A Vintage To Die For (Violet Vineyard Murder Mysteries Book 2) (19 page)

If my jaw had been on my breastbone before, it was at my knees by then. I could only imagine where this was leading. The story left me stunned, but I hadn’t lost focus. I had come here to find out about Dimitri and Samson. I sympathized with her ordeal, and the bitterness of such a loss, but I still needed to have the answers I had come for. I needed to know why Samson had shot Dimitri, and why Alexandra seemed so certain Samson had finished the job, thirty-two years later, in my wine cellar.

She continued, “Dimitri and I were married three months after my child was buried. I sometimes wonder if he would have married me if my son had lived.”

“Is that why Samson shot Dimitri?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No. It was about money. Samson and I were the only Xenos left by then; his mother and father were long dead. They were what we called ‘land poor’ in Greece, if that makes sense to you?”

I nodded. Of course it did. Half the farmers and wine makers in the valley were land poor, meaning we owned valuable property while our bank accounts were pitiful. “Yes, it makes a lot of sense.”

“Dimitri wanted my part of the estate, but Samson refused.” She reached for her wine glass, lifted it with an unsteady hand and took a gulp. After that story, she needed a drink. “He said the money was for the people of Naousa. To make up for what my son had done. He gave money to the families of the dead. And he built a hospital. Every year he sends money to the local priest. To the people there, Samson is a kind of saint.”

Samson a saint? My bitter, tight-fisted old man a benefactor? Shockingly, I could believe it very easily. Samson was a man of honor at his core.

Alexandra continued. “After he shot Dimitri, Samson sold all of the Xenos property and left our village. I never saw him again, until Saturday at your party.”

“Why did you come to the Valley after all these years?” I asked, though it seemed like an inappropriate question.

“Dimitri has always spent more than we could afford on his wine collection,” she said and I detected bitterness in her tone. “We needed money. I wanted to sell some of the wine, but Dimitri was obsessed with the inheritance he thought should be mine. It was a point of honor with him. He had filed suit in Greece, but the courts there are slow and they have no jurisdiction here. And then Blake Becker contacted him and offered him a partnership.” She shrugged. “I fought against coming here, but Dimitri would not listen. We came. And then Samson started making threats…” she trailed off again. “And now Dimitri is dead.” Alexandra wiped her eyes and looked up at me. She took a deep breath, gave me a brave smile and changed the subject.

“Your daughter, Jessica, is a beautiful and kind young woman,” she complimented me, though her voice held an undercurrent of infinite sadness. “She loves you very much, that is obvious.”

I smiled. “Believe me, we had our moments when she was younger,” I said. “We still have those moments occasionally.”

“But the love never changes,” Alexandra said. “There is no stronger bond than a parent and a child.”

I nodded. What she said was true. When it came right down to it, Jessica was the one thing in my life I could never part with.

She looked at her watch and suddenly stood.

“I must go. I told Samson I was going to buy groceries, so I have to stop on the way back. He will be worried.”

“He’ll be angry,” I replied.

“He will barely notice that I am gone. He is too busy thinking about Blake Becker and the wine.” She gathered her purse.

“Tell him it’s only fifty cases,” I said, and then I swallowed my pride and added, “And he was right. I shouldn’t have signed the auction agreement with Blake.” That was hard to say - and it would be harder still when Samson gloated - but the truth was the truth.

Alexandra looked confused.

“The wine I consigned with Blake,” I said and she shook her head.

“He is angry about that,” she conceded, “but that’s not what I was referring to. All I want is to settle Dimitri’s estate and go home, but Mr. Becker will not release Dimitri’s personal collection of wine.”

“It’s stored at Star Crossed?’ I asked, and she nodded.

“Two hundred bottles, most of it Premiere Cru Bordeaux reds from the 1840s and ‘50s. Samson believes we should consign it for auction in New York, but Mr. Becker is insisting he has a contract to sell it at his auctions. That Dimitri decided to sell it just a few weeks before he was murdered. I do not believe this. Dimitri would never have agreed to sell his collection. We have hired an attorney.”

The Premiere Cru Classé - meaning First Growth - wines are produced at only five Châteaux: Latour, Lafite Rothschild, Haut-Brion, and Mouton Rothschild, all in the Médoc region of France, and Margaux in Graves. These five wines are generally accepted to be the greatest ever produced, and vintages in the mid 1800s are some of the most expensive wines in the world. I could certainly see why Blake would want to auction those bottles - the commissions would be incredible - but it didn’t make me think much better of Blake. Sometimes business has to take a back seat to common decency, and bilking a widow was about as low as you could go.

And then I remembered the burly blond giant at Star Crossed who had been loading a truck with cases of old Latour that morning. Had they been Dimitri’s?

Alexandra interrupted my train of thought, “I am willing to go along with it to avoid trouble, but Samson insists the prices would be double in New York. He flies into a rage whenever we discuss it. And the way he cursed Blake on the phone!” She shrugged helplessly. “He is threatening to rent a truck and break into the cellar to collect the bottles.” She pulled her wallet from her purse, but I waved her off.

“I’ll get the check.”

“Thank you, Claire,” she said as she closed her bag. She gave me another brave smile, but her eyes were dewy. I felt guilty for forcing her to dredge up the past, but I did not apologize for it. “It was good to talk of all of this. I feel better.”

She stood, clasped my hand briefly and left, pausing at the end of the bar to say goodbye to Shaky, who actually kissed her hand in farewell, the old lech. I watched her through the dirty front windows as she climbed into the Mercedes and pulled away.

I had no way of knowing that by the next time I saw Alexandra, two more people would have been murdered.

Chapter 20

Victor got his pizza,
and I was happy for the company despite the fact that the last thing I felt like doing was cooking. I made him promise to punch down the wine in the morning as penance. As we ate, I told him Alexandra’s story.

When I finished he said, “I feel sorry for the kid. Her son. It must have been really bad with her in-laws.”

I nodded. “Alexandra said they never really accepted her or the boy.”

“Everybody is a racist,” he said with a personal bitterness I had heard before. I didn’t argue the point, though I like to think most of us are essentially good people. But, too often, I have been proven wrong.

Victor left at 10:00PM. I was cleaning the dishes, rehashing Alexandra’s story, and feeling horrible for her and her dead son when a knock on the kitchen door startled me so badly I dropped one of my favorite serving dishes - shaped like a purple grape leaf – to shatter on the floor.

“It’s me!” Hunter Drake yelled through the closed door, but my heart was still pounding as I crossed to the kitchen door, flipped on the patio light, and opened the door.

“You scared me,” I said accusingly. “I have a cell phone. And a front door,” I reminded him.

“I should have called,” Hunter said, “but I was hoping to catch Samson here.” He looked tired, his face etched with deep lines, but he wasn’t going to get sympathy from me.

“Catch?” I said as I crossed my arms, blocking the stoop. “And if you had called and told me you were coming, you were afraid I would have yelled ‘It’s the coppers!’ and we would have roared off into the night blazing away with our machine guns?”

He squeezed his eyes closed tight then blinked them open. “Sorry. Catch was a poor choice of words. I just wanted to ask him, and you, a question about something we found in Dimitri’s pocket,” he said, but he didn’t sound apologetic, he sounded annoyed. “Are you going to invite me in or not?”

I was tempted to say ‘Not!’ and slam the door in his face, but my curiosity got the better of me. I stepped aside, brusquely waved him in, and pointed at a kitchen chair. He took a seat. I did not offer him coffee, though I did stop to pour myself a cup of decaf.

“Can I get some of that?” he asked.

“Sorry,” I said, my tone making it clear I was not at all sorry. “Last cup.”

Hunter’s teeth ground as he glared at me. “This doesn’t make me happy, Claire,” he said. “Arresting Samson.”

“But you did it anyway,” I pointed out.

“I had no choice. The evidence…” he trailed off with a shrug.

“Right,” I said, unconvinced and unwilling to let him off the hook. I sipped my coffee as the silence stretched between us.

“But that’s not why I’m here,” he said as he reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out a sheet of folded over paper, unfolded it, and slid it across the table to me. It was a photocopy of a pair of wine labels. They weren’t just any labels; they were the labels from two bottles of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, vintage 1947, one of the most expensive wines in the world, grown and bottled at the Château Cheval Blan
c
in Burgundy.

I looked up at him. “The photocopy was in his pocket?” I asked.

“No, the labels were. Have you heard of it?”

I laughed at that and Hunter flushed. For a man who had grown up in Napa where wine was practically a religion, he knew next to nothing about it. And way too much about whiskey. That was mean of me to think, but I was feeling mean at that moment.

“Everyone’s heard of it,” I said. “It’s one of the most famous wineries in Burgundy, and this is probably its most famous vintage. As much for its rarity and the price it commands at auction as its quality.”

“Expensive?” he asked.

I couldn’t resist showing off a little bit. “Somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty thousand dollars a bottle,” I said. His eyes widened a fraction. I added, “Only six hundred bottles were produced. Even today, Château Cheval Blanc makes only a few hundred cases of this a year.”

“Sixty thousand for a bottle?”

“A magnum of it sold for a hundred and fifty thousand very recently,” I said. When he looked confused, I added, “A magnum is one and a half liters. That’s the equivalent of two normal-sized bottles.”

“Why not just open two bottles?” he asked. “I mean, why make bigger bottles?”

I shrugged. “Ostentation. Maybe a wedding or an important tasting event. They make double magnums, too. Some wineries even make imperial-sized bottles, which hold three–quarters of a case of wine.” I shrugged again. “Like they say, bigger is better.”

“How much would a bottle that size sell for? An Imperial?”

“Of the ‘47?” Once again I shrugged. “I don’t know if they even made bottles that large back then. If they did, probably three or four hundred thousand,” I replied.

Hunt whistled and shook his head. “Who can afford to drink that?”

“Only a fool would drink it,” I told him, though I’d love to crack open a bottle or two. I was willing to bet it would be heavenly. Or it might be vinegar, if it had been mishandled or stored incorrectly. “It’s an investment wine. The labels alone are probably worth a couple of hundred to a collector.”

“People collect the labels?”

“People collect everything,” I said.

He smiled and said, “Like purple stuff?” He cut his eyes around the kitchen. Normally I’d laugh politely at that kind of joke, pretending I hadn’t heard it a million times before, but I wasn’t feeling like being polite to Hunter.

He lost the smile.

I asked a question of my own. “What was Dimitri doing with them?” I doubted he would collect labels. He didn’t seem the sentimental type.

“I was going to ask
you
that.”

I shrugged. I had no idea, but it certainly made me curious.

“Who owns this stuff?” he asked. “Where would you even buy it?”

“Millionaires own it,” I said. “And you wouldn’t find it in a store. It would be auctioned. That’s where the highest prices are paid.”

“Millionaires,” he said thoughtfully, then asked, “Anyone in the valley?”

“Armand Rivincita owns eighteen bottles,” I told him. “He made the cover of Wine Spectator when he bought them. That's how big a deal that vintage is,” I stopped to think again, then added, “Phyllis Leach owns one. Hugh Fuller owns one. Montgomery Butler owns two...” I trailed off. That was all I could think of, but I was amazed to add them up and realize there were so many bottles in the Valley. After seventy years, that seemed like a lot. I mean, how many could possibly be left out of the original six hundred?

“Would Dimitri have had access to a bottle?” Hunter asked. He
really
didn’t know anything about wine.

“Of course. Dimitri was one of the best known wine stewards in the business, both here and in Europe. Millionaires were probably a dime a dozen to him. He could probably have told you where every remaining bottle was stored. Why do you think Blake partnered with him? Dimitri’s reputation was what brought in the big time cellaring and auction clients.”

Hunter sat there thinking about that, just like I was. A niggling suspicion had begun in the back of my mind, but I wasn’t going to voice it to Hunter. He’d just roll his eyes and act like I was meddling.

I pushed the photocopy back to him and he pocketed it.

“Is that it?” I asked, and to be honest I hoped he would say it wasn’t. That he would apologize for being a jerk, and then I could apologize for being maybe just a
little
sharp with him. And I might even tell him all Alexandra had told me that afternoon. As angry as I was with Hunter, being here alone in my kitchen with him reminded me of better times. I wanted to recapture that. And my conversation with Roger the day before had only highlighted that desire. Soon I would be legally free…

And then Hunter ruined it again.

“This is between us, Claire. I don’t want you running off half-cocked making any more crazy accusations.”

I shot out of my chair and pointed at the door. “Out.” I said. He opened his mouth to say something else and I repeated, “Out!”

Hunter’s expression went grim and his lips drew down in a tight frown. He stood, gathered the photocopies, and went to the door and jerked it open. He stopped there and turned back. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he said through his teeth. “I apologize.”

“Out!” I repeated, though, to be honest, my heart wanted to accept his apology, even if it was grudging. But I have my pride.

Hunter stepped through the door and banged it closed behind him. I snapped the lock on and then stood there staring through the glass at his back as he crossed the patio.

I sat in the
kitchen for a long time after Hunter walked out, but I wasn’t
just
thinking about wringing his neck, I was also considering the wine labels. The labels looked fake to me - they were far too new to be actual labels from a 1947 vintage.

Wine fraud is a booming business. Scams in the tens of millions of dollars are not unusual. In fact, an estimated five percent of all wines sold at auction are fakes. These counterfeits range from outright fraud - where empty bottles of classic vintages are refilled with cheaper, though often very good, wine and then resold as the real thing - to even more cunning scams where off-vintages from prestigious wineries are purchased in bulk then the labels are reworked or replaced with more desirable vintage years. In fact, in 2002, bottles of the 1991 vintage of Château Lafite Rothschild - a great vintage in its own right - were relabeled and sold at auction as the more desirable 1982 vintage, a counterfeiting scam that had netted tens of thousands of dollars for the thieves.

And with that thought, I was back to seriously considering Blake as a murder suspect.

With Blake’s contacts in the wine industry, it was easily conceivable he could fake a premium vintage and sell it either at his own auctions or to some unsuspecting third party. And if Dimitri had found out, that would have been a perfect motive for murder…

But if a fraud like that was uncovered, Blake would end up in jail and Star Crossed would be out of business. Why would Blake take the risk? Star Crossed seemed to be doing well, though, as Blake had pointed out that afternoon, sales were down across the industry. Could Star Crossed be in financial trouble? Had Hunter checked their finances? I had no idea, and I sure wasn't going to ask. But I had another source who might be able to give me an answer.

I glanced at my watch. It was quarter after eleven. My soon to be ex-husband was probably still having dinner at some trendy hotspot with his new girlfriend. Unlucky her. I punched up his number and hit ‘CALL.’

“My lovely bride-not-to-be,” he said. “Two conversations in the same year. That has to be a record for us. Remember when we used to talk for hours? The good old days?”

Actually, I remembered listening to him talk for hours, but I didn’t point that out. I needed a favor.

“Some of them were good,” I replied diplomatically, then asked, “Am I interrupting?”

“Not a bit,” he replied. “Have you changed your mind about a settlement?”

“No, I haven’t. Save your money. I have a quick question, and you might not be able to answer it: what’s Blake Becker’s financial situation?”

“Blake?” he said. “He doesn’t owe you money, does he?”

“He’s agreed to auction off some of the Reserve for me,” I told him.

“Hmm,” he said and nothing more, but that ‘hmm’ had me on the edge of my seat.

“Should I be concerned?”

“You might want to reconsider that divorce settlement…” he trailed off, his jovial tone gone, replaced by concern.

“Spit it out, Roger,” I yelled into the phone.

“Now that really
is
like old times,” he said and laughed.

“Roger…”

“Okay. We
do
handle Star Crossed’s accounts,” he said. “So you didn’t hear this from me, but Blake has not managed his money well. It took every penny he inherited from his parents to build that cellar and it’s only half leased. On top of that, his auctions aren’t doing well, so commissions are down. The economy is recovering, but luxuries like fine wine are the last to rise. You know that better than most.”

“So, he’s hurting?” I asked.

“Well…he’s paying his bills somehow, but I see the ledger sheets and it can’t last. But who knows, he found a way to pay off his debts last year when I was sure he was going to go under. Maybe he’ll pull another rabbit out of his hat.”

“He almost went under last year?” I was surprised I hadn’t heard any rumors about that. In Napa – just like every other small community - no one’s business is truly their own.

“He was three months behind on the two mortgages we hold. We were literally days from serving papers on him when he paid the past due amount plus all penalties. In cash. The board of directors wasn’t thrilled. We’d have been happy to take the property. Land is always a good investment in California, if you’re in it for the long haul.”

“Bankers are always happy to foreclose,” I said with more than a touch of rancor. As a struggling winemaker myself, I could sympathize with Blake on that score.