A Vintage To Die For (Violet Vineyard Murder Mysteries Book 2) (28 page)

I scrambled forward through the grass, shoved myself to my feet, dropped my head and sprinted for the old orchard. But I only made three stumbling step before my ankle gave way beneath me with an agonizing bolt of pain and I was face-first in the grass again. I scrambled to my knees and shot a look over my shoulder.

Bartlett had heaved himself up into the window, but there was no way he was going to squeeze his bulk through the narrow gap.

“Stop!” he bellowed again. That’s when I saw the gun in his hand. He was trying to level it through the window, but the ledge was too high for him to aim over and he couldn’t support his weight with just one hand. He slid back out of sight. But I knew he wouldn’t stay down for long. He was probably already running up the basement steps. In a moment he’d be out the front door and around the side of the house and I’d be one dead burglar.

That thought got me moving.

The first step was agony, but my ankle wasn’t broken, only sprained. I headed off for the trees at a shambling trot, my leg threatening to buckle with every step. I was moving way too slow! I was only halfway to the trees when I heard the front door bang open. I ran faster, ignoring the pain as best I could. I was just ten feet from the orchard when the first gunshot sounded.

I flinched as a bullet knocked bark from an old tree just ahead of me. I dodged left and then right like a soldier on a battlefield. Bartlett fired again and a bullet whizzed by my head and went racketing through the tree limbs, but I had finally reached the orchard.

I turned and ran down the row then angled left, cutting around trees, hopping over dead limbs littering the ground, staggering and stumbling on my rubbery ankle. I was twenty yards into the orchard when I risked a panicky glance over my shoulder. Bartlett was just forty feet behind me and on the same row, his hulking frame silhouetted by the interior lights blazing from every window of the Becker home. He was running and trying to aim the pistol at the same time. That was all that saved my life. He fired again and then again, but the bullets came nowhere near me.

I turned right and darted around a tree, then turned left and did it again, twisting through the old orchard as I ran deeper into it, trying to lose him, but it wasn’t working! I didn’t dare a look back, but I could hear his running footfalls and heavy breathing coming closer.

I made another hard right around a tree and he fired again, the bullet slamming into the tree’s trunk just inches from my face. I screamed in fright, stumbled over a twisted old branch and went down on my hands and knees in the tall grass. My breath was coming in searing gasps and my ankle pulsed with pain. There was no way I was going to make it through the trees and up the steep hillside before he caught me. I needed to find a spot to hide and pray he passed me by.

That thought reignited the rage that had brought me here to Star Crossed in the first place. Hiding was
not
in my nature. If I had brought my father’s old gun I would have used it then, and gladly. I had been a fool to leave it behind. But I wasn’t going to just curl up and wait to die like some frightened rabbit.

I scrambled around the tree on my knees and pressed myself tight against the trunk. I could hear Bartlett coming, but he wasn’t running now. He was moving quietly. He knew I had gone down with a scream after that last gunshot. He probably thought he had wounded me.

And now he was moving in for the kill.

Chapter 28

I listened to Bartlett
moving slowly through the orchard, his huge feet breaking branches and rustling through the weeds, coming closer and closer, heading straight for me. He knew where I had fallen…I had to move! But I wasn’t going to try to run away - that would just get me shot. No, I was going to move closer to him.

But first I needed a weapon.

The ground around me was littered with broken branches. Some were entire limbs, but most were smaller pieces of the dying trees, deposited over the years since Blake’s father had passed away. I felt among them, picking up one after the other. Most were rotten - some crumbled in my hands, and others were as light as Popsicle sticks - but I finally found one that had some heft, obviously a recent deadfall. It was about three feet long and was tapered at one end to a broken point. The other end was a hard round knot of twisted wood.

I shoved myself to my feet, wincing as my weight settled on my sprained ankle, but the pain had diminished somewhat and I felt steadier. I hugged myself tight to the tree, inched around to the far side and took a quick peek.

Bartlett was forty feet away, still moving toward me, his eyes scanning the terrain at his feet. It took me a minute to realize he was looking for a blood trail. With his eyes on the ground, he didn’t see me make my move. I ducked back down to my knees and crawled twenty feet forward to the next tree. Twenty feet closer to Bartlett.

I had a plan, a really bad one, but what kind of plan could be good when I was entering a gunfight with a stick? My only chance was to draw him closer. And I knew how to do that. I ducked low, still watching him, and groaned softly. I cut it off fast, hoping to get draw attention without making enough noise he could discern my exact location. His head came up, but his eyes went to the tree I had ducked behind when he took his last shot at me. His pace quickened to a noisy, shambling trot.

I stood, pressed my back into the tree and gripped my club in a two-handed, wood-chopping grip. I was thankful for all the hard work over the years - stretching trellis and manhandling wine crates - that had given me not only muscle, but the agility to use it. As Bartlett neared my tree, I planted my feet, ignoring the pain in my ankle.  I was only going to get one shot at this; my timing had to be perfect.

A sound of breaking twigs pinpointed Bartlett’s exact location. He was almost atop me when I took a deep breath and pivoted hard on my good ankle, stepping out of concealment and swinging the club in one fluid motion.

Bartlett tried to duck, but it was too late for that. The knot at the end of my club hit him in the middle of the forehead with a meaty ‘thwak!’ He went over like a bowling pin, but didn’t stay down. He immediately tried to sit up, shaking his head blearily. I raised the club over my shoulder again and swung one more time, getting my hips into it, my teeth clenched, all of the anger and fear I had been feeling for the past week finding sudden release.

The knot slammed into the top of the giant’s skull, the branch snapped in half and Bartlett went back down in the tall grass, out cold.

I stood over him for a long moment, the broken end of the stick still in my hand, panting. He wheezed and shuddered and I brought the broken branch up again, ready to clout him again if he tried to rise. He shuddered and lay still.

I tossed the stick aside and flicked on my flashlight, amazed it was still in my pocket. Bartlett’s gun, a large revolver much like my father’s old pistol, was lying beside Bartlett’s left hand. I stooped, grabbed it up, and backed away, my finger on the trigger, the flashlight pointed down at Bartlett’s face. The center of his forehead, near the hairline, had a gash pulsing blood, but he was breathing steadily, his huge chest rising and falling. Good. I didn’t want him dead. I wanted him in jail so that Hunter could get the truth out of him.

Hunter…

I stashed the flashlight back in my pocket and fumbled out my new phone, thinking wryly I should search Bartlett and see how much money was in his wallet. He owed me a new cell phone, a new dress, new shoes, and a new Jeep. Instead I pulled up Hunter’s number and hit ‘CALL.’

Hunter answered, sounding groggy,
only half-awake.

“What did you do now, Claire?” he asked without a hello.

Those words and that tone made me instantly shift my anger from Bartlett to Hunter. My teeth clacked together so quickly I almost took off the tip of my tongue. If Hunt had been there I would have been hard pressed not to hit
him
with a stick.

“I just bashed a man in the head with a stick and now I’m pointing a gun at him,” I replied.

“Not funny,” he said.

“That’s because it’s true,” I replied.

“Where are you?’ he asked, suddenly fully awake. “Tell me you didn’t do anything stupid.”

“Nope,” I said sarcastically. “Just doing your job for you. Again.”

“Claire—” he began, but I was done listening to him.

“I’m at Blake’s. In Maggie and Henry’s old orchard. One of Blake’s men just tried to kill me,” I said, then added,
“Again,
” forcing myself to be glib despite the residual fear that had my hands shaking.

“Claire—” he started again.

I took the phone from my ear and hit ‘END CALL.’

Hunter dialed back immediately but I let it go to voicemail. By then my ankle was really throbbing. Bartlett and I weren’t going anywhere for a while, so I sat down in the grass ten feet from the slumbering goon, his gun propped on my knee, my finger looped around the trigger.

Bartlett really was a tough guy. I hadn’t been off the phone for more than five minutes before he groaned, twitched, then groaned again. Groggily, he sat up, swaying like a 3:00AM drunk. He looked my way and I shone the light directly into his eyes as I cocked the hammer on his revolver.

“The police are on their way,” I told him. “If you move I’ll shoot you dead.”

He didn’t say anything , just squinted his eyes against the light and touched his forehead. He winced and jerked his hand away. He looked at his fingertips. They were wet with his own blood.

“You hit me,” he said.

“You tried to shoot me,” I replied.

“You broke in,” he said.

“You also tried to drown me,” I pointed out. He didn’t deny that. In fact he didn’t say anything - he stood up. His knees were shaky, his balance unsteady, but he managed it with surprising swiftness.

“Sit back down!” I jumped to my feet, still shining the light into his eyes, and pointed the gun at the center of his broad chest.

“You’re not going to shoot me,” he said.

“Take one step toward me and you’ll find out different,” I said, and I meant it.

He thought about that for a moment. “I’m leaving,” he finally said, like I wasn’t pointing a gun at him.

I took a step toward him. “Sit back down!”

“No,” he said, then turned and took off running, heading for the woods. His gait was unsteady, like a wounded water buffalo, and he stumbled more than once as he ran diagonally through the orchard, but he never went down.

“Stop!” I yelled, but he was right: I wasn’t going to shoot him.

I watched him disappear into the dark woods, trotting up the deer trail I had come down just an hour before.

Slowly, I lowered the pistol to my side and uncocked the hammer. I turned my back on the woods and headed for Blake’s home, hobbling along on my sprained ankle, wincing and muttering with every step. But I won’t deny I felt a sense of triumph. I had proven once and for all Blake was a thief - a wine counterfeiter who had probably stolen millions – and it was just a short leap to murderer from there.

Even Hunter could see that.

I hoped.

Hunter wasn’t the first
officer to arrive at Blake’s, and the ones who were - two young deputies, both female - didn’t appreciate the gun in my hand. They did a lot of yelling and pistol-aiming before they had me drop the revolver and go prone in the grass. When Hunter arrived ten minutes later, I was still lying there, my hands cuffed behind my back.

Hunter parked his truck, gave me a grimace and a shake of the head, then spoke quietly to the deputies as I glared through the glass at him. When he was done talking, the deputies headed for the house - where every interior light was blazing and the door stood open - and Hunter came over to me.

Silently, he helped me up. I balanced awkwardly on my good ankle as he unlocked the handcuffs.

“Now, tell me what you did,” he said as I turned to face him, favoring my good ankle.

As I rubbed my wrists, I told him all of it, including my trip to the basement and what I had found. I pulled the corks and the labels out of my pockets and dumped them on the trunk of the patrol car. Hunter poked them around with a fingertip, wrinkling his nose at the smell wafting off of them. As he inspected them, I continued to talk, telling him about my confrontation with Bartlett and his escape into the woods. As I described the gunshots and my clubbing of Bartlett, Hunter looked at me intently, his expression shifting from annoyance to worry, and finally to a flush-faced anger.

“You really are trying to get yourself killed,” he said. “Breaking in here wasn’t just crazy, Claire, it was downright
stupid.”

That made
me
flush. “I didn’t have much to lose, Hunter,” I yelled back. “Bartlett had already tried to kill me once. What was I supposed to do, wait around for him to finish the job?”

“More crazy talk,” he said. “What do you mean he tried to kill you once?”

“He was the one who tried to drown me,” I said, actually snarling the words. “After Blake tried to poison me and Armand with that port.” I didn’t tell him I had recognized Bartlett as the killer because of his body odor - that would just sound crazy - but I did explain my theory of all the events that had led me there that day. “Blake has been stealing his customer’s wine, selling it and making fake bottles to replace it. I think Dimitri found out about it. That’s probably why he had those Domaine de la Romanée-Conti labels in his pocket when he was murdered. I think he confronted Blake, and Blake killed him. Jorge saw him do it, so Blake or Bartlett killed Jorge and Angela. And then he tried to poison me and Armand.”

“Okay, that makes some sense, but why did he try to kill you and Armand?” Hunter asked. I was shocked and relieved. For the first time ever, he actually seemed to be taking me seriously.

“I don’t know, but I would guess one of two reasons. I had started poking around, making noise. I spoke to one of Blake’s clients, and also to a wine dealer I believe Blake is using to sell the stolen wine. But it could have been Armand he was after. Armand had just reclaimed his collection from Star Crossed. With Dimitri dead, Armand didn’t trust Blake to handle such a valuable collection. And if Armand had opened one of the fake bottles and tasted it…” I shrugged. “It would be all over for Blake.”

Hunter didn’t interrupt me while I spoke, but he kept glancing at the corks and labels piled on the trunk of the car.

When I finished, he nodded. “Makes sense,” he said and I almost fainted. I could hardly believe those words were coming out of his mouth. “I had Midge run some tests on a sample of that port,” he told me. “We got the results back just a few hours ago. It was loaded down with enough methanol to kill a rhino. You’re lucky to be alive.” He paused for a moment then added, “And I owe you one
very
large apology.”

“I accept,” I said instantly. I couldn’t help but wonder if that apology was
just
for the drunk driving accusation, or if it was meant to cover all the times he had dismissed my theories about Blake Becker. But I didn’t voice that. I was tired of fighting with Hunter. For just a moment I was even tempted to tell him how much I had missed his company.

Hunter too seemed to be searching for words to heal the rift between us. Or maybe that was just my wishful thinking, because when he spoke again, all he said was, “Take me to the basement. I want to see those boxes.”

Hunter and I spent
just a few minutes in the cellar, looking at the boxes and the dirt pile with the wine bottles sticking out of it while the two deputies poked around upstairs. By the time he and I reemerged, two more patrol cars and a pair of plainclothes detectives had arrived. Hunter told me to go out to his truck as he stopped to speak to them. For once, I didn’t argue. I hobbled out of the house without a word.

When Hunter joined me a few minutes later, he climbed into the truck and turned toward me.

“I have to call Blake,” he told me.

“What? But what I found proves—”

He held a palm up at me. “I know, but you had no right to search his home. If he decides to press charges against you I’ll have to book you.”

“But he—”

“I know, but there’s a lot to sort out here, Claire. I don’t even know if I have jurisdiction over something like wine fraud. There’s an alphabet soup of agencies, state and federal, that I’ll be contacting tonight.”

“But murder is clearly a local crime—“

Again I got the palm. “Yes. But, if you’re right, then all the crimes are linked. The murders were ancillary to the fraud. A criminal conspiracy.”