WE ARE THRILLED TO WELCOME BACK OUR GUEST AUTHOR, ROBIN LEEMAN DONOVAN, WHO IS SHARING CHAPTER 22 FROM HER NOVEL, 'I DON'T KNOW WHY THEY KILLED HIM; HE WASN'T REALLY THAT ANNOYING'. #RWRTeamBlog
CHAPTER 22
NED. That was going to bug me for some time to come.
I asked everyone what NED could mean besides the name. Nothing. I thought being handed the name of the killer was just too easy. I felt it must be an acronym for something. It was driving me crazy.
After an 11 am meeting, I returned to my desk to see the message light blinking. Jon had left a message that Olivier was concerned about the investigation and wanted us to meet him at the restaurant for a late lunch and a recap.
When we got there, it was evident he was not alone in his concerns. Pascal, Phillippe and Jeannie LaPlage, the Campenellas and Olivier’s wife, Desiree, were all in attendance. After I filled them in on the sum total of what I knew and what I suspected, they ran through each lead providing color commentary.
“No,” Olivier stated, “Bartoni is a dead end. They don’t have the imagination.”
Coming from Olivier, that held a lot of weight. As a restaurant and bakery owner, Olivier had not been satisfied that he tapped his full potential. Crime solving had become far more than a hobby for him. In fact, rumor had it that Olivier was about to make his public service status official.
But that was still just a rumor.
“Camerotti should not be overlooked,” Phillippe suggested, “regardless of the potential dangers.”
“How deeply have Liv and Maxie delved into Cal’s investment group?” Pascal offered. “Until you know the
background stories of the entire group, as well as their close acquaintances, you will not be able to rule them out.”
“When you begin to focus on Camerotti, let us know,” offered Phillippe, “we would not want to see you tread on such dangerous ground without our backup and support.”
At this point I was feeling a little overwhelmed. There was still so much ground to be covered and so much of it was fraught with untold dangers. This was definitely something new. Even though in my two previous investigations there had been hints of danger, they were nothing like the certain perils of stumbling onto an illegal and high stakes operation that could possibly be mob connected. I looked around at the faces that held hope I would find the answers. Letting them down would be unthinkable, but even with their help I knew I was in way over my head.
I wondered about Warren. She was the lead investigator, and an exceptionally competent detective, but she could also be wandering into dangerous, perhaps even fatal, territory. And yet, she had no choice but to follow the path that the leads took her down – regardless of the consequences. I made a mental note to check on Warren and see if I could detect a level of fear, and if I could perhaps help her work through it.
In retrospect, that could end up being my greatest contribution to this entire investigation. The more I learned about some of these folks, the more I became convinced that arm’s length was my best vantage point. I was only relieved that I hadn’t made myself a public spectacle to date. It was public knowledge that Ed and I did business together. And so far, in my investigating, I could chalk all of my calls up to either working on the Bohóc brand or planning some sort of social or charity event. Okay, that was a stretch but at least it was something to work with.
It’s not like I was particularly proud of my cowardice on this case, but no one would have to warn me to be careful. I was leading with careful.
“Research is clearly the next step,” offered Marie Louise, “Dave and I will be happy to burn the midnight oil and compile dossiers on Cal’s fellow investors.”
Leave it to Marie Louise to help bring things down to earth. Just as I was envisioning my wine drinking comrades in cat suits repelling down the face of a glacier to entrap the bad guys, her comment enabled me to reinvent the visual into a much safer computer in a home office scenario. That was comforting.
“You know,” Desiree’s comment brought me back from my reverie, “there is a little known database that captures information about most wine-related entrepreneurs, employees and investors. It was begun years ago by a PR firm called NED.”
NED??!!?? That was NED? I was speechless and Desiree went on.
“When the wine industry in this country was young, this one particular vintner in upstate New York had delusions of grandeur, and paranoia. He was sure that his secret combination of grapes would be purloined by nefarious and less talented posers and he was determined to keep that from happening. He hired this firm to keep tabs on every new entry into the industry. His strategy was both to know his enemy and to be able to easily destroy his enemy. Over the years, the folks from NED and some of the old wine families have been able to use the database for good rather than evil – but it certainly has the ability to help us dive deep into virtually everyone under suspicion in Ed’s murder.”
Brilliant! As I sat and listened raptly, Desiree, Dave and Marie Louise made plans to download dossiers on every name we had, and look for more. I texted Maxie to hold off on some of their running around. It was looking as though we’d be saving them a lot of grunt work by using NED.
I decided to work from home for the rest of the day, and maybe in the morning I’d stop by and see how Warren was making out. And maybe I could find out more about some of those junkyard papers. There, I was feeling more like my-self already.
The first order of business, after petting and praising all the bulldogs, was to check in with the office. After being assured of calm waters, I asked to speak with Peg. It had been hours since I’d checked in with my crew and that didn’t seem fair. But the first words out of her mouth made me very sorry I had.
“Have you seen it? Clovis’s wine blog?” Peg croaked. Oh god.
“Haven’t seen it, can’t even imagine it.”
Clovis knew nothing about wine. But as a self-declared expert on everything, why should it surprise me that she had deemed herself an expert on wine?
“What is she saying?”
“Well, Donna, Clovis has announced to the world that the wine industry is comprised of a collection of villains and no-accounts who will stop at nothing for the almighty dollar – including murder. She speculates that much of the industry is mob connected.”
I rolled my eyes. Peg went on.
“And the best part? She manages to insinuate you in virtually every sleazy aspect.”
I fell off my chair. Literally. When I fell, I brought with me my laptop and my ice tea – unsweetened. It hurt. Getting up, I rubbed the spot on my nose that was clipped by a descending laptop. There was nothing I could do about the drenching from a recently refilled ice tea. I guess my foot slipped off the rung.
While picking myself up and wringing everything out, it dawned on me that my cover had been blown. Regardless of how pointless the drivel meted out in Clovis’ blog, the nefarious and “connected” ones would know enough to monitor every online word written about them, and apparently I was highlighted and placed in the middle of it all. I didn’t know how Clovis had managed to do it – but she had managed to put my life in danger as well as make a public mockery of me.
“Donna, hey Donna, you alright?”
“Define alright.”
“What?”
“Never mind, do go on.”
“Do you want the URL?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Cloviswinereveal.com.”
“Fine.”
“I’m sorry,
Donna.” “Yeah.”
After getting off the phone from Peg I spent the next half hour perusing Clovis’ blog for any germ of truth or anything that wasn’t pure nonsense. No luck. But what did that matter? The public was always anxious and ready for a scandalous revelation – and there was that – in spades. In Clovis’ delu-sional journey through wine country I was the hopeless and hapless amateur sleuth who, determined to put every mob boss in jail, was running frenetically around the countryside gathering flawed proof that these guys had committed every crime from serving a big cab with a light seafood sauce to murdering whole gangs of vintners who got in their way of cashing in on wine-related crimes. In fact, after reading her prose, one would wonder how this news of a current day St. Valentine’s massacre could have gone unnoticed by the
press. Had I been a card carrying optimist, I might have convinced myself that no thinking person could ever believe any of Clovis’ demented storytelling, but I wasn’t. I was a Jersey girl, born and bred, and every menacing word I read confirmed my upcoming date with cement shoes and a dip in unholy waters.
I wasn’t sure where to turn. The damage had been done and the price would be high. I contemplated calling Clovis to share my grave concerns in an attempt to shut this down. Cooler heads prevailed. Any contact with Clovis now would unleash a string of events certain to lock me in a women’s correctional facility where I’d be a sitting duck for mob revenge. I had to keep my head.
I called Liv and Maxie. Liv knew Clovis only too well, and Maxie had the gift of unfailing persuasion. I would set them loose on Clovis.
One hour and twelve minutes later, I got a text from Maxie: It’s fine.
Thirty-two minutes after that I received a scathing email from Clovis accusing me of waiting for an opportunity to torture and humiliate her. In fact, I had been waiting for that opportunity and I was now sorry to have missed it.
She went on to say that Liv had “ripped her head off and shoved it down her neck.” Clovis claimed to never have been so outraged at the bullying and even violent behavior to which she had been subjected.
From what I was able to piece together from her disjointed ranting, it seems as though Maxie, and Liv in particular, had worked her over royally, while they had Marcy busily editing her blog to highlight which of the information was baseless speculation, to remove the most ludicrous and incendiary of the information and to rewrite my role as a former co-worker who continually warned Clovis of the dangers of sticking her nose into business about which she knew nothing. Apparent-ly, Marcy went on to edit the blog to point out that much of the content was speculation being compiled for a future book of fiction.
By the end of Clovis’ email I had laughed myself into a slightly better mood. Clovis’ indignation is always funnier from a distance. As much as I appreciated all of their hard work, although I thought for Liv it might have been more personal payback, I knew that at the end of the day the damage had already been done. I did, at least, hold some hope that as the Good Fellas continued to check mentions of themselves online, they would see that Clovis’ blog had been outed as the fraud it truly was – and maybe they’d turn a blind eye toward me. Maybe.
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AUTHOR BIO:
Robin Leemann Donovan is the author of the blog, Menologues, which is a humorous yet informative look at the trials and tribulations of menopause by someone who’s been there. Menologues has been republished on two commercial sites: Vibrant Nation and Alltop, and has won regional honors for social media.
Donovan was born and raised in New Jersey, but lived and worked in Connecticut for a number of years before moving to Nebraska in 1999. Starting her career as a high school English teacher, Donovan moved into advertising in the early 80s when she worked on accounts such as: Duracell, IBM, Merck Pharmaceutical, Stanley Tools and Hardware, BMW, etc. In 1999, she accepted a job offer from the legendary Bozell, a global ad agency that was founded in Omaha. In late 2001, she and three colleagues purchased the original Omaha office of Bozell from its New York based parent company. In 2021 she was named an Enterprising Woman of the Year by the national publication Enterprising Women. In December of 2023, Donovan sold Bozell to a group of employees and retired to focus on murder mysteries and French Bulldogs not to mention, a bit of skiing.
Donovan lives with her husband and two French Bulldogs, Frank and Ellie in their home in Eden, Utah.
My website is www.rldonovan.com
Facebook and LInkedIn: Robin Leeman Donovan
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COMING SOON: On Monday, 9th November, our team member, author David W Thompson, is sharing Chapter 1 of his novel, 'Love in The Crosshairs'.
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