Divide and Concord Read online

  Divide and Concord

  When screenwriter and winery co-owner Norrie Ellington agrees to let her producer film a movie scene at Two Witches Winery, her biggest concerns revolve around the crew trampling her precious vines and starstruck fans crowding the vineyard to spot the famous actors. But nothing had prepared her for the film’s director, an unbearable diva with a growing list of unreasonable demands—along with a growing list of enemies. And when the director turns up dead, apparently the victim of foul play, a very public altercation Norrie had with the victim the day before puts her in the spotlight as the lead suspect.

  Knowing she’ll have to root out the killer herself to get off the narrow-minded local sheriff’s most-wanted list, Norrie compiles a large selection of potential suspects, including vengeful actors the director had once blacklisted and even the director’s estranged husband, a high-profile candy magnate trying to bring a burgeoning market for concord grapes to the region. Weeding out false leads and planted clues, Norrie knows it’ll take some quick thinking to track down the culprit, before she becomes the murderer’s next target in a deadly harvest . . .

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Divide and Concord

  J. C. Eaton

  Copyright © 2020 by J. C Eaton.

  Cover design by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs

  Published by Beyond the Page at Smashwords

  Beyond the Page Books

  are published by

  Beyond the Page Publishing

  www.beyondthepagepub.com

  ISBN: 978-1-950461-47-9

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without the express written permission of both the copyright holder and the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Dedication

  To all of our friends in the Finger Lakes,

  who put up with frigid temps and endless snowfalls,

  this one’s for you!

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to our friends, screenwriter Claire Hutchinson Porter and screenwriter-agent Terry Porter, for helping us explore the word of screenwriting and filming. And to our incredible beta readers and techies Larry Finkelstein, Gale Leach, Susan Morrow, and Susan Schwartz all the way in Australia, we could not have done this without you.

  We are so fortunate to be part of the Cozy Mystery Crew of authors who work together to support one another. We’re glad to be part of this crew. You’re amazing: Ellen Byron, V. M. Burns, Becky Clark, Mary Feliz, Lena Gregory, Tina Kashian, Libby Klein, Elizabeth Penney, Shari Randall, Linda Reilly, and Debra Sennefelder.

  Our agent, Dawn Dowdle from Blue Ridge Literary Agency, and our editor, Bill Harris from Beyond the Page Publishing, have been the backbone of this process. We are indeed in their debt.

  To the outstanding staff at Beyond the Page Publishing, we owe you tremendous thanks.

  Booksellers, librarians, and readers, thank you so much for putting a smile on our faces every day!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Books By J. C. Eaton

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Norrie’s House at Two Witches Winery, Penn Yan, New York

  I glanced at the mud Charlie tracked in from his doggie door, but instead of grabbing a mop I popped another K-Cup in the Keurig and plopped myself back in the kitchen chair.

  “Did you mill around the Ipswiches’ little pond this morning?” I asked the dog. “Remind me to thank Stephanie and the rest of her crew at Gable Hill for adding that feature to their winery.”

  True, it was needed for irrigation and water to mix for spraying, but as of late, it became Charlie’s favorite pastime to skirt around the muddy edges looking for frogs. He was too lazy to make the trek to our pond on the south side of the property.

  The dog shook and scattered water all over the kitchen and it mixed with the mud on the floor. I ignored it and waited for my coffee to brew. The mud would still be there after I finished my morning cup. It was an ungodly hour. Seven something. Normally, I’d still be sleeping, but the late-night phone call I got from Renee, my producer, kept me tossing and turning all night.

  Usually I toss and turn from winery business. Like yesterday, when the tasting room manager asked if she should reorder the business cards with my name on them—Norrie Ellington, Owner and Interim Manager, Two Witches Winery. I said only if she put the word interim in bold caps and in a larger font. I didn’t plan on babysitting here much longer. I happened to enjoy a wonderful life writing screenplays for a Canadian film company and I intended to keep it that way. I was only here on a temporary basis because my sister’s husband, an entomologist at Cornell, received a grant to study some godforsaken insect in Costa Rica. The moment I could return to being the silent partner couldn’t come soon enough.

  My sister, Francine, said the place would practically manage itself. What she didn’t say, however, was that it was a magnet for murders. No sooner had I arrived than a body was discovered in our Riesling section. As the months went by, it got worse. More bodies cropped up on the Seneca Lake Wine Trail than in my entire New York City neighborhood. As if that wasn’t enough to send me packing, I wound up investigating them. Not officially, but somehow I got roped into it, much to the chagrin of our local Yates County Sheriff’s Deputy, Gary Hickman, aka Grizzly Gary.

  At least March was coming to an end this week, and in late June Francine would be home. I’d started to cross off the days on the calendar. I still had three months ahead of me. Three months of supervising the tasting room, the bistro, the vineyards, and the winery. Of course, we had professional managers for all of those areas, but still, they needed someone to complain to if things went south.

  Too bad I had no one to complain to when I got Renee’s call last night. Her voice was even m
ore chipper than usual and she spoke a mile a minute. A dead giveaway she wanted something.

  “Norrie, we need to move the filming of our final scene in Windswept Love to a winery farther south than the Niagara corridor. Winter’s been brutal and there’s so much snow and ice on the ground it would be impossible for our crew to manage. Then I thought of your winery. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before but it would be perfect. Absolutely perfect. We can film the final scene in one of your vineyards.”

  My stomach churned and I reached for the water on my nightstand. “Um, uh, gee, we have winter, too. The snow doesn’t really melt until late April. May sometimes.” I’d have said June but she’d have known I was lying.

  “Our location manager did all the research. The snow in your area this time of year is wet snow and it melts on those fifty-degree days. We can get the two actors and a filming crew in and out of there in no time.”

  “Like a day or so?”

  “More like a week. Maybe eight or nine days.”

  Eight or nine days? It’s one short scene with two actors, not something Anton Chekhov wrote.

  “Uh, well . . .”

  “I know. I know. It’s serendipitous, really. The fact your family owns a winery. Trust me, Norrie, you’ll hardly know we’re there. It’s only the actors, the director, the director’s assistant, and the film and video technicians. Seven people in all. And speaking of serendipitous, we managed to get three rooms in Geneva at the Ramada Inn. Someone will have to double up, or should I say triple up. Last-minute cancellation. What’s going on there? Everyplace was booked solid.”

  “When? What dates?”

  “Three weeks from tomorrow, beginning on Friday.”

  I didn’t need a wall calendar to tell me what would be going on three weeks from now. It was the annual Wine and Cheese Festival on Seneca Lake. According to Cammy Rosinetti, our tasting room manager, it was the final hoorah before the summer season began.

  The longer Renee babbled, the queasier I felt. “There’s a huge wine festival going on at that time on Seneca Lake. Everyplace will be crowded.”

  “Oh, I doubt that will bother us. All we need is a nice secluded vineyard with a view of the lake. We’ll take it from there.”

  “I, um—”

  “And you’ll get to meet the actors. This is the first film where we’ve paired up Priscilla McCoy and Gavin Chase. They seem to have a certain on-screen chemistry. Goodness, I don’t mean to take up so much of your time, especially so late at night. Mind you, I wanted to call earlier but I was swamped. Completely and totally swamped. Anyway, I’ll be in touch about the details, and as I said, we’ll be in and out of there in no time.”

  In retrospect, I should have gotten that in writing. But in all fairness, how did she know there would be another dead body to contend with. I gulped the rest of my coffee and cleaned the kitchen floor as Charlie devoured his kibble. Then I took out my laptop and focused on a new screenplay. One whose setting didn’t include any vineyard or winery scenes.

  Three hours later, with my stomach grumbling, I trudged over to our tasting room. More specifically, our bistro. It was run by a husband-and-wife team, Fred and Emma, who looked more like college juniors than professional chefs. Oddly enough, they also resembled each other with slender frames and long dark hair pulled or tucked behind their ears. My culinary skills were no match for theirs, and since a warm quiche sounded better than cold cereal, it was a no-brainer. Besides, I had to break the news to everyone that we were about to be besieged by a film crew as well as scads of tourists for the wine and cheese event.

  Our farmhouse sat at the top of Two Witches Hill and overlooked the winery building and our wine production lab. Farther down the hill sat the Grey Egret, the winery run by Don and Theo, good friends of my sister and brother-in-law, as well as my confidants and partners in amateur sleuthing. Emphasis on the word amateur. Theo was the epitome of the all-American kid turned thirty. Tall, well-built, full head of light brown hair and a smile that could cheer up the dreariest day. His life-partner, Don, on the other hand, had that neat cuddly factor going for him—short, portly, and balding. His smile wasn’t too bad either.

  Both of our wineries were part of a slightly larger klatch—the Wineries of the West, or as we called it, WOW. Six neighboring wineries who shared resources as well as gossip. We met monthly at Madeline Martinez’s winery, Billsburrow. Sometimes to share information, but most times to chew the fat. After last night’s phone call from Renee, there would be lots of fat to chomp on.

  It was less than a half mile from our house to the winery, and since it wasn’t snowing or blowing, I hoofed it rather than starting up my old Toyota. The usual tasting room crew was scurrying about since the door had just opened for tastings and a few visitors were already inside.

  I spotted Cammy heading into the kitchen and followed her. Her loosely gathered bun was secured by a bright green ribbon that offset her curly brown hair. Slightly stocky and in her mid-thirties, Cammy exuded a certain warmth that seemed to draw people to her.

  “Hey, there!” I said.

  She jumped. “Geez, you all but scared me half to death. I didn’t know you were right behind me. Good thing I wasn’t carrying a tray of wineglasses for the dishwasher.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time someone dropped them,” I said and laughed.

  Cammy chuckled. “That someone was you, Norrie. So, what’s up? Don’t tell me you decided to help us choose the cheese dish for the event. We’ve got to make our decision pronto so we can get the ingredients.”

  “Um, not the cheese dish, but something related to that event.”

  “What? I didn’t see any emails from Henry Speltmore about changes to the venue. And believe me, the guy emails us about everything. You’d think as president of the Seneca Lake Wine Association he’d have better ways to spend his time other than sending all the wineries his latest thoughts. Two weeks ago it was about engaging tourists in conversation, and only yesterday we got one about the glacier that formed New York’s Finger Lakes.”

  “Yeesh. Nothing like that. Listen, I got a phone call last night from my producer in Toronto. They want to use our vineyard to film one of the scenes in the movie they’re shooting. It’s from a screenplay I wrote.”

  “Wow. That could really put us on the map. When do they want to do it? This summer sometime?”

  I grimaced. “Three weeks from now. Smack dab in the middle of Wine and Cheese. And before you say anything, I tried to talk her out of it, but it was too late. Something about a brutal winter in Canada and better snow here. Or was it softer snow? Oh, what the hell. They’ll be filming and it will be a disaster.”

  “Relax. It won’t be all that bad. You said they will be filming in the vineyard. That means they’ll be out of our way in the tasting room. And Franz won’t want them anywhere near the winery lab or the tanks. Not to mention those winemaker assistants of his. Rest assured, they’ll do their part to make sure no one gets near the wines in production.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried about that. I’m freaking out about the whole production thing. You know how people get when actors are within a twenty-mile radius. I’m scared to death those tourists will be trampling the vines to get a better look at Priscilla McCoy and Gavin Chase.”

  “Priscilla McCoy and Gavin Chase?” Cammy was practically shrieking. “Those are the actors? Oh, my gosh, I’ve got to let my aunts know. And my mother. I’d better call her, too. They watch those sappy romance movies all the time. No offense, Norrie. Oh, my gosh. Priscilla McCoy and Gavin Chase. Right here in this winery.”

  “Cammy, I—”

  Just then, Glenda burst through the doorway. Her usual bluish green hair had morphed into shades of mauve and lavender but her oversize earrings that hung to her shoulders remained as steadfast as ever. “I sense a certain energy in the air. A seasonal shift. I’m getting more crackers. Seasonal shifts make people hungry.”

  “Then send them to our bistro.” Cammy looked back a
t me. “Can we tell her? Can we tell the crew?”

  I shrugged.

  “Tell me what?” Glenda asked.

  “A film crew, well, actually a movie production company, will be sending a film crew to our winery. It’s for one of the screenplays I wrote.”

  Judging by Glenda’s demeanor, I was surprised her feet were still planted on the floor. “I knew it! I felt something in the air. I’m never wrong about these things. When? When should I be prepared for my appearance?”

  “They’re not filming our winery,” I said. “They’ll be here to film a love scene in one of our vineyards. With paid actors. Not our tasting room staff, or any of our workers, for that matter. Paid actors.”

  Glenda looked as if she’d dropped an ice cream cone to the floor. “Won’t they need background people? Crowd scenes?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Priscilla McCoy and Gavin Chase are the only people they’ll need.”

  At that point, Glenda grabbed my arm and shook it. “Priscilla McCoy? The Priscilla McCoy who allegedly broke Jay Herandez’s heart?”

  “Yes, her,” I muttered.

  “Then we have our work cut out for us. We’ll definitely need to cast a purifying spell on the winery. My friend Zenora has more than enough sage sticks at her place.”

  “No spells! No sage sticks!” Heat rose in my cheeks at the thought of spells and sage sticks. So far, I’d been able to dodge Glenda’s wacky ideas. “They’re not filming in the winery building. They’ll be outdoors. If it makes you feel any better, we can ask John Grishner to have someone from his vineyard crew rake the soil or something.”