“Phylloxera?”. George asked.
“A plant louse that pretty much wiped out vineyards in Europe and California last century,” I said. “It’s made a comeback in California recently.”
“I am impressed by your explanation, Jessica,” George said.
“I read it in the book I brought with me on wine making.”
“It’s a really bad disease,” Bruce said.
“I’ll take your word for it,” said George.
“Would you like to taste some of the wines?” Bruce asked. “Before the tourists arrive? I sometimes work the tasting room. It was the only thing Dad let me do around here.”
“I doubt you’ll see many tourists on a nasty day like this,” I said.
“A little early for a taste of the grape for me,” George said. I agreed.
“Want to go back to Dad’s study?” Bruce asked.
We nodded and went to the door. The rain had stopped; a lovely rainbow spanned the horizon where the sun attempted to displace the grayness. We returned to the castle and were on our way to Bill Ladington’s study when voices from an adjacent room caused Bruce to stop.
“Sounds like the shirra,” George said.
“The what?” Bruce said.
“Sorry,” George said. “I slipped into my Scottish mode. Shirra. Scottish for sheriff.”
“Oh.”
Sheriff Davis appeared in the hallway. “Been showing your houseguests the property?” he asked Bruce.
“We were in the tasting room,” Bruce replied.
“Enjoying an early-morning eye-opener, Mrs. Fletcher?”
“We didn’t have any wine,” I said.
“Did you come to see me?” Bruce asked.
“Matter of fact, no,” the sheriff said. “I came to see your stepmom.”
We waited for a further explanation. None was forthcoming. Instead, he said, “I got back a preliminary autopsy report this morning, just before I headed here.”
We stood silently.
“Looks like it wasn’t as clear-cut as we first thought.”
“Dad didn’t commit suicide?” Bruce said excitedly.
“I didn’t say that,” said the sheriff, “but the investigation’s going to remain open until we have the answer.”
“Could you be more specific?” George asked.
The sheriff turned and smiled at George. “Sounds to me like you’re not so much of a casual tourist as you said you were.”
“Just curious,” George said.
“Professional curiosity?”
George didn’t respond.
“Tell you what. How would you like to spend some time with me, see how we catch the bad guys in Napa Valley? You know, hands across the sea and all that.”
George looked at me before saying, “I assume that invitation extends to Mrs. Fletcher, too.”
“Give you some research for your next book, Mrs. Fletcher?”
“Perhaps.”
“Sure. How about tomorrow morning? Nine?”
“That sounds good to me,” George said. “I always enjoy seeing how other law enforcement agencies function.”
Davis gave us directions to his headquarters and left.
“I can’t believe that,” Bruce said.
“Generous offer of him,” George commented.
“Maybe you’ll find out things about how Dad died. This is great.”
“We’ll see,” George said. “Now, let’s go to your father’s study and have that talk you’ve been anxious to have.”
Chapter Sixteen
Our conversation with Bruce was short and nonproductive. He had nothing to offer in the way of evidence that William Ladington had been murdered, just kept repeating his belief that someone had killed his father. I was grateful when Mercedes entered the room and announced that Laura needed him. He excused himself, leaving George and me alone in the study where an unexpected shaft of sunlight slashed through a gap in the drapes and across the purple carpeting.
George stood, went behind the desk, and took the chair once occupied by Ladington. He narrowed his eyes as he took in the room.
“You’re thinking?” I asked.
“I’m thinking that your friend Mr. Ladington did not take his own life.”
“Based upon?”
“Common sense, and the sheriff’s comment. Pretend I’m Ladington. Pretend I’ve decided to end my life by ingesting some sort of pills. What time was his body found, Jessica?”
“I don’t think anyone said.”
“We must ask. In the meantime, I sit here at my desk staring at the pill bottle. Yes, I tell myself, it’s time to leave this world. I swallow the pills. What do I wash them down with?”
“Water, I suppose.”
“Was there a glass found on this desk along with the empty pill bottle?”
“Something else to ask about.”
“Yes.”
He got up and came around the desk.
“I’ve taken the pills. Now what do I do? Leave this room in which I’m supremely comfortable, surrounded by meaningful momentos of my life? Why would I? Death by pills is a quiet, tidy way to die. If I were William Ladington, I would simply remain in my comfortable chair and spend my last minutes on earth reflecting on what I’d accomplished.”
“Go on,” I said. “You make sense so far.”
“Thank you. No, I don’t do the logical thing. I get up, go to the door, and leave this room.”
I followed him to the door and into the hallway.
“If I did—leave the room, that is—I’d certainly be aware that my final moment might come at any time, here in the hallway, in the presence of others. But I ignore that and leave the castle.”
We stepped into welcome sunshine.
“It’s night. I’ve taken enough pills to kill me. I’m outside now, where there are security guards who might come upon me. But that does not deter me. I decide to walk to the edge of the moat to die, perhaps fall into it. Not an especially neat and considerate way for a proud man like Ladington to be found. Totally against the type I understand him to be. Do we know precisely where in the moat his body was found?”
“Another question to be answered. We could ask here at the castle, but I’d rather get it from the sheriff. The shirra.” I laughed. “I’m not sure we’d get a straight answer from anyone here.”
We went to the edge of the moat and looked down into its brackish water.
“How deep is the water?” George asked.
“I have no idea, although it looks deeper than the last time I looked. Those rocks are covered now. They weren’t before. I suppose it depends to some extent on how much rain falls.”
“It can’t depend solely on nature,” George said. “There must be a man-made means of flooding it.”
We followed the natural curve of the moat to the rear of the castle.
“You’re right,” I said, pointing to a large pipe with a cutoff valve. I went to where it jutted out over the moat and looked down. “Yes, it definitely is deeper than the first time I saw it, the day I had lunch with Ladington.”
George didn’t respond.
“I assume that if it can be filled by this pipe, it can also be drained,” I said.
George nodded, took out his pipe, and went through the ritual of filling and lighting it. I turned and looked into the distance.
“That’s Halton Mountain,” I said.
George looked to what I was seeing. “Is that part of this vineyard?” he asked.
“No, but I just realized it could have some meaning in Ladington’s death.”
“How so?”
“There’s evidently a dispute over ownership of land on the mountain. Ladington explained to me that vines thrive in rocky, pitched hillsides. Margaret and Craig Snasdell also talked of how Halton Mountain is perfect for grape growing.”
“Does Ladington own part of it?”
“I don’t believe he did, but he wanted to.”
“Who else wants it?”
“I
suppose his neighbors, the other vintners.”
“Like Mr. Jenkins?”
“I’d like to find out,” I said.
“Another question on our growing list.” He looked up into a mixed sky, patches of blue interrupted by residual fast-moving clouds. “Why don’t we take that ride we talked about? No telling when it will rain again.” He chuckled as we started back toward the front of the castle. “The weather here is like Scotland,” he said, exaggerating his Scottish brogue. “V-e-r-y changeable.”
Like my life, I thought.
Chapter Seventeen
The drawbridge was down when we left, eliminating the need to ask that it be lowered. Nor did we bother telling anyone we were leaving. But our departure was observed. As I stood next to George’s rented silver Ford Taurus waiting for him to unlock the doors, I looked back at the castle, specifically to windows on the upper level. Laura Ladington, Bruce’s brooding wife, stood at one of them, her attention focused on us.
After we’d crossed the drawbridge and were on our way down the narrow lane leading from the vineyard, I let out a loud sigh that caused George to turn.
“Is that a statement of contentment or distress?” he asked.
“Relief,” I said. “I hadn’t realized how tense I’ve been until we crossed that bridge.”
“They are an anxiety-producing group, aren’t they?”
“To say the least. I feel guilty plopping you smack-dab in the middle of a dysfunctional family.”
He laughed. “ ‘Dysfunctional’ hardly does them justice, Jessica. Daft is what they are.”
I laughed too, and it felt good.
We didn’t have any specific destination in mind as we drove south on Route 29. Traffic was heavy, which gave us a chance to take in the passing scene at a leisurely pace. Both sides of the road were lined with wineries, their signs inviting those passing by to stop in and taste the fruit of their efforts. George asked a few times whether I wanted to stop, but I declined. “Not in the mood,” I said each time. “Maybe after we’ve had some lunch.”
We didn’t have much to say to each other, which, I’ve always believed, is the test of a true friendship. It was obvious that George’s mind was active, as was mine, but we left each other space and time to process our thoughts. I found myself doing what I’ve done before, trying to divide my mind into separate compartments in which to segregate conflicting ideas. In this instance, I assigned a compartment to each of the people in the castle. They’d been a blur until now; a group of people without individual definition. But once they were placed in my imaginary stalls, I was able to focus on them with greater clarity. Of course, they were of interest to me only if William Ladington had been murdered. In that case, they were suspects. But if he had, in fact, taken his own life, they were nothing more than odd characters engaged in a fight over the spoils of the deceased’s life.
Tennessee Ladington loomed large in my thinking. It was easy to paint her stereotypically—sexy blonde who displays her feminine charms to a bigger-than-life wealthy older man, whose penchant for marrying was well known. According to Bruce, they’d married after knowing each other for only a month. That probably said more about Bill Ladington’s impetuousness than her designing ways. It wouldn’t be fair, I knew, to hypothesize about whether she was glad to see her husband dead, although her demeanor didn’t suggest to me a grieving widow devastated by such a tragic event. If that were true, money would be her motivation. But it seemed that the legal question of who would inherit his wealth, including Ladington Creek, was up in the air. Bruce had told us that Edith Saison was laying claim to the winery by virtue of her partnership with the deceased Ladington. If that were true, she, too, would have motive for seeing her partner dead.
There was soon to be another face at the castle, Edith’s French partner and alleged lover, Yves LeGrand. Was he flying to California to comfort Edith and to join in mourning William Ladington? Or was it strictly business, his presence there lending weight to what might become a battle over Ladington Creek?
I placed Bruce and Laura Ladington together in my series of mental boxes. Theirs was hardly a marriage made in heaven, although I wondered to what extent Bruce’s father’s overt disdain for his son’s choice of a wife exacerbated the couple’s problems. Not having parents’ approval of a mate places a strain on any relationship. Was Laura’s apparent depression a result of such a strain, or had it preceded the marriage? One thing was certain: Laura’s outburst at the dinner table the night before represented her true feelings about the family into which she’d married.
My brief encounters with Roger Stockdale and Raoul had been characterized by somewhat hostile comments about William Ladington. Raoul’s facial expression was one of constant anger. When asked whether his boss had had the moat dug for security purposes, he’d responded, “I wouldn’t know, ma’am. I don’t question what Mr. Ladington does. Ever!”
And when Stockdale drove me to Cedar Gables Inn after my lunch at the castle and I’d labeled Ladington “an interesting man,” Stockdale had replied, “Everyone who meets him for the first time says that, Mrs. Fletcher. It’s after you get to know him that you start coming up with other words to describe him.”
It’s not unusual for employees to have negative views of their employers from time to time. But to express such feelings so openly to a stranger said to me that their anger ran deep, and that they needed an outlet for it. Was that outlet the murdering of Bill Ladington?
The vineyard manager, Wade Grosso, bothered me, although if pressed I wouldn’t be able to come up with a tangible reason. And there was Robert Jenkins, the competitive neighbor and fellow vintner, who wanted a piece of Halton Mountain as badly as Ladington did. And, of course, household staff, including the husband and wife team of Consuela and Fidel, the head housekeeper, Mercedes, and members of the security squad, might also have harbored ill feelings toward their employer.
But this was purely supposition on my part. As far as the police were concerned, Ladington’s death was still being considered a suicide, although Sheriff Davis’s comment that morning indicated that that finding wasn’t set in stone.
“Hungry?” George asked as we approached the town of Yountville.
“As a matter of fact, I am.”
“Looks like plenty of choices,” he said, nodding left and right at restaurants lining Washington Street.
“How about you?” I asked. “Any preferences?”
“I’d be happy with some good pub fare, bangers and mash,” he said, smiling, “bangers” being British for sausage, and “mash” for mashed potatoes.
“I don’t see any British pubs,” I said. I pointed ahead of us. “There’s Bill Ladington’s place.”
A parking space was open directly in front of Ladington’s Steak House, and George deftly backed into it.
“Game?” he asked.
“Always.”
We stepped through the entrance into a large, brightly lit room, with multiple skylights providing additional natural illumination. The restaurant was arranged on two levels, with the raised portion at the back of the room. A small bar was to our right. Everything—walls, columns, bar, and tables—was made of light wood with a golden patina. Huge, colorful flower arrangements provided attractive separation among groups of tables. In one comer was a sushi bar with a hand-lettered sign indicating it was closed.
“Sushi in a steak restaurant,” George commented. “That seems an odd combination.”
We were early; there were only a handful of diners when we arrived.
A pretty young redhead wearing a white tux shirt open at the neck and black slacks greeted us at the reservation podium. “Two for lunch?” she asked pertly.
“Yes, please,” said George.
We were seated on the raised platform, which gave us an unrestricted view of the entire room. Our waitress, wearing the same uniform as our greeter, brought us menus and asked if we wanted a cocktail. We both declined, opting instead for a bottle of sparkling water and some
lemon wedges.
The menu gave credence to the restaurant’s name. Most of the items were of the meat variety, although there was salmon, grouper, and snapper for those preferring fish. A separate sushi menu had a note clipped to it: “Our sushi bar will be closed until further notice.” The day’s luncheon specials were sliced sirloin steak on a garlic wedge, or homemade chicken salad. Soup of the day was onion.
“A respectable menu,” George said.
“Yes, and it reminds me of something. There’s another person to consider.”
“Another person? To consider for what?”
“To consider as a suspect if Ladington was murdered. The chef cooks lunch each day at the castle, then comes here to handle the evening meal. I’d forgotten about him. His name is Nick.”
“Was he at the castle the night Ladington died?”
“I presume he wasn’t, based upon the schedule I was told he kept. But schedules can always be changed.”
“The young man who was murdered,” George said, “he worked here as a waiter?”
“Yes. He was stabbed to death.”
“Was Ladington considered a suspect?”
“He was questioned, from what I read. But whether he was a suspect is conjecture. He claimed to have been at the castle when it happened, although he had been here at the restaurant earlier in the evening.”
“Probably nothing more than coincidence. The chicken salad appeals.”
“Two chicken salads,” I told the waitress, “and iced tea.”
“What was the young man’s name?” George asked.
“Louis something. I forget the last name.”
“Miss,” George said to the waitress as she passed our table, “we understand that someone who worked here, a waiter, was recently murdered.”
I wasn’t sure whether she’d respond, but she did. “That’s right. Louis Hubler.”
“Yes, Louis Hubler,” I said. “Did you work with him?”
She nodded. “I sure did. Not always the same shift, but we were friends.”
“A dreadful way to die,” George said.
“Are you from Scotland Yard or something?” she asked.
George laughed. “As a matter of fact, I am.”
Blood on the Vine Page 10
