Seven Sisters (17 page)

“Be right in, honey,” he said. “Me and Ms. Harper here are having a little talk. Give us some privacy.”

She glanced at me, her pretty, freckled face frowning slightly before turning around and going back into the tasting room. Her irritated walk spoke volumes about their relationship.

I raised my eyebrows in a silent, inquiring gesture.

He twirled the glass by its stem and tried to look chagrined. “She’s kinda possessive. Which is ironic considering how free she is with her favors.”

I wasn’t about to touch that remark. “Who is she?” I asked.

“Just one of the tasting room girls. Giles brought her on. When he was through with her, she and I dated a few times, had a few laughs, a roll or two in the hay—literally.” He gave a cynical laugh. “She thinks that constitutes some kind of relationship. But she’s a good worker and usually a pretty fun gal. Sure you don’t want any wine?”

“No, thanks.” I held up the brochure in my hand. “I think I’m going to take a stroll through the rose garden, then go look for Bliss again.”

“No problem. You come by any time.” He gave me a wet, lopsided smile and moved his face within inches of mine. His breath was sour and stale-smelling. “My casa is always your casa.”

I took a step backwards, inhaling a shallow breath. “Uh, thanks.”

As I watched him walk back up the steps into the tasting room, I added his information to what JJ had told me. I had been surprised to hear that Cappy interceded for the tasting room girl when she was caught with Giles. Usually it’s the weaker person in a relationship, invariably the woman, who ends up losing a job or reputation whenever there’s an illicit affair. But I knew Cappy was a fair woman and the least pretentious of the sisters. Maybe she was truly trying to be egalitarian about the situation—assigning blame to both sides where it should be.

Then again, I thought, following a group of khaki-clad wine tasters toward the rose garden, maybe Giles had had something really big on her . . . or the family, giving him the kind of power that would keep his ex-lover employed even under his spoiled wife’s aristocratic nose. Did Arcadia perhaps have some knowledge about what Giles had on the family? Why else would she put up with one of her husband’s lovers working so closely with him in the winery?

It took me about an hour to see the entire garden, which, according to the shiny brochure, contained ten acres of every type of rose imaginable. Many bushes were in full bloom because of the late summer weather. The sheer number of them was breathtaking. Reading the names of the roses—Apothecary’s Rose, Yankee Doodle, Bride’s Dream, Secret, Golden Wings, Don Juan, Magic Carrousel—reminded me of the names conceived for wines and quilts. In the center of the garden was a great old queenly rosebush thick with large, heady-smelling blooms—white with red tips. Surrounding it were seven slightly smaller bushes in shades of pink, yellow, and red-orange. The way the flowers were planted almost duplicated the actual Seven Sisters quilt pattern that I’d looked up this morning in my encyclopedia of quilt patterns. I wondered if whoever had planted them had known that. In the quilt pattern there was one star or “sister” in the middle and six surrounding it, similar to the constellation after which it was named.

I glanced at the literature and saw the roses were hybrids named for the seven Brown sisters and their mother. The rose in the center was, naturally, Rose Jewel, the others Capitola Jewel, Willowdeen Jewel, Etta Jewel, Daisy Jewel, Dahlia Jewel, Beulah Jewel, and Bethany Jewel. The last four were obviously the two sets of twins who had died. What took their lives? Back in the early part of the century, it could have been anything. Many of the cemeteries around San Celina had tiny gravestones erected because of an encounter with influenza or some infectious disease that was incurable before our current medical advances. I wondered if the grandmother, Rose Jewel, thought much about the babies she’d lost so long ago. I sat down on one of the stone benches and listened to the trickling of the four fountains situated in each corner of the center courtyard. Wine tasters wandered up and down the rows, exclaiming over the roses, marveling at their size, abundance, and variety.

“Quite an awesome bush, isn’t it?” Susa Girard asked, sitting down next to me.

“It certainly is,” I agreed, surprised to see her. “Just how old is the Rose Jewel?”

“At least sixty years old,” she said. “It originally was up next to the house in a small rose garden that Great-Grandfather started. When he died, Grandma Rose couldn’t bear to look at them, much less care for them, so they were moved down here, and gradually this garden emerged. Jose, our ranch manager, has been the main caretaker since Great-Grandfather died. And with the winery, they’ve now become quite the attraction. It’s one of the biggest private rose gardens in California.”

“So it says here,” I said, holding up the brochure. We sat for a moment in silence.

“Benni,” she finally said. “I just talked to JJ a little while ago, and she told me about the note she found in Bliss’s possession. I have a confession to make.”

I didn’t say anything, but continued studying the slick brochure in my hands. This family had more secrets than a locker room of teenage girls, and it seemed as if I was destined to be a part of their clique.

“I...” She stopped, hesitated, then started again. “I was the one Giles sent it to. Bliss found it in my room and insisted on taking it.” Her voice faltered, causing me to look up at her. The finely etched lines around her eyes tightened as the sun passed from behind a cloud and brightened the air around us. “She said it would be better if she kept it. That it looked too . . . incriminating for me to have it in my possession.”

Keep it or destroy it,
I wondered. It’s true that it implicated Cappy big-time, and Cappy had a good enough motive just with the conflict between the winery and the ranch.

“When did Giles give it to you?” I asked.

“Monday morning.” Her voice stayed low, and I had to move closer to hear her words above the laughing and conversation of other people.

“The day of the party?” Things were looking worse and worse for Cappy.

She nodded, breathing in short, shallow breaths.

“Did you show it to Cappy?’

She gave an ironic laugh. “I was going to wait until after the party so Bliss and Sam’s evening wouldn’t be ruined.” Sitting this close to her, I could see her strong resemblance to Cappy in her firm jaw and proud chin.

“Do you have any idea what he meant by ‘it’? What about the lily of the valley? Do you know the significance of that?”

“No.”

“Why would he give the note to you and not Cappy?” I asked.

“I have no idea. Maybe he thought I’d be able to talk her into doing what he wanted. Maybe he thought he could scare her by getting me involved. My mother is . . . ” She swallowed hard. “. . . very protective of her family. That’s not a secret, I’m sure you know.”

Maybe he’s the one who should have been scared,
I thought. “And what he wanted her to do was vote to merge the Seven Sisters winery with Norton Winery.”

“Yes, but she never would have done that. It could possibly harm the breeding operation in a big way because the winery would take—some people would say destroy—all the best grazing land. And more important, we’d be beholden to someone else, to Giles’s father, who Cappy’s hated from the first minute they met. Nothing would convince her to vote to merge our holdings with theirs.”

That’s not what Chase had just told me.
I kept that to myself. “Why does Cappy hate Giles’s father?”

Her natural-colored glossy lips formed a wry smile. “Two peas in a pod is what I’d guess, though she’d throttle me if she ever heard that.” She smoothed down her yellow cotton skirt. “Benni, I don’t believe Cappy would ever hurt anyone. Not even to save her horses. Really, my mother does have a very high moral code.”

I didn’t answer. We never want to believe that people we know or care about are capable of terrible and cruel acts. One, it was too frightening to think we wouldn’t know evil even when it sat at the breakfast table with us, and two, it was even more frightening to think we’d harbor that same evil within ourselves.

I cleared my throat, feeling awkward and apologetic. “I’ll have to tell Detective Hudson, you know.”

“I wish JJ would have come to me first.” She left it at that, knowing better than to ask me not to. If JJ had gone to her mother first, there’s a good chance it would have stopped there.

“He seems like a fair man,” I said, folding the brochure over and sticking it in the back pocket of my jeans. “That note doesn’t mean Cappy did anything, but Detective Hudson will probably want to talk with you both again.” I tried to encourage her. “The fact you didn’t show it to her helps, I’m sure.”

Her face became still. A soft wind blew tendrils of gray-blond hair around her eyes, but she didn’t blink or brush them away. “I know that JJ put you in an awkward position, what with your husband being the chief of police. I apologize for my daughter. Normally she would have come to me first, but these days . . . ” Her voice trailed off again. It was a trait I was beginning to see was common for her.

“She just got scared. I was a convenient adult, I think. She was trying to keep you from being involved. Maybe she was afraid it would cause problems between you and Cappy.”

“Thank you for listening to her and for being so kind to Bliss.”

“You have wonderful daughters.”

“Yes, they are.” She stood up and used one hand to pull back her long hair. “It seems in spite of Moonie and me.”

As she started walking away, a thought occurred to me.

“Susa, there’s one thing I wondered.”

She turned, her silvery eyes dark and questioning. “Yes?”

“Why did you leave Seven Sisters when the girls were so young? I mean, forgive my curiosity, but I just wondered.”

“No great mysterious reason. Moonie just didn’t feel comfortable in San Celina County or with my family. You can see why. Cappy and the aunts can be pretty overpowering, and my mother didn’t like Moonie much.”

An easygoing, hippie-type guy who preferred commune living to building an empire. No, he wouldn’t be Cappy’s dream husband for her only daughter.

“Is that all?” I asked, hoping for more.

An unreadable expression swept over her face—bewil—derment, anger, sadness? I couldn’t tell.

“Are you close to your family, Benni?” she asked.

I stuck my hands deep into the pockets of my jeans. “We have our squabbles, but, yes, I’d say we’re close.”

“No secrets?”

Remembering all that had happened last May concerning my own past and that of my mother and of my father’s often frustrating reserve and lack of openness, I answered, “Every family has secrets, I think.” I inhaled deeply, the overwhelming sweetness of the hundreds of roses making me slightly sick to my stomach.

“Maybe so, but there were too many unanswerable ones in the Brown family for my taste. Moonie and I wanted to raise our girls in a more open environment. And we did. I don’t regret leaving at all. As a matter of fact, if it were possible, I would have never come back to Seven Sisters. But it’s JJ’s and Bliss’s heritage. Good or bad, I couldn’t keep it from them forever. I just worry that the malevolence I’ve always sensed permeated the Brown family will hurt my girls. Especially now that Bliss is going to have a baby. I’ll never forgive myself if it does.” She turned and walked away before I could question her more.

What secrets? Secrets terrible enough that the family could be blackmailed? Secrets terrible enough to kill to keep hidden?

Those questions churned through my brain when I walked back to my truck. I poured some bottled water into a tin pie plate for Scout. While he gratefully lapped it up, I contemplated my next move. My answer came when Cappy drove up in her old Jeep Wagoneer.

“Benni! One of the grooms told me you were here,” she said, climbing out. Her expression appeared congenial and welcoming.

“I thought I’d come out and see if Bliss was working any of the horses. And I hadn’t gone through the winetasting room and rose garden yet.”

She reached down and scratched behind Scout’s ears. “So, what did you think of them?” His tail wagged slowly.

“The adobe’s been restored wonderfully. And the rose garden is spectacular.”

“They should be. They cost enough.”

Just the opening I needed. “What’s going to happen now? Wasn’t the winery mostly Giles’s business?”

Her weathered face seemed to lengthen, and her lips and eyes narrowed to a thin line. I remembered the look. Suddenly I felt fifteen again.

“That still hasn’t been decided,” she said, her voice short. “Is there something I can do for you?”

I felt my face turn red. “No, like I said, I was just coming out to see if Bliss was working the horses . . . ”

“She won’t be doing that for a while. She’s not happy about it, but I won’t have her taking any chances with the baby.”

I nodded. “Yes, I understand. I guess I’ll go, then.”

She looked straight into my eyes, a cold steel gray that didn’t show a hint of her years. They were the same eyes that gave me no sympathy when, tears in my own hazel eyes, I fell off my barrel-racing pony for the fifth time.
Your own fault,
she’d said at the time.
God gave you thighs for a reason. Use them to stick to your pony the next time.
“That would be best. Give my regards to Dove.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Her back stiff as an oak trunk, she strode toward her Jeep, then stopped and faced me. “Benni, no matter what Bliss says, please don’t come out to the stables again without my knowledge. We have a strict routine with the horses, and new people make them nervous.”

My face was hot enough to fry eggs. “Yes, ma’am.”

On the drive back, Gabe’s annoyingly smug voice silently reprimanded me for my snooping.
That’s what you get,
it said.
Are you embarrassed enough to mind your own business now?

At home, I took a quick shower and changed into new black jeans, my dressy Tony Lama boots, and a teal-colored silk tank top with a lacy V front. With black and silver Navajo earrings, I didn’t look quite as much like I’d just come in from cleaning horse stalls.