A Sunny McCoskey Napa Valley Mystery 4: Lethal Vintage

by Nadia Gordon

  Out in front of the house, Anna’s friend Troy Stevens slumped in his tight black jeans and laceless Converse, talking to Cynthia.

  “Do you two know each other?” asked Cynthia. It occurred to Sunny that Cynthia didn’t know much more about Anna’s guests than she did.

  “Just from lunch,” said Sunny.

  “I’m Anna’s chaperone,” said Troy. “They let me hang around as long as I don’t get in the way.”

  “He’s one of Britain’s leading artists, here to install a new piece Oliver just bought,” said Cynthia.

  “Which one?” said Sunny. “I’d like to see it.”

  “So would I,” said Troy. “It’s still in transit, apparently. Or else they’ve lost it and aren’t ready to admit it yet. Not that I don’t enjoy hanging around watching Anna sun herself, but it’s getting a bit nerve racking.” He jostled Cynthia playfully and she pushed him away, laughing.

  “We’re off to the garden,” Cynthia told him. “Join us?”

  “Not I, said the art guy,” said Troy. “I’ll check on the damsel in distress.”

  Troy went inside just as Oliver and Franco came up the path.

  “I can give them a call on Monday,” Franco was saying to Oliver.

  “Don’t call them,” said Oliver, holding Franco back. He looked in his eyes. “And don’t take a call. Send a certified letter, and mail a copy to me and one to Keith. Force them to put everything in writing.”

  “You think they’ll negotiate?”

  “Of course. Everything is negotiable if you position yourself correctly.”

  “Nothing is left to chance, eh?” said Franco.

  “Never.” Oliver smiled, then turned to Cynthia.

  “I’m showing off the garden to my fellow chef,” Cynthia told him. “Come with us?”

  “The extended tour,” said Oliver. “You go on ahead. I need to make some calls.”

  “Franco?” said Cynthia.

  “With pleasure.”

  * * *

  Situated on the other side of the road behind a tennis court and a tall oak tree, the garden and chicken coop were easy to miss on the way in, and Sunny had. Now she saw what an ambitious setup it was. The garden, enclosed by a fence that would be the envy of any neighborhood, contained everything a cook could want. The summer chaos was just beginning to hit its stride. Tomato plants had overgrown their cages, squash blossoms lay in a tumble of vines and leaves, corn was nicely on its way, sweet peas were reaching above their guides. A tidy but not obsessive order prevailed. The herb garden had all the usual suspects, plus lemon verbena, three varieties of mint, and four of basil. In fall there would be blue potatoes and Yukon Golds and rosy reds and fingerlings. Nearby was a newly constructed outbuilding with tools and supplies, as well as living quarters for at least two dozen chickens of various breeds, some shiny black, others white with mops of feathers on their heads, others like the red hens in storybooks, and the majority of them, unfortunately and unexpectedly, said Cynthia, young roosters, who strutted the loose soil whooping and flapping. A large pink pig flopped in a far corner on the other side of a fence.

  “Recycling at its best,” said Cynthia. “He turns scraps into ham, sausage, and bacon.”

  “You wouldn’t,” said Franco.

  “I already have. This guy is pig number two. Piggy number one is all hung up to dry in the cellar.”

  Franco raised his eyebrows.

  “Prosciutto doesn’t grow on trees, you know,” said Cynthia with a mischievous smile that made one eyebrow go up.

  “I am well aware,” said Franco. “I just never saw such a pretty butcher.”

  Cynthia pushed a strand of blond hair behind her ear. “Well, I didn’t actually do it myself. I know some people up in Sonoma who raise hogs. They came down and got him. But I went with him all the way and I stayed to the bitter end. If you’re going to eat a pork loin, you have to be able to face the truth about what that means. I’d feel like a hypocrite otherwise.” She looked at Sunny.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” said Sunny. “If everybody knew where their meat came from, we’d eat much less of it and enjoy it more. And a lot fewer animals would suffer.”

  “Amen to that,” said Cynthia.

  “How did they do it?” said Franco.

  “One shot in the head with a rifle, then they cut the throat to bleed it. It was not a very nice scene, but there’s no way around it. That’s where meat comes from. If you want to eat meat, somebody has to die.”

  “I thought they stunned them electrically,” said Franco.

  “In the big places. These guys are small time. But they do a good job. It all happened very quickly.”

  The three of them stood looking at the spotless outbuilding, the foraging chickens, the garden, and a little farther off a large composting bin and a heap of manure and lawn clippings waiting to be added. It was an enviable arrangement. To have endless means and nothing to produce but a few luncheons on the weekend must be a kind of heaven for a cook, thought Sunny. No payroll, no workers’ compensation, no customers asking for ketchup and Tabasco, no taxes, no busboys calling in sick ten minutes into their shift, no headaches.

  * * *

  Sunny picked up another glass of wine on her way down to the pool. Anna was back on her chaise, smoking and talking into her cell phone. The club music had been turned off and a wide-open quiet enveloped them. She stopped to listen to the tick of dry-land insects, the tender slosh of water in the pool, the distant hum of a plane overhead. Jordan was in the pool, swimming laps with her face and hair out of the water. Sunny sat down and nearly missed the chair. It was definitely time to switch to water.

  “I’m thinking of moving back to California permanently,” said Anna, putting her phone down. “You think after a few years you’ll settle into a new country and start to feel like you belong, but you never do. I’ve been living in Barcelona on and off for almost five years and I’m still a foreigner. I always will be. I used to like it that way, but now I want to feel like I belong somewhere.” She looked at Sunny. “I admire the life you’ve built here. Everything I own fits in a suitcase. A small suitcase.”

  “That’s not such a bad thing,” said Sunny.

  “In Barcelona it looks like I have a life. I have an apartment and a job. But it’s all pretend. It’s really just a room I rent in Troy’s apartment. I have a commission sales job in a gallery that lets me come in whenever I like, do my deals, and leave. It’s a nice life, but it’s completely ephemeral. There’s no there there.”

  “What about Oliver?”

  Anna leaned closer and lowered her voice, her expression playful, then serious. “That’s what I’m here to find out. Oliver has been a very enjoyable distraction for years, but now we want to try to make it real. At least I do, or did, until last night, anyway.” She smiled as though she’d said something amusing. “Who am I kidding? I couldn’t live here, anyway. Oliver’s place in the city is so, I don’t know, nice, it’s like living in a museum, and this place is gorgeous, but it’s in the sticks, which might be okay if I had work and friends up here like you do. For me it’s too lonely. Realistically, what am I supposed to do up here all day, hang out with Cynthia and the gardener? Both of whom resent the hell out of me just for being here, invading their privacy. You’d think they owned the place. I’m the one who always has to pass on all of Oliver’s instructions and complain for him when things aren’t exactly perfect—and believe me, they’d better be perfect—so of course they can’t stand me. I have to tiptoe around the place. It’s fine for Oliver. This is his world. But I’m just a guest. I can’t deal with living like this anymore. Not to mention Oliver’s sister, who has nothing better to do than try to fix him up with her friends, even when I’m here, for God’s sake.” She stopped herself with a little laugh. “I’m a piece of work.”

  Sunny tried to think of something to say, failed, and said nothing, her face betraying her confusion.

  “Don’t worry, I’m just venting,” said Anna. “
Let’s change the subject. Tell me about this boyfriend you mentioned.” She gave Sunny the ten-thousand-watt smile. “I love hearing about someone else’s romance. It’s a refreshing diversion.”

  Sunny took a breath. “Well, he’s very eligible. The village hotty. Like everyone else in a fifty-mile radius, I had a huge crush on him, but then we ended up cooking together at a big charity event one night and it turned out he liked me, too. That never happens, right? It was all very dreamy.” Sunny paused. Jordan was at the other end of the pool with her elbows over the edge. Anna waited while Sunny chose her words carefully. “I wish he was right for me. I want him to be right for me. But sometimes I get the feeling it’s not going to work out.” She heard the words as if someone else had spoken them. Her stomach lurched as she recognized the truth she’d been trying to avoid. Or was she only afraid that it might be the truth?

  “So he cooks, too?”

  Sunny nodded. “He owns a restaurant in Yountville.”

  “Then invite him over. It’s salad days around here.”

  “He’ll be at work until late tonight.”

  “Have him come over after. We’ll be up, I’m sure. Some other friends might turn up.”

  “I would, but I should get going myself pretty soon,” said Sunny.

  Anna sat up. “Get going? You can’t! We’ve hardly even talked. You can’t leave, Sunny. Stay to dinner at least. For me. Honestly, if you only knew. You can’t leave. Promise you won’t.”

  Sunny studied her friend. “I’ll stay. For another swim at least.”

  “Good.”

  Anna lit another cigarette and blew a plume of heavy smoke. Sunny looked at the pack. Something French without a filter. Sunny had not smoked anything in over two months and it felt great. Better every day. She looked again. Today was turning out to be one of those days when you decide to ditch all the rules and just enjoy life for a few hours, thought Sunny. All signs pointed to as much. If not, why was there a perfectly chilled, perfectly balanced glass of Rhône Valley Marsanne on the table next to her when she’d already had two cocktails and at least three glasses of wine? Or was it four? Her ordinary routine on a Saturday was to work on the restaurant, work on the garden, plan for work, catch up on work, rest for work, unwind from work. And now with her twenty-five-year-old sous chef, Rivka, getting more ambitious every day and insisting they do the farmers’ market on Friday mornings and nagging to open the restaurant on weekends or nights, or God forbid both, it was only going to get worse. Today was a stolen moment, a cameo appearance in someone else’s charmed life in which there was nothing to do but sit by the pool. Rationalization complete, she took a cigarette and leaned over Anna’s outstretched hand, steadying herself above the flame with some effort. After all, she thought, inhaling, the body should be able to take a bit of abuse from time to time. Something to give the immune system some practice. She had been the picture of discipline and good health for weeks, working out at the gym, swimming laps, squeezing in classes at the fascist dictatorship yoga studio up the road, and even swallowing a spoonful of flaxseed oil and two of glucosamine chondroitin without gagging every morning, as if to punish herself for good deeds. Sunny McCoskey deserved a day of parole for good behavior, she told herself, even if it entailed behaving badly.

  She let the back down on the chaise and flopped over onto her belly, feeling the warmth of the sun on her back and the heat of the cigarette on her fingers. She hadn’t even reapplied her sunscreen. Now she made the conscious decision to expose her cells to the full force of the day’s ultraviolet A and B rays, though not for more than an hour. Selective debauchery was one thing, sunburn quite another. She heard Jordan pull herself out of the water and felt a spray of droplets on her calves as she walked past. Sunny closed her eyes and listened to Anna and her friend gossip about their acquaintances.

  After a while, Keith Lachlan, the lawyer, came and sat by the edge of the pool with his linen trousers rolled up and his feet in the water. Oliver himself emerged from the house in his swimsuit and gold aviator sunglasses, BlackBerry in hand. He stood in the water in front of Keith and they talked about the booming Shanghai economy and the real-estate portfolio they were building there. Keith said he had a local contact who was showing him new parts of town slated to explode in the next few years. Sunny checked her phone. Twenty-three minutes of unprotected sun left. She got up and dove into the pool, staying underwater. The restaurant had lost money again last month. Not a lot, but losing money was not what she had had in mind when she started a business. Barring catastrophe, and if she kept the menu reasonable, she would make it up by the end of August, as she had other years, but it was still worrisome. She surfaced and treaded water drowsily. Oliver Seth had taken her chaise and was rubbing lotion onto Anna’s back.

  “Molly called,” he said. “Apparently she has some new boyfriend she wants us to meet. I told her to come over and bring him so we can have a look.”

  Anna looked up. “Do we have to? We just got here. Can’t we just relax for one day?”

  “It’ll be fine. She’s blissed out on the new guy.”

  “Did you tell Cynthia there will be more of us for dinner? Keith said Marissa is coming later, too.”

  “I told her we’ll be ten. She said it’s no problem.”

  Anna counted. “We’re only nine.”

  “Cynthia has to eat, too,” snapped Oliver.

  Anna pushed herself up and looked over her shoulder. “Sunny, you’re staying for dinner, right? You have to. Cynthia is so excited to have people to cook for.”

  Sunny treaded water, trying to think of an excuse. It was still several hours until sunset.

  “Of course she’s staying,” said Oliver. “We won’t let her leave.”

  3

  Oliver Seth’s sister, Molly, arrived a few hours later in a new Jaguar coupe. They knew because she stormed through the house insisting everyone come out to look at it, and they did. She’d just picked it up from the dealer and was taking it on its maiden voyage along with her new boyfriend, a guy with a model’s good looks and toned physique dressed in long, silky basketball shorts, an outsized tank top, and spotless white high-tops.

  Sunny stood with everyone else admiring the black sports car with its honey-colored leather seats and wood-panel interior. Molly gripped her boyfriend’s hand. Her blond hair swooped and tumbled over her shoulders so that she had to push it back every few minutes with a manicured hand heavily ornamented with gold rings and bracelets. She had a wide, white smile and thoroughly made-up eyes separated by two vertical creases. She wore a narrow black skirt and a snug blouse and blazer that showcased bronzed cleavage. Her boyfriend introduced himself as Jared Bollinger.

  Anna came out of the house in a white sarong, carrying a cocktail. She kissed Molly on each cheek.

  “Anna, I want you to meet someone,” said Molly. “Jared, this is Anna Wilson, my brother’s girlfriend. Anna, this is—”

  “Any relation to the tennis racquet?” interrupted Jared.

  “None.” Anna took a sip of her drink, studying him over the glass. “You look vaguely familiar. Like someone I used to know a long time ago. Did you ever wait tables?”

  “Not since college. You?”

  “Never. I don’t think I’d be very good at it. I’d end up pouring soup over somebody’s head.”

  Jared laughed. “I’m sure they’d get over it.”

  Molly looked at Jared, who was staring at the ground and smiling, then back at Anna, whose eyes betrayed an act of mischief. The furrow in Molly’s brow deepened. She seemed about to say something when one of the garage doors went up, revealing the backsides of a black Ferrari and a blue BMW convertible. Oliver came out carrying a chamois and a black bottle.

  “You need to take this thing back to the dealer and tell them you want the finish done right or they can keep it,” said Oliver. He squirted wax on the chamois and rubbed at what he said was a scratch on the front fender.

  “I can’t even see what you’re talking abou
t,” said Molly, walking over to him.

  “Look, if you don’t mind buying a used car, that’s fine, but when you use my money to do it, that’s a different story. When I buy a new car, I like it to be new. As in pristine. A new car should not have a scratch on it.” He rubbed the car fiercely. “They’re not doing us a favor. We paid for a new car and they should deliver one. Or did they give it to you?”

  * * *

  Anna stood in the dressing area of the master bedroom she shared with Oliver and picked through the contents of her overnight bag. Sunny perused the bedside reading. Under Oliver’s glasses were Plutarch’s Lives, The 48 Laws of Power, The Economist, and the poems of Cavafy.

  “I don’t have any actual proof,” said Anna, leaning toward the lighted mirror to apply her mascara. “Nothing tangible. Just a feeling. But I know I’m right. I know he’s not being honest with me.”

  Sunny lay down on a padded bench behind her. Anna’s clothes hung in the mostly empty walk-in closet. There were three dresses—one white, one sandy brown, and one black—a sunflower-yellow blouse with the Balenciaga tag still on it, a pair of jeans, and a pair of gray trousers with wide legs and a fat cuff at the bottom. Underneath were two pairs of high heels, one Prada and one Jimmy Choo, and a Chloe handbag. Thousands of dollars’ worth of clothes and it would all fit in a carryon. Anna never wore ordinary clothes. No sweatpants or T-shirts for as long as Sunny could remember. Her only makeup was lipstick and mascara. She wore little camisoles instead of bras and didn’t seem to own a pair of underpants. She was the place where minimalism and luxury met.

  Anna turned around to look at Sunny. “I’m no saint. I used to see other people when we were apart. It’s no secret. There were no rules, and we were fine with that. But things are different now. We used to just meet places for vacations. It wasn’t a real relationship, it was just for fun. It’s only recently that I’ve been coming here to be with him in his day-to-day life and we’ve started talking about really being together. He has a house in San Francisco and one in London. For the last few months, we’ve been traveling and going back and forth between them. He says he wants to be with me, that he wants to get married. And I want to believe him. I want to let go and let myself finally fall in love. I’m not interested in dating anymore. But lately I get the feeling he’s not the man I think he is.”