I stared at the drop into the vineyards below me, the ground seeming much farther away than the side I had just climbed.
Not a problem. Knees bent then stick the landing. I jumped off the wall, my feet striking hard into the ground as my knees absorbed the force of the fall. I nearly fell forward, but managed to stay standing. I was about to put my arms in the air like a gymnast, but thought better of it and started running up the gravel driveway.
The sprawling oak trees cast misshapen shadows on the dirt and everything seemed drearier than before. I stopped when I reached the winery. No one was in sight, even on a Tuesday, when workers should have been milling about. Instead the entire property was vacant, an eerie emptiness surrounding it.
Vanessa must have heard my phone message, or at least the call from the front gate, but she was nowhere to be seen. I gave up waiting and ran to the wine cellar.
I pulled one door open, the cool air smacking me in the face as I stepped inside.
The door slammed behind me, making me jump. The lights were on in the cellar, but there was no one there, at least not that I could see. “Vanessa? Are you here?”
I made my way deep into the tunnel until my feet crunched on broken glass, signaling that I had reached my destination.
I crouched down, positioning myself so I wouldn’t block the overhead light illuminating the broken bottles that had been thrown at me yesterday. Using my pointer finger and thumb, I carefully pulled up a label, large pieces of sharp glass attached to it. I held it up to the light, studying the paper square still damp with wine. Bingo. I had my answer.
The sound of a gentle click came from the tunnel to my left. Judging by the proximity of the sound, it was only about three feet away. It might not have been recognized by anyone else, but I knew the noise well. I had heard it multiple times throughout my life and could remember each instance.
When I was five, visiting my dad at the station. When I was seven and tin cans were lined up on the brick wall in the back garden. When I was twelve and my dad decided I should learn how to protect myself.
One doesn’t forget the gentle yet haunting sound of a gun being cocked.
twenty-nine
pairing suggestion: petite sirah—napa valley, ca
A dark red wine ideal for intense situations.
-
“I know you’re there. And I’m not going to make any sudden moves, but I am going to turn to face you. We need to talk. I’m only here to talk. About Jeff.” I slowly turned my head to see the barrel of a gun.
“Sorry to disappoint you, Katie,” said Jeff with a drastic difference in his voice from our previous conversations. “Life isn’t always what it seems.”
I kept a stern, unwavering appearance, my game face on. “I knew you would come,” I replied as I stared directly at Jeff, ignoring the ominous black circle that invaded my line of sight. “It’s nice to see you again.”
Jeff raised his eyebrows as he lowered the gun slightly, before repositioning its aim at me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m simply protecting the winery from a thief. You stole before, you’ll steal again.”
I let a small laugh escape from my lips. “That’s funny. You can be set up for stealing just like you can be set up for murder. Isn’t that what you did to Tessa?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The gun barrel shifted.
“Sure you do, Jeff. And you had the perfect alibi. Me. I was with you when Mark was killed. Or at least that’s what everyone thinks. But I still knew it was you. How about that?”
“Liar. You couldn’t have known it was me.”
“Jeff, you don’t trust me? That’s a shame.” I locked eyes with him, looking past the barrel of the gun, which seemed to inch closer and closer. It was the first time I had a gun pointed at me and although I didn’t like it, a wave of calm swept over me. I was composed and my senses were acute. It surprised me, but I would have to analyze that later. For now, I needed get a hold of the situation. “I liked you. I liked talking about grapes and wine with you. In fact, so much so that I ignored all of the blatant clues.” I glanced at the cellar door, hoping Dean would burst through any second. The tunnel was silent.
“There weren’t any clues.” Jeff’s green eyes looked black in the dim light of the cellar.
“Sure there were, Jeff. In fact, Lisa gave me a great one right at the beginning. Be wary of grapes that shouldn’t be growing together. There were a lot of ways I could have taken that.” I placed my hand on a bottle next to me.
Jeff pointed the gun at a nearby bottle and fired.
I threw my hands over my face to protect myself as the glass exploded and fell to the ground around me, the gunshot ringing in my ears.
“Keep your hands up,” said Jeff in a terse and stressed voice.
I lifted my hands. “I’m surprised you destroyed a bottle without checking what type of wine it was.”
A guttural sound came from deep in Jeff’s throat.
“But,” I continued, “as I was saying, Lisa gave that great clue. It could have meant Tessa and Mark, or Garrett and Vanessa. But what I think it meant was you and Seb. Seb didn’t work directly for you, but he would listen anytime you said anything. Always looking over his shoulder, waiting for you. What did you have on him? What made him so loyal to a vineyard manager when he was an assistant winemaker?” The gun inched closer.
“Come on, Jeff, you have me here. You could at least talk to me. You know, like old times. Let’s pretend we’re sharing that ’69 Chateau Margaux and talking about wine.” I smiled. “So what made him so loyal?”
“Respect,” said Jeff. “You could learn some of it, like not breaking into wine cellars.”
“That’s cute. Cute that you still believe I think you’re innocent.” I pointed to a nearby crate. “Mind if I sit? I’ve had quite the twenty-four hours. I was in jail, you know.”
Jeff didn’t reply, but I lowered myself onto the crate. “What did you have on Seb that he became your little errand boy? Did you do him a favor once? Save his life? Did he owe you a great deal?” I titled my head. “Or was it more of a blackmail situation?”
Jeff didn’t move.
I smoothed out my pant leg, large marks from the walls on both of my knees. “Pretty quiet now, huh? Maybe we should talk about grapes instead? I’m going to take a stab in the dark here and say it came down to money. You caught Seb stealing money from somewhere, maybe here, maybe not, and you’ve been blackmailing him.”
“Stupid kid,” growled Jeff. “He should have known better than to steal from where he worked. But catching him doesn’t mean I did anything wrong.”
“No, it doesn’t, but it sure made Seb eager to pin the whole thing on Tessa.” I pointed to the gun. “Since I might only have a few minutes to live, can you fill me in a bit more about Seb? Tessa has money in her account that she didn’t put there. And Seb already came to me at the restaurant and accused Tessa of stealing. It was a little too perfect.”
Jeff narrowed his eyes. “As I said, a dumb kid. Got himself into debt and tried to use the winery to get him out of it. That’s why he started dating Lisa. She had access to all the account info. He started submitting invoices as a fictitious business that provided wine barrels, or so he said. He would have gotten away with it, too, if he hadn’t submitted an invoice for a new trellis wire. Lisa came to me asking if it arrived and I figured out what he was doing. I covered for him, and he’s been my little errand boy ever since.”
“Was,” I corrected him. “So then you helped him pin it on Tessa?”
“Nope. He did that himself.”
I leaned forward. “You really had nothing to do with that?”
“Nothing,” he replied softly, back to the Jeff I’d met at the Frontier party just a few days earlier. But the facade quickly vanished and he steadied the gun again. “I bet he figured Tessa
was going down for the murder, so why not the rest of it. He was opportunistic like that,” Jeff added.
“Okay,” I continued in an effort to delay the inevitable gunshot, “then mysteriously Seb ends up dead. Almost as if to keep him quiet. Was he going to confess to the accounts? Was he going to reveal Mark’s murderer? What was the reason to kill him?”
“I didn’t kill him,” grunted Jeff.
“Oh that’s right.” I waved my hand. “I can believe everything you say. And, if I may ask, where is Lisa?”
“She’s a little busy.” Jeff sat down on a crate across from me, keeping the gun pointed at me from his knee. “You still have nothing on me.”
“True, but let me share my theory. I think this isn’t the first time we’ve been in this wine cellar together. I think you were here last night, throwing the bottles.” I leaned back against the solid stone wall. “They were all white wine. I could smell the buttered popcorn. Red wine doesn’t have that smell and in fact, I didn’t smell any red wine last night.” I pointed to the shattered glass at our feet. “Frontier doesn’t produce white wine, but Garrett Winery does. May I?”
Jeff scowled as I reached down and picked up the same shard of glass I had held before, the label still attached.
“Buttered popcorn is a big indicator in California Chardonnay. The same kind they make next door.” I pointed to the colors of the Garrett Winery label.
Jeff’s eyes shifted to the label and then back at me.
I motioned to the racks of wine around us. “The white wine is placed in random order around here with no large groupings together. Which means the person in the cellar last night knew how the cellar was organized and cared about the wine made here at Frontier. Certainly there were red wine bottles that would have been closer to throw instead of the multiple bottles of white, but the assailant didn’t want to waste the red wine. The Frontier wine.” I leaned forward. “And you don’t like to waste Frontier wine. Not even a single drop.”
Jeff twisted his mouth and then smiled. “You must be a fool,” he said. “You think you’re in charge here? Who’s holding the gun? News flash, it’s not you.”
“Such a strong man.” I shook my head. “And we almost had something. But I don’t think you’re as innocent as you say. That text was sent to Tessa after Mark was already dead. And that would take out your alibi, which is me.” I shrugged. “Tessa got the text at the party and disappeared. Immediately after, you stood by me and didn’t leave my side until the body was discovered.”
I took a breath and continued, as if I was explaining the wine list at dinner. “Since the text had the code, which Tessa and Mark had only set up two days earlier, it had to be someone who had overheard them plan it. Someone who had easy access to the winery where they made the plan. Perhaps someone who had been delivering grapes? So tell me, Jeff, why did you kill your boss?”
He stayed motionless.
“Oh please, Jeff, I’m about to die. You’re going to kill me. I get it. You can at least tell me why you killed Mark.”
Jeff leaned back against the wall, the hand with the gun resting on his thigh, the barrel still pointed at me. “Mark found out I bought Pinot grapes from McPherson Winery up the road. He didn’t like that. Said it messed up his estate labeling. I told him it didn’t matter. That no one would know and it made the wine better. Richer. Full-bodied.” He shook his head. “But he got all up on my case about it. Said it wasn’t right to go behind his back and misguide people who buy his wine. People who only want wine from grapes grown right here on the property.”
Jeff wiped his forehead with his free hand and laughed. “There I am, getting a speech from a man who says you shouldn’t go behind people’s backs, and there he is, cheating on Vanessa. Prancing around with girls like Tessa. He was ruining his marriage, and all I was trying to do was to improve his wine, yet I’m the bad guy.” Jeff looked at me as if I would agree with him.
Even though agreeing with him could possibly lighten the situation, I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. I kept my game face on. “There’s got to be more.”
He breathed out and nodded. “I caught him putting a move on Lisa at the party. I don’t know if it was the first time or not, but they were in the winery together. After Lisa left, I called Mark out on it. Told him he had no right to treat Vanessa like that.” The gun moved in Jeff’s hand as he talked and I felt myself twinge with the worry that it could go off.
“He fired me. Right then. After everything I had done for him and his winery, and he was firing me.” Jeff’s voice grew sharper. “I got upset. I pushed him.”
“So you killed him because he was firing you?” I muttered to myself as much to Jeff.
“No, it was an accident.”
I scoffed. “I doubt a jury will believe that.”
“I only wanted to push him, but he fell and hit his head against the fermentation tank. Pretty bad, too. He wasn’t going to make it, I could tell. But I needed to buy time, so I put him in the tank and found you at the party.”
I studied Jeff as the events of that evening went through my mind. “And Tessa’s wine opener?”
“It was on the grass. Since I was the one to pull him out of the tank, it was easy to stick it in his back.”
“So you killed Mark by accident.” I debated using air quotes, but I refrained. “Yet now you’re going to kill me.” I put my hands on my knees. “Wait, why did you kill Seb? What was that about?”
“What if I didn’t kill Sebastian?”
“Right. Like I’m going to believe that.” I sat up as a sudden realization dawned on me. “But, Jeff, since you don’t like to waste a single drop of Frontier wine, why would you ruin a whole batch of wine with Mark’s body?”
A wicked grin formed on Jeff’s face. “I gave him a good old taste of those McPherson grapes.”
A noise came from the main tunnel and a wave of relief fell over me. I turned to the darkness, waiting to see Dean’s face. Instead, a different face appeared. One filled with hatred and spite.
But it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Because that’s the thing to remember with blind tasting. You can’t ignore the clear indicators.
thirty
pairing suggestion: sauternes—sauternes, france
Made from grapes that struggle with a fungus called Noble Rot,
eventually producing a sweet and sugary wine.
-
Vanessa’s cold eyes came into view, a soured smell of jasmine filling the area. “You jump to conclusions, Katie. That’s your problem,” she said as she crossed her arms and took a place next to Jeff. “I’m glad I don’t have to play the grieving widow anymore. That was taxing.”
“You? You’re involved in this?” I looked from Vanessa to Jeff, who still held the gun and seemed unfazed by Vanessa’s presence.
“Yes, my little friend who is so eager to help yet so unaware.” Vanessa rubbed her hand across Jeff’s back. “Now that Mark is dead, I’m the sole owner of this winery. Poor Mark couldn’t divorce me; he would have taken the winery with him. It’d been in his family for generations, so the courts would have never sided with me. What can I say, I’ve never been a fan of lawyers.” She brushed her hand against Jeff’s cheek. “But I found someone who loves my wine as much as me. We’re going to create beautiful wine together.”
My mouth dropped and my hands opened in front of me. “I can’t believe I missed it. Be wary of grapes that shouldn’t be growing together. She didn’t mean Jeff and Seb, she meant you and Jeff. You’re having an affair.”
“Wow, you really are slow, aren’t you? To think poor Jeff had to pretend he liked you. Sickeningly sweet.” Vanessa shook her hair back. “I should have driven you off the road when I had the chance. There were just too many witnesses on the highway. But there’s not now. Jeff, get rid of her.”
“Wait,” I started, “what about Lisa? She called me yes
terday. She knows the truth.”
Vanessa threw her head back and laughed. “You really think that was Lisa? You are a fool.”
“Did you kill her, too?” I asked. “String her up in a vineyard like Seb? Waiting for her body to be found?”
“There you go again, Katie, jumping to conclusions. What makes you think that Lisa’s in a vineyard? That would be so tacky to commit the same crime twice. Do you think I’m that unoriginal?” Vanessa’s mouth drew into a thin-lipped smile.
I was tempted to answer, but decided to leave it alone. “So where is she? I’m going to assume she’s no longer alive.”
“Of course. Because you couldn’t stop killing, Katie.” Vanessa’s eyes were cold and glaring, a far cry from the downtrodden lady I had met for coffee. Whatever goodness I had seen in her that day was long gone, the theatrical side no longer an option.
“Yesterday, a lone truck ran into a ditch off a road in Sonoma. No one’s discovered it yet, but when they do, they’ll find poor Lisa’s body in the driver’s seat, her last effort scrawled across the seat. ‘It was Katie.’”
“You really think you can blame all of this on me?”
Vanessa laughed. “Of course. I always get what I want.”
“But why kill Seb? Why him?”
“Because he was too good. His conscience got to him. He wanted to come clean about everything.” Vanessa put her hand back on Jeff’s shoulder. “As I said, I always get what I want and right now, I want all this mess to go away. You’re the vehicle to make it all disappear.” She turned to Jeff and whispered in his ear, “I’m bored, finish it. I need to call the authorities.” Vanessa took a step forward and looked at me. “In fact, I’ll call Detective Dean. I think you know him? I need to tell him there was an intruder in my cellar again and my trusty vineyard manager came to my rescue, taking down the culprit as she attacked a poor, defenseless widow.” Vanessa turned down the tunnel.
“Wait, I’m not the only one who knows. There are others.”
Decanting a Murder Page 21
