by Nadia Gordon
“Of Nathan?”
“Of his death. Do you think he died of natural causes, like the police say?”
Dahlia looked at her. “You don’t?”
“I’m not convinced.”
“Why? The coroner said he had a heart attack. That’s a natural cause in my book.”
“There must be substances that can cause a heart attack.”
“There are plenty. Cocaine, for example, but Nathan didn’t do coke. He was into the narcotic effects of alcohol, not uppers. He was about as far from a speed freak as you can get. It never occurred to me that somebody could have dosed him.”
“I’m not saying someone did.”
“Yes, you are. You just don’t like saying it. So what’s got you on the trail this time?” She smiled. “I heard about that other case you solved. Apparently you’re quite the sleuth.”
“That was different. A friend of mine was in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.”
“And this time around you think a friend of yours isn’t in jail for a crime he just might have committed.”
“What are you saying?” said Sunny.
“What are you saying?” said Dahlia, raising an eyebrow and giving her an enigmatic smile. “The coroner says heart attack and Sunny McCoskey smells murder. Why?”
Sunny took a long sip of the very good wine. Dahlia kept answering questions with questions. “I guess the thing that bothers me most is that smashed bottle in the living room.”
Dahlia nodded. “I thought about that too when it first happened. The trouble is, so many people went through that house, night and day. Housekeepers, the people who maintained the pool, the water guy, the plant guy, friends, lovers, accountants. That’s why he had the security system installed, so he wouldn’t have to keep making dupes of keys. He just told everyone to punch 1111 into the keypad. Nathan didn’t like to be alone. That’s why he never got married, incidentally. That’s my theory, anyway. He had to have somebody with him at all times and no one person could be there every minute. I dated him for a while and there were several occasions—I’m not kidding—when we were in bed together and some woman slipped into bed next to me. It scared the living crap out of me. Other times, I’d go out into the kitchen and some guy Nathan befriended in a bar would be sleeping on the couch. He was the most trusting man I’ve ever known.”
“So you think some guy he met at a bar, a guy who happened to be wearing gloves so he wouldn’t leave prints, let himself into Nathan’s house, broke a bottle of wine worth half my mortgage payment, failed to notify anyone that Nathan had bought the farm, and managed to get out of there without leaving so much as a footprint?”
“All I’m saying is that so much goes on behind closed doors. A death is like a snapshot or a still life. It takes a moment and freezes it. Who knows what exact sequence of events led up to that snapshot? There are plenty of times in my life where if I were to drop dead, the police would have one hell of a time trying to figure out what I’d been doing. Nathan’s life was not clean and tidy. What was most lovely about him was that he was totally without rules. He was the only genuinely guiltless, lawless man I ever knew. He was governed, if you can even use that word, entirely by passion.”
She stopped talking and looked away, trying to control some emotion. After a moment she regained her composure. “Are you familiar with William of Occam?” she asked.
Sunny shook her head.
“He was a fourteenth-century philosopher. He said, essentially, that you shouldn’t make things more complicated than they need to be. Presuming that the universe is a logical place, the simplest explanation of a phenomenon ought to be the right one. In relation to Nathan, knowing his philandering ways and lifetime of associations with dubious characters, I think we can safely shave off the broken bottle as extraneous to the focal event, which is that he had a heart attack. Anybody could have dropped that bottle and run for it.”
“Couldn’t one of those dubious associations have brought trouble his way?”
“Absolutely. Just not this time. If there was a knife in his back, I’d say you were onto something. But considering that all the evidence suggests heart failure, the simplest explanation is exactly that.”
“Heart failure, yes. The question is, did something trigger it. You yourself said it could have been any number of substances. What would you use if you were trying to give a man a heart attack?”
Dahlia smiled. “In Nathan’s case? Stiletto heels and a Wonderbra.” She held up the wine bottle. Sunny declined. She could see what Rivka liked about Dahlia.
“What about Remy? Do you consider him dangerous?” Sunny asked.
“Dangerous? Not at all. Bitter, certainly, but harmless. Remy is still pissed off that he’s not landed gentry. He has a post-colonial hangover. His mother’s family used to own about half of Sri Lanka, but he managed not to inherit any of it. He can’t get over the fact that he has fallen into a state of disenfranchisement so profound that the only way he can afford to drink good wine is to kowtow to a bunch of retired yuppies with a napkin over his arm.”
“So his father was French.”
“I think his father is actually Belgian, but Remy grew up in Dijon. Or so he says.”
“That explains the connections in the French wine business.”
“It doesn’t hurt that his older brother is one of the most respected wine critics in France. All Remy has to do is mention his last name and every cellar door in Bordeaux swings open.”
“So why does he live in California? Wait, let me guess. They hate each other.”
“You got it in one. A nasty, chronic case of fraternal animosity. From what I hear, Patrick is good looking, rich, and successful. Whenever Remy isn’t getting under my nails like little slivers of bamboo, I have to feel sorry for him. You can tell he’s lonely, but he’s so angry he never makes any friends. Anger is the only emotion he has left. That, and the perverted glee you can see him feeling whenever somebody orders one of the crappier bottles of wine we have to carry as a favor to somebody. Nathan was his only friend as far as I can tell, and Remy never shed a tear over his death.”
“You never know what he felt once he was home alone. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to reveal his emotions in public, no matter what.”
“That might be so. Everyone is more vulnerable than we imagine.”
Dahlia turned back to her painting, and after a minute of silence Sunny stood to go. She lingered awkwardly, trying to find an appropriate way to introduce one last question. Dahlia turned. “Is there anything else? I don’t mean to rush you, but I need to get this picture done tonight and I’ve already lost most of this batch of color.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll go. I just wanted to ask you one more question.”
“Fire away.”
“When was the last time you were in Nathan’s house?”
Dahlia blinked. It was the first time her façade slipped. “I’m sorry, that’s just none of your business. Thanks for the visit.”
She put down the brush and walked Sunny to the door without saying another word. Sunny stepped outside and heard the latch drop in place behind her.
16
The truck rattled and bounced on the fast trip back down Black Mountain. Sunny didn’t bother to engage the engine. In neutral, the truck picked up just enough speed on the downhills to coast up the gentle rises. She hardly touched the brakes and made good time back to the main road, where the cell phone found four bars of reception as she pulled onto Highway 29. It felt good to be back in touch with civilization. Even better, there was a message from Rivka saying that dinner was on at Monty’s house for seven-thirty. A relaxing evening with friends and Monty’s cooking were exactly what she needed, assuming she could get there before they were done. Monty’s place was half an hour’s drive past her house, and she was twenty minutes from home at least. She would be late even if she went there directly. Then there was the grisly thought of sitting down to dinner without showering away the day’s work muck. The sto
plight on the way into St. Helena was red, a clear sign that she was meant to make a right and head for home and the world’s quickest shower.
Her hair was still wet when she pulled into Monty Lenstrom’s driveway. He opened the door with a glass of red wine in hand. “McCoskey, you’re late.”
“Look at the positive side: I’m here. And I could have been much later.”
Monty peered at her from behind his gold spectacles. “I’ll count myself lucky. Get in here.”
She followed Monty into the kitchen. Rivka was dressing a salad. She looked at the clock on the oven when she saw Sunny. “Damn, ten minutes after nine. Didn’t you have an errand or two to run on the way here? Check out a few books at the library? Round or two of miniature golf?”
“Wow, the ’tude is thick in here tonight. I came as fast as I could. I was way out in the middle of the woods when you called.”
“The funny thing is, for once you’re too early,” said Rivka.
“What do you mean?”
Monty picked up a notepad from beside the phone. “We had a lottery going to see who could guess how late you would be. Annabelle won. She said nine o’clock.”
“Let me see that.”
Monty had guessed eight-thirty. Rivka put her money on nine-thirty. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Chavez. I’ll remember that at your next performance review,” said Sunny.
“Never bet against the boss,” said Monty.
“How much was in the kitty?”
“Fifteen bucks.”
“Speaking of, where’s the lady of the house? Don’t tell me she’s actually going to grace us.”
“Not a chance. She’s at Unwatchable Movie Club with Paul. They get together and rent Werner Herzog films and the early Roman Polanski stuff. Tonight is the third installment of the Elliott Gould festival.”
“And yet she took the trouble to place her bet.”
“In absentia. The woman loves easy money.”
Monty handed Sunny a glass of wine, then donned a pair of oven mitts. He opened the oven door and slid the rack out, laying hands on a bubbling casserole like he was delivering a baby.
“Tonight’s meal is a tribute to Merle and Joanna Lenstrom, pillars of the wholesome Midwestern way of life that is the backbone of this nation.”
“Is that Stroganoff à la Joanna?” asked Sunny. “My oh my.”
“None other. And I don’t mind telling you it makes tasty leftovers.”
“And a tidy profit for the cardiologists.”
“Haven’t you heard?” said Monty. “Fat is the new skinny.”
They moved to the whitewashed pine plank table set up in Monty’s dining room. A pot of white tulips sat in the middle between tea-lights in chunky glass holders. Rivka served the casserole while Monty refilled his wineglass and Rivka’s. They passed around bread, endive salad, and sautéed carrots.
“Monty, you do things to a carrot that can’t be explained by god or science,” said Sunny. “How can a sliced carrot taste this good?”
“Very simple. Don’t add water. You have to make the little buggers sweat.”
“How was your trip out to see Dahlia?” asked Rivka. “Didn’t you love her place?”
“I didn’t see the house. I only went into the tent cabin. She’s into some interesting stuff.”
“What did you find out?” asked Monty. “I’m up to speed. Rivka filled me in on the case.”
Sunny shot Rivka a look. “The case?”
Rivka stopped buttering her bread, knife in hand. “What? I figured it was okay.”
“Don’t edge me out, McCoskey,” said Monty. “You need me. I’m the one who spotted the fake Marceline in the first place. So what’s new?”
“Well, she didn’t confess,” said Sunny. She sighed and pushed at her food. “I don’t know what to make of any of this anymore.”
“Don’t poke,” said Monty. “Dig in before it gets cold. Make Joanna proud.”
She took a bite of the wide egg noodles and creamy sauce layered with mushrooms, ground beef, and bell peppers.
“This really is my favorite,” said Sunny.
“I wish we could serve this kind of thing at Wildside,” said Rivka.
“We might be able to. I’ve been thinking about making one day a week, like maybe Tuesdays, a very basic prix fixe menu with fewer courses and more simple dishes. We could turn the tables several times and get the people who can’t take a long lunch to come in.”
“Why not just add that kind of option to the everyday menu?” said Monty. “If you have three hours for the full Wildside treatment, great. If not, sit at the bar and have the prix fixe quickie.”
“That is great idea, comrade,” said Sunny. “You are like genius smart guy.”
“Danke, liebchen. That’s one problem solved. Now let us turn the light of my genius on the case of Nathan Osborne. The situation seems perfectly clear to me. Remy Castels decides to make a little cash on the side and fakes a case of Marceline. Very clever, as long as he doesn’t get caught. It’s all great until his boss totters home with one of the bottles. Osborne notices the forgery and decides to have a little fun blackmailing Castels. Remy thinks, I’m not going to put up with this bullshit. So he takes a bottle, injects some kind of stimulant into it through the cork, and sends Osborne home with it. He ODs and no one is the wiser.”
“There are about a dozen holes in that story,” said Sunny. “But injecting the poison through the cork is sort of interesting.”
“Saw it in a movie. What holes?”
“Well, for one thing, why would Nathan take a second bottle home, especially if he’d figured out it was fake? He would need it as evidence if he was to continue his blackmail scheme.”
“Exactly. Osborne was planning to hold it hostage. Like when the blackmailer puts the grainy black-and-white photographs of misconduct in the safe, in case the blackmailee gets tired of paying.”
“Then why would he drink it? He wouldn’t drink his bottle of evidence.”
“Chavez, help me out with this one.”
Rivka shook her head. “Can’t do. I think you’re both nuts.”
“And none of that explains the broken bottle,” said Sunny.
“That part we covered. Remy the murderer had to remove the bottle with the poison in it. His plan was obviously to replace the fake bottle with a real one, thus covering both crimes, only he dropped it.”
“I agree with that last part,” said Sunny, “but the other stuff doesn’t make sense. If there was poison in the fake wine, it would have been in the wine in the glass Nathan was drinking from as well. If Remy went to all that trouble to replace the bottle, he wouldn’t have left the wine in the glass where it could be tested.”
“He got rattled when he dropped it and hightailed it out of there. I’m sure his intention was to get rid of all the evidence, but he panicked.”
“I still don’t see why he would doctor one of the fake bottles of wine. That doesn’t fit. He had no way of being sure Nathan would drink it, or that he’d drink it alone. Besides, if you were blackmailing somebody over fake wine, would you accept their gift of fake wine? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Sun’s right,” said Rivka. “He would have put it in one of the glasses he served Nathan at the restaurant. He had plenty of opportunity to slip him a Mickey whenever he felt like it.”
“You are absolutely right,” said Monty, his eyes flashing. “I was so fixated on the broken bottle that I completely overlooked the obvious. From what I understand, he drank constantly at the restaurant. Anybody on staff could have dosed his drink. The bartender, the servers.”
“Sure, anybody could have poisoned him, but you’re overlooking the most important part,” said Rivka. “He wasn’t poisoned. He had a heart attack.”
“Maybe he was poisoned with something that can give you a heart attack,” said Sunny. “Like a fat dose of coke, for example.”
“It would have to be huge to take effect like that,” said Monty. “He was relax
ing in his living room when he checked out. That doesn’t sound like a cocaine high to me. They would have found him polishing the kitchen floor with a Q-Tip.”
“There has to be other stuff that can do it,” said Sunny. “Dahlia mentioned foxglove, and I was thinking maybe nitroglycerin. They give people with heart trouble nitro tablets to kick-start their heart if they go into cardiac arrest, but I wonder what happens if you take too many.”
“Ka-boom!” said Monty.
Rivka settled her brown eyes on Sunny thoughtfully. “What about her work? Did you get a chance to see her paintings? Aren’t they amazing?”
“I was too preoccupied. I couldn’t appreciate them properly. She certainly has talent. I’m not so sure about the choice of subject matter.”
“I think it’s genius,” said Rivka. “She captures the primal essence of the men she knows.”
“I think they call that a succubus,” said Monty between bites. “Climbs in the bedroom window at night. Makes a meal by ripping your heart out of your chest at the moment of orgasm. She’d better not come after my primal essence.”
“You should be so lucky,” said Rivka. She paused, twisting one of several piercings in her right ear, a nervous habit that meant she was thinking of something else. “So what did you guys talk about?”
“Not that much. She was pretty evasive, kept talking about everyone else. I’d swear she was trying to hide something. I looked at her desk and she practically ran over to put away all the papers on it. They were covered with notes.”
“I’m surprised you two didn’t get into a full-on cat fight,” said Monty.
“Is there anything you didn’t tell him?” said Sunny indignantly. “Was there a presentation? Ten quick slides explaining the most intimate aspects of my life?”
“I didn’t think you’d mind,” said Rivka sheepishly. “We’re all family. Actually, I didn’t think Lenstrom would be foolish enough to let on that he knew.” She punched Monty. “Big dork.”
“Perhaps Monty would like to know the real reason why you won’t marry Alex,” said Sunny.
“Revenge just keeps the wheel of pain turning. You’re above the petty bitterness of retaliation,” said Rivka.
