Blood on the Vine (12 page)

My anger had now risen to the point where I was prompted to speak. “Mrs. Ladington,” I said, “if you’d like us to leave, please say so. Your husband invited me to stay here as a guest for the week, and your stepson renewed that invitation. But I assure you it would not be a hardship for us to pack up and spend the week in more welcoming surroundings.”

“Mrs. Fletcher is right,” Stockdale said. “We aren’t treating our guests the way Bill would have wanted us to. We’re on edge, Mrs. Fletcher, as I’m sure you can understand. Bill’s passing shocked us all. Please forgive us—and don’t think of leaving.”

Edith Saison returned to the room to announce, “That was Yves. He’s coming to stay here.”

“When?” Tennessee asked.

“He called from Curaçao. He’s getting on a plane within the hour.”

Stockdale answered the question written on my face. “Yves LeGrand. Edith’s partner in their French vineyard.”

“Oh.”

Wade Grosso, who stood to my left, snorted but didn’t comment.

I looked to Tennessee, who didn’t seem pleased with the news.

Bruce reappeared and took his seat. “Laura’s not feeling well,” he said. “A bad headache.” To me he said, “She gets migraines.”

“Poor thing,” Tennessee said, standing. “Excuse me. I don’t eat dessert.”

After dinner, Bruce suggested we retire to his father’s study for a nightcap, but George and I declined.

“I have to talk to you,” Bruce said. “About Dad’s death.”

“I think it had better wait until morning,” I said. “I’m very tired.”

“Sure, I understand,” he said. “We’ll spend the day going over it.”

“Do you feel like some air?” George suggested when we stood alone at the foot of the stairs leading to the second level and our rooms.

“Oh, yes,” I said.

We stepped outside into a chilly, damp night. The clouds were low and fast-moving, and a dense fog had enveloped the winery. The air was filled with a hum.

“Giant fans in the vineyards,” I said. “It must be cold enough for them to go on. They circulate the warmer air above the vines to keep the lower portions from freezing.”

“You already sound like an expert,” he said, pulling a pipe from his jacket, tamping tobacco from a pouch into it and lighting it. It smelled good.

“What do you think of our friends inside?” I asked lightly.

“I’ve been in the company of some strange people following a death,” he said, “especially when murder is a possibility, but these characters elevate dysfunctional to new heights.”

We fell silent and breathed in the damp night air. But we stiffened at a sound from behind. We turned. A man emerged from the shadows holding a rifle. It was pointed directly at us. “Identify yourselves,” he said.

“We’re guests here,” I said. “Who are
you
?
”

“Security. Guests? Nobody told me about any guests.”

“I don’t care what anyone told you,” George said. “Put down that ridiculous gun before you hurt someone.”

He seemed unsure of what to do, which made him especially dangerous. I glanced beyond him to a window next to the front door and saw Roger Stockdale’s face. He realized I’d seen him, opened the door, and said, “It’s all right, Willy. They’re houseguests.”

Willy lowered the rifle. “Just doing my job,” he told Stockdale.

“Of course,” Stockdale said. “It’s all right.”

“That’s better,” said George. “I have a particular aversion to having strange men point a loaded weapon at me.”

“Can’t blame you,” Stockdale said. “It won’t happen again.”

George’s anger was palpable. He took my arm and said, “Let’s go inside, Jessica, before we end up dead like our host.”

Rain pounding against the window woke me early the next morning. I pulled open the heavy drapes and looked out at a windswept torrent of water cascading from an almost black sky.

The weather was disappointing. George and I had decided before retiring to our rooms that we’d find some time to get away from the castle and explore the surrounding countryside. Although we’d made a commitment of sorts to Bruce to investigate his father’s death, I was also determined to relax and take in the valley’s sights.

Before falling asleep, I’d perused my Napa Valley guidebook and had noted a few places to visit, including Sterling Vineyards, where you have to ride an aerial tram to get to the chateau and tasting room. I was also intrigued with the notion of taking a hot air balloon ride, and wrote down the number of Napa Valley Balloons, which offered daily trips. In the past, the thought of going up in a balloon and hanging from it in a wicker basket while flames were shot up inside the balloon to give it lift, had never appealed. Now that I’d learned to fly, however, I was eager for the experience.

But those excursions would have to wait for a sunny day.

I joined George for breakfast in the dining room where, we’d been told, we could have breakfast any time up until noon. Consuela served us eggs and toast and fresh-squeezed orange juice. We were either early or late; we were the only ones there.

Bruce Ladington joined us as we were finishing.

“I thought we could have that talk now,” he said.

“Looks like a perfect day for talking,” George said. “This weather isn’t good for much else. Very much like home in Scotland.”

“Before we have that talk,” I said, “I’d like to see the tasting room. I understand your awards are displayed there.”

“Yeah. Dad was really proud of them. Nobody knew that side of him. He never bragged about all the money he made in real estate in Boston, or movies in the Hollywood days. But this was different. It was as if wine became a transfusion, a new supply of blood for him.”

“Was the partnership with Ms. Saison as important as he thought it would be?” I asked.

Bruce lowered his voice to a conspiratorial level. “That’s what he believed, but as far as I’m concerned she’s a fraud. And now this lover of hers—what’s his name? Yves LeGrand? I don’t know what kind of deal Dad cut with them, but Roger told me once that they really took Dad to the cleaners.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Dad never shared his business with me. Kept it to himself. Probably figured I was too dumb or something.”

Hearing him say that saddened me. This young man was so unlike his father in every way, physically and emotionally, and had desperately wanted and needed his father’s approval, which, I suspected, he’d never received.

“How’s your wife feeling this morning?” George asked, sensing the discomfort I was experiencing and changing the subject.

“Better. When she gets those migraines, the only thing she can do is go to bed.”

“I’ve heard how painful they are,” I offered.

“Pretty bad,” Bruce said. “It’s always worse when we’re here at the castle. She never has them when we’re at the Curaçao house.”

“Do you spend much time in Curaçao?” I asked.

“As much as we can. Come on. I’ll show you the tasting room.”

I’d assumed we’d be going to another part of the castle. But we had to leave it in order to get to a separate building that was considerably newer than the castle. We took large, striped golf umbrellas from a stand and held them above us as we crossed a level grassy area to the newer building, which was one-story and designed to look like an oversized log cabin.

“It isn’t open to the public until ten,” Bruce said once we were inside.

The tasting room took up almost the entire building, with the exception of three small offices at one end. While the building’s exterior was rough-hewn, the inside was decidedly modem. A long stainless-steel counter ran the length of the room. Behind it were display racks for the different wines produced by Ladington Creek. Two large trays of small glasses occupied one end of the counter.

“This is where people come to taste,” Bruce said. “It used to be free, but the other wineries started charging and we did, too. It got to be too expensive handing out free wine.”

“I can imagine,” George said, going behind the counter and examining some of the bottles and their labels. I strayed to the wall opposite, on which dozens of framed awards were displayed. They came from all over the world. Most had been given for the winery’s cabernets, although there were also citations for a Ladington Creek merlot. It was evident that white wine was not the winery’s strong suit.

Bruce joined me.

“Your father told me,” I said, “that the varietals Ms. Saison was bringing to graft to his vines would create a truly superior cabernet one day.”

“I guess he believed that, Mrs. Fletcher. I wish he hadn’t. If you ask me, Edith Saison should be a prime suspect in his murder.”

George had come up behind us.
“If
it was murder,” he reminded the younger Ladington.

“Can there be any doubt?” Bruce said. “You saw the way everybody acted at dinner last night. They’re all glad he’s dead.”

“Why?” I asked.

“For control, Mrs. Fletcher. For the money. Edith claims Ladington Creek becomes her property because of her partnership with Dad. Boy, did she sell him a bill of goods. He met her and her boyfriend, Yves, in Curaçao. They have a house there, too, over on Knip Bay. Dad was like any big tough guy. They’re the easiest to con, if you know what I mean, like salesmen being the easiest people to sell.”

“What about your stepmother?” George asked.

“Her? Oh, she wants the money, too. It isn’t fair that she can lay claim to it just because she got him to marry her.”

“Got him to marry her?” I repeated.

“That’s right. Dad was a big, tough guy, but he was a pussycat when it came to women. You know he’d been married many times. Tennessee told him what a great man he was and he fell for it, like he usually did. She even said he should run for President. They were married a month after they were introduced.”

“Is there anyone else you suspect?” George asked.

“Bob Jenkins.”

“Who is he?” George asked.

“He owns the vineyard next to Ladington Creek. Shelton Reserve. Ever hear of it?”

“I believe I have,” I said. “I attended a wine-appreciation course before leaving Maine. Our instructor had a number of wines for us to taste, and I seem to remember one was Shelton Reserve.”

“Jenkins has been trying to run my father out of business since Dad bought Ladington Creek. It was called Opel Vineyard then, until he changed the name.”

“Your father mentioned Mr. Jenkins to me,” I said. “Said something harsh about him.”

Bruce smiled. “I don’t wonder. He hated him. Jenkins’s vineyard is on higher ground than ours. That means any problems Jenkins has with disease, especially phylloxera, can run down onto our vines in a heavy rain.”

“Phylloxera?”. George asked.

“A plant louse that pretty much wiped out vineyards in Europe and California last century,” I said. “It’s made a comeback in California recently.”

“I am impressed by your explanation, Jessica,” George said.

“I read it in the book I brought with me on wine making.”

“It’s a really bad disease,” Bruce said.

“I’ll take your word for it,” said George.

“Would you like to taste some of the wines?” Bruce asked. “Before the tourists arrive? I sometimes work the tasting room. It was the only thing Dad let me do around here.”

“I doubt you’ll see many tourists on a nasty day like this,” I said.

“A little early for a taste of the grape for me,” George said. I agreed.

“Want to go back to Dad’s study?” Bruce asked.

We nodded and went to the door. The rain had stopped; a lovely rainbow spanned the horizon where the sun attempted to displace the grayness. We returned to the castle and were on our way to Bill Ladington’s study when voices from an adjacent room caused Bruce to stop.

“Sounds like the
shirra,”
George said.

“The what?” Bruce said.

“Sorry,” George said. “I slipped into my Scottish mode.
Shirra.
Scottish for sheriff.”

“Oh.”

Sheriff Davis appeared in the hallway. “Been showing your houseguests the property?” he asked Bruce.

“We were in the tasting room,” Bruce replied.

“Enjoying an early-morning eye-opener, Mrs. Fletcher?”

“We didn’t have any wine,” I said.

“Did you come to see me?” Bruce asked.

“Matter of fact, no,” the sheriff said. “I came to see your stepmom.”

We waited for a further explanation. None was forthcoming. Instead, he said, “I got back a preliminary autopsy report this morning, just before I headed here.”

We stood silently.

“Looks like it wasn’t as clear-cut as we first thought.”

“Dad didn’t commit suicide?” Bruce said excitedly.

“I didn’t say that,” said the sheriff, “but the investigation’s going to remain open until we have the answer.”

“Could you be more specific?” George asked.

The sheriff turned and smiled at George. “Sounds to me like you’re not so much of a casual tourist as you said you were.”

“Just curious,” George said.

“Professional curiosity?”

George didn’t respond.

“Tell you what. How would you like to spend some time with me, see how we catch the bad guys in Napa Valley? You know, hands across the sea and all that.”

George looked at me before saying, “I assume that invitation extends to Mrs. Fletcher, too.”

“Give you some research for your next book, Mrs. Fletcher?”

“Perhaps.”

“Sure. How about tomorrow morning? Nine?”

“That sounds good to me,” George said. “I always enjoy seeing how other law enforcement agencies function.”

Davis gave us directions to his headquarters and left.

“I can’t believe that,” Bruce said.

“Generous offer of him,” George commented.

“Maybe you’ll find out things about how Dad died. This is great.”