by Peter Lewis
“Eric Feldman called Richard the week he was murdered. I want to know why, what he wanted. And of course, there’s Goldoni, whom I saw last night.”
Kiers laughed. “I’ll be surprised if Eric’s willing to talk about it,” he said.
“So I hear.” I thought I’d plumb his area of expertise. “You ever come across a family named Pitot? Winemakers in Nuits?”
“Pitot, Pitot . . .” he pondered. “No. Definitely not. Why?”
“There’s a kid by that name who was working at Norton when Richard was murdered. I want to track him down, if I can.”
“Well, everybody makes wine here. And lots of families send their kids to America,” Kiers said.
“How long are you here for?” I asked.
“Just a week. Do the rounds. And you?”
“Not sure. I need to be back by Thanksgiving.”
Kiers glanced at the clock that hung over the mantelpiece.
“Look at the time! I need to get going. Already late for my first appointment. Good luck and good tasting!” He stopped at the doorway. “Keep me abreast of what you find out. I’d love a scoop.”
As I headed north on the nationale, I could see the cemetery in Corgoloin in the middle distance, a patch of earth carved out of the vineyards and walled in for the dead, and, a little farther, the limestone quarries above Comblanchien, the flesh of the hillside scraped clean to reveal the bare stone beneath. Graves and headstones, I said to myself. It all seemed so close, but I wondered if I’d get that far, close enough to carve an epitaph for my murdered friend.
Once in Nuits-Saint-Georges, I took a right off the highway and drove down a narrow lane to a house, pulling into an open driveway. As I got out, Claudine came through the front door.
“Bonjour, Claudine!” I kissed her on both cheeks.
“Bonjour, Babe,” she said with a warm smile. She’d put on some weight since I’d seen her last and had dyed her hair, a shock of henna flaming her head. Her eyes, though, were the same, playful and penetrating.
“Has Rosen arrived?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
“And Eric Feldman?”
She shook her head.
“So, you are a detective now?” she said, grinning impishly.
“Just call me Sam Spade. I’m digging around.” I could see she failed to get either the reference or the pun. “Tell me, have you ever heard of a family named Pitot?”
“Gilbert and Henri Pitot?” she asked.
“Yeah, exactly.”
“Yes, they both live not far from here.”
She was on the verge of telling me just how to find les Pitots when a mud-spattered Peugeot pulled into the drive. Rosen leapt from the car and greeted her, air-kissing both cheeks.
“Where’s Bayne?” I asked.
“Lost in the time difference on his BlackBerry. Lawyers! So?” he said, turning to Claudine.
“Alors,” she said, “Roland is expecting you.”
“I’ll see you in a little while,” I said to her.
Rosen and I passed through the winery, a concrete fermenter taking up one side. A conveyor belt, dormant after the harvest, rose to a pneumatic press. In the barrel room, a man was stooped in a far corner. Our footsteps echoed in the cavernous space.
“Allô, Freddy,” he called. “Venez.”
Rosen introduced us as he handed me a stem, and we shook hands. Roland Joubert was thin, too thin for a winemaker, I thought. He was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and wore a sour expression, as if he knew what was coming and dreaded it.
As we stood there, Eric Feldman entered. He had an intelligent face, but his manner was aloof, just as Jordan Meyer and Jonathan Jasper had described him. He stood slightly too erect in a vain attempt to hit six feet and wore a tan shirt and navy blue sweater, green corduroy slacks, and a pair of ankle-high Timberlands. He eyed me suspiciously through surprisingly hip plastic-rimmed glasses that seemed out of place, given what seemed his more low-key sartorial style.
“A friend from California, Babe Stern,” Rosen said.
We shook hands. I pulled out a notebook and pen, ready to play my part. I knew the ropes.
“Can we get started?” Feldman asked. “I have another appointment at eleven.” He was all business, not a smile in sight.
We set to it immediately, the drill repeating itself with each wine. Roland would dip his thief, a long glass tube like a baster, into a barrel, pull a voleur of bright purple juice, and dribble a few ounces in each glass. We held our stems up to examine the wine for color, smelled it, swirled it, sipped it, swished it around as if it were mouthwash, and spat it into the gravel.
“Domaine Collet-Favreau, Nuits-Saint-Georges, Les Maladières,” Rosen prompted for my benefit.
“Les Perrières.”
“Aux Boudots.”
I pretended to take notes and studied Feldman. If he were enjoying himself, you’d never know it. He looked like a cub reporter covering a lousy story—dutiful but reluctant. His questions were formulaic. He gave no sign of what he was thinking, which I guessed was the whole idea. Keep ’em guessing. Joubert appeared tentative around him and stepped from one foot to the other. The whole thing was an exercise to which Roland was forced to subject himself if his wines were to gain any notoriety, but you couldn’t say he relished the experience any more than Feldman.
“Chambolle-Musigny,” Freddy whispered, as we changed villages.
“Les Amoureuses.”
“Chambolle, Les Cras. Premier cru.”
I nodded, playing along as if I actually did this every six months. I inched forward and tried to steal a look at Feldman’s notebook. The handwriting was crabbed, his notes dense with scribbling up and down the side of the page: arrows, squiggles, and cross-hatchings from margin to margin, making it all comprehensible only to him.
His questions were terse. They talked clonal selection, yields, cold maceration, pH, that sort of thing—the techno-geek side of the wine game.
When we’d completed the round, we started all over again, tasting through the exact same sequence from the previous vintage. Then we turned to another eight bottles that stood on a separate table, representing four vineyards from two vintages.
“Roland took over when Claudine’s father died,” Rosen explained, “but he makes wine under his own label, Domaine Joubert. Now he’s going to show Eric his work.”
The bottles in the second group didn’t possess the depth or breeding of the Collet-Favreau wines but were well made: properly structured but lacking flesh.
“They’re coming along,” Feldman remarked. “How old are the vines now?”
“Nine years,” Joubert said.
“You’ll get there,” Feldman reassured him coolly.
By the twentieth wine, my gums ached. I could feel the acids etching my teeth and thought I felt blisters breaking out on my tongue. I was already flagging, and Feldman, hearing me sigh, looked at me contemptuously. But it was time to stop anyway.
Offering a cursory merci, he shook hands and excused himself.
Rosen turned to me. “I have a little business to discuss. Wait for me outside. I’ll be a minute. See if you can open him up,” he said, his tone suggesting he didn’t think I stood a chance.
The morning cloud cover had broken, and I followed Feldman out into an exquisite November morning. I lit a cigarette and offered him one.
“No thanks,” he said. “Who are you with?”
“I’m between jobs,” I lied. “I recently moved to Napa from Seattle, where I ran a wine program.” He nodded. “Terrible news about Richard Wilson,” I said.
“Yeah, unbelievable,” he agreed, but without a trace of emotion.
“You knew him. You worked together.” He stared out the gate to a vineyard that had been picked over, the cordons stretched like emaciated limbs along a wire trellis. “So how do you figure it? The whole thing’s pretty weird,” I said.
He thought a moment. “If it had happened in Bordeaux, that would narrow it dow
n some. I can think of a dozen winemakers who might have done it gladly,” he said. “But Napa? I don’t know.”
“You phoned him right before he died,” I stated bluntly.
“How’d you know that?” He glared at me. “What’d you say your name was? Stern?”
I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere unless I let him know that I’d heard the phone message he left on the voice mail.
“Janie, Richard’s sister, my ex-wife, took me to his apartment in San Francisco. I listened to his messages. One was from you. So, why?”
“You were Richard’s brother-in-law?”
I nodded. “That’s right.”
“As a favor to someone. I’d never have been in touch with him otherwise. But you’re not here to taste wine at all, are you? You used to be a sommelier, right? Seattle. I remember your name. You won that competition. What was it?” His tone was withering. “You fall off the flat side of the earth? What are you now, some kind of investigator?”
“Not really. It just seems like family business. And we were good friends.” I studied him. He seemed unmoved. “I don’t get it,” I went on. “Janie said that you and Richard weren’t on speaking terms. The whole world seems to know what happened between the two of you. Why would you do someone a favor if it meant you had to call him?”
“I wanted to hurt him as much as he hurt me,” Feldman said. Now it was his turn to study me. He waited a few moments before continuing. “If you’re his brother-in-law, then you probably know that Richard has a child he refused to acknowledge. A French child, in fact.”
There was no mistaking the look of disbelief on my face.
“No, I didn’t think so. One more in Richard’s long list of ex-relationships,” he said. “I’m sorry I can’t help you.” He turned to go.
My head was buzzing. I wanted to keep him there another minute until I figured out where to take the conversation. After what he’d just told me, I was too flummoxed to know what to say.
“What about Michael Matson? Any chance he could have done it?” I asked, buying time as I followed him to his car.
“Matson paid dearly,” Feldman said, opening the door. “Those were very unfair reviews. But he’s a reasonable person, a decent human being. I don’t see it.”
“What about Biddy Teukes?” I asked.
“Teukes is a poseur, a minimally talented winemaker with a flair for self-promotion. But murder? I doubt it. Maybe.” He paused. “Well, look,” he said, glancing at his watch, “I don’t know what’s keeping Freddy, but I have another tasting now.”
“Oh, where?” I tried to be casual.
“Trenet,” he offered reluctantly.
“Maybe we’ll see you down the road.” I was still reeling.
He started to pull out of the driveway, stopped, and rolled his window down.
“Did it ever occur to you that Richard was murdered not because of what he did but because of who he was?” Feldman said.
Before I had a chance to respond, the window slid noiselessly shut and Feldman drove off.
Jesus. I didn’t know what to make of Feldman. He’d played his hand tight to his chest, then trumped me with a single card. Richard had never said anything, and I was certain Janie knew nothing about it. And then it occurred to me this was probably what Wilson had wanted to tell me the day he showed up at Pancho’s. The day he was murdered.
Freddy appeared suddenly, fuming. He had a cigarette in his hand and stabbed at his lighter until it ignited.
“That arrogant son of a bitch!” He was furious.
“What happened?”
“You know, I made Joubert what he is. He was nothing until I picked him up. Nobody knew these wines. I purchased barrels for him, elevated his program, spent time in the vineyard. Presented his wines at IPNC last year. Both domaines. Got him some great press with Wilson. And Eric. Now he thinks he’s a superstar. Wants to double his prices. I mean, his wines are fine. You tasted them. But double? I don’t think so. What happens if he has a lousy vintage? Even this year. The wines are half what they were last year. Then what?”
“You tell me.”
“He’ll price himself out of the market. I stand by my producers year in, year out. Fine if you make great wine vintage after vintage, but it never happens in Burgundy. You hit one year, you miss the next. He’s sabotaging himself.”
“How’d you leave it?”
“I walked out.”
He dropped his butt to the ground and stubbed it violently with the sole of his sneaker.
“Come on!” he commanded.
“Where are you headed?” I asked.
“I told Bayne I’d pick him up. I have another tasting.”
“Love to come, but I think I’ll just meet you in town. What time will Goldoni be there?”
“We said one o’clock.”
“À tout à l’heure.”
Rosen wasn’t pleased I was bailing on him. I waited until he had taken off, then knocked on the office door.
“Entrez,” Claudine said.
“Boy, Freddy doesn’t seem very happy with your husband,” I said.
A moment later, Joubert walked into the office. Claudine looked at her husband, and he launched into a rapid-fire description of his conversation with their importer that I couldn’t follow. When he’d finished, she turned to me.
“You know, it is impossible,” she explained. “Everything is expensive: the equipment, the barrels, the way we work in the vineyard. Freddy asked us to do all this, and then, when we ask for more money, he goes crazy.”
“I’ll see if I can calm him down,” I said.
18
I followed Claudine’s directions to the eastern edge of town. The vineyards there were planted on bottom soil, and the houses appeared run-down, their owners’ stoic efforts to maintain appearances in the face of ill fortune and poverty visible in every meter.
I located Henri Pitot’s place first. If its neighbors were humble, chez Pitot itself was a wreck. Weeds choked the rusted cyclone fence that surrounded a barren patch of ground. The courtyard was a shambles: barrels, split and grayed by weather, stood or lay on their sides in front of an open shed. One of its doors, ripped from its hinges, had been propped against the weathered barn board, and I could see an ancient wine press standing dormant in the dark. In the center of the yard, a well had been covered with a wooden disk, the metal armature above it broken and its length of rope thrown in a heap at its foot. A bucket lay on its side in the dirt. A vine, its leaves turned brown, twined above the front door, little clusters of moldy grapes unpicked on its few, wizened cordons.
I knocked on the door and waited. Crows cawed from a neighboring field, fluttering and flapping and fighting over the rotten dregs of the harvest. I knocked a second time. The woman who opened the door was gaunt. She wore a faded housedress, a moth-eaten sweater, and slippers. She stood, one hand on her hip, the other still on the doorknob as if she were about to slam it in my face. She stared at me, her expression suffused by suspicion.
“Is this the Pitot household?” I asked in careful French.
“Oui,” she said.
“Does Jean live here? Jean Pitot?”
She nodded curtly.
“He is your son?” I asked. She said nothing. “Is he home? We know each other. I met him in Napa a few months ago,” I said.
She turned and disappeared toward the back of the house.
“Jean!” she barked. “Get up! There’s someone here to see you.”
The door creaked open. I could hear them whispering furiously but couldn’t make out what they were saying. The woman wouldn’t stop. She seemed to be lashing him with a string of curses. A moment later she reappeared, opened the front door, and reluctantly beckoned me in. Then she walked to the far corner of the hallway and stood in front of its entrance as if to block any passage to the private portion of the house.
Jean emerged, his hair a mess, in jeans and a T-shirt. He stood in the doorway, hiding behind the indomitable figure of his mothe
r, stupefied. She turned and slapped his head with the back of her hand.
“He says he knows you from California.” His expression was blank. “You’re late for work,” she added without looking at him and walked across the front hall to the kitchen.
“I’ll be right out,” Jean said in English, and disappeared.
The foyer was barren, a simple hall tree sporting some jackets and caps, its mirror pocked and cloudy. An old woman, her hunched shoulders draped with a crocheted shawl, sat in the cluttered living room just off the hallway, staring blankly at a television set. The rugs, the furniture, the walls—all seemed worn and tawdry.
Pitot reemerged after a few minutes, his hair hastily combed, in a sweatshirt and jacket. He walked past me into the front yard. I followed him outside. He stopped at the well.
“You! What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“I’m trying to find out what happened to Richard Wilson,” I said simply. “You were there.”
“I had to come home. To help my family with the harvest.”
I looked out to a field of scrappy vines. There was nothing to suggest that extra assistance was necessary to bring in whatever nondescript fruit the vines had yielded.
“You work here?” I asked.
“I’m late,” he said. “I have to go.”
He walked to a carport on the side of the house and lifted a motor scooter off its kickstand.
“What happened the evening Richard was murdered?” I said.
He ran alongside the scooter and jump-started it. The bike lurched and sputtered.
“I wasn’t there,” he called.
“Eric Feldman just told me that Wilson has a kid, a child who’s French. Know anything about that?” I shouted.
“I have nothing to do with it!” He turned out of the drive and onto the road and sped off without looking back.
As I crossed the square in Beaune, I saw Rosen and Bayne coming from the opposite side. Workers were unwrapping a small carousel as if it were a giant present the town had given itself to celebrate the Hospices de Beaune. The public tastings and auction always drew thousands.
On the far side of the place, I could see Goldoni pacing in front of a hamburger joint that seemed grotesquely out of place.