Must Be Murder (The Otto Viti Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  Stella finally removed her hand from Janelle’s shoulder and crossed her arms.

  Uh-oh, I thought. Stella was slow to anger, but when those arms crossed, it was all over. I held my breath.

  “There was an awful accident on my family’s property, Jared,” she said. “There is no hook. And have some respect for the loss that people are suffering right now.”

  “You better watch how you speak to me, D’Angelo,” he said.

  “It’s Fiore.” Her eyes narrowed. “And if you can tell me how many degrees are in a triangle, I’ll mind my manners.”

  Before Fitts had a chance to realize that Stella was referencing their Geometry class sixteen years earlier, Jason broke in, “Detective, are we done here for now?”

  Fitts turned his attention to Jason and said, “Yes, you can go.” His eyes shifted to me, and he tilted his head toward the front door. “Little sister D’Angelo, go run and get those friends of yours. Round up the groom and his brother, too.” He opened his tablet again and tapped it on. “Mrs. —?” He looked at Janelle.

  “Hentz,” she prompted him.

  “Mrs. Hentz, you stick around. Now that I think about it, I have more questions for you.”

  Jason looked at Stella. “I’m going out back to talk to the staff. They’ve been waiting to find out what we’re doing today. Do you want to go home, grab the boys, and bring them back to Aldo’s?”

  Stella nodded.

  “Before you go, take a card,” Fitts said, dealing a stack of his business cards onto the table like we were playing Blackjack. “Call me if something comes up.”

  We all took a card. Jason disappeared into the back offices. My sisters and I got up to leave. Janelle didn’t move.

  As much as I wasn’t a fan of Detective Fitts and his attitude, I did as he asked. Toby and Shane were outside the tasting room, and I told them that Fitts wanted a word. Then I texted Livy and Jules, asking them to go see Fitts as well. I thought about waiting for my friends to return, but after seeing the scene outside—the police, the crying bachelorette party, and the gawkers—I just wanted to get out of there.

  Stella made a beeline for her car down the street. Holly and I hiked up the hill toward Aldo’s house. It was only eight in the morning, but the hot August sun was beating down on our back, as unforgiving as ever. I squinted at the ground, wishing for my sunglasses.

  It had been an awful morning, no doubt. My headache and sour stomach reinforced just how bad it had been. But there was something else bothering me—something beyond finding Marlo drowned, beyond Angelia accusing me of foul play, beyond Janelle wanting to tamper with the wine, and beyond the impact that all this would have on Otto Viti. It was something I couldn’t put my finger on.

  “What are you thinking?” Holly asked after we hiked about halfway up the hill without speaking.

  “Nothing. What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that you’re only this quiet when your mind has wandered off.”

  She was right.

  “And? Where did your mind go?” she pressed.

  I looked toward Aldo’s house. I thought about my grandfather and how he built not only D’Angelo Winery but also the whole of Otto Viti practically with his bare hands. I thought about how he held me and my sisters together after our parents—his own son—died in a boating accident. I thought about his contagious positivity and his warm laugh.

  What happened was a tragedy, and I hated that it had happened in my grandfather’s world.

  The scene in the barn flashed across my mind—the strewn-about shopping bags, the spilled purse, the wine cap punching tool on the ground. My stomach churned.

  “Something isn’t adding up,” I said.

  NINE

  Back at the house, Aldo wasn’t alone. At the kitchen table, he sat with his three best friends, the men I often referred to as the Council of Elders—mostly because they were the first people to sign on to Otto Viti all those years ago. Elita’s dad, Eduardo Salizar, sat on Aldo’s left, leaning back in his chair with his hands folded over his ample belly. Morrie Flash from Vendemmia sat on Aldo’s right, hunched over the table and furiously writing on a piece of paper. Artie Brow, the suspenders-and-bow-tie bedecked owner of Checkmate, sat on the other side of Morrie, typing away on his cell phone. They got together nearly every morning at Vendemmia for coffee—probably after each already had three cups at home—but today, it looked like Aldo’s kitchen table was their morning meeting place.

  Holly and I greeted them and sat in the last two available seats at the table.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked.

  Aldo was the obvious choice as the spokesperson, and all the men looked at him to answer. He cleared his throat and said, “I don’t think the police are going to get this right.”

  Oh. I hadn’t expected Aldo’s words. I wasn’t sure how to respond.

  Holly took care of it for me. “Nonno, the detective on this case is kind of a jerk, but I think he’s probably qualified to do the investigation,” she said.

  She told the group about the most recent revelations regarding Janelle and Marlo’s ill-fated plan to throw beauty products into the wine and how Fitts was pretty sure the whole thing was an accident.

  The Council of Elders listened intently, and I felt like Holly and I were on trial—like the men were going to determine whether or not the story added up and then declare judgment after. And I was right—within five seconds of Holly recounting the latest developments, the four men began shaking their heads. They didn’t even look at each other to check for consent.

  I was certain they had made up their minds before her story.

  “No, there’s more to it than that,” said Artie. He hooked his fingers in his suspenders and leaned back in his chair. “It wasn’t an accident. It couldn’t have been.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  Eduardo slapped his stomach. “In here,” he said. “I can feel it here in my gut.”

  “That’s not enough to go on,” Holly said. “Gut instincts aren’t enough—it’s the evidence that matters.”

  I agreed with Holly, but I also found myself silently agreeing with Aldo and his buddies. Something didn’t add up, though I still wasn’t sure what made me feel that way.

  “Girls, something is not right,” Aldo said. “But don’t worry, we will take care of it.”

  “Oh no you won’t,” Holly said, her voice dropping an octave. “You four,” she pointed at each one individually, “you need to leave this to the police.”

  “What do you know?” I interjected, scooting to the edge of my seat. I looked first at Aldo and then at the others. “There must be something that you know—what sparked that feeling in your gut?” My eyes landed on Eduardo last, whose hands still rested on his belly.

  “You don’t worry,” Aldo said, waving us away. “We are working on it.” He nodded at Morrie, who was still scribbling on his paper.

  I sighed and looked at Holly. “I’m going to take a shower,” I said. As I stood, I saw the grimace on her face. A moment later, she rose too.

  “Guys, don’t go get yourselves in trouble here, all right?” she said.

  They all guffawed at her warning and went back to their little meeting.

  “Great,” Holly said as we walked down the hallway toward the back bedrooms. “All we need is a group of seventy-plus-year-old men interfering with a police investigation. This situation is already awful enough.”

  “I don’t think they’re wrong,” I said. “I don’t know what they know or why they feel that way, but I don’t think they’re wrong.”

  “Well, even better,” she said. She stopped in her bedroom doorway. “You have a gut feeling, they have a gut feeling, and no one can explain why. I’m going to take a nap. Don’t wake me up if you figure out why you agree with them.”

  ***

  “So let’s go over this again,” Nico said through the phone. “The detective thinks it was an accident, but you have a sinking feeling tha
t it wasn’t.”

  Laying on my bed, I nodded at the ceiling as though Nico could somehow hear the gesture. Even after a shower and a meal, I felt dazed and disoriented about the morning. Nico’s distance and perspective seemed to help. It was something I couldn’t find with my sisters—or probably anyone who worked in OV.

  “Right,” I said. “I understand that Marlo could get into the barn with that memory of hers, but how could she have fallen into the wine? The vat is four feet high. Did she climb in?”

  “That’s a good question,” he said. “Let’s walk through this. What did you see inside the barn?”

  As much as I didn’t want to picture the spilled wine and dead body, there was no way around it if I wanted to pinpoint why things didn’t seem right. “I remember seeing the vat where Marlo was, the floor, and her body on the stretcher.”

  “Okay, what did the vat look like?”

  “Pretty normal under the circumstances. It wasn’t damaged—its walls were still in tact.”

  “How about the floor?”

  “It was covered in must. Some shopping bags were soaking in puddles. They were ripped, and stuff was spilling out—but I don’t remember what the stuff was.”

  “They were ripped? That’s a little odd. Well, she was pretty drunk, so maybe she ripped them when trying to get the products out. What else?”

  “Her purse was further back, closer to the vat. It was lying open and there was stuff spilling out of it, too.” I closed my eyes. “Maybe a wallet. Or makeup.”

  “What about Marlo herself? What did you notice about her?”

  I squeezed my already-closed eyes tighter. The memory sent a chill through me. “She obviously didn’t look right. Her skin had been stained by the wine, but I could only see her head—the paramedics were covering up the rest of her. And her face was mostly covered with tangled hair. I barely got a glimpse of one of her huge, green earring through it.”

  I opened my eyes.

  Green earring.

  Green.

  I knew what was bothering me.

  “Nico,” I said slowly, trying to turn my thoughts into words. “I stepped on something when I was in the barn—something green and shiny. I barely saw it before accidentally kicking it away. It could have been Marlo’s other earring. Or maybe—what if the clasp on her purse broke off? Or, wait—her sweater had green, jeweled buttons on it, too. Maybe it was a button. Everything she wore yesterday matched. I didn’t get a good look at her shoes, but I remember they were green, and maybe they had buttons or clasps on them that could have broken off. I don’t know.”

  “And?”

  “Earrings don’t just fall out of ears—not normally. Clasps don’t break off purses. Buttons don’t fall off sweaters. I mean, none of that normally happens. I don’t know what I slipped on, but if it was part of Marlo’s outfit, isn’t that sort of weird?”

  Neither of us said anything for a moment.

  “So,” Nico said, “A spilled purse, ripped bags, and a broken-off green something-or-other.”

  “Doesn’t all that seem strange? There was such a mess. If all she wanted to do was throw bath bombs into the vat, why was the cap-punching tool on the ground, too?” I could feel my imagination starting to take off. Dare I say aloud what was coming to mind? “What if there was some sort of struggle there? Maybe someone followed her in, then there was a confrontation where her things got spilled and ripped, and then. . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “You think someone dumped her body there? Or pushed her in?”

  “I know she had a lot to drink that day, but I just don’t think she heaved herself into that big vat. The carbon dioxide from the must may have made her pass out once she was in, but how’d she get in?”

  Nico seemed reluctant to answer, but finally said, “I can see what you mean.”

  “I just have to find out why someone would want to do that to her. Who could it have been? Maybe if—”

  “Jill,” Nico cut me off, his voice suddenly low and serious, “you sound like you want to get involved in this investigation. You need to leave this to the police.”

  “I don’t really want to get involved. I just want to figure it out.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Well, if I figure it out, I’d go talk to the police. I’d tell them what I think.”

  “C’mon, leave this alone. The police are trained. This is their job. You need to stay out of it, okay?”

  And right there was the big difference between me and Nico. He was so calm and logical. I was so controlling and anxious—with a little too much imagination. I was quite a blend of uptight Stella and la-la-land Holly.

  “What if they don’t figure it out?” I asked.

  “They will.”

  I thought about Detective Fitts and his blustery demeanor. First, he warned that our family could be blamed for Marlo’s death. Then he declared we were off the hook after hearing Janelle’s recollection of the night before. He called me little sister D’Angelo and probably still didn’t know how many degrees were in a triangle.

  Nico had more faith than I did.

  ***

  Half an hour later, I wandered out of my room to the kitchen. Aldo and his buddies were gone. Holly sat at the table reading what looked like one of her many obscure books about art history. Stella stood at the stove making what smelled like grilled cheese sandwiches. Her two little boys, six-year-old Hudson and five-year-old Thatcher were playing with cars under the table.

  “How’s everyone?” I asked, leaning down to my nephews and tickling each of them before pulling out a chair for myself, careful to avoid tiny fingers in the process.

  “This book is awful.” Holly dropped the tome on the table, face down and still open to the page she was reading. “I could have done a better job writing it.”

  I didn’t bother saying what I normally said. Then finish writing your book on Baroque-whatever-it-is. She already knew what I thought.

  “That’s a big book,” I said. “It’ll be great for killing spiders.”

  Holly eyed it with disgust. “No kidding.”

  “How are you, Jill?” Stella asked over her shoulder.

  “Fine,” I said. I thought about what I wanted to say next. A plan had been formulating in my head since talking with Nico, but I wasn’t yet sure if I wanted to go through with it. “Where’s Aldo?”

  “He left with Artie. I think they were going to Checkmate,” Holly said.

  “Did you tell Stella that he and his buddies think they can figure out what happened last night with Marlo?” I asked.

  Holly started to nod, but Stella answered. “She did, and she also told me that you think they’re right.”

  I fiddled with my fingernails. “I wonder what they know. What’s making them question the whole thing?”

  Stella turned from the stove with a plate in each hand and crossed the kitchen to the far end of the long table. “Boys, come eat,” she said while putting the plates down. As the boys scrambled out from underneath and took their seats in front of their lunches, she turned to me. “And what do you know? What’s making you question the whole thing?”

  I kept fiddling with my fingernails. “If I tell you, will you cluck and nag at me?”

  Simultaneously, Stella said no, and Holly said yes.

  Funny. The know-it-all sister thought she wouldn’t nag, and the don’t-worry-be-happy sister planned to harp on me no matter what.

  I said, “So, you know how the school year is starting soon and I was supposed to head down to Carlsbad today? I think I might need to push that back. Do either of you want to help me sneak into the barn tonight?”

  Both sisters stared at me.

  “Because? Why?” Holly asked.

  “I think there’s something in there that might prove this wasn’t an accident.”

  “You want to tamper with a crime scene?” Stella asked.

  I half-heartedly shrugged. “Not really. Well, sort of. Maybe. I think I accidentall
y kicked Marlo’s other earring, or button, or purse clasp across the barn, and I want to see if the police found it or not.”

  “Why?” Stella asked.

  I explained my theory that there had been a struggle between Marlo and someone else before she drowned. Spilled purse. Ripped bags. Broken-off green accessory.

  “Why don’t you just tell Fitts about this?” Holly asked. “They can look for the green thing if they haven’t already recovered it.”

  “Ugh,” Stella spat. “The less we have to deal with that fool, the better. Just hearing his name agitates me.”

  There was my opening. I had to build on the momentum of Stella’s disdain.

  “So, tonight, let’s go check it out. Stella, tell Jason that you’re going to hang out with us, and Holly,” I looked at my younger sister whose whereabouts didn’t really need to be reported to anyone, “You just come along.”

  “I don’t know,” Holly said.

  “If someone caused this—if Marlo didn’t throw herself into the vat and drown all on her own, don’t you want to know?” I asked. “Shouldn’t everyone in OV know, if for no other reason than safety? We all walk around here after dark without a second thought. Jules and Livy go running before dawn half the year. None of us should be worried that some crazy person could be following us. And if someone did do this, shouldn’t that person be brought to justice?”

  Holly turned her book over and pretended to start reading. She sighed. “What time?”

  Good, Holly was in. I looked at Stella and tried to read the expression on her face. Her wheels were turning.

  “Jason has a baseball game this evening, and we should be back around eight,” she said. “I could be here shortly after.” She paused, thinking. “If we say we’re getting together to watch a movie, I can probably stay out till eleven-ish,” Stella said.

  I glanced at Holly, who had dropped her head to her book in defeat, though I didn’t know if she felt defeated by the book or by my hair-brained idea. “So,” I said, “maybe we watch a movie about eight-thirty, and then sneak down to the barn about ten-thirty. If we want to avoid being seen by anyone, we can’t really go sooner than that anyway—but you need to be here earlier to avoid raising red flags about randomly going out late at night.”