A Tainted Finish: A Sydney McGrath Mystery

by Horn, Rachael

  “Hi, baby,” he cooed, offering Syd a wet kiss. Syd side stepped to dodge him and grabbed his arm around her shoulder to hold him up.

  “Whoa, big fellah,” she said, bracing to hold him steady. “Maybe it's time for you to call it a night?” she asked. She exchanged glances with Charlie, who looked less empathetic. She had been babysitting him all afternoon.

  Olivier showed up at out of nowhere at Syd's elbow as she tried to pry the tumbler out of Marcus's hand. “I can help with this,” he said softly. He patted Marcus on the shoulder and put an arm around him, ready to bear his weight. She hadn't seen Olivier all afternoon and now he was coming to her rescue again. Syd watched them walk away. Marcus was taller and had a larger frame. She thought they looked like a panther and a St. Bernard. Olivier deftly managed to lead Marcus down the stone steps and onto the garden path. After thirty seconds, Marcus suddenly stopped, almost falling over.

  “Hey Syd!” he called out, slurring and turning back at her. “Joe Donner said he wanted to talk to you today.”

  She waved him off and Olivier took him into the house.

  “I bet he does,” Charlie hissed. “Succubus.” She was obviously not sober herself. Syd hooked her arm and led her away.

  They made their way to the bar for a glass of water for Charlie. She already pointed out the exchange of cash between the bartender and guests for bottles that had already been purchased for the open bar. “Corruption is everywhere,” she said, winking when they saw one of the business suits bribe the bartender for a bottle of scotch. Jack Bristol stood patiently in line to place an order for another gin and tonic, following the rules of the game. He looked sideways at Syd. He was talking softly to a red-headed critic who eyed Syd with unveiled loathing as she approached. Jack rocked back and forth, looking agitated.

  “Nice speech,” Charlie slurred, sarcastically.

  Jack looked at Syd and ignored her. “Will I see you at the reading of the will Monday morning, Syd?” he asked.

  “Mmmm,” She nodded, trying to convey her reluctance to talk in front of Joe Donner.

  “You have read the will, of course?” he asked tentatively.

  “Nope,” she said, shaking her head. His mouth opened in shock. Next to him Joe Donner feigned indifference, his blue eyes searched the sky in boredom, but Syd sensed him hanging onto to her every word.

  “Uh, well you might want to read it before Monday,” Jack stammered. He turned to Joe Donner with distaste. “He has left something for you as well, it seems.”

  Joe Donner raised his auburn eyebrows incredulously. “Really?” he asked in surprise. He looked back at Syd with wide eyes.

  “Maybe a thank you for all of your kind words over the years,” Charlie snarled at him, reaching for a glass of water from the bartender. Syd saw him glance sharply at Charlie in a flash of loathing and then recover his expression, wearing the same fake smile he had before. Syd thought he only reserved his dislike for herself. She remembered her uncle's old fight with Joe Donner years back. He noticed her staring at him, and his eyes flashed again, this time with a triumphant amusement.

  “What is it?” Joe asked, turning his back on Syd and Charlie.

  “I'm not privy to the contents of the envelope, Mr. Donner,” Jack said, his voice dripping in disdain.

  “It's an envelope,” Joe Donner said. He smiled charmingly at Jack. Jack bristled and frowned.

  “Yes, but this is hardly the time or place to discuss this,” Jack said. He glanced at Syd near his right elbow.

  Joe Donner shrugged dismissively. He glanced at Syd and nearly snarled then recovered rapidly while she observed with interest. He looked comical to Sydney, like a troll. He was smug and triumphant in one moment and furious in the next, followed by a practiced mask of pleasantness. His micro-expressions transfixed her and she studied his face with newfound interest.

  “You can mail it to my office in Seattle then. I'm going back tonight,” he replied to Jack in a strained, high voice, his expression calm and pleasant. He turned to look at Syd.

  “And please accept my sincere condolences. Clarence and I had our differences, but he’s always been a person of interest for me.” He bowed his head and turned on his heels.

  “Marcus said you wanted to speak with me?” Syd asked, low and calm. The critic turned and looked back over his shoulder.

  “It seems I’ve gotten what I wanted,” he replied, not bothering with the courtesy of looking her in the eye. Syd winced at his oily voice, filled with triumph. He walked away bouncing on his toes and Syd forced down involuntary bile in her throat.

  “Icky, icky, yuck, yuck!” Charlie exhaled out while they watched him disappear into the group of writers, charming them with handshakes and bidding them farewell.

  Jack cleared his throat. “He’s a silly man.”

  “A snake,” Charlie interrupted with a contorted face.

  Jack ignored her again. “But he’s not someone to worry about Syd. Your uncle thought he was ridiculous. Anyway, I'm quite concerned that you haven’t read the will yet. Had you read it you may not have made your. . .uh. . .announcement today.” He sighed wearily through a furrowed brow.

  Syd looked at him and chose her words carefully. “So you believe that something in the will would shine light on my uncle’s death?” Her voice was treacherously low, anger and frustration bubbling into her mind as she endured his patronizing tones and implications. She swallowed hard.

  “See, I'm not so certain that the will can reveal much about his death. I didn’t read it, true. But I did have a nice chat with Paul. About insurance policies and their recipients who benefit from my uncle's death.” She left him standing with his mouth open, Charlie stumbling at her heels.

  Chapter 14

  Sunday morning proved to be a day of recovery for everyone. Syd awoke a little before nine, and the house was quiet. She knew Marcus would be sleeping it off, but she half-expected the buzz of the day before to fill the morning. Instead, the house was silent and the kitchen clean, thanks to Rosa, no doubt. She was left to make her own coffee. She had taken an Ambien the night before, more as an excuse to repel Marcus’s drunken, affectionate advances than for sleep. But she was glad she did. She woke up feeling more focused and alive than she had since she arrived.

  She sat on the deck nursing her coffee, with a quilt from the spare room upstairs wrapped around her. On her lap she held the red folio she had been avoiding all week. The morning was eerily quiet, no bird song or distant engines. No neighbor's shotgun fire or worker chatter from nearby vineyards echoed in the morning air. A thick layer of clouds moved into the Gorge overnight and she could hardly see to the bottom of her neighbor's vineyard, let alone the river. The chill made her shiver, and she huddled herself closer under the quilt and drained her mug. She mulled over the surreal events of the day before.

  Jim had agreed with her. He had the autopsy report and he was certain Clarence was murdered. He had come to the same conclusion without knowing anything that she knew. He hadn't known about the insurance policies, the mysterious meeting in the vineyard behind their winery, or the plane accident in June. She was meeting with Jim later that afternoon to discuss everything with him. The last thing he said to her before he left the night before was that she needed to wait for him before she did anything else. He was concerned for her safety. She shivered again under the quilt and jumped suddenly at the sound of the scraping of the chair next to her.

  “Sorry, I did not mean to frighten you,” said Olivier. He reached for the empty mug she held. “I thought you heard me in the kitchen.” He poured steaming coffee into her mug from a large french press and followed it with a splash of cream from a porcelain creamer dish. He turned and set the french press and the creamer down on the ledge next to him. He turned back and sat with his elbows resting on his knees, holding his coffee silently. She felt an urgency to say something, like he was waiting for her to speak. They sat in silence for minutes before he cleared his throat.

  “Your mother'
s quilt,” he said, nodding at the old quilt she had cocooned around herself.

  “What?” She looked down incredulously at the blanket wrapped around her.

  “Oh, um, I believe that your mother made that quilt. We have a few of them at home too. She was a talented woman.”

  “My mother made this quilt? My mother?” Syd felt a wave of resentment and frustration wash over her.

  Olivier realized he was on shaky ground but didn't know how to recover. “Yes. I had one like it on my bed as a kid. The Uco Valley can get chilly.”

  “Unbelievable,” she said, shaking her head. She was suddenly furious. How could she not know she was sitting huddled under a quilt made by her own mother? Did Clarence keep everything from her?

  “You have read this then,” he said, gesturing at the red folio.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, you are clearly angry. At me, it seems.” He paused, looking down at his hands. “I have been expecting it.”

  “Actually, I haven't.” He looked up at her, astonished.

  They locked eyes, each trying to read the other. He stood up suddenly, exasperated.

  “Well, when you have, please come and discuss it with me. I won't be there tomorrow for the reading. I have to get that Petit Verdot myself. No trucks are available. Everyone is rushing to get fruit off before the rain. We will have to process it in the afternoon. Alejandro will have the crush pad set up so you don't need to do anything.” He spoke stiffly and turned on his heels. She didn't watch him go, but she followed the clacking of his boots on the gravel road until they vanished.

  She stared a good long time at the files in her lap before she found the courage to open them.

  ~

  Jim came over later in the afternoon with the autopsy report and a list of suspects. He also explained that he may not be the lead detective on the case. The sheriff was concerned about his closeness to the family and he was unsure if he was going to be forced to hand over the case to the only other detective in the department, the man who happened to supervise Jim Yesler. As a deputy detective, he might not have a choice. But for the time being, he was going to help out as best he could while he still was in charge of it. He had mixed feelings about including Syd in the investigation. It wasn't exactly up to regulation, but his instincts told him she would be a valuable asset, and the case could be reassigned at any moment. At least he would have better access to information without having to cull through as many lies as he usually faced in an investigation. He was also aware that her eagerness to find the murderer was fueled by a suspended grief, and the sooner she could find resolve, the sooner she could move on.

  Syd shared the information she gathered from Jack and Paul Renquest and compared it to Jim’s list, crossing people off who were not around or who had little motive and adding a few others who stood to gain from her uncle’s passing. She sensed that Jim was reluctant to include her in his investigation, but she found he was more eager to get information that only she could gather to get the case solved efficiently.

  “Not Alejandro or Rosa,” she said, pointing at their names on his list. She picked at the skin on her lip and he raised his eyebrows. She reached over and slid the list across the kitchen table and crossed their names off.

  “But he's at the top now, Syd.” He wrote Olivier's name at the top.

  She scowled and shook her head.

  “He has the most motive, Syd. He discovered the bod...he found him. He was here the entire time. The will makes it kind of obvious”.

  “It’s impossible, Jim. I'm mad as hell about the will, but I've watched him and he loved my uncle. I’m certain of it.”

  Jim drummed his fingers on the table. He was beginning to regret including her.

  “I know it looks obvious but there's more at play here.” She made an effort to keep her voice steady. “What about the plane? That happened before he arrived this summer.”

  “We don't know that yet and we don't know that the plane accident was sabotage. And we don't know anything about his connection with your uncle. What we do know is that someone held Clarence down in that tank of wine with the intention of making it look like an accident. A person with strong hands. A person who knows something about winemaking. I'm going to start questioning him first. And no, you can’t come with me.”

  Syd scowled, but felt she had gained some kind of leeway by keeping Rosa and Alejandro out of the investigation for the time being. She watched Jim leave and head up to the winery. She knew he was going to question Olivier and that it wasn’t going to be pleasant. But she found herself giving in to the logic behind Jim’s argument. He who stood the most to gain was the obvious first suspect.

  Syd spent the remainder of the day in a chair by the window, reading over Clarence's harvest prep lists and his notes of the summer blending trials. She found them scribbled in a notebook in his desk. She read Olivier's name more than a few times, with comments in the margins about his excellent nose or his talent for developing a perfect finish in a blend. Apparently, Olivier had been a part of almost all of the winery's operations since his arrival. It was also apparent to Syd that the will was not a last-minute whim, but the product of a well-thought-out plan that included grooming Olivier for the job as the primary winemaker.

  She remained silent and withdrawn through the dinner that Charlie and Marcus had pulled together from the leftovers of the memorial. An hour earlier she watched Jim and Olivier leave the winery and head down toward the trailer. She kept an ear out for Jim through dinner but heard nothing. Their interview had lasted for hours, and she knew that it must end soon. She lay her head down on the table and listened to the banter between Charlie and Marcus. She fell asleep almost immediately.

  Charlie must have taken her to bed, because she woke up a few hours later to Marcus attempting to crawl into bed with her.

  Chapter 15

  The next day was as gray as the day before, threatening rain. Syd woke up with the familiar pain in her chest that she tried to ease with a few moments of meditation on the deck, but the oppressive gray only made her feel heavier. She knew the day ahead was going to be terrible. Charlie was in danger of losing her job if she didn't return to the city and had made plans to leave. Marcus had left late the night before after their worst fight, which happened when she shrugged off his attempts at intimacy again. He was hurt and petulant, demanding that she give him some sign that she needed him. She responded with a plea for independence and some time to figure out her uncle's murder without having to deal with his emotional demands. He wanted her to agree to leave the investigation to the police, but she refused. He begged her to return with him, and she told him that she might not be returning at all. It was news to her as well. She only realized what she was saying after she said the words out loud. She hadn’t really come up with a plan for the future, but she also hadn’t allowed herself time to think about what would happen next. The will and the insurance money certainly changed everything for her. She was financially set for life now and she wouldn’t need to keep her job in Seattle; a job she knew she may have already lost. She hadn't checked in with the restaurant in a week. But more than anything she had the winery to contend with.

  She sat next to Charlie on a damp deck chair under her mother's quilt with a steaming mug of coffee. It was still early, and the clouds rolled over the river and settled like clustered cotton balls. The air was thick and cool. It smelled of rotting vegetation and wet earth.

  “How are you going to work this out?” Charlie asked, shivering.

  “Well, I think your dad will do most of it. I'm just going to let him know what happens at the reading of the will today, I think.”

  “No, Syd. I meant how are you going to share the winery with this guy?”

  Syd sighed. “I've got no idea. I haven't thought about it. Your dad didn't arrest him last night or even take him in for questioning. And he's gone now. The truck’s gone, so I assume he left to get grapes this morning as planned. So he must have convin
ced your dad he wasn’t a flight risk.”

  “Or he took the truck to leave.”

  Syd shook her head adamantly. “No, Olivier’s invested. He cares so much about this winery already. It’s so weird, Charlie, but this guy seems more in love with this place than I am. Like he belongs here.” She thought of the scribbles in Clarence's notebook.

  “He does not belong here, Syd. I mean, who the hell is he?” Syd furrowed her eyebrows. “He's the guy who inherited my family winery. Half of it. With me. A guy who I’ve never met before and have never heard of. A guy who loved my uncle. A guy who had a quilt on his bed as a kid that my mother made. He's the guy who stands the most to gain by my uncle's death, according to your dad. He's the guy who’s held me twice while I sobbed. He kept the winery running this last week during all the chaos. He dry-cleaned my suit and slept in my old room, but promptly moved out to the trailer during all the commotion, probably just so I’d have a place to stay. I have no fucking clue who he is, Charlie. But I'm pretty certain he didn't kill my uncle.”

  “But the police think otherwise, Syd. He’s their primary suspect right now.”

  “Yeah, yeah. And I'm really pissed off that he inherits the airplane. Why on earth would Clarence do that? Olivier doesn't fly. Jesus, maybe he does.”

  “See? You don't even know him,” Charlie mumbled into her mug.

  Syd brooded in her own dark thoughts. She savagely pulled the skin off of her lower lip while Charlie chatted about her plans to return later in the week. She had a big gala event to attend in two days for the magazine launch of their mutual friend, Michelle. They had attended sommelier classes with Michelle and were often considered a trio in their debaucheries and schemes. But Michelle was a wonder-woman with ambitions to create a print magazine devoted to the world of wine and spirits in a time when print publications were going under by the week. She pursued her dream with dogged determination, and Syd and Charlie were looking forward to attending her launch party. The who's who of the industry would show up; a smorgasbord for Charlie's appetite for human folly. But Syd could see no way to return to Seattle any time soon. She was honored that Michelle attended the memorial, despite the fact that it was just a few days before her magazine launch. But Syd would have to miss the party, regardless of how much she was looking forward to it only a week before.