Revenge at Bella Terra (10 page)

“A cherry picker,” Eli said. “So my guys can stand on the platform, disassemble the tower, stack the bricks, and lower them to the ground without breaking any. Once they realized what was in there, they came down as quickly as they could and called me.”

“Do you think the water tower was built specifically to house the still?”

“Absolutely.”

“Why put a water tower in the middle of a vineyard? Especially if you’re going to use it to hide your still? Aren’t there better places to hide it?”

“Think about it. A vineyard needs water, so a water tower makes sense. When you build it, it doesn’t attract anyone’s attention. Assemble a wooden tank, fill it with water, surround it with brick that extends ten feet over the top, add a roof and you’ve got a hidden room inside there.” Eli pointed toward the roof.

“How ingenious.” Chloë worked hard to think up creative plots; this would never in a million years have occurred to her.

“Plus, this is a rural area
now
. Think what it was like in the thirties.” He gestured toward the two-lane highway that ran straight through this, the flattest part of the valley. “Town is fifteen miles south, and in 1930 the population of the whole valley was maybe ten thousand.”

She squinted her eyes and gazed across the valley, trying to see it as it had been eighty years ago. “I don’t know a lot about stills, but don’t they require a constant fire for several days before the liquor is ready?”

“That’s right.”

“Then how did Massimo pull that off? Wouldn’t he have had to vent the smoke somewhere?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been inside.”

Outraged, she demanded, “You haven’t gone in? How could you not?”

“It’s a crime scene,” he said patiently. “An old crime scene, it’s true. But I called law enforcement—that’s Bryan DuPey, the chief of police and a school friend. He said he’d put it on his schedule. Obviously not high on his schedule—it’s been a week.”

“Oh, no.” She clutched her throat with both hands, realized Eli’s proximity made her uneasy enough to overreact, and dropped them to her side. “This DuPey didn’t forbid you to go up, did he?”

“No, he doesn’t care as long as I don’t put the still back into use. I’ve managed to refrain.”

Another brief flash of a sense of humor. She thought.

“Come on. I’ll take you up on the cherry picker,” he said.

“Please, let’s go up the way Massimo would have!” She looked around, spotted a narrow metal door set at ground level. “It’s more atmospheric.”

“Maybe we can find you another skull.”

Humor and sarcasm.
So Eli Di Luca was more than just a walking, talking wine expert and sex god.

“I should never have had that glass of wine with lunch,” she said aloud.

“I suspect you’d want to go up the old way, glass of wine or not. Wait here. I’ve got a cooler with bottles of water on the backseat.”

She watched as he strode away from her. She liked that long stride, the way his hips moved. Something about the way he walked brought two terms to her mind: “alpha male” and “good in bed.” The way he leaped to care for her made her wonder what it would be like to lay her head on his shoulder. . . .

She’d been working too hard.

She needed to get out more.

She’d told her father a hundred times—she did not need a man.

She needed to remember that.

Eli came back carrying her computer case and an icy bottle of water.

She pressed the bottle to her forehead. “I badly need to hydrate.”

With awesome patience, he took the bottle away from her, opened the cap, and handed it back. “Hydration doesn’t occur through the skin. Drink.”

She drank.

“Okay now?” he asked.

“A lot better.”

“Come on.” Eli slung the case over his shoulder and opened the door. “Before we started demolition we didn’t know what held the tower up, so we picked the lock and checked it out.”

Chloë followed him into the cool, dim, basementlike cavity. The dampness made her shiver, and the smell of earth and wood rot rose thick in her nose.

The wooden tank was large, twenty feet in circumference, and rose a claustrophobic eight feet above her head, supported by impressive oak legs set symmetrically around the edge. An old wooden ladder hung from the edge of the tank, and she walked over and looked up. The ladder continued up in the narrow space between the wooden tank and the brick shell, and at the top she saw a dim light.

Putting his hand on the ladder, he rattled it and grimaced, then put his foot on the lowest rung. With his full weight, he swung back and forth. “All right, it’ll hold us.” He descended. “You first.”

So if she fell, he would catch her? Or so he could check out her ass?

She didn’t care why. It was of no importance to her.

She took another swig of water, put the bottle on the floor, and started climbing. The first eight feet felt odd, straight up in the air. Then she reached the side of the wooden water container and slipped into the space between that and the bricks. The fit was tight. The bricks were warm at her back. She grasped the rungs carefully; they were rough, a mass of splinters.

When she was about halfway up the side of the container, Eli called, “Doing okay?”

“Fine.” She paused and glanced up toward the light, then down toward the shadows, trying to absorb the sensations, put them into words so she could later transfer those sensations to paper. She put her hand against the tank. The wood felt dry against her skin. “There’s no water in it?”

“Not for a long time,” he said.

She continued climbing.

“I estimated the tank was twelve feet high.” He was right below her. “So you’ll be at the top soon. If you need help, I’m right here.”

She wanted to snort. She didn’t need help; she clambered onto the flat top of the water tank on her hands and knees. The octagonal roof was ten feet above the floor. At every corner it connected to the wall, and that left vents all the way around between the brick and the metal. There subdued light leaked in; she could see the concentration of soot where the smoke had leaked out.

The best light entered through the small, high hole Eli’s men had broken through the brick; it revealed a thick layer of dust and soot covering the wooden floor. The boards felt sticky to the touch, and as she stood, she wiped her palms on her pants. Directly beside her stood an imposing copper pot as tall as she was, and so wide she couldn’t get her arms around it. Pipes ran from the top to two smaller copper containers.

As Eli poked his head into the chamber, she offered him her hand and echoed his offer: “If you need help, I’m right here.”

He surprised her by taking it.

She needed to remember the man liked to hold hands.

He came to his feet far too close to her, looked down, and half smiled. “Is it everything you’d hoped?”

It took her a long moment of stupefaction before she realized he meant the still. “Yes, it’s perfect.” A pile of wood remained, half-rotted and waiting to be thrown into the metal fire pit beneath the still. “I’ve got to take pictures.” She rummaged in her computer case for her camera, brought it out, took a photo of Eli standing before the largest tank.

“Look at that thing.” Eli stared admiringly at the tank. “It’s huge.”

She looked at the camera screen to check the photo. Good. The flash had filled in lots of good detail.

She took a picture of the ceiling. Also good.

“The still must be seventy-five gallons,” Eli said.

Stepping into the middle of the chamber, she took a photo of the side that had been hidden from her by the still. Her flash illuminated . . . something. She pulled the camera away from her face and looked.

Her breath caught. “Eli?” she whispered.

“If Massimo was distilling wine into brandy,” Eli said, “he must have been selling the proceeds all over the county.”

“Eli?”

“I believe it, though.” The copper monstrosity consumed his whole attention. “Prohibition made law-abiding citizens into criminals, and—”

“Eli!”

He turned to her. “What?”

She pointed a shaking finger across the room. “If you want to know anything about the still, perhaps you could ask him.”

Chapter 13

T
he mummified remains of a man reclined on the floor across from the still. His skin was gray. The dirt of the last century and this one covered him like a blanket, like a camouflage.

Chloë pulled a thin LED flashlight out of her bag and pointed it at the body.

The corpse’s head was propped up on a log, and even though his eyes were shut, the sunken sockets seemed to be staring at them, his face twisted in an expression of unending agony.

Eli glanced at Chloë; she was pale with shock, holding the camera clutched tight in one hand and the flashlight in the other.

Reaching out, Eli wrapped his arm around her to tug her close, putting his hand on her head and nestling her against his chest.

Although she remained stiff in his arms, she let him hug her.

That told him a lot.

“He’s been dead a long time.” Her voice sounded detached, empty of emotion. “His clothes date from the nineteen twenties or thirties. Do you think it could be Massimo?”

“I suspect it is.” Keeping an arm around her, he pulled out his cell phone and called 911.

The operator picked up.

He recognized her voice; it was Patricia Greene. He’d dated her in high school. “Hi, Pat, it’s Eli Di Luca. Hey, I’m out here at the old brick water tower—”

“The one with the still?” she asked.

Everyone knew everything in this town. “That’s the one. And it appears there’s more to report crime-wise than a little old bootlegging.”

“Did some kids spray-paint their names on the water tower?” Pat didn’t sound nearly as upset as a righteous employee of the city should sound. “My daughter told me some of the eighth graders were talking about it. You know what kids that age are like.”

“No, and thank God they didn’t. We’ve got a body.”

Pat’s casual voice changed tone. “You’re sure it’s a body? There’s no sign of life?”

“It’s a very old body, Pat. I’m guessing he died eighty years ago. But I promise you, it’s murder.” Against his chest, he felt Chloë nod her head.

Pat’s voice changed again, became official. “I’m sending DuPey a message right now, and he’ll be on his way out in no time. Please stay on the scene. He’s going to want to question you.”

“Will do,” Eli said.

“Are you there alone?” Pat asked.

“I’m here with a friend.” He could almost hear Patricia biting her lip, keeping the questions at bay.

At last she said, “Keep her there, too, please.”
Her
. Pat was fishing.

He let her get away with it. No point in doing otherwise. “Right. See you around.” He hung up.

Slowly Chloë pulled away from Eli. “Before law enforcement gets here, can we . . . see if we can figure anything out? Because once they arrive, they’ll take him away, and the way he’s looking at us . . . I think he wants justice.”

Eli let her go, satisfied that she had let him comfort her, that they’d taken a slow, easy step toward intimacy. “What makes you say that?”

“He’s handcuffed. He’s barefoot. His vest is unbuttoned, his shirt is open, and those black stains on his shirt—I’ll bet they’re blood. His sleeves are pushed up, shoved up, but he didn’t do it.” She slipped the camera into her computer case.

“Why not?” Fascinating the way her mind worked.

“He’s a dapper dresser.” She paced toward the body. “Look, off to the side. That’s his hat.”

“It might belong to one of the killers.”

“Every man in those days wore a hat, and this one remains in good condition. So it had to be a quality brand, and nobody else would have left it here, at a crime scene. So it’s Massimo’s, maybe handmade for him.” She glanced at Eli, eyebrows raised.

He nodded. “Keep talking. I’m with you.”

“He’s wearing suit pants. You can’t tell me most men in the Depression could afford clothing like this.” She knelt gingerly beside Massimo and shone her LED flashlight from Massimo’s head to his toes. “No, even if he was in the mood to be casual, he would have neatly rolled up his shirtsleeves.”

“You’re observant.”

She looked back at him. “Not usually. My mom said I always had my head in the clouds. True, but if something captures my attention, I can make some deductions. After all, I not only write mysteries; I’ve read a lot of them, too.”

So. Eli had to get her attention, huh? He could do that. All he had to do was be more interesting than a long-dead corpse.

“Wait a minute.” With a shrug to the waste of badly needed income, Eli pried a piece of pipe from the still and slammed it into the brick wall about a foot below the opening. The brittle mortar cracked along a long seam. Putting the pipe down, he leaned against the wall. Bricks clattered and shattered all the way to the ground, and a flood of sunlight brightened the enclosed space. He did it again, and again, until he’d brought the opening down to floor level and out as far as his arms could reach.

When he turned back to Chloë, she was watching him, eyes wide, and he by God had her attention.

But not for long.

In the distance, he heard the scream of sirens.

“If you want to examine him,” he said, “do it fast.”

She flicked off her flashlight and returned to her observation of the body. “Look at his expression, Eli; he was tortured. Look at the skin on his arms, here on his chest, on the bottoms of his feet. They’re covered with little circles. They used cigarettes to burn him. And right there, there’s one of the cigarettes they tossed on the floor.”

“Really?” Eli walked over and picked it up. He examined it. “Hm.” He put it in his pocket.