Lethal Vintage (21 page)

“It might be ironic, but it didn’t have to happen at all. If you’d gone to Wade’s house like you said you were going to,” Rivka said to Sunny, “none of it would have happened. The police were getting close. They probably would have tracked the murder back to Cynthia eventually.”

“While I waited in jail,” said Keith.

“Sometimes you have to be bad to be good,” said Sunny.

“Don’t be cocky. You thought it was Keith or Cynthia,” said Rivka, “but it could have been anyone, really. The guy who found her, our friend Franco here, even Andre.”

“No,” said Sunny, “it had to be someone who knew about what Anna had discovered. Somebody who would lose as much as Oliver or more if Anna made what she’d found public. I didn’t think Anna told anyone that night other than me. She said I was her insurance policy in her e-mail. That left Oliver. I found out he’d called Keith,
and that Keith had lied about where he was when Anna died. But he’d already lied about leaving the party before he found out about the fight. That was too much of a coincidence. Molly was thoroughly occupied the whole night. The only other person Oliver might have told was Cynthia. And if he went down, she definitely went with him. He was her landlord and her employer, and she was in love with him besides. It all fit perfectly. After the fight with Anna, Oliver turned to the only shoulder he could cry on. He went to see Cynthia at her house, confided to her what had happened, and went back to his house. Then he sat in his car in the garage the rest of the night and fiddled with his phone. By morning, Anna was dead.

“All of that made sense. My mistake was assuming Cynthia thought she got away with it.” Sunny looked around the table. “Now that it’s over, we think we know exactly what happened, but I’m not sure we do, or ever will.”

“What do you mean?” said Rivka.

“The biggest question of all,” said Sunny, turning to Keith. “When Oliver told Cynthia, and even you, about Anna’s threats, was he just confiding his troubles, or was he giving implicit instructions to prevent a disaster at all costs? Did part of him want her, or you, to kill Anna? Was that his intention in disclosing what had happened?”

Keith nodded solemnly. “I’ve wondered that, too. There is no way to know for sure. He probably doesn’t know himself.”

“He couldn’t have been blind to his power over Cynthia,” said Sunny. “He knew she worshipped him.”

“Oliver is, shall we say, conflicted about women,” said Keith.

“I don’t think it’s about women so much as power,” said Sunny. “He simply wants what he wants and he doesn’t care what happens to other people in the process. He’s like a spoiled kid with endless means.”

“That’s not spoiled,” said Rivka. “That’s much more serious than spoiled. It’s evil. It takes a dark heart not to care how your actions affect others.”

“You mustn’t go too far,” said Franco. “Oliver Seth is anything but evil. He’s one of the kindest, most generous, hardworking people I know. It is true that he can be, on occasion—particularly when it comes to the enjoyment of women—excessive. Oliver likes to have a good time and he has no regard for what other people think of him. There are worse things. I would go further and say that he also understands, from experience, that people can be bought. This is something only a very few people experience. Everyone likes to say, and believe, that there is no price, but he has done it often enough to know that the price is simply much higher than most people imagine. This is a corrupting experience. And yet I think he genuinely loved Cynthia in a certain way. In his way. He respected her talent as a cook, that is certain, and he was very close with her as a friend, but essentially he saw her as an employee, not his wife, which is perhaps, I would dare to say, a far narrower distinction in his case than one would like to admit. If they slept together occasionally, that was simply something that happened. A perk, even, I’m sure is the way he imagined it. And of course it goes without saying that Cynthia was extremely well-paid.”

“How can you go on making excuses for him? He knowingly played all those women off each other,” said Rivka. “This girl Astrid. Anna. His live-in mommy surrogate and occasional lover. And Anna died because of it, not to mention the fact that Cynthia will spend the rest of her life in jail. He should be made to take at least partial responsibility for driving her over the edge. It’s not fair he gets to just walk away and say, ‘Oh well, at least I had a good time.’”

Sunny glanced approvingly at Rivka and watched Franco carefully.

“That is hardly what he is saying,” said Franco. “On the contrary, I think it is an extremely difficult time for him. He’s lost Cynthia as well as Anna, not to mention ‘this girl’ Astrid, who I have instructed to find other employ and entertainment immediately.”

Sunny raised her eyebrows. “How can you instruct her to do that?”

“I can’t. She is a grown-up woman of twenty-two years old. But as her father, I can make a suggestion and hope she listens to me. Astrid is a remarkable young woman. She’s talented, beautiful, well educated, and capable. She is also impetuous and reckless. But this time it was me who was reckless, by introducing her to our friend Mr. Seth. To think it could have been her on the ground that morning!”

“But he had her arranging meetings in Russia,” said Rivka, “and setting up new companies. She’s just a kid.”

Franco made a gesture of innocence with his hands. “As I said, she has had a very good education. She studied business in Germany. Astrid’s mother is Russian and her current husband is a rather high-ranking member of the Russian Parliament, so Astrid is fluent in the language and rather well connected in the business community. In any case, it hardly matters now. She is young, so there is plenty of time yet to find another job and a lover she can tell her father about.”

“I don’t see how you can be so nonchalant about your daughter and your boss getting together,” said Rivka. “Especially given the circumstances.”

Franco chuckled. “I suppose I don’t think of Oliver Seth as my boss, first of all. And second, we are not so concerned about such things in my part of the world. What Astrid does with the intimacy of her heart is her business. Besides, we cannot know the answers
to these kinds of questions. The secret pacts formed between lovers are beyond the scrutiny of outsiders, aren’t they?”

Monty smiled to himself.

“But did he love Anna or your daughter?” insisted Rivka.

“Boff. Who knows? Both, neither—it doesn’t matter. It’s time to move on. It’s time to celebrate this man’s upcoming wedding, not mash our teeth through this old business that’s in the past. But I’ll make one point before I let it drop.” He looked at Sunny. “All the times when I saw him most happy were when he and Anna were getting along well. I thought for a moment they would be happy together.”

Wade Skord waggled a finger. “In trying to help the man she loved, Cynthia inadvertently took away the only woman who ever made him happy.”

Sunny gave him a heavy look. “Skord, you have got to stop.”

Monty ran his hands over the mottled skin of his domed head and resettled his glasses. “Hang on, hang on. We have to go back again to that night at Sunny’s place. Andre was there to hook up. Cynthia was there to stop Sunny from blabbing. Keith, you were there to see what Cynthia was up to. How did Harvey happen to be there? Did he get Keith’s nine-one-one?”

“He got my messages from earlier that night,” said Sunny. “He came by to see if I was home and he saw Keith lurking around outside. Then he heard gunfire and saw Keith storm the door, so he shot him.”

“That guy is one hell of a cop,” said Wade.

“I don’t know about that,” said Sunny. “He told me he saw the pie Cynthia made in the freezer that Sunday morning and didn’t think anything of it.”

“So?”

“Meringue in the freezer? If that’s not fishy, I don’t know what is.”

“Come on, he can’t know everything,” said Wade.

“All I’m saying is he’d catch a lot more murderers if he learned a little something about cooking,” said Sunny.

Annabelle came over and settled gracefully next to Monty in her peach silk dress with its butterfly sleeves and wide sash. A cascade of tiny gold discs dangled from each ear. “That was a marvelous feast,” she said, taking up Monty’s glass.

“Did you actually eat?” asked Rivka.

“Of course!”

“Human portions, or are you still doing the calorie-restriction thing?”

Annabelle shook her head slowly. “No more starvation rations for me. Monty convinced me the extra years weren’t worth the grief.”

“They get tacked on the end of your life when you’re already half dead, anyway,” said Monty. “Who needs that? Carpe diem. Besides, if we drink enough red wine, the resveratrol will keep us young.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said Wade. “Speaking of toasts, isn’t it about time we made one?”

Monty held up a hand to silence him. “Later. I want to finish this other business first. Annabelle and I were going through the whole Anna Wilson affair last night, and I need a few more things cleared up before we get off track with all the wedding stuff. For example, I still don’t understand how Cynthia managed to break into Sunny’s house and take her picture without waking her the night she left the note on the truck. Or even why she would go to the trouble. You didn’t have anything on her at that point, did you?”

“No, but it didn’t matter because it wasn’t Cynthia, and they didn’t break in,” said Sunny. “Remember when I ran out of gas coming home from Wade’s house and Molly Seth stopped to help
me? She had Mike Sayudo, the gardener who found Anna’s body, make a copy of my key when he went to get the truck.”

“But why?”

“She was trying to protect her brother. I think she was worried he might have actually killed Anna. She wanted to make sure I kept my mouth shut if I found out anything about him. Steve told me all about it just a couple of days ago.”

Annabelle wore a knowing smile. “When Monty told me this story, I knew immediately it had to be either the sister or the cook.”

“What makes you say that?” asked Sunny.

“Women are territorial. A long time ago, before I met Monty, I dated a guy who had a housekeeper who’d been doing his laundry, making his bed, and fixing his dinner for twenty years. Once she locked me out of the house and tried to pretend it was an accident. Finally I told him he should propose to her and get on with his life.”

“That is such baloney. You told me you thought the artist did it!” said Monty.

“No, I told you he was third on my list. I said the sister or the cook or else the jilted artist lover.”

“Troy? Hardly,” said Franco. “I think in general he would prefer Molly’s friend Jared Bollinger, from what I hear.”

“He’s gay? Since when?” asked Sunny.

Franco waved a hand. “These things are not always as clear-cut as one imagines.”

“Maybe we should introduce him to Bertrand,” said Sunny. “They’d make a perfect couple.”

“Matchmaking,” said Rivka. “Now, that’s a nice, safe hobby. I like it. I like it better than waiting for crazy people with guns to come and kill you in the middle of the night.”

Sunny looked at Wade. “That reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to tell you. You’ll never guess who was in the restaurant the other day. Bertrand was atwitter.”

“Who?”

“The president of NASCAR.”

“Mike?” said Wade. “Good, I told him lunch at your place was a sure bet.”

“You know him?”

“Don’t look so surprised. Even we vulgar plebs have our connections.”

“The important thing,” said Monty, looking at Sunny, “is that the bad guy—I mean, bad girl—is behind bars. Our tranquil valley is free of malice and violence once again.”

“As far as we know,” said Sunny.

“Ever the pessimist,” said Monty. “You’ll be out hunting for the next bloodthirsty maniac tonight as soon as everyone else is in bed.”

“No chance,” said Sunny. “All I want to do from now on is cook. Just cook. I want to cook at the restaurant. I want to cook at home. I may even travel somewhere and cook.”

“I’m so glad to hear you say that,” said Monty. “For weeks I’ve been wanting to ask you to cater the wedding, but I was afraid you’d say you’re too busy. But now it sounds like you’d like nothing better!”

Sunny gave Rivka a resigned smile and told Monty, “I would be honored.”

It was dark when Rivka and Sunny carried out sheets of peach tart warm from the kitchen and served it with homemade burnt caramel ice cream. The band had packed up and Wade had gone to his station wagon for his guitar, which he now strummed softly, sitting on a chair under an olive tree.

Headlights swung across the table of friends in the deepening night and a few minutes later Andre Morales crunched toward them across the gravel. Sunny watched him make his way past the garden with Mount St. Helena as a backdrop. He kissed Sunny and Annabelle on the cheek and shook hands with Monty. The party fell silent, with half a dozen conversations suddenly hitting a lull as if by prior agreement. In the quiet, Andre nudged Sunny up from the table. They strolled toward the vineyard, admiring the spray of stars in the velvety blue sky. Sunny looked back and saw Rivka’s boyfriend and Keith Lachlan knock knuckles and heard their big, throaty laughs. At the long table, Monty and Annabelle were squeezed together, hands intertwined, their faces lit by candles burned low.

“So you think we can get through this?” Andre said, squeezing her hand.

“I warn you,” said Sunny sternly, “I will not be charmed.”

“I’m not trying to be charming. I’m trying to reopen negotiations. Someone once told me everything is negotiable.”

Sunny narrowed her eyes. “Some things are nonnegotiable.”

“Right. Well, then, forget negotiation. Why don’t you just tell me what you want and I’ll agree to it.”

“I think I’m going to need some time to consider that offer,” said Sunny, turning back to the party.

They rejoined the others just in time to drink another toast, the final toast, to Monty and Annabelle, the beautiful night, good friends, the peace and tranquillity of the valley. Tonight Sunny would sleep with her windows open and her door unlocked, as if none of it had ever happened.