A Sunny McCoskey Napa Valley Mystery 3: Murder Alfresco Read online

  “I was going to call you this morning.”

  “I would have been honored.”

  He was angry. Andre had the very practical habit of becoming calmer, more polite, and even charming when he was upset. She was just about to begin the whole story when Rivka Chavez opened the garden gate and walked up the path toward them. This, at least, would save her having to repeat herself. They were still outside when Sunny heard the familiar sound of Wade Skord’s old Volvo purring into the parking lot. She looked at Rivka. “Are we having a party I don’t know about?”

  Wade Skord opened the garden gate. “Ladies. Gentleman.”

  “Déjà vu,” said Sunny.

  “You can’t just drop a bomb like that and take off.”

  They went inside and Sunny steamed a pot of milk and fired shots of espresso. She layered cold milk, then warm milk, then creamy foam into glasses and poured a shot into each. Rivka loaded up a tray with the lattes, orange juice, and a plate of biscotti while Andre opened the French doors to the patio and wiped the dew off one of the tables and four chairs.

  Besides Sunny’s mania for perfection and the fresh pastas to rival anything served in Rome, Wildside’s best feature was its patio. The patio stopped time. It was an intimate space where no evidence of a busier world intruded. At one end stood a massive cedar tree, which littered the patio with amber-colored needles and freshened the air. In the corner across from it, the low adobe wall that circled most of the perimeter rose up to form an outdoor fireplace. In the spring and fall, the maitre d’, who was also the sommelier and gardener, kept a fire going, burning vine trimmings and, for the holiday week, piñon logs brought from Santa Fe. Night-blooming jasmine tumbled over the awning that protected the French doors.

  Andre pulled up a chair and spooned sugar into his latte. “In the big office buildings in Italy,” he said, “they employ a girl barista in a miniskirt on each floor with a little espresso cart.”

  “Sounds like an urban legend to me,” said Rivka.

  Andre stirred his coffee and looked up at Sunny, who saw for the first time how tired he was.

  “Have you even been to bed yet?” she asked.

  He licked the spoon. “I closed my eyes in the shower. Does that count?”

  “You stayed out all night?”

  “I would have gladly spent it sleeping in the arms of a good woman, but she wouldn’t return my calls. I had to turn to my friends for support and distraction.”

  “Time,” said Rivka, making the T gesture. “You guys can hash out the romance later. I want to know why McCoskey’s truck was parked out front of the Dusty Vine all day yesterday while she rode her bicycle to work.”

  “Who told you that?” said Sunny.

  “Take a wild guess. I’ll give you a hint: He has beady little all-knowing eyes, a shiny dome, and gossips like a teenage girl.”

  “Lenstrom?”

  Rivka nodded. “Who else? With friends like us, you don’t need government surveillance.”

  Sunny shook her head. “How do you know I wasn’t involved in some cheap barroom hookup? That is exactly the sort of information a friend does not drag to the surface.”

  “And?”

  “Let me start at the beginning.”

  “Does the beginning eventually get us to the part I want to know about?” said Wade. “I’m sure the truck story is solid material, but I’ve got grapes to tend to.”

  “It all takes us to the same place. I’ll move quickly.”

  She described leaving the party, walking toward home, seeing the truck at Vedana Vineyards, and finding the woman’s body, though in less detail than when she told Steve.

  “Until the cops get this guy, this story does not leave this table,” said Sunny. “None of it, not even that I found her or was involved at all. Monty Lenstrom excepted.”

  “Heavy,” said Rivka.

  “Does the person who did this know who you are?” asked Wade. “That’s not exactly the kind of folks you want dropping by the house.”

  “That’s why it’s better if we don’t talk about it,” said Sunny. “So I can stay anonymous. Until I told you, only the cops knew I found her. Whoever was driving the truck might have seen me, but they won’t know my name or where to find me.”

  “What kind of rope did they use?” asked Andre.

  “Nothing special. Plain brown hemp.”

  “Tied around her how?”

  Sunny explained.

  “It sounds like shibari,” he said. “Japanese rope tying. A bondage fetish. They always use hemp rope, and the pattern sounds shibari-style.”

  The table went silent. Andre looking around at the three faces staring at him. “Am I the only one who’s ever seen Japanese porn?”

  “I’ve heard of it,” said Rivka. “Animated, right?”

  “Right. Stylized bondage is stock in trade in Japanese anime porn and manga. Manga are like comic books with very simple illustrations and more pages. The ones for adults are usually pornographic and almost always include rope bondage. Shibari is the Japanese equivalent of the plumber coming by to fix the leaky sink. A porn motif, if you will.”

  “Do you have any of this stuff?” asked Sunny.

  “Uh, I know where I can get some. Why?”

  “I’d like to see it. It might help explain what that whole scene was about.”

  “Do you think that’s a good idea? It seems like it would make it worse.”

  “I know, but it might help explain what happened to her. When can you get it?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I remember when pornography was something to be ashamed of, unless you were Swedish,” said Wade. “Being Swedish, those were the days.”

  They finished their coffee and went inside, led by Rivka, who froze in her tracks. “Gonzalez!” she hissed.

  “Where?” said Andre.

  “By the front door, headed toward the kitchen.”

  Andre stepped over and blocked the entrance to the kitchen. “Come on, mouse, let’s see what you’ve got,” he said, acting point guard.

  A blip of fur with a strand of tail and enormous round ears darted right and left and dashed past Andre into the kitchen, raced across the floor, and disappeared into a cupboard.

  “Now I have you, Señor Gonzalez.”

  Andre opened the cupboard slowly and jiggled a cardboard box on the floor, leaping back. The mouse ran from behind it, directly toward him.

  “Death from above!” he shouted, smashing the mouse with a leather driving moccasin, to devastating effect.

  “You didn’t,” said Sunny, running into the kitchen.

  “No more mouse,” said Andre, making a fierce chopping motion.

  “At least it was quick,” said Wade.

  “It’s better than the trap,” said Rivka. “Instant death.”

  “I’m so glad it’s Friday,” said Sunny.

  Andre cleaned up the remains as an act of chivalry and stood at the back sink scrubbing his hands. “Try to forget about all this morbid stuff, okay?” he said. “It’s a beautiful day and you have all morning to cook.” He wiped off his hands and rolled down his sleeves. “I’ve gotta go. Special prep today. We’re doing a delicacy from Cambodia for Easter. Deep-fried whole baby chicks. They’re so tender, you eat the bones and all. See you tonight.”

  She listened until she heard the gate open and close behind him, then went to work.

  Fridays were always busy and this one was no exception. Spring fever had put the town in the mood to leave work early and settle down over a late lunch with a glass of something cool and bright. Berton, Wildside’s sommelier and Renaissance man, spent the afternoon dashing down to the wine cage in the basement to replenish supplies of floral Champagnes, crisp Sauvignon Blancs and Chardonnays, Bandol pink, and marvelously sweet, delicate dessert Sauternes. Sunny and Rivka hardly spoke. With just two of them in the kitchen and a full house up front, it was all they could do to keep up with the waitstaff.

  Work was more challengin
g than usual thanks to a persistent, unusual mood of ennui on Sunny’s part. Not in the sense of boredom, but ennui in the sense of a marked lack of enthusiasm. She arranged spears of grilled asparagus without her usual mania for aligning the grill marks. She poured green pepper sauce over the filet mignon with a lackadaisical nonchalance, and even with a feeling of, if she were to name it honestly, despair. She hardly exulted when Soren put in an order for the last plate of calamari. Her mind drooped and lagged, and required a steady stream of boot camp-style encouragement in order to continue. Buck up, soldier, you’re going to dress those greens and plate that rosy slab of king salmon, and you’re going to like it! As the afternoon progressed, her joie de cuisiner faltered, staggered, and finally collapsed, leaving her perspiring in a cramped and sweltering kitchen with a seemingly hopeless number of tasks to accomplish.

  Rivka caught the mood and grew sullen. When the last customer left, they wiped down the work stations and boxed up everything that would not survive the weekend with a grim efficiency that betrayed their mutual desires to be gone as swiftly as possible. Even the dishwasher worked more quickly than usual. He had finished the pots and pans and was already pulling up the rubber mats in the kitchen to power wash the concrete floors. Heather and Soren divvied up the day’s tips, cashed out Berton and the only busser who’d shown up, and left without the usual closing idle.

  On Friday afternoons, Sunny’s habit was to linger, flipping through the stacks of cookbooks in her office for ideas for the next week’s menu, paying bills, and taking care of odds and ends. It was the time her employees dropped in to discuss any concerns they might have, or to ask for time off. Today she couldn’t wait to go home. She took the cherry blossoms, pale pink tulips, and lilies from a tall vase on the counter and wrapped them in newspaper for the drive home. Rivka helped her load the food in the truck. Swiftly, wordlessly, feeling as if they were tapping the very dregs of their capacities, they made their last checks that everything was in order, and, exchanging exhausted looks, removed their aprons and headed home.

  Sunny took the towel from around her waist and wiped the steam off the bathroom mirror. Two little nose hairs, strays from their rightful territory within the nostrils, grew with stubborn regularity directly underneath, like tiny tusks. She imagined the cell-foremen examining the floor plans to her face and deciding where to put the nose hairs. They’d already installed two of them when the architect arrived and raised hell. They were off by at least a quarter of an inch!

  She leaned in and plucked, wincing. Just as the tweezers gripped the second offender, she noticed the window behind her reflected in the mirror, and in the bottom portion of it, a man’s face watching her. The scream was already ringing in her ears when she realized she was staring at an equally startled Monty Lenstrom.

  7

  “What the heck were you doing creeping around the side of the house?” said Sunny, still puffing from the fright he’d given her.

  Monty Lenstrom took off his spectacles and polished them on his shirt nervously. “I wasn’t creeping around, I was just trying to see if anybody was home.”

  “What’s wrong with knocking?”

  “I did knock, but you didn’t answer. As I see now, you were in the shower. Nice tan lines.”

  Sunny punched him in the arm, hard enough to feel the thump of knuckle on bone.

  “Ow.”

  “Why didn’t you just hang around on the front stoop until you could hear me moving around inside like a normal Peeping Tom?”

  Monty ran his fingers over his scalp, as if checking to see if any hair had suddenly appeared there. “If you must know, I wanted to make sure nobody had you bound and gagged in here. I was a concerned friend. I saw your truck out front and the cruiser locked up. I knew you were here. When you didn’t answer…” He registered Sunny’s surprise. “Rivka told me.”

  “That was fast.”

  “Is there any wine in this joint, or do I have to open what I brought?”

  “There’s a bottle of Truchard Chard in the fridge.”

  “You’re Tru Chard Chard, hush hush, eye to eye,” he sang, foraging. Sunny finished getting dressed. She came back to find him digging in cartons from the restaurant with a fork.

  “No picking. I have a really nice bread and olives and a few slabs of stinky cheeses that will blow your mind,” said Sunny. “Just give me ten seconds.”

  “I’m starving. I was out at the airport all day.”

  “Why?”

  “Auction. Some failed dot-com wine site was liquidating its stock. Unbelievable bargains. I think I paid at least forty percent under cost for a few lots. Good juice, too. Those guys must have had some serious funding. They had an inventory to keep the best wine shop on the Champs-Elysées stocked for a year and no customers.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” said Sunny. “That sounds like quality scavenging.”

  “I didn’t want the competition. You know how I am when it comes to business. I’d squeeze out my own mother if it meant I could score some inventory on the cheap.”

  “At least you admit it.”

  “Does that make it better?”

  Monty found the wine opener and pulled the cork on the bottle of Chardonnay Sunny handed him. “Listen to that,” he said. “Music to my wine-besotted ears. Someday we’ll tell the youngsters about that sound. It’s nothing but the crack of the lowly screw cap from here on out.”

  “It won’t happen that soon, will it?”

  “More operations are switching all the time. Nobody can afford the risk of cork anymore, especially at the high end. You know how it is. If a bottle of two hundred-dollar Cab comes up corked, it’s a problem. And if ten percent of your inventory is corked, you have a big problem. Nobody used to notice. Ignorance was bliss. Now people know what corked wine tastes like and they bring it back.”

  “Call me old-fashioned, but I still think there may be something important about a natural stopper,” said Sunny. “We might not know what it is for a decade or so. Whatever it is that’s lost may not be evident until a wine is ten or fifteen years old. It might be subtle, but I’m sure there will be a difference. A cork is porous, an aluminum cap is not. A corked bottle is still interacting with the environment. A capped bottle is not. The two wines are going to age differently.”

  “I agree,” said Monty, “but the capped wine might age better.”

  “Better being a subjective term. People think CDs sound better than vinyl.”

  “And everybody agrees cassettes sound terrible. Quality is only subjective after the base values everyone agrees upon are met. I don’t know anyone who loves drinking wine that smells like wet newspaper. Beyond that, you’re absolutely right, it’s a matter of taste.”

  Sunny started taking restaurant leftovers out of the refrigerator, piling white takeout boxes on the butcher block in the middle of the kitchen. There were four different main courses, half a dozen vegetable sides, mixed greens, a tub of soup, and several desserts. She turned on the oven and took down an assortment of saucepans. “No one will go hungry tonight.”

  “If they do, it won’t be me.”

  “So, spill it. What’d you buy at the auction anyway?” said Sunny.

  “Loads of stuff. French, Chilean, Australian. I went on a Côtes-du-Rhône spree. I bought some great Châteauneuf-du-Pape and a bunch of Gigondas. Pretty well aged, too. There was nobody there to bid against me. If you’re from out of town, you couldn’t find the Napa airport without GPS and a police escort. The guys running the thing said—”

  Monty was interrupted by the decisive jangle of the string of bells attached to the front door. Wade Skord and Rivka Chavez appeared. Greetings, coat removal, and wine pouring followed.

  “By the way, I don’t know why I bother asking anymore,” said Sunny, turning to Monty Lenstrom, “but is the lovely Annabelle joining us tonight?”

  “Negative. Annabelle has stopped eating dinner as part of her attempt to dramatically reduce her caloric intake and live to be two
hundred years old.”

  “She’s not seriously doing CR?” said Rivka.

  “Dabbling, I’d say,” said Monty.

  “What’s CR?” asked Wade.

  “Calorie restriction,” said Rivka. “I read an article about it. You eat almost nothing and live forever.”

  “What’s the advantage?” said Wade. He poured himself a glass of wine, added a splash to Sunny’s, and chimed his glass against hers. “To protection from evil spirits,” he said, meeting her eyes.

  “And Peeping Toms. Santé!”

  Sunny handed Monty a stack of plates and followed him with bowls and silverware into the living room, where the plank table took up too much space. The arrangement of pink tulips and cherry blossoms salvaged from the restaurant stood in the middle of the table, together with a rusty Moorish candelabra loaded with flesh-colored tapers. Monty arranged the plates, then took matches from his pocket and lit the candles.

  “What’s this about Peeping Toms?” said Wade.

  “I saw McCoskey in her birthday suit tonight,” he said. “The back half, at least.”

  “Racy!” said Rivka. “Let’s hear it.”

  “He was spying in the window like a pervert,” said Sunny.

  “Excuse me, I was checking up on a dear friend’s safety,” said Monty. “What were you doing in there, anyway? Squeezing a pimple?”

  “None of your business.”

  Rivka looked thoughtful. “So you might say that Sunny puts the bare ass in embarrassment.”

  “Nice,” said Wade.

  When they at last sat down, it was to a feast of leftovers, beginning with a winter gazpacho of Seville oranges, pine nuts, and paprika, and a platter of grilled asparagus with chopped hardboiled eggs in a marjoram vinaigrette, followed by lemon-rosemary chicken, a small portion of braised oxtail with leeks and carrots that had been unexpectedly popular that week, and, as the pièce de résistance, roasted spring lamb shoulder with potatoes au gratin, of which there was an ample supply since it had been unexpectedly unpopular all week. They opened a bottle of Skord Zinfandel to go with it.