Lost and Fondue (21 page)

Jordan added, “Did you also know that Poe read Shakespeare and Zola and wrote fluently in three languages?”

I tilted my head, surprised by his knowledge. Perhaps in his former life Jordan had been an English teacher. I was dying to know the truth but afraid to press.

“No matter what, his words are glorious.” The second actor, a bucktoothed local farmer, struck a pose. “‘All we see or seem is but a dream within a dream,’” he intoned. “Magnificent, don’t you think?”

I bit back a smile, not sure if he was asking about his performance or Poe’s words.

Jordan gripped my elbow and whispered, “While they emote, let’s take a little walk outside.”

He pushed back the kitchen door and let me pass through first. My grandparents’ yard was L-shaped, with a patio that abutted the driveway and a grassy area that ran perpendicular to the rear of the house. Soon dozens of vibrant pink azaleas would blossom. We strolled to the edge of the patio, and he slung an arm around my shoulders.

“Warm enough?” he asked.

“Barely.” I was glad that I’d retrieved my rain slicker from the bushes outside the Ziegler mansion. A few weeks hence, Pépère would start his Sunday barbecue tradition. For now, it was too cold to do any grilling.

“What a night!” Jordan tilted his head backward.

I copied him. The sky looked like black velvet that had been studded with diamonds. A scent of smoke from a fireplace hung in the air. Before I knew it, he was kissing me. I didn’t resist.

When we came up for air, he said, “Make a wish.”

“I have dozens of times.”

“Make another. Wishes are always worthwhile. Close your eyes.” He swept his fingers over my eyelashes. The musky scent lingering on his hands was intoxicating. “See it,” he said. “Picture it coming true.”

I imagined our trip to Europe, the two of us sitting at a café table, Jordan telling me all his secrets. He balked at one. My eyes fluttered open.

“Why the pinched forehead?” he said.

“Were you married before?” Over the past few months, I’d asked him all sorts of questions, but not that. Never that. At one time, I’d worried that Jacky was his wife, until I’d found out that she was his sister.

His gaze flickered. “Almost.”

“What happened?”

“Let’s just say I didn’t do my homework.” His mouth twitched with humor. “I was twenty and reckless. I met her at a beach resort. We had a bit too much to drink. I thought I was in love.”

“I’m picturing a scene from the movie
Ten.
”

“You’re not far off the mark. She turned out to be married, on holiday for a little fling before”—he laughed hard—“before she settled down to have kids.”

I gaped. “Are you telling the truth?”

He crossed his heart and pulled me to him. “Always the truth with you.”

Hushed whispers growing louder kept us from succumbing to another round of passionate kissing.

I pressed away from Jordan and spied Matthew and Meredith rounding the corner from the rear yard. In the moonlight, Matthew looked wan and shaky. Meredith appeared equally haggard, nearly impossible for a woman who was so pretty. She held Matthew’s hand between both of hers. I doubted either had the wherewithal to console the other.

Remembering Grandmère’s appeal to cheer up my friend, I said, “Jordan, Matthew. Would you guys get us a couple of glasses of wine?”

They eyed each other and shrugged. Neither of them was stupid.

While they headed into the house together discussing the Cleveland Indians’ potential this season, I guided Meredith to the swing on the porch. The striped canvas cushions felt cold beneath my trousers but not unbearable.

“What’s bothering you?” I asked. It was an insipid question, given the circumstances. “Is it Quinn?”

“Yes ... No. It’s Clair.”

“Clair?”

Meredith drew in a shallow breath. “She’s so brittle. She’s crying in the classroom.”

The thought of my niece hurting gave my stomach a twist.

“And she yelled at somebody who was taunting her on the playground today. She never yells.” Meredith’s lower lip trembled. “They think they want to be with their mother, but after being with Sylvie for any length of time, they’re tense and grumpy. She’s like an evil spirit or something. I wish I could drive her away, but I don’t know how.” Meredith let out a tiny sob. She laid a hand on her chest to calm herself. “Oh, Charlotte, what are we going to do?”

“I saw her this afternoon.”

“Sylvie?”

“She was at the winery.”

“Why was she there, for heaven’s sake?”

“For the treasure, I think. Matthew must have told her about the folk legend. What if she doesn’t want custody of the twins? What if she came to town to sneak into the winery but needed a cover?”

A burst of laughter came from the kitchen. I glanced through the window and saw Jordan and Matthew standing amidst the huddle of actors. Jordan buffed Matthew goodnaturedly on the shoulder. The sight warmed me to my toes. Chip had never liked anyone in my family. Jordan enjoyed all of them, including Rags and the twins.

“Wait a second,” Meredith said, drawing me back to our conversation. “Do you think Sylvie might have killed Harker Fontanne? She couldn’t have. She left the winery that night, remember? She showed up with the girls, and Matthew shooed her away.”

“But she returned, ostensibly to retrieve her purse,” I said. “She could have slinked into the cellar, surprised Harker, killed him, and hurried to the theater to establish her alibi. At the theater, when I told Urso I’d seen Sylvie’s car on the winery property, Sylvie looked like she wanted to strangle me.”

A shiver snaked up my neck. Had Sylvie shown up at the winery earlier to do just that? Kill me?

“Speak of the devil!” Meredith leapt to her feet. “Isn’t that her in the driveway?”

Sylvie scrambled out of her rented silver Lexus and slammed the door. At the same time, as if tuned in by genetic code, Amy and Clair burst from the kitchen. They flew toward their mother like little birds seeking shelter. Sylvie swooped through the white picket gate and gathered up her girls.

“My babies!” With her feral gaze and the flaps of her coat opened like wings, she reminded me of a sharp-shinned hawk. “We’re going for ice cream.” She steered a withering glance in my direction. “Try to stop me.”

I wouldn’t. Not this time. But I’d keep a steady eye on her. If she wasn’t restrained on a tight leash, she might devour her young.

The following afternoon, when I’d finished putting together the trays of cheeses that the pastor had ordered, I helped Matthew in the wine annex. His mood was as dark as the clouds gathering in the sky. Noisily he unpacked crates of wine while I wiped down the mosaic tables in preparation for the evening’s wine tasting. We’d had a rave response to the invitation. More than thirty people would be attending. Five of those reservations had come in since lunchtime.

“Sylvie’s got to be stopped,” Matthew said as he set a variety of pinot noir wines on the counter. He wasn’t trying to start a conversation. It was the third time he’d made the pronouncement since Sylvie’s arrival at my grandparents’ house last night.

After Sylvie whisked the girls away from the house for a spur-of-the-moment ice cream, I told Matthew about Sylvie’s raid into the winery. As much as he didn’t like her, he couldn’t believe she was guilty of murder. He said she wasn’t a physical type of person. In the past, I would’ve agreed. I’d always thought she’d acted coolly toward the twins. But since she’d arrived, Sylvie couldn’t seem to stop hugging them and kissing them. Was it all an act?

“What do you think she’s up to?” I asked.

“I don’t know. She was always into get-rich-quick schemes. The first year we were married, she almost wiped us out by investing in a junk-hauling franchise.”

“I remember.”

Grandmère had been appalled. She’d ranted for days on end that her grandson, an honored sommelier, should not lower himself to the level of a garbage collector. Numerous times, I’d had to remind her that garbage collectors made good money, and junk haulers did even better.

“The next year was hedge funds,” Matthew said. “The year after that, a miracle cream that would erase wrinkles.”

That memory from four years ago made me wince. Sylvie had urged me, at the age of thirty, to buy a case of the cream, which, of course, made me peer into the mirror to see if wrinkles had invaded my face. They hadn’t then, and still hadn’t now.

“No matter how many times I told her to stop investing in these schemes, Sylvie did what she liked,” Matthew said. “She’s impulsive and out of control, but I still can’t believe she could strangle someone. Though she’s threatened to choke me a time or two.” He offered a wry smile. “She’s never put a hand on me, not so much as a slap. And yet ...”

“Yet what?”

“Nothing. It’s just that I remembered seeing her talking to Harker on the day of the murder. They were standing on the sidewalk. The rain had let up. She had the twins with her, so I didn’t think much of it. Harker was showing them his paint palette.” He scuffed his chin with a knuckle. “Why had she singled him out? Quinn was around. Wouldn’t the girls have enjoyed hearing about painting from another girl and not a boy?”

“Good point. Do you think Sylvie knew Harker?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I’ll see if I can find out,” I said. “In the meantime, what did Mr. Nakamura say about your custody issue?” Matthew had called the lawyer-slash-hardware storeowner first thing that morning.

“He said I shouldn’t wait until things get worse.” Matthew handed me two bottles of pinot noir from the Santa Rita Hills area in California and two more from local wineries. Thanks to the movie
Sideways
, Santa Rita had become known for its pinot noirs. I toted the bottles to the café tables and returned. “He said she’s being unreasonable and is not a good candidate to negotiate, so I should use the hammer approach.”

“Hammer approach?”

“Countersue.” He pounded a fist into his palm. “Except that means going to court to prove her unfit, and that might involve bringing the girls into court. I don’t want to do that. I can’t do that.”

“You’d have plenty of ammunition if you did.”

Matthew had kept files on all of Sylvie’s financial mishaps as well as a diary chronicling the girls’ feelings about their mother from the moment she walked out of their lives. He’d never considered that he might have to expose those feelings to the world. He’d done it as a form of therapy.

“We’d all be there for you, too,” I added. Grandmère, Pépère, and I each had stories to tell about Sylvie. I offered a supportive smile. “When is the lecturer from Cincinnati due?”

“No later than six.”

Matthew had arranged for a guest speaker to lead the evening’s wine tasting, a representative who distributed wine in the Midwest. During the cooler months, red wines were preferred. Come May, our white wine stock would shoot out of the shop. I had prepared platters, each with three cheeses: a nutty and firm sheep’s milk cheese from our local Emerald Pastures; a rich Le Moulis cow’s milk cheese from the Pyrenees; and a tangy goat’s cheese called Bermuda Triangle.

Matthew handed me printed note cards.

I read the top one. “‘Sunny, bursting with cherries and cloves.’ Hmmm. The Shelton Nelson pinot, right?” Shelton Nelson, who owned a winery located at the upper west portion of the county, imported a variety of grapes from California and blended them with homegrown pinot noir grapes.

“You’re getting pretty good at this.”

“I’ve got an excellent teacher.” I folded the cards, set them in front of the wine bottles on the café tables, and added a stack of comment cards and sharpened pencils. As patrons entered and paid their nominal tasting fee, they would receive order sheets and complimentary wineglasses etched with
The Cheese Shop
. “Speaking of teachers, how is Meredith today?”

“She took a sick day from school. She’s at the jail, keeping Quinn company.”

If Freddy was doing the same, now might be a good time to sneak into his room at the B&B. On the other hand, business had remained steady all day. I wasn’t sure Rebecca could handle the overflow without Pépère and Bozz. Both were at the theater helping Grandmère with her production.

Chimes over The Cheese Shop’s front door jingled.

“Back in a sec.” I passed through the annex archway and peered out.

Ipo Ho, our local honeybee farmer, sauntered into the shop. As the door swung shut, he said, “Stay, Buttercup.” A beauty of a Golden Retriever, tongue lolling to one side, set her rump on the sidewalk and faced the display window. She knew what was coming. Every now and then, Ipo treated her to a taste of low-fat cheese.

From behind the cheese counter, Rebecca offered Ipo a quick “Hello” and returned to curling the ribbon for one of her specialty cheese baskets. I knew she liked the former firebaton twirler, so why was she brushing him off?

Ipo hung back. To the untrained eye, he appeared to be checking out the different jars of jam, but I could see him eyeing my assistant from under his thick, dark lashes. After a moment, he wandered nearer the cheese counter, tapping his oversized thigh with his hand, looking like a shy boy whose mom had told him he had to ask a girl to the prom.

I cleared my throat and gestured that Rebecca was going to have to take the lead if she wanted the relationship to move ahead, but she waved me off with a pair of scissors.

So much for my attempt at playing Cupid.

Ipo cleared his throat and said, “Hello, Rebecca ... I ...” In one fell swoop, he dropped to his left knee and fetched a small box from the pocket of his overalls. He popped open the box to reveal a shiny ring made of woven strands of gold. “Rebecca Zook, will you marry me?”

My mouth dropped open.

So did Rebecca’s. She quickly snapped it shut and said, “Get up, Ipo.”