Read Dead on the Vine: (Violet Vineyard Murder Mysteries #1 (A Cozy Mystery)) Online
Authors: JM Harvey
Doug Priest was stretched out beside his car, his arms straight out from his shoulders, right leg crossed nonchalantly over the left. His tie was lying across his face, covering his eyes. His pistol was on the gravel beside him and brass shell casings littered the gravel, glittering in the sun. His white shirt was rapidly turning red. I didn’t have to look twice to know he was dead.
Ben laughed in a curiously muffled voice and my heart tried to climb my throat and take flight. Ben was sagging against the elm he had hidden behind, his hand pressed to a hole in his stomach that was leaking blood down his pants leg. More blood dribbled down his face from a gash over his right eye, but he was grinning.
Ben glanced my way and I ducked back down.
“Come on out, Claire,” he said. “Sorry ‘bout the foot.”
I didn’t move, didn’t speak. I stayed huddled behind the monument, breathing hoarse and fast. His mention of my foot brought my attention back to the throbbing pain. I looked down and saw that the heel of my shoe was ripped half away and there was a ragged hole at the toe. It was a horrifying mess. The blood scared me almost as much as Ben did.
“I’m not going to kill you,” Ben said. I didn’t reply. “Said I was sorry about your foot. Don’t hold a grudge,” he laughed at that, then coughed wetly. “I got him, Claire,” Ben said, his voice much closer. I looked over the top of the monument, my foot screaming at me as I put weight on it. Ben was unlatching the plot’s rusty gate. His eyes caught mine and held.
“How’s the foot?” He asked, actually sounding concerned.
“It hurts,” I said, surprised that my voice wasn’t shaking the way my hands were.
Ben pushed the gate open and the hinges squealed in protest. He left it open as he walked to Sarah’s grave and stopped. He looked at the headstone and then glanced up at me.
“She was a good woman,” he said. “Too good for what happened to her.” He looked down, the gun hanging slack in his hand.
“What are you going to do now?” I asked Ben, still concealed, from the neck down.
“Now?” Ben asked, looking up at me. “Now?” He looked confused for a moment. He wiped at his face with his free hand then ran his fingers through his hair. “Why, it’s over now, Claire. Nothing
to
do.”
“Why did you bring me here?” I asked, leaning my weight against the cold stone, lifting my injured foot. “You’re going to kill me.” I answered my own question and the words sent a chill through my veins.
“I’m not going to kill you. This is where it ends,” Ben said, his eyes on the ground.
“Where what ends?” I said, wondering if he had taken the final step off the ledge into insanity, and fearing that I was going to be his next victim.
“Sarah always took care of me,” Ben said, nodding at the ground before him. “And I couldn’t do anything for her.”
“Sarah?” I said idiotically, talking an involuntary step back that made my foot howl. I grabbed the headstone again.
Ben nodded but didn’t look up. “You’re a smart one, Claire. Gotta give ya that. Couldn’t fool you.”
“If you hadn’t arrested Jessica—”
“I didn’t,” Ben cut me off. He jerked his head at Priest’s lifeless sprawl, “He did. And look what it got him.”
“You would have let her go to prison,” I pressed.
“Would have made it pretty neat,” Ben agreed. “Didn’t work out.” Ben winced and touched his side where blood was flowing in a steady stream. He looked at the blood on his hand.
“And now you’re the one going to prison,” I said.
“Nope,” Ben said with a seasick grin. “That’s one thing you’re wrong about.”
“You’re going to kill me,” I said again.
“Damn it,” Ben barked, “would you stop saying that! I’m
not
going to kill you and I’m
not
going to prison. You’re a smart girl, you can figure this out.” He was right; it only took me a second.
“You’re going to kill yourself,” I said with disbelief.
“Nope,” Ben grinned. “Care to try again?”
“I give up,” I said, feeling lightheaded from blood loss. “And, I really don’t care anyway,” I added in disgust, fully believing now that he didn’t mean to kill me. What he had in mind I couldn’t guess, and I wasn’t going to try.
“Guess we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?”
I shrugged and limped from behind the headstone. Gingerly, I lowered myself to a sitting position beside the slab of granite and slipped off my tennis shoe. Blood spilled onto the grass.
“Pretty bad?” Ben asked but I ignored him. I stripped my sock off, grinding my teeth at the pain, and inspected the wound.
The bottom of my foot was gouged a half inch deep from heel to toe, but all of my digits were intact. I took the bloody sock and tied it around the worst of the damage, then closed my eyes and leaned back into the cool stone.
“You’ll live,” Ben said then paused for a long moment. “I said I was sorry.”
“Leave me alone,” I barked at him, opening my eyes and fixing him with an ugly glare. Ben didn’t notice, he was staring at the cemetery’s entrance. At the car passing under the iron arch and heading our way. A white Chevy with paler white circles on the door where decals had been peeled off.
“Oh, God,” I said. “No, Ben,” I pleaded. “No.”
“Figured it out, huh?” Ben asked, his back to me. “This makes a clean sweep. And your boyfriend gets to be the hero. Though he might not live to enjoy it.”
“Ben,” I said as Hunter’s car accelerated down the drive. It slowed briefly as it passed Priest, then came to a stop beside Victor’s truck. Ben was facing the road. He ignored me. I pushed myself to my feet and stood leaning against the headstone.
“Hey there, Hunt!” Ben yelled as Hunter Drake stepped out of his car.
“Call the police!” I screamed at Hunter. “He’s going to kill you!”
“Hello, Ben,” Hunter called back, his eyes flicking on me for the briefest of moments. “Having a little trouble here?”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” Ben called cheerfully back. “How far are they behind you?”
Hunter shrugged. “Not far. Five, ten minutes. Might as well put the gun down and let the lady go,” he said. From this distance I couldn’t read his expression, but he seemed calm.
“Chivalry is not dead,” Ben said with a laugh. “Come and get her,” he motioned with his pistol, urging Hunter closer. Hunter didn’t move.
“What are you trying to do, Ben?” Hunter asked. “Why’d you call me out here?”
“Wrapping it all up for you, Hunt,” Ben said. “You and Claire started all of this, figured you had a right to be here when it ended.”
“Why’d you kill Priest?” Hunter asked. “Because of Laurel?”
“Because he was an asshole,” Ben snapped, his good humor slipping. “Nothing to do with her.”
“She was a bad one, Ben. Not worth dying over,” Hunter said as he eased his hand inside his jacket. Ben didn’t miss the move, his smile returned and he chuckled.
“Gonna draw on me, Hunt?” He asked. “If I remember right, you’re pretty good with that pistol.”
“District Champ,” Hunter nodded. “No fast draw, though.”
“I’m going to kill you, Hunt,” Ben said affably. “If you don’t kill me first.”
“Let Claire go, Ben,” Hunter said. “She’s got nothing to do with this.” Hunter’s eyes flickered on me, but I couldn’t read anything in them.
Ben laughed and shot a glance at me. “She’s got everything to do with it. She started it.”
“You started it,” I argued like a petulant child.
Ben shrugged. “Whatever,” he said, then turned his attention back to Hunter. “I’m not going to jail, Hunt. It ends here. Today.”
“And if I don’t play along?” Hunter asked, easing a large black pistol out from under his coat. He let it hang at his side.
“Then I’ll kill you,” Ben replied simply. “Then Claire.” My head snapped up at that. Ben winked at me.
“Put the gun down, Ben,” Hunter said. “Let it go.”
“Not gonna happen,” Ben said and started to raise his pistol.
I dove at Ben’s legs as Hunter’s pistol swung up. A single shot echoed off the mountains and Ben lurched as I tackled him behind the knees. He fell face first on to the grass and rolled over. His pistol went flying. It clanged off the iron fence into the grass. Quickly, I rolled away from him.
Ben didn’t move. His hands were at his side, eyes open to the sky. I sat there looking at him dumbly as Hunter walked over. Hunter knelt beside his old partner and friend and felt for a pulse in Ben’s neck. He shook his head at me without saying anything. I didn’t need him to tell me Ben was dead.
Hunter picked up Ben’s pistol and tucked his own back under his jacket. He flipped open the cylinder of Ben’s revolver and ejected the shell casings.
“Gun was empty,” he said.
“Empty?”
“Empty,” Hunter repeated.
“He wanted to die,” I said. Hunter nodded, looking down at his friend. “It’s not your fault.”
“I know,” he said.
“He wouldn’t have killed me,” I said, looking at Ben’s corpse, at the blood pooling around his head.
“I know that,” Hunter said, shaking his head. He looked at Sarah’s headstone. “None of this would have happened if Sarah hadn’t died.” I didn’t have anything to say to that. He was right, but that didn’t absolve Ben. He had made his choice and had chosen the illusion of love over everything else.
Hunter’s head came up and he cocked an ear toward the road. I heard it then, the wail of a distant siren, a sound I had grown used to in the past week. A sound I never wanted to hear again. I peeled off the bloody sock and squeezed out the blood.
“Oh, Christ,” Hunter said when he saw my foot. He dropped to a knee beside me, shucking his coat. He ripped the sleeve off his shirt with a quick motion.
“He would have killed himself if you hadn’t,” I tried to comfort Hunter as he wrapped my foot in his shirtsleeve.
Hunter merely grunted, tying a raggedy bow. He looked up and there were tears in his eyes. “It was the last thing I could do for him.”
I gripped Hunter’s hand and he squeezed back. He sat beside me and put his arm around me and I leaned my head against his chest. I said a silent prayer for Ben’s soul and the souls of Jenna, Winter and Kevin as my tears soaked Hunter’s shirt. He hugged me tighter and stroked my hair. We were still sitting like that when the deputies arrived in a fury of dust and sirens.
Thank you for reading ‘Dead on the Vine.’ If you enjoyed the book, please take a moment to review it on Amazon.com. If you’d like to see more of Claire, Samson, Victor, and Jess, please let me know!
Sincerely,
JM Harvey
JM’s latest Novel, a Vintage to Die For is now available. Turn the page for a free sample!
Everyone hated Dimitri Pappos,
so I shouldn’t have been surprised when he was found floating face-down in one of my wine fermentation tanks…
I barely knew Dimitri; he had only arrived in Napa Valley a year before his death, but that didn’t prevent me from disliking him. The wine business has no shortage of snobs, but Dimitri’s nose was so far in the air you could have parked a bottle of cabernet in each nostril. And there were plenty of vineyard owners in Napa Valley who would have been happy to do just that.
What made his snobbery truly insufferable was his absolute brilliance. As a graduate of the Sorbonne and with posts as Sommelier for dozens of France’s most prestigious restaurants and wine auction houses, Dimitri’s opinions and tasting notes had been collected into a pair of textbooks on winemaking that had become the industry’s gold standard for reference. But he was still a first class jerk. And he had shown it in print just two weeks before my party.
In an interview with the
San Francisco Times,
he had rated the local winemakers, many of whom were clients of his cellaring and auctioneering business, Star Crossed Wine Cellars & Auctions, savaging many and praising few. That perceived betrayal had set off a shockwave of hostility and engendered threats of legal action across the Valley, a drama that had played out in the local newspapers and had come close to boiling over into an angry mob armed with pitchforks and torches. Only the threat of a storm system racing across the Pacific straight at Northern California had postponed an ugly confrontation, as every grower in the area scrambled to harvest their crop.
But Dimitri had done a good job of reigniting that revolt and ruining Violet Vineyard’s inaugural crush party in the hour before he was murdered in my wine cellar.
My
name is Claire
de Montagne, but don’t let that fool you. My name may sound stuffily aristocratic, but I am as unpretentious as the rocky soil my vineyard is planted in. I am just past fifty years old (ask how far past and I’ll give you a sock in the nose for each year) and the owner of twenty acres of cabernet vines that cling to a rocky ridge overlooking the broad sweep of Napa Valley and the small town of St. Helena that sits almost at its center.
The view is fantastic: green fields and forests dotted with wineries and million dollar homes that stretch out toward San Francisco to the south, but the view was not my reason for purchasing Violet. The infertile soil and the steep, rocky brown and black slopes that fall away from my home – dotted with rich green patches of eucalyptus, oaks and wild grape vines - coupled with the cool, foggy nights and sunny days are perfect for growing grapes. To most people, wine is made by a winemaker, but we who produce it know that wines are truly made in the vineyard, not the fermenting tanks or the barrels. Only the combination of arid soil, warm days, and cool nights can produce the densely sugared and tightly formed bunches of grapes that are the hallmark of truly fine cabernet.
Wine has been my way of life for more than twenty years. But it’s not an easy life. When it comes right down to it, vineyard owners are just farmers with prettier fields. The day-to-day labor of farm work, from training and grafting vines to stretching and re-stretching trellis wire, to the shovel and hoe work that breaks your back and toughens your hands into shoe leather, is not glamorous. But when I taste the vintages aging in my cellar, all that work becomes merely background noise to the glass in my hand.
While I don’t dread the labor, the business side of winemaking has always been a trial for me, and not just the bookkeeping, the taxes, and the endless paperwork required by the FDA, the CABC, and the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Even the so called ‘fun’ events can be an annoyance and a distraction from my work. Attending formal tastings and fancy-dress events sponsored by distributors and clients is a requirement of the trade, but not one I enjoy.
It was at one of those events, sponsored by Star Crossed, three weeks before my crush party, that I first began to dislike Dimitri.