Plum Gone: A Sonoma Wine Country Cozy Mystery (Sonoma Wine Country Cozy Mysteries Book 2) (4 page)

Julie wasn’t convinced. “Piers isn’t happy about it either. In fact, he’s dreading the dinner. Jack’s a client. Never mix business and …” She didn’t finish the sentence.

“I’ll make it up to Piers,” Emma cut in. “I’ll babysit all day Sunday.”

Julie shrugged, not appeased. Determined to rub it in. “A radiologist and a medical researcher? What will we talk about?”

“You’re intelligent people. You’ll manage,” Emma replied, marveling that her daughter had already Googled the couple. Then, hoping to change the subject, she glanced pointedly at the clock above Julie’s massive, navy blue, eight-burner stove. “Aren’t you two going to be late?”

Julie looked at the clock too. “Holy cow! Piers,” she shouted. “I’m ready. We need to go.”

As usual, Emma stayed up playing with Harry well past his bedtime. They watched
Frozen
for the fifth time. Over the past year, she and Harry had developed a conspiracy. She let him stay up late as long as he went to bed ten minutes before the end of whatever movie his parents had gone to see. Emma checked the run times right after his parents left.

So Harry was in bed, eyes closed if not asleep, when his parents returned from the movie. Emma was in the living room watching
Saturday Night Live
.

Piers merely nodded at her and sat down to watch the end of the show.

“How was the movie?” she asked.

Julie, standing in the doorway to the living room, answered.  “So, so. Thanks Mom. I’m bushed,” she added before climbing the stairs to bed.

Piers got up from the couch to follow Emma to the front door. As he opened it to let Emma out, he whispered, “Sorry I came on so strong earlier this evening. But I’m right this time. Talk to Steve. Curt’s an old man. His health is bad. He’s bitter about his life. But he wouldn’t hurt a flea. This litigation will kill him. We can work things out so everyone gets what they need. Without publicity. Without a fight. Steve’s gotta understand. Do what you can, Emma. Please.”

On the drive back home, Jack called to compare babysitting notes. And gripe about the new
au pair.

“She doesn’t stimulate them,” he complained. “She doesn’t read. She eats and texts.
The boys were watching videos when I arrived. Then the boyfriend rang the doorbell. Who knows what rock she found
him
under? Covered in tattoos.”

Emma let the tattoo comment pass. Chances were he’d never see the tiny butterfly she’d acquired traveling with Andy in the south of Spain.

“She’s nineteen, Jack, and until a month ago, probably never left her village in Poland,” Emma exclaimed. “What do you expect? Mary Poppins?”

She could almost hear Jack shrug. “No. Maria Montessori. At least she’s a
paisan
,” he added with a laugh. “Look, what do
you
expect, Emma? They’re my grandsons. I want the best for them and their mother is just too dang busy.”

Emma then filled Jack in on her lecture from Piers. But instead of taking what Emma thought was her side, Jack agreed with Piers.

“I don’t know,” he answered after patiently listening to her replay Piers’ tirade. “I say settle the grievances. Privately. Let the old man die in peace – or whatever there is left of peace for the old geezer. Face it, Emma, he never got over the death of his son. Probably poisoned his marriage too. Apparently all he’s been living for is his dog and that animal shelter he gives the annual BowWow benefit for…”

“Yeah,” Emma chimed in. “Looks like it’s turned into more than an
annual
BowWow benefit.” Then she added, unable to resist the joke, “Apparently the whole of Randall’s fortune is going to the dogs.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked. “I thought Rob Peters was getting Randall’s estate. The nephew. Word is he’s already spent half the inheritance on a vineyard he’s run into the ground.”

“Wait a minute,” Emma replied, suddenly realizing she’d said too much. “You’d never tell anyone I said that. I mean, you’d never repeat what Piers told me about Randall changing his will. It’s utterly confidential, Jack. Do you actually know this guy?”

“Peters? Sure I know him,” Jack answered. “He and I are on the Blissburg Historic Preservation Committee. He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But he’s pro growth – pro development. Don’t worry. I won’t repeat a word. I’m just surprised, that’s all.  Seems like he’s been waiting for old man Randall to die for years. If what you say is true, the poor joker’s in for a big surprise.”

“I’ll say,” Emma answered. “But please, remember. What I said about the will is confidential.”

“My lips are sealed,” Jack answered. “And by the way, I won’t make it to tomorrow’s Sunday Stroll. I’m taking the boys ice skating at the Snoopy rink tomorrow morning. Cara’s back in Palo Alto. Some emergency at the lab. And my son-in-law’s at a conference in Colorado. So guess who’s chaperoning the
au pair
?
I’ll see you tomorrow night at Sergio’s, though,” he added. “Remember? We’re picking the wine.”

They said goodbye just as Emma pulled into the driveway of her home. The two story wood frame house that once belonged to a legendary California mountain man sat under the shade of an enormous magnolia tree. It was surrounded by a garden behind the small Victorian cottage Julie used as the office for her PR firm. Julie and Piers had bought the property when they first moved north from San Francisco, hoping to convince Emma to move there, too. A few years later, when Emma’s best friend, Mary, died, they got their wish.

Now Emma rented the quaint yellow and white wood farmhouse from her daughter and son-in-law. Her daughter’s tenant! It was the last thing an independent single mom had expected. But the home had two bedrooms, a living room, a beautiful wainscoted dining room, a huge new kitchen, a redwood deck and an enormous yard backing onto a wildlife preserve. A few weeks after Emma moved, she realized she had never been happier.

She’d left the outdoor lights on.  Up a short flight of stairs to the wrap-around porch, she opened her front door. And sighed. Home. She was home. And everything was just the way she liked it. The living room with its comfortable overstuffed furniture covered in hand woven Mexican fabrics. The dining room big enough for her grandmother’s walnut table and the painted cupboard she’d brought from her San Francisco condo.

Emma climbed the stairs to her cozy bedroom, went to bed and quickly fell asleep.

Three hours later, however, she was wide-awake. Her conversation with Piers played a loop in her head.

Why, in the middle of the night she wondered, did everything sound more ominous than it did by light of day? If Piers was right that Curt Randall had
not
killed Gomez, then a murderer was on the loose in Blissburg. And if not Randall, then who? A jealous husband? An angry heir?

Worst of all, in the middle of the night Emma wondered if she could have prevented the tragedy. If, perhaps, she could have convinced Steve to drop the lawsuit. And had she done so, whether Santiago Gomez would now be alive.

It seemed to Emma that she had not slept a wink when her alarm sounded at exactly 8:00 a.m. It was time for the Blissburg Sunday Stroll, a weekly event Emma hadn’t missed since the second weekend after she moved to Blissburg.

Emma had looked forward to this particular Sunday Stroll all week and was disappointed that Jack wouldn’t be there. He often knew more about the history of his newly adopted home than the tour leader himself.

Then again, Emma reminded herself,
how could the ex Olympic hockey player resist a chance to take his grandson’s to the “Snoopy” rink?
An ice hockey facility built by Snoopy’s creator, himself. The same rink where Jack still played, once a week, in what he called the “old guys league.”

Emma walked up Blissburg Avenue for a latte at Claud’s. The truth was, she admitted to herself, her life and Jack’s pulled them in different directions. It was hard to imagine how that might ever change.

By the time she arrived at the plaza, twelve or so of the usual suspects had already gathered at the Spanish style fountain that graced the center of the square. Most of the Strollers balanced coffee and still-warm sour cherry
galettes
from the Plaza Bakery in their hands. 

The second she arrived, Tom Fitzpatrick waved at her. The eighty-something year old triple divorcé owned the Blissburg dump.  He’d been trying to worm a dinner out of Emma since they’d met on a Sunday Stroll. Emma was starting to feel guilty about putting him off so long. But for some reason every word out of the old man’s mouth jarred her.

She quickly turned to greet four members of the Walkie-Talkies, the local women’s walking club. Dressed for the stroll in what Emma described as their uniform of black linen pants, long black T-shirts and pastel Wallaroo hats with brims so wide they reached half way to their elbows, the Walkie-Talkies reminded Emma of latter day nuns. An order dedicated to good gossip instead of good works.

“Hi honey. Where’s Jack?” Trish, the ubiquitous Sotheby realtor shouted across the gurgling fountain.

Emma thought she detected an overly arched eyebrow as well. Or perhaps Trish had simply been careless with her makeup that morning. In any event, there was something that annoyed Emma about Trish’s assumption that at 9:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning Emma would know exactly where Jack Russo was. And that if she didn’t, something might be deliciously wrong.

Of course, Emma
did
know
exactly
where Jack was. That very minute he was stick handling, or whatever he called it, with his grandsons at the Santa Rosa rink. In fact, he’d called her from there not ten minutes before to boast that eight year old Joshie was a “natural,” on the ice.

“I dunno,” Emma replied to Trish, unwilling to fuel more Sunday morning gossip by a detailed description of the man’s whereabouts. Half of Blissburg, including her own daughter, assumed that she and Jack were having an affair.
How wrong they are
, Emma mused. But since Jack was now her closest buddy, there was no one to whom she could protest her complete innocence with regard to
that
. No one who would believe her, that is.

When Trish registered Emma’s response, her eyebrow really did shoot up at least half an inch. She glanced at her companions. Emma couldn’t help noticing the sparkle of excitement in the woman’s eye. And wondered how many dinner invitations Jack was about to receive when three of the Walkie-Talkies immediately excused themselves for a quick pee before heading into the van.

“Don’t leave without us, Silas,” the Walkie-Talkies’ newest member, Jill, a transplant from Oakland who bought out Blossoms and Bulbs, called over her shoulder. Silas was the amateur local historian who’d organized that particular Sunday Stroll.

Meanwhile, Emma and the remaining Strollers boarded the minivan. It was Emma’s first Sunday Stroll that was not conducted entirely on foot. Emma was pleasantly surprised when Silas Bugbee, their slight, bespectacled thirty-something leader, grabbed the seat next to hers.

Emma did not know Silas well. Carter Olsen, the director of the Blissburg Historical Society, usually led the Sunday Stroll. But Emma had encountered Silas during the renovations to her farmhouse in his professional capacity as city architect and head of the Blissburg permit board.

Since the day she first saw him, and he lovingly presented Piers with a copy of the original site map of the legendary California mountain man’s farm, Silas Bugbee had reminded Emma of a nineteenth century New England zealot.
A Walden Pond groupie
, she had thought to herself.

Even his clothes signaled Thoreau wannabe – thin white billowy shirts tucked into slim, high-waisted beltless serge pants and high-topped leather shoes. The shoes didn’t have buttons, but Emma swore they could have. And while Silas didn’t really have a black silk ribbon tied around his neck in a loose bow, something about the lanyard he always wore on a shiny thick black ribbon reminded her of one. Where, Emma wondered, did one buy such clothes? Maybe there was a Louisa May Alcott website.

To make matters worse, Silas’s thin freckled face half hidden behind a lank curtain of stringy yellow hair, radiated so much zealous excitement that the poor man always seemed on the verge of tears. Indeed, the morning Emma and Piers showed him their architect’s plans, retaining the farmhouse kitchen’s footprint and preserving the original stone hearth, Silas was so appreciative that tears did form at the corners of his eyes and his nose began to drip. Forcing him to remove a really badly stained white cloth handkerchief from his hip pocket to blow his nose and wipe the tears away in that order.

Now, sitting next to him in the van, Emma noted a hand-hammered silver wedding band on Silas’s left ring finger and tried to imagine how Mrs. Bugbee might appear. Dressed, perhaps, in a long grey cotton dress, cinched in a tight v at the waist, with ham hock sleeves.
Like the kind those cult people wear in Utah
, Emma mused, imagining a pale blond woman with hair tucked under a white cotton bonnet. Then she remembered something. Was it Tom Fitzpatrick who mentioned that Tiffany had worked as a waitress at Hooters?

In any case, Silas was incredibly knowledgeable regarding Blissburg’s social and architectural history. Emma was eager to discuss it with him on that day’s short ride to the home of the famed local botanist, Luther Burbank.

Silas Bugbee, however, apparently had a different plan. As soon as the Walkie-Talkies returned from their pee ‘n text and the van hit the road, he turned to her.

“Emma,” he began, “today’s lecture is going to be a wee bit of a challenge for me. I may need to turn to you for moral support.”

Emma cocked her head.
Am I imagining it?
she wondered.
Or are tears already sprouting at the corners of his eyes?

“How so?” was all she managed by way of reply.

“I know,” Silas nodded, withdrawing what looked like the same stained handkerchief Emma had seen before and wiping his eyes, “I’m a professional. It’s my job to remain impartial.” He blew his nose and appeared to regain his composure. “It’s about the plums. The plum
trees
,” he added. “I’m sure you’ve heard. If the Chinese purchase goes through over at the Randall Ranch, why, by next year all those historic trees will be gone. All
gone
.”

Another thin stream of water threatened to overflowed the rims of the young man’s eyes. Emma had to turn away.

“
Will
the sale go through, Silas?” Emma asked staring out the window. “After that
murder
on Friday,” she added with a shrug. “Well, I don’t know. With old man Randall in jail, I mean, can he even sell the place?”

“He’s out on bail,” Silas reminded her, curtly. His clenched jaw signaled that as far as Silas Bugbee was concerned, old Randall could rot in jail for the rest of his life. “Technically, I’ve been told he
can
consummate the sale. I’m sure his
lawyer,”
Silas emphasized the word in a not nice way, “has figured that out. I believe the question is whether Huang Ho, the Chinese developer who is buying the ranch, will now try to renegotiate the sale.”