Dead on the Vine: (Violet Vineyard Murder Mysteries #1 (A Cozy Mystery)) (10 page)

I was the first one up the next morning at 5:30 A.M., with a wine-headache. I put coffee on and went out into the vineyard. Mist clung to the vines and shrouded the valley in dense fog. In the light of the waning moon the landscape had an eerie look, like a pen and ink drawing. It was cool enough to make me shiver in my jeans and T-shirt. I checked the temperature on the thermometer tacked to the wisteria’s trellis supports. It was fifty degrees. Barefooted, I went down the rows turning off the heaters. All the vines looked fine, without a sign of damage, and since the ground was covered in a heavy dew that was freezing my feet, I knew the weather alert had been a false alarm. Fifty dollars of fuel oil wasted, but I’d do it again in the same situation.

I was coming back to the house, wet clover sticking to my ankles, when I noticed the Sheriff’s cruiser still parked behind the Harlan’s home. Priest had stayed the night. I wondered if he had gotten lucky? God, I’m terrible, especially after too little sleep. An early-morning nap sounded good, but Samson’s crew from U.C. Davis would be arriving at 6:30. Since I had to be in Napa at 2:00 for fingerprinting I had to get lunch underway early. I was thinking pasta-salad and cold cuts. The men would have little time for anything else. I’d have to send Jessica into town for supplies as soon as she got up, meanwhile I needed to gather vegetables for the salad.

The early sun peeked over the Mayacamas Mountains behind me, coloring the craggy peaks purple and gold and giving me a pale, reflected light to work by. I grabbed a plastic grape crate and walked to the garden, enjoying the clear quiet of the early morning, despite my teeth chattering. I needed a bunch of tomatoes, a few onions, peppers, and anything else that looked good. By the time I was finished I had the crate overflowing with enough vegetables to make the king of all pasta salads and my toes were numb.

I was dragging the crate behind me because it was too heavy to lift when I noticed a light come on over the Harlan’s backdoor. I immediately stopped moving and crouched in the twilight like a peeping tom. Doug Priest stepped out and stood on the step, looking toward my vineyard for a moment before walking to his car. He didn’t see me kneeling beside my produce, but I could hear him whistling, faintly and tunelessly. He climbed into the cruiser, backed up and headed for Napa.

I stood up, brushed the damp knees of my jeans and continued to drag my crate as the sound of the sheriff’s cruiser faded in the distance. All was dark again at the Harlan’s.

By the time Victor and Samson got out of bed, bleary eyed and hung over, I already had the vegetables chopped and the pasta boiling. I took down my two biggest salad bowls, wondering if that would be enough salad for everyone. In addition to the four boys Samson had coming there would be the usual four or five men working the vineyard. And all of them would eat like wolves.

“You kept me up too late,” Samson groused as he poured two cups of coffee, one for himself and one for Victor, who flopped down at the table and hung his head in his hands.

“What time is it?” Victor muttered.

“It’s your own fault,” I said, forcing myself to sound perky, just to rub it in that I was up and hard at work. “Cheaters never prosper.”

Samson put a cup in front of Victor and sat down at the table. I had three loaves of white bread to make for the sandwiches. I got the machine going and poured a cup. The morning paper had arrived, so I opened it and flipped idly through the pages with Ben on my mind. We needed to set a date for lunch. The sooner the better, I thought and smiled to myself. I’d have to talk to him after we did the fingerprinting today. I blushed at the thought, keeping my head down so Victor and Samson wouldn’t notice.

Samson left the table first, grumbling that he had to get things ready. Victor left a moment behind him, having heard a pickup pull into the driveway. I reminded him to finish tilling the rows and told him that I had turned off the heaters, but the fuel oil would need to be drained, collected and stored. He muttered something about his breath smelling like he had eaten a whole head of Garlic for breakfast and stepped out the back door.

The pasta had finished cooking by then. I drained it, dumped it in the bowls and mixed in the sliced peppers, onions and tomatoes. Fresh olive oil and red wine vinegar laced with spices went in next. I mixed it all together, covered the bowls with Saran Wrap and stuck them in the refrigerator. Five seconds later the timer went off on the bread machine. I put the dough into a pan to rise, loaded up the bread machine again and hit start. With luck I should be able to get all three loaves out and sliced before I had to leave for Napa.

The view out my window as I rinsed the dirty dishes and stacked them in the dishwasher was dazzling. The mist had burned off to reveal the lush green valley below and the blue ribbon of the Napa River twisting across the valley floor. I could tell that the day would be hot, and that reminded me to get the five-gallon drink cooler out of the closet and put water on for iced tea.

I was standing at the top of the cellar stairs, the door open, listening to the hum of machinery, the ‘clink’ of bottles and the occasional barked order from Samson when Jessica came downstairs. She was dressed in a light yellow sundress and had her hair pinned back. She was quiet, and withdrawn, but she looked much better than she had yesterday. She had taken the day off from the daycare center, and I was glad she did. I needed her help.

I gave her a shopping list and she headed to town, using my car because hers was parked in its usual spot, on the hydraulic lift at the local foreign car garage. She seemed happy for the distraction. When she had gone, I went downstairs to see how the bottling was going.

Samson was walking up and down the row of machines supervising four tan young men in T-shirts and jeans. Three of the boys were running the bottle washer, the filler and the corker while the fourth was putting bottles through the rotating labeler. One of Victor’s men was taking the bottles out of the labeler and filling the cardboard cases.

Surrounded by the hum of machinery, the roar of the bottle filler and the ‘thunk!” of corks being popped into bottlenecks, I couldn’t suppress a giddy smile. This was music to my ears and money in the bank. Picking a bottle out of an open case, I held it up to the light, grinning with the pride of a new mother. No matter what Samson said, I thought the lavender foil capsules were a real success.

Samson came over as I put the bottle back in the case.

“The labels arrived, de Montagne,” he said, stopping beside me and casting his eyes over the bottling machinery with a satisfied air. “Everything is well. We should finish in two days, so tomorrow we drink new wine and eat well, but we go to bed early!”  His humor had certainly improved since this morning, and I assumed it was because he had his fan club working the line. The young men who work here at crush, harvest and bottling rejuvenate the old winemaker and probably add years to his life.

“I need corks!” A tall young man with wheat colored hair and a tennis player’s physique called out, and Samson shambled away. I recognized the student as one of Samson’s regulars and waved at him. He grinned and nodded, hands busy moving bottles from the conveyor to the corking machine’s tray. Hell, they were all grinning as happily as Samson and I, but looking much younger, fitter and tanned. A regular buffet of athletic young men! No place for me to be when I was questioning the meaning of my marriage. The boys made me much too aware of all I had been missing. I waved at Samson as he rushed to the corker with a sack of corks to fill the hopper.

“I need labels!” Another of the young men shouted as I stepped into the back yard and closed the door behind me.

Laurel Harlan was on her knees in the flowerbeds in her front yard, grooming her roses. Michelle Lawford, dressed in jeans, work boots and a flannel jacket, was leaning on the handle of a shovel nearby, an open bag of cedar mulch at her feet.

Laurel looked up at me as I crossed the backyard to join Victor who was draining the fuel oil out of one of the heating units into a five-gallon can. I waved and Michelle gave me a tentative wave back, but Laurel just stared for a long second then spoke a few words to Michelle before going back to clipping. Michelle shot me an embarrassed glance, laid her shovel aside and went to her truck parked on the shoulder of the road.

‘What the hell was that about?’  I thought as Michelle fired up the truck, made a U-turn and sped down the hill. Laurel being a bitch wasn’t much surprise, but Michelle was usually such a sweetheart. I didn’t let it ruin my mood; the bottling was under way and soon the checks would be rolling in!

Victor had a gondola hooked to the small John Deere. The gondola was almost filled by the six battered gas cans that we store the fuel oil in. Three Mexican men were working in the vines. Two of them were training cabernet vines, using twist ties to fix them to the trellis wire, while the third was running the Rototiller up the aisles. Everyone was busy except me.

Victor looked up as I stopped beside him. He set down the gas can and removed the siphon hose from the heater’s tank.

“You see Michelle over there?” He asked me without preamble. “With her highness?”

“I saw her,” I said, looking over my shoulder at Laurel on her knees in the roses.

“She asked about a job,” Victor said as he coiled the hose and looped it around his shoulder. “I told her she was over qualified. Only job she’d be interested in would be mine.”

“You tell her to talk to me?” I asked with a grin. “She might work cheaper.”

“Ha ha,” Victor said with a roll of the eyes as he screwed the lid on the gas can. “I told her to check with Marjory. Stuart left her for the top slot at Bealieau last week,” he added, referring to Marjory’s vineyard foreman. “Michelle said she’d stop by there, but she didn’t sound excited.”

“She must know Marjory,” I said, and Victor chuckled. “I’ll call Marjory and tell her about Michelle,” I promised. “Remember we have to be in Napa at 2:00 today,” I reminded him, changing the subject. “You can head home and get cleaned up if you want. We’ll leave a little after one.”

Victor stood, placed the gas can in the back of the gondola with the others and wiped his hands on his jeans. The look on his face was grim, and I was sorry that I had to remind him of his obligation and of Kevin’s murder.

“I forgot about that,” he said. “I guess I better. I’ll drain the rest of these and head over,” he said, glancing at his watch.

“I’ll get them, don’t worry about it,” I assured him. “Take your time and meet me back here at one. Earlier if you want to eat.

“I always want to eat,” Victor replied. “Don’t run over anyone,” he added as he stepped away.

“I was driving tractors when you were wearing diapers,” I reminded him, “and I haven’t killed anyone yet.”

He laughed as I climbed in to the tractor’s seat. I started the diesel engine, drove it twenty-feet down the row, stopped and climbed down. I heard Victor’s truck start behind me as I tried to get the cap off the rusty heater’s fuel tank to no avail. I got a crescent wrench out of the tractor’s toolbox and set to work on it, skinning my knuckles in the process. Oh! The joys of vineyard ownership! The relaxed lifestyle and graceful living! All myths, I’m afraid.

I finished with the fuel oil, dousing myself twice in the process, parked the tractor in the barn and took a quick shower to get rid of the petroleum stink. I was back in the kitchen, sniffing my hands like a terrier, wondering if I could still smell a trace of fuel, when Jessica returned from the grocery store with enough sliced ham, salami, and cheese to feed an army. She set the bags down on the kitchen table with a thump and went back to work at the computer, assuring me she’d eat something later. I’d believe that when I saw it. She is forever fussing over her weight while living on junk food and soda.

I took the time to call Marjory, but, thankfully, she was out. I left a message about Michelle, giving her a glowing endorsement, wondering if I was really doing her a favor. Marjory couldn’t be easy to work for. Not my business.

I took the last loaf of bread out of the oven an hour before lunch was served. The day had grown warm and dry, but not oppressively hot, so I set up two card tables under the almond trees and spread white cloths over them. A cool breeze was blowing through the vines and across the freshly tilled soil. It smelled like a promise of a good harvest to me. The spring hadn’t been perfect, but it was growing into a glorious summer. Or, at least I hoped so.

Paper plates and plastic cups have never been my style, so I set out the plain white picnic china and a set of red Bakelite handled knives and forks I had picked up at an estate sale in Calistoga. There would be a lot of dishes to be washed, but the presentation was worth it. When everything looked perfect, I ferried out the food and called the men in from the vineyard and cellar.

The field workers and Samson’s crew fell on the food like a pack of starving dogs and it was a joy to watch them eat. Samson opened several freshly corked and labeled bottles of wine and my iced tea was virtually ignored. I had a sandwich and a glass of tea, and introduced myself to the men I didn’t know. They were a good-natured bunch, but maybe that was because of the wine they were guzzling. By the time the last of them was rubbing his belly and groaning over how much he had eaten, five bottles of cabernet had been consumed along with most of the bread, salad and cold cuts.