Plum Gone: A Sonoma Wine Country Cozy Mystery (Sonoma Wine Country Cozy Mysteries Book 2)

by A. J. Carton

  The plan, Steve explained, was that he and Emma would meet with Armando Carillo later that evening after they checked into their Coachella motel. The next morning, Friday, Emma would meet with Gomez’s widow while Steve met with the numbers man to figure out what the family could claim in the wrongful death action. Emma offered to follow up with Louis Cardenas. The man who’d dropped out of the lawsuit.

  Steve had started to explain that he’d also set up a late afternoon visit with Gomez’s brother and his family, when Emma interrupted him.

  “Steve,” she said, “I tried to tell you last night. I have to go back to Blissburg tomorrow.”

  Steve shook his head. “That’s impossible. If we leave after dinner, we’ll be driving all night.

  “Then we’ll drive all night,” Emma replied. “You don’t understand. I have to get back. I…” she stammered. “I promised someone. It’s important. Really important.”

  “Can’t be done,” Steve scoffed. “What’s so important that we can’t leave Saturday?”

  That’s when Emma explained. Or tried to. When she finished, Steve wasn’t convinced.

  “Look, Emma,” he began, “it’s obvious this boyfriend of yours is very important to you. And yeah, I know he saved your life. But I got my marriage on the line. I got a wife at home who’s madder than a hornet that I’m missing her nephew’s graduation from nursery school tomorrow in order to help some poor farm worker’s family. My whole marriage is going down the tubes over this case – and I’m supposed to worry about your boyfriend missing his $5000 home cooked meal? Sorry. I just can’t get that excited about it. But if it means that much – and obviously it does – I’ll tell you what I’ll do. We’ll leave at 5:00 am and I’ll have you home by – what? 1:00 on Saturday? OK?”

  But Emma knew that was not OK. She shook her head.

  “We’ll find an airport,” she replied. “I’ll fly home tomorrow night. Out of Palm Springs.”

  As she spoke, her fingers tapped on her cell phone. The last flight out of Palm Springs for San Francisco on Friday left at 7:00 p.m. It cost $400, but she’d be home by 11:00.

  “You’ll drop me at the airport? Right?” she asked.

  She must have sounded desperate. Steve immediately agreed.

  A few minutes later, he pulled into a hot dusty rest stop where he took a couple of Safeway turkey sandwiches and two bags of chips out of a cooler along with a soda and a bottle of water. They sat at a concrete table under the broiling sun and ate while Emma reserved the flight on her phone. A few minutes later, they were hurtling down Highway 5 again.

  Chapter 14: Thursday Afternoon – The Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval

  It was well past 2:00 p.m. when Steve finally exited Highway 5 for the 210 towards Coachella. Half an hour later, they pulled into a Motel 6 on the outskirts of town.

  Stepping out of the air-conditioned car, Emma felt like she’d slammed into a wall of hot air that knocked the breath out of her lungs.

  “Ouch!” Steve grimaced when his fingers touched the scorched car door handle before grabbing her overnight bag from the back seat of the car.

  “Hot,” she stated.

  “Hundred and one, according to my dashboard thermometer,” he replied. “You travel light.”

  “One night,” Emma answered. “Remember?”

  Steve checked them into their rooms. Heading back outside to find the stairs to the motel’s second floor, he called over his shoulder, “Meet you at the car in five. This is a pit and dump the bags stop. We’re meeting Carillo at the Citrus Road facility in fifteen.”

  A few minutes later, Emma found her room at the far end of the first floor outdoor corridor. Its window faced the area assigned for parking semi trucks. She imagined their headlights illuminating the room’s scuffed walls in the middle of the night.

  She quickly erased that image from her head, dumped her overnight bag on the queen-sized bed’s stained blue quilt, and entered the bathroom to wash her face. Then she changed from her T-shirt into a thin cotton short-sleeved blouse, grabbed her purse, locked her door and met Steve back at the car.

  The heat had permeated its interior in just the few minutes they were gone. The air inside the car was now thick enough to chew.

  They drove southeast of Coachella. In just a few minutes the town had disappeared. All they could see was fields in every direction.

  “How do they grow things here?” Emma exclaimed. “It’s so hot and dry.”

  “Wells,” Steve answered. “Someone named Rector drilled wells here. Around the turn of the century. I read about it last night. At first, the place was called Woodspur because the railroad stopped near here to pick up lumber from nearby Indio – aka Indian Springs.”

  “And Coachella?” Emma asked. “Is that a Native American name?”

  Steve shook his head. “The story goes that the name was a mistake. A misspelling of a Spanish word, conchilla. Which means little shells. Apparently Rector, who owned the land, wanted to name the town Conchilla after a bunch of little shells found in the sand around here. But whoever printed the town prospectus misspelled the name. The developers didn’t want to delay the announcement, so Rector accepted the misspelled name and the town’s been known as Coachella ever since. Funny, huh?”

  “Sad,” Emma shrugged, thinking of Blissburg’s unlucky namesake – an eighteen year old gold seeker shot in a quarrel. And of California’s random place names that seemed, suddenly, to mirror the state’s reckless development: Weed, Cool, Yreka.

  “Sad compared to the old Spanish names,” she added. “Like the missions named after saints - or angels.”

  Steve shook his head. “All depends on your point of view, Emma. The missions exploited Native Americans. Now Randall exploits Mexicans. It’s all the same. It’s all sad.”’

  A strong smell of onions had suddenly filled the car. She changed the subject.

  “What on earth is that?” Emma asked.

  “Must be the onion harvest,” Steve replied. “Randall Enterprises grows a lot of onions around here.”

  Emma looked out the window. To the right and left, dirt roads crossed the narrow highway. They led across vast fields to dusty collections of houses, barns and what looked like old warehouses. Before long, Steve turned down one of them.

  “Where are we?” Emma asked, wondering how a few hours’ drive from San Francisco could have dumped her in what looked like an alien world.

  “Randall Enterprises,” Steve answered.

  “Randall Enterprises?” Emma repeated.

  He gestured with a hundred and eighty degree sweep of his hand. “As far as the eye can see,” he said. “Literally, Randall Enterprises, your friend Curt, owns most of this valley. The land. The farms. The labor camps – now they call them ‘employer housing’ - those industrial buildings in the distance, the bungalows to the east, the ranches to the south. He owns it all.”

  “And Carillo? The guy we’re interviewing. He lives here?” Emma pointed up the road towards a large block of wood and whitewashed stucco buildings. Some even had small front yards boasting flower and vegetable gardens.

  Steve nodded. “Carillo lives in permanent worker housing provided by the company. There’s not much of it left. In the eighties and nineties, worker protection laws required all employers who provided housing to meet new federal and state standards. Most growers just stopped providing housing rather than spend the money to upgrade their camps. Of course, that left the workers with no housing at all.”

  “So what do they do?” Emma asked as Steve pulled into a parking slot in front of one of the wooden, two story buildings.

  “They live wherever they can,” Steve answered. “Stables, garages, abandoned trailers, tents. Or cheek to jowl in overcrowded apartments in town. They don’t get paid enough to rent on the open market – sometimes they aren’t in one place more than a few months of the year.”

  Emma told herself Steve was exaggerating. “That’s crazy. People in California don’t live in stable
s. We have laws. Anyway,” she added pointing again to the row of houses where they had parked the car, “these houses look fine.”

  And they did, Emma assured herself as they approached one of the wood dwellings with a particularly well-tended front yard. The two-story building had a front porch with a pot of lavender to the right of the front door. It sat under a painted ceramic medallion of Mary and Baby Jesus that hung on the wall.

  When they knocked, a man who looked to be in his mid forties opened the door. His black eyes were set wide apart in his broad face. Under them, his flat nose and mouth looked crowded above an almost non-existent chin. He was not an attractive man, despite a full head of thick wavy black hair that was by far his most attractive feature. Not a happy man, Emma thought. Unlike her pint-sized friend from the Hasta la Vista Lounge, Armando Carillo was a man she preferred not to meet alone.

  His home, on the other hand, was immaculate. Senora Helena Carillo, though allegedly unfaithful, was a good housekeeper, Emma noted.

  Armando Carillo grudgingly motioned to her and Steve to come in.

  They sat down on a brown velvet couch. Emma immediately noted that its armrests were covered with bright woven textiles much like the ones she used to cover her furniture at home.

  “These are beautiful,” she exclaimed, fingering the intricate pattern of one of the textiles. “From Chiapas, right?” she added. “I have some fabric that is very similar.”

  Carillo narrowed his eyes mistrustfully and shifted them from side to side. As though her simple question were a trap.

  Steve quickly intervened. “Listen, Mr. Carillo, we know you’re busy. And we don’t want to take up a lot of your time. As I mentioned on the phone, we are here in connection with Santiago Gomez’s murder…”

  “Yes, I know.” The man’s scowl grew darker. “You’re here because you think I killed that no good dog.” He took a menacing step towards Steve.

  For a second, Emma wondered if she would have to intervene. And if so, how. Then an attractive young woman, probably in her thirties, entered the room.

  “Armando,” she said. “That is no way to treat these people. Excuse him,” she added to Emma, before turning back to her husband. “Please, everyone sit down. I’m Helena, Mrs. Carillo. Can I offer you something? An aqua fresca? Caffe?”

  Emma started to reply that an aqua fresca sounded great, but Steve cut her off.

  “No need to trouble yourself,” he shook his head. “And thank you. Thank you very much. We just need to ask you some questions about Mr. Gomez.”

  “About the way he treated me,” the woman interrupted. “Yes, of course. That’s why you’re here,” she added, motioning again for her husband to sit down. “I’m sure you are aware that Mr. Gomez…well…” she cast her eyes demurely to the floor. “That Mr. Gomez made, what shall I call it, some unwanted advances towards me. And that there were rumors, untrue rumors, that required my husband to take some action with regard to him. But I can assure you that nothing happened between me and that man. And that my husband, in my defense, did nothing more than speak some words to him. Angry words, to be sure. But just words.”

  Helena Carillo glanced at her husband again. Emma interpreted it as a command for him to be silent.

  Then she continued. “Any number of people here can bear witness to this fact,” she said. “Armando and Santiago argued. Some unpleasant words were exchanged – to defend my honor. That’s all. Moreover,” she turned to address Steve directly, “as we have already informed the police who were here, the day that Santiago Gomez was murdered, Armando was in the fields overseeing the onion harvest, providing the drinking water, signing the tarjetas…” She stopped speaking for a moment, apparently noticing Emma’s questioning stare.

  “The cards – you know, for the workers to show how many bags of onions they filled.” She smiled and walked over to pat her husband’s thigh, “My Armando is a foreman, you know. Not a laborer. He is a permanent employee of Randall Enterprises, year round. He represents Randall Enterprises with the labor contractors. That’s why we live here.” She laughed again. “You think he would risk all this,” her eyes took in the living room, the couch, the coffee table, the flat screen TV, “on that dog Gomez? No,” she shook her head, “twenty men saw Armando here, in Coachella when Gomez died. The police know this. If that is why you are here to talk to us, to accuse my husband, then you are sadly mistaken. Armando Carillo would not hurt a flea.”

  With that one statement, Emma thought to herself, the beautiful Mrs. Carillo lost all credibility. From the expression on his face, she was sure Armando Carillo would gladly have strangled both her and Steve with his bare hands.

  Steve waited for a moment before he replied. Then, inexplicably to Emma, he appeared to abandon all thought that Armando Carillo murdered Gomez in a fit of jealous rage.

  “I appreciate everything you’ve said,” he began. “And I am sorry, Senora Carillo, that you believe that I have come to accuse your husband. As I explained to him on the phone, the police in Sonoma County are confident that they have found Gomez’s murderer. I am confident of this, too. But I am filing a civil law suit against the suspect whom you know, Curt Randall, for money to compensate Gomez’s wife and children for their loss.” He turned to Carillo. “In order to do this, to remove all doubt as to who murdered Santiago Gomez, I need to confirm your alibi; and to ask you if there is anyone else, besides Curt Randall, who might have had a reason to hate Santiago Gomez enough to kill him.”

  After glancing at his wife who nodded at him to proceed, Carillo finally spoke.

  “As for my alibi,” he began. “A lot of people can swear I was here when Gomez died. Antonio Gonzalez…,”

  “Senora Gomez’s cousin,” Steve interrupted. “The one whose family she now lives with?”

  Carillo nodded. “Then…Louis Cardenas. I signed his tarjeta. The card has a date and the time. To keep track of the work. As far as knowing who else hated Gomez enough to kill him?” Carillo laughed rather harshly. “It’s a very long list. Nobody here liked Santiago Gomez.”

  “What about Cardenas?” Emma cut in, recognizing the name from her conversation with Diaz. “Didn’t he have a run in with Gomez about dropping out of the lawsuit?”

  Carillo glanced at his wife who answered for him. “Cardenas and Gomez? They had an argument, yes, over the lawsuit. Cardenas is my cousin. I know. But like my husband told you. Cardenas was in the field picking onions when Gomez died. His tarjeta will prove that. So?” she shrugged. “If he was here in Coachella when Gomez died, well…he couldn’t be two places at once, could he?”

  Steve looked down at his cell phone where he had made a few notes. “OK. I know Gonzales lives with Gomez’s wife. Where would I find Cardenas?”

  Carillo lifted his shoulders in a leisurely shrug. Then he stood up and walked over to the couch where Steve sat. “Cardenas?” he repeated putting his hand on Steve’s arm and slowly but surely guiding him up from the couch, across the room, and out the front door to the porch. “See that big building over there – the big barn? Behind that. That’s where Cardenas lives. With the seasonal workers.”

  Emma had followed Steve outside. He was about to say goodbye, but Emma had one last question. Something Senora Carillo said was bothering her.

  She turned to address the woman who now stood next to her husband on the porch.

  “One more thing, Mrs. Carillo. You said that your husband was working in the fields picking onions the day Santiago Gomez died. But Gomez died at night. Where was your husband the night Gomez died?”

  Before Emma had finished her question, Senora Carillo opened her big red lips and started to laugh. Even Armando Carillo finally cracked a smile.

  “What? Because we’re Mexicans you think we’re stupid?” the young woman cried. “You think these dumb laborers are gonna pick onions in the bright sun? In this heat? And have a stroke? Lady! The onions. They pick them at night. After the sun goes down. They pick them on their knees. All night long. They wear
little headlamps so they can see, and not cut their fingers off in the dark with the sharp little blades of their tijeras. Because lady,” she laughed again and glanced at her husband, “no gringa like you at the big Whole Food, gonna buy an onion with Mexican blood on it.” She laughed even harder. “Even though every onion in California is stained with Mexican blood!”

  Senora Carillo spat the last words out of her mouth before entering her home and slamming the door. Emma watched Armando glance after her with a proud smile. Then, as Emma and Steve turned to walk to the car, she saw the Mexican pull a cigarette out of his pocket, light it and take a satisfied puff.

  Chapter 15: Thursday Night – More Secrets

  “Nice goin’,” Steve patted Emma on the back as they walked to the car. “Maybe next time you’ll do a little homework before you start asking questions. Ever hear the rule, ‘don’t ask a question you don’t already know the answer to?’ Number one rule you learn in law school.”

  “Remember Steve? I didn’t go to law school,” Emma replied. “Besides,” she muttered mostly to herself, “if you already know the answer, why bother to ask the question?”

  Nonetheless, Emma wished she’d bit her tongue.

  “OK,” she added. “Carillo appears to have an alibi for the night Gomez died. But Carillo may be lying. And so far, the only people we have to corroborate what he said are Louis Cardenas, who is Mrs. Carillo’s cousin and Antonio Gonzalez…”

  “Who is Yolanda Gomez’s cousin,” Steve finished her sentence, “and has no reason to lie about the identity of her husband’s killer. You will talk to him tomorrow and find out. Now, however, we are going to find Louis Cardenas.”

  Finding Cardenas turned out to be harder than finding his cousin. The dirt road leading from the employer housing where the Carillos lived all but disappeared as Steve’s Subaru made its way towards what looked like a big barn in the distance.

  They drove as far as they could, then stopped the car a few hundred feet away from the sprawling, derelict building. Once again, a wall of hot air slammed into her as Emma got out of the air-conditioned car. So that walking the short distance from the car to the warehouse felt like swimming through hot mud. She studied the landscape to find some shade, but all around her she saw nothing but parched low shrubs. Shade for reptiles. Senora Carillo’s aqua fresca rose in her imagination like a mirage.