A Hive of Homicides

by Meera Lester

  Hannah frowned. “I haven’t seen it, but I’ll take you to Brianna’s office to look in the bin if you want, and you can check with Dori in the kitchen. I need to stop in the supply room first.”

  Abby nodded and followed Hannah to a small room with industrial metal shelves stretching up the four walls. It looked like the records room of a police department, with a dozen boxes of records and merchandise, all labeled with colored felt-tip markers.

  “This is where we keep all the stuff the winery sells. Mr. Winston says he doesn’t believe we need to clutter the tasting room with lots of non-wine items. We’re to display one of each thing and each size. Putting out a lot of merchandise, he told us, will just invite theft.”

  “I see his point,” Abby said, taking notice of labels noting wine-themed glassware, kitchen cutting boards and utensils, table linens, apparel, hats, and bric-a-brac. “Seriously, there’s a ton of stuff packed in this little room.”

  Looking wistful, as though recalling a treasured moment, Hannah said, “You know, Jake had planned to open a proper wine shop, but his dad was against it. Don wanted to streamline the operation. I guess Jake’s dad will have his way now, and we’ll ship this stuff back to the suppliers. With Brianna having to work from home now and the chef and Uncle Scott taking time off without pay, the rest of us have to work harder and longer hours. It isn’t fair.”

  “Time off without pay . . . Is that why your uncle Scott and Emilio were fighting, sweetie?”

  “Not really. Since clocking in this morning, Emilio and my uncle had been mouthing off at each other. Mr. Winston overheard them arguing before the staff meeting, when my uncle accused Emilio of sidling up to other winery owners in the area.” She gazed directly at Abby. Her large eyes were swimming in tears. “Emilio dredged up a story about my uncle’s drug use. He said Uncle Scott is unfit to handle the safety of the barrel room. And later, he shouted that my uncle associates with some of the shady characters in town.”

  “Wow. Those are serious accusations,” said Abby.

  Hannah opened a box and slipped the caps into an empty plastic bag before closing the box and setting it back on its shelf.

  Abby didn’t want to add to Hannah’s misery, but the young woman had piqued Abby’s curiosity. “Does Scott use drugs?”

  “I’ve never seen it,” Hannah said, turning her attention to a stack of shirts that had to be returned to their boxes. Each had been wrapped in plastic and bore a price sticker.

  “So, how did Mr. Winston react when he heard them arguing?”

  “He ordered them to clean out their lockers and go home. He was going to take stock and let them know when they could come back to work, if at all. Of course, they blamed each other for the boss’s action.”

  Abby fingered a French country table runner in the colors of sky blue and lemon and featuring French appellations of wine. “The holidays are almost here. If Mr. Winston is sending back these products to the manufacturer and he’s laying off workers, how does he plan to generate revenue during the season?”

  Hannah blotted her eyes with the tissue, tucked it into the sleeve of her sweater, and opened a large cardboard box. “I’m not sure. He’s got to entice people to buy the wines. I thought Emilio could convince him to stick to the plan Emilio and Jake had plotted. But here we are, with everything up in the air and Don Winston cutting all nonessentials.”

  After filing shirts by size into the appropriate smaller boxes, she restocked them into the large cardboard box and sealed it. “Follow me to Brianna’s office. It’s this way.”

  Hannah led Abby from the supply room past two doors down the hallway. Brianna’s office door stood partially open. “Brianna is not here. She’s probably carting stuff to the car,” Hannah said. “The lost-and-found bin is over there.” She pointed to a banker’s box in the corner. “If you don’t mind, I’ve got to get back to the tasting room. Jake would let us work in peace, but his dad is always sneaking up and watching us. It’s creepy, but whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “Good luck finding your earring.”

  “I’ll just do a quick check here and be on my way,” said Abby. “Thank you, Hannah.” She gave the young woman a quick hug. “It’s just my opinion, Hannah, but Mr. Winston would be a fool to let you go.”

  Hannah flashed a weak smile. Smoothing her braid, she adjusted the soft collar of her angora sweater. “If you see Chef Emilio, tell him I’m on his side. My uncle deserved that bloody nose for suggesting Emilio was giving away trade secrets. He’d never do that.”

  With the possibility looming large that Brianna might return at any moment, Abby went to work. The room had a black filing cabinet with five drawers—two partially pulled out. A cursory glance in each of those drawers revealed little beyond folders of business documents. Abby hustled behind Brianna’s desk, a sleek Scandinavian piece of furniture. Miniature statues of Ares, the Greek god of war, and his sister Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and war, served as bookends to Brianna’s collection of catalogs and graphic art volumes.

  Glancing into the opened side drawers of Brianna’s desk, Abby noted they held mostly office supplies, like paper clips and notepads. Then, noticing that the middle drawer stood slightly ajar, Abby spotted a Sig Sauer P229 pistol and numerous boxes of ammo. Her eyebrow shot up. She ruminated on what made Brianna tick. Why would she pack a gun at work? Why have so many boxes of ammo unless maybe she was doing target practice on her coffee breaks? And why would Jake have allowed that? It was just plain weird.

  “Excuse me!” Brianna Cooper sounded infuriated. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  Abby looked up at a thin-boned woman with penciled brows, pale eyes, and naked lips set in a straight line. Standing roughly five-ten, she wore her chestnut hair pulled into a tight bun. Abby sensed that this woman—who had lied to police about her boyfriend being with her the night of Jake’s murder, when, in fact, he was returning from Oregon, where he ran in a marathon—was not going to be friendly and helpful.

  “My name’s Abigail Mackenzie. Mr. Winston told me the lost-and-found items were in this room. I’m looking for a small pearl stud I lost at the Varela-Winston vow-renewal party. Have you seen it?” Abby moved from behind the desk. She allowed her daypack to sweep the slightly open drawer, causing it to slide closed without a sound.

  “You won’t find it in my desk drawer,” the woman said. “I think you’d better leave.”

  If you say so. Gotta wonder, though, why you’re packing a gun at work. Tends to raise a few questions, but I guess now isn’t the time to ask them. Abby backed away from the desk and strolled from the office. She found her way back to the kitchen and spotted the sous-chef in her toque—which was smaller than Emilio’s—wiping down a work area.

  Clearly, Dori Langston was the platinum-blond woman whom Edna Mae had described as Jake Winston’s interior decorator. Surprised, Abby left the kitchen before the woman could see her. She walked out the back door and made a beeline to the Jeep, where Sugar waited for her. Only after Abby had reached the sprawling tree where wild birds still twittered did she feel a measure of relief from her mounting anxiety. She made a mental note to write down on her incident poster the details she’d learned during the visit, including Dori likely being the interior decorator; Scott possibly having a drug problem; Brianna keeping a gun and plenty of ammo with her at all times; and Emilio sidling up to the other wineries.

  Tips on Feeding Wild Birds

  • Fill a feeder with cracked corn and seed mix to attract red-winged blackbirds.

  • Hang a mesh sock filled with Nyjer seeds to attract finches.

  • Fill large saucers with mixtures of seeds that songbirds love and place them in the crotches of trees. As the seeds are scattered, let them grow to produce a crop of homegrown birdseed.

  • Make a seed-and-nut suet ball with dried fruits (apples, for example), kernels of corn, peanuts, and suet, and hang it from a tree to attract nuthatches, woodpeckers, blue jays, mockingbirds, and other species of wild birds
.

  • Mix together millet, sunflower seeds, corn, wheat berries, dried worms, and white pine seeds in an old pie tin and set it in your garden for the ground feeders, like mourning doves.

  Chapter 8

  Honeybee pupae wait to chew through their

  wax-capped cells until the color of their

  compound eyes and bodies darkens.

  —Henny Penny Farmette Almanac

  Abby focused on the two-lane road, while Sugar perched on the passenger seat, as if riding shotgun. They were taking the scenic way home from the winery. Troubling questions occupied Abby’s mind, most of them having to do with what Hannah had confided. What had Scott meant by his accusation that Emilio was sidling up to other winery owners? And how did Emilio know Scott Thompson’s drug use was making him unfit to handle the barrel room? And why had Dori Langston claimed to be an interior decorator? Why did Brianna keep a gun within easy reach? What did any of this have to do with Jake’s death? Abby resolved to dig up the answers. And one thing she was very good at was digging.

  Paola’s impressions of Scott had been positive. She had told Abby he was a good listener. And yet Abby had witnessed a darker side. What explained it? Maybe Scott sought job security by sidling up to his boss’s wife. It wouldn’t be the first time a man used a woman that way. Abby made a mental note to find out more about Scott when Paola regained consciousness. A sobering thought intruded. What if her lovely Argentine friend never woke up? A wave of sadness swept over Abby as she envisioned Paola lying helpless in a pentobarbital coma, with a skull flap removed to accommodate brain swelling. When and if she did awaken, Paola would have to tell the police what she witnessed that horrible night. Abby could only hope that a member of Paola’s family would be there to hold her hand through that interview.

  The hilly road twisted through stands of white birch, red-bark eucalyptus, and manzanita trees. Vineyards, their linear rows like leafy tiling patterns laid out in perfect symmetry, served as backdrops for white farmhouses and tall, open barns set back from the road. In some barns, Abby could see baled hay stacked in lofts under corrugated tin roofs. After the multiyear drought, farmers had raced the early onset of storms this year to harvest their hay fields. Most had put their hay up, but a few fields remained dotted with bales still to be transported.

  Passing the old church that the Lutherans and later a sect of Buddhists had once occupied, Abby noticed strange angular pads on a cell phone tower antenna perched atop the building’s roofline. Grimacing at the unappealing aesthetic, she recalled hearing a lot of debate from townspeople about congregations accepting money for a house of worship to be a conduit. Many believed that possible communications transmitted through the tower’s antenna might not be in alignment with the spiritual beliefs and practices of churchgoers.

  Abby eased off of the accelerator and let the road ahead unfold as her thoughts quietly drifted. But within seconds, her thoughts zipped into high alert. Her foot hit the brake pedal. Up ahead a drought-stressed western sycamore with mottled bark, dangling brown balls, and few remaining broad leaves collapsed in slow motion, with a heavy thud, over a horse trailer being towed by a pickup. Brakes screeched; horns blared. Abby’s cell phone started ringing. Drivers began to attempt backing up. Some tried to pull off on the shoulder to maneuver away.

  Abby glanced at her phone. Seriously, Kat. Can’t talk now. Abby’s heart raced like a runaway train. Her cell continued to ring, even as a siren wailed on approach behind her. Must be Otto. He’d be monitoring the radio traffic and know if dispatch had put out a service call.

  Heart thumping and anxiety gnawing at her insides, Abby ignored the phone while she tried to figure a way out of the mess. Looking to her left, at a tree-lined, narrow gravel road, she recalled that it followed Las Flores Creek as it wound through the foothills past the Las Flores Regional Park. There the creek widened into a small lake, mostly visited by fishermen, bird-watchers, and hikers interested in following the numerous trails throughout the local wine region. Abby knew she could take the road and several others that connected to it and slowly make her way back to Farm Hill Road, about nine miles out.

  In a split second, she backed up the Jeep and swung left. Even if it did take longer to get home, at least she wouldn’t be stuck in this mess. After she’d rolled out of view down the two-lane gravel road, Abby pulled over and stopped in the shade of a tall pin oak, where she answered Kat’s call.

  “About time you picked up,” said Kat.

  “Sorry about that.” Abby hit the speaker button on her cell. “I was dealing with traffic backed up behind a horse trailer.” Breathing easier and feeling her anxiety lessening, Abby stared at a low-hanging branch, noticing the way the hue of its leaves shifted in places from sap green to verdigris.

  “On Farm Hill Road?”

  “No. I’m on Rooster Flats Road.”

  “The only thing of note on Rooster Flats Road is the winery. So why are you up there at this early hour?”

  “To have a word with Emilio.”

  “And that would be what cell phones are for, girlfriend.”

  “Yeah, Kat. I get that. So what’s up?”

  “I wanted you to know first,” said Kat. “Well, actually, Sinclair was first up in the loop, because the hospital called him. And then he told me.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Kat. What? He told you what? Tell me already.” Kat could be annoying sometimes, but now she had Abby’s undivided attention.

  “Paola’s doctors are saying she is wiggling her toes on command.”

  “That’s fabulous news.”

  “Sinclair’s mood went positively buoyant. He’s headed there now.”

  “Is her doctor okay with a cop questioning her? I mean, it’s soon . . . too early, surely. She needs time to—”

  “What? She’s got to be interviewed, Abby.”

  “It’s not that, but Sinclair will be asking her about her husband’s murder. What could be more traumatic for a woman who’s been through what she has?” Abby swallowed against a small lump that had formed in her throat. She felt unsettled. “Shouldn’t Paola have a family member or at least Father Joe with her for that?”

  “Well, if you are there with Emilio, couldn’t you ask him to leave work to be with her?” asked Kat.

  “As it turns out, he’s not working today,” said Abby. She quickly added, “But, look, it is possible one of her sisters might be with her already.”

  “Ah, not to worry, then. So I’ll see you Saturday. My birthday dinner?”

  “I haven’t forgotten. But thanks for the heads-up.” Abby clicked off the call.

  Fifteen minutes later, Abby navigated a narrow, winding uphill stretch of the road. From the top, she enjoyed sweeping panoramic views of green valleys and the mountains beyond. Below, the regional park came into view. It sprawled over forty-five acres, encompassing rolling knolls, stretches of woods, and a crystal clear lake fed by Las Flores Creek. The lake’s surface reflected the billowy white clouds dotting the sky. She could see the ranger station and a couple of vehicles parked near it. While the park might not have many weekday visitors during the rainy season—November through April—people came out during weekends and on holidays to see the ducks and other resident wildlife.

  Abby negotiated the hill’s descent, maneuvering carefully around curves, until the park entrance emerged again in her line of sight. Rolling past the unstaffed ticket kiosk, which did a brisk business during the summer months, when staffers collected parking fees, she maneuvered the Jeep next to the Buick Regal, one of two vehicles in the lot. Unless she was mistaken, that sedan belonged to Emilio. She glanced out the car window but could see no one inside the Regal. So where are you, Emilio?

  After Sugar had bounded out of the Jeep to the ground, Abby snapped the leash to the dog collar and slammed shut the door. She hustled over to the Buick and peered in. Sure enough, a clean chef’s shirt hung on a hook at the rear passenger window. After following Sugar’s eager lead to the ranger station,
Abby snooped around, but the place appeared empty. Perhaps the ranger had gone to the restroom.

  Next, Abby walked past a row of picnic tables and barbecue pits that dotted the lake’s edge. She and Sugar approached an area of tall green and golden reeds where someone had tied a blue rowboat to the dock. At the farthest end of the wooden structure, Emilio sat dangling his long, jeans-clad legs over the edge, near a stand of brown, fuzzy cattails. He seemed fixated on the smooth liftoff of a sandhill crane on the lake’s far side.

  “Hola, Emilio,” Abby called out.

  Emilio turned to look at her. His brooding expression registered surprise. “Abby, what brings you here?”

  She volleyed the question back at him. “I could ask you the same thing.”

  He twisted his head, as if to work out a kink. “I often come here after work or on my days off. I think better in nature.”

  “I can see why. It’s peaceful. We’re not interrupting, are we?” She gave Sugar a pat on the head.

  “Not at all. Come. Sit with me.”

  Abby strolled over to him and dropped down on the wooden surface. Sugar, a leash length away, set about sniffing the air, the dock, the reeds, cattails, and anything else she fancied, yipping now and again at a sudden movement in the rushes.

  “Saw you at the winery, Abby. It didn’t seem like a good situation to welcome you into.” His deep-set dark eyes gazed out over the lake’s edge, where a fish splashed out of the water.

  “Well, I was there to see you. I didn’t expect to witness that fight. Care to tell me what it was about?” Abby hoped he would feel like talking.

  Emilio pushed a shock of jet-black hair behind his ear. Except for that section of hair, he’d secured the rest with an elastic band. “Things got a little heated at the staff meeting with our boss. Now that Jake’s gone, he wants a strategy for the winery’s future. Scott Thompson and I don’t see eye to eye on that issue, so I guess you could say we butted heads.”