Tangled Vines (30 page)

Aware of that and the crop loss that mold would cause, Sam pushed his chair back from the table. “I'd better call Murphy and arrange to have his helicopters on priority standby.”

“Helicopters,” Katherine repeated sharply. “What possible use would we have for them?”

“After the rain stops, Mother Nature might not send us strong enough winds to dry the grapes. I plan on using the helicopters to give her a helping hand.”

“Really, Sam,” she murmured in disapproval. “I know you have always had an interest in aircraft. No doubt it is a diverting hobby for you, but the vineyards are no place to indulge your hobbies.”

“This has nothing to do with my interest in flying, Katherine.”

“Please do not insult my intelligence.” She gave him a cold, angry look. “If it was not for your interest in flying, this foolish notion would never have occurred to you.”

“There is nothing foolish about it.” Sam fought to keep his voice level. “On the contrary, it is both logical and practical. The rotating blades of helicopters hovering over a vineyard act like a giant fan blowing air directly onto the plants. I admit there has been limited use of them in situations like this, but when they have been employed, they have proven to be fairly effective, especially when the leaves around the grape clusters have been cut back.”

“Perhaps.” But her expression showed she was unconvinced. “But we have never used them before and I see no reason to begin now.”

“I do.” Sam rose from his chair and walked over to the telephone.

“What are you doing?” Katherine demanded when he picked up the receiver.

“Calling Murphy.” He began punching out the numbers on the touch-tone phone.

“Did you hear nothing I said?”

“I heard.” He held the receiver to his ear.

“And you would deliberately go against my wishes in this?” she challenged indignantly.

“I would. I don't intend to lose half our crop to mold the way we did a few years ago just because you can't see the advantage of a new method.”

Stung by his open defiance, Katherine reacted sharply. “Hang up that telephone at once!”

“Hold on a minute, Murphy.” Sam said into the phone, then lowered it, cupping a hand over the mouthpiece. “Are you making that an order, Katherine?” He studied her with a hard, level gaze. “Because if you are, I'm going to ignore it. It's my job to do what's best for the vineyards, and if that angers you, so be it.”

The good of the vines. The phrase echoed from her past. She looked at Sam for another long second, then waved a hand. “Arrange for the helicopters if you must. We shall see how they do.”

He lifted the phone back to his ear. “Murphy, this is Sam Rutledge. Looks like we might need your helicopters.”

The high school, the thrift shop where she'd gotten nearly all her clothes, the crumbling brick tavern where her father had spent most of his time, the restaurants where she'd worked as a dishwasher – never slim enough or pretty enough to wait tables – Kelly drove slowly by all of them. Not running from the memories this time, but facing them. Remembering all the pain of not belonging, not wearing the right clothes, not being pretty or popular, not being asked out on dates, of being different, being ashamed of who and what she was, who her father was and what he was, the snickers, the snide remarks.

But there was the town library with its shelves of books that had given her so many, many hours of escape, the newspaper office where her article on the wine history of Napa Valley had been published, the house where her English teacher had lived, and there was her friendship with Ollie. Bright spots among all the darker memories.

Somehow they made it easier when Kelly turned off Main and traveled West on Spring Street. There was little traffic. The road was straight and clear, but she drove slowly, just the same. There was no hurry as she retraced the route by car that she had made so often on foot.

Near the outskirts of town, she came to the cemetery. A dozen long-stemmed roses, as red as the ruby wine from the valley's grapes, lay on the seat beside her, a yellow ribbon tying them together. Kelly gathered them up in her arms and left the car parked outside the entrance. She could have driven in, but she wanted to walk the last yards to her mother's grave.

The cemetery was as old as the town, a mixed collection of weathered gravestones, crypts, and family vaults. Now and then Kelly paused along the way to read familiar names chiseled in granite and marble.

Her steps slowed as she approached her, mother's grave. A vase filled with a mixed bouquet of daisies, carnations, and baby's breath stood on the ground next to the marker engraved with the name REBECCA ELLEN DOUGHERTY and the epitaph BELOVED WIFE.

“He brought them, didn't he?” Kelly glared at the flowers. An anger swept through her, so hot and strong she shook with it. She wanted to pick them up and hurl them from her sight. She wanted to, but she didn't. Her mother wouldn't have liked it.

She crouched down and gently laid the roses next to the headstone. “Oh, Momma.” Her voice cracked a little. “How could he do this to us? How could he?”

The minute she said it, Kelly knew what she had to do. Not for him. For her mother – and for herself.

Framed law certificates shared wall space with a photograph of the governor and the state seal of California. The chunky desk was cluttered with yellow legal pads, a haphazard stack of thick file folders, a black telephone, and a posed picture of two little dark-haired girls wearing glasses. A white paper sack sat squarely in the midst of all of it, a half-eaten ham and cheese sandwich on rye lying atop a matching white wrapper. The swivel office chair creaked when Ollie stood up to greet Kelly, hurriedly wiping his hands on a paper napkin.

Kelly saw the sandwich and hesitated. “Is it lunchtime already?”

“I was having an early one.” He stuffed the sandwich back in the sack and shifted to a corner of his desk near the computer terminal. “I didn't have time to grab any breakfast this morning.”

His remark reminded her of the reason she was here. She looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. “I didn't mean to interrupt.”

“It's okay. Honestly.” He smiled in reassurance, giving her a glimpse of the boy who had been her friend. “Have a seat, Liz. Sorry. It's Kelly now, isn't it?”

She sat down on the edge of the leather-backed chair facing his desk, the only one without papers stacked on seat cushions. “I had it legally changed nine years ago.”

“You look great, Kelly.” The swivel chair creaked again, taking his weight.

“Thank you.” She searched for something to say, something that would make this awkwardness go away. “You knew who I was right away, didn't you?”

“Your voice,” he said with a faint shrug. “It's pretty unmistakable. Maybe because I listened to it so often.”

“We used to talk a lot, didn't we?” She smiled in remembrance. “You don't know how many times I've thought about you, wondered where you were, what you were doing. I assumed you had-moved away from here long ago. When I saw you today at...” She let the sentence trail off, unfinished. Now wasn't the time and this wasn't the place to reminisce or try to bridge the gap of intervening years. “Ollie, is it possible for me to see him?”

“I can arrange it.” He nodded and studied her closely. “If you're sure that's what you want.”

“It isn't what I want. It's what I have to do.” She looked down at her linked fingers, then lifted her head. “Does he have a lawyer?”

“No. The court can appoint one for him.”

“Yes, but the charge is murder.” Unable to sit any longer, Kelly pushed out of the chair and walked over to the window, hugging her arms around her waist. “He'll need a good one, Ollie. I know it's improper to ask the prosecutor to recommend a defense lawyer, but I don't know who else to ask,” she said tightly.

Kelly turned back around. For a long time Ollie was silent and she couldn't think of anything to break the silence. Finally he reached for one of the yellow legal pads on his desk.

“I'll give you some names. You can take it from there.” He began writing on the pad, in that awkward upside-down way of left-handers. When he finished, he ripped off the sheet and held it out to her. Kelly hesitated then walked over to take it from him.

“Thanks.” She folded it and slipped it inside her clutch purse.

He adjusted his glasses higher on his nose. “You know I always wondered if we'd ever meet again. To be honest, I never thought it would be in a situation like this.”

“Neither did I.” Kelly ran her hand over the top of her purse, then sat back down on the chair. “Did he make a statement?”

“No.”

“Are you sure -” she began, then stopped, shaking her head. “You must be sure or you wouldn't have charged him with murder.”

“Do you want the facts, Kelly?” he asked gently. “An eyewitness puts him on the scene with the murder weapon in his hand. A gasoline can was found not three feet from the body. It was full. There was a gasoline stain on the pants your father was wearing when he was arrested. Three more cans were found in the trunk of his car. And a receipt for four gallons of gasoline was found in the pocket of those same pants. His grudge against Rutledge Estate is fairly common knowledge in the valley.”

Slowly she put the pieces together. “So you believe he went there to set fire to the winery; the baron caught him in the act; and he hit him.” Which meant it wasn't a deliberate act. Somehow that made it easier to accept.

“Those are your words, not mine.” But he didn't deny them.

“I understand.” Kelly shifted her grip on her purse. “When can I see him?”

He looked at her for a long second, then tossed his pen down and rocked back on his chair. “Don't get yourself dragged into this. You don't owe him anything. Walk away.”

A smile of rueful amusement tugged at one corner of her mouth. “Wouldn't the tabloids have a field day with that? ‘Famous Daughter Deserts Father Accused of Murder.'” Kelly paused, sobering. “But that isn't the reason I'm staying. If I walked away, then I'd be just like he is. And I'm not.”

“No, you aren't,” Ollie agreed and reached for the phone. “How soon do you want to see your father?”

Never. “As soon as possible.”

Ollie took Kelly at her word. Fifteen minutes later she was ushered into a small, windowless room somewhere deep in the building. It smelled of sweat, stale smoke, and not enough air. She sat at a scarred, black-and-chrome office desk and waited, but not long.

In less than a minute a uniformed guard escorted her father into the room, then stationed himself inside near the door. Her father pulled out the wooden chair and sat down facing her, and Kelly had her first really good look at him.

He was barely sixty, yet he looked ten years older. His hair, once a dark shade of auburn like hers, was sparse and streaked with gray. His green eyes were pale and watery and his complexion had a shallow, sickly look to it, broken blood vessels leaving a network of tracks across his cheeks and nose. He seemed smaller, thinner, as if he'd shrunk in the years since she'd last seen him.

“Got a cigarette, Lizzie-girl?” He fidgeted in his chair and she knew it was whiskey he wanted more than a cigarette. It had always been whiskey.

Wordlessly Kelly took a cigarette from her purse, lit it, and passed it to him, butt-end first. She lit one for herself and exhaled the smoke in a thin angry stream.

“My name is Kelly now,” she said stiffly.

“Kelly was your momma's name before she married me. Rebecca Ellen Kelly.” He smiled, but his smile was a little off center. “Made me feel good when I heard you using it. Have you been out to her grave?”

“Yes.”

“I took some flowers to her, just yesterday it was.”

She wanted to scream at him not to talk about, her mother. He didn't have the right. But she hadn't come here to fight with him.

“I have the names of some defense attorneys,” she told him. “I'll talk to them this afternoon and arrange for one of them to represent you.”

“No need for that.” His hand shook when he tapped the ash from his cigarette in the black plastic ashtray on the desk. “I can get a public defender. We'll need your money to keep the Rutledges from stealing my vineyard. Don't spend it on a lawyer.”

“This isn't some little scrape. This time you won't get away with a fine and a few days in jail.”

“You think I don't know that,” he shot back.

“I'm hiring a lawyer to defend you.” Kelly took a quick puff on her cigarette, then lowered it and flicked her thumbnail back and forth over the filter tip. “The vineyard isn't going to do you any good in prison, and that's exactly where you're going.”

His rheumy eyes narrowed on her in accusation. “You think I did it, don't you? You think I killed that baron.”

The guard looked on, his expression stoic, but he had to be hearing every word. That didn't stop her father, and Kelly didn't let it stop her.

“You tell me,” she challenged coolly, realizing that because of him, she had learned to run early in her life. Flight had always been the best defense against his drunken abuse.

“I didn't do it.” He searched her face, then something seemed to break inside him and he lowered his head, dragging a hand through his sparse, graying hair. “You don't believe me. Nobody believes me.” He snorted a laugh. “You can bet she counted on that. That's why she told the police I did it. With me in jail, there's no way I can get my hands on the money to keep her from taking my land. I can't even get my grapes picked. She's a smart one, all right.” He shook his head, and the ash tumbled from the end Of his cigarette onto the battered desk top. “Cagey as a fox and cold as an iceberg, she is. She wants my land back. It doesn't matter to her that I'm innocent.”