Sinfandel

by Gina Cresse

  I thought I might break into a sudden laughing fit. Talk about being on a roller coaster.

  “The bad news is—”

  “No! I don’t want to hear the bad news.”

  “Well, the thing is, I’m on my way to Bakersfield so I either have to put it in the mail or you’ll have to wait till I get back next week.”

  “Oh, Pete. I need that check yesterday. I’ll come get it. Where are you?”

  “No, don’t do that. I’m on the road right now. If it’s not too late for you, I’ll make a slight detour and drop it off.”

  “That’d be great.”

  “Okay, darlin’. I’m about twenty minutes away, so I’ll see you in a bit.”

  Tony probably thought he’d been adopted by a bipolar lunatic. One minute I was in tears, and the next I was dancing around the house singing.

  While I waited for Pete, I sat at my desk and checked my e-mail. Quinn Adamson had sent me a large file attachment that took several minutes to download. His message said it was a small database one of his staff members developed but never implemented. It contained a few more fields of information than the database I’d been working with and he thought perhaps I might garner something useful from it.

  By the time I got the database saved to my hard drive and opened the first table in the list, headlights from Pete’s truck shone through my window. I aimed the gate opener out the window and pressed the button. He parked behind my pickup in the carport and waved at me as he walked past the office window.

  “I guess you’ve been anxious for this,” he said when I opened the door. He waved the check in the air like a little flag.

  “You could say that,” I said, reaching for it before he could accidentally drop it and have the wind carry it away.

  “I just need you to sign a receipt that you’ve gotten it,” he said.

  I opened the door wider. “Sure. Come on it. Let me get a pen.”

  Pete followed me to my office, and Tony followed Pete, sniffing at his heels along the way. “So, what’s going on in Bakersfield?” I asked, rummaging in my desk drawer for a pen.

  “I got my arm twisted to be a speaker at this year’s Winegrowers Association Conference.”

  “Really? I thought that was last week.” I found a pen and tried to sign the receipt, but it was out of ink, so I continued searching.

  “Nope. Starts tomorrow. That’s why I have to get down there tonight so I can be fresh for my speech.”

  My fingers found another pen and this time it wasn’t dry. I signed the receipt and handed it to Pete across the desk. “Here you go.”

  As he reached for the paper, his eyes stopped on a flyer lying on my desk announcing the Winegrowers Association Conference with the dates stamped in bold print. The conference was last week, as I had thought. “Looks like someone gave you the wrong dates,” I said.

  “Did I say winegrowers? I meant the San Joaquin Viticulture Association.”

  As he folded the receipt and stuffed it in his wallet, I gazed at my computer screen. The new database included a column that the previous one didn’t—grape broker. I noticed Pete’s name listed several times, which wasn’t surprising since he brokered many vineyards in the valley. What did surprise me was the fact that he was listed as the broker for Adobe Vineyards, one of the suspect vineyards in the Zinfandel scandal—the one he claimed to know nothing about.

  “Do you speak at a lot of functions?” I asked as I typed a brief database command to sort the list by broker.

  “Not much. I get nervous and forget half of what I’m supposed to say.”

  Scanning the list, I spotted Genova Farms, also brokered by Pete. My heart rate sped up to a faster gait.

  “What’s that you’re looking at?” he asked, leaning over my desk to get a peek at my screen.

  “Nothing,” I said as I closed the computer window. “I better let you get on the road. Bakersfield’s a long drive.”

  Glancing out the window at Pete’s powder-blue Chevy pickup, I suddenly realized that in the moonlight, it appeared white. Just like the Grass Valley sniper’s two-toned blue mustang looked blue and white in the dark.

  My heart began loping. The white pickup that woke me out of a sound sleep before harvest began… could it have been Pete out there? Dumping Beth Messina’s body? A flood of memories came rushing into my mind. The sound I’d heard banging in the back of the pickup as he sped away was probably the post-hole digger he’d borrowed from Andy, and the broken transit level. That was the electronic beeping sound I kept hearing.

  He stood in the doorway between me and any form of escape, unless I chose to dive out the window. He was wearing a new plaid flannel shirt, his usual attire. Then I recalled the piece of flannel that had been stuck in my gate latch after the late-night visit. He must’ve caught it in the mechanism when he was carrying the body to the cave.

  “It’s what, four hours to Bakersfield?” I said, sure I sounded as nervous as a politician in church. At that instant, I remembered where I’d seen the face of the man who claimed the printer box—it was Pete’s brother, Tommy, who I’d seen the day Pete took me to watch the grapes being crushed at Venezia.

  When Pete strolled out into the hallway and toward the living room, I felt a surge of relief. I hurried out of the office and followed him to the door, planning to slam it shut behind him. Instead of opening it, though, he double-checked the lock.

  I was in trouble.

  The hair on Tony’s back shot up and he started growling furiously at Pete. I snatched Tony up and raced for the back door, but Pete caught the tail of my shirt and yanked me back. I screamed.

  Tony wriggled out of my arms and clamped his teeth into Pete’s leg, snarling.

  “Damn dog!” Pete yelled, swinging his foot back and forth trying to dislodge Tony, but the little guy wouldn’t let go.

  I elbowed Pete hard in the ribs while he was distracted and he let go of me for an instant. With adrenaline pumping through my veins, and my heart rate at a full gallop, I sprinted down the hallway to my bedroom and slammed the door shut. Since there was no lock, I grabbed the doorstop that normally held it open and jammed it under the door. Within seconds, Pete was at the door, banging against it and forcing the doorstop to give up a little ground with each bash.

  I lunged for the phone next to my bed and dialed 911. On the third ring, Pete’s hand appeared through the opening in the door.

  Who was I kidding? I’d be dead before the 911 operator could get help clear out here. I tossed the phone on the bed and dove under it, grasping the Mossberg shotgun.

  Pete’s grunts as he hit the door grew louder and angrier. I wriggled out from under the bed and yanked my nightstand drawer open in a frenzied search for the box of shotgun shells I’d hidden under my Capri pants and tank-tops. When my fingers finally landed on the box, I saw Pete’s entire arm reach through the door.

  My breathing was so fast I felt light-headed. Dumping the shells on the floor, I grabbed one and panicked when I couldn’t remember how to load it. Then I realized the trigger lock was still installed. I stuffed a handful of shells in my pocket, then diving back into the nightstand drawer, I felt for the tiny key I’d hidden there. Pete’s shoulder was through the door. Any second now, he’d be in.

  Just as my fingers found the trigger-lock key, he slithered through the opening. I tried to raise the old double-hung window but it was stuck. Using the butt of the shotgun, I smashed the window over my nightstand and dove through it, feeling something sharp scrape my right arm and thigh. I landed on my hands and knees, the shotgun about two feet in front of me. I’d dropped the trigger-lock key when I landed. Feeling for it in the lawn, I heard heavy breathing approaching. Looking over my shoulder, Pete stood in the window, ready to leap.

  An instant before he jumped, I found the key and took off, slipping it in my pocket as I ran. Pete’s boots pounded the ground behind me, not quite close enough to grab me but too close for me to even think about looking back. My only goal was to keep running
as fast as I could and hope my legs and lungs would not give out on me.

  The vineyard was in front of me and the road was to my right. The road would’ve been my first choice but the driveway gate had already closed and I’d have to get over it, but before I could even consider such a feat, I had to put some distance between us.

  With no time to think about it, I headed for the vineyard. I’d still have a fence to deal with, but I could dive and roll under the bottom rail. Thick and bulky, Pete would probably choose to go over the top—I hoped—buying me a little time. By the time I’d reached the vineyard fence, I had not put one inch more between us. Luckily, the full moon illuminated the white rails. When I got within three feet, I sensed I’d never escape him. I held the shotgun tight under my right arm and planted the barrel end square into a fence post, letting the butt end stick out behind me. An instant later, Pete’s belly made full contact with the stock, knocking the wind out of him. He grunted like a spurred horse then went down on all fours as he struggled to catch his breath.

  Taking advantage of the time I’d just bought myself, I slipped through the fence and weighed my options. If I headed down one of the rows, I’d be trapped in a chute like a cow headed for slaughter. I decided to stick to the perimeter until I could get out of Pete’s sight then slip, unseen, down a row and disappear into the vines.

  Clearly, Pete had other plans. He’d recovered from the blow faster than what I thought humanly possible, and he was back on my tail, though not as close as before. Just as I reached the top of the hill, Zucker’s farm came into view. The abandoned place was dark except for a yard light on top of a telephone pole that came on every night at dusk and stayed on until dawn. There’d be places for me to hide if I could get down there, and if I stayed out of the illuminated areas.

  One more fence to get through and I’d be on the Zucker property. A coyote howled as I slid between the rails. Pete’s labored breathing approached fast, but he was slowing down. So was I.

  I headed for the darkness behind the big run-down barn. Halfway across what I thought was an open field, my left shin came into contact with something hard and sharp—the blade of a disc harrow hiding in the tall dry grass. Sailing through the air with no idea if I’d land headlong into another piece of tractor equipment, I let go of the shotgun and tucked into a ball.

  Still lumbering at me like a locomotive, Pete encountered the disc blade an instant before I latched onto the shotgun and sprinted off toward the darkness of a grove of old oak trees.

  The disc blade flipped Pete over and landed him on his head, from what I could tell. I hunkered down in the wild oats behind a massive oak and fished in my pocket for the trigger-lock key. Keeping one eye on Pete as he staggered to his feet, I fumbled the key several times before I finally got the correct end between my fingers. Standing upright, Pete stood still and slowly turned in a complete circle, looking for me.

  My lungs could not get enough air, and no matter how desperately I tried to control the sound of my breathing, Pete honed in on my location. He stopped scanning and took a few tentative steps in my direction.

  Panicked now, I tried to force the key into the lock, but it kept slipping off the side. When he was within twenty feet, the key slipped out of my fingers and fell into the grass. With no time to look for it, I got to my feet and grasped the barrel end, holding the Mossberg like a baseball bat. Slowly, I crept backward, slipping behind the trunk of the oak. I darted to another tree, then another. Pete kept coming, but he was not nearly as agile as when this chase began.

  “Give it up, darlin’!” he hollered. “You can’t get away!”

  I peered around the tree I was hiding behind to see him walking straight for me. “So you killed Beth Messina,” I called back to him. “Why’d you do it?”

  Pete laughed, then spit something out on the ground—most likely a tooth.

  “She was just as nosy as you are.”

  “And the Zuckers? Was that you?”

  “The two of them together didn’t have the brain cells of a lemur. Stupid kid saw me dump the girl’s stuff in the pond while she was out watering her marijuana. She told her old man and he came up with the brilliant idea to blackmail me. Idiot.”

  “So you’re going to kill me, too?”

  “I am, and let me tell you, that ain’t no easy task as it turns out. You gotta be the luckiest little gal I’ve ever run across.”

  Funny, but at the moment, I didn’t feel lucky.

  “First I missed you in the orchard, then I missed you on the bridge, and how you escaped getting electrocuted I’ll never know.”

  “And the snake?” I said.

  “You got an angel on your shoulder, kid. But not for long.”

  By this time, he’d gotten close enough for me to smell his sweat and aftershave. I slipped around the tree behind him and swung the shotgun, making contact with the back of his head. Thud.

  Pete stumbled forward, tripped over something that made a screeching sound, then fell onto his hands and knees. I could just make out a pair of masks and ringed tails scurrying away in the dark and realized he’d tripped over a pair of raccoons—my raccoons, no doubt. When he finally stopped cursing, I heard a strange sound, like a tree limb cracking. I hoisted the shotgun on my shoulder, ready to strike once more before he got back to his feet.

  I took a step toward him and heard the sound again. It wasn’t coming from overhead, but rather from under Pete.

  “Sh—!” he screamed as another loud crack pierced the air and he disappeared into the ground.

  I stopped short, confused by what had just happened. Then I heard a muffled splash and I realized he’d fallen into one of the old abandoned hand-dug wells that dotted the hillsides around this area. Rather than fill it in, Zucker must have just covered this one with a sheet of plywood that had rotted over time.

  I slid down onto my hands and knees and crawled slowly toward the well and peered over the edge of the deep, dark hole. “Pete? How long can you tread water?”

  There was no response.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  By the time I limped home, called Detective Obermeyer and waited for help to arrive, Pete had drowned. As the rescue crew pulled his lifeless body out of the well, the sun was just peeking over the horizon.

  A medic busied himself cleaning the gashes I’d gotten jumping out of my bedroom window and tripping over the disc harrow. Obermeyer turned a bucket over and sat down on it next to me. “You know how lucky you are?”

  “I thought you said I was jinxed,” I said, wincing at the stinging pain as the medic treated my wounds.

  “No, I said all the incidents you’d been involved in couldn’t have been the result of bad luck.”

  “That may be what you meant, but you said—”

  “I’m gonna need a full statement,” he said, redirecting me away from another argument.

  I nodded, trying not to speak, which might lead to blubbering tears. Obermeyer didn’t need to see that side of me. Nobody did.

  At least the check Pete had given me before he tried to kill me was good. As soon as the bank opened, I drove to town to deposit it before they put a freeze on his account. Later, I’d pay off what I could, and the whole process would start all over again.

  The final I.O.U. came in from the State and I saved it with the rest of them, hoping they’d actually be honored as Quinn Adamson promised.

  When I returned from the bank, my answering machine light was flashing. I pressed the ‘Play’ button. It was a message from my real estate broker, telling me an offer had already been accepted on the Zucker vineyard. Turned out the Zuckers never bothered to go through a proper divorce—since they never went through a proper wedding in the first place—and Clarice Zucker’s name was still on the title. In fact, hers was the only name on title after some scheme Dash cooked up to avoid paying property taxes. She never even knew about it, according to my Realtor, until a broker called her with an offer. Bottom line, I would not be buying the vineyard.

>   Disappointed, I slid down in my glider and scratched Tony’s ears. I could never afford it anyway. Who was I kidding? Maybe it was time for me to find a full-time job again, at least until the vineyard was producing at its full potential. I tried to remember if I’d need to update my resume.

  The sound of a horn honking jerked me out of my funk. I looked out the window. It was Andy waiting for me to let him in. After a small self-debate, I finally opened the gate and walked outside with Tony to meet him.

  “I brought you something,” he said as he climbed out of his pickup, Maybell in his arms. He set her down and she raced as fast as she could with her little leg still in a cast, wagging her stub-tail to greet Tony. Andy reached into the back of his truck and hoisted a sack of feed onto his shoulder. “Raccoon Chow,” he announced, grinning.

  “If you can’t beat ‘em?”

  “Feed ‘em!”

  We both laughed as I followed him up to the barn where he dropped the fifty-pound sack in the corner.

  “I think they may have saved my life, so I have no problem feeding them now.”

  His face turned serious. “How are you?”

  “I’m okay,” I lied. “Just a little sore.”

  “So it was Pete all along. What a shocker.”

  “Yeah. I wonder what I should do now.”

  We sat down on the porch swing and watched Tony and Maybell play tug-of-war with one of his toys on the lawn.

  “You don’t really need a broker. I can help you get your crop sold.”

  “Yeah? What’s your commission?”

  He smiled at me, a day’s growth of stubble failing to hide the dimples in his cheeks. God he was handsome. “Friends don’t charge friends commission.”

  “But I’ll always feel like I owe you. I don’t like that.”

  “Then you can help me out with something. I just bought a new vineyard and I’ll need a hand.”

  I shot him a startled look. “You what?”

  “Yeah. I think you know the place. Zucker’s vineyard? Next door?”