Up In Smoke: Spirit of the Soul Wine Shop Mystery (A Rysen Morris Mystery Book 3) (5 page)

She tried to rearrange the pieces of her donut on the plate to fit them back into shape, but they didn’t want to stay together now that she had torn them apart.

Why wasn’t anything ever simple in her life?

If he noticed how distracted she was he didn’t say anything about it.  Instead, his voice was cheerful and even maybe a little bit excited.  “Now.  Let’s get started.  Where does this Mason fellow live?”

Resigned to the fact that she was going to have to be with Brandon, for today anyway, and maybe the next few days while they investigated the fire, she told herself she may as well get paid for her time.  It was just one more thing she was going to have to explain to Josh.

It struck her that she had intentionally left this part out when she had talked to Josh.  She hadn’t been ready to tell him.

Would she ever be ready?  He would try to argue her out of it, even though it was something she wanted for herself.

“I’ll show you the way to Mason’s house,” she told him, downing half of her coffee and wishing there was time for more.  “Let’s get going.”

“Your car or mine?” he asked.

She stopped halfway out of her seat.  That was something she hadn’t thought about.  Of course they were going to take the same car.  It didn’t make any sense to take two.  “Let’s take mine,” she said, thinking that at least if she was driving she could keep her mind on the road and not on him.

“Aces.  Lead the way.”

The scenery around Cambria slipped away around them as she drove.  Rolling hills.  Trees, here and there.  Acres and acres of grape vines waving in the wind, dotted with purple and red and green clusters ripening in the sun.  Rysen wore her black Rayban sunglasses, the ones that hid even the corners of her eyes, so she was able to steal glances at Brandon without him knowing it.

He sat without saying anything for most of the way.  She appreciated him trying to give her space even here in the car, but she wished he would say something.  It wouldn’t be half so awkward if they could just talk to each other.

“So…two thousand hours a year,” she said.  It was all she could come up with.

“It sounds like a lot, too right, but really it just flies by.”

“Is that how you got into this?”

“Nope.  I had to do it the hard way.  For you it’ll be easy.”

“Easy?” she asked.  “That doesn’t sound easy.  That sounds like a lot of work.”

“Oh, come on now.  You’ve already got an hour under that pretty belt of yours.  Just one thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine left to go.”

“I’m not wearing a belt.”

His eyes dipped down to her waist.  She kept herself facing very carefully forward but at the same time she watched the expression on his face.  She liked the way he looked at her.  It was a mature kind of hunger she saw in his eyes.  Similar to the way Josh had looked at her on the couch last night, just different.  Somehow, different.

This was going to be really hard for her if he kept looking at her like that.

She could do this.  She could stay true to Josh and still spend time with Brandon.  He was just a man.  Just a gorgeous, helpful, beautiful man…

Growling, she pulled her eyes back to the road.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Fine.  We’re here.”  They were, thankfully.  Because how was she going to explain to him she was mad at herself for falling for him all over again?

Mason Blaithe owned a few rundown acres of grapevines near the edge of the county.  The soil out here was poor, the irrigation nearly nonexistent, and everything that grew suffered for it.  Rysen saw the peach trees as they drove down the long and winding driveway leading up to the small home with its attached garage that had apparently been converted into a home winery.

If this was where Blaithe had been making his peach wine, no wonder the few bottles they had sold for him had been so foul.  How he managed to make that first sample bottle taste so good was beyond her.  The rest had been crap.

Brandon took his time looking around as they parked in front of the house with its cracked stucco walls.  “Not much of an outfit, is it?”

“A lot of people around here make their own wine in closets or their bedrooms.  Everyone thinks they can make it rich selling their own brand.”

“Does it work?  Selling wine to get rich?”

“Not usually.  There’s a few private labels that catch on and make decent sales.  Most of them stay on the shelves forever or get sold for a few bucks apiece.  It’s hard to compete with the major labels like Corbett Canyon or Martini and Rossi.”

“Easier to be the ones selling the wine?” he asked her.

“Sure.  Unless your shop gets torched.”

He didn’t have anything to say to that and she was actually grateful for his silence this time.  All these bad things, happening to her and her sister.  There had to be a reason.

Would they find it here?

She followed Brandon up to the simple wooden door and waited while he banged on the door with the side of his fist.  There was no answer.  He knocked again, louder, and Rysen was afraid the door would break.

“Hey!  Get away from my house!’  The shout came at them from inside the garage.  Mason Blaithe came out, wearing a filthy white apron over his clothes, wiping his grape-stained hands on a rag that was just as dirty.  Rysen remembered his stringy, thinning hair and his sunken cheeks.  The guy gave the impression of being deathly sick even as he advanced on them while shaking an angry fist.

Brandon stepped in front of Rysen, and just stood there, smiling.  Mason stopped well out of arm’s reach.  He might be angry, but at least he wasn’t stupid.

His eyes narrowed at Rysen.  “I remember you.  You and your sister.  What are you doing here?  Didn’t you do enough to ruin me?”

“Mister Blaithe,” Brandon spoke to him, “you know Rysen.  It’s pretty obvious you don’t like her.  Let me ask you this.  Where were you two days ago in the morning?”

“What?  Who the hell are you?”

“My name is Brandon Dennicort.  Rysen and her sister hired me to find out who burned down their shop.”

Blaithe nodded with a smile that showed off crooked, yellow teeth.  “I heard about that.  Guess karma comes back to bite you in the end, don’t it?”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Brandon pointed out.

“Don’t have to, either.  Get off my property.  Don’t come back.”

That smile unnerved Rysen.  It was like he knew something she didn’t.  Something vile and disgusting.  Like he was keeping a secret.

Maybe even a secret about who set the fire.

He was already walking away from them and Rysen felt their chance of getting him to talk slipping away.  Brandon took one more chance.

“Mister Blaithe, I can’t help but notice how poorly your fields are doing.  I’m not even sure I saw a dozen peaches altogether on those trees.  Why do you stay out here?”

Blaithe rounded on them again, hands still clenched, his smile replaced with a sneer.  “Maybe I got ambitions.  Maybe I know a way to get rich that’s got nothing to do with wine and I’m just biding my time.  What do you think about that?”

“Get rich?  Here?”  Brandon snorted.  “Don’t make me laugh.  There’s nothing here but wine and from what I hear you’re no good at that.”

What was he up to, Rysen wondered.  How was this going to get them what they needed?

Whatever bait Brandon had just laid out, Blaithe rose up to it.  “I got plans!  I know there’s silver to be had here, and I’m not going to stop until I find it.” 

His face paled as his eyes got wide.  He must have realized he’d said more than he meant to.  “Well, everyone knows that.  This whole area used to be mined for silver.  I’m not the only one looking for it!  I had to make a living somehow, you know, while I searched.  So I make wine.  So what?  Plenty of places sell my wine.  Plenty!  I don’t need her”—he jabbed a finger at Rysen—“or her sister.  And I didn’t burn down their shop!”

Then he spun on his heel and slammed the door to the garage behind him, leaving Rysen and Brandon staring after him in the dusty driveway.

“What did he mean about finding silver here?”

They were driving back to Cambria, having gained absolutely nothing from Blaithe.  As far as Rysen could tell the whole trip had been a waste of time.

“A lot of places in California were settled by people looking for gold or silver or both.  You know, that whole expansion thing where we kicked the Native Americans off their land?”

“Yeah,” he said, his Australian accent maybe just a little thicker.  “I might have heard something about it.”

“Well, Cambria was no exception.  After the miners figured out there wasn’t enough precious metal here to make it worth anyone’s time, they turned to the fertile soil to make a living and that’s where all the vineyards and fruit orchards came from.  That’s why Cambria has so much wine industry here.”

He watched her as she spoke, an amused light in his eyes.  She shrugged a shoulder.  “This is stuff every kid who grew up here knows about.  The stories get passed down from our parents.  There’s even one about a pirate stashing his treasure in a cave in the hills.”

That made him raise an eyebrow.  “A pirate?”

“Yup.  It depends on who tells the story, though.  Sometimes it’s a prospector who stashed gold nuggets but then died before he could tell anyone where he hid them.  Sometimes, it’s a gangster from the fifties, and he’s hiding gold bars from a bank robbery under the paving stones of Cambria.”  She shrugged again, remembering her father telling her all sorts of tales like that at bedtime when she was just a little girl.  “They’re just stories.  What I’m interested in is facts.”

“Like who burned down your shop.”

“Exactly.”  She sighed as Cambria came back into sight up the road.  What was she going to tell Christina?  “Do you think Blaithe did it?”

“I think it’s a possibility, yes.  Certainly got his anger issues, doesn’t he?”

“That’s not enough to convict him of anything.”

“See?  You’re learning already.”  He waited for her to laugh but the best she could manage was a thin smile.  “Anyway.  We’ll just wait for the lab report to come back on the accelerant from the back office.  I’m sure that will tell us more.”

“I hate waiting.”

He reached over to rest his hand on her shoulder.  “I know.  I hate it, too.  It’s a lot of what a good detective does, but that doesn’t make it any easier.  Tell you what.  Why don’t we stop by the shop?  Go over the scene again.  Maybe there’s something we missed.  At the very least there will be some things I can teach you.  That should help pass the time.”

“And get me more hours of experience?”

“Exactly.”

She did feel better, now that he had a plan for them to follow.  His hand on her shoulder felt good, too.  It was something she knew she should tell him to stop doing.  If she was going to keep her promises to Josh and not get too close to Brandon, then the touchy-feely stuff couldn’t be allowed to happen between them.

Right now, she needed a friend, and that was what Brandon was being.  She could be a mature woman about this.  She could.

She would.

When they got back to the Spirit of the Soul, with its yellow barrier tape still in place, he shifted in his seat and took his hand back.  Did he let his fingers touch her just a bit longer than he needed to?  It felt that way, and it made her shiver.  The space inside the car suddenly felt very close.  She was aware of him, of everything about him, from the way his legs filled out his jeans to the scent of his cologne to the way his hair fell in unruly strands across his forehead.

“Rysen,” he said, his voice full of unspoken thoughts, “can we talk?”

“Let’s get inside and you can start teaching me,” she blurted out, reaching for the door handle, practically flying out of the car.  She didn’t know what he was about to ask.  It could have been something serious or something completely innocent.  Either way, she was afraid of what her answer might be.

They hadn’t bothered shutting the front door from the last time they were there.  There was nothing left to steal except whatever was in the basement, and in Cambria they really didn’t have to worry about their neighbors picking the bones of the shop clean.  It wasn’t that kind of town.  Whoever had set the fire wasn’t concerned about stealing from them, either.  So they’d left everything they couldn’t haul last night right where it was.  Christina had been coming back for it this morning.

“Christina?” Rysen called out.  The smell of smoke got into her nose and made her sneeze.  At least the water from the firefighters had dried up.  Small favors, she decided.  The place wasn’t soggy and charred anymore.  It was just charred.

“Is she here?” Brandon asked as he came in behind her.  He didn’t say a thing about what had just happened in the car.  He didn’t even look at her.  It was like he was willing to forget the moment they had almost shared.  “I didn’t see her car outside.”

“I don’t know.  Christina?”  Still no answer.  “Hm.  She must have finished up and left already.”

“It is almost noon,” he pointed out.  “She’s probably waiting for us at home.  Well.  Let’s check over a few things here and then maybe pick up some takeout food for everybody.  I’d love me some Chinese right now.”

Rysen’s stomach growled in response to that.  She put a hand over her traitorous tummy, then laughed when Brandon’s did the same thing.  “Okay.  Quick look around.  What can you show me, Mister Dennicort?”

He was as good as his word.  He showed her the accelerant trails, and how the fire spread in specific patterns based on the construction of the building and the way furniture and other items were arranged.  He showed her what the patterns of the exploding bottles looked like.  A lot of them were broken into tiny bits, but even so he could show her exactly where they had been on their shelves based on dispersal patterns.  Rysen listened to everything he said and asked every question that came to mind.  There was always something else to learn, it seemed.

She had lost all track of time when he suddenly looked down at his watch.  “Huh.  Been over an hour here.  I didn’t even notice.”

“Neither did I,” she said, turning away from the burn pattern on the wall to find him standing right there, so close that they were touching.

The world shifted underneath her.  Why did she have to be so attracted to him?  Why couldn’t he just be gross or disgusting or pick his teeth or
something
?  She cleared her throat and sidestepped around him.  Their hands touched, fingertips to fingertips, for just a split second.

“How about a quick look downstairs and then we get out of here?” she suggested. 

“Maybe we should talk first,” he said.  “There’s something going on between us—”

“Brandon, I’m with Josh.”

Words had never seemed so inadequate.  She was with Josh.  What did that mean?  She wasn’t with him right now.  Right now, standing here in this ruined building, she was with Brandon.  In her mind, and in her heart, she wanted to be with Josh.

Only standing here with Brandon, her mind and her heart were telling her two completely different things.

He reached out to touch her cheek.  Turning her face away she sidestepped him and headed for the stairs.

“Rysen…”

“I can’t talk about this.  Not now.  Let’s just get done in here and then I want to go home.”

She didn’t wait for him to answer.  It was as much his fault as hers, these feelings that were being stirred up all over again with him right smack in the middle of her life one more time.  She wanted to be mad at him for it.  He’d promised to stay away, after all.  He’d broken his promise and now she was all confused again and thinking things that she shouldn’t be.  So she wanted to hate him.

Instead, she felt like a schoolgirl with a crush.

Disgusted with herself she marched down the stairs, flicking the flashlight on as she went.

What she saw stopped her cold.

“Rysen?”  Brandon sounded concerned this time.  He came up behind her on the stairs and stared along with her.  “Oh, holy-dooly.”

She wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but she got the general idea.

The cellar had been untouched by the fire.  When Rysen had left here yesterday there had been the racks of wine and the few boxes they’d left behind and the other odds and ends Christina had stored down here in this space. 

Now two of the racks had been pushed over.  Bottles had fallen to the hard floor.  Some of them had broken.  The boxes had been carelessly tossed aside.  Paperwork was spread everywhere.

Worse, the walls had been intentionally damaged.  The stonework pried apart and cracks broken into other places by some sharp tool.

Holy dooly.

“What happened?”  It was all she could make herself say.  Vandalism.  That was the only explanation.  Someone had done this to them.  Who?  And for God’s sake, why?

“You said Christina was coming down here this morning?” he asked her.

“Yes.”  Rysen had been thinking the same thing.  Hastily she spun the light around the entire length of the cellar.  It showed her more damage, more destruction, but it also showed her that there was no one else here.  Whoever had done this was gone, and Christina wasn’t lying injured in the corner like her fears had tried to convince her.  She wasn’t here.

Just like she hadn’t been here when the shop had been set on fire.

Whatever part of her made Rysen good at solving problems and investigating crimes kicked into high gear.  She did not, did
not
like what it was telling her, but she couldn’t ignore it either.

“Brandon, I need to go home.  I need to talk to Christina.”

“Are you sure she’s all right?”  He had walked past her down the stairs, and now he stood at the bottom pushing a box back upright with the toe of his boot.  “Maybe she was here when this happened and whoever was responsible hurt her.”

A terrible thought, but nowhere near as bad as the one that had formed in Rysen’s mind.  “I don’t think that’s what happened.  I need to talk to her.  I’m sure she’s sitting at home right now.  I’ll go check.  If I don’t find her, I’ll call you, okay?”

“Sure.”  He let her get halfway up the stairs before he called up to her.  “Rysen?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful.”

She hesitated, caught between wanting to explain it to him and at the same time not even wanting to admit she was having these thoughts.  Finally she just frowned and tossed him the flashlight.  “Call the police, and let them know about this.  Okay?”

“Will do.”

Rysen went back to her car and headed for home.  She wasn’t looking forward to getting there.

***

She found Christina sitting at the kitchen table, her laptop computer open in front of her.  She was staring at the screen intently and didn’t even notice when Rysen came in the room.

The bank accounts for the store.  That’s what her sister was looking at.  Rysen saw them over Christina’s shoulder.  Lots of red, and lots of numbers that meant bad things.  When Christina had mentioned how badly the store had been doing, Rysen didn’t want to believe it.  There it was now in front of her in black and white.  And red.

Spirit of the Soul had been losing money before the fire happened.  That sounded like a good motive for arson.

Damn it.

“Christina, we need to talk.”

Her sister jumped in her chair and spun around, her hand over her heart.  “Oh, Rysen, you scared me.  I didn’t hear you come in.  How did things go with Mason Blaithe?  Did he confess?  Is he our guy?”

“Not exactly, no.”  She came around and sat in the chair next to Christina.  “He sure does hate us, but he said he didn’t set the fire.  To tell you the truth I believe him.”

“It has to be him,” Christina insisted.  “No one else in this town hated us that much.  We were in good standing with all of our suppliers.  The customers loved us.  Everything was going fine.”

“Are you sure about that?”  Rysen pointed to the laptop.  “Those numbers seem to say something else.”

Christina waved a hand as if to dismiss the hard facts in front of her.  “Every store goes through a sales slump.  What, you think WalMart operates at a surplus all the time?  We were having a few bad months.  Things will pick up.  I mean, they would have picked up.  Now it looks like I won’t be able to raise the money to reopen the shop.  I spent the morning at the bank practically begging for a loan they’ll never give us.  The only thing we can do is take Beatrice’s offer and maybe start something smaller.  If only no one had found out this was arson!  Then the insurance company would have paid out and everything would be fine.”

Rysen let those words settle in the room like a heavy blanket.  It was exactly what she had expected her sister to say, and exactly what she hadn’t wanted to hear.  An admission of guilt.

“What?” Christina said to her.  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You said it was too bad we found out the fire was arson.”

“Come on, sis.  You know what I mean.  What’s the problem?”

“Where were you?”

Blinking in confusion, Christina shut her laptop down and closed the top.  “When?”

“When the fire happened, Christina.  You were supposed to be there that morning and you weren’t.  Where were you?”