Murder Uncorked (26 page)

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Authors: Michele Scott

BOOK: Murder Uncorked
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Nikki shook her head. The story went on to relay the tragic deaths of Manuel’s wife and baby son the year before, and how many thought it was possible that the man, in his grief, had turned against the industry that supported him and his family.
She put the paper down on the ottoman in front of her. She was seated in the living room by the fireplace. Her “housemates” were MIA.
No matter what the newspaper story relayed, she still refused to believe that Manuel Sanchez was guilty. The memory of Catalina and Mateo’s faces when they drove away from the vineyard the other day were etched in her mind and haunted her, along with the promise she’d made to them.
“My, my, you know how to make yourself at home, don’t you? I wouldn’t get too cozy,” Patrice Malveaux said, entering the front room.
“You people are good at sneaking around,” Nikki replied, startled.
Draped in sparkling jewels, holding a beaded clutch purse in one hand, and carrying a martini in the other, Patrice cleared her throat. “What do you want, Miss Sands?”
“What do you mean?” Nikki stood, crossing her arms in front of her.
Patrice Malveaux set her purse on the mantelpiece and twirled her olive around in her martini glass. “Why are you here? You aren’t a career-type of a woman. Are you after Derek’s money? If that’s it, you’re wasting your time.”
“You have no idea what type of a woman I am.” This was unexpected. She knew both Patrice and Meredith to be catty and secretive, but confrontational? She considered confronting her in turn about what she’d overheard Meredith and her talking about out at the shed the other night. However, she had her wits about her and couldn’t help wondering if the woman might not have a gun in her purse. Nikki had not ruled out the matriarch of this clan as the killer. Mum was the word for the moment.
“I’m pretty sure I do. I recognize poor white trash when I see it, and you, darling, are it.”
The back of Nikki’s neck grew warm, starting to itch. “You don’t know me at all.”
Patrice Malveaux set the martini on the mantel and took down the small purse. Opening it, she pulled out a pen and checkbook. “How much?”
“How much what?”
Patrice sighed. “How much do you want so that you’ll leave the Malveaux Estate and our family alone?”
“I don’t want your money,” Nikki scoffed. “And, why would I leave?”
“Because I want you to. It’s too bad for you that I have friends all over this community who care a great deal about me and mine. A little bird whispered in my ear earlier today that you’re as curious as a cat. Now, my guess is that you’ve found out something you shouldn’t have. Meredith is very dear to me, and she’s had a rough couple of years. I don’t want her hurt any further.” She wrote out something on the check, ripped it off, and handed it to Nikki. “Make this easy on all of us, especially yourself. You wouldn’t want to get tangled up in something you couldn’t get out of. You may be white trash, but I think you’re fairly smart white trash. I trust you’ll do the right thing. Take this, leave here, and go crawl back under the rock you came from. I’d like you gone by tomorrow. I also think it best that you stay in the cottage tonight, instead of here in
my
house. Frankly, you’re not welcome. I would expect that this amount would keep your trap shut, and your scrawny rear out of the Malveaux family and business matters.” With that, the woman turned on her heels and left Nikki standing there, mouth agape, holding a check made out to her in the sum of two hundred fifty thousand dollars.
“Talk about raining on the parade,” Nikki muttered. The phony-baloney bitch had done just that. That sweet grand-motherly Doris at public records had been a spy for Patrice, or else someone looking over her shoulder at the library had been, but Nikki doubted that. She would’ve noticed lurkers among the literati.
Patrice was certainly wound up. Nikki had found out a bit about Meredith, but nothing that would matter to anyone. She was only waiting to speak to Derek to see if he knew about his ex-wife’s past, which she was pretty sure he did. Most married people knew each other’s family history. But then again, maybe not. Would Nikki ever want to reveal her family history to Derek, even if they were married? She wouldn’t
want
to, but she knew that she would have to.
Maybe what she’d found out about Meredith mattered because Derek didn’t know, and Meredith and Patrice were definitely in cahoots on something they were cooking up that Nikki knew involved Derek. Did it all have to do with murder? What was their big secret? And why was Patrice two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollars-worth interested in Meredith’s welfare? Unless they were lovers as Nikki suspected, or . . .
Nikki grabbed her purse and headed out the door to the truck. She was going back to the library. She hoped it stayed open late, because she had a hunch, and Aunt Cara always professed that trusting hunches was a wise thing.
Chapter 20
It was almost eight o’clock by the time Nikki arrived at the library. It would only be open for another hour, which was probably not enough time for her to find what she wanted, but it would be a start.
She started with Patrice this time and worked her way back. Chandler Malveaux died the same year Derek and Meredith were married. Nikki found all sorts of photos from various charity events and wine tastings in the
Napa Valley Register
. Nikki could see where Derek got his good looks. There was that same reflected sadness that shone in Derek’s eyes. The first Mrs. Malveaux had obviously been very well loved by the men in her life, and she’d left her mark upon them.
Nikki went back several years and found articles about Derek’s mother, Shandon Malveaux, and her support of various charities, and then, sadly Nikki read her obituary. It included a long list of accomplishments, including being a teacher for special-needs children. There was a lot about the late Mrs. Malveaux that Nikki would like to discover, but right now she needed to learn as much as she could about Patrice Malveaux.
Chandler Malveaux and Patrice Spanos were married on the island of Crete in Greece. Sort of interesting. But, going back further, she found nothing more of interest. Patrice was from Greece. Her family’s wealth came from publishing books on mythology. That was interesting, too, but not important. Nikki was digging for something more, and she wasn’t finding it here.
She rubbed her eyes and leaned back in her chair for a minute. The library’s fluorescent lights, along with the stress and length of the day were making her tired and weary. Where would she find what she was looking for?
The librarian came over the p.a. system announcing closing time. Nikki got up, stretched, and walked out into the crisp night air. She needed coffee if she was going to even attempt to work on this convoluted puzzle anymore tonight. She walked a couple of blocks, and to her joy found a Starbucks. A hazelnut mocha with whipped cream was exactly the fix she needed. Standing in line, she tried to clear her mind. It was a challenge, considering everything, but as she stepped up to order, her mind went into overdrive.
“Can I take your order?” asked a young man with a barely-there goatee, mussed blond hair, stark green eyes, and wearing a half of a “best friend” charm around his neck.
The best-friend charm. What luck
. “Nice charm,” she said. “They used to be really popular when I was a kid. You look a lot younger than me, though.” Nikki never remembered any guys exchanging those charms.
“I can still have a best friend,” he replied in a surly voice.
“Of course you can.”
“So, is your best friend a girl or a boy?” Nikki asked coyly.
“Can I take your order?” he replied, blushing.
Nikki gave him the order and waited for her coffee. She decided to stay at the Starbuck’s for a bit, and see what she could get out of “Skippy.”
She wound up ordering another mocha and feeling quite full before the Starbucks’ line slowed down for the evening. Skippy kept glancing her way. She smiled at him a few times, tried to make small talk again with him when she ordered the second mocha, but he was having none of it.
She’d wait it out and see if a bit of Southern charm worked. She kept her fingers crossed that she would be able to get him to reveal how he’d gotten the token treasure around his neck. It had to have come from a bosom buddy, and one she suspected was one of the arrogant gay men living at the Malveaux Estate. Which one of them was keeping the boy toy? Or were both of them involved with him?
It appeared that Skippy was going to be tonight’s Starbucks’ closer. Lady Luck strikes again.
“Can I get one last mocha, only make this one nonfat minus the whipped cream?” Nikki asked, walking up to the counter one last time. She’d more than exceeded her calorie count for the day.
“Sure,” Skippy muttered.
She almost laughed while thinking of the young man as a Skippy, but for some reason, that was the name that came to mind. He was young, would’ve had a great sailor look minus the goatee and long hair, and he seemed so innocent. “Skippy” fit.
“I don’t mean to be a pest. I’m sorry if I offended you earlier. It’s just that when I was a kid I had a best friend, and we saved our money for a long time to buy a charm that looked exactly like yours. Not long after I gave it to her, she moved away. I never saw her again.”
He went behind the counter. “I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded like he meant it.
“I’m new around here. Everyone seems so nice.”
Skippy shrugged. “Where are you from?”
“L.A.”
He peeked around the barrista. “L.A.? I’d love to move there. This place is
totally
stifling.” He handed her coffee to her.
She sipped the warm brew. No sleep tonight. “Really? I like it here. It’s very quaint.”
“Ha. Grow up here, be a bit different, and you’d change your mind,” he said, looking over his shoulder. He was the only employee left. “No one likes you much around here if you’re different. They’re all pretty set in their ways. They’re mostly rich pompous jerks.”
“You must have one friend,” Nikki replied.
“I guess.” He fingered the charm.
“Your friend leave, too? Like mine did, when I was a kid.”
“Something like that.”
“Make a coffee, sit down with me. I’ve got nowhere to go. I’m lonely here, and as sad as it might be, I wouldn’t mind having someone to talk to,” Nikki said, hoping he would open up.
He paused for a moment, ran his fingers through his hair, and finally said, “Why not? I don’t have anywhere to go, either. But the minute I get my cash, I’m out of here.”
“Your cash?”
“I’m due to score some decent money. Then, I’m headed down to L.A. I want to be an actor.”
“Don’t we all, kid.”
He gave her a confused look and sat down across from her with a cup of hot brew. “No, really. That’s the plan.”
Nikki didn’t respond. Spoiling the kid’s dreams wasn’t in her. And who knew, maybe he had a real shot at it. “Acting is your thing, then?”
He nodded and took a sip from his coffee cup. “My parents hate the idea. They’re not the typical Napa Valley socialites. They have a small place with a bit of farmland, but my dad can’t seem to cultivate much of anything. He doesn’t have a green thumb, and my mom is her own worst enemy, trying hard to fit into a place that turns its nose up at her.”
“What do they want you to do?”
“Computer stuff, or farm like them, or I don’t know. I don’t care, either, because in a week I’m out of here.”
“When your cash comes in?” Nikki crossed her legs, leaning back in her chair. She wanted to make him comfortable, get him to open up.
“Yep.”>
“What did you do, win some type of settlement, or inherit some money? You don’t mind me asking, do you?”
He shook his head. “No one asks me much of anything, so, no, I don’t mind. Besides you said you didn’t know anyone here, and I haven’t seen you around. I’ll be gone in a few days. What can it hurt?” He fingered the charm again. “My friend used to tell me that sometimes strangers make the best confidants. That’s how we became friends in the first place.”
“He’s right.” She was taking a chance here assuming the friend was a man. “I’m a good one for keeping secrets.”

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