TakeOut: The Prequel: A Sonoma Wine Country Cozy Mystery, #4

TakeOut

The Prequel

––––––––

A Sonoma Wine Country Cozy Mystery

A. J. Carton

For ever DIGS

Table of Contents

1. Thursday Morning - a Funeral

2. Thursday Afternoon – TakeOut

3. Thursday Evening – Who Done It?

4. Thursday Evening Later – Reply All

5. Thursday Night – Speaking Ill of the Dead

6. Thursday Night Later – Kiss ‘n Tell

7. Thursday Night Even Later – Library Blues

8. Thursday Night Late – Advice of Counsel

9. Thursday Very Late – Out of the Closet

10. Thursday Late Late – Harbor & Conceal

11. Thursday Dead of Night – Tell/Don’t Tell

12. Thursday Pre-Midnight – Forget About It

13. Thursday Midnight – Down to the Wire

14. Friday Pre-Wee Hours – Dirty Secrets

15. Friday Wee Hours – Pizza Problems

16. Friday Early Early Morning – Egyptian Chic

17. Friday Still Early – Familiar Strains

18. Friday Morning – Snoop, Snoop, Snitch

19. Friday Morning Later  – Scapegoat

20. Friday AM Even Later – Secret Staircase

21. Friday AM Later Still – Phone?

22. Friday AM Too Late – Earthquake?

23. Friday AM Much Too Late - Secrets

24. Friday Morning a Bit Later – A Dream?

25. Friday AM Too Early - Goodbye

26. Friday Morning – Rise and Shine

27. Tuesday Morning – Needs Work

28. Wednesday Morning – Packed Church

Please Review

About the Author

Contact the Author

Follow the Author

Other Books by A. J. Carton

Updates About Future Books

Copyright

Fiction Disclaimer

1. Thursday Morning - A Funeral

––––––––

Hardly anyone showed up for the funeral. It broke Emma Corsi's heart.

Where is everybody, she thought turning from the gravesite to walk back to her car in the rain.

Mary Wilson was a wonderful person. She was Emma's best friend.

Why was her life so cruelly cut short? Emma asked. And why did so few people bother to pay their last respects?

It didn't make sense.

Of course Mary's daughter, Rachel, was at the service. She'd flown in weeks before. Together Emma and Rachel had helped Mary through those final harrowing days of her illness. But Rachel left immediately after the church service and was already on her way to catch a nonstop to Hong Kong.

Two people from Mary's book club showed up. And three other classmates from St. Rose Academy where Mary and Emma went to high school. Along with the principal and two moms from Kearny Elementary. Mary had volunteered as a reading specialist at the inner city school for twenty years.

Emma wondered why her own ex-husband, Andy Bodreau, was there - along with his new girlfriend. He hadn't seen Mary in almost thirty years.

And twenty Chatham members showed up too. Mary's husband, Ron, belonged to the exclusive men's club. Its summer encampment, bridge nights, current affairs club, and men's chorus had turned Mary Wilson into what locals called a Chatham Widow.

Mary hated the snooty club. But Emma couldn't help being grateful. It was, after all, the reason she and Mary got to have so much fun. Movie Monday. The Opera. Saturday morning at the Ferry Building farmers' market. The trip to Italy to research the cookbook Mary'd encouraged Emma to write. Weekends at Mary's beach house testing recipes in her gourmet kitchen.

Yes, Mary Wilson had known how to have fun. Now, Emma worried that all the fun died with her.

She glanced back at the almost deserted gravesite. Just in time to catch Mary's husband bestow a squeeze on Ava, his trim, young assistant. Or was he just trying to help her extricate one of her four-inch stiletto heels from the cemetery mud?

Give me a break! Emma muttered to herself. Sure, San Francisco real estate is booming, but who does she think she's kidding? A mink coat and sexy slingbacks in the rain? At a funeral? No wonder daughter Rachel hightailed it back to Hong Kong.

Yet Mary had never alluded to her husband's long-term affair. Not even to Emma.

Maybe that's why she got cancer, Emma thought bitterly.

Then Ron caught Emma's eye. Emma smiled back and waved. First to him. Then Ava. She felt like a traitor, but what else could she do? Make a fuss at the gravesite? Mary wouldn't have wanted things to end that way.

It wasn't until Emma ducked into her Prius that she finally broke down and cried. She'd held it together for months watching helpless while the Big C ravaged her best friend's defenseless organs. Now buckets of tears coursed down Emma's cheeks mirroring the sheets of water pouring down the windshield of her car.

Is this all it adds up to? she asked herself. Sixty-five short years?

The opening bars of Beethoven's Hallelujah Chorus cut short any attempt to answer that imponderable question. It was Emma's daughter, Julie, calling on her cell.

You OK, Mom? Julie asked the minute she heard her mother's voice over the phone. I was afraid this would happen. Piers and I have been worrying about you all week. I mean, about when this would hit. I knew you were keeping it together for Mary's sake; but...

Thanks for making it to the funeral, Emma hiccuped trying to pull herself back together. It would have been nice to see your face, instead of Ava clinging to the black widower.

Mom, that's really not fair... Julie said.

Sorry, Julie. I guess I was kind of counting on you to...

Mom! Harry came down with a 103 temperature. Piers and I were in the ER with him all night. I couldn't possibly have come. Didn't you get my text?

Harry? A new set of worries flooded Emma's overanxious brain.

He's fine, Mom. Don't worry. Anyway, there was no way I could make it to the service. And what with the storm...

Forget it, Emma tried to reassure her daughter, relieved that her grandson, at least, was OK. Plenty of people couldn't make it. In fact, hardly anyone came. Except Andy. And that new... Emma couldn't think of a good word for her ex-husband's latest girlfriend... new companion, Gina from the massage parlor.

Dad? Julie was incredulous. Why did Dad come to Mary's funeral? He doesn't know her. Besides, isn't he under some kind of house arrest for the embezzlement thing with the old client?

That's still on appeal, Emma answered, though she'd vowed never to discuss her ex-husband's legal affairs. Anyway, she added, I don't know why he came. I guess, many years ago, he thought they were good friends...

To her surprise, Emma found herself defending her ex-husband. To tell you the truth, I was glad he came. Seeing so few people paying their last respects kind of broke my... Suddenly Emma started to sob.

Mom, Julie sounded genuinely alarmed. This is just what I was afraid of. Why don't you drive up to Blissburg and spend a few nights with us here? Away from the City.

Blissburg! Emma shook her head. Julie had been trying to convince Emma to move there for years. To relocate an hour north to the former sleepy prune packing center (named after a long-dead Gold Rush gambler, Eliazer Bliss) that overnight had become the California Wine Country's chicest destination.

Emma rolled her eyes at the phone. As far as she was concerned, the place was as unreal as its name.

At times like this, Julie continued, you shouldn't be alone. A few days in Blissburg would do you good. Please, Mom...

But Emma wouldn't hear of it. Julie, I couldn't possibly come tonight. I work. Or did you forget that?

Emma Corsi had worked as a paralegal at the prestigious San Francisco law firm of Foley, Dunn & Munster ever since her husband, Andy, left her almost thirty years before.

In fact, I have to e-file a brief by midnight, she reminded Julie as well as herself.

Aren't you cutting it a little close?

Emma could almost hear the familiar 'tut, tut' in her daughter's voice. Don't blame me, she answered. Allegra Manly still hadn't gotten the draft to me this morning when I left the office for the funeral. And I told her about the service two days ago. She added, anger momentarily overriding her grief, How much advance notice can you give for a funeral?

Get someone else to file the brief, Julie urged. Someone younger. You're too old for this kind of drill.

Old? Emma thought to herself. Really?

At sixty-five she hardly needed to be reminded of that. Not with the Big D grinning back at her in the mirror every morning. Mocking her now short grey hair that used to be dirty blond. Laughing at each fine new wrinkle around her pale blue eyes. At the spider webs crisscrossing her chalk white cheeks.

She could hardly remember a conversation with a friend that didn't begin with, Oh, did you hear...? Friends were dropping like flies.

And now her best friend was gone.

Suddenly, Emma realized she was grateful for the filing deadline. For the sense of purpose it brought to what seemed like a relentlessly fickle world.

It's too late, Emma replied to her daughter. No one else knows the case as well as I do. And why throw another perfectly capable paralegal into the jaws of that dragon? We've already had one associate quit after working with Allegra Manly. Funny name for her, 'Allegra', she mused. It means 'happy.' That poor woman is anything but!

Julie, however, never gave up without a fight. It was in her nature. Born there, though Emma could never figure out why her beloved daughter was so different from her.

Mom, Julie persisted, after Piers gets home I'll drive to the City myself and pick you up when you're done filing the brief. I hope you won't be sitting around that creepy Grott Building all night alone.

Don't worry, Emma shot back. Clare's working late in the library too. She'll keep me company. And the Steering Committee meets tonight. The Grott Building will be crawling with partners - including Allegra. She's managing partner of the firm, you know. The first woman, too. Emma laughed. To think she and I were college classmates. Friends, she snorted, till I edged her out for that Roman history prize. Now she hardly nods at me. Except to remind me when I screw something up.

Get over it, Mom, Julie replied. Water under the bridge. It's not her fault you married a lawyer instead of becoming one yourself. Call me when you get home. Promise?

Promise. Emma hung up.

Rain was still pouring down in sheets. Emma pressed on the engine button and turned the windshield wipers up full speed. She was just exiting the Holy Cross cemetery when she saw the twelve yellow roses lying on the passenger seat. She'd promised herself she'd stop by her parents' gravesite and fill the urns.

Through the flooded windshield, she tried to distinguish the names on row upon row of markers. Looking for John and Eleanor Corsi. Her mother a beloved high school French teacher. Her father a distinguished civil rights attorney. Revered champion of the underdog. But in the pouring rain she couldn't make out any of the names. All the rows of graves looked exactly the same.

Funny, Emma mused thinking of her daughter's crack about marrying a lawyer. Of all people, my own dear father talked me out of going to law school.

Law is not a career for a woman, he'd famously said. Not a womanly woman. Lady lawyers fight like cats. Marry a lawyer, Emma. But don't become one. It's not a good profession for a girl. It's like trying to play in the major leagues. The uniforms don't fit.

Emma took her father's advice. She married a lawyer. And that uniform didn't fit either. Andy ran off with his secretary ten years later.

After the divorce, Emma took a job as a paralegal at the same firm where her college friend, Allegra Manly, was a rising star. Allegra may have come in second for the college history department prize, but she graduated first in her class from Harvard Law School.

Then she married her law firm instead of a lawyer; and took care of clients instead of a child.

The truth was, Emma admired Allegra. Mostly because Allegra never listened to her fireman father's advice - if, indeed, he ever gave her any.

Now Allegra wore $5000 handmade Italian suits with $500 designer scarves. She parked her Mercedes in the firm's $600 a month garage.

She also lived at the firm. Never took a vacation. And, as far as Emma could tell, had thousands of colleagues and no personal friends. But she was on the San Francisco Gazette's list of Top 10 Bay Area Litigators and Newsweek's list of Top 100 Bay Area Movers and Shakers.

Emma glanced one more time at the rows of graves neatly lined up along carefully tended lanes in Holy Cross Cemetery. Post mortem suburbia, she cringed. Then she nosed her Prius into a U turn and headed for the exit.

One thing's for sure, she mused. When Allegra Manly kicks the bucket, Grace Cathedral will be packed.

Chapter 2: Thursday Afternoon - TakeOut

As Emma crossed Market Street on her way to her downtown San Francisco office, a deafening clap of thunder cracked over her head. Almost immediately followed by a burst of lightning that sent the poor druggies and prostitutes along Third Street scurrying for cover. For the first time in years, Emma drove all the way up Sansome Street turned left onto California and left again into the driveway of the Grott Building's parking garage.

Spotlit by another bolt of lightning, the massive building's ornate façade did look menacing that night. Its tapering spires and sprouting gargoyles reminded her of a many-headed dragon.

Parking here will cost a fortune; but on a stormy night who wants to risk a walk alone past midnight on San Francisco's deserted downtown streets? she reasoned with herself.

Emma grabbed the now half-dead roses off the front seat, handed her car keys to a parking attendant and headed for the Grott Building's ornate lobby. Its thirty-foot vaulted stone ceiling was encrusted with as many monster