A Tainted Finish: A Sydney McGrath Mystery (11 page)

Sydney came back to an empty silent house, a hollow shell that echoed painful memories in every room. Still, she wandered through the house searching for the chess set. The old floors creaked in the usual places and the rooms smelled as they always had, but now the house felt dead and lonely. She spent an hour looking in every possible hiding place for the old Danner shoebox that held the chessmen. It was nowhere to be found.

She wandered into the kitchen to discover that she was quite hungry when the subtle smells of recently cooked food hit her nose. She made herself some eggs on toast and a cup of tea, and sat down at the table, still lost in thought. All week long she had pending tasks to contend with: the details of the memorial, the memorial itself, meetings, phone calls, and conversations. But now, at this moment, there was no pressing duty for her to perform. Her future loomed like an abyss in front of her, an ocean of regret and sadness that terrified her. Her stomach churned as she realized her fears. She shoved her plate away, having hardly touched it.

The haunting thoughts of her ominous indecision were interrupted by the sound of a diesel engine coming up the gravel road. She got up to watch the trailer pull up to the crushpad through the kitchen window, carrying twelve bins of grapes. She watched Olivier jump out of the truck and meet up with Alejandro. They began unstrapping the tie-downs. It occurred to Syd that neither man spoke. They each worked alone, rendered a silent prisoner by their worried minds. Without Charlie to help her through this day – without her compass – she knew she needed the company of someone, anyone. Even if it was next to the man who had inexplicably won her uncle's affection.

She rushed to get into her work clothes and bounded up the hill just in time to jump into the forklift. Alejandro stepped aside graciously and let her take over. She unloaded the trailer deftly, aware that she was being scrutinized by her new partner. Olivier didn't offer any clues of his opinion of her, but she knew he had been carefully assessing her skills on the crushpad. Of course, now she understood why.

They processed the Petit Verdot with more care than before, using the destemmer and the vibrating sorting table. Several workers stood on either side of the conveyor belt, examining the fruit as it traveled up the belt into the auger above. A good deal of fruit had been thrown onto the crushpad concrete when the day was over. Olivier was right. The fruit had hung too long. It suffered some shrivel and bird damage as a result.

“Was this netted?” she asked Olivier after an hour of sorting. They had only gone through one bin, and she knew this was going to make for a very long day.

“Yes. But the birds still got to it. I should have pulled it in last week.” He was clearly disappointed with himself. He looked haggard and distracted. He had been grilled by Jim the night before as a murder suspect and left in the wee hours of the morning to get the grapes. Syd realized he may not have slept at all. His polite Old World veneer was wearing thin, and Syd felt surprising empathy for him, in spite of her anger over the chessmen and the will. She realized Clarence may have been right about him. He was committed to the winery wholeheartedly.

“We’ll be here late with this sorting,” she said. “Maybe you should get some sleep.”

“Of course not,” he said, dismissing her with a wave of his hand. He walked away with a tight frown. Syd bent her head to sort again, mulling over the complicated nature of their interactions.

~

It was late when they finished processing the Petit Verdot. The crush hands worked like silent drones, exhausted and ready for their beds. A few were still loading hoses back onto their hooks around ten, while the others headed for their cars down the dark gravel driveway. Sydney was spraying down the crushpad for a final hot rinse. She had let Olivier disappear into the lab for the tank analysis an hour earlier. She would have liked to have done the lab work herself, but he was in dour spirits and she sensed that he needed some space. She wasn't quite sure how the tables had turned so fast. Wasn't she the one who was supposed to be mad at him?

He emerged from the lab scowling beneath his protective glasses and holding a beaker of pink juice. “It's at 4.2 grams per liter in acid. Really low. I think we should bump it now
.
No danger of lowering the pH too much.
”

“Sure. The pH?” she asked, taking the sample from him and tasting it. She swirled it in her mouth and spit it into the strip drain on the floor. “Never mind. High. Soapy.”

“3.9. I,
we
waited too long on this,” he answered. He smiled at her through perfect white teeth and eyes that lit up. She realized he squinted when he smiled. Syd suddenly felt selfconscious. She was a mess, with her hair clumped in tangled braids and her Carhartts soaked. She still had sticky pomace stuck to her boots, pants, and hair. They faced each other in awkward silence.

“We should talk,” she said, stiffening.

“I'm about done here,” he said. “I'll make the acid adjustments in the morning after punchdowns.”

“Down at the house then? I'm starved. I'll try to find some food, too. See you down there in about ten?”

She turned and strode downhill with a knot in her gut and a strange flutter of excitement. When she got back to the house she put on a pot of rice and hopped in the shower. She quickly stepped out a moment later and pulled on a pair of old jeans and a clean T-shirt. She felt rejuvenated from the hot shower and shampoo. She had been sticky all over from grape juice, and she was happy to have washed it out of her hair. Too often during crush time she found herself sticking to her pillow at night, too tired to shower before bed.

Olivier came down in his work clothes, which somehow appeared as clean as they were earlier that day. He was fastidious by nature, and the only signs of work she saw were his day-old beard and tired eyes. He immediately stepped in the kitchen and started working silently next to Syd, chopping vegetables for a quick stir fry.

Ten minutes later they were sitting silently next to each other at the table, eating their dinner with relish. Both of them were very hungry, and it occurred to Syd that Olivier may not have eaten all day. She watched him drain his beer and set the empty glass down.

“Long day,” she said. She got up to retrieve another beer from the fridge.

He nodded and exhaled slowly. She watched him pour the new beer into his glass and drink half of it.

“This conversation can wait, you know,” she said, feeling cowardice creep into her.

“No, now. I may be in jail soon enough, and you need to know where we are with the winery.”

She winced and looked at him. “If Jim let you stay, chances are he’s not convinced.”

“He said he had no evidence to arrest me.”

“Is there evidence, Olivier?” she asked softly.

He sighed and looked at her with dark tired eyes. “Are you asking me if I killed your uncle? No, I did not. But I would have if he asked me.”

Syd stared at him and swallowed hard. Rosa had alluded to the same idea once.

“Why would he have asked you that?”

“Look, I understand that you are confused, and that you think someone killed your uncle. I know that I owe you an explanation. But I am honor-bound to be silent. Please understand that I made a promise and I have to keep it, regardless of how unfair it might seem to you.”

Syd put her hand on her forehead and processed what he said. She was exasperated and exhausted. “So many fucking secrets,” she whispered, shaking her head.

“Yes, but in the meantime we need to figure out how we will run this winery together.
For now.
” His face was stoney and assertive, a new feature of his.

“You think I’ll contest the will?” she asked.

“I'm not sure that it is not your right to do so. I might, if I were you.”

She shook her head. “Probate would take forever. In the meantime we could lose an entire vintage.”

“Exactly,” he said, expressionless. “Then you have decided to stay?”

“No, I'm not sure what I'll be doing.”

“Well, this conversation is useless if I cannot have some assurances that you will stick around to see through this Crush.” He couldn’t conceal his frustration any longer, though he was obviously conflicted.

“I’ll stick around through this Crush. I can do
that.
” She conceded, realizing that she always intended to stay and at least see the vintage get to barrel.

Olivier relaxed his shoulders, clearly relieved. “Good.” He sat pensively and she watched him. “Your uncle wanted us to share this winery. For his own reasons, certainly. I intend to respect his wishes. He fought to keep it as a family winery, and I feel that it would be a great dishonor to be responsible for breaking it up.”

“Are we family, Olivier?” she asked. It was the question that stirred in the back of her mind since she met him.

“In Clarence's mind, I think so.”

He stopped and swallowed hard. He pushed his chair back abruptly and stacked the plates on the table, carrying them to the sink.

Jim sat with his arms crossed, his coffee steaming in front of him on the kitchen table. Rosa was making a clamor in the kitchen with the juicer. Syd was feeling more comfortable in the old house with a little more life in it in the morning. Rosa was a calming force for her.

“I asked him and he said he didn't do it,” she said, knowing how it must sound to a cop. But she believed emphatically in what she was saying.

He narrowed his eyes and scrutinized her face as she sat across from him. He already regretted getting Syd involved at all. He should have sent her back to Seattle with Charlie after the reading of the will. Here she was, one day later defending his primary suspect, with obvious emotional attachment. He regretted not taking Olivier down to the station on Sunday too. Olivier had explained why arresting him would hurt the winery, which meant it would hurt Syd. He was convincing enough for Jim to let him go get his fruit and process it the next day. For whatever reason, he believed Olivier was telling the truth about not being a flight risk. He could see why Syd believed him. He had an old-fashioned sense of honor that Jim found compelling. Still, in his years of law enforcement he had come to the conclusion that the most obvious suspect was usually the correct one. And Olivier Ruiz was the obvious suspect.

“So tell me about the will Syd,” Jim said, changing the subject. “What happened yesterday?”

“When I got to Jack's I ran into Francois Bertrand, who was carrying some kind of framed picture. He seemed angry. Alejandro told me it was a framed copy of the article that got him his best scores last year.”

“Alejandro was there?”

“Yeah, and Rosa.” She rolled her eyes at his raised eyebrows. She wasn't about to let his suspicions wander toward them again.

“Why were they there?”

Syd squirmed in her seat. “Uncle left them each some money. They’re family, Jim. Rosa was practically my mother growing up, and Alejandro has been with Uncle for almost twenty years.” She whispered back at him in a hiss, glancing at the kitchen door. Rosa couldn’t know that Jim would ever think of her as a suspect. She was a proud woman and she’d be appalled. Besides, Rosa could hold a grudge for a lifetime. Jim's face and silence told her that he was annoyed but resigned. She took the opportunity to tell him nearly everything she knew about the will: the money bequeathed to Rosa, Alejandro and Jack, the mysterious package left to Hans Feldman, and the manila folders left for her and Joe Donner. She omitted the addendum about the chessmen. For some reason she suspected it might push Jim over the edge in his suspicions toward Olivier, and she needed him to stay out of jail. At any rate, she didn't trust her own emotions any more. She was still angry about the chessmen and knew Jim might react to her anger, which could be a disaster.

“What was in the envelopes?” he asked.

Syd rose silently and disappeared into the spare room. She returned a moment later with a large manila envelope while Rosa was filling Jim's mug with fresh coffee. Rosa bent over and kissed Jim's cheek before she left, with tears of gratitude in her eyes. Syd raised her eyebrows at him, accusatively. Jim shrugged and looked away. Syd sat down and slid the folder across the table. “Uncle's idea of fun, I think.”

Jim opened the envelope and took out some 8x10 photos, a thumb drive, and a few letters. There were addressed envelopes too. He laid them neatly out on the table and eyed them carefully. The photo showed two familiar faces in the front seat of a car. The passenger was passing an envelope to the driver. His forehead furrowed, and his face exposed a new kind of worry. Syd was beginning to feel that they were not as harmless as she originally thought.

“Your uncle was blackmailing Joe Donner?” he asked while she held her breath.

“No, I mean he didn't ask for anything, I don't think.”

“So it was a threat.”

“I think so. It adds up. Uncle and Joe Donner hated each other.”

“Francois Bertrand gets a framed copy of his accolades, and here we have photos and...is this a video of an exchange of
something
between the same winemaker and a well-known critic?” He held up the thumb drive, his forehead furrowed as he pieced it all together. “Joe Donner is a critic, right? Did Joe Donner give those scores to Bertrand?”

“I don't know,” she said. But then she remembered reading the article in Joe's primary publication the year before. “Actually, yes. I remember now. The article was in Joe's primary syndication, and he had given Bertrand stellar reviews. And a full article about the changing of the guard in the Gorge. That kind of thing. It was an obvious slight toward Uncle. And Bertrand has always been intensely jealous of Uncle's scores and reviews.”

'Where did this thumb drive come from?” he asked.

She shook her head, better to leave that one alone.

“These letters are addressed to the editors? Were these letters ever sent?” he asked.

“No. Uncle wrote me instructions to do what I liked with it. He said he had his fun with it. I wonder if this means Joe and Francois knew about it.”

Jim deliberately collected the letters, photos, and thumb drive, and placed them back in the envelope. He slid them back across the table to Syd. It was obvious to Syd that Jim found the whole mess distasteful and sordid. She was surprised at her own feelings of shame and the embarrassment she felt over her uncle's behavior. She wanted to explain it to Jim. She wanted to make some excuses for Uncle, but she was as much in the dark about it as he was. She was almost certain that the letters and the photo were an indictment of sorts; her uncle's way of letting Joe Donner and Francois Bertrand know that he knew of their corrupt collusion. But she wasn't certain how far it had gone. Uncle had a wry sense of humor about these kinds of things. And she was surprised to find Jim so naïve about her uncle's cynicism. Clarence was no saint, although he always had an exacting integrity. Obviously he was not above holding a damning piece of information over a foe's head, leaving them dangling on the hook. But she knew her uncle well, and he would have had no compunction to expose Francois as a fraud, or Joe Donner as a critic for hire. She suspected it was far more entangled than it looked. Maybe Clarence hadn’t sent the damning video as a gesture of gratitude toward Donner for revealing the nature of the buyout. Jack had alluded to something like that.

“Jack Bristol got some money?” Jim asked, interrupting her thoughts. He clearly wanted to move on.

“Yes. A good deal. $200,000. In spite of everything, Jack was uncle's best friend and he was having financial problems. I think uncle felt badly that he had cost Jack so much when he backed out of selling the winery. Jack would have made a bundle.”

“Why does he have financial troubles? He's a successful lawyer.” Jim asked derisively, revealing his own particular form of prejudice. He had little tolerance for fiscally irresponsible professionals. He had difficulties empathizing with the troubles of people who made their livings contriving contracts and agreements that could screw over an honest businessman like Clarence Blackwell. Besides, he really didn't like lawyers at all. He had seen too many of the wrong people serve time for minor drug infractions that were more a banner of poverty than malicious intent, while many criminal rich folk who could afford representation rarely saw the inside of the county jail. He had little patience for any manipulation of the legal system and the class of folks who benefited.

“Cynthia gambles,” she said. “His wife.”

“Hmm,” he answered. “And he had a policy too, you say? So he clearly had something to gain.”

“He and uncle were not on the best terms either. Because of the buyout going bad. Jack thought – he still thinks – that Uncle should have taken the deal. I think he shares your suspicions about Olivier.”

“I might have to talk to Jack, it seems.”

“Or you could just call Olivier's boss and check his alibi,” Syd said sarcastically. “Oh, never mind, he's dead.” She thumped her forehead, with a gesture Charlie used often. He reached over and rubbed her shoulders it was a fatherly gesture and the only apology she would get from him.

“My job,” he whispered.

Syd looked down at the papers in front of him. They sat silently while Jim looked over the notepad. Syd squirmed in her seat. She had no idea the Sheriff's investigation employed so much self-righteousness. But Jim was known to everyone as the incorruptible Sheriff's deputy. He had joined the department decades before and worked his way through a degree in Criminal Justice while he was in uniform. After a few years he became an investigator and moved to a desk job. He spent the better part of two decades investigating meth labs and marijuana production in the Gifford Pinchot Forest, which made up most the county. It was only recently that he put the uniform back on and drove a cruiser again. The department suffered budget cuts and Jim had volunteered to go back to police work. He was a part-time investigator, and the Sheriff was fully aware that the department owed Jim for his voluntary demotion. This was the primary reason Jim was allowed to continue working on the Blackwell murder case. He had little experience with homicide cases but he was the golden child of the department, the last bastion of trustworthiness in law enforcement. Still, Syd was unused to being on the receiving end of his judgment. She wanted to deflect the scrutiny from Olivier.

“So what about the guys in the vineyard on Sunday?” she asked, prodding him. “The guys Alejandro saw?”

“Yeah, I'll check that out too,” he said, scowling at his notes.

“Alejandro’s working in the vineyard today,” she said, trying to not sound too eager.

“Okay, I'll get up there now. Take it easy, Sydney.” He narrowed his eyes at her and pushed back his chair, draining his coffee mug. Syd slid the manila folder back across the table to Jim. He tucked it under his arm with the rest of his files and winked at her.

A moment later Syd watched as Jim took giant strides up the gravel drive in his uniform, his large hat bobbing up and down slightly. When she was certain he was veering away from the winery, where Olivier was doing punchdowns and lab work, she rushed to her room to get her boots on and she grabbed her car keys.