Dead on the Vine: (Violet Vineyard Murder Mysteries #1 (A Cozy Mystery)) (14 page)

Samson was standing beside his jeep when Victor and I pulled up. There were no signs of the students, Sheriff’s deputies, or the field crew. I parked Sally in the garage and Victor and I walked over. Despite the angry old scarecrow of a winemaker awaiting me, I had managed to dial my own anger back a couple dozen notches and was determined to keep it there. Jessica was probably out of jail by now, the immediate crisis resolved, and my mind was threatening to short out on thoughts of Kevin and Jessica, murder, lust, and revenge. I couldn’t think straight and I couldn’t do anything about any of it! What I could do was address a pressing desire for a tall scotch and a half a pack of cigarettes. And Samson would be wise not to stand between me and my addictions.

The sun shone down from a sky as blue as topaz, dramatically lighting the rocky slopes of the mountains, bringing out the bright reds, blacks and drab tans of the rocky slope Violet Vineyard straddles. The day was so clear that I could see the gray-yellow pall of pollution hovering over San Francisco at the head of the valley. In Napa, though, birds sang in the trees, insects whirred. And Samson was fuming.

“I shut down the line!” He started shouting, hands planted on his bony hips. “The police have no respect for wine! And where is Jessica? If they keep her, I will go down there! Son of bitch!” He shook a knobby fist. “Ben Stoltze, son of bitch!” His voice echoed off the stone face of the wine cellar. “Son of  bitch! I tell you, de Montagne, these people—”

“Samson,” I cut him off. “Watch your blood pressure. Jessica will be out within the hour.”

“My blood pressure?” he roared. “Those who make me angry should watch for it! If young I was…ah, to hell with them! The storm troopers realize their mistake? Too late for the bottling! But they care? I ask you—” 

I put my hand on his forearm and squeezed. “Samson, calm down.”

“Don’t blow a gasket, old-timer,” Victor chimed in with a laugh. “The wine can wait. Just turn off the taps, no problem.”

“Turn off the taps?!What do we have, a brewery?!” Samson exploded. “Wine oxidizes, idiot!” Samson’s threw up his hands and shook his head, still muttering but running out of steam.

“Hey, the American palate stinks, right? So, who’ll notice?” Victor said cheerfully.

“You will notice,” Samson threatened, shaking a fist, but his volume had dropped. “I should drain the lines into my own glass, is what I should do. I could use a drink. Many drinks!” He grinned like the merry lunatic I love so well.

“And now you’re talking sensibly,” I spoke up. “A long awaited event, but much appreciated. Just drain the lines and top off the wine pump chamber. That should keep the air from causing any damage.”

“To the wine cellar!” Victor exclaimed, one finger in the air. “After you, fair lady,” he said to me with a bow and a flourish, then jumped in front of me to get through the door. Some gentleman. But he was sure lightening the mood.

“I want to look around the house first,” I begged off. “You two go ahead.”

“They took things from Jessica’s room,” Samson said, spitting the words out, instantly angry again. “Boxes and bags. I ask how they have the right, and they waved a paper in my face. A paper! Like that makes it right! I tell you is like the secret police-”

“What about the rest of the house?” I butted in, picturing furniture overturned, drawers pulled out and dumped.

“Nothing, I think. It looked the same when they left. But count the silver! I trust them not at all!” Samson followed Victor to the cellar door.

“Save a glass for me!” I yelled at them from the kitchen stoop.

“If there is to be a glass for you, it will be so. If it is not in the stars, well…”  Samson stepped through the door and slammed it closed.

I dumped my purse on the kitchen table and took a quick look around. Everything was where it should be. Almost. There was a subtle skew to every object; nothing was exactly as I had left it. As I wandered from room to room, noticing chairs and bric-a-brac turned at odd angles, drawers not quite closed, neatly stacked papers shuffled into disordered piles, I grew as angry as Samson. I got even madder when I reached Jessica’s room.

The police hadn’t been as neat in her room. Posters had been pulled from the wall. Her drawers were a jumble of wadded up clothes. Her closet had been rifled and there were gaps in the rows of hanging garments that made me think several articles were missing. Her bed had been stripped of its sheets and quilts and then hastily reassembled by uncaring hands. Grinding my teeth in frustration, I began to put things back in order.

I made the bed, refolded the clothes, straightened the closet, then stood in the middle of the room and looked around. The posters were crooked, so I spent another fifteen minutes pulling out tacks and sticking them back in. When I was done, everything looked pretty much as it had before the police and their search warrant. By then, all the relief at Jessica’s release had evaporated from my system and I felt like I might cry. I wouldn’t give Priest the satisfaction! My low-grade distaste for the man had blossomed into pure hatred. I assuaged myself for the moment with my knowledge that Jessica was innocent and would be proven so. After all, that’s how the legal system works. Right? The innocent go free and the criminals go to prison. Most of the time.

In my own room, I laid fresh clothes on the bed and hopped in the bath, taking a good long soak. I stayed in there over half an hour and felt much better for it. I dried my hair, wrestled it flat, put on a sweatshirt and jeans, and headed for the wine cellar.

As I breezed through the living room I noticed my message light blinking on the answering machine. Reluctantly I pushed the PLAY button.

There were two messages. The first was from Marjory, wondering why I hadn’t called and told her about Jessica. As if I would call the biggest gossip in the county and offer up my problems for display! She can resist relating a juicy story like a cat can resist tuna casserole. With a groan, I promised myself that I would call and give her the condensed version.

The second call was a bit of a surprise.

“Hey Claire, it’s Ben,” Ben Stoltze began, his voice a low bass rumble. “You probably don’t want to talk to me, but I really want to talk to you. Please, give me a call when you get this. Don’t worry about the time, I don’t sleep much anymore anyway. 665-7712.” He hung up.

“Great,” I sighed. “I don’t need this,” but I was already reaching for the phone. I wanted to hear what he had to say, wanted to yell and scream at him as he groveled and apologized. Then I wanted him to tell me it was all a big mistake and everything would be all right. Then everything could get back to normal. I hoped he’d stick to the script. For his sake.

I dialed the number. It rang only once before Ben answered.

“Hullo?” He said, sounding half-asleep.

“Hello, Ben,” I said, cool as an Alaska breeze. “You called?”

“Claire, uh, oh, just a second.” He covered the phone and cleared his throat loudly. It sounded like coal going down a chute. That reminded me how much I needed to quit smoking. It also reminded me to get up and tread my way into the kitchen, take a Marlboro out of my purse and light it. Oh willpower, wherefore art thou?

“Claire,” Ben said as I put the lighter’s flame to my cigarette. “You okay?”

“No,” I said with a puff of smoke. “Is that all you wanted?”

“Hey, hey, hey,” he said. “Don’t be like that with an old friend.”

“Friend,”
I repeated.

“That’s right,” Ben replied. “Old friend.”

“A friend who had my daughter arrested.” I said. “Friends like that I don’t need.”

“I don’t have any control over the DA, Claire. He looks at the evidence and decides to file charges or not. I enforce the law, I don’t make it.”

“Do you think Jessica killed Kevin?” I asked, stomping my way back to the sofa. “If you do, you’re as big an idiot as Prie-“

“Claire,” Ben cut me off, “I barely know Jessica, but the evidence looks pretty damning. I’m not saying she’s guilty. Hell, enough suspects are crawling out of the woodwork to make Angela Lansbury cringe.”

“Did you know they were going to arrest her?” I asked, holding my breath, hoping he would say ‘No.’

“Yes, and no,” he replied with a sigh. I heard him light a cigarette and inhale. “I knew she was the prime suspect, but it happened a lot faster than I thought. If I had known the warrant had been issued I would have talked some sense into Priest and the assistant DA. There’s still a lot we don’t know, and, at least to me, it looks like it might be more complicated than a lovers’ spat.”

I sat and tucked my feet up under me. “Wait a minute, Ben. You’re the sheriff and you’re telling me you didn’t know a warrant had been issued?”

“Tell me about it,” he replied. “It’s common knowledge that I’m not running for another term, so I’m a lame duck. Everyone’s jockeying closer to the new power-base, whoever they think that might be. Kissing ass in all the right places. They don’t need my approval for a warrant, but it would have been nice to be informed, anyway.” He sounded weary, but I wasn’t going to cut him any slack. He was the Sheriff and he should act like one!

“So, you’re retiring and you can’t be bothered to make sure the right person is arrested for murder?” I asked with rising irritation.

“I didn’t say that. I promise that I’ll do everything I can to make sure the
right
person goes to prison. Whoever he or she might be.”

I wanted nothing more and would expect nothing less. If I thought there was the slightest possibility that Jess had killed Kevin I wouldn’t have been half as angry as I was. But the whole thing was ludicrous!

“You know Priest is with Laurel,” I told Ben. “Sleeping over, and I don’t think it’s a pajama party.”

“No,” Ben said, sounding like his jaw was clenched tight. “No, I didn’t know that. But it shouldn’t surprise me. The woman has a thing for cops.”

“What do you mean she has a thing for cops?” I asked, thinking instantly of what Victor had told me about Laurel’s affair with a policeman.

Ben didn’t say anything for a long moment.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he sighed. “This isn’t the kind of thing I’d like to discuss over the phone. And if you weren’t such a good friend I wouldn’t be speaking to you about it at all. Hell, I could get reprimanded just for calling you.” Ben laughed, but it sounded forced.

“You’re retiring anyway, right?” I reminded him.

“True.” He laughed. “Where are you right now?”

“At home. Why?”

“How about meeting me for a beer?” Ben asked. “I could meet you at Shaky’s in an hour. Got anything better planned?”

“I was thinking of going to bed early. I have the bottling to finish, and Kevin’s funeral is tomorrow morning.

“You’re going to the funeral?” Ben sounded surprised.

“And why shouldn’t I?” I asked.

“’Course you should,” Ben hurriedly said. “How about that drink?”

“You’ll tell me what you meant by ‘she has a thing for cops?’”

Ben sighed and let the silence lag. “I’ll tell you,” he agreed grudgingly.

“Thirty minutes then. Are you sure Shaky’s is still open? I haven’t been there in twenty years.” Shaky’s was a popular burger joint when Ben and I were in high school. A weathered-gray building built in the 1800’s, Shaky’s slouched disreputably in a small pecan grove off Silverado Trail, five miles past Redwood Road, at the foot of the Mayacamas Mountains. Back then it had a half dozen rickety tables, always crowded with high-schoolers and college kids home for the weekend, a splintery counter fronted by rusty metal stools, and a juke box that stole more nickels than it played records. Shaky, the owner and head grouch, who was pushing sixty when I was a kid, had been a grumpy and vulgar old man who’s chief asset was that he was too hard of hearing to complain about the juke box volume. “I can’t believe that place is still standing.”

“I eat there four or five nights a week,” Ben said with a laugh. “I’m on a greasy burgers and fries diet.”

“Doctor recommended?” I asked, surprised and annoyed that my anger at Ben was slipping away. I was looking forward to seeing him. And to picking his brain for anything that might help Jessica. And, no, I didn’t feel guilty about it!

“The lettuce and tomato are,’ he replied. “I think of it as ‘beef salad on a bun.’  That’s how Shaky writes it on the ticket, just in case I need proof that I’m eating right.”

“He can’t still be alive!” I exclaimed, grinning like an idiot. “He must be a hundred and ten.”

“Ninety-five, and damn proud of it. Still sharp as a rusty nail and about half as nice.”

“I can’t believe it.” It was almost like finding a piece of my childhood trapped under glass.

“So, you’ll come?”

“Make it an hour and a half,” I told Ben. I wanted that drink with Samson and Victor. The three of us needed to discuss the schedule for tomorrow, what would ship and what would wait.

“How flattering for me,” Ben said. “Drive carefully. Or at least keep it below eighty. I’ve got a half dozen cruisers out tonight on DWI patrol.”

“Thanks for the warning. See you there.” I put the phone down and headed for the cellar, grabbing my purse, my cellular phone and the shipping manifests on the way.