and he did the same with her. “Yes,” he finally said in a near whisper.
“We know about the feud your wife’s family’s had with the family that owns Silver Ridge Estates. Can you tell us who your disagreement is with, and what it was all about?”
He stared ahead for a long moment, then refocused his eyes. “It goes back to the parents, Harold and Anna. That’s when the whole thing started. It all had to do with typical wine industry stuff. Frederick was just taking over the business from his father, Gerard, and he was aggressive coming out of the gate. He wanted to really inject some energy into the brand, which he felt was stale, not growing, and maybe losing market share.” Kevin stopped, shuddered as he took an uneven breath.
“Silver Ridge had won a lot of wine competitions, and they were kind of full of themselves. Frederick wanted to make a splash, so he set his sights on Silver Ridge’s up and coming star winemaker. He spent a year trying to lure him away but the guy was loyal to Harold and Anna. Fifteen years later, Silver Ridge hit a tough spot. Harold had a stroke and Anna had some health problems, too. The sons, who didn’t get along too well to begin with, took over day-to-day operation of the winery. So with all that uncertainty, and with Montalvo doing better but still not reaching its potential, Frederick swooped in and snagged the winemaker.”
Vail added all this up to motive. But there were still disconnects. “The family feud is obvious. But how malignant did it get—how bad were the feelings between the families?”
Kevin shrugged. “I’m relaying all this as it was told to me. I wasn’t around, so I can’t really judge. But from what Victoria said, and from what Frederick told me once, it was pretty poisonous stuff. They had some arguments over the years that the AVA board had to step in to resolve.”
“AVA?” Vail asked.
“American Viticultural Area. It’s a designation determined by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to specify where a wine is grown and made. Think of it like a branding. When it says
“Why wouldn’t all the grapes come from the valley?”
Dixon chuckled. “Sticky question. Grape prices are lower, as you’d imagine, in other regions of California that don’t have the cachet of Napa. Some would say the
“How many AVAs are there?”
Dixon deferred to Kevin, who shrugged. “Well over a hundred,” he said. “Probably closer to a hundred twenty-five, hundred thirty. The better known ones are Stags Leap District, Russian River Valley, Anderson Valley, and so on.”
Vail looked at Dixon, who indicated she had all she needed. Vail placed a hand on Kevin’s shoulder. “Thanks for all your help. I know this wasn’t easy. If you think of anything that might help us find . . . the person we’re looking for, would you give Investigator Dixon or Sergeant Lugo a call?”
Dixon handed him her card. Lugo made no such move. He and Kevin were friends, and Kevin undoubtedly had Lugo’s number. In fact, without question, Kevin’s call—should he make one—would go to his buddy.
Lugo led them to the front door. Out of earshot of Kevin, he said, “I don’t think this feud is related to the murder.”
“Too soon to say for sure,” Vail said. “But the odds are strongly against it.”
Dixon held out a hand. “I wouldn’t discount it just yet. The body was found at their winery. But we don’t have enough info yet. We need to dig more before we make any decisions.”
BACK AT THEIR CAR, Dixon stood at the driver’s door and looked across the vehicle at Vail. “The things that were done to the body could be taken as being a personal attack. Severing the breasts, for one.”
Vail shook her head. “Severing the breasts is probably not personal.”
“Overkill, right? Excessive violence shows a relationship between the offender and the victim.”
“Up until very recently, that was our operating theory. We automatically considered overkill to be rooted in anger, and then we extrapolated that into a personal relationship. If the offender’s angry, he had to have something against that person. Bingo. He knew the vic, hated her or was pissed at her for something. But the new thinking is that psychopaths, who don’t feel any anger at all, are not necessarily angry at the victim. They’re angry at someone else and projecting onto the victim.
“Even more significant is that we’ve found that some psychopaths enjoy inflicting damage and injury—for them, there’s no anger or projection involved. So we have to be careful with calling severe violence ‘overkill.’ It could be a sign of anger, but not always. The other thing to consider,” Vail continued, “is that serial killers target strangers. There’s no relationship with the victim. It’s not personal because they don’t know the victim personally.”
“So you’re not buying this feud as a motive.”
“First of all, anger is not a motive. Revenge is, but anger is an affect, not a motive.” Vail looked over at the house. “The feud was a disagreement between the patriarchs, right? It’s what, forty years old? There’s just no energy left in the feud. So if we’re looking at revenge as the motive, and not anger, why wait all these decades to act? Montalvo’s an old guy. Unless we’re missing something, it doesn’t look like it filtered down to the kids. It might have to some degree—but at the same intensity? They’re aware of it, of the history, but it’s not really their battle —certainly not enough to kill over.”
“We need to dig deeper,” Dixon said. “Make sure you’re right.”
“Here’s something else to consider. There were no defensive injuries on the vic; at the same time, there was a lot of control involved in her capture, and the killing, as well as the postmortem mutilation of the body. The UNSUB was very much in control of Victoria and of himself. He was methodical and careful. He didn’t hack at the breasts with a machete, but he excised them neatly. That reinforces my feeling that there’s no anger in the crime scene. And the killer’s definitely satisfied with what he did there.”
“So if Victoria was killed because of a personal feud, you’re saying we’d see more damage, more anger, possibly even rage. But what if the killer got interrupted and had to leave?”
Vail smiled. “I had a case like that very recently. Dead Eyes. You hear of it?”
“I read some stuff about it. Several women killed. Virginia, right? A couple months ago?”
“Yeah.”
“That was you?” Dixon snapped her fingers. “With the state senator—”
“Yes again.” Vail waved her hand. She wasn’t sure if she was waving it to get off the topic or to . . . get off the topic. “So yeah, it’s possible the UNSUB heard something and freaked, like you said. But there’s the issue of the other body we dug out of that collapsed wine cave that was missing the toenail. So I don’t think that’s what we’re looking at here.”
“The choking, crushing injury is pretty violent. That could be a sign of anger.”
Vail considered that. “True. Let’s wait and see what your coroner tells us about the other body. Then we can make some additional judgments, build on our profile. Right now, with just two vics, it’s hard to be accurate in our conclusions. I can only tell you what it looks like, but the odds of me being wrong are higher with so few bodies. We need more bodies, more behavior, to evaluate.” Vail shook her head. “That didn’t come out right. I’m not wishing we had more bodies—”
“I know what you meant,” Dixon said.
“I can draw one conclusion with reasonable certainty. We’re dealing with an organized offender. Intelligent and potentially socially adept. Since there were no defensive wounds, it appears he was able to co-opt his victim in such a way that she doesn’t see him as a threat. In other words, he was capable of emotionally disarming her so she’d go along with him until he could strike. If she had any objections, he successfully neutralized them.”
Dixon’s phone began vibrating on her belt. She flipped it open and listened a moment. “Okay, meet me over there.”
She closed the phone and turned to Vail. “Warrant’s ready. Clerk is delivering it to Silver Ridge.”
VAIL AND DIXON arrived at the winery a moment ahead of the law clerk, who handed over the warrant in the parking lot.
