Plum Gone: A Sonoma Wine Country Cozy Mystery (Sonoma Wine Country Cozy Mysteries Book 2)

by A. J. Carton

  Emma started to argue that Randall was innocent, but Steve cut her off.

  “I know, Randall’s out on bail,” he said. “But if you recall, Emma, the standard of proof in a civil suit is the ‘preponderance of the evidence,’ not ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ which is the standard for a crime. I agree there could be a ‘reasonable doubt’ as to whether Randall killed Gomez. But I’ll bet my bottom dollar that Randall’s bloody knife, his threat to kill Gomez, and Gomez’s late night visit to Randall’s Sonoma ranch provide more than a preponderance of evidence to win a civil action against him.”

  Steve paused to let that information sink in.

  “So here’s my question, Emma,” he continued. “Who do you know at the Chatham Club who might have heard those threats Randall made against Gomez?”

  Emma immediately thought of Jack.

  Steve watched her hesitate for a few seconds before adding, “What about that guy you’re seeing? Jack? Jack Russo? He’s a member of the club. I hear he hangs out there all the time.”

  How, Emma wondered, does Steve know about Jack?

  She shook her head, but Steve ignored it. “Here’s the other thing I need you to do,” he continued. “I know it’s asking a lot, but I just don’t have time or the money to do this any other way. Besides,” he glanced up quickly to smile at her again, “you know how much I trust your work.”

  Without letting her reply he added, “I need you to drive down to Coachella with me this week. You can check out other possible suspects - the jealous husband and that blackmail thing – while I get a handle on how much money we can reasonably get for the wrongful death of a seasonal worker. I’ve talked an old friend down there from Coopers into helping us crunch the numbers for free.”

  Emma’s head was spinning. Using Jack as a witness to Randall’s threats was totally out of the question. As for accompanying Steve all the way to Coachella – Piers would go ballistic if he heard about that.

  “Steve,” Emma finally answered. “Don’t you think you should slow down a little. I mean no one knows for sure that Randall killed Gomez. As you just said, there are lots of other suspects – both in Coachella and right here. In fact…”

  As Emma spoke, she felt the ocean of information in her head swell out of control. But she could not stop herself. “Just yesterday,” she continued, “on the Sunday Stroll, Silas Bugbee – you know, from the permits department – hauled me aside to…” Emma realized she was exaggerating, but she had to get Steve to postpone filing that suit, “to rant about Curt Randall’s sale to the Chinese. Lots of people are furious about it. Bugbee was so angry, why he almost threatened me. Thinking that somehow I could, just, you know,” she sputtered, “stop it by talking to Piers.”

  Emma watched Steve’s face shut down. Then he hugged his arms across his chest like he thought he might explode.

  Suddenly Emma realized that nothing she’d said made sense. Even to her.

  “He…he mentioned something about the due diligence, too,” she added, grasping at straws. “Something about HoCo finding some kind of poison in one of Curt’s water tanks. He said that might finally wake people up. Start some sort of protest over the sale of the…”

  Steve opened his mouth to interrupt her. Emma knew exactly what he’d say. She stopped speaking abruptly.

  “What’s your point, Emma?”

  The gathering wave of information in her head suddenly collapsed. She tried to press on even as her mind went blank.

  “My point is, Steve, there are a lot of,” she hesitated, “of plum fanatics, like Silas Bugbee or even Peppino at Buchanon Vineyards who would like to…to block the sale of the plum ranch. And I wouldn’t put it past one of them to…to frame…”

  “Whoa!” Steve cried, interrupting her. “Stop right there, Emma. Do you even know what you just said?”

  Emma’s face flushed red. She covered it with her hands. How could she know what she’d just said? She was too flustered to think straight.

  “Please correct me if I’m wrong, Emma,” Steve began in the voice of someone speaking to a small child. “I think your theory is that Curt Randall, who was found with the murder weapon hidden in his garage, did not kill Santiago Gomez because the prune fanatics or some eighty year old vintner killed him in order to block the sale of Luther Burbank’s historic plum trees to the Chinese. Tell me that’s not your point, Emma. Please! Because, again, correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t see any connection between saving plum trees and the death of a seasonal farm worker whom Curt Randall publicly threatened to kill? So I repeat, Emma. What’s your point?”

  Of course, Emma thought, Steve’s right. There is no connection between the plum trees and Gomez’s death. What was I thinking? Emma took a deep breath and tried to stay calm.

  “Actually, Steve,” she finally said, backtracking to where her argument had fallen apart, “the part about the prune lovers was only one of my points. A very small point – a subsidiary point. More like an informational point, if you will. I should never have led with it.”

  Steve winced.

  “So my point, if I can limit myself to just one,” she continued, “is that I’m not sure Curt Randall murdered Santiago Gomez, and that if he didn’t, this wrongful death action you are planning to file is a big mistake.”

  “O…K,” Steve said guardedly, “my point is that I need to find out if any of these other theories about who killed Gomez hold water. I’m talking about the viable theories. Like the husband of the woman Gomez allegedly seduced. Or his cousin whom he allegedly blackmailed. And I hoped, maybe, just maybe because you work…”

  “Volunteer.”

  “…here that you would help me find those answers, Emma.”

  Emma nodded. “My other point,” she added, “is that on the chance Randall didn’t kill Gomez, we should explore settling the worker grievances out of court. Getting the Gomez family what they are entitled to without putting a bitter old man in his grave.”

  Steve listened to Emma and rubbed his chin. Then he nodded his head up and down a few times very slowly.

  “Of course,” he finally said. “You and Piers have been talking. And he’s convinced you to take the family’s side – the side the family bread is buttered on, I mean. OK.” He nodded his head again in a parody of patience. “I get that. But I have to say, Emma, I thought you were better than that. I thought you had a mind of your own.”

  “You see,” he added with a drawn out sigh, “one thing your son-in-law forgot to explain to you, when he was convincing you to throw the farm workers’ cause under the bus, is that a private settlement really doesn’t do the farm workers’ ‘cause’ any good. Thousands of laborers are being exploited by big agro business. Throwing a little money at a few desperate farm workers and their families is not going to change that. All that is going to change that is a lawsuit big enough to attract the attention of voters and legislators in Sacramento and Washington; so that this country changes its policies towards seasonal workers. But what do you care about that, Emma, so long as Piers can buy your daughter a brand new Porsche?”

  “That’s not fair, Steve,” Emma cried stomping out of the room.

  Chapter 8: Monday Afternoon – Plum Suckers’ Revenge

  Emma stormed out of the office to her car, furious with Steve for his cheap shot.

  What did he know? Piers had bought Julie a BMW SUV for her birthday, not another Porsche. Though why a family of three needed a big car like that was more than Emma could fathom. Of course, she’d held her tongue about it at the birthday bash Piers had recently thrown at The French Laundry. Her friend, Jack Russo, wasn’t even invited to that, she’d fumed. But the party probably cost more than the BMW. So why spoil it?

  When Emma started her car, however, she inexplicably burst into tears. There was another reason she didn’t go to law school, she chastised herself for the thousandth time. It wasn’t her father. It was because she couldn’t think straight!

  She’d just turned on to the highway when her pho
ne rang. She saw it was Jack and waited till the call went into messaging. Something about their conversation the night before still troubled her. Undermined her confidence in him – in them. How could she have thought he was her best friend in the world and not known about his son? Forget playing hockey in the Olympics. The forty years of marriage to a saint. How could you really know someone who neglected to tell you something as important as that?

  A few seconds later the phone beeped and she heard Jack’s voice on Blue Tooth.

  “Hi. It’s me,” the voice said.

  Emma grimaced. Jack’s messages annoyed her. They always began with “It’s me,” like there was only one “me” in the world.

  “I heard something today at the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce breakfast,” he continued. “You probably know about it already, but you mentioned that Piers has been playing his cards close to the vest. Anyway, give me a call.”

  He paused for a second, like there was more, then added. “I also wanted to mention…I feel a little awkward. About last night. About not telling you about Johnny. I been thinkin’ about it. Like, somehow, I betrayed him by not telling you. Like I forgot, or something. But I didn’t forget, Emma. I think about him every day. Even now, I think how he’d be. What he’d be doin’. Thirty-four years old. It’s just that…”

  The phone beeped, ending the message.

  Emma’s stomach lurched. Darn the stupid machine, she thought. Then she reminded herself that it was she who had stubbornly refused to take the call. She briefly considered calling him back, but decided against it. Not the best subject to discuss in the car heading for what she knew was a dead zone between the clinic and her house. Still, he’d asked her to call….

  When she got home to her landline, she dialed Jack’s number. The call went straight into phone mail. “Hi. It’s Jack. Leave a message.”

  She hung up. He’d see she’d called.

  Emma had picked up the Blissburg Herald off her front porch when she came in, along with the day’s mail. After hanging her jacket on a peg in the front hall, she sat down in the kitchen to sort it. The Herald appeared again at the bottom of the pile. A front-page story immediately caught her eye. The headline read, “Burbank Society Plans Plum Protest.”

  Emma read the short article. It informed the citizens of Blissburg that the Luther Burbank Society was planning a protest in the Blissburg plaza that day at 2:00 p.m. Following the protest rally, the LBS, as it was known, would present a petition to county officials to block the sale of the historic Randall Ranch. Home of the oldest Santa Rosa plum trees in the world.

  The petition further demanded that the county investigate rumors that high levels of arsenic had been found in water at the property, fueling speculation that wells on the property, and possibly the water table itself, were contaminated. At a minimum, the petition demanded that the county seek a temporary restraining order blocking the sale of the property until the safety of the water table had been secured. The article quoted Silas Bugbee, president of the LBS, saying: “This is not just about historic plum trees anymore. It is a matter of life and death. No less than the health of Blissburg’s citizens and of its unborn children is at stake.”

  Emma rubbed her temples. She had no doubt that the purpose of Jack’s call was to inform her of the rally. She glanced at her watch. It was already after 1:00 p.m. So much for testing the malfatti recipe that afternoon. She grabbed a tub of yogurt out of the refrigerator and gulped it down. Then she pulled her coat off the hook in the front hall and starting walking up Blissburg Avenue towards the plaza.

  When she got there, the first thing she saw was at least ten news vans with satellite dishes parked around the square. Well over a hundred people had gathered at the bandstand on the far west end of the square. At least another hundred were jammed around the fountain. It was more people than Emma had seen gathered in one place in Blissburg. Way more than for the Tuesday ‘locals night’ summer Dixieland concert. She always thought of that as a big crowd.

  She also noticed that many protestors that day carried placards. They read everything from “Save the Plums,” to “We love you, Luther Burbank,” to “Five Prunes a Day Keeps the Doctor Away,” to “Seasonal Workers Deserve Shade and Water,” to “Water Is Our Sacred Right.”

  Someone had even found an old broken Howdy Doody doll dressed in jeans and a red checked shirt that they’d hung from a small noose. A sign on the doll’s back said “CR.” Emma marveled that with the doll’s reddish brown hair painted white, it looked remarkably like old Curt Randall.

  Interestingly, too, unlike the Tuesday night Dixieland retirees dressed in North Face, Levis and running shoes and sitting in their Costco camping chairs sharing salami, cheese and bottles of wine, this crowd was young, aggressive, vocal, and from the look of it, not local. Far from wearing fleece vests and running shoes, many men in the crowd were barefoot, dressed in tie died T-shirts and badly torn jeans. A small contingent sitting around the fountain looked to Emma like they’d stepped off the pages of Little Women. Girls in long ruffled skirts and men in knee length, cotton frock coats, their long hair tied back in ponytails. In the center of this group, Emma spotted Silas Bugbee.

  She was about to walk over to engage him in conversation when a middle aged man with dreadlocks and a bullhorn jumped on to the bandstand after conversing briefly with a man in a suit standing in the wings. The man with the bullhorn addressed the crowd. He was shirtless, even in the late afternoon chill, and wore thin sackcloth, string pants - obviously, Emma noted, without the benefit of underwear.

  “OK, everyone,” he cried into his megaphone like a cheerleader. “Who knows why we’re here today?”

  “Plums!” someone yelled out.

  “Farm workers!”

  “Prunes,” someone else screamed.

  Many in the crowd laughed and hooted.

  Then a small group of gray hairs dressed in old baseball uniforms with the words “Prune Packers” written across the front, started up a chant, “Twist my arm, break my back. But please don’t mess with my digestive tract.” This resulted in lots more shouting and laughing.

  When the chanting and hooting finally ran its course, the man with the bullhorn continued. “Let’s face it, folks, we here in Blissburg love our plums and we love our prunes.”

  This statement was followed by more laughter.

  “But,” the man continued, “what we care about most, what keeps the plums growing that give us the prunes that make us regular folks,” he made an italics sign with his fingers when he said “regular.” “Is our water!” he concluded.

  At the sound of the word “water,” all the disparate groups gathered in the square finally coalesced in one voice. “Clean Water! Clean Water! Clean Water!” they chanted.

  It took a full five minutes for the noise to die down.

  Then the man put the bullhorn to his mouth again. “Look,” he said – and Emma could not help but admire his folksy, crowd pleasing manner, “a lot of us here are angry about a lot of things today.”

  “Yeahhh,” somebody in the crowd yelled.

  “And we have a right to be mad!” the man with the bullhorn exclaimed.

  Now the crowd went a little wild. A few of the prune packers started doing a war dance brandishing imaginary tomahawks in the air. A lot of people in the crowd yelled, “Yeahhhhh,” again.

  “But there is one thing that binds us all together today,” the man continued. “That’s clean water.”

  “Clean Water! Clean Water! Clean Water!” the crowd chanted in unison.

  “We have a report,” the man shouted over the crowd. Emma could tell he was eager to move the rally along, “The water on the Randall Ranch is polluted. The water tanks have significant levels of arsenic. And guess what? We don’t even know how far it goes. The wells, the water table, the irrigation systems, your dinner table? Now there is also a rumor that Curt Randall and his lawyers…”

  A number of people in the crowd booed.

  “Are trying
to hush up this report. Trying to push through a very lucrative deal to sell that land to Chinese investors. Well, let me tell you something, that deal may be good for Curt Randall and his lawyers…”

  More booing.

  “But it ain’t good for YOU!” The man with the megaphone stretched out his arm and pointed his finger at the crowd like some latter day version of Uncle Sam rallying the troops during World War II.

  “Let me ask you something,” the man continued. “Do you think the Chinese give one dried prune about pollution?”

  Everyone in the crowd yelled. “No!”

  “That’s right,” the man with the megaphone yelled. “They don’t care! And do you think the Chinese give a plum about your drinking water?”

  Now everyone in the crowd yelled, “They don’t care! They don’t care! They don’t care!”

  “Well,” the man on the bandstand screamed, “what’re ya gonna do about it?”

  Everyone in the crowd was still yelling, “They don’t care,” so the man answered his own question. “This is what you’re gonna do. Sign the petition to stop the sale of Curt Randall’s plum ranch until we find out what is really goin’ on at that ranch.”

  That’s when about twenty people started to circulate throughout the crowd with pens and petitions. Emma recognized a few, including the local yoga instructor and a girl who worked at the Plaza Bakery.

  It looked like most of the people at the rally were signing up – except for an Hispanic looking young man whom Emma noticed trolling the plaza tearing down ‘Save the Plums’ signs as fast as the demonstrators could plant them.

  Indeed, Emma was tempted to sign the petition herself. If there was pollution on the Randall property, Emma didn’t see the sense in letting the Chinese deal with it. Maybe the man with the megaphone was right. Did the Chinese really care? Look at Beijing!