Sin And Vengeance

by West, CJ

  The driver stomped off to his cab and maneuvered his truck over to the fermentation room. Meanwhile, Charlie backed the forklift out of the cramped warehouse, through the processing room, the cellar, and down between the fermentation tanks. The truck was in place when he arrived.

  Charlie shuttled back and forth between the stainless steel tanks, deftly aligning pallet loads of steel barrels in a long row in front of the oak-barrel tower. When only two pallets remained, he paused considering what to do with the final eight barrels. In his loading frenzy back in Piolenc, he neglected to mark the barrels or record the number of the container he’d hidden them in. He regretted his haste now as he climbed down and tapped the bottom half of each barrel. The echoes all sounded the same, so he stacked both pallets safely on top of the others, unsure what he’d find inside.

  The second truck arrived early and waited several minutes for Charlie to finish the first load. When the first truck pulled away and the second truck was in position, he repeated the process, filling every available space in the fermentation room with shiny black barrels. When he was done, he parked the forklift in front of a tall stainless steel tank with the last pallet raised. He couldn’t resist tapping on the barrels and listening for air pockets before going off to find the truck driver.

  The driver was exactly where Charlie expected to find him. He stood at the tasting counter swirling a generous sample of Chardonnay. Lily’s eyes were locked with his, her hands on the bottle ready to supply a refill. He sniffed grandly and gulped nearly half a glass without pause to taste what he was swilling. At that pace, he could have swallowed a bottle or more while Charlie unloaded his truck. He hoped she wasn’t foolish enough to serve him that much. Seeing her enchanted gaze, Charlie imagined she’d do whatever he asked.

  Lily raised the bottle, but Charlie thrust his hand over the driver’s glass blocking her motion to refill it. “Truck’s ready. Are you?” Charlie stepped up close and looked him over. He was fortyish with overstuffed cheeks and a belly that pushed forward and up from beneath his blue work shirt as if he were six months pregnant on diner food and donuts. At two-fifty, he could handle a few glasses of Chardonnay. His eyes were clear.

  “I’m fine.” He smiled at Lily and she beamed at him as if he were a Greek God. Her eyes never left him as he turned from the counter, and tromped out across the shells to his truck.

  Charlie waited until he couldn’t hear the footsteps and then patted the counter to bring Lily back to reality. “Easy on the samples. I don’t mind giving away wine, but that guy’s driving a huge truck.”

  “He only had two glasses.”

  Charlie stared incredulously into her eyes, but her long straight nose and thin lips so resembled a chickadee he couldn’t help smiling. “Could you live with yourself if he plowed into a school bus? I know I couldn’t.”

  “I’ll be careful,” she said remorsefully.

  Charlie left her and sealed himself inside the barn. Any thoughts he had about Lily’s heavy-handedness causing legal problems were replaced by daydreams as he began ratcheting off the top of the first barrel. Beneath the lid he found fifty-five gallons of wine. Disappointed, he wheeled two heavy cylinders to the stainless steel tank and pumped in a thick buffer of carbon dioxide. As the gas hissed, he extracted a sample, resealed the lid, and walked back to the office to assess the shipping damage.

  Separating his sample among the test tubes on the counter top reminded him of his time at U.C. Davis. He diluted two samples and began running his tests. In a few minutes, he was surprised to see the total acidity, total sugar content, and sulfur dioxide precisely where he hoped they’d be. This barrel had come through shipping quite well, although he wondered about the taste. Back at the barrel, Charlie dipped himself a sample. Not bad, he thought as he slipped in the hose and started the flow into the huge holding tank.

  As the wine level fell, he sensed that he wasn’t alone in the barn. He wondered if the customs inspectors might allow an illicit shipment through then follow it to the perpetrators. He could feel the eyes watching him, waiting for him to take the money and link himself to the killing outside Piolenc.

  The pump slurped at the bottom of the barrel. Startled, Charlie switched it off and slipped outside the barn where he stretched casually as if taking a break. His eyes probed the parking area and the tree line beyond. Only Lily’s Volkswagen and Sebastian’s Buick were in the lot. The buds on the trees were just breaking into little clumps of green and Charlie could see well within the tree line. Nothing looked unusual. On the other side of the barn was a vast expanse of budding vines. No one could hide there this time of year, not in the daytime.

  Charlie went back inside and set to work pumping more barrels into the holding tank. He found only wine in the two pallets that had been at the back of the second container, so he knew where the money-filled barrels were: stacked well beyond the forklift’s reach at the back of the room. If the containers had arrived in the reverse order, he’d be hiding the money, but instead he found himself rushing through his work, desperate to finish before Sebastian returned. The alcohol content had risen in some barrels, but overall the wine endured shipping better than he had hoped. This did little to relieve the tension of seeing the containers that held his fortune and not being able to reach them.

  By late afternoon, there was a haphazard pile of empty barrels outside the loading area ready to be picked up and recycled. Charlie’s bruised ribs were aching as was his knee from rushing around from pump to barrel to forklift. He absently slipped the hose into the next barrel. About a foot down it knocked against something solid. Through the shallow layer of wine, the oak slats zigzagged across the barrel, hiding the prize beneath. He quickly retracted the hose to keep it away from the marine sealant and shot looks at each doorway. He’d been alone all day and now that privacy was imperative he hoped Sebastian wouldn’t stumble in.

  He cut a short section of clear tubing and siphoned the wine into an empty barrel. As his eyes cut back and forth from the barn doors to the painfully slow trickle of wine, he wished he’d found a wider tube. The level dipped slowly to the bottom and he tipped the barrel and let the siphon suck out all the wine it could. Finally, he wiped the insides with a rag and set to work freeing the lid. He scraped at the sealant, removing strips of clear sticky goo, but the residue sealed the lid firmly in place. The fit was too snug to push it deeper into the barrel, which was why he’d chosen this barrel and lid combination. After minutes of prying around the edges with a screwdriver, expecting Sebastian to come in and discover him, Charlie made one last trip to the tool closet and returned with a sledge. Three solid strikes cracked a hole in the lid wide enough to pull out the plastic and get a hand on the money underneath. He brushed away droplets of wine and fanned a thick packet of hundreds. There were over sixty thousand of the bills in the barrel, more than six million dollars crying out for a hiding place.

  He took two armloads of wine boxes from the warehouse, assembled them, and packed the bills inside. The next barrel he opened had a familiar oak lid submerged under fifteen gallons of wine. He swiftly siphoned the wine, smashed the lid, and then packed the bills into boxes. The pallet had two remaining barrels. Charlie rapped them with his knuckles, found the money-filled barrel, and drained off the wine. As the sledge crashed down on the oak lid, a voice boomed across the fermentation room with fiery authority, “Move away from that barrel!”

  Charlie dropped the sledge, his heart pounding, his face white with panic.

  Randy was standing just inside the cellar door.

  “You asshole!”

  “Did I scare you?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I saw the containers drive up and I thought I’d come in and help.”

  “That was hours ago.”

  “I’m a slow walker.”

  Charlie turned away from Randy and smashed the sledge through the oak lid. “Help me fill up these boxes.”

  Randy obliged.

  When they were
done, Randy backed up his van to the barn and they loaded it. Charlie had a strange feeling about the argument they’d had the day before. Randy showed no hint of ill feelings whatsoever, like it never happened. Nine million dollars could improve anyone’s mood, but Charlie sensed this was a different man than the one he’d known for the last few months. Charlie watched his every expression as they shuttled the money to Charlie’s front door.

  “Where do you want these?” Randy asked.

  “Just drop them inside. I’ll put them somewhere later.”

  “The attic no doubt.” Randy grinned at Charlie’s reaction. He set the last box down inside the door, got in the van and drove away without a word. No snappy comment, no insults, no invitations for a drink. Randy slipped away.

  Charlie was certain he’d be back.

  Charlie sat on the boxes thinking about what Randy had said. The attic was his first choice for a hiding place, but Randy’s comment made him leery. Randy talked of morality and righteousness, but that wouldn’t stop him from stealing Charlie’s half of the money. Charlie considered doing what Brad Perry had done and hiding it in an interior wall, but getting it out was nearly impossible.

  Still unsure of himself, but unable to come up with something better, Charlie hefted the first box up the stairs and then up the narrow set of pull-down stairs to the attic. Small gable windows lit several clusters of items stacked on the pine planks as if the previous residents had piled their belongings in assigned storage locations. Charlie could walk erect underneath the peak and he followed it as he hunted for a hiding place. He chose the largest pile of clutter and slid his box in behind it. He browsed the contents of an open box as he left: a broken tennis racket, small pink roller skates, a torn lampshade, and a little leaguer’s wooden bat.

  Charlie carried the bat down to his room and headed to the hall for another box. With each step, he knew the attic was a mistake, but he kept moving. The stash was too big for a safe deposit box and he couldn’t deposit the money in any American bank. Before he could come up with a better hiding place, the boxes were stacked like half a dozen cases of wine from the warehouse. They’d probably go unnoticed among the warehouse inventory for months, but once discovered, they’d disappear. He decided to trust the attic. He climbed down and pushed the stairs back up, haunted by the knowledge that Randy knew just where to look.

  Through Deirdre’s half-open door, he noticed the leather suitcase from France flat on the floor with another canvas bag on top. He passed the dresser, covered with cosmetics and various primping tools and squatted next to the cases. He opened the bottom case enough to see the green and white stacks flush to the top. She left over a million dollars in plain sight when she could have easily stuffed it in the closet or under the bed. Maybe, the million didn’t seem important since she knew how much Charlie and Randy had divided. Whatever her reasons, Deirdre was acting strangely.

  Charlie walked back to the barn thinking about Deirdre and Randy, much as he’d started his day. He retrieved the barrel he’d filled with contaminated wine, wrestled it onto a hand-truck, and wheeled it out toward the stone wall. When he got there, he felt like he’d been lined up against a three-hundred pound lineman all day. His ribs ached and his knee was throbbing. He tipped the barrel over and watched the wine carve tiny canyons in the grass as it rushed down toward the stone wall and the vines beyond. Charlie moved a few feet uphill and dropped to the grass.

  “What is that sparkling fertilizer?” Sebastian hollered.

  Charlie startled. He hadn’t noticed Sebastian approaching from a forty acre field. “Just one contaminated barrel,” Charlie retorted, wishing he’d chosen another word.

  Sebastian poked his foot into a crevice, hopped up on the wall, and jumped down on the near side. He skirted the wine puddle and joined Charlie on the grass. The setting sun painted the sky over the vineyard like a child’s orange and pink watercolor. “How’d you ruin the wine there, Rookie?” Sebastian asked.

  Sebastian envied Charlie’s time at U.C. Davis and this explanation would get several retellings to anyone who’d listen. Charlie wondered what his father would think when he heard Sebastian’s version of the story.

  “Come on. What happened?” Sebastian prodded.

  “I’m not sure. The barrel head must have been loose. Something got inside and fouled it.”

  “You sure it wasn’t the heat?”

  “Who knows. It was definitely foul. I couldn’t risk the whole batch.”

  Sebastian looked off into the distance and Charlie waited, hoping he’d accept the explanation and let it go.

  “You know the last time we poured out wine around here?”

  Charlie pounced, glad to redirect. “No idea.”

  “Fifteen years ago they poured out a hundred sixty thousand bottles.”

  Charlie had heard his father’s version of the story several times. “Why would anyone put anti-freeze in Chardonnay?”

  “Sabotage.”

  “What?” Charlie asked.

  “Don’t tell me you believe that BS about Joyet using it as a sweetener?”

  “How could you know? You weren’t here then and besides, you were just a kid.”

  “So were you.”

  Sebastian’s point stung. Everything Charlie knew about Marston Vineyards came from his father. “I heard a competitor found the propylene glycol. Joyet used it as a sweetener because it doesn’t change the alcohol content.” Charlie’s words sounded contrived even to him; his father’s words, from his mouth.

  “Nope. It was sabotage.”

  “I’d buy industrial espionage if we were talking about a multimillion dollar business, but this was one small winery. How could someone put anti-freeze in the wine without Joyet knowing?”

  “It happened.”

  “You sound pretty sure for someone who wasn’t here.” Charlie forgot his own subterfuge for the moment.

  “I worked a few summers for Joyet. I know he wouldn’t do something like that.”

  “Maybe he was desperate. Maybe no one knew but him.”

  “Joyet was like your dad. He never touched the wine except to drink it.”

  “So he killed himself for nothing?”

  “The bankers killed him.”

  “You’re not making any sense. He died in a car accident.”

  “After they called his loans. They forced him into bankruptcy and he drank himself into a stupor. He drove his car into that bridge abutment and killed himself and his wife, but it wasn’t his fault.”

  “So you blame the bankers?”

  “For starters.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Charlie walked through the front door, numbed by Sebastian’s words. He sat on the edge of the leather chair and stared through the window, seeing snippets of childhood memories rather than newly budding leaves. Oliver Joyet would be sitting here if his parents hadn’t died and left him a distressed winery he was too young to resurrect. According to Sebastian, Charlie’s father paid the loans and bought Oliver’s share of the winery for two million dollars. Some children might fantasize about trading their parents for such a great deal of money, but Oliver had been engulfed by the miserable turmoil of a newly orphaned teenager. Without local relatives to care for him, Oliver went to live with a pious aunt somewhere in Illinois. Charlie tried to imagine being uprooted at thirteen, forced to start a new life in a new town, with a stranger as his only family.

  The memories of boyhood were everywhere around the winery. Many long spring and summer days were passed pruning, trimming, and later harvesting the fruit from the vines. Both boys learned to drive the same tractor, now retired in the bushes overlooking the vineyard. And both boys developed a taste for Chardonnay hidden among the stacks at the back of the warehouse. Charlie lived in sight of his memories and he wondered where Oliver had ended up.

  Sebastian said nothing of Oliver once he moved west, but he eagerly shared the rumors of sabotage that swirled around the winery when the Marstons moved in. Charlie’s youth a
nd his lineage had insulated him. Before he was old enough to question his father’s version of events, the loose-lipped workers were replaced and the rumors promptly died. Charlie had lived at the winery five years, made friends among the vineyard hands and the winery crew, but he’d never heard a whisper of the rumors or what had become of Oliver Joyet until today.

  Sebastian’s indictment of Charles was a great risk; a word from Charlie and he’d be unemployed. He said nothing of the new wineries, but the steadiness in his eyes had Charlie questioning his father’s rapid rise to wealth. All six wineries Charles bought had been near bankruptcy.

  Charlie trembled with a wave of uncertainty about his father’s methods.

  Charlie had grown up on stories of his father’s genius and how his metrics and new processes miraculously turned failing wineries into profitable enterprises. But in light of Sebastian’s story, all these paper changes seem tangential to the real work of a winery. Charles managed numbers, while Charlie preferred to work within sight of the fermentation tanks. To him, the business was about quality wine, everything else would follow. Even before his injury, Charlie had chosen to study chemistry. Perhaps he’d known he’d wind up here to balance his father’s focus on numbers with a focus on wine.

  Charlie buried his head in his hands and for the first time he heard the shower running in the bathroom behind him. Water pelted the shower curtain, quieted, and then hit the floor en masse as if an armload of water had been collected and dropped. Deirdre moved around underneath the spray and squeaked the valve closed stopping the hum of water. A towel ruffled on the other side of the wall, followed by footsteps on dripping wet linoleum.

  …

  In the bathroom, Deirdre studied her reflection. The lines around her eyes were deepening with each sleepless night. She turned sideways to see her waistline trimmer than it had been in ten years. She lifted her breast accentuating the curve to her flat stomach. Guilt was a weight loss miracle although not a total beauty solution, as her eyes would attest. Working in the fields with Sebastian toned her arms and legs and burned more calories than she could force herself to replenish. There was no scale in the house, but she assumed she was less than one-ten.