Murder Uncorked (10 page)

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Authors: Michele Scott

BOOK: Murder Uncorked
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Nikki hung her head and sighed. The rest of her questions for Andrés Fernandez would have to wait.
Chapter 8
Nikki had quite a bit to think about. Her scare in the tasting room, which led to the discovery of the charm, and now the bizarre conversation she’d had with Andrés that only led her to more unanswered questions, confusing her. Oddly enough it also set her adrenaline to pumping, as if she was onto something and it was exciting, in a weird way. She still had plenty of energy and a little time to kill, and as Oliver was still hanging in with her, she continued on her run after reaching the Malveaux property.
Rounding the pond, Nikki was suddenly aware of the morbidity that now surrounded the serene area and decided to take a rest. The Muscovy ducks that were in the pond yesterday, before they were scared away by the killer, had returned. They took to the sky as she approached. She thought about jogging by the site where she’d first discovered Gabriel. Maybe she’d missed something. Who was she kidding? Miss something? She wasn’t Nancy Drew. Hell, she wasn’t even Detective Martini from her defunct TV show. And even if she
had
missed something, the cops certainly hadn’t. They’d done their job. They’d been out there for hours. It was one of the reasons she’d fallen asleep so easily the previous night, because she knew Jeanine and another officer were still combing the area when Derek dropped her off.
But Nancy Drew or not, she once again went against her better judgment and coaxed Oliver along with her. He followed at her side as she headed back into the deep brush and twigs, again getting scraped and scratched, but driven all the same. She was careful, especially with Oliver at her side, to walk around the perimeter of the yellow police tape. She didn’t want to corrupt the crime scene in any way.
Nikki hadn’t a clue what she was looking for, only a morbid sense of curiosity. She sat down on a log outside the taped-off area. Oliver flopped down at her feet. Having him there was calming, and the spot would’ve been glorious if someone hadn’t been killed there only the day before. Something about wanting to enjoy the serenity and the beauty didn’t seem right to Nikki. More than that, though, something wasn’t right about the theory that Gabriel had been killed at this location.
Nikki watched the ripples across the pond, and the sunlight cast shadows around the area where the oak trees grew tall and thick. Then, it hit her what wasn’t right about Gabriel being murdered at this spot. She forced herself to picture him again in her mind—swollen purple face, crusted-over eyes, and matted hair. Gabriel had been dead far longer than mere minutes when she’d found him. He’d have to have been dead for quite a few hours, maybe even a day. She’d learned enough from Aunt Cara to know the states a decomposing body goes through. And when her bare foot had grazed his hand, his body temperature had been cold. The police had to know this information, and Nikki knew she should really leave it up to them to figure it all out, but maybe it was simple curiosity, or maybe some of Aunt Cara’s influence had rubbed off on her. Whatever it was, Nikki couldn’t help but be intrigued by the mystery of it all, and she had a strong desire to figure this thing out.
She smacked herself in the forehead. Oliver lifted his head and whined. “Don’t you worry. I may be slow at times, but when I get cooking, I start to sizzle. All we have to do, Ollie—you don’t mind if I call you Ollie, do you?” Oliver nuzzled her free hand. “Good. The next thing we have to do, Ollie, is find out exactly where Gabriel was killed, and how someone was able to drag him here. What is close enough, a place where other people on the vineyard wouldn’t notice someone unloading a dead body?” She turned her head from side to side, scanning the entire area, until she focused on what was exactly across from her, and large enough to block someone’s view—Derek’s house.
Yikes. She didn’t like that one bit. Okay, there was no way Derek killed Gabriel. She’d already decided to her own satisfaction that he was a good guy. He hadn’t been watching her from the stockroom, and he certainly hadn’t murdered his winemaker. No way on earth. If Derek’s place was the scene of the crime, then maybe someone had killed Gabriel and hidden the body in Derek’s garage.
Oh, yeah, no garage. But wait a minute.
Nikki’s eyes focused on what appeared to be a small toolshed, big enough for a body to be stored in, maybe even murdered in, off to the left of the house.
Could the murderer have killed Gabriel in that shed?
“C’mon, Ollie.” Nikki jumped to her feet and sprinted over to the shed. Ollie outran her and headed for Derek’s porch, until she whistled for him. The dog bounced back to her side. Nikki quickly scanned the area and didn’t see Derek’s Range Rover or signs of anyone else. Even though she knew in her gut that Derek wasn’t the killer, he might not approve of her snooping around.
She pulled open the door of the shed. It screeched, like fingernails on a chalkboard. There was nothing unusual inside, just some tools and a lot of dust bunnies. There was a spiderweb that looked like it had been there for years, and way in the back there were a couple of rows of wine racks. She walked over to them and noticed that for the most part they were dusty, and a few even had remnants of a dangling spiderweb. She did notice that one bottle in the middle of a neatly organized row was missing, and thought that was kind of odd. A few other bottles looked as if they’d recently been fingered and turned around, maybe pulled out of their spot and the label read.
She walked over to the other side of the shed, rummaging around the wooden planklike table top that at one time could’ve easily been an area for someone to play fix-it man. “Hoo, hoo, hoo,” Nikki said aloud. Ollie cocked his head. She glanced down at him. “What do we have here?” She picked up an opened pack of cigarettes. Benson and Hedges Menthol.
Wonder who smokes the ciggies?
Nikki turned the pack over. She brought it up to her nose, smelling the tobacco inside. A couple of the cigarettes were gone. By the look of the pack, Nikki figured they weren’t that old. She wasn’t a smoker, but it wasn’t a difficult assumption to make.
After scanning the area of the shed further to see if she’d missed anything, Nikki decided to put the pack of cigarettes back where she found them. She couldn’t help being curious about who they might belong to. Maybe whoever the smoker was, could also be the killer. Maybe whoever that person was came to the shed to plot, or had a smoke to ease their nerves after murdering Gabriel. Or they could’ve even hidden his body inside the shed until they could think of where to put it. It was something to consider.
She felt pretty smug with herself after her day at detecting. There was indeed, the possibility that it would all lead to nothing—the charm, her talk with Andrés, and now the pack of cigarettes. Or, the thought stuck in her mind that all of these little things could add up and lead to something or someone, and that someone could be a murderer. Nikki had the distinct feeling that she was getting in over her head, but she also didn’t want to go to the cops, not yet anyway. She was sure it wouldn’t be in her best interest if the police knew she’d been semi-conducting a private investigation on her own. Nikki knew that Carolyn Keene would be proud of her, as she thought fondly of Nancy Drew in her favorite in the series-
Number 49—The Secret of Mirror Bay
. Aunt Cara on the other hand might not be so proud of Nikki if she knew what she was up to.
Nikki checked her watch and saw that it was closing in on the four o’clock hour. She was short on time, as Derek wanted to meet her around four-thirty. She’d have to put her detective hat away and go on to Derek’s, but first she wanted to finish her run, because she wasn’t willing to cheat herself out of any of the food that evening.
She trotted onto one of the side roads, hearing her own heartbeat and the pounding of her feet against the dirt, almost in sync with one another, as her mind went over the events of the past twenty-four hours.
A big gust of wind blew dirt up to the left of her, several hundred yards away, startling and distracting her. Out of the dust came a red jeep, speeding down the dirt road, headed straight for her. It pulled up next to her, with two women as its passengers. One was probably in her mid to late twenties, with dark hair, eyes of the same color, and lips so full of collagen, Nikki had the urge to touch her own. The other woman was a redhead, mid-fifties, light green eyes, and attractive in an artificial way. They’d both spent some money on quite a bit of plastic surgery.
“You must be the latest,” the younger one said.
“Excuse me?” Nikki replied, out of breath.
“Derek’s. You must be his newest conquest,” the redhead said.
“What?”
The younger one turned to her counterpart and commented, “She’s good. Coy. He likes that.”
“Mmhmm. Blonde, too. Must be from L.A.” She shook her head in an exaggerated fashion. “You’ll wise up. They all do. You’ve heard about the murder, haven’t you?”
“She’s the one who found poor Gabriel.”
“Excuse me, but who are you, and what are you talking about?” Nikki asked.
“You don’t have to pretend with us, sweetie. Derek’s got deep pockets. Anyone can see that. But he’s also got some serious charisma, and some other nice assets.” The woman winked at her. “Just when you think you’re getting close to the payoff, you start to fall for those baby blues and those nice strong abs, and wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am.”
“It’s not pretty. He can turn women into putty,” the older one added. “And, he’s had plenty to do it to.”
“Maybe he turned Gabriel into putty, too. That best-friends act of his was only a ruse. I should know. We women need to stick together, which is why we thought we’d give you a bit of a warning about Derek. He’s not all that he pretends to be. So watch your step, because he’ll love you and leave you, like that.” The younger of the nip-and-tuck duo snapped her fingers together.
“Well, I’m sure we’ll see you tonight. Look at the time, Meredith. Gotta go, sweetie.”
The woman driving turned the car around and pressed down on the gas, leaving Nikki in a cloud of dust. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, the dust was clearing. “What the hell was that?” she said to herself.
She decided to go to Derek’s house and see if he’d returned yet. She’d been running for almost forty minutes. It was nearly four-thirty, the time that he’d asked her to check in with him. She needed that glass of wine he’d promised right about now.
“What happened to you?” he asked as she jogged up to him. He stood on his porch as the sun started to descend.
“Don’t ask,” she replied, dusting herself off. Ollie came up next to her, panting. He quickly found his water bowl, half of which he lapped up, splashing the rest onto the porch.
A loud squeal followed by a hoop and holler came from the jeep as they spun out on the dirt road closest to Derek’s place and went flying past them at an even higher speed.
“Don’t you get it? She met the Botox buddies,” a young, prim woman remarked walking out onto the porch, a notebook in hand. She wore glasses and looked every bit the librarian with her severe chin-length page boy. She stuck her ivory-colored hand out to shake Nikki’s. “I’m Minnie Lark. I’m the accountant here at Malveaux. Derek tells me you’re considering a job with us.”
“I am.” Minnie definitely moisturized. Her hands were silky soft, and that complexion was perfect. Not even a damn blackhead or enlarged pore. Nikki wondered for a second what her skin-care regimen consisted of. She’d have to ask later.
“Great. We’ll have to talk, because you’ll be working closely with me. I know Derek has told you about our suspicions concerning certain portions of the books. He says that you have good instincts. Maybe together we can figure out the cash-flow leak. It’ll be good to have you here. Maybe the boss will give me time off to go on a Tuscan holiday.”
“Only if you promise to come back. I don’t want you buying a villa like that woman in the movie,” Derek said.
“Like in
Under the Tuscan Sun
?” Nikki asked.
“Exactly. You never know, I just may up and relocate there and fix up my
own
villa. The book inspired me, and the movie, well, the scenery alone is to die for. Did you see the movie, Nikki?”
“Actually, no,” Nikki replied, hating to admit that she hadn’t, not wanting to see Diane Lane play a part she’d tried out for and bombed at. “I’d like to, though.” Now that her green-eyed monster had been tamed and she’d accepted the fact that an Academy Award was not in the cards for her.

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