“He can’t possibly suspect. He thinks we’re out in the field, that’s all.”
“But all day, every fourth Wednesday? We’re going to have to shift the deliveries around among our clients. If Sarge finds out we’ve been stealing-“
“Stop, already!”
Now what I couldn’t believe was that they’d discuss such things in a public place. A sergeant, headquarters, being out in the field, deliveries, stealing…Was it possible that Angie and Melissa were a couple of undercover narcs who were selling the drugs they confiscated?
After a while one of them sighed. Melissa’s voice said, “It’s time.”
“Yeah. Back to the ghetto.”
“Listen, if you can’t take the heat…”
“Funny. Very funny.”
When we got back to Oakland I hung around Wide Horizons while Melissa paid for the flight in cash and gave Sam a two hundred dollar tip. Then I went to Gordon’s office and made a verbal report, asking him to keep the information confidential until I’d collected concrete evidence. I’d have that for him, I said, before the woman’s next scheduled flight.
As I drove across the Bay Bridge to my offices at Pier 24 ?, one of the renovated structures along San Francisco’s Embarcadero, I thought over what I’d heard at the mud baths. Something was wrong with the picture I’d formed. No specific detail, just the nagging sense that I’d overlooked an item of importance. I wanted to get my computer researcher, Mick Savage, started on the case as soon as possible.
The next morning, Mick began by accessing the Napa County property-tax assessor’s records; he found that the estate in the hills belonged to Carols Robles, a prominent vintner, whose wines even I-whose budget had only recently expanded to accommodate varieties with corks-had heard of. While Mick began tracking information on Robles in the periodicals indexes, I asked a contact on the SFPD to check with the National Crime Information Center for criminal histories on the vintner, Angie Holbrook, and Melissa Wells. They all came up clean.
Mick started downloading news stories and magazine articles on Robles and his winery, and soon they formed an imposing stack on my desk. I had other work to do, so I called in Rae Kelleher, my field investigator, and asked her to check with our contacts at Bay Area police departments for detectives answering to the women’s names or matching their descriptions. At six o’clock, I hauled the stack of information on Robles home to my brown-shingled cottage near the Glen Park district, curled up on the couch with my cats, and spent the evening reading.
If you believed Robles’ press, he was a pillar of the Napa Valley community. His wines were considered excellent and frequently took gold medals at the various national competitions. Robles Vineyards hosted an elegant monthly wine, food, and music event at their St. Helena Cellars, which was attended by prominent social and political figures, many of whom Carlos Robles counted among his close friends. I couldn’t detect the slightest breath of scandal about his personal life; he’d been married to the same woman for thirty-three years, had four children and six grandchildren, and by all accounts was devoted to his family.
A paragon, if you believed the press…
As the next week passed, I dug deeper into the winemaker’s life, but uncovered nothing significant, and I finally concluded that to get at the truth of the matter, I’d have to concentrate on the two women. Rae had turned up nothing through our PD contacts, so I asked Mick to do an area-wide search for their address-a lengthy and tedious process, as far as I was concerned, but he didn’t seem to mind. Mick, who is also my nephew, has a relationship with his PowerBook that I, no fan of the infernal devices, sometimes find unnatural.
The search paid off, however: He turned up two Melissa Wells’ and three Angela Holbrook’s in various East Bay locations, from Berkeley to Danville. I narrowed it down by the usual method- surveillance.
The building I tailed Angie Holbrook to from her Berkeley apartment was vine-covered brick, set well back from the sidewalk on Shattuck Avenue, only two blocks from the famous Chez Panisse restaurant in the heart of what’s come to be known as the Gourmet Ghetto. Polished brass lettering beside the front door said HQ Magazine. By the time I went inside and asked for Angie, I was putting it all together. And when she started to cry at the sight of my I.D., I knew I had it right.
But even after Angie, Melissa Wells and I sat down over a cappuccino at Chez Panisse and discussed the situation, something still nagged at me. It wasn’t till the Monday before their next flight to Calistoga that I figured out what it was, and then I had to scramble fast to come up with the evidence.
“Open their briefcases,” I said to Sam Delaney. We were gathered in the office at Wide Horizons-Sam, Gordon Tillis, Melissa, Angie, and me.
Sam hesitated, glancing at Gordon.
“Go ahead,” he prompted. “You’re pilot in command; you’ve got the FAA in your corner.”
He hesitated some more, then flipped the catch of Melissa’s case and raised its lid. Staring down into it, he said to me, “But…you told Gordon we had big trouble. This is…just papers.”
“Right. Recipes and pictures of food.”
“I don’t get it. I thought the babes were into drugs.”
Unfortunate word choice; the “babes” and I glared at him.
“Ms. Wells and Ms. Holbrook,” I said, “are chefs and food writers for a very prestigious magazine
“What’s this got to do with-”
“I’m getting to that. For the past six months Melissa and Angie have been creating the menus for Robles Vineyards’ wine, food, and music events, using recipes they originally developed for
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “You say these recipes are stolen?”
“I suppose Greenfield could make a case for that.”
“Then why don’t you have them arrested?”
“Actually, the matter’s already been settled.” Angie and Melissa had decided to admit what they’d been doing to their employer, who had promptly fired them; they had now established their own catering firm and, in my opinion, would eventually be better off.
Gordon Tillis cleared his throat. “This strikes me as a good example of how we all rely too heavily on appearances in forming our opinions of people. Not a good practice; it’s too easy to jump to the wrong conclusion.”
Sam looked down, shuffling his feet. “Uh, I hope you ladies won’t hold this against me,” he said after a moment. “I’d still like to fly you up to the valley.”
“Fine with us,” Angie replied.
“Speaking of that-”I glanced at my watch “-isn’t it time you got going?”
Gordon and I walked out onto the field with them. The two men preflighting the Piper next to Sam’s plane cast admiring glances at Angie and Melissa, and I was surprised when one of them winked at me. When we got to the Cessna, I snapped my fingers and said, “Oh, there’s something I want to check, just out of curiosity. May I see the
