by Harvey, JM
“Dimitri was sent a witch’s ladder?” he asked.
“Yes. More than one. He had one of them with him when he was killed.”
Samson said nothing for a long moment, then, “Open the glove compartment, de Montagne.”
I opened it and looked inside. Lying in an untidy pile was a collection of bones and feathers knotted together on a length of hair. It was just like the one Midge had found in my wine tank on the day after Dimitri’s death. I shuddered and slammed the compartment closed.
“I found that under my bed last Tuesday morning,” he said. “I thought Dimitri had put it there. A gypsy curse to scare me into giving him money…” he trailed off into silence.
“I almost wish I had given him what he demanded,” he said after a protracted moment. “But it was not mine to give…” he trailed off again.
I didn’t even consider telling him about the man who had broken into his home last Monday afternoon - a man I was now sure was Blake Becker. I knew Samson would think I had betrayed him by keeping that to myself for so long - and maybe he would have been right – but it would do no good to tell him now.
Samson started to turn right on the Silverado Trail, but I stopped him. “Take me to the Avis agency in St. Helena,” I told him. “I’m going to need a car. And a phone.”
Avis had three cars and a single red Ford F-150 pickup available. All of the cars were compact vehicles, one of which looked more like a tennis shoe than a car. I opted for the truck.
Samson was leaning against the fender of his Jeep, his skinny arms crossed over his chest, when I pulled around from the back lot. I stopped and powered down the window.
“You are going to see Becker,” he said accusingly. “You will wait for me. I am going with you.”
“No, you’re not. You’re out on bail for murdering his partner,” I reminded him. “The last place in the world you need to be is at Star Crossed.”
“I have done nothing!” he said. “And I will go where I please!”
“Not with me,” I yelled right back. “You have a lawyer to see, so go see him.” I threw the truck into gear and hit the gas, blasting out of the lot as he stared after me, cursing in Greek.
I spent an hour at the AT&T store being treated like a dimwitted child by a young man who was probably not out of his teens. He did help me download my contacts from the ‘cloud,’ whatever that was, and I was up and rolling. And two hundred dollars poorer.
It was another beautiful day, though cooler than the previous week. Leaves were turning to fall colors on the slopes of the Mayacamas Mountains, and clouds scuttled across a deep blue sky, heading inland from the coast, but I barely noticed as I grimly drove up the highway and turned into Star Crossed’s driveway.
I knew it was insane to confront Blake head-on, but I saw no other recourse. And, if I confronted him - letting him know I had told Hunter of my suspicions about him – maybe I would be protecting myself from further harm.
Or maybe he’d shoot me on the doorstep…
I arrived just after 2:00PM. The parking lot in front of the old Becker house held only two vehicles. Both of them were white panel vans with the Star Crossed logo on the side. I parked beside them, got out of the truck, and knocked at the door, but got no reply. I tried the doorknob, but it was locked. I remembered Blake’s mother used to keep a spare key in the flowerpot beside the door. The pot was still there, but there were no flowers in it, just old gray dirt and a scattering of cigarette butts. I didn’t even think about what I was about to do as I stooped to search the pot.
A male voice cane from behind me and stopped me before my hands had touched the soil.
“Help you?” he said and I spun on my heel like I had been caught filching the family silver. It was the big blond guy with the tight haircut and the sagging gut Victor and I had seen loading cases of Latour just a few days before. He appeared to be wearing the same clothes: a muscle shirt showing off huge arms like sides of beef, a pair of cutoff shorts, and the same menacing scowl.
Up close, he smelled bad, an animal funk as off-putting as his appearance. But the smell was more than that, it was vaguely familiar…
“Help you?” he repeated, jarring the sensory memory out of my head.
“I was looking for Blake,” I replied, stammering a little and taking an involuntary step backward.
“Ain’t here,” the man said, His eyes slid down my body - taking in my still soggy dress and Jessica’s purple flip-flops - then came back to my face. “Got a tasting in Frisco. Be back in the morning.” His manner of speaking was as brutally short and clipped as his appearance.
I put on a bright smile and stuck out my hand. “My name is Claire de Montagne. And you are?”
“Bartlett.” There was no indication if that was a first or last name. He looked at my hand and then back to my face, leaving my hand hanging in space.
“Nice to meet you,” I lied as I lowered my hand, a flush making my cheeks burn. “I was here the other day—“
“I remember,” he cut me off. “With the Mexican,” he added, and there was an extra level of contempt in his voice. “Guy was staring at me.”
I gave a forced laugh which sounded a little shrill. Bartlett didn’t smile, chuckle, or even blink in response. But I plowed ahead anyway. “We noticed you were loading what looked like very old cases of Château Latour…” I said leadingly.
Bartlett didn’t take the bait, but his scowl deepened as tension knotted his shoulders. He took a plodding step toward me then glanced at the highway out front. Cars and trucks were rolling by in a steady stream. He muttered something and the tension went out of his shoulders. He looked back at me.
“I move boxes,” he said. “I don’t read ‘em.”
That was clear enough, but I pressed on, despite the fact he was scaring the heck out of me. “Was that for an auction or for the tasting tonight?”
He stared at me with those flat eyes for a moment then said, “Becker will be back in the morning. I got work to do.” He flicked a glance at the warehouse where men were moving in and out, loading a pair of vans with a lot of wine.
“Okay,” I said, stammering again. “Would you tell Blake I came by?”
He grunted unintelligibly, and I took it for a yes and hurried over to my rental truck. My heart was racing and my hands were shaking as I scrambled inside and fumbled the keys from my purse. He was still staring at me as I cranked the truck and backed away. I lifted a hand at him and forced another smile, but he made no acknowledgement of the gesture. I headed down the driveway, past the warehouse, kicking up a spray of gravel, feeling like I had just escaped a confrontation with a grizzly bear.
At the highway, I had to wait for a series of cars heading my way, weaving around a tractor pulling a hayrick. As I waited, my fear turned to anger. What kind of people was Blake employing at Star Crossed? The blond man’s attitude had crossed well beyond unfriendly to downright menacing.
By the time the tractor had putted past me, I was fuming, and half tempted to turn the truck around and give the big oaf a piece of my mind. But the thought of those angry blue eyes chilled me all over again. Instead, I turned and headed for home.
Chapter 25
I was halfway home before the sensory memory I had experienced when I smelled Bartlett’s body odor suddenly clicked in with a ferocity that made me jerk the wheel so hard I went off the pavement and almost into the weed-choked ditch.
The same odor had roused me the night before when I had been strapped into my Jeep and rolled into the pond!
I jerked the steering wheel so hard to the left I shot back onto the road and across the yellow stripe, coming dangerously close to hitting a beer truck heading in the opposite direction. The truck swerved and the driver laid on the horn as I ducked back into my lane, my heart pounding against my ribcage in a wild, off-beat rhythm. Involuntarily my foot jammed the gas pedal to the floor and I lunged down the asphalt like a panicked deer, my fingers knotted around the steering wheel.
Fo
r more than a mile I raced down the highway, barely able to keep the truck in its lane with my shaking hands, going faster and faster, until my fear of an imminent car wreck forced me to slow down and pull to the side of the road.
I sat there, my eyes jumping from mirror to mirror, in case Bartlett had followed me. In that moment, I knew for certain Blake had tried to kill me, or more likely, had ordered Bartlett to do it for him. I reached for my soggy purse and pulled out my new cell phone to call Hunter, but I hesitated. Hunter had warned me to stay away from Blake, and what had I done? Driven straight to Star Crossed from the hospital. And what would I tell Hunt, if he would even listen to me? I recognized Bartlett by his smell? I laughed as I considered it. But the laugh got stuck in my throat and I almost began to cry.
But crying isn’t in my nature. Tears usually lead to anger; and anger leads to rash decisions…
And today was no exception.
I threw the truck in gear and turned around. And I wasn’t going back to Napa to see Hunter.
JPW Distributors, owned by Peter and Jacob Willingham - who I had met at Blake’s wine tasting last month - had their warehouses in an industrial park just outside the city. They were Blake’s biggest customers, according to Blake. Maybe they could give me some answers…
JPW Distributors’ warehouses took up half a city block of temperature controlled, featureless concrete buildings in an industrial park outside the city limits, but neither of the owners was there. A clerk at the front desk directed me to their offices on Main Street in downtown Napa. So I headed downtown to an office building a lot more impressive than their warehouses. In fact, it was almost as impressive as their client list, which boasted top restaurants, millionaires, movie stars, politicians, and sport celebrities.
The building was new, but built in the classic Federal style - three stories tall with a balcony on the upper level, overlooking a block lined with similar buildings. In my youth, this part of Main Street had been a series of shabby shops and businesses standing between downtown and the river, blocking the view. That had all changed in the last four decades. Trendy restaurants, residences, and offices stood shoulder to shoulder. This renovation had been part of a downtown makeover controversial at the time and even more controversial now. At that moment, however, my only concern with Napa was the lack of street side parking.
I got lucky and managed to wedge the truck into a spot just down the block, then hiked back to JPW, holding my head high as I passed the tourists and business people who filled the sunny sidewalk, eyeing me like something that had just crawled out of a storm drain.
JPW was on the third floor, and the interior was as impressive as the exterior. They had a large oak lobby, three walls of which were dotted with wine-related art work and glossy signed photos of smiling clients, many of whom were so famous even I recognized them. The left wall was the only one without art or photos. It was taken up by a massive aquarium filled with exotic fish. But I’d bet most of the men who entered the office wouldn’t even notice the art, the photos, or the fish. They would have been too busy ogling the stunning redhead seated behind a mahogany reception desk.
She looked like she had stepped off the cover of Vogue Magazine - coolly beautiful and immaculately dressed and groomed. I was immediately made even more self-conscious in my rumpled black dress and borrowed purple flip-flops.
The woman introduced herself as Jeanette and, to her neverending credit, she treated me with gracious friendliness while pretending not to notice how I was dressed. How she ignored the swamp odor wafting off my still-damp dress I’ll never know.
“I had a bottle of your 2010 the other night, Mrs. de Montagne,” she said. “It was incredible.”
I thanked her and was ushered to a sofa, part of a large informal grouping of furniture that filled the center of the room. I declined a cup of coffee and she dialed an extension and spoke in low tones. A moment later she showed me into Peter’s office.
The room screamed ‘CEO.’ It had the same dark wood of the lobby, but the art work was more subdued, all old oils, and the wall behind his desk was filled with plaques and citations rather than photos.
Smiling, Peter Willingham rose from behind a huge desk cluttered with desk gadgets and circled it to take my hand. But the smile dissolved as his eyes swept over my bedraggled appearance and a look of concern drew his broad, ruddy face into a frown.
“Are you okay?” he asked as he waved me into a chair facing his desk.
“I know I look awful,” I said, flushing a bit and swiping my hands over my hopelessly ruined dress. “It was a very long night.”
“What happened?” he asked as he returned to his chair, his bulky frame making the chair’s springs scream in protest.
“It’s too much to explain,” I replied, and then I was at a loss for words. I couldn’t just blurt out I thought Blake Becker was a killer…I had no proof of that. Hunter had made that abundantly clear.
“Did you know Dimitri well?” I finally asked.
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “No, not well. Dimitri was…difficult. Brilliant, but difficult.”
“And Blake?”
Peter gave me a thin smile. “Not brilliant, but not as difficult,” he said, and then he frowned. “Is this about Dimitri’s murder? I know it happened at your vineyard. And that your winemaker was arrested…” he left it hanging there, but I didn’t fill in the blanks.
“Blake told me you’re one of his best customers,” I said instead. “That you buy a lot of wine from him.”
He looked surprised by that. “I would have said the same thing about him,” he replied. “We sell more wine to Blake than we buy.”
My confusion must have been evident, because he hurried to explain.
“We often buy complete cellars – either from heirs of the recently deceased or from collectors who are liquidating - and when we do, there are usually wines we can’t move to our customers. It’s a risky business. But one that can be very profitable.”
“I’d guess we aren’t talking about Two-Buck Chuck?”
He laughed. “No. Most people who take the time and effort to collect wine aren’t that dim, but many of them collect haphazardly. What we sell Blake are quality wines from off-vintage years. You know how it is, I’m sure,” he said. “A 1991 vintage of Château Lafite Rothschild is a great wine, but it pales in comparison to an ‘82. Our customers know the difference. They aren’t looking for a deal, they want the very best.”
I stared into space for a long moment, considering how perfectly that fit with what I had come to suspect - that Blake was stealing his customers’ wine and replacing it with fakes - but he had been even cleverer than I thought. I had theorized he was filling the fake bottles with cheap grocery store wine, but what if he was actually replacing the rare vintages with less impressive vintages from the same winery? A fraud like that would be virtually undetectable. The flavor profiles would be too similar for anyone but the most educated sommeliers and collectors to detect a difference…someone just like Dimitri Pappos. And a discovery like that might just have cost him his life.
I looked back at Peter, who was watching me closely. I put my poker face back on and asked, “But you do buy some wine at his auctions?”
He smiled. “Wondering what I’ll offer for a case of your 2009?” he asked, mentioning the wine he had drunk at Blake’s tasting dinner the month before. He answered his own question before I could demur. “I’d go nine-fifty a case.”
“Sold!” I said with forced joviality, and he laughed. When the laughter died I asked again, “But you do buy some wine from Blake?”
He tilted his head and pursed his lips. “Yes. Once in a while. Blake has a knack for finding very rare wines. And, as I’ve said, Jacob and I have clients who will pay a premium for the best.”
“Rare wines like the magnum of d’Yaquem he served at the tasting dinner we attended?”
For a moment Peter said nothing, he just looked at me speculatively. When he finally did reply he chose
his words carefully, obviously growing suspicious of my line of questioning. “Yes. Magnums and double magnums are very rare. And big bottles bring out the big buyers. Blake has acquired more than a few for us in the last year.” He paused again, still eyeing me. “Now, what is this about, Claire?”
I had gone too far to leave him in the dark. It was time to open up, at least a bit. But I had to be cautious. If Blake was counterfeiting wine, then Peter and Jacob Willingham might have contributed to that fraud, even if they were unknowing participants.
“Before you arrived that night, Dimitri expressed doubt that d’Yaquem produced magnums in 1911,” I said. “Not many wineries did back then.”
Peter’s eyes turned flinty and his voice took on a chill when he asked, “Are you accusing Blake of something? Or are you accusing me?”
“I’m not accusing anyone—“
“Cut the crap, Claire,” he snapped. “If there’s something shady going on at Star Crossed, I have a right to know. My customers have a right to know.”
I shrugged helplessly. “I have no proof of anything.” I said. “But…” I hesitated for only a moment longer before I blurted it all out – everything from Angela’s accusations against Blake to the two imperial-sized bottles of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti listed on Gavin’s online auctions. I even told him about my near drowning the night before and my suspicions about the port I suspected Blake had poisoned. The only thing I left out were the labels Hunter had shown me.
When I told him about Alexandra’s attempts to retrieve Dimitri’s collection of Latour and other Premiere Cru wines and my suspicion Blake might be stealing them, he went pale.
“My God,” he whispered. “I just bought three cases of vintage Latour from Blake. Do you think he killed Dimitri for his collection?”
I shook my head. What he suggested was possible, but I doubted it. I still didn’t see Blake as a criminal mastermind planning murders and coldly executing them. “I think Dimitri found out Blake was counterfeiting wine and confronted him. I think Blake acted in a panic. And he’s still panicking, trying to cover his tracks.”