shark tank. There have been accidents just like this out in California.” He shrugged. “Making wine has its occupational hazards.”
Bobby blew a bubble and popped it. “Jesus, Eli. Are you trying to pass this off as an accident? You think Fitz took a wrong detour and ended up in your tank of wine?”
Eli reddened. “Of course not. But when he showed up at Leland’s wake last night he was stinking drunk. He told Lucie he needed to stop here to pick up some wine. I don’t know…maybe he got disoriented or something.”
Bobby opened his notebook and clicked the pen once more. He started writing. “He said he was coming here, did he?”
“To pick up some special cases of wine for a wedding,” I said.
“Santini says there’s a bunch of money missing from your safe,” Bobby flipped back through a few pages. “More’n four thousand bucks. You got some migrant workers here who just show up for harvest. Not the same guys every year. Not the same guys every day, for that matter.” He looked at us. “And someone cut the lock to the barrel room door. You’ll need to replace it.”
“Robbery?” I asked. “You think he surprised someone trying to rob us?”
“Dunno,” he said. “We’re talking to all your crew. It’s taking a while, though, because nobody speaks English. Hector just showed up. He and Santini are doing the translating for us.” He blew another bubble. “So when was the last time you all saw Fitz?”
“Shortly before the wake ended,” I said. “He left when Thelma started singing.”
“Wise move.” Bobby chewed thoughtfully. “So what time was that, about?”
“Nine-thirty?” I guessed.
“Closer to nine-forty,” Eli said.
Bobby looked up from the notes he’d been writing and frowned. Then his face lightened. “Oh right. You’ve got that nuclear watch. Must come in handy sometimes. So nine-forty, then.” He did some calculating. “That’d put him here about nine-fifty, nine-fifty-five. Kind of late at night to be working, isn’t it?”
“Restaurants and vineyards don’t work eight-hour day shifts, Bobby. Just like you guys,” Eli said.
“That so?” Bobby squinted at us. “So where were the both of you last night?”
Eli looked incredulous. “At Leland’s wake, of course.”
“I meant afterwards. When did you leave and what did you do?”
There was something different in his voice that changed him from the kid who had a regular seat in detention hall to a cop who had the authority to pry into the details of our lives. He looked at both of us and, when his eyes met mine, they were opaque and unreadable. A cop’s eyes.
Eli looked annoyed. “Oh, come on, Bobby. Brandi and I went home. To bed.”
“You’re saying you didn’t spend any time here? This place or the big house?”
“Only to drop Lucie off,” Eli said. “Brandi was exhausted. We went straight home after that. To Leesburg.”
“Did you drive by the winery?”
“Nope.”
“What about you, Lucie?”
“I went to bed after Eli took me home. I had just gotten off a plane from France yesterday afternoon. I was really beat, Bobby.”
“Who else was there? Mia? Dominique?”
“Mia stayed with Greg Knight and Dominique slept over at Joe’s,” Eli said.
“I’ll check that out, too.” He didn’t look up from his notebook, but the bubble he blew this time was lopsided and deflated instantly.
“Yo, Bobby!” Another uniformed officer stood in the courtyard archway. “We need you.”
“Coming.” The three of us walked toward him. “You two stay put,” Bobby said. “I don’t suppose I have to tell you that this place is now a crime scene. No one goes in there until we take the yellow tape down. Understood?”
“Your guys shouldn’t leave the door open like that. The place is climate-controlled.” Eli sounded irritated. “You know, harvest starts next week, Bobby. You can’t shut us down.”
“Actually, Eli, I’m afraid we can.” Bobby was short. “And the place is gonna stay shut down while we go over everything for evidence. So if anybody gets any cute ideas about sneaking back in and contaminating the site before I give the all clear, you’ll be hearing about it from hell to breakfast. Understand?”
He left for the barrel room without waiting for an answer, his heavy-soled shoes crunching on the gravel.
“Damnit,” Eli said. He picked up a handful of stones and pitched them, one by one, at nothing in particular.
“Why did you have to be so hard on him? Maybe we could have worked something out, if only you hadn’t treated him like he was Barney Fife, straight out of Mayberry.”
Eli’s eyes were cool. “I’m starting to wonder whose side you’re on, Luce.”
I heard the car coming before it pulled into the floodlit parking lot. A blonde woman driving a khaki-colored Jeep with the top down parked next to Eli’s Jag.
“Oh God,” Eli said. “What’s
Katherine Eastman opened the door to the Jeep and climbed out, a large leather purse slung over one shoulder. She was dressed in a black mini-skirt and clingy red tank top that had either shrunk in the dryer or she was kidding herself. She must have gained twenty-five pounds since the last time I’d seen her.
“I came as soon as I heard,” she said. She was wearing lipstick to match the fire-engine-red tank top, eye makeup that looked like it had been applied by a road marking gang, and her hair, which had once been a flatteringly warm shade of auburn, was Marilyn Monroe blonde. “Is it really true?”
“You shouldn’t have bothered,” Eli said. “We could do without the press.”
“I’m surprised to see you here, Eli. I didn’t realize your leash extended this far.” She hugged me. “Hey, kiddo. It’s good to see you again. I’m so sorry about your dad.”
Kit and I had been friends since we used to play in the sandbox together and she’d been my brother’s girlfriend until Brandi showed up. The split between Kit and Eli had been volcanic. Kit told me later that she finally understood the truth in the saying about the fine line that existed between love and hate, that it was absolutely possible to go from loving someone so much you would die for him to hating him so much you could kill him. Two years later it looked like the bitterness between them had hardened to mutual contempt.
“Where have you been?” I asked. “I tried to reach you.”
“At my mom’s. The home helper was sick. You know we can’t leave her alone anymore. She sends her apologies about missing the funeral and the wake. She’s having a tough time at the moment.”
“Tell her I’ll be by to visit, when she’s up for it.”
“She’d like that.” She glanced over Eli’s shoulder. “So what happened? Do they know anything yet?”
“About what?” Eli said. “What are you talking about?”
“When the police scanner’s not working,” Kit said, “we get our information from jungle drums.”
She was a reporter with the
A lot of people thought it was a demotion, criticizing her for what they said was a self-inflicted wound that was going to stall out her career. Kit told them to go to hell.
“One of our guys found Fitz inside one of the stainless-steel tanks. It had been purged,” I said.
“Oh my God.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a reporter’s notebook. “Put that away,” Eli said. “This is a private matter.”
“Like hell it is, Eli. Fitz was a nationally prominent chef.”
“You’re doing a story?” I asked.
“Yeah. For the National desk. Metro’s pretty ticked off because they wanted it, but, hey, like I said, Fitz was well known. And, um, cause of death is, well…”
“Get out of here, Kit,” Eli said. “You’re trespassing.”
Kit walked over to him and fingered the collar of his polo shirt. “Peach, hunh? New color for you. Kind of
