by Nadia Gordon
“You mean when he said he would shoot anybody who got near his land without his permission? Yeah, I was there. I’ve been going to the Vintners Association meetings for a while now.”
“I was hoping the account I heard was exaggerated, but I guess not.”
“He popped off pretty good, but I don’t think anybody thought he was speaking literally. At least I didn’t. It was just something you say. You know, ‘I’ll kill the bastards!’”
“Well, it certainly hasn’t helped his case.”
“No, I guess it wouldn’t. It’s just his luck that Jack had to really go and get himself shot. I’ve definitely seen worse behavior, especially at the ag board meetings. I saw a guy throw a chair at a county supervisor once. It was like watching the Incredible Hulk with everything happening in slow motion.” He held up his arm as though warding off a flying chair and demonstrated a slow-motion grimace of shock and horror. “Everybody gets all bent out of shape at these meetings. Their businesses are at stake. What one guy needs to stay in business forces another guy out of business.”
“It’s crazy when you think about it. All this fuss over grapes. They’re just little globes of water and sugar.”
“Yep, and money is just little rectangles of paper,” said Charlie.
Sunny scrubbed her eyes and succumbed to a forceful yawn. Charlie tugged on her little toe. “What’s your story? You seem wiped out. Late night?”
“Very. I couldn’t sleep, so I went down to the restaurant and did way too much baking and then scared myself silly thinking the boogeyman was going to get me. Finally I came home and passed out, but by then it was about three in the morning.”
“I didn’t know you had the boogeyman at Wildside.”
“Normally we don’t, but last night I could have sworn someone was following me.”
“Are you serious?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Probably it was nothing.”
“It’s not nothing if you thought somebody was following you. Did you see somebody?”
“No, not really. Actually, I’m sure it was my imagination, but I thought I saw a face at the window of the restaurant. But I was tired and it was late, so it probably wasn’t really there. I hope.”
Charlie gave her a look. “I can’t believe you went to work in the middle of the night in the first place. What about reading a book or taking a warm bath?”
“It’s easier to understand if you run your own restaurant. Manic compulsive disorder is part of the job description.”
Charlie nodded slowly, studying her face. He looked at his watch, a plastic and Velcro job that looked like something GI Joe would wear. He tipped back the last of his coffee. “I better get going. I’ll see you at the meeting. Eight o’clock.”
“Right. I’ll be there.”
Sunny walked behind him to the door, seizing the opportunity to ogle his calves, which were nicely shaped, with a strong swath of tendon running up each side. She watched him climb into a white pickup truck with the gold Napa County insignia on the door. She waved as he drove away, then went back into the kitchen for more coffee.
She was late for work.
When Sunny pulled up at the restaurant at a quarter to eight, Rivka’s car was already there. Sunny got out and scanned the gravel parking lot, hunting some unknown sign that would reveal whether or not a stranger had trespassed the night before. The sharpshooter wanted poster was still there, staple-gunned to the fence that ran along the property line. Somebody had penned a handlebar mustache on the bug’s mug shot. Sunny walked toward the entrance to the restaurant and then turned off on the little trail that led around the side. She stopped at the window where she thought she’d seen a face. She felt certain it had been a man. There didn’t look to be any fingerprints on the window, nor in the fine layer of silt covering the ledge of the window frame. She crouched down. Beneath the window, in the soft soil beside a bushy growth of lemon verbena, was a large, deep, complete footprint of some kind of work boot, about a men’s size ten, if she had to guess.
Inside, Rivka had the music cranked up while she prepped for lunch. Sunny turned it down on her way in.
“Hey, R.C., I have to make some calls in the office. Mind if we don’t rock out for a sec?”
“No problem. Happy Monday. Hey, it looks like the orange peel fairy came last night.”
“Wow, really? That’s great.”
“And the cookie fairy. But she left all the lights on and everything sitting out. Very unusual behavior for a kitchen fairy.” Rivka looked at Sunny.
“I’ll explain later.”
Sunny went into the office. She closed the door behind her, then moved a heavy stack of mail off the chair and sat down. Note to self: Must open mail sometime this decade. She grabbed a notepad and penciled out a list of questions, then picked up the phone. She put the phone back down and looked around the desk for Steve Harvey’s business card with no luck. She dug in her knapsack. Finally she called the police station. After a few transfers and a wrong number, she reached him on his mobile.
“Sergeant Harvey speaking.”
“Hi, Steve. It’s Sonya McCoskey calling.”
“Sunny. I hope this is a social call.”
“What other kind is there? I’m just phoning to say how nice it was to run into you the other day.”
“Isn’t that nice. Why do I feel like we’re about to run into each other again?”
“That’s very insightful. As a matter of fact, I was wondering if you were free for a quick coffee this morning. We could meet at Bismark’s.”
“What’s this about?”
“I’d rather tell you in person, if that’s okay. How soon could you be there?”
“I could be there in, oh, ten minutes.”
“I’ll see you there.”
She hung up the phone and grabbed her car keys. In the kitchen, Rivka was chopping enormous mounds of parsley and cornichons into fine bits for salsa verde, Provençal style. There was almost nothing more delicious with grilled vegetables and roasted meat than Rivka’s salsa verde.
“Riv, I have to step out for a bit, but I’ll be back as soon as I can. Do you know what we have on the books today?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“That’s not too bad. We should be fine, assuming I can get back before nine-thirty or so. Maybe ten.”
Rivka kept chopping. “Yep, we’ll be fine. No worries.”
“Ciao, bella.”
“Hasta pronto.”
Sunny eased the truck into a diagonal parking spot across the street from Bismark’s. Inside, she ordered a glass of orange juice, a cinnamon croissant, and an everything bagel with cream cheese, basil, and tomato. There had been a serious downturn in caloric intake during the past two days and her belly spooned in from her ribs. She could feel the custodians in charge of metabolism breaking up the furniture and pulling the siding off the walls, trying to keep the internal furnace stoked up. It was like a scene out of Dr. Zhivago in there. While she stood waiting for the bagel to come up, she wolfed down the croissant. She was ready for a full-course meal at the next opportunity, but who could tell when that would be. A girl with wrists like batons and black eyeliner caked along the inside edges of her eyelids slid the warm bagel across to her without smiling or speaking. Sunny perched it on top of her orange juice, grabbed a pre-read section of the newspaper out of a basket on the floor, and selected a table in the corner, far from the stream of people coming in for coffee-to-go. She had read the advice column, the comics, and a movie review by the time Steve Harvey walked in. He scanned the room, acknowledging the people he recognized with a lift of the chin. He came over without getting coffee.
“Morning, Sunny.”
“Morning, Steve. Can I get you a cup of the dark stuff?”
He sat down across from her. “No, thanks. I’m all juiced up already.”
She took a bite of the bagel and reluctantly returned it to its nest of waxy white paper. She wiped her mouth, trying to think how to begin. Steve looked i
mpatient. Better ante up fast. “I was out at Wade’s house yesterday and I found something that might interest you.”
“What’s that?”
“This.” She put Michael Rieder’s business card on the table.
“A business card?”
“I found it in the grass off to the right side of the winery door. Do you know who Mike Rieder is?”
“No. Should I?”
“He’s Jack Beroni’s attorney.” She watched him. “Whoever stole Wade’s gun dropped Mike Rieder’s business card in the process.”
He turned the card over in his hands, examining it. “That’s only one explanation, and it happens to be one of the more farfetched. Wade probably dropped it himself.”
“I don’t think so. I can’t think of any reason Wade would have it.”
He gave her a skeptical look.
“Steve, you and I both know that somebody is trying to frame Wade Skord.”
He slipped the card into his breast pocket in an official-looking capacity. “Thank you, Sunny. I’ll see that it is put into evidence.”
She tried to look casual while she checked off questions on a list in her head. “Have you heard anything back from the autopsy?”
“Just what we expected. Cause of death: gunshot wound to the chest. Approximate time of death: between eleven and eleven-thirty Thursday night.”
“What about Wade’s gloves? Did they come back positive for gunpowder residue?”
Steve smiled and shook his head. “Negative.”
“I thought so. He doesn’t wear gloves when he shoots.”
“I wouldn’t have expected him to.”
“Then why test them?”
“Because if I were going to use someone else’s gun, I would wear gloves. I might even wear that individual’s own gloves, for continuity and because they happened to be lying around. I could use them and put them back and no one would ever know, whereas if I use my own, I have to dispose of them or risk somebody finding them full of gunshot residue. It was just a little theory of mine that didn’t pan out.”
“So you’re not sure he did it.”
“I’m interested in what actually happened. It’s my job to investigate every reasonable possibility.”
“Did you find any fingerprints in the winery?”
“That’s confidential information.”
Sunny sighed. That meant they hadn’t looked yet. She thought so. There hadn’t been any powder on anything. “And what about the gun? Has it turned up?”
Steve seemed to consider whether or not to answer the question. He glanced at the counter, probably reconsidering a cup of coffee. Finally he said, “Nothing’s turned up so far.”
“You looked in the woods below the lake?”
“Yep. We combed the area thoroughly.”
“All the way back to Wade’s winery?”
“No, not that far, it’s not realistic. But we made a broad sweep of the area.”
“How about the spent shell? Did you find that?”
“Nope.”
“Wade kept his gun in a canvas case. The case is missing as well. Did you find that?”
“No, but that’s interesting.”
“And what about the lake? Has anybody looked for the gun in the lake?”
“In the lake? No, I can’t say we have.”
“Don’t you think it’s a good idea? It’s a great place to throw a gun when you’re done with it.”
“How many cups of coffee have you had this morning?”
“Just two. I’m just trying to cover everything before your walkie-talkie goes off and you race out of here.”
He sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t get mixed up in this, Sunny. For one thing, finding Wade Skord’s gun near the scene of the crime is only going to further incriminate him.”
“I’m like you, Steve. I just want to know what happened. I know that when we find out the truth about what really happened Thursday night, Wade Skord will be cleared of any part of it.” She sat up and tilted her head, jerking it abruptly at the exact angle that made the bones in her neck crack loudly. Steve started at the gesture. She reminded herself not to do that in public. If she took time to go to yoga, she wouldn’t need to crack her neck in the first place. She said, “That phone call that took Jack Beroni away from Larissa Richards’s party Thursday night, it was made from the pay phone outside the Dusty Vine, is that right?”
Sergeant Harvey frowned, encouraging the vertical line that Sunny had noticed developing between his eyebrows. In a few years it would be permanent. “You know I can’t discuss the details of a criminal case with you, Sunny. This has gone way too far already.”
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s a ‘No comment.’”
That was a yes in her book. She gave him a smile she hoped would soften him up. “Okay, just one more question.” He opened his hands in a gesture that said, “Go ahead. It’s not like I can stop you.” He wasn’t making this easy, but he wasn’t making it impossible, either. She took a breath and exhaled. “With Jack Beroni dead, who inherits Beroni Vineyards when Al and Louisa pass on?”
Steve shook his head. “You are in way over your head, Sunny. This is not any of your business, and you’re only going to stir up more trouble for Wade.”
“It’s Gabe and Alex Campaglia, isn’t it?”
Steve shook his head in some combination of annoyance, disbelief, and amusement. He looked away and bit his lower lip, sucking air through his teeth in squeaky little bursts like mouse sounds.
“It’s true,” she said, unable to keep the amazement out of her voice.
He gave her a stern look. “McCoskey, you are treading on thin ice. I think you’ve pushed your luck just about far enough. I think it’s time for you to go do your job and let me do mine. I don’t want you running around, sticking your nose into things, when we’ve got a killer on the loose, and I’m sure you don’t want me cooking in your restaurant.”
She gaped. “I thought you said the killer was in jail.”
He stammered, “You know what I mean. This is police business. If you keep this up, I’ll be tempted to cite you for interfering with a police investigation.” He stood up and shoved the chair away a bit more forcefully than necessary.
“Steve?”
“Yap. What?”
“Have you or one of your people been tailing me?”
He looked surprised. “No, of course not. Why do you ask?” “Oh, no reason.”
He paused, looking at her, then walked out the door and up the street to his patrol car.
The hearing was well under way when Sunny poked her head around the door of Room 16 of the county courthouse. She slipped in and found a place to stand in back with the other latecomers. The room was filled to near capacity with forty or fifty people seated in rows of folding metal chairs and others standing along the side and back walls. At the front of the stage, the Napa County Agricultural Board was on display, seated behind a walnut-flavored plastic table with matching walnut nameplates in front of them. They reminded Sunny of the labels on the cages at the pound. Frank Schmidt, Commissioner. Friendly, loving. Great with children. ***Do not feed me snacks, I am on a special diet.*** A pristine whiteboard spanned the back wall. The Napa and California flags hung limply from standing poles in opposite corners.
Sunny spotted Silvano Cruz sitting up off to one side near the front, wearing a striped Western-style shirt and bolo tie and looking agitated. His cheeks were rosy and he kept shifting in his chair, as if it were an effort not to leap up and seize the ag commissioner by the collar and give him a good shake. Charlie was up on the little stage with the board members, sitting in one of the few wood and fabric chairs. He’d changed into khakis and a bright orange button-down shirt and was wearing what looked like bowling shoes mated with cross-trainers. He had his head tipped to one side, listening.
A middle-aged man in a dingy white oxford shirt and stiff blue tie had stood up and was reading from a clipboard, describing, in the most technical te
rms possible, how pesticides were applied, whether sprayed from the air or ground or added to irrigation water for systemic uptake. His monotonous voice reminded Sunny that she’d had less than three hours’ sleep. To make matters worse, the wall-to-wall carpeting and low ceiling made his voice sound round and soft. It was warm in the room and at least one attendee was already fighting a doze, his head intermittently lolling forward and then snapping back to attention.
The clipboard wielder flipped up a page and continued on to a detailed analysis of the toxicity of various broad-spectrum insecticides used against leafhoppers, making his way through Lorsban, Dursban, Baythroid, Provado, Admire, and Sevin at a wretched pace, hesitating over each word as though on the brink of lapsing back into silence. At last the sergeant at arms gave the one-minute warning. When the speaker had finally been cut off, Commissioner Frank Schmidt cleared his throat and reached in front of the deputy commissioner for the microphone.
“Now, let’s be clear about this,” he said, directing his speech to the man who had just sat down. “Pesticides, being designed and engineered to thwart the growth and proliferation of pests, are by definition toxic. That is not in dispute. It is also not in dispute that we are in an unpleasant, worst-case-scenario situation here. I don’t want to spray any more than you do. If we do decide to go ahead with a ground application, it will be judicious, it will be targeted, and it will be the last resort available to us. People, let’s remember that a multibillion-dollar local industry is at stake, an industry we are all connected to, one way or the other. And that’s just part of it. The almond folks, peach farmers, all the citrus guys are going to be affected. The glassy-winged sharpshooter spells trouble for a whole range of agricultural concerns. Even the residential folks are going to get good and fed up when they see what a mess these sharpies make once they’re established.”
There was a murmur as Schmidt looked around the room, considering which hand to call on next. “I’ll ask everyone’s cooperation once again in keeping their comments as succinct as possible.”
He pointed to a man with long gray hair and a rangy beard like a wizard’s. “Keith, why don’t you go ahead.”
