Tangled Vines (31 page)

“Then why did you run?”

“Why?” He lifted his head, giving her a dumbfounded look. “What would you do if you stumbled across a body and somebody starts yelling at you? Are you going to stick around and pass the time of day?”

“I wouldn't run. Not if I was innocent.”

He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth and avoided her eyes. “Yeah, well, with as many run-ins as I've had with the cops, I wasn't about to hang around. I got the hell outta there as fast as I could.” Silently Kelly conceded that he had been programmed to run as much as she had. “God, I'm dry. Do you have any gum? Some Juicy Fruit maybe? A couple of candy bars would be good, too. The food is lousy in here.” He looked longingly at her purse. “You always did have a sweet tooth.”

“Not anymore.” She laid a hand over her purse, thinking of all the times her pockets and purse had contained Snickers bars, packets of M&Ms, or boxes of Milk Duds. Then his request sparked another memory – he had always craved sweets when he came off a big drunk. “You were drinking last night, weren't you?” She hadn't thought to ask Ollie that. Maybe she had subconsciously known the answer.

He bristled. “I had a couple.”

“It was more – than a couple, I'll bet.” God, how she hated him. It was like bile in her throat.

“Okay, so maybe it was more than a couple.” He stabbed his cigarette out, his hand trembling. He looked old and weak, lacking the strength to raise his hand, let alone deliver a killing blow. “I hadn't had a drop in two weeks. Not a drop in two weeks, I swear.” But that was an old story to Kelly. “Then yesterday things went sour. I thought I was going to get the money to pay off the note she's holding. But his deal fell through and...”

“And you got drunk,” she accused in disgust. “So drunk you probably can't remember half of what happened last night. You could have killed the baron and not remember it just like you never remembered all the times you beat me.”

She started to push away from the desk, but his hand shot out, his long, bony fingers clamping onto her arm with surprising strength. Reflex kicked in as Kelly raised her other hand to ward off the anticipated slap to her face. But he glanced quickly at the guard and immediately released her, pulling back.

“It wasn't like that he insisted. “Not last night. A few parts are fuzzy, but I didn't kill him. I wasn't so drunk I would forget something like that.”

If his voice hadn't been pitched so low, Kelly would have sworn he was saying that for the guard's benefit. “Of course you weren't,” she mocked recklessly. “That's why you were stumbling.”

Angrily he leaned toward her. “No, it was those goddamned gas cans.” A wicked gleam suddenly sparkled in his eyes, and he leaned closer, dropping his voice even lower. “Oh, I had figured out the perfect way to get even with her for stealing my land, Lizzie-girl. Just imagine all of Madam's precious wines tasting like gasoline.” He grinned, then moved his head from side to side in a rueful shake. “If I could have only gotten into those caves of hers, all I had to do was pour the gas over those oak barrels, drizzle some on the corks, and all of it – all of it – would have been ruined.”

He had never intended to set fire to the winery, Kelly realized; his plan had been much more insidious than that, to taint every ounce of wine stored in the cellars of Rutledge Estate, to ruin vintages that spanned decades and more.

“How could you do that?” She almost breathed the words.

Frowning uneasily at her reaction, he lifted one shoulder in a defensive shrug. “If she takes my vineyard, I'm left with nothing. I wanted her to know what that feels like.”

The walls seemed to close in; the air became suddenly stifling. She couldn't breathe. She had to get out. Seizing her purse, Kelly stood up and started toward the door.

“I'm ready to leave,” she told the guard.

“Where are you going?” her father called.

“To get you a lawyer.”

“You tell him I'm innocent. It was the wine. That's all I went there for. I swear I didn't kill him. You have to believe me.”

But how could she believe him? How?

The late September sun blazed over the pool terrace, heating the afternoon air. With clean, rhythmic strokes, Gil Rutledge traveled the length of the pool, touched the side, and pulled up, his daily regimen of twenty laps completed. He scraped the excess water from his face and flashed a look at his son.

Clay stood near the pool's edge, nervously chewing at his thumbnail, something he hadn't done since he'd hit puberty and discovered sex. Nerves, which was another way of saying “fear,” Gil thought. It was something neither of them could afford to show.

“There's a pitcher of martinis on the table. Why don't you pour a couple glasses,” he told Clay and hauled himself out of the pool.

While he toweled himself down, he kept a covert eye on Clay and observed, with satisfaction, that his hand was steady. Not a drop of liquor was spilled, and none sloshed in the glass when Clay gave it to him. This nasty business might have shaken his nerve, but it hadn't broken it, That was good.

Under the circumstances, a toast would be in extremely poor taste. Gil didn't tilt his glass in Clay's direction before he sipped the martini in it. Taking a seat, he leaned back in the poolside chair, feeling a measure of pride in the firmness of his tanned flesh, the tack of flab. He was in better shape than most men half his age, and he knew it.

“Anything new?” He raised a silvered gray eyebrow at Clay.

“Not that I've heard.” Clay sat on the edge of a chair, his elbows on the armrests, both hands holding his martini glass. “The police haven't been around to ask you any more questions, have they?”

“No. Why should they?” Gil countered evenly and took another leisurely sip of his martini.

Clay ran combing fingers through his blond hair and shrugged. “When they took our statements last night, they said they might come around if they had more questions.”

“There is nothing we can add to what we've already told them,” Gil replied with a dismissing wave of his drink glass, then looked at Clay and said, with firmness, “At the approximate time Emile was killed, you and I were together. Dozens of people saw us. Besides, the police have caught their man.”

“But on the noon news, they had a clip of Dougherty insisting he was innocent.”

“And there isn't a guilty man in San Quentin either.”

“You're right.” Clay smiled in silent admiration of his father's calmness, his cool confidence. Some of it rubbed off, and he breathed a little easier.

“I thought it would be appropriate to pay a visit to the grieving widow tomorrow and offer our condolences.” Gil idly lifted his face to the sun. “My sources tell me that it appears dear Natalie is Emile's sole heir. How unfortunate for Katherine that she failed to get anything in writing from Emile. It's possible Natalie might be persuaded to choose a different partner for her joint venture.”

“I'd say it's more than possible.” Privately Clay wondered how long his father had been thinking along those lines. But they had a tacit agreement: no questions. It was better that way.

“That's what I thought.” This time Gil lifted his glass in a silent salute and downed a smooth swallow, releasing a gusty sigh.

But it was an earlier comment by his father that had started Clay thinking. He pushed out of his chair and wandered to the edge of the fieldstone pool deck. “You say she's the sole heir.” He glanced back at his father for confirmation.

“Assuming he's made no changes in his will the last few months. Why? What's on your mind?”

“Divorce. Barbara could be convinced it's best.” He sipped thoughtfully at his drink.

“You're talking community property. That would be very expensive, Clay.” He stood up, disapproval in his expression and his posture.

Clay just smiled. “I'd gladly give half of what I have now to get my hands on Chateau Noir. After all, Natalie is going to need someone to help her run it.”

Gil stared at him for a startled instant, then threw back his head and released a hearty laugh. “By God, I like the way you think.” He walked over and clapped a hand on Clay's shoulder. “We make one helluva team, son. One helluva team.”

Grinning, they touched glasses and downed the rest of the liquor in one drink. Both silently recognized that as long as they stood together, there was nothing to fear.

The rental car bounced along the rutted track into the weed-choked yard. Kelly braked to a stop next to a Buick parked in front of the house. As impossible as it seemed, the house actually looked worse than she remembered.

The paint that had been cracked and peeling when she left ten years ago was completely gone, exposing gray and rotting boards. The roof sagged at one corner, probably leaked, too. Dust and grime coated the windowpanes. One was cracked, but she didn't see any that were broken.

Broken machinery parts, old tires, and odd pieces of junk poked their tops above the tall weeds around the house. If there was any trace of the flower bed she had once outlined with rocks next to the front stoop, it was hidden by the weeds.

At first glance, the vineyard didn't look much better. A wild tangle of jungle-thick vines. When she looked closer, Kelly could see places where the canes had been cut back to create the illusion of rows.

She switched off the engine and stared at the green-and-white Buick parked in front of the house, its bright chrome glinting in the sunlight. It looked out of place next to the weed-choked yard and the rundown house, all clean and shiny, its painted body waxed to a high sheen.

But it had always been like that; her father had always been very particular about his car. Just as his clothes had to be clean and crisply starched, his car had to be spotless. Keeping it that way had been her job. That old blue Chevy he'd owned when she was in junior high had been the worst, its royal blue color showing every speck of dirt and dust. Kelly remembered all the hours she'd spent laboring to wipe away all the wet streaks before the hot sun baked them dry....

Almost done, she climbed onto the bumper and stretched to reach the top of the car's hood with the chamois. The front of her blue knit top was soaked. It clung to her skin, revealing the rolls of baby fat. A rubber band held her lank hair back in a ponytail, sweat plastering the few escaping strands to her face and neck and sliding her glasses down to the end of her nose.

The screen door banged shut, the sound freezing her for an instant and lacing all her nerves up tightly. The morning heat and her flagging energy were forgotten as she hurriedly wiped at the rapidly drying splotches of water on the hood, and cast a surreptitious glance at the door.

Wincing at the bright glare of sunlight, her father halted at the top of the steps and threw up a hand to shield his eyes from it. His face had that telltale pasty look of too much whiskey the night before. In his hand, he held a glass, half full of a pale brown liquid. She knew it wasn't iced tea he was drinking; it was more whiskey.

“Haven't you got that car done yet?” he demanded irritably.

“Almost.” She scrambled off the hood, feeling as if the whole yard had suddenly become strewn with eggshells.

“Look at that.” He came off the stoop, pointing a finger at the hood. “You left streaks all over it. What the hell is the matter with you? I buy you a new pair of glasses and you still can't see.”

“Sorry.” She hurried to rub the chamois over the area he'd indicated.

“You're always sorry,” he jeered. “I ask you to do one simple thing, ‘Wash my car,' I said, and you're too fat and lazy to do even that one thing right.”

“I'll get it,” she promised.

“You're damned right you're going to get it because I'm going to stand right here and make sure you do. Do you hear or are you deaf as well as blind?”

“I hear.” She flinched inwardly from the degrading slash of his words, tears stinging her eyes.

“You better,” he warned, then erupted, “For chrissake, pay attention to what you're doing. You're leaving fingerprints all over the chrome. Clean them off,” he ordered and she jumped to obey. “I'm not about to take this car into town with it looking like this. What will people think?”

She stopped, resentment flaring. “What will they think? Why weren't you worried about what they would think last night when you stumbled out of that bar? Or last month at the Fourth of July fireworks show when you started singing ‘God Bless America' at the top of your lungs, waving that bottle around like some drunken -” She cried out as the back of his hand struck her cheek.

“Don't you smart-mouth me, little girl.” He hit her again. Harder.

Staggered by the force of the last blow, she fell against the car, her hipbone colliding with its front fender, a numbing pain shooting up her back. She saw him coming at her again and threw the damp chamois in his face, a purely reflexive act of defense with the only weapon she had.

It slowed him for an instant as he swore and snatched the heavy cloth from his face. But it was just enough time for her to roll away and get beyond the reach of his punishing hands. But not from the whiskey glass in his hand. He hurled it at her. She ducked, but not quickly enough as the glass struck her forehead in a glancing blow.

Terror was stronger than the pain, and she started running, heading straight for the concealment of the vine rows, ignoring his shouts and the burning throb in her hip and face. Conscious of his feet pounding the ground in pursuit, she dived into the cover of the vineyard and scrambled along the ground, tiny sobs of panic escaping her throat with each breath. She didn't slow down until she reached the fence line.

Beyond lay a thicket of scarlet-stalked manzanita. She ducked under the wires and crawled into the brush. At last safe from him, she stopped, panting for air, sweat streaming down her face, her frantically beating heart clogging her throat. Her hip ached and her head throbbed. Gingerly she touched her face. The area around her cheekbone had already begun to swell and there was a hard knot on her forehead, the beginnings of a goose egg. But the skin hadn't been broken. She was lucky. Lucky. At that thought she began to weep softly and bitterly.

“Come out of there – do you hear me?” he shouted suddenly and she froze in fresh fear, brushing quickly at the tears sliding down her face. “Get your ass back down here and finish cleaning my car!”

The seconds ticked by, but she didn't budge from her hiding place. “Worthless, that's what you are,” he shouted again. “You're nothing but a fat, lazy slut. No wonder your mother died. It killed her when she looked at you and realized this useless, fat thing was her daughter. She died because she couldn't stand to look at you anymore, you slut.”

She clamped her hands over her ears to shut out his hateful words. Words that hurt more than his fists.

The sound of them still rang in her mind as Kelly stepped slowly out of the car, looking around and wondering what she was doing here. She should be finding a place to stay tonight before the tourists booked all the rooms. But she knew why she'd come – to face the rest of her ghosts. It was something she had to do. She'd run from them, denied them too long.

The rough, rock-strewn ground wasn't exactly meant for crossing in heels, but she picked her way carefully to the front stoop. With equal care, she avoided the rotted boards and tried the front door. The lock was still broken. It swung inward at a push of her hand.

Kelly walked in and stood for a minute in the airless living room, assaulted by the familiar smells – the sickly sweet odor of spilt whiskey, the lingering stench of dried vomit and old cigarette butts. Bright rays from the afternoon sun made a vain attempt to penetrate the grimy windows and throw light into-the room, but they managed little more than the injection of a dull glow.

The end table next to her father's chair was half buried under dirty drink glasses, an overflowing ashtray, and a framed picture of her mother. An empty whiskey bottle lay on the floor beside his chair. More were probably under it.

She stared at the sofa where her mother had died. It was still covered with the same old Indian blanket, its once bright stripes now dingy and dull. By chance, Kelly happened to glance at the braided rag rug on the floor. She had an instant image of herself rolling on the rug with her father, giggling uncontrollably under his tickling fingers while he laughed just as loudly.

She was stunned by the memory. Laughter wasn't something she associated with this house, her childhood, or her father, until now.

Still frowning, she walked into the kitchen. The sink was piled with dirty dishes, and more spilled onto the counter. The linoleum on the floor, cracked and yellowed with age, peeled away from the scarred baseboard. But there stood the stove, and its oven that had once filled the house with delicious smells. Cakes, cookies, and her mother's specialty, rich chocolate brownies.

One more stop. Her bedroom, then she'd leave.

Nothing had been touched since she'd left. A thick layer of dust coated every surface, the cheap pine dresser she'd painted white, the flowered coverlet on her iron bed, and the old radio on her nightstand. Kelly flipped the knob. A mixture of music and static sputtered from it. She smiled, surprised it still worked, and turned it off.

Her old doll Babs lay propped against the pillow on her bed. Waa waa, it cried when Kelly picked it up. She blew the top film of dust from its plastic face and tipped it so its eyes would open, then touched the hem of the blue dress her mother had made for it, stitching it all by hand.

Babs had been a special gift from Santa Claus when Kelly was seven. They'd had a Christmas tree that year. Her father had brought it home the day before Christmas, and they'd spent the entire evening, all three of them, her father, mother, and Kelly, stringing popcorn, gluing paper chains together with flour paste, and making cutouts of stars, candy canes, and snowflakes to decorate the tree, topping it with a giant star made out of aluminum foil. When her father had stolen some popcorn to eat, her mother had laughed and slapped at his hand. He'd winked at Kelly and slipped her a few kernels. The next morning there sat Babs under the tree.