“I’m sorry, ma’am. I thought you’d know. I’m saying Fitz is deader ’n a doornail. He was inside that tank. Death by almost instant asphyxiation.”
Chapter 6
Some people can deliver disastrous news as calmly as if they’re reporting on the weather, blunting the shock and horror of their words. It took a long moment before I understood what he’d just said.
I said numbly, “There would have been pure carbon dioxide in that tank.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“My God, what was he thinking? I need to go to him. He’s my godfather.”
“He doesn’t need anything from anyone anymore.” He sounded brusque and businesslike. “Call 911 and get that doc over to the barrel room pronto. My cell phone’s dead or I would have done it already. Then I saw this place lit up like a Christmas tree. Now that I know it’s only you, I need to get back there.”
“I’m coming with you.”
He looked up at the ceiling and I could almost hear him count to ten. “Look, I understand how you must be feeling, but I don’t need two people barfing all over the place. Help me out here. Make that call like a good girl, okay?” He turned and walked out.
So this was our new winemaker.
I called 911 like a good girl.
Doc Harmon and I were on the lawn outside the villa with Jesús, who looked pale and scared, when Bobby Noland drove up in a brown-and-gold Sheriff’s Department cruiser. Fortunately he hadn’t turned on the lights and sirens or it would have alerted everyone at the main house—meaning almost everyone in Atoka—that something was happening at the winery. The place would be a mob scene in no time.
Eli was right behind Bobby in the Jaguar.
I’d switched on the outdoor lights, which included floodlights and fairy lights strung in several of the bushes and trees. Bobby walked across the lawn, caught in the wash of light, still with the swaggering bantam way about him that he’d had in high school. I hadn’t seen much of him in the dozen years since he’d graduated.
He started talking from ten yards away. “What happened? The call came in when I was still over at the house. Y’all got enough food there to last you till the cows come home. The dispatcher said someone was hurt bad at the winery.”
He and Eli reached our little group. Bobby pointed to Jesús. “This the guy?” He nodded to me. “Hey, Lucie. Didn’t get a chance to see you earlier. Sorry for your loss.”
Up close Bobby looked like he’d aged more than he should have, but maybe it was the uniform and the holstered gun on his belt. When he took off his cap his sandy hair was short and bristly as a porcupine’s. In high school it used to hang in his eyes sheepdog style, which always made him look like he was hiding something. Now I could see his eyes. He wasn’t hiding anything, including how tired he looked.
I still had Eli’s handkerchief from earlier in the evening, damp again from fresh use. I twisted it around my fingers like a strand of rope. “Thanks, Bobby. It’s Fitz. Jesús here’s the one who found him.”
He’d been unwrapping a piece of bubble gum, which he was about to put in his mouth. He stopped and said, “Fitz Pico? Where is he?”
“In the barrel room.”
“What was Fitz doing in the barrel room?” Eli asked.
“I don’t know. But he was in one of the stainless-steel tanks. It had been purged. Injected with pure carbon dioxide.”
“Oh my God,” Eli made a small choking sound and coughed. Our eyes met for a second before he turned away. He looked upset. But not grief-stricken.
“Fitz was in one of those big silver tanks?” Even in the artificial light, I could see Bobby go pale under his dark reddish suntan. He spoke into a microphone attached to a shoulder strap. “Send backup. Montgomery Vineyard.” He turned away and muttered again into the microphone. Then he said, “Where’s that winemaker of yours? Santini?”
“Santori. Quinn Santori,” Eli said as I added, “In the barrel room.”
“Shit. He better not of messed anything up.” He turned to Doc Harmon. “I could use some help, Elvis.”
“Sure thing. You all right, son?” Doc looked at Jesús, who nodded.
After they left Eli grabbed my elbow, dragging me next to a small border garden of red salvia and white impatiens where Jesús couldn’t hear us.
“Goddamn it!” A tiny vein pulsed in his temple. “Do you know what this is going to do to our asking price when we put the place on the market?”
I jabbed my index finger against his chest. “Fitz is
“Cold? Give me a damn break. I feel as bad as you do.” He ran a hand through his overgelled hair. “Just because I’m being realistic doesn’t mean I’m not sorry about Fitz.”
“Sure. I can tell it’s tearing you apart.”
He had changed from his monogrammed dress shirt and tie into a monogrammed peach-colored polo shirt. There was a time when he refused to wear clothing that had someone’s name printed or sewn on it, even his own. And I’d never seen him wear anything peach.
“Knock it off. Don’t act so damned sanctimonious, okay? You haven’t got a monopoly on grief, Lucie. This isn’t only happening to you.”
“I never said it was,” I said. “But you can at least spend a few seconds mourning him before you start talking about money.”
I smacked my cane against the ground as I walked over to Jesús and sat down. We’d scrapped like a normal brother and sister when we were kids. But this was something more. Eli was driven in a way I didn’t remember—his concern about money, the designer wardrobe, the palace he was building. How much debt was he in, anyway?
I fanned myself with my hand and unstuck my dress, which clung to me like I’d showered in it. It got this hot in the south of France, but it was a dry heat, cooled and tempered by the mistral and scented with the powerful fragrances of lavender, thyme, and rosemary. Here the air was so thick I could practically see it and the smell was the dank chemical odor of soil and plants and grass decomposing.
An ambulance showed up, along with a fire truck and two other official-looking cars. Though they didn’t use their sirens, their red and blue strobe lights pulsed in the nighttime blackness, adding to the surreal feeling that was slowly taking hold of me.
Eli caught up with one of the fireman who walked quickly toward the courtyard to the barrel room. He wore a dirty yellow jacket with orange reflective stripes, overalls, boots, and a helmet. On the back of the jacket, large luminescent letters spelled out “Gleason.” He stopped and shoved the helmet off his forehead, listening to what my brother told him. He shook his head and moved on.
Eli saw me watching and strode over. “This is absurd. We’re not allowed in our own place.”
“Let them do their work, Eli.”
He glared at me but said nothing.
It was a while before Bobby finished. Jesús had wandered over to the stone wall by the parking lot, leaning against it and chain-smoking. Doc Harmon left on a veterinary emergency. “Maybe I can save a life somewhere else,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do here.”
Eli and I sat on the villa steps, not speaking. We got up when Bobby finally walked through the courtyard archway carrying a small notebook. He kept clicking his ballpoint pen like he was counting something.
“Well, Santini says there wasn’t any oxygen in that tank. It was pure carbon dioxide. He says Fitz would have suffocated instantly.”
I shuddered.
“Santori,” Eli said. “And he’s right. Jacques was strict as hell about not letting anybody work around the tanks without a buddy when they were cleaning them. Climbing into a purged stainless-steel tank is like climbing into a
