Authors: Nadia Gordon
Claire stood and put her gloves back on, giving Sunny a pained, disapproving look before turning back to her work.
Sunny walked back to the truck. The midday sun warmed her shoulders and the guilt and shame she’d momentarily felt lifted with each step. None of this mess of lies and secrets was hers, and she wasn’t about to start carrying it around. Now that Jack was dead, Claire might be able to find her way back to Ben. The best way for that to happen was for the past to evaporate, starting with what Sunny knew. She unbuttoned her chef’s jacket and stripped down to her T-shirt, longing to grab the old blanket she kept behind the seat of the truck, stretch it out on the grass,
and have a nice long nap. Instead, she needed to get back to the restaurant pronto and see if there was anything left of Rivka after a solo battle with the hungry gourmands. On the drive back, she lined up the new questions she had, starting with whether or not Ben had found out about Claire’s affair. Next up was what Jack was doing up here Wednesday night, if it wasn’t to see Claire. Monty had seen Jack’s Jaguar racing down Mount Veeder on Wednesday night. She pictured Claire’s face when she’d answered that last question, about whether or not Jack ever came up here. Sunny was willing to bet she was telling the truth as far as she knew it. In fact, it seemed painful to Claire that Jack didn’t want to come near the ranch.
Claire said Ben didn’t like to kill things, but barn number one seemed to scream the opposite. Still, farm life involves more killing than anybody likes to admit. All farmhouses get overrun by mice and wood rats from time to time, and rattlesnakes take up residence under the porch and in the garage eventually. Gardens attract a host of quadrupeds eager for a meal, not to mention birds by the flock, and anyone who keeps chickens has a problem with coyotes, possums, and raccoons, not to mention predatory birds and mountain lions. And then there were all the little lives, the insects and the microscopic life. It was like Nesto said, there were plenty of pests in the valley, depending on your perspective. “Getting rid of them” was usually a euphemism. Farmers tried alternatives, but often enough getting rid of a pest meant killing it. That barn was just Ben Baker being as efficient as possible by using every part of the animals he killed.
As she drove, she ran Ben through the steps it would have taken to kill Jack. He would have had to find out about the affair. In such a tight-knit community, there were plenty of ways that could have happened. It was hard to believe he wouldn’t object to
her sleeping with another man, no matter how far their relationship had slipped. How well did Claire Baker know her husband, anyway? It was even hard to believe it would be enough to drive him to murder in genteel Napa. But Ben had been boiling with anger after the hearing. Could years of frustration have been channeled into a hatred of Jack Beroni? Ben could have made that call to Jack Thursday night from the Dusty Vine. Maybe he confronted him about the affair. But why would Jack agree to meet him? What could they have to say to each other? She thought about the list she and Wade had made of people who knew that he kept a rifle in the winery. Ben and Claire were on it. They’d been at Wade’s house the night they played Assault Golf after dinner. Even if Ben hadn’t seen where Wade kept the gun, it wouldn’t have been that difficult to find, knowing it was stashed somewhere reasonably accessible in the winery. Still, it didn’t explain how Alex ended up with the gun or how Mike Rieder’s business card came to be outside the winery.
The gravel parking lot at Wildside was packed when Sunny finally got there. She parked on the street a block down and jogged back, throwing on her chef’s jacket as she came in the rear door. Rivka gave her a look.
“You better have one hell of an excuse, McCoskey.”
“Damn straight.” She looked over the open counter at the dining room, which was filled with customers, both seated and waiting. Most looked like they were on their second course, a few were eating dessert. “How bad is it?”
“Let’s just say we don’t have a whole lot of time to chitchat.”
Berton, the maître d’, strolled over to the zinc bar and leaned against it as if he had all the time in the world. That was his
expertise. No matter how busy the tiny dining room got, he always maintained an air of professional ease and competence, as though waiting an hour for a table was exactly the way it should be. Sunny whipped around her prep station, putting up four salads while he stood watching.
“So, what happened? Did you decide to call it quits after nine holes?”
“Does my jacket say
Chef?”
she said, giving him her best haughty look. “Table five needs water.”
“Bite me!” he replied, without emotion.
He cruised away, overseeing the diners like a director scrutinizing a dress rehearsal. The next hour and a half sped by in a blur of mixed greens, pasta, grilled vegetables, roasted meats, seared fish, and braised duck breasts. Just before three o’clock, Charlie Rhodes came in and took a seat at the bar. Sunny felt an involuntary flutter in her stomach. What was she, twelve? she thought. Wasn’t she a bit old to be having crushes on cute boys? Still, there were his hands, each fingertip pressing the zinc, hands of a rock climber or flamenco guitarist, and the little white scar on the right index finger.
“Am I too late for lunch?”
“Yep, unless you happen to hold certain degrees. We’re running a special late lunch service for area entomologists. In honor of harvest.”
“Wow, that is such a coincidence.”
“Chef’s special?”
“Sounds good.”
She put together a plate of various leftovers from lunch and slid it across the counter.
“Did you go out to the Maya Culpa yet?”
“Yeah, I was out there all morning.”
“What’d you find?”
“Not much. Well, not anything, at least not in the way of glassy-winged sharpshooters. Whole lot of dead bugs stuck to a whole lot of bug traps. The usual assortment of winged critters, plus a few blue-greens and that one glassy-winger they located on Friday.” He cut himself a piece of roasted meat and swiped a layer of mashed potatoes on top of it.
Sunny poured them each a glass of Wildside private label Cabernet Sauvignon, a joint project with a winery down the road that she’d spent far too much time and money on last year. He took a swallow.
“You know,” he said, “just when I think I get these little guys all figured out, they go and throw me a wild card.”
“How so?”
“Well, first of all, the glassy-winged specimen in the trap turned out to be a stage-two nymph, which is weird because those traps normally only catch adults. You’ve seen them, right? They’re sticky strips that hang down from a limb. You generally have to fly or hop to land in the middle of one, and stage-two nymphs don’t do either. They crawl, and they don’t even do that very well. For another thing, it’s the wrong time of year for stage-two nymphs around here. It’s like finding a fawn with spots in November, or butterflies in January. I can understand finding a stage-two in a year-round breeding ground like Southern California, but up here they should be dormant right now. I wouldn’t expect anything but adults until March or later. It just goes to show you that nature is always stretching the rules. Just when you think you have it all figured out, you find an exception. But that still doesn’t explain how a non-hopping, non-flying leaf grubber landed in the middle of a sticky trap.”
Sunny stared at him. “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not a nothing face.”
Her mind raced. She thought of the silver Jag screeching around the corner, brake lights flaring in the dark Wednesday night. That would be the same day he’d canceled lunch with Ripley Marlow so he could make a last-minute trip to Los Angeles, the night before he was killed.
“When was the last time those traps were checked?”
“Friday afternoon.”
“I mean before that.”
“Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning.”
At that exact moment, the back door yawned opened and Ben Baker appeared, wearing his usual flannel jacket and jeans and hoisting a hand truck loaded with produce up behind him. He stacked the boxes inside the walk-in and gave Sunny a wave. She put on a casual smile.
“Hi, Ben. You look tired. Can I make you a cappuccino?”
“Love one, thanks.” He pulled off his gloves and tucked them in the pocket of his jacket, resting against the hand truck. He acknowledged Charlie with a nod.
“Mr. Rhodes.”
“Ben.”
“Any word from the board?” Ben asked.
“Nothing yet,” Charlie said.
“Hi, Rivka,” Ben said as she came back into the kitchen.
Rivka waved and flashed a smile before turning back to her work.
Sunny went to the bar and poured cream in a stainless-steel pitcher, steamed it, and fired two shots of espresso. She gave Charlie a look and raised her index finger ever so slightly, hoping
to convey a desperate plea for him to say nothing, whatever it was he might want to say. She poured the shots and added a splash of liquid, spooning a blanket of creamy foam on top.
Ben took the cup and sipped. “I need to apologize about this morning, Sunny. You caught hell for no reason. Those meetings set my pants on fire.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Sunny watched his reaction to the cappuccino. The secret to perfect foam is fresh cream from a dairy where they let the cows graze instead of keeping them in stalls and feeding them fish meal. In her head she recited what she told the wait staff.
Pour only what you need and hit it once with steam. Cream should never be overheated or reheated unless you intend to give your patrons the trots.
“I was reading an article about biodynamic farming the other day,” said Sunny, seeing if she could lead him to confirm a piece of the Thursday-night puzzle. “It’s pretty interesting stuff.”
“Definitely. I’ve been experimenting with it for a few years now. I have one solution that seems to work pretty well with aphids.”
“But you have to spray that stuff at night, right?”
“You don’t have to, but people tend to think it works better. The plants are dormant at night, so the solution stays on the surface longer, which is where you want it.”
“Isn’t that a huge hassle, going out in the dark?”
“You get used to it, and it’s just every once in a while, mostly at the beginning of the growing season.” He finished the cappuccino and set the cup in a bus bin. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Hey, I’m having some people over for dinner tonight. I’d love it if you and Claire could come.”
He frowned and then caught himself, relaxing his face with an effort. “Tonight? That sounds great, but I’ll have to check with Claire. What time?”
“Around eight?”
“We’ll be there, unless I let you know different after I talk to the wife.”
Charlie watched her with an amused look on his face. When Ben left he said, “What was that all about?”
“Just a sec. Riv, is he gone?”
She glanced out the window. “Yep.”
Sunny exhaled and let her shoulders relax.
“What’s going on?” asked Rivka, looking from Sunny to Charlie.
Sunny held up a finger signaling for them to wait and quickly dug her planner out of her bag. She flipped to the back where she’d written down Michael Rieder’s phone number and dialed.
“May I please speak with Mr. Rieder?” asked Sunny when the receptionist picked up.
“He’s with a client,” said the young man on the other end in a carefully mannered voice.
“I see. Well, maybe you can help me,” said Sunny. “This is Detective Jessica Thompson. I spoke with Mr. Rieder over the weekend in regard to—”
“Jack Beroni?” The young man finished the sentence for her.
“Exactly.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I recognize your name,” said the receptionist. “Are you with the Napa police?”
“I’m not local,” said Sunny. “I flew up from Los Angeles Homicide to help out the St. Helena Police Department. They’re officially handling the case. I’m afraid we have a good deal more experience investigating homicide in my neck of the woods.”
“I’m sure,” said the young man.
“I was just having a bite to eat and a thought occurred to me,
a small detail I should have confirmed with Mr. Rieder yesterday. Did a man named Ben Baker happen to phone your office last week at any time?”
“Ben Baker? Yes, I spoke to him last week myself. He called to ask about the Hansen Ranch paperwork, but his wife had already picked it up.”
“I see. She had already picked up the paperwork.” Sunny paused. “Do you happen to remember what day that was?”
“It would have been Tuesday—no, Wednesday morning.”
“Got it. Thank you very much for your help, Mr…”
“James. Steven James, with a V. My pleasure. Shall I have Mr. Rieder return your call?”
“No, thank you. That won’t be necessary. I think I have everything I need now.”
Charlie watched her in amazement, his eyebrows crowding his forehead and an incredulous look on his face. He said, “Sunny, what are you—”
“Shh!” She flipped more pages in the planner and dialed Gabe’s cell phone. After several rings he picked up. When she’d persuaded him that he did not need to get some rest but in fact would like nothing more than to come to dinner at her place that night, she hung up and stood thinking, a pencil in hand hovering over her planner. Rivka stopped what she was doing and stood watching her.
Sunny ticked off her fingers, then looked up and pointed at Charlie. “You’ll be there, eight o’clock sharp,” she said. She turned to Rivka. “You, too. With Alex. You have to bring Alex. This is important and I’m not joking. I can count on you to be there tonight, right?”
They nodded, bewildered.
Monty Lenstrom was easy.
In the five years she’d known him, Sunny couldn’t remember a time when he had turned down an invitation to dinner, especially on a dull Monday night. The last call she placed, made from the semi-privacy of her office, was to Wade Skord. He sounded understandably unhinged from his usual frame of mind. His voice was thin and frayed with anxiety. He said he’d spent the day pacing around the winery, alternately working with a manic fervor and then noticing that he’d been staring off into space for who knows how long. Wednesday would be harvest day, he figured. He said he didn’t feel like having dinner with anyone, that even his friends would stop talking when he came in, and everyone would look at him like he was Charles Manson on parole.
“Maybe, but you have to come anyway,” Sunny said.
“Why?”
“Because I need you there.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Indulge me. Please. Wade, who fed your cat while you were up the river?”
“You.”
“Well, it’s payback time.”
“There’s payback for pouring dry cat food in a bowl? You are a sick woman.”
“Just be at my place at eight and don’t give me no lip. This is about more than dinner.”
“I surmised as much.”
After lingering over a final bite of Mama McCoskey’s rum cake and the dregs of a latte for forty-five minutes, the last of Wildside’s customers waddled out the door at ten minutes to four, followed soon after by the last of the wait staff. By five the dishwashers had gone home, and Rivka and Sunny had restocked the pantry for the next day. Rivka tossed her apron in the laundry and reached for the ceiling, stretching up, side to side, and down. She threw one foot up on a window ledge and executed a deep, lunging stretch.
“You know that nonexistent item we discussed this morning?” said Sunny.
“I’ve been wondering about it.”
“It still doesn’t exist. I’d say it should rematerialize sometime tomorrow morning at the latest.”
Rivka placed her hands on the toe of her cross-trainer and bent forward, her face tucked to the side of her calf. Her voice sounded muffled. “Okay. I hope you know what you’re doing.” She turned her head toward Sunny, looking at her from under her arm. “You do know what you’re doing, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Really?”
“No, not really. I’m sort of winging it.”
“Oh, good. That’s a big relief. Because I was a little worried that maybe we were in over our heads.”
“We are, but I have a plan, or at least an idea for a plan. All you have to do is be yourself.”
“Just like Mom always said.”
“And don’t say anything about the item.”
“Right. Be myself but don’t mention the most important thing on my mind.”
Sunny stuck around after Rivka left, killing time until she figured Nesto Campaglia was likely to be home. She made a minor dent in the heap of unopened mail in the office, and at a quarter to six, she raided the pantry and packed the truck full of supplies for the dinner party, fitting the perishable stuff into a cooler with a few slabs of ice. Then it was finally time to drive over to Nesto’s house. As she pulled up into the shade, she spotted him out back in the garden, which was a relief because it meant she could skip knocking at the door and having to get past Mary Campaglia. He watched her walk over, letting water pool up from the hose he was using to water a section of bell pepper plants. An orange sunset backlit his form.
They exchanged greetings and Nesto continued with his watering. Sunny waited to see if he would turn his attention back to her. He did not.
“Mr. Campaglia,” she said, “I know Gabe wasn’t with you and Mary here on Thursday night. He was at the Dusty Vine, drinking.”
She waited again, and when he didn’t respond, she went on.
“I also know that you met with Al Beroni on Friday, and he told you about the will he’d written up, specifically that Alex and Gabe stood to inherit Beroni Vineyards if Jack died without any children. This part is just a guess, but my idea is that he suggested you make sure the boys had solid alibis because the
will gave them a motive, and when the cops found out about it, it wasn’t going to look good.”
Nesto walked to the side of the house and turned off the water, then came back. His long, antenna-like eyebrows rode together in a somber frown. He said, “Al is a good man. He figured if his own dynasty died out, the Campaglias ought to take over. I don’t think he ever really thought that would happen, of course. The main part of the will makes it clear that he believes the Campaglia family is crucial to the success of the winery. There’s a clause in there about retaining Gabe, Alex, and even their children in key positions, not that it would have held up in any legal way if Jack wanted to do otherwise. Al’s a sound businessman. He knows the value of experience, and stability. I guess he hoped Jack would come around to his way of thinking eventually.”
“I have another guess,” said Sunny. “You weren’t here at home with Mary Thursday night, either.”
“You’re wrong there. I was home all night after about six.”
Sunny expelled a theatrical sigh and dug her hands into the back pockets of her baggy black-and-white chef’s pants. “Mr. Campaglia, your son is in serious trouble. On the night of the murder, he was drunk and belligerent in front of witnesses, to whom he expressed a violent resentment of Jack Beroni. He was at the Dusty Vine at the time when somebody, probably the murderer, used the pay phone in the parking lot to arrange the fatal meeting with Jack. He’s a good shot with a rifle, and he has an extremely compelling motive. And that’s not even all of the evidence against him, Mr. Campaglia. I’ve left out the part that could insure that both he and his brother are sent to prison for a very, very long time. Maybe their whole lives.”
The color came up in Nesto’s face and he began to puff. “I’ve had enough of this. I’ve had just about enough. My sons are innocent. Gabe has never been an easy spirit, but he wouldn’t hurt anyone, let alone kill Jack.”
Sunny looked away and stole a moment to think. She wanted more. It was risky to push him—she was all but accusing one or both of his sons of murder—but she didn’t have many other options. “If that’s the case, tell me why Wade Skord’s rifle was hidden in a box under Alex’s bed.”
“What the devil are you talking about?”
“Wade Skord’s rifle, which I think we can safely assume was the murder weapon, was found under Alex’s bed wrapped in a bath towel in a box, lying on top of a bunch of old high-school trophies.”
Nesto seemed to stagger, and Sunny formulated a quick action plan in her head in the event that he started reaching for his heart right then and there. She fought the urge to reassure him. He had to break. He walked over to the side of the house and leaned against it momentarily, then began methodically re-coiling the garden hose he’d been using. She could see his mind working as he did it, trying to figure out if she was lying, and if not, how Alex could have become involved. He would be asking himself how well he knew his sons, how much they might be capable of. He was probably remembering all the times they’d schemed together as kids and run into trouble, and the times he’d seen the grown-up Gabe drunk. He’d be wondering how sensitive the balance was between passion, anger, and self-control in Gabe, and in Alex for that matter. He knew his boys, but how well did he know them as men? Finally he came to the confused and desperate place she had, regrettably, been hop
ing to lead him. Assuming she was telling him the truth, and being unable to explain why Alex had possession of the murder weapon, he had no choice but to tell her his entire story in the hope that something he said might somehow absolve his sons. He turned the water back on and rinsed his hands, then wiped them dry on his pants and walked slowly back over to her.
“On Thursday afternoon, Jack and I had a disagreement,” he said. “You know that part already. Jack even threatened me. I was still angry, so I went to see Al about it later that day. We talked about Jack’s position now and in the future, about my role, and about how Gabe and Alex fit in. He seemed to understand my point of view across the board and said he had no intention of allowing Jack free reign until he was confident that he knew what he was doing, that unfortunately he didn’t trust his son’s temper or judgment to date, and it might be years before Jack could assume an independent leadership role at Beroni. He said meanwhile he’d make sure Jack stayed out of the winemaking decisions entirely. From my perspective, we’d come to complete agreement and I was satisfied.
“That evening, the boys came by around six-thirty. I told them what Al had said, assuming it would put their minds at ease, same as it had mine. It didn’t. Gabe in particular was still very angry. He said that Al had his head in the clouds, that Jack told him whatever he wanted to hear, and that Al was getting old and as soon as he retired, which might be any day, Jack would be running the operation and we would have no say about it. He said we needed contracts to guarantee our salaries and positions right away—even the houses we live in. I told him I’ve lived in this house for forty years without a contract and Al’s word has always been good enough for me. I tried to calm him down, but
he was upset and he was making me upset. He stormed out and, I’m told, spent the rest of the evening at the Dusty Vine, like you said. Alex stayed and tried to convince me we should see a lawyer, more nonsense in my opinion. Then he went out to see your friend Rivka—she’ll vouch for that, I’m sure.
“After supper, Mary cleaned up and I went into the living room. I sat down and I thought about the whole business. I’m not ashamed to admit I got melancholy thinking about how the Campaglias have always seemed to do all the work and the Beronis seem to reap all the rewards. I thought about my father, and how he worked and worked and came out of it with nothing. He died without savings, without owning anything more than a car. Mary tried to show me the positive side, but the past was all stirred up inside me and I couldn’t think straight. I’d had a couple glasses of wine at dinner, and I opened another bottle after Mary gave up and went to bed. I was ready to wallow in my feelings that night, feeling sorry for myself and my boys, feeling sorry that I hadn’t done more to make sure they had a future. Miss McCoskey, the truth is, I got good and drunk sitting there alone in my living room.” He waggled a finger at Sunny’s nose. “I only do it once in a blue moon, and let me tell you, it’s not a good idea for me or anyone else. You let all the demons out and they start to run around and take over. It’s trouble waiting to happen.”
Sunny held her breath and waited for him to go on. Nesto raked his weathered old hands through the dense turf of gray hair on his head. His eyes flashed.
“I went out and I got in my car. This was maybe ten o’clock. I decided I was going to go over there and give Alberto Beroni what he had coming. I was going to tell him how the Campaglias had lived long enough as hired hands on their own vineyard.
Four generations of Campaglias have worked this land so the Beroni family could get rich. I was finally going to do something about that.”
The force that had propelled Nesto on his tirade seemed to suddenly falter and diminish. He stood quietly, looking at the sky to the west with its canary-yellow and orange streaks fanning out from the mountains.
“I drove over there. I went all the way up to the house and I turned off the engine and was about to get out. Then I noticed that I could see them through the window, sitting in the living room together. Al and Louisa were sitting there just like they had on any night for the past forty years. I could see the back of Al’s head and the newspaper he was reading. Louisa was sewing something, probably one of her embroidered pillowcases. All of a sudden I couldn’t go in there for any reason. I realized that that was their house, not mine. History is history, it’s over, and I had no more right to that house or the vineyard than any other man. They lived in their home, the same way I lived in mine.
“I sat there for a while thinking about things. I thought about being a kid and how Alberto was like a brother to me, and then I turned around and drove right back out of there. I never even got out of the car. Anyway, I must not have been paying much attention to the road because the next thing I know, I just about run over Jack. He’s walking right in the middle of the road, dressed head to toe in black, and the bumper was practically on him before I stopped.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“No. I just gave him a wave and drove on.”
“What time was that?”
“About ten-thirty or quarter to eleven, I’d say.”
“What happened after that?”
“Not a thing. I went home and went to bed. The next day it was just like you suggested. When I got to work, the police were already there. Al was very quiet. Very controlled and very quiet. I’d say he was in shock. He sent word down that he wanted to talk to me right away, and when I went up to the house, he took me into his office and showed me the will. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. He said I had always been like a brother to him, and I’ll tell you that made us both cry like a couple of babies. He made me swear not to tell anyone about what he’d shown me, and then he said I’d better be sure the boys both had good, solid alibis because the police were bound to find out about the will. He didn’t want them to have any trouble. He knew they didn’t kill his son.”
He gave her a searching look. Sunny thanked him. Nesto walked her out to the truck. After she got in, he closed the door for her and stood with a hand resting on the roof of the cab. She rolled down the window and he ducked his head to make eye contact. “I’ve told you plenty that I haven’t even told Mary. What about that other business you mentioned?”
“Nothing we’ve said today goes beyond you and me as far as I’m concerned. About that other business, I’ll be in touch.”
She turned the key and the truck roared to life. There was barely enough time to get home, shower, and disinter a few buckets of delectable roasted duck legs from their protective nest of fat before her guests were scheduled to arrive.
Back at home in the shower, she closed her eyes and let the water drum against her forehead. It would have been heaven to stand there for another ten minutes letting the heat unravel the tension in her neck, if it weren’t for the eight dinner guests
slated to arrive in half an hour. She cut the water and stepped out, releasing a great round cloud of steam. They would feast on roasted duck legs cooked slowly until the rich, dark meat fell easily off the bone; fettuccine with Wildside’s trademark mushroom cream sauce; butternut squash soup with a big garlic crouton floating in the middle of each bowl; and a salad of arugula, Fuyu persimmons, Gorgonzola, and candied pecans—plus as much red wine as possible. If she could get everyone to drink cognac afterward, they’d really be in business. Most of the food was ready and waiting in cardboard boxes in the kitchen, thanks to owner’s privileges at Wildside, but she still needed to get the hot stuff hot and throw the salad together.