A Tainted Finish: A Sydney McGrath Mystery (14 page)

“So why does Jim think Olivier would want to harm Jack?” she asked.

“No idea. But he seems to have a reason. Jim doesn't trust him, that's for sure.”

“Jack doesn't either,” Syd muttered. She thought about Jim's gesture toward Alejandro, suggesting that she may not be safe from Olivier. She felt her cheeks growing hotter. “But I do. And so do you two. And Clarence did as well.” She swallowed hard, feeling less pain in her throat now.

“But maybe we are wrong?” Rosa whispered.

“Rosa! When we last talked you thought Clarence committed suicide.”

“I talked to Jim,” she said, wincing and clearly ashamed.

Syd felt her heart sink at the sight of Rosa's doubt. Rosa had defended Olivier to Jim, but Syd knew Jim had planted a seed of doubt that frightened Rosa to the core. Her maternal protection could allow her to distrust in a way that she would normally never entertain such ideas. Rosa's instincts were golden, and Syd could always count on Rosa to see right through anyone and sum up their true character. Rosa spent her lifetime in flash judgments of people based entirely on micro-assessments inferred from subtle gestures and body language. She could quickly distinguish liars from truthful people. She could find the darkness in a mild-mannered visitor with a polite handshake. Rosa was an excellent judge of character, and yet she had allowed Olivier to enter her inner circle. It bothered Syd to think that even Rosa might have been wrong about Olivier. Had they all been wrong about him?

Syd straightened her back in her seat. “I have to see Jack,” she said. She steadied herself on the table.

Alejandro jumped up while Rosa held her shoulders firm. “Not such a good idea, Syd. You have a fever. You need some rest.”

“It is after nine and the hospital is closed to visitors,” Rosa said. She knew Syd would respond better to the facts than with concern for her well-being.

“Nine at night?” she asked, confounded at the loss of time.

Alejandro nodded.

“Are the punchdowns done?” she asked.

Alejandro looked out the kitchen window with wide eyes. “Being done right now, I think.”

Syd shuffled over to the window and stood next to Alejandro. They watched Olivier opening the doors to the winery pacing outside while he waited for the gases to be purged. His silhouette entered the lighted space and disappeared inside. Syd imagined the light as being like a large set of teeth and the red doors as lips devouring Olivier as he stepped inside.

“George fighting the dragon,” she said. Alejandro stared at her before helping Rosa get her back into bed.

Syd awoke to drenched sheets in the wee hours of the morning. She had broken the fever in a sweat and found herself lucid, hungry, and thirsty. She shuffled out of her room in the darkness and made her way to the kitchen. She turned on a nightlight, got a glass of water from the faucet, and opened the fridge door. She grabbed a half-wheel of triple cream cheese and a jar of homemade olives, the kind that Clarence cured in oil and salt. There was no more bread in the house so she rummaged and found some large, flat rosemary crackers.

She sat down at the table in the dark and ate. The old mantle clock downstairs faintly chimed four just as she was finishing up. She contemplated getting another dose of Advil since her throat still hurt when she swallowed. But instead she sat, feeling the food make its way through her esophagus and into her stomach. She imagined the wee microbes of her gut flora working its way over food, rejoicing in its first meal in a few days. She thought maybe she still had a fever. She felt more than a little guilty that the troops had mustered in her defense and she had taken such lousy care of herself. She vaguely remembered the details of the conversation last night, not quite trusting her memory. She had many delirious dreams that day and she wasn't sure which thoughts were delirium-induced nightmares and which were real. Maybe she had dreamed the entire episode? Maybe Jack Bristol was fine? But then, Rosa would not have put her to bed and Alejandro would not be downstairs asleep on the couch. She couldn't have imagined all that.

She got up carefully and shuffled over to the kitchen sink with her plate. She didn't bother to turn on a light. She turned to grab some ibuprofen from the medicine cupboard when a light outside caught her attention. It was a flash of light, actually. She stared out into the darkness for a while, searching for the light to return. There was no moon and the cloud cover made it unusually dark. She was about to turn away, convinced she had imagined it, when a flash of light shined right beneath the kitchen window. She recoiled instinctively and hid behind the curtain. She could just make out a figure squatting next to the window peering into the downstairs’ family room. She watched, holding her breath. She could hardly make out the form but saw that it looked like a man of medium build. He was dressed in black. Oddly, she didn’t feel scared. Instead a force bigger than fear rose up from her stomach in a wave of heat. Her heart pounded in her ears and she felt a burning in her cheeks. She clenched her fists tight. It was anger.

Suddenly, she heard a door slam downstairs and a man yell. She ran out onto the deck in a wave of cold air and stopped at the top of the stairs, straining to see what was going on. She could only hear it; a man yelling and the prowler sprinting with surprising speed up the gravel road to the winery. The chase seemed to continue up into the vineyard, from what Syd could tell. She heard crunching strides fade to silence. She made her way off the deck in the pitch black night, gingerly finding the road in her bare feet without making a sound. She headed for the gravel drive. She stopped dead in her tracks when she heard steps approaching her. The sound of wheezing gave him away.

“Alejandro?” she whispered hoarsely.

“
Chinga madre!
What are you doing out here, Sydney?” He grabbed her under her arm and practically lifted her off the ground, dragging her upstairs.

“Who was that?” Syd whispered again, standing on the cold deck in her bare feet. Her armpit hurt from Alejandro's grip.

“How the fuck would I know?” he answered hotly, abandoning his usual decorum. “Motherfucker can sure run fast. Lucky for him too.” He held up something that Syd just noticed. She squinted and made out a baseball bat in the darkness. “Here.” He thrust it in her hand, still trying to catch his breath. “Stay here, too.
Don’t follow me, Sydney McGrath
.” He snarled and abruptly ran off into the darkness.

Syd stood in her bare feet and black silk nightie on the cold deck, holding the bat by the handle. She searched blindly in the direction Alejandro had headed. She felt her stomach sink when she realized Alejandro had taken off in the direction of the trailer. She couldn’t remember it ever being so dark. She couldn't see five feet in front of her. A cold shiver ran up her spine, and the hair on her head stood on end as she waited the longest two minutes of her life.

The violent shivering began to take over her body. She was about to go back to the house to get a better weapon and a coat when she saw a light turned on from inside the trailer. Syd could make out movement and watched the door open and close. A half a minute went by before the door opened and closed again. She heard running footsteps as two men sprinted across the vineyard and up onto the deck.

“Sydney?” Olivier whispered loudly.

“Here.”

He slowed down and jogged toward her, stepping on her bare feet when he reached her.

“
Ouch!
” she yelled, shoving him off of her toes.

“So sorry. Where did he go? Which direction?” He squeezed her arm hard with his right hand. He held something long and hard in his left hand. Syd reached out and felt the cold shaft of a shotgun.

“What are you doing?” she asked in her raspy voice. “You can't go after him with
that
.”

Alejandro pulled up next to Olivier, breathing hard.

“He was in his trailer,” he said, sounding relieved.

“Of course he was, Allie,” she said. “And now he wants to go all cowboy on us and chase down that peeping tom.” She tried her best to sound flippant through her chattering teeth as she pieced together the last five minutes. Her head throbbed as she worked out the potential disaster these men could ignite if they ran off on a chase into the dark. She grabbed the cold muzzle of the shotgun and ripped it out of Olivier's hand. He was caught off guard and let go of it. She stepped back and glared at him.

“Inside, now!” she said, feeling her way in the dark with her feet. She carried a bat in one hand and a shotgun in the other. They stumbled into the kitchen a moment later. Alejandro reached the light switch first and flipped it on. They looked around at each other, all round-eyed and alert, like animals ready to sprint. Syd stood in her loose black nightie, stiffly holding the shotgun and bat out like ski poles. She was the first to crack a smile and break into a hysterical laughter, stabbing pain in her lungs. The men joined in as they succumbed to the vaudevillian scene they all had played out.

Olivier stood shirtless with pinstriped pajama bottoms and tall muck boots. His curly hair was piled to one side of his head in bedhead fashion. Alejandro was fully dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, but he was still trying to catch his breath. They glanced at each other as their laughter subsided.

“Well, if I'm going to get beat to death,
that’s
certainly the way to go,” Alejandro said, smirking at Syd. He stole a long look at her nightie. She was still freezing and covered in goosebumps. Her nipples were stinging and hard in her flimsy nightie, a fact not unnoticed by either men. Syd jabbed him in the belly with the bat.

“And you’d be the one to go, slowpoke,” She jabbed at him again lightly. Alejandro grabbed the bat from her.

Olivier's smile disappeared and he gingerly took the gun from her, eyes averted. She instinctively covered her breasts with her arms once her hands were free.

“Should we call the police?” Olivier asked.

“Jim would be here in a heartbeat,” Syd said, sadly. “I think he's gone, whoever it is.” They nodded at each other. “I think I've had enough of Jim today,” she added, glancing meaningfully at Olivier. He looked more than a little relieved. “Could you please stay in the house tonight?” she asked, locking eyes with him. She wasn’t helpless and he knew it. It was a request for forgiveness and partnership as much as it was a request for help. At least she’d make it clear she trusted him.

He nodded back at her. “It is nearly morning,” he said.

~

They got little rest for the remainder of the night. Adrenaline pumped through Alejandro, more as a reminder of his failed chase than out of fear or excitement. Olivier lay awake on a couch upstairs, methodically musing over the events of the evening and his growing entanglement with Clarence's legacy. He kept his ears alert and tried to clear his mind of all thoughts. He froze at the sound of every moan or creak in the old house. But he was pretty certain Syd was correct in assuming that the prowler was gone. He only wished he had been there. He was confident he would have caught up to the man in a foot race. The thought of clearing his name of all suspicion was enough to send a thrill of bitterness through him along with a vein of hope. At least Syd knew that he wasn't a danger to
her
. As much as he would have loved to catch the prowler, he was sure that the thick detective might not make the obvious connection to Clarence's murder or the lawyer's accident. It was another thought made him shudder. He did have to give credence to the Sheriff's notion that Syd was in danger. The prowler may not have been after something, but
someone
. And, of course, he stood to gain the most if something happened to Syd. His heart sunk deep in his chest and his eyes remained wide open until daylight.

Syd returned to her warm bed after taking more Advil and drinking a hot toddy laced with whiskey. She lay awake for a full hour in a state of calm contemplation. The Advil worked its magic and Syd found herself drifting off to sleep and a liquid emotional landscape. She had intended to stay awake and listen for the men stirring, which she knew would come soon enough, but sleep caught her in a web of strange disjointed images. The night sky glowed with a light purple hue, reminding her of her drive along Highway 14 at sunrise a week earlier. Her dreams flashed with images of Clarence in his Austin Healey, smiling at her. The eastern skyline filled with orange and purple clouds churning like the boiling gases of Jupiter. And then it all disappeared and she was somewhere else. She found herself walking in the wet grasses of the vineyard in a luminous green light. She walked toward the trailer, which glowed with the same green light. She climbed onto the step and opened the door. She looked up into the bullet-shaped interior at an odd angle. Olivier sat at the table looking down at the manila envelope in his hand. He looked up at her with sad eyes. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She turned and saw that Olivier had come to stand next to her, wearing only his pajamas bottoms. He held his hands out in front of her, with palms up and fingers splayed. He showed her the backs of his hands. She stood mesmerized as he slowly moved his hands to her arms and softly ran his fingers up to her shoulders. She felt an immediate thrill and stepped closer. He kissed her neck softly and muttered words she couldn't make out. His lips moved to her face and she kissed him back with her own lips and tongue. His taste was intoxicating. They floated to a soft couch, where she held him in a tight embrace, still kissing him with restrained urgency. He moved on top of her, and she smelled him with every taste. His body was light, and she sensed him more in the heaviness of his aroma than his physical being. She kissed him with more urgency as her arousal grew, and his scent overwhelmed her. The aroma moved heavily around her neck, like a gaseous rope creeping around her throat, choking her. She moved instinctively and pushed him away from her, gasping for air and arched her back to open up her chest and lungs. Olivier was suddenly gone and she looked down at her own naked, writhing body. She thrust her hands up reflexively, but found no resistance, in spite of the heaviness of the scent surrounding her. She thrust her legs into the cushions of the couch and managed to turn on her side enough to inhale a lungful of air. Her head awkwardly angled and pulled in oxygen as if from an invisible straw. She slowly relaxed and breathed in to gain control of her frantic mind. As her thoughts cleared, she felt her hands tingle and the hair on her arms stand up. She called out to Olivier, who had vanished in the dark. She found she could move her head and look around the room while her body was paralyzed. She called out for Olivier again and the room answered in a hazy green glow. She could make out a figure in the darkness, fading in and out. She called out again, her voice never leaving her throat.

The figure stood over her, menacing. The room had gone dark, and the figure was silhouetted in pulsing green light. She squinted to make out his face but a light fog rose between them. She reached up to touch his face, but he effortlessly dodged her. She felt him smirking at her gesture. When she tried to get up and reach for him, she found herself pinned at her shoulders to a white-sheeted bed. She looked and saw that she was pinned at the shoulder with large black nails. Red stains of bright red blood oozed from her wounds through a white linen nightshirt she now wore. The pins held her tightly with a force greater than gravity, like a pithed insect. The room grew into a bright white luminescence as she looked back up at her assailant. She could almost make out his familiar features before she saw a large pillow looming over her face. She felt the slow smothering of cool cotton on her cheeks and lips, suffocating her silent screams. She couldn’t breathe...

A moment later she sat up in bed, gasping. Her hands and arms were flailing in the air as she struggled out of her dream, pushing away a pillow that wasn’t there. She gulped for air and then calmed herself, slowing her breathing. She looked around the room and saw soft morning light filling it with a kind of shocking serenity. She moved her hands along the bumpy surface of her mother's quilt while her eyes searched frantically for traces of her nightmare. She was surprised at the tears that streamed down her face, uncertain if they were from terror or some kind of emotional release. She swallowed hard and felt the sharp familiar pain in her throat. She reached up to touch her throbbing forehead but couldn't tell if she was feverish. She pushed herself up shook and her head, forcing the sinking feeling from her mind.