by Peter Lewis
It was a glorious morning for a drive. I headed north from Calistoga. Fog drifted through the breaks in the hills and crested in ragged and dissolving waves over the peak of Storybook Mountain.
I’d called Ciofreddi upon my return and given him a stripped-down account of events as they’d unfolded on the côte. He said that Sackheim had told him my help had been invaluable.
“Well, at least I didn’t fuck it up too badly,” I said. “The whole thing got a little out of control.” Then I asked him if he’d give me the Christensens’ address. He said Eugénie’s husband’s name was Paul and that they were listed in the phone book. I thanked him, and that was that. As Jenny, she had moved thousands of miles away—starting a new life very different from the one she’d left behind—but I knew that she’d never really escape, that the past would follow her forever.
I was sure that whoever had taken over after Sackheim’s dismissal and retirement would close out the case successfully, that Jean-Luc Carrière and Henri Pitot would go to jail, that the French would do their jobs, just as Russ Brenneke and Ciofreddi had done theirs. Spring was right around the corner. The nights would soften, the days lengthen, the eucalyptus grow fragrant. The bottle may have been empty, but I had savored it right down to the dregs.
I knew it was time, now, to end my exile. I needed to remain close to my son; he needed me, maybe as much as I needed him.
I finally felt freed from Janie, free to leave for good or free to go back. I didn’t know why she’d turned to me, whether she wanted me back herself or regretted ever having left. But she had left, and though our last meal together had made me think that we were finished, that last night had left me thinking that maybe we had a chance after all.
She had been right about one thing, though: She couldn’t have trusted just anyone. I’d wanted to prove something, and I had. Helping in some small way to solve Richard’s murder, I had at last tumbled out from under his shadow, even if that shadow had existed only in my own mind. Perception is everything.
When I passed the Jimtown Store, I dropped down on Alexander Valley Road into Healdsburg. I drove slowly along Kinley Drive to West North Street and pulled over opposite Jenny’s home. She and her husband were working side by side in the garden, weeding and raking, bent, silent. I watched as Paul stopped suddenly and went over to his wife. He took the trowel out of her hand, set it on the ground, and lifted her. He held her at the waist and looked into her eyes. He smiled and took her face and kissed her. They embraced in a long, deep hug and released each other. He walked back and picked up the rake, and she knelt down, sticking her hand into the soil. Only then did they seem to notice the sound of the truck and turned to look at me at the same instant. I felt sure she didn’t recognize me as I drove off.
I slowly headed back to town. At a shop, I bought a postcard and wrote a brief note to Émile Sackheim to let him know that, as far as I could tell, Eugénie Pitot and Paul Christensen were in love. The only address I had for him was the gendarmerie on rue des Blanches Fleurs in Beaune. At the bottom of the card I would have to write PLEASE FORWARD.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Robert Kacher, Sophie Confuron-Meunier, and Christine Jacob, who opened more than doors in Burgundy; and Michel Alexandre, for clues only you will recognize;
Franck Marescal, Chef d’Escadron, Région de Gendarmerie Est, Groupement de la Côte d’Or, and Lieutenant Colonel Gilbert Frossard, Gendarmerie de Lyon; Chief Brian Banducci of the American Canyon Police Department and Jane Watahovich of the Napa County Sheriff’s Department; and Sergeant Matt Talbott and Sergeant John Wachowski of the St. Helena Police Department, for giving so generously of your time and knowledge;
Jim Fergus and Jim Harrison, without whose help I would have found neither agent nor publisher;
Eric Overmyer, Richard Rosen, James Crumley (in memoriam), Guy de la Valdène, Jamie Potenberg, Sue Mowrer, and Cyril Frechier, a readers’ circle of a writer’s dreams;
Lannan Foundation, for the delicious space of L3 and the profound silence of Marfa, where, in the course of a six-week writing residency, this story found its most fertile soil; and Chuck Bowden, for the coffee, the conversation, and the example you set across the backyard;
Judy Hottensen, Rick Simonson, and Patrick McNierney, for encouragement all along the way; and the gentlemen of Invisible Cities who heard the first inklings of this story what now seems like so long ago;
Al Zuckerman, for your tutelage and abiding sagacity; and Michele Slung, for your insight, your expertise, and for keeping me on le chemin de vigne right down to the bedrock;
Ben and George Nikfard of Swifty Printing—the only two who really know how many rewrites this story has been through—for your shared faith and conviction that this novel would find its way into print;
Charlie Winton, for seeing the story-within-the-story, and for sticking with it—with me—to the end; and the marvelous women who compose the staff at Counterpoint—Julie Pinkerton, first amongst them—who served as mid-wives to this book;
And Johnna Turiano, for your patience, love, and support, without which nothing would be possible.
The wisdom and wine are all yours, the faults and faux pas all mine.
Merci mille fois,
PL
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter Lewis is a successful restaurateur and restaurant industry consultant. He was a contributing editor for Virtuoso Travel & Life, for which he wrote the column “Wine Country Notebook.” His work has also appeared in Pacific Northwest and Arcade. Dead in the Dregs is his first novel. He lives in Seattle.
Copyright © 2010 by Peter Lewis
The author would like to thank John Wiley & Sons, Inc. for permission to use a passage from Knowing and Making Wine by Emile Peynaud, translated from the French by Alan Spencer. Published by John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1984.
Most of this narrative takes place in the California wine country and on the Côte d’Or in France. Liberties have been taken in portraying these landscapes and their wineries, restaurants, and institutions. The world represented, while bearing some similarity to reality, is fictitious, as are its characters and events. Any resemblance to actual incidents or to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lewis, Peter, 1952-
Dead in the dregs : a Babe Stern mystery / by Peter Lewis.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-582-43691-3
1. Wine writers—Crimes against—Fiction. 2. Vintners—Fiction. 3. Wine and wine making—Fiction. 4. Napa Valley (Calif.)—Fiction. 5. Burgundy (France)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3612.E9745D43 2010
813’.6—dc22
2010005455
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