Bitter Finish (13 page)

"Modest bastard, isn't he?" Mary Ellen inquired of the population at large in ear-splitting tones.

"Elegantly stated, my dear." Martinson placed a restraining arm around her unsteady shoulders. "As usual."

"Hi, there, friend of Lenny's." Even without turning Spraggue knew that the soft, sarcastic voice belonged to Grady Fairfield. What the hell was she doing at the tasting? Looking at her, in a pale green dress with that flame of hair, Spraggue found it easy to believe she'd been invited many times over.

"
Grady," he called softly. "Wait up."

His way was blocked by a small man who snatched at his arm and held on, a man with a
plump, slightly bovine face. What was the name that went with that face? Steve? No. Stefan, a pretentious Stefan.

"About Kate," said Stefan urgently. "Have they released her? Anything you'd like me to do, Michael?"

Grady disappeared through an archway.

"It's under control," Spraggue said quietly. "But I appreciate the offer, Stefan." He shook hands and tried to pass.

Stefan gripped his arm, half-pulled him into a corner. "You ever see a crush like this one? Such a cold August, and now . . ."

Finally, Spraggue placed him. A grower, a vineyard owner. "You doing all right?" he asked.

"
Me? Sure. My grapes are the finest. And I watch them like a mother. Nice sugar. High acid—" Stefan took note of Leider, moving along in pursuit of some hostly duty. "Your crush going well, Phil?"

"
Fine."

"Anyone working with you this year?"

"
On my own."

"Luck, then."

Leider walked away. Easy for him. Stefan didn't have his arm in a death grip.

Stefan edged closer. "Now, I want to know everything."

"
There's not much I can say—"

"
Not about the damned killings! I'm sorry Kate got messed up in the whole business. About United Circle, though—"

"Huh?"

"
Don't play coy with me, Spraggue. I know they're interested. That guy's been crawling all over your place. And you should let your friends in on a thing like that. Those big outfits, some of them don't like to grow their own grapes. Tedious business, planting grapes. A good grower, given the faintest hint, might be able to move in quite nicely, if you know what I mean."

"Hurting for customers?" Spraggue raised an eyebrow.

"Not really. Leider's doing more of his own growing, of course, and he was a buyer of mine for years—"

"
Forget it, Stefan."

"No deal with United Circle?"

"
Never intended. Just an idle rumor."

"Sure are lots of those going around."

"
Always." Spraggue carefully removed Stefan's hand from its grip on his jacket sleeve. The grower seemed not to notice, so Spraggue nodded and made good his escape. He strolled through the archway into the Bloomingdales window dining room, searching for a green sundress and red hair, smiling and greeting people he scarcely remembered. They all asked about Kate, about Lenny's murder.

He shook them off, climbed six suspended steps to another plateau of Leider's confusing multilevel domicile, scanned the floor beneath. No flaming hair. He followed a distant laugh down a narrow parqueted hallway, climbed another six steps to the screening room.
 
He flicked a switch to the right of the doorway and whistled under his breath as soft indirect lighting illuminated acres of cool gray carpet. In the center of the room a rectangular seating pit was delineated by a maroon velvet wall some three feet high, broken at the corners by gray-carpeted steps leading down to the pit's interior. A mirrored wall reflected the image. Heavy maroon curtains masked the projection booth, the movie screen.

A giggle interrupted his thoughts.

"It's the only comfortable spot in the whole damn house." Grady's voice came from the velvet depths of the pit. "I think I may be just a little drunk." Her voice rippled across the room again and Spraggue noticed one bare foot peeping over the back of the sunken maroon sofa closest to the door. A beige, high-heeled sandal blended into the rug.

Spraggue strolled a few paces across the room, positioned himself over the foot, looked down at a spectacularly bare leg.

Grady lay back among the pillows with the studied grace of an artist's model, dress hiked, one knee bent high, the other leg extended over the sofa back. She smiled lazily up at him, but didn't move, didn't attempt to pull the skirt over her thighs. Spraggue thought that if the lights were any stronger or her thighs spread any wider, he would know whether or not Grady dyed her hair.

Slowly she brought her knees together, stretched one long dancer's leg full-length on the couch. Her face was slightly flushed.

Spraggue felt like a high school kid caught peeking in the girls' locker room. She noticed his discomfiture and laughed.

"What's the opposite of a voyeur?" she asked.

"A blind man."

"No. I mean the object of a voyeur. Someone who likes being looked at. A narcissist?"

"
Exhibitionist."

"
I like to be looked at," she said. One of her knees inched upward. Not as exciting a pose as the first, but one that gave an interesting view of thigh progressing to buttock, further convincing him that underwear and Grady were strangers.

"Expecting an audience?" he asked.

"Actually I thought you might try to find me."

"
So you vanished."

"
I opted for a more private rendezvous." She patted a fat gray cushion next to her, swung effortlessly into a sitting position, one leg crooked underneath her. "I wanted to ask if you'd found anything worthwhile in that pile of Lenny's clothes, Mr. Snoop. Any clues?"

Spraggue removed his shoes, padded down the plush steps into the pit, and almost smacked his shins on a clear glass coffee table. He sat next to Grady. She leaned against his arm.

"
No," he said.

"Nothing?"

"Even less than I expected to fund. Did you forget to put anything in the box?"

She pulled away, rearranged herself, chose a reclining pose, legs splayed on the coffee table.

"
So you own Holloway Hills," she said.

Spraggue had to turn almost ninety degrees to look at her face. "That woman who came to see you about Lenny . . ." he began.

"The ex?"

"
Probably not." Grady didn't look surprised.

Spraggue wondered if she lied for the hell of it. "Do you know Mary Ellen Martinson?"

"
Only by ill repute. They say her husband's turning her into an alcoholic in the hope it'll cure her of sleeping around. I do know George"

"If you saw the woman who came to your apartment, would you recognize her?"

"Maybe."

"
Sit near me when we go back to the tasting. I'll point out Mary Ellen."

"
Isn't she sitting next to Georgie?"

"
No. Only judges at the head table."

She pouted, wriggled over on her right side in a manner calculated to make Spraggue aware of the green dress's low neckline. "You sure you want to go back downstairs?" she whispered. "It's so boring."

"
Why did you come?"

"
Phil talked me into it." She grinned, ran her hand lightly along his thigh. "Let's not go back."

"What are the alternatives?" Spraggue said.

"
The door has a lock."

"And no one would notice our absence, right?"

"
Right." One of the thin straps of the green dress just happened to slip off Grady's shoulder. Damn, Spraggue thought, she's good. He was more impressed with her acting than her sudden show of desire.

He stared down at her wistfully, shook his head. Before she'd made him feel like a naughty kid; now she made him feel old. He slid the strap back on her shoulder. "They'd notice," he said. "I'm at the table with all the winemakers. We're supposed to react to the judging."

"
Then go ahead."

"
Come with me. I need to know about Mary Ellen."

They weren't quite the last guests to return to their seats. Leider, for one, followed them. Grady found an empty place at a nearby table. Spraggue craned his neck; Mary Ellen Martinson was nowhere in sight.

George was all too evident. He got to his feet, cleared his throat, and waited for dead silence. He would, if not hampered by interruptions, he said, endeavor to deliver the first four ratings, with commentary. Then he would yield the floor to his distinguished colleague from the University of California at Davis. Bottle unveilings to follow.

"
Our first wine," he began, "I found quite full in body, dark in color. Not heavily tannic, but with a definite edge. A distinctive wine, with a crisp, almost minty eucalyptus . . ."

Spraggue shut out Martinson's voice and concentrated on more interesting matters. Like Grady Fairfield. Why the sudden come-on from Grady? Not instant chemistry; she'd had him all to herself in her very own apartment just two days ago and hadn't made a single pass. Maybe the velvet cushions turned her on. Or the fear of getting caught. "My colleagues and I agreed that this wine was well balanced, and with a certain amount of astringency .... "

Death by sulfur-dioxide poisoning . . . Spraggue thought of Enright combing the valley for chemical-waste dump sites. Should he clue the captain in, let him know that sulfur dioxide was used in wineries all over the valley? No. Enright wouldn't listen.

There was already plenty of evidence that the two crimes were related: both bodies had been found in car trunks; both in autos belonging to Holloway Hills. The SO2 was just one more finger pointing at a winemaker, a winery owner, a man or woman familiar with the winemaking process.

What was crucial was the identity of X.

Someone linked to a winery. Someone who hadn't been missed, who had access to wineries, no individuality, no personality . . . Spraggue thought back to the frantic scene at Holloway Hills that afternoon, to the nameless young man who'd pointed the way to Howard. Just one of the cellar crew . . .

One of the cellar crew . . . No. Someone would notice . . . Maybe not. The small professional cellar crew that worked practically year-round; the absence of a member of that crew would stick out immediately. But what about the crush crew, with so many temporary helpers hired just for the harvest madness? "What happened to Joe?" one might ask. "Joe? He decided to work over at Domaine Chandon. More interested in the bubbly stuff." End of conversation. End of Joe.

Spraggue leaned to his right to ask Leider, but the man was engrossed in conversation. Spraggue turned to the bearded man on his left.
 
"Where do you get your temporary he1p?" he asked. "Cellar-crew kids."

"
Huh?" One person at least had been listening closely to the pontifications of George Martinson.

"
Pardon me?"

"I was wondering where I could hire a few more cellar kids."

"Oh. I deal with the college. You get interested workers, meet the great winemakers of tomorrow. Some of them are going to come back here and toss us out on our ears."

"You mean Davis."

"Sure. Hell of a wine department. Excuse me." He went back to listening.

College student, Spraggue thought. Graduate student. The age was right. The whole damn setup was perfect. Parents would hardly report him missing: safe at school. Classmates, teachers would assume he was down for the length of the crush—or they wouldn't know him at all. Beginning of the term. Not much time to make new friends or renew old acquaintances. A college student . . .

"
Thanks," Spraggue said to his neighbor. "Think I'll take a ride out there tomorrow."

The judges finished yapping, ripped the swaddling napkins off the bottles to exclamations and applause. Spraggue checked his score sheet; he'd identified six of the eight correctly. At least he hadn't mistaken Holloway Hills.

The Holloway Hills Cabernet took third place in the tasting, with a rating of 16 on the Davis scale. Good enough to cheer Kate.

Then came question—and—answer time; Spraggue fielded two, grateful for Howard's meticulously neat cellar book.

After the Davis professor delivered the final oration, Martinson got to his feet again. "Thank you all for coming," he said. "Especially at this hectic time." Guests started to shove their chairs back in preparation for departure. "One moment, please" Martinson held up one hand like a policeman directing traffic. "I just want to say that all of us in the valley have experienced a loss in the death of Leonard Brent, a winemaker of skill and knowledge. As we finish this tasting, I raise my glass, and ask you all to join me in a toast to our departed colleague.

Please remain standing for a moment of silence in his memory." Martinson stood and the assembly echoed his movement.

"To Lenny Brent. Rest in peace, dear friend," Martinson intoned. He drank, then lowered his head. The screech of a wooden chair broke the silence, followed by the determined click of stiletto heels.

Mary Ellen Martinson, none too steady on her feet, walked quickly from the room.

Spraggue caught Grady's eye.

She nodded, whispered, "That's the one."
 

16

A hostile alarm clock clanged at six the next morning. In spite of the quarts of water he'd drunk and the aspirins he'd downed as countermeasures the night before, Spraggue's mouth was as dry as sawdust and his head felt as if it were stuffed with cotton batting. A glass of orange juice and a shower helped. A sizable group of last evenings tasters had sipped and spat into champagne coolers provided for that purpose. Spraggue hadn't followed their lead; he considered himself a drinker, not a taster. Breakfast made him feel almost human. The ride up to Davis wasn't all that bad.

The University of California hadn't splurged on any lavish office for the chairman of the world-renowned enology department at the Davis campus. Sheriff Hughes of Napa County had a larger, more impressive one. The desk and chairs were plain and solid; the venerable Dr. Eustace might have brought them in from home. The windows behind the old man's head were dingy. Dust motes lazed in the pale rays of the morning sun.