Death By the Glass #2 (20 page)

“He got rattled when he dropped it and hightailed it out of there. I’m sure his intention was to get rid of all the evidence, but he panicked.”

“I still don’t see why he would doctor one of the fake bottles of wine. That doesn’t fit. He had no way of being sure Nathan
would drink it, or that he’d drink it alone. Besides, if you were blackmailing somebody over fake wine, would you accept their gift of fake wine? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Sun’s right,” said Rivka. “He would have put it in one of the glasses he served Nathan at the restaurant. He had plenty of opportunity to slip him a Mickey whenever he felt like it.”

“You are absolutely right,” said Monty, his eyes flashing. “I was so fixated on the broken bottle that I completely overlooked the obvious. From what I understand, he drank constantly at the restaurant. Anybody on staff could have dosed his drink. The bartender, the servers.”

“Sure, anybody could have poisoned him, but you’re overlooking the most important part,” said Rivka. “He wasn’t poisoned. He had a heart attack.”

“Maybe he was poisoned with something that can give you a heart attack,” said Sunny. “Like a fat dose of coke, for example.”

“It would have to be huge to take effect like that,” said Monty. “He was relaxing in his living room when he checked out. That doesn’t sound like a cocaine high to me. They would have found him polishing the kitchen floor with a Q-Tip.”

“There has to be other stuff that can do it,” said Sunny. “Dahlia mentioned foxglove, and I was thinking maybe nitroglycerin. They give people with heart trouble nitro tablets to kick-start their heart if they go into cardiac arrest, but I wonder what happens if you take too many.”

“Ka-boom!” said Monty.

Rivka settled her brown eyes on Sunny thoughtfully. “What about her work? Did you get a chance to see her paintings? Aren’t they amazing?”

“I was too preoccupied. I couldn’t appreciate them properly. She certainly has talent. I’m not so sure about the choice of subject matter.”

“I think it’s genius,” said Rivka. “She captures the primal essence of the men she knows.”

“I think they call that a succubus,” said Monty between bites. “Climbs in the bedroom window at night. Makes a meal by ripping your heart out of your chest at the moment of orgasm. She’d better not come after my primal essence.”

“You should be so lucky,” said Rivka. She paused, twisting one of several piercings in her right ear, a nervous habit that meant she was thinking of something else. “So what did you guys talk about?”

“Not that much. She was pretty evasive, kept talking about everyone else. I’d swear she was trying to hide something. I looked at her desk and she practically ran over to put away all the papers on it. They were covered with notes.”

“I’m surprised you two didn’t get into a full-on cat fight,” said Monty.

“Is there anything you didn’t tell him?” said Sunny indignantly. “Was there a presentation? Ten quick slides explaining the most intimate aspects of my life?”

“I didn’t think you’d mind,” said Rivka sheepishly. “We’re all family. Actually, I didn’t think Lenstrom would be foolish enough to let on that he knew.” She punched Monty. “Big dork.”

“Perhaps Monty would like to know the real reason why you won’t marry Alex,” said Sunny.

“Revenge just keeps the wheel of pain turning. You’re above the petty bitterness of retaliation,” said Rivka.

“Yes, but I might do it anyway.”

“Ladies, please. Dinner is a love thing. Besides, you told me already, not that I couldn’t have guessed.”

“Sunny!” cried Rivka.

“Kidding,” said Monty.

“Can we stay focused, people?” said Sunny. “I am trying to get to the bottom of all the weirdness at Vinifera and I’m telling you Dahlia was really defensive, in an assertive kind of way.”

“Honestly, what did you expect?” said Rivka. “You drive out to her house unannounced and ask a ton of questions. It had to be obvious that you were there to snoop around.”

“That implies a guilty conscience. If there was nothing to hide, it wouldn’t occur to her that I was snooping. She obviously didn’t want me to see what she’d been writing.”

“No, I happen to know she didn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“The notes on the desk were part of a project we were working on together.”

“How do you know?”

“I was out there just this afternoon before yoga.”

“What project?”

“And it has nothing to do with Nathan Osborne, at least in the way you imagine.”

An uneasy silence gripped the table. Rivka sighed. “Fine. I’ll tell you. It was a love potion. I know it sounds stupid. We were working on a sort of cleansing ceremony and a potion. You put it in a tiny vial and wear it around your neck in one of those little leather pouches. It was partly for you, partly for her. She was trying to cleanse her heart, and in doing so set Andre free of any connections he might have to her, and vice versa. And to set Nathan free so he could proceed through the afterlife in peace. Part of the process is to write down everything
about the person that still connects you to them, good and bad. Obviously, she didn’t want you to see a bunch of writing about Andre.”

“Was that her idea or yours?”

“She was talking about cleansing her heart of past loves, in relation to Nathan, mostly, but also Andre. She suggested we do something to encourage things between the two of you. She really does wish you well.”

“Like some kind of spell?”

“You could call it that.”

“Monty?”

“Pass. The whole witch’s brew–love tonic concept renders me speechless. You’re talking to a man who can’t believe literate adults still read the horoscope column. It’s more proof that people will believe absolutely anything.”

“Just because you can’t explain a phenomenon doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” said Rivka. “So what did she have to say about Osborne?”

“Well, the broken bottle didn’t bother her,” said Sunny. “She thought there could be an innocent explanation. Then she brought up this philosopher Occam.”

“Occam’s razor,” Monty said.

“Which is?” asked Rivka.

“Basically, whatever looks like the most obvious solution is probably the right answer,” said Sunny. “It reminded me of what Catelina used to say, ‘If it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, and walks like a duck, don’t expect it to taste like a pig.’ Dahlia figured since it looked like a simple heart attack, it probably was. I think that solution leaves too many questions unanswered.”

The dinner got the best of them and they ate in silence, each possessed by thoughts. After a while, Monty heaped more
stroganoff onto his plate. “I think we need a new approach. We don’t know what happened, let alone how. We can only guess, and that’s not going to do us any good. What do we know about who and why?”

“We’ll know a lot more about that tomorrow,” said Rivka. “Dahlia is going to hear the reading of the will.”

“Do you think she’ll tell you what they say?” asked Sunny.

“I don’t see why not.”

“I still say Remy has the real motive, regardless of inheritance or lack thereof,” said Monty. “He is clearly the purveyor of false wines. There’s a connection between that wine and Nathan’s death. Nathan got in the way somehow and had to be eliminated.”

“What bothers me is that case of wine in the cellar at Vinifera,” said Sunny. “If Remy did it, why wouldn’t he get the rest of that wine out of the cellar before somebody like me or the cops found it? That strongly suggests his innocence.”

“Or carelessness, or brazenness,” said Monty. “Or intelligence. Maybe he figured the cops would think like you. If he didn’t get rid of the wine he must be innocent.”

“The more information I get, the bigger the knot becomes. I’m not untying anything. But I still think there is more to those essential oils Dahlia makes. She said most of them are toxic. That gives her the means and the know-how to poison the guy who’s been jerking her around for who knows how long. She’s bound to have plenty of animosity for Nathan, and possibly a financial motive as well.”

“She doesn’t have animosity toward Nathan,” said Rivka. “Or at least not a lethal dose of it. He was a bad boyfriend who dumped her. Several times. But she doesn’t hate him, and it certainly wouldn’t be enough to make her want to kill him. And if anything, she was financially motivated to keep him around.”

“The Rastburns said she practically went postal on him,” said Sunny.

“Who are the Rastburns again?” asked Monty.

After Sunny explained, Monty ran a hand over his scalp, smoothing the nonexistent hair. “You know, Sun, I think you might have to face the fact that you may never know exactly what happened. It is entirely possible, in my opinion, that somebody put something in a drink or a plate of food that eventually made its way to Nathan Osborne’s doomed lips. But it could have been any number of people, including just about anybody on staff at Vinifera, or the Rastburns for that matter. We’ve got your studly chef boyfriend there in the kitchen. He needed Osborne out of the way in order to become a partner, and he knows which plate is his because Osborne always special orders. Means and motive. We’ve got Dahlia out there on the floor. She’s been burned by him more than once and she’s still bringing him his evening cocktail. That’s got to piss her off no matter what she says. Not to mention that she has a chemistry lab back at her Unabomber shack. Plenty of means, plenty of motive. Then we’ve got Remy, my personal favorite, the embittered sommelier with a criminal event to protect. He’s on the floor, behind the bar, bringing over special drinks. Plenty of means, plenty of motive. And we’ve got our bartender who takes Osborne home the night he dies. Talk about means. Still, we can probably eliminate him at least. Unless Osborne secretly willed him his fortune, I don’t see a motive.”

Sunny bit her lip. “He could have a motive. Last night when I was hanging around outside Vinifera waiting for the Rastburns, I saw him kissing Dahlia. It looked like he meant it.”

“For the love of a good woman?” said Monty. “It could be that as easily as anything else. Or it could be a busser or a barback or a line cook with a vendetta as far as we know. It could be
anybody or nobody. Or two people working together—Dahlia and Andre, if you’ll both forgive me.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever know the absolute truth,” said Rivka, “but if we have to guess, I’m going to agree with Dahlia. Looks like a heart attack, and was verified as a heart attack by the people who know about such things. I think I’ll call it a heart attack. So Remy forged a case of wine. I don’t think it’s worth ruining Vinifera’s reputation over, do you? And as for Dahlia’s essential oils, it’s a hobby, and a very interesting one in my opinion. She makes her own perfumes, her own candles, her own soap. She mixes her own colors. It’s not a crime to be creative. Sunny, you ought to understand that better than anyone. And besides, you yourself said there are tons of poisonous substances around. They’re everywhere. Even that tree in the backyard at Vinifera. Just because somebody has foxglove in their garden and ant spray under the sink doesn’t make them dangerous.”

“It does if you’re an ant,” said Monty.

“I forgot about that,” said Sunny.

“What?” said Rivka.

“The yew tree. Dahlia called it the Tree of Death that night when we all ate outside,” Sunny said.

“I know what you’re thinking, but it can’t be that,” said Rivka. “She wouldn’t have said that if she’d just killed him, or even if she knew he was dead. No one knew yet, even though he’d been dead a whole day.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Sunny, shaking her head. “I have a hunch somebody at that table knew. I think somebody from Vinifera visited Osborne late that night, but they kept it and what they saw there to themselves. Bottles of 1967 Marceline don’t grow on trees. The most logical place to find one is the cellar at Vinifera, and it’s that much easier if you work there.”

“The person who knew exactly where to look was Remy,” said Monty.

“The Rastburns mentioned something else that’s strange. They said Remy is the only one with a key to the alcoves where the more valuable wines are usually kept.”

“That can’t be true. In a place the size of Vinifera it’s totally impractical,” said Rivka. “Imagine if Bertrand was the only one with a key to the wine cage at Wildside.”

“It’s worse than that,” said Sunny. “I’m the only one with a key, and I can never find it. But there is usually plenty of warning when somebody is going to crack open a magnum of Morgon over lunch. From what Andre said, the stuff in the alcoves at Vinifera is very high end or not ready to drink yet. And almost none of it is on the menu. Basically, Remy is the only one who sells those wines, so he’s the only one who needs access. Still, none of this proves anything. That bottle of wine has been kicking around since 1967. In theory, it could have come from anywhere. It could have nothing to do with the case I found at Vinifera. And so the Tree of Death presides over every family meal on the premises. It may be nothing more than an intriguingly macabre but irrelevant detail. My conclusion, lady and gentleman, is that we’re back where we started.”

The rest of the meal was spent in the discussion of blander topics. After dinner, Monty served wedges of apple pie with vanilla ice cream while they lay on the Turkish carpet in front of the fireplace in the living room. Conversation was gradually replaced with drowsy silence. They tackled the cleanup with professional efficiency and then said a prompt and sleepy goodnight.

Had it been time to get up
, the sky would have been tinged with the pale light of dawn. Instead, Sunny opened her eyes to heavy darkness. The house was perfectly silent except for the faint buzz of the old clock radio on the nightstand, a pre-digital relic yellow with age. She made several attempts to go back to sleep, turning over and wiggling deep under the covers, warm and comfortable but thoroughly awake. She tried to set her thoughts aside and sink into the oblivion of sleep without success. Voluntarily and involuntarily, her mind analyzed the previous day’s activities with methodical determination. She went over conversations with the Rastburns and Dahlia, replaying bits and pieces, obsessively hunting some new insight.