Death, Dismay and Rosé Read online

  Godfrey was seated by the front window when I walked in and motioned me over. In spite of his receding hairline and slightly overweight physique, he exuded a certain charm that I couldn’t quite explain.

  “Tell me the good news,” I said as I sat down. “What time’s their flight getting in?”

  He had a sheepish look on his face and cupped a fist inside his other hand. “Yeah, about that . . . as you know, they’ve made tremendous progress on the global species database, but it wasn’t until recently that they spotted the Haemagogus, epithet unnamed to date, in a small riverbed not far from the—”

  I pressed both hands against the table and leaned in. “What are you saying? They found the damn thing and now have to stick around to visit with its relatives?”

  Godfrey took a deep breath. “Try to stay calm. Francine said you might overreact.”

  Oh, if I have to extend my watch one more month I’ll overreact all right. I’ll be on the next flight down to Costa Rica with a Costco-size bottle of Raid in my luggage.

  “And what’s with the ‘epithet unnamed’?”

  “That honor could go to your brother-in-law. The species would be named after him. Like the Haemagogus clarki, named after Dr. Herbert C. Clark, who eradicated yellow fever.”

  I rolled my eyes and stood. “I need to get a cup of coffee and a sandwich. I’ll order whatever you want since I’m going to the counter.”

  “Turkey, avocado, and bacon club. Oh, and a mocha, too.”

  “Fine,” I grumbled. “Turkey, avocado and bacon it is.”

  I was practically smoldering when I reached the counter to place our orders. A deal was a deal and it was for one year. I have a life, too. And it belongs in Manhattan. I was so engrossed watching the deli guy prepare our sandwiches that I didn’t notice Godfrey directly behind me. He put a hand on my shoulder and leaned forward. “We’re not talking longer than another week or two at most. They need to establish the range. Then Jason will turn over the findings to another team of entomologists.”

  “A week or two?”

  “Uh-huh. You can handle that, can’t you?”

  I let out a groan. “I suppose. Besides, with the way my luck’s been, there’ll be another murder at or near our winery and I’ll be stuck dealing with it.”

  “Another murder? What makes you say that?”

  “Ever hear of the full moon on the summer solstice curse?”

  Godfrey shook his head. “Is that a short story or something?”

  “Don’t I wish. It’s an old legend with its roots firmly planted on our property.”

  Just then the deli guy handed me our tray and I moved to the cash register. Godfrey skirted around me and got to the register before me. “I’ve got it. It’s the least I can do. Come on, tell me about this curse when we get back to our table.”

  Between bites of my ham sandwich and sips of my coffee, I told Godfrey about the remote possibility someone within a five-mile radius of our hill would be smothered to death the night of the full moon/summer solstice.

  He all but choked on his turkey and bacon. “This tops the cake. Really tops the cake. And Glenda wants to have her wacky friend Zenora cast a spell or something?”

  “Not a spell,” I said. “A smudging. Like a house purifying thing.”

  “I suppose I shouldn’t offer up a bottle of Clorox, huh?”

  I gave him a quick kick under the table and we both laughed. It was comfortable being around Godfrey. I could be myself and not have to worry about impressing him. If I wanted to do that, all I would need to do was find a weird insect.

  “Hey, you remember Alex Bollinger, don’t you? The entomologist who went with us to that convent in Lodi?”

  “Uh-huh. Why?” I asked.

  “He and a crew will be camped at Kashong Point starting next week. They’re doing a study on the Swede midge. It’s a small fly, light brown in color and almost resembles the crane fly. The midge is quite detrimental to all kinds of plant tissue, so we’re studying how to prevent the spread into agricultural areas. Not to say, of course, that the crane fly isn’t detrimental as well. It most certainly is, but that little bugger’s gotten plenty of attention, seeing as how its damage affects golf courses.”

  I nodded as if any of this meant something to me and continued to chomp on my sandwich.

  “If you’re interested, we can visit their camp sometime. He’s got a few students going as well. Part of their study program.”

  “The last time Alex wanted me to tag along was in a cockroach-infested apartment building in Ithaca,” I said.

  “You’ll have much more fun at the lake. Heck, our department even has its own boat.”

  “I’m kind of tied up with a screenplay right now but I’ll let you know. Okay?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Listen, when you talk to Francine, tell her it’s a two-week extension at most. If Jason wants his name on something, he can print it on a wine label.”

  “That’s not the same as having a species named after you.”

  “No, it’s better.”

  • • •

  It was a little past one when we left Tim Horton’s. I drove directly to the Geneva Historical Society on Main Street and parked on the opposite side of the street so I’d be facing the right direction when I drove home. With the exception of an older man walking a small dog, the street was practically deserted. Very different from the fall, when the college students are everywhere.

  I walked up the concrete steps to the brick Federal-style building with its arched white doorway and leaded glass side panes. Once a family residence that belonged to the Proutys, the building was later given to the Geneva Historical Society to preserve the area’s history. Oddly enough, I actually remembered that spiel from one of the docents during a school field trip years ago.

  Off to my right was a former Victorian parlor, and I seemed to recall something about a style merger in this building/museum combination. On a small table in the foyer was a sign that read Welcome, Visitors. Tours will resume in September. Please feel free to walk about and enjoy our museum. Donations gratefully accepted. Next to the sign was a small glass jar with a few dollars in it. I reached into my bag and stuffed another one in there before walking down the hallway to the door marked, Office. That’s when I heard an unmistakable voice.

  Madeline Martinez from Billsburrow Winery, just north of Two Witches, was practically shrieking. “You can’t be serious. This is the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth. I see no reason why we cannot add three feet to our existing porch cover. We need some relief from that dastardly afternoon sun.”

  I crept closer to the door, feigning interest in a landscape that hung on the wall adjacent to the office. Next to it was their alarm box, and some idiot had written the disarm code in blue marker next to the company name. I rolled my eyes and went back to the landscape. For a minute I wondered what Madeline was doing at Geneva’s historical society, but then I remembered that her winery was in Ontario County, not Yates.

  The next voice I heard was a man’s. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Martinez, but your house falls under the covenants of the Geneva Historical District. As you recall, Ontario County, as well as Yates County, voted to extend their historical district to include the lake property that stretches from Geneva to Bellona.”

  “Hurumph. And they extended our real estate taxes to go along with it. Look, I’m not asking for an approval to remodel our farmhouse. All we want is some additional shade.”

  “Request denied. Of course, you’re free to file an appeal with our board. Our next meeting is September sixteenth.”

  Madeline’s voice got louder. “By then it will be snowing.”

  “One more thing, Mrs. Martinez. Should you decide to make those changes without our approval, you will be fined heavily and you’ll have to remove the entire structure. Preserving our county’s history is our number-one priority.”

  “I’d like to tell you what my number-one priority is right now but I’m a lady.
”

  Suddenly, the door swung open and Madeline all but bumped into me.

  “Norrie! What are you doing here? I hope you didn’t hear all of that.”

  “Um, it was kind of hard not to.”

  We stepped away from the office door until we were near the front entrance. “I came here to see if anyone died in nineteen forty-eight under suspicious circumstances,” I said. “Of all the ratty things, that lousy full moon summer solstice curse takes place this month. As if we haven’t had enough drama on our wine trail this year.”

  “Goodness. That silly legend was around when I was growing up. People really don’t believe it, do they?”

  I bit my lip and grimaced. “Oh, yeah. Including one of our own employees. Anyway, I just wanted to check out the archives.”

  “Then it looks like you’ll have to deal with Vance Wexler, the obnoxious little fussbudget I had words with in there. Not only is he the museum’s director, but he’s the president of the Geneva Historical Society and thinks he’s the crown prince of the empire. Good luck with that. Well, approval or not from the hysterical society, I plan to have our porch extended, beginning this week. We’ve got a contractor lined up to do the work. I want it completed in time for the annual Winemakers’ Dinner. In fact, I was going to drop off the tickets at your winery this afternoon. I’ve got to make the rounds.”

  “Yeah, our tasting room manager, Cammy, mentioned it. Hey, I wouldn’t worry too much about the extra three feet. I doubt anyone will notice it from the road.”

  “Not anyone. That officious Vance Wexler. It wouldn’t surprise me one iota if he came by with a yardstick when no one was looking.”

  “You think he’d do such a thing?”

  “I know it. But it may be the last thing he does.”

  We said goodbye at the door and I headed back down the corridor to meet the infamous Vance Wexler face-to-face.

  Chapter 3

  Vance Wexler was sitting at a large wooden executive desk that looked as if it was part of the original furniture for the house. He appeared to be in his thirties with a brush cut, light brown mustache and goatee, and slight build.

  He looked up from the pile of papers on his desk and rubbed his goatee. “Good afternoon. Do you have an appointment? The museum docents won’t be back until the fall and our secretary left to run some errands.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I presumed you were the secretary.”

  Madeline will get a kick out of this one.

  “I happen to be Vance Wexler, the president of the Geneva Historical Society and the museum’s director. And you are?”

  “Norrie Ellington, co-owner of Two Witches Winery in Penn Yan.”

  Vance paused for a moment and adjusted the small gold earring in his right ear. “Ah, yes. Two Witches. I seem to remember your winery being in the news a while back. How may I help you?”

  “Actually, I’d like us to stay out of the news. I need to look up archival information on obituaries in nineteen forty-eight. To see if there were any unexplained deaths in June. I know the historical society has all of the local newspapers from back then. Much easier than that microfiche at the library.” Then I paused and took a gamble. “They haven’t finished scanning everything to computer files.”

  Vance rubbed his hands together and sighed. “Unexplained deaths in June? June of nineteen forty-eight? Mind my asking—What on earth for?”

  I shrugged. “To see if a local legend has any credence.”

  He pushed his chair from the desk and stood. “Follow me. The archive room is downstairs. You’ll need to put on white gloves in order to read the newspapers.”

  I was relieved of one thing. If someone was found dead, the death would’ve taken place during or immediately after the summer solstice. That meant I only had to root through ten or so newspapers, not all thirty.

  The archival room consisted of four large tables, a number of uncomfortable chairs, and overhead florescent lighting. Not the most welcoming of work spaces, but I didn’t plan on being there long. Vance walked to a cabinet by the back wall and retrieved a pair of white gloves.

  “Leave these on the table when you finish.”

  He then proceeded to open a large armoire, for lack of a better word, and pointed to stacks of newspapers, each positioned according to date.

  “This section is for the nineteen forties,” he said. “Knock yourself out. When you’re finished, leave the newspapers on the table. My secretary will file them appropriately. Oh, and do be careful.” He said the word do with one of those pseudo-English accents and I nearly gagged. “The paper is old and likely to crumble if you’re not careful. The air in this room is kept at a certain humidity level, but still, time takes its toll on fragile papers.”

  “Thanks, I’ll be careful.”

  He showed me how to retrieve the papers and I was pleasantly surprised that each one was separated by stronger cardboard paper. No notable deaths in the obituary section for the first three days that followed the summer solstice. But then, on the fourth day, off to the right on the front page, was a column titled, “Summer tourist found dead at campground.”

  The article was brief but contained all the salient details I needed to bring on a migraine. A forty-five-year-old machinist by the name of Eldridge McComb, from Elmira, New York, was found dead in his tent at a campground on Kashong Point. According to the coroner, Eldridge had been smothered in his sleep.

  Terrific. There won’t be enough sage sticks in the world to pacify Glenda.

  I read the other six papers hoping for further news but there was nothing. And no obituary either. I figured that obit was sitting somewhere in an Elmira paper. It didn’t matter. I had a name, and a place. Enough for a Google search.

  With that, I left the papers and the gloves on the table and returned to the main floor. Vance Wexler’s door was closed and I could hear his voice. Something about arrowheads and Kashong Point. A telephone call maybe? Or was the secretary in there? I pulled out one of our Two Witches business cards from my bag and scrawled “Thanks for your help” on the back, followed by a smiley face. Then I put it next to the donation jar on my way out of the building.

  By the time I got home, it was two thirty and the sandwich I ate at Tim Horton’s seemed like days ago. I pulled out some corn chips and the half-eaten jar of salsa I had in the fridge and made myself a snack. Charlie, who immediately woke up the minute he heard the rustling of the corn chip bag, assumed the begging position at the table.

  “Boy, I’ve spoiled you for Francine and Jason,” I told him as I handed him a corn chip. “You’ll simply have to wear them down, I suppose, or you’ll be stuck with organic non-GMO, non-grain dog food for the next decade.”

  Just then, the landline rang and I checked the caller ID—YCPSB, the initials for the Yates County Public Safety Building. Gladys Pipp had done her homework, too.

  “Norrie, I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time but I was able to track down one person who died suspiciously and another who claimed—are you ready for this?—that a vampire witch, known as a shtriga, tried to smother her with a pillow but she fought her off. All in June of nineteen forty-eight. At Kashong Point. Norrie, are you there?”

  “Um, yeah. I’m here all right. I’m just trying to process the last thing you said. About a vampire witch. It wasn’t a woman, was it? With a sister who lived on our hill?”

  Because that’s all I need. Two witches isn’t enough. Now one of them has to be a vampire witch.

  “The article didn’t say. In fact, it made no mention of the woman’s name. But the male victim was—”

  “Eldridge McComb from Elmira?”

  “You found it, too, huh? What paper?”

  “Geneva Daily Times,” I said. “They went out of print in nineteen fifty-five. Where’d you get your info from?”

  Gladys cleared her throat, then chuckled. “Penn Yan Chronicle Express, where else? And they’re still around. Of course, the paper only comes out once a week. Maybe that’s the secret
to their longevity.”

  We compared notes but neither of us had any more information than what I originally found from my own search.

  “How did Grizzly Gary, oops, I mean Deputy Hickman, take the news when you told him?” I asked.

  “I haven’t told him. He’s out on call. I don’t expect him back until a little before five. Listen, you don’t really believe in this nonsense, do you?”

  “No, but tales like that tend to ward off some tourists while beckoning the nutcases to visit us. That’s the last thing our winery needs. I’m going to see if I can find out more about Eldridge McComb. Maybe his autopsy report showed a medical condition.”

  “And that shtriga witch?”

  I cringed. “Mum’s the word as far as I’m concerned. Besides, who else is going to find out about her?”

  Bite my tongue. Who else indeed?

  • • •

  When I got to the tasting room at ten the next day, Cammy informed me that Glenda called in sick, something about needing a ritualistic body purifying that couldn’t wait.

  “Like a medicinal scrub or something?” I asked. “Or maybe probiotics?”

  Cammy shook her head. “More like ward off the evil spirits. Seems one of Zenora’s friends from that circle of crazies they hang out with told her about—can you believe this?—a she-witch-vampire who apparently sucks the life out of victims during the full moon summer solstice.”

  “Hmm, same one who smothers them, or are we dealing with three witches? Two regular and one a bit more of a night creature . . . Oh, what am I saying? This is nuts. Glenda can’t possibly believe this.”

  “Not can’t. Does. Anyway, forget the witches for a minute. Are you all set for the winery meeting at eleven?”

  “Oh, my gosh. The winery meeting. I’d completely forgotten, but not to worry. I’ve got my notes on my desk.”

  Francine always conducted a winery meeting each month with our three managers: Franz Johannas, the head winemaker, John Grishner, the vineyard manager, and Cammy Rosinetti, the tasting room manager. Mainly, it was a time for us to review the calendar, provide updates in our areas, discuss any concerns we might have, and share new ideas or proposals. Usually the meetings lasted an hour unless Franz got off on some tangent.