Dead on the Vine: (Violet Vineyard Murder Mysteries #1 (A Cozy Mystery)) (25 page)

I was only two miles from home when my cell phone rang inside my purse. I dug for it and answered.

“De Montagne,” Samson breathed in my ear. “You will come and get me now.”

“It’s 1:00 A.M., Samson, and you
don’t
want me to come get you right now. I smell awful. Let me get cleaned—“

“Come,” Samson said in a loud voice.

“Who are you talkin’ to, baby?” I heard Marjory ask, her voice muffled.

“It is de Montagne,” Samson replied and he sounded irritated. “She is coming to take me.”

“You’re goin’? Thought you’d spend the night.”

“De Montagne, you will come and get me.” He hung up on me.

“Samson,” I groaned as I folded the phone and dropped it on the seat. Everyone was having trouble with their love life. What had Marjory done to run Samson off? At that moment, I didn’t care. All I knew was that my shower was going to have to wait. I made a U-turn and drove back to Marjory’s.

The gate was open and Samson was standing at the top of the driveway. He hurried over as I pulled up, but he wasn’t going to make a clean getaway. Marjory staggered out the front door as Samson opened the car door.

“Samson!” She yelled as she came down the steps, placing each foot very carefully. “You forgot your wine!” Marjory had a bottle of her Zinfandel in one hand and a half-filled glass in the other. “Hey lover!”

“Son of bitch,” Samson said under his breath. “I am going home. The wine will wait.”

“Oh, no, that won’t do. I gave you a present, you take it.” She grabbed Samson’s sleeve for balance and ducked down to look at me.

“Hey, Claire! Baby, baby, baby! Something smells awful! She took a step back, slopped wine on the concrete and laughed. “Did you hit something?” She turned to Samson and smiled drunkenly. “I love animals too, but I wouldn’t put a dead one in the car,” she said and burped. Delicate as a flower.

“Hello Marjory,” I said. “How are you?”

“Havin’ a little party! Guest of honor’s pooping on it. Can’t ya spare him for one night?” She winked at me. “Just a few hours?” She linked arms with Samson who turned bloodshot eyes on me for help.

“We’ve got to go, Marjory,” I said, giving Samson a ‘You Owe Me’ look. “How are the vines?”

“That,” she said, “is what I was just talkin’ ‘bout.” She downed the rest of her wine, looked around for some place to set the glass down. She finally flipped it into the bushes. “Gonna find that bitch,” she said to me. “Gonna find her and break her neck!”

“Michelle?” I asked, then wished I hadn’t.

“Michelle? That loser? I’m talkin’ ‘bout the bitch that sent her! She might think I hit her last night, but she hasn’t seen nothin’!” She shook her fist, then realized she had the bottle of wine in that hand. “That’s yours, baby,” she said, batting her eyes at Samson. He took the bottle. “Sure you won’t stay and finish it with me?”

“I must go. We have work,” Samson said, patting her shoulder like she was a stray dog who might have mange.

“You’ll call me?” Marjory asked as Samson ducked and hustled into the car. “Tomorrow?”

“I will,” Samson replied, eyes straight ahead.

“Toodles, Claire,” Marjory waved with her fingers. “And wash that car!”

Marjory watched us drive away. When we were back on the highway, Samson sighed and tilted his head back against the headrest.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“She is drunk,” he said and closed his eyes. “She is crazy! I thank you for coming.”

“I warned you that Marjory can be a
strong
drink.”

“Marjory drinks too much strong drink. And then she talks! She will not shut up!”

“So, you going to call her tomorrow?” I asked.

“I will call her. She is troubled.”

“And rich,” I reminded him snidely.

“She smells good too,” Samson said, opening one eye to look at me. “Better than you, de Montagne.”

“I love you too,” I said, deciding right then not to tell him about my evening. He could read about it in the papers.

“Wake me when we are at Violet,” he said and five seconds later he was snoring, his beard-stubbled Adam’s apple bobbing.

I punched Samson in the shoulder after parking Sally in the garage.

“What is—!” He came awake with a start. “De Montagne,” he said. “Where is the Jeep?”

“Where it always is,” I said and slammed the door behind me. “Getting senile?” What can I say, I wasn’t in the best of moods and Samson’s snores had driven me right over the edge of bad-humor.

“I only ask!” He yelled from behind me as I crossed the grass at a brisk walk.

“I only told you!” I yelled back without turning, and that’s when I noticed that the cellar door was standing wide open. Samson noticed too.

“Damn it, de Montagne! The cellar is open!”

“No, really?!” I yelled at him as I trotted to the door. “I locked it before I left!” The padlock and chain were lying on the grass, neatly bitten in two by a pair of bolt-cutters. I reached inside and flipped on the overhead lights as Samson panted up beside me.

“No,” I said and my heart dropped through my stomach.

The cellar had been vandalized. The door to my private storage area was open, the concrete floor in front of it littered with broken bottles and purple puddles. Several of the oak barrels filled with 2010 Cabernet had been bashed in and the wine formed a sticky river flowing toward the front door. The bottling machinery had been uncovered and smashed into mangled metal. The fermenting tanks were the only thing left undamaged. Even Samson’s desk had taking a beating. The drawers were open, disgorging pamphlets and shipping manifests.

“Oh, my God,” Samson moaned and I turned my shocked eyes on him.

“De Montagne,” he said and his lips worked like a fish out of water. “De Montagne,” he tried again and then collapsed against me like a sack of potatoes. I tried to hold him up but he slipped right through my hands. His chin bounced off the concrete and he flopped over, his hands clutching his chest.

“Samson!” I screamed, forgetting the wine. “Samson!” I dropped to my knees beside him and cradled his head, feeling for a pulse. His heart was pounding like a horse at full gallop. He was sweating and his eyelids were fluttering.

“Don’t die, Samson! Don’t die!” I pleaded with him as I fumbled my phone from my purse and dialed 911.

Jessica came sleepily down the cellar stairs before the ambulance arrived. She took one look at Samson prostrate in the doorway and burst into tears. I yelled at her to call Victor and then to wait out front for the police. She ran back upstairs, her broken arm flopping in its sling. I stayed with Samson, holding his hand and talking to him, begging him to be okay, until the EMS technicians arrived and shouldered me out of the way, grimacing at the stench. They loaded Samson in an ambulance and I climbed in beside him. The technician in the back started to argue, but his buddy slammed the rear doors and we were streaking down toward Napa, the technician hooking Samson up to a bevy of machines with computer displays. I tried to stay out of the way, still holding Samson’s hand and whispering to him.

“Out of the way!” The technician yelled at me as we swept up in front of the emergency room entrance. The rear doors popped open and I jumped out. They rushed Samson inside with me traveling in their wake. I would have followed him right into the treatment room, but an officious nurse in a powder blue uniform intercepted me.

“What happened?” she asked as she tugged me toward a gurney that was pushed up against a wall. “What’s that smell?”

“Trash,” I told her. “But, I’m fine. I’m fine.” She tried to push me down on the gurney, but I finally convinced her that, though I was filthy and smelled like a dead rodent, I was unhurt. She turned officious then and handed me a sheaf of papers to fill out for Samson. I sat with a half-dozen other people wearing shell-shocked expressions. The woman beside me changed seats, covering her nose. Several people made comments, but I ignored them, concentrating on the paperwork. Having just been there for Jessica, I was familiar with the forms so they didn’t take too long. That was too bad, because waiting for Samson’s doctor to come and give me news of his condition was enough to drive me batty.

While I waited, I tried to clean up in the public bathroom, but it was no use. The smell clung to my hair and permeated my skin. I would need to burn the clothes and fumigate myself. In the harsh fluorescent lighting my skin looked bleached and spotty. My hair was knotted and clumped. Dark bags half-circled my eyes, my right cheek was scratched and my lip was bloody. I was limping from my collision with the castoff electric range in the drainage channel. No wonder the nurse thought I was an accident victim. I splashed water on my face again and again, but a dreadful lethargy began to settle into my bones. Everything was falling apart. My daughter was a murder suspect with a broken arm, one of my best friends was in the emergency room and my wine cellar was a shambles.

The powder-blue nurse entered the bathroom as I was leaning over the sink fighting the tears, trying to collect myself. She had a set of green scrubs over her arm topped by a towel and a tube of shower gel. I was so grateful I wanted to kiss her prim face. Instead, I asked about Samson. She had no news, other than that he was having tests done now. The nurse gave me the clothes, led me to an empty room and left me to get clean. Hot water and soap never felt so good. Now, if I only had a change of underwear! I tossed my dirty clothes in the trashcan and tied the bag to hold down the smell.

The people in the waiting room gave me the once over, but nobody moved away when I sat down. A trio of women with a herd of sleepy children had arrived while I was showering. Two of the women were crying while the other tried to control a grumpy little boy dressed in footed pajamas who was rubbing his eyes and whining. I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. Water trickled from my hair down the back of my neck. I was tired and feeling pitiful. I had insurance claims to file and I would have to talk to the police about the vandalism and the altercation with Michelle.

Anger flashed like sheet lightning through my veins. I knew who had vandalized the cellar. There was only one person that hated me enough. Laurel Harlan. I should have expected something like this. Laurel wasn’t one to suffer slights, as Kevin and Jessica had both found out. The woman was unbalanced, but how to convince the police of that? Ben seemed determined to ignore any indication that Laurel was behind Kevin’s murder, and Priest was sleeping with the culprit!

I must have dozed off, because the next thing I remember was Victor shaking me awake.

“Victor,” I said, rubbing my eyes and stretching. My vineyard foreman looked like he had just climbed out of bed. He was wearing rumpled jogging shorts and a T-shirt and his hair was pointing in ten different directions. I looked past him to the nurse’s desk. The powder-blue nurse was filling out paperwork, glasses perched on the end of her nose. “I wonder if they’ve brought Samson out yet?” I said to Victor as I stood and stretched to tiptoe.

“Just wheeled him upstairs. Said he had a cardiac episode, whatever that is. We can’t see him right now. They have him sedated.” Victor rubbed his beard-stubbled chin and shook his head. “What the hell happened?”

I told Victor about Samson’s collapse, then backed up and told him about my run-in with Michelle Lawford. He had stopped by the house and spoken to Jessica, then come straight to the hospital.

“Police were taking prints and stuff,” he told me.

“How bad was the damage?” I asked, preparing myself for the worst.

“Bottling line is trashed. About half of the 2010 is on the floor and your personal stock was hit pretty hard. Looks like they went to town in there. Sorry, Claire,” he added, touching my shoulder.

My teeth ground and my fingernails dug into my palms. “She’s going to pay for this.”

Victor gave me a worried look. “Don’t get yourself in trouble,” he said. “Let the police handle it.”

“Like they’re handling Kevin’s murder?” I snapped. “I haven’t any faith in our sheriff’s department, outside of Ben, and he’s officially out of the loop.”

“Aw, crap,” Victor muttered into his cupped hand. “You’re gonna do something, aren’t you? Something crazy.”

“I’m going to do something,” I agreed, “But nothing crazy. They won’t consider Laurel a suspect until the proof smacks them in the face.”

“And you’re the one to smack them,” Victor said sourly. “I ain’t
even
going to try to talk you out of it. But, promise me you’ll be careful.” He looked at me for a long moment. “What am I saying? Telling you to be careful is like warning the cat not to eat the goldfish. It just encourages you. No more burglaries, can you promise me that much?”

“No more burglaries,” I said.

“You’re a damn liar,” Victor said. “And what the hell is that smell?”

The nurse let us duck our heads in Samson’s door at 3:00 A.M. He was asleep, a frail gray skeleton under a white bed sheet. I couldn’t help crying. Victor gave me a one-armed hug. We left Samson just in time to meet Midge and Priest in the emergency room lobby.

Midge looked sleepy and tousled, but Priest looked like he had just stepped off the pages of GQ. His shoes were shined and his hair was perfectly combed.

“Mrs. de Montagne,” Priest said as he crossed the floor to meet us, Midge hanging back. “How is your friend?”

“He’s stable,” I said. “Did you find anything?” I asked, pointedly looking past the pretty-boy detective at Midge.

She shrugged. “Lots of prints, but none on the pry bar they used. I’ll have to check what I have against the prints you guys gave us.”

“Actually,” Priest butted in, “we came to talk to you about Michelle Lawford. Let’s start with why she took a shot at you?”

“I don’t know why she tried to kill me,” I said, crossing my arms, suddenly cold in the thin green suit. “She said—”

“Let’s find somewhere we can talk alone,” Priest interrupted.

“I have some questions about the cellar, locks, keys, etc.,” Midge interjected.

“I can handle that,” Victor said, giving me a worried look.

“I’ll be fine,” I assured him. He and Midge sat in adjoining plastic chairs and she flipped open a notebook while Priest asked the powder-blue nurse for an empty room. He walked back to me, tried his charming smile. It made me want to puke.

“She said to use the one you showered in?” He raised an eyebrow at me, but I didn’t give him an explanation. I led the way to the room.

I could smell my clothes festering in their trash bag cocoon. Priest wrinkled his nose. “These places always smell like death to me,” he said.

“Maybe you’re just morbid,” I replied. He gave me a look, dropped to a seat on the edge of the bed and took out a spiral pad. I sat in the room’s one chair.

“Why were you in Michelle Lawford’s home?”

“I wanted to see if she was gone for good.”

“Guess you found out the hard way,” he said, writing on the pad. “What happened? From the beginning. Start with getting out of your car in American Canyon.”

Step by step, I walked him through the events of that night, feeling like an idiot, but also a little proud. I had done what the police couldn’t or wouldn’t do. Without me they might not have captured Michelle. Priest had a different opinion.

“Why don’t you let us handle the investigation?” He said after he closed the pad.

“If you weren’t sleeping with the murderer I might.” I said and his expression stiffened.

“I’m not sleeping with Laurel,” he snapped, clenching his fist so hard I thought his knuckles might crack. He took a deep breath and continued.   “Do yourself a favor and answer my questions without the commentary. You said that you and Michelle talked before the deputies arrived?”

“That’s right.”

“About what?”

“Laurel Harlan,” I said.

“You’re still on that kick?” He asked. “Christ!”

“Michelle admitted that she helped Laurel do something illegal,” I said.

“She admit murdering Kevin?”

“No,” I couldn’t lie. “But when I told her that she’d go to prison if she helped Laurel cover it up she broke down.”

“Give it to me word for word, or as close as you can come,” he said and I did, closing my eyes and reliving those moments. A cold sweat dotted my brow and I could smell the garbage again. But maybe that was just my clothes.

“That’s it?” Priest asked curtly when I had finished. I nodded.

“So, Michelle says she didn’t kill Kevin, and she didn’t try to run your daughter off the road?” Priest asked. “Yep, that sounds like a confession. Guess I’ll arrest Mrs. Harlan right away.”

“What about what Michelle
did
say about Laurel? That Laurel wouldn’t let her go to prison, not after all that Michelle had done for her? That doesn’t jibe with the theory that Michelle is a crazy stalker, does it?”

“It fits perfectly. Stalkers often identify so closely with their victims that they imagine a deeper personal connection. A loving relationship.”

“Isn’t it worth checking out? Or are you just going to take Laurel’s word for it?”

Priest stuffed his pad back in his jacket pocket and stood. “I don’t take anyone’s word for anything. Everybody lies to suit their purpose, and that’s exactly what Michelle’s doing.”

“What about the vandalism? I know it was Laurel getting even for the fight at Marjory’s,” I said, the blood hot in my cheeks.

“Let me just add that to the list! I heard about the fight from Mrs. Harlan. I tried to convince her to press charges against that drunken idiot, but she wanted to forget the whole thing. She was devastated.”

“Not too devastated to come back and blow up the only piece of evidence connecting Michelle Lawford to Jessica’s accident,” I retorted, but he wasn’t listening.

“Just stop for a minute. Stop
right there
. I think you’re right, I think Michelle ran Jessica off the road. And I think she murdered Kevin. But, I don’t think that Laurel Harlan is behind it.”
He held up a hand to stifle my protest. “Let me finish. I’m going to tell you something that I want you to promise me will go no farther than this room. Deal?”

After a lead in like that, how could I say no. “Deal,” I said to a man I despised.

“We’ll be dropping the charges against Jessica,” he said and watched my expression.

My mouth dropped open. “What? Really?” I was flooded with relief so palpable that I almost swooned.

“Really,” he said with a nod. “So the amateur detective bit stops right here. Got it?”

My relief didn’t last long before it was replaced by suspicion. “Why are you finally admitting you were wrong?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss the case,” he said. “Isn’t Jessica being cleared enough for you?”

“You have another suspect?”

“More than a suspect,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “Much more.” I sensed an undercurrent of excitement in Priest, an excitement he was trying to keep in check. He flashed that smile.

“Who is it?” I asked, knowing I wouldn’t get an answer.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss the case, but I have received information that pushes Jessica out of the picture.”

“What about Laurel Harlan?”

Priest lost the smile.  “Laurel Harlan is a
victim,” h
e said coldly. “And I’m sick of pointing that out to you. You’ve got what you wanted, so back off.” He stepped to the door and looked back at me. “Laurel will be leaving her home in a week or two to move back to San Francisco. Just stay away from her until then.”