Last of the Vintage

by Kerry J Charles

  Dulcie looked pointedly at both of them, her gaze shifting steadily to Nick. “I wouldn’t know,” she said flatly. “I’ve never been married.”

  Nick looked at the floor quickly. He’d hoped they’d gotten past that. Clearly they hadn’t entirely.

  Dulcie felt a little ashamed. The words had just come tumbling out. It wasn’t entirely fair to Nick. No one could change their own past. Her face softened. “Do you want me to come with you when you break the news to Samantha?”

  Nick did, but he didn’t want to risk her ire again, either. He was relieved when Johnson spoke.

  “It might not be a bad idea. She might say things with you there that she wouldn’t around a couple of strangers. Police-type strangers at that. Tends to make people clam up a little.”

  “All right then. Start suiting up,” she pointed to the jackets on the floor around them, “and I’ll get my coat.”

  #

  Samantha had been circling the coffee table in the living room for at least five minutes. She’d awakened at eight that morning to find Jeremy gone. It wasn’t unusual, as sometimes he would be away all night studying with some of his wine buddies, as they called themselves. She waited until nine o’clock to call them. One by one, they all said that they had not seen him. It was nine-thirty now.

  There was a knock at the door. She stopped quickly and smacked her shin against the coffee table. Wincing from the pain she limped over to the door.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  Silence for a moment. Then she heard, “It’s Dulcie, form the museum, and a couple of friends. Can we see you for a moment?”

  Samantha’s brow knitted as she opened the door. She saw the two men standing behind Dulcie. She looked at them questioningly.

  “This is Nicholas Black and Adam Johnson. They were at the event last night. You might have seen them?”

  Samantha nodded. “I did, but I thought you guys were security or something,” she said.

  Dulcie decided to get to the point. “No, but they are with the police. They’re detectives. Samantha, I’m afraid we have some bad news. Can we come in?”

  Samantha stepped away from the door. She gestured toward the living room. The other three looked down at their snowy boots.

  “Don’t be concerned about that,” Samantha said. “I have a feeling it’s the least of my worries right now.”

  They stomped off as much snow as possible and followed her into the living room. Johnson perched on the edge of a rocker trying to keep it from moving while Nick pulled a chair around from the dining table nearby. Dulcie sat on the couch with Samantha.

  “What’s happened,” she asked.

  Dulcie looked at Nick. It was his job, after all.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m very sorry to tell you Ms. Plunkett,”

  “Sanders,” she corrected.

  “Yes, I’m sorry. Ms. Sanders. Your husband was found dead this morning. It appears that he was hit or fell at some time during the night.”

  Samantha quickly stood and began pacing around the coffee table again. Dulcie had to pull her legs to the side quickly to avoid Samantha’s stride. “Where?” she interjected, still walking.

  “Where was he found?” Nick asked. He was watching her intently. She nodded. “He was on an ice sheet in the harbor beneath a dock very close to the museum.”

  Samantha nodded again, still circling.

  “Did your husband come home with you last night?” Johnson now spoke up.

  Samantha shook her head, still circling. Dulcie put out a hand and stopped her. Samantha bumped into it and looked startled. “Can you sit for a minute?” Dulcie asked.

  Samantha sat down beside Dulcie. “I knew something was wrong. I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!” she kept repeating the last words.

  Dulcie decided to keep talking. “When I spoke with Jeremy last, he said that he was going to get you a cab home. Did that happen?” she asked.

  Samantha suddenly fell back into the couch. It was as though she had just deflated. “Yes,” she said flatly.

  “And that’s the last you saw of him?” Nick added.

  “Yes,” she repeated.

  “All right,” Dulcie said. “Is there anything I can do for you? Someone I could call?”

  “My mother,” Samantha said. She didn’t move.

  Dulcie glanced around the room for a phone. Johnson spotted it on the table near him and handed it to her.

  “Can you leave now please?” It wasn’t a request. Samantha’s tone was adamant.

  Dulcie eyed her for a moment, then stood. “Of course,” she said. “This is a shock. I’m sure if these gentlemen have any more questions, they can get in touch with you.”

  “Yes,” Samantha replied quietly.

  The three visitors trooped out the door. As Dulcie closed it behind her she could have sworn she heard Samantha sigh. It sounded like a sigh of relief.

  They hesitated by the door until they could vaguely hear Samantha talking on the phone. Only then did they quietly make their way onto the street again. The snow was coming down harder now.

  “Not a chance we’ll find any of that broken bottle now,” Johnson muttered.

  “If there’s any to be found,” Nick countered.

  “What bottle?” Dulcie asked.

  Both men stopped. They’d forgotten how little they had told her. “Coroner found a piece of glass in Jeremy’s shirt collar. Looks like it might have come from a bottle. Green. He could have been hit on the head with one, or it might have just gotten caught under his collar when he was dragged.”

  They continued walking again. It was too cold to stand in one place. “That’s interesting,” Dulcie said. “But how do you know he was dragged? Maybe he was out on the dock and just fell over?”

  “Don’t think so,” Nick said. “The coroner said that he had multiple contusions on his head. Bruises.”

  “I know what a contusion is,” Dulcie interjected.

  “Okay, sorry. Just don’t want to do too much of the police lingo. Could get annoying,” he replied.

  ‘Is this a reference to that earlier conversation about wives being annoyed with their husbands?’ Dulcie thought. ‘Because we’re a long way from that, yet.’ She frowned. “Multiple contusions…,” she repeated, prompting him to say more.

  “Yup, like his head bumped along, hitting something hard over and over a few times,” Johnson chimed in.

  “Like the uneven planks of a frozen dock as he was dragged along,” Dulcie concluded.

  “Right,” Nick said.

  “It’s a really good theory. Make’s sense,” she said thoughtfully. “How did he actually die? Was it the blow to his head, or did he freeze to death?”

  “Don’t know,” Johnson answered. “Coroner’s still looking at the body. Why?”

  “I was just thinking. It’d take a lot of force to hit him that hard,” she said.

  “Very true, unless you get lucky and hit in the right place,” Nick replied.

  “Jeremy isn’t, I mean wasn’t, a big man either, but it would still take someone fairly strong to drag him down the dock and shove his body over the edge,” Dulcie added.

  “And you think Samantha couldn’t have done that?” Johnson asked. “You think she isn’t big enough?” His chin was stuffed into his jacket collar and his voice was muffled.

  “Anything’s possible if you’re motivated enough, I suppose,” Dulcie mused.

  Motivation. That’s what they needed to determine, Nick thought. Why would someone be motivated to kill Jeremy Plunkett?

  They reached the museum entrance. “Here’s my stop, gentlemen,” Dulcie announced. “I’ll let you know if I think of anything.”

  They both nodded and turned away. Dulcie watched them trudge along. She wished Nick wasn’t leaving. Her world felt out of order just now, and his presence somehow seemed to put everything back into perspective.

  As if hearing her thoughts, he glanced back. She waved. She couldn’t see his mouth beneath his c
ollar, but his eyes seemed to crinkle into a smile. He waved back.

  There. At least that helped a little. Dulcie quickly opened the door, entered the museum vestibule where warm air blasted on her, and stomped the snow off her boots. Why did she have the feeling that this was going to be a very long winter?

  You come to nature with all her theories,

  and she knocks them all flat.

  ― Pierre-Auguste Renoir

  CHAPTER 7

  Geoffrey Spratt wasn’t so far removed from the origins of the family fortune that he didn’t understand the requirements of maintaining it. On the contrary, he understood all too well that inheritance was only half of the game, especially when inheritance meant managing funds along with siblings and cousins. It was a tricky business.

  Patrick was another story. He hadn’t been a stranger to hard work, but for some reason could not grasp the concept of money management. It seemed to slip through his fingers if not exactly like water, then certainly like pudding. The result was the same. A sticky mess.

  That girl he’d been with, Samantha, seemed to ground him. She was smart, practical. Geoffrey had breathed a sigh of relief when he thought things were getting serious between them. If the boy had a good wife to look after things, Geoffrey wouldn’t have to worry quite so much about keeping his nephew afloat. Samantha didn’t seem to be the gold-digger type, either. That was reassuring.

  Then the idiot went and broke up with her. Geoffrey couldn’t even talk to him for days after he’d found out. “Why?” was all he could say at the time.

  “I don’t know. I was getting bored,” was the answer. So that’s what his nephew thought life was all about. Excitement. He had a lot to learn.

  Geoffrey had made it very clear that he thought Patrick had made one of the more idiotic decisions of his life. When Geoffrey finally had calmed down enough to speak to Patrick again he had explained a few things. One of them was the fact that people had to complement each other in a relationship. He pointed out how Samantha had filled in the gaps where Patrick was lacking.

  Patrick had not appreciated his uncle’s concern. Instead he had grown angry. “Like you would know?” he had yelled. “You’ve never been married!”

  It was true. Geoffrey Spratt had never been in that situation. But he was a keen observer of those around him. Managing a fortune that was pooled within an extended family required a careful understanding of personalities. He made it his business to learn exactly how all of the interrelationships worked, and more importantly, how they didn’t work.

  Geoffrey had sighed, realizing that he would have to fall back on the last resort. He would need to financially cut Patrick loose. The manner that this was carried out, however, was critical. Geoffrey had informed his nephew that he was at the age where he would receive the first installment of a trust fund. A large sum was deposited into Patrick’s back account. It was all that he would see of the family money for five years, until the next installment was released. This whole scheme was completely fabricated by Geoffrey of course, but Patrick need never know.

  If Patrick had been smart, he would have invested the majority of the money. Geoffrey had hinted that he would be happy to help Patrick, to advise on solid investments, if he was interested.

  Within a few months, it was clear that Patrick had no interest in investing. Curiously, he didn’t seem interested in spending the money on flashy items, symbolic of the rich, either. Where the money went, Geoffrey had no idea. Patrick just spent it on whatever whim interested him at the moment. Within the first year he had managed to eliminate over half of his bank account.

  Patrick himself had not actually noticed this. Not at first. It was Uncle Geoffrey who had pointed it out, indirectly. A year after the money had been handed over, Geoffrey had said, “So it’s been a year that you’ve had your fund now Patrick. How’s it going?” Of course Patrick had replied that everything was fine. But when he checked the balance he’d been shocked.

  That’s when he had begun to brood. He couldn’t ask his uncle for advice. It would make him look like an idiot, as though he couldn’t handle being an adult. He cast his thoughts back over his past and realized that for the entire time that he and Samantha had been together, she had kept things on course. For the first time, he began to at least acknowledge, if not actually appreciate, what she was capable of bringing to his life.

  He knew that he needed her back. That was clear. He had been staggeringly unsuccessful in the dating world anyway. He hadn’t realized how much of a catch she was until he had others to hold up in comparison. Basically, they didn’t stand a chance.

  The day he had turned on the television and saw the weather report was the day that he became officially obsessed. For one thing, she looked even more incredible on TV than he had remembered her to be in real life. And that was saying quite a lot. He remembered that she had always turned heads whenever they were out, no matter where they went.

  She was never happy with the attention, though. Why then would she take a job on television? He had needed answers, and it wasn’t long before he had pieced together what had happened in her life since he had left her. She had met someone, gone through a whirlwind romance, got married, and now essentially was supporting both of them. Thus the television job.

  Patrick had known then that it was time to take action. He didn’t even know Samantha’s husband, but he was certain that the dolt was all wrong for her. He needed to be gone. Away. Out of the picture. And the more Patrick had thought about it, the more he had known exactly what to do.

  Geoffrey knew that this husband needed to be gone as well. He had several ideas, each somewhat more unsavory than the next. However, the beauty of having a fortune at one’s disposal was that the unsavory work need never fall into one’s own hands. A handful of cash followed by turning one’s head in the opposite direction was all that was required. As for any feelings of guilt, Geoffrey had long since learned to deal with that. He had become a master of justification. He found it very easy to justify his nephew’s happiness along with his solidity within the family realm.

  Unfortunately, everything had just happened too quickly. The night before had been a bit of a fiasco. Geoffrey hadn’t counted on Patrick behaving like a psychopath; he hadn’t known that the stupid boy was essentially stalking his former girlfriend.

  Geoffrey didn’t blame Samantha one bit for her reaction. Under the same circumstances, he’d probably have done the same thing. Now it was time for damage control. He needed to repair this rift and quickly.

  Geoffrey sat back in his chair and put his fingertips together, almost in a praying gesture. He brought his forefingers to his lips, tapping them repeatedly. It was his thinking attitude.

  It would take a lot of work now, getting her back with Patrick. She wasn’t the type to be won over with overt attention either. That was so obvious to Geoffrey. Why wasn’t it obvious to Patrick? Geoffrey knew the answer to that. Patrick was only thinking about himself. He didn’t give Samantha the kind of appreciation that she would want. It was all about Patrick.

  Geoffrey tapped his lips several more times, then his hands froze in midair. He smiled. Maybe Samantha didn’t want attention, but a few thoughtful gifts, perhaps to say “I’m sorry,” never went amiss. Now what to get was the question. He’d need to think more on that one.

  Meanwhile, he picked up his phone and called his nephew. The fool didn’t answer. Geoffrey waited for Patrick’s recorded voice to stop droning on, then said, “Patrick. It’s your Uncle. We need to talk. Do not, under any circumstances, contact Samantha and for God sake, stop walking up and down her street! Call me when you get this. Or better yet, just get over here.” He clicked the phone off.

  Patrick sat in his living room. He had watched his phone buzz on the coffee table. It had jiggled around as it rang. He knew the number. When it stopped, he waited. He knew a message would be coming. Moments later it sounded the little chime telling him that he had voicemail. Reluctantly, he pressed the button and lis
ten to his uncle’s voice fill the room.

  He was right of course. Uncle Geoffrey was always right. Patrick hung his head in his hands for several seconds, then brought them down quickly, smacking his thighs. He stood up, shoving the phone in his pocket, found his coat and left the apartment.

  Outside he realized that he had forgotten his gloves. Again. He shoved his hands deep in the coat pockets. He had to remember to put an extra pair in them. Then again, he fully realized that his evening treks down the street to a certain apartment window were about to be curtailed, so why bother.

  #

  Dulcie had just become absorbed in reading a new research paper and was annoyed by the knock on her door. “Yes?” she said, a bit too quickly.

  Rachel opened it and poked her head in. “Do you have time for an unscheduled visitor?” she asked. Suddenly she was thrown off balance as the door was shoved open from behind her. She stumbled into Dulcie’s office followed by the much larger Brendan MacArthur.

  “Aye, lassie! Of course she has time!” His voice sounded like a bellow in the quiet room.

  Rachel gave Dulcie a quick, very pointed look of apology and sympathy combined, and scurried out. She left the door open behind her.

  Brendan grinned as she left, then closed the door. ‘The nerve…,’ thought Dulcie, but then, that was one thing Brendan had always had in abundance.

  “Quite a night we had, was it not?” he asked rhetorically and didn’t wait for an answer. “Certainly was entertaining. I’ll bet your gossips have been chattering already!”

  Dulcie very slowly, and very pointedly, closed the lid of her laptop. She gestured toward the seat in front of her desk. She stared at Brendan for a moment.

  This was a side of her that Brendan had never seen. He was not aware that in the years since Dulcie had left him and Oxford behind, she had worked very hard on maintaining control, whether it was of herself or those around her. She hated the feeling of everything spinning. He sat quietly for a moment, an unusual posture for him.