A Tainted Finish: A Sydney McGrath Mystery (7 page)

“We’re finished now, anyway,” Syd said after a long pause. He nodded at the ground like a soldier waiting for orders. He looked like a young lost boy. “I went up in the vineyard today,” she said. “Do we have leaf roll in the Picpoul?”

“No. Not leaf roll. Red blotch. It is similar. A cousin virus.” He turned and walked up the hill in big strides and Syd followed. He had the graceful stride of a well-proportioned man, not too much taller than Sydney. His dark hair was curly and shined around a gorgeous brown face with nearly black eyes. She watched him in admiration as he trudged ahead of her. They stopped next to the block that puzzled Syd earlier that day. She was winded and dizzy from the steep climb up the hill, and she steadied herself on his sleeve reflexively. He was breathing normally and smiled as he glanced at her hand on his sleeve.

“They don't have Stairmasters in Seattle?” he teased.

“Looks like you could use a Stairmaster
here
,” she retorted nodding at his growing belly. Alejandro had easily gained 25 pounds since she saw him last. “You're looking prosperous.”

“Hey,
gordita, mi novia
is a good cook,” He clutched his paunch with two hands and jiggled it proudly.

She smiled at him gratefully. He used to call her
gordita
as a term of endearment. He was the man who taught her to embrace her curves and size-10 hips and D-cup bra while she lambasted herself in the mirror with the cliché self-torture of young women everywhere. Her hourglass body didn't look anything like the emaciated photoshopped models she saw in magazines. But Alejandro gently taught her about her own rare beauty over the course of a long summer in the hot Airstream under the stars.

He reached out and plucked a dry, reddish leaf from a vine next to him.

“No curl, see? The leaf is flat. Also, the veins are red here. With leaf curl, they are green.” His calloused index finger traced the veins in the leaf.

“What do we do? Pull them out?” She looked down at the entire vineyard. She figured maybe two percent of the vines showed red leaves.

“It is the only thing we can do. But it won't save us from infecting the entire vineyard. Everybody up here has it. I was up in Ted's lower block this weekend. They have it much worse than we do. But it is only a matter of time before it takes over.” He frowned, his black eyebrows arching together.

“What are they doing about it?” she asked.

“
Gringos
? Nada, as far as I can see. But I think they are worried. When I was up in Ted's vineyard I saw a group of them walking around up there. Some kind of secret meeting, you know? A
jefe
meeting.” Alejandro feigned a half-mocking Chicano accent when he talked about the
gringos
. They had a long understanding about the differences between Mexican-Americans and white folks in these parts, especially with respect to the vineyards. Alejandro referred to the owners as
gringos
, and his Mexican and Salvadorian friends as the workers. Ownership was always defined in racial terms. He made no attempt to hide his contempt of the
gringos
and their lack of expertise with the vines. But Syd knew there was much more to the management of the vines than their health. Ripping out vines meant delayed production, and growers lived on short margins as it was.

“Why do you think it was a secret meeting?” she asked.

“They all looked around suspiciously to see if anybody was around. And they parked their Beemers behind the trees. Over there.” He pointed to a copse of Douglas firs that separated the two vineyard blocks from one another a couple hundred yards from the fence line.

“They didn't see you?”

“I'm invisible, Grasshopper. I move with the wind.” There was a long-standing joke between them about the ubiquitous and thus invisible nature of Latino workers and being completely ignored by the
gringos.

“What were they doing?”

“They mostly just stood around and pointed at the vineyards. Come to think of it, they didn't really look at the vines. They just stood and pointed out the easements and roads. They didn't walk around much.
No one had boots
.” He shook his head in derision. “I was too far away to hear them. But Jack was the one leading the conversation.”

“Jack Bristol?”

He nodded.

“Who else was there?”

“Francois.”

“Francois Bertrand?”

He nodded. “And The Feldman guy, the one who almost bought us out. And that little fucking weasel prick, the wine critic.”

“Joe Donner?”

He nodded, waiting for her reaction. It dawned on him that the meeting of the
jefes
must have had little to do with red blotch. He watched as she paced back and forth with her hands on her hips. She paced for a full five minutes.

“Why on Earth would Jack Bristol, Francois Bertrand, Hans Feldman and Joe Donner be skulking around behind our winery, Alejandro?” she asked softly. “When was this?”

He thought for a moment. “Sunday, around four,” he said. His eyes grew wide at Syd's furrowed brow. She turned silently and wandered down the path in a trance while Alejandro fought a superstitious tingling at the back of his neck. Clarence was found dead only a few hours later.

~

The sun was sinking fast by the time Syd got back down to the house. She realized she was starving. Charlie was waiting for her on the deck in an Adirondack rocker, cupping a large snifter of caramel-colored liquid. Syd plopped down next to her.

“Long day?” Syd asked. She took the glass from her and smelled it. She swirled and gulped without further ceremony.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Charlie replied with uncharacteristic melancholy. She reached over and snatched back the glass.

Syd reached for her hand. “Thanks, Charlie.”

Charlie sighed deeply, sipping the scotch tenderly. They sat quietly for a half hour, passing the snifter back and forth. Charlie refilled it twice.

“All of the arrangements are done,” Charlie broke the silence, startling Syd out of her troubled thoughts.

Syd nodded.

“Dad came by with the autopsy report. And some tampons for you,” Charlie delivered in her usual deadpan. Syd smiled at her and chuckled. Charlie caught her eye and smiled back. They surrendered to the crescendo hysterical humor and cackled, bending over and gasping for breath. Charlie fell off her chair and thudded onto the deck.

Syd toasted to the air. “To Jim Yesler, the father I never had!”

“Here, here!” Charlie said, threatening to pee her pants.

Friday started with a severe headache and a bout of nausea. Syd sat naked in bed with her work clothes balled up on the floor. She had no recollection of going to bed, let alone undressing. The night before had dissolved into a foray of Clarence's liquor cabinet. A tall glass of water sat on the nightstand. She picked it up and drank the entire glass in one go.

A dry cleaning bag with her Armani suit in it hung on the door. She sat up and tested her body slowly. She wrapped the old quilt from the bed around herself and shuffled out of the room to meet Olivier in the doorway. He held a small glass of fizzy water.

“This will help,” he said, shoving the glass in her hand. He turned on his heels and left before she could feel embarrassed.

She crawled back into bed and drank the fizzy water. She slowly tried to piece together the day ahead of her. She would have to meet with Jim Yesler. He had the autopsy report and he wanted to discuss it with her. She had an appointment with the insurance agent in the afternoon, a new guy she had not met before. And she was expecting Marcus late that afternoon.
Marcus
. She threw herself back on the bed, and burrowed under the sheets.

Charlie burst in a few minutes later and flung open the window. The room filled with head-pounding light. Syd threw a linen pillow at her.

“It burns, it burns!” she yelled, burying her face in the other pillow.

“You need to get up, lazy bones,” Charlie said. She flopped down next to Syd and stroked her hair. Her fingers probed for the bump from a few days before. Syd knocked her hand off playfully and they held hands behind Syd's head.

“What time is it?” Syd asked, rolling over and kissing Charlie on the lips.

“
Geez!
Time to brush your fucking teeth,” Charlie said. She recoiled in feigned horror and bounced toward the door. “9:15,” she shouted on her way out.

~

Paul Renquest sat at the table, absently spinning the mug of tea she had placed in front of him a few minutes before. His other hand sat protectively on a file in front of him. He waited patiently for her to emerge from the kitchen with her own mug, flip flops snapping on the hard wood floors.

After the usual apologies and condolences – which Syd was growing accustomed to by now – she watched as the middle-aged man paused to collect his thoughts. He bowed his head and fiddled with the file in front of him. He was bald and bespectacled, but his obvious fitness bulged out of his tight-fitting fleece. He was a member of the wind chaser tribe that was so prevalent in the Gorge. Being a kiteboarder and windsurfer required the kind of job that left time for a quick jettison to the river when the wind kicked up, which it did every afternoon during the windy season like clockwork. Middle-aged adrenalin junkies were a dime a dozen here. She watched as he cleared his throat, unaware of her scrutiny.

“Your uncle had a life insurance policy that left you enough to be comfortable for life,” he said. “We had been talking about different ways to set up a policy to give you more. Unfortunately, we had a meeting scheduled this week to consider other options for you. Too late. I'm sorry. But I think that you'll find he was thinking about your future.”

He slid the file to her across the table. The grief hung in his eyes, but his face was charged with an odd excitement. Her stomach churned as she stared at the file. She opened it and read it slowly, a blank expression on her face.
Enough to be comfortable
was a gross understatement. She took a deep breath.

“It will fund soon after you file the claim. Within the month, in fact. In the meantime, are you able to cover the funeral expenses?” He searched her face for some kind of response.

“Hmm? Oh, yes. Uncle had savings. And his plans for the funeral have been set for ages. He was very particular about the wake. No funeral. He wasn't religious. He always said he wanted a good old fashioned party. The memorial will be short and sweet.” She smiled at him demurely, a foreign gesture for her. Her head was still rolling over the figures on the papers in front of her.

He nodded and folded his hands on the table. Syd watched the powerful muscles in his forearms when he moved his hands. They sat in a charged silence for a few minutes. He began to drum his fingers on the table.

“There's one more thing,” he said with averted eyes. “I'm not sure I should be telling you this, but there was another policy. It was taken out for a business contract between your uncle and an investor. It’s called a key man policy. It’s normal for an investor to take out a policy on a person of talent when that person is the primary source of the investment. Like your uncle was to the winery. These policies were drawn up when his winery was being purchased by an investor. There are two recipients in the key man policies. The potential business partner and a smaller policy for the lawyer who drew up the contract. Both policies are still current.” He glanced up at her, over his glasses.

“Current? Why weren't they stopped when the buyout fell through?”

“I'm not sure. Most of these kinds of policies aren't kept when escrow falls through or when a deal goes sour. Considering your uncle's age and his risk habits, the policy is expensive. He was lucky to get insured at all.”

“Why are you telling me this, Paul?”

“These kinds of policies are fixed monetary sums intended to make up for the loss of the talent in the event of death and to facilitate business continuity. A business is usually the recipient, but this policy claimed Hans Feldman as the primary recipient.” He sighed and fidgeted with the corner of the folder. “I was with your uncle when his plane nearly crashed last June, Syd. I was on the tarmac. We've been flying together for years. Your uncle was an excellent pilot.”

“And?” She felt a nasty lump caught in the back of her throat.

“And I'm not comfortable with what I know. I'm not so sure that the plane malfunctioned accidentally.”

“I understood that he was in a stall during a dive. And he couldn't pull out of it, correct?” Syd asked through a dry throat.

“Have you ever known your uncle to not recover a stall?” he asked quietly. She stared at him. “Listen, I'm not saying this to frighten you or stir up any trouble. But before he went up that day we had coffee and he was pretty pissed off. He told me about the buyout and that he was backing out. We talked about revamping all his policies to make up for the loss of business I would incur from his backing out of the contract. He was fair like that. But the hospital after the accident and the busy summer got in the way, and we never got together to redo his insurance plans. He got lucky that day. It’s only because he is, was a damned good pilot that he could recover that dive at all. And his love of that old plane, I suspect.” He winked at her.

“So what are you saying to me, Paul?” she asked, suddenly feeling exhausted.

“I'm just giving you information, Sydney. Your uncle was a friend of mine. I respected him. He was a good man.” He bowed his head. “And I can't imagine anyone paying those kinds of premiums for a policy on a man who’s no longer a business partner.”

“Who paid the premiums?”

“Hans Feldman paid one of them.”

“So, you’re telling me Hans Feldman had something to gain by Uncle’s death? And that he may have been complicit in the plane crash in June?”

“I'm just saying that the circumstances are curious,” he said in a whisper, raising his eyebrows. “About the lawyer too.”

“And who’s the lawyer?” she asked incredulously.

“Jack Bristol.” He lowered his voice and inspected the back of his hands.