A Saucy Murder: A Sonoma Wine Country Cozy Mystery (4 page)

“Sicilian,” Jack made the distinction. “No opera in my roots. But my daughter took me to one of those Opera in the Ballpark benefits in San Francisco, and ya know what?  I loved it!”

Before Emma could respond, Barry introduced the final singer.

Jack put his finger to his lips and winked.

“Our final number tonight,” Barry announced, “is the devil’s song from Gounod’s Faust, sung by the devil himself, Alexis Kuragin.”

Something in Barry’s joke made Emma think there was no love lost between the two men. In a way, Emma could see why. Alexis Kuragin was a good twenty years younger than Barry. His full mane of blond hair provided a striking contrast to Barry’s thinning white tonsure. According to Julie, Kuragin was a lady killer.

Well, at least he sang like one. And from the looks on the ladies’ faces in the audience, most of them were ready to follow him all the way to hell. To Emma’s surprise, despite the vodka, he sang flawlessly, tripping only slightly as he stepped down from the dais to a big round of applause.

By then the
tagliatelle alla salsa di pomodoro
had been cleared. Emma watched Kuragin take his seat beside Natasha at the Russian table in front of a plate of Sergio’s signature
saltimbocca
(veal scallops literally translated as jumping in your mouth). But Kuragin, who had grabbed a glass of vodka as he left the stage, didn’t look pleased. He scowled at the veal before whispering something in Natasha’s ear.

“Bad boy, Sacha,” Emma heard Natasha reply.

“More vodka,” Kuragin called to a passing waiter. “More vodka if you want me to eat this Italian slop and sing this French drivel.” 

Emma saw Natasha press her hand to her forehead and cast a pleading eye at a young Russian seated across the table. He picked up on her distress. “No more vodka. No more vodka for Sacha,” he shouted to the waiter.

The next thing Emma knew, Sacha threw his empty glass at the shouting Russian. It shattered against his wooden chair. The shouter tossed his plate of veal across the table at Kuragin like a Frisbee.

Before anyone could stop them, the Russians were hurtling glasses, bread sticks and little veal rollups, shouting, “No more Italian slop! Where’s the caviar?”

That’s when Sacha turned to Natasha and forced a sloppy stage kiss on her lips. Then, with a dramatic cackle worthy of the devil, he rolled an olive down the mostly missing front of the soprano’s dress and chased it with his tongue.

Well, apparently that was too much for Barry Buchanon. Emma watched him storm out of his seat below the dais and make his way to the Russian table. When he got to Sacha, he grabbed a big clump of his blond hair and yanked his face off Natasha’s chest. “Get off of her, you pig,” he shouted.

Emma saw Natasha grab the bass singer’s arm before he could throw a punch. Then a dozen men from nearby tables intervened obscuring her view.

At that point many of the guests started to leave their seats and head for the parking lot, even though it was barely 9:00 and the waiters hadn’t served dessert.

Emma wasn’t sure what happened next, but a few minutes later when she looked at the Russian table again, Barry was gone, Natasha’s seat was empty and Vera, her sister, sat next to Sacha trying, in Russian, to talk him down.

“Which opera was that scene from?” Jack leaned over to ask.

“One I’ve never seen,” Emma replied, too preoccupied with the embarrassment this fiasco would cause her daughter to think of a witty reply.

Jack stood up. “I’m outta here. Do you need a ride somewhere?”

Emma shook her head. “It’s OK. I have my car.”

“You want me to walk you to the parking lot? It’s kinda dark out there,” he added.

Emma shrugged. “No. I should stay here in case my daughter needs moral support. She’s the PR person for this mess.”

Jack nodded. He started to walk away from the table, then stopped and turned back. “About that dinner I bid on…,” he hesitated. “Should I call you to discuss it? I think your number’s on my receipt.”

“Sure,” Emma answered, only half listening. “Whenever,” she added over her shoulder as he turned around and headed for the parking lot. She was too preoccupied now with all the damage to Julie’s perfect party, to worry about her dinner donation.

On their way to their cars, a few people stopped to complement Emma on her sauce; but under the circumstances, she wasn’t sure the publicity that night would do her any good. The fundraiser was a shambles. She sat at her empty table, watched the wait staff clear the tables of broken dishes, splintered glass and untouched desserts, and wondered how the press would deal with the disaster.

She’d fretted for almost an hour about how to help Julie with damage control when Vera Vasiliev unexpectedly grabbed the mic and made her way to the stage.

“Natasha!” she called. “Has anybody seen my sister, Natasha? I think she’s missing.”

At the sound of her voice, the few remaining guests and cleanup crew stopped what they were doing and looked around.

“Natasha?  Are you out there?” Vera shouted into the darkness surrounding the dimly lit meadow.

Nobody answered.

“Has anyone seen my sister, Natasha?”  Vera repeated. Now her voice sounded worried.

It was Barry Buchanon who organized a party to look for the missing soprano. It was Barry who led the search. It was also Barry who found the body. And Barry whose screams everyone heard pierce the darkness that fateful night.

“Oh my god!  Oh my god! Natasha. My darling Natasha!”  Each cry was punctuated by a heart-wrenching sob. It was Barry who carried the body back to the meadow and laid it on the stage where it now looked small and lifeless as a doll. It was Barry who uttered the words that Emma would never forget.

“It’s over. She’s dead. My darling songbird is dead!”

The police and an ambulance arrived twenty minutes later, their sirens shattering the midnight silence surrounding the vineyard. Two lieutenants led the investigation, Lieutenant O’Hara and Lieutenant Bates. O’Hara’s first order was that no one leave the meadow until everyone had been questioned and the police had IDed them and obtained their contact information.

After an hour of questioning, it appeared that the last person to see Natasha alive was a waiter who had gone out to the vineyard to look at the moon. His English was poor, but it sounded like he saw someone he thought might have been the singer stumbling through the vineyard about an hour before Vera raised the alarm. He thought she was drunk. She entered the vineyard from the direction of the women’s port-a-potty. Later, when he went out for a smoke, he saw someone wearing a long dark skirt leave the garden where the auction was held. He didn’t get a good enough look at that person to identify her.

Prior to that, a female guest said she thought she saw Natasha leaving the port-a-potties; but she only saw the woman from behind, and in the dark could not be absolutely sure.

Emma observed the officer’s questioning carefully in the hope of gleaning something helpful for Julie. It was Barry Buchanon’s story that caught her attention. She was grateful her hearing was still good. The officers had cleared a space around the witnesses. Apparently they didn’t realize the faceless senior, seated at a table on the perimeter of the meadow staring into the darkness, could hear everything that was said.

“Where was the body when you found it, Mr. Buchanon?” Lieutenant O’Hara asked.

Emma noted that, unlike the Mexican waiter, Barry Buchanon was handled by the police with kid gloves.

“At the north edge of the vineyard, under an olive…,” was all Barry could get out before breaking down in sobs.

“What was the position of the body, Mr. Buchanon?” Lieutenant Bates added.

“Face down. That beautiful face in the dirt. Her arms splayed out on either side.”  Barry broke down again.

“Was there any sign of violence, a struggle?  Anything at all that you noticed?” O’Hara asked.

“Well,” Barry hesitated, “not violence. She’d thrown up a little. And it was on her face. That gorgeous face.”

Officer Bates gestured towards the corpse which the medical examiner’s team was preparing to load onto a gurney. “There was no sign of vomit on the victim’s face when you laid her on the stage, was there?”

“Oh,” Barry dismissed the officer’s statement. “Of course, I cleaned it off. I had my napkin still in my hand. So I wiped her face. She wouldn’t have wanted people to see her like that, poor darling. I wiped that beautiful face and wiped up some of the vomit that was on the ground. Thank goodness nothing got on her dress. She’d have hated that.”

“And what did you do with the napkin sir?  Can you show it to us?” Bates asked.

Barry shrugged. He looked dazed. “Oh that. No. I rinsed it in the irrigation ditch when I was done. Before I picked up her body. As a sign of respect. You know. Then I threw the napkin back in the water.”

He looked at the officers, imploringly. “You won’t say anything about the vomit, will you?  It just sounds so…so vulgar, demeaning.  Like that fat Mamma Cass choking on a ham sandwich. Or Lenny Bruce dying on the can. Who needs to know?  It’s embarrassing. Who wants to remember someone that way?  Especially Natasha. She was an angel. That’s how her fans should remember her. Pure as an angel.”  He looked at the policemen. “You won’t mention the vomit. You promise me. You
must
promise me.”

When the officers didn’t answer, he continued in an angry voice. “I should have known not to tell you. It was so little anyway. Natasha ate like a bird. It was red. The vomit was red. You know. From that sauce. That garlicky red sauce on the spaghetti. Why did Sergio serve that anyway?  Wouldn’t a salad have been better?  I guess they thought they had to serve Italian food because of the opera. Now my little songbird is dead!”  He broke down completely in uncontrollable sobs.

The speech sent tidal waves of panic through Emma’s body. Had she heard that right?  Was Barry Buchanon blaming Natasha Vasiliev’s death on her
salsa di pomodoro
?  In an instant Emma’s world collapsed.

She couldn’t dwell on her personal tragedy for long, however. Seconds later, Vera Vasiliev threw herself at the policemen screaming something about a ring. It was only when she calmed down a little that Emma understood what she was saying.

“Officer, I need to show you something. Before you put my sister’s body away. Come here quickly.”  Vera grabbed Officer O’Hara’s hand and dragged him to the gurney that the medical examiner’s staff was wheeling towards a van.

“Look.” She unceremoniously tore the cover off her sister’s body. “The ring. Where’s the ring?”

The medical examiner quickly stepped forward. “I’m sorry Miss?”

“Vasiliev,” Vera answered. “I’m the twin sister. Natasha was wearing an emerald ring tonight that matched her eyes. It was here on this finger.”  She grabbed the dead woman’s right hand and showed them the empty fourth finger. “Now the ring is gone.”

“Look Ma’am,” the medical examiner answered, glancing at his staff for corroboration. “When we first examined the body, there was no ring.” 

The staff members nodded. No one remembered a ring.

By then, Vera had attracted a small crowd of listeners, including Lexie Buchanon who materialized out of the shadows. She stood near Vera listening intently.

“I didn’t see any ring on the body,” Officer Bates concurred.

O’Hara nodded in agreement. “Will you describe it please?” he said.

“It was big, a big brilliant emerald, almost exactly the color of her – of our eyes. Four carats. The shape of a robin’s egg. And it was set in what looked like a nest of pavé diamonds. It was one of a kind. Custom,” Vera added.

“You mean like this?”  Lexie Buchanon stepped forward, raising her right hand to display a sapphire ring, the huge stone roughly shaped like an egg sitting in a nest of pave diamonds. The sapphire blue appeared to match the blue of Lexie’s eyes.

Vera stared at the ring. Surprise flickered for just a second in her eyes before she said calmly, “Yes, it looked like that. Only green. Natasha’s had an emerald in it.”

Emma watched Lexie direct a glance at her husband sharp as a dagger. He turned away.

“Ms. Vasiliev, are you sure your sister was wearing the ring tonight?” Bates asked.

“Yes. I am absolutely sure,” Vera replied.

“Anyone else see the ring on the victim’s finger tonight?” 

A few people raised their hands.  

Then Chiara Bruno stepped forward. “I definitely saw it,” she stated. “I saw the ring on her finger when we were having our tarot cards read. Then I noticed it again when she sang her aria. She wore it on stage.”

“Tarot cards?” O’Hara repeated. “You had tarot cards read tonight?  Who read them?  Was one of those gypsies here?  We’ve had trouble…”

He stopped talking, seeming to think better about revealing too much.

Shortly after Vera’s discovery of the missing ring, the questioning resumed in the Buchanon’ kitchen. As Emma feared, based on Barry Buchanon’s narrative, the police focused their attention on the red sauce.

After identifying himself as the chief caterer and owner of one of Blissburg’s top restaurants, Sergio took the brunt of the interrogation. Unfortunately, neither of the officers seemed aware of Sergio’s stellar reputation in culinary circles. They focused on the kitchen, eventually finding a large box of rat poison stuffed in a broom closet. “Use this a lot?” Bates asked Sergio.

“No,” came his terse reply. “My kitchens are always
impeccabile
.”

O’Hara shook his head. “What does that mean?” 

“Clean
issimo
,” Sergio explained.

“So nothing made you get out the rat poison tonight, right?  You might as well tell us the truth. We’ll check the box for fingerprints.”

“Never touch the stuff. Never need to,” Sergio explained. “Everything in my kitchen is pure, clean.”  He glanced pointedly at Emma, as if to say it was all her fault for dropping that spoon. “I have never had a sanitation violation in my life. You can check with the health department. Besides,” he added. It was nothing more than Emma expected. “She made the pasta sauce, not me.”  He pointed to Emma.

“Did you use any rat poison tonight, Ms.?”

“Corsi,” Emma answered. She was sweating bullets and she knew everyone saw them. “I didn’t use any poison of any kind. Why would I?” she asked.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Julie standing at the back of the kitchen giving her the hatchet sign. Cut it.

What?  Was she being too defensive? 

“I was trying to sell my cookbook not sabotage it,” Emma explained. “The recipe is in the book. Tomatoes, garlic, parsley, onion, butter and olive oil. No poison.”

“But an extraordinary young woman is dead,” Barry Buchanon shouted from the back of the room. “Dead after eating your sauce!”