Lethal Lifestyles (A Headlines in High Heels Mystery Book 6) Page 10

  I twisted my head back to Parker like I was watching a tennis match. He smiled and nodded to Sammons, raising his flute of seltzer (champagne and painkillers didn’t mix well) in return.

  By the time I looked back, Sammons was gone.

  I nodded and laughed through a dozen more conversations after Shelby excused herself, and though I made the rounds of the room until the last champagne glass had been cleared, I didn’t catch another glimpse of Dale Sammons. Or Jinkerson.

  I watched all seven of Parker’s cousins stumble out into the long shadows of early evening, wondering who’d be the first to puke bourbon all over someone. All told, our groomsmen had behaved themselves, though things had gotten a bit rowdy when Celia whispered to Bubba that the largest one in the bunch needed to take his Marlboros outside the second time he lit up during dessert.

  A broad-chested man who looked like a Xerox enlargement of Parker’s dad had gotten in the middle of that and led Smokey Smokerson out to the deck while everyone returned to their mousse and conversation.

  I spotted Celia in the far corner, but she disappeared into the kitchen before I made it halfway there. Pressing up on tiptoe, I peeked through the high glass circle in the swinging oak door. Her back was to me, but she looked to be in deep conversation with chef Alexei. Worry over something going wrong with dinner got the best of me and I pushed the door slightly and leaned into the crack, ears open.

  “He was just supposed to get sick,” Celia hissed. “I didn’t want him to die, dammit.”

  I blinked, the words playing on repeat in my head.

  My inner Lois Lane wanted to charge through the door shouting “Aha!” and haul her to the sheriff, but I couldn’t move. Which was probably a good thing, because while her words were shocking enough on the surface, I covered crime for a living: She hadn’t said anything that would do more than get a warrant and maybe have her brought in for questioning. And then there was the whole pesky witness issue where I hadn’t seen her because of the door. I’d only heard her. Any decent defense attorney would shred me in four seconds with an argument that someone else entirely could’ve said the damning words—possibly even the radio or the TV.

  My brain spun through thirty scenarios in as many seconds and I stepped backward, out of sight of the door behind a seven-foot potted palm outfitted with twinkle lights.

  Deep breath, Nichelle.

  Did the sheriff need this information? Hell yes. However, I’d seen Celia clam up earlier, and though my inner Lois Lane whispered that had been a show designed to toss some suspicion on her uncle, I knew the sheriff wouldn’t get anywhere with her.

  But maybe I could.

  The conscience is a funny thing. There were about a million and one ifs in this, but if she was talking about Burke, and if he’d been poisoned, and if the sheriff would listen to me, Celia should feel guilty because she didn’t mean for Burke to die. Which meant a little of that wine her uncle mentioned could get me more of the story.

  I spun for the back doors, my eyes scanning the throng of people on the deck for Parker. I needed Bubba to make sure Celia would be at the party we’d planned for after the rehearsal.

  Catching a glimpse of my reflection in the glass on the door, I winced. I also needed a shower, some makeup, and a dress so I didn’t trash Larry’s photos of the ceremony run-through. A glance at my phone told me I had just enough time for some express primping.

  And a text from Joey.

  I slid my finger across the screen, trying and failing to banish Shelby’s probing questions from my head, wishing things could be different. Not like I hadn’t known what I was getting into from the first night he turned up in my living room with a story tip and scared the hell out of me.

  My eyes fixed on the little gray bubble on my screen.

  By my watch, it’s about time for me to remind you to leave Dale Sammons the hell alone.

  I rolled my eyes, moving to click out of the messages when the little gray dot-bubble that meant he was typing popped up at the bottom of the screen. My heart skipped as I focused on the dots.

  Bing.

  I mean it, Princess. You’ll never touch him. But he can get to you.

  I tapped a finger on the side of my phone. I knew he could see on his screen that I’d read the messages.

  No chance you’ve reconsidered sharing what you know? It’d be so much easier and safer than digging for it myself. Send. Wish you were here. Miss you.

  Can we make a deal? I’ll handle Sammons. If he’s your guy, I will find a way for you to hand him to the cops. If you’ll stay out of his way.

  I blinked at the screen. The last time Joey had been that much help with a sticky story, he’d had a lot riding on the outcome.

  But…he hadn’t brought me this one. Could it be he just wanted to help me? Maybe all my do-gooder instincts were rubbing off.

  Consider your hand shaken, I tapped. And thanks.

  I was more curious about Celia than her uncle at the moment, anyhow. And less than interested in winding up in a wine barrel myself.

  Bing. Excellent. Miss you too. Have fun.

  Stowing the phone back in my pocket, I grabbed Parker, who shrugged his good shoulder and nodded when I asked him to get Bubba to keep Celia around for the evening.

  I was still thinking about Joey’s words when I stepped into the shower. Too much experience had taught me that when Joey worried, it was for good reason.

  But no one had warned me away from the quiet little shop manager. And if Sammons grabbed my attention again…well, that could surely wait until I was back in Richmond and had some help.

  Practice be damned, I had to reach for the tissue I’d stowed in my ribbon bouquet when Parker and Mel recited their vows an hour later. And these were just the regular ones for the rehearsal—they’d written their own for the real show, but wanted to keep them a secret until then.

  I told myself I was happy for them, not sad for me.

  It was mostly true too.

  Thankful I’d remembered the waterproof mascara when I redid my makeup, I blotted my eyes at the corners and smiled for all thirty zillion of Larry’s photos. The more he picked at each nuance of every frame, the more I thought he was going to be the kink in my to-the-minute schedule for the big day. I’d have to talk to him—gently—sometime this week.

  I added it to my growing mental list, scanning the crowd for Bubba’s dark blond head when Larry finally dismissed those of us who weren’t about to tie the knot. He led Parker and Mel out toward the barns as I spotted Bubba and Celia. She had a glass of white wine, a smile lighting her pretty face as Bubba leaned close to her ear. Whatever he said looked to be hilarious.

  Good. Let her have a little more wine, get a little more relaxed. And then I’d get her alone. A girl doesn’t spend nearly a decade chasing crime stories without learning a trick or two for cornering sources. Enough wine would equal a trip to the ladies’ room, and I’d noticed when we toured the facility months ago that its main door locked from the inside.

  Happy with that plan, I moved to the bar for a glass of my own. “White, please,” I said when the bartender smiled an inquiry at me from under a cloud of ash brown curls.

  The first sip hit my tongue with an explosion of sweet and tart I’d never tasted in a wine. “Wow,” I murmured, holding the glass up to the light like it would make the pale liquid reveal some kind of secret.

  “It’s good.” That baritone could only belong to Hulk. Er, Franklin. I turned and smiled up at him, swirling the wine in the glass.

  He raised a short glass half-full of bourbon and I lifted mine to it. “Cheers. It’s freaking amazing. I’m no aficionado, but I know what I like, and I’m pretty picky. This is the best wine I think I’ve ever had. How do I go about taking some home? Or is it like three hundred bucks a bottle?”

  He smiled, his eyes lighting for the first time since I’d walked into him the night before. “Not even close. They’ll have it in the shop and in the local grocery stores in a couple weeks
for nine. Though I imagine the price will go up if we win.”

  “Win?” I lifted my eyebrows. “Oh—what Mr. Sammons was saying about the Reserve whatever? It’s a contest?”

  He nodded, shoving his big hands into the pockets of his jeans as he stared out the windows toward the barns. “Quite a contest. But from the look on your face when you took a sip of that, we’ve got it on lock.”

  “I’ve never had better.” Every word true. “If there’s one that can beat this, I want in on the taste testing.”

  He chuckled, leaning against the post behind him. “I imagine I might be able to arrange that.”

  Something in his tone hinted at more than helpfulness. I sipped my wine and studied his profile over the rim of my glass. He was good-looking—proportional, symmetrical features, a tan that spoke of hours in the fields, a shock of wheat-blond hair, and bright sky-colored eyes. No wedding ring. Well put together.

  I had plenty of men in my life at the moment.

  But I wanted him to open up to me about this place and its people.

  I cast my eyes down at my shoes. “Tell me how you go about creating an award-winning wine.”

  I expected him to launch into a story about how complicated the process was, how the grapes need just-right tending, what a genius he was. You know, the stuff a guy says to a comment like that if he’s trying to impress a girl.

  I expected a hundred and eighty degrees wrong.

  He sucked in his cheeks so far it widened his eyes, blew out a deep breath, and tossed back the rest of his bourbon in one swallow.

  “Normal people study, hire smart folks, and pray.”

  My brow wrinkled, and I sipped the wine again. Best to stay quiet and let people talk when they start blurting out the unexpected.

  “Not Dale Sammons. No respect for craft. No time for an honest win.” He fell quiet, his eyes roving the crowd under the lanterns on the wide lawn. Shaking off his reverie, he held his glass up, three fingers around the base. “I think it’s time for another round.”

  Brilliant idea, except I didn’t want him to walk away. “When you say ‘honest win’…?” I let the sentence trail off, lifting the last word into a question.

  He shook his head and pushed off the post. “Mr. Sammons isn’t exactly what anyone would call a stand-up guy.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Better question might be how I don’t.”

  Three for three with the employees alluding to Sammons being shady, which made me itch to dig deeper. But pouncing was a sure way to shut him right the hell up.

  I lowered my voice. Softened my tone. Laid one hand on a forearm bigger than my thigh. “Is there something you need to talk to a friend about? I’ve been told I’m a pretty good listener.” There. My best Emily Supershrink impression.

  His eyes came to rest of the pale curve of my fingers around his arm. “I’m just so tired, ma’am. So tired of all the bullshit. This wasn’t what my grandfather wanted when he bought this place.”

  Time. Out.

  Hulk was related to Sammons? That meant he was related to Celia too.

  And that changed the whole game.

  14.

  Moonlit musings

  My brows jumped so high so fast they must’ve given me a new wrinkle, and I hoped the smile I practiced in the mirror at least a couple times a week flashed up in time to cover my shock.

  Hulk shrugged, his eyes half-focused on the wall behind me in a way that said he’d had more than the one glass of bourbon.

  Phew.

  I kept the smile in place as my thoughts pinged in seven thousand directions at once. My brain hurt from the effort of trying to pick a trail to follow.

  If Celia had been talking about her former fiancé when I overheard her in the kitchen, and this guy was family—well, hell. He “found” the body.

  I studied him, the brooding in his glassy eyes making me wonder suddenly if he’d deposited Burke in the barrel and then come looking for help to cover it up.

  Wouldn’t be the dumbest idea I’d ever heard.

  Or maybe he was just frustrated that Sammons was getting away with something.

  He shook his big head and dropped his eyes to his empty glass. “I wish things were simpler.”

  “I can relate to that,” I said.

  He chuckled. “It does look like you’ve been running your tail off this weekend.” He cut his eyes toward me and let his full lips turn up at the corners. “I imagine Burke made things a little difficult for you.”

  “Can’t blame the guy for getting killed, but the gentleman this morning definitely threw a wrench into my day. What was with him?” I kept my tone light.

  Hulk nodded to me, then moved his gaze back out to the fields, which were slowly being gobbled up by the deep indigo twilight. “Mr. Fulton was a good friend of my Granddad’s. All the way back to when they served together in Korea. It was actually him who got Granddad interested in making wine in the first place. Fulton inherited his family’s farm and started growing grapes before the wine industry really came to Virginia. Listening to him talk about the craft, the fruit, the mystery of the process—that sparked my Granddad’s love of a challenge.”

  I looked around as I sipped my wine. Didn’t seem like anyone was paying us the slightest attention, but a room full of newspaper people can pick up on an interesting conversation through walls, traffic, and screaming babies.

  A server walked by with a tray half full of shrimp cups and half full of bourbon shots, and I waylaid him, handing Hulk one of each with my best saucy grin. “It’s too beautiful here to stay inside,” I said. “Any interest in moving out to the deck?”

  He shoved off the pillar he was leaning against and nodded. “Outside is probably a better place for me to stay, anyhow. Mr. Parker was nice enough to invite me up this afternoon when I went by to check on him, but Mr. Sammons probably wouldn’t care too much for me being here.”

  The “Mr. Sammons” stuck in my ear like an icepick every time he said it. If Sammons’ father was his grandfather, then the man was his uncle. Why the formality? Moreover, why the unease about his opinion? I’d yet to meet the man who should be able to intimidate Hulk, just on the basis of sheer mass.

  Curiouser and curiouser. And I was a big old sucker for curiosity. It’s what drove most of my eighty-five-hour workweeks.

  He waved a ladies-first and followed me out to the wraparound porch, pointing to an empty sofa at the far end.

  “You were telling me about your grandfather and how he got interested in winemaking,” I said as I sank into the deep blue cushions and set my glass on the table in front of me. On the lawn, servers were setting up a tapas buffet and Larry was trailing Parker and Mel, taking candids of them chatting with guests. The cousins were locked to the bar at the far end of the deck with bourbon and cigars, and seemed content—and quiet. Good. I returned my attention to Hulk.

  “Granddad loved any kind of a puzzle,” he said. “Anything that challenged him. He got an engineering degree from VMI and served in the Air Force for three tours. When he came back, the military was just starting to get into computers. Back when a computer took four large rooms and its own air conditioner.”

  “Must have seemed like quite a challenge to a young engineer back then.”

  “He started playing with how to make them do things in his free time.” Hulk nodded. “Eventually his hobby became his career when he’d written enough programs to start his own software company.”

  “Wow.” I sipped my wine.

  “Orbitron? All Granddad.”

  “Holy Manolos. I played that for hours growing up.” I looked around, somehow more impressed with my surroundings knowing where the Sammons money had come from.

  “He sold it all to Microsoft about twenty-five years ago.”

  I didn’t need to ask to know that was a seven-figure deal. Maybe eight. Hulk kept talking.

  “He’d been growing grapes in his backyard garden—they lived in the DC suburbs, and the winters
are just enough colder there to be troublesome. Then the Generals’ owner went bankrupt.” He sipped his bourbon.

  I knew that story. Big scandal, complete with gambling and whispers about organized crime.

  Wait.

  The photo of Sammons with the former head of the Caccione family flashed through my head and I snapped a mental puzzle piece in place. Had the scandal gone away? Or were the Sammonses just luckier than their predecessors?

  “Granddad had been looking for something to do—a place to put all that money, and something to occupy his mind. His old man was a baseball player when he was young—three seasons with the Dodgers—and he loved the game, even though he didn’t play too well. So he put in a bid for the Generals at the court auction and won it. Six months later, he bought this place on a tip from Mr. Fulton. He talked a lot about a blessed life. Said he always got to do what he loved, and even in his old age, he was getting to learn something new and do something great. He was forever reading about new techniques and tinkering with his process.”

  His eyes went misty and I tipped my head to one side. “You miss him.”

  “Eight years gone now, and I really do. It’s a good thing we had him cremated. He’d have found passage to China rolling in his grave at what Dale Sammons has done to this place.”

  Which was?

  I sipped the wine again, waiting for him to go on.

  Two more sips and an officially awkward pause later, my head felt swimmy from the wine, and Hulk still stared in the direction of the fields, the look on his face telling me he saw something I couldn’t.

  “It doesn’t sound like you have a super high opinion of your uncle,” I said finally. “Why keep working for him if that’s the case?”

  Hulk furrowed his brow and then shook his head, a rueful smile pinching his lips together as they turned up.