Tangled Vines (37 page)

Trees grew thick on both sides of the wide trail, their interwoven branches blocking out much of the light. The clouds added to the dark gloom and the sense of isolation. Listening to the reassuring sound of vehicles growling along the drive, Kelly tried to imagine how much darker, how much blacker it had been the night of the party.

But that thought started her wondering again what had prompted the baron to go to the winery. And to take this route. Had he merely sought to escape from the party for a little while? Probably. Kelly had only met him twice, but both times she had gotten the impression Baron Fougere didn't enjoy socializing; he preferred the company of books. So why hadn't he gone to the library in the house? It would have been quiet there; he would have been alone; and the atmosphere would certainly have suited him better than this thickly shadowed path.

Unless he'd been upset about something. Kelly thought immediately of the intimate little exchange she had inadvertently witnessed between the baroness and Clay Rutledge. Had the baron seen something similar? Something that made him suspect his wife was having an affair with another man? It might be the kind of thing that would send him down a dark and lonely path, eventually winding up at the winery and discovering her father there. Was it pure happenstance? Had he been at the wrong place at the wrong time? Was that all it was?

The questions kept buzzing through her mind. Kelly sighed and shook her head. She had spent the better part of the last ten years, first in college studying journalism, then later in her career, asking questions, ferreting out the answers. It had become second nature to her, a habit too deeply ingrained to be broken quickly or easily. Especially when this particular story involved her father and trapped her in its backlash.

The winery towered before her, reigning over the yard at the end of the bridle path. Without the morning sun to warm its color, the building's brick looked dark and dull. By contrast, the long band of bright yellow strung out from the building's far end stood out sharply. Kelly recognized the wide plastic tape as the kind police used to mark off a crime scene. She was surprised it hadn't been taken down before now.

There wouldn't be anything to see; any evidence would have been removed long ago. Kelly knew that. Still, she found herself walking over to look.

The ground was scuffed with prints. A faint outline remained, indicating where the body had been found. There were two more spots marked as well. Kelly decided one of them probably indicated the location of the murder weapon and the other the gasoline can her father had dropped, but she didn't know which was which.

She remembered the brief and unpleasant visit with her father. He had been scared and confused, hiding behind an angry bravado. He had probably been scared as well as drunk that night. When the baron had challenged him, he had probably struck out in panic.

But why with a mallet? Why not with the gas cans he was carrying? If he planned to ruin the wine stored in the cellars, what had he been doing here? The entrance to the cellar was behind the winery. Kelly frowned and glanced at the security light mounted high on the building. Why would he have approached them from this direction when the area was so brightly lit? Had he been so drunk he didn't notice that? Or so drunk he didn't care?

A small side door to the winery opened and the burly, grizzled figure of Claude Broussard stepped out. He cast a darting glance at the yellow tape. He started to look away, then jerked his head back to fasten his dark eyes on Kelly.

“Hello.” Smiling, she took a step toward him.

Immediately he waved a big hand at her, a glower claiming his wizened, craggy features. “We do not allow reporters. You are trespassing. You must leave at once!”

Again Kelly found herself forced to explain her presence. Monsieur Broussard, I am Leonard Dougherty's daughter.”

“You?” His eyes narrowed on her in sharp suspicion, his thick gray brows drawing together to form a solid, bushy line.

“Me. You must have seen my picture on television or in the newspaper accounts of the baron's death.”

“I have no wish to see or read such accounts.” He came closer, continuing to eye her. “I remember his daughter. She was a tall, plump thing who wore glasses.”

“And who used to sneak into the winery,” Kelly added. “You caught me hiding in the cellars once.”

“I did.” He nodded, acceptance slowly forming.

“I was scared to death, certain you were going to beat me,” Kelly recalled.

Old Claude shook his head. “I would never strike a Child.” Then he smiled. “I gave you a taste of wine.”

“That's right,” she murmured, suddenly remembering “I thought it would taste like grape juice, but it was sour.”

“Not sour,” he reproved. “The wine was young, a bit puckery perhaps.”

“More than a bit, as I remember,” Kelly replied, her smile growing.

Claude Broussard smiled back for a moment, then sobered, a sadness entering his eyes. “Your father was not a good man. He had begun to drink at his work. I found a whiskey bottle he had hidden. I could not permit that to continue. I had to discharge him.”

“I know.” Kelly dipped her head, remembering how humiliated she'd been when she had come to meet him after he got off work that day only to be told that he had been fired. He had staggered into the house the next morning, roaring drunk. When he finally sobered, he had told her that he had gotten tired of being treated like a slave by the Rutledges and quit. But she had always known the truth. Without thinking, she turned her head and looked at the crime scene. “He was always drunk, always causing trouble.”

“Let us come away from this place.” His leathered hand gripped her arm, firmly guiding her away from the site. “It is not a good place.”

Touched by the gesture, Kelly lifted her gaze to his face and studied the network of age lines that creased his leathered face. “How old are you?” He had seemed ancient to her when she was a girl.

He halted, his posture stiffening, his big shoulders going back. “What is the importance of this?” It was obvious he was offended by her question.

Kelly tried to shrug it off. “None. I was just curious.”

Still full of pride, he looked her in the eye. “I am in my seventieth decade. My grand-pere served as maitre de chai here at Rutledge Estate until he reached his eighty-fourth year. His last years were good years and the wines were fine wines. These young people with their college degrees, their test tubes, and their meters, what do they know about making fine wines? Old,” he repeated the word in disgust. “Like my grand-pere, I have many good years left. I am not yet ready to be pensioned off.”

“I didn't mean to suggest you were.”

“Non?” His glance challenged her, then backed off, but a look of vague irritability stayed in his expression. “What was it you wanted here?”

“I came to see Sam.”

“He left no more than five minutes ago.”

“He did?” Disappointment. Kelly hadn't expected to feel it so sharply. She looked toward the winery offices, noticing for the first time that his Jeep wasn't parked in front of the long building. “Do you know where he went?”

“Non.”

She nodded, trying to pretend it didn't matter. “I'll see him later back at the house.” But it wouldn't be the same and Kelly knew it. With a wave to Claude, she began the long walk back to the house.

Through a break in the trees, Kelly spotted a silver-gray Bronco parked in the driveway in front of the house. It seemed a bit early in the morning for visitors, she thought. Not until she emerged from the bridle path did she see the other vehicles in the drive a marked police car, a plain sedan, and Sam's Jeep.

Something was wrong. She felt the prickles on her skin, the sudden tensing of all her nerves, turning them taut as wires. She faltered only a second, then lengthened her stride and cut across the grass to the front door. As she opened it, Kelly heard Katherine's voice.

“She is not anywhere in the house. She must have gone out.”

Two uniformed officers, Ollie Zelinski, the defense attorney John MacSwayne, and Sam stood in a group at the bottom of the marble staircase, facing Katherine as she joined them. John MacSwayne was in his forties, a touch of gray at his temples, average in height, weight, and build. He had one of those fatherly faces, the kind that projected an image of a man who had dealt with a lot of bad boys but never had cause to lose his faith in the basic good he saw in them. He turned to Kelly, as did the others when they heard the front door shut.

“Were you looking for me?” She advanced slowly toward them, braced for bad news. The grimness of Sam's expression and the banked anger in his eyes only confirmed what her instincts had already told her.

Sam met her. “Your father has escaped,” he told her. “I heard it on the radio and came to tell you. Then Zelinski and the others drove up.”

“When?” There was a flatness in her voice. It was the only way to keep the anger – the fury – out of it.

She knew precisely what her father's escape meant: a full-blown manhunt complete with roadblocks, search teams, police swarming over the area, helicopters overhead. The kind of sensational story that would bring the news media out in droves. And her name would get dragged into it again, just when all the publicity had been about to die.

“About dawn this morning,” Ollie replied, a silent commiseration in his eyes.

“How? How was that possible?” Kelly shifted away from Sam, inconspicuously rejecting the comfort he seemed to be offering by standing beside her. If he touched her, she might lose control. And she didn't want any of them to see what this was doing to her. She folded her arms tightly across her middle, a protective gesture against the rawness inside.

“He acted sick. There was a new trustee on duty. We're still putting all the details together.” Ollie pushed the glasses higher on his nose, something he had always done when he was nervous.

Kelly recognized it, but it didn't make any real impression on her. “Why did you come? It wasn't just to tell me that.”

Ollie's glance bounced off her, then came back, none too squarely. “This should never have happened. His arrest already caused enough problems for you and I wanted you to know how sorry I am.” He paused a beat. “Do you have any idea where he might go?”

“Did you check the nearest bar or liquor store?” The bitterness came out. Kelly couldn't stop it.

“Do you think he would try to head this way or make for the Bay Area? Oakland or San Francisco?” one of the officers asked.

They were watching her. All of them. Waiting for an answer she didn't have. “I don't know.” She gave a small; tight shake of her head and felt strands of her loose hair brush against her cheek. She dragged fingers through it, scraping it back from her face and wishing she had clamped it in a twist. “I don't know where he'd go or what he'd do. It would be easier for him to lose himself in a city. More places to hide, but I don't know if he'd think that way.”

“What about the mountains?” the other patrolman asked. “Is your father much of an outdoorsman? A hunter?”

“No.”

“Did he ever go camping?”

Kelly shook her head again. “Drinking was his only form of recreation.”

“What about his friends?”

“I left ten years ago. I don't know who he has for friends or even if he has any. You'd have to check the bars he frequented. Find out who his drinking buddies are.”

They asked more questions she couldn't answer. With each, her tension increased until her nerves were even more taut. Finally she couldn't take any more.

“If I knew anything – anything at all – don't you think I would tell you?” she snapped. “I want him caught as much as you do. The longer he's out there, the longer this will drag on-” Kelly broke off the rest of it, instantly regretting the flare of temper.

It didn't help when Sam slid a hand onto her back, again moving to her side. “That's enough questions for now, I think,” he said while Kelly held herself stiffly, fighting to keep from swaying against him.

“Right.” Ollie nodded. “I'm sorry we had to put you through this, Kelly, but it couldn't be helped. If you think of anything or remember anything that might be useful-“

“I'll call,” she promised.

Through all the questioning, MacSwayne had remained a silent observer. When Ollie and the two officers offered their good-byes and crossed the hall to the front door, he stayed behind. He waited until the door closed, then turned to Kelly.

“I have only one thing to add to this unfortunate situation, Miss Douglas,” he said. “If you should talk to your father, if he should contact you.”

“He won't,” Kelly inserted. “He doesn't know where I am.”

“I'm afraid he does.” MacSwayne's eyebrows lifted in silent apology. “You see, I told him you were staying here.”

Sam swore softly and viciously under his breath, and demanded aloud, “Why the hell did you have to do that? There was no reason for him to know where Kelly was.”

“At the time I thought there was.” The attorney shrugged, as if to indicate the damage was done and debate over the right or wrong of it was pointless. “When I visited Dougherty in jail, he kept ranting about the Rutledges, you in particular, Mrs. Rutledge.” He glanced at Katherine and received not a flicker of reaction. “He was making a lot of accusations, and I thought it might alter his opinion if he knew his daughter was staying with you.”

“Did it?” Sam showed blatant cynicism and skepticism.

“Unfortunately, no. At that point, he became convinced you were trying to turn his daughter against him. But paranoia is frequently one of the side effects of alcoholism,” MacSwayne stated and swung his attention back to Kelly. “Which is part of what I wanted to talk to you about.” With one arm outstretched directing her away from Katherine and Sam, and the other curved in a shepherding fashion, he guided Kelly off to the side where they could talk privately. She failed to understand what could be gained by discussing her father's drinking habit. She waited, tensely and impatiently, for the lawyer to explain.

“If, by chance, you do hear from your father,” MacSwayne began, his voice low, his tone confidential, “make every effort to convince him to give himself up.”

“He isn't likely to listen to me.”

“Try. Things will go much better for him if he surrenders to the police,” he explained, then went on. “When he was arrested the morning after the baron was killed, the alcohol level in his blood was considerably above the legal limit. He admits he had been drinking. It's very possible he was too drunk to really know what he was doing. I can argue diminished capacity, possibly get the charges against him reduced to involuntary manslaughter. But to do that, he needs to give himself up and we need to get him out on bail and enrolled in a rehabilitation program. We have to show that alcoholism is a disease and your father is a victim.”

“Don't talk to me about victims.” Kelly's voice vibrated with anger. “I was the victim! I was the one who had to live with him and deal with his lies. I was the one he beat up on when he got drunk. I was the one who paid the price. And I'm still paying it!”

Fighting the tears that burned the back of her eyes, Kelly whirled and walked quickly and blindly away. She didn't even hear Sam call out to her.

Before Sam could go after her, MacSwayne stopped him. “Let her go.”

Sam turned on him. “What in hell did you say to her?”

“I'm afraid I upset her. I thought by now she had come to accept her father's drinking as a sickness, one she didn't cause, can't control, and can't cure.” MacSwayne gazed thoughtfully in the direction Kelly had gone, then glanced at Sam. “There are programs for those whose parents are, or were, alcoholics. Al-Anon has one specially designed for adult children of alcoholics. Talk to her about taking part in one. At least she's beginning to get in touch with some of her feelings and releasing the anger she has stored inside all these years. That's a step in the right direction anyway.”

Tears trembled on the ends of her lashes. Kelly hurriedly wiped at them when she heard the firm, measured tread of Sam's footsteps approaching. Her flight from the entry hall had brought her to the library.

When Sam walked in, Kelly didn't turn around, but continued to stand next to a leather chair, one hand resting on the back of it. “Kelly?”

The instant she felt the warm pressure of his hands on her upper arms, she walked away from it. “I'm fine.” She'd had time, just enough time, to pull herself together. She ran her fingers over the pleated sides of a lampshade, needing to keep them busy or she'd start twisting them together. “I could use a cigarette though. You wouldn't happen to have one, would you? I left mine in my purse upstairs.”

“No. I don't.”

“That's okay.” She turned the lamp on, throwing some light into the paneled room, darkened by the heavy gray clouds beyond its windows. “With all that's been happening, I'm surprised I haven't started smoking more.”

A remote control lay on the table next to the lamp. Kelly picked it up and aimed it at the television, pushing the power button. A picture flashed instantly on the screen.

“Kelly, about your father,” Sam began.

She held up a hand to silence him, her gaze fixed on the screen. “There's a news bulletin. Maybe they've caught him.” She sank quickly onto the leather chair seat and hunched forward to concentrate on the reporter's words. But the bulletin turned out to be a correction on a previous report that the suspect had been sighted aboard a ferry bound for San Francisco, a sighting that turned out to be erroneous. The correction was followed by a recap on the jailbreak and a rehash of the baron's death.

“Let's go get some coffee,” Sam suggested when the station returned to its regular morning program schedule.

Kelly shook her head. “I'd rather stay here, see if anything breaks.”

“Even if it does, there's nothing you can do.”

“I know that, but I want to stay just the same. It's something I need to do. Try to understand that, won't you?”

She spent the rest of the day and most of the evening in front of the television, flipping from station to station, catching a news bulletin on one and checking it against a report from another. There were numerous reported sightings, most of which proved to be false and the rest couldn't be confirmed one way or the other. The police continued to state their belief that he was still somewhere in the city of Napa, insisting that roadblocks had been in place within ten minutes of the prisoner's escape.

There were scenes of SWAT teams searching an abandoned building, helicopters making slow sweeps over an area, officers at roadblocks opening car trunks and checking identifications, and long lines of cars backed up on the highways. There were interviews with various legal officials, residents in isolated areas afraid to stay alone in their homes, people on the street, and tourists. The coverage was extensive.

And all of it, every lead story began with some variation of the words: “The father of television news personality Kelly Douglas, accused of the murder of Baron Emile Fougere of France, remains at large...this morning...this afternoon...tonight.” And nearly every report included a publicity still of her or a clip from a broadcast or a shot of her outside the city jail in St. Helena.

The next day, dawn came with no rain and no new developments. Leonard Dougherty was still at large. Around midmorning, there was a flurry of excitement with live coverage of police surrounding a small vineyard in the Carneros district where the suspect was thought to be hiding. One news crew in a helicopter showed TV audiences an indistinct figure huddled under thick vines. After twenty suspense-filled minutes, the man surrendered to the police.

The instant the man crawled out from under the vines, his hands clasped over his head, Kelly knew it wasn't her father. The black hair, the swarthy complexion; he looked Mexican. The reporter on the scene reached the same conclusion. A mug shot of her father flashed on the screen for the benefit of the viewers.

The noon broadcast included a follow-up report that explained the man taken into custody at the vineyard had proved to be an illegal alien. There was also a report that a house in a remote area of the valley's Stag's Leap district showed signs of forced entry this morning, although nothing appeared to have been taken. Police now admitted that it was possible Dougherty had managed to get past the roadblocks and was somewhere beyond the city limits of Napa; they were widening their search.

Late in the afternoon, a fine rain began to fall. Low clouds hugged the high ridges and peaks of both mountain ranges. The early evening newscasts showed reporters on the scene standing under dripping umbrellas, relating the latest facts on the manhunt and adding a few suppositions.

The NBC affiliate carried a related story that had been taped earlier, before it started raining. When Kelly heard the anchor's lead-in to the piece, she guessed at once she would be the focus of it. But she was stunned to see Linda James, her enemy and rival, in the opening shot, standing in front of her father's ramshackle house, explaining to the viewers that this was the home where Kelly Douglas had grown up.