Ellen McKenzie 03-And Murder for Desser (25 page)

“Actually, she did,” Dan said. “Only, she didn’t realize it until this morning.”

“Oh,” I said. “I’ll bet…” I stopped.

“Go on,” Dan said. “You’ve been right so far. What do you think happened?”

I wasn’t fond of the look on his face, it was a bit grim, but what the hell. I’d come this far, and I couldn’t do our relationship any more damage by a lucky guess. I hoped. “She was at the winery the day he stopped by for his pots, and she either saw him put back the bottle or take the knife. Probably the bottle.”

Dan nodded. “She saw him put back the bottle. It didn’t mean a thing to her at first. But she somehow heard that the wine bottle used to kill Otto had been found. Probably when she came back to take more pictures. She was there, a couple of times, taking pictures, wasn’t she?” This was addressed to Sabrina, who nodded. “So, she asked Larry about it, and he answered her by pushing her in the freezer.”

“That seems incredibly stupid,” Aunt Mary exclaimed. “He’d already murdered two people. What made her think he wouldn’t kill her, too?”

“Greed,” I said. Everyone turned to look at me. Almost everyone.

“Blackmail,” stated Sabrina. “I’ll bet she was trying to blackmail Larry. He had plenty of money. She probably thought he’d pay her to keep quiet.”

Frank snorted. “Blackmail has been a guiding principle of Jolene’s life.”

“Didn’t work too well this time,” Mark said. He laid his hand lightly on his father’s shoulder and looked down on him almost fondly. “Now it’s your turn, Dad.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Frank said, trying hard to sound innocent. The smirk under his pencil-thin mustache gave him away. “It’s time for what?”

“To tell the truth,” Aunt Mary said. “Frank Tortelli, you’ve been skulking around here for days. You had us all thinking terrible things, and I think you enjoyed every minute of it. But that’s over and we want to know what’s going on.” She sat up straight and turned toward him. Frank’s arm dropped back into his lap. He took a good look at her face, with it’ stern, “I’ll brook no more nonsense” look and laughed.

“All right. I’ll tell all.”

“Start with selling your restaurant,” Mark demanded. “Why did you do that? You loved that place.”

“I used to.” Frank started to make one of his expansive hand gestures, glanced over at Aunt Mary, and let it drop. “The La Costa family has been trying to buy my place for years and I’d always said no. Then, a couple of months ago, they came in with a huge offer, all cash.” He sighed, and this time the hand went up. If a gesture could register regret, that one did. “It was one of those days. I’d caught one of the busboys stealing, my best waiter had quit, and my meat supplier brought all the wrong cuts. I looked at the sauce that was not coming out right, thought about the cash and what I could do if I retired, and said okay.”

“Oh my,” said Aunt Mary. “And you were immediately sorry.”

Frank beamed at her. “My dearest Mary, how do you know me so well?”

“It’s not hard,” she said. She leaned over and squeezed his hand.

“How about the rest of it?” Sabrina demanded. “All that stuff about taking over Otto’s restaurant, then not caring and leaving it all to Larry, then coming back. What was that all about?”

“Actually, that’s a little surprise I’ve been saving.” No cat who’d swallowed the canary had ever looked more pleased with itself. “Remember, I told you about Otto’s brother?” He addressed all of us, but it was Aunt Mary he was looking at. “We traded.”

“You—what?” exclaimed Mark. “What do you have to trade? You don’t own Otto’s place.”

“Technically that’s true,” conceded Frank, “but Otto’s brother is sick of New York and I love cities. New York sounds like fun. So, Gunther is coming out to run this place and I’m buying his New York restaurant.”

“What about Larry?” I couldn’t believe poor Larry could be dismissed so cavalierly. He might be crazy, he was crazy, but the money and all the furnishings that went into making the old Adams mansion so beautiful had been his.

“Larry’s name isn’t on anything,” Frank started. Both Aunt Mary and I began sputtering, and he held up his hand. “Now, now wait a minute. We’ll make sure he’s properly taken care of. How you go about doing that for someone who’s about to be convicted of murder, I don’t know. But, wait, wait,” he stopped us again. “Our attorneys are already working on it. Now, the two most important parts.”

Frank looked over at Mark and smiled. Mark must have known what was coming for he leaned forward, his face creased by the biggest smile I’d seen in a month. “The wines. Are you going to—?”

“I am. Silver Springs wines will be our house wine. A bottle on every table, along with a complete wine list and a picture of my son, the winemaker. I will make you famous. And, now that the idiot you flattened has dropped all of the charges, as well as the lawsuit, I guess it’s safe to make you famous.”

“How did you know about that?” Mark asked, his mouth dropping. “I just found out this morning.”

“I haven’t been in this business for years for nothing,” Frank told him with no small amount of complacency.

“So you knew about the lawsuit and the assault charges all the time?” Mark said. His expression was a mixture of surprise and defensiveness.

“Of course. It’s the main reason I came down here. I thought maybe I could help.”

“Help?” Sabrina asked, suspicion etched in her voice, only to fade away under the realization of what Frank had said. “The charges have been dropped? And the lawsuit? Are you sure?”

“Positive,” Frank said, grinning broadly. “You’ll hear officially later this afternoon.”

Sabrina’s smile started out small but quickly grew to gigantic. “Dropped. That means, oh Mark, that means…”

I thought Mark was going to break her arms, he hugged her so tightly. “It sure does,” he told her. When he let her up for air, he turned to his father. “Thanks, Dad. I really appreciate that.” He let his arm slide around his wife’s shoulders and gave her a huge squeeze. Sabrina leaned up against Mark and actually smiled at Frank.

“Thank you,” she said.

“What’s the second part?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I cared, but the tenderness between Mark and Sabrina was smothering me in sadness. Dan still hadn’t looked at me, hadn’t come near me, had said nothing to me except that first brief remark. It was really over, I realized, our romance, and evidently our friendship also. I needed something else to think about, at least until everyone was gone. I got it.

“I’m going to take Mary with me to New York,” Frank stated.

There was a pause while we all looked from Frank to a stunned Aunt Mary.

Dan spoke for the first time in a long while. “That should be fun for you, Mary,” he began cautiously. “You haven’t visited New York in—how long?”

“Not for a visit,” Frank boomed. “To live. I have to go right away. Sunday in fact. But Mary can pack and come out later. There’s a wonderful little apartment over the restaurant, so we’ll be there all the time.”

I almost burst into tears. First Dan, then Aunt Mary. This new life I’d been building was suddenly crumbling. Career, liberation, they were wonderful, but the foundation was people you loved, and I was about to lose the two most important bricks in my foundation.

“I’m not going to New York,” Aunt Mary said. She scrambled to her feet and looked around wildly. “What ever gave you the idea I’d do something like that?”

Frank was on his feet, also. “Why, Mary,” he said, reaching for her hands. “Think of the adventure.”

Aunt Mary grabbed her hands back, put one under each arm, and hugged them to herself. “Adventure. Running a restaurant in the middle of a smelly, noisy city isn’t my idea of adventure.” Then she softened. “Oh Frank, this is my home. This is where my family is. I don’t belong in New York. I belong here.” She reached out and touched him lightly on the arm. “I’m immensely flattered you want me, and I’ll come and visit, but move? No.”

He looked down on her for a moment, then enveloped her in a one-armed hug. “I didn’t really think you would, but it was worth a try.” He looked around at all of us. “Well, I’d better get busy. I still have to give that dinner. Saturday is almost here, and Sunday morning I’m off.”

“Tell you what,” Aunt Mary said. “I’ll help you. Just this one time, mind you, but with everything else that’s gone on, it’s the least I can do.”

“I knew I could count on you,” Frank chortled. “I don’t suppose you’d like to help also?” He looked at Mark and Sabrina hopefully and turned so that his injured arm, hanging useless in its sling, was blatantly obvious.

Mark gave Sabrina a look that appeared mixed with inquiry and appeal. She gave him a long one back, groaned, and got to her feet. “I know I’m going to hate myself for this in the morning.” Mark pushed himself up from the sofa and smiled at his father. “Okay, Dad, you’ve got your work force.”

“We’d better get going,” Aunt Mary said. “There’s tons to do and not much time.” She was already headed for the door. “Ellen, are you going to be all right?”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll be fine. Go, have fun. But don’t have so much you change your mind about New York.”

“Not a chance.” She paused, looked from Dan to me, shook her head slightly, and went out the door.

The room seemed very large and very quiet. Dan sat in the big chair. He looked down at his feet, encased, as always, in cowboy boots, then out the window. He seemed captivated by the leaves quietly leaving the elm tree to form a carpet on the grass. I sat, not moving, maybe not breathing, staring down at the untouched wine in my glass. The only sound was Jake purring on the bookshelf.

After what seemed like an eternity, Dan pushed himself out of the chair. “Guess I’d better go.”

“Oh,” I said, “well.” I had no idea what to do. I knew what I wanted to say but didn’t know what Dan was thinking. If I said, don’t go, I love you, I want you to stay forever, how would he react? Was it too late for that? There was only one way to find out. I took a deep breath and said, “Don’t go.”

He stood very still before moving over to the bookshelves again. He reached out to stroke Jake and, with his back still turned to me, asked, “Why?”

“Oh,” I said. Why was it so damnably hard to get the words out? “I thought I might make sandwiches, or something?”

“Ellie,” he started. “I don’t want sandwiches.” He turned toward me, and for the first time that afternoon, looked me full in the face. He looked so sad, so lost, so like what I was feeling, I burst into tears, and with the tears came all the stopped up feelings, all the unsaid words.

“I love you, Dan Dunham,” I said between sobs. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to love anybody after what Brian put me through, but I can’t seem to help myself.”

He took a step closer. “You love me—how? Like a brother?”

I sniffled, looked around for a tissue, couldn’t find one, and settled for one of the paper napkins Aunt Mary must have set out. “Hardly like a brother.” I blew my nose.

“Then how?” he pressed. But he took another step closer.

“Like a friend, like a lover,” I said. I wiped my eyes, dropped the napkin on the coffee table and took another deep breath. “Like a husband.”

Dan didn’t say a word, but he was close enough now to reach out and hold me. If he wanted to.

It was his turn to take a deep breath. “Do you know what you just said?”

I nodded, sniffed a little, blinked back a few more tears, and nodded again. “I’ve been thinking. A lot. It took Brian twenty years to erode my self-confidence and ability to trust. It took you exactly a year to help me build all that back. Probably counts for something.”

Dan laughed softly. He reached out and touched my face, letting his finger trace a line down my cheekbone and under my chin. He lifted it just a little so that I had to look directly into his eyes. “I think that does count for something. But how about next year, and the year after? How about twenty years from now? Because, if you take me on, it’s for the duration.”

“I know,” I said. “I know.”

“It means every morning for breakfast; it means having to watch Monday night football and letting me do the driving when we go somewhere. I’ll be overprotective sometimes and order you around, but…”

I put my finger on his lips. “It means sometimes no dinner because I have late clients. It means I often have to work weekends, and if someone wants to write an offer, I’m out of here. But now I’ll have someone to take out the trash and weed the backyard. And don’t forget. I’m a liberated woman. We’ll order each other around.”

This time Dan laughed out loud. “Deal.” Then the laugh faded and the most wonderful expression came over his face. Sweet, tender, and so very loving. I don’t know who stepped toward whom, but Dan’s arms were around me, one hand gently stroking the back of my neck. His lips sought mine, and there was nothing tentative in that kiss. It was hard, passionate, wonderful. His tongue probed. Mine probed back, his mouth moved down my neck, to my shoulder, I felt buttons give, and about there I moaned. Dan’s buttons were a little more stubborn but were coming undone nicely when the phone rang.

We pulled apart and stared at it.

“Are you going to answer it?” he asked. There were a lot of emotions mixed up in his tone.

“It could be Susannah,” I said slowly.

“It could,” he answered. I could feel him waiting, waiting to see what I would do.