Death By the Glass #2 (11 page)

Sunny frowned. There was one piece that didn’t fit. She looked at Remy, who was leaning against the mantel with his hands dug in the pockets of his jeans. She cleared her throat. “If Nathan knew the wine-club wine was phony, if he’d gone to the trouble of doctoring its labels, why would he take a bottle of it home?”

Remy smiled as though pleased with the comment. “I’m not exactly sure, but my guess is that he forgot. We can make nice excuses, but in my opinion Nathan was an alcoholic. He drank more or less constantly. The only time he had a clear head was first thing in the morning. He also lied so much that he would forget the truth. After a while, he would believe the lie himself, or at least he couldn’t tell the difference.”

Sunny’s head whirled as she listened to him. She wondered again if the tea had been drugged. The impulse to stretch out on the couch tempted her and it was all she could do to resist it. She
focused on Remy’s face. Their conversation would be over soon, and she could lie down in the truck. She heard a click like central heat coming on. Already the back of her neck was sticky with perspiration.

“Are you feeling okay? You look ill,” he said. “Let me get you a drink.”

He was right. She felt so tired. Remy came back with a glass of water.

“I need to go,” she said, standing up suddenly. “We can finish talking about this later.”

“My pleasure,” said Remy with a reserved smile. “You know where to find me.”

Outside, the cool air and morning sun revived her for a moment but walking down the pathway to the truck soon became an effort, her feet heavier with every step. She got in and drove a mile fighting sleep before she knew it was pointless, that the desire to sleep would overwhelm her. She pulled over in the middle of the suburban block and killed the engine. Sixties-era stucco houses lined both sides of the streets, each with its carport and allotment of exotic perennial shrubs imported from Southern California. The last thing she remembered was delicious relief as she stretched out in the cab and settled her cheek into her backpack like a pillow.

Sunny’s mobile phone
woke her up. All she knew at first was that a very loud sound had made her jolt upright. She sat stunned in the cab of the truck. There it was again, farther away now. She looked at her backpack, hardly recognizing what it was, other than the source of the mysterious sound. Gradually the world came back together a piece at a time and she remembered that she owned a mobile phone and that the sound was her phone ringing, which meant she was supposed to find it and answer it.

“Where are you?” Rivka was on the other end.

“What?” said Sunny in a dazed voice.

“Sunny? Where are you?”

“I’m in the truck.”

“Where? Are you okay? You sound out of it.”

“Just a sec.” She put the phone down and stared dully at the dashboard, then yawned and looked around at the suburb where she’d parked. She picked up the phone again.

“What time is it?”

“Nine-fifteen.”

“Shit. I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”

Sunny walked into Wildside without Rivka noticing. Rivka had the stockpot going and the ambient flamenco rave music cranked up good and loud, like a nightclub in Barcelona. She was at the big sink sorting through a box of produce and moving to the music. The steamy air and food smells in the kitchen reminded Sunny how good it was to be on familiar ground again. The spicy smell of fresh arugula leaves and the grassy smell of spinach, kale, and basil woke her up, while the smell of onions caramelizing in butter on the stove, the epitome of warmth, soothed her. The stockpot was sending up wafts of salty garlic chicken, celery root, carrot, and freshly squeezed lemon. She went over and ground a dose of pepper into the pot, then stepped into her office to turn down the music a few decibels. When she came back, Rivka looked over her shoulder at her.

“Where have you been? I was worried. At first I thought you were with Andre again, but he called twice looking for you.”

“How could you hear the phone?”

Sunny found an apron and tied it around her hips. Rivka shook the water out of a basket of arugula and set it aside. She looked at Sunny again.

“Are you going to spill it or not? What happened to you this morning? You look a little fuzzy around the edges, if you don’t mind me saying.”

The espresso machine beckoned and Sunny went over to make herself a cappuccino. “It’s a long story. I’m not sure where to start.”

“Start with why you stood up Andre last night. He said you came by the restaurant but then you left before he could see you, and you didn’t pick up when he called your house. He thinks
you’re mad at him because he took too long to come out of the kitchen.”

“I’m not mad about anything. I just needed some time to think. Remember how everything was back to normal yesterday because Nathan Osborne didn’t die of mushroom poisoning? Well, today we’re back to not normal again. Very not normal as a matter of fact.”

She explained what Nick Ambrosi had told her about the bottle of Marceline in Nathan Osborne’s house.

“I couldn’t decide what I was going to say to Andre, so I had to get out of there,” said Sunny.

“I don’t get it,” said Rivka. “What’s the big deal?”

“Two bottles of Marceline, wine fraud, Nathan’s death. They have to be related. It’s too much of a coincidence otherwise.”

“Maybe, but I don’t see why that means you can’t talk to Andre.”

Sunny finished steaming a pot of milk and spooned the creamy foam into her cup. She licked the spoon and looked at Rivka.

“You don’t really think Andre is involved in something criminal?” said Rivka.

“How should I know? I hardly know the guy.”

“You know. And I think you also know that you’re freaking out. This is a textbook example of the power of the subconscious. Your well-documented fear of intimacy is manifesting itself as a literal fear of Andre. You need to get a grip. The best-looking guy in the Valley already thinks you hate him. You stood him up and didn’t even bother to phone to say why. McCoskey, you’re going to mess up a great thing before it even gets off the ground.”

Sunny frowned. “You think so?”

“Absolutely. Trust me on this one. Andre Morales may be a lot of things, but he is not a murderer or a scam artist. Why would he do something like that? He’s successful, his career is taking off. He’s not going to risk all that for a little extra cash. The guy has everything to lose.”

“Exactly,” said Sunny, frowning.

“What do you mean,
exactly
?”

“I mean that he has everything to lose, if someone found out about something he did. He has a motive.”

Rivka shook her head and went back to washing vegetables. Sunny sipped her cappuccino like it was medicine and watched Rivka work. She was wearing her standard back-of-house uniform: white tank top with a black camisole underneath for sauce, black studded belt, jeans generously cuffed at the bottom, black work stompers. On the backs of her slender arms were swallows tattooed in blue and red, one swooping back, the other forward, circling. It was impossible for Sunny to imagine her without her tattoos. It was equally impossible to tell her about her experience with Remy Castels that morning. Now that it was broad daylight and Rivka was standing in front of her looking perfectly sane and normal, none of it made sense. Bursting in on Remy, imagining he’d drugged her, suspecting he was lying about Nathan. But things she knew to be true didn’t always sound right either.

“You know what is happening,” Rivka said without turning around.

“What?”

“Your inner control freak is seizing up.”

Rivka looked back at Sunny, who raised her eyebrows dubiously.

“You know I’m right,” said Rivka. “You let down your guard for a little while on Sunday. You let the genie out of her bottle for the night and she went and had a great time, and now you’re vulnerable. You’re scared you’re going to get hurt because you like Andre Morales too much and you got in too deep, too fast. So the answer is to create a problem. There has to be a problem, because then you can fix it, thereby regaining control of your life. And if you can shove him away in the process, all the better. Competence is your security blanket, McCoskey, and you have to have a crisis in order to exhibit your competence, so you are manufacturing one.”

“Go on, doctor. Tell me what you think.”

“I’ve seen it for years now. When things get stressful, you work. It’s a decent coping mechanism professionally, but it doesn’t work so well when it comes to love. You can’t control love. No matter how meticulous and smart and diligent you are, love can still bite you in the ass. There is nothing you can do to make love a safe place.”

“Oy.” Rivka was sounding old for twenty-four, Sunny thought.

“That is the sound that says I’m right and you know it. Face it, you’re risk averse. You have your world set up the way you like it with your restaurant and your house and you’re not about to jeopardize any of that. Only there’s something missing in your life, and you’re going to have to let go of controlling everything in order to get it.”

“Are you seeing Doug again?” asked Sunny. Rivka’s therapist.

“Not professionally. We had a drink last week.”

“He gave you a freebie.”

“I said I would cater his kid’s birthday party.”

“A three-year-old needs a caterer for his birthday party?”

“Egg salad sandwiches, curly fries, and Jell-O parfait.”

“Reasonable. What does he say about you and Alex?”

“That we should take a few weeks apart.”

“Because?”

“Don’t change the subject. You should give Andre a chance. You’re perfect for each other. Did you happen to get a look at yourself Monday morning? I haven’t seen you that happy since Monty slipped on a banana peel coming out of Bismark’s.”

“That was such a beautiful sight. I love it when life imitates cliché. If I should die suddenly, I want you to commission a mural for downtown of Monty slipping on the banana peel. Do it for me.”

“Fine. No problem.”

“So why do you and Alex need a few weeks apart?”

“Cooling-off period before we restart negotiations. You know how I feel. I love him, but I’m not ready to sign up for a lifelong partnership and he is. It doesn’t matter how perfect Alex is, I can’t make that kind of commitment right now. We need a few weeks to come to terms with the inevitable.”

“Ouch.”

“I know. That’s why it’s more fun to think about you and Señor Morales. I have a really good feeling about it.”

“His body rocks the house,” said Sunny.

“It’s more than that and you know it.”

“His jacket smells like a campfire and he uses soap that smells like a lumberyard.”

“That’s good?”

“Very good.”

“You can take the girl out of the boondocks, but you can’t take the boondocks out of the girl.”

“Especially when she never left the boondocks.”

“Yeah, but the boondocks went upscale.”

“Les Boondocks.”

They fell silent and worked for a while without talking. It was one of those sublimely quiet winter mornings, when the whole world was happy to go dormant for a few weeks.

“Okay, how about this,” said Rivka finally. “What if Lenstrom is wrong and there’s nothing wrong with the wine?”

“No, he’s right.”

“How do you know?”

“I checked.”

Actually, she hadn’t checked. There wasn’t time. But Remy’s reaction to her accusation had proved the wine was fake. She took the caramelized onions off the heat and started a new batch.

“I was up really late last night,” Sunny said.

“Baking what?” said Rivka, smiling.

“Morning buns with
noyau
frosting.”

“
Noyau
frosting. How long did that take?”

“Not that long. I went to see Remy Castels this morning.”

Rivka looked at her. “The sommelier? Why?”

“I figured I would stop by to see what he knew about the two Marcelines.”

Rivka’s eyes widened. “And?”

“He wasn’t very happy to talk about it.”

“I’ll bet. The man thinks he runs the best cellar in the Western world and you come in and tell him his most expensive wine is a swindle.”

“More or less.”

The rest of Wildside’s staff was starting to arrive. Bertrand, the maître d’, had come in and was stocking the wine bar. The two servers came in soon after and started getting the floor ready. Sunny checked the kitchen clock. The lunch rush would start in two hours. She barely had time to get ready. It was time
to stop talking and get serious. Besides, what she had to say even she didn’t believe. Rivka was sure to think it was paranoia. Still, she had to tell someone.

“Riv, call me crazy, but I think he may have tried to drug me,” she said softly.

“Who, Andre?”

“No, no, not Andre. I’m not that baked. Remy. This morning.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, really. I’ve never felt like that before, except maybe when I had the flu. You know how I am, I stay up all night all the time. It makes me a little loopy, but not like that. I passed out this morning.”

“Are you serious?”

“I only had a few sips of the tea he served, but I barely made it out of there before I fell asleep.”

“If you really think that’s what happened, we should phone the police,” said Rivka.

Sunny put a hand up for her to lower her voice.

“And I can say that I stayed up half the night baking for no particular reason,” said Sunny in a whisper, “dropped in on a near stranger at the crack of dawn, then fell asleep for an hour afterward in my car and now I’d like them to arrest him because I think he drugged me. They’ll have me locked up in Napa State by noon.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t sound too good. So what are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing, other than politely decline anything Remy Castels pours for me until I figure out what’s going on.”

“Is there something going on?” Rivka said skeptically.

“I think so. I’m beginning to think it’s something pretty bad, too. And I still don’t know where Andre got that bottle of wine.”

“Have you asked him?”

“No, not until I know more. I’ve been avoiding him. Besides, how can I ask him without admitting I think he might be involved in fraud or Nathan’s murder, or both?”