Blood on the Vine (26 page)

“Or someone in this room fed him that poison,” George said.

Wade Grosso cleared his throat, causing everyone to look at him. He said to me, “Do
you
think one of us killed Bill?”

I chose not to reply.

Bruce said animatedly, “Dad
was
murdered. And what conclusion can anyone come to except that somebody close to him is the murderer?”

They all stared at him without saying anything.

Nick delivered the soup course, and we ate in silence until I announced, “We’ll be leaving here tomorrow.” I glanced at George, who masked any surprise my pronouncement might have caused him.

“You can’t,” Bruce said from his seat across from me.

“I’m afraid we must, Bruce,” I said. “We both have to get back to our respective homes and lives. It’s evident to me that our presence here has been an extremely unwelcome one, and I’m old enough to know when a welcome has been outworn.”

Bruce said to George, “How can you just leave when you know someone has been murdered? Don’t you have some sort of ethics at Scotland Yard?”

George smiled and said calmly, “Oh, yes, we have many codes of ethics at the Yard. But Jessica and I also have our personal lives to consider. We came to this lovely valley to relax and enjoy each other’s company. I think it’s time we did that.”

“You’ll be leaving in the morning?” Tennessee asked as Fidel and Consuela cleared the soup bowls and Nick delivered the main course, lovely-looking breasts of chicken and braised root vegetables.

“Some time tomorrow,” I responded. “This looks delicious.”

My announcement of our planned departure created two distinctly different reactions. Bruce and his wife became sullen, although it was hard to determine Laura’s true feelings because she was sullen so much of the time. On the other hand, spirits seemed to pick up with Tennessee, Roger, and Wade.

In between those diverse reactions were Edith and Yves. I couldn’t read what either of them was thinking. When I confronted them about Cedar Gables Inn, I had expected them to agree with me that it was, indeed, a lovely place and that they’d spent a pleasant time there. At least that would have been the way I would have handled it. If asked why I’d said earlier that I’d never been to Napa Valley, a simple laugh and reference to having forgotten would have sufficed.

After dinner, as George and I were leaving the dining room, Tennessee encouraged us sweetly to ask for help if we needed it when leaving in the morning. I thanked her, and George and I went outside for some air. It was a pristine night, with millions of brilliant white stars against a black sky. And it was chilly; the sound of hundreds of windmills keeping the vines warm provided a low drone over the valley. George lit his pipe and drew contentedly on it.

“How’s your back?” I asked.

“It was all right for a while, not perfect but better. Beginning to trouble me as we sat at dinner. What made you decide to announce we were leaving?”

“To create a sense of urgency.”

“With
them?”

“With me. Truth is, we have a couple of days before we have to leave. I thought I would call Margaret and Craig and see if our rooms at the inn have become available. Spend our last days there.”

“Without a resolution to Ladington’s murder?”

“Don’t think that doesn’t bother me. But resolving who killed him really isn’t our responsibility. It never was.”

“You won’t hear an argument from me, Jessica.”

He groaned; his hand went to his back.

“You’re in pain.”

“This chilly air isn’t helping.”

“Come,” I said, taking his hand. “Let’s get inside.”

This particular spasm had come on quickly. By the time we’d reached the door and stepped into the hallway, he was almost doubled over. I helped him up the stairs and to his room, where he stretched out on the bed with a long, deep sigh of relief.

“What can I get you?” I asked. “Do you want me to call a doctor?”

“Oh, no, love. This is all I need.”

“I feel so guilty,” I said.

“Guilty? You don’t control the weather.”

“I wasn’t talking about the weather. There’s been such tension here, I’m sure it’s contributed to your bad back.”

“Nonsense. No more talk about that.”

There was a knock at the door. It was Laura Ladington.

“I saw the inspector and you come in, Mrs. Fletcher,” she said. “Is he all right?”

“No, he’s not,” I said. “His back seems worse.”

She looked past me at George, who managed a wave:

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked.

“I don’t think so.” I turned to George: “Can we get you anything?”

“Thank you, no.”

I thanked Laura for asking. She looked as though she was about to leave, but her hesitation was obvious. She whispered, “Could I speak with you privately?”

“Of course.”

“After you’ve taken care of the inspector.”

“Meet you downstairs?”

“Outside,” she said, fear in her voice. “In the vineyard.”

“Fifteen minutes?”

“Yes.”

She backed away, and I closed the door. George was now sitting up. His raised eyebrows asked the obvious question.

“She wants to speak with me privately.”

“Interesting. The quiet Mrs. Ladington is about to become vocal.”

“Maybe it’s nothing.”

“Maybe. But I have a gut feeling—no, a feeling in my back—that she’s about to tell you something meaningful.”

“We’ll see. Sure I can’t do anything?”

“Nothing. Go. Have your private conversation with Laura. Then report back as quickly as possible.”

“Yes, boss.” I tossed him a small salute, got a cardigan from my room, slipped it on, and headed for the vineyard.

The hand-operated wooden drawbridge over the narrow part of the moat, to the rear of the castle, was down when I arrived. One of the security guards sat dozing in the chair. My presence startled him awake.

“Good evening,” I said.

“Oh, hello.”

“Lovely night. A little chilly.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Did Laura Ladington come out here a few minutes ago?”

“Yes, ma’am. She’s out there in the vineyard.”

I looked past him and saw Laura standing where George and I had last encountered her. Were it not for the moonlight, she would have been invisible among the vines.

I crossed the drawbridge and approached slowly. She appeared to be ill. She was bent over, supporting herself by holding one of the stakes.

“Laura?’ I said, stopping a few feet from her.

“I—I’m sorry,” she said. “I was nauseous. I must have eaten something that—” She began to cry, softly at first, then loud sobs that caused her body to heave. I closed the gap between us and placed my hand on her shoulder.

“What is it?” I asked. “Nothing served at dinner tonight seemed to—”

“It wasn’t food. It wasn’t anything I ate. It’s—”

“It’s your pregnancy,” I said.

My blunt statement caused her sobbing to cease.

“How did you know?” she asked.

“Women in the early stages of pregnancy often don’t realize how soon they begin to show,” I said lightly. “You
looked
pregnant to me.”

“Oh, God,” she said. “How did I get into this mess?”

“I can’t answer that,” I said. “I assume Bruce is pleased.”

“Bruce? He doesn’t—”

“Doesn’t know? You haven’t told him?”

“Yes, he knows.”

“He noticed, too.”

She shook her head. “He hasn’t had a chance to notice, Mrs. Fletcher. We haven’t slept together for a long time.”

“How many months are you?” I asked.

“Three, I think.”

I wasn’t sure how far to probe into what was obviously a very personal situation. Yet I felt I had to, knowing through George that Bruce was sterile.

“I know I’m prying, Laura, but since you’ve opened up to me, I feel somewhat justified.”

“It’s all right,” she said, her crying now under control.

“I’ve been told, Laura, that your husband isn’t capable of fatherhood. Is that true?”

Her voice tightened. “How did you find that out?”

“It doesn’t matter. What
does
matter is whether the situation you find yourself in has any bearing on your father-in-law’s death.”

“No. Of course it doesn’t.”

“Then why did you decide to confide in me tonight?”

“I don’t know why, Mrs. Fletcher. It was foolish of me. I’m sorry.”

She turned to leave.

“Laura,” I said.

She stopped, turned, and faced me.

“Who’s the father of your child?”

The light from the moon illuminated her face, which was now hard, even hateful.

“Who, Laura?”

“That bastard, Ladington.”

“Ladington? Not Bruce.”

“No.”

“Your father-in-law.”

“Yes.”

She ran from me in the direction of the drawbridge and the house.

“That is a shocking revelation,” George said after I’d returned to his room and told him of my conversation with Laura.

“I’m still in shock,” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed and trying to process what I’d been told.

“How could a father do such a thing to a son?” George asked, as though seeking wisdom from an unseen force in the room. “The man must have been a monster to rape his own daughter-in-law.”

“If it was rape,” I said.

“Good God,” George said. “If it wasn’t rape—if it was consensual—it’s even more perverted in a way.”

“Do you think he could possibly have deliberately impregnated Laura to punish Bruce?”

“If so, it makes his actions even more despicable. At least if he’d had a sexual relationship with his daughter-in-law out of lust for her, it could be understood. Not condoned, of course, but understood in human terms. But if it was an act of aggression toward his own flesh and blood, it reaches the level of evil.”

I simply nodded.

“She didn’t indicate why it happened?”

“No. It was enough for her to tell me at all. The moment she did, she was gone, scurrying back to the castle.”

“Why do you think she told you, Jessica?”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out since it happened. Confess? Salve her conscience.”

“Deliver a message to you?”

“About the murder? That’s the most logical reason. I asked her about that. I didn’t get an answer.”

George stood stiffly and went to the window. “Who else knows?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Was Ladington killed because of it?”

“A good possibility.”

“If Tennessee knew, it could have angered her to the point of killing her unfaithful husband,” he said.

“The same could be said for Bruce. Laura told me that Bruce knows about the pregnancy, but she didn’t say whether he knows his father was responsible.”

“What do you suggest we do with this information, Jessica?”

“That’s one of many questions swimming around my brain. I can’t help but wonder who else in this household has been having affairs. There’s Tennessee having had her fling with Louis Hubler. She might have entered into that relationship to get back at her husband—if she knew he’d fathered Laura’s baby.”

“If so, it would be a more benign form of revenge than killing him. What about the others?”

“Hard to say,” I replied, “not knowing their own personal secrets. Stockdale burst into Tennessee’s bedroom while I was there with her. I have the feeling it isn’t the first time.”

“An affair between them?”

“Possible,” I said.

“Our charming French friends,” George said. “Any idea why they’d been here in Napa Valley before, but found it necessary to lie about it?”

“No. Where does this leave us? It appears that Ladington was murdered for one of two reasons: lust and/or jealousy, or money.”

“Two of the more common motives.”

“Let’s say it was lust or jealousy, George. What I can’t sort out is the ingestion of poison and his fall into the moat. Did someone push him? If so, that could have been the result of a jealous rage. But he was poisoned, too. That’s a much more premeditated approach and would take careful planning.”

He returned to sit beside me on the bed and laughed. “Maybe two people tried to kill our philandering vintner, one with poison, the other by pushing him to his death. Hardly likely that the same person tried both methods.”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “The murderer might have tried poison, saw it wasn’t working—or working too slowly—and finished him off in a more forceful way. Belt and suspenders.”

I observed him as he sat next to me. He was deep in thought.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“That we’re overlooking Miss Laura. We’re sitting here speculating about how her pregnancy might have prompted someone to kill. But we’re not taking into account that she had as much, or more, motive for killing her father-in-law. Let’s say it was rape. She wouldn’t be the first woman who’d sought revenge on her rapist.”

“Well,” I said, standing and stretching against a pain that had developed in
my
back, “I don’t think this changes our plans to leave tomorrow.”

“I’m in the mood for a drink,” he said.

“I’ll join you. It’s been that sort of an evening.”

We went down to the drawing room where George pulled down a bottle of single-malt Scotch from behind the bar. “You?” he asked.

“I’ll have some of that Ladington Creek cabernet,” I said.

We held up our glasses in a toast. As we did, Nick entered the room.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think anyone would be here.”

“No problem,” George said. “Please join us.”

“That’s what I came in for,” Nick said, going directly to the bar. He went behind it and poured bourbon into a water glass, “Aah,” he said, taking a healthy swig. “This may be wine country, but there’s nothing like a good bourbon.” He wore jeans, a white V-neck sweater that exposed a bush of black chest hair, a well-worn leather jacket, and loafers sans socks.