Trust Me When I Lie

by Benjamin Stevenson

  Jack went in farther than he had last time. He peered at the chambers that were off the main hall. Some were open, circular rooms racked with wines and kegs. Others had large steel doors, like fancy fridges. Or high-tech safes. A dragon could be sleeping on gold bricks behind these doors. He felt his wet shirt with each step, alternately sticking or peeling off. With every step, a new piece found skin, sending shocks of cold through him. The air was cold too, in the lungs.

  “The thermodynamics of being under the earth,” Sarah said, as if she’d heard his thoughts, or maybe she’d just seen him shiver. “It’s the best temperature control there is. We take from the earth, we put it back in.”

  “All natural,” Jack said, rapping a knuckle on one of the metal doors. He spotted a keyhole in the door. “These locked?”

  “Yep.”

  “Can I look?”

  “Nope.”

  “Can I look?” He tried to push his leverage.

  “Sorry, Jack, these are private collections. It’s just bottles in there.”

  “You sure there’s no more narcotics?”

  “Marijuana is hardly a narcotic.” Sarah bristled, revealing too much of her politics. “I told you, these are private collections. And, well, you’ll just have to trust me.”

  “You store other people’s wine?” Jack said, thinking that it really was like a bank. “How does that work?”

  “That’s the business,” said Sarah, looking at him as if he was an idiot. “Wine collecting may be niche, but it’s a strong industry. Our customers want to keep their wines somewhere secure, with good conditions. There’s nowhere better in the country than here.”

  “Why not just keep it in their own cellars?”

  “Some only want short-term storage. They might be building a cellar or moving house. Whatever. Others simply don’t want to. Why don’t people hang a Picasso in their lounge room? Wine’s the same. For collectors, it’s art. We’re a gallery here.” She eyed him. “A private gallery.”

  “Not that private,” Jack said. “Andrew took me down here before.”

  “What can I tell you? He likes to brag.”

  Jack almost snorted at that. Give them what they’ve paid for, he’d said about the collectors. Jack bet they’d paid handsomely. So that was why the leaked silo didn’t bother him—the lost wine was just his supermarket product. This was the real business. And it explained him not claiming the insurance too. If Andrew’s reputation depended on the trust of his customers, he couldn’t have claims officers coming out and opening doors. There might be no dragon, but there were gold bars in this bank, indeed.

  “This was Andrew’s idea?”

  “Yes, and then the restaurant followed. Originally, he just wanted to eat up some of the profits, offer employment to the town, but then the restaurant took off as well. Like I said, he transformed this place.”

  Jack wandered to the door at the end of the cellar, not to the left or the right but inset into the back wall. This one had a digital keypad lock.

  “What’s so special about this one?”

  Sarah didn’t answer.

  “That,” said Andrew Freeman, his voice booming across the cavern, “is my personal collection.”

  Chapter 28

  Andrew was bare calved, in Lycra shorts and a highlighter-yellow windbreaker, zipped to the sternum. There was a clicking sound as he walked to Jack, brushing past his wife without acknowledging her. Jack realized the clicking was from Andrew’s cycling shoes, the metal cleats clacking on the floor. Jack tried to decide if the look on his face was anger or surprise.

  “Moisture doesn’t go in the vault,” Andrew said, scanning Jack’s damp shirt. He punched in a code. “But no harm in giving you a peek.”

  There was a hiss as Andrew pulled the door wide: so heavy it was hydraulics assisted. It didn’t look like it opened from the inside. You could sever a finger in that. Jack filed the thought away.

  Inside the room, shelving lined the walls. Bottles lay on their sides in specialty wooden cradles. The corks faced outward, lines of cannons on a tall ship. Dull tube lights emitted nothing more than a soft glow. There were hundreds of bottles, rows on rows.

  “Temperature, humidity, light,” said Andrew, looking with affection at his collection. “That’s the holy trinity of aging wine.”

  “It’s down here because it’s cool?”

  “It’s down here because it’s consistent,” said Andrew, stepping inside. “That’s the real key. Good wine is about consistency—you want the right temperature zone, which is coolish, sure, but it’s the fluctuations that matter the most. One or two degrees across a year can put it out.” He picked up a bottle and held it neck out so Jack could see. “See this? The bottle may be corked, but the wine inside is still liquid. And liquid expands and contracts in different temperatures. So if the temperature moves up and down, the volume of the wine goes up and down too. Excess air pushes out or in through the cork, meaning the wine inside, even sealed, evaporates. Minutely, of course, but when you’re storing wine for a few decades, it matters. Most old wines, you’ll note, have slightly lower levels in them.”

  “Okay. So that’s temperature. What’s important about light and humidity?” Jack was half-interested and half wanting to keep Andrew talking so he could keep looking around.

  “Anything can speed up the process, change the bouquet—that’s what they call the flavor in a wine—just by invigorating different catalysts. Sunlight’s a definite no-no.”

  “I thought you just put wine in a closet for a hundred years—the older the better.”

  “No! Wine expires. It’s not like spirits. Scotch you can age indefinitely—there’s enough alcohol in there to stop it turning. Wine has a lower alcohol percentage, and it is subject to fluctuations. Sometimes, even down here, it’ll go off. But we do our best.” He slotted the wine back into the rack, breathed in the room, the dusty, aging smell, and looked pleased with himself.

  “It’s a clever business idea,” said Jack. “You’re making money off wine without even selling any. That’s why the wine you make isn’t real money.”

  “Very good. People say business is about risks. Good investments.” Jack wondered if Andrew considered his wife an investment. “And, yeah, it’s about those things, but it’s also about guts. It’s about lateral thinking. Did you know, in 1987, the CEO of American Airlines saved forty thousand dollars in a single year by removing one olive from each first-class salad on his flights?”

  “Sounds less like business strategy and more like skimming off the top to me,” said Jack. He was starting to get a hold on Andrew. Here was a country police sergeant who’d married into money, read a couple of business books, and taken it upon himself to flaunt that wisdom.

  “You’re missing the point.” Andrew sighed. “Diversification is the key to good business. American Airlines’ business is flying planes, city to city, but the real costs lay elsewhere, outside of the core business. Hell, now flying is entertainment. It’s about the experience. It’s not A to B anymore because someone had the vision to switch it up. But my point on the olives is much simpler. Lots of little changes to make one larger one. One olive, not so significant. A million olives…” Andrew nodded over Jack’s shoulder, and Jack finally realized what he was saying—rows and rows of bottles, Andrew’s own collection, was insignificant compared to the value of all the chambers combined. The value was in the accumulation. “You’ve got yourself a business.”

  Jack listened to the faint whistle of wind through the open doorway. Sarah had left, unbidden. He breathed in the cool air. Andrew was right: the cellar was exactly the same temperature as the last time, despite the looming mist and brewing storm outside.

  “Speaking of business,” Andrew said, stepping out of the vault, “have you got Curtis yet?”

  “Got him? No. I, uh, the cops think the second murder is a copycat.”


  “The cops think?”

  “Yeah.” Jack shrugged.

  “And you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Consistency applies to human nature, just as it does to wine.” Andrew patted Jack on the shoulder. “It’s either all truth or all lies, Jack. It can’t be half of each.”

  Jack felt like one of Andrew’s employees. Was he really being lectured? Those business books and seminars had gone to Andrew’s head.

  “Too bad,” Andrew said.

  “What is?”

  “To see him walk free. Maybe he’ll kill again. Next time it’ll be some other poor woman.”

  Now Andrew was just needling, and Jack was starting to hate him again. It must have been easy to talk down to the whole town from up here.

  “Eliza worked here. Yet you don’t know anything useful.”

  “I know as much as you do,” Andrew said, and Jack didn’t know if that meant he didn’t know anything or he knew a lot and wasn’t telling. “No one even knew she was missing until she got found. The backpackers come in, they pick, they hang out together, pull beers at the Royal or the Globe, and then they just wander off when they feel like it. If I had a bottle of wine every time I was a man down at 6:00 a.m. and then found out for some reason they were in Toowoomba, well, I’d need another cellar. There’s no need to come skulking around here, by the way. I’ve already offered you my services.”

  “I wasn’t skulking.”

  “It’s gotta be all lies or all truths, Jack. My wife was soaked through. There are muddy footprints here. You weren’t over for a cup of tea. You must have scared the hell out of Sarah, if she came outside to find you there. Curtis definitely killed Eliza. I’m sure of it.” There was a hushed serenity to his tone. “Alexis, I didn’t really know—maybe it is a copycat. I’m not your enemy, Jack.”

  “How are you sure he killed her?”

  “I just am. Okay? I know him. I was a cop for a long time. Let’s call it my gut instinct.”

  “My gut’s good too,” Jack lied.

  “Well, then, we’re agreed.” Andrew looked into the chamber. “Tell you what, I know it’s been hard. Locals aren’t exactly welcoming around here. I should have stepped in earlier, I suppose, but I’ll vouch for you. They’ll lay off. Then you can get on with the real job: putting Curtis back where he belongs.”

  “Finding the killer is the real job. Whether Curtis is involved or not,” Jack said. It didn’t escape him how badly Andrew wanted Curtis in jail. It seemed so personal.

  “Sure, yeah.” Andrew thought a second, then spread his arms toward the vault. “Tell you what. I’ll give you a peace offering. Choose a bottle.”

  “Huh?”

  “Choose one”—he swept an arm across the racks—“out of my collection.”

  “I thought some of these were worth thousands?”

  “Some are. Others are worth much more. Go on.”

  “I couldn’t,” said Jack.

  “You don’t know a lot about wine, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s fair, because it’s a lucky dip. You won’t be able to rob me blind. We’ll see what you get.” He smiled, a lecherous carnie kind of smile. Roll up, roll up. Choose a bottle. Any bottle. “It’s a game,” Andrew added. “What’s life without a few thrills?”

  “That one,” Jack said, pointing to a bottle on the middle of the middle shelf; as inauspicious a place as any, he figured, where the wine couldn’t be too expensive. The last thing he needed was to feel in Andrew Freeman’s debt, though perhaps he already did. He felt odd around him, the power dynamic. The way you feel meeting your boss’s boss. Not shy, that wasn’t it. But reserved. Andrew made him feel uneven.

  Andrew clicked his tongue and picked up the bottle. He held it up to the light, tilted it at Jack.

  “This one?”

  “Sure.”

  “Not much of a drinker, you say?”

  “If it’s expensive, it’s fine. I don’t need one.”

  “If I play, I play fair.” A grand smile erupted on his face, and then he was shoving the bottle at Jack’s chest. Couldn’t be rid of it quick enough. Jack clutched it with both hands. Andrew shouted like a carnie. “This one it is!”

  “No, really.”

  “Just don’t sell it, okay? It’s to enjoy.”

  The door sighed on its hydraulic hinges as Andrew closed it. He headed across the cavern to the stairs, clack clack clack. The message was obvious. Jack’s visit was over.

  The wind had picked up outside, the rain now slanting sideways, cutting at any exposed skin. Andrew popped the collar on his jacket and zipped it up. Jack had no choice but to wear it, stinging pellets whipping his bare arms. He put a futile forearm over his brow as they waded to the house. He could hear the vines creaking on their stakes, rustling as if a thousand people were whispering together. He followed the reflective silver stripe on the back of Andrew’s jacket. Then they were standing on the deck, shaking dry like dogs. Jack realized he’d been clutching the wine tightly with his spare hand. Maybe it was valuable. Or maybe he’d imbued it with false value just because Andrew Freeman had given it to him. He imagined pegging it against the wall, watching it burst in a star of bloodred, sliding down the corrugated iron in lumps, and laughing his way back down the hill.

  Andrew scraped his shoes on the mat and levered them off. His socks left prints on the dark wood. Jack just stood there, shivering, unsure what to do.

  “You can’t walk down in this. Even with fog lights, no one’ll see you,” Andrew said.

  Jack agreed but said, “I’m okay.”

  “No way. Hang on.” Andrew disappeared inside with the clatter of a screen door. A minute later the door swung inward and a white hand towel was flung out. Jack managed to catch it between his chin and shoulder. He pushed it against his face, breathing into the warmth and dryness. Andrew reappeared, wearing sneakers, his jacket replaced with a polar fleece. He was holding keys.

  “Right.” He nodded.

  They battled through the wind and sleet to the Forester. Jack hopped up and down while Andrew leaned over from the driver’s seat to unlock his door. The rain slapped the car and rolled off the windshield in sheets. Andrew sat for a second, as if wondering if it would ease. Then he turned the car on and flicked the wipers. It wasn’t any better. He cranked the wiper speed, tsked, and upped the speed again. Still barely a difference. Jack rubbed the back of his neck with the towel.

  Andrew drove slowly down the hill, no more than ten, coasting in first, pressing the brake with a small whine whenever the roll picked up too much. He had fog lights and high beams on. It felt like sailing through a reef, slow and cautious. The visibility was so low that street signs grew out of the fog within meters, seemingly out of nowhere. Andrew guided the car on the road by the roughness under the wheels.

  “The pub’s fine,” Jack said once they were in town. He knew they were getting close because a single red glow pierced the mist a few hundred meters away. Jack couldn’t see the traffic light itself, just the red mist around it in a sphere. It flicked from red to green.

  Andrew pulled into the curb. He clicked the hazards on just to be sure, which ticked like a watch and seemed to bounce backward off the mist and rain as if some laser grid encased them. The rain pounded down all around. Nothing but them in the world, no sense of time or the town in this drowning car.

  “I can’t take this,” Jack said, offering the bottle.

  Andrew shrugged. “You won it,” he said, though his eyes stayed on the road. “That particular bottle, it doesn’t need aging. It’s all right to drink as is.”

  “I didn’t win it, Andrew. I don’t deserve it.”

  “You can. You will.”

  Jack had no more fight in him than that. He opened the door and the rain roared in, spraying the seat. The gutter was a river. N
othing for it, he sacrificed his left ankle and hopped to the curb. Two hurried steps and he was under the awning. The Forester hadn’t moved. Water corralled and eddied in around the tires. Jack imagined the main street awash with red, those currant currents, bleeding from the Freemans’ gouged silos. Surely it hadn’t been as dramatic as that, but he was a filmmaker, after all.

  Jack turned, but there was a soft clunking behind him. Andrew was knocking on the glass. He wound down the passenger window halfway. He was leaning across, one hand on the wheel, his elbow in the crook of the passenger seat.

  “Open it when he goes back to jail,” Andrew yelled above the rain. “Then you’ll deserve it.”

  Chapter 29

  The door to the pub was locked. Jack checked his phone. It was just past ten. He knocked, just in case. Nothing happened.

  Jack still had the small towel Andrew had given him. He scrubbed it roughly through his hair once, then, satisfied, laid the cloth on a dryish patch of concrete. He sat. His back on the pub wall, legs scooted up, his body folded in an N. The rain hammered down in a curtain. Fingers of water pried under the awning. Jack flicked a cigarette butt that was too close to him, sending it into one of the streams, where it spun and spun and spun before wafting back past him on the tide. He propped the gifted wine next to him and leaned his hands on his knees, watching the rain. He still couldn’t get a handle on Andrew Freeman. There was something about him. Something missing behind his eyes. Something fake.

  How ridiculous was it that he’d gone up to the Freemans’ in search of some kind of drug lab? Ironically, he’d been right. Andrew just dealt a legal drug. Jack thought of the sign inside the pub: AUSTRALIA’S MOST EXPENSIVE DRUG. That was a safety and addiction campaign, but the point stood. The value of a single vault in that cellar must have been mind-boggling. Jack wondered what the value of Andrew’s “gift” was. He took out his phone and searched wine collectors. Articles about taste and culture were replaced by articles about investment and valuations. These weren’t bottles of wine, Jack realized; they were retirement packages. More articles. There was a listing of two bottles of 1959 Dom Pérignon selling for $42,350 each.