Dead on the Vine: (Violet Vineyard Murder Mysteries #1 (A Cozy Mystery)) (38 page)

Chapter 4

The first person to
arrive at the party was Hunter Drake, the recently elected Sheriff of Napa County.

Hunt is my…well…I really don't know what Hunt is to me. We had started a romantic relationship more than a year ago, during one of the most tumultuous chapters of my life, when my next door neighbor, Kevin Harlan, had been murdered in my vineyard. Before that episode was over, my daughter had been arrested, an old murder was uncovered, and three more people had been killed. Unfairly or not, I blamed Hunt for some of what had happened. Since then, he had made several tentative overtures at reconciliation, which I had not pursued. I was still wrestling with the past.

But I couldn't deny the attraction I felt for him. Hunt was tall and lean with dark hair salted with gray, and light blue eyes. He had a lanky grace and a wry smile I found irresistible. I hugged him at the front door, breathing in his unique scent: soap, toothpaste, nicotine, and gun oil. The nicotine really got me. It had been seven months since I had finally quit smoking and, while I was determined to make it stick, the smell was enough to almost shatter my resolve. 

Hunt caught me sniffing him and his smile thinned a bit.

“I'm still off the sauce,” he said to me. “Thirteen months now.”

“I wasn’t—”

“It's all right,” he said. “I get a lot of that. Can't spend half of your life getting drunk and not get a reputation.” He started to step away but I pulled him back in and hugged him tighter.

“I wasn't checking for whiskey breath,” I said. “I just like the way you smell. I miss that.” Hunt was silent for a moment and then he put his arms around me and everything felt like it had before the murders last year.

And then Hunt ruined it.

“I guess it’s the rest of me you don't miss,” he said.

I had no words to reply to that. I took it for the accusation it was. I broke our embrace and turned brusque.

“You're the first to arrive,” I told him, “and probably the only person coming to the party who Samson actually likes. Would you go down to the cellar and see if you can coax him out?”

Hunt laughed at that and some of the tension left the room, but only some of it.

“Samson doesn’t like
anyone.
I'm not sure he even likes himself,” he said as he turned toward the cellar stairs. He disappeared down the steps just as the doorbell rang again.

After that it was a flood of people and the party began.

I
abandoned the front
door when Marjory Brennan arrived. Marjory is one of the larger independent growers and winemakers in the Valley, with more than a hundred acres under vines. And her mouth is just as big as her vineyard. She blew in clanking with twenty pounds of bracelets and rings and trailing a dense fog of perfume. She was as overdressed for the party, in a sequined dress and shoes covered in rhinestones, as she was for every other event in her life. Marjory would probably put on a ball gown to go to the dentist office. And she’d probably proposition the dentist between rinses.

“Beautiful day for a party,” she bellowed, enveloping me in a meaty hug and squeezing the breath out of me. Her own breath smelled heavily of peppermint with an undercurrent of scotch, so I knew she had started the party before she arrived. She broke free and went past me, down the hallway, through the kitchen to the back door, ignoring the clatter and bustle in the kitchen around her. She pulled the door open and scanned the back yard.

Not more than half the invitees had arrived yet, maybe thirty people, mostly neighbors from up and down the highway. They were a mixed social bag, from winery workers in pressed jeans and short-sleeved shirts, to the Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana set, but they mingled without presumptions. A farmer, with or without money, makes his money in the dirt.

“Where is he?” she asked as she turned back to me.

“In the cellar sulking,” I replied.

Her smile turned wicked. “All alone in the dark?” she asked.

“Hunter is down there with him,” I said.

Her smile went from wicked to lewd. “Two men and a dark wine cellar,” she said. “Now
that's
my kind of party.” She headed for the cellar door, leaving a trail of perfume and hormones in her wake.

Hunter came through that same door a few minutes later while I was writing BACK YARD with an arrow under it on a cardboard wine case.

“Could you put this on the front steps?” I asked him as I finished. “I want to check on the caterers one more time before I join the party.”

“You might get one of the waiters to take Samson some coffee. He’s got the wine thief out and he seems determined to sample every barrel in the cellar.”

“Fantastic,” I said with a grimace. That was just what I needed. “He’ll probably pop out of the cellar and moon the guests. Or worse.”

Hunt laughed as he took the cardboard box. “Don't worry. Marjory is giving him an earful. She said she likes her men to stay sober.”

“Of course she does. Someone has to drive her home.”

“I don't think she's got driving on her mind. She had him pinned to the desk when I left. He was begging for help but I figured it was every man for himself at that point.” He disappeared down the hallway and I went into the kitchen laughing.

I was happy with the progress in the kitchen and out under the awning. The caterers had set out the wine and my sausage stars - ground sausage mixed with cheeses and Italian herbs baked inside wonton wrappers. Bad for your cholesterol but delicious. They were my one contribution to the feast. Along with the sausage stars were a variety of cold dips, cured meats, and cheeses. Simple fare, but there was lots of it.

I headed out onto the lawn, grabbed a juice glass of cabernet and did the mingle-and-greet as more friends and business acquaintances arrived. Everything was going well, food and wine were disappearing. Victor and I had set up a foursome of tired old speakers in the back yard and hooked up his iPod, loaded with my music. Sammy and Dean, Frank and Ella, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and Dave Brubeck. A few people started to dance, either inspired by the music or the wine, but most clustered in groups to discuss the ongoing harvest.

The conversations were almost equally divided into two camps, elation from those who had beat the recent torrent of rain and were done with their own crush, and grumbles and curses from those who were dealing with burst or over-watered fruit, muddy conditions and the prospect of a less than outstanding vintage. I could sympathize. A bad vintage could kill a small winery.

Dinner was about to be served, and I was prepared to declare the party a success when Dimitri Pappos arrived.

Dimitri wasn't alone; a woman I had never met before accompanied him. They made quite the contrast. Dimitri had a rigid posture, a sour look to the mouth and a narrow look to his eyes. He had an old-world dress sense that favored dark suits and sober ties, but the woman on his arm was as vibrant and bright as a tropical flower. She was tall, slender, olive skinned, and dark haired, wearing a bright red dress and black sandals with silver work that caught the afternoon sun and complemented the silver bangles climbing both forearms almost to the elbow.

From a distance, I would have guessed her to be under forty years old, far too young and far too attractive for Dimitri, but as they neared I upped that estimate by fifteen years. She was still way too pretty for Dimitri.

“Mrs. de Montagne,” Dimitri said, talking down and through his nose at me while his eyes darted around the partygoers. While Dimitri, like Samson, was from Greece, his accent was fake-French, an affectation borne of his years in Burgundy and Bordeaux, no doubt. “Where is Xenos?” he asked.

One thing Samson and Dimitri have in common is their abrupt and abrasive manner. Samson makes up for it by having a sense of humor, so I cut him some slack, but I didn’t extend the same courtesy to Dimitri. Instead, I turned on my hostess smile and looked at his companion.

“I’m Claire,” I said, extending my hand. Up close she was even lovelier than I had thought from a distance. Her skin was flawless, except for an artfully placed mole at the corner of her mouth.

“Alexandra Pappos,” she said as she took my hand.

“My wife,” Dimitri said without looking at either of us, his eyes still panning the crowd. “Now, where is Xenos?”

Alexandra rolled her eyes at her husband’s bad manners, a gesture that looked well practiced.

“It’s delightful to meet you, Mrs. de Montagne,” she said. “I’ve heard nothing but high praise for your cabernet from Dimitri.” Her accent was a nondenominational European, her English flawless.

That got another sniff out of Dimitri. “It is a satisfactory wine.” High praise, indeed.

“I didn’t even know Dimitri was married,” I said at my undiplomatic best. Actually, I found it unbelievable that any woman
would
marry Dimitri.

“We don’t get many party invitations,” Alexandra replied, giving Dimitri a quick sidelong look. “And I keep myself busy at home.”

“As is appropriate for a wife,” Dimitri said without looking at her. A real class act.

But Alexandra paid him no mind. She was looking around at the other guests, her bright smile favoring all of them. And then I saw the smile falter. I turned my head to follow her glance and saw a small group of people whose centerpiece was Armand Rivincita.

Armand was talking and laughing at the same time, tall and elegant and excruciatingly handsome. And far too young for me
or
Alexandra. But you could understand why her eyes had lingered and her smile faltered. Actually, the two of them would have made an exotic pair, despite the age difference. Both of them were tall and slender with elegant features, though he was blond haired and blue eyed while she had an olive complexion and brown eyes so dark they were almost black.

Armand caught my eye and his expression lightened. He raised his juice glass in a toast and touched his heart with his free hand, his smile brilliant in the fading daylight. I smiled back and mouthed ‘thank you.’

When I turned back to Alexandra her gaze had moved on to the view of the valley.

“Is that Star Crossed?” she asked, pointing down the slope to a large white metal building that sat almost directly below my home. It was surrounded by trees that had once been a part of the Becker family apple orchard. Blake had knocked most of the trees down five years ago to build the warehouse and the wine cellar that lay beneath it.

“Yes,” I said. “That used to be an apple orchard before Blake’s parents died,” I added wistfully, reminded as I so often am of the changes that have taken place in the Valley. Some were good, some were bad, but all of them had made it a far less diverse place to live.

“Where is Xenos?” Dimitri repeated impatiently.

“He’s in the cellar,” I replied. “But I wouldn’t bother him. He’s very—”

“There you are, you evil old goat!” a voice - blurred by far too many glasses of cabernet - shouted and I turned to find Marjory coming across the lawn from the direction of the cellar, rumbling along on a collision course with Dimitri Pappos.

The party ground to an immediate stop. The music was still playing - Tony Bennett was going From Rags to Riches - but no one was listening. Wine glasses and hors d’oeuvres were forgotten. Even the dancers who had braved the grass froze in mid-step. Only the wait staff in their black and white uniforms kept moving. All eyes were on Marjory.

“Marjory,” I began, but she wasn’t listening. She pushed right past me, tossed her glass of wine on the grass, balled up her fist and punched Dimitri squarely in the nose.

Marjory’s a big girl with an even bigger temper, and that punch packed a wallop. Dimitri went down hard on his butt, a dazed look on his face.

“Kool-Aid!” Marjory bellowed, looming over him, churning her fists in front of her like a prize fighter. “Get on your feet so I can knock you back down again!”

I grabbed Marjory by the arm and tried to pull her away, but that was like a tugboat jostling the Queen Mary. She jerked me around to left and right as Dimitri lay there on the grass looking up at her, blood leaking from his nose, his dark eyes smoldering. But he didn’t look surprised by the blow, and neither did his wife, Alexandra. This probably wasn’t the first time Dimitri had been knocked on his butt.

For a protracted moment the partygoers maintained their silence, and then Angela Zorn, a small vineyard owner who lived just down the highway from me, began to clap. She was quickly joined by Jorge McCullers, her vineyard foreman.

“I got twenty on Marjory in six rounds!” Billy Banks, the owner of Hilltop Wine Makers, yelled and laughter rippled through the crowd. But the mirth wasn't universal. While many people joined in, many more looked studiously at the ground or out across the valley. It was easy to divide them up: those who had been ravaged by Dimitri in the
Examiner
article and those who feared they would be if they mocked him.

Marjory didn’t acknowledge the applause; she didn’t even seem to hear it. She was glaring down at Dimitri.

“Get up!” she bellowed again, lunging forward, the heels of her shoes churning up the grass like an angry bull, snapping me around like a puppy on a leash. She would have gotten away from me completely if Victor hadn’t hurried over and grabbed her other arm. Marjory still had the weight advantage, but we held on with all our might and just managed to restrain her as Dimitri slowly got to his feet.