Witch's Wheel

by Abby L. Vandiver

  Teagan flinched.

  What happened to you down here grandmother?

  He let out a long sigh. He wasn’t getting any answers in that empty basement. Teagan climbed back up the stairs and went into the kitchen.

  “Gustov,” he said, startling the old man.

  “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that,” Gustov said and laughed. “I thought I was only one here.” His accent so slightly noticeable in the way he formed his sentences. Then he darted an eye out into the hallway. “You go back down that basement?”

  “Yes.”

  “You weren’t doing too well when you come out last night. You feeling better?”

  “Can’t say that I am.”

  “What is the problem? You can talk always with me.”

  “First, I wanted to ask you about Rose Avery. Do you remember her?”

  “The name sounds familiar,” Gustov said. “Is it someone who has had a function here?”

  “No. She worked for you. Back when my grandmother died. She was part of the wait staff.”

  “Ahh. Yes. I do remember her.” Gustov chuckled. “How did you come by this name?”

  Teagan shrugged. “I saw it in the file the police has on my grandmother’s death.” It wasn’t true, as of yet he didn’t know what that file contained, but he couldn’t very well tell Gustov the truth about how he knew her.

  “Oh.” Gustov’s expression changed. “You see the file about your grandmother?”

  “Yes,” Teagan said. “I needed some answers.”

  “Answers?” Gustov frowned. “About what?”

  “About that night.” Teagan raised an eyebrow. “Pastor Tim told me all about you and my grandmother.”

  “What? What do you mean?” Gustov shook his head. “He could not tell you anything. He knew nothing about us.”

  “He knew there was no ‘us’ between the two of you. And I’ve come to know it too.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “And I think that may have made you mad. My grandmother rejecting you. Did it make you mad, Gustov?”

  “What are you getting at?” Gustov asked.

  “I think you know,” Teagan said. “I think that you may’ve had something to do with it.”

  Gustov blew out a breath. “I don’t know what you are talking about. And if you are here because you want me to play guessing game with you, I’ll tell you now, I have no time for that.”

  “My grandmother’s murder is the reason I’m here.”

  “M-Murder.” The word came out in a hiccup. “That was an accident,” Gustov said. “A terrible accident. But an accident I know.”

  “It wasn’t. And I think you know that.”

  Gustov pulled at his hair and flopped down on a nearby stool. Tears starting rolling down his cheeks. “Please don’t tell me this. Please.”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Teagan said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The night she died,” Teagan said. “My grandmother was returning a bottle of 1914 Chateau Haut-Brion.”

  “Yes, I know the wine well,” Gustov said. “A Bordeaux from France. A first growth. I remember.”

  “Then you know she couldn’t have been returning that wine when the rack fell on her.”

  Gustov’s eyes searched the room. He relived that night in his mind, seeing her body lying there, eyes opened, a rack pinning her to the ground.

  “Yes. Yes she was,” Gustov said. “Although I couldn’t reconcile why she just didn’t use the step stool to put it on that top shelf. But she’d found it. There.” He pointed to the countertop. “With the other bottles of wine that had been set out that night.

  “She was in the Italian zone of her cellar,” Teagan said. “I know because I saw her. Before they took her.”

  “It was 1995. You were not here. How could you see?”

  “She designated the zones of her cellar by producer,” Teagan said ignoring Gustov’s words. “Then by vintage. Zones of the cellar corresponded to wine regions or grape types, with producers and yes, she placed her older wines at the top. But not that one.”

  “And why is that?”

  “It was too old. Gustov, a Bordeaux lasts no more than fifty years. That bottle of wine was more than eighty years old then.”

  “Oh,” he said. “It would not have been fit to drink? That is what you mean by saying it was 1914?” Gustov said more than asked.

  “Right. “My grandmother only kept it because it was bottled in the year her father was born. Sentimental reasons.” He eyed Gustov. “And it would have been kept with the outdated wines,” Teagan continued, “or perhaps on the shelf with her treasured antique wines.”

  “Yes. I remember,” Gustov said. “She told me that night that it belonged in the Antiquity Room.”

  “That means that my grandmother was in the wrong place.”

  “I wish you would just tell me what you’re getting at. As you can see, I am not doing well putting your clues together.”

  “I think that you went down there behind her and killed her.

  “Oh no!” Gustov said. “Why?” He hunched his shoulders. “Why would I kill her?” Tears streaming down his cheeks.

  “Because you loved her, Gustov,” Teagan said. “But she didn’t want you. She was someone you could never have. And that made you mad. Mad enough to kill her.”

  “I don’t know how you know all of this, your Grandmother was very careful with it. With us.”

  “You were delusional then, and it seems that you still are today.”

  Gustov stood up, reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He pulled out an old, tattered paper that had been folded over several times. “What we had was real. It just wasn’t time for us. But I was willing to wait.” He handed Teagan the letter.

  My Dearest Love,

  Teagan recognized his grandmother’s handwriting. The curly, and dramatically drawn capital letters. He looked at Gustov and back down at the letter.

  How can I ask you to wait? To put your love – your life on hold for me? I cannot. Viktor, I know that it may seem selfish to you, and perhaps most would agree that it is not my concern. But I believe that he will do it.

  And once that is all behind me, then it will be time for us. I know you ask whether that time will ever come. It will. Please know that my love for you has no bounds, even time will not diminish it.

  Our time will come, my love.

  Yours always, Olivia.

  “Who is she talking about?” Teagan asked looking up from the letter.

  “You,” Gustov said.

  “Me?” Teagan shook his head hastily “I don’t understand. What does it mean?”

  “She couldn’t ask me to put my life or love on hold for her, yet that’s exactly what she did for you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She wouldn’t be with me because she wanted to groom you – to make sure that you’d take over her winery. Keep the family legacy. Keep her wine safe. And she didn’t want to get distracted from that.” He hung his head. “Ha! To keep it safe, no? And that was exactly what took her away from me.” He looked at Teagan. “From you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Hello,” Teagan spoke to the woman at the desk. “I’m looking for Henry Pearson. Is he around?”

  “Sure, he’s out back. Who should I say is asking?”

  “Teagan Bales,” he said. “He did some work on my family’s house a few years back. I wanted to talk to him about it.”

  Teagan had been too choked up to do anymore of his haphazard interrogation on Gustov. Pastor Tim had been wrong. His grandmother had loved Gustov.

  Why would Pastor Tim tell me that she didn’t?

  Only his grandmother kept her feelings for the man secret. A secret she held onto so that it wouldn’t disrupt her plans for Teagan.

  Finding out the truth was just as difficult as trying to solve a murder.

  He’d left the house with more questions than h
e came in with, and a greater sense of loss. His grandmother couldn’t fulfill her happiness because she was trying to ensure his.

  “Hap,” the woman spoke into a walkie-talkie. “You copy.”

  “Yeah. I copy. Over.”

  “Somebody here to see you. Over.”

  “On my way. Over.”

  Hap came up into the trailer out of breath. Teagan wasn’t sure how the rotund man could get around at all, let alone do any type of construction work. His face was covered in beads of sweat. His curly hair, probably due to the moisture of his perspiration, was dark in the top, with gray around the edges. He stuck out a chubby hand. “I’m Hap. You here to see me?”

  “You did some work for my father,” Teagan said shaking the man’s hand. “Stuart Bales. Probably about ten years ago.”

  “We don’t have guarantees for that long. You got a problem, I can take a look at it, but that’s the best I can do,” he said still out of breath. He pulled up a chair and sat down.

  “No. The work was fine,” Teagan said. “I just have some questions about it.”

  Hap squinted his eyes and looked at him. “Can’t say I’d remember anything about some work I did ten years ago.”

  “Maybe you keep files?” Teagan offered. “You dismantled a wine cellar for him at our house.”

  “A wine cellar? Oh, I remember that. That’s not a house. That’s a mansion,” he said and laughed. “That’s why I remember. Never been in anything like that house before. Yeah.” He gave a quick nod. “We did a few renovations over there, getting it ready for him to put it on the market. Your dad said he wanted to sell it, I remember thinking I’d never make enough money in my entire life to buy something like that. Did he ever sell it?”

  “No. He died.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Did you want to do more work on it?” Hap turned and glanced at the calendar on the back wall. “I’m pretty booked up for the next month or so, but I might could squeeze you in if it’s nothing major.”

  “No. I don’t need any work. At least right now,” Teagan said. “I wanted to ask you about the work you did?”

  “Now I told you, if there’s a problem . . .”

  “There’s no problem.” Teagan took in a breath gaging how much he should say. “It’s just that it seems whatever you told my father about the work, made his suspicious.”

  “Suspicious of what?”

  “My grandmother died there. It was an accident. In the wine cellar.”

  “Yeah, I gathered something might’ve happened in that basement. He got awfully curious when I told him about the bolts. Curious and surprised.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He acted as if he didn’t know any bolts were down there. I think he thought the racks were all free standing.”

  “They had been at one time,” remembering that his father never paid attention to the vineyards or the wine cellar. “But my grandmother,” Teagan continued, “had them bolted down when she made the renovations, adding a ventilation system, and designating a grab area.”

  “Grab area?”

  “Where she’d put wines for quick access. The everyday wines. A place where you could ‘grab’ a bottle quickly and easily.”

  “Oh yeah. Well. I don’t know any of the fancy talk about wine, but those racks were definitely bolted down. But like I say, he didn’t seem to know that, and asked me how one could fall over if it was bolted down.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “I told him that it probably couldn’t happen. I told him that it would take some force to topple it. I explained to him that the whole reason for people putting bolts in was to stop things from toppling.”

  “And what did he say to that?”

  “He said ‘Show me.’ So I did.”

  “How?”

  “He took me to the one room where he said one of the racks had fallen. The hardware was still bolted into that cement floor at the time, and so where shards of the wooden leg of the rack that had been there.”

  “Don’t you think that someone could have pulled the rack that was there over on themselves?” Teagan asked.

  “I don’t see how.” Hap shook his head. “I mean, they’d have to be pretty strong and give it more than a few good yanks.” He made a jerking motion with his hands. “More than likely, for it to fall, someone would have had to give it a pretty forceful push or two from the other side.”

  “Are you sure?” Teagan asked.

  “I can’t be one hundred percent sure, no, but I’d be willing to bet my brand new Bosch reciprocating saw on it. What would be the point of bolting something down, if you could turn it over by just pulling on it? Wouldn’t make sense.”

  “No it wouldn’t,” Teagan said. Teagan tried to wrap his head around the information. He’d always known about the bolts holding the racks upright, keeping them secure. But it never crossed his mind before that something other than one of them falling over from his grandmother pulling on it had happened. His head was spinning. He felt just like he did when he was coming back up those cellar steps – in a fog.

  “Is there anything else I can help you with,” Hap asked.

  “Did my father say anything to you about a murder?” Teagan asked.

  “A murder?” The contractor laughed. “He sure didn’t. Why was someone murdered down there?”

  “I’m beginning to think so,” Teagan said.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The house was a neat Cape Cod style bungalow, painted gray with white trim, it appeared to be well maintained. Several concrete steps led up to a wooden porch and a brightly painted yellow door. Teagan grasped the door knocker and took in a breath before he used it to rap several times.

  “”Hi,” he said when a woman answered the door. “I’m Teagan Bales. Olivia Bales’ grandson. I don’t know if you remember her.”

  “I remember you.” A slight smile appeared on her lips. “My how you’ve grown. You were just a little boy when I . . .” she stopped mid-sentence. “I’m sorry,” she said. “What brings you here?” she asked.

  “I wanted to ask you some questions about my grandmother’s death.”

  An obvious shiver ran down Rose Avery’s spine.

  He’d been hasty with Gustov, and then shocked at the revelation he revealed. That wasn’t the way to find out anything, or keep his emotions in check. People wouldn’t be willing to talk if they thought they were being accused of something. He’d have to use a different approach if he was going to get to the bottom of what really happened the night his grandmother died. Still, he needed answers and getting to the point, he’d always thought had its advantages.

  After he’d left Gabrisette House on his way to see the contractor, Teagan had called Caroline with the information he’d gotten from Gustov on Rose Avery and asked her to find out where she lived. If she was still living. Caroline had called him back with the address and phone number almost before he’d made it out of the circular drive.

  Caroline was good. He had to give her that. He didn’t know quite how she did it, but it seemed whatever he needed, she was able to do.

  Rose Avery shook off hearing the name of a woman dead for more than a couple decades, and without saying a word, turned and walked back into the house.

  Teagan followed her in, closing the door behind him.

  “Have a seat,” she said and waved a hand toward the couch. She sat on a chair opposite him.

  “I was there that night,” she said looking off into the distance. She wrapped the bulky sweater around her. “Not twenty-five feet away from that cellar door nearly the entire night. I didn’t even see her go down there.”

  “Yes, I know,” Teagan said.

  “You know?” Rose asked. “How could you know?” her face questioned him. “You weren’t one of the children there that night, were you? I’d think I’d remember that.”

  “No.” Teagan shook his head. Teagan knew he needed to be careful of the words he chose. “I meant, I�
��d heard.” He looked at her and smiled. “You know, stories about the night.” He looked past her. “Heard them all my life.”

  “Oh yes. Well. I supposed you would have. It was tragic. I’m really sorry for your loss.” She shrugged. “I mean, I know it was a long time ago . . .”

  Teagan studied her. She looked frail – thin, nothing like she did on that night. Her hair gray, tiny lines filled most of her face. Her hands feeble and thin skinned. Now she wouldn’t be capable of such a thing, and even her demeanor wasn’t that of exacting such menace - but he pressed on. He knew she’d done something to his grandmother that night. Whatever it was, he was determined to find it out.

  “Thank you, and you’re right, it was a long time ago,” Teagan said a faint smile appearing. “And . . . Well, that’s the reason I’m here. I wanted to talk about the night of the murder-” he started.

  “The murder?” she said, interrupting him, a laugh almost escaping her lips. “She wasn’t murdered.”

  “I’m beginning to think she was.”

  “Why in the world would you think that?” she asked. “The wine rack fell on her.” She lowered her head. “While she was putting back that bottle of wine.” She looked back up at Teagan. “But it was an accident.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Teagan said.

  “What do you mean?” she said. “Not sure. The police were there. I’m sure a report was filed.”

  “I’m just not sure and I’m looking for answers,” Teagan said. “So I can be sure.”

  “Be sure,” she said and nodded her head reassuringly. “It was an accident.”

  “You don’t think anyone would want to kill my grandmother?” he asked, she seemed to realize the pointed question was about her.

  “I brought those wine bottles up,” she spoke defensively. “They were all there in the grab area, that bottle too. The old one. I don’t know why it was there, and I didn’t look at it.” She hunched her shoulders. “And I don’t know if I would have looked at it, I would have known not to bring it up.”

  “The 1914 bottle of Chateau Haut-Brion?” Teagan asked.

  She nodded her head, her eyes fluttering. She folded her hands together and stared at them. “I didn’t pay any attention. And like I said, I don’t know that I would have known what I was seeing if I had. All I do know is that it cost me my job, and it cost Mrs. Bales her life.” A tear slipped down her cheek.