A Sunny McCoskey Napa Valley Mystery 4: Lethal Vintage

by Nadia Gordon

  “Absolutely perfect morning out there,” said Rivka, catching her breath and checking herself in the mirror behind the door. Her long black hair was braided and wound into tight little mounds behind each ear. She smoothed down the baby hairs in front and turned back to Sunny.

  “Did you check the Web site’s e-mail account?”

  “Not yet,” said Sunny. “Did you order forty filets of fresh salmon?”

  “We need to check it every morning from now on,” said Rivka. “Over the weekend I installed a button that lets people request reservations online.”

  “Salmon?”

  “Yes, I ordered the salmon. Forty pounds. I ordered a little more than usual because there are so many reservations on the book this week. And that last batch was so pretty.”

  “You ordered forty filets. There’s eighty pounds of sockeye in the walk-in looking for a home.”

  “Oh. I must have gotten it mixed up. Eighty pounds is a lot of fish.”

  “That’s right, Pocahontas. Tell Bertrand to tell everybody to sell salmon. Nobody gets out of here without ordering the salmon today. And anybody who gets un amuse-bouche compliments of the chef is going to be amused by salmon.”

  “Got it.”

  Rivka retreated to the kitchen and Sunny went back to the morning’s paperwork. The Wildside Web site still made her a little uneasy. More than anything else about the business she was in, she liked the tangibility of cooking. There was nothing virtual about Wildside. Nothing artificial, faux, or simulated. No tromp l’oeil, no mock anything, no substitutions, no compromise. Her explicit intention had always been to make Wildside a tiny refuge of authenticity in an age of illusion, a time when food that smells like strawberry and tastes like strawberry is more likely to be guar gum and corn syrup. Having a Web site seemed to encroach, however slightly, on that authenticity. If she could cut the phone lines and insist that people show up in person and wait for a table without going out of business, she would do it.

  Rivka, on the other hand, was determined to bring Wildside into the twenty-first century. Sunny opened the e-mail account Rivka had set up for inquiries coming through the Web site. A dialogue box said it was “downloading one of one messages.” One reservation. Not exactly a crowd, but it was a start. The return address caught her eye. The e-mail had been sent by Oliver Seth at two-twenty in the morning. Sunday morning. The same morning Anna Wilson died. The subject line read “FW: Roma!” There was a brief message.

  Sunny, this is why I’m leaving. It’s all in the picture. I’ll explain later. Suffice to say, my world has come apart. Please keep this safe for me. Call it an insurance policy. I must control my fate!!! Mum for now. Will call soon.

  Wils

  Wils was what Sunny had called Anna years ago. She scrolled down. There was a series of e-mails between Oliver and someone named Astrid. Sunny jumped to the bottom and skimmed up chronologically. They’d been sent over the past month, some quite recently, and talked about an upcoming business meeting with executives from a bank in Moscow that was interested in funding one of Oliver’s new technology ventures. Then there was this from Astrid:

  Darling, I’ve had the strangest dream this morning. We were in a ferry somewhere in the Greek Isles. The weather was glorious—that Mediterranean blue sky you love so much—but I was terribly afraid the boat would sink. You told me I was a fool to worry over nothing, that I would make the other passengers nervous. I knew if we could just get within sight of land, everything would be okay. Then we could swim if we had to. Without warning, an enormous wave swamped the boat and it sank quickly and completely. We treaded water. I was terrified the waves would separate us. You were angry with me and pushed me away. You said, “I told you not to be afraid. Now look what you’ve done!”

  Oliver wrote back, “Do not worry. Let them make waves. This boat is not going to sink, I promise you.” There was an attachment, a photograph of Oliver in his gold aviators and a trim suit with his arm around a dark-haired woman in a white minidress. Not Anna, presumably Astrid. Rome. They stood in front of a tiny canary-yellow sports car at dusk. The Coliseum was in the background. It was summer, judging by their clothes and Astrid’s tanned shoulders, and they looked extremely happy. Probably this summer, since Oliver was still wearing those same sunglasses. Guys like him lost or updated the accoutrements around their person frequently. Never the same sunglasses, cuff links, or phones for long.

  Sunny examined the photograph more closely. Something about it reminded her of the old photographs of Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow getting married in Las Vegas. Maybe it was the white trapeze dress or the modish suit Oliver was wearing. Maybe it was the aura of glamour they exuded. Life looked very good. Sunny pushed her chair back and stared up at Rusty, the wire rooster who presided over the room from the top of the bookcase. What was she to make of this? The e-mail had been sent from Oliver Seth’s account, but it was from Anna, she was sure of that. The note was Anna’s voice, and anyway, she’d never heard anyone else call her Wils. So that was the genesis of Saturday night’s fight. After finding the surveillance system the night before, on Saturday night Anna had somehow gotten into Oliver’s e-mail and found out about his relationship with Astrid. The brief exchange and the photograph made it clear he had another love, another life. And there must have been other e-mails, probably dozens of them. Anna would have been left with no hope that Oliver was anything but a deeply deceitful and dishonest person.

  Sunny scrolled back through the exchange. At one point Oliver wrote, presumably referring to the photograph, “See attached. Remember to control your fate. She’s bullish on the new vintage.” That must have been what Anna was referring to in her note when she said she must control her fate. But what did Oliver mean by “She’s bullish on the new vintage”? Europa, certainly. Europa was pictured riding a bull on the label of Oliver’s new wine, Taurus Rising. Sunny had seen it when Oliver himself showed it to her at lunch on Saturday. But what did that mean? Was it some kind of code or riddle? Whatever it was, Astrid had understood. She replied, “Got it,” and went on to another topic.

  Sunny printed out two sets of the e-mail, including the photograph. She sealed one set in an envelope for Sergeant Harvey and put it in her bag. The police would get the e-mails, but they would have to wait until the lunch rush was over. The other set she tucked into a tattered old copy of Richard Olney’s Simple French Food for safekeeping, returning it to its place on the shelf under Rusty’s watchful eye. Anna’s insurance policy had failed as utterly as her attempt to control her fate, but Sunny would keep them all the same—at least until the police figured out exactly who was responsible for her death, and why.

  Why had Anna sent the e-mails, anyway? Did she hope to use them against Oliver somehow? For money, even? Or did she only want to keep some tangible proof that he was unfaithful to her, to show she was not imagining his lies and infidelities? She reread Anna’s message. Call it an insurance policy. She must have suspected she was in danger, but why? When you find out your boyfriend is a cheat and a liar, you’re upset, not frightened. Anna had a reckless nonchalance about life and love, not to mention fidelity. Another woman would make her laugh or leave, not take out the only insurance available to her. There had to be something else in those e-mails. It’s all in the picture. There must be something there she wasn’t seeing. She needed to read them more carefully and try to see what Anna had seen. Sunny checked her watch. With eighty reservations on the books plus walk-ins, she had already burned more time than she could spare. It would have to wait until she got home in the afternoon.

  “Anything?” said Rivka from the threshold.

  “What?”

  “Reservations from the site.”

  “Reservations? Oh, no, nothing so far.”

  “Well, it’s only been up a few days. Build it and they will come.”

  Rivka went back to work and Sunny put on one of the white canvas smocks she wore when she cooked. What on earth had Anna found, snooping through Oliver’s e-mail? Sun
ny tied her apron strings and looked in the mirror.

  “Mum for now,” she said, and headed into the kitchen.

  9

  Rivka changed the wooden sign to closed and locked the door. She went over to the zinc bar that separated the tiny dining room from the kitchen and lay her cheek down on the cool surface. “That has to be a record,” she said. “I’ve never cooked so much or so fast in my life.”

  Sunny stood on the other side, eating a plate of poached salmon. “I should testify in murder trials more often.”

  “Careful what you wish for. Do you think it’s going to keep up like this?”

  “I thought you wanted more business. You’re the one who wants to open on nights and weekends,” said Sunny.

  “Doesn’t more help usually go along with more business?” said Rivka.

  “You have to make the money to pay for it first. If everything goes well and you survive long enough, then you hire more people. They call it sweat equity.”

  Bertrand, the slender, white-shirted maître d’, sommelier, and gardener at Wildside, walked by Rivka and swatted her arm with a damp rag. “Up, slave girl. You haven’t finished your chores.”

  “I can’t move. I need a glass of white wine with two ice cubes in it. Please.”

  He went behind the bar and poured a glass. “I’ll serve, but I’m not putting ice cubes in it. It’s chilled, for God’s sake.”

  “Cubes, please, I beg you.”

  “Pauvre petite fille riche,” crooned Bertrand. “Here are your damn cubes. You want a scoop of ice cream in there to go with it?”

  Sunny turned up the music. It had been a grueling day and the end was the hardest, when there was so much cleaning to do. She hefted a tub of ice out of the oyster bar, dumped it in the back sink, and came back for the next one. When that was done, she started wiping down the workstations. Rivka tackled the grill, scraping the hot surface with water and a metal spatula. Greasy steam billowed up around her. When the grit was gone, she sliced lemons in half and rubbed down the hot stainless steel until it was silver and shiny.

  “You want to get a drink after this?” said Sunny. She’d been quiet all day about the e-mails and Andre and everything else on her mind. It was easy while the restaurant was busy. Between the two of them, they could just keep up if there were no distractions. Now the restaurant was empty and she needed to talk.

  “As long as it’s not alcohol,” said Rivka. “I’m on the one-drink-a-day plan all week and I just finished it.”

  “Taylor’s?”

  “Perfect.”

  It took another hour to finish up and get out of there. The dishwashers were still hosing down the floor mats and mopping the tile when they left. They rode their bikes single file past stalled rush-hour traffic for a mile on Highway 29, provoking the occasional appreciative hoot from guys stuck in their pickup trucks. At Taylor’s, Rivka staked out a picnic table on the grass while Sunny ordered green-tea milkshakes and garlic fries. They ate and brushed away flies, soaking up the last of the late-afternoon sun.

  “How you holding up?” said Rivka.

  “Okay,” said Sunny.

  “And? You look like you have something on your mind.”

  “I do. Something happened over the weekend. I left it out last night. So much happened all at once.”

  Rivka ate fries and waited.

  Sunny looked around at the trampled grass and picnic tables under the big trees. The loudspeaker squawked someone’s order number.

  “Well, are you going to tell me?”

  Sunny nodded.

  Rivka ate a few more fries. Finally she dug in her knapsack and handed Sunny a folded-up newspaper. “I wasn’t going to show you this, but maybe it will help. There’s no need to keep things secret now.”

  The headline across the valley’s daily paper read Drug-Fueled Sex Party Ends in Suspicious Death. It described how Anna Wilson was found and listed the names of those involved, including “acclaimed local chefs and restaurateurs Andre Morales of Yountville’s Vinifera and Sonya ‘Sunny’ McCoskey of Wildside in St. Helena.”

  “That’s it. I’m going to have to move. Wildside has been weird enough since the last incident.”

  “You mean the Liberty Dock murder?”

  “You’ve seen what’s been going on. People used to ask to see me so they could give their compliments to the chef, say a lot of nice things about how they’ve been looking forward to having lunch at Wildside for their anniversary for the last three years, all that. Now they want to talk about Ronald Fetcher’s trial.”

  “It’ll pass. Nobody remembers that stuff for very long.”

  Sunny put her hand over her eyes. “It’s going to be a freak show where the nymphomaniac drug addict chef performs daily.”

  “Hmm…That could be a problem. Not terribly appetizing. You’ll have to make a big show of washing your hands.”

  Sunny folded the paper and pushed it away.

  “I can’t remember the last time I went to a drug-fueled sex party,” said Rivka. “I never get invited to the good stuff.”

  “Don’t believe everything you read.”

  “So there weren’t drugs?”

  “I don’t know. Probably there were. I didn’t see any. But Keith Lachlan, Oliver’s lawyer, offered me coke. And I’m pretty sure Anna and a few others were on something. Coke, maybe Ecstasy, who knows. Anna was acting very strangely. No one seemed interested in sleeping even though it was really late. And they got very, uh, affectionate at a certain point. That’s Ecstasy, right?”

  “Could be. But it seems unlikely if they were drinking. You don’t mix vitamin E with alcohol or you’re in for a very unpleasant ride. If they do drugs, they would know that.”

  “They were definitely drinking wine and cognac earlier in the evening, not so much later on. The chemistry changed. Nobody seemed drunk. Just, you know, festive.”

  “Festive.”

  “Around midnight they were all in the hot tub, like I told you about last night. It was crazy. There were tongues everywhere.”

  “They?” Rivka raised her eyebrows.

  “Okay, we.”

  “I’m sure that went over well with the patented McCoskey fear of intimacy.”

  “I got out of there pretty quickly.”

  “I’ll bet.” Rivka tapped the newspaper with her finger. “You didn’t say Andre was there.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. After all the hot-tub business, the next morning I go hunting for my clothes—”

  “Uh, sounds like you left something out.”

  “I went to bed. My clothes got hijacked by Seth’s sister and her boyfriend.”

  “Explain.”

  “That part doesn’t matter. Just listen. It’s hard enough to talk about it.”

  “Go on. I’m listening.”

  “So the next morning I go looking for my clothes. I knock on the door of the room where I left them, and guess who opens the door.”

  “Don’t say it,” said Rivka.

  Sunny nodded.

  “Alone?”

  Sunny shook her head. “He was with the Guamanian princess.”

  “Wait, which one is she?”

  “The one who came late. The lawyer’s girlfriend.”

  “The coke dealer’s girl?”

  Sunny nodded.

  “You’re sure.”

  “He answered the door in a towel. Though, in all fairness, I knocked on the door in a sheet.” Sunny gave a weak laugh.

  Rivka dragged another garlic fry through ketchup and put it in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “Well, damn. That was some party.”

  “I don’t know where I am anymore. It’s like I’m living in some sleazy parallel universe where everything is completely messed up.”

  “Don’t worry, you’re still right here in wineland, Auntie Em. Even if things have gotten a little weird.” She shook her head sympathetically. “And you can’t even get upset about it because your friend upstaged your breakup by going of
f and getting herself killed.”

  Sunny looked away.

  “Was he there all day yesterday?”

  “In the same room.”

  “And you didn’t say anything to him or kick him in the shins or anything?”

  “How could I? Anna is dead. There were cops there trying to figure out who killed her. It was not the best time for relationship drama.”

  “I would have lost it.”

  “We Vulcans cannot relate to you illogical humans,” said Sunny.

  Rivka sighed. “And just when we were beginning to pry little Sonya from her shell. It’s a shame.”

  “I’m almost glad I’m too exhausted and traumatized to think about it,” said Sunny. “Maybe it was all a misunderstanding, anyway. Maybe she’s his long-lost sister.”

  “Maybe you can work it out.”

  “You think so?”

  “Do you?”

  They finished their milkshakes. After a while Rivka said, “I know you’re not feeling very good about this right now, but Andre Morales isn’t exactly the Prince Charming we want for our Sunny. The guy is a player. He may be hot, but he’s been an inconsiderate ass all along, if you want my opinion. When all this blows over, you’re going to be better off without him. You know that, right?”

  Sunny made a face and took a napkin. She pressed it into her eyes and blew her nose, telling herself she was not, not going to fall apart at Taylor’s like a jerk.

  “You okay?”

  “Close enough.”

  Rivka looked at her watch. “I have to get going. The Jamaican herbalist is going to be waiting for me.” Recently Rivka had been dating a guy with big curls and a stall at the farmers’ market.

  “Now he’s an herbalist?”

  “He wants to start selling healing herbs from the mountains down there. He’s got some growing in his backyard. I’ve been trying them out. Pretty good stuff.”

  “Not the usual herb, I hope.”

  “That market is pretty well saturated. These are teas you drink if you get a cold or a stomachache.”