Lethal Vintage (8 page)

“Anna?” said Monty.

“No, Molly,” said Sunny. “Hello, pay attention. How could Anna not know her own ex-boyfriend?”

“Right. Back up a second. What about this Lachlan guy? How’s he look?”

“Big guy. Huge, actually. Like six-four or -five. Caribbean originally but seemed pretty Americanized. He and Seth are always together, apparently. He went back to San Francisco late last night, before Anna died.”

“How do you know?” asked Rivka.

“I heard Marissa tell Franco he left right after they got out of the hot tub. I heard Anna and Oliver fighting long after that, so he couldn’t have killed her. And there was another guy staying at the house, a British artist named Troy Stevens. A friend, or rather ex-boyfriend, of Anna’s.”

“He’s famous,” said Monty. “I’ve heard of him.”

“I think he’s still in love with her.”

“She’s got her boyfriend and two exes in the same house,” said Rivka. “Sounds messy. Anyone else?”

“Just the people who work there. A woman named Cynthia Meyers who is Oliver’s private chef—good cook—and the gardener who found Anna. His name is Mike Sayudo. He was in the living room today before the police let us go, but I didn’t meet him.” Sunny poured herself a cup of tea and stirred in a spoonful of honey. “I’m sure there are other people who work there, probably plenty of them. It must take a dozen people to maintain that place. But it was the weekend and those were the only two around.”

“As far as you know,” said Monty. “Who knows who may have been in that house after dark. I’m sure there are plenty of places to hide.”

And bedrooms, thought Sunny. She had decided to leave Andre Morales off the list of suspects. It was just too embarrassing to go into right now.

“Don’t talk like that,” said Rivka. “You’ll give her nightmares. And me.”

“I guess we can’t entirely discount the idea of some random or even not-so-random person showing up,” said Sunny. “But it seems doubtful to me. That place would be hard to break into. There’s a security gate and surveillance cameras everywhere. Besides, it would be a very odd coincidence, since Anna already felt she was in danger. No, I would assume the obvious—that Seth killed her—except he’s too smart. He wouldn’t push his girlfriend out a window after a big fight and then hang around while the police try to decide what happened. The guy has more brains than that.”

“Anybody can lose his temper,” said Rivka. “Maybe he snapped.”

“Maybe. In any case, the police will get the security tapes and the lab reports and track down what happened and who’s responsible.
I’m inclined to think it was one of the guys at the party. Seth. Franco. The artist. Jared Bollinger. Like you said, it was a messy situation. Drugs, alcohol, and who knows what kind of grudges or jealousies were brewing. Knowing what happened won’t bring Anna back, but at least they won’t get away with it.”

“Sounds like you’re planning to stay out of it,” said Wade. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“Why wouldn’t she?” said Monty. “Sun doesn’t know anything more about what happened than anyone else, she’s not in any danger, and nobody she knows stands to be accused. For once, it’s not her problem.” He handed Sunny a slice of cake.

“I have no desire to get any more involved than I already am,” said Sunny. “I’m going home after I finish this piece of cake and I’m going to have a good cry and a bath and try to forget this weekend ever happened.”

Rivka frowned and looked around. “I hate to be the one to break the bad news, but you guys are overlooking one small detail. Sunny is not only involved in this girl’s death; if she turns out to have been murdered, Sunny could be a suspect. From the way you tell it, it sounds like you were in exactly the wrong place at precisely the wrong time without anyone to corroborate your story.”

“You’re right,” said Monty, eyes wide behind his glasses. “No alibi. I never thought of that.”

Sunny looked at Rivka and reached for her cup of tea. Monty’s marshmallow chocolate cake had suddenly become too sticky to swallow.

Home by ten, asleep by ten-thirty, up at five, at work by five-thirty, just like a normal day. Sunny McCoskey sat in her office at the back of the restaurant, reviewing the new menu before printing it out on the restaurant’s special stationery with the letterpress logo. Someone knocked at the back door.

“It’s open!”

The screen door banged and an instant later Ted the fish guy stuck his bushy mustache into the office. He was pulling a dolly behind him with a cooler bungeed to it.

“Usual place?”

“Usual place.”

He came back and handed her a clipboard with an invoice on it. She read. “Forty filets of fresh salmon?”

“Beautiful stuff.”

“But forty filets? As in sides? That’s, like, eighty pounds? That’s, like, a week’s supply, if it lasted that long.”

“I wondered what you were doing with it. Can’t take it back now. You’re my last stop.” He flipped through the clipboard papers and pointed to the order for forty filets of salmon.

“It’s a mistake. We never order that much. Can’t you call around and see if somebody will take half of it off my hands?”

“No time. But if anybody calls looking for more, I’ll send them your way.”

She sighed. “How did this happen?”

“You got me. I just catch it, clean it, ice it, serenade it, and deliver it before the coffee gets cold. Ordering is up to you all.”

“Right. Okay. Well, we’ll be serving salmon today, I guess.”

“Not a bad idea.”

Sunny shook her head. Eighty pounds of fresh salmon. They’d have today and tomorrow to sell it. By tomorrow night it would be over, at least as far as the restaurant was concerned. They could divide what was left among the staff. She looked at the menu in front of her. It was going to need some changes. Salmon carpaccio followed by filet of salmon followed by planked salmon, poached salmon, salmon ravioli, salmon mousse, and salmon soufflé.

Rivka arrived an hour later. She came into the office pushing her old beach cruiser and leaned it against Sunny’s. On warm days like this, they both rode their bikes to the restaurant. Rivka was wearing what she always wore to work, rain or shine. Today the jeans were black and the tank top was red, presumably chosen to match the swooping blue and red swallows she had tattooed on the back of each arm.

“Absolutely perfect morning out there,” said Rivka, catching her breath and checking herself in the mirror behind the door. Her long black hair was braided and wound into tight little mounds behind each ear. She smoothed down the baby hairs in front and turned back to Sunny.

“Did you check the Web site’s e-mail account?”

“Not yet,” said Sunny. “Did you order forty filets of fresh salmon?”

“We need to check it every morning from now on,” said Rivka. “Over the weekend I installed a button that lets people request reservations online.”

“Salmon?”

“Yes, I ordered the salmon. Forty pounds. I ordered a little more than usual because there are so many reservations on the book this week. And that last batch was so pretty.”

“You ordered forty filets. There’s eighty pounds of sockeye in the walk-in looking for a home.”

“Oh. I must have gotten it mixed up. Eighty pounds is a lot of fish.”

“That’s right, Pocahontas. Tell Bertrand to tell everybody to sell salmon. Nobody gets out of here without ordering the salmon today. And anybody who gets un amuse-bouche compliments of the chef is going to be amused by salmon.”

“Got it.”

Rivka retreated to the kitchen and Sunny went back to the morning’s paperwork. The Wildside Web site still made her a little uneasy. More than anything else about the business she was in, she liked the tangibility of cooking. There was nothing virtual about Wildside. Nothing artificial, faux, or simulated. No tromp l’oeil, no mock anything, no substitutions, no compromise. Her explicit intention had always been to make Wildside a tiny refuge of authenticity in an age of illusion, a time when food that smells like strawberry and tastes like strawberry is more likely to be guar gum and corn syrup. Having a Web site seemed to encroach, however slightly, on that authenticity. If she could cut the phone lines and insist that people show up in person and wait for a table without going out of business, she would do it.

Rivka, on the other hand, was determined to bring Wildside into the twenty-first century. Sunny opened the e-mail account Rivka had set up for inquiries coming through the Web site. A dialogue box said it was “downloading one of one messages.” One reservation. Not exactly a crowd, but it was a start. The return address
caught her eye. The e-mail had been sent by Oliver Seth at two-twenty in the morning. Sunday morning. The same morning Anna Wilson died. The subject line read “FW: Roma!” There was a brief message.

Sunny, this is why I’m leaving. It’s all in the picture. I’ll explain later. Suffice to say, my world has come apart. Please keep this safe for me. Call it an insurance policy. I must control my fate!!! Mum for now. Will call soon.

Wils

Wils was what Sunny had called Anna years ago. She scrolled down. There was a series of e-mails between Oliver and someone named Astrid. Sunny jumped to the bottom and skimmed up chronologically. They’d been sent over the past month, some quite recently, and talked about an upcoming business meeting with executives from a bank in Moscow that was interested in funding one of Oliver’s new technology ventures. Then there was this from Astrid:

Darling, I’ve had the strangest dream this morning. We were in a ferry somewhere in the Greek Isles. The weather was glorious—that Mediterranean blue sky you love so much—but I was terribly afraid the boat would sink. You told me I was a fool to worry over nothing, that I would make the other passengers nervous. I knew if we could just get within sight of land, everything would be okay. Then we could swim if we had to. Without warning, an enormous wave swamped the boat and it sank quickly and completely. We treaded water. I was terrified the waves would separate us. You were angry with me and pushed me away. You said, “I told you not to be afraid. Now look what you’ve done!”

Oliver wrote back, “Do not worry. Let them make waves. This boat is not going to sink, I promise you.” There was an attachment, a photograph of Oliver in his gold aviators and a trim suit with his arm around a dark-haired woman in a white minidress. Not Anna, presumably Astrid. Rome. They stood in front of a tiny canary-yellow sports car at dusk. The Coliseum was in the background. It was summer, judging by their clothes and Astrid’s tanned shoulders, and they looked extremely happy. Probably this summer, since Oliver was still wearing those same sunglasses. Guys like him lost or updated the accoutrements around their person frequently. Never the same sunglasses, cuff links, or phones for long.

Sunny examined the photograph more closely. Something about it reminded her of the old photographs of Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow getting married in Las Vegas. Maybe it was the white trapeze dress or the modish suit Oliver was wearing. Maybe it was the aura of glamour they exuded. Life looked very good. Sunny pushed her chair back and stared up at Rusty, the wire rooster who presided over the room from the top of the bookcase. What was she to make of this? The e-mail had been sent from Oliver Seth’s account, but it was from Anna, she was sure of that. The note was Anna’s voice, and anyway, she’d never heard anyone else call her Wils. So that was the genesis of Saturday night’s fight. After finding the surveillance system the night before, on Saturday night Anna had somehow gotten into Oliver’s e-mail and found out about his relationship with Astrid. The brief exchange and the photograph made it clear he had another love, another life. And there must have been other e-mails, probably dozens of them. Anna would have been left with no hope that Oliver was anything but a deeply deceitful and dishonest person.

Sunny scrolled back through the exchange. At one point Oliver wrote, presumably referring to the photograph, “See attached.
Remember to control your fate. She’s bullish on the new vintage.” That must have been what Anna was referring to in her note when she said she must control her fate. But what did Oliver mean by “She’s bullish on the new vintage”? Europa, certainly. Europa was pictured riding a bull on the label of Oliver’s new wine, Taurus Rising. Sunny had seen it when Oliver himself showed it to her at lunch on Saturday. But what did that mean? Was it some kind of code or riddle? Whatever it was, Astrid had understood. She replied, “Got it,” and went on to another topic.

Sunny printed out two sets of the e-mail, including the photograph. She sealed one set in an envelope for Sergeant Harvey and put it in her bag. The police would get the e-mails, but they would have to wait until the lunch rush was over. The other set she tucked into a tattered old copy of Richard Olney’s Simple French Food for safekeeping, returning it to its place on the shelf under Rusty’s watchful eye. Anna’s insurance policy had failed as utterly as her attempt to control her fate, but Sunny would keep them all the same—at least until the police figured out exactly who was responsible for her death, and why.

Why had Anna sent the e-mails, anyway? Did she hope to use them against Oliver somehow? For money, even? Or did she only want to keep some tangible proof that he was unfaithful to her, to show she was not imagining his lies and infidelities? She reread Anna’s message. Call it an insurance policy. She must have suspected she was in danger, but why? When you find out your boyfriend is a cheat and a liar, you’re upset, not frightened. Anna had a reckless nonchalance about life and love, not to mention fidelity. Another woman would make her laugh or leave, not take out the only insurance available to her. There had to be something else in those e-mails. It’s all in the picture. There must be something there she wasn’t seeing. She needed to read them more carefully and try
to see what Anna had seen. Sunny checked her watch. With eighty reservations on the books plus walk-ins, she had already burned more time than she could spare. It would have to wait until she got home in the afternoon.

“Anything?” said Rivka from the threshold.

“What?”

“Reservations from the site.”

“Reservations? Oh, no, nothing so far.”

“Well, it’s only been up a few days. Build it and they will come.”

Rivka went back to work and Sunny put on one of the white canvas smocks she wore when she cooked. What on earth had Anna found, snooping through Oliver’s e-mail? Sunny tied her apron strings and looked in the mirror.

“Mum for now,” she said, and headed into the kitchen.