GHOST AT THE GARDNER: A Wine with Wendy Mystery by Julia Butler

Author:Julia Butler [Butler, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-07-15T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Isabella

Wine with Wendy was a hit?

A smashing success? A viral achievement? A future sold-out event?

That spectacle? You have to be kidding me.

What has become of people?

Whatever the case, who am I to fight the system? Instead, I have just decided that I will embrace the recklessness of their behavior. Now that I have had time to reflect on the matter, perhaps holding wine nights in my museum is not such a bad road to travel upon after all.

I am no longer going to object to the educational wine nights.

I am warming to the prospects of more enlightening Wine with Wendy nights. Especially if the wine nights focus on the theft. No harm, no foul, I believe. If anything, a little publicity should provide renewed interest in a criminal case that has now dragged on for ages. These wine nights of Wendy’s might just be the thing the museum needs to kick-start the public’s interest in the theft once again.

I recall the immense popularity the museum had after the grand opening. After the glorious interior of my museum was exposed to the public, the press went wild. They stopped referring to me as Mrs. Jack, exceedingly secretive and highly suspicious, and began hailing me as “American’s most fascinating widow.”

The publicity campaign the press mounted about the “little old widow with the magnificent treasure chest of artwork” was better than any narrative I could have created myself. Free press was the best advertisement I could buy for my little museum. And my hesitation in commenting on all of their sordid gossip about my reputation only increased their speculations.

The same thing could happen now, I realize, after the dismal ending to the wine night, which apparently became an instant hit on the Internet. Miss Peabody made it a point to hold a special meeting with the interns the next day. To plan the course of action for this week’s wine night.

“The wine night must focus on the robbery,” she said. “Let’s use the next wine night to renew interest in the robbery with the public.”

It was quickly settled. The next wine night would be held in the Dutch Room, in front of the only Rembrandt that survived the fateful night of the robbery.

That’s it! I knew instantly. This is just the type of notoriety the museum needed! The museum’s robbery would be back in the public spotlight with the help of Wendy’s out-of-control wine nights. Throw a ghost story and some twinkling chandeliers in the mix, and we will have the press poking their noses all over the palace.

Speaking of poking noses all over the palace, that suspicious little man, Mr. LaRue, has returned to the museum today, a Friday. Quite out of character, I say to myself. What is he doing? Why is he here?

“I wanted to come to your second installment of the wine night tonight,” he explained to Wendy. “But you know it sold out during the last wine night, so I couldn’t buy a ticket.”

“I’m so sorry,” Wendy says.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.