How to Dine on Killer Wine: A Party-Planning Mystery Read Online Free Page B

managing several of the boutique wineries in the area, but many of them have been absorbed by Napology.” He took a deep breath, sighed, then put on his happy face again. “Anyway, sorry to vent. Just wanted to explain. Marie and I are both so glad to have you doing the party. Once we debut our new, competitively priced merlot, I think business will really take off.”
    “Of course,” I said. I thought about my own crew and their occasional squabbles. Dee was a theater prima donna, happiest in the spotlight, while Berk saw himself as a cinema artiste. It was a combination that often created a lot of drama. Duncan and Berk shared an office, so naturally they had their little spats, mostly during the competitive computer games they played.Rocco had his own cooking show on local TV, so calling him a temperamental chef was putting it mildly. Luckily Brad got along with everyone—sometimes too well. Women found him charming—especially Marianne, the director of the Treasure Island Development Association, to name one. She seemed to find ample opportunities to flirt with him. As for me, my only beef was an occasional sarcastic interchange with Lieutenant Luke Melvin, a detective with the San Francisco Police Department—who also happened to be Brad’s best friend.
    “The party is going to be wonderful,” I said. I glanced around my mother’s room, a mirror image of mine, right down to the pillows. She headed for her suitcase, while I made my way back to my own room, via the bathroom, which I noticed had a shower and Jacuzzi, two sinks, and a toilet that included an actual bidet.
    Great for rinsing my feet,
I thought,
should I be stomping any grapes…or putting out party fires.
    After setting up a few things for tomorrow’s party—tables and chairs, strings of lights, wine barrel halves—and after much pleading by my mother, we drove up to Calistoga for a mud bath, something she’d been wanting to do. Personally, I prefer clean water and a bunch of bubbles, but she insisted we subject our bodies to steaming hot mud—and even pay for the privilege. I’d hoped to have talked her out of it by the time we finished the half-hour drive, but no such luck. We were headed for muck.
    “Wilkinson’s Hot Springs Resort should be justahead,” Mother said, craning her neck trying to spot the place after we turned onto Main Street in Calistoga, a town famous for its hot springs. We’d already passed several places advertising the healing powers of hot springs, mineral waters, spa treatments, and mud baths, but Mother had insisted on Wilkinson’s.
    “I remember going there years ago—sometime in the fifties or sixties—when this one first opened up,” Mother said. “The place was packed with celebrities. I read once that Robert Louis Stevenson and P. T. Barnum used to go to the hot springs, back in the eighteen hundreds.”
    P. T. Barnum? He’d probably opened his own place, thinking there was a mud sucker born every minute.
    “What’s so great about mud?” I asked, less than enthusiastically. The thought of ooey-gooey sludge swirling around my lady parts really didn’t appeal to me.
    “It’s not just the mud,” Mother said. “It’s the mixture of volcanic ash and hot mineral water that’s so good for you. The ash cleanses and smooths your skin and the mineral water is so soothing. They say mud baths not only relax your tired muscles, but they also dissolve your aches and pains, improve your circulation, and even treat arthritis.”
    I knew the claim about treating arthritis had been disproved, but I could always use a little help with tension and stress. With the party coming up—and the threats from this JoAnne character—I needed all the mud I could get.
    I spotted the classic, three-tiered Wilkinson’s sign, a relic from the fifties that looked like something from
The Jetsons
TV show. The top one announced “Dr.Wilkinson’s Hot Spring Mud Baths.” Underneath it said “Motel, Vacancy.” And beneath