It was after 3 p.m. by the time Tyler returned from the Harcourt Ranch.
He trudged inside and slowly lowered himself into the chair beside my desk. He looked exhausted. I filled him in on what little I had learned about Antonio’s fancy lock and the technician appointment on Monday.
“We can’t wait that long. I’ll see about getting the technician’s contact info so we can get him out here sooner,” Tyler said.
“How did things go with Valerie?”
“I couldn’t find her,” he said. “I talked to her housekeeper though. She was out horseback riding all morning. Didn’t take her cell phone, so there’s no way to reach her. I told the housekeeper to get Valerie to call me as soon as she got home. Hopefully it’s soon because I don’t know how long I can keep a lid on this.”
“The housekeeper doesn’t know about Richard?”
Tyler shook his head. “I only told her that it was an urgent matter.”
Tyler glanced at his watch. “We’d better head back to the wine festival. I hope no news has leaked about Richard yet. In any event, I want to get everyone out of there as soon as the liquor license expires at 5 p.m.”
With everything that had happened, I had almost forgotten about the wine festival. Was Aunt Pearl still selling Antonio’s wine? Probably. I grabbed my purse and keys.
Tyler followed me out of the office into the hallway and waited while I locked the door behind me. We headed outside into a brisk breeze.
The rain had let up and a bit of sun peaked out from behind the fast-moving clouds.
“Valerie could be a suspect too,” I said. “She’s got a motive and no alibi. I heard she wanted a divorce.”
“Could be,” Tyler paused. “Except that she’s a suspect without access to the wine cellar.”
“People must at least wonder what’s happened to Richard,” I said as we walked to Tyler’s Jeep. “He’s been gone for hours. I doubt that the wine judging has gone ahead without him.”
“That’s what worries me,” Tyler said. “The whole town is probably drunk by now. We need to get the judging finished and the festival wound up. I don’t want people finding out at the festival. I’ll release the news later tonight. Otherwise, with a drunken crowd there’s bound to be trouble.”
I said, “Other than the lock, don’t you think that Valerie stands to benefit a great deal? She would have gotten half of everything in the divorce. With Richard dead, she gets it all without a fight.”
“True, she’s got a motive.” Tyler said. “Also, based on the severity of the stab wounds, the killer had a relationship with the victim. More than one of the injuries would have killed him, so it’s obvious the killer had a personal vendetta. But if Valerie did it, then why now? She already said that she wanted a divorce. Usually the killer is the person being divorced, not the other way around. And why kill him in Antonio’s wine cellar?”
“Maybe something made her snap after all these years.” I had never seen Valerie lose her cool though. I didn’t think she was capable of such violence. “She’s half his size though. There’s no way she could have physically overpowered him. If Valerie’s involved, she had help.”
Tyler agreed. “She could have hired someone. But she doesn’t have a key or code to access the wine cellar. However, as Richard’s spouse, she’s a prime suspect until we can rule her out. I’ll be questioning her the minute she arrives home. As long as she comes home, that is. In the meantime, let’s head over to the wine festival and see if we can get things wrapped up quickly.”
Chapter 14
I checked my watch as we neared the school. The festival would be over in a little over an hour. That is, if the judging had gone ahead according to schedule despite Richard’s absence. Desiree would argue against that, of course, but she would be overruled by everyone else.
Desiree’s cutthroat competitiveness made no sense because, unlike other competitions, our wine contest offered no cash prize, only a trophy and the right for the winner to add ‘Winner – Westwick Wine Festival’ to their wine labels for a year. The stakes weren’t high, unless you were a winemaker unable to win at more competitive contests. Even a bad wine could win, in theory.
“Tyler, if Richard’s absence changes the contest, do you think one of the other local contestants could be involved?”
Tyler stared at the road ahead as we neared the school. “You mean another contestant besides Antonio? Possible, I guess. Antonio’s motives have less to do with judging and everything to do with his financial situation, though.”
Mom, Antonio, and Desiree were the only local contestants, and the Westwick Corners Wine Festival was the smallest of the dozen or so wine competitions in Washington state. Regional contestants only bothered with our small-town festival if there were no competing events that day. The dozen or so nonlocal winemakers didn’t need a win and came only to sell more wine. They had no stake in whether Richard was alive or dead.
“Desiree wins Wine of the Year each year because of Richard,” I said. “She has no reason to kill him. In fact, she has every reason not to kill him. She’s been having an affair with him for five years, and he’s about to get divorced. She’s about to get everything she ever wanted.”
“Well then, other than Antonio, the only other contestant desperate enough to win is Ruby.”
“Mom would never! She hates competing and she didn’t even want to enter her wine. Aunt Pearl signed her up without her knowledge.”
Tyler
