Cabernet Capers

by Dan Kelly

  “Damn! Thanks for the heads up, Sergeant. However, this is not only bad news for Petrillo’s sister. It’s also bad news for us. It eliminates an avenue of investigation which we were hoping might lead to the brains behind some major troubles some of our local wineries are experiencing. Who do I talk with to clear my contacting Patricia Petrillo about what we’re involved with here since now your people will be conducting your own investigation? In fact, there’s probably a good chance the two are related.”

  “Detective Paul Zeimann has caught this one. Hold on a sec and I’ll get his outside phone number for you.”

  A few seconds later, he has the phone number and email address for Detective Zeimann and a happy hunting farewell from Sergeant Keenan and then the line goes dead.

  Derrick passes the news on to Julie and she responds with, “Well that certainly puts the kibosh on the evening doesn’t it? We need more avenues to explore, not less. I don’t mean to be unduly insensitive, but considering everything we suspect about the man he wasn’t likely to win any humanitarian awards.”

  “I’ll touch base with this Detective Zeimann in the morning and share with him what we know about the man and maybe we can help each other out.”

  “Doggone it!” I was really enjoying this cabernet. Now every time I drink it I’m going to remember how this evening went in the toilet and it will spoil the taste of it for me.”

  “We’ll just have to keep searching for happier occasions to enjoy it. It’s a sin to turn your back on a good wine. At least that’s what my Uncle Harry used to say, but he was usually in his cups when he said it.”

  “In his cups?”

  “That’s an old British idiom meaning tipsy, snockered, inebriated, drunk.”

  “You’ve been hanging around Delaney too much. That sounds like something he would say.”

  Chuckling he says, “Most likely. Drink up. It’s getting late and we have to be wide eyed and bushy tailed tomorrow to figure out where we’re going to go from here.”

  Chapter 37

  The next morning doesn’t start off very well. As soon as Derrick sits down at his desk, Maury Hoagland calls and tells him that he was unable to dredge up anything on the two names Maria Conti had given Derrick. The morning went downhill from there when the tails on the Paganelli brothers check in and tell him they have lost the twins.

  The tails had followed them home last night and after sticking around a while it looked like the twins were in for the night, so the tails called it a night themselves. However, the twins never showed up for work this morning and when the tails made inquiries passing themselves off as prospective customers they were told no one knew where the brothers were. The receptionist said that this wasn’t unusual as they sometimes made last minute outside appointments without cluing in their admins.

  Derrick is thinking that perhaps their disappearance has something to do with the Petrillo killing. What that might be has him pondering the possibility of there being some kind of a falling out between the twins and their benefactors. He wouldn’t put anything passed the twins, but if they were stupid enough to have had something to do with the killing they have just chewed off a big hunk of trouble. From what Inspector Antonio Bianchi of the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia told him, the guys they’re hooked up with are serious trouble.

  Looking over at Julie he says, “With the murder of Petrillo, what started out as an attempt by some greedy people to acquire some wineries by some devious and unscrupulous means has now probably escalated to something entirely different, a bloody feud between the major players in the takeover bids if the twins had anything to do with Petrillo’s murder, and we’re going to be right in the middle of it trying to ID all of the players and bring them down.

  “With Petrillo out of the picture now, I want to focus more on finding Mueller and DiMaggio and putting the heat on them to tell us who they’re working for and locating and surveilling Cordell and the Paganellis to see what they are up to. I’m also going to do my best to work closely with Detective Paul Zeimann of the Chicago PD and Inspector Antonio Bianchi of the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia. With all these eyes, ears and experience working together, we should have a pretty good shot at making these people pay for what they have done.”

  “Okay, with respect to Mueller and DiMaggio and Cordell and the Paganelli brothers, how do you plan on doing that?”

  “I don’t want to go public via mass media on a quest to find these people. That will just warn them and they’ll dive for cover. Cordell, Mueller and DiMaggio have no idea that they are people of interest to us, unlike the twins, so we have a decent chance of locating them. I think if we locate Cordell, we’ll eventually find the twins if they don ‘t come out of hiding on their own.”

  “Okay, so how do we find these suckers?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that and I’m going to suggest to Bemis that since the Paganellis have pulled a disappearing act he reassign the tails we had on them to staking out the restaurants and bars in the Westin Verasa Napa Hotel and hope they spot Mueller and DiMaggio there. The pair has been spotted eating there a number of times, so they must like the food and drink which improves the odds of them dropping by again as long as they’re in town.

  “We can spend some time making the rounds of the bars and restaurants and the other hotels in the vicinity of the Westin Verasa Napa, distributing copies of the photos we have of them and asking the managers to contact us if one or both of them put in an appearance. It’s a decent bet that since they’ve eaten at the Westin Verasa Napa fairly often that they’re staying someplace close by.

  “As for Cordell, we have his business and home addresses, so we can try to arrange with the San Francisco PD to have someone keep an eye on him with the hope that Cordell meets up with the Paganellis again and we can round up the lot of them and bring them in for questioning.”

  “Well you’re going to get your chance to sell your ideas to Bemis right now as he’s heading our way. Does he know about Petrillo?”

  “I haven’t had the chance to touch base with him yet. He’s been on the phone since I got in this morning.”

  “Judging from the look on his face the phone calls weren’t pleasant ones. Your bit of news is probably going to push him over the edge to a three Margarita lunch.”

  “He doesn’t drink Margaritas. He’s a transplanted New Yorker. Manhattans and Long Island Iced Teas are his poison.”

  “Whatever his poison might be, I’ll bet you a Margarita he takes a good dose before his lunch hour is over.”

  “You’re on.”

  Walking at a good clip towards Derrick and Julie he damn near has to skid to stop at Derrick’s cubicle. “Chandler, where the hell have you been all morning. I’ve been getting raked over the coals for the past two hours by the Chief, the Mayor and our County, State and Federal politicians and their sycophants over our lack of progress with our winery investigation. I had nothing new to tell them because you haven’t briefed me on what went down after you left my office yesterday.”

  “Oh boy, no matter what I say it’s going to be the wrong thing. It looks like it’s punt time.

  “Sir,....”

  “Sir? You never call me sir unless you’re getting ready to hit me with a heap of honey covered horse manure. Say what you want to say without any fancy trimmings damn it.”

  So Derrick gives him the down and dirty version of what has happened and what he wants to do going forward.

  “Son of a bitch! We’re not making any progress, we’re going backwards!”

  Realizing that he’s going overboard with the criticism Bemis sighs and says, “I know you’re doing everything possible to put an end to what’s been happening. These self-appointed elite vanguards of the people when it comes to shooting off their mouths and slinking wusses when the you know what hits the fan are masters at getting under my skin when things don’t go their way. I’ll arrange for the tails on the Paganellis to be reassigned and contact the San Francisco PD to ask for their
assistance regarding putting some eyes on Cordell. Man, do I need a drink.”

  As Bemis stomps off towards his office, Derrick and Julie are turning blue trying not to laugh at his exasperation linked desire for a drink. Julie says, “I don’t know what he’ll wind up drinking, but I’ll double the bet that it will be at least three of something with a good punch.”

  “I’ll pass. Things must be getting real nasty for him. I’ve never seen him this uncool.”

  “At least he’s going along with your ideas. Let’s hope we get a break and we can give him some good news for a change.”

  “Make a few dozen copies of the phots of Mueller and DiMaggio and then we’ll get out of here and start talking with folks at the hotels and other lodgings in the vicinity of the Westin Verasa Napa and then hit the local restaurants and bars. While you’re making copies of the photos, I’m going to touch base with Maury and bring him up to date on what has happened. I owe it to him to keep him in the loop.”

  Chapter 38

  They hit the streets at around 10:30 and except for a brief break at a Panda Express for some refueling keep at it until 4:30 when they decide that they have blanketed the area fairly well with photos and their business cards. When they get back to their car Derrick says, “When we get back to the station, I’d like you to touch base with Maria Conti for me to make sure things are okay with her. I think she might feel more comfortable talking with a woman and being more relaxed she might remember something that could help us. Encourage her not to hesitate to call us if she feels she’s in any danger.

  “While you’re doing that I’ll let Bemis know about the area we canvassed and find out if the San Francisco PD has agreed to help us. Then after I fill out my report, if you don’t have any plans for the evening, I’d like to take you to dinner someplace where we can sample some more cabernet and cogitate about what else we might do to bring this investigation to an end. Cabernet and cogitation are like peas in a pod. They go well together. That’s something else my Uncle Harry used to say even when he was sober.”

  Laughing Julie replies with, “Well, my mother likes to quote something she read somewhere. ‘Wine does not make you fat. It makes you lean… against walls, floors, chairs, poles and trees.’ She isn’t a teetotaler, but she seldom has more than one drink no matter what the occasion.”

  This gets a chuckle out of Derrick as he responds with, “Is that a yes or a no?”

  “You’ve got yourself a dinner partner, but I’d like to go home and change into something more appropriate for the evening. How about you pick me up at my place at around seven?”

  “Okay. Do have a favorite restaurant or should I just wing it?”

  “Surprise me?”

  “Will do.”

  When they get back to the station Bemis is not around. Derrick and Julie are thinking that maybe Bemis had more than a three drink lunch and called it a day. However, the boss man is made of sterner stuff and, according to his admin, he is attending a meeting with other county sheriffs, police officials and auto dealers to discuss the options available for new police cars. Ford has decided to no longer offer the Crown Victoria which most police departments prefer because it is equipped with a V8 engine and has rear wheel drive which is ideal in pursuit situations. The admin also tells them that the San Francisco PD agreed to help them with Cordell.

  Derrick writes up his report, leaves it on Bemis’s desk and then scans the yellow pages for a place to take Julie to dinner. He spots an ad for the Carpe Diem Wine Bar in Napa, checks it out on the internet and finds some good reviews, so settles on it for the surprise.

  While he’s doing this, Julie calls Maria Conti and gets an earful. Within minutes of Maria submitting her resignation, she got a phone call from her boss’s boss whom she’s never talked with before, never even knew his name. At first he sounded polite and concerned over her decision to leave, but after several attempts to get her to change her mind with increases in salary, bonuses and paid time off fell on deaf ears he abruptly became angry and vindictive, spewing barely veiled threats to her well-being if she revealed any of the company’s privileged information to outsiders no matter who they may be. Maria took the warning to include the police. She’s moved in with her brother and told all of her friends she will be going into seclusion as she’s going to be working on a project that’s going to require all of her waking moments for the next month or two. She figures that way she kills two birds with one stone. Her whereabouts is unknown to everybody but a couple of deputies and her brother and there’s less chance her friends and relatives will be hassled if they don’t know where she is. At least, that’s what she’s hoping.

  When Derrick hears this he says, “These are very bad people, Julie. I hope she can stay in hiding for as long as it takes for us to find and convict these vermin. They might see her as a serious fly in the ointment and come looking for her to eliminate that threat or they might think she can do them no real harm and leave her alone. In my view it’s a toss-up, but it’s not worth the risk of not taking measures to stay healthy. I think she’s doing the smart thing by dropping out of the scene for a while.”

  “I asked her about her putting her brother into harm’s way by moving in with him and she said nobody knows about him at Investors Anonymous nor do any of her current friends. She and her brother agreed to keep her moving in with him a secret from the rest of the family, so she considers the risk to him to be miniscule.”

  “Well, let’s hope she’s right. Let’s knock it off for today. I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty. I’ve made eight sharp reservations for us.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “It’s to be a surprise, remember?”

  “So how do I know how to dress?”

  “Surprise me.”

  “Very funny.”

  Looking out the window he says, “Better bring an umbrella. It looks like rain out there.”

  “Okay, that gives me something to work with. Now, what do I have that goes with a lavender umbrella?”

  Laughing, they head for the parking lot.

  The Carpe Diem Wine Bar turns out to be a very busy place and the food and wine are out of this world. They spend the better part of two hours enjoying the ambience, the food and wine and each other. However, the specter of the investigation casts a shadow over the evening and eventually they begin to discuss what options are left for them to pursue.

  “Derrick, to summarize, on the negative side the investigation appears to be at a standstill. You have no new names to check out, the Paganelli brothers have faded into the woodwork, Mueller and DiMaggio are managing to stay out of our headlights and one of the key players in the winery takeover bids is now dead. You have the names of some heavy hitters in organized crime based in Italy that may or may not be behind what has been happening in our wine industry and you now know about Cordell who might be involved in the killing of Petrillo.

  “On the positive side, you’ve managed to put a team together to help you with the investigation. You have Maury Hoagland, the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia., the San Francisco PD and your network of informants, all on the alert for anything that will help. You’ve convinced the wineries to strengthen their security programs and have enlisted their support in keeping their eyes and ears open for anything that might help you to nail the weasels behind what has been going on. You’ve managed to put a target on your back to flush the bad guys out into the open and you’ve got me to watch your back and cheer you on.