by Harvey, JM
“Just don’t let it happen again.”
I directed Hunter to where I had parked my rental truck. We didn’t dawdle - he had a lot of work to do back at Blake’s - but it was an awkward parting nonetheless. He walked me to the truck, his arm hooked around my waist to support me as I walked gingerly on my bad ankle. He opened the door for me and I climbed inside. He started to duck in for a kiss.
Instinctively, I pulled back. It was only a matter of inches but I saw the hurt in his eyes as he backed away.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just…” It was hard for me to articulate what I was feeling at that moment, but it wasn’t ardor.
“I know I was a jerk—” he began but I shook my head before he went on.
“It’s not just that,” I told him, which could have come out better, but he had been a jerk. I rushed on before that comment could end our brief reconciliation. “Roger has asked me for a divorce,” I blurted out.
Hunter nodded. “He told me. Yesterday.”
“Why?” I asked a little indignantly. I didn’t like the idea of the only two men I had ever included in my life talking about me behind my back. “I didn’t know you two spoke.”
“We don’t,” he replied. “And he didn’t exactly tell me you were divorcing. That was a poor choice of words. I ran into him on the street outside the bank. He had his latest girlfriend with him. He introduced her as his fiancée, so…” he shrugged. “. I am a cop after all.” He tapped the side of his head with a fingertip. “I deduced it.”
“Smart guy,” I said, and then leaned out of the truck and pecked him on the cheek. He actually blushed. Is it any wonder I could forgive him? Good looking and gentlemanly?
If I could just overlook his pigheadedness…
“I have to get back. I plan to call Victor and ask him to stay at Violet overnight,” he said and I began to protest, but he shook his head firmly. “If you’re right about Blake and Bartlett then you don’t need to be out there alone.”
“If?” I said a little sharply.
He nodded. “It’s still ‘if,’ Claire. At least for the moment.” He pushed the door closed before I could say anything else. That was probably a good thing. I definitely would have said something I would have regretted.
Hunter went back to his truck and I started mine. I followed him down the hill. We turned in opposite directions at the highway - I headed home and he headed back to Star Crossed.
And somewhere out there in the woods, Bartlett too, was on the move.
Chapter 29
Victor was sitting at my kitchen table across from Samson when I hobbled through the back door. There was an open bottle of our cabernet and two half-full glasses between them. Victor was wearing raggedy jeans, a t-shirt, and a long-suffering look. As I closed the door behind me, he rolled his eyes, twirled a finger by his ear and looked pointedly at Samson.
My old winemaker looked exhausted. His stringy hair was a rumpled mess and he had a pair of swollen red marks on his neck that looked like hickeys. He was wearing one of his baggy suits with a pajama top on underneath. A battered old baseball bat was balanced across his knees.
“I will not tolerate your insults while I have this,” Samson said, hefting the bat and shaking it across the table for emphasis, coming dangerously close to Victor’s chin.
Victor ducked back and threw his hands up. “Hey! Save it for Blake.”
“Blake,” I muttered as I flopped down at the table. “I guess Hunter told you about what I found at Star Crossed?”
Victor shook his head. “No. All he said was you had some trouble at Star Crossed and to be on the lookout for Blake?” That last line was delivered with raised eyebrows.
I didn’t answer immediately. “I see you brought reinforcements,” I said, looking over at Samson, who had dropped the bat back to his lap and was slurping wine. He drained the glass and smacked his lips, then grabbed the bottle for a refill.
“He was here when I got here,” Victor said. “He’s on the run from Marjory. She cornered him at his house.” Victor waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
Well, that explained Samson’s bedraggled appearance and the hickeys on his neck.
Yuck.
“Insatiable,” Samson said and gave me a wink. “She is—”
“I don’t need or want to know anything about it,” I cut him off. I turned back to Victor. “You didn’t call Jess, did you?” The last thing I wanted was to worry my daughter. Her life was moving in the right direction for the first time in years and I would not be the one to derail it.
“And tell her what?” Victor asked. “I don’t even know what’s going on. Why don’t you tell me, and then I’ll decide whether to call Jess.”
I was exhausted, but I proceeded to tell them all that had happened that evening. When I reached the point where I found the Latour labels, the aged corks, and what I assumed were fake bottles of Margaux, I watched Samson’s face go from gray to red like a nuclear reactor’s heat gauge during a meltdown. He finally exploded after I outlined my suspicions that Blake was either: faking wine for sale at his auctions - a risky endeavor considering the bottles might be opened and found to be frauds - or stealing his cellaring clients’ wine and replacing it with fakes.
Samson shot out of his chair, brandishing the bat wildly across the table, almost knocking over his wine glass. “We must get our wine now! Get your truck, Gonzalez!”
I ducked out of the way as the bat whistled past my head.
“Calm down, Samson,” I said. I was far too tired for this. “And put that bat down now. The police are at Star Crossed. Our wine isn’t going anywhere.”
But Samson wasn’t done. He aimed the bat across the table at me, squinting down the barrel of it, giving me a jaundiced glare. “I told you Becker was a crook!”
I nodded wearily just to get him to shut up.
Reluctantly he sat back down and placed the bat back across his lap. He grabbed up his wine glass and took a swallow. I wondered how many glasses of wine he’d had before I arrived? Too many, that was for sure. It might not even have been glasses, it might have been bottles.
“So, you found the labels and corks and called Hunter? I bet he was happy to hear from you,” Victor said.
“Well, it wasn’t that easy…” I began then launched into my altercation with Bartlett. I downplayed the drama as much as possible, but Victor and Samson were here to guard me, they had a right to know what they were facing.
When I had finished, Victor turned to Samson and said, “I apologize. You’re not the crazy one at this table.” He looked back at me. “And I think I’ll get my own baseball bat just in case I cross paths with Bartlett again.”
Samson crowed, “I hope he and his goon do come here! I dare them to! They stole my wine! I’ll crack their heads for them!” I was unsurprised he seemed less concerned with my safety than ‘his’ wine.
“Where is Alexandra?” I asked, hoping to change the subject. “And how is she?”
Samson’s lips curled into a frown. “She is like you, de Montagne. She has been robbed. Made poor and destitute by a thief. And that Becker is the cause! I will get her wine back, too! I—”
“I got it,” I cut him off. My heart went out to Alexandra, but, as Samson had pointed out, I had my own concerns. I had more than four hundred bottles stored in my private cellar at Star Crossed, half of our library of wine. If they were gone I’d be filing another insurance claim before the previous one for the wine contaminated by Dimitri’s corpse had even been processed.
“I wonder if our wine is still there,” Victor said, reading my mind or, more likely, just voicing his own concern. We put our hearts into those bottles. And our sweat. It would be devastating to lose them. And, even if they were still there, I might not see them for a while. If the FBI and the State of California got involved in the case they might be held indefinitely for evidence.
“One bottle!” Samson said. “If he took one bottle of my wine I will commit a murder!”
&
nbsp; “You won’t get the chance,” Victor said ominously. “If he’s stolen wine from us, then he’s probably stolen wine from half the vineyards and collectors in the valley. There will be a lynch mob.”
That made me think yet again of Armand and the two bottles of 1947 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti being sold by Gavin’s Fine Wine and Spirits. I had to tell him, I decided. I owed him that much. Maybe he could get an injunction and stop the sale? That was unlikely; it would be almost impossible to tell one bottle of wine from another from the same vintage, especially one that old. Nowadays the Premiere and Grand Cru wineries almost all use some kind of electronic coding to track their bottles and to prevent counterfeiting, but in 1947, no one had known that wine would one day be an investment as valuable as gold or diamonds.
I glanced at my watch. 12:45AM. Far too late to call Armand. It could wait ‘til morning. And, speaking of morning…I had had enough for one day.
I begged off as Samson poured himself another glass of wine. I trudged up the stairs, favoring my good ankle, leaving my two guard dogs bickering at the kitchen table.
Sleep came hard, fast, and dreamless. For that much I was grateful.
The morning sun coming through my bedroom window awoke me at 7:15, long after my usual wakeup time. I felt marginally better, though I was still tired. When I climbed out of bed, my ankle and knee were tender, my hips ached and my shoulders were leaden and sore.
Did I say I felt better? Wishful thinking…
I took a long time in the shower and very little time taming my hair before I dressed in vineyard clothes – a baggy t-shirt and jeans – and headed downstairs.
When I looked outside to find another beautiful fall day, I saw Victor in the shade of the barn tinkering with the tractor’s tilling rig, but Samson’s old Jeep was gone. I hoped he had gone back home or to Alexandra’s and wasn’t out trying to find Blake Becker.
Coffee was already brewed, and I was thankful for that. I took a cup onto the patio and flopped into a chair, deciding I was not working that day. I just didn’t have the stomach for it. I was exhausted, mentally and physically. But mixed with the fatigue was relief. Last night, I had done what I had been trying to do for more than a week: convinced Hunter Blake was a crook and probably a murderer.
At that point, I thought about calling Hunter, to find out if they had located Becker or Bartlett, then decided not to. Hunter’s day would be hard enough without my interference. He would call when he knew something.
But I did need to call Armand.
No, I decided, I needed to go see him. We had shared a near death experience less than forty-eight hours ago and what I was going to tell him would be another blow. I needed to gauge how he was feeling before I hit him with that bombshell. I slurped up the last of my coffee, went inside and got my keys.
Victor looked up and started my way as I headed for the rental truck, an expression of concern furrowing his normally cheerful face. I didn’t wait for him – I climbed in and cranked the truck. I waved at him as I backed around and headed out to the road. I didn’t need a guard dog for this, I felt sure.
But I couldn’t have been more wrong.
The drive to Armand’s, tooling down the highway past forest, fields, and vineyards still green but dotted with splashes of yellow, brown, and red, all of it back-dropped by the stony gray peaks of the Mayacamas Mountains, was as beautiful as ever, but it didn’t brighten my mood much. And it wasn’t just the potential loss of so much of my cabernet bothering me. I was thinking about Blake and his betrayal.
I had babysat Blake. Cooked him grilled cheese sandwiches and played board games with him on the living room floor. While we had never been close - the age difference made that difficult - he was a part of my childhood. A childhood now sullied by his criminal acts. I was only glad Henry and Maggie weren’t here to see their son convicted of murder.
Victor called my cell phone while I was driving, but I let it go to voicemail. He was probably just wondering where I was going.
I turned in at Armand’s and made the arc up the driveway, past the pond where I had almost drowned. Gooseflesh rose on my arms as I drove past the deep ruts my Jeep’s wheels had carved in the lawn, ruts that led across the grass and down to the edge of the shimmering water.
Armand’s BMW was in the driveway. I parked beside it and knocked at the front door. That moment reminded me of my last visit, and my conversation with Agnes, Armand’s maid. Tears blurred my vision and my sadness deepened to a black, brooding anger. I am not a greedy person, and have little comprehension of how so many can kill for money. How much had each death been worth to Blake? Did he add them all up and place a figure beside them? Dimitri, Jorge, Angela, and Agnes. And Armand and I would have been added to that body count if not for the sheriff’s cruiser passing by as my Jeep sank slowly to the bottom of the pond.
I dried my eyes and squared my shoulders as Armand answered my knock. He looked worse than I felt. Dark circles ringed his eyes, his complexion was mealy, and his fair hair was a tangled, greasy mess. He seemed unsurprised to see me, but not happily so. That was okay. I wasn’t happy to be there either. Wordlessly, he stepped aside and ushered me in.
He closed the door and headed for the living room. I limped along behind him. He flopped onto the sofa and stretched his legs across the leather. He still hadn’t said a word, and it didn’t seem like he was going to as he lay back against a pile of pillows and draped a hand over his eyes.
“It was Becker,” I blurted. “He poisoned us.”
He grunted noncommittally and nodded his chin a fraction of an inch but did not uncover his eyes. “The port,” he said.
“Hunter told you about the methanol?”
“The female deputy, Tidwell, called me a half hour ago. She also told me that they’ve reclassified Agnes’ death as a homicide. They’re supposed to be here shortly to examine the scene.”
I nodded at that, though he couldn’t see me.
“She was a great lady,” he said. He paused. “I still can't believe Blake is behind this.”
I nodded, though I was past any doubts. For a moment, we lapsed back into silence as I debated how to begin my story.
Armand helped me by broaching the subject himself.
He spread his fingers a crack and one eye looked out at me; he sighed and sat up, his hand dropping from his face. He looked at me with bloodshot eyes. “I need to get a shower,” he said. “Before the police come.”
That was clearly an invitation for me to leave. For a moment I was tempted to do just that. If I told Armand about Blake I was going to get Hunter angry at me all over again. After all, this was a police investigation. But I felt like I owed Armand. He had been the only one who had taken my theory about Blake being a crook seriously. A crook probably auctioning off Armand's Domaine de la Romanée-Conti through Gavin’s Fine Wine and Spirits right that minute…
“I went into Blake’s home last night,” I said, and his eyes narrowed in a look of wary suspicion. “He was at a tasting in San Francisco and I know where the spare key is,” I continued. “I found fake labels, old corks, old bottles, and a hand-corker.” I stopped and waited for that to sink in. “I’m almost positive Blake was stealing his customers’ wine, selling it, and replacing it with fakes. Hunter found two fake labels in Dimitri’s pocket after his murder,” I added, though I hesitated to say more.
Armand seemed to sense that hesitation. His gaze grew so intense I had to shift my eyes off of his face.
“What were the labels?” he asked, his voice quavering.
I hesitated before replying, but I had gone too far to stop. “Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, vintage 1947.” I didn’t stop there. I had to tell him all of it. I had to give him a chance to stop the sale and reclaim his wine - if it really was his. “I saw a pair of imperial sized bottles listed on a wine auctioning website.”
I saw that information hit Armand like a slow-motion avalanche. His skin paled to the color of cigarette ash. He slumped back against the so
fa and the anger drained from his expression to be replaced by a haunted look that almost broke my heart. Suddenly I regretted delivering such devastating news. Instinctively, I tried to backtrack.
“I really don’t know for sure he stole it from you. Or even that Gavin and Blake were working together,” I said hurriedly. “You might have got it out just in time.” I’d have liked to believe that was true – that Armand’s wines were all safe - but my gut told me it wasn’t.
Armand saw the lie in my face. He snorted. “You know that’s not the truth,” he said. “And I’m betting the Conti isn’t all he’s taken from me. I have two thousand bottles of Grand Cru and premium California cult wines – according to their labels – stacked in my cellar right now. How much of it do you think is real?” He glared at me as if I had stolen them myself.
I could only shrug helplessly. We sat there silently for a tense moment as I watched his face twist and distort, his teeth grinding, fists balled in his lap.
“Armand,” I said in a calming voice, but it was too late.
He shot to his feet, his eyes blazing out of his pale face.
“Imbroglione,” he whispered in Italian, a language I had grown up with, thanks to my Italian father. I knew Armand was from Italy, but I had never heard him speak the language before. And the word he used made me cringe.
“Armand—” I began again, also rising, but he wasn’t listening to me. He was already stalking out of the room, his shoulders up around his ears.
“Armand!” I yelled at his back as I hurried after him, my ankle slowing me down. I reached the entryway, but he was already pounding up the stairs to the second floor. “Let the police handle it!”
“Imbroglione!” he bellowed again without looking back at me. “Io lo sparare in testa!”
My Italian was pretty rusty, but I got the gist of that. He was going to shoot Blake, the traitor, in the head.
He disappeared at the top of the stairs, leaving me standing in the foyer, looking up.