Free Plum Gone: A Sonoma Wine Country Cozy Mystery (Sonoma Wine Country Cozy Mysteries Book 2) by A. J. Carton Page A

returned to California only twice. For each of their parents’ funerals.
    Now Emma perused her wardrobe. Shorts were out. Sweat pants as well. And forget about colors. Only highly successful female partners at big established firms wore colors. Three thousand dollar red wool Akris suits or cobalt blue Armanis with themed Hermes scarfs and three-inch heels. The rich fabrics and vibrant colors screamed success. The I’m so good I don’t have to dress like a man kind of success.
    Deep down, Emma admitted she admired these women. The ones who didn’t take their fathers’ advice. Or the younger ones, like Julie and Cara, whose fathers were actually proud of their daughters’ success.
    That day, for her take me seriously meeting with Steve, Emma picked gray cotton twill slacks and a black and white striped, short-sleeved cotton knit sweater. She thought of it as the make sure no one notices me look. Instead of her beat up Tods, she wore black Final Call Ferragamos – without one of the goofy pairs of socks her grandson gave her for Christmas. It was hard to be taken seriously wearing socks with purple and blue dinosaurs on them.
    A few minutes later, driving north on 101 to the legal clinic, Emma rehearsed what she would say in her meeting with Steve. Over the years she’d developed a certain analytical style. Old friends like Mary loved it. Jack bore it patiently.
    Emma described it to herself as stream of consciousness. But she knew it was more like a sea than a stream. Driven by its force of logic like a strong tide. Building to an irrefutable crashing conclusion.
    Piers once described it as an oil slick, slowly surrounding you till you were trapped.
    Whatever the style was, Emma knew Julie hated it. Steve did too, often interrupting her mid-first-sentence with questions like, “so what’s your point?”
    That morning in the car on her way to the meeting she tried to articulate her “point.” As usual, it wasn’t easy.
    There were numerous points. Steve would only have patience for one. So somehow Emma had to combine all her points into one big irrefutable truth. She rehearsed her presentation in her head.
    Point number one: Curt Randall probably did not kill Santiago Gomez .
    Despite Emma’s confidence that this was true, even she had to admit that three pieces of evidence suggested that Curt did kill Gomez. First, his own bloody knife found hidden in his garage. Second, his anger with Gomez over the lawsuit. Third, his threat at the Chatham Club. Means. Opportunity. Motive. It added up to a strong case.
    On the other hand , Emma reminded herself, people who actually know Curt Randall don’t believe he’s a killer.
    In fact, lots of evidence demonstrated that was true. First, he was eighty-eight years old and battling lung cancer. Everyone who’d seen him recently agreed that Curt Randall did not have the strength to kill a strong, thirty-something farm hand. Even if he took Gomez by surprise.
    Second, Curt had an alibi. His housekeeper saw him asleep in front of the television wearing his oxygen mask when she left his house the night Gomez died. Teresita had sworn Curt was asleep in the very same chair in the very same position when she arrived at his house the next morning. He’d never moved.
    Third, Emma noted, those who knew Curt well believed the old man simply didn’t have the will to murder.  He’d been depressed and broken for years. Ever since his son died in the Viet Nam War. The old man was mean, but not violent. According to them, Curt Randall wouldn’t hurt a flea.
    Point number two, Emma continued . Plenty of people besides Curt Randall wanted Gomez dead.
    First on the list was Gomez’s cousin, Jose Diaz. The two recently came to blows, Emma reminded herself. When Gomez tried to force Diaz to join the class action . Piers even suggested that Gomez was blackmailing his cousin.
    There was also the husband of the woman Gomez seduced. Surely, Emma thought, a jealous husband has a motive to