Dead in the Dregs (20 page)

“I am looking for the
patron
, Monsieur Carrière. Is he here?”

“
Oui
,” he said, not looking up from his work. I did a double take. It was Jean.

“Pitot?” I said. He glanced up from the barrel. “What are you doing here?” I asked. “Is this where you work?”

Panic crept into his eyes. The bottle in his hands shifted and wine spilled across the barrel.

“
Merde
!” he muttered. He set the bottle on the ground and stood up. He didn’t move, nor did I. Neither of us knew what to do.

“I’m not afraid of you,” he said, his chin raised defiantly.

Nor was I afraid of him. I simply hadn’t expected to run into him there. In my mind, I was on the trail of Feldman and, wanting to exhaust the possibilities of where I might find him, needed to get the conversation with Carrière out of the way.

“
Le patron
?” I said.

He jerked his head to indicate that the winemaker was somewhere farther inside the
cave.

“You and I have to talk,” I said. “Don’t go anywhere.” I turned away and then looked back. Pitot was visibly squirming where he stood, his body language suggesting he couldn’t make up his mind whether to follow me or run for his life.

Off the first cellar was a second, twenty by forty feet, with two aisles running between three rows of double-stacked barrels. As I entered it, I looked back over my shoulder. Pitot was watching me.

Cave
gave onto
cave
, each portal linteled by an I-beam set into the stone so low that I had to stoop as I passed from room to room, each chamber smaller than the next but all vaulted, the individual blocks of their construction indiscernible beneath a darkened slick of mold. Electrical conduit ringed each room at regular intervals, and from the zenith of its belt, a white porcelain shade hung like a corona around an oversize bulb that cast a dim light into the gloomy atmosphere. The
marcs
and
sous marcs
, wooden struts like train ties that anchored the oak barrels, ran the length of each chamber above pea gravel. The
barriques
, held in place by wooden chocks wedged beneath them, were topped off so completely that the base of the bungs oozed, the juice leaching across the oak staves like wounds that wouldn’t stop bleeding. My boots crunched on the broken stone.

I turned a corner into the fourth chamber and found Carrière standing alone. He turned suddenly, startled by the sound of footsteps.

“Monsieur Carrière?” I asked.

“
Oui, c’est moi.
” He was built like a prizefighter, dressed in jeans and a heavy charcoal-gray sweater.

“Forgive me, but do you speak English?”

“
Un peu.
”

“I’m looking for Eric Feldman, the wine writer.”

“Yes, I know who he is.” He furrowed a thick brow that ran unbroken across his face beneath a crown of dark, curly hair.

“I was led to believe that he may have come by here this afternoon for a tasting.”

“Feldman, no, I do not see him,” he said tersely.

“Absolutely not? You’re sure? He couldn’t have tasted with someone else?”

“
J’en suis certain.
He is not here.” His tone was insistent.

“I know he isn’t here now. I mean earlier today.”

“I tell you, he is not here. Not now, not before.” He stood up straight and squared his shoulders. “You think I do not know who comes to taste?”

“No, of course not. I’m sorry to disturb you.
Merci, Monsieur.
”

At the entrance to the second cellar, I stopped and turned around. He was following me out, and I thought he was going to say something. Unexpectedly, there came a creaking noise, a groan of wood, and, suddenly, an explosion as first one, then two barrels broke loose from their struts, rolling furiously and crashing toward me. I leapt just as one of them careened to the floor, knocking me off my feet.

“
Merde
!” Carrière shouted.

Workers, hearing the deafening clatter, appeared out of nowhere and scrambled to stop the barrels’ frenzied rolling. Miraculously, only one had been compromised by the impact. It lay there, its staves cracked, leaking its contents into the gravel.

“
Vite
!” Carrière screamed at the men. “
Une autre pièce
! And some hose!”

When they had gotten the situation under control, he turned to me.

“
Ça va?
” he said, regarding me suspiciously, as if the accident had been my fault.

“Yeah. I’m fine. It’s okay.”

I was standing in a puddle of red wine, the barrels squatting at odd angles at the entrance to the room.

“
Nom de Dieu
, what a mess,” Carrière said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Well, I think you are lucky,
non
?”

“I guess so,” I said, taking in the scene and feeling my knee. “It could have been much worse.”

“Worse for you,” the winemaker said.

“I’m fine. Do you need any help here?” I offered.

“No, my men will clean up.”

I walked out to the car. Pitot was nowhere to be seen. I may have been mistaken before about the incident with the arrow near my trailer, but this time it really did look like he had tried to take me out. But with a wine barrel? It was like a bad joke. Or a cruel joke, clumsily delivered.

 

The light had
turned. Low clouds broke off the Golden Slope, swirling overhead and skimming the vineyards. I crawled through the village, ran down through Vougeot, and turned out to the highway. After a few kilometers, I saw a pair of headlights in the rearview mirror scream up behind me at maniacal speed. They were blinding me—I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the mirror—and I panicked. I hit the gas, but within a second my pursuer was again climbing up my ass. I thought whoever it was was going to ram me. And then I saw a familiar sight: a police car and motorcycle parked on the shoulder, a team of
gendarmes
, their white belts and shoulder straps reflecting the light of the cars’ headlamps, flagging down drivers and demanding that they pull over to perform a sobriety test.

On an impulse, I pulled in behind the police car. As one of the officers approached the driver’s side window, I saw the car tailing me shift to the center lane and speed past. It was a dark Mercedes. Probably a businessman impatient to get home in time for dinner. I knew I’d been driving too slowly, thrown by what had just happened at Carrière.
You really need to get a grip
, I told myself.

“Sorry, it’s a rental,” I said in English to the
gendarme.
They hadn’t signaled me to pull over, and by the time I produced the contract and my driver’s license, the cop waved me on irritably.

“
Merci, Monsieur
,” I said. He’d never understand what I was thanking him for, and it didn’t matter.

Back at Le Chemin de Vigne, I stole upstairs to my bedroom before I could bump into anyone. I was shaking.

Sackheim had said that the French cops couldn’t trail anyone because Wilson hadn’t been murdered on French soil. Was it possible that the barrels had broken loose in Carrière’s
cave
by accident? Would there be any evidence tying Jean Pitot to the incident? The only time I’d ever heard of barrels clattering to the floor of a cellar was when an earthquake had hit Santa Cruz and several dozen had shattered at David Bruce Winery. But now the earth seemed to be shifting under my feet. My knees felt weak, and my nerves were rattled as if I’d just come through an earthquake myself. The car’s lights blinding me in my rearview mirror had completely unnerved me.

I needed to lie down and, not bothering to undress, crawled under the covers. Wired and exhausted, I quickly fell into a deep and disturbed sleep.

I dreamt I was searching for something, wandering through a series of cellars, their walls slick with mold, the air clammy. On my first trip to Burgundy years before, I’d visited a domaine that had a glass panel on one end of a barrel so that you could watch the wine fermenting. The image had come back to me in sleep, only this time its contents were bloody and frothing, a trickle of bubbles rising to the surface.

 

Jet lag had
caught up with me, and by the time I woke up, it was past ten o’clock in the morning. I opened the door of my room, startling a maid who apologized on behalf of the
patronne
, who had driven into Beaune to buy supplies. She set a pile of towels on a table in the hallway and pulled a slip of paper from her apron pocket. It was a phone message; Rosen had called, asking me to meet them. I decided to pass. I had prepared my own list of domaines, places Feldman and Goldoni visited regularly.

I showered, needing to rinse away the stale sweat from sleeping fully clothed and the fear that had congealed on my skin. Downstairs, I tried calling several of the
vignerons
from the front desk, but no one was picking up. The maid offered to make me coffee, but I declined. Out on the highway, I pulled over at a café, ordered a café au lait, and pocketed two croissants for the road.

I made my way north, retracing La Route des Grands Crus that Sackheim and I had taken south from Dijon, stopping by two or three domaines in each village. It was slow going: spotting the names of winemakers on the small signs that dotted the squares and narrow streets of each town; parking and walking and knocking on doors. I just missed Goldoni in Morey-Saint-Denis, but no one had seen Eric Feldman. Two
vignerons
—one in Chambolle-Musigny and a second in Gevrey-Chambertin—seemed particularly miffed that Feldman had blown off his appointments with them.

Around three o’clock, I gave up and took the N74 back to Aloxe. As I entered the common room of Le Chemin de Vigne, the
patronne
knelt at the fireplace, poking the logs that quickly flared into a crackling blaze.

“
Bonjour, Madame
.”

“
Bonjour, Monsieur
.”

“Would you care for an apéritif?” she asked. “
Un morceau
of fruit and cheese?”

“That sounds lovely, but what I need is to find someone, a young woman who is working at a domaine in Pommard. Beauchamp,” I said.

“Yes, Domaine Beauchamp. A very fine domaine, but it is difficult to find. I will draw you a map.”

She returned with pen and paper and placed a
kir
on the coffee table. I thanked her and drank the apéritif as she drew the map and described how to find Beauchamp. I’d lost Feldman’s trail in a pool of wine. I wasn’t sure where to pick it up. I thought I might have better luck locating Goldoni, and Monique seemed the best place to start.

 

Monique Azzine had
met Richard Wilson and Jacques Goldoni a few months before Richard was murdered. She’d obviously been upset by Goldoni’s appearance at the restaurant two nights before, a response that made no sense unless something had happened when they’d met in Barsac. Since Goldoni seemed attracted to her, and since I’d blown any chance of getting him to open up myself, I thought it was worth it to see if I could enlist her help. When we’d shared a smoke at the bistro in Beaune, we hadn’t been able to finish our conversation.
Still, I knew that I’d aroused her curiosity and that, if only for a moment, we’d connected.

The narrow streets of Pommard were a labyrinth, and by the time I pulled into the gated drive, twilight had deepened, tinting the sky a dirty purple. The shuttered mansion stood to one side, a neat garden planted at its edge. Pallets of boxes wrapped in plastic were stacked in a perfect square in the graveled yard, composing a post-modern sculpture. A tractor was parked beside the
cuverie.
A giant wooden door stood open, a faint light spilling from within.

The first room, an office, sported a desk, a darkened computer, and some lovely antiques hanging on the wall, old winery tools: a pitchfork; an auger for boring holes in barrels; a scythe; and a broad-handled, double-bladed axe.

I stood still momentarily to get my bearings. I entered a second room. Barrels set two-high lined the walls and ran neatly front to back. I could hear voices from the third cellar. A group of four men stood, glasses in hand, and turned to face me as I came through the door.

I introduced myself. One of them, André Guignard, was the winemaker. He was young—maybe in his late twenties—and casually dressed in jeans, a fleece jacket, and sneakers. The second, a Frenchman, was an exporter, and the two others were American, an importer and a distributor who were in town for the auction and the week’s festivities.

“I apologize for the interruption,” I said. “I’m looking for Monique Azzine.”

“I am sorry, I don’t know where she is,” Guignard said in heavily accented English, but at that instant she came through the door, wiping her hands on the faded overalls that draped her body. Beneath the floppy bib she wore a tight, long-sleeved, white V-neck T-shirt. As she entered she loosened her hair, which had been pulled back in a ponytail, and shook it like a mane.

“So, here she is,” Guignard said.

She was astonished to find me there.

“I’ve finished for the day.” She smiled at Guignard.

“Then join us,” he said, pulling a stem from an upended barrel and holding it out to her.

“I can’t. I’m sorry. I have a dinner engagement,” she explained.

“Ah. With whom?” Guignard asked.

“Freddy Rosen,” Monique said.

The Americans exchanged smiles.

“Okay. Good-bye. Go!” Guignard said, turning his back on her.

Monique rolled her eyes. “I can only give you a few minutes,” she told me as she led me back through the cellars.

Seeing the computer in the foyer, I said, “Do you mind if I check my e-mail?”

She walked to the desk, shifted the mouse, and stepped back.

“Help yourself. My room is down the hall on the right.”

I sat down and navigated the search engine. An utterly compelling and predictable mix: two ads for cut-rate Viagra; an offer of First and Second Growth Bordeaux I’d never be able to afford; and a not-to-be-missed franchise opportunity that would have had me frying chicken and slinging burgers for the rest of my life.