Dead on the Vine: (Violet Vineyard Murder Mysteries #1 (A Cozy Mystery)) (11 page)

With food in their bellies and wine in their glasses, the group was in a very festive mood, cutting up and laughing. It was contagious. If I hadn’t had to make an appearance at the Sheriff’s office I would have enjoyed hanging out and downing a few glasses of cabernet myself. One of the students had brought along an orange Nerf football. As I headed to the house to get ready for town, the students and laborers started an impromptu game of tag-football, sending the orange ball zipping left and right. Samson was the referee, which meant he stood in the shade with a glass of wine in his hand shouting insults. A perfect role for him.

Victor missed lunch, but he was in the kitchen when I came down from my bedroom. I had dressed in a pale blue sundress and sandals. My hair was done as much as I ever do it and sprayed in place with an ancient can of Aquanet. I was wearing lipstick, but no other makeup. The way Victor looked me up and down almost made me blush. I was sure that he and everyone else would know instantly why I had dressed, even though I hesitated to admit why to myself. I was going to see Ben and I wanted to look my best. But not like I was
trying
to look my best.

“Wow,” Victor said, smirking. “Hot date?” He was dressed in faded and frayed jeans and a yellow Polo shirt. His hair was tied back in a ponytail that hung down past his shoulders. I wished I hadn’t put on the lipstick. The downside of rarely wearing makeup is that when I do I feel like a little girl playing dress up. Victor noticed my embarrassment. He knows me far too well, and quickly changed his tone from sarcastic to complimentary.

“You look great, Claire, as always. If I were more mature, I’d be asking you out.” I noticed that he said ‘mature’ not ‘older.’  Smart move.

“Thank you,” I said. Thankfully Jessica came in from the tasting room at that moment and spared me further embarrassment.

Jessica didn’t notice the lipstick, or if she did, she didn’t mention it. She wasn’t wearing any makeup. In that, she takes after me. She looked pale and nervous, her face pinched and lined.

“Are you guys ready?” she asked.

“Yes, let’s get this over with,” I replied, grabbing my handbag.

The three of us trooped out the backdoor and across the yard. The football game was in its waning moments. I could tell because Samson was staring at his watch and looking irritated. He’d get over it. I stopped and spoke to him as Victor and Jessica went to the car. I would have bet anything that Samson had forgotten about the fingerprinting, so I was anticipating a tantrum.

“Where are you going, de Montagne?” He asked grumpily, flicking a glance at me. “Avoiding work again?”

“We’re supposed to go in for fingerprinting today. Ben told you, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Samson replied with superiority. “And that is why I went yesterday. Some of us plan our time well, others…” He shrugged.  “They let these things go undone.”

“But Ben said their fingerprint person was out yesterday.”

“And that is why I demand that Sheriff Stoltze do it himself,” Samson replied smugly. “You must learn to
demand. 
Asking gets nothing.”

“Smart-ass,” I said and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek that made him turn crimson. “Have fun,” I said as I went to join Victor and Jessica waiting beside my lopsided old garage. We headed for town as the students and laborers went back to work.

Traffic was heavy, but I didn’t mind the slow pace. Everywhere I looked there was something beautiful to see. The wildflowers were in full bloom, dotting the green slopes and open fields, and every garden was lush with irises, tulips and roses. The vineyards climbing the slopes along the highway were dressed in brilliant green leaves, pale grape flowers hanging in their dappled shade. Plum, pear and apple trees were budding pink and white. The temperature was in the mid-seventies and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. I was only sorry that I hadn’t thought to put the Mustang’s top down before we left Violet.

Just outside Napa we had to stop at a gated train crossing and wait for the Wine Train to cross the highway, tourists at every window, wineglasses and appetizers in hand. They seemed to be having a great time, and I envied them. The gloomy silence that prevailed inside my car was stifling, especially in contrast with the day. I tried several times to make conversation, but neither of my companions seemed interested. I was relieved to get out of the car when we arrived at the Sheriff’s office on Third Street in Napa.

With fifteen minutes to spare, we entered the impressive old building. A vivacious young woman with a bust that would have made Dolly Parton stare and spiky, bleached blonde hair pointed us in the right direction, down a poorly lit corridor to the booking room.

Jessica plodded along beside me and Victor, saying nothing. Victor too was in a somber mood, but I understood his attitude better than Jessica’s. After all, Victor and Kevin had been close friends. Jessica’s problems with Stanley seemed pretty trivial compared to that. Unless she was pregnant. Why couldn’t I shake that thought? Certainly she’d tell me. Right? Right? God, I hoped she wasn’t pregnant.

The booking room was a large office with desks scattered about. Bookcases and filing cabinets overflowed. I wondered how they ever found anything in the mess. An old wino dressed in layers of filthy clothing was manacled to a bench just inside the door. He looked up at us, narrowed his eyes, muttered something and licked his blistered lips. He smelled like a dumpster, and his teeth looked like a row of burned out houses. We gave him a wide berth, and stepped to the only occupied desk.

A chubby deputy in a too-tight uniform, shirt buttons stretched to the limits, greeted us with a jaded, “Can I help you?”   His eyes locked on Jessica’s breasts and stayed there as I spoke.

“Claire de Montagne,” I introduced myself. “My daughter, Jessica, and Victor Gonzalez. We’re here to be fingerprinted.”  He kept looking at Jessica’s breasts, nodding mutely.

“It’s about the Kevin Harlan case,” Victor spoke up irritably. “We were told to be here, and we are.” He locked eyes with the deputy.

“One second,” the deputy sighed and swiveled in his chair. The chair groaned and squeaked desperately. He grabbed the phone and punched three numbers. “Doug? Got three for that Harlan case out here.” He listened a moment, said “Okay,” and hung up.

“He’ll be out in a minute,” the deputy said, restarting his appraisal of Jessica’s cleavage. “You can have a seat over there,” he nodded at the bench where the wino was stretching out, lifting his old legs like they weighed a ton.

“Thanks,” Victor replied sarcastically. “We’ll stand.”

The deputy shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

We waited five minutes as the deputy shuffled papers and snuck lecherous glances at Jessica. By the time Priest breezed in, the wino was snoring, snot bubbling from one nostril like toxic ooze, and I was ready to give the deputy a piece of my mind, or maybe just a slap across the face.

Priest was dressed in Armani, Gucci and too much cologne. He looked fresh and well-scrubbed, and I guessed he had stopped at home after leaving Laurel’s. His expression was stony, eyes cold. He looked at me and Victor, and nodded. His eyes stopped on Jessica, and he favored her with a particularly hostile glare. Jessica looked up for the briefest moment, flushed, and looked at the floor.

“Miss de Montagne,” he said to Jessica. “How nice to see you again,” his tone implied that it was anything but nice. Jessica muttered something while she twisted her handbag’s strap in her hands. I looked stupidly between the two of them, wondering what the hell was going on.

“What a pleasure to see you, too,” I told him with as much sarcasm as I could muster, which was a very generous amount. “Is Ben here?” I asked. I wasn’t going to deal with Priest unless I had to.

“He’s in the field,” Priest replied shortly, “but we won’t need him. Please follow me.” It sounded like the ‘please’ hurt his teeth.

Priest led us down a vanilla colored hallway. We passed a wide cross-hall and heard a man hoarsely screaming obscenities in Spanish. Priest took no notice, but Victor cocked an ear, smiled and shook his head.

Priest turned into a doorway that had no door and stopped in front of a green Formica topped counter with paperwork racks, a computer terminal and stacks of forms scattered across it. Ten feet behind the counter sat Midge Tidwell, the tall, lanky woman with spiky brown hair who had worked the crime scene at Violet. She was dressed in the same grubby white lab-coat and cat’s-eye glasses. Her metal desk was cluttered with stuffed animals and the kind of toys you get with a Happy Meal. The room’s one window was covered by blinds thick with dust. Midge looked up from a computer monitor. Her eyes stopped on Priest and she grimaced. She stood and approached the counter, thrusting her hands deep in the pockets of the lab coat.

“Three for prints,” Priest said.

“And good morning to you too, Detective Dougie,“ Midge said in her low voice, so startling coming from such a thin woman. The lab-coat wasn’t quite closed and I could see she was wearing a tailored silk blouse and blue linen slacks, both in a decidedly masculine cut. “Three more desperados, I see. What are they, crack dealers? Jaywalkers?”

Priest flushed and bunched his fists reflexively. “Good morning,
Deputy
Tidwell.” He said sourly. “This is part of a murder investigation, so cut the comedy.”

“The floor show’s free, so no complaints allowed. You get what you pay for.” Midge flicked a smile at us, then turned a blank face to Priest.

“Print them and bring them to my office,” Priest said, struggling to keep his tone professional. He smoothed his tie and turned away.

“Anything else? Bring you a cup of coffee? Rub your back? Dry-cleaning? I’ll be glad to play escort just as soon as I change my title from Deputy to hostess.” She made a show of pulling her nametag off. “I’ve got a magic marker somewhere.”

“Cut the crap, Midge.”

“Why Dougie, I can’t believe you said that! And in front of taxpayers, too! Maybe
voting
taxpayers. How risqué!”

Priest started to say something, but Midge cut him off. “I’m not a tour guide, Doug. When I’m done I’ll call you.”

“I’ll be in my office,” Priest said stiffly and left.

“Hi Mrs. de Montagne,” Midge said, giving me a bright smile.

“Hi, Midge,” I said. “How are you?”

“Same thing different day,” she replied. “Don’t let Doug put you off, he’s the worst of the bunch. It can only get better from here.” She grinned. Her eyes stopped on Jessica and I saw a flicker of more than friendly interest. She didn’t stare, though.

She placed three fingerprint cards on the counter. “This is gonna be messy,” she apologized in advance. “There’s tissue in the box and soap in the bathroom down the hall. Not that it’ll do much good. This stuff is hell to get off. Just rub it on the chairs in Priest’s office, that’s my advice.” She winked at me.  “Okay. Let me have your hand. I promise it won’t hurt much.”

I laughed and proffered my right hand. She took it by the wrist, turned it flat, and gripped my thumb between two fingers. Midge’s fingernails were bitten to the quick and dirty with black powder.

“Good set of calluses,” Midge said as she rolled my thumb in the ink. “Lots of outside work, I’d guess.”

“I’d rather be outside than in any day.”

“Not me. I turn red after ten minutes in the sun. Never had a tan in my life,” Midge said conversationally as she rolled my thumb on the fingerprint card. She meticulously repeated the same steps with all ten fingers, then handed me a wad of tissue. As Midge worked I tried to overhear a whispered conversation between Victor and Jess without success. What were they being so secretive about? I was really getting irritated. Why was Jessica so upset? And why wouldn’t she talk to me?

Midge put Victor through the same process as I vainly scrubbed at my inky fingertips with the disintegrating tissue. I only made the mess worse. A trip to the bathroom was in order, but I’d wait for Jessica to finish.

Victor finished and took a tissue. He smirked as he looked at my hands, now smeared black from the first knuckle down.

“Finger painting?” He asked as Jessica stepped up to the desk and reluctantly turned her hand over to Midge.

“You need to loosen up some,” Midge said. “I can’t do it if your fingers are locked.”

“Sorry,” Jessica said softly, eyes downcast.

“That’s better,” Midge said, rolling Jessica’s left thumb in the ink and transferring it to the fingerprint card. Midge seemed to take her time with Jessica, but maybe I was just being overly protective. Finally Jess was finished. She took her tissue and turned toward me but wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“I’ll drop these off at the lab and let Dougie know you’re ready,” she told us, fanning Jessica’s card with a blank one from the stack. “The bathroom is down the hall. You passed it on the way in.”

We trailed out and down the hall. The bathroom was surprisingly modern and Clorox-clean. There were two sinks, and a row of stalls. Jessica and I stepped up to the sinks and turned on the water. I snuck a look at Jess as I lathered up. Her lips were pressed tight, eyes intent as she scrubbed at the ink with a wad of wet paper towels. Most of the ink came off, but a gray pallor remained on both of our hands. I finally gave up.

Jessica had finished washing her hands but was leaning over the sink, gripping the sides as water gushed and splattered. Her shoulders were trembling and I could tell she was crying though hair curtained her face. I said her name and reached for her hand, but she spun away from me, hands clutching her stomach. She bolted for the nearest stall. The door slammed closed and I heard her retching. My own stomach did a seasick roll at the sound.

My first instinct was to go to my daughter, but Jessica wasn’t a little girl anymore and vomiting is a very personal thing. I listened to her gagging and heaving, paper towels dangling forgotten from my right hand. After a moment, the vomiting stopped but the sobbing persisted for several minutes. I busied myself, embarrassed to be listening but unwilling to leave. I wiped the sink Jessica had been using then checked my hair in the mirror.