Tangled Vines

by Janet Dailey

  “The bitch,” DeeDee muttered.

  Kelly silently echoed the thought as she glanced at the Jeep pulling up to the curb. Sam climbed out, spotted all the media, and hesitated. No one else seemed to notice him. Kelly excused herself and walked over to him. He looked tired and drawn, like a man who hadn’t slept all night, the shadow of a beard darkening his tanned, hollow-cheeked face.

  “I should have known you’d be here.” There was something grim and hard in his expression, the strain of a long night showing in the faint irritability in his voice.

  “How’s Katherine?” she asked.

  “Fine.”

  “And the baroness?”

  “Don’t pump me for information, Kelly,” he warned, making it clear he was in no mood to deal with more questions from the press. She could well imagine the way they had swarmed over Rutledge Estate when word of the baron’s murder had gone out.

  “I was concerned, Sam,” she said quietly.

  His straight glance explored her face. Then he nodded, a small, tired sigh escaping from him. “The doctor has her under sedation. She took it pretty hard.” He paused, then added grimly, “This shouldn’t have happened.”

  She heard the self-blame in his voice and laid a hand on his arm, the first time she had initiated contact between them. “Even if you had been there, Sam, there was nothing you could have done to prevent any of this.”

  He started to say something, then stopped and looked at her, a wariness back in his eyes, aimed as much at her profession as it was at her. Still, it hurt. She wanted Sam to trust her. She didn’t know why it was suddenly important.

  Finally he said, “Maybe I could have. And maybe not.”

  A tan car drove up and parked in a space reserved for official vehicles only. A man in a dark suit and tie stepped out, then reached back in the car to drag out a briefcase. His arrival triggered a mass rush of reporters straight to him.

  “Who’s that?” Kelly stared curiously. As the man straightened, the light from the rising sun glinted on the wire rims of his glasses. A lock of brown hair fell across his forehead. He pushed it back and turned to face the oncoming reporters before she could see more of his face.

  “Zelinski, the county prosecutor,” Sam replied.

  Kelly shot him a startled look, then just as quickly swung her glance back to the attorney. Zelinski. He couldn’t possibly be Ollie Zelinski, could he? Ollie had been her best friend – her only friend – while she was growing up. He had talked about going to law school.

  Her legs carried heir over for a closer look, without any conscious direction from her. She wasn’t even aware that Sam came along with her. She had eyes only for the tall, slim man in the suit and tie.

  She finally saw his face. It was Ollie, tall and gangly Ollie, his Adam’s apple still bobbing up and down in his throat when he talked, the corrective lenses in his glasses still thick, magnifying his hazel eyes, making them look even bigger, rounder. Ollie the Owl, the other kids had called him.

  What a pair they had been – Ollie the Owl and Lizzie the Lump. She almost smiled at the memory of the two of them, one fat and one thin, objects of ridicule by their classmates, banding together out of self-defense and becoming fast friends as a result.

  Now look at the two of them, Kelly thought, Ollie was a county prosecutor and she would soon have her own show on national television. She felt proud – for both of them.

  Ollie certainly seemed to be handling the impromptu press conference well. Microphones were thrust in his face; questions came at him from all sides; some he fielded, the rest he ignored. She stopped thinking about the past and began to listen to his firm, baritone voice.

  “...been charged with murder.”

  “Have you talked to him?” a reporter in the back shouted. “Has he said why he killed the baron?”

  “Any discussion of motive at this point in our investigation would be sheer speculation,” Ollie replied. “And to answer your first question, no, I haven’t personally spoken with him.” His glance swept over the faces of the news media, touching briefly on Kelly as he anticipated more questions.

  Linda James fired the next one. “Does he have any family?”

  “He -” Ollie stopped, his glance racing back to Kelly, a sudden and warm glow lighting his eyes. He recognized her. She hadn’t expected that, although who else had known her so well? Abruptly he glanced down, breaking the contact. When he lifted his head, his gaze sought her again, this time with a pained look in his eyes. She had a sudden, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “He has a daughter. She left the area years ago. To my knowledge, he has no other relatives.”

  Somewhere behind them, a man’s voice complained loudly. “Quit pushing me. I’m going.”

  “There he is,” a reporter cried, drowning out the small, protesting sound Kelly made in her throat.

  Only Sam was close enough to hear it. He glanced at her as all eyes centered on the gray-haired prisoner being escorted by three officers to a police cruiser. Sam’s gaze narrowed on her ashen face, her eyes wide with shock.

  The others flocked toward the prisoner, his wrists handcuffed behind his back. But Kelly remained frozen in place and stared, unable to move, to run.

  Linda James aggressively pushed her way to the front of the media mob and shoved her microphone past the flanking officers. “What’s your reaction to the murder charge, Mr. Dougherty?”

  “I didn’t do it. I’m innocent, do you hear?” Len Dougherty shouted the answer to all of them as he balked under the hands that propelled him toward the wailing cruiser. “It’s all a frame. They’re trying to hang something on me that I didn’t do. I’ve never killed anyone and anybody who says I did is a liar.”

  “Can you prove that, Mr. Dougherty?” Linda James challenged.

  “I...” His voice trailed off. For an instant he looked like a sick, scared old man. He recovered his anger and bravado when he saw Sam. “Those Rutledges aren’t going to let me. They want my land and they’re hanging this murder charge on me to get it. It’s a lie. I’m no killer.” He saw Kelly and craned his head to keep her in sight. “You tell them, Lizzie-girl. They’ll listen to you. You tell ‘em your old man isn’t a murderer. You know I’m innocent, Lizzie-girl. You know.”

  The rest of his words were cut off as the escorting officers forced him into the rear seat of the cruiser. By then heads were swiveling to discover who and where this “Lizzie-girl” was. Kelly was the only female in the immediate vicinity.

  “He was talking to you, wasn’t he, Kelly?” Linda James stated with a faintly pleased look. “You are Leonard Dougherty’s daughter, aren’t you?”

  For a long second, Kelly said nothing, conscious of DeeDee’s disbelieving stare and Sam’s narrowed eyes. But she knew there was no escape from the truth, not now that Linda James had caught the scent of it. No more lies could hide it, no more pretense could make it easier. The reality of it had to be faced.

  “Yes.” She sounded numb; she felt that way, too. There was no more dread, no more anger or resentment, just a leaden feeling of inevitability.

  Suddenly she was bombarded with questions, voices hammering at her from all sides. A forest of microphones sprang up in front of her. Camera lenses were trained on her. There was a bitter irony in the memory of all the times she had been part of the encircling horde of press, and now she was the center of it.

  “How long since you’ve seen your father?”

  “Do you think he’s guilty?”

  “What’s it like to have your own father charged with murder?”

  She shook her head at all the questions, avoiding eye contact with any of the reporters. “I have nothing more to say,” she insisted and tried to walk away, but they followed her.

  No matter which way she turned, someone was there with a mike or a camera, a notebook or tape recorder. Surrounded, jostled from all sides, Ke
lly tried to push her way through, but they were two and three deep.

  Suddenly an arm gripped her shoulders and a body shielded her left side, an arm thrusting out to force a path through them, and Sam’s voice demanded, “Move back. Let us through.”

  Ollie joined him, flanking Kelly on the right. Together they hustled her through the corps of press straight to Sam’s Jeep. Sam split off and Ollie helped Kelly into the passenger seat.

  “Get her out of here, Sam,” Ollie said, then gave her hand a quick squeeze. “I’m sorry,” he murmured to her, then turned to block off the trailing reporters.

  Sam drove off. Kelly didn’t know where he was taking her. More than that, she didn’t care. She stared sightlessly ahead while the wind blew in the Jeep’s open sides, stinging her face. She didn’t feel it. She didn’t feel anything. Not yet.

  Somewhere along a twisting road that wound into the Mayacamas range, Sam pulled the Jeep onto a graveled lay-by next to a stream of softly chuckling water, bordered by tall trees, dripping moss. He switched off the engine and let the silence settle around them. Kelly sat motionless, her expression blank, her fingers tightly laced.

  When Sam thought of Len Dougherty, the kind of father he must have been – always drunk, always in trouble – he wanted to swear loudly, viciously. His own parents had been nothing to brag about, forgetting all about him half the time, never bothering to come to his ball games or teacher conferences. But he’d never been ashamed of them. He could hate Dougherty for that alone.

  Why in hell had he let security get lax? Dougherty shouldn’t have gotten within a hundred feet of the winery. Dougherty had been too quiet for too long. He should have recognized that, but he’d let too many other things crowd Dougherty from his mind. And Kelly had definitely been one of them.

  “Where did they take him?” Kelly broke the silence.

  Sam took a deep breath before answering, wishing there was a way he could spare her, protect her. That was impossible. “To the county jail in Napa.”

  She nodded as if they were talking about the weather. He looked for signs of shock, but her eyes were clear and bright, the color was back in her face. She had her emotions firmly under control. It was part of that strength he’d sensed in her, and he knew she’d need all of it before this was over.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked, thinking she looked beautiful sitting there. Beautiful and alone.

  One shoulder lifted in a semblance of a shrug. “I can’t run away. I can’t pretend none of this happened. Not this time.” A cardinal flitted among the branches of a redwood tree, a flash of scarlet against dark green. “He made my life a kind of hell. Now he’s doing it again.”

  “You aren’t responsible for his actions.” Sam’s eyes were dark and caring in their study of her.

  “No, I’m not.” But she would suffer from them, just as she always had. It wasn’t fair or right, but that’s the way it would be. Kelly had grown up knowing what it was like to be judged, to be made to feel worthless because of her father. “I’m responsible only for my own behavior. Still... .” She left the thought unfinished as some of the old anger and resentment threatened to surface “What happened last night?”

  How many times in the past had she asked a similar question? How many times had she needed to determine the circumstances surrounding her father’s latest brush with the law? So many times that she thought it had ceased to bother her. This time was different; this time the charge was murder.

  “There isn’t much I can tell you,” Sam admitted. “Katherine saw Emile take the old bridle path that leads to the winery. She wanted to talk to him, so she went after him. Her night vision has become very poor over the years and she’s old. I’m sure it took her longer to reach the winery than it did for Emile. The security lights at the winery were on. She heard some noise and saw Dougherty bending over Emile’s body. When he saw her, he dropped the mallet in his hand and ran.”

  “He ran.” The braid felt hot and heavy on her neck. “He wouldn’t have run if he wasn’t guilty, I suppose.”

  Kelly absently rubbed her forearm, the left one that her father had broken in drunken anger. She remembered other occasions when he’d hit her, bruising her face or blackening an eye. She knew he was more than capable of violence. If he had killed someone in a fight, she would have believed that readily. But murder. The word sounded like an obscenity. Even though she hated him, Kelly didn’t want to believe he was capable of that.

  “What now, Kelly?”

  She took a deep breath and let it out, fighting the anger she felt, keeping it inside. “Go back to town, I guess. Back to Darnell’s.”

  “They’ll be waiting for you.”

  “My fellow members of the press, you mean?” she said a little bitterly then looked around at the sylvan setting. “As peaceful as this is, I can’t stay here forever. Sooner or later I’ll have to face them. After that, I’ll just take it moment by moment. But I needed this time.” She met his gaze. “Thank you for that, Sam.”

  “It isn’t necessary.” He turned the key in the ignition switch.

  The noise of the engine and the wind tunneling in the Jeep’s open sides made further conversation difficult. They drove back to town in heavy silence.

  Chapter Fifteen

  DeeDee pounced on Kelly the minute she walked through the doorway. “Where have you been? Hugh has called half a dozen times for you already. The man is having a hissy fit wanting to know what’s going on. What is going on, Kelly?”

  “You were there. My father has been accused of murdering Baron Fougere.” The sharpness in her voice was inadvertent, a reflection of the need she felt to be doubly on guard. It proved effective in silencing DeeDee.

  Kelly walked past DeeDee straight to the phone in the dainty Victorian parlor and dialed the number to Hugh’s private line, mentally bracing herself. He answered on the second ring, his voice very clipped, and very British.

  “Hello, Hugh. It’s Kelly.” She made an effort to project a calmness and gripped the telephone cord tightly, twining her fingers through its coils.

  There was a full second of thick silence before he spoke in a voice much too quiet and much too controlled. “Kelly, how good of you to call. You do realize your name is making headlines on every wire service in the country.”

  “I thought it might be.” The professional side of her recognized what a sensational story this made – a wealthy French baron murdered at a famed wine estate by the father of a television-news personality. It was the kind of story that could make someone’s career.

  “You thought, did you?” He was struggling to keep his anger in check, but it came through with a quiet force. “Then perhaps you would be good enough to explain what this is about? Is this man your father? I recall, distinctly, that you told me he was dead.”

  “At the time, a lie was easier to tell than the truth.” But she doubted he would understand that.

  “Kelly, Kelly, Kelly,” Hugh murmured in soft but angry censure. “The publicity on this has just begun. There are a great many people in this building who are not – pleased, shall we say, by what they are seeing and hearing. Is he guilty?”

  “Probably. I don’t know.” Her head started to pound. She rubbed at her temple.

  There was a sigh of regret, of resignation. “Under the circumstances, it will be best if you take a leave of absence from the show.”

  “No.” Her protest was instant and strident.

  “That is not a suggestion, Kelly.”

  “But I need to work, Hugh. I’ll go crazy if-“

  “Then pray some disaster occurs to push this story off the front page,” he snapped, then he added stiffly, “I’ll do everything I can, but.... .”

  He was already considering replacing her. Kelly could hear it in his voice. If that happened, she would be finished; her career would be over. She had devoted her life to it; it was th
e center of her existence. The people she worked with – the camera crews, the producers, the writers, the show staff – they were her family, her friends. And Hugh – she had expected him to be upset, even angry, but she had been certain he would stand behind her, certain he would mount a campaign on her behalf to remind the world the sins of her father were not hers. Instead he was ready to turn his back on her. With this leave of absence, he was already distancing himself and the show from her.

  A horrible tightness squeezed at her throat and her chest. Even after all this time she still wasn’t immune to the pain of betrayal and rejection.

  Dimly she heard Hugh’s voice. “Kelly, I said, is DeeDee there?”

  She half turned to confirm that DeeDee was standing in the parlor’s arched entrance, listening. “Yes.”

  “I need to talk to her. Be sure to give her all your notes and materials on John Travis. She’ll need it to interview him. And, Kelly, you would be wise to drop out of sight. Linda James is out for blood on this one.”

  Kelly held out the phone to DeeDee. “He wants to talk to you.”

  When DeeDee took it, Kelly immediately climbed the mahogany stairs to the room she’d left with such haste mere hours ago. She slung her shoulder bag on the unmade bed and crossed to the window.

  There, in the vineyards beyond the live oaks, she could see the stooped shapes of migratory workers stripping the vines of their grapes. The morning was new, but the day was long and they paced themselves, conserving energy to be expended later. Had it been one of them playing the guitar last night? she wondered. It seemed an eternity ago, something she had dreamed along with the heat of Sam’s kiss.

  She closed her eyes against this sudden, aching need to be held and comforted, to know the warmth of strong arms around her and to draw on that strength. She was so tired of facing everything alone. But hadn’t it always been that way since her mother died? Hadn’t she learned she couldn’t depend on anyone but herself? She felt the sting of tears and opened her eyes wide. Crying never changed anything; she’d learned that, too.