Dead in the Dregs (24 page)

“What about Pitot?”

“He lives with his mother and father. Though he claims to have left Napa to return here to help his family with the harvest, he actually doesn’t work with them but has a job at a domaine in Chambolle-Musigny, a village not far north of here. He’s a nutcase, if you ask me. In fact, the whole family seems fairly unhinged.”

“You talk to him?”

“I keep trying, but every time I get close, he bolts. He’s a creepy kid. And I think he tried to kill me.”

“Let’s not start that again,” Ciofreddi said.

“I mean it.”

“You do, huh? And what did he try this time?”

“Some barrels in the cellar where he works. They broke loose and nearly crushed me.”

“Well, I guess you’d better tell Sackheim,” he offered grudgingly, though I could tell he didn’t take it seriously.

“I already did.”

“Good move. Anything else?”

“I think Pitot is Wilson’s son. Feldman dropped the bombshell that there’s an illegitimate kid somewhere over here. It could explain everything. Well, nearly everything,” I amended.

“You’re shitting me,” Ciofreddi said. He gave my news a moment to settle in, then said, “You’re almost his uncle.”

“Jesus, I hadn’t thought of that.”

He paused. “What next?” he asked.

“I’m moving in with some people I’ve met. They’re staying in a house, a little rental place.”

“But you’re still going to be keeping your eyes and ears open?”

“I’ll call you if I see or hear anything I think you ought to know. I’ll be in an even better position.”

“Well, I’m going to be here in the office all day. And tell Sackheim for me I think it’s time the French cops got to work.”

“I’m pretty certain he opened the investigation in earnest today. But I’ll tell him.
Eh bien, au revoir.
”

“Yeah,
ciao
to you, too.”

I fished Sackheim’s card out of my wallet and dialed the number.

“
Oui,
Sackheim.” Prompt as ever.

“
Bonjour, Colonel. C’est Babe.
”

“Ah, Babe. So, you have finished
la grande dégustation
?”

“On all fours and somehow still kicking,” I said.

“
D’accord.
But is everybody else kicking, as you say, as well?”

“Everyone with the exception of Eric Feldman. He still seems to be missing in action.”

“We will talk about that in a minute. What else?”

“Jean Pitot was there at the tasting, too. He showed up with his
maman.
”

“And?”

“She doesn’t appear to be very popular. That much is clear. And her cooking wasn’t winning her any awards, either.”

“
Pardon
?” I described Goldoni’s response to her pâté. “What about the boy?” Sackheim said.

“Weirdly carrying on in the parking lot, having some sort of one-sided conversation.”

“Did he taste wine?”

“I don’t think so, but he brought a bottle he wanted Goldoni to sample. It didn’t happen. And he made contact with a woman there.”

“What woman?”

“Monique Azzine, a young winemaker. She and Pitot got into a fight.”

“And what was it about?” He was naturally curious but couldn’t disguise his impatience.

“I don’t know. But she knows all the players. She met them in Bordeaux last summer. I have to assume that Wilson asked Rosen to check up on her before he was killed.”

“
Intéressant.
” Sackheim was silent for a moment. “Do you think this woman suspects that young Jean is someone other than he appears to be? Perhaps Wilson himself said something?”

“Hard to tell,” I said.

“You are now at the hotel?”

“Yes, but I’ll be changing my base of operations. I need to get out to Saint-Romain. The house I’m moving to is owned by Frossard. In the morning we’re in Beaune for the Hospices.”

“Ah, Frossard
.
The barrel maker. Very famous, very rich people. They sell their
barriques
all over the world. Perhaps your friends will take you.”

“Maybe.” Barrels now, for me, had become personal. “What did you find out about Feldman?” I asked.

“He did not return to his hotel Wednesday night. He had been
scheduled to meet some colleagues for dinner. And as you said, he missed his meetings yesterday. His schedule, it was written on a notepad by the telephone.”

“You were in his room?”

“
Bien sûr.
After all, I am a colonel in the
gendarmerie.
On the same pad, Feldman wrote down his appointment at Domaine Carrière.”

“But Carrière claimed he hadn’t seen Feldman, that Feldman hadn’t been there.”

“Hnh!” Sackheim snorted. “It is written down.” He paused. “Was there anyone else with you at Carrière when you had your accident?” he asked.

“No, he and I were alone. I mean, there were other workers in the winery. And Pitot, whom I saw when I arrived. But, no, not back in the
cave
with us when the barrels fell. A bunch of men ran into the cellar when they heard everything crash.”

I sensed wheels spinning on the other end of the line.

“So, Monsieur Feldman went out two days ago and never came back,” Sackheim muttered.

“Lieutenant Ciofreddi,” I said. “I called him.”

“Ah, Charlie!” Sackheim exclaimed. “How is he? He does not trust us to do the job!”

“I wouldn’t say that!”

“Oh, come, you know it is true. Repeat to me what he said. Spare me nothing.”

“He suggested I keep an eye on you and said it was about time you guys got to work,” I admitted.

“Ha, you see!” he chuckled. “I told you so.”

“I said you were doing a great job.”

“Perhaps. It is too soon to say,
non
? We will see, we will see,” he said. “It is the Americans who are best at crime—both the committing of them and the solving. But it would be unwise to write off our French police too hastily.”

“You could do another favor for me,” I now said tentatively.

“And what is that?”

“I’d like to see a genealogy of the Pitot family. I’m sure you have civil records—births, deaths, marriages. That’s a good place to
start.” I wanted to see for myself how Pitot’s paternity was explained in their local records.

“Hmm,” Sackheim said. “I will ask for this.
Et puis
, you will be moving where? You have the address and a phone number?”

I gave him both.

“Perhaps we have enough to warrant a real investigation by the
gendarmerie.
I will call you. And, Babe,” he said after a moment, “be careful now.” Then he clicked off.

I gathered up my stuff—there wasn’t much to pack—and took stock of my situation. I had been attacked—maybe or maybe not for the second time—but still, it’d been an unsettling experience. I’d offended Rosen, had insulted Goldoni, and had upset Monique. Pitot may have fled, but I was the one who felt like a hunted animal. The odd angles of the room appeared like the fractured planes of the case: Richard’s body awash in wine, his hand missing; Eric Feldman now nowhere to be found; and Jean Pitot, who seemed to embody the awful secret at the heart of Richard’s murder. I missed Danny suddenly, wanted to hold him and read to him, and thought about calling Janie, but I had so little to tell her—a series of questions with no real answers—that I thought better of it and went downstairs.

I had to wander back to the kitchen to find anyone. The woman who greeted me each morning was at work in the kitchen, making an omelet for dinner. She was so pretty, so delicate in her movements, that I considered for a moment asking her to make two. Instead, I asked to settle my bill.

“You are checking out?” she said. “Is there a problem?”

I explained the situation—that I had friends who’d offered me a place to stay, told her that I would pay for the night—and apologized. She turned off the stove.

“It will just take me a moment.”

 

I drove through
the gathering gloom, the high beams bouncing off tree trunks, shattering and multiplying shadows through the vineyards lining the road that twisted and turned as it followed the landscape. Everything was dank, as if the earth had the cold sweats. I slowed as I passed through Auxey-Duresses. There were
walls everywhere, and it gave the town a closed-in, nearly suffocating feel, as if the homes, as well as their inhabitants, had turned their backs to me.

As I reached Saint-Romain, I pulled over and took out the scrap of paper on which Rosen had scrawled the directions. I negotiated the narrow streets at a crawl. The house, well lit from the street, had been done up in fake farmhouse style, stuccoed concrete and new black tile.

Monique was sitting on the center island, vamping it up, as I entered. Rosen stood with his back to her, pulling the roasted birds from the oven. Smithson Bayne, meanwhile, was surveying the booty plundered from the tasting, naming each wine at the top of his lungs as he hoisted the bottles from a cardboard case. I said hi, dropped my bag, and set to work building a fire in the enormous fireplace that dominated one corner of the living room.

After we’d finished dinner, Monique threw herself onto the sofa next to me. I could feel her thigh against mine.

“What’s wrong?” she said. “You are sad.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Bullshit. Anyway, I accept your apology.”

“What apology?”

“I am not angry. I know you only wanted to protect me. Thank you.” She kissed me on the cheek. “I have a present for you.” She hopped up, ran to the kitchen island, and rummaged through her purse, returning with a tin
tastevin.
“This is for you. You must come to the tasting tomorrow. It will be fantastic.”

“The tickets are by the front door,” Rosen announced, “on the table. You’re all set.”

“Thanks,” I said to them.

“Promise me you’ll be there.” She waited.

“Yeah, sure. What time are you going?” I said to Rosen.

“I have an appointment first thing in the morning. You’re welcome to come with us. Then we’ll head into town. I like to get there as early as possible. It’s a mob scene.”

We sat there several hours. Rosen railed against Goldoni and his response to the wines. Then he launched into an attack on Kiers and the penchant of critics to lump whole vintages together. I fed the
fire two or three times, just to have something to do—the last thing I wanted was to listen to Rosen bitch. Bayne pulled out a bottle of
fine de Bourgogne
he’d bought at one of the domaines they’d visited, and they started in on that. With some serious juice under his belt, Rosen then went off on the impertinence of Jean Pitot’s showing up at the tasting, demanding they sample a bottle of his wine.

“Who the fuck does he think he is?” Rosen said.

“Richard Wilson’s son,” I said. “Probably thought he had a right.”

Monique fixed me with her eyes and twisted her mouth in reproach, but she seemed reluctant to wade into the incident in Rosen’s presence.

“I wouldn’t believe everything Eric Feldman tells you,” Rosen said.

“Well, if I could just find him, I might be able to figure out what he meant,” I said.

“He’s around,” Rosen said. “He’s just too busy to waste his time on you.”

We regarded each other uneasily.

“
Bonne nuit
,” I finally said, pulling myself off the sofa and taking my bag.

I was spent. Bayne had dozed off in an easy chair next to the fireplace and was snoring loudly. I excused myself, headed upstairs, and found a loft overlooking the living room with a mattress on the floor. After fifteen or twenty minutes, I could just make out Rosen’s whispered entreaties through the crackling of the fire. He was begging Monique to stay, promising she would love it, swearing he would do anything she wanted.

“I don’t know. I have to be up at dawn to work at the tasting,” she said.

“No, come on. Come downstairs. Stay with me.” I heard him pour another two glasses of the
fine de Bourgogne.
A moment later, the lights were turned off, and they tiptoed down the carpeted staircase.

The next morning
I heard the front door close and wandered downstairs. No one else was up. I assumed Monique had taken off to work the public tasting. The kitchen was a disaster: bottles and glasses, bits of chicken carcass, greasy napkins. I did the best I could to tidy up without waking anyone. Just as the coffee I was making sputtered and was done, I heard a knock on the door. It was a little before eight.

Sackheim was standing at the door, backlit by a blinding sun.

“
Bonjour.
” His uniform was crisply starched. “Ready to get to work? First, you come with me, then I leave you at the tasting.”

I trotted to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. Not a pretty picture. I pulled myself together as quickly as I could, grabbed one of the tickets and programs Rosen had set out and the
tastevin
Monique had given me, and joined Sackheim.

“If you have time, you must discover the little park. It’s just down the street,” he said as we got in the police car.

He parked in front of a small café on the road that ran through Saint-Romain. “
Deux crèmes, s’il vous plaît
,” he said to the old guy standing behind the bar. “
Et un seul croissant
,” he added, pushing a ring of hard-boiled eggs and a saltshaker in front of me. “You look the worse for wear, my friend. Eat something.”

He explained that he’d set his lieutenant to finding out what he could about Jean Pitot, but that our time together now would be spent tracking down Jacques Goldoni.

“It is strange,
non
? Perhaps Goldoni was in Napa when Wilson was there. Yes, yes, I know about the phone message Feldman left for Wilson. And the calendar with Wilson’s and Goldoni’s itineraries. Lieutenant Ciofreddi told me. But, it is possible,
non
?”