Sinfandel

by Gina Cresse

  It would’ve been easier to come up with something if I didn’t have a pair of pruning shears in one hand and a cane from his vine in the other. I was looking for my cat? I thought I saw flames coming from your windows? I was in the middle of an Ambien-induced sleep-walking episode?

  “Uh, well, okay. You caught me.”

  He stepped closer until he was in my face. His breath was hot and reeked of whiskey and tobacco. “Caught you doing what?”

  I wondered if taking a step back would show weakness. I could hold my ground, but if he lit a cigarette, I might lose my eyelashes from the flash explosion. “Um, I was taking a cutting from one of your vines,” I finally said, holding up the smoking-gun shears as evidence.

  Dash reached for my hand but I pulled away.

  “Why?”

  “I, uh, I’m trying to get my vineyard certified organic by the U.S.D.A.” I moved toward the fence.

  He moved along with me. “Yeah?”

  “And I need to know what you’re spraying on your crop that might disqualify mine if it drifts over onto my vines.”

  “Huh,” he said, scratching his chin with the back of his hand. “You wanna know what I spray?”

  I nodded and took another step toward the fence.

  “None of your damn business,” he growled. “I came out here to shoot rabbits that keep chewin’ up my irrigation system and find you tresspassin’. You’re damn lucky you didn’t get your head blown off.”

  One more side step and I was at the fence, climbing through. “Sorry, I won’t do it again.”

  He raised the rifle and flashlight together, aiming them in my general direction, then fired. I would’ve screamed if I hadn’t been stunned into silence.

  “Got him! Damn rabbits.”

  Deciding not to stick around for more of his abuse, I raced through my vineyard toward the safety of home.

  When I finally got there, all the cats were sitting outside the barn, staring at something inside. I leaned against the hitching rail for a few minutes until I caught my breath and my heart stopped pounding.

  When I aimed my light into the barn alley, a pair of red eyes stared back at me. The closer I got, the more eyes there were. The raccoon family was licking the cat food bowls clean, and the cats were too intimidated to do anything about it. After what I’d just experienced, I could relate to them.

  Chapter Eleven

  Already in a bad mood over my confrontation with Dash Zucker, I cursed at the raccoons and tried to scare them off, but they didn’t seem too intimidated. I picked up a rock and was ready to throw it at them, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. If I was going to put free food out for them, how could I blame them for coming over to take advantage of my hospitality? No, I was responsible for the situation, and being the more intelligent species—I thought—I should be able to solve the problem without resorting to violence.

  In a storage shed behind the house, I remembered that I had a plastic patio table I’d used like a sawhorse when I was painting strips of molding during the rehab of my house. After sticking the vine cutting in a bucket of water to keep it fresh, I opened the storage shed door and propped the flashlight on a stack of boxes, then cleared everything off the table and hauled it out to the carport.

  The only thing I really knew about raccoons, aside from the fact that they had no scruples, was that they moved rather funny, like they were always on tiptoe. It didn’t seem to me that they were very agile or could jump up on things like a cat could, so I filled the cats’ bowls, put them and the cats on the table, and went inside to watch through my back door window.

  The cats ate a couple bites of food then jumped down, apparently off to investigate more interesting prospects for dessert. For all the trouble I went through for them, I would’ve liked to see them devour the food, then thumb their noses at the raccoons.

  Now that the back porch light was on a motion sensor, I waited for the light to go out, then went to the kitchen to clean up the dishes and finally got ready for bed. All was still dark under the carport when I climbed under the covers, and only when I was just about to drift off to sleep did the back-porch light flash on again.

  Climbing out of bed, I peered out the bedroom window, which had a clear view of the table under the carport. Five raccoons of various shapes and sizes circled the table, all looking up at it, bewildered. “So there,” I whispered. “I finally got you little thieves.”

  The babies were very cute, and they stood on their hind legs and stretched as far as they could to reach the top of the table, but they were just too small. I felt a little guilty watching them try so hard, but mostly I felt victorious. My face broke into a smug smile, but it didn’t last long. The largest raccoon pushed the babies out of the way in a “let me show you how it’s done” move, then stretched its front paws until the long black claws just hooked the top edge of the table. I chewed my bottom lip as I watched him dangle, lifting one hind leg then the other, trying to get a third set of claws on the tabletop. He lost his grip twice and fell, rolling like a volleyball, but that didn’t stop him from trying.

  Cringing, I held my breath, hoping and praying he’d give up before he succeeded, but in the back of my mind, I knew better. These animals were more tenacious than a car salesman working on commission. They’d never give up. When he finally got one claw from one hind leg caught on the edge, I knew I’d been beaten, again. Part of me wanted to cheer for him because he’d worked so hard, but then he shoved a bowl of food over the side and the feeding frenzy began.

  Storming out the back door, swinging a kitchen broom like a broadsword, I scattered the mob of raccoons. I swept up the spilled food, snatched the cat-food bowls and stomped back in the house, cursing with every step.

  Pacing up and down the hall, I waited till I calmed down, then made a cup of chamomile tea and drank it in the dark. I tried to go back to sleep. As I stared at the ceiling, the back porch light finally turned off since there was no more raccoon party going on under the carport. Taking deep breaths, I let my thoughts drift.

  I wondered about Beth Messina and why the killer put her in my cave. He must have been familiar with my property and known the cave was there. And he must have known about the pond, too, since he’d dumped her things in it. All I could figure was that he never expected a farm laborer to wander away from the vines and look in the cave. And if no one found the body, then no one would have reason to search the pond. Then I wondered how he got past the buzzards. I supposed anyone who could kill a person in cold blood would have no qualms about shooing a few birds out of his way. Adult buzzards were big, I thought, and I wondered how aggressive they could be, especially with two babies in the nest.

  As I pondered the logistics of the cave, the motion sensor lights flicked back on.

  “Damn it!” In a dramatic sweep of my arm, I threw the covers off and headed for the kitchen to get my broom. Then the side yard light came on. The scoundrels must’ve heard me coming and run around the house.

  I peered out the living room window and came face to face with a man dressed in black, with a rifle in his hands. I screamed.

  Someone pounded on my front door. Out my window, there were more men dressed in black, surrounding my house. One of them turned around and in the floodlight I saw the word SWAT stenciled on the back of his jacket.

  More pounding on my front door drew me to peek through the curtain. A slight woman in a Navy-blue pant suit and a large man in a police uniform stood on my porch. She knocked again.

  Tense, I unbolted the door and cracked it open. “Yes?”

  The woman cleared her throat. “Daphne Zucker?”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” I said, letting out my breath and opening the door a bit wider. “You’re at the wrong house.”

  Out in the country, it’s rare to see well-marked house numbers, especially in the dark, and I didn’t even have a mail box since there was no mail delivery service on my road. All my mail went to a post office box. “The Zuckers live next door.”<
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  The woman took a paper from her pocket and checked it. “This isn’t 46589?”

  Shaking my head, I peered around her at the SWAT team members hovering behind the Idaho Locust tree I’d planted last year. “No. Can you tell me what this is about?”

  As she put the paper back in her pocket, she said, “Just a routine parole check.”

  She motioned to the hulk next to her and he retreated to gather the snipers who were hiding in my bushes. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

  I’d seen my fair share of Law and Order episodes and I couldn’t ever remember a scene where a parole check involved SWAT teams in the middle of the night. Drug busts, yes, but routine visits? Daphne Zucker was Dash’s teenage daughter, who, I’d learned from Millie, the lady who puts up the mail at the post office, recently had a falling out with her mother, Dash’s ex-common-law-wife, and moved back in with him. I didn’t know she was on parole, so it seemed she was following in Dad’s footsteps. I could hardly wait to pick up my mail in the morning. Once I told Millie, the news would spread faster than an outbreak of nematodes.

  “How’d you get through my gate?” I asked as they headed toward the driveway.

  “We just pushed it open enough to get through,” the woman said.

  “Let me open it,” I called back to her, searching for an opener I’d put in a kitchen drawer. All I needed was for them to break it.

  “You should know that Dash Zucker’s been drinking—and he has a rifle,” I warned.

  She and the big officer exchanged glances, then she nodded a thank you in my direction.

  The gate opened and the woman and men in black filed out, climbed into a couple of dark-colored SUVs and headed up the road toward the Zuckers’place. I was struck with my second smug smile for the day.

  Chapter Twelve

  “He fired at you?” Detective Obermeyer’s voice sounded angry over the phone.

  “No,” I reassured him. “He was shooting at rabbits.”

  “Why are you protecting him?

  “I’m not protecting him. I—“

  “He’s an ex-convict. He’s not even supposed to have a gun.”

  “That’s why I called you.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Through my front window, I watched grape trucks roll to a stop in front of my house. Andy’s pickup arrived shortly after.

  “Any more news on the stuff they found in my pond?”

  “Forensics team is still working on it. We did get a little more information on cause of death.”

  “And?”

  “She was shot. In the back.”

  Pacing, I watched out the window as Andy got the picking crew organized for the day’s harvest. When he finally turned them loose and came up to my house, I was off the phone and gathering the vine cuttings I’d taken the night before from Dash Zucker’s vineyard.

  “You okay?” He looked long and hard at my face.

  “I’m fine.” The suitcases under my eyes must’ve been more noticeable than I realized. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  His expression told me he wanted more information. I explained about the raccoon fiasco and the late-night visit from the SWAT team.

  “Are these Zinfandel?” I handed Andy the cuttings.

  He studied the leaves closely, then motioned for me to follow him. Making a stop at his pickup, he opened the passenger side door and reached into the glove compartment, pulling out a worn paperback. “Hold this,” he said.

  The book was A Practical Ampelography: Grapevine Identification by Pierre Galet, and from the looks of the dog-eared pages, was well used.

  “Ampelography?” I said.

  “A dying art, being edged out by DNA analysis.”

  He led me back through my vineyard gate to a leafy vine at the top of the highest knoll. From there the view of the vineyard in long shadows from the early morning sun was spectacular. A misty cloud layer blanketed a distant small valley where other crops thrived in the fertile California soil. It was always breathtaking. I took a moment to enjoy the scene before my impending lesson in grapevine identification started.

  Flipping through the paperback, Andy found the section on Zinfandel. As I held the cutting taken from Dash Zucker’s vineyard, Andy pointed out the identifying characteristics. “See the deep lobes and the notched Z-shaped teeth?”

  I nodded, looking at the leaf in my hand, then at the diagram in the book. They were remarkably similar.

  “And look at the sinuses.”

  “Sinuses?”

  “A petiole is the leaf stem, and the petiolar sinus is the space between the two lobes.”

  “Huh,” I said, studying the graphic.

  “Leonardo da Vinci wrote, ‘Every shoot and every fruit is produced above the insertion of its leaf which serves it as a mother, giving it water from the rain and moisture from the dew which falls at night from above, and often it protects them against the too great heat of the rays of the sun.’”

  Gazing at him for a moment, I said, “Interesting.”

  “Isn’t it, though? The vine is an amazing complexity of—“

  “No, I mean interesting that a man who sports an NRA sticker on his pickup also quotes da Vinci. Who are you?”

  “Did you know that da Vinci invented the first machine gun?”

  “Really.”

  He winked at me, then turned his attention to the vine in front of us. “Now let’s look at these leaves.”

  “There’s no question about my vines, is there?” For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. What if my grapes weren’t really Zinfandel? What if the man who sold me the vineyard had lied? I never questioned the variety, and now I felt stupid for being so trusting.

  “I don’t know. Is there?” He picked a leaf off one of my vines and handed it to me.

  Comparing it to the diagrams in the book, there was no question in my mind. “Definitely Zinfandel.”

  “As are these cuttings. You are absolutely right.”

  “Where can I get a copy of this book?” I asked.

  “You can have this one. I’ve got a later edition at home.” He handed me the book.

  My initial relief from the momentary panic he’d instilled by making me wonder if my own grapes were counterfeit was quickly overshadowed by the disappointment that I hadn’t caught Dash Zucker in a scheme to defraud the wine industry.

  “Now,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”

  On the way back to the house, I explained the discrepancies I’d found while working on my assignment for the Department of Agriculture and how I suspected Dash Zucker of being involved. Andy seemed amused when I described the trespassing incident the night before.

  “You think it’s funny that I nearly got shot?”

  He shook his head. “No. I just wish I could’ve been there to see you talk your way out of it.”

  I gave him a light punch in the arm.

  “I rescued a Jack Russell once that bit every person it came in contact with,” Andy said.

  “Rescued?”

  “Can’t stand to see an animal mistreated. That’s how I got Redford and Newman.”

  I shot him a curious glance.

  “The Clydesdales. Found them nearly starved to death about five years ago in a dry pasture just outside of Ione.”

  Glancing at his profile, I smiled. Nobody could be this perfect, could they?

  Isabel Glass, the hypnotherapist contracted by the sheriff’s department, wore rectangular spectacles that did nothing to improve the appearance of her already too square face. Detective Obermeyer met me at her office, which was a small room attached to the side of her home.

  “Please, have a seat,” she said, pointing toward a brown leather recliner. Easing into the chair, I noticed the hominess of the room—drawn vertical blinds to eliminate outside distractions, soft lights from a pair of traditional walnut-based lamps, an earth-tone plaid sofa with matching pillows, and a box of tissue on an
end table next to the recliner.

  Detective Obermeyer noticed me noticing the tissue. “Some people blubber like babies under hypnosis, but don’t worry. You won’t need them,” he said as he took a seat next to Isabel on the sofa.

  Isabel lowered her chin, raised her eyebrows and looked at him over the rims of her ugly glasses. “Would you be more comfortable if Detective Obermeyer left the room?”

  “What did I say?” Obermeyer said, raising his shoulders in self-defense.

  “No, he can stay,” I said.

  At her instruction, I pushed the recliner back and closed my eyes.

  The pitch of Isabel’s voice lowered to a soothing monotone and I’d swear she developed an English accent. Her sentences were spoken with definite pauses, strategically placed to encourage absorption of her words. “Just imagine your eyes getting—heavier and sleepier—and those eyelids are like—locked doors—almost impossible to open.”

  This was already working. I suddenly remembered that I needed to replace the knobs and deadbolts on my front and back doors so I could use one key for all of them.

  “Going back to—the night in question—can you see it? You’re asleep in your bed—but something—wakes you up.”

  Trying to take this seriously, I pushed the thought of the deadbolts out of my head and concentrated. “It’s hot, so the windows are open,” I said.

  “What wakes you up?”

  Taking a deep breath, I let it out with a long sigh. “A noise. It’s those damn raccoons.”

  I could hear Detective Obermeyer suppress a laugh by disguising it as a cough. Isabel was probably glaring sharp pointed objects at him from behind her horn-rims.

  “Are you sure it’s the raccoons?”

  Thinking about it for a moment, I said, “No. It’s too light in my room. I can see my ceiling fan turning. There’re headlights outside.”

  “Good. Can you see the vehicle?”

  “Yes. It’s a pickup. White.”

  “Anything else?”

  “There’s a man in the driver’s seat.”