Blood on the Vine

by Jessica Fletcher

  Raoul arrived as we were about to vacate the table. He’d purchased two of my novels in hardcover, prompting Ladington to berate him for not buying more.

  “The others were in paperback,” Raoul said. “You said to only get the ones with hard covers.”

  Raoul departed with the others, leaving Ladington and me alone in the dining room. He placed the books before me and I signed them to him and his wife.

  “You just sold a couple of your books, Jessica,” he said. “You made a few bucks coming out here today.”

  “Yes, I suppose I did. Could Raoul take me back to the inn now?”

  “Nonsense! You haven’t been here long enough to get to see the place. Come on, I’ll give you a tour of the vineyards, show you how good wine is made.”

  I was tempted to insist upon leaving, but remembered that I’d intended to learn about wine making as a possible backdrop for a novel. Besides, I still had time to kill before George would arrive.

  “All right,” I said. “Show me how good wine is made.”

  Chapter Nine

  “... and that’s what makes a truly fine cabernet, Jessica.”

  We’d been walking through one of his vineyards for almost an hour. During that time he’d pointed out with pride certain aspects of the Ladington Creek approach to growing grapes and turning them into award-winning wine. He showed me how to use a refractometer, a handheld instrument that allows light to pass through a drop of grape juice. “See?” he said as I read a graduated scale on the refractometer. “It reads in Brix units, the percent of sugar concentration in the juice. The sugar molecules bend the light and give the reading. It’s up to sixteen now.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means it’s time to keep a close eye on the grapes. Close to time to harvest them now. Maybe another week, ten days. That’s when the picking crew will come in. I don’t use machines to do the picking. No, sir. All by hand, and at night, too, when it’s cool.”

  His demeanor had changed from what it had been during lunch and the hour leading up to it. Then, he’d demonstrated brusqueness and arrogance bordering on outright meanness. Now, as the sun slipped lower into the western sky, casting long shadows over the land, he became increasingly reflective, almost gentle in his comments.

  “You see,” he said as we stood at the far end of the vineyard devoted to grapes for his award-winning cabernet sauvignons, “the key is to care about the wine you produce, treat it like the precious thing it is, not be satisfied with taking shortcuts to produce more of it to rake in bigger bucks. Hell, I could modernize this place so you’d think it was DuPont or some other big chemical factory. But that would rob my cabernet of its uniqueness. I turn out only about three thousand cases of cab every year. That’s a spit in the barrel compared to the big boys in the valley.”

  “You’re obviously very proud of what you’ve accomplished here,” I said.

  “You bet I am, but I’ll be even prouder once I get hold of a piece of that mountain over there and plant some of my new rootstock on it,” he said, pointing to the gray and gold slope of Halton Mountain. “See, Jessica, grapes love rock, especially shattered rock. You’ve got to use dynamite to shatter that rock, give it lots of crevices where the roots can grab hold. There’s soil a couple of hundred feet deep on that mountain, and down below there’s a gravel swath a couple of hundred feet wide. Used to be a riverbed. Most perfect spot on this earth to grow grapes. When you grow grapes under stressful conditions, you improve the taste. The grapes are smaller but sweeter, packed with flavor.”

  “I understand you’re not the only vintner who wants Halton Mountain,” I said.

  “You’ve picked up a lot in a short time.”

  “Well, actually I’m hoping to learn more, a little first-hand research I might use in my next mystery.”

  “I can help you there. I’m fighting people who won’t know what to do with that mountain if they ever get hold of it. There’s the conservationists raising hell, too. If it’s up to them, no more land in the valley can be used for growing grapes. They claim planting on hillsides like Halton Mountain causes soil erosion and the like. Not true, not if you know what you’re doing.”

  “And I don’t doubt you do, Bill. Know what you’re doing, that is.”

  “I appreciate the compliment, Jessica. Now I suppose you’ll be wanting to get back to your friends.”

  A glance at my watch told me he was right. It was almost four.

  “You didn’t ask about the murder at my restaurant,” he said flatly.

  “I didn’t think it was any of my business.”

  “It’s everybody’s business. Everybody ought to care about all these damn drugs our young people get involved with.”

  “Drugs were involved?”

  “That’s the way I see it. Used to be that the junkies and dealers stayed down in San Francisco and fried their brains, what they had of ‘em. But they’ve been running drugs up here into Napa Valley the last couple ’a years, always looking for new users, new markets.”

  “Was the waiter involved with drugs?” I asked.

  “That’s what some folks are saying. Can’t prove it by me. He was a nice enough kid. Didn’t seem like the sort who’d get involved with that junk, but I suppose you never can tell about young people these days. I know one thing. I’d like to find the bastard who killed him and have him alone for a few minutes. The State wouldn’t have to worry about a trial or anything. I’d take care of him myself.”

  Not wanting to feed into the topic of vigilante justice, I said instead, “Before I go, I’d like to know what it was you said you wanted to talk to me about. Obviously, it’s not how to make wine.”

  He rubbed a large hand over the stubble on his chin and nodded. “When I read you were going to be in Napa Valley for a week, I decided you might be the perfect person to help me write my autobiography.”

  “Me? No, that wouldn’t be possible. I write fiction, murder-mystery fiction. I don’t write nonfiction or collaborate or—”

  “The way I figure it, a good writer can write anything.”

  “And you figured wrong,” I said, laughing to take the edge off the comment. “No, Bill, I’m afraid I’m the wrong person. I’m sure you have a fascinating story to tell. You’ve been in the press for many years and—”

  “That’s the whole point, Jessica,” he said, a sad expression occupying his broad face. “All that press was when I was acting like a damn fool, running around Hollywood with a bunch of madmen, all the women, that sort of thing. No, I want to tell a different story about Bill Ladington.”

  “Which is?”

  “That I accomplished something worthwhile here at Ladington Creek. That I gave the world the best cabernet sauvignon it’s ever tasted.”

  I turned from him and looked out over the expanse of vineyard. He’d explained that he was about to begin “the pick,” the picking of grapes to be used to create the cabernet. “I bring in a crew only at night,” he’d told me. “Once a grape is off the vine, even a little sun can start the fermentation before they get to the crusher. The vineyard’s full of natural yeast. Costs me more to do the pick at night but that’s all right. Like I said, if you’re going to make a great wine, you have to care about how you do it more than your pocketbook.”

  He walked me back to the castle where Roger Stockdale, his business manager, stood next to a black BMW in the gravel driveway. “Roger will drive you back,” Ladington said. “Raoul’s off picking up somebody at the airport.”

  “Thank you for a lovely day,” I said, not entirely meaning it. His interaction with his family and business associates had been unpleasant, but I was grateful for the hour spent with him away from them.

  “Tell you what,” he said in a voice low enough so that Roger wouldn’t hear, “you come spend the rest of your time out here at the castle. I’ll give you all the secrets about wine making for your book. Be my houseguest. There’s a whole wing with four nice guest bedrooms. You spend some ti
me here, bring your friends, and see what I’m talking about. Then, if you decide you don’t want to write the story of Bill Ladington, wine maker, you can just head off and write your murder mysteries.”

  “Bill,” I said, offering my hand, “it’s been a pleasure meeting you. And I appreciate your confidence in me as a writer. But no, I couldn’t possibly write your book. As for staying here as your guest, it’s tempting, but my friends would be extremely disappointed if I left their B-and-B.”

  “Maybe you’d change your mind if you knew who Raoul is picking up at the airport later,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “Edith Saison.”

  My blank look said I didn’t know who she was.

  “My new business partner. Saison Winery? In Bordeaux? Never heard of it?”

  “No. I’m not terribly wine-literate, although I’m determined to correct that while in Napa.”

  “She’s bringing new cabernet varietals she and her beau have developed at their vineyard. Once they’re grafted to my rootstock—and planted on Halton Mountain—the world will get what I want to give them, the finest cabernet sauvignon ever produced, California, France, anywhere! It’s going to be a great story, Jessica. It’ll turn the wine world on its ear.”

  “I’m sure it will. Thanks again for inviting me.”

  I got in the front seat of the BMW with Stockdale and we pulled away. I looked back at Ladington, whose posture was less self-assured than when I’d arrived.

  “An interesting man,” I said after we’d crossed the moat and were headed back to Napa City.

  “Everyone who meets him for the first time says that, Mrs. Fletcher. It’s after you get to know him that you start coming up with other words to describe him.”

  I said nothing.

  “Bill’s a lot happier when his wife and son aren’t around,” Stockdale added. “A different person when they’re traveling, or down in Curaçao. Bill has a house there, in Daai Booi Bay.”

  “I’ve been to Curaçao,” I said. “It’s a lovely island, not as commercial as other islands in the area.”

  “Yeah, I like it, too. I get to spend a week there every year. One of the perks of working for Ladington Winery.”

  We didn’t discuss Bill Ladington for the rest of the trip, although I thought of virtually nothing else. Strange, how even the most abrasive, seemingly callous person can demonstrate a softer side, given the right situation. I can’t say I’d grown to like Ladington during our hour together in his vineyards, but he had mitigated, to some extent, my initial reaction to him.

  Oh well, I thought, it had been a fascinating exposure to a vineyard and its owner, and the odd assortment of people surrounding him. And I’d made a good beginning, learning something about wine making. Chalk it up as just another of life’s interesting moments.

  As we approached the Napa city limits, thoughts of Ladington became past tense, replaced by the pleasant contemplation of seeing the most interesting person in my life these days, George Sutherland.

  Chapter Ten

  I’d no sooner said good-bye to Roger Stockdale, entered Cedar Gables, and gone to my room to freshen up when one of the young college girls who worked part-time at the inn came to tell me I had a visitor. I took a look at myself in the mirror and bounded down the stairs. Sure enough, there he was, George Sutherland. I crossed the main parlor, stopped a few feet from him, and we both beamed.

  “As they say,” he said, “you are a bonny sight for sore eyes.”

  After a welcoming hug, I stepped back and took him in. He never seemed to change, even after long periods of not having seen each other. He wore his usual tweed sports jacket with leather patches at the elbows, a blue button-down shirt, muted green paisley tie, gray slacks that looked as though they had just come through a press, and ankle-high brown boots polished to a mirror finish.

  “I’m so pleased you’re here,” I said. “Easy drive—on the wrong side of the road?”

  “No problems. Piece of cake, as the saying goes. How was your day?”

  “Ah—interesting. I’ll fill you in over dinner. Come, let me show you the inn.”

  Margaret emerged from her office and I introduced them.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever met a real, live Scotland Yard inspector before,” she said.

  “That’s only when I’m in England,” George said pleasantly. “For this week in California, I’m simply George, Jessica’s friend and enthusiastic tourist.”

  “Fair enough,” said Margaret.

  “I was about to give him the tour,” I said.

  “I’ll do it,” Margaret said. “Bring your suitcase, George, and we’ll stop by your room first.”

  After we’d shown George the house and returned to the main parlor, Margaret suggested a restaurant for that evening, Chanterelle. “Very romantic,” she said slyly. “The owner, Karl, is a friend. I’ll call and make a reservation.”

  Two hours later George and I sat at one of the restaurant’s quiet comer tables and touched the rims of our wineglasses.

  “Here’s to a wonderful week together,” he said.

  “Yes. That’s worth toasting.”

  Over appetizers—Dungeness crab for me, portobello mushrooms for him—he said, “Tell me about what you did today. You said it was interesting.”

  “It may not seem as interesting to you as it was for me. Ever hear of William Ladington?”

  He frowned, then said, “The film director?”

  “Producer. He left Hollywood many years ago and bought a winery here in Napa Valley.”

  “An interesting switch in careers. Was he successful?”

  “Yes, and still is. He’s very much alive, although he’s nearing eighty. I had lunch with him today at his castle.”

  “Castle? A real one?”

  “Yes, from when the Spanish occupied the valley.”

  “Is it as large as my family castle in Wick?”

  “Bigger. He has a moat.”

  George burst out laughing. “A moat? With crocodiles?”

  I laughed, too. “No, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if Ladington had included a few crocs.”

  “Was Mr. Ladington a pleasant host?”

  “Not at first. He treats people who work there, and his family, like a Prussian general. Very off-putting. But he gave me a tour of his vineyards after lunch and I saw a different man, a very proud man, passionate about his work. I grew almost to like him. He invited me—us—to be his guests at the castle for the week.”

  “That’s intriguing? Are we going to stay there?”

  “Oh, no. We’re staying at Cedar Gables. Margaret is such a delight. You’ll meet Craig, her husband, when we go back.”

  The owner, Karl, personally took our order. He recommended the venison, but I opted instead for hazelnut-crusted rack of lamb; George chose baked Chilean sea bass. We settled in for a leisurely dinner, catching each other up on what had been going on in our respective lives since we last spoke, recalling times spent together in London, especially the first time we’d met, during the investigation of Dame Marjorie Ainsworth’s murder, and the trip I’d taken with Cabot Cove friends to his family castle in northern Scotland. Unfortunately, a murder had taken place there, too.

  “I think we should make a pledge to each other, Jessica,” George said after the waiter had removed our empty wine bottle and poured coffee.

  “What are we pledging?” I asked.

  “To not allow murder to intrude ever again on our time together.”

  “I hereby pledge,” I said.

  “And so do I.”

  Craig and Margaret were sitting on a small patio off the kitchen when we arrived. The black sky was filled with stars; classical music played softly from a portable radio on a table. After George was introduced to Craig, we joined them on the patio where the only illumination came from two flickering candles. As I sat next to George I felt like a schoolgirl out on a date, sitting quietly next to someone special in my life and with old friends, no one speak
ing, content after a wonderful meal, at peace with myself and with the world.

  Until a news bulletin broke into the musical program:

  We’ve just learned that former Hollywood film producer, and more recently owner of Ladington Creek Winery, William Ladington, has died at his home in Napa Valley. Details are sketchy at this moment. We’ll report more on his death as we receive further information.

  “You were just there!” Margaret said after an initial gasp.

  “I know.”

  “Did he appear to be ill to you?” Craig asked.

  “No. I mean, he was quite old, but he seemed vibrant, walked with a spring in his step, talked of his determination to produce the world’s finest cabernet. He did mention he had high blood pressure, but—”

  “What an unfortunate coincidence that you were with him today,” George said. “It must be upsetting.”

  “It certainly is shocking,” I said, taking a few deep breaths.

  “I wonder ...” Margaret said.

  “Wonder what?” Craig asked.

  “I wonder whether foul play might have been involved.”

  George and I looked at each other.

  “You’re wondering the same thing?” Margaret asked.

  “No,” I said. “George and I made a pledge at dinner tonight. No murders to intrude on our time together.”

  “Why are you talking about murder?” Craig asked his wife. “The man was eighty years old. He undoubtedly died of old age, pure and simple.”