— Dominic Petrillo. Daily Variety. Wednesday, June 9.
We give Pete a quick debriefing after we leave the MacArthur property. He stays behind to keep an eye on Little Richard.
Rosie’s in a reflective mood as we’re driving south toward Oakville. “Little Richard is a jerk,” she says, “but in some respects, I feel sorry for him. Left to his own devices, I think he’d be content to manage the winery and tinker with his cars. It doesn’t excuse his boorish behavior, but it couldn’t have been easy working with his father.”
She’s far more understanding than I am. I ask, “Do you believe him?”
Her thoughtful look turns into a scornful smile. “No.” She looks out at the carefully-tended rows of vines as we head down Highway 29 and says to me, “He was too cooperative. I’d like to know why. He lied to us on Saturday. He’s probably lying to us now. He said he drove to Napa with Eve. That means his girlfriend can alibi him. He pointed the finger at Angel. If that doesn’t pan out, he’s also suggested Kent may have been involved. If all else fails, he can blame Ellis.”
“Ellis may have something to say about that,” I say.
“I’ll bet he will. In any event, he’s constructed a neat little package that points to everybody but himself. It’s too tidy.”
“Do you really think he killed his father?”
“I don’t know. They didn’t get along. He has a financial motive.”
“It’s all the more reason to keep an eye on him—and Eve.”
Rosie nods. “I think he’s holding something back. I just don’t know what it is.”
I trust her instincts. We drive in silence for a few minutes. Rosie calls the office and gets a report from Carolyn on the phone records from Friday night. Then she snaps her cell phone shut and tells me that there were no calls placed from Big Dick’s home phone or cell after ten o’clock on Friday night.
I ask, “What about Angel’s cell?”
“They found it in her car. No calls were placed after eight o’clock Friday night.”
I ask her about calls that may have been placed from Little Richard’s house.
“There were outgoing calls to a cell phone belonging to Eve. That’s it.”
“And his cell phone?”
“Two calls to Eve’s cell. The first was at two-forty. The second was at three-thirty.”
Presumably, the first was to arrange a ride for Ellis to the Ritz and the second was to ask for a ride to Napa. I ask her about Petrillo and Ellis.
“There was a call from Petrillo’s cell to the limo service around one-twenty. Nothing else. No outgoing calls from their rooms at the Ritz after the screening.”
“I suppose we should see if there are any payphones in the area.”
“Yes we should.”
“Did she talk to Rolanda?”
“Yes. Armando Rios checked into the Tuscany last night and met with Ellis today. She had no idea what they talked about. You can bet it had something to do with the China Basin project. Carolyn made reservations for you and Pete. You’re leaving for Vegas at six tonight.”
“Would you like to join us?”
“I’d better stay with Angel and prepare for the prelim on Monday.”
Sounds right. I ask her about Angel.
“Carolyn and my mother went to see her this morning. It didn’t go well. The injuries from the suicide attempt are healing. The emotional scars are just starting.” Carolyn reported that Angel was becoming distant. At times she wouldn’t talk.
My cell phone rings. It’s Kaela Joy. “Where are you?” she asks.
“Heading south on 29.”
“Turn around. I found Eve.”
Yes! “Is she willing to talk to us?”
“I think so.”
“Where are you?”
“Gillwood’s.”
It’s a coffee shop on Main Street in St. Helena. “I can find it.”
“We’ll wait for you.”
# # #
Eve’s long eyelashes flutter. “Nice to see you again, Mike,” she tells me. She’s wearing tight jeans and her dark hair cascades down her white cotton blouse. Even without makeup, she’s an intriguing presence. “What a pleasant coincidence.”
Kaela Joy gives us a sideways look and says, “Very pleasant, indeed.”
Gillwood’s is the anti-Starbucks. It’s been a fixture in the center of St. Helena’s historic two-block business district for decades. Although the name has changed several times, the storefront restaurant has been serving honest American food as long as I can remember. A dozen tables are scattered around the small room. There is a larger community table in the middle bearing a sign that says people are encouraged to share. The kitchen is down a hallway in the rear, just behind a modest coffee bar. The ambiance is workmanlike. The aroma is inviting. Vineyard workers mingle with young mothers. I’m devouring a cholesterol-laden concoction called the Gillwood’s special scramble, a combination of eggs, cheese, bacon, spinach, mushrooms and onions. My doctor would be appalled, but it’s the first real food I’ve eaten in a couple of days. Kaela Joy ordered scrambled eggs. Rosie is eating a bagel.
“Eve,” I say, “we talked to Richard.”
She caresses her coffee mug, but doesn’t say a word.
“I understand you drove Richard to the winery on Saturday morning.”
She hesitates slightly before she says, “Yes, I did.”
“You didn’t mention it to me the other day.”
Her eyes turn down. “I didn’t mean to mislead you. I was trying to be discreet about our relationship. Richard is going through a difficult time.”
Indeed. “I understand you also drove Mr. Ellis back to the Ritz on Saturday morning.”
She nods.
“What time was that?”
“A few minutes before three.”
“Where did you pick him up?”
“Mr. MacArthur’s house.”
I give Kaela Joy a glance and ask, “Which Mr. MacArthur?”
Eve’s lips form a full-blown pout. “The senior Mr. MacArthur.”
So far, her story jibes with Little Richard’s. “Did you pick up Richard and Mr. Ellis?”
“Just Mr. Ellis.”
“Why not Richard?”
“He was still inside with his father and Mr. Kent. Only Mr. Ellis was waiting for me outside the house.”
Rosie puts down her coffee mug. Eve is contradicting Little Richard’s story. He said he went home while Ellis and Kent were still talking to his father. Eve just said Little Richard was still there after Ellis left. I want to be sure I heard her right. I try to keep my tone even as I ask, “Are you sure he was still meeting with his father while you took Mr. Ellis to the Ritz?”
I can see a slight discomfort in her eyes when she says, “Yes.”
“Then you came back and picked up Richard at his father’s house?”
“No. I picked him up at his house.” She says Little Richard walked home from his father’s house while Eve was driving Ellis to the Ritz. He called her on his cell and told her to meet him at his house. “We left for the winery around three-thirty.”
“And why didn’t you tell us about this on Saturday?”
“I was trying to be discreet.”
Right. Rosie gives me a knowing look. I decide it would be best to leave out any mention of the skinny-dipping under the Napa Valley moon. After all, she’s trying to be discreet. We finish our breakfast and I pick up the check. Eve heads out onto Main Street.
We regroup in the doorway to Gillwood’s. I tell Kaela Joy about the inconsistencies in Little Richard’s and Eve’s respective accounts.
Her eyes light up. “Who’s lying?” she asks.
“I’m not sure. Little Richard didn’t want to admit he was the last person to see his father alive. He blamed Angel. And just to be safe, he told us Kent and Ellis were there, too.”
“We have to talk to Ellis right away.”
“Pete and I are flying down to Vegas tonight,” I tell her.
“I’
m coming with—” She’s stopped mid-sentence by blaring sirens. We see two fire engines go charging down Main Street. “What is it?” she asks.
I feel my cell phone vibrating in my pocket. I snap it open and I can barely make out Pete’s voice shouting, “MacArthur’s house is on fire! There was an explosion in the garage.”
My God. “Where’s Little Richard?”
“I’m not sure.”
I flash back to the cans of thinner. I think of his proud look when he showed me his restored autos and the sound of his voice as he told me about his car collection. I tell Pete we’ll be there as soon as we can. I realize I’m already starting to walk up the street when Rosie grabs my arm. Kaela Joy is standing next to her.
“There was an explosion at the winery,” I say.
Kaela Joy’s dark brown eyes turn serious. “I’ll meet you there.”
Rosie and I start walking toward my car. She pulls the keys out of my hand as I’m about to open the door. “I’ll drive,” she says.
*****
Chapter 41
“One of His Damned Cars Must Have Blown Up”
“There has been an explosion at MacArthur Cellars just south of St. Helena.”
— KGO Radio. Wednesday, June 9. Noon.
Highway 29 is clogged with emergency vehicles. Rosie and I abandon our car a half mile north of Zinfandel Lane and we hike the rest of the way. We find Pete standing by a roadblock near the gate to the MacArthur estate, where pandemonium reigns. Fire trucks surround the garage. A rescue helicopter hovers overhead. Billows of black smoke pour into the acrid air, and the usually-pristine valley is shrouded in a thick haze.
“One of his damned cars must have blown up,” Pete shouts above the roar. He says he was in his car near the main gate when he heard the explosion. He called nine-one-one. “Eve came back just after the fire started,” he says. “I tried to get to the garage, but the fire was too intense. Then the fire trucks arrived and I got the hell out of the way.”
Rosie asks, “Did you see anything before the fire started?”
“I saw a farm worker drive by the garage on a tractor, then I saw him running toward the house after the explosion. I don’t know what happened to him.”
I ask, “Did anybody else come to see Little Richard after we left?”
“No.” He reflects and says, “You may have been the last people to have seen him alive.”
The cops will have some questions for us. We gaze at the fire in silence. We watch vineyard workers scurrying to protect the precious vines. The employees of MacArthur Cellars are standing in small groups outside the gate. The parking lot near the tasting room is jammed with police cars. The unsightly winery building is still intact.
An officious young woman with trim hair and sensible clothing approaches us and flashes a badge. She looks at Pete and says, “We’d like to take your statement now, Mr. Daley.”
I interject, “And you would be?”
“Inspector Julie Hart. St. Helena Police. And you would be?”
Pete replies, “He’s my brother.” He pauses and adds, “And my lawyer.”
Inspector Hart looks me up and down. Then she glances at Pete and notices the resemblance. I say to her in a measured tone, “I’m Michael Daley.” I introduce Rosie and say, “We’re Angelina Chavez’s attorneys.”
A look of recognition crosses her face. “We need to talk to your brother. Then we’d like to ask you some questions.”
# # #
Over the course of my long and illustrious career, I have been present at hundreds of interrogations. Most have taken place at crime scenes, in police stations or in the bowels of the Hall of Justice. The setting is therefore a bit unusual as I answer Inspector Hart’s questions at a picnic table at the edge of a hundred pastoral acres of vines along Zinfandel Lane while Big Dick’s garage is still engulfed by flames a quarter of a mile away.
Inspector Hart just finished an unproductive half-hour with Pete, who told her very little. He isn’t a chatty guy and he knows you have to be careful about what you say to the police. At one point she threatened to detain him, whereupon he asked me to sit in on the conversation. Then things moved along more quickly. Inspector Hart was taken aback when she found out that Pete and Kaela Joy were keeping Little Richard under surveillance. This sort of thing doesn’t happen in the Napa Valley. Rosie and Kaela Joy are going through a similar exercise at adjacent picnic tables with Inspector Hart’s colleagues.
I’m not used to being on the receiving end in this procedure. It’s a little unnerving when a police officer starts asking you questions. Inspector Hart is doing her interrogation by the book. She isn’t going to get much more out of me than she got from Pete. I’m not trying to be difficult, but I don’t want to say anything that might adversely impact Angel’s case. She takes meticulous notes as I give her the thirty-second version of my story: Rosie and I talked to Little Richard. He was working on a car in the garage where there were flammable materials. He was cooperative. We didn’t see anything suspicious. Then we left and had breakfast with Eve and Kaela Joy at Gillwood’s. We came back when Pete called.
Inspector Hart isn’t going to accept my explanation without additional discussion. She asks, “How well did you know Mr. MacArthur?”
“I’d met him once before today.”
“Did you notice anything unusual in his behavior?”
“No.”
“Did he mention anything about threats or other problems?”
“No.” You might consider the fact that his father was murdered less than a week ago.
“What was your brother doing here?”
“We were keeping Mr. MacArthur under surveillance. We were trying to figure out if he had any involvement in his father’s death.”
“Did he?”
I want to plant a seed. “We think so,” I say. “His father changed his will to make him the sole beneficiary. He was one of the last people at his father’s house early Saturday morning.” I tell her there were some inconsistencies between his story and Eve’s. I suggest that she talk to Jack O’Brien. Maybe she can convince him to consider Little Richard as a suspect.
She furrows her brow. We parry for twenty minutes. She says she’ll talk to O’Brien. “I’ll need to ask you and your colleagues to let us know if you’re planning to leave the vicinity.”
“No problem,” I say as I hand her a card. I tell her that Pete and I plan to go to Vegas to interview a couple of witnesses. I promise to keep her informed of our whereabouts. I glance at the medical helicopter that is lifting off from the parking lot. I turn back to Inspector Hart and ask, “Is that Mr. MacArthur?”
“Yes.”
“Is he going to be all right?”
“No, Mr. Daley. He’s dead.”
# # #
Pete is sitting on a picnic table, arms folded. “Inspector Hart was pushy,” he says.
I’ll bet he was at least as pushy when he was a cop. “She was just doing her job.”
“She could have been polite.”
“At least she didn’t haul your ass into jail.”
He gives me a sideways grin and says, “When she heard I was represented by Fernandez and Daley, she folded up like a tent. Besides, she knew I didn’t have anything to do with Little Richard’s death. She finally told me the guy who was driving the tractor admitted he started the fire. He said he was dragging a chain that scraped the ground and caused a spark. It set off a chain reaction when it hit the fumes. It’s going to be ruled an accident.”
He’s good. “How did you get her to tell you about it?”
“Just because a cop is asking questions doesn’t mean you can’t ask a few of your own.”
“She volunteered the information?”
“Professional courtesy. Besides, I can be very charming when I want to be.”
Maybe heshould have been the lawyer.
*****
Chapter 42
“This Case Has Been Getting Round-the-Clock Coverage”
“You call them as you see them. You do your best to get it right.”
— Superior Court Judge Elizabeth McDaniel. San Francisco Daily Legal Journal. Wednesday, June 9.
We’re back in Judge McDaniel’s courtroom later the same afternoon. She’s giving me an icy stare over the top of her reading glasses. The motherly voice that we heard on Monday has given way to a more judicial tone. She says to me, “I didn’t expect to see you again, Mr. Daley.”
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