by Linda Barnes
“How was I to know Everod was planning to treat the damn thing like Holy Writ? I’ve seen directors cut Shakespeare to ribbons. Why this kid-glove treatment for some hack writer?”
“I would assume the writer’s last film made a great deal of money.”
“Bingo,” Spraggue said gloomily.
Mary chuckled. “Then you are insulting a man who has his finger on the pulse of the movie-going public.”
“I’d like to get my fingers on the pulse in his throat.”
“There must be scenes you enjoy.” She nodded to the immaculate butler. “Coffee, please, Pierce. Brandy in the library.”
“My favorite is the climax: Park Street Station. The murderer races across the tracks and gets mashed by a speeding trolley.”
“Nonsense,” Mary said firmly.
“Fact.”
“There’s no such beast as a speeding trolley.”
“It’s one of the more realistic scenes.”
They drank coffee in comfortable silence. Spraggue leaned back in his chair, felt the day’s tensions slowly melt. His eyes did a quick survey of the rosewood-paneled dining room, stayed fixed on the familiar Degas.
The Chestnut Hill place was his—dining room, library, and all the thirty-odd other rooms. It was part of the loot left by his robber-baron great-grandfather, chock-full of family ghosts and heirlooms. He couldn’t live there; its hugeness mocked his solitude, inquired after a nonexistent wife and unborn children. Alone, he rattled around like a penny in a strongbox. So Mary lived there for him, Mary with her wondrous cook, her devoted butler, her quick game player’s mind, and her ticker-tape machines.
“When’s your flight?” she asked gently.
“Ten. The red-eye special.”
Spraggue took her arm to lead her to the library, a courtesy only. At seventy, Mary Spraggue Hillman looked frailer than she was. The red still warred with the creeping silver in her hair. She settled in her usual chair, a green velvet wing-backed job near the bow window. Spraggue sprawled on the matching couch. Pierce heated brandy, served it in crystal snifters.
“To business,” Mary said, shifting gears after a single sip. “I want to help. I like Kate. I’m good at asking questions, mostly because no one takes us dithery old ladies seriously.”
“I take you seriously.”
“You’d be a fool not to. I’m a damn good financial adviser. Do you think Brent’s wife was really holding out on you?”
“Ex-wife. She seemed uncomfortable. She kept her own counsel.”
“Works in a hospital? I feel an urge for volunteer work coming on.”
“Be subtle. But let me know if she’s planning any sudden vacations.”
“I’m always subtle when I have the time.”
“And speaking of hospitals …” Spraggue’s voice trailed off momentarily. “Still have your WATS line?”
“Where do you want me to call?”
“Napa. Phone hospitals, clinics, every health-care facility within a fifty-mile radius, and find out if Grady Fairfield was a patient within the past six months.”
“Just whether or not she was a patient?”
“What I’m after is admittance records: Was she brought in as an emergency case or scheduled?”
“Just for my own curiosity …” Mary began.
“An abortion or a miscarriage.”
“Ah … I suppose I could impersonate a Blue Cross bureaucrat.”
“I’ll nominate you for a Tony award.”
“What else can I do?”
“Get me the gossip on corporate takeovers in the wine industry.”
“Simple enough.”
“Pay special attention to United Circle Industries. And a Mr. Baxter. Kate says he’s been nosing around, making offers—”
“On Holloway Hills?”
“Right. She said he was persistent.”
“No doubt why they employ him.”
“Excuse me.” Pierce could have been standing in the doorway for two seconds or two hours, so silently did he open and close doors. “A collect call for Mr. Spraggue. From someone named Howard. The gentleman sounds a bit—”
“Frantic? Unglued? He always is,” Spraggue said. “Could be anything from a stuck fermentation to a sliver in his little finger.”
“You could take it upstairs, Michael. Or I could move to the solarium.”
“I’ll get it here. Stay put.” Spraggue crossed the room to his great-grandfather’s desk, a hunk of mahogany that hadn’t been moved since the six van-men first set it in the center of the oriental rug. He picked up the receiver and slid into the leather swivel chair.
“Everything okay, Howard?”
“Is that you, Mr. Spraggue? Thank goodness. I didn’t know … Operator? I have my party now. Operator?”
“Howard,” Spraggue said firmly. “What can I do for you?”
“Uh … thank you for taking the call, for accepting the charges, I mean. I’m at home, you see. At the Inn.…”
“Any problem?”
“The police …” Howard’s voice cracked. “The police have been at the winery … almost all day. Poking and prying. They won’t say what they want, and I can’t keep them out. They say they’ve got a search warrant … or they can get a search warrant.…”
“It’s okay, Howard.” Spraggue raised his eyes to the high-beamed ceiling.
The winemaker’s next words came out in a rush. “Is it true Lenny’s dead? Murdered?”
“Yes.”
“And Miss Holloway’s in jail.”
“Kate didn’t kill him.”
“Of course not … uh … I didn’t mean … What I wanted to say is … It’s one thing taking over if Lenny’s missing … but if he’s dead! I … uh … I’m going away, Mr. Spraggue.”
“Going away?”
“Up to Ukiah, maybe. Start somewhere else.”
“Because Lenny’s dead?”
“You don’t understand, Mr. Spraggue. Someone’s killing people here in the valley, and I’m … I’m too nervous to take that. I see things … hear things … Everyone looks like a killer to me, people I’ve known for years.…”
“Howard, Ukiah’s no safer—”
“Don’t tell me that! People are always trying to convince me of nonsense like that! Saying it’s no safer in the country than it is in the city, no safer, in Napa than it is in San Francisco. Saying you could get hit by a milk truck crossing the street. I’m no idiot; I know about probability. Can’t you see I have to leave? Those psycho-killers—they’re repeaters. And Lenny was a winemaker.… Maybe somebody’s got a grudge against winemakers.… I’m in danger!”
“The police aren’t even sure the two deaths are related. I need you, Howard. At least give me two weeks notice.”
“Two weeks! It’s not good for my health, Mr. Spraggue. My heart’s beating too fast. I can’t seem to calm down. Not since the police—”
“Please.”
“One week.” Howard’s voice was faint. “I’ll try to give you one more week, if nothing happens. If anyone else dies, I’m leaving. My bags are packed.”
“Thank you, Howard. I’ll be back in Napa late tonight. We’ll talk in the morning.” He hung up while the receiver still yelped, closed his eyes and shook his head.
“Bad news?” Mary asked quietly.
“Can you make wine?”
“I only drink it.”
“Bad news.” Spraggue deserted the desk, recovered his brandy and took a healthy gulp.
“Do you know who killed Lenny Brent?” Mary asked.
Spraggue sat on the couch and stifled a yawn, then ticked off the response on his fingers. “Kate Holloway. Because Lenny didn’t please her in bed. Number two: Alicia Brent. Because Lenny wouldn’t buy braces for his kids’ teeth. Numberthree: Grady Fairfield. Lenny wouldn’t vacate her apartment. Number four: Phil Leider. Lenny ditched Leider for Holloway Hills. Number five: George Martinson. Lenny despised reviewers and they despised him. Number six: Mrs. George Martinson. She h
ates Lenny’s guts and I’m not sure why. Number seven: Howard Ruberman. To get his job back. Number eight—”
“Lenny had swarms of enemies.”
“It might be easier to figure out who didn’t have a reason to kill him.”
“Then it seems to me,” Mary said, “that we are concentrating on the wrong aspect of the case. We ought to be delving into the other man’s background, the first victim’s. Perhaps he was less unpopular than Lenny. Possibly there might be only a single intersecting point in the graph of those who despised Lenny and those who hated our mystery man.”
“No identification,” Spraggue said. “No ID: no suspects. We can’t know who hated him until we know who he was.”
“Exactly,” Mary said with some satisfaction. “Pierce, fetch this young man more brandy. I have always maintained that fine spirits stimulate the thinking process.”
“Sleep helps, too,” Spraggue said.
“Nonsense. People spend entirely too much of their lives unconscious. Four hours of sleep per night has always been enough for me.”
“But you,” Spraggue said, grinning, “are unusual.”
“Very true, dear boy. Now, Pierce, sit down and pour yourself a glass. And let’s consider how to identify a headless corpse.”
13
“Kate wants you.”
“Huh?”
“It’s Bradley, from the sheriff’s office. Did I wake you? I’m sorry—”
“Hold it. Hold it. What time is it?” Spraggue sat up and wondered how the phone had gotten into his hand.
“Almost ten. I thought you’d …”
Ten … ten o’clock Monday morning. Spraggue breathed in deeply and shook his head from side to side, hoping the sudden movement would clear it.
“Okay,” he said. “Start over.”
“Miss Holloway’s been asking—demanding, really—to see you since yesterday. Enright’s planning to ignore the request, but he’s not here right now.”
“How long will he be gone?”
“Wish I knew. Couple hours, I think.”
“I’ll be there. Thanks.” Spraggue hung up the phone and looked around.
Sun poured in through Kate’s bedroom window. Had he left the curtains open by design, hoping the light would wake him? Doubtful; last night he’d been too tired for conscious thought. And his subconscious had led him straight to Kate’s bed, not to the guest room. Spraggue raised one eyebrow and disentangled himself from the covers.
The damned muffins were rock-hard. He contented himself with a long swig of orange juice from the cardboard carton he’d picked up at the all-night grocery, washed, dressed, and took off.
“Can we talk?” he said to Bradley thirty minutes later, glancing significantly at the chain-smoking sweet-faced secretary and recalling snatches of last night’s parley with Mary and Pierce.
“My office.” Bradley led the way to a cubicle no bigger than a closet, with a tiny desk crammed against one windowless wall. He sat in the single chair. “Well?”
“What can I offer for a glance at the file on your headless man?”
“It’s worth zip.”
“I still want a look.”
“If you come up aces, you tell me before you tell Enright.”
“My pleasure.”
“I need to rack up a few points with Sheriff Hughes.”
“I’ll put in a word.”
Bradley stood, stretched. “Think I’ll have a cup of coffee,” he said loudly. Then he whispered, “First drawer on the right. Only takes me five minutes for coffee, but that’ll be plenty of time, believe me. Then you’d better get upstairs to the jail.”
“Thanks.”
“If Enright shows up while you’re in here, I never saw you. I don’t even know you.”
They changed places. Bradley closed the door and Spraggue fought off claustrophobia.
A few sheets of flimsy paper stuck in a manila folder; that was all Mr. X’s file amounted to. The Napa County Medical Examiner had thus far left blank every space on the death certificate that called for conjecture or conclusion. Notes were affixed with paper clips, stating that the body had been so badly mauled that special care was needed, special care requiring extra time. Organs and blood samples had to be sent to various Bay Area labs, better-equipped labs than those immediately available.
Spraggue rested his head on his hands, read on. What did they know about the nameless, headless corpse? An approximate age: 22–24 years; an approximate height: 5 feet, 10 inches; an approximate weight: 155 pounds; no distinguishing scars.
Armed with that scant knowledge, the sheriff’s people had plowed through the state’s missing persons reports, then the region’s, then the entire country’s. One possibility in Arkansas, but just as they’d been about to contact the family, the missing man had turned up with a tale of amnesia and alcohol breath. None of the others had even been close.
Footsteps rang up the corridor. Spraggue had the file closed and back in the drawer before the door handle stopped turning.
Lieutenant Bradley raised a finger to his lips. He barely had room to turn around. “News,” he said.
“Enright?”
“Just got a cause of death on John Doe. Preliminary. Report’s on the way from San Francisco.”
“And?” Spraggue prompted.
“Poisoned.” Bradley stared down at a three-by-five card. “Sulfur dioxide. How’s that grab you?”
“As a horrible way to go.”
“I think I know how it’ll grab Enright. As an out. A perfect excuse to treat the two deaths separately. Which does not look good for your lady.”
“Right.”
“I’m betting he’ll jump at some kind of chemical-dump scandal. Not our case at all, a guy ditched here from some other county—”
“By somebody who just happened to know about the abandoned wreck in my vineyard.”
“Logic never stops him. You’d better get up to see Miss Holloway. I’ll tell Enright you terrified me, yelling all those legal terms at me.”
“He won’t fire you?”
“Not like he would if he found out you saw that file.”
They shook hands. There was probably a quicker way to get to the jail from Bradley’s office, but Spraggue went all the way outside and started again with the left-hand door.
The jail was too modern to intimidate anyone, too obviously on the third floor to qualify for dungeon status. Still, when the steel bars clanged behind him, Spraggue felt the urge to flee. He straightened imperceptibly, walked on quickly, gave his name and objective at the next pass point. The guard called down to Bradley, performed a brief but thorough search, escorted him to a tiny barracks-green room, empty except for three folding chairs and a round wooden table.
“Wait here.”
Spraggue sank into a seat, tapped his heels against the metal chair rungs.
It took a long five minutes for Kate to appear, Kate in washed-out shapeless green cotton, too short for her, with her long dark hair twisted up harshly, anchored with barrettes and rubber bands over her colorless face. The female guard accompanying her wore way too much makeup, as if to stress every difference between herself and the prisoners.
“Five minutes,” the guard said sharply. “And no touching,” she added, too late. But when Spraggue leaned back from the kiss, the guard’s wide, over-red mouth was smiling at him.
Kate jammed her hands into the pockets of her smock, ignored the chairs. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Nobody told me you wanted to see me. Not until Bradley woke me up an hour ago.”
Her shoulders came down a notch. “Oh.”
“Am I too late?”
“Just about. My lawyer says I could get bail in about thirty seconds.”
“I think you should stay put.”
“Then you’ve got to do something for me.”
“What?” Spraggue said cautiously.
“Tonight, at eight o’clock, a tasting at Phil Leider’s house; you have to take my
place.”
“I think I’d rather be in a cell.”
“I’ll switch. Gladly.” She kept her voice low, but the intensity was electric. Spraggue wanted to touch her shoulder. The guard’s heavily shadowed eyes warned him off.
“Spraggue,” Kate said, “this tasting is important to me. To us. It’s a horizontal blind tasting of ’77 Cabernet, and we are honored to be included—”
“I don’t know shit about the ’77 Cabernet. Send Howard.”
She laughed shortly. “You want Howard representing you? Howard driving everyone nutty, falling over chairs, upsetting wineglasses?”
“I see your point.”
“At least you’re presentable.”
“Thanks.”
“Get Howard to lend you his cellar book. All the information’s there: fermenting, aging—”
“Will Howard give it up?”
“No problem. Howard’s not Lenny. God, Lenny wouldn’t let the damned thing out of his sight. He practically chained it to his wrist. Not even the cellar crew could touch it.”
“Was it a big, tan, leather-bound—”
“Edged in gold,” she said bitterly. “Did he have it clutched to his bosom when you found him?”
Spraggue wished the guard unconscious, willed her into the far reaches of the Sahara. Kate, who never cried, had turned away, her shoulders wracked with sobbing. She feigned a sneezing attack and fumbled a wrinkled Kleenex out of her pocket. When he touched her shoulder, she shuddered and flinched away.
“Kate …”
“Don’t. Don’t look at me. Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m okay … really … It’s just this damn place … Just being locked in a cell … Talk about something else … Tell me about the crush …”
“I haven’t even checked on Howard.”
“Too busy playing cop.” Her smile, wobbly, but game, collapsed into another flow of tears.
“I searched your room,” Spraggue said slowly, deliberately. He’d never meant to tell her, but it was one guaranteed way to turn those unexpected tears to anger. Anger he could deal with.
“I thought you believed me. I wouldn’t have loaned you the car if—”
“You could have had an accomplice. He could have hidden the body in the car.”
“Did you search the room next to mine, Spraggue? Did you find what you wanted? Am I guilty if Lenny was my lover? Or am I guilty if I have a lover, period?” Her chin jutted out at a familiar angle. “Who taught you how to trust, Spraggue?”