How to Dine on Killer Wine: A Party-Planning Mystery (23 page)

While Dee made phone calls, I returned to the Internet to look for more information. I did a search for ex-governor Dennis Brien and was overloaded with
hits. When he was governor, his name had been in the papers on a daily basis. News had quieted down since he left office, with only a brief mention of his winery purchase and construction of his Napa mansion.

I thought about the message Allison had sent to Dennis. She’d wanted him to contact her and said it was urgent. What could have been so urgent? Had he called her after I left his winery? Was something going on between Allison and Dennis? Like an affair?

I had no evidence of anything like that. Not yet, anyway. Finding physical evidence would require another visit to the Purple Grape—and Allison’s room.

Temporarily pushing aside thoughts of illegal search and seizure, I wondered if I could find anything on the other neighbors, Nick and Claudette Madeira. I typed in their names, but all that came up were accounts of various social events they had hosted or attended. I finally found one mention of their legal fight with JoAnne Douglas—she had sued them for “disturbing the peace, congestion, and littering, due to the heavy influx of tourists each weekend,” but she had withdrawn the suit when they made a “donation” to her cause. Nick and Claudette were allowed to continue opening their “castle” and grounds to the public—and charging a hefty fee. Had the Madeiras held a grudge because of JoAnne’s attempts to halt their business? Had JoAnne been planning something else to interfere with their moneymaking enterprise?

When I hit a dead end, I entered in Javier Montoya’s name, remembering his last name had been written on the side of his pickup truck.

Nothing.

No Facebook, no Web site, no news articles, no property reports, no legal infractions.

How had the Internet not yet caught up with Javier Montoya? I wondered. I figured anyone with a birth certificate was Google-able.

Birth certificate.

Could that be it? Was Javier here illegally? He’d certainly kept a low profile. If he was illegal, had JoAnne found out and threatened to turn him in? Was she blackmailing him and he killed her for it?

I rubbed my forehead, trying to keep a grip on my imagination. The possibilities seemed limitless. My gray cells were turning into black holes. At this point I was convinced everyone had done it, just like the plot of
Murder on the Orient
Express.
Where was Hercule Poirot when I needed him?

I made one last circuitous effort to find out more about JoAnne via Natalie Mattos, her hired pourer. I typed in Natalie’s name and the word “Facebook” and watched her page come up. Unfortunately, it was blocked: “Natalie only shares
some
profile information with everyone. If you know Natalie, add her as a friend or send her a message.”

I friended her but knew it would be a while before I got a response. Remembering what Brad had suggested, I checked her friends list. There were more than three hundred of them. I clicked “Friends in Common.” Bingo! The Purple Grape Winery popped up. Interesting. I searched further and found she’d also friended the Briens’ winery and the Madeiras’ winery, as well as several others in the area.

I clicked on the Purple Grape link and read over the
latest entries from the winery. Nothing about the murder, of course. In fact, nothing posted at all since the party, which made sense. I scrolled down, searching for an entry from Natalie or anyone else I recognized. After going back several weeks, I had found nothing significant.

All I knew at this point was that Natalie knew the Christophers, along with several other vintners in the area. Probably because she had tried to get jobs at their wineries.

“Done!” Dee announced, hanging up the phone after completing several calls.

“Already?” I asked, her news jerking me out of my search.

“Yep. You’ll be busier than Martha Stewart for the next few months if you take all these jobs. They’re very high profile, which means big money and great for business. For the Angel Island one, I thought I’d dress up as one of the Chinese immigrants. I’m one-quarter Vietnamese, you know. Maybe I’ll come as a skeleton for the Day of the Dead party. I’m thinking a Beach Blanket Babylon outfit for the Bay to Breakers gig. And I could do a sexy chocolate goddess for the Ghirardelli thing. What do you think?”

After only a few phone calls, Delicia had her spark and spirit back. I could see it in her dancing eyes. That’s what parties do for people—lift their spirits even in the worst of times. It was part of the reason I enjoyed this event-planning business. I had a career I would never have chosen for myself if I hadn’t been downsized from teaching at the university—and been encouraged by my socialite mother.

Brad stuck his head in the office. “Ready to quit for the day? Thought we’d have a quiet night at my place. I’ll cook pasta. We can watch a video, play a board game, do some role-playing, you know…”

“Role-playing?” Dee repeated, giggling.

“Ignore her,” I said to Brad, regarding Dee’s nasty innuendo, and sent her a daggered look. “She’s giddy from all the jobs she just snagged for Killer Parties.

“Sounds wonderful. Let me finish one more quick thing here and I’ll be ready.”

Brad pulled up a folding chair and sat down to wait. I guess he knew me well enough to know that “one more quick thing” meant “Have a seat’cause we’re not going anywhere for a while.”

I typed in the name “Kyle Bennett,” wondering if I could find any dirt on Rob’s attorney. Again, I was besieged with links. The first was to his Web site, which featured a large photo of Kyle casually sitting on the corner of his desk holding a law book. Typical. His bio read, “The Kyle Bennett Law Firm, located in the Napa Valley, is a full-service office providing aggressive representation on all legal matters. Please call 1-800-555-5309 to arrange a free consultation.”

“Listen to this,” I said to Brad; then I read him the short paragraph.

“Pretty broad,” he said. “And vague.”

“I know. You’d think he’d be more specific. He doesn’t include his office address, just says ‘in Napa’ and gives his phone number. Personally, I wouldn’t hire him to bail my cats out of the pound. Even his picture looks fake.”

I closed that site and pulled up another link—a
newspaper article mentioning him—and read it over. “Here’s a story from the
Napa Times
about how he worked with JoAnne Douglas and her Green Grape group pro bono to help ‘save the Napa Valley.’ Nothing specific, just generalities. But he’d actually been paid for his work.”

Brad didn’t answer, busy checking his new Android phone for messages.

I opened another site, and another. All implied much the same thing—that Kyle Bennett was “doing all he could to prevent the Napa Valley from falling to environmental destruction.”

I read the last line to Brad.

He looked up from his cell phone. “The guy’s a saint,” he said, tongue in cheek. “An altruistic savior of the valley.”

I frowned. “And now he’s supposedly defending Rob Christopher, who’s charged with murdering one of his former clients, JoAnne Douglas. Isn’t that interesting?” I chewed my lip, pondering what I felt was a conflict of interest for the lawyer.

I shut down the computer. Brad stood up.

“Just one more thing,” I said, holding up a finger.

Brad slumped back in the chair.

I picked up my cell phone and dialed a number I had jotted down. A machine answered. I left a message: “Kyle, this is Presley Parker, from the party the other night. I understand you’re representing Rob. I need to talk to you—I may have something that will help his case. Could you call me back as soon as possible so we could set up a time to meet?” I left my number and hung up.

“You found out something to help Rob?” Brad asked, surprised. “What is it?”

I laughed. “I’ve got nothing. I just want Kyle to think I do so he’ll make time to meet with me.”

Brad shook his head at my logic. “So what are you going to tell him when you meet? That you forgot?”

“Very funny. I’m not sure yet, but I hope it’ll come to me on the drive back to Napa.”

“You’re going back tonight if he calls?”

“No, tomorrow. I don’t want to miss your home-cooked meal and the after-dinner entertainment you promised.” I winked at him.

“Oh, get a room,” Dee said as we headed out the door.

After I checked on my cats, I headed over to Yerba Buena Island to see Brad. The drive between the connected islands was always disconcerting. Where Treasure Island is flat and fairly barren, Yerba Buena is hilly and lush with vegetation. The contrast emphasizes not only the differences in past living quarters between the enlisted men and the officers, but also the esthetics of both environments. While the navy men were bunched together in multistoried or cramped housing, their superiors were provided with individual homes, some of which were palatial.

Brad currently lived in Admiral Bryson’s grand three-story home near several other high-ranking officers’ houses, including that of Admiral Nimitz. As a part-time security guard for the island, he lived in the place rent-free in exchange for keeping an eye on the historic properties, now abandoned by the navy. To discourage
curious tourists from peering into his windows, he’d strung a “Crime Scene—Do Not Cross” ribbon across the front entrance.

I parked at the side of the house, maneuvered myself between the lower and upper ribbons, and headed up the gray painted steps. Brad opened the door and let me inside. I was immediately greeted by Bruiser, the Paris Hilton–type dog Brad had sort of inherited from one of my former clients. He’d renamed the pooch, unable to utter the former name, Chou-Chou, and had planned to find a home for him as soon as possible. Naturally, he fell in love with the ADHD poodle-something cross and didn’t have the heart to give him away. When he had to work cleaning up after dead people, he’d hired the neighbors—a single mom and her young son, Spencer—to dog-sit. Needless to say, the one time we tried hosting a play date with his dog and my cats, we were lucky to get out alive. And so was Bruiser.

I followed Brad into the kitchen, the heart of the home, mainly because most of the other rooms lacked furniture. He’d outfitted only the dining room area, next to the kitchen, turning it into a classic man cave, with more electronic entertainment equipment than a Hollywood studio.

I preferred the cozy nook between the kitchen and the dining room and sat at the small table, which was currently covered with Legos, Star Wars action figures, and a plastic Spider-Man cup.

“Been entertaining?” I asked, sliding the toys and cup aside to make room for dinner plates and wineglasses.

Brad pulled out some red peppers, tomato, bacon, and half-and-half from the refrigerator. From the cupboard he retrieved an onion, some garlic, and a bottle of Charles Shaw—aka Two-Buck Chuck. That wine was seemingly everywhere, thanks to its cheap price.

“Yeah, Spencer was over earlier. He brought Bruiser back. His mother had to do an errand and he didn’t want to go, so I let him hang out here.”

“You bought him these toys?”

He nodded. “I figured that way he wouldn’t touch any of mine,” he said, nodding toward the HDTV flat screen, Xbox, and other guy toys in the dining room.

“You’re so sweet!”

“Knock it off. I’m not sweet. I’m a tough macho man who just happens to have a girly dog and a five-year-old best friend. Wine?”

“Two-Buck Chuck? Sure you can afford it?” I teased.

“Hey, it’s not half-bad. You know the story behind this wine?” He filled two glasses with the deep purple cabernet.

“I heard it had something to do with a divorce. The husband wanted to screw over his ex-wife so he slashed the price of the wine and that way she wouldn’t get as much money.” I took a sip. It passed my “drinkability” test.

Brad grinned. “Nope. Urban legend, although it makes a great story. I’ve also heard that an airline went out of business because it bought too much wine and had to unload it. And that Charles Shaw—who doesn’t exist, by the way—is a billionaire who wanted to share the nectar of the gods with the common people.”

“Funny! So what’s the real story?” I took another sip.

“The company is owned by Fred Franzia, a relative of Ernest Gallo. He runs Bronco Wines, the fourth-largest wine producer in the country.”

“You’re kidding!” I took another swallow under the guise of “tasting” it.

Brad took a sip and licked his lips. “Truth is, Franzia had a lot of grapes, which made Two-Buck Chuck cheap to produce. Now the wine has this whole cult following.”

“I’ll bet the people in Napa don’t like him undercutting the price so drastically.”

“No doubt. He owns something like thirty square miles of vineyards and produces a bunch of other cheap brands, like Napa Ridge, Red Truck, Fat Cat.”

“I love Red Truck! The label is so cute!”

“You buy wines because of the labels?” He looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.

“Sometimes,” I said defensively. “I got a great one from Target called Mommy Juice that I gave to a friend with a new baby, figuring she’d need it. And one I found online called Bored Housewife. Gave that one to another friend who’d just gotten married. They make great gifts. And they cost more than two dollars, I can tell you that.”

Brad shook his head and returned to the kitchen to magically change ordinary ingredients into a tasty pasta ragout. “By the way, I heard from Luke,” he said, as the smell of simmering garlic overcame the bouquet of the wine.

I sat up, eager to hear the news. “What did our detective friend say?”

“Not much, I’m afraid. The Napa cops claim to have solid evidence that Rob killed JoAnne, but they’re keeping it close to the vest. Sounds like they have an airtight case. They’re probably going to proceed with murder one, Luke said.”

“Oh God.” I sank down, disappointed, and worried about how this would affect Marie.

My cell phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Presley? This is Kyle. So glad you called. I’d love to meet with you. Are you free tonight? I know a nice little bar downtown where we could get a drink.”

Kyle. I’d nearly forgotten about him.