A Sunny McCoskey Napa Valley Mystery 2: Death by the Glass

by Nadia Gordon

  “Yes, something strange did happen,” said Sunny. “I was preparing a mushroom sauce and I discovered several false morels mixed in with the supply of dried morels from Vinifera’s pantry.”

  “What are false morels?” asked Officer Dervich.

  Sunny explained.

  “How unusual is that, for someone to make that kind of mistake?” asked Steve. “I mean, do the wrong mushrooms turn up now and then in your supplies, so that you’re used to watching for them?”

  “No, definitely not. I’d say it’s extremely unusual. I’ve never seen it before. Frankly, I can’t imagine how it could have happened. Andre Morales, the chef at Vinifera, is looking into it.”

  “We’re looking into it too,” said Officer Dervich.

  “What did you do when you discovered them?” asked Steve.

  “We got rid of the entire supply of morels and everything that had had contact with them, just in case. Andre felt fairly confident that no one else had used any of them recently. There hasn’t been anything on the menu at Vinifera with morels for the last couple of weeks.”

  “Would he know everything that gets used in his kitchen?” asked Steve.

  “It’s hard to say. Very little happens in my kitchen without me knowing about it, but Vinifera is so much bigger, with a much bigger staff.”

  “And you don’t know what you don’t know,” said Steve.

  “That’s true,” said Sunny, smiling. For an instant it was impossible to tell if Steve was being funny or serious. A second later, she decided he was serious and replaced the smile with a more appropriate expression of concern.

  Officer Dervich looked at Steve as if for permission to speak. He gave her an almost imperceptible nod.

  “Several people on staff at Vinifera said Nathan Osborne made frequent special requests of the kitchen,” she said. “He was in the habit of asking for things that weren’t on the menu. Do you think he could have requested a dish with morels in it on Saturday night?”

  “You’re asking the wrong person,” said Sunny. “I was only there last night. I don’t know anything about Saturday.”

  Officer Dervich looked embarrassed. “I mean, in theory.”

  Steve cleared his throat. “I think what Officer Dervich is getting at is, how unusual are morels as an ingredient?”

  “They’re neither common nor rare,” said Sunny. “I use them in sauces that I want to have a meaty flavor. I suppose, in theory, Osborne could have asked for a dish with morels in it, but if he did, somebody on the kitchen staff would certainly remember it.”

  Steve nodded. “So you don’t know if anyone served morels on Saturday.”

  Sunny was beginning to feel like she was getting the third degree, but considering the circumstances, it didn’t surprise her.

  “Like I said, I don’t know anything about Saturday. All I can say for sure is that there was a gallon jar of dried morels in the pantry at Vinifera on Sunday, and that it was tainted with several false morels. What makes you think he ate bad morels, anyway? I thought we were talking about a heart attack.”

  “We’re just checking out all angles until the coroner’s report comes back,” said Steve.

  “So he ate at Vinifera Saturday night, went home, and died sometime after that. I hate to ask this, but could you tell if he’d thrown up, or if he was in pain? Seems like poison mushrooms would have made him sick to his stomach.”

  “You would think so,” Steve said. “There didn’t seem to be any signs of his having been sick, and no signs of trauma.”

  “You mean no one hit him,” Sunny said.

  “That, or he hadn’t fallen down. He didn’t appear to have any injuries. We don’t know much for sure right now. We know the bartender drove him home from the restaurant sometime after midnight and returned to Vinifera with Osborne’s car. They expected a phone call from Osborne on Sunday, asking for someone to drive his car up to get him. When no one had heard from him by late morning on Monday, the bartender decided to drive up there himself and see if he was okay. He found him collapsed in the living room.”

  “I met the bartender last night,” said Sunny. “Nick, right?”

  “Correct,” said Harvey. He consulted the little notepad he kept in his shirt pocket. “That’s right. Nick Ambrosi.”

  “Seemed like a nice guy,” said Sunny. “Did he say anything about Nathan feeling sick when he drove him home?”

  “He said Osborne was moderately inebriated, that’s why he needed a ride. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  Sergeant Harvey closed his notepad and put it away. He looked at Officer Dervich to see if she was satisfied and then stood up slowly.

  “Thanks for your help, McCoskey. Seems like you always land smack in the middle of these things. We’ll call you when we hear from the coroner.”

  5

  They would know soon enough if poison mushrooms killed Nathan Osborne, thought Sunny, gathering her things from the truck and heading into the house. His liver was sure to tell the tale. In any case, false morels seemed an unlikely culprit. First of all, there was little chance that he had eaten any of them. They weren’t on the menu, and most of the supply had been delivered specifically for her needs just a few days prior. Second, didn’t poison mushrooms take a long, terrible time to kill? Osborne would have called someone, gone to the hospital, said something to Nick Ambrosi about feeling sick. It was funny that Steve Harvey was pursuing this line of investigation at all. If it looked like a heart attack, why not wait until the coroner’s report came back before pursuing less likely explanations? There had to be something more to his death, something that suggested to the police that there was more at work than natural causes.

  She thought about Andre Morales and how he must be feeling, with one of the owners of his restaurant dead and the police sniffing around his kitchen. She’d had the urge to phone him all day, and an equal impulse to check her messages every fifteen minutes to see if he’d called. Now that she was home, she took her time. It wasn’t about the excitement of an unexpected romance anymore. An unexpected death had interceded, and any conversation was bound to be awkward.

  She showered, changed clothes, brushed and flossed her teeth, started a load of laundry, even swallowed a disgusting multivitamin, stalling as long as she could before she at last picked up the receiver to listen for the pulsing signal that indicated a new message. It was there. She advanced through an amusing but rambling dissertation on the micro-events of the weekend from Monty Lenstrom, then listened to the message she’d been hoping for. Andre Morales’s voice sounded sleepy but warm, saying the right things about last night, that he had had a great time and was looking forward to seeing her again soon, and that it had been a strange, foggy-headed morning. Obviously he hadn’t heard about Osborne yet. The next message was him again, explaining about Osborne’s death, and how the police had been meeting with everyone at Vinifera, and it was all very disturbing. He said he would try to call tomorrow or the next day, when things settled down. She hit save and a second later the phone rang. The caller ID read Lenstrom, Monterey.

  “Lenstrom,” said Sunny, picking up.

  “McCoskey.”

  “Talk to me.”

  “Do you want to have a little supper?”

  “Absolutely. When?” said Sunny.

  “How about now?”

  “Perfect. You bringing it over?”

  “Not a chance. Come over here. I’ve got it all ready.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  “This is supper we’re talking about, right?”

  “You might be talking about supper. I’m talking about the age-old tradition of friends breaking bread together, in the interest of a more enriched human experience,” said Monty.

  “And?” said Sunny.

  “Spaghetti Bolognese with meatballs, green salad, and garlic bread. Simple fare for simple folk. Take it or leave it.”

  “Good enough. I’ll be there in fifteen.”


  “What about the girl?” said Monty.

  “I’ll call her.” Monty was easy with his invitations. The three of them ate dinner together at least once a week.

  “Okay, but make it snappy. I’m starved,” he said.

  “Right. Ciao.” She hung up, relieved to have a plan for the night, and dialed Rivka Chavez. Three minutes later, Sunny strode out the front door as though on a precision training exercise. Seven minutes after that, Rivka hopped into the passenger side of the truck and they headed for Mount Veeder, where Monty lived in a modest Sunset-magazine version of the wine country dream house. Twelve minutes later they were setting the table in the dining nook off his kitchen.

  “I’ve never known anyone who will move so quickly for a meal,” Monty said to Sunny.

  “Priorities,” said Sunny. “I need food, and then I need sleep.”

  “Ask her why she needs sleep,” said Rivka, giving him a wink.

  “Do I want to know?” said Monty, running his fingers over his scalp. “Is it going to make me jealous?”

  Sunny pulled a loaf of garlic bread out of the oven. “You cook just like my mama, Monty.”

  “That’s me, Mr. Old-Fashioned Home-Spun Goodness.”

  “Where’s Mrs. Old-Fashioned tonight?” said Rivka.

  “Yoga. The woman is obsessed. It smells like an Indian bazaar in our bedroom and the last time I got in the car it sounded like I was being attacked by Hari Krishnas.”

  “Could be worse,” said Rivka.

  Monty pulled the cork on an open bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and filled two glasses, handing them around. “You mean she could be addicted to the Home Shopping Network.”

  “I didn’t want to say, but yes.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong. She’s been off that stuff for weeks now.”

  “As far as you know,” said Rivka.

  “She says she can quit watching anytime she wants to, and I believe her,” said Monty, trembling his lower lip. “Besides, there’s nothing wrong with owning seven bread machines. You never know when we might need a really large quantity of bread, all at once.”

  “Tell me she didn’t buy seven bread machines.”

  “Okay, two.”

  “The woman is obviously frustrated in some sector of her life,” said Rivka.

  “Uh-oh,” Sunny said. “Sigmund Chavez is in the house.”

  “She has a great career, good family and friends, I wonder what it could be? What drives her to garden, shop, and exercise to excess? What is it that’s missing? There must be some vital form of release that she’s not getting.”

  “I am officially changing the subject,” said Monty. “McCoskey looks like she hasn’t slept in two days, but she’s not complaining. That can mean only one thing. Let’s hear it. Don’t deprive me of secondhand thrills. I want to live vicariously through your salacious, single-woman excesses.”

  “The salacious part is a long story,” said Sunny.

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less,” said Monty.

  “But it will have to wait. There’s something more important. Riv, you don’t know about this yet.”

  Rivka had been slicing marinated artichoke hearts and dried tomatoes into the salad. “What don’t I know?”

  “Last night sort of culminated in a strange way today. Do you know Nathan Osborne?”

  “The guy who owns Osborne Wines?” said Monty.

  “I’m not sure. He was one of the owners of Vinifera,” said Sunny.

  “That’s him.”

  “Did you say was?” said Rivka.

  “I’m afraid so. It turns out that he died over the weekend.”

  Rivka gawked at her. “You’re kidding! That’s terrible. Oh my god, that’s why he never showed up for dinner.”

  “Exactly. He was already dead. After you left today, Steve Harvey and another cop came by to tell me about it.” She related the details she’d learned, including, for Monty’s benefit, how she’d found the false morels at Vinifera the night before, prompting Sergeant Harvey to come see her. Monty dug his hands into his pants pockets, mulling over the news.

  “Wow, that’s too bad,” he said. “He wasn’t very old.”

  “Fifty-eight. If I actually thought he died because he ate false morels, I don’t know what I would do,” said Sunny. “Andre must be freaking out.”

  “Andre Morales?”

  “Right. The chef at Vinifera.”

  “It’s not the mushrooms,” said Monty. “With mushroom poisoning you go to the emergency room with the worst stomach pains you’ve ever had, then your liver and your kidneys shut down and you lay there like a gurgling blob for three days before you buy the farm,” said Monty.

  “Gross,” said Rivka.

  “What a shame, just when he could kick back and relax,” said Monty. “He made a fortune in the wine business. He was smart about it. He’d start a restaurant and then make himself the sole supplier of its wine and booze, so he could double dip. He’d make money as both the wholesaler and the retailer. Remember Denby’s in Mill Valley?”

  Sunny shook her head. “I don’t think I ever went there.”

  “You might have been too young for the scene. Denby’s was at its prime about eight, maybe ten years ago. Riv would have been dating the editor of the high school newspaper about then.”

  “I was dating the striker on the soccer team,” said Rivka.

  “I don’t even know what that means,” said Monty.

  “He was also a founding member of the math club.”

  “The elusive geek-jock combo,” said Monty.

  “What about Denby’s?” said Sunny.

  “It was the big scene in Marin for a long time. Eliot Denby, now of Vinifera fame, and Nathan Osborne owned it. Everybody went there. They had every wine you could think of on the menu. This was before wine bars were the hot ticket. They were at least five years ahead of the curve.”

  “What happened?”

  “There was a fire late one night and the place burned down. I would have loved to sell those guys wine, but Osborne wouldn’t let anybody else in. Then he cut exclusive deals with a bunch of the producers on the other end. It was all sewn up, start to finish.”

  “Why don’t you cut exclusive deals?” asked Rivka.

  “Don’t think I haven’t tried, my chiquita banana. It has not proven to be as easy as it sounds.”

  “Tell me again how it couldn’t have been the mushrooms,” said Sunny.

  “It wasn’t. I know you’re going to worry until you find out, but I really don’t think it’s necessary,” said Monty. “I haven’t seen him for years, but a heart attack wouldn’t surprise me that much. He had all the characteristics even back then. Red face from about forty years of drinking too much wine, carrying around thirty extra pounds, never more than five feet from a pack of Marlboros or a big cigar. Those guys who like to eat and drink and smoke all the time don’t live forever. Unless you’re a Swedish-farmer type, like Skord. Then you can do whatever the hell you want and live to be a hundred. I’d kill to have that guy’s genes.”

  Sunny and Monty both half admired and half worried about their friend Wade Skord, who seemed to be able to live on fried eggs, Wasa Crisp, and Zinfandel, and still do the work of three men half his age.

  “Fifty-eight sounds pretty young to me,” said Sunny.

  “Not if you live hard,” said Monty. “He was having a good time. That’s worth something. The nice thing about shaving years off your life is that they get shaved off at the end. That’s usually the dull part anyway.”

  “They were talking about him at staff dinner last night,” said Rivka. “Apparently someone had to drive him home practically every night because he drank like a fish.”

  “It’s what he ate that’s more important if he had a heart attack, right?” said Monty. “Too much bacon and duck fat, not that I blame him.”

  “It almost makes me want to reconsider my New Year’s resolution,” said Sunny.

  “You mean the one about eating mor
e bacon?” said Monty. “I want to go on record as not in favor of that resolution. Someday this is all going to catch up with that skinny ass of yours and you’re going to wake up looking like Paul Prudhomme. I’ll find slabs of cured pork belly tucked under your mattress.”

  “It’s my homage to the noble pig,” said Sunny, “tastiest of god’s creatures.”

  “I really don’t think the noble pig appreciates that kind of tribute,” said Monty.

  “I can feel the day coming when I will give serious thought to the plight of the readily comestible sentient beings, and from that day forward, no flesh will pass these lips,” said Sunny. “Until then, I’m in denial. It’s the year of the pig and I’m going to enjoy it.”

  “It’s true. If we really sat down and thought about it, we wouldn’t eat meat at all,” said Rivka.

  “Let’s really sit down and not think about it, how about that?” said Monty, setting a bowl full of spaghetti on the table. They took their seats and Monty poured another glass of Cab all around. He said, “Denial is bliss,” and they chimed glasses.

  “You know what else about Osborne?” said Rivka, loading her plate with spaghetti. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “What?”

  “You remember Dahlia, the waitress with the blue hair?”

  “And the stained-glass butterfly tattooed across her butt?”

  “You didn’t like it?” said Rivka. “I thought it was beautiful.”

  “It’s beautiful now, but in a few years it’s going to be out of style and faded and even more huge. It’s reckless.”

  “You sound like my mom,” said Rivka.

  “It’s not like other tattoos,” said Sunny. “I like plenty of tattoos. It’s just that this one is really big and really colorful. It’s a big commitment.”

  “How do you know she has a tattoo on her butt?” said Monty. “Is this story about to get really interesting?”

  “It’s not on her butt, it’s on her lower back,” said Rivka. “You could see most of it above her jeans.”