Pinot Red or Dead?

by J. C. Eaton

“Okay. I really hope nothing’s wrong with your wine.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  The next call I placed was to the Yates County Sheriff’s Department. Since it didn’t classify as an emergency that required flashing lights and an ear-piercing siren, I used their general number and had to wait for what seemed like eons before someone answered my call. For a moment, I thought I had reached a recording.

  “You’ve reached the non-emergency number for the Yates County Sheriff’s Department. If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 9-1-1. Phones are answered daily from seven to six, including weekends. How may I assist you?”

  A person! A real person. “Yes. Hello. This is Norrie Ellington from Two Witches Winery on Two Witches Hill in Penn Yan. I’m calling to report a crime. Not an emergency. I mean, there’s no dead body or anything like the last two times, but someone tampered with one of our wine barrels and destroyed gallons of expensive wine.”

  “Are you the owner of the winery?”

  “Yes. Along with my sister, but she’s in Costa Rica looking for a rare insect. Can you please send a deputy over here?”

  There was a long pause at the other end and I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t’ve mentioned the bug trekking in Costa Rica. Finally, the voice at the other end answered.

  “I’ve placed a call to Deputy Hickman. He’s in the vicinity and will be at your winery as soon as he becomes available. Don’t touch anything or otherwise compromise the scene of the vandalism. Is there anything else I can assist you with?”

  “Um, er…no. That’s fine. Thanks.”

  “Have a nice day.”

  Have a nice day? Have a nice day? How can I possibly have a nice day?

  I walked over to Herbert’s desk where everyone was standing. “The sheriff’s deputy will be here as soon as he can.”

  “At least we’ll be able to provide him with accurate information.” Franz’s voice was robotic and void of emotion. “We bottled fifteen cases yesterday so that means ninety liters, or ten potential cases, were destroyed.”

  “Deputy Hickman’s going to ask for the monetary value.”

  “Right here on the computer!” Herbert shouted. “Lake-to-Lake Wine Distributors pays us seventeen dollars a bottle—two hundred four dollars a case. At ten cases—”

  “Yeah, even I can do the math. It’s a two-thousand-dollar loss, roughly speaking. Geez. I’d better have Lizzie pull up our insurance policy. For all I know, we could have a five-thousand-dollar deductible. No sense reporting something we can’t recoup.”

  “Maybe that’s what the thieves or vandals were counting on,” Alan said, “winery losses that fall under the radar.”

  I picked up my mug and took a large gulp of the now lukewarm coffee. “But why? None of this makes any sense. It’s not like that hijacking the other day. That wine could be resold.”

  Alan stepped away from Herbert’s computer screen, looked out the window, and then turned his head toward me. “Like I said before, someone knew exactly what they were doing. This wasn’t some idiotic frat-boy prank. They’d pour sugar or salt into the barrel. No, someone wanted us to think we overused the calcium carbonate. But that’s something amateur winemakers do. Not trained professionals. What concerns me is their motive.”

  “You know what Deputy Hickman’s going to ask, don’t you? ‘Do we have any disgruntled employees?’”

  The room got suddenly quiet, and the only sound I heard was the faint buzzing of the desktop computers.

  Chapter 4

  “Is that someone pulling up the driveway?” I asked. “I hear a car. It’s got to be the sheriff’s vehicle.”

  Alan walked to the window again. “Nope. It’s a Honda Civic.”

  “That’s Theo’s car. I’ll let him in.”

  The corridor seemed longer than I remembered, maybe because I was in a hurry to get to the door.

  “Must be the west side wineries’ lucky day,” Theo said when I opened the door and ushered him inside. Instead of following me back to the office, he remained standing in place. “Looks like your barrels weren’t the only ones meddled with. They hit us, too.”

  “Oh no. That’s awful. Bad enough they got us.”

  Theo looked as if someone had punched him in the gut. “Right now, Don’s meeting with our winemakers to assess the damages. I take it you already called the sheriff’s department.”

  “Yes. Deputy Hickman will get here as soon as he can. So, did they do the same thing at the Grey Egret? Calcium carbonate?”

  “They did something. Our winemaker’s testing a sample right now. Same deal as you, though. None of our steel barrels were disturbed, but the one French oak barrel we have has been tampered with.”

  “Pinot Noir?”

  He nodded. “Unlike you, we hadn’t started bottling that barrel. It’s going to be a total loss for us. Crap! That’s three hundred bottles! I can only hope our other varieties will make up for it.”

  Okay. Two wineries in one day. We can nix the disgruntled employee thing. I mean, how many miserable employees can there be who have a penchant for wine tampering?

  “I’m so sorry, Theo. This is a nightmare. And on the first day of ‘Deck the Halls around the Lake,’ too.”

  Theo furrowed his brow. “I don’t think the timing was a coincidence. Whoever did this most likely thought we’d be so preoccupied with the lake festival we wouldn’t be checking our wines for bottling. I guess they didn’t realize our winemakers have their own schedules—and working weekends goes with the territory. Listen, I’d better get back to Don. Do me a favor and send Grizzly Gary our way as soon as he’s done getting your info.”

  “Sure thing. And we’d better stop calling him that. I’m afraid I’m going to slip one of these days and say it out loud in front of him.”

  Theo laughed. “He’s probably heard worse.”

  I closed the door behind him and stood there for a moment before I walked back to the office.

  “They hit the Grey Egret, too,” I announced as soon as I got back to the room. “Theo was only here for a second. Worse for them. They hadn’t even started to bottle their Pinot Noir.”

  “Oh no. That’s too bad. Coincidence or not?” Herbert asked. “About it being Pinot Noir. Then again, I think it had more to do with the size and accessibility of the oak barrels than the actual contents, but I could be wrong. You think any other wineries were targeted?”

  Just then there was a loud pounding on our winery door. I almost jumped out of my skin. “Must be Deputy Hickman. Geez, I didn’t even hear the car drive up. I’ll let him in.”

  Five minutes later, Franz, Alan, Herbert, and I were on the receiving end of Deputy Gary Hickman’s personal version of a root canal. Talk about digging around.

  “No, I don’t know anyone who had it in for our winery,” all of us said in our own way. That was followed by the men insisting it couldn’t have been a love interest seeking to get even for a miserable breakup and me claiming I didn’t have any jealous exes. What I did have were the occasional dates with hunky attorney Bradley Jamison—when he wasn’t mired under working for his boss, Marvin Souza, in Geneva.

  Deputy Hickman arranged for a forensics crew to dust for fingerprints, but he wasn’t optimistic about the results.

  “Even a moron would be wearing gloves in this weather,” he said.

  I told him about the situation at the Grey Egret and he agreed to stop over there as it was only a few yards down the driveway. That was after he lectured me about protocol and how Theo and Don should’ve called the non-emergency number to report the incident. All in all, it was a miserable morning.

  Franz sent the other winemakers home for the day and said he’d stay while the forensics crew scoured the place for evidence. I prayed they would arrive in an unmarked car. Somehow, the thought of their van, parked in plain sight of the tasting room, wasn’t exactly my idea of
holiday ambience.

  I drove home, scarfed down some toast, and changed into a red and green holiday-themed winery sweatshirt for the “Deck the Halls” event. The sweatshirt featured two witches (duh!) stirring a cauldron. The caption read, “Whip up your own holiday magic this season!” Just don’t do it in our oak barrels.

  I agreed to man the welcome table at the entrance of the tasting room. I’d present the attendees with their grapevine wreath and the small cookbook with the recipes for today’s canapes—unless we weren’t their starting point. In that case, they’d flash their tickets and go to another table for their little souvenir. From there, the customers would receive a complimentary wineglass and would be directed to the food and wine tasting tables.

  At least one thing was in my favor—despite the early morning wake-up disaster, I got to the tasting room in plenty of time. Our parking lot had only begun to fill up.

  “Good morning, Norrie!” Lizzie said from her spot at the cash register. “You look as if you could use a strong cup of coffee. Late night on your screenplay?”

  “No. More like early morning with Franz and his crew. Have you seen Cammy?”

  “She’s in the kitchen getting a batch of Pinot Noir truffles ready.”

  “I’d better not disturb her. Looks like she has my welcome table set up near the first tasting room table. I don’t suppose I’ve got time to grab that coffee, huh?”

  “You won’t need to. Fred’s bringing a few carafes over here for us. We’ve got him well-trained for these events.”

  Fifteen minutes later, I was in full winery-event party mode: big smile on my face, enough caffeine to prevent me from falling asleep standing up, and a boisterous crowd of festival goers showing me their tickets with Two Witches listed as their starting point.

  After the first hour, I hardly noticed my head spinning. I was on auto-pilot, repeating the same greeting over and over. Mercifully, most of the attendees had checked in by noon. At that point, the pace slowed down substantially. I couldn’t say the same for everyone else. The tasting room tables were filled to capacity, and the food line snaked around the room. Our part-time college workers, along with the regular crew, were so busy none of us had time to chat.

  At a little past one, Fred came around with bite-size sandwiches and a few pitchers of grape juice. We followed the golden rule during tastings—no alcohol for employees—not until we closed for the day. The last thing any winery needed was a reputation for employees drinking wine on the job, even if only a smidgeon.

  I looked for a rotund, double-chinned man but saw no sign of Arnold Mowen. That wasn’t to say he wasn’t here, only that I hadn’t seen him. I did see a few people I recognized from town, including Gladys Pipp from the Yates County Public Safety Building. She had the day off and, along with a friend, purchased tickets for “Deck the Halls around the Lake.” Both were wearing headbands with big reindeer ears. Nothing like getting into the holiday spirit.

  A zillion conversations buzzed around me, but when I heard the words “flashing red and blue lights,” I froze. My eyes darted all over to see who was talking and I swear, my pulse started beating overtime. The forensic investigators should’ve been long gone by now. They should have been gone hours ago. And they shouldn’t have used their flashers. Who the hell was talking? Who said the words “flashing lights?”

  I stepped back from my table and took a few steps to the right, and then to the left. Whoever mentioned the lights had a shrill voice and a giggle. The giggle was coming from a group of twenty-something women. All of them wore black sequined T-shirts with appliques of wineglasses and/or bottles.

  I moved closer and tried to isolate the speaker. Impossible. Finally, I motioned to the entire group. “Excuse me. Sorry to bother you but one of you mentioned seeing red and blue vehicle flashers. Were they on our property?” Please tell me no.

  A tall blonde with one thin streak of bright red in her hair shook her head. “Nope. Big scene at the other winery. Which was one was it, Corina?”

  Another blonde, heavy-set and no streaks in her hair answered. “Billsburrow, I think. It was the one off the main road and up the hill.”

  “What happened? Do you know what happened?”

  “It couldn’t’ve been that bad,” the tall blonde said, “because there was no fire truck and no ambulance.”

  Unless they didn’t need them because they were waiting for the coroner.

  “Was the sheriff’s vehicle at the winery or the house? Do you remember?” I tried to keep my voice at a normal pitch, but it wasn’t working.

  The blonde answered. “Neither. It was by their barn. All I could see were flashing lights and some of those big steel tanks.”

  “Okay, thanks. You’re probably right. It could’ve been anything. Sorry to interrupt. Enjoy the event.”

  The women had already turned away from me and were on their way over to the food line. With no one at my table, I pulled out my cell phone and called Billsburrow Winery. Francine had insisted I add all the neighboring wineries’ phone numbers to my contacts list, and I was glad she had. Someone answered on the third ring.

  “Hi!” I said. “This is Norrie Ellington from Two Witches Winery. Is Madeline Martinez available?”

  Madeline, the owner of Billsburrow Winery, along with her husband, was the head of our Wineries of the West group, formally known as Women of the Wineries but recently changed so Theo and Don could join us.

  “Hold on,” the voice at the other end said. “I’ll get her.”

  I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to say, but it didn’t matter. Madeline spoke before I had the chance to say hello.

  “Norrie! My God! The most awful thing happened. Oh dear, I shouldn’t have phrased it that way because no one’s hurt and no one’s dead. But it’s still awful. Someone drained the Pinot Noir from our oak barrel. They must’ve connected a hose and turned the spigot because the barrel wasn’t set on its side for tastings. We didn’t find out about it until a little while ago. A few of the festival goers decided to walk around on their own and thought they saw blood in the snow.”

  “Oh no. Was all the wine drained?”

  “All two hundred twenty-five liters, I’m afraid. My husband called the sheriff and they sent someone over. My God, Norrie, who’d want to do something like that?”

  “I could be wrong, but maybe the same person who sabotaged our Pinot Noir and the Grey Egret’s.”

  “What?”

  “Our winemaker woke me at the crack of dawn to tell me the wine had been tainted. He and his assistants arrived at the winery early so they could finish bottling. They tested the wine, and it had an overdose of calcium carbonate. I’m not sure if overdose is the right word, but you know what I mean. A similar thing happened at the Grey Egret. Their winemaker’s still testing the product, so I’m not sure if the same substance was used to destroy the wine.”

  “My God! At first, I thought maybe someone had an issue with us. For the life of me, I can’t imagine who. Our winery hasn’t received any complaints from the wine association or the local business bureau.”

  “Is the sheriff’s deputy still there? I called you because I overheard people talking about an emergency vehicle at your winery. Naturally I was concerned.”

  “Oh, Norrie, how sweet of you. Especially with all the ‘Deck the Halls’ hubbub going on. This place is a madhouse. People in, people out, and the same holiday music playing nonstop. I swear if I hear ‘Frosty the Snowman’ one more time, I’m likely to explode.”

  “Don’t feel bad. ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ is on a loop at our place.”

  “Deputy Hickman left about forty minutes ago. Said he’d be back to speak with us after we closed for the day. Just what we all need. These events are always demanding, but this tops the cake. I’m really stressed about our loss. First thing Monday, we’ll have to let Miller Holtz know they can’t expect
any oak-aged Pinot Noir from us. Not that it was that much, but it was the most expensive variety we had.”

  “Um, speaking of Miller Holtz, have you seen his boss at the event? Arnold Mowen?”

  “No, I haven’t. Trust me, he’ll be hard to miss.”

  “Really? There are lots of balding, overweight, middle-aged men at these events.”

  “Not one with a voluptuous platinum blonde on his arm wearing enough gold to sink a ship.”

  “He has a trophy wife? I didn’t think he was married. And I didn’t think he was bringing anyone. At least not according to Miller Holtz.”

  “No wife. A trophy girlfriend, and it’s not him she’s attached to, it’s his bank account. Maybe you’ll spot him tomorrow. Frankly, I hope I don’t run into the old buzzard. I’m still reeling about our lower compensation rates. Market prices my patootie! He’s probably pocketing that extra money for her next piece of jewelry.”

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “About a year ago, I met her at a fancy wine tasting benefit in Ithaca. Lavettia something-or-other. The competing rocks on her fingers nearly blinded me. All she could talk about was how Arnold promised to buy her a LeVian chocolate diamond bracelet for Valentine’s Day. And to think, I’m happy if my husband stops at Walgreens and brings me a box of milk chocolates. Goodness, I can’t believe I’m spouting off about all of this when I really should be concerned about our wines. I still can’t imagine who’d want to hurt our business.”

  “Did Deputy Hickman ask you about disgruntled employees? Because that was his take when he met with us. Frankly, I don’t think these damages were caused by a nutcase on our payroll. I hate to say it, but it doesn’t take a real genius to figure out that only one wine has become a target for vandalism and theft. That hijacking the other day? They only stole red wines.”

  “That I can understand. The reds always yield a higher price. Even on the black market. But our wine wasn’t stolen. It was eliminated. I’d like to talk more, but I’ve got to get back to our tasting room. Keep me posted if you hear anything else.”