use a blended program of hypnosis, crystal healing, chakra realignment, and aura manipulation. I'm very successful. It only takes seven sessions. When are you leaving? I could fit you in today, if you like?”

I don't think she caught the look on my face.

“Well, we're leaving on Monday, Lizzie, but I'll certainly bear it in mind for our next visit.” I tried to sound as enthusiastic as possible.

“It only took five treatments for Serendipity to quit, though she's still due to have her final two, next week. She's been without the poison in her system for almost a month now. I'm so
pleased
for her, she's taken to it so well. I
thought
I'd had a success with Marcel du Bois, though I understand he might be backsliding a little. It all went well to start with, but, being at that restaurant, he's got so many opportunities to have a sly smoke there.”

I was puzzled. “But he can't possibly smoke at the restaurant?” As a smoker, I'm only too well aware of all the places you cannot indulge these days.

“Oh, no. But they have a place out back where the smokers all congregate, and they sometimes leave their cigarettes before they've finished them.”

I still didn't get it. “And?”

Lizzie seemed a little flustered. “Well, you see, my particular hypnosis element focuses on stopping a person from wanting to light a cigarette, or cigar. If you don't light it, you won't smoke it. I mean, it's bad enough as it is, without smoking someone else's stub.”

“
Ew!
True,” I exclaimed. Even
I
didn't like the idea of sucking on a butt end that had already been in someone else's mouth, and a filthy ashtray, to boot.

Lizzie ploughed on. “Ellen eats at Marcel's restaurant all the time—it's pretty much underneath her apartment on the waterfront. She mentioned to me that she's seen him pick up the discarded butts and take a drag on them before he stubs them out properly. In fact, his wife, Annie, was telling me at breakfast that he's taken on the duty of ‘making sure the ashtrays are emptied' with what she called ‘enthusiasm.' I think I'd better have a quiet word with him, and pretty soon at that. Another failure for me, Grant.”

“No, no, dear, he's almost there. If he hadn't ducked out of that final session with you, you'd have cracked it for him.”

Lizzie looked somewhat pacified. “Yes, just one more and I'd have been able to fully balance his crown chakra, then he'd have been fine.”

“Yes, of course,” I said, “shame to not finish, really. Probably better to not start, if I can't finish? I don't want to go back to work and start following students around campus waiting for them to discard unstubbed cigarette ends.” I tried to add a chuckle, but it all seemed to fall rather flat.

“We're here,” announced Grant. We swung off Lakeshore Road and onto an unmade side road that headed straight up the vine-planted hillside to a large, unattractive, corrugated metal structure.

“That's the winery?” I must have sounded surprised. “
The Mt Dewdney Family Estate Winery?
I was expecting—well, not this.” I hadn't meant to sound rude but it appeared the Jacksons took my comments in their stride.

Lizzie smiled as she spoke. “The Newmans have kept it basic. Unlike the Souls who've turned their place into some sort of pseudo-Provençal monstrosity. They've got the golf course as well as the vineyards and orchards to buffer themselves from the rest of us, but all that other stuff they've built—the concert hall, the huge clubhouse, and the restaurant, of course. At least the Newman girls keep it simple, and honest. It's just the working winery, with a small shop attached, and a patio for parties and barbeques in the summer. With them, it's always been about the wine. With Sammy Soul, well, you never can tell what his next money-making scheme will be. That man's chakras have probably been totally undermined by all those drugs he took in earlier decades. You'd think
he'd
listen to me, wouldn't you, Grant? I mean, all that stuff he wrote about in his music, you'd think
he'd
understand that I could help him.”

Grant nodded as we arrived at the front door of the small, unassuming tasting room and store. It abutted the massive green metal structure that housed the winery.

“Thanks ever so much for the lift,” I said, as I rushed to get out of the car.

“Sure thing,” called Lizzie, as she handed me a pamphlet about Faceting for Life. “I found it on the floor,” she added, smiling.

“Thanks again.” I smiled back and waved, hoping they'd take the hint.

“Quick, let's escape,” I whispered to Bud.

“Where do we go? Into the store?” he replied, also waving and smiling at the silently receding car.
Creepy how those hybrids do that.

“I suppose so. Let's try it anyway,” I said, and pulled him toward the door.

Inside the small, wooden structure the atmosphere was calm and inviting. It felt homey, somewhere you could linger, and relax. There were no seats, but a high counter ran the entire length of the side wall. Behind it stood a woman in her thirties with cropped chestnut hair and a welcoming expression. She was one of the women I'd missed the chance to meet at the cocktail party.

“Welcome to Mt Dewdney Family Estate Winery,” she said. “How can I help you today?”

“We've come to see Ellen,” replied Bud. “She's expecting us, but we're not sure where to find her office.”

“Ah, are you Bud and Cait?” she replied. We nodded. “Oh great, I'm Bonnie. Ellen said to send you right up to her office.”

We dutifully followed her instructions. I didn't look down as I climbed the unenclosed stairway, ignoring the huge metal containers, miles of pipe work, and rows and rows of barrels below us, and I made it to the top without feeling too giddy. But I wasn't looking forward to descending the stairs later when, let's face it, you really
do
have to look down.

“You okay?” asked Bud, concerned. He knows I have a bit of a thing about heights.

I nodded. I was fine. We knocked, then entered Ellen's office.

The room was large, and lined with that dreadful synthetic wood-paneling that was so popular in the 1980s. My first impression was that it was creaking at the seams. Wine bottles—some full, others empty, some labeled, some unmarked—stood in among neatly stacked boxes and crates, with little piles of labels dotted about everywhere. At the center of the stacks was an immaculately well-ordered desk. There sat Ellen, her back to the window that overlooked the serried ranks of vines on the hillsides beyond. She was facing the boxes, angled away from the door.
Odd choice!

Looking up, she smiled weakly. “Hi,” she said quietly.

She rose and nodded toward a laminate shelf that held some pretty complex coffee-making equipment.

“Coffee?” she asked us both. “It's kopi luwak,” she added.

“You're
kidding
?” I exclaimed. “Just your everyday coffee then, eh?”

“It's my little indulgence,” Ellen replied, looking a bit guilty.

I eagerly accepted the cup Ellen offered. Bud less so.

“It's amazing, isn't it,” I said brightly, “that the folks who gather the beans for this coffee are quite happy to go poking around in civet dung just to harvest them?” As I spoke, I wafted the steam upward, then I took tiny sips of the piping hot fluid. It was magnificent: robust yet mellow, earthy but at the same time almost chocolatey, and syrupy, in an intriguing way.

Bud had already placed his emptied cup back onto the desk. “Dung-harvested beans? Ugh!”

“If it makes it any easier to
swallow
,” my eyebrow was playing around my face by now, “it's the world's most expensive coffee bean. Running at hundreds of dollars a pound, right, Ellen?”

“Like I said, my indulgence,” she said.

“Do you roast it yourself?” I asked.

Ellen glowed. “Every morning, at home. I have an old batch roaster there, from the 1940s, and it does a great job. I just roast enough for the day, though I roasted some extra for you guys this morning.”

“Where'd you manage to find an old roaster like that? They can't be easy to come by.” I knew they weren't.

“Well, it's funny you should ask, because I actually got it from Grant Jackson. When he sold his antiques business to come here, he brought a bunch of stuff he thought he might find useful, or decorative, you know, for the restaurant. When I saw the coffee roaster on display, just for show, we both agreed I could give it a better home, so he let me have it at a very reasonable price.”

“Lucky,” I nodded. “Was that the sort of stuff he used to sell, then?” I asked. “Kitchenalia?”

“Oh no, that was
more
luck. Someone had brought it in to him, trying to sell it, just when he'd decided to close down and open the restaurant here. He usually dealt in silver—you know, candlesticks and such like. Apparently he was very good at it, very knowledgeable. Not that you'd think it to look at him—all that jibber-jabber he's into these days.”

Bud decided, in my moment of contemplation, to take the bull by the horns and said boldly, “Ellen, were you able to dig up Annette's will, the coroner's file, her note, and another sample of her signature?”
Way to go, Bud!

Ellen reached into a drawer near her feet and passed two folders, plus a single sheet of paper to Bud. She also handed me a large board that was clearly the artwork for the label for the Annette Pinot Noir Ice Wine: a part of the label was Annette's signature. “That signature was taken from Annette's last birthday card to me. It's definitely hers,” she said, grappling with the board. I looked at the board, then placed it carefully back on the desk. Bud handed all the other papers directly to me, then engaged Ellen in a bit of small talk about the office and its contents, as well as the winery below, earnestly leaning on the desk as he did so.

As Bud chattered, I popped on my glasses and read through the paperwork, in my usual manner. At one point I stuck my nose into their conversation. Bud had asked Ellen why she had so many bottles of wine in the room, and then asked how many she had.
I couldn't resist, could I?

“There are eighty-three bottles, sixty-seven of which are full.”

Ellen stared at me.

“It's a thing I can do,” I said. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have interrupted, but sometimes I can't help myself. Okay, back to my reading.” A glance at Bud showed me he was displeased. Breaking eye contact with me, he tried to re-engaged Ellen with more fervor, but with no luck this time.

“It seems to me,” Ellen said coolly, “that Cait does
all
your reading for you, Bud, which makes perfect sense, given her background.”

Bud and I exchanged a glance. A glance which could not have gone unnoticed.

“I ‘googled' you,” said Ellen, looking at me. “
Why on earth
did you say that you teach marketing, when you're actually quite well known as a criminal psychologist?”

“I panicked,” I said, panicking.

“I don't think it was very nice of you to lie to me,” continued Ellen, sounding more than a little hurt. “I thought we trusted each other, Bud. I thought that
meant
something.”

Bud was blushing too. “I'm sorry,” he said. “Cait thought it would be better if she was incognito, so to speak, if she and I were going to be on the lookout for murder suspects. The folks here might all know I'm a retired cop, but, if they thought that Cait was just my ‘plus one' they might open up to her, more than they'd open up to me.”

“And have they?” asked Ellen, reasonably enough.

“Not so much,” I said, not straying too far from the truth. “It seems there isn't that much to open up about.”

“I see.” She added, “And what about those files? I'd rather you didn't take them out of this office. Would you like some time to read them?” She asked pleasantly enough.

I smiled. “No thanks, all done. Would you like them back?” I pushed them across the desk in her direction.

Ellen looked at the papers, then me, then Bud. “Well, if you were only going to glance at them . . .” She sounded quite disgruntled.