by Harvey, JM
The sun was settling over the ocean far to the west. Waiters were clearing the dishes and lighting the candles I had placed on every table. Victor turned up the stereo and I turned on the Japanese lanterns he had hung from bamboo poles. People drifted out onto the grass, most of the woman barefoot, and began to dance, while others settled down to some serious drinking under the tent.
At the fringe of the party, Hunter was talking to Armand Rivincita, who was probably trying to get the inside scoop on the confrontation between Blake and Angela. The two men made quite a pair. They were the handsomest men at the party, both tall and slim with great eyes, though Hunter was dark and Armand fair. Hunter's faded jeans, white shirt, and twenty year old Timex were a stark contrast to Armand's pressed black slacks, blue silk shirt, and gold Rolex. Hunt’s attire was much more to my liking. I'm not much for men who spend more time in front of the mirror than I do.
I approached them and hooked my arm through Hunt's. He smiled down at me and Armand gave me a wink.
“The belle of the ball,” Armand said. “Your Vintner's Reserve is outstanding.” He raised his glass in a toast.
“That means a lot coming from you, Armand,” I said, genuinely pleased. Despite Angela's harsh remarks, I liked Armand. He, too, was a newcomer to the valley, having been here for just over two years, but he’d brought a lot of prestige with him. Italian by birth, he had made a ton of money and built himself a winegrowing empire in Mendoza, the largest wine producing province in Argentina. He had had the vision to purchase a series of rundown rural farms and replant them with Malbec vines and, in the span of ten years, had turned them into a corporate vineyard worth several million dollars. He had then sold his holdings and set his eyes on California.
Many growers in the area had not been pleased with his arrival or his almost immediate acquisition of a half a dozen small, struggling wineries in Calistoga, Napa, and Sonoma, but I made no judgments. I was sorry to see the smaller winemakers go, but Armand only bought what was for sale. If it hadn’t been him it would have been some corporation, or worse, a bank foreclosure. Land prices, taxes, and the cost of production were just too high for many of the small growers to make a profit. A fact my wavering bank account could attest to.
Over the last two years, Armand’s wine knowledge, his friendliness, and his European manners had won over many of his early detractors. And landed him quite a few female admirers as well. He was far too young and far too suave for me, but I would have had to be dead not to notice him.
But I had a man of my own. Well, sort of. I looked up at Hunt and tugged his arm. “I want to dance,” I said.
Hunter grimaced. “I have three left feet.”
“Then I'll lead,” I replied and dragged him away. I waved at Armand and he gave me another wink.
Sinatra's 'Fly Me to the Moon' was playing, one of my all-time favorites. I tucked my head against Hunter's chest and his arms went around my waist. He was right, he wasn't a dancer, but I didn’t care. I had a mild wine-buzz going and the cool night air was perfect for cuddling close. I didn't even mind when he stepped on my toes. Again and again.
The next song up was ‘Blue In Green.’ And then Ella’s ‘I Got a Man.’ All in all, I made Hunter stay on the dance floor for a half-dozen songs, unwilling to part with him. As we swayed under the darkening sky, I forgot all about Marjory, Angela, Blake, and Dimitri. I even forgot about the ugliness last year that had driven a wedge between me and Hunter. I savored the moment, his closeness, and the music.
Maybe it was the wine, but I decided at that moment that I wasn’t going to let Hunt drift out of my life again. Life was too short to hold a grudge.
But not everyone at the party felt that way.
The first shrill scream caused me to flinch and my head to come up, more in confusion than concern. ‘What next?’ was my immediate thought. Who had decided to punch who? Or had someone brained someone with a wine bottle? Around me, the other dancers’ movements slowed as well, but no one looked all that concerned.
The second scream stopped the party cold. It was high and tight and shrill, filled with fear and horror, but the single bellowed word was clear enough; “Murderers!”
It had come from my cellar!
I didn’t hesitate or stop to think; I tore myself out of Hunter's embrace, raced across the lawn, jerked open the cellar door and bolted inside. I took only two steps before I stopped dead in my tracks.
Alexandra Pappos was standing in the doorway at the top of the cellar stairs, her lips stretched in a silent 'O', the index finger of her right hand pointing down toward the four fermentation tanks where my cabernet undergoes its primary fermentation process. Samson and Marjory were crouched atop the stainless steel catwalk that circled the shortest of the three tanks, a used six-foot tall, fifteen hundred liter Letina I had purchased just this past winter at an estate auction. The tank’s lid was open to allow heat to escape during the fermentation process, and Marjory and Samson were struggling with something floating on the surface of the wine.
What the heck was Samson doing? The only reason to be on top of the catwalk was to punch down the cap of skins and stems into the juice below, but Marjory and Samson weren't pushing the cap down, they were trying to wrestle something large and cumbersome out, something that was already half hanging over the lip of the tank. It took me a full three seconds to realize that the something was the limp body of Dimitri Pappos.
Samson and Marjory were covered in stems and skins, their clothes wet with the pale-pink juice of the crushed grapes. But Samson wasn't just wet from grape juice. His shirt was covered in crimson splatters, and so was Dimitri's. But Dimitri was long past caring. I could see - even from that distance - that his throat had been cut in a ragged line. There was more blood on the side of the tank and a puddle of it beneath the ladder.
My lungs forgot how to work and my stomach clenched as I gaped up at Samson, Marjory, and Dimitri in horror. “Not again,” I whispered in a dry, husky voice, but no one heard me, the words drowned out by Alexandra.
“Murderers!” she screamed again as Hunter squeezed past me into the cellar. I could sense a crowd growing behind me, pressing toward the door. Instinctively, I turned and pulled the door closed, blocking the view.
“Stop right there, Samson!” Hunter bellowed, moving toward the tank. And that's when I saw the gun in Hunt's hand. It was aimed up at my aging winemaker.
“Let him go, Samson,” Hunter said as Samson continued to pull on the inert form of the dead wine steward, dangerously overbalancing himself. “And get down from there, Marjory.”
“He is ruining the wine!” Samson yelled down, still gripping Dimitri under the shoulders. “The blood!”
“I won't tell you again,” Hunter yelled back, taking a step closer.
Marjory came down the ladder and turned to face Hunter, her hands rising to shoulder height. For once in her life she seemed at a loss for words, but that didn’t last long.
“We found him like that, Hunter,” she said, her usually shrill voice subdued and trembling. “We were trying to help! We’re not—”
“Murderers,” Alexandra said again, but she was no longer screaming. The single word was spoken in a dull lifeless tone as she slowly descended, her gait jerky like a marionette with too-tight strings. She stopped at the bottom of the steps, her eyes on Dimitri’s body. Tears streaked her face and her shoulders shook.
Suddenly, Blake Becker appeared in the doorway at the top of the steps, his expression one of bewilderment. Behind him I could see more faces and white aprons as the cooks crowded in for a look.
“Close that door!” I barked up at Blake. He nodded, but he didn’t back into the hallway as I had intended; he came out on the landing and closed the door behind him. The wet tea towel hung from his right hand, dripping water on the steps in a slow patter. The knot on his forehead had swollen to golf ball size.
“Is that Dimitri?” he asked.
No one answered him.
Samson released Di
mitri and stood, wine dripping from his clothing. “He is dead,” he said to Hunter. “And bleeding. The wine will be ruined. I—”
“Shut up about the wine!” I demanded. “And get down here!” I pointed at the floor at my feet.
Samson's face instantly set in hard, obstinate lines, but he slowly came down the ladder, leaving Dimitri hanging over the lip of the tank, his arms extending down, grape juice dripping from his dead fingers. I tried not to look at his face, but I couldn't help it. His eyes were open and his jaw was sagging. He seemed to be looking right at me.
I shuddered and tore my eyes away, the half-eaten halibut rising in my throat.
This was not the first time I had seen a murder victim up close – just last year I had found my neighbor, Kevin Harlan, dead in my vineyard, his head caved in by a brutal beating - but it wasn’t any easier the second time around. I had to fight hard to keep from vomiting, breathing fast and ragged through my nose, the musty-yeasty smell of the crushed grapes almost overwhelming me.
Samson stopped at the foot of the ladder and looked up at Dimitri. “The wine—”
He stopped mid-sentence as Hunter holstered his gun and brushed past him. Hunter climbed the ladder and felt for a pulse, but we all knew he wouldn’t find one. It was obvious Dimitri was dead.
Hunt came slowly back down the ladder.
“Is he—?” Alexandra whispered, drifting slowly toward the tank where her husband lay dead.
Hunter nodded. “I'm afraid so.” He looked at me. “Claire, please take Mrs. Pappos upstairs.” He dug his cell phone from his front pocket. “And tell everyone at the party to stop drinking and sit down. No one leaves until we get statements from them all.”
I started toward Alexandra, but she kept coming my way. She didn’t stop when I held my hand out to her; she didn’t even seem to see me, she went to Samson and stopped, facing him, close enough to touch.
“Is a vendetta so sweet you would do this to me? You would make a widow of me?” she asked him. Her voice was small and uncertain, almost like a little girl's. The tears continued to track through her makeup, blurring her features.
Samson's shook his head. “I did not kill him,” he said. “I found him like this, Alexandra.” He added another few words in Greek, a language of which I only knew the curse words - thanks to Samson’s constant use of them - but Alexandra understood what he said. Her tears intensified and her shoulders began to heave. I wanted to go to her, to console her, but I remained frozen. The situation was so grim I didn’t know what to do.
Hunter got me unstuck. “Claire…” he said.
I nodded, went to the widow and put my arm across her shoulders. I turned her away from Samson and her dead husband and guided her to the stairs. Blake was standing at the bottom by then, looking up at Dimitri, a hollow look in his eyes.
“Ruined,” he whispered to himself. “I'm ruined.” He sounded as if he could barely breathe.
“Blake,” I snapped. “Quit gawking and come back upstairs.” Between Samson worrying about a few hundred gallons of wine and Blake worrying about his business, I was fast losing faith in my fellow human beings.
Blake looked at Alexandra and flushed. He nodded. “Sorry,” he said as we went past him. He looked back up at Dimitri. “God, I am sorry,” he said, then turned and followed us up the stairs.
The two chefs and a trio of waiters were crowded into the hall. I gave them a glare and said, “Go back to the kitchen and wait there; the police will be here soon.” I must have sounded pretty rough, because they didn’t linger. They scattered like ducks, racing to get out of my path.
I took Alexandra to the living room and sat her on the sofa where just a short time ago Dimitri had been complaining. The bloody tea towel lay over the arm of the sofa, the ice having melted. I picked it up and tucked it into the pocket of my dress in a sodden mass.
“I am so sorry, Alexandra,” I said as I sat beside her and squeezed her hand.
Jessica came into the room. “What happened? I heard Dimitri has been hurt?” she asked, looking from me to Alexandra in bewilderment.
“He's dead,” Alexandra said in the same little-girl voice she had used when she spoke to Samson. “Dead,” she repeated. “Murdered.”
Jessica looked at me. The look on my face must have frozen out any other questions she had.
I stood and released Alexandra’s hand. “Fix Alexandra a scotch and sit with her,” I said. “I have to talk to the guests.”
Jessica is an elementary school teacher, long on patience and sympathy; she needed no prodding. She nodded and turned to the bar as I left the room.
I felt like a witch for abandoning Alexandra; I could have sent Jessica outside to corral the guests while I sat with the widow, but my mind was too confused and swirling; I was afraid I would not have been much comfort to her. What I had seen in the cellar was so shocking I was still having trouble assimilating it. Dimitri dead and Samson pawing at the body, covered in the dead man’s blood. Could Samson have? Would he have?
No! I had known Samson for more than twenty years; he was a grouchy hothead with a sharp tongue, but he was no murderer.
God, I hoped I was right.
The waiters and cooks were huddled in the kitchen as I passed through. The conversation stopped and all eyes turned to me, but I paid them no mind. I continued out the back door and across the patio.
My eyes shot out across the valley, now cloaked in an inky darkness alleviated only by the tiny twinkling lights of homes, businesses, and wineries. With the cloudless night sky above illuminated by millions of stars, it was hard to determine where the world ended and the heavens began. It was almost impossible for me to believe there had been a murder committed amidst such beauty.
Most of my guests were clustered near the wine cellar door. Every one of them looked more curious than frightened. And they were all whispering. A few of them had gotten a glimpse of the crime scene before I had slammed the door closed and they were regaling the others with gruesome details. No one seemed to be considering the fact that there was a murderer in their midst. They sipped their wine and speculated as if this was a TV drama staged for their amusement. Their attitude infuriated me after what I had just seen, but I tried to keep my temper in check as I raised my voice and spoke.
“Please, everyone, back to the tent. Sheriff Drake has asked that everyone sit down and wait for the police to arrive.”
“So, he really is dead?” Armand Rivincita, asked, his voice edged with more than curiosity. He sounded deflated, and he looked pale and shaken. I wondered instantly why he was so affected, but I had little time to consider it before I was bombarded with questions and accusations from all sides.
“Did Samson kill him?”
“Did Marjory?
“I bet it was Angela!”
“Samson was strangling him!” someone shouted from the back of the crowd. “I saw it!”
“I saw blood. I think he shot Dimitri!” someone else called out.
“Ding-dong, the witch is dead!” a half drunk voice added from the back of the mob. A few people tittered, while most looked mortified.
“Please, sit down! A man is dead!” I shouted angrily. This wasn't some kind of joke. I didn’t like Dimitri either, but respect for the dead was something every person should understand without scolding.
The voices died, but I got a few baleful looks. People started drifting off to the tent. I turned back toward the cellar door and almost jumped out of my sandals when I found Jorge McCullers standing directly behind me.
“You seen Angela?” he asked, his eyes panning over the departing crowd. There was grass clinging to Jorge’s clothes and his face was wrinkled from sleep. “I must have dozed off while I was waiting for the cab. What's going on back here?” he said, waving a hand at the people under the tent, most of them whispering again and shooting looks at the two of us. I wasn’t paying attention to them. My eyes had fixed on Jorge's right hand.
It was covered in blood.
; My heart lurched in my chest and I took a startled step back, my eyes pinned to his bloody hand. Angela had accused Dimitri of ruining her less than thirty minutes ago...
Jorge saw me looking at his hand. He looked at it too then held it up, slick with blood.
“Nose bleed,” he said. “High blood pressure. Drinking makes it worse.”
I nodded dumbly and took another step away from him. My feet seemed to stick to the grass, my legs leaden. There was more blood on Jorge’s shirt. A splash of it blotted his jeans.
“What’s going on?” he asked again. “Why are you looking at me that way?”
“Wait under the tent, Jorge,” I said, my voice compressed to a thin squeak. The sound of a siren reached me. And then another. “The police are coming,” I said and bolted past him. I crossed the lawn, jerked open the cellar door and ducked inside.
Hunter had Marjory seated on the chair at Samson’s hopelessly cluttered desk. Samson was on the other side of the room, far from the tanks and the still dangling Dimitri, leaning against the destemmer, a sulky look on his face.
“I did not kill him,” he said loudly, his voice echoing off the stone walls, though I’m not sure if he was talking to me or to Hunter. “But I am not sorry he is dead,” he added defiantly.
“Wonderful,” I said and his pout deepened. Only Samson would be crass enough to make that kind of statement just moments after being found hovering over the body of a murdered man. I made a slashing motion at my throat to shut him up then realized how horrible that gesture was at that moment.
“Claire, you can wait outside with the rest,” Hunter said, catching the gesture and frowning with distaste.
I shook my head. “I’m not going anywhere until I talk to you.” I hesitated to say more in front of Marjory and Samson.
“Claire,” he said just that single word, but his chilly tone made me bristle.
“Hunter,” I said just as coldly. “Now!”
Hunter turned to Marjory. “Stay right here and no talking to Samson. I want your stories one on one.”
“It’s not a story—” Marjory began, but Hunt held up a warning finger and she stopped talking. Her face was wet with tears, her clothes sopping with grape juice. I had never seen her look so dejected and ill at ease. Marjory was never at a loss for words. In fact, she usually said the worst possible thing at the worst possible moment. And, while I had often wished she’d just shut up, I was saddened to see her reduced to this forlorn, dejected lady in a wet dress.
