Blood for Wine

by Warren C Easley

  He turned to me, his eyes suddenly filling with passion. “Sean McKnight’s parcel is one of the largest and finest pieces of acreage in the Dundee Hills. There are only a few small, tucked away corners in the entire world where one can grow pinot noir grapes optimally, and the Dundee Hills is one of them. So, what is he doing with his acreage? Hazelnuts? Kiwis? What a travesty. What a monumental waste. One could be making world-class pinot noir on that land.” He lifted his chin and looked at me with contempt, his patrician bearing seemingly materializing out of nowhere. “Would he sell it? Of course not. God knows I’ve tried to buy it. He’s just like all the other stubborn landowners in the Hills.”

  “So, you decided to just take it from him?”

  He looked at me as if I’d asked a stupid question. “He’s desecrating that land, Claxton.” He shook his head, a gesture of pity. “You’re just a small man with ordinary passions. You’ll never understand someone like me, someone who deplores mediocrity and strives for true greatness.”

  “Is your pill pushing part of your striving for greatness?”

  He glared back at me, raising his chin even higher. “I won’t dignify that with a response.”

  I crossed my arms and held his eyes. “Get out of here before my ordinary passions get the better of me.”

  I followed Amis outside and watched him drive off in his black Land Rover. I found McKnight out behind Jim’s house, leaning against the fender of his truck. I’d instructed him and Maura to park back there so Amis wouldn’t see their vehicles when he came in. He was smiling, but his eyes looked troubled. “Thank God that’s over,” he said, pumping my hand. “I can’t begin to thank you enough, Cal.”

  “Well, it won’t be over until eight tonight. He’s agreed to bring the images to my office. I don’t want anything to do with them. They’ll be yours to burn or whatever.”

  “He won’t back out, will he?”

  I shook my head. “No. I don’t think so. You were both very convincing.” I glanced back to where her car had been parked. “She’s gone, I see.”

  His face went dark, like when the sun suddenly ducks behind a cloud. “Yeah, she, ah, left. Said how sorry she was again. I asked her if she wanted to get some coffee, you know, to talk about what we’ve been through.” He blew a breath out and blinked his eyes rapidly for a moment. “She said no, that she thought it best if we didn’t see each other again.” I said, ‘Okay, yeah, that made sense.”’ He forced a wan smile. “After all, we made quite a hash of it, she and I.”

  I nodded. “Give yourself some time to decide what’s best for you, Sean.”

  He looked at me, his eyes suddenly brimming. “I got my farm back, but my life’s a shambles. And all I can think about is her. What is wrong with me?”

  I’m not a touchy-feely kind of guy, but I stepped forward and gave the good Reverend Sean McKnight a hug. “Go home now,” I told him. “You’ve been through it. Take some time to sort things out.”

  I stood there as he pulled out from behind Jim’s house and onto the drive leading through the vineyards, his truck swirling grape leaves in its wake. The fine weather was starting to break, and although I couldn’t see the clouds from where I was standing, I could smell rain in the stiffening breeze. I could only shake my head at the irony—imagine me giving advice to a man of the cloth. And what did I tell him? Time’s a healer alright, but it’ll hurt along the way. I’d left that last part out. I wondered what he was going to do. The Reverend had a good heart, but it looked like it had staked a claim that flew in the face of everything he stood for.

  There was something else on my mind, something that stirred a ripple of excitement in my gut. Now there was no question in my mind. Richard Amis knew more than he was telling me, and I needed to find out what it was.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  After breakfast the next morning, I attacked the woodpile out behind the garage again, splitting the oak rounds with renewed energy. My left arm radiated some pain but held up well enough. The squall that had blown through left a mottled, uncertain sky behind, and each time the wind gusted I got rewarded with a sprinkling from the branches of a nearby Douglas fir. That was okay because I loved the sound of the wind in that tree, the kind of sifting murmur a receding wave makes on a sandy beach.

  The hand-off meeting with Richard Amis the night before went without a hitch. After we made the exchange, I gave him another chance to level with me about Lori Kavanaugh, but he continued to stonewall. His denials were even more adamant this time around, suggesting he rehearsed his response a bit. I called Sean McKnight and told him I had the images. He dropped by to pick them up, and after he left I called Maura Conisson to give her the news. I’ll admit to a bit of meddling here—before I signed off I said, “Why don’t you have coffee with Sean, give him some closure.” She said she would think about it.

  At around ten that morning, I hauled my phone out of my jeans, sat down on one of the rounds, and called Nando. “You’re up early,” I said when he answered, his voice a shade on the testy side.

  “Yes. Ordinarily, Sunday is my day to rest, but I am in my office right now writing a sales contract for the property on SE 16th I told you about.”

  When he finished rhapsodizing about the great deal he was about to strike, I said, “How old is the house you’re going to tear down?”

  “It was built in 1914, I believe.”

  “You better hurry,” I chided. “I just read that the city’s considering requiring developers to dismantle houses built in 1916 or earlier.”

  “Dismantle? What does this mean?”

  “It means you can’t just tear it down. You’ve got to take it apart piece by piece and recycle as much of the material as you can.”

  Nando muttered something in Spanish I didn’t understand, and then we got into it, him arguing for a laissez faire approach to development and me arguing for some kind of restraint before the character of Portland’s lost forever. At a lull, I said, “Can you do me a favor?”

  “Of course.”

  “There’s a lawyer in Seattle named Arnold Bivens. I want to talk to him today, if possible. I tried the online white pages but struck out. Can you use one of your databases to get me his home phone or his cell phone number?”

  “Yes, Calvin. I will call you back.”

  I went back to my wood chopping. Archie lay off to the side, next to a grimy tennis ball. He paid rapt attention to my every move, because I promised him a game of fetch when I finished. When I finally rested the ax against the side of the garage, he sprang to his feet with the ball in his mouth, his eyes blazing with excitement. We finished our game, which featured a somersaulting catch that could have made a good ESPN highlight reel, and retreated into the house just as the sky opened up. I gave him his weekly bone, and after finishing a lunch of Gruyere cheese, walnuts, and sliced apple, all washed down with a glass of Sancerre, Nando called back with Bivens’ home and cell numbers and his private e-mail address.

  Privacy in the digital age? Forget about it.

  Arnold Bivens picked up on the third ring of his cell phone. I introduced myself, apologized for calling on a Sunday, and told him I was thinking about investing in Tilikum Capital Management. “I saw the item about your lawsuit in The Oregonian. Doing a little due diligence,” I explained.

  The line went quiet, and I thought I lost him. “How did you get my cell phone number?”

  “From a friend who made me promise I wouldn’t tell on him.” That was the truth.

  More silence. “I can’t talk about the lawsuit, so I don’t see how I can help you.”

  I breathed a mental sigh of relief. He’s buying it. “I know that,” I said hastily. “I’m just wondering if your lawsuit represents a threat to the health of the company.”

  He paused for a couple of beats. “Oh, I hope they feel it, but it won’t put them out of business. I just want what’s owed to me.”


  “I see. What about the Cornerstone bankruptcy? Know anything about that?”

  “Tilikum lost a nice income-generator. Collecting on student loans is lucrative.”

  “So what will the loss do to them?”

  “Oh, it’s a bump in the road. They’ve good cash reserves and one of the sharpest owners in the business—Eddie Manning. That son of a bitch is a financial whiz kid.”

  “So, even though you’re suing them, sounds like you’re recommending them to me.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, I guess I am. If private investment firms blow your skirt up, I’d say you couldn’t do much better than Tilikum.”

  That was all I got from Arnold Bivens. I thanked him, and when I punched off, leaned back in my old roller chair and looked at Arch, who was gnawing his bone in the corner. “So, Big Boy, looks like Tilikum hasn’t taken any shots below the waterline.” My dog stopped chewing and looked up at me for a moment and then went back to his bone as if to say high finance didn’t interest him.

  It was still raining, and the house had taken on a chill. I went into the kitchen, brewed up a double cap, and brought it back to the study along with a couple of squares of dark chocolate to nibble on. The events and personalities I encountered over the last month were clunking around in my head like cars with flat tires. I did what I usually do when this happens—I took a single sheet of paper and wrote out a list to focus my thinking. This is what I came up with—

  The killer—Known by Lori Kavanaugh (her lover?) and seen by Isabel Ruffino. Cold blooded—bludgeoned Lori to death and executed Luis Delgado. Nearly killed Archie?

  Blake Daniels—dislikes Jim intensely, would love his acreage. Lori’s lover? Left Amis’ party early, so could have been Arch’s poisoner. Whereabouts night of murder unknown.

  Eddie and Sylvia Manning—holding note on Le Petit Truc. They could foreclose if Jim defaults. Have solid alibis for night of murder and are financially well off.

  Aaron Abernathy—angry at Jim and Lori for not bankrolling his pot biz. Won’t let me talk to his stepmother to confirm his alibi night of murder. (asked Eddie and Sylvia for money, too)

  Richard Amis—psychiatrist, pill-pusher, and blackmailer who covets land in Dundee Hills. He’s not telling me everything he knows.

  Candice Roberts—caught with Blake Daniels at Amis’ party. Is trying to play Daniels, but no results yet (Could she be playing me??)

  Isabel Rufino—where the hell is she?

  I sat staring at the list for a long time. I put Eddie and Sylvia together, because I had no reason to separate them at that point and no motive to ascribe to either of them. Candice was getting close to Blake Daniels. Would she find something linking him to Lori or where he was the night of the murder? Could I trust her? I felt I could, but I reminded myself to be cautious.

  I finished one of the chocolate squares, dropped the other in my coffee and stirred it in, deep in thought. Aaron Abernathy was an angry man, but what motive—other than hatred of Jim—would he have to kill Lori?

  Then there was Richard Amis. Was he involved in Lori’s murder, or was he just a run-of-the-mill blackmailer? My gut said the former because I was damn sure his lust for Dundee Hills acreage didn’t stop at Sean McKnight’s property line. He’d recruited Maura Conisson to blackmail McKnight. Was he using someone to frame Jim?

  My mind had calmed, but nothing really jumped out at me except a sense that I wasn’t looking for one person, that there were interconnections at work here. But what interconnections? I had no idea, but I kept coming back to Richard Amis. Was he the key to this?

  I picked the pen back up and scrawled “Interconnections??” across the bottom of the sheet and tacked it to the wall in front of my desk, then downed my homemade mocha and got on with the rest of my Sunday.

  That night around eleven I walked Archie and said goodnight to the great horned owl who called to us like a lone sentry from his roost high in the Doug fir up near the gate. I was tired, and my left arm was sore from the wood chopping, but I managed twelve more pages of Winter’s Bone before I dozed off with the lamp still burning on the table next to my bed.

  I incorporated the first ping from my cell phone into a dream I was having. The second ping woke me up. I fumbled for my phone, tapped the text bubble, and this came up: Hey, he’s out cold and I’m snooping around. This is cool!

  It was a text from Candice Roberts from inside Blake Daniels’ house. My mind cleared in a hurry.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  I swung my feet out of bed and sat there squinting at the little screen. Just like Candice to make light of this, I thought. Should I text her back and warn her again to be careful? I wasn’t sure that was wise. The incoming message would make the same ping that woke me up. She must have read my mind because another text came in that read:

  Don’t worry. He drank a lot of Scotch and took some pills.

  Pills? I decided a text was worth the chance.

  What kind of pills?

  Don’t know. I’ll look.

  A long pause ensued, maybe ten minutes. I sat there listening to Archie’s steady breathing, hoping she was okay. I got up and was pacing around the room when two photographs pinged in. I sat back down on the bed and put my phone under the light. Candice had photographed what looked like two sides of a small white pill. I looked carefully at the first image and could just make out a G inscribed on it. The other side of the pill was divided by a horizontal line with CN inscribed in the top half and 0.5 inscribed on the bottom half. I typed “What pill has CN and 0.5 on it?” in my browser and quickly learned that Blake Daniels was using Klonopin, a benzodiazepine used to treat anxiety and a notoriously addictive and destructive drug when abused. I looked up Xanax, the drug Lori had been abusing with the help of Dr. Feelgood. Another benzodiazepine. Not the same as Blake’s, but the same family. Did this connect Amis and Daniels and Lori? Not directly, but it did make me wonder where Daniels was getting his pills.

  I texted Candice back:

  Thx. We’ll talk tomorrow. Be careful!

  I went back to bed, but sleep evaded me. I finally sat up and started reading again and had nearly finished Winter’s Bone when I finally drifted off. I dreamed I was slogging along on snowshoes somewhere in the Cascades, but when I looked down, discovered it wasn’t snow I was moving through but small white pills. Crazy.

  I got to the office early the next morning, and after filing a motion on the divorce case I’d taken on, I called the hospice and asked for an appointment to interview Irene Halstead that evening. As expected, I was told they’d been given strict orders to keep me out by her next of kin, Aaron Abernathy. Next, I called the prosecutor handling the Lori Kavanaugh murder, Helen Berkowitz. We were never that friendly, and I was sure the bail hearing widened the breach. It was no secret that Helen didn’t like men all that much, but I didn’t take it personally. In fact, I admired her for forging a career in a male-dominated field like prosecutorial law.

  I got right to the point. “Helen, I’m planning to talk to Lori Kavanaugh’s mother, Irene Halstead. She has pancreatic cancer and is in hospice care. I went to visit her last Friday. Her stepson interrupted me, but I was able to verify that she’s still coherent.”

  “She was thoroughly questioned, Cal. You have her statement.”

  “I know, but I’m interested in some details of Lori’s life while she was living apart from Jim Kavanaugh. I think she might have had a lover.” I also wanted to hear Halstead verify Abernathy’s alibi but didn’t share that. In the police interview, Halstead stated they were together that night, but I wanted to reopen the question. Being close to death can change a person’s perspective, as she herself admitted.

  Berkowitz laughed. “I know you like to fish, Cal, but this is over the top.”

  “This is potentially exculpatory evidence, Helen,” I snapped back. “I’m going for a court order. Aaron A
bernathy’s blocking my access to Halstead. He’s going to have to explain to Judge Whitcomb why I shouldn’t be allowed to talk to his stepmother. If you want someone present, let me know.”

  She laughed again. “The woman’s dying, for Christ’s sake. Good luck with that.”

  That afternoon I closed up shop and headed out to get a firsthand account of Candice’s latest espionage work. The sun had broken through, but the clouds building in the south hinted it was to be a short appearance. As Arch and I approached Le Petit Truc, I found the undulating sweep of the vineyards oddly comforting. Maybe it was the orderliness of the rows that stood in stark contrast to my life at that juncture, or maybe it was the fact that winemaking hadn’t changed much at all in the last two thousand years. At least some things in this world weren’t moving at warp speed.

  Archie and I found Jim, Juan, and a crew of six working a section of the vineyard that sloped off to the southwest. “No rest for the wicked,” I said to them as we approached.

  Juan paused with a shovel balanced in his hands and smiled. “This compost does not spread itself.”

  Jim rested on his shovel and squinted at me. He looked good, but he always did when I caught him working. “Soon as we finish spreading this compost, we’re going to plant the section with native grasses and wild flowers.

  “What’s that going to do for you?”

  “It’ll help keep the weeds down, but more importantly we hope it’ll bring in beneficial insects and organisms indigenous to this soil. It’s an experiment. We’ll see what happens.”

  I looked around. “Leaves are almost gone. When do you start pruning?”

  Juan groaned. Jim chuckled. “February. Everybody hates pruning, but it’s absolutely critical.”

  Juan nodded. “Wine may be sophisticated, but growing grapes is simple farming. No shortcuts.”