A Vintage To Die For (Violet Vineyard Murder Mysteries Book 2) (24 page)

Chapter 24

My escape from the
hospital took longer than I had planned. The doctor wanted me to stay overnight, but I was adamant about leaving. I would have liked to have seen Armand before I left, but they insisted he was still sleeping. The nursing staff’s disdain for Armand and I was so palpable I wanted to scream. It seemed everyone was convinced we had drunk so much at dinner we had almost died.

The four of us parted in the parking lot out front. Jessica headed back to work and Victor had to pick up a new spool of trellis wire, so Samson was appointed to drive me home.

“That Becker is a murderer,” he said before I even had the door of his rusty old Jeep Cherokee closed.
“He
killed Dimitri, I know it. And your Hunter is a fool! He will let Becker kill you before he admits his mistake.”

Those comments did little to elevate my mood. Just the opposite – they scared me to death. But I couldn’t run and hide. I wouldn’t. I had to do something to prove to Hunter what Samson was saying was true…but what? Hunter clearly thought I was on a witch hunt.

Samson continued, “And the contract with Dimitri is a fraud! Alexandra and I are to see a lawyer this afternoon. We will get Dimitri’s wine back or another bottle-duster will end up dead.”

“Samson, don’t make threats like that,” I said with utter exhaustion. “You’re in enough trouble; don’t add to it. Hunter will come around. Dimitri’s murder won’t go unpunished.”

Samson snorted at that. “Dimitri was a rotten son of a—”

Samson,” I warned him and he swallowed the curse.

“Dog. I was going to say dog,” he said as he fidgeted around in the seat, trying to get comfortable and not having much luck. Finally he pulled the box of tissue out of his coat pocket along with the rubber IV hose. He dumped them on the back seat. I rolled my eyes at that, but said nothing.

“How is Alexandra holding up?” I asked.

“What? Alexandra? She is fine,” he said brusquely. “She is made of strong stuff. She is a Xenos.” He took a stub of cigar like a dried up old tree root from his shirt pocket and jammed it between his teeth. He chewed at it for a moment before he muttered, “And she is better off without that Pappos.”

I slumped in my seat and shook my head. I refrained from rebuking Samson again about his attitude, but it was hard. “She told me Dimitri wanted money from you,” I said instead. “And you refused. She said you give the money to the people of Naousa. That you built a hospital there?”

“Blood money,” he growled around the cigar. “Silver to pay for an act of evil.”

“She told me about your grandson.” Somehow I still had a hard time imagining Samson as a father
or
a grandfather. And I can’t deny I was a little hurt that in the twenty years we had worked side by side he had never mentioned it.

“May he rot in hell,” Samson said, then plucked the cigar from his mouth, ducked his head, and spat three times on the floorboard.

“The boy is dead, Samson,” I reproached him. “Forgiveness is a blessing to those who forgive as much as it is to the forgiven.” That sounded pompous, and I should probably have minded my own business, but even though I knew the child had been responsible for the deaths of many people, I still found Samson’s attitude almost unforgivably harsh.

He shrugged. “The devil does not die, de Montagne,” he said. “He destroys and moves on. He takes another face. Infests another body,” Samson said with the finality of a medieval inquisitor. It was obvious he didn’t want to discuss the subject. And neither did I, after that pronouncement. Things were bad enough without paranoid discussions about the possible demonic possession of his grandson.

“Alexandra is planning on going back to Greece?” I asked.

“Yes, but not until we settle up with that bas—” Samson shot a look at me and finished, “with that Becker. He has Dimitri’s entire wine collection and will not release it! It is all she has to live on. And he says he is going to auction it off! The man can barely spell Bordeaux and he is going to auction off two hundred bottles of Premiere Cru?” Samson chewed furiously at the cigar. “I told you he was a crook when you insisted we store our wine with him last year,” he added, which was completely untrue. After the vandalism to my cellar, Samson had been as anxious as I was about keeping all of our past vintages in one location. His attitude problem with Star Crossed had only begun when Dimitri had joined the business a month later. But it was pointless to argue with him.

“Did Dimitri say anything to Alexandra about being suspicious of Blake before he died?” I asked. I was not going to mention the wine labels Hunter had found in Dimitri’s pocket. I was furious with Hunter, but I still felt constrained by his admonition.

Samson shook his head. “Dimitri was not a jaw flapper. He would not have worried her with things like that,” he said with a grudging respect.

“Hunter told me you tried to kill Dimitri on the day he married Alexandra,” I said.

“That is a lie,” Samson said without heat or rancor. He never took his eyes off the road.

“You didn’t shoot him?”

“An accident. A malfunction of the trigger,” he said. “I had thought about shooting him,” he conceded, “but had decided to allow him life. For the love of Alexandra.”

“But you took a gun to the church?”

“Of course.”

“Why?” I asked.

“In case.”

“In case of what?” I asked in exasperation.

“In case I changed my mind,” he replied with a one-shoulder shrug.

I had nothing to say to that. A moment passed in silence as we both watched the road.

“Do you believe I killed Dimitri?” he finally asked, in a surprisingly vulnerable voice.

“No,” I replied. “I think Blake Becker did.” At that point I almost mentioned the case of ’92 Violet Vineyard cabernet on Gavin’s Fine Wine and Spirits’ auction website, and my suspicions that Blake might be stealing his customers’ wine, but I thought better of it. My head was still pounding like a mambo drum and I knew Samson would be apoplectic. I didn’t want to throw kerosene on a bonfire. I would handle Blake on my own.

“Why did you send
n
Dimitri a witch’s ladder?” I asked suddenly.

“Dimitri
was sent a witch’s ladder?” he asked.

“Yes. More than one. He had one of them with him when he was killed.”

Samson said nothing for a long moment, then, “Open the glove compartment, de Montagne.”

I opened it and looked inside. Lying in an untidy pile was a collection of bones and feathers knotted together on a length of hair. It was just like the one Midge had found in my wine tank on the day after Dimitri’s death. I shuddered and slammed the compartment closed.

“I found that under my bed last Tuesday morning,” he said. “I thought Dimitri had put it there. A gypsy curse to scare me into giving him money…” he trailed off into silence.

“I almost wish I had given him what he demanded,” he said after a protracted moment. “But it was not mine to give…” he trailed off again.

I didn’t even consider telling him about the man who had broken into his home last Monday afternoon - a man I was now sure was Blake Becker. I knew Samson would think I had betrayed him by keeping that to myself for so long - and maybe he would have been right – but it would do no good to tell him now.

Samson started to turn right on the Silverado Trail, but I stopped him. “Take me to the Avis agency in St. Helena,” I told him. “I’m going to need a car. And a phone.”

Avis had three cars
and a single red Ford F-150 pickup available. All of the cars were compact vehicles, one of which looked more like a tennis shoe than a car. I opted for the truck.

Samson was leaning against the fender of his Jeep, his skinny arms crossed over his chest, when I pulled around from the back lot. I stopped and powered down the window.

“You are going to see Becker,” he said accusingly. “You will wait for me. I am going with you.”

“No, you’re not. You’re out on bail for murdering his partner,” I reminded him. “The last place in the world you need to be is at Star Crossed.”

“I have done nothing!” he said. “And I will go where I please!”

“Not with me,” I yelled right back. “You have a lawyer to see, so go see him.” I threw the truck into gear and hit the gas, blasting out of the lot as he stared after me, cursing in Greek.

I spent an hour
at the AT&T store being treated like a dimwitted child by a young man who was probably not out of his teens. He did help me download my contacts from the ‘cloud,’ whatever that was, and I was up and rolling. And two hundred dollars poorer.

It
was
another beautiful day, though cooler than the previous week. Leaves were turning to fall colors on the slopes of the Mayacamas Mountains, and clouds scuttled across a deep blue sky, heading inland from the coast, but I barely noticed as I grimly drove up the highway and turned into Star Crossed’s driveway.

I knew it was insane to confront Blake head-on, but I saw no other recourse. And, if I confronted him - letting him know I had told Hunter of my suspicions about him – maybe I would be protecting myself from further harm.

Or maybe he’d shoot me on the doorstep…

I arrived just after 2:00PM. The parking lot in front of the old Becker house held only two vehicles. Both of them were white panel vans with the Star Crossed logo on the side. I parked beside them, got out of the truck, and knocked at the door, but got no reply. I tried the doorknob, but it was locked. I remembered Blake’s mother used to keep a spare key in the flowerpot beside the door. The pot was still there, but there were no flowers in it, just old gray dirt and a scattering of cigarette butts. I didn’t even think about what I was about to do as I stooped to search the pot.

A male voice cane from behind me and stopped me before my hands had touched the soil.

“Help you?” he said and I spun on my heel like I had been caught filching the family silver. It was the big blond guy with the tight haircut and the sagging gut Victor and I had seen loading cases of Latour just a few days before. He appeared to be wearing the same clothes: a muscle shirt showing off huge arms like sides of beef, a pair of cutoff shorts, and the same menacing scowl.

Up close, he smelled bad, an animal funk as off-putting as his appearance. But the smell was more than that, it was vaguely familiar…

“Help you?” he repeated, jarring the sensory memory out of my head.

“I was looking for Blake,” I replied, stammering a little and taking an involuntary step backward.

“Ain’t here,” the man said, His eyes slid down my body - taking in my still soggy dress and Jessica’s purple flip-flops - then came back to my face. “Got a tasting in Frisco. Be back in the morning.” His manner of speaking was as brutally short and clipped as his appearance.

I put on a bright smile and stuck out my hand. “My name is Claire de Montagne. And you are?”

“Bartlett.” There was no indication if that was a first or last name. He looked at my hand and then back to my face, leaving my hand hanging in space.

“Nice to meet you,” I lied as I lowered my hand, a flush making my cheeks burn. “I was here the other day—“

“I remember,” he cut me off. “With the Mexican,” he added, and there was an extra level of contempt in his voice. “Guy was staring at me.”

I gave a forced laugh which sounded a little shrill. Bartlett didn’t smile, chuckle, or even blink in response. But I plowed ahead anyway. “We noticed you were loading what looked like very old cases of Château Latour…” I said leadingly.

Bartlett didn’t take the bait, but his scowl deepened as tension knotted his shoulders. He took a plodding step toward me then glanced at the highway out front. Cars and trucks were rolling by in a steady stream. He muttered something and the tension went out of his shoulders. He looked back at me. 

“I move boxes,” he said. “I don’t read ‘em.”

That was clear enough, but I pressed on, despite the fact he was scaring the heck out of me.  “Was that for an auction or for the tasting tonight?”

He stared at me with those flat eyes for a moment then said, “Becker will be back in the morning. I got work to do.” He flicked a glance at the warehouse where men were moving in and out, loading a pair of vans with a lot of wine.

“Okay,” I said, stammering again. “Would you tell Blake I came by?”

He grunted unintelligibly, and I took it for a yes and hurried over to my rental truck. My heart was racing and my hands were shaking as I scrambled inside and fumbled the keys from my purse. He was still staring at me as I cranked the truck and backed away. I lifted a hand at him and forced another smile, but he made no acknowledgement of the gesture. I headed down the driveway, past the warehouse, kicking up a spray of gravel, feeling like I had just escaped a confrontation with a grizzly bear.

At the highway, I had to wait for a series of cars heading my way, weaving around a tractor pulling a hayrick. As I waited, my fear turned to anger. What kind of people was Blake employing at Star Crossed? The blond man’s attitude had crossed well beyond unfriendly to downright menacing.