Dead in the Dregs (7 page)

Leaving, I stepped into the phone booth and looked up Carla Fehr’s address.

“One more stop,” I said to Danny when we were in the truck.

He threw me a look that suggested I was out of my mind, then turned his back on me.

“You’re not a detective, Dad,” he said out the window.

“True,” I acknowledged, “but bartenders and detectives have a lot in common.”

He turned his head to look at me.
Sure they do
, the look said.

 

Carla Fehr lived
in a small white clapboard cottage on a back road on the other side of the highway. Lace curtains masked the windows.

“Wait here. I’m not sure this woman’s going to talk to me,” I said. “I think it’s better if I go it alone.” Danny appeared relieved to be let off the hook. “I’ll just be a minute.”

The geraniums on the front porch hadn’t been deadheaded in weeks. I knocked and stood there for several minutes. The cicadas’ frenzied whining made me edgy. I knocked again and saw the curtain drawn back an inch. She opened the door and turned without saying a word, retreating to the safety of the living room. She was barefoot, wearing a man’s shirt and blue jeans. Her hair was carelessly tied up.

The room was pleasantly if sparsely furnished, a little frilly in its taste. She plopped onto the sofa and tucked one leg beneath her. I took a chair facing her.

“Still skulking around?” She shook her head. “Don’t you believe in mourning?” she asked, her tone sarcastic.

“I’m doing this for Richard’s sister. She asked me to.”

“Asked you to talk to me? I doubt it.”

“Oh? And why’s that?”

“She doesn’t know about Richard and me.”

The shadows cast by the lace played across her face, and the light silhouetted her body in the enormous shirt. It was a perfect body.

“How would you describe your relationship with Richard?”

She looked at me as if I were a child. A very stupid child.

“We were friends. He confided in me,” she finally said.

“I don’t know if he ever mentioned me, but he and I were friends, too. And he wanted to confide in
me
. There was something bothering him, something that he wanted to get off his chest. You have any notion what it might have been?”

I could tell by the look on her face—hostile, a little sad, contemptuous—that whatever it was, he hadn’t told her about it.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re after. Richard and I were close. I mean, he wasn’t here that much. But whenever he was . . . I just can’t believe somebody would do this to him.”

“So, you don’t have a clue? No idea?”

She didn’t like the fact that I was implying there was something he hadn’t told her, that their relationship was purely sexual.

“Get a life,” she said. “And get your ass out of my house.”

 

Danny was standing
outside the truck, throwing rocks into a field. I came up beside him, bent down, and grabbed a few myself, and we stood there a minute, seeing who could throw farther.

“Good arm,” I said.

“Thanks.”

“This isn’t turning out to be much fun, is it?”

“Not really,” he said.

“You wanna go home?”

“I guess.”

“Okay, let me call your mother.”

I walked to the truck and pulled my cell phone from the glove box.

“I need you to take Danny back,” I said. “If you really want me to do this.”

“You told him?” She was furious.

“I had to. Anyway, he was going to find out sooner or later.”

“How is he?”

“He’s fine. We’ve been working on it together.”

“Christ, Babe! He’s ten years old.”

“You can’t protect him. He’s too smart. He’s going to figure it out.” I could tell she was fuming in silence. “Listen, you said Richard kept an apartment in the city. You wouldn’t happen to have a key, would you?” When she said yes, I asked for the address and told her to meet us there in an hour.

We drove down 29 to Highway 12, and I pointed out the smudge pots and propellers viticulturalists use to move frigid air. Now they stood frozen in the dead heat. Buzzards soared high overhead.

Traffic wasn’t too bad heading into the city. As we crossed the Bay Bridge, I said, “How’s Grandpa Bob?”

“He’s weird,” Danny said, scrunching his face.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Sometimes he’s okay. And then . . .”

“He’s very sick, Danny. You have to help your mom. She really needs you right now.”

“I know,” he said defensively.

It was an awful lot to ask of a young boy, to understand and make space for an old man who was losing his memory. Now he’d have to console his mother as well.

As we pulled up I saw Janie parking her BMW convertible, neatly wedging it onto a slope in front of a sleek art deco-style building on the north edge of Russian Hill. I circled three times before risking a ticket in a space in front of a fireplug.

“I don’t cover parking,” Janie said as we crossed the street to her.

“I’ll take my chances.” All I cared about was getting into the apartment before the cops beat me there.

She gave Danny a big hug and kissed the top of his head. She refused to let go, forcing him to wriggle free.

“I’ve been helping Dad,” he said.

“I know; he told me. You’re a very brave boy.” She looked at me over the top of his head, just shaking her own.

“Thanks, Mom.”

Janie unlocked the outer door.

“Fourth floor,” she said.

“I thought he might have given you a key,” I said to take my mind off her ass, which rocked with metronomic precision as we made our way up the staircase.

“I insisted, in case there was a problem. They’re on the road so much.”

“They?”

“He shares the place with his assistant, Jacques Goldoni. Richard only uses it—used it—four or five times a year. But Jacques stays here at least as much. They kept it so they wouldn’t have to pay for hotels. It doubles as an office. They go all over the state.”

I felt an ache as I passed her and entered the apartment.
Distract yourself
, I said.
Be methodical. Play detective.

“What are we looking for, Dad?” Danny asked.

“I’m not sure. See what you can find,” I said.

Janie said nothing. All that mattered was that Danny was here, with her, safe.

The kitchen was tiny but serviceable. Two cases of empty wine bottles were crammed under the sink. Another case full of samples sat on the counter.

An easy chair commanded a sweeping view of the bay, the Golden Gate Bridge to the west and Alcatraz directly before us in the distance. A stack of wine books lay at its feet. Remington Norman, Jancis Robinson, Clive Coates. Predictable stuff. What wasn’t predictable were the frogs. There were frogs everywhere: porcelain frogs, crystal frogs, carved wooden frogs with wings, even a frog chandelier.

“Why does he have all these frogs?” Danny asked.

“I think it must have been a way to express admiration for the French. Sometimes we call the French Frogs.”

“It’s not a nice word,” Janie said. “I never want to hear you use it.”

“Okay, fine, Mom,” Danny said, sounding surprisingly adult in his irritation.

Instinctively I turned to the desk. On it a computer printout of a calendar, squared neatly on a blotter, was scribbled up. Appointments at Norton, Diamond Creek, Viader, and Turley were penciled in and one at Chateau Hauberg crossed out. The dinner date with Janie had been hastily noted in red ink (JANIE/7:30/DANKO), and a United flight number with departure time and confirmation number was scrawled on a Thursday, one month away. The words RIOJA, NAVARRA, and PRIORAT were printed in bold caps with a scraggly line extending through the following two weeks, growing faint and disappearing as it neared October (PIEMONTE/TUSCANY) and entered November (ME: BORDEAUX/JACQUES: BURGUNDY).
What a life
, I thought. At the very bottom of the sheet the name FELDMAN was written, carefully shaded with fine cross-hatching as if doodled in the course of a tedious phone conversation.

“Who’s this?” I asked, pointing to the name.

She came up to me and looked at the calendar.

“That’s strange,” she said. “Eric Feldman? I didn’t think they were on speaking terms.”

“Really?”

“He used to work for Richard. They had a falling-out.”

“What’s he do now?” I said.

“He has his own newsletter.”

“The competition?”

“Yes, I suppose he is.” I waited for an explanation. “They parted ways five or six years ago. Basically, Richard fired him, and then Eric went into business on his own. He copied everything Richard did.”

I made a mental note to find out more about Feldman.

A lone file cabinet catalogued past editions of the newsletter, and an assortment of notebooks were meticulously dated by vintage and labeled by appellation: KNIGHTS VALLEY, CARNEROS, STAGS’ LEAP DISTRICT. Nothing there was dated from the current year.

I gingerly picked up the handset on the portable phone with my bandana. I didn’t want Brenneke complaining that I’d trashed his evidence.

“He has messages.” A Post-it taped to the phone listed the voice-mail access number and security code. “Do you mind?” I asked.

“Help yourself.”

I dialed the numbers. Five messages.

The first was Janie, confirming their dinner.

The second was from Carla. “Richard, this is Carla. Hurry. I can’t wait.”

The third was Janie again, aggravated that he hadn’t arrived for dinner and concerned at his having failed to call her.

Next was a woman. The message was cryptic, the voice faintly accented: “You have to talk to me.” She sounded Italian, or Spanish, maybe. I replayed it for Janie.

“Any ideas?’ I asked.

“A wine rep?” she ventured.

“Probably a waitress he was screwing,” I said.

Janie wasn’t amused and glanced at Danny.

“Do you mind?” she said testily under her breath, but Danny wasn’t paying attention. He had unlocked the door to the balcony, had wandered outside, and was gazing at Alcatraz.

The last was another male voice. “Richard, this is Eric. We need
to talk, but I’m swamped. I’ll catch up with you in France. I’ll be at the Novotel in Beaune. By the way, your issue on 2007 Rhônes really missed the mark.”

“Who’s this?” I asked her as I punched it to replay and gave her the phone.

“Not positive,” she said, handing it back. “But I think it has to be Eric Feldman.”

“Of course. Tell me about Goldoni,” I said, wandering around the room, looking for a clue I couldn’t identify.

“Nothing much to tell. Italian American father and a French mother. He speaks perfect French. Kind of an asshole.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know. Fat, obnoxious, ambitious.”

“Would he stand to gain anything if your brother suddenly vanished?”

“I suppose he might, but it’s Richard who has the reputation. Jacques basks in reflected glory. I doubt he could make it on his own.”

“Still, he might assume the mantle, take over the
Maven.
”

“Richard takes very good care of him. Took, I mean,” she said, her tone softening as she changed tenses.

“Speaking of which, I need . . .”

I hadn’t gotten it out before she pulled an envelope from her purse.

“I know you can’t afford to take time away from the bar to look into this. I think that should cover it. For starters, at least.”

It’s humiliating to accept money from your ex-wife. I had refused her offer to pay alimony at the time of our divorce settlement—she probably made ten times what I earned—but, as it stood, I had little choice.

“Very thoughtful of you to anticipate it,” I said, stuffing it, along with my pride, in my pocket.

I opened the door to the closet. A half dozen matching blue shirts straight from the dry cleaner hung beside four pairs of chinos. A suitcase lay open on the small dresser, packed and ready to zip up, a pair of Mephistos at its feet.

I turned my attention to the kitchen. The fridge offered only a jar of Dijon mustard and a half pound of Peet’s French roast. Guys
like Wilson ate out every night, usually on someone else’s expense account.

Nothing seemed amiss in the bathroom. A tube of toothpaste, two toothbrushes, deodorant, a hairbrush. The scent of cleanser. And then the merest whiff of something else, a trace, but unmistakable. Floral.

I called out to Janie, who was wandering aimlessly, “What about women? Do you know anyone Richard was seeing?”

She shook her head. Carla Fehr was right: Wilson hadn’t told his sister about her.

Janie suddenly looked overwhelmed, frailer. The place was obviously beginning to get to her.

“Danny! Let’s get outta here!” I called. “Let’s forget the
cherchez la femme
part,” I said to Janie. “We leave the messages. The cops are probably already on their way here.”

She locked up, and we retraced our steps. On the second landing we heard a plate shatter, then something crashed against the front door. Danny turned to her questioningly, not sure how to react. She wagged her finger and, when we arrived in the foyer, explained, “Psycho. He hurls himself against the walls. Stand here a moment. He’ll start shouting obscenities in a second.”

Right on cue, a stream of expletives.

“Tourette’s?” I asked.

“Who knows? Probably forgot to take his meds this morning. Richard says he’s perfectly harmless.”

As she opened the door to the lobby, I inadvertently crowded her. She turned to face me, the tip of her nipple grazing my arm through her blouse. We were both startled. The familiarity and foreignness of it. I felt as if I had trespassed on my own life.

“Let me buy us dinner,” I said awkwardly, patting the check in my pocket.