Catharine Bramkamp - Real Estate Diva 04 - Trash Out

by Catharine Bramkamp

  “Defending her friend. This is the first time they’ve met. I don’t think he really appreciates who she is.”

  I still didn’t understand the girl attached to Mark. I would have thought that Mark would be attracted to a more slippery girl, someone in a red dress finished off with platform heels and bare legged because her skin was still young and firm and so she could eschew pantyhose. But he could have matured and is now attracted by someone more, understated. Someone with a winery. I wondered how they met, yet at the same time, didn’t really care. Cassandra was on her own.

  “I’ll get someone to sweep this up.” Ben said absently. He crushed me to his side and we locked stepped back to the party, admittedly away from the patio. I was brave, but not that brave.

  “Just great.” Ben mumbled. But he wasn’t looking at me or at the retreating couple. He was scanning the crowd. “I have someone I need to talk to, are you okay? I think Mark and Cassandra are still in the tent.”

  “Then I’ll stay here.” The oyster bar was in the middle. Or maybe it was time for some Cow Girl Creamery Camembert.

  A tall, attractive woman with dark hair braided down her back reached for the wheel of cheese the same time I did.

  “Oh, sorry.” Her voice and tone were oddly flat, but then many of the guests, with the exception of the enthusiastic Mark Cincet, were on the reticent side. I hoped the wedding would prove more festive, maybe even wild and crazy.

  “After you.” I pulled my hand back and opened the way for her to access the creamy cheese.

  She nodded and expertly knifed a generous hunk onto the crostini. She woofed it down as if she hadn’t tasted decent cheese in years. Well, Cow Girl was pretty damn good.

  “Thanks. So this is the engagement party?” She easily sliced out another wedge of brie onto the bread. Her face registered the pure, unreasonable pleasure of the food. We were kindred spirits in that.

  “No, it’s the winery opening. But we are testing it out for the wedding, but you knew that.” I hazarded. I had no idea who she was, but I was accustomed to not knowing everyone in Carrie’s new circle.

  She nodded and created two more cheese and bread combinations and held one in each hand. “I read about the engagement in the Chronicle. You must be very excited.”

  “Of course. We’re all excited.” I said. The odd woman nodded and moved away from me still carrying her cheese. She melted into the crowd. And I mean that pretty literally, she just sort of disappeared. I never disappear, even in a crowd. How did she do that?

  Perhaps because she’s quieter than me, that probably helped.

  My phone buzzed. I glanced down at the caller, ah, the Garcia’s. I answered and as I spoke with him, I scanned the guests. The light was turning into liquid gold as the sun crept towards the top of the mountains and angled long streaks of sunshine over the flat valley floor. Shadows snaked from the pillars and urns. The air was still warm but now a breeze from the back of the warehouse wound around my bare ankles. I shivered. Where was Mark? Because wherever he was, I planned to hike in the opposite direction.

  A small reception line had formed, with Ben at the head thanking the guests and shaking hands. Where was Cassandra? I glanced around as I listened to John Garcia discussed the pros and cons of each property.

  I saw Mark at the trailing end of the reception line, the girl right next to him. But she grew bored with the good byes quickly enough and wandered towards me. She circumvented me and the oysters and purposefully walked to the warehouse.

  The Garcia’s liked the Heron Way house and that made me happy, pretty happy. I was too distracted to be solidly delighted.

  Carrie and Patrick stood by a large amphora tipped artfully to one side. They were talking with a couple I did not recognize.

  And for once it didn’t matter. I was not compelled to introduce myself to Carrie’s new friends. I did not feel compelled to network, to thrust my business card at them. I could do nothing. I relished the moment of calm. The air had a Sunday evening feeling - it caressed me with the end of week, the end of the weekend. It was restful, quiet. I took in a breath and my shoulders finally dropped past my jawline.

  The ground abruptly rolled and threw me off balance. Whoa. I instinctively looked for the nearest door way, but that refuge was passé, no one stands in doorways during an earthquake, you’re suppose to crouch next to a desk in the triangle of safety. At least that’s what you are supposed to do according to an anxious email that made the rounds last spring. I bolted for the tasting room doors. Old habits are hard to re-think during a real moment of crisis.

  The tremor was over by the time I reached the doorway. A cry went up from the guests, and like them, I listened to the abrupt silence, as if we all could hear the approach of the next tremor, as if tremors come in pairs. The silence grew; we held our breaths, nothing. It was just that, a short rumble, the geysers clearing their throats. Just as conversations began to buzz up again, a mighty splintering crash reverberated off the steel tanks in the warehouse and annihilated the fragile calm.

  I was nearest, but Carrie and Patrick were only steps away from me. We all dashed through the tasting room door, past the marble tasting bar and through the back doors leading to the warehouse. We paused, our eyes, or at least my eyes, had to adjust to the gloom, and no one wanted to trip on a hose or a jutting pallet.

  The warehouse was silent. I picked my way through the room, it wasn’t large, just treacherous, especially in my pair of good Christian Louboutins. The back door was open and I could finally make out a tangle of clear tubing carelessly flung over the damp floor.

  I stepped over one tube, then another.

  “Cassandra!” Carrie called out from behind me.

  I jumped. “Don’t do that!”

  She pushed me aside, then recoiled back.

  Chapter 7

  It did not take long for the remainder of the party guests to come running. I quickly glanced over my shoulder but Mark was not in evidence. Good.

  It was a tableau worthy of the stage (Summer, back in Claim Jump, would have been impressed). The tremor must have been just strong enough to knock loose those top heavy wine cases. Half the cases had tumbled down and splintered in a wide circle. Green glass glinted in the overhead lights and white wine lapped at our feet. Careless of the glass, Cassandra knelt beside a prone body.

  “The tremor! The cases fell, I couldn’t move fast enough!” Cassandra wailed. White wine pooled out from under the inert man and soaked into Cassandra’s rose silk slacks. Even as the guests tumbled into the shadowy warehouse, I noticed that Cassandra was not bleeding. She had not been under the cases. I steeled myself to look at the prone body. He was covered in green glass and blood. He was terribly still.

  “Shit,” a guest breathed.

  “Is he dead?”

  “Is he hurt?”

  And the more practical, “What are we going to do?”

  A young man, who could be accurately described as tall, dark and handsome, waded through the pond of wine and crushed glass and calmly lifted Cassandra away from the man. The boy transferred Cassandra to Ben and returned to the injured man. We all stood respectfully as he leaned over. The boy paused and took a breath before straightening.

  Cassandra didn’t need any more than that. “Oh no! No!” Her wails cracked the silence.

  “Now what will I do!” She moaned and held her head. Her curls cascaded over her cheeks. She buried her face in Ben’s shoulder and started to sob.

  “All that wine,” someone breathed behind me.

  “We just mailed the invitations,” Carrie uttered, but fortunately not loud enough for anyone but me to hear.

  Patrick stepped forward, glanced at the gathering crowd and quickly turned his attention to the young cellar rat who seemed to be the only student left on the premise. The two men carefully lifted the body free of the glass. Shards fell from the prone figure and clanged on the cement floor. The men gently carried him into the waning sunshine. Cuts welled with blood, the tannic s
cent of the wine drifted around us like a miasma.

  We heard sirens in the distance because you always hear sirens in the distance at times like this.

  “I’m ruined.” Cassandra followed the body outside and sank back down next to the boy. It was Fred. I sucked in my breath as Cassandra ineffectually fluttered her hands over his prone form as if commanding him to rise. It wasn’t working.

  “You are not ruined,” Carrie snapped. “You are still in business, this was an unfortunate accident and we’ll just have to move on.” Carrie leaned over Cassandra and smacked her arm. “Are you listening?”

  “Honey,” Patrick wiped his hands on his elegant slacks and approached Carrie. He folded his arms around her and led her away. “It will be fine, it’s just an accident, terrible; we all felt the tremor. But we’ll cope, we’ll help Cassandra cope.” In a lower voice he murmured, “the wedding will be fine.”

  For the very first time I wondered what Patrick thought about this insane wedding. Would he have preferred a quick trip to Vegas? Carrie never intimated that he would, but now I wondered.

  Ben’s heavy tread distracted me for a moment. “There’s another injury.” His face was grave.

  “Where?”

  “Further under the cases.”

  Carrie glanced back at me. I exchanged the look.

  “Who?” I kept my eyes on my friend. In our experience events labeled accidents were often anything but. However, for the next few weeks we may be forced to assiduously not know what really happened. This was an act of God, you don’t have to investigate an act of God, there isn’t even another form to fill out, at least from my end. It would be hard to get a signature.

  Ben lifted his head. “Is the ambulance on the way?”

  A siren beeped and wailed as if in answer.

  “Who?” I asked because no one else was asking. The young boy who had helped with Fred appeared in the sun with another guest. Between them sagged a woman dressed in linen slacks and a now stained tunic. Her white hair was matted with blood; her tan face was smeared with blood mixed with wine. They laid her gently on the ground and the boy disappeared again.

  Cassandra took one look and groaned anew. Her hand wringing escalated to a frantic level. I thought of Lady Macbeth, but knew it really didn’t apply, Cassandra was just overwrought, Lady Macbeth had been guilty. Cassandra’s own hands were clean.

  “Who is it?” Carrie asked.

  The ambulance screeched up to the back doors. The crowd obediently parted to allow the two EMTs through. They took one look at poor Fred and left him where he lay. First they help the living.

  The young cellar rat, rushed back clutching two fuzzy picnic blankets from the gift store. He covered the woman with one and folded the other for a pillow.

  “Trisha Gault.” Ben leaned over and picked out a piece of glass from her head, he didn’t dare wipe her face; there could be hundreds of glass pieces caught on her skin.

  The name was familiar.

  “She owns Wind Runner Winery.” Patrick gingerly patted the blanket covering the woman. “I don’t know what she was doing here.”

  “She’s mad at me, this is all my fault!” Cassandra said wildly.

  The EMT’s looked at Cassandra with interest.

  “Get her out of here.” Ben shot me a commanding look as he stepped between the EMTs and Cassandra. Me? And where was her lover boy, Mark? Conspicuously absent in times of crisis. I reached out, gripped Cassandra mid-hand wring and pulled her away from her former tasting room manager. I simultaneously banished bridezilla to parts unknown with a regal wave of my hand. Patrick helped by whisking her away. I wouldn’t have minded leaving myself, but that was not to be, I was with Ben and Ben was with his old friend.

  The sun slipped behind the hills, I carefully walked Cassandra around the shadowed patio to the office. The scream of the siren roared past us and out to the road. I exchanged her wine soaked silk with black yoga pants, tee shirt and jacket all emblazoned with the Prophecy Estates logo. The dark navy ensemble did little to alleviate her pallor. I felt I was dressing Winemaker Barbie. She tolerated my ministrations in silence, which was just as well, I could not think of any small talk other than to compliment her on the quality of her merchandise. I had a couple of SpongeBob Band-Aids for the cuts on her bare feet, but she rejected my offering in favor of three plain Band-Aids.

  I heard the voices of the arriving police as they secured the area and called complicated acronyms to one another, their voices ricocheted between the tanks and cement floors. Noisy group.

  Cassandra padded barefoot out to the deserted tasting room. She sank down on a marble bench - beautiful, and cold. She shivered and I fetched a lawn chair from the patio, still warm from the sun, and drew it inside for her. And where was her wonderful Mark? Where was O’Reilly’s assistant? Where was O’Reilly? Some help they turned out to be. I wasn’t surprised, but mentally berating other people kept my own hysteria at bay. I liked Fred, why was he under the cases? There wasn’t anything unusual about them, was there? There I go, I did not want to think that way, it was just an accident.

  Cassandra wrapped her arms under her breasts and rocked back and forth.

  “He’s gone,” Ben stepped carefully into the tasting room. His face was drawn.

  I mouthed the name Wind Runner. He shook his head but for once I did not know what that meant. Did we have two deaths in one awful tremor?

  “Fred is from here, he’s as local as me. His family never could get a winery off the ground so to speak.” Cassandra continued to sway back and forth.

  “I know.” Ben placed a hand on her shoulder to stop the rocking.

  “He was thrilled to help me with my dream. It was so sweet of him,” her tone was wistful. Oh sure, now she liked him, the last time I watched them together, she was imperious and he, suspicious. She bit her lip to keep from crying.

  Ben shot me a look and I shut my mouth. I was rescued from further face twitches passing as communication, by the entrance of Peter Klaussen O’Reilly the Third. His footsteps were heavy on the tile floor; his face was drawn, he looked deeply troubled.

  “The police determined that it was an accident.” He glanced at Cassandra. She nodded but contributed nothing more to the conversation. “Everyone felt the tremor,” he explained. Cassandra started to rock again, she moaned softly.

  “I was worried, so I came back up,” he finished. He held out his hands to Cassandra who only gazed right through him.

  He shrugged and took a place next to me on the marble bench. “Chilly,” he commented.

  “Yes, very,” I confirmed.

  “An accident is a good thing.” Cassandra paused her rhythmic movement. “Isn’t it? Just an accident?”

  “Except it may be due to negligence.” Ben glanced at O’Reilly, who was rapidly becoming the de-facto attorney in this little drama.

  O’Reilly waved his hand. “No evidence, we’ll probably have to deal with the claims adjuster, OSHA, the taxes, and there is next of kin to contact. Cassandra do you have any numbers to call? Do you know the number for your insurance agent?”

  She shook her head. “We can look on his phone.”

  Except the parts of his phone not smashed to pieces were soaked in Sauvignon Blanc. Was it just bad luck for poor Fred? And what about Trisha Gault? I was ready to mouth it to Ben but he was completely focused on his old paramour.

  I know, I should feel sympathy for the woman, she was trying to make it on her own, trying to float a very expensive venture all by herself, so I should rally and support her in a sisters-in-business kind of way. But I couldn’t erase her play for my fiancé. With every passing week, I felt more and more possessive towards that man. I was not interested in sharing anymore. I wanted all the Ben sympathy for myself.

  “Any in reserve? ” O’Reilly asked just as quietly as Ben. The sisterhood may be dissolved, but I sensed a brotherhood rapidly forming.

  I glanced around the tasting room with new eyes. The beautiful hard wood ceiling
was made of polished hand fitted teak. The curved glass transoms over the front entrance were custom made, the perfect French oak barrels filling the main central room were imported from the best cooperage in the country. It was all ready for the zinfandel currently fermenting in big bins out back. The pricey merchandise, the matching tee and sweat suit sets, the Reidel wine glasses etched with the Prophesy Estates logo, the tasteful local art. Yes, that would all cost. She had installed mature landscaping; I knew she paid for a fully functioning marketing plan as well as a gorgeous web site and optimization therein. Plus, she had just made a promotional video complete with Hollywood effects. Without even reviewing the numbers, even I could have told O’Reilly that no, there was probably little to none in reserve.

  “Everything was necessary,” Cassandra came to consciousness just briefly enough to defend her purchases.

  My phone buzzed. I checked the name before I answered.

  “Are you still there?” Carrie sounded calmer.

  “Where are you?” I eyed the trio and moved outside to the patio where it was just a bit warmer, the cement still held the heat of the day. The caterers and Hog Island oyster guy were long gone, the tent was empty, it looked forlorn in the gathering dusk.

  “We’re eating at the Madrona Manor, it was close by. Have you ever been here? It’s just beautiful.”

  Of course they just stopped by the very romantic Madrona Manor. It was a perfect place to recover from a very romantic lovely, deadly, winery opening. For a second I felt pure envy for my friend and her lovely, romantic life.

  I glanced back through the glass doors. Ben stroked Cassandra’s hand; Peter had left his chilly perch and hovered as closely to Cassandra as he dared.

  “What do you think?” Carrie persisted.

  I knew Carrie wasn’t talking about the wine. “The police told O’Reilly it looked like an accident, that’s what Cassandra said too, and she was first on the scene. I don’t know about this other woman, Trisha.” I purposefully turned my back on the cozy scene in the tasting room. “Ben hasn’t been able to talk. But the police haven’t said anything about shutting the place down.”