Bitter Finish - Linda Barnes

by Linda Barnes

"Look," she said instead, "there's bread and cheese in the house. You can fetch it when you dump your bag. And a bottle of wine. We'll picnic."

  "Where?"

  "You know."

  Spraggue got lunch together. They climbed up to the clearing, Kate hugging the bread and cheese, Spraggue toting the wine. Their target was halfway up the hill, a circle of soft grass and clover bounded by bushes, three large flat rocks, and yew trees. One of the few places in the valley with no view of vineyards, it stared straight up into the mountains. Star-lit nights, years ago, they had . . .

  Spraggue shook his head, eyed Kate warily. Had she brought him up here to reminisce, or did she still use the clearing . . . as a meditation corner, a rendezvous to meet new lovers?

  "The bushes are overgrown," he said. "Trees are taller."

  "Because you've been away too long."

  "Looks the same to you?"

  "I come up here pretty often, Michael. For lots of reasons. I didn't think you'd mind."

  "Sit on the rocks?" he said. The bread and cheese were fresh, the wine heady. They ate without any polite small talk, greedily.

  "Had enough?" Kate said finally.

  "Too much. Cameras put pounds on you. I have to be gaunt by Sunday."

  "More wine?"

  "Enough for an afternoon"

  Her hand reached for his, held on. "Do you want to get reacquainted?" she said softly.

  "Reacquainted?"

  "Do you want to revive old memories, Spraggue? Make love? Or have sex?" Her lips bore the ghost of a smile, but her dark eyes were unreadable. Her fingers toyed with the top button on her shirt.

  Spraggue shoved their wineglasses into the comparative safety of a cleft between two rocks. He reached out and tilted her turned-away chin toward him. Her face was impassive. "Katharine," he said gently, but he knew he used her full name only in anger, "why the hell do you find it easier to sleep with men than talk to them?"

  He knew as soon as he said it that he should have said "me" rather than "men," because she took it as an attack against what he'd once called her "unfaithful ways," not as a plea for more than physical communication. Shit, maybe he'd meant it as an attack, following the old pattern. If her way to avoid talk was sex, his was battle.

  "Why the hell do you try to goad me into slapping your face?" she said.

  "Sorry."

  She didn't seem to notice the muttered apology.

  "What do you want from me, Spraggue?" she went on. "How do you know what I do with other men? Maybe I'm a vibrant conversationalist with other guys. Maybe we never go further than holding if hands. Maybe you're the only one I don't know how to talk to."

  "Don't you think we should try?" he said. "Considering the circumstances?"

  Instead of answering, she made a production out of cleaning up the two cloth napkins, shaking the crumbs out to leave for the birds, folding them neatly and using the wine bottle to weigh them down against a gentle breeze.

  "Dammit, Michael," she said linally, "I thought it would be easier. I've been in jail on suspicion of murder. Idiots yelled questions at me most of the night. The mattress they gave me wasn't more than a quarter-inch thick, and it felt like crumbled cardboard and smelled like ammonia. I'm exhausted and I don't think I can go through what we always go through when we're together . . . and we're not really together."

  "Wonderful," Spraggue said shortly. "So you decided to offer yourself as some kind of sacrificial lamb. You can get me out of the way and we can go on to other, more important things."

  "Maybe it's not so important to me who I screw anymore. You don't like that, do you? Coming from me?"

  "You're just trying to get me to slap your face and then we'll be back on familiar ground. Right?"

  "God," Kate said wearily, "why can't we behave the way civilized people are supposed to?"

  "Want to try? You can shake the napkins out again and I can sweep the grass. You pick up the stray leaves. I'll change the water in the squirrel's dish."

  She shot him a feeble smile.

  "How are you, Kate?" he asked. "Really."

  "Eh." She shrugged her shoulders and shook back her long dark hair. "I'm okay. I like it out here. I'm going to be a damn good winemaker someday. You?"

  "Not bad."

  "The movie?"

  "It's not going to set the cinema world on fire. Probably won't even be released."

  "Are you married? Or engaged? If you are, I withdraw my offer."

  "Neither."

  "Why?"

  "I haven't found anybody who's just like you—except different."

  She smiled. "How different?"

  "Less demanding. Somebody I could live with."

  "You couldn't stand the lack of challenge."

  "I'm thirty-four," Spraggue protested. "I'm getting tired of fighting?

  "I'm the one who spent the night in jail."

  "And what's that all about, Kate?"

  "I don't know." She stood up, and for a minute Spraggue thought she was going to walk away, but she just circled the clearing once, then settled back down in the grass near his feet, facing away from him, gazing up at the blue-shrouded hills. He leaned forward and spread his hands on her shoulders, started to massage the base of her neck. She tensed at the first contact, but didn't pull away.

  "When did you last see Lenny?" he asked.

  She counted on her fingers. "Three days, four days . . . Sunday night."

  "Doing what?"

  "He wasn't dying, Spraggtie, if that's what you mean."

  He pressed dovm firmly on her shoulder blades.

  "Relax. Did he say anything about taking a trip, about anyone he wanted to see?"

  "No. Not that I remember?

  "Is your memory failing?"

  "No," Kate snapped.

  "Then you weren't paying attention to what Lenny said."

  "Maybe not."

  He moved his thumbs in a circular pattern down her spinal column. She sighed and flexed her shoulders.

  "Where were you?" he asked.

  "In the house. The kitchen, to be exact."

  "Eating?"

  "We had coffee."

  "And there was nothing unusual about your conversation? As far as you could tell, Lenny planned to be out in the vineyards first thing Monday morning."

  Spraggue kept rubbing her back, feeling the taut muscles under the thin shirt. He wished he could see her face.

  "Yes?" he prompted.

  "We had a fight, Spraggue."

  "Ah."

  "Yeah."

  "Great," he said. "You went a few rounds with Lenny right before he mysteriously disappeared. A real screamer, I suppose."

  She turned and looked up at him. The corners of her eyes crinkled. "Do I scream?"

  "A real screamer," Spraggue repeated.

  "Ouch! Not so hard."

  "Sorry. Loud enough for any passing patrol car or nosy cellar-crew kid to get an earful. Lenny gets mad, takes off. You call the cops. They find a body. You're candidate number one."

  "I didn't plan it that way," Kate said. "More to the right"

  "Here?"

  "Mmmmmmm."

  "What did you fight about?"

  She turned again. This time her eyes were hard black diamonds. "Technology, Spraggue," she said, over-pronouncing each syllable. "We fought about the harvest. I wanted to take a sugar level twice a day for the next week, and Lenny—you know him and his damned artistry'—he didn't want me to. Didn't want any 'chemistry' involved. Wanted to go on the look and the feel and the taste of the grape. Why did I hire him if I wanted a chemist? You know. I got the whole Lenny-European-wine- grower-crush-the-grapes-with-his-own-feet routine."

  "You knew he'd pull that when you hired him."

  "I knew it, but I didn't really believe it. I didn't agree not to fight with him about it! There's got to be a balance between art and craft somewhere! Lenny was impossible."

  "Was?"

  "Was then, is now, I assume. I doubt he's suddenly gotten religion and
become a humble monk at Christian Brothers." She pulled away, turned, and lay back on the grass. Spraggue thought she was even more beautiful at thirty-two than she'd been at nineteen. The shadows under her eyes gave her a bruised, vulnerable look. The longing to hold her, to accept her offer of easy, uncomplicated coupling came over him so suddenly he had to glance away. The moment wouldn't happen again. If they slept together, if they even stayed in the same house, it would be on uncertain terms now, delicate ground.

  "Could you stick around, Spraggue?" she asked, shading her eyes with her palm. "Until Lenny gets back? I'm not sure I can handle the crush alone."

  "You're just tired."

  "No. Really."

  "You could get Howard to come in."

  "Ruberman? You think he'd fill in for Lenny?"

  "Maybe."

  "Not if I asked him. He took it hard when I let him go."

  "I could ask."

  "Go ahead. But I'd rather have you,"

  Spraggue smiled. "I've done my stuff. You're out of the clink, and I've got location shots to film in Boston."

  "You said the movie didn't start until Sunday."

  "Your memory's coming back."

  Kate rolled over on her stomach, pushing herself up into a kneeling position. She placed a hand on each of his thighs, peered into his eyes until he wondered what she could see. "Find Lenny," she said softly. "Stay long enough to find him. I really am worried."

  "Where would I look? Who would I ask? I don't know my way around here anymore."

  "I'll help. Lenny's got a place in Calistoga. No one answers the phone, but it would be just like him to be holed up there, sulking. I could ask Phil Leider—"

  "He doesn't know anything. But he talked about it all the way up from San Francisco."

  "So he did pick you up, the sweetie." A flicker of a grin crossed her face.

  "Why the hell didn't you stop him? I might have wound up in some ditch."

  "I thought you'd enjoy the experience. And he was only trying to help."

  "He wasn't ticked off about Lenny?"

  "You kidding? Don't waste your time worrying about Leider Vineyards. They're coining it. You should see the castle he just built. Swimming pool. Private screening room."

  "How very Hollywood."

  "Rumor has it he shows dirty skin flicks to a select few. I haven't been invited yet, but I have hopes."

  "Where else should I look for Lenny?" He gave in with a grimace and a secret vow not to waste more than twenty-four hours at the task. "Girlfriend?"

  Kate shrugged. "There's his ex, of course. I think she's somewhere back east. She may have heard from him. I don't know of any local contender."

  "No gossip? You're slipping." `

  "If there is, you'll hear it soon enough."

  Spraggue's right eyebrow shot up.

  She laughed. "How do you do it?"

  "The trick with the eyebrow? I'm not telling."

  "No. How can you keep asking questions like that? Rattling them off like a cop?"

  "Practice," he said. "I was once a private investigator."

  "I will never understand that particular episode in your life, Spraggue. Want me to rub your back?"

  He refused. The temptation was still there, clouding his judgment. She sat next to him on the rock, close but not touching. "I'm not sure I understand it," he said. "Romantic illusions, maybe. Mostly I dug up dirt everybody would have been better off not knowing."

  She nibbled at the corner of a fingernail and shot him a sidelong glance. "So you went back to fantasy land. You and your actor eyes."

  "Actor eyes?"

  "They show exactly what you're thinking, what you're going to do next. They do, Michael. When you relax, they're like windows, but the minute you start asking questions, I can't see through them anymore. They glaze over."

  "Otherwise I'd need a blindfold," he said. "Your eyes never give you away. I can't tell what you're thinking."

  "Good," she said.

  "Kate, I have to ask one more question."

  "Shoot."

  "Did you recognize that body?"

  "Spraggue—"

  "Come on. Someone put it where you'd find it. Or where you'd take the blame for it."

  "I didn't find it. The cops did."

  "Did they say why they looked? Why they just happened to check out the car trunk?"

  "They didn't answer questions. They asked them. Like you."

  Spraggue bent over and twisted a clover stem until it broke off in his hand. "Sorry."

  "Spraggue?"

  "Yeah."

  "I really didn't recognize that body. But . . ."

  "But?"

  "But what if Lenny did?"

  "He could have stuffed the body into that old car wreck, if that's what you mean. He certainly knew where the car was, knew that nobody was likely to disturb it."

  Kate brushed a leaf out of her hair, wound a strand tightly around her index finger. "Then that could be why he disappeared .... "

  "The timing would be about right."

  Kate stayed silent, closed her eyes.

  "Do you still want me to find him?" Spraggue asked.

  "Yes."

  4

  Kate waved him out of sight, leaning back against the railing of the sagging white porch. Déja vu.

  Spraggue sucked in his breath. Seven years ago . . . Hell, seven years ago was seven years ago. Now was now. They'd have to rip the old house down soon and build something showier, nostalgia or not. With a tasting room for the tourists. Holloway Hills wasn't amateur stuff anymore. Not with over ten thousand cases projected for the '80 harvest.

  Lenny's place was barely more than a shack, isolated on a mountain road just beyond the Calistoga city limits. Spraggue drove by once, no more slowly than the winding road demanded. No car in the narrow gravel driveway. A total absence of light in the grimy front window. He made a careful three-point turn, parked Kate's gray Volvo behind a dense stand of thorny bushes, out of sight of the road. If Lenny suddenly opted for the quiet of home, he'd never spot it. Nor would it give any passing squad car pause. Soon enough the police would quit thinking about Lenny as the victim. Then they'd consider him as the suspect. One man dead; one man missing. In Boston it might take months to tie the two together; in Napa, hours.

  Kate had left a worn pair of grease-stained work gloves lying on the dash—some things never

  changed. She had big, mannish hands, bit her nails to the quick, never wore rings. Still, the gloves were tight. Coarse-woven cotton, they'd stretch.

  He knocked at the front door. No answer. Knocked at the back, admired the door locks, peered in a dirty curtainless window. Didn't look as if Lenny had much worth protecting with two new Yale deadbolts. No windows left ajar, not even the smallest. And no picklocks in his pocket. Damn.

  Enright seemed like the type who'd personally twist the thumbscrews for breaking and entering. Out-of-town private investigators were pretty unpopular even if they kept to the letter. And he wasn't even a licensed P.I. anymore, just a nosy actor.

  Before a defeated return to the car, almost as an afterthought, he lifted a corner of Lenny's soggy welcome mat. A single brass key glittered in the mud.

  It turned easily in the front—door lock.

  Hard to imagine Lenny, perfectly groomed, arrogant Lenny, living in such filth. The stench came mainly from the kitchen, a different stink, thank God, than the sweetish smell of death that hung over the funeral home. A smell, nonetheless, that Spraggue had little desire to investigate. He peered into the empty kitchen, noted the moldy dishes in the sink, and retreated, closing the door behind him.

  The living room was covered with dust. When he walked, he kicked up a cloud in his wake. Certainly, Lenny hadn't lived here, not for the past six months or more. Unless he truly had a mind above housecleaning.

  Some men did. Divorced men, especially. Got used to being cared for by a woman, then refused to accept that the former wife had actually performed services that could be missed, re
fused to accept the responsibilities of living alone. Men like that generally married again soon. And again. And again. Spraggue opened a door and entered a different world.

  It must have been an enclosed back porch once, added on after the rest of the house was completed. If Lenny had used the back door, kept the door to the rest of the house shut, eaten only in restaurants, he'd never have seen the filthy half of the place. No need. The large pine-paneled back room had a bath off to the right. The gold tile in the bathroom almost matched the shaggy carpet on the bedroom floor. A closet door stood ajar, revealing a generous interior.

  Lenny's children, infants so young their sex was indeterminate, smiled out of framed photos displayed on an untidy rolltop desk. Spraggue stopped short of opening the heavy gold-and-red print draperies, pressed the button on the base of a brass bedside table lamp instead. The air, stale with lack of circulation, carried no unpleasant smells. The linen on the double bed was fresh.

  He inspected the closet. Row after row of neatly pressed shirts, laundry tags still affixed to collars. Suits in plastic cleaner bags. A pile of luggage on the floor to one side. No gaps where a suitcase had been hastily removed, an armful of shirts quickly packed inside.

  The three-drawer bureau by the side of the bed was well organized. No missing piles of folded underwear.

  Only in the bathroom was there any sign of planned departure. The mirrored cabinet over the sink was empty. No toiletries, no cold remedies, no toothbrush.

  Where do you go with only the clothes on your back? Just your toothbrush? Just your shaving gear?

  Spraggue rummaged through Lenny's desk, taking care not to disturb the piles of receipted bills. A few yellowed letters. No plane schedules. No diary. No appointment book. After a moment's hesitation, he pocketed a thin black address book.

  The four shelves over the desk held an array of camera equipment. No help there.

  He sat on the bed while his eyes did a circuit of the room. The back door, the bathroom door, the door to the slum-half of the house. One unexplored door—probably cover for the cellarless dwellings hot-water heater. He twisted the doorknob. Locked. This one was easy. An American Express card did the trick.

  Spraggue stared into blackness.

  He groped around the inside of the doorframe, left and right. No light switch. He stepped inside, hands extended, touched a cold swinging chain, pulled it. Lenny's wine cellar leaped out of darkness.