Sinfandel

by Gina Cresse

  That went without saying, but I didn’t voice it. We met at the point of impact and gazed at the damage. Luckily for me, my trailer hitch took the brunt of the blow, but the car, a brand new Camaro still sporting dealer plates, looked like the loser of a jousting match. It was candy-apple red with two black racing stripes down the now creased hood, and a gaping hole between them. Steam billowed out of the radiator and anti-freeze pooled on the road under the engine.

  “Oh man. I hope you have insurance,” I said.

  A tear rolled down his face. “I just bought this for my wife. It’s our anniversary. She hasn’t even seen it yet.”

  Apparently, his wife was one of the lucky ones who had won the relationship lottery. “I’m sure she’ll understand. A new hood…” I leaned over and looked closer. “A new radiator and bumper. They’ll have it good as new.”

  He didn’t look too confident.

  “How many years?” I asked.

  “Seven.”

  “Heck, next year you’ll both look back on this and laugh. It’ll make a great story to tell your kids.”

  A brief smile flashed on his face, then it was gone. A CHP officer arrived and right behind him, a tow truck. The officer, tow-truck driver, and grieving husband gazed at the Camaro. I thought they might all start crying.

  By the time I got home, it was nearly six. Poor Tony had been home alone most of the day. I didn’t see him in the yard as I drove in. He must’ve been waiting inside for me. I unlocked the back door, expecting to be greeted by a joyful puppy. Instead, I found a quiet house.

  “Tony,” I called as I punched in the alarm code.

  Nothing.

  “Where are you? Sleeping?” I peered in the bedroom, but his bed was empty. “Tony?” He wasn’t in the kitchen, either. “Tony!” I checked every room. He was not in the house. I opened the front door and raced outside. “Tony!” Walking along the new fence line, I called him again. He was nowhere to be seen, but I did find the hole he’d dug under the fence to escape.

  Buster and Emlie nickered at me from the pasture. They probably witnessed the entire breakout. “Maybe he’s in the barn, tormenting the cats,” I told myself as I rushed back through the house and out the back door. But all that greeted me in the barn were three unhappy cats and an empty cat-food dish under the Wonder feeder. “Is food all you guys care about?” I said to the glaring faces. “Which way did he go?”

  No one was telling. I had the feeling they’d be happy if Tony never came back.

  After putting on some boots, I headed for the pasture to begin the search. “Tony!” I called over and over, but he didn’t respond.

  The horses followed me in my quest. Maybe they realized dinner would have to wait until after the dog was found. After searching the upper and lower pastures, I saddled Buster and took off into the vineyard. Peering down every row, I saw no trace of him. By the time I’d made my way around the entire vineyard, it was almost dark. My voice was raspy from calling him.

  I unsaddled Buster and threw some hay over the fence. After grabbing a flashlight, I headed for the cave.

  “Tony!”

  The crime scene tape was still stretched across the mouth of the cave. I ripped it down and marched in, shining the light on the floor. Hunched over due to the low ceiling, I waved the light back and forth as I made my way deep into the cave. A bat fluttered past me and made me jump. When I reached the back wall, the cave turned to the right and led me to the other entrance. Tony was not there.

  Outside the cave, I pushed my way through the willows and started toward the creek. There was a rustling noise up ahead so I stopped to listen. I heard more scraping sounds and something like a hiss.

  “Tony!”

  And then I heard his little bark.

  “Tony! Where are you?!”

  Running in the dark, I tripped over a fallen tree branch and skinned my elbows. When I got up and brushed myself off, I spotted a flash of white near the creek bank.

  “Tony!”

  He had treed something and was intent on not breaking eye-contact with it. As I got closer, I realized he had found the raccoons’ den. A dozen pairs of eyes stared down at me from the branches of a huge oak tree. In the middle of the trunk was a large, hollowed-out knot hole.

  When he realized it was me, Tony forgot all about the raccoons and greeted me with his wiggly body and dog kisses wherever he could make contact with skin.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you,” I said as I picked him up and hugged him. “Are you okay?”

  Checking him over, it was clear he was not hurt. I set him down and shined the light up at the raccoon family.

  “Yeah, you better be scared. He may be small now, but he’s mighty.”

  Standing on tip-toe, I aimed the light inside the knot hole. Their den was large and impressive. Wedged against the wall was a pink and green pack of some sort. I reached in and tried to grab it, but I couldn’t reach it. When I glanced around for something to snag it with, Tony was at my feet with a stick he’d found. Perfect.

  I used the stick to fish the pack out of the den. Shining the light on the object, I could see it was a small back-pack. It was torn and tattered and had a hole chewed through to the inside, probably by the thieves who took it. Turning it over, I found some black writing on it, but dirt had covered half the letters and it was hard to read. I wiped it off as best I could until the letters became clear. I felt my knees go weak.

  In bold print: Beth Messina.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  I carried Tony and the back pack home. Before doing anything with the pack, I inspected both Tony and myself for ticks. I didn’t find any on me, but Tony had picked up two during his raccoon-chasing adventure. Using tweezers, I followed the directions Monica had given me and pulled them out. After applying antiseptic, I put a bowl of Puppy Chow down for him and locked the doggie door. No more puppy adventures until I figured out how to keep him from tunneling under the fence.

  Staring at the pink and green pack on the counter, I debated whether to call Detective Obermeyer before I opened it. The hole the raccoons had chewed was not big enough for me to get a good look inside. If I called Obermeyer, he’d tell me to leave it alone until he arrived, so I unzipped it and took a gander.

  There were three grape-bunch skeletons. Except for a few shriveled raisins, all of the grapes had been stripped off the stems, most likely by the raccoons. Leaves were still attached to the stems, and though they were shrunken and wrinkled, the insulation of the pack appeared to have preserved them fairly well.

  Carefully, I removed the remains and spread leaves from each bunch out on the counter, searching for the ones in the best condition. They all appeared to be the same variety, though I couldn’t be sure due to their condition. Flipping through the grape vine identification book that Andy had given me, I stopped when I found an illustration of Carignane leaves. They matched.

  Feeling just a bit guilty, I called Detective Obermeyer.

  “You found what?” he said.

  “A small back pack. It has Beth Messina’s name written on it.”

  “Don’t touch it. I’ll be right over.” Click.

  Headlights from Detective Obermermeyer’s car shined through my window as he waited at the gate. I clicked the opener to let him in.

  Holding Tony so he couldn’t escape, I opened the front door to let Obermeyer in. He smiled and scratched Tony behind the ears and Tony licked his hand.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Tony,” I said.

  “Hey buddy.”

  I set the puppy down and he followed us into the kitchen, where I pointed to the grape leaf display on my counter.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “They were inside the pack.”

  He glared at me.

  “Before you bite my head off, let me show you something.”

  “I told you not to touch it.”

  “And you expected me to mind you?”

  Rolling his eyes, he said, “No.
”

  “Okay, then let’s move on. Take a look at this.” I pointed to the Carignane illustration. “I think all of these samples are the same variety.”

  “Carignane,” he said, reading the caption under the picture.

  “Yes.”

  “So?”

  “So, I’m working for the state right now on a project to consolidate several databases. While I was sifting through the data, I discovered some discrepancies between the amount of Zinfandel grapes grown in the state, and the number of gallons of Zinfandel wine produced.”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s more Zin wine than there are grapes to support it.”

  “Keep going until I understand.”

  “Carignane is one of several varieties that are nearly indistinguishable from Zinfandel.”

  “And?”

  “Zinfandel grapes, on average, sell for seven times more than Carignane grapes.”

  “So if someone has a field full of these cheaper grapes—”

  “They’d stand to make a fortune. I think Beth Messina figured it out. She had these samples in her pack.”

  Obermeyer looked skeptical. “How do we know she wasn’t just going to snack on them?”

  “We don’t, but three bunches is quite a snack, don’t you think?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Let’s assume she wasn’t on the Jenny Craig Grape Diet Program for a moment,” I said. “If she was on to the scam, she’d take them to someone in authority, right?”

  “Probably.”

  “Do you still have the record of her cell phone calls?”

  Obermeyer nodded and motioned toward the door. “In my car. I’ll get it.”

  When he returned with the list, he placed it on the counter and we both scanned it.

  “There,” I said, putting my finger on a familiar number. “That’s the Food and Ag phone number. And there, and there. She started making calls to them three days before she was murdered.”

  “So she figured it out, set up the appointment with the authorities, but was killed before she could deliver the evidence.”

  “I bet she was wearing the back pack when her body was dumped. The killer must not have gone to the trouble to look inside.”

  Obermeyer looked troubled. “How come we didn’t find it in the cave when her body was discovered?”

  “It wasn’t in the cave. My—a bunch of raccoons had dragged it off to their den and have been working on getting the grapes out through that hole they chewed in the side.”

  “You found it in a raccoon den?”

  “Yeah. Tony ran off on a raccoon hunt and when I went looking for him, I found the den. They must’ve taken it off the body before anyone discovered it.”

  I could almost see the gears turning in Obermeyer’s head. “So, Zucker’s grapes?”

  “The real deal. Zinfandel. I checked. He had no reason to kill her.”

  “You have any luck yet finding the source of the counterfeit grapes?”

  I shook my head. “The TTB is working on it, but so far nothing.”

  “Can I borrow some zip-locks?”

  Obermeyer pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and carefully placed the remains of the grape bunches in the plastic baggies I gave him. He placed them in the back pack and picked it up by one of the broken straps. “Maybe forensics can lift some prints off this. I’ll put a rush on it.”

  Before he left, Obermeyer squatted down and scratched Tony’s ears one more time. “You be a good dog and guard this place, okay?”

  I’d swear Tony nodded.

  Obermeyer stood up and gave me a serious look. “And you keep these doors and windows locked. Set the alarm as soon as I leave, and don’t open the door for anyone you don’t know.”

  “Aye aye, Cap’n,” I said, grinning.

  “I mean it. This is serious.”

  Wiping the smile off my face, I said, “Okay.”

  Hungry, I went into the kitchen to fix something for dinner. I opened a bottle of Chardonnay that promised complex and restrained flavors, reminiscent of peach, pear, and apple with overtones of vanilla, toast, and spicy oak.

  Five minutes after Obermeyer left, there was a knock at my front door. “What’d you forget?” I said, then peered through the curtain panel on my front door, expecting to see Obermeyer standing there.

  It was Roger.

  He shrugged and flashed me a sheepish grin, then held up a bouquet of roses in a peace-offering pose. “Can I come in?”

  I shook my head.

  “Please? I won’t stay long, I promise.”

  Roger’s promises were worthless. “Go home.”

  “I’m not leaving until you let me say what I came to say.” He tried his poor-pitiful-me face.

  I closed the curtain and went into the kitchen to work on fixing dinner, but he kept knocking.

  “I have a dog!” I hollered at the door. “He’ll take your leg off!”

  Roger loved dogs. And dogs loved Roger, for some odd reason, so he wasn’t fazed by my threat. “You do? What’s its name?”

  After ten minutes of his begging and pleading, I finally grabbed the pepper-spray canister I kept in my purse and yanked the door open, ready to spray him if he gave me the slightest excuse. “How the hell did you get my address?” I demanded.

  “The internet is amazing.” He held the roses out to me. “Here.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Come on, Katie. I’m trying to make amends here.”

  Tony slipped out the door to sniff at Roger’s boots. “Tony!” I called.

  Roger feigned trembling fear. “Oh my God, will I survive the leg-shredding from your guard dog?”

  What a jerk.

  I stepped out on the porch and picked Tony up. “What do you want?”

  “I just wondered if we could go out sometime. You know? Like old times?”

  He must have lost his mind. I put Tony in the house and closed the door, then turned to face Roger. “I’m sorry? Did I give you the impression that I’d be interested in getting involved with you again?”

  “It’s just that we were together so many years. It just feels comfortable to be with you, you know?”

  I shook my head, astonished.

  “I’m not talking anything serious. I just thought we could hang out.”

  The fact that Roger had gone to the trouble to track down my address worried me. He could be persistent, obviously, and I needed to squash his ambition before it went any farther. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too difficult. Roger was always attracted to women who were willing to settle for less. He liked women who would go along with whatever he wanted to do. He was used to picking the movie, the restaurant, the car, the vacation spot. The old Kate put up with him because she didn’t know any better. I doubt he’d like the Kate I’d become in the years since he left me.

  I took the flowers from him and sniffed them. He smiled. Then I flung them over the porch rail into the darkness of the yard and his smile faded.

  “What’d you do that for?”

  “Roger, I want you to listen up, because I’m only going to say this once.” I took a step toward him and he took a step back. “I wasted seven years of my life on you. Seven years that I’ll never get back. Because of you I no longer trust anyone. I can’t even trust—”

  “Just let me try to—”

  “What! Make it up to me?”

  “No, I just—”

  “Shut up, Roger!” I took a deep breath. “You strung me along all those years, then when you thought you’d found something better, you tossed me out like a piece of trash.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Now you’re scrounging around trying to find what you threw away. The problem is, Roger, you are the trash and the home-wrecker you hooked up with is a trash collector. You deserve each other.”

  He shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He’d never seen me stand up for myself before.

  “You’re a lying, cheating weasel. You hav
e less character than an ameba.”

  He feigned a shot to the heart.

  “So, to make this as clear as I possibly can, I never, ever, ever want to see or hear from you again. Clear?”

  After a moment of thought, he nodded, turned, then walked down the steps and back toward the gate. Halfway there, he called over his shoulder, “You’ll change your mind, Katie. You know I don’t give up this easy.”

  I stepped in the house and slammed the door shut, then set the deadbolt. Peering through the parted curtains, I watched as he crawled through the rails and got into his car, which he’d parked on the road.

  After his taillights disappeared, I collapsed on the sofa and gnawed on my thumbnail. I should have felt relieved that he was gone, but I had a nagging feeling that this was one of the rare occasions when Roger wasn’t lying to me. He wouldn’t give up just like that.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Staring at the ceiling, I felt a tear roll down my temple and into my hair, and then another. Damn Roger anyway. Did he plan to haunt me for the rest of my life?

  Tony put his paws on the couch and licked my fingers.

  “I’m okay,” I assured him, but apparently he wasn’t buying it. He rested his little chin on my hand and looked up at me with his root-beer-brown and sky-blue eyes. How could I be sad with a face like that gazing at me?

  Wiping the tears away, I rolled off the couch and grabbed one of his toys. “Go fetch it,” I said, tossing the knotted sock into the dining room. Before he had a chance to bring it back, my phone rang. On the off chance that it might be Roger, I let the answering machine pick it up.

  “Kate, where are you? It’s me. Pete.”

  I raced for the phone and snatched it off the cradle. “I’m here,” I blurted.

  “I’ve got some great news.”

  “I won the lottery?” I said.

  “You buy a ticket?”

  “No.”

  “That is the one thing all winners have in common,” he mused. “But, my news is almost as good.”

  “Yeah?” I felt my hopes lift a fraction of an inch.

  “I have a check in my hand for you. Full payment for grapes delivered.”