Dead on the Vine: (Violet Vineyard Murder Mysteries #1 (A Cozy Mystery)) (30 page)

By the time Victor was done with the bread, Jessica and I were on the patio sipping drinks. Victor chose cabernet, and Jess was having a Coke. We watched twilight settle like a silk curtain over the valley. A cool breeze was seeping down off the mountain and the sun was a mellow gold. If I could have gotten thoughts of Winter out of my mind it would have been very pleasant.

“Food!” Victor suddenly proclaimed. “Steak, steak, steak!”

“Light some candles,” I told him. Night was coming on fast. The valley below was as black as the sky above. House lights and headlights resembled stars and supernovas from this distance. If you squinted.

I slapped the steaks on the grill and lowered the lid. The meat sizzled and its fragrance competed with the wisteria.

Victor asked Jessica how her arm was. Jessica said it was itching like crazy.

“Coat hanger,” Victor said as he knelt to light a citronella candle, one of a dozen scattered around the patio. “Gets right down in there.”

“That helps until you stop scratching and then the itch is right back,” Jessica whined.

While the steaks cooked, I went in and gathered plates and forks and had Victor take them to the patio while I fixed the salad. I arranged the sliced tomatoes and red onion in a circle on the platter, sprinkled blue cheese over it all and then doused it with raspberry vinaigrette. By then the steaks were ready to come off the grill.

The food was dished up and we fell to with an appetite. I could tell they were enjoying it by the lack of conversation. It seemed like a matter of minutes before the steaks were gone and we were groaning over full bellies.

Jessica started to get up, slipped and banged her injured arm on the edge of the table. Glasses sloshed and Jessica dropped back in her chair moaning and cradling her arm.

“Are you all right, babe?” I asked, half out of my seat.

“I was going to help clear the table,” she moaned, “But now, I think I’m gonna scream. It’s been killing me all day.”

“Why don’t you get a couple of pain killers and lie down for a while,” I told her. “I’ll take care of the dishes.”

“It’ll be more than a while,” Jessica said. “Those things knock me out.” She stood and kissed me and Victor goodnight.

“Steak good,” Victor said when we were alone.

“And now you have to pay for your supper,” I said, rising and gathering dishes. “Pitch in, buddy, or no dessert for you.”

“Dessert?” he said hopefully. “Dessert?”

We ferried the mess inside and I offered Victor a Dove bar for dessert. He wasn’t impressed. He muttered something about being tight-fisted, then fixed us both another drink. We went back outside.

For ten minutes we sat silently in the candlelight, sipping our drinks and looking at the stars.

“Still can’t believe he’s dead,” Victor said, looking toward the Harlan’s fields.  The vines looked wan and abandoned. “And that she got away with it.”

“She won’t get away with it,” I said, more hopeful than certain.

“She already has,” Victor replied quietly.

Again the silence dragged out until Victor spoke.

“Remember when we planted the willow?” He asked wistfully, looking toward the tree two hundred yards away. “That was a good day.”

“One of the best,” I replied as the memories flooded in.

“She was a beautiful little girl,” Victor said and I nodded.

“Why do you think Kevin was in the rows the night he was killed?” He asked.

I shrugged, still looking at the willow.

“With a shovel?” Victor added and a light popped on inside my head. Everything I had learned came together in that moment. All the pieces that had seemed so unconnected fell into place. Kevin, with the shovel, entering my vineyard in the dead of night. His belief that his daughter wasn’t the girl identified by Laurel and Dr. Perry. Michelle’s guilt-ridden demeanor and the mini-shrine she had created. And the tiny crucifix on its broken chain that had been lying at Kevin’s feet. A crucifix just like the one Winter had proudly worn day and night, a gift from her grandparents on her baptism.

“Holy Mary,” I gasped, shooting out of my chair, heart lunging into my throat. Winter had been kidnapped only weeks after we had planted the willow. The ground beneath it had been soft, freshly turned. I knew then that the photo on Michelle’s dresser was much more than a shrine. It was a tombstone. Kevin had come to my vineyard to look for his little girl.

“What?” Victor asked, standing and following my eyes. “What?” He said again, stepping closer.

I didn’t reply. I couldn’t speak. What I was thinking was so awful that it couldn’t be true. But I knew it was. I trotted to the wine cellar door and all the way to the back of the cool cave where the hand tools are kept. I took a shovel from the standing rack and rejoined Victor.

Victor’s eyes took in the shovel and the color drained from his face.

“The willow,” I said, brushing at the tears that streaked my face. I almost choked on the words. “Kevin came for his daughter. He came to dig up Winter.”

“No,” Victor said, turning pale. He shook his head. “No.”

I didn’t reply. I led the way to the willow.

“The crucifix they found was hers,” I said. “She never took that necklace off. Never. So, how did Kevin have it when he was killed?”

Victor said nothing. I stopped at the willow and jabbed the shovel into the ground. I turned over the rich black soil and pitched it onto the grass. I made two scoops before Victor took the shovel away. I stepped aside and he attacked the grass around the tree like treasure was buried below. But we knew what we were digging for, and both of us hoped we wouldn’t find it. Our hopes went unanswered.

“Oh, God,” Victor said after ten minutes of furious digging. He pitched the shovel aside and dropped to his knees, pawing at the earth like a wild animal. “Oh, God,” he said again. He turned his head and vomited on the grass.  The acrid stench of stomach bile and half-digested steak filled my nostrils and I gagged. I knew what he was seeing and I didn’t want to look. But I had to.

Victor stood shakily and looked at me, tears streaming, his whole body shaking.  

I stepped around him on rubber knees, light headed, stomach churning. At the near end of the shallow pit I saw a pink blanket wrapped around something. I knelt beside it.

From the top of the bundle a lock of blonde hair stuck out, catching the wavering moonlight. I touched the hair and the blanket fell away revealing moldering skin stretched tight over a child’s delicate facial bones. I retched and skittered back on my hands and knees, gagging. Victor tried to take my arm but I slapped him away, stood and rushed to the edge of the lawn. I vomited into the weeds until there was nothing left in my stomach.

Victor put his arm around my shoulders. He didn’t say anything for a long moment. His eyes looked hollowed out and dead. I hugged him, thinking sadly that while we had searched the fields, rows and hills for Winter she had been just a few hundred yards from home. Kevin had found that out and it had cost him his life.

“We have to call the police,” he finally said. “We have to call Ben.”

“I’ll do it,” I said hoarsely, throat raw. “Stay with her.”

Victor nodded and I walked/staggered back to the kitchen and got my purse. I took the cell phone out and dialed 911, but hung up before the phone could ring. I dialed Hunter Drake’s number instead. He answered on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Are you drunk?” I demanded.

“Who the hell is this?”

“Claire de Montagne,” I croaked, brushing away tears. “Are you drunk?”

“No,” he said. “And what business is it of yours? I was just about to have a drink, and—“

“Shut up!” I screamed into the mouthpiece. “I just dug up Winter Harlan in my back yard.”

After a protracted silence he asked, “Have you called the Sheriff’s office?”

“No,” I said, trying to get my breathing under control. “I called you.”

“Call them now,” he said, “I’m on my way.” He hung up.  I dialed 911,gave the dispatcher my name and told her what we had found. She seemed uninterested.  In a monotone worthy of a machine, she read my address back to me and asked me to confirm it. I did and she said the police were on their way. I hung up and went back to the willow. Back to Winter.

The police arrived half an hour before the reporters, and five minutes after Hunter Drake.

Hunter drove around the house, parked his white Chevy and came across the grass to where Victor and I stood, thirty feet from Winter’s grave.

“Claire,” he said, looking beyond me at the trench beneath the willow. “Is that where she is?” I nodded and he stepped grimly around me. He walked over and knelt beside the pink bundle, turned aside the blanket and sat on his haunches staring for several minutes.

Police sirens suddenly cut through the night. As the first car barreled around the house, blue strobes flashing, Hunter stood, brushed dirt from his hands and joined me and Victor.

“Looks like Buford gets a walk,” is all he said.

“And Laurel gets to fry,” Victor added, eyes on the grave. “I’d like to pull the switch.”

“They use gas in California,” Hunter corrected absent-mindedly.

“Even better,” Victor said as a pair of deputies exited their car and came running, pistols drawn.

“What’s going on here?” the first one, a tall brunette with an officious manner and a peach fuzz mustache, asked. Then he saw Hunter.

“Hunt?” he said.

“Hey Billy.”

Billy holstered his revolver, but his partner, a fat man with wobbly walrus cheeks, kept his in his fat fist. Both uniformed deputies looked toward the grave, but Billy asked the questions.

“What’s goin’ on here, Hunt?”

“Found the Harlan’s little girl,” Hunter nodded at the grave.

“Buford dumped her in the river,” Billy said. He glanced at the grave and back at Hunter. “We found the Harlan girl, Hunt. Must be some mistake.”

“She’s over there,” Hunter said. “No mistake.”

“Christ,” Billy muttered. He spoke over his shoulder to his partner. “Gary, call Ben and get Midge out here, too.” Gary trotted off, belly jiggling. Billy looked at Hunter.

“Guess I better check it out,” Billy said reluctantly. He looked at the grave and then back at the three of us.

“Nothing to see,” Hunter said. “Leave it to forensics.”

“No,” Billy said, rubbing his chin with the heel of his hand, “I gotta look.” Hunter shrugged and Billy went over to Winter. He came back after a quick glance. He looked queasy.

“Little kid,” he said and Hunter nodded.

“Winter Harlan,” Hunter said.

“Christ,” Billy said again, looking at his shoes. “You Claire de Montagne?” He asked.

“Yes.”

“You found her?”

“We did,” I said, titling my head at Victor.

“Victor Gonzalez,” Victor said before he was asked.

“We’ll need statements,” Billy said. “You too,” he added to Hunter.

“Got it,” Hunter said with a touch of annoyance. I guessed he was used to being in charge at crime scenes.

“Maybe you guys should come up to the house,” Billy said looking around. “Midge gets crazy about crime scene integrity.”

We walked back to the patio with Billy. Victor and I sat down at the table under the wisteria, awash in the swirling red and blue strobes from the police car. Two more sheriff’s cruisers arrived at the same time and Hunter joined the deputies back at the grave, shaking hands with two of them. I sipped my drink as they looked at the grave.

I had just lit a cigarette when a Channel Four news van whipped around the corner of the house and ground to a halt in the loose gravel just inches from the bumper of one of the cruisers. A spike-haired redhead with a brusque manner and fake boobs leaped out of the van. The cameraman was right behind her. I started to rise, an outraged yell on the edge of my tongue, but they were already bolting across the field trailing cables. The van’s driver was dragging a rack of lights out of the back. The woman and her cameraman didn’t make it twenty feet before Hunter and two of the deputies rushed her.

She tried to skirt the three men, but ran into a trellis, bounced back into the row, tripped over her microphone cable and went down hard in the freshly tilled earth. The dew was already settling, so, by the time she got up her knees and butt were streaked with mud and she was cursing. Hunter blocked the cameraman, waving his hands in the air like a basketball player trying to block a shot. A scene of furious cursing and hurled insults followed as I settled back and watched. They had to tow the woman back to her van. The cameraman filmed it all. Hunter alone was calm, smiling and laughing as he herded the cameraman back.

“I want her off my property,” I yelled at Hunter as he deposited the reporter at her van and started back toward the grave.

“I told her she could stay right there,” Hunter said. “She just needs to stay out of the way.”

“This is my property,” I reminded him, my eyes shifting form Hunter to the redhead. “If she doesn’t leave immediately, I want her arrested for trespassing.”

“Claire,” he began, but I cut him off.

“Get her out of here. Move her to the road or to jail, your choice.”

“Wait a minute,” she shouted, coming toward me at a trot. “Freedom of the press has a greater priority than your property rights.”

“Off.” I said again, looking at Hunter. “Now.” Hunter intercepted her and turned her around. She yelled something about police brutality and freedom of the press as Hunter ushered her back to her van and inside. More arguing took place through the open door, but I didn’t pay any attention because Ben Stoltze had just pulled up. I walked over to meet him.

Ben got out of the car, took in Hunter arguing with the anchorwoman with an indifferent glance and turned to me.

“What the hell’s going on here?” He demanded. “And what’s Hunt doing here?”

“I called him,” I said.

“Ben!” The woman yelled over Hunter’s shoulder, but Ben ignored her. His eyes were on me and they weren’t friendly.

“Why did you call him?” Ben asked, a trace of irritation, maybe jealousy, in his tone.

“He was the lead detective on Winter’s case,” I said lamely. “He was the only one that would listen to me.”

“The only one who hates Laurel as much as you do,” Ben finished coldly.

“That’s not true—“

“Enough,” Ben cut me off as he looked toward the grave. “You sure that’s Winter out there?”

“Yes.”

“What’s happening with Sheila the she-devil?” he asked, jerking his head in the anchorwoman’s direction.

“I ordered her off my property,” I explained.

“Same old Claire.”

I didn’t say anything to that.

“Seen Midge Tidwell?” Ben asked as the channel four van backed up with a spurt of gravel. The back wheels went up on the grass as the driver spun the wheel and punched the gas, throwing more gravel in a rooster tail. Jerk.

“No, I haven’t,” I told Ben, watching the van through narrowed eyes.

“Sit on the patio,” he told me, “I’ll need to talk to you.” His voice held no affection, just resignation.

“Guess you were right about Laurel,” he said as I turned away. “Logan claimed he dumped the body in the river. Must have been the Valdez girl.”

“I’m not happy about it.”

Ben grunted, turned and walked away.

Hunter walked over.

“What’d Ben say?” he asked.

I shrugged. “He’s mad at me.”

“You have that effect on people,” he said, smiling. “Some of us are just better at hiding it.”

I ignored the jibe. “Thanks for running her off.”

“She’s kinda cute,” Hunter said.

“Not to me,” I said with annoyance. “Unless pit vipers are cute.”

Hunter laughed and that annoyed me even more.

“Why are you in such good spirits?” I asked nastily. “There’s a little girl dead over there.”

Hunter’s smile thinned, but it didn’t disappear. He shrugged. “Been a long time since I was at a crime scene,” he said. “Gets the old juices flowing. I’m gonna talk to Ben.”

“Fine,” I said shortly and rejoined Victor on the patio.