A Sunny McCoskey Napa Valley Mystery 3: Murder Alfresco
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“That would be the layer of rice that sticks to the bottom of the paellera. It’s the best part.”
Annabelle, Monty Lenstrom’s live-in girlfriend and new fiancée, edged closer to the fire and peered at the bubbling expanse of yellow rice and vegetables. “What is this we’re going to eat?”
“Paella,” said Rivka. “Vegetarian paella, to be precise. It’s kind of like Spanish risotto, but less creamy.”
“No meat?” said Andre, walking up to the group with a frown. He was wearing a white button-down shirt and had his black hair pushed back in easy waves from his forehead. Sunny looked at him like she hadn’t seen him in a month, basking in the sight of him.
“No meat,” said Rivka. “We thought we’d give the beasts of the earth a break for the night. Except for the chickens. I had to do in one of our feathered friends for the stock. Vegetarian stock is a crime worse than poultricide.”
“What else is in it?” said Annabelle, holding the stem of her wineglass between pale fingers.
“Are you eating again?” asked Rivka, standing up. “Monty said you were on some crazy diet.”
“Of course I eat. I just eat less, and I fast more frequently. It’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change. Carrying around large quantities of food in your digestive system all the time is hard on your body. We’re not designed to digest constantly.”
Rivka studied the willowy Annabelle. “I feel springier when I’m thinner, that’s for sure.”
“Me too,” said Annabelle. “Besides, food tastes better when you’re really hungry. Is that a fiddlehead?”
Rivka looked at the paella. “It has fiddleheads, roasted red peppers, eggplant, fava beans from the garden, fresh morels, peas from the garden, rice, tomato, aioli, thyme and baby carrots from the garden, artichoke hearts, a ten-dollar pinch of saffron threads for color, and about a pound of garlic.”
“I hope you didn’t make it vegi on my account,” said Sunny. She took the bottle of Pinot that Monty had just opened. “Anyone?” She filled the empty glasses, then poured one for herself. “I’m over the meat hang-up. I mean, I don’t think I’ll ever like the smell of raw chicken, but I’m more or less back to normal.”
“Just when I was preparing to become a vegetarian cook,” said Andre.
“That would be a spectacular transformation.”
“I was going to open Napa Valley’s first vegetarian raw foods restaurant.”
“You laugh now,” said Annabelle, “but when we’re all eating raw foods and living to be a hundred you’ll have to apologize for making fun.”
“You guys enjoy it,” said Andre. “They can bury me with a duck leg in my hand and a greasy smile on my face.”
“Finding a dead body would put anybody off meat,” said Monty. “What I want to know is how skewering Ronald Fetcher like a pig on a spit brought you back into the carnivorous fold.”
“The great spirit sent me a vision,” said Sunny. “I was standing up there on the ridge waiting for the cops to arrive when I saw a bobcat catch a bunny. I saw the whole thing. There was no malice in the bobcat. He was just having his breakfast. I had been enjoying this fantasy that nature was peaceful and only humans were deadly. Then the bobcat put on his carnivore show for me and I remembered the obvious truth. Death is part of life.”
“That’s what I’ve always said,” said Wade. “These people who think being a vegetarian absolves them of violence haven’t taken a good look at a garden. Those carrots don’t want to die any more than anybody else, they just can’t say so. Look out there.” He gestured to the vineyard. “Bud break is like a high note that starts soft and builds. By summer it’s a gospel choir shaking the rafters. Those vines are as full of life as any living creature.”
“But there’s a difference, don’t you think?” said Sunny. “If I cut my arm it hurts, but cutting my hair doesn’t. Some things feel pain, some don’t.”
“Anything that strives feels pain when it’s thwarted,” said Wade. “The vines don’t mind being cut back in winter. They don’t mind giving up their grapes. But if you pull them up when they’re in full leaf, you hear about it.”
“By that logic, we should only eat what is willingly given,” said Annabelle, flicking her red hair over her shoulder. “That was actually a quite eloquent argument in favor of vegetarianism, from the last source I would ever have imagined could produce it.”
“It might be, if I believed life was meant to be or ever could be an entirely painless process, which I don’t,” said Wade. “We’ve insulated ourselves so well from the facts that we forget pain and loss are built into the system. Everything grows, peaks, gets old, and dies. Pain and loss are part of that process. And along the way, in order to survive, we have to eat, which is as inherently destructive as it is generative. I must consume another life, whether it’s part of a fern or part of a lamb, in order to sustain my own life.” He paused to sip his wine and give Sunny a long look. “Besides, if god didn’t want us to eat animals, he wouldn’t have made them out of meat.”
“I’ll drink to that,” said Monty, lifting his glass. “Now, can I get the lowdown on this whole Ronald Fetcher business, or are you going to keep it secret forever?”
“It’s hardly a secret,” said Sunny. “The Napa Register published everything I knew and more two days ago. What do you want to know?”
“Well, first of all, why on earth did you follow a murderer into the middle of nowhere and nearly get yourself killed? This new tendency of yours is getting chronic.”
“I wasn’t sure he was a murderer, for one thing, and for another, I couldn’t let him get away. Would you really want Ronald Fetcher running around out there? And besides, I was in the truck. I never imagined he would be so good at getting me out of it before I even knew what happened. I always feel invincible in the truck.”
“And why did he kill Heidi Romero?”
“The most tragic reason. A mistake. Not that he probably wasn’t going to kill somebody someday, but he chose Heidi based on a misunderstanding. You have to go back to the beginning. Kim Knolls started the ball rolling when she met Ronald at the Flamingo Inn for an afternoon delight. Ronald basically fell for her in his psycho way. When he started hounding her to meet him again, she used her husband as a foil. She told Ronald she couldn’t see him anymore because she was married and couldn’t betray Bruce. Which was a line, of course. She’d had her fun with the creepy stranger and she was done with him, end of story. As far as I can tell, he started to believe that Bruce Knolls had stolen Kim away from him, or at the very least Bruce stood in the way of his relationship with Kim. Meanwhile, he moves into the Mendels’ houseboat on Liberty Dock and voilà, a new obsession presents itself in the form of Heidi Romero, which was natural enough since every man who crossed her path seemed to want her for himself.”
She left off. Monty gestured for her to keep going.
“Those houseboats are not very private, especially Heidi’s. He could look in her windows if he walked by the dock. He could even catch a glimpse of her taking a shower. From a canoe, he could watch her sunbathe on the back deck. And if the French doors were open or if she was on the back deck, he could hear practically every word of her phone conversations.”
“Thus the iPod,” said Monty.
“Exactly. He started recording her conversations, presumably for later personal enjoyment. Somewhere along the line he heard her mention something about Vedana. That put him over the edge. Here he’d gone to the trouble of finding himself a new obsession, and that bastard Bruce Knolls was messing it up again. Either he never actually heard Mark’s name, or he was too far gone to realize his mistake. It was the wrong Vedana too, but he never knew that.
“After that it’s pretty much a standard abduction scenario. He chooses a night when she’s home alone. He’s already established a habit of fiddling around with the trash at odd hours. He either breaks in or gets her to let him in, incapacitates her somehow, and puts her in a big trash bag. Then all he has to do is carry her
out to the dock, toss her in the big rubber trash can, and take her back to his place. Later, he just takes the container out to the bins in the parking lot like always.”
“Why didn’t she scream?” said Rivka.
“Probably he drugged her. Steve Harvey is being mum about the details. He doesn’t want to do anything that could mess up the trial.”
“Will you have to testify?” said Monty.
“Steve says I’ll probably have to. I’m going to have to give testimony at the courthouse with Fetcher staring at me.”
“Not fun.”
“It’s Kim Knolls who’s going to have a tough time. That whole scene is going to set every tabloid on fire from here to New Jersey.”
“When all that dirt comes out, it’s going to destroy their marriage and their business,” said Wade. “There’s not going to be anything left of Vedana Vineyards but a FOR SALE sign.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” said Annabelle. “It depends on how they handle their scandal. Kim Knolls could come out of it a pop culture icon. She could become some kind of S&M diva.”
Monty stared at the paella. “So he brought the body up here to rub Bruce Knolls’s nose in it.”
“Right.”
“And he used the harbormaster’s truck to do it.”
“Right. He broke in and took the keys to the truck and Dean Blodger’s work shoes. That way, if anybody traced the truck or the footprints, they’d lead to the harbormaster. When he got back, he put the keys and the shoes back, and took some petty cash to make it look like a robbery.”
Rivka poked at the paella. “Wade, I think it’s time to take this bad boy off the fire.”
“Exactly when did you figure all this out?” said Andre.
“Not until it was almost too late. The recordings were the big breakthrough. But I should have figured it out before then. I should have known the day we heard the neighbor playing the piano and I saw Ronald Fetcher watching anime. I was so fixated on Heidi’s secret lover, it took me a long time to see the obvious. Then even when I figured it out, I still thought maybe I was wrong. What Fetcher really was didn’t sink in until we were up there on the mountain and I realized he was going to kill me. If he hadn’t dropped his iPod, he would have gotten away.”
“And Dean Blodger would be in hot water,” said Wade. “Or Mark Weisman. Some kind of warrant would have been waiting for that guy at the airport.”
“Absolutely,” said Sunny. “Do you know what Steve Harvey was doing while Fetcher was leaving his blood all over Mount Tam? He was driving down to Pelican Point to question Dean Blodger for the fourth time.”
“I just hope they convict that guy and put him away for good,” said Annabelle.
“You’re telling me,” said Sunny. “I wouldn’t sleep too easy if I knew he was out roaming around. People tend to hold a grudge for that kind of experience, even if they brought it on themselves.”
“Knife fights do have a way of sowing enmity,” said Rivka. “Everyone to the table, it’s time to eat before the paella gets too thick.”
They sat at benches and upturned sections of logs arranged around the rough table in back of Wade’s house, and Rivka filled everyone’s bowls while Monty filled their glasses. From his place at the head of the table, Wade raised his glass. “To peace in the valley,” he said, “and to bud break.”
“To spring,” said Sunny.
They stood to chime glasses, then settled in to devour the savory paella. Andre Morales leaned close and placed a warm kiss on Sunny’s nape. “My samurai.”
Monty turned to Annabelle. “My testa rossa.”
31
The board rose up with the cresting green wave, nose pointed skyward, then tipped over the other side. Sunny paddled with single-minded vigor, worried the next wave would break before she made it over the top. She’d already had enough icy salt water forced down the back of her wetsuit and up her nose that morning to encourage her to paddle harder. The next wave was less steep. With a dozen more strokes, the water flattened and she made good progress. When she paused to look around, she saw the others were sitting their boards nearby, gazing toward the horizon. She was outside.
She sat up and caught her breath. Joel Hyder gave her an ear-to-ear grin. Rivka flashed her a smile laced with terror. Rivka’s hands were white with cold and gripped the sides of the surfboard as though it was about to be ripped out from under her. Beyond them, a pod of seasoned surfers waited in stern silence for the next set. The water sparkled with a hundred thousand flashes of sunlight on ripple. Sunny looked back toward the shore. The hills to either side framed the sandy beach with lush grasses and wildflowers. Overhead, seagulls cruised a sky blue like a marble. Sunny’s feet dangled to either side of the board, snugly wrapped in thick neoprene. She took in the fresh morning, then judiciously scanned the water for fins. A wave rolled toward them, mounting as it neared. It lifted up her board and passed under her. She turned to watch its back swell and finally roll over with a crash. Another ridge followed.
“Get ready,” said Joel. “This one’s ours. Ready? Turn around now and start paddling.”
Sunny and Rivka wiggled their boards around and stretched out flat on them, dipping their arms in the cold water.
“Paddle harder. Harder!” Joel called from farther down the swell. “Paddle!” Sunny felt the wave raise her up, growing under the board. The beach seemed far below. It was like riding at the top of a ladder hurtling toward the sand at reckless speed. “Stand up now. Now!” came Joel’s voice.
She put her hands on the rails and held her breath, pulling her feet underneath her in one gesture. Slowly, she stood up. The board held steady as she raced toward the shore. She threw a glance at Rivka and saw her standing on the wide deck of her longboard, braced like a dog on a horse’s back. Beyond her, Joel Hyder and his enormous grin egged them on. Rivka rode steady and flashed her a look she’d never seen on her face before. It was the uncalculated, spontaneous expression of pure, wordless delight. No wonder Heidi had loved surfing so much. To be lifted up by a force of such grace and power and carried along for a few exhilarating seconds was pure magic. Sunny had never felt anything like it. She looked at the green valley ahead and the blue sky above, and felt the rush of wave speed. The journey was over. Heidi Romero was free.
Acknowledgments
Quite a number of people contributed to this book in one way or another, whether by reading early drafts, sharing insights and experiences, offering their expertise, or, in the best cases, opening a bottle of something juicy over a good meal and great conversation. These include but certainly are not limited to Rebecca Harrach, Jonathan Waters, Randy Brown, Michal and Iran Venera, Suzanne Groth Jones, Becky Buol, David Tellman, Giulio at Ferrari, Katherine Rochlin, David Pierce, Elise Proulx, Dale C., Randy S., Gary B., Doug and Sue Antonick, Tom and Gretchen Worthington, Norm, Fred Mills, Sue Antonick, Andrew Stern, and David Polinsky. Regardless of whom I may have consulted during the research of this book, any errors in the final text are entirely my own. I would also like to thank the incomparable Mr. Ewers for his steady supply of amusing commentary and inspiration, and Judy Balmain, whose wisdom and companionship make everything possible. Finally, more thanks and gratitude to Jay Schaefer and the staff at Chronicle Books for their ongoing good cheer, intelligence, and generous support.
—NG
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
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Acknowledgments
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
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Acknowledgments