A Sunny McCoskey Napa Valley Mystery 3: Murder Alfresco Page 13

  Sunny looked around the table, realizing she hadn’t heard anything anyone had said in quite some time. Ové looked at her and winked. She was certain now he had an unfortunate tic, and she replied with an encouraging smile.

  Her wineglass had been refilled without her noticing. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that Kimberly Knolls was hiding something. The question was how to find out what it was without causing a scene. Unable to come up with a way, Sunny tuned back into the dinner conversation. Bruce Knolls was explaining where he sourced his grapes, and what he paid for them. Daniela looked at Sunny and smiled, giving her a solid wink. Sunny stared. Daniela smiled coyly. If Ové had a tic, perhaps, from years of living together, Daniela had picked it up. Or maybe it wasn’t a tic. Maybe he started doing it on purpose, liking to establish a jovial camaraderie with new acquaintances, and she had picked up the habit. Between dinner and dessert there was more winking by both Ové and Daniela, and a commotion from Rivka’s side of the table. Wade looked at them. “What’s going on over there?”

  “Nothing,” said Rivka. “I thought something disgusting was crawling on my leg, but it turned out to be nothing.”

  When dessert arrived—a thoroughly edible apple tart with vanilla bean gelato—Sunny realized her time was running out. She leaned past Wade. “Kimberly, how did you come to name the winery Vedana? I’m not familiar with the word.”

  “It was called Acorn Flat when we bought it,” said Kimberly. “We wanted something more exotic and evocative. I liked the way vedana sounds. In Buddhism, you could say it’s almost a negative term. It means sensation, which is what causes attachment to experience. That attachment leads to pain, which keeps the whole wheel of samsara turning. But we thought it was a beautiful word that could be reinterpreted, albeit in a slightly naïve Western sense, in a positive light. Sensation, like attachment, has its good side, from our perspective.” She leaned over and gave Bruce a kiss on the cheek.

  “Where did you study Buddhism?” asked Sunny.

  “At the Zen Center in Marin. Years ago.”

  “Zen is Japanese, isn’t it?” said Sunny. “Did you ever go to Japan?”

  “No. It wasn’t like I was a student of religion. I practiced meditation at the center and read some books. I was in a difficult place in my life at the time, and I found sitting meditation helpful.”

  Sunny thought for a moment. If she was going to get any of her questions about Kimberly Knolls answered, she was going to have to be more direct, and quickly. People were already getting up and mingling with other tables. At that moment, her lucky break came from the other side of the table.

  “I love Japan,” said Daniela. “Tokyo is such a sexy city. There’s nothing like it in Europe or the Americas.” Her eyes were half closed and her head dipped as she looked across the table at Sunny. She swallowed what was left of her wine and laughed out loud, leaning into her husband. “Ové loves Japan, don’t you, darling?”

  Ové took the glass gently from his wife’s hand. “It is a fascinating place. If you consider the contributions Japan has made to world culture, especially considering the size of the country, it’s really quite remarkable. Geisha, samurai, Godzilla, sushi, Zen, the kimono, the tea ceremony, ikebana, tatami. So many things I love are Japanese.”

  “And the latest contributions, manga comic books and anime films,” said Sunny.

  Ové’s eyes lit up. “You are absolutely right. You still have to go to Japan to get the best manga and anime, but it’s finally starting to catch on here. Some of those films are works of art. Future classics.”

  “You’re forgetting the truly great contribution,” said Rivka. “Pokémon.”

  “Every culture has its weak points. Pokémon and pachinko I could live without.”

  “Aren’t some anime films pornographic?” said Sunny.

  “Some are, but most aren’t. Either way, they can be quite beautiful.” This statement was followed, no surprise, by a wink.

  Sunny took a gulp of Merlot. “But aren’t they terribly violent? I’ve never seen one, but my boyfriend said they’re extremely degrading to women and usually involve torture and bondage scenes.”

  “As opposed to Western pornography, which isn’t degrading to women?” he said. “At least nobody gets hurt making bondage cartoons. You can’t say the same thing about pornography shot with real people.”

  “Quite true,” said Sunny.

  The conversation rolled to a stop and stayed there. Daniela had her eyes closed and her head against Ové’s shoulder. Kimberly excused herself. When she came back, she and Bruce said good night. Ové coaxed a thoroughly tipsy Daniela out of her chair and persuaded her to walk with him and collect their coats. She stopped to plant a kiss on Wade Skord’s forehead. “I like him,” she told her husband loudly on their way out.

  Wade scrubbed at his wiry gray hair, looking embarrassed. “Let’s get out of here. I’m beat.”

  “You can’t drive,” said Rivka, “and I can’t even walk. We’re going to have to sleep here.”

  “When did everyone get all loosey-goosey?” said Sunny.

  “How could you not? They poured about a dozen different wines.”

  Sunny noticed for the first time the collection of wineglasses, all of them full, crowded at the top of her plate. “Come on, I’ll drive.”

  18

  A ghost landscape waited outside. The moon, a lopsided yellow spectacle that filled the valley floor with shadows, loomed over Atlas Peak like an alien visitation. Sunny kept her eyes straight ahead on the parking lot, avoiding the hillside covered with oak trees rising to the right, wary of catching a glimpse of any unusual shapes the shadows might hold. She was relieved to reach the car. Wade handed her the keys to his old Volvo station wagon and they got in.

  Rivka closed her door with a loud sigh. “That might be the strangest dinner party I have ever attended.”

  “I thought it was fairly civilized,” said Wade from the backseat. “Except the part where McCoskey went fishing for murder suspects and nearly gave Kim Knolls a nervous breakdown.”

  Sunny backed out and headed down the winery’s long driveway. “Awkward, but necessary, not that it yielded much. What did you think of Kimberly Knolls?”

  Wade whistled. “A very tidy package. That was a naughty man’s naughty dream girl if I’ve ever seen one.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Just a feeling. In my experience, contrary to the familiar saying, you can tell quite a bit about a book by its cover, and that cover said, ‘I’m a nasty, naughty girl who likes a good, hard spanking.’”

  “Saucy critter!” said Sunny. “Do you think so?”

  “I know so. Wade Skord didn’t fall off the pumpkin wagon just yesterday. I’ve circulated among plenty of bad girls in my time, and I’m ready to bet the vineyard that Kimberly Knolls has a naughty streak six lanes wide. If Bruce Knolls, that lucky devil, isn’t turning her over his knee on a regular basis, I’ll hand in my bachelor’s card and become a nun.”

  “The world is a much more mysterious place than a person would ever imagine,” said Sunny. “Why would anyone want an elective spanking? That’s like getting a parking ticket for fun.”

  “If Wade is right, I know the perfect man for her,” said Rivka. “Our friend Ové Obermeier should be just her kind of guy.”

  “I wondered what was going on over there,” said Wade. “It looked like you were tangling with a marmot under the table.”

  “More like a weasel. It’s amazing how much trouble a guy can cause with one hand. Finally I had to stomp on his foot with my heel.”

  “Ouch, the sting of the stiletto. I think I saw that,” said Wade. “I distinctly remember seeing him grimace.”

  “That explains another very perplexing aspect of dinner,” said Sunny, and told them about the winking epidemic. “I actually felt sorry for him. I thought he had a tic.”

  Rivka rolled back in her seat with the giggles. “I love it! He’s getting all pervy
on you, and you think, ‘That poor man! I must reach out to him in his time of need!’ I love how you thought they both had tics!”

  “I think I feel a little insulted,” said Wade. “Nobody groped my knee or winked at me. You could have at least given me a suggestive nudge, McCoskey. I feel like such a wallflower.”

  “You should have sat next to Daniela,” said Rivka. “I’m sure she would have made it worth your while. I thought she was going to crawl in your lap on the way out.”

  “You noticed that, did you? I figured it was my imagination.”

  “The part where she threw her cleavage in your face and nuzzled the top of your head should have been a clue,” said Sunny.

  “It just proves that you put enough wine in a girl, she’ll fall for just about anybody,” said Rivka.

  “Meow!” said Wade. “Hey, so, you think they were swingers?”

  “Swingers!” said Rivka. “I’ve never heard anyone actually use that word.”

  “What else do you call it? I think they were cruising for a side dish to the marital main course.”

  “Don’t make me lose my dinner,” said Rivka. “Hey, nice job, by the way, faking the Ferrari connection. For a while you almost had me believing in your Testa Rossa collection out in Houston.”

  “It was Ventura County, not Houston, but everything else was true. I owned every one of those cars. Put them together one piece at a time with my own hands. The only part I left out was that they were only about ten inches long.”

  “Explain,” said Rivka.

  “Back in the days before cable and TiVo, young lads like myself liked to kill the hours by assembling highly accurate models of our dream cars. My favorites were the beautiful new Testa Rossas they were bringing out in the late fifties and early sixties, what they call vintage models these days, but back then they were brand new and what everybody dreamed of owning, or even just seeing. I had a whole collection of them. I even had the 1956 Maserati Tipo 300S, a masterpiece from the moment it was born.”

  “It’s all coming together now. Little Wade Skord taking out his adolescent frustrations sniffing model glue out in the barn,” said Rivka.

  “And dreaming the sweet song of the Italian twelve-cylinder redhead,” said Wade. “I knew I would see those cars race someday, hear the basso profundo of the engines at the starting line and the howl of them flying by, and afterward have an elegant dinner in the company of two sexy young things. I just didn’t realize it would be such a long wait, or that one of them would be such a smartass.”

  Sunny glanced at the moon, hanging like a yellow stone in a dull black sky. “That’s a lot of chemistry for one winery. Riv, what’s your take on Kimberly?”

  “For once, I agree with Skord. Kimberly looked like the kind of woman who eats men for breakfast. I don’t know what she’s doing with Bruce. He seemed like a nice, ordinary guy. She’s all action. Did you see the nails? And the choker? That was a fuck me outfit if I ever saw one.”

  “So we have Ové the groping winker and his winking accomplice Daniela,” said Sunny. “We have Bruce Knolls, the enigma, who may be a nice, ordinary guy, or who may simply have a better poker face than everyone else, and we have Kimberly, the wanton beauty with a case of nerves. In my opinion, somebody at that table has something to do with Heidi Romero.” She thought for a moment. “And then there’s Dean Blodger. Is it possible to believe he was at the racetrack today by coincidence? No, it’s not. But why would he go there?”

  “The same reason you did,” said Rivka.

  “Yep. To get a look at Bruce and Kimberly Knolls,” said Sunny. “But how would he know they’d be there?”

  “The same way you did. It’s probably posted on their Web site.”

  The Volvo’s occupants fell into a meditative silence as the road narrowed and the trees planted on either side reached together overhead, their branches thrumming a flickering pattern of moon shadow on the hood of the car as they drove toward home.

  19

  Certain chores at Wildside could not wait until Monday morning. Least urgent was the tower of unopened mail on her desk, but that was what Sunny tackled first, since it was more inviting than doing inventory on the walk-in, figuring out why the grease drain on the grill was sluggish, and baking a fresh supply of biscotti. Even the payroll sounded fun compared to cleaning out the grease drain. Andre was right, she thought, tearing open another bill. If she expanded the restaurant like he suggested, and started serving dinner and staying open on weekends, she could do more business, bring in more revenue, and afford to hire more staff, which might ultimately liberate her from cleaning out the grease drain, not to mention working the line all day Monday through Friday. On the other hand, there was plenty of evidence to suggest that expanding the restaurant’s hours would only expand her own and make it that much more difficult to maintain her standards. “More money, more problems,” was what her father said plenty of times, usually on a Sunday afternoon while trying to repair some new piece of equipment that was supposed to make life simpler.

  She had finished opening the mail, taken inventory, made a list of what to order for the week, completed the payroll, and, against all inclination, crawled under the grill, unbolted a section of pipe, and stuck her arm into the drain up to the elbow, the better to scrape away the clogged-up grease, when she heard knocking. She waited, presuming she was mistaken. To her surprise, it sounded again, this time louder and more insistent. She wiggled out from under the grill and found a rag, wiping the black grime off her hands as best she could. The knocking continued impatiently from the front door.

  “Coming!” she called. “It’s Sunday and we’re not open, but I am coming to the door anyway. Just one second, please.” Sunny did not have to open the door to know who it was. It would be a tourist convinced that her continued happiness and well-being, as well as that of her friends and loved ones, hinged irrevocably on a reservation for four at noon on Tuesday, and that her possession of a major credit card entitled her to as much. Instead, she was surprised to see Kimberly Knolls standing on the threshold, looking the picture of affluent professionalism. She did not stay there for long. Sunny moved aside as Kimberly walked in without waiting for an invitation.

  “We need to talk. Are you alone here?” said Kimberly.

  Sunny took two chairs down from a table in the dining room. “We’re alone. Have a seat. Would you like something to drink? I’m going to get a lemonade for myself.”

  Kimberly declined. Sunny went into the kitchen and came back with two glasses. She put a glass of water in front of Kimberly and sat down with her lemonade. Mrs. Knolls, dressed in a sleek gray pants suit and heels, was as well groomed as Sunny was slouchy, sweaty, and grubby.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Kimberly moved her sunglasses to the top of her head and stared into Sunny’s eyes with a fierceness that some people would have found intimidating. A few years ago, Sunny would have been one of them, but running a restaurant and all it entailed—demanding near perfection from her crew, dealing with arrogant customers, handling the county and city authorities—had toughened her to such displays. Kimberly gave it her best shot, nevertheless. She leaned toward Sunny. “First of all, I know who you are. I found it all out this morning. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but it is not amusing. I’d like a complete explanation of last night, and if I’m not satisfied you’ve told me everything, I’m going straight to the police.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” said Sunny.

  Kimberly’s lips narrowed angrily. “You think the fact that a young woman died is some kind of invitation to play games?”

  “No, I don’t think it is. Do you?”

  “I’m not the one going around telling lies,” said Kimberly. “You pretended you didn’t know anything about the murder when you know more than anyone else.”

  Sunny bit her lip. “That’s true. I’m sorry I deceived you. I wanted to hear what you thought about the murder, see if you knew anything about Heidi Rome
ro, if you had any theories. That’s why I went to the Ferrari dinner last night, to try to talk to you. But the police asked me not to tell anyone I was the one who found her, so I had to pretend I only knew what was in the paper.”

  “And are you satisfied now? We don’t know her. We don’t know anything about her. It was a random act of violence that happened to land in our laps. It was just our miserable bad luck, and hers.”

  “Do you honestly believe that? Because it seems very odd to me. It just doesn’t fit. If you saw what I saw that night, you would find it very hard to believe there was anything random about that particular act of violence. It was … orchestrated. Choreographed. What’s the word? Curated.”

  “Murder rarely seems normal, does it? And the fact remains, we know nothing about any of it. Our winery caught the attention of a killer. In the scheme of his demented logic, it somehow made sense to leave her there. We may never know what that logic was.”

  Sunny studied her. There was no hurry. She took her time, gathering her thoughts and her courage. Kimberly Knolls wasn’t going anywhere.

  “We have a very unpleasant situation on our hands. A young woman, a fine person by all accounts, is dead. Her killer is free. And you know something that has you in a panic. I don’t want to make any of this more difficult for you, but under the circumstances—”

  “I am hardly in a panic. It is an unpleasant situation. But it’s also over. Whoever killed Heidi Romero is long gone. They chose our winery to make their demented statement. Beyond that, none of this has anything to do with Vedana.”

  Kimberly looked even more tired, and more beautiful, than last night. Sunny drank her lemonade. Finally she said, “That sounds to me like what your husband tells you at night when you’re scared. Only he doesn’t know everything, does he? As I was saying, under the circumstances, with a killer out there running around, I’m prepared to do whatever is necessary to get to the truth. I have never believed Heidi Romero was left there at random, and I’m even less inclined to believe it now. On the contrary, I think you know plenty about that girl and why she was left at your winery, but you’d rather sit and wait and hope nothing more will come of it than tell what you know, or what you suspect.”