Ollie reluctantly jumped off the bed and followed her onto the porch, where she sat on the top step looking out at the night sky. Country nights were amazingly dark. The stars were clear and so far away, but they were the only light to be seen for miles around on the moonless night. The damp musty smell of the pond nearby and the fruit from late harvest floated through the valley. Nikki felt very alone. Ollie licked her hand. “Guess I’m not all that alone, am I?” she said to the dog, who flapped his tail.
She stared out across the pond into the darkness. Her heart stopped. “We are definitely not alone out here, Ollie,” she whispered.
Nikki quietly stood and went back into the house, grabbing Ollie’s leash and the Swiss Army knife that Maurice from Chez la Mer had given her last Christmas. He’d asked her to keep it on her at all times, fearful that someone could harm her when she walked to her car alone or to her apartment in Venice Beach each night. At the time she thought it a sweet gesture, but kind of ridiculous. Who knew that she might actually need to use it on a vineyard in Napa Valley? With the knowledge that her sleuthing for the day was not through, Nikki set out to see who was inside the shed across from the pond.
Chapter 12
Nikki walked stealthily, holding Ollie on the leash close to her side. There was someone out at the shed, and she’d had a sneaking suspicion as she’d watched from the porch that the someone lighting up a cigarette might be none other than Mrs. Patrice Malveaux.
Not wanting to alert Patrice or whoever was at the shed, Nikki took her time walking around the area until finally she reached the back of the shed.
The smoke of the cigarette rose into the fresh air, clouding it. Nikki heard muffled voices. Ollie panted slightly next to her. She sat down in the grass alongside of him. He gave her a slobbery lick across her face. She caught herself from almost saying “yuck,” out loud. Ollie lay down in the grass. Nikki put her ear up to the shed to see if she could hear what was being said inside.
“I don’t like any of this.”
Yep. That was definitely the step-monster.
“Do you think I do? I certainly didn’t expect any of this to happen.”
Another woman, and Nikki was banking that it was Meredith.
“It interferes with everything we’ve planned, Meredith.”
“No one can know the truth about us,” Patrice said. “It will fall apart if Derek finds out. You have to get back into his good graces and not screw up this time. He is a means to an end, and that end is a great deal of money. More than I currently have right now.”
Wow. This was getting good. Could they be lovers? The mother who was so staunchly conservative that her gay son embarrassed her was also gay? Nikki pressed her ear harder against the cold metal of the shed.
“I’ll take care of Derek,” Meredith said. “I think if I play him right, then maybe I could lasso him back into my lair. I’ll admit I messed up, but he’s a man. He shouldn’t be that hard to win back.”
“What about Nikki Sands?” Patrice asked.
“She’s harmless. I’m not threatened by her.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I saw the way he gazed at her at the party before everything happened.”
“Easy prey,” Meredith replied. “I’ll be back in Derek’s bed in no time.”
“I hope so, and I hope the timing is right. Remember, we have one goal where Derek is concerned, and once he’s served his purpose, then things will change dramatically around here. But watch yourself with Nikki, Meredith.”
“Fine.”
“I wish Gabriel had listened and taken the job at Cal’s,” Patrice said.
“Yeah. I guess if that had happened the way we planned, then I wouldn’t even have to worry about getting on Derek’s good side again.” Meredith sounded odd, not as polished as she did when inside the mansion.
“Gabriel would’ve made Sumner Winery a five-star company. Cal has no clue how to make wines,” Patrice replied.
“I don’t know if Gabriel would be alive or not if he’d moved to Cal’s. What I do know is that Cal can’t find out you talked to Gabriel about going to work for Sumner Winery. He would be insulted by that.”
“He won’t hear it from me,” Patrice said. “Now what about Minnie? Do you think she was on to us and our situation?”
Nikki shifted in the grass.
“Shhh. Did you hear something?” Meredith asked.
Nikki stood and turned Ollie loose off the leash, hoping that if they came out and saw anything it would be the dog.
“What is it?” Patrice asked. “We need to go. I don’t like it out here.”
“Aren’t you being a bit dramatic?” Meredith asked. “Stay here. I’ll have a look around.”
Nikki scrambled to get up, then sprinted back behind a set of bushes near the pond. Ollie soon found her as she ducked down. She couldn’t see a damn thing and hoped that Meredith couldn’t, either.
She stayed hiding in the brush for several minutes until she heard the two women walking back up toward the mansion. Nikki could no longer hear their conversation. She breathed a sigh of relief knowing that they hadn’t spotted her.
After several more minutes Nikki stood and headed back to her cottage, her mind reeling, Ollie following along at her side. Once inside her temporary abode she headed straight for the kitchen cupboards. Not finding what she was looking for, she tried the hutch set up in the dining room. Aha. That’ll work. She took out a bottle of Jack Daniels and poured herself a tall glass of the amber-colored liquid over ice, with a splash of water. It wasn’t fine wine, but at that particular moment Nikki didn’t think fine wine was going to help her get any sleep, exhausted or not.
She walked into the living area, flipped on the small stereo inside the entertainment unit and sat down on the sofa, grabbing a crocheted blanket off the back and covering her legs, which she curled up under her. “Murder by Numbers” by the Police was playing on the radio. Nikki rolled her eyes at the irony. Ollie gingerly climbed up onto the sofa, as if hoping she wouldn’t notice.
“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna kick you off, Scooby. There’s a murderer or two running around here and at least a half a dozen people with secrets they’re keeping. I think your place is right here.” She patted Ollie on the head, laughing at her own joke, then leaned back against the sofa, bringing the whiskey to her lips, and made friends with good ole Jack.
Chapter 13
The sun peered bright through the windows of the cottage the morning after the party and Minnie’s murder, finding Nikki and Ollie still on the couch. Nikki struggled to open her eyes against the blinding light. An emptied highball on the coffee table and the Beastie Boys belting out “So What’cha Want” on the stereo added to the hangover she was beginning to feel, making her groan. It was not cool to wake up to a pounding headache with heavy rap music coming from the stereo and having Ollie breathing gnarly dog breath on her. Jack Daniels was no longer a pal. She grabbed one of her shoes on the floor next to her and tossed it at the stereo, hoping she would miraculously hit it. It bounced off the pinewood entertainment unit instead.
Nikki felt a tidal wave of nausea as she struggled to get up and walk over to the stereo, turning the power button off. Ollie lifted his head. Must have coffee. After several ice cold splashes of water on her face, the coffee was ready, and Nikki poured herself a large cup.
Deciding that she couldn’t let a hangover get in the way of the day, she got dressed in a pair of jeans and a light yellow knit sweater set. Since she wasn’t going to meet with Derek until dinnertime, she would take him up on his offer to use the spare truck he’d given her the keys to the night before. After setting out a bowl of water for Ollie, she decided to give the big dog his freedom and let him outside to do his thing for the day, remembering that Derek had told her Ollie’s food bowl was out on his porch.
The truck was parked where he’d told her, down near the tractor garage. It wasn’t a Range Rover, but it would do. She turned the ignition key on the old Ford. It
roared to life, and before long she was bumping down the road and heading for Spaniards’ Crest.
She drove up the long drive and found Andrés getting ready to drive his tractor out to the vines.
“Hey there,” he said as she climbed out of the truck. “Did you already take the job and decide to come celebrate with me?”
“No.” She shoved her hands deep into her jeans pockets and stopped for a second, studying him. His eyes. Dark and mysterious—yes, but the eyes of a murderer? She didn’t think so. She knew she didn’t want to think so, because something about him intrigued her, and she couldn’t help but want to have that glass of wine with him, if she did wind up staying.
“What is it, then? Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.
She sucked in a deep breath and blew it out before continuing. Maybe she shouldn’t do this. Ask him these questions.
“Yes? I’m waiting.”
“Sorry. I actually . . . well, I’ve got a few more questions to ask you,” she replied, starting to walk toward him again.
“Really now? Okay. But you’re gonna have to do it while riding on the tractor with me. I have work to do. I need to collect grapes from all the quadrants to bring back and check the brix.”
“Check the what?” she asked.
“The brix. It’s the measurement of the percentage of sugar present in wine. I was doing it on a hydrometer yesterday when you came by. Kind of the old-fashioned way to measure. We have a refractometer, too, which is a more expensive sophisticated version of the hydrometer, but personally I like the hydrometer.”
“Uh-huh.” Though Nikki knew of hydrometers from her research, she had forgotten about the term brix. Then she suddenly remembered that Derek had already explained to her about the brix.
“I harvest at around twenty-five brix. If I let the grapes get too sweet, the alcohol content will be too high. That’s okay with some grapes, if I’m looking to have a sweeter taste. That’s already happened with some of the grapes, and now I’m trying to either sell them off to other vineyards that make a less-quality product or see what I can do with a dessert wine.”
“Dessert wines wouldn’t be where you make a profit, though.”
He held up his hands and shrugged. “I may not have much of a choice.”
“Why didn’t you harvest your grapes already, then?” she asked.
“It didn’t get done. I was in Spain on family business when it came time to sign the annual contract with the vineyard management company. I didn’t think it would be a problem as we’ve always contracted with them, but no one alerted me from here, and as you can see, apparently it was a problem. Now we’re in a bind, and I’ve had to do quite a bit more work, along with the guys you see out here.”
“Vineyard management company? What does that mean exactly?”
Andrés palmed his hand through his dark waves of hair. Strong hands. Nice hair. “Well, at Malveaux they’re large enough to have an in-house system when it’s harvest time. They have the employees and things in place, and usually they have no problems with having enough employees or equipment for harvest. Here at Spaniards’ Crest we aren’t so commercial, and annually we sign contracts with vineyard management companies. They’re the ones who find the workers to do the harvest, bring in added equipment, and many times measure the brix themselves, that kind of thing.”
“Why didn’t they simply honor that you deal with them each year, and upon your return home take care of the formalities?”
He clasped his hands together and cracked his knuckles. “Honestly, I had a falling out with the owner of the company, and we got into it. Needless to say,” he shrugged, “I have work to do.”
Hearing him tell the story, a bell went off in Nikki’s head. It seemed to her that Andrés had issues with more than just Gabriel. Did this man have an anger management problem?
He climbed up onto the tractor and patted the seat next to him. “All aboard.”
Nikki pulled herself up.
“You smell like a wino, girl.”
“Watch it. I haven’t had an easy night.”
“Smelling like that, I guess not,” he replied, a glint in his eye and a smile spreading across his face.
He cranked up the tractor, its throbbing engine adding to the hell going on inside her head. “So, is it kind of late to harvest?” she asked.
He looked at her. “Let’s hope it’s not a total loss,” he replied, hesitating at his response. “I may be able to work some things out yet. The grapes that I don’t feel would work for me could make a table wine for some other winery. I know you didn’t come here to ask me about my harvest, Miss Sands,” he yelled over the drone of the tractor.
“Nikki.”
“Fine. Nikki.”
She didn’t respond right away, trying to straighten out the jumble of words and thoughts going on inside her head.
He kept his eyes straight ahead, stopping at a row of vines. He jumped down off the tractor and picked a handful of grapes. He got back up onto his seat and handed her one. She bit into it. The fruit was delicate and sweet, nurtured into something so tasty it would’ve fooled the most discerning gourmet into thinking it was some type of confection.
Andrés popped one in his mouth. “This is what I’m looking for,” he said. “All I need is enough people out here to help me pick.”
He pulled the tractor back out onto the dirt road and headed for another section of vines. As he shifted the tractor his hand brushed against her leg. Nikki tried not to notice.
He paralleled the tractor over to another set of vines. This time he shut off the engine. He faced her. “Why are you here, Nikki?”
She straightened herself in the seat and rubbed her palms together, then clenched them into fists before asking, “Do you know Minnie Lark?”
“Malveaux’s accountant. I know her.”
“She was found murdered last night.” Nikki watched for his reaction.
His face remained stony. Finally he bowed his head, shaking it. When he raised it to look at her there was sadness, anger and evidence of real pain in his eyes as they watered. “She was a good person. I liked her.”
“You knew her well?”
“I did. We both liked art. I ran into her at the art museum over a year ago in the city during a Georgia O’Keefe exhibit. We started talking and had the art and wine in common. We became very good friends.”
“Were you more than friends?” Oops! Where had that come from? Sure, she was sticking her nose in other folks’ business hoping to help solve a murder, but when that particular question slipped from her tongue, her pulse raced.
This evoked a sort of saddened laughter from Andrés. “No. She wasn’t exactly my type. A bit too bookish for me. Besides, Minnie was in love with Gabriel. Don’t ask me why. She shared her feelings about him with me. They started seeing each other a few months ago. At first I thought it was strange though, because Gabriel didn’t want anyone to know. It upset her, but he finally convinced her that keeping their relationship secret was fun and romantic. I knew that was bull, and my suspicions about Gabriel were right. He was only using Minnie.”
Nikki raised a brow.
“He also told her he didn’t want to upset Derek, knowing that Malveaux has a no-dating policy amongst his employees. It was all an excuse so he could fool around with whoever else he wanted to on the side and get away with it. Gabriel was like that.”
“Why would he use Minnie? From what I’ve heard he had his choice of all sorts of women.”
“Yes, well. I’m not much for rumors, but I had heard that Derek wasn’t all that pleased with some of Gabriel’s actions lately. Malveaux is fairly conservative, and I think even he had tired of Gabriel’s antics.” He paused. “Derek has a lot of respect and faith in Minnie. He did anyway.”
“You think Gabriel was stringing Minnie along to try and help keep his job?”
Andrés shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“What about Gabriel and your sister?”
“Excuse me?”
“Minnie told me about the falling out you had with Gabriel over your sister.”
Andrés stared at Nikki, and for a moment a hardened look crossed his eyes. “You think I murdered Gabriel because he wouldn’t leave Isabel alone? Is that what you’re getting at?”
“I am only curious.”
He shook a finger at her. “No, you’re not. You actually think maybe I did the bastard in because he bothered my sister. Trust me, the thought crossed my mind, but thinking and doing are two different acts. I did not like Gabriel at all, but I did not kill him. And, hypothetically, say I did kill him. And now with Minnie being killed, I would think that their murders would tie into each other somehow. Why would I kill my friend? Can you answer me that?”
Murder Uncorked Page 14