Bitter Finish

by Linda Barnes

  Spraggue waited, sipped his wine. He had no right to ask Howard to continue his analysis of his successor. But if Howard was in a gabbing mood, he wasn’t about to shut him down.

  “Yes,” Howard continued, after a pull on his wineglass, “Kate Holloway, you know, she’s such a good-looking woman.” He blushed. “I noticed. Well, of course, she’s a wonderful manager and a very smart woman, but she is good-looking, and, of course, I’m not very interesting to women. I never have been. And—”

  “You think Kate hired Lenny because she wanted to get romantically involved with her winemaker?” Spraggue tried to keep any inflection out of his voice.

  Howard’s hair seemed to stick out further in embarrassment. “No, no, that’s not quite what I mean. Not Miss Holloway. Brent, he wanted my job. He wanted it. I mean, here in the valley, we compete, we complain, we exaggerate, we boast. But what Lenny did went beyond the limits. He wanted my job and he took it. I don’t know what he said to Miss Holloway, or, er, what he did … But he took that job away from me. Miss Holloway wasn’t dissatisfied with me. Oh, no. Not until that Brent, that damn Hungarian artist came visiting and probing and asking and hanging around and sneering at me and my wine! ‘Technician,’ he calls me. And ‘chemist.’ Not ‘wine-maker.’ I’m not ashamed to be a chemist. I’m a very good technician!” Howard’s voice, Spraggue noted, got louder with each sip of wine.

  “Was Brent unhappy at Leider’s?”

  “Must have been, mustn’t he?” Howard giggled. “Maybe old Leider was going to fire him. Maybe he wouldn’t give him a raise. Lenny Brent took care of his own interests, well in advance.” Howard helped himself to a third glass of wine, slopping a little over the edge of the glass. “He took my job.”

  “Would you like it back?” The question hung in the air.

  “What?”

  “I’m asking if you want the job back.”

  “What about Brent?”

  “He’s missing,” Spraggue said slowly. “Gone off somewhere, maybe.…”

  “He’ll rush back if he finds out you’ve hired me again,” Howard said bitterly. “When he comes back, you’ll give him my job. Again.”

  “I honestly don’t think he’ll be coming back.”

  “What if he does?”

  “Unless he’s back within the week, with a damn good explanation, an unassailable excuse, the job is yours.”

  Howard hesitated. “Coming back now … What? September? Late September. Full harvest already. I don’t know that I’ll be able to …”

  Come on, Howard, Spraggue thought, come on! Hit me for a raise. Do something to get some self-respect back!

  Howard babbled on. “Miss Holloway, she’ll be taking care of things, so it won’t be impossible. I’ll have to get over there right away. I’ll have coffee, lots of coffee. I won’t be able to have dinner with you after all, then. No, just coffee, and I’ll get to work.”

  “You can wait until tomorrow,” Spraggue said.

  “No, no. You won’t be sorry you hired me. I’ll work harder. The ’77 Chardonnay is making a fine showing, you know, and I think this harvest will be a good one.” He looked down at himself, rubbed his hands on his pants legs, ran them through his hair.

  “I’ll have to change clothes,” he thought aloud. “I’ll change and have coffee and get over there. Miss Holloway knows?”

  “She asked me to speak to you.”

  “That was good of her. You’ll see. I’ve hardly forgotten anything. In fact, I’ve learned, I’ve read. It hasn’t been so long. Not long at all. A temporary aberration in the system, that’s all. Now I do have to change. If you’ll excuse …”

  Spraggue stood while Howard dithered. On the way out, curiosity moved him toward the armchair. He deliberately brushed against the crooked cushion. Howard’s secret reading material was gone.

  Howard offered a cold, shaky hand. “Good of you,” he muttered. “You’ll see … won’t be sorry …” His voice trailed off and he turned away, leaving Spraggue to shut the door.

  As he stood outside in the corridor, Spraggue heard the tiptoe approach of Howard’s feet, followed by the twist, turn, and bang of shooting bolts and the jangle of the chain lock.

  6

  Spraggue decided the ache in his gut was hunger, not a presentiment of disaster. He got the Volvo back on the road, pointed down Washington Street toward Route 29. Kate might have something edible at Holloway Hills—frozen or canned.

  Thirty minutes from Calistoga to Holloway Hills, minimum. Estimated time before acute starvation: ten minutes. Better to eat along the way, he thought, in some quiet haven where he could rehearse the inevitable scene with Kate, the one they’d act out after he announced his morning departure for Boston. With Howard panting for his old job back, Kate wouldn’t have any trouble with the harvest. And how much time could he waste tracking down Lenny Brent, especially if Lenny had the best of reasons to hide? The un-air-conditioned wine cellar gnawed uneasily at one corner of his mind.

  Halfway through St. Helena, crawling along at a legal 25 mph, he thought of La Belle Helene. What he really remembered was soup, delicious cream of watercress, along with the faint image of a tiny restaurant tucked away on a back street. He took a sudden left, then a right, trusting to instinct. Railroad tracks. He hadn’t crossed railroad tracks the last time. He swung the Volvo in an unhurried U, backtracked, and smelled the restaurant before he saw the sign. A parking place beckoned right across the street.

  The little museum next door was closed, its premises tacked on to the restaurant. Tables swathed in white napery shone in the window. Spraggue hesitated, opened the door.

  It was easily three times the size he remembered—renovated and remodeled, too. The entryway now housed an antique banquette surrounded by potted palms. The crowd was dense, noisy. The wood-beamed ceiling—that was the same.

  “Reservation?” inquired a dark-eyed man.

  Shit, Spraggue thought and almost said.

  “Michael Spraggue!” He didn’t even have a chance to pivot and head for the door. His hand was seized and pumped by a blond, blue-eyed, aging California dreamboy.

  “I thought it was you! The L.A. County Fair, the wine-tasting! On the tip of your tongue, isn’t it? George Martinson! Wine and food reviewer for the Examiner.”

  So much for calm reflection, Spraggue thought.

  Martinson kept a firm grip on Spraggue’s elbow while his enthusiastic tenor bubbled on. “The wife and I dine here quite often. Join us. There’s never an empty table on a Friday night.”

  Friday night? So it was. “I wouldn’t want to in—” Spraggue started hurriedly.

  “Nonsense, we’d love to have you. Right this way.”

  Spraggue found himself being dragged along through a maze of tables. “Michael Spraggue, owner of Holloway Hills,” was the way Martinson introduced him to the plump, fortyish brunette at the table. She wore red, very low-cut, and must have saved one of her push-up bras as a souvenir of the fifties. Her name was Mary Ellen, she had a round good-natured face marred by a pouty mouth, and either she was hard of hearing or Martinson was anxious to broadcast the identity of his guest. Spraggue felt like a prize trout, well and truly hooked.

  He sat down. A waiter rushed over and plunked a Plexiglas frame on the table, the menu handwritten on a card inside. Gone the days of the big central blackboard with choices scrawled, erased, scrawled again.

  “You’ve already ordered?” Spraggue asked.

  Martinson nodded. “White wine. There’s more on the way.” Spraggue raised an eyebrow; the Martinsons had already chalked up at least one bottle of St. Jean Fumé Blanc. The waiter placed the empty on his tray.

  “Then I’ll have the salmon. Soup to start.” It was cream of lettuce, not watercress.

  The waiter bustled off and the din of conversation closed around him.

  Mary Ellen giggled and hid her heavily lipsticked mouth behind a ring-upholstered hand. “We actually ordered a bottle of your Chardonnay, the ’77. And then
I recognized you as soon as you walked in. I said to George, ‘Isn’t that Michael Spraggue? I wonder what he’s up to here in the valley?’” Her mouth feigned innocence, but her eyes said that she knew exactly why he was here. Spraggue thought that Kate’s brief imprisonment had probably served the Martinsons as appetizer. Damned if he’d be the main course.

  He smiled. “I hope you like the wine. I’ll be interested in your opinion.”

  “Interested?” Martinson laughed, showing off half a yard of glistening teeth. “Interested? My boy, you’ll be reading my opinion. No punches pulled, either.”

  Spraggue’s smile glazed over. Another joy he didn’t feel up to right now was an in-depth wine rap. He loved drinking it, hated talking about it, and that was that. Holloway Hills was a damned successful investment, a product he liked that made money. It wasn’t exactly the Home for Little Wanderers, but it wasn’t like owning half of Consolidated Warheads either … and there’d been Kate …

  “A little on the oaky side,” Martinson led off. “I’m with Louis Martini on that score: ‘If you like oak, go chew a toothpick.’”

  Mary Ellen giggled on cue. “Oh, George, he was talking about Zinfandel.” She patted her dark hair and forced a smile. “What kind of oak do you use, Mr. Spraggue? Michael?”

  Spraggue regretted joining them. A take-out burger and a plastic shake would have been preferable. “We age the Chardonnay in Limousin oak, the Cabernet in Nevers.”

  Mary Ellen grinned archly. “No American oak at all?”

  Spraggue shrugged. “Holloway Hills goes for a classic French taste—”

  Martinson ended his sentence, “—And Mr. Spraggue, dear Mary Ellen, wouldn’t have to worry about the cost of those barrels. Three hundred, three hundred fifty dollars apiece these days.”

  “So they tell me,” Spraggue said flatly.

  “Howard Ruberman was your winemaker for the ’77, wasn’t he? That explains the oak.” Martinson patted Mary Ellen’s hand. “You know Howard and oak.”

  “Howard may be coming back to Holloway Hills.” Spraggue dropped the bomb lightly. He could have sworn Mary Ellen’s ears twitched.

  “Then it’s true!” she said, raising her voice in case any other diners were interested. “Lenny Brent is dead—and they’ve arrested—”

  “All a misunderstanding, Mrs. Martinson.” Spraggue’s voice topped hers easily.

  Her mouth closed and opened twice, like a goldfish feeding in a tank. “He’s not dead,” she said softly. “Oh.” She drew in a sudden breath and Spraggue saw her husband’s hand tighten abruptly over hers, pressing the rings into the soft flesh.

  Martinson chimed in quickly. “Then you’re tired of the great Brent already?” There was a sneer in his voice.

  Mary Ellen giggled. She had quite a line in giggles; this one had no mirth in it. “George and Lenny didn’t exactly see eye to eye … on wine.” She caught her husband’s glance, released her hand and quickly slipped it under the table. The red marks were plain.

  “Everyone’s entitled to his own opinion,” Martinson said breezily, suddenly fascinated by one of the landscapes on the far wall.

  “Well, Lenny wanted to offer far more than his opinion.” Mary Ellen winked at Spraggue, an unmistakable wink.

  “Really?” said Spraggue, following along, wondering if Brent had crossed swords with the entire valley. He thought back to his own meetings with the haughty vintner; it was possible.

  Martinson’s face turned slowly red. “Brent actually wrote to the managing editor of my paper, demanding that I print a retraction! A retraction of a tasting! What was I supposed to do? Alter my taste buds? Suddenly decide, two weeks after the fact, that I’d been wrong? What the hell does wrong or right have to do with tasting? I call them as I taste them, simple enough. But Brent couldn’t see that. A conspiracy against him! God, the charges he made!” Martinson’s voice lowered. “He hinted that I’d been paid off. Can you imagine? It got so I was afraid to answer my front door. The man’s a menace. Personally, I think you’re wise to be rid of him.”

  “I don’t know that I’m rid of him exactly,” Spraggue said.

  Martinson raised his pale eyebrows.

  “I just can’t seem to locate him.”

  “During crush?” Martinson asked incredulously.

  Mary Ellen looked as if she wanted to take notes, her mouth pressed into a thin line with a parenthesis on each end. “He is missing, then,” she trumpeted happily. “And that’s why the police—”

  The waiter picked that moment to serve soup. The wine was brought and duly opened. The Examiner’s wine critic performed the appropriate ceremonies to the hilt.

  “Well, I don’t understand,” Mary Ellen Martinson said bluntly, as soon as the waiter was out of earshot. “Wasn’t there a body? I heard there was a body.”

  “Not Lenny’s.”

  “Disappointed?” asked her husband under his breath. Mary Ellen stared at him coldly, turned her attention back to Spraggue.

  “Do they know who died?” she asked.

  “I don’t.” Spraggue sipped his wine. Howard was right; it was showing well. Fruity, but with acid to spare, and strong varietal character.

  “Was it murder?”

  “Seems likely.”

  They ate soup. Lines of concentration furrowed Mary Ellen’s brow. She tried another giggle and changed the subject. “How long are you planning to stay in the valley, Michael?” She leaned way over the table. Spraggue kept his eyes on his soup.

  “Till tomorrow morning,” he said, “with luck.”

  “Then business is all settled?”

  “Ruberman will be back as winemaker. He and Kate can handle the harvest without me.”

  “You’re not tiring of the wine business?”

  “No.” Spraggue decided he’d answered enough questions. “Why do you ask?”

  Another giggle. “Rumors. All these sell-outs to conglomerates.”

  “Nothing like that in the wind at Holloway Hills.”

  “If you say so,” said Mary Ellen.

  “Glad to hear it,” said her husband.

  The wine was starting to turn Mary Ellen’s giggle into hiccups. “Don’t suppose you know where Lenny’s off to? Always was unreliable—not as unreliable as some—”

  The clearing of soup plates and the advent of poached salmon with hollandaise sauce interrupted her. Then Martinson lead the discussion relentlessly into the topic of wine and insisted on ordering another bottle, a Chardonnay he swore bore some resemblance to Holloway Hills. Not until dessert did Spraggue manage to steer the conversation back to Lenny Brent.

  “Were you and Lenny friends?” he asked Mary Ellen, and was rewarded by seeing George gag on a mouthful of strawberry mousse.

  Mary Ellen just giggled.

  “Well, where would you look for Lenny if you wanted to find him?”

  Martinson tried to answer first, but Mary Ellen jumped in before her husband could lower the napkin from his mouth.

  “Cherchez la et cetera,” she murmured with a grin. “Always, in Lenny’s case. I’ve heard,” she added as an afterthought, directly to George.

  “You know who the woman is?” Spraggue asked.

  “It is a small valley.” Mary Ellen was enjoying herself, stalling, adding cream to her already white coffee. “Just five miles wide and—”

  Martinson interrupted. “There was that beautiful child, wasn’t there? With the bizarre name? Remember?”

  “Very well,” Mary Ellen said. “Grady-something-or-other. A made-up name to go with the bottled hair color, absolutely the most incredible red you’ve ever seen!”

  “A waif, you know,” Martinson said, mouth gloomy, eyes sparkling. “Thin, with those big smudgy eyes, very Hollywood romantic.”

  “Thin?” Mary Ellen smiled broadly. “Last time I saw her she was far from thin. Expecting company, I’d say.”

  “Lenny’s child?” Spraggue asked.

  “A girl like Grady—she probably has no idea.” Mary E
llen poured herself a very full glass from the new bottle of wine.

  “And you think Lenny might be with her?” Spraggue tried to catch Mrs. Martinson’s eye. Impossible.

  “Do you like this wine?” She held her glass of golden liquid up toward the ceiling, peering at it through one half-closed eye.

  Lavalier Cellars. Spraggue read the label, couldn’t place the name. The wine seemed raw to him, unfinished, uncouth. No match for Holloway Hills. “Yes,” he lied quickly. “Now—”

  Mary Ellen swirled her glass, inhaled deeply. “You’re going to be hearing about this wine. You bet your sweet—”

  “I had the distinct feeling that this Grady was in Lenny’s past,” George Martinson said, “that he’d dropped her.”

  “Because of the child?”

  “Who knows? According to the gossip—” Martinson stopped abruptly.

  “According to the gossip,” Spraggue repeated painstakingly, “who would Lenny be with now?”

  Mary Ellen giggled and sloshed her wine over the white tablecloth. “Rumor is that he’s shacked up with Holloway Hills and Valleys—over at your place.”

  Martinson’s shrug took in his drunken wife, the sodden tablecloth, the late hour, and Mary Ellen’s revelation. “That’s what I’ve heard, too,” he agreed, almost apologetically. “Phil Leider told me he sure couldn’t match Kate Holloway’s offer!”

  7

  Spraggue didn’t escape the Martinsons until La Belle Helene’s staff practically threw them out at eleven-thirty. Their party was the last to quit the dining room. Spraggue felt the same relief he saw on the faces of the waiters.

  Mary Ellen Martinson was falling-down drunk. George virtually carried her, his right arm viselike around her shoulders. His face had the slow flush of alcohol, but he bundled his wife off into the car in a businesslike fashion, as if he’d rehearsed the routine before. He pulled her red skirt down over her thighs.

  “Ride?” he asked Spraggue.

  “No, thanks. Sure you’re okay to drive?”