Dead in the Dregs (19 page)

“Is this the Pitot household?” I asked in careful French.

“
Oui
,” she said.

“Does Jean live here? Jean Pitot?”

She nodded curtly.

“He is your son?” I asked. She said nothing. “Is he home? We know each other. I met him in Napa a few months ago,” I said.

She turned and disappeared toward the back of the house.

“Jean!” she barked. “Get up! There’s someone here to see you.”

The door creaked open. I could hear them whispering furiously but couldn’t make out what they were saying. The woman wouldn’t stop. She seemed to be lashing him with a string of curses. A moment later she reappeared, opened the front door, and reluctantly beckoned me in. Then she walked to the far corner of the hallway and stood in front of its entrance as if to block any passage to the private portion of the house.

Jean emerged, his hair a mess, in jeans and a T-shirt. He stood in the doorway, hiding behind the indomitable figure of his mother, stupefied. She turned and slapped his head with the back of her hand.

“He says he knows you from California.” His expression was blank. “You’re late for work,” she added without looking at him and walked across the front hall to the kitchen.

“I’ll be right out,” Jean said in English, and disappeared.

The foyer was barren, a simple hall tree sporting some jackets and caps, its mirror pocked and cloudy. An old woman, her hunched shoulders draped with a crocheted shawl, sat in the cluttered living room just off the hallway, staring blankly at a television set. The rugs, the furniture, the walls—all seemed worn and tawdry.

Pitot reemerged after a few minutes, his hair hastily combed, in a sweatshirt and jacket. He walked past me into the front yard. I followed him outside. He stopped at the well.

“You! What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I’m trying to find out what happened to Richard Wilson,” I said simply. “You were there.”

“I had to come home. To help my family with the harvest.”

I looked out to a field of scrappy vines. There was nothing to suggest that extra assistance was necessary to bring in whatever nondescript fruit the vines had yielded.

“You work here?” I asked.

“I’m late,” he said. “I have to go.”

He walked to a carport on the side of the house and lifted a motor scooter off its kickstand.

“What happened the evening Richard was murdered?” I said.

He ran alongside the scooter and jump-started it. The bike lurched and sputtered.

“I wasn’t there,” he called.

“Eric Feldman just told me that Wilson has a kid, a child who’s French. Know anything about that?” I shouted.

“I have nothing to do with it!” He turned out of the drive and onto the road and sped off without looking back.

 

As I crossed
the square in Beaune, I saw Rosen and Bayne coming from the opposite side. Workers were unwrapping a small carousel as if it were a giant present the town had given itself to celebrate the Hospices de Beaune. The public tastings and auction always drew thousands.

On the far side of the
place
, I could see Goldoni pacing in front of a hamburger joint that seemed grotesquely out of place.

“Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been here twenty minutes!” he reproached us.

We ordered from a small outdoor window and took a table inside, sipping beer. Rosen and Goldoni tested each other on where they’d been and what they’d tasted. When the burgers finally came, Goldoni ate with tasteless and unseemly abandon and, not even through one sandwich, hobbled outside to order another and to demand the whereabouts of the
pommes frites
he’d requested the first time around.

“Where are you off to next?” Goldoni inquired, his mouth stuffed with a mixture of ground beef, cheese, and potatoes.

“We have an appointment at Chabosson. And then Thibaut,” Rosen told him.

“You really have to taste Gauthier,” Goldoni insisted. “His wines are incredible this year.”

“He’s not my grower,” Rosen said. “But you’re still on for the tasting Friday?”

“
Bien sûr.
Who’s coming?”

“Everybody. The total lineup.”

“What time do we get started?”

“Ten. We’ll break for lunch around noon, one o’clock, then finish up.”

The girl dropped Goldoni’s second burger on the table.

“
Une autre pression, s’il vous plaît
,” he called after her, needing another beer to wash it all down. As Goldoni scarfed the sandwich, Rosen and I lit up. The light flooding in from the
place
filtered through the smoky haze.

“You were close to Richard,” I said to Goldoni. “Maybe closer than anyone. Who do you think killed him?”

He looked at me, then at Rosen.

“What’s going on?” Goldoni said.

Bayne, who had been uncharacteristically subdued throughout the meal, stared at both of us in turn, suddenly in his element.

“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” I said. “You don’t seem terribly concerned about it. You’re sitting pretty right about now, aren’t you? The newsletter all to yourself, winemakers kissing your ass. You’re a big, powerful critic.”

“I don’t like your tone. Or your insinuations,” Goldoni responded, setting the half-eaten burger on the paper plate.

“Why aren’t you scared?” I said.

“Scared of what?” Goldoni said.

“I don’t know. Of being a suspect. Of being next.”

“If he’s afraid of anything, it’s probably the power he has now,” Rosen broke in.

Goldoni took an enormous bite of the sandwich. I took a different tack.

“Did you know that Richard has a child?”

“Bullshit,” he said. At this, Bayne let out a guffaw. Rosen remained silent but intent on the exchange.

“He never mentioned it?” I said.

“Complete, total bullshit. Who told you that?”

“Eric Feldman. An hour ago.” Rosen now stared at me.

“And you believe him?” Goldoni rolled his eyes. “Eric would say anything to get back at Richard. He keeps it up, I’ll sue his ass.” He dropped his napkin on the plate, got up, and trundled outside.

Bayne rose from the table, casting a critical eye in my direction. Rosen stood and crushed his cigarette out.

“Very delicate touch,” Bayne said. “This your idea of extracting information?” He towered over me. “A word of advice, Stern: You’re supposed to make ’em think you’re their best buddy in the world, be a good ole boy. Get ’em to trust you. Tell ’em a story, and then, when they start correctin’ you, you let ’em spin it out till they trip themselves up. That’s when you go for the jug’lur. They’ll hang themselves, if you let ’em.” His expression changed: the cold, ruthless attorney. “Cross-examination one oh one,” he said and turned. “Count yourself lucky you never went into the law,” he added over his shoulder.

Rosen scowled and followed him, leaving me to take care of the check.

By the time I got outside, they’d taken off. My eyes fell on the unwrapped carousel, the horses frozen midgallop in the frigid air, as if time had stopped.

 

I had no
choice but to pick up the trail where I’d last seen Feldman. I found my way back to the highway and headed toward Nuits.
Did it ever occur to you that Richard was murdered not because of what he did but because of who he was?
What was that supposed to mean? Aren’t we what we do? And what did Wilson do? He traveled and tasted and judged and wrote about it. He made and destroyed reputations. That’s what he did. And what
was
he? A wine critic. A preternaturally talented palate. What had Feldman meant? What was he hinting at? What did he know, beyond the astounding fact of Wilson’s having an illegitimate child?

Something, that much was obvious. That’s why he’d made the call to Wilson, whom he otherwise despised and avoided like the plague. Then again, maybe Goldoni was right. Maybe Feldman
wanted to get back at Wilson for everything Richard had done to him when he was alive.

But the revelation that Richard had fathered a child had stunned me. I was sure Janie knew nothing about it, or else she certainly would have told me. I needed to find Feldman, and this time, I promised myself, I wouldn’t let him off so easily. Not until he’d told me everything he knew.

I drove back to Collet-Favreau. Claudine sat at her computer in the office. She was surprised to see me
.

“
Salut
, Babe. What do you need? You are not with Freddy?” she said.

“No, they went on to another tasting. I’m trying to find Eric Feldman.”

“But I have not seen him. He did not come back today.”

“No, I realize that. He said from here he was going to see Trenet.”

“Ah,
oui
, Domaine Trenet.”

“It wouldn’t, by any chance, be near here, would it?”

“Yes, it is very close.” We walked outside. “You go down this road about two hundred meters, turn left and then right. The domaine is on your right. You will see the sign.”

“
Merci, Madame.
”

“
Je vous en prie
, Babe.” She seemed slightly mystified by the whole thing.

I followed her directions and parked on the side of the road in front of a low wall. A bronze plaque read DOMAINE G. TRENET ET FILS. A wrought-iron gate stood open, framing a graveled courtyard that contained a tractor, one ancient and one modern wagon, a rusted wheel, and a child’s bike. The place seemed poised to break into motion at a moment’s notice. A black Labrador bitch dutifully rose to her feet, barked once, then circled and flopped in the shade of the archaic wagon, her sagging teats splayed in the dust. At the sound of the dog’s warning, a man emerged from a shed.

He was an elderly, elfin fellow dressed in the traditional blue work clothes of the countryside, a small beret perched on the crown of his head. His face had been baked by the sun, and his hands seemed carved of wood, as if they were some mysterious human extension of the vines they had pruned for seventy years.

“I am looking for Monsieur Trenet.”

“
Je suis Trenet.
”

I explained that I’d been with Freddy Rosen and Eric Feldman earlier in the day at Domaine Collet-Favreau and that I was looking for Feldman, who’d mentioned that he was on his way here.

“
Oui
” was all he said.

Did he know where Feldman was going after their tasting?

He shook his head.

What about an educated guess?

He thought for a moment. “Feldman arrived here from Collet-Favreau. It was before lunch. He tasted quickly, took notes.”

“What did you talk about?” I said. “Did he mention anything about his other appointments? Did you ask where he was going next?”

Trenet shrugged. “We discussed the usual. And then he left.”

“But where did he go? Who was he going to meet?” I repeated irritably.

“He didn’t say. I think he was having lunch.”

“At a restaurant?”

“I’m not sure. He was late. He left in a hurry.
C’est tout.
”

It was pointless. I was wasting my time, thanked him, and shook hands. He disappeared into the shed.

Restaurants were probably a dead end. You go to one from your last appointment in order to continue the conversation. If you’re met by another grower, it’s because he
is
the next appointment, the liaison between the morning and afternoon tastings. No one has the time to waste on lunch unless it’s going to result in
commerce
, and, anyway, it wasn’t possible to stop by every restaurant in the area to try to pick up Feldman’s trail.

I turned around and drove back to Collet-Favreau. In the courtyard where Rosen had railed against Joubert’s impudence, the
vigneron
and his wife were standing sharing a cigarette, talking. They looked startled as I came through the gate.

“I’m sorry to bother you again. You’re quite certain that you don’t know where Monsieur Feldman was having lunch?”

Claudine looked to her husband.

“No, I do not know,” he said.

“Did Eric mention, by any chance, where he was going later?”

They both hesitated, and she was the one who finally answered, “No, I don’t think so.” She gave me the names of several domaines in the immediate vicinity, all of which I’d seen in his newsletter, then said, “And perhaps you should try Domaine Carrière in Chambolle-Musigny. It would make sense. I know he visits every year.”

“Do you mind if I call you again? I hate to keep bothering you,” I said.

“As you wish,” she said. “
Au revoir.
”

I could see them in the rearview mirror as I executed a three-point turn. They gazed at me, baffled as to what I was up to. I wasn’t sure I knew, myself.

I dropped by the domaines Claudine had suggested, only one of which I knew from my former incarnation. Each conversation was a version of the useless exchange I’d had with Monsieur Trenet; none of the
vignerons
dared to ask Feldman where he was headed next.

I thought about packing it in, then figured I might as well swing by Domaine Carrière before driving back to the hotel. I had nothing to lose.

I drove through
the twisting, narrow streets of Chambolle. Domaine Carrière was located on the back side of the village set beneath an outcropping of rock. I pulled into the shadow of a brick wall topped with wrought iron. The domaine was beautifully kept, its stone buildings like rustic barns covered in ivy, a willow and lacy pine enclosed in a brick-lined, fenced garden. I crossed the courtyard where a man was stacking cases of bottles sheathed in plastic and asked for the
patron.
He pointed toward the buildings.

I crossed the
cuverie
, its floor and walls concrete, the room outfitted with a row of
foudres
, a double concrete fermenting tank, and a pair of stainless steel fermenters, and descended to the
cave.
A small anteroom led to the first cellar, where a man crouched over a barrel with his back to me, topping it off with wine from an unmarked bottle.