She lay in bed for hours, falling in and out of a haunting sleep filled with strange images and a mood of despair. She wanted to hide in her dark room forever. She woke up from time to time, alarmed at the heavy presence of shame and guilt, which were so much more consuming than the grief she felt the past week. Grief was a numbing pain; a full body shadow of senses and a hollow hole in her chest. Grief was painful in a steady, weighted way, but this new feeling was excruciating. She had never felt the burden of such shame. She had known loss before. It was like a worn old blanket in a way; a relic of childhood memories with faded details and only wispy emotions coloring the present. But shame was entirely new to her. And she deserved all of it.
Her phone sat on the nightstand and vibrated loudly for the fifth time, dragging her out of a fitful sleep. She wildly flung her arm over to the table to shut it off, but she answered it instead, her guilt over not answering phone calls overtaking her.
“Hello?” she said in a hollow voice.
“Hey, Syd,” said Charlie. “Where have you been? I've been trying to call you all morning!” She sounded exasperated and relieved.
Syd’s mouth was dry and she couldn’t find her voice.
“Syd? You there? Are you okay?” Charlie asked, sounding more alarmed than ever. Syd’s reply sounded more like a grunt than words.
“Where are you?” Charlie yelled into the phone.
“Bed.” Syd croaked. She wondered if her throat was swollen shut.
“Are you sick?”
Syd reached for the glass of water on her table. It was full, but she didn't remember filling it up. She drained the glass. “I think I'm okay.”
“Uh, jesus, Syd. You sound terrible. I can't get down there today. I've got Michelle's magazine launch to go to. I'm so sorry, but they'll have my hide if I bail.”
“It's okay. I'm okay, really.” She vaguely understood that she was making Charlie more worried than ever.
“Listen, I'm going to be there tomorrow. Thursday morning, right?”
“Okay. He had cancer, Charlie.” Her voice sounded thin and lost.
“Who had cancer, baby?”
“Clarence. Clarence had cancer. Clarence had Stage IV pancreatic cancer.” Charlie was silent. Syd waited, feeling her throat close up again. “Charlie?” she choked out.
“Yeah, I'm here. Fuck, Syd. Fuck.”
“Yeah, and I ignored his calls.” Syd squeaked out of a dangerously closing throat. She gasped for air and sat up to catch her breath. Her eyes darted toward the door. The light in the crack beneath the door had darkened. Syd pulled her legs out from beneath the tangled sheets.
“Do me a favor, Charles? Bring me some clothes.” She pressed her phone to end the call and shuffled over to the door. Whoever was there before had gone.
~
Syd stayed curled up in bed for the remainder of the afternoon. Her visitor had left some water and a bottle of Advil, which she swallowed down over a sore throat every few hours. Her head throbbed and every joint hurt. She vaguely wondered if she was more than just hungover. She may have manifested a flu in her wretchedness. She slept fitfully, wandering in and out of strange dreams and painful awakenings. She preferred the strange surreal dreams of sleep to the purgatory of waking and the slow remembrance of her current reality.
Later, after a bizarre dream of waves churning in an endless sea, she awoke abruptly in the darkened room and shot up in bed. Her head throbbed, and she saw stars swirling around her head. She braced herself with her arms and lay down gently. She did not want to pass out again, even if it was on her own pillow. As she lay trying to hold on to consciousness, she smelled food and some other soothing aroma. Tea. She turned her head and saw a plate of hot buttered toast and mug of steaming tea next to her. Someone was looking after her. She vaguely remembered her conversation with Charlie on the phone. But it wasn’t Charlie taking care of her; she was in Seattle.
She gingerly sat up in bed and propped herself up on her pillows. She reached for the hot mug of tea, held it near her face, sipping it occasionally. She noted that her sinuses were blocked and she had a sore throat. The steam from the tea helped her breathe easier, but she felt her lungs rattle and wheeze with every breath. Her head was another story.
“Great,” she said out loud. She had come down with some kind of bug; a cold maybe. It was the bane of every winemaker and sommelier. She was utterly useless without her ability to smell properly, and during Crush it was a detrimental occupational hazard. She was even more useless to Olivier now. She felt herself sink into the sheets a bit, the weight of fresh shame bearing down on her. She savagely bit into some of the toast, and tried to wash it down with hot tea. Chewing the toast strangely amplified in her stuffy head and she hardly heard the voices in the other room above her chewing. Male voices talking softly. She stopped chewing and strained to catch bits of the conversation. Maybe three of them? She swallowed hard, her painful throat protesting. They were at the table in the dining room. Their conversation was intense, but not heated. She caught a trilled high-pitched voice through the walls fading in and out. It was Rosa. She must have been walking in and out of the kitchen. She listened harder for the sound of soft footsteps walking between the rooms. Syd inhaled in rasps, feeling weight in her lungs. She wanted to get up and see what was going on, but she also wanted to hide in bed. Hide. She realized she was embarrassed to show her face to whoever was out there. Rosa had known about her uncle's cancer. She stayed and took care of him while he was ill. And she must have known Syd had stubbornly stayed away. Olivier had told her that her uncle was holding on just to see Syd back at home. He was waiting for her to forgive him and move on, and she ignorantly and foolishly held on to her juvenile pride, as if she had all the time in the world. What really shamed her was that she truly had no plans to visit the winery at all that fall. She intended to forgo the drive down to the Gorge until after Crush. The intention was a deliberate punishment, a direct defiance of what she knew Clarence wanted. How could she face Rosa now?
She threw back her mother's quilt and pushed herself to the side of the bed with unexpected effort. She was fueled by guilt and curiosity that couldn't sit still any longer. Her feet found the cool wood floorboards, and she pushed herself up with her hands. She was dizzy and her entire head throbbed, but she held herself steady and found she could stand well enough after a few moments. After finding her bearings she gathered her jeans and a sweatshirt and slowly dressed herself with difficulty. She felt wretched.
She shuffled out into the kitchen only to be greeted by a cast of staring eyes. Jim and Olivier sat at the table, while Alejandro and Rosa stood in the kitchen doorway, their low and somber conversation having ground to a halt. They watched her approach to the table in slow motion with their mouths open.
“Oh, mi hija! You look awful!” Rosa said. She floated over to her and gently held the back of her hand to Syd's forehead. “You are burning up!” She turned and hurried off to the kitchen.
Syd shrugged and squinted at the men sitting at the table.
“What's going on?” she asked, sounding hoarse and foreign. Olivier got up and guided her to his chair. He stared at her with alarm.
“You are unwell?” he whispered with furrowed brows.
“I think I'm hungover,” she said thickly, straining to smile.
“You have a fever,” Rosa interjected. She said the v in a softened b that made Syd smile. She slid a thermometer into Syd’s mouth. Syd sat at the table with the others staring silently at her, feeling foolish and childlike with the thermometer poking painfully under her tongue. A moment later the table bulged strangely in the middle and started to move like boiling mud.
Rosa took the thermometer out of her mouth. “104,” she said loudly. She clucked her tongue and padded into of the kitchen. Syd glared at the faces in the room through glazed eyes. The light was harsh and the men looked like caricatures of themselves. Jim sat stoically with his hands folded in front of him. His face was waxy and stern, and yet his e
motion was seamlessly buttoned up, only revealing itself in the crease of his eyes and his knit brow. Olivier looked slight and impish next to Jim, his chiseled face contorted with genuine concern and surrounded by a halo of dark curls. Alejandro stood with his hands knitted over his rounded belly, patiently waiting with feigned placidity. All three men were fighting their own battles to hold it together and figure out the next step. Syd observed and noted each man's inner workings like geared clockworks. They watched her for what felt like an hour, but which must have been only enough time for Rosa to return with a bottle of Tylenol.
“I took some Advil already,” Syd said, brushing Rosa off with a drunken hand gesture. “Four.”
Rosa put a cool washcloth on Syd's head, and leaned Syd back against her torso, cradling her hot head. Syd closed her eyes, knowing that the roomful of men were watching her surrender to Rosa's competent hands.
“Well, that adds to it,” a deep voice muttered next to her. Was it Jim?
“Alejandro and me are his alibi, también,” Rosa said. “So there is no need to take him.” Syd could feel Rosa's voice vibrating through her sternum and through the back of her own head.
“I understand the position you are in,” Olivier said. “But you need to trust me that I will not be leaving the winery, especially not now with Sydney feeling ill. I know you have your investigation. But I have a winery to run. She cannot do it alone now, most certainly.” Syd pried one eye open to watch Olivier gesturing toward her, wincing.
Jim sighed. He splayed his hands out on the table. “In the meantime we will have the car looked into,” Jim said. “I don't think I need to tell you how important it is for you two to stay put. I have to get over to the hospital and get a statement. He's still in ICU. Rosa, you take care of her, will you? Olivier, it would be best if you leave the house and stay in the trailer.”
Olivier nodded and turned sharply on his heels. Syd followed his boot taps as they left the kitchen and pounded a steady bass on the deck outside.
“Rosa, he may have an alibi, but you need to understand that this is a murder investigation. And potentially attempted murder, now.” Jim raised his hand in protest before she could speak. “I don't want to jeopardize the winery, understand?” He looked up at Alejandro. “But this could be far more dangerous than we thought.” Syd made out a subtle jerk of his head in her direction.
Alejandro nodded. “I'll stay in the house,” he said.
Jim got up with a wrenching scrape of the chair and with a groan of his own. He leaned over and kissed Syd's hot head.
“See you later, kiddo. Drink lots of fluids. Charlie will be back tomorrow. Oh, she said to tell you that the Bahamas are lovely this time of year.” He shrugged.
The room suddenly felt like a window had opened when Jim Yesler left them huddled around the table. Rosa had been holding her breath and let out a deep sigh, while Alejandro sat down in Jim's empty seat. Syd tried to work out the last five minutes of conversation through her delirium. She realized her entrance had been timely and that her current state of health may have saved Olivier from a trip to sheriff's office. She also noted that Alejandro and Rosa were still not exactly on Olivier's side. Although they both genuinely liked Olivier – she was certain they did – she recognized a new degree of mistrust among them.
“Who’s in ICU?” she asked.
“Shhhh, mi hija,” Rosa answered, caressing her forehead.
“No, Rosa! What happened? Who’s in ICU?” She shrugged off the cloth on her head.
“Jack Bristol,” Alejandro said. “He was in a car accident. His brakes went out on Highway 141 and he went off the edge. His car was fifty feet down. It was held up by trees. He was lucky. It's a 300 foot drop to the river.”
“Jesus, is he okay?”
“He's in ICU. Doctors say he’ll be alright.”
“When did It happen?” she asked.
“Last night, around 8,” he said. “Jim came to ask about Olivier's whereabouts last night. Both Rosa and I saw him here. He was here all day. Jim thinks the car was tampered with. The brakes or something. Or maybe the computer.”
“So why does Jim think Olivier would want to harm Jack?” she asked.
“No idea. But he seems to have a reason. Jim doesn't trust him, that's for sure.”
“Jack doesn't either,” Syd muttered. She thought about Jim's gesture toward Alejandro, suggesting that she may not be safe from Olivier. She felt her cheeks growing hotter. “But I do. And so do you two. And Clarence did as well.” She swallowed hard, feeling less pain in her throat now.
“But maybe we are wrong?” Rosa whispered.
“Rosa! When we last talked you thought Clarence committed suicide.”
“I talked to Jim,” she said, wincing and clearly ashamed.
Syd felt her heart sink at the sight of Rosa's doubt. Rosa had defended Olivier to Jim, but Syd knew Jim had planted a seed of doubt that frightened Rosa to the core. Her maternal protection could allow her to distrust in a way that she would normally never entertain such ideas. Rosa's instincts were golden, and Syd could always count on Rosa to see right through anyone and sum up their true character. Rosa spent her lifetime in flash judgments of people based entirely on micro-assessments inferred from subtle gestures and body language. She could quickly distinguish liars from truthful people. She could find the darkness in a mild-mannered visitor with a polite handshake. Rosa was an excellent judge of character, and yet she had allowed Olivier to enter her inner circle. It bothered Syd to think that even Rosa might have been wrong about Olivier. Had they all been wrong about him?
Syd straightened her back in her seat. “I have to see Jack,” she said. She steadied herself on the table.
Alejandro jumped up while Rosa held her shoulders firm. “Not such a good idea, Syd. You have a fever. You need some rest.”
“It is after nine and the hospital is closed to visitors,” Rosa said. She knew Syd would respond better to the facts than with concern for her well-being.
“Nine at night?” she asked, confounded at the loss of time.
Alejandro nodded.
“Are the punchdowns done?” she asked.
Alejandro looked out the kitchen window with wide eyes. “Being done right now, I think.”
Syd shuffled over to the window and stood next to Alejandro. They watched Olivier opening the doors to the winery pacing outside while he waited for the gases to be purged. His silhouette entered the lighted space and disappeared inside. Syd imagined the light as being like a large set of teeth and the red doors as lips devouring Olivier as he stepped inside.
“George fighting the dragon,” she said. Alejandro stared at her before helping Rosa get her back into bed.
Chapter 23
Syd awoke to drenched sheets in the wee hours of the morning. She had broken the fever in a sweat and found herself lucid, hungry, and thirsty. She shuffled out of her room in the darkness and made her way to the kitchen. She turned on a nightlight, got a glass of water from the faucet, and opened the fridge door. She grabbed a half-wheel of triple cream cheese and a jar of homemade olives, the kind that Clarence cured in oil and salt. There was no more bread in the house so she rummaged and found some large, flat rosemary crackers.
She sat down at the table in the dark and ate. The old mantle clock downstairs faintly chimed four just as she was finishing up. She contemplated getting another dose of Advil since her throat still hurt when she swallowed. But instead she sat, feeling the food make its way through her esophagus and into her stomach. She imagined the wee microbes of her gut flora working its way over food, rejoicing in its first meal in a few days. She thought maybe she still had a fever. She felt more than a little guilty that the troops had mustered in her defense and she had taken such lousy care of herself. She vaguely remembered the details of the conversation last night, not quite trusting her memory. She had many delirious dreams that day and she wasn't sure which thoughts were delirium-induced nightmares and which were real. Maybe she had dreamed the en
tire episode? Maybe Jack Bristol was fine? But then, Rosa would not have put her to bed and Alejandro would not be downstairs asleep on the couch. She couldn't have imagined all that.
She got up carefully and shuffled over to the kitchen sink with her plate. She didn't bother to turn on a light. She turned to grab some ibuprofen from the medicine cupboard when a light outside caught her attention. It was a flash of light, actually. She stared out into the darkness for a while, searching for the light to return. There was no moon and the cloud cover made it unusually dark. She was about to turn away, convinced she had imagined it, when a flash of light shined right beneath the kitchen window. She recoiled instinctively and hid behind the curtain. She could just make out a figure squatting next to the window peering into the downstairs’ family room. She watched, holding her breath. She could hardly make out the form but saw that it looked like a man of medium build. He was dressed in black. Oddly, she didn’t feel scared. Instead a force bigger than fear rose up from her stomach in a wave of heat. Her heart pounded in her ears and she felt a burning in her cheeks. She clenched her fists tight. It was anger.
A Tainted Finish: A Sydney McGrath Mystery Page 13