Echoes of the Past (26 page)

She stripped off her clothing, unhooked the shower
nozzle, and turned on the tap. The water came out in a gentle spray. She
stepped into the stall and closed the glass door. She chortled. At least she
wouldn’t get tangled in the curtain if she did have a hissy-fit.

She sprayed the steaming water down her body,
carefully avoiding her face. None of the panic she’d felt recently seemed to
surface. Could it be over?

She tilted her head to the back and side and slowly
lifted the nozzle to her head. She let the water run onto her hair. Like Friday
night, the water felt heavenly. She let the nozzle hang down the wall and
reached for the small bottle of apple-scented shampoo.
Nothing ventured; nothing gained.

She washed her hair, ensuring the watery shampoo didn’t
trickle down her face. Her eyes stayed open and the pleasant aroma of fresh
apples relaxed her. She wouldn’t get disoriented this time. She reached for the
shower hose, and rinsed her hair as she’d done before. Water trickled across
her forehead, but nothing happened. She relaxed. She dropped the shower nozzle
again and applied apple-scented conditioner. While it sat on her hair, she soaped
her body.

The apple fragrance and the touch of her slick
hands along her flesh reminded her of her unknown dream lover. She could do
without the nightmares and the fear of water, but she’d miss those dreams and
him. Who was he?
The self-assured mayor or the confused
professor?
Whichever one he was, she loved him, as ridiculous as it
sounded. Losing him would be like losing a vital part of
herself
.

The real man will be better, her conscience
prodded.
Yeah, but I have to figure out
who he is.

In her mind, she saw herself in the throes of
passion, a man filling her, but try as she might, she couldn’t see his face. Her
body heated, and she closed her eyes, enjoying the sudden erotic sensations.
Water sluiced down the side of her face ending her sensuous daydream. She
rinsed her hair and her body, and shut off the faucet. She opened the shower
door and reached for the towel on the bar, dried herself, and wrapped the large
bath sheet around her.

She grabbed a face cloth, wet it, and added soap.
The ultimate test.
She brought the cloth to her face.
Nothing.
The fear was gone. She scrubbed her face, certain
she’d taken off a layer of skin in her enthusiasm, but it felt clean for the
first time in months. She reached for her moisturizer. It wasn’t where she’d
left it. Nothing was quite where it should be.

Cleaners?
I don’t
think so.

She re-entered the bedroom and opened the drawer.
As in the bathroom, things had been disturbed, further proof her cottage had
been searched in her absence. Momentarily grossed out by the thought of some
stranger pawing her underwear, she shuddered. Who had been in here? Tony? No.
The scent was wrong. What had they been looking for? She checked between the
bed and the mattress. Both USB drives were where she’d left them. She dressed
quickly donning the mid-calf, navy print skirt and white silk blouse she’d
chosen for the occasion. She partially dried her hair and tied it in an
intricate knot at the nape of her neck, added mascara and lip gloss, and
gathered her running clothes. Her cell phone had been in the pocket of her
jacket, and she reached for it, grateful she’d taken it with her. After rinsing
the rest of her running gear, she hung it in the bathroom to dry.

She went into the main room to check her briefcase
and computer. It looked as if someone had taken the documents Chad had given
her out of the briefcase for some reason, and then returned them. She touched
her computer, and the screen came to life. Whoever had turned it on hadn’t
realized closing it down was a two-step process. She pressed the cancel button
and saw her email program had been accessed. Maybe she hadn’t been overcautious
after all. She might not be able to keep someone out when she was away, but
she’d make damn sure no one came to visit when she was there. She’d stop at a
hardware store on her way home.

* * * *

Michelle scanned the Whippoorwill Winery’s reception
room. People sat at the tables set up for the Sunday Brunch and Tour. Since it
was after two, most people had finished their meal and were enjoying wine or
coffee. Ron lifted his glass. The sun shining through the window made the deep
burgundy within the bowl glow.

“Well, what do you think?”

“It’s delicious.” She took another mouthful of
wine. “I’ve never been a fan of red wine, but I could get hooked on this.”

“I’ll get you a couple of complimentary bottles
before we go. How’s your meal?”

“It’s delicious as you can see. I’ve cleaned my
plate. And these are student chefs?”

“Yup.
They come to study
on the island, and we provide a venue to try out their recipes. Haven’t had a
bad meal yet—of course the instructors oversee things closely. Do you want
dessert now, or would you like your private tour?”

“The tour, please.
I’ll
let the food settle. That lobster quiche was scrumptious. I had two pieces.”

Michelle smiled. Ron was an excellent date—kind
and considerate—but something nagged at her, and bothered her more than it
should. He was almost too good to be true. He smiled too brightly, said all the
right things, but it just didn’t ring true. Slick was the word she was looking
for. If Tasha was here, she’d call him a flashy salesman and say something like
he could sell refrigerators to the Inuit. Well, he was a salesman of
sorts—didn’t he have to sell his wine as well as this island paradise? Try as
she might, she couldn’t dismiss the fact that he seemed to be acting a part.

Tony might blow up at any minute, but there was
an honesty
to him Ron lacked. Both men appealed to her
senses—Ron possibly more so than Tony based on the blow-up they’d had last
night. She hated second-guessing herself like this. Why couldn’t she just enjoy
the moment? She’d never doubted her senses and instincts before, but so many
things were confusing. Ron laughed and reached for her hand. He brought it to
his lips and placed a kiss on it. Michelle was disappointed when she’d didn’t
feel the sparks she’d felt earlier.

“Come
on,
let me show you
how things are done.” Ron gently pulled her arm through his and led her out of
the dining area.

The winery was a surprisingly large one. He began
the tour in the warehouse area where the harvested grapes were crushed and
destemmed
using modern equipment far removed from the
traditional foot stomping of older days.

“This is far more effective and sanitary.” Ron
laughed when she commented on it. “The tannins in the grapes can really stain
your skin.”

He showed her the various steps in the process—the
pressing, the separating when necessary, the adding of sugar and balancing the
ph
levels, adding yeast and other nutrients, and finally,
the stainless steel vats where the wine-making actually took place. There were
many different sizes too depending on the stage of the operation.

“The solid waste is dried and recycled into
fertilizer and used to improve the soil quality. We sell to lots of the locals
who like to farm organically. Over here, you’ll see the oak barrels we use for some
of the more full-bodied wines.”

“That red we had at lunch wasn’t oaked, right?

“Correct, it went into smaller stainless steel
kegs until it was ready for bottling.
This way.”

The bottling room was another modern marvel. The
process was fully automated. First, the bottles were washed and rinsed.

“Why do you wash the bottles? Are they recycled?”

“Some are, but most are new bottles. Recycled ones
need more work. Look here.” He pointed to a woman working at a large sink. “She
has to remove labels, even if they’re ours. Then she has to look for scratches
on the surface. If the bottle is damaged in any way, we can’t reuse it.” He
pointed to a pail filled with broken glass, most of it green. “Bad bottles go
in there.”

Michelle watched as the woman tossed another green
bottle in the pail.

“What can scratch glass like that?”

“Lots of things.
Bottles rubbing up against one another on shelves or in ice chests
and coolers, people tossing empty bottles on the sand where they roll around.
We wash our new bottles for a number of different reasons too.” He led her back
to the bottling line. “Dust and insects get into them, sometimes mold if
they’re stored in a damp place. Some places just dry clean them with a jet of
compressed air. We like to be on the safe side.”

She watched as the various bottles moved along.
Some went left, others right.

“The batch on the left is our Cabernet Franc. Those
bottles will be corked. The one on the right is
a Chablis
.
They’ll get screw tops. Last but not least, we label the bottles, pack them
into cases, and send them to our distributors.”

“Wow!
Impressive.
I’d
have thought you’d need hundreds of employees in here.”

Ron laughed. “Employees cost money. Automation is
cost efficient. One man oversees the machine doing the job of a dozen. Growing,
harvesting, and fermenting
involves
more people than
bottling and shipping. We move most of our cargo out by planes. We have regular
runs between here, Montreal, and Toronto Island airport. We export to the United
States, too.”

“Could I have a cork for a souvenir?”

“You certainly can.” He reached into a bowl on the
shelf above his head. “Here you go.”

Michelle took the cork and swallowed her surprise.
It was identical to the one Lindsay had.

“It’s not a real one.” She hoped she’d interjected
the right amount of disappointment in her voice.

“You’re right, but these are actually better. Synthetic
corks don’t break down, are recyclable, and allow oxygen transfer the same way natural
corks do. A lot of vintners are using non-traditional closures now. Shall we
see about dessert?”

Michelle put the cork in the pocket of her skirt
and walked back to the table. Lindsay’s cork was in the bottom of her purse,
and since her bag had been in Ron’s car when they’d gone running, whoever had
searched her cabin wouldn’t have found it.

Ron’s young chefs didn’t disappoint. Dessert was a
melt-in-your-mouth crème caramel, followed by ice wine. It was sweeter than
she’d expected, but she enjoyed it.

“Do you want to come back to my place? I have a
nice champagne there we could sample?”

Michelle hoped the smile she pasted on her face
gave the right measure of disappointment. The thought of doing the horizontal
mambo, as Tasha called it, seemed far less appealing right now than it had
yesterday, and she really wasn’t sure why.

“I’m sorry, I can’t. I need to go to the morgue.
I’m expecting preliminary results on a couple of the tests I ordered yesterday,
and then I’m interviewing Professor Steele, his students, and the parents at
six. I’m going to send the
families
home.”

Ron had his coffee cup almost to his lips, and she
saw his slight start of surprise.

“I thought you said you weren’t releasing the
bodies.” There was a faint note of accusation in his voice, and she fought not
to show her sudden irritation. He might be the mayor, but she was the forensic
pathologist. When to release the bodies was her call, not his.

“I’m not releasing them, but there isn’t anything
the families can do here. I’ll need to keep the bodies until the full autopsies
are completed—that could take weeks. Plus, some of the more elaborate tests
take time. I can make the arrangements to send the remains home when I’m done
with them. This has been hard enough on them as it is. Hanging around here
won’t help anyone.”

“Are you going to send the professor
back
to Toronto, too?”

“No. I’ll need him a while longer.” Something
prompted her to tell him about her decision. She needed to see his reaction.
“You might as well be the first to know, I’ve thought about it and I’m ruling
the deaths suspicious. I’m going to call it in this afternoon.” She noted the quickly
suppressed surprised and anger on his face.

“Why would you do that? They drowned. They were
found with their heads underwater. There’s nothing suspicious about it.”

Her own temper flared, and she clenched her hands
to keep it in check.

“I told you yesterday, Ron. No one just drowns
anymore. Yes, water contributed to their deaths, but the way they were bundled alone
makes the circumstances suspicious. You must see that.”

Divert him.
Mollify him. Do what you need to do to keep him away from the morgue,
her gut
screamed at her.

“It could have been
suicide. Going into the lake bundled like that…”

Ron visibly relaxed. “I’m sorry. You’re right, of
course. You have to get to the bottom of things. I guess I should let you get
back. You know, it could have been murder.”

Michelle’s head snapped up, and she glimpsed the smug
look on Ron’s face.

“Murder?
Why on earth
would you think that? Who would want to kill those kids? I know you think
Professor Steele has motive, but killing someone, especially someone the size
of Aaron, wouldn’t have been easy.” Just how big a leak did she have at the
morgue?

“I understand those two young people weren’t a
couple. Apparently the other girl is pregnant with the dead boy’s baby. If she
caught him cheating on her, that’s a hell of a motive I’d think. Maybe it was
the professor. He could have been diddling the girl and didn’t like that guy
cutting his grass. If he cracked the kid a good one across the head…”

Michelle struggled to keep from laughing out loud.
She took a drink of her coffee to settle her face. That’s where he was going
with this—from the sublime to the ridiculous?