Sharpshooter

by Nadia Gordon

  “You must have worked closely with him. Did the two of you get along?”

  “Ah, I think I see what you’re getting at. Better to just come out and ask. Yes, Jack and I had a fight on Thursday. It’s no secret, there were plenty of people around and it was good and loud, and it wasn’t the first time, either. Jack liked to come up with ideas for improving the way we do things at Beroni. The trouble is, he’s never spent more than twenty-five minutes in the vineyard at one time, let alone the winery. He wanted us to harvest and I told him that there was only one good time to harvest and I would be the judge of when that was. I have no idea why this was suddenly so important to him, unless he was trying to show off to his father about being in charge.” He looked over his glasses at Sunny. She guessed he was taking a reading of how much she understood about the nuances of father-son relationships. He went on, “I told the police all about this, and about meeting with Al afterward. I was hopping mad and I went to Al to tell him that the next time his son threatened me, I would quit and take my boys with me. We’ve had plenty of offers to set up shop on our own. This valley knows who makes the wine at Beroni Vineyards.”

  “What time was that when you talked to Al?”

  “About five, I’d say.”

  “And what was his response?”

  “He told me he would take care of it, talk to Jack.” Nesto smiled at some private thought, nodding to himself. “Al and I go way back. He’s been like an older brother to me. There’s just four years between us. He’s always looked after me, and now my boys.”

  “Then what did you do? I mean after you talked with Al.”

  “I went home.”

  “And you stayed there all night?”

  “I did.” He thought for a moment. “Who is this friend you’re trying to help?”

  “Wade Skord.”

  Nesto stared off at the row of blue mountains edging the view to the west, taking in this information. The day was getting late and Sunny could tell that Nesto was thinking he’d better get back to work before the light died on him. He said, “Skord didn’t like Jack any better than anyone else who had to deal with him on a regular basis. There was that fight they had about that drainage line a few years ago, and just the other day they got into it at the Vintners Association meeting. Skord said outright that he’d shoot Jack or anybody else if they came near his property without his permission. I assumed he was speaking figuratively, of course.” He looked over his glasses at Sunny again, probably wondering if she’d heard that story yet.

  That must have been what Steve Harvey was talking about, she thought. “What was the context of that remark?” asked Sunny, keeping her face neutral.

  “They were talking about the glassy-winged sharpshooter. Jack was insisting, on behalf of the larger growers, that the board members support him in his recommendation to blanket the area with a ground application of carbaryl or even an airdrop of chlorpyritos. Skord and a number of others were against it, even though they couldn’t offer a better solution.”

  While Sunny listened, she decided that he was right. It was better to just come out and ask. “Mr. Campaglia, where was your son Gabe on Thursday night?”

  “Gabe?” He hesitated, his eyes widening.

  He’s going to lie, thought Sunny. Or he’s going to tell me to mind my own business.

  “He was here at the house with us. With me and his mother, Mary.”

  “Until when?”

  “Oh, midnight or so.”

  “I’m surprised he would stay that late. I’d imagine you get up pretty early.”

  “We do, but we were watching a movie.”

  “Which one?” She looked at Nesto, silently confirming that she was calling his bluff.

  “I’m not sure. I didn’t see the beginning,” he stammered. “To be honest, I didn’t pay that much attention to it. I had other things on my mind.”

  Sunny glanced at her watch. Close to five. “I don’t want to keep you from your gardening,” she said, “but I do have one more question.” As a matter of fact, she had three more questions, but two of them would have to wait. For the moment, there was no point in asking why he’d never left Beroni. His reasons were no doubt psychological—fear or loyalty, and neither explanation was likely to provide her with more facts about Jack’s murder. She was also tempted to ask his opinion on who would inherit Beroni Vineyards now that Jack was dead, but with both Louisa and Al alive and in good health, it was anybody’s guess. Al could divorce Louisa or outlive her, remarry, and start a new family. Stranger things had happened. She ran her hand through her bangs and squinted at Nesto. “Can you think of any reason Jack’s girlfriend might have wanted him dead?”

  “His girlfriend? I don’t know that he had what I would call a girlfriend.”

  “What about Larissa?”

  “Whenever there was a fancy banquet to attend or a cocktail party to go to, Larissa Richards would get dressed up and stand next to him, but I don’t think there was much else there.” He paused, mulling over the next bit of information that came to mind, deciding what to say about it. Sunny held her breath. Nesto fixed her with his over-the-glasses stare. “This part I didn’t tell the police, though I guess I’d better, now that I think of it. I didn’t think it was anybody’s business when they came by before, but who knows, maybe it’s important. Jack was seeing somebody else, somebody other than Larissa. Larissa has long red hair. This other woman was blond. I saw them walking under the trees out behind his place a couple of times. You feel like no one can see you back there because you can’t see anybody, but from the vineyard on the adjacent slope, it’s a straight shot. If you’re standing up there, like I often am, you can hardly avoid seeing somebody on the other hill.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  “No, but he was certainly a good deal more affectionate with her than he ever was with Larissa. I never saw him take Larissa Richards in his arms the way he would this woman. Frankly, I worried about him. There was a sadness to it. I can’t explain, but you could see it. Forbidden love, if you ask me.”

  Sunny thanked him and walked back out toward the truck. Nesto followed. When they were crossing the front yard, a white Toyota truck with the Beroni logo stenciled on the side roared past, sending up a cloud of dust behind it. The driver raised a hand in an expressionless salute as he sped by, which Nesto halfheartedly returned.

  “Was that Gabe?” she asked.

  Nesto nodded and walked back toward the garden.

  PART TWO

  Nights of the Vine

  7

  Bothe State Park was full of rattlers this time of year and dusk was their favorite time of day to stretch out across the trail, looking for warmth. Even so, Sunny was going for a hike. She pulled off and parked the truck, skipping the day-use fee since the ranger was nowhere to be seen. She needed to think, and this was a good place to do it. She started down the trail toward the redwoods, listening to the buzz and tick of evening insects. Up ahead a good-sized hawk cruised low, hunting the same field mice that kept the rattlesnakes in business.

  She was no closer to figuring out who stole Wade’s rifle, let alone who murdered Jack Beroni, but she was sure that Nesto was lying about something—either where he was on the night of the murder or where Gabe was or maybe both. For his part, Silvano Cruz had been entirely too forthright about his suspicions to be taken at face value. Why would he want to send Sunny chasing after Nesto and Gabe Campaglia? Did he genuinely suspect them? Or did he have some other reason to imply that the Campaglias may have been involved?

  A sliding movement caught Sunny’s eye and she jumped back, sucking in her breath. A couple of feet ahead, a gopher snake cruised across the trail, vanishing back into the dry weeds on the other side without a sound. He’d better watch out for that hawk. Several times while out hiking or driving she had seen a hawk dive and come up with the long, curving J of a snake hanging from its talons. It was the kind of sight, dramatic and unusual and a little scary, that would keep popping back
into her head for months. Another image was a swarming nest of ladybugs she’d seen one misty fall day deep in the woods by the coast. They’d bubbled up and overflowed from a rotten stump by the millions, like lava spilling onto the forest floor of damp leaves.

  Sunny took in a slow, deep breath, savoring the layers of weedy sweetness coming off the sunbaked earth. As she walked, she went over the list of people she and Wade had put together at the jail. It was not as long a list as she had hoped. In fact, she could only hope they had overlooked the guilty party, because it read like the guest list for a get-together of their dearest friends. Dozens of people had helped out with harvest and crush at Skord Mountain over the years, but the vast majority were acquaintances who never even set foot in the winery. Friends of friends, visiting enology and viticulture students, wine aficionados, and chefs and sommeliers with a taste for the basics would show up at three or four in the morning for duty. It was a grueling drill. They’d take a wooden crate, trudge out into the vineyard, fill the crate with grapes, lug it back to the lean-to where the crusher-destemmer was set up, grab another empty crate, and head back into the vineyard. It was exhausting, back-wrenching work, and they generally staggered home and collapsed after a late lunch, often with a bottle of Skord Mountain Zin riding shotgun.

  But none of those people would have seen the Hornet or played Assault Golf. In fact, Wade almost always played alone. It was an eccentric loner’s ritual in defiant celebration of freedom, or at least that was Sunny’s theory. Freedom was the most obvious benefit of a solitary rural life. He might suffer loneliness at times, but at least he could do whatever he wanted, when he wanted. She suspected that Ellie may have disapproved of Wade’s target practice. What better demonstration and enjoyment of his complete personal freedom than a round of Assault Golf before bed? The half-dozen times Sunny had joined him, she’d felt an exhilarating power over the night. Monty Lenstrom had shot with them several times as well, and a friend of Wade’s, a vintner named Josh Freelander, had played a couple of times. Wade couldn’t think of any other person who had shot his gun. Napa Valley’s residents were divided into those who thought shooting for sport was an acceptable way to spend a Saturday afternoon and those who considered it the vice of ruffians. Like smoking and drinking French wine, it was best left unmentioned, unless the company were known initiates.

  There had been, nevertheless, one notably excessive dinner party that ended with a game of after-hours Assault Golf. Half of the group had stayed at the house talking and drinking wine while Wade, Sunny, and four others had bundled up and walked down to the winery, ostensibly to work off the weight of dinner. They’d stood by while Wade reached behind the fermentation tank for the gun. The group was made up exclusively of close friends and included Rivka, Monty, Charlie Rhodes, and Josh Freelander. Josh had since moved to Washington State to manage a new winery.

  Those who stayed behind might have stood on the deck and seen Wade and the others return from the winery with the gun, and in theory could have searched the structure until they found it. The group at the house was made up of Monty’s girlfriend, Annabelle; Josh’s wife, Susan; Claire and Ben Baker; Sandy Furrier, a professor of linguistics at Sonoma State and Wade’s nearest neighbor other than the Beronis; and Soren, who waited tables at Wildside three days a week. Sunny ran through the list in her head several times, picturing each face and thinking of what Charlie had said, that there was always “behind-theback stuff” you didn’t know about a person. What didn’t she know about Charlie? Could there be anything significant that she didn’t already know about dear Rivka or Monty? And for that matter, what about Wade? Clearly, someone she knew well and trusted implicitly was not what they seemed. They were dangerous.

  The setting sun warmed her arms and she glanced around at the trees covering the hillsides. Their steady acceptance of the elements, their permanence and predictability, acted on Sunny’s frazzled nerves like a balm. Up ahead, the trail dipped into a shady grove of coast redwoods made shadier by the waning sun. This, plus the empty spot in her belly where a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon and a mushroom crepe ought to have been, caused her to turn back toward the car. Making her way up the hill, she wondered again what it was that Nesto Campaglia was trying to hide. And what, if anything, was going on between the Beronis and the Campaglias. She thought of Gabe Campaglia’s expressionless face, the stony straight-ahead look as he drove by, his father’s halfhearted wave. Whatever it was that Nesto was trying to hide, Gabe would know what it was, and he might be surly enough not to bother indulging his father’s cover-up. She decided she would go see him first thing in the morning.

  It was dark by the time Sunny got home. She opened a bottle of Vieux Télégraphe and let its contents chug into a wide-bellied glass while the phone messages played. Harry, Wade’s lawyer, called to say that they had an appointment to see the judge on Monday morning. Assuming the judge set a reasonable bail, he’d have Wade out of there by noon. That was the good news. Rivka phoned to say that most of the fruit on Skord Mountain had hit 20 degrees Brix, which was dangerously close to a full load of sugar. They would need to harvest Monday or Tuesday unless the weather cooled.

  She sautéed a handful of mushrooms in butter, a splash of cream, and a hit of white wine, then whipped up a minibatch of crepe batter and shredded some Jarlsberg. The problem with sleeping through half the day, aside from sleeping away half the day, was that she wouldn’t be ready to go to bed until midnight. It was just as well, since she still needed to go over to Wade’s place to check on a few things. It could wait until the morning, except there were already too many things to be done tomorrow. She took her dinner to the table. The day’s mail held nothing of particular interest, so she unfolded the Saturday Napa Register while she ate. The headline on the top of the front page shouted,

  JACK BERONI, 36, SHOT DEAD, and featured a photograph of the

  victim in his signature tuxedo, looking undeniably dashing in a menacing, swarthy sort of way. The article outlined the facts of the murder but offered nothing she hadn’t already heard.

  By seven-thirty Sunny had finished eating and put the dishes in the sink. She pulled on a sweater, grabbed her jacket, and headed out the door before she could think of a reason not to go. Outside, a three-quarter harvest moon had come up big and white and bright as a lantern, with Venus sparkling just below it. It was a remarkable night. With that moon shining down, it wasn’t dark out so much as a strange kind of daylight stripped of color, a black-and-white world. Sunny looked up, feeling the strong light bathe her face. On the ground, her shadow was as dark as in the daytime.

  The drive to Wade’s didn’t take long on the empty roads. Fifty yards from his house she turned off the headlights, cut the engine, and coasted up next to Wade’s old beige Volvo hatchback. Other than the truck’s engine ticking, it was completely silent. Normally, when Wade was home, he turned on the light outside above the door. Now the house stood dark against the night landscape. She grabbed a flashlight from behind the seat of the truck and went over to check the Volvo first, though she wasn’t quite sure what she was looking for. Something out of the ordinary. Something so close that Wade wouldn’t see it. She clicked the flashlight on, then off again. She could see more easily by moonlight. The gun wasn’t in the car, assuming it wasn’t bolted to the underside of the chassis. There were gum wrappers and change in the ashtray, and the usual maps and dried up pens in the glove compartment. She flipped down the driver’s-side visor. Nothing.

  On the deck, she tipped the potted rosemary up, hoping that Rivka had remembered to put the key back, and was relieved to find it was there. A dense thud at her side announced that Farber had given up his lonely vigil on the roof. He threw himself against her legs and made a hiccup noise that sounded like he said, “Ike!”

  Sunny took care of her chores quickly: She fed the cat, deposited the mail on the kitchen table, listened to the phone messages. There was one message from Ellie, saying she’d heard what had happened and asking if she could d
o anything to help. Another was from a customer requesting to be added to the Skord Mountain mailing list, an entity that Sunny happened to know existed only on Wade’s list of things he would like to do if he were the sort of person who had time to do that kind of thing. Other permanent items on Wade’s to-do list were learn to speak Spanish, build seaworthy canoe, and live in Burgundy for one year (become fluent in French, study cooperage).

  She examined the notepad beside the phone, looked in the refrigerator, and used barbecue tongs to prod the contents of the trash cans in the kitchen, office, and bathroom. Stinky sardine tins, orange peels, and coffee grounds in the kitchen, junk mail in the office, tissue in the bathroom. If there was any doubt that her activities had crossed the line from helpful inquiry to invasive search, they were put to rest when she pulled back the sheets and groped under them, expecting to find…what? Something, anything, to show that his life had taken a turn, or else that it hadn’t and all was perfectly well, perfectly normal. Wade subscribed to three magazines: the Zinfandel Growers Association Monthly, National Geographic, and Wooden Boat. Well-thumbed issues of each were layered on his nightstand. She checked the pockets of the dirty jeans in the hamper and the jackets hanging on hooks in the hallway.

  In the office, she sat at his desk. She examined the papers scattered over it and opened the drawers, then started his computer. At the password prompt she tried skordwine without success, then skordmountain, ellie, farber, zinlover, wadelicious, and finally skordelicious. Skordelicious hit the jackpot and the system started to boot. When it was up, she opened and began to peruse his e-mail, a breach of trust even in their profoundly permissive friendship, even given the circumstances. He was engaged in a witty flirtation with a Parisienne who had visited in the spring with her husband, a cookbook editor with one of France’s better publishing houses. He’d also been corresponding with Josh Freelander, but their exchanges consisted of the usual forwarded jokes and shoptalk.