Crush

Vail turned to the monitor and watched Silva put down the pen. “I’ll be right back.” She headed into the interview room, glanced at the pad, and asked Silva to sign the bottom. After he scrawled his name and handed Vail the pad, he said, “Can I go now?”

“Absolutely. We’ve got a car and driver waiting outside for you.” She extended a hand and Silva took it. “Thanks for your cooperation. I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced. I’m Karen Vail. Special Agent Karen Vail. FBI.”

Silva’s hand went limp. “You—”

“Yeah, that’s me. And yes, I’m fucking pissed.” She forced a smile. “But it’s been great meeting you, Walton. Have a pleasant stay in lockup.”

Vail walked out and joined Robby in the conference room.

“You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

She looked over at the monitor, where Walton sat, grasping his hair with both hands.

Before Vail could respond, her BlackBerry buzzed. As she pulled it from her belt, Brix’s and Dixon’s phones chimed. She glanced at the display. A text message.

And another body.

THIRTY-ONE

Walton Silva kept bemoaning that the sun had not yet risen when he was roused from bed. The task force members couldn’t have made that complaint because, as they gathered around the fresh crime scene, the sky was brightening in the east, silhouetting the vineyard-tipped hills against pale yellow hues.

As Vail and Robby huffed up the steep rise, something that had been bothering Vail on the ride over continued clawing at her thoughts—but her brain function was fuzzy with sleep deprivation, and it took a while to fight through the fog.

“If this is the work of our Crush Killer, he can’t be in Virginia,” Vail said to Robby.

“That’s a big ‘if.’ Let’s first see what we’ve got, then we can draw some conclusions.”

Vail looked over at Robby in the rising brightness. “That’s something I would say, with some food in my stomach and sleep under my belt. You’re absolutely right.” She grabbed a peek at her watch, then said, “There’s no reason for you to be here. You can go grab some shut-eye.”

“As soon as we get a look at the body, figure out whether or not this is the same asshole, I’ll take off, let Bledsoe know what’s going down, and hit the sack.”

“Wish I could hit that sack with you.”

They joined the huddle of task force members—Dixon, Gordon, Mann, and Brix. Lugo stood at the periphery, rubbing his face with both hands, in obvious distress.

“What do we have?” Vail asked.

Lugo looked at her with a long face. “Same fucking thing. Breasts, windpipe, toenail. Go see for yourself.”

Relief flooded over Vail—Jonathan was safe because it was now highly probable the killer was still in California—and she instantly felt deep remorse and embarrassment that she could be relieved over the discovery of a new victim. She cut herself some slack—lack of sleep did strange things to the way one processed information and stress—and moved past Lugo.

Matt Aaron was crouched over the body, his klieg lights creating the sense of an important event. And there, in the center of his stage, lit up like a diamond on display, was a woman who looked to be in her late thirties.

“TOD?” Vail asked.

Aaron did not shift his attention. “Maybe an hour ago.”

“Jesus Christ,” Brix said. “An hour?” He twisted his body, eyes scanning the countryside. “Where the hell is this guy?”

“Obviously not in Virginia,” Robby said. He touched Vail’s shoulder—she wished he’d lean over and give her a hug and kiss—she needed it. “I’ve still got those clothes I bought for you in my car. I’ll leave the bags on Roxxann’s trunk.”

“Thanks.”

He then walked off, toward his car.

Vail closed her eyes. She was so tired she thought she could fall asleep right here, right now, vertically suspended. But there would not be any sleep, not for a while.

“The bastard pulled one over on us, made us jump through hoops, made me think he was across the country stalking my son.”

“Yeah, how about that?” Austin Mann asked.

Vail opened her eyes. “Smart guy. And out to show us just how smart he is, how superior he is, by tricking us—tricking me into thinking he was after my son. He knew that’d get a visceral, no-holds-barred response.”

“But there’d be no way for him to know you’d actually fallen for it.”

“What mother wouldn’t? Who could take the chance? Of course I fell for it. He knew. He’s a goddamn smart one. Organized.” The beginnings of a profile were taking shape. “This guy will have a higher education. He owns a more expensive car, like a high-end Toyota or some other foreign make. He works in a job that doesn’t recognize his true worth, and this frustrates him. He has to show us how intelligent he is to compensate for his failings in the real world.”

Burt Gordon cleared his throat. “Doesn’t help us much. We know the kind of person we may be looking for, but who is he? There can be hundreds of people who fit those parameters.”

“Once we start getting a suspect pool, we can narrow it down using these guidelines.”

Gordon gave a slight laugh, then looked to Aaron. “Any ID on the vic?”

“Nothing. No wallet, credit cards, license. I’ll get you something as soon as I can run her prints, dental impressions—you know the deal.”

“Knife under her lower back?”

Aaron inched closer, directed his flashlight at the body, and examined the area. “Can’t tell. And I’m not sticking my hand underneath to find out. We’ll know when it’s time to move the body.”

Vail’s phone vibrated. She plucked it from its holster, glanced at the display, and lifted it to her face. “Vail.”

“It’s Bledsoe.”

She reminded herself to enter in her contacts—not having caller ID configured for her phone numbers was a pain in the ass.

“Good news. We just found a fresh vic.” Did I just say that? Shit, I really need some sleep.

“How is that good news?”

Vail rolled her head back, then side to side. “It’s not, it’s not. I just meant, if we found another vic in Napa—”

“How can that be, if the fucker’s here, two thousand miles away?”

“Exactly. That seems to be the question of the day. Until we know for sure, we’re assuming he’s here in Napa, that his text last night was a ruse just to screw with our heads.”

“Between you and me, it worked.”

“I know it worked, Bledsoe. Thanks for pointing out the goddamn obvious.” She noticed Dixon giving her a look. Vail turned away and walked off a few paces. “Sorry. I haven’t had a whole lot of sleep.”

“Takes a lot to piss me off, you know that.”

“Now there’s a quality I could use some of myself. Listen, can you put Jonathan on the phone?”

“I would if I was still there. I left the school a while ago. Everything was clean. My guy’s on him. Trevor Greenwich. Give him a buzz.”

“It’s just—I just need to hear Jonathan’s voice.”

“No need to explain. Take care of yourself. Get some sleep. And call me if you need anything else, especially if your killer really is in my backyard.”

“Count on it.”

Bledsoe gave Vail the cop’s cell and she immediately dialed through. As it was ringing, she realized she knew this officer. She’d had a run-in with the guy a couple of months ago. Not that it was his fault; he was just doing his job—but she was not in the mood to take any shit from the guy. When he answered, she identified herself—waiting for some sign of recognition—but got nothing. She plowed forward, not allowing too much room for him to comment, and asked him to pull Jonathan out of class for a moment. Greenwich didn’t argue, nor did he question her as to why. Jonathan was on the line seconds later.

“Mom?”

“Hey, how are you?”

“Fine. What’s the deal with the cop?”

“He’s there to protect you. And please be polite. He’s there as a favor, okay?”

“A favor for what? Everything’s fine.”

“It’s not something I want to get into. I’ll tell you when I get home. But for now, it’s important you let the officer hang around close by. Okay?”

“Is this a big deal?”

“I hope not. I’ll let you know if anything changes. And call me if you have any concerns, if anything doesn’t feel right. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay. Whatever.”

“I love you.”

“You too.”

Vail put away her phone and joined Dixon at the crime scene boundary.

“Everything okay?”

“I just needed to hear my son’s voice.” She turned to Dixon. “You have kids?”

“Me?” She laughed. “No. I’d like to, I think. But first I have to meet someone. I’m not into the single parent thing. Certainly not being a cop. You divorced?”

Vail took a moment before answering. “That’s a long story I’d rather not get into right now. Better on a day when I’m awake and not dealing with a major case. Let’s just say I am doing ‘the single parent thing,’ though that wasn’t the plan. It just sort of . . . happened. And given how things turned out, it was probably for the best. Jonathan’s father ended up being a bit more than I bargained for.”

“It’s nice, I think, having children. Watching them grow up, become people, have families of their own. And when you get old, you’ve got family around.”

Vail couldn’t help but look down at the corpse laid out in front of them. It seemed wrong to be having such a conversation in its presence. She turned and headed away. Dixon followed. “That sums it up,” Vail said. “But that’s only part of the deal. Lots of challenges along the way. Makes life interesting, to say the least.”

“Is Jonathan your only child?”

Vail nodded. “Fourteen and full of angst. Overall, he’s a good kid. But I’ll be glad when he gets past the teen attitude.”

Brix came up behind them. “Just got a call. Tim Nance is at the sheriff’s department.”

Vail sighed, long and slow. “This is going to be fun.”

Brix rubbed at his forehead. “Yeah. Not so much.”

THIRTY-TWO

Vail had slipped on the shoes Robby had bought for her—they fit well, felt like tennis shoes, and were a welcome relief. She joined Dixon and they entered the sheriff’s department facility. They were immediately met by Stan Owens, who was already having a less-than-friendly chat with Redmond Brix. As they approached, Vail’s phone rang.

It was Gifford. He must have thought Vail had already programmed her new phone, or that she would recognize his voice, because he didn’t bother identifying himself. “I guess this shouldn’t surprise me, but you’ve dug yourself a new hole.”

“Which hole are you referring to, sir?”

Gifford hesitated just a moment. “There’s more than one?”

Vail smiled. She didn’t mean to push his buttons. But it was, she had to admit, a bit of a kick.

“You know what?” he said. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. I just got a call from the assistant director, who got a call from the director, who got a call from Congressman Church. Do you know who Congressman Church is?”

Shit. The conversation she just witnessed between Sheriff Owens and Brix was now coming into focus.

“I know of him. He represents Napa, as well as—”

“The correct answer is that Congressman Church is the man who’s making my life miserable. And that means that he also happens to be the man who’s now making your life miserable. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

“I’m beginning to get the picture.”

“So what can you tell me about Church’s district director, Timothy Nance?”

My chance to douse this fire before it rages. “I believe Nance was involved in the plot to kill me, sir. We got a confession from one of his friends who stated that he and Scott Fuller and—”

“Fuller’s the dead LEO who was found a few feet from your body while you were . . . sleeping?”

Obviously, he’s already been briefed. “I wasn’t sleeping, sir. I was drugged. Someone—I believe it was the Crush Killer—came up from behind and injected me, then shot Fuller. Probably with my handgun.”

There was a moment of silence. “And when did you think it was appropriate to inform me of this?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, sir, but I’ve been a little busy.”

“We’ll address that when you return. Meantime, I need to deal with this Nance issue.”

Vail turned and saw Brix, Owens, and Dixon staring at her from down the hall. Whatever was about to happen was not going to be good. She swung back around. “With all due respect, there’s no issue for you to deal with. Nance is a suspect in an attempted murder investigation. He was implicated by his purported accomplice. If he does the smart thing, he’ll lawyer up and everything will be put into the court system here in California, where it’ll be harder for congressmen and assistant directors and directors to influence the outcome of a properly conducted trial in front of a jury of the asshole’s peers.”

“Jesus Christ, Karen. You’re shortening my life, you know that? Shaving away precious years.”

“Not to sound unfeeling, but I’m the one who was nearly burned like a french fry. Talk about cutting one’s life short. So let’s keep things in perspective.”

“How close are you to catching this Crush Killer?”

Vail sighed deeply. She needed some caffeine. And a vacation. Oh yeah, this was my vacation. “Not as close as I wish we were.”

“I think your time in Napa is coming to a close. I want you to wrap things up and catch a flight out tomorrow night. I’ll have Lenka email you the confirmation number for your flight.”

“I can’t just leave. We—”

“Karen, you’re not doing anyone any good. For some reason, the killer seems to be playing off you. We remove you from the equation, maybe things will quiet down. I’ll ask the San Ramon RA to send over an agent to monitor the situation and act as liaison.”

He can’t do this. They’ll never catch this asshole. But is Gifford right? Am I just serving to stir him up? Who am I to think I’m the only one who can catch this killer?

“Karen, you hear me?”

“I—yes, I hear you.”

“Good. Now you leave Timothy Nance alone and keep your ears clean till your flight leaves.” And he hung up.

Vail stood there, her cell still pressed against her ear, eyes closed, drained of emotion and energy and, well, numb. She lowered her arm, put her phone away, and turned to walk down the hall.

“Everything okay?”

Dixon’s voice. Vail looked up, saw Dixon, Brix, and Owens staring at her.

“Yeah, I just—I could use some coffee. Since sleep isn’t coming any time soon, I need caffeine.” She nodded down the corridor. “Are we going to meet with Nance?”

Brix shook his head. “He’s going to lawyer up as soon as we start questioning him.”

Vail nodded. “The congressman has already used some juice, trying to get us to back off.”

“That’s pretty strong juice,” Owens said.

Vail folded her arms across her chest. “Damage control, is all it is. If his district director is dirty, Church is dirty by association. This is a man who has designs on running for governor. Any kind of association with an attempted murder could cause serious problems for those ambitions.”

Owens was shaking his head. “We should let this lie low. We’ve got Walton Silva. Maybe that’s enough for now.”

“If Nance was a conspirator in trying to kill you, would nailing only one of them be enough? Because that’s what happened here, Sheriff. Nance and Silva and, yes, your stepson, tried to fry me alive.”

Owens shaded red, then stepped forward. “I’ve had just about enough of you!”

Dixon and Brix moved together, cutting off Owens’s path toward Vail, who had staggered back.

Owens extended an arm through the blockade and pointed at Vail. “Their only crime was that they didn’t succeed.”

Vail recovered and stepped forward herself, daring Owens to come at her again. “You want to clear Scott’s name, Sheriff? Question Nance, see what he says. Maybe Silva’s lying. Maybe Scott had nothing to do with it.” She desperately wanted to face Nance, see what he gave up. And better the order come from Owens, which would insulate her.

Owens shrugged off Dixon and Brix. “Scott wouldn’t have anything to do with this. He’s innocent—and now he’s dead. For all I know, you’re the one who shot him.”

“C’mon now,” Dixon said. “I’ve spent an awful lot of time with Karen these past few days and I can tell you, that’s just not what she’s about.”

Owens turned away, strode a few paces down the hall. Wiped at his face, then placed both hands on his hips. Without turning around, he said, “Go. See if he’ll talk to you.”

BRIX WALKED INTO the task force conference room, followed by Vail and Dixon. They took their seats around the table. Nance, in his requisite dark suit, white shirt, and maroon tie, was already there, pacing in front of the whiteboard.

“Mind telling me what this is about?”

Vail looked at him, trying to get a read on his demeanor and body language. Was he, in fact, a conspirator in trying to kill her?

“Do you know a Walton Silva?” Vail asked.

Nance advanced on her, walked just a bit too close for normal speaking distance. He put both hands on his hips and looked down at her. “You know I know him, Agent Vail, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

Brix held up a hand. “Okay, Tim. You know him. We did know that. Question is, how well do you know him?”

“Look, don’t insult me. Just come out and ask what you want to ask.”

Vail glanced at Brix, who nodded. She said, “Did you conspire with Scott Fuller and Walton Silva to set the fire that almost killed me?”

“No. Next question.”

“So if we search your house, your garage, your cell phone records, text message transcripts, none of it will implicate you?”

“We were friends, that’s it. I knew him from high school.”

“And you had nothing to do with the fire,” Brix said.

He looked at Brix with an unwavering gaze. “Nothing.”

“Then maybe you can help us out. What can you tell us about Walton and Scott?”

“I knew Scott better. He was a good guy. Walt is, too, but I don’t spend much time with him.”

“What’s he like?” Vail asked. “Someone who’s likely to get into trouble? Honorable?”

“Pretty honorable, yeah. Never did anything a typical teen wouldn’t do. Other than that, I’ve never seen him get into serious trouble.”

Here’s where it would get a little dicey—but she wanted to see his reaction. “That’s interesting, Mr. Nance, because Walton said you and he and Scott worked together to set the fire that nearly killed me.”

Nance leaned forward, invading Vail’s space, and placed a hand on the table beside hers. He was now six inches from her face.

Vail was tempted to head butt him. A quick crack across the bridge of his nose. It would hurt like hell—but it’d also feel quite good. She did not take well to men intimidating her. An image of her ex-husband, Deacon, flashed through her thoughts. There’s no way Nance would pull this on a man; she knew that.

“Bullshit,” he said. “Why the hell would he say that?”

Vail rose from her chair, driving him backwards. She stepped forward, now invading his space and causing him to tilt ever so slightly onto his heels. “Oh, he did more than just say it, Mr. Nance. He wrote it. Three pages worth. Describing how, and why, you guys set the fire. Something to do with Congressman Church running for governor— and taking the three of you along with him and naming you to important posts in his administration.”

Nance tugged at his tie, loosened the knot. “First, it’s all bullshit. And second, Walt wouldn’t do that.”

“Do what, write it all down or set the fire?”

Nance narrowed his eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

“Then I guess we’re even,” Vail said. “Because we don’t believe you, either.”

“And I’m done talking.”

Brix rose from his chair. “Then that’s two things we agree on. Because we’re done talking, too.”

LEAVING THE TIMOTHY NANCE MATTER to Sheriff Owens to sort out, Vail and Dixon headed out of the county building.

Dixon pushed open the front door. “What’s your take?”

Vail held it open for a large man who was entering. “Nance is cool, no doubt about it. But Silva had no reason to lie. Nance is guilty, but whether or not you can prove it is another matter. And making a case against him might be difficult. Unless we find more forensics around his place, the case is Silva’s word against Nance’s. Who’s the jury going to believe?”

Before Dixon answered, Ray Lugo came walking up the steps.

“You’re late for the party,” Dixon said.

“Oh, yeah? Judging by the look on your faces, it doesn’t look like I missed anything. But here’s something we don’t want to miss.” He held up his cell phone. “Just got a call. Kevin Cameron wants to talk.”

THIRTY-THREE

Kevin Cameron had physically aged in the past two days. As he stood by his open front door, he had the darkness of depression in his eyes, which were puffed, glassy, and bloodshot. His hair was uncombed and his cuffed dress shirt had days-old wear-creases.

Ray Lugo gave Cameron a shoulder hug, then reintroduced him to Vail and Dixon. The four of them stood there, silent, until Lugo said, “Why don’t we go for a walk?”

Cameron nodded, then motioned them to a path around the back of the house, which led to a compacted, decomposed granite path that cut through a rose garden. Twenty paces ahead was a well-tended vineyard. A couple of workers were down one of the aisles, huddled around a vine.

They walked in pairs, Lugo and Cameron ahead of Vail and Dixon. Their shoes crunched the walkway as they waited for Cameron to start talking. When he failed to initiate the conversation, Vail glanced at Dixon, who nodded. Vail said, “Kevin, Ray tells us there’s something you want to talk about.”

“Yeah.”

But though he kept walking, he stopped talking. Finally, he reached a freshly painted wood structure. It was a small gazebo, built into the side of the path, and looked out upon the vineyard and vine-lined mountains in the near distance. From here, they looked like tight corn-rows on a smooth scalp.

Cameron stepped into the gazebo and took a seat. On the round table sat an opened bottle of 2003 F&M Georges Valley Family Estates Syrah beside a 2004 Opus One. Vail, Dixon, and Lugo took seats around the table. Cameron pulled the corks, then lifted both bottles and gestured to the glasses in front of them. Normally, law enforcement officers did not drink on duty, let alone in the morning. But Vail remembered reading about Opus One’s world class wines and its price—somewhere near $200 a bottle. It was like the snake in a famous garden she’d heard about as a child. In fact, the setting, as beautiful as it was, probably was fitting. As idyllic as Eden?

She looked up at Cameron and pointed at his left hand, which held the uncorked bounty.

“Opus One,” Vail said. “A competitor?”

“The CEO is a friend,” Cameron said. He did not elaborate.

He tipped the bottle and the rich, garnet-tinted wine filled her glass. The others apparently felt she’d opened the door, because they all indicated their various preferences. Lugo no doubt feeling allegiance to his friend and not wanting to hurt his feelings, chose the Georges Valley Syrah. Dixon sided with Vail.

Vail brought the glass to her nose, as Dixon had instructed her, and sniffed. Oh. This is heavenly. She moved it to her lips and sipped. No, this is heavenly. Creamy, with cherry and spice—anise—caressing her tongue. Closed her eyes. Wished Robby was here enjoying this with her, that Dixon and Lugo and Cameron were not.

“So,” Dixon said, swirling the wine and watching the law of centrifugal force play out in her glass. “You have information for us?”

Cameron took a long sip from his glass—he, too, chose the Syrah—and swallowed before answering. “I was thinking about the stuff I told you, about the feud.”

“It goes back a long time,” Vail said. “It’s not likely the catalyst here.”

Cameron nodded. “I know. You’re probably right. But there’s something more recent that happened, I remember Victoria talking about it. I mean, it wasn’t a big deal. Or she didn’t think so at first. But there was this phone call that really upset her.”

“Who called?”

“All I know is that it was someone who knew about the disagreement on the AVA board. So someone with insider knowledge.”

Vail set down her glass and leaned forward. “Back up a second. What disagreement?”

“The AVA board—”

She held up a hand. “This is the group that oversees various things that occur in a particular growing region. That’s the AVA board, right? I’m just trying to remember what you told us last time.”

“Yeah, that’s it. It’s a nonprofit group, a consortium set up to look after political issues that crop up, like enforcing the boundaries of the AVA’s brand. And promotional stuff—tastings, press releases, website content, that sort of thing.”

“These are elected positions?”

“Yes.” Cameron took a drink. “But the AVA is a low-key group, working in the background to enhance the appellation’s value. Battles erupt, but not very often.”

“What kind of battles?” Dixon asked.

Cameron held up his glass to the sun and studied the remaining wine. Then he drained his glass and poured another.

“Political. There’s something that’s been going on for a long time now. There are a few vintners on the board that want to modify the federal government’s regulations for our AVA. The current regulation, if enforced, would destroy our brands—and our businesses. So we’ve been fighting it.”

“How would it destroy your brands?” Lugo asked.

“The law now requires a wine that puts itself out as being in the Georges Valley District to contain 85 percent grapes grown in Georges Valley. But a few of us want the government to change it so we can use the name Georges Valley without having to have 85 percent Georges Valley grapes in the wine.”

Vail crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair. “Why would some vintners be opposed to that?”

Cameron tipped the glass and drank. He licked his lips, then said, “Because Georges Valley is a premium brand, with a well-established quality and cachet associated with it. The fear is new wineries could come into the region and turn out low-priced, high-volume production wines. They couldn’t possibly get the yield they want from Georges Valley, so they would have to buy cheaper grapes from Contra Costa County, the Central Valley, and Livermore. They could then call their wine Georges Valley Reserve. But there wouldn’t be any Georges Valley grapes in it.”

“I haven’t heard anything about this,” Dixon said.

Lugo shook his head. “Me either.”

Cameron forced a smile. “Bad publicity. We keep it under wraps, but it’s gotten pretty contentious at times.”

“We’ll need the names of the players,” Dixon said. “All the board members.”

Cameron sat back. “I don’t think it gets that heated, that anyone would want to kill over it.”

“It’s business,” Vail said. “Business is money. Big money, is my guess. And people kill over money all the time.” But serial killers don’t kill over money, and they kill strangers, not people they work with on local boards. So this still doesn’t fit.

“I’ll have a list faxed over to your office,” Cameron said.

Dixon took the last sip, then set down her empty glass. “Who sits on the AVA board? What type of people?”

Cameron poured more wine for himself, then offered it around the table. But the cops had had enough. “Just about all are winery executives. The president’s position rotates every three years.”

“Do all AVA boards operate this way?” Dixon asked.

“They all vary in how they work. Georges Valley is different than most, I think.”

Vail was suddenly lost in thought, sifting through something her brain was trying to tell her. What was it? AVAs ... winery executives . . . she had seen something somewhere . . . Vallejo. Maryanne Bernal was a winery executive sitting on a nonprofit board. She would have to check to see which one.

“Did you know Maryanne Bernal?” Vail asked.

Cameron looked at Vail. “Yeah, she was a friend of Victoria’s. She was killed about three—” Cameron stopped himself. “You don’t think the two are related—”

Vail pursed her lips. “Can’t say, Kevin. Maybe, maybe not. But we’ll check it out. Maryanne was on a nonprofit board. Do you know which one it was?”

“Yeah, the AVA board.”

“Was she still on the board at the time of her death?”

“No, her time on the board went back a couple years before that, I think.”

Vail looked away. She had hoped Bernal was an active board member—that might have helped provide a needed link. Still, it was worth looking into. Victoria was on the board and she was killed. Maryanne Bernal was on the board a couple years earlier and she was killed.

“Connection?” Dixon asked.

Lugo started bouncing his knee. “What about the Black Knoll vic? Ursula Robbins. Was she on the board?”

Cameron looked off into the vineyard, as if it’d hold the answer. “Not sure. Name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“We’ll check it out,” Dixon said. “Ray, you backgrounded her.”

Lugo nodded. “I don’t remember anything about her being on the board. But the winery she headed up is in Georges Valley. I’ll look into it.”

Cameron took a long drink. His cheeks were now flushed and his pupils were slightly dilated. Vail and Dixon shared a look.

“While you’re checking that out,” Cameron said, “there was something Victoria was working on. Something about corking. There was a lot of discussion about it.”

“Corking?” Vail asked. “Like in corking wine bottles?”

“One thing this AVA does, which is unusual, is that they pool their resources. Normally the member wineries are friendly competitors. But they realized a few years ago that if they work together to negotiate deals with third parties, they could get significantly better prices. Power in numbers. Get two dozen wineries together, you’ve suddenly got pricing power when bottling, buying corks, labels, barrels, you name it.”

“Corks,” Vail said. “We’ll look into it. Anything specific?”

Cameron took another drink. “Nope. I just remember her mentioning something about it. Maybe it’s significant, maybe it’s not.” He looked down at his glass. “If you don’t mind letting yourselves out, I think I’m just going to sit here and finish off these bottles.”

Lugo rose, placed a hand on his friend’s left shoulder, then led the others off the property.

THIRTY-FOUR

On the way back to the car, Dixon called Detective Eddie Agbayani in Vallejo and told him about the connection between Maryanne Bernal and the Georges Valley AVA board. Dixon, being lead investigator, made the executive decision to add him to the task force. It was something she should have done upon the discovery that Bernal was one of the Crush Killer’s victims. Vail certainly hadn’t suggested it, nor had Brix, but Vail wondered if Dixon’s relationship with Agbayani gave her pause. Still, the short delay in adding him had not had any ill effects on the investigation, and, their prior relationship notwithstanding, Agbayani appreciated the appointment.

“Are you okay with seeing Eddie regularly at the task force?”

“Hopefully, for our sake, this task force won’t be around much longer. But as to Eddie, I imagine we’ll have our awkward moments. The thing is, he’s a really good guy. I miss him. I miss the intimacy, sharing things with a life partner I can trust. No games.”

Vail chuckled, with a tinge of sarcasm. “I had a life partner once. Turns out I couldn’t trust him and he had a whole arsenal of games up his sleeve.”

“This is your ex?”

“Was my ex. Yeah.”

“But now you’ve got Robby.”

Vail smiled. “Yeah. I do. I lucked out.” A long, hard yawn stretched her jaw wide. She shook her head. “Sorry. I need something to wake me up, I feel like my blood’s gone stagnant.” She turned to look out the window. “Is there a Starbucks around?”

“You won’t find any chains around here.” Dixon turned the ignition key and the engine turned over. “We’ve got some good cafés, but enough abusing your body.” She twisted her wrist and grabbed a look at her watch. “I’ve got something better. We’re entitled to a little downtime. Instead of breakfast, let’s take an hour now.”

THEY ARRIVED AT DIXON’S GYM, a Fit1! chain that featured a vast array of free weights, ellipticals and treadmills, and Ivanko machines. No saunas or juice bars. Plenty of sweat and body odor to go around, however.

While Vail bought an inexpensive pair of shorts and a T-shirt from the front desk, Dixon signed in, paid a one-day guest fee for Vail, then handed her a towel and locker key. “We’ll do some weights, then shower. I promise, you’ll feel a whole lot better.”

Vail chuckled. “I’ll feel better just from putting on the new clothes Robby bought.” She slung the towel over her shoulder. “I was beginning to ease back into my regular workout routine after my surgery. You really think we can get in and out in an hour?”

“We’ll do what we can do. My regular routine is about two hours a day. I usually come after work. No way would I get in a full workout before a long day at work.”

Thirty cardio minutes later, sporting a reddened face and a half-drained water bottle, Vail joined Dixon in the free weights area, where Dixon was hoisting a curl bar loaded with iron discs.

“How goes it?”

Dixon puffed. “Good. Feels. Good.”

“I’m gonna run to the restroom, then do a few machines.”

“I’ll. Be. Here,” Dixon said as she strained the last rep.

Vail walked away and Dixon set down the barbell, then walked over to the shoulder press. She stacked the bar with weight on both sides, then sat on the bench. But she needed a partner to spot her. Given her irregular hours, she often did not cross paths with the same people when she was able to make it to the gym. Nevertheless, she usually found someone willing to help—and she never hesitated to return the favor.

Behind her, a lean, well-built man in a ripped tank top stood at the weight rack, large hands wrapped around thick dumbbells. He lifted them off the metal framework with a clean jerk, then proceeded to start curling.

He must have seen Dixon looking at him in the mirror, because he smiled.

Dixon grinned. A bit too much—it was her flirt smile. She stepped forward and said, “Sorry to interrupt.”

The man set the weights down on the ground with a thud. His eyes flicked behind her to the bench, then back to her. “Need help with that? A spot?”

She smiled again. She rotated her body toward the bench, then back to her new acquaintance. “Would you mind?”

He waved a hand in front of him. “Not at all.”

As he approached, her eyes widened. She liked what she saw. Raw attraction—she didn’t even know the guy.

“You a regular here?” she asked.

“Every day for the past five years. You?”

“I try to get in at night after work, but I don’t always make it.” She extended her hand. “Roxxann Dixon.”

“George.” He removed his glove and took her hand in his. “George Panda.”

Soft hands, firm handshake. “Thanks for doing this.”

“Maybe I can get you to return the favor when you’re done.”

“I’m not sure I’d be much help spotting you.” That was an understatement. Then again, he was probably flirting with her just like she was with him. “But sure, it’s a deal.”

Dixon slipped on her gloves, settled herself onto the bench, and placed her hands beneath the bar. She got a good grip, took a deep breath, and then realized she was wearing her lower cut fitness top, which, when she lifted the weight, might show significant cleavage. But as the song in The Producers says, “When you’ve got it, flaunt it.”

Dixon hoisted the bar and huffed and puffed as it rose and fell. Panda kept his hands at the ready, but they weren’t needed until Dixon strained for the twelfth rep, which went up slowly and with considerable groaning. She locked her elbows.

Before she could speak, Panda said, “Go one more. I’ll help.”

She lowered it slowly, then strained to raise it again. A yell escaped her throat and she arched her back. “Ahh!”

“C’mon, Roxxann,” Panda said, “you can do it. Just a little higher.” He had his hands under the bar, poised to take over if she got into danger.

She brought it up fully, her arms quivering involuntarily, and that was his cue. She gasped, “Take it!”

Panda did exactly that and settled the heavy bar into the weight cradles. She let her arms fall to her sides and stuck out her tongue for effect.

“Great job.”

She shook her arms, then swung her legs around and sat up, facing him. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure.” He looked around, then clapped his hands together. “Tell you what—instead of spotting me, how about you let me take you to dinner?”

Dixon felt her eyebrows lift in surprise. “Wow. Uh, I’d love to,” she said before she realized she was the one speaking.

“How about Saturday?”

“Saturday? I—well, maybe I could take a raincheck on that? Things are really busy at work, and I just don’t know what my schedule’s going to be.”

“Hey, Bear, what’s up?”

Approaching from the right was a large man, pushing six-four, a smidgen leaner than Panda, with a buzz cut and a military gait. He carried a near-empty Platypus two-liter water bottle.

Dixon turned back to her new workout partner. “Bear?”

“Roxxann, this is a buddy of mine. James Cannon. Bear’s my nickname.”

Dixon squinted. Then she tilted her chin back. “Ah. Panda. Bear.”

Cannon gave Panda a shove. “George here didn’t like it when I’d yell out, ‘Hey, Panda,’ in the gym. Some of the bodybuilders gave him a hard time. They thought it was a pet name or something.”

“And let me guess,” Dixon said. “Your nickname is Cannon.”

“Actually, I go by ‘Bob.’” He laughed. “Just messing with you. Name’s Jimmy.”

“I thought you were working out.”

Dixon turned; Vail was coming up behind her, eyes bouncing from Panda to Cannon.

“We were. I mean, I was. Karen, this is George, and Jimmy.”

Panda extended a hand. This time he didn’t bother to remove his glove. “George Panda.” Cannon shifted the water bottle to his other hand and took Vail’s palm firmly.

“Karen Vail. Good to meet both of you. But,” she said, nudging Dixon in the side, “we’re running out of time. We should shower, get back to work.”

“You two work together?” Panda asked.

Dixon swiped at her forehead with a towel. “I’m an investigator with the district attorney’s office.”

“I knew someone who worked for the DA.” Panda shook his head. “That was a long time ago.”

Cannon leaned back and appraised Vail. “Let me guess. You must be one of the attorneys.”

Vail smirked. “God, no. I’m with the FBI. Out of Virginia.”

“FBI,” Cannon said. “Very cool.”

“Visiting the wine country?” Panda asked.

“That was the plan,” Vail said. “Work kind of got in the way.”

Panda’s gaze flicked from Vail to Dixon. “Uh-oh. Trouble in paradise?”

“Nothing we can talk about,” Vail said. “And believe me, it’s nothing you’d want to hear about anyway.”

Cannon bent his head to the side and asked Vail, “I feel like we’ve met before.”

Vail shook her head. “I’ve only been in town a few days.”

“And what do you two do?” Dixon asked.

George tightened the Velcro strap on his glove. “I’m a consultant.”

“Are you with a company, or out on your own?”

“Totally solo.” He moved to the other glove, adjusted the strap. “I worked for a corporation years ago and swore that was the last time I was ever going to answer to anybody.”

Cannon moaned. “Oh, not the big, bad corporation story again.”

“I’m not gonna tell them the story, Jimmy, don’t worry.” Panda turned to Dixon and Vail and held out an open hand in explanation. “It’s just that people think they know better than you, but they’re either wrong or just plain clueless. I got tired of it, is all.”

“And you?” Vail asked Cannon. “What do you do?”

He set the water bottle down at his feet. “I’m a winemaker. Herndon Vineyards.”

Vail’s eyes traversed his body. “You don’t look like any winemaker I’ve ever met.”

Cannon pursed his lips. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Dixon wrapped her towel around her neck. “Never heard of Hern—Hernd—”

“Herndon. Herndon Vineyards. You will hear of us, guaranteed. We’re a closely held, private startup. We’ve got some of the best soil outside of Rutherford, with well-bedded sandstone and high gravel and volcanic content, and excellent runoff. Warm days, cool nights. We’re planning to debut our first release in two years. It’ll be the best Cabernet you’ve ever tasted. Believe me—couple years, everyone’ll know who we are.”

Panda shook his head. “You gave me a hard time about telling my corporation story and you bore these nice ladies with your company’s sales pitch?”

Cannon gave Panda another playful shove. “My sales pitch beats your ‘woe-is-me evil corporation story’ any day. Beats your consulting stories, too.”

“Speaking of which,” Dixon said, “what kind of consulting do you do? What industry?”

Panda placed a hand on the upright of the shoulder press machine. “Despite what Jimmy says, I think consulting’s a pretty good gig.” He fiddled with the iron plate. “I do critical thinking, strategic solutions. Pay’s damn good, so no complaints.”

“I’m into critical thinking, too,” Vail said. She pointed to her wrist, where there was no watch. “And we’d better get back to doing that. I’ll meet you in the locker room.” She extended a hand to Panda. “Good meeting you, George. Jimmy.”

“Same here,” Panda said.

Cannon quickly glanced from Dixon to Vail. “You, uh, you two doing anything for dinner?” He indicated Panda. “Maybe the four of us could—”

“Thanks,” Vail said. “I’m busy. But thanks for asking.” She made eye contact with Dixon and waved a thumb over her shoulder. “Meet you inside.”

Cannon tucked his chin back and watched Vail walk off. “I think I just got rejected.”

“New experience for you?” Dixon said with a laugh. “Don’t take it personally. She’s seeing someone.”

Cannon turned to Dixon. His face seemed to harden. “Yeah.” He bent down to pick up his water bottle. “Catch you later, Bear. I’m gonna hit the showers.” He tossed a tight nod at Panda, did not acknowledge Dixon, then left.

Dixon swung her gaze toward Panda. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean anything by that. You think I hurt his feelings?”

Panda waved at the air. “Bruised ego is all. He’ll be fine. He doesn’t take rejection well.”

“Who does?”

Panda grinned. “This is true.”

Dixon blotted her face with the towel. “You done with your workout?”

Panda glanced around at all the equipment. “No, I’ve still got another hour or so on the weights, then I’m gonna do some cardio.”

“Why don’t I call you when I have a better handle on what my work schedule looks like?”

Panda nodded. “Sounds good.” He gave Dixon his number.

She committed it to memory and told him she’d call him. “You want, you can always reach me through the DA’s office. We’re listed.” Dixon gave him a broad smile. “Or maybe we’ll meet up again here.”

“I’d like that,” Panda said.

Dixon winked. “Thanks again for your help. Bear.”

JOHN WAYNE MAYFIELD sat in his truck, slumped down in the seat, watching the exit to the Fit1! gym. Waiting around was not something he enjoyed, but it was often necessary in his line of work. So he continued to sit and surveil the entrance as the minutes ticked by.

Several men had left the gym, as well as a couple of women, but not the ones he was waiting on. He had followed Dixon and Vail to the gym, so he knew what car they had arrived in and where they parked. He had positioned his pickup so that he had a view of both the entrance and their vehicle. If they left through another exit, he’d still see them when they arrived at their car.

Mayfield checked his watch. How long can they possibly be in there? Don’t they have policework that needs attention? Haven’t I given them enough to do? As he sat there drumming his fingers on the dashboard, the front door swung open and out walked Dixon and Vail.

About fucking time. Dixon had a tote slung across her shoulder and a bounce in her step. He watched as the two of them walked to their car. Dixon shoved her key into the lock and lifted the trunk lid, then tossed her sport bag into the back and closed it.

Your time will come, Roxxann Dixon. Very soon. This afternoon? Perhaps. Perhaps not. He had much to consider—least of which was what approach would provide him with maximum impact.

He would use the time while tailing them to mull his options. Maybe something would come to him, a plan of action.

Mayfield turned the key and started the engine. He’d continue following them for now to see where they were headed with their investigation. That might help him formulate a cogent approach, ultimately making his job easier.

He pulled out of the parking lot and maintained a discreet distance. A mile or so down 29, an idea began to form. Take the local first. Dixon. It’ll throw everyone into a state of panic. I won’t leave them a choice—they’ll have to talk to the press. Because I’ll leave the body in a very public place, posed, in front of City Hall, right on the stairs. Late at night, so when the bureaucrats arrive in the morning, it’ll be like a blow to the throat. The press will swarm. Then I’ll do Vail, an FBI profiler, and leave her body somewhere else, somewhere public. A double header. State and Federal. They’ll fucking freak. The entire country will be tuned in.

He rolled down his window. The blast of cold air snaked around his neck and made him shiver—exactly what he needed. He had to cool down before he did something he was not yet prepared for, something he would later regret.

Enjoy your final hours, Roxxann Dixon. You may soon suffer a crushing blow to your life’s ambitions.

THIRTY-FIVE

Vail walked out of Fit1! feeling refreshed, clean, and, at least for now, invigorated. The exercise had sharpened her mind and given her a renewed sense of focus. They each downed nutrition bars Dixon had in her gym bag and were now headed to meet with the AVA board president.

Once she had turned onto Highway 29, Dixon said, “I thought George was kind of cute.”

“Really?” Vail faced the side window and watched the wineries pass to her right. “He didn’t do anything for me.”

Dixon laughed. “Well I can tell you that Jimmy wanted to do something for you.”

Vail chuckled. “Yeah he did. Did I blow him off properly?”

“That watch thing was a bit obvious.”

Vail feigned innocence. “Was I wrong? We’re on a schedule.” She smiled. “But seriously. Are you really ready to give up on Eddie? Is that over? For good? I thought you said you missed him, that you were just going to take some time off.”

Dixon sighed. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think it’s over, then sometimes I think it’s not. We love each other. That’s not the problem. We just, I’m just not sure we’re compatible.”

“Was he good to you, did he treat you well?”

“Yeah, that was never an issue.”

“So you two have some issues. All couples do. But you love each other, isn’t that worth something?”

“If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t still be discussing this.”

“So this guy in the gym—George. Is he better than Eddie?”

“Better? I just met him. How the hell do I know?”

Vail turned her body to face Dixon. “You’re attracted to him.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“Of course not,” Vail said. “My take? He’d be a good workout partner. But he didn’t seem to have much depth to him.”

A moment passed. “That’s a pretty huge leap based on one short conversation.”

“I make my living reading people,” Vail said.

“And your read of Jimmy?”

“Please.” She scrunched her nose. “He may be a winemaker, but . . . I wouldn’t even want to work out with the guy.”

Dixon drove another minute before speaking. “Why’d you bring it up?”

Vail rubbed her eyes. “Because I had a shitty marriage. It didn’t start out that way, but it sure ended that way. So I’m pretty careful. No, I’m extra cautious. I wouldn’t even think of getting involved with someone unless I knew certain things about the guy, about his heart. And his soul.”

“And you know all this about Robby?”

Vail sucked on her bottom lip and thought a moment. “It’s funny. I haven’t known him that long, but we’ve been through a hell of a lot together. I trust him. Implicitly.”

Before Dixon could respond, her phone rang. She pressed the hands-free device on her visor and answered the call.

“Roxx, it’s Brix. I got an ID on the male. Where are you two?”

Dixon peered out her window. “Coming up on Opus One. We’re headed to a meeting with someone from the AVA board.”

“Fine. Pull into the Opus One lot. I’ll be there in five. I won’t keep you long. But you need to hear this.”

BRIX WAS A LITTLE LONGER than five minutes out, but Vail didn’t mind. When they arrived at Opus One, Dixon had phoned the board president and told her they would be delayed. During the call, she led Vail up to Opus One’s terrace roof, which afforded a 360 degree panoramic view of the immediate valley. Parceled vineyards stretched in all directions, with the peaks of Mt. Veeder in the near distance.

The terrace was an arbor-covered walkway and patio bordered by rough-hewn limestone walls and planters lining the path. Ahead of them, over the edge, was a lush lawn that sloped gently downward, from the lip of the roof all the way to the parking lot.

“It’d be fun to roll down that,” Vail said.

Dixon’s phone rang. Glancing at the caller ID, she brought it to her ear. “We’re upstairs on the roof.” She listened, then said, “Yeah, meet us up here.”

Thirty seconds later, Brix ascended the staircase and met them at the stone table. Off at the opposite end of the terrace, in a matching area containing tables, a couple stood beside one another at the wall, nursing a glass of wine and taking in the mountain view before them.

They took seats and Brix pulled out his notepad. “I’ve got a couple IDs for us. With all that’s been going on, this kind of got lost in the shuffle. The male victim was Isaac Jenkins. Private equity fund manager who lives in Sonoma.”

“And how did we keep that murder under wraps?” Dixon asked.

“Wife told his company, family, and friends that Isaac had a heart attack. Given what his business is like, and this market, there’s enough stress for ten heart attacks.”

Vail nodded. “Is he on the Georges Valley AVA board?”

“That’d be a ‘no.’ I had Ray check it out. He’s got no connection to the board that we could turn up. Ray also followed up on the question of how the UNSUB got your cell number. He said there was no breach of the department’s data backup, as far as the IT guys can tell. And all support personnel have been questioned. No one gave out our phone numbers, or any other information, to anyone.”

“Then how did he get my number?”

Brix put his forearms on the round cement table. “I love this view. You can see for miles. And it’s all gorgeous. This is a plot of land I wish we had for Silver Ridge.”

“Redd,” Dixon said. “The phone number.”

He shook his head and refocused his gaze on Dixon. “Yeah. So Ray and I were thinking where else he could’ve gotten it. How about the Bureau?”

Vail leaned back in surprise. “Whoa, I didn’t think of that. All he has to do is dial up the FBI Academy and ask for my cell phone number and they hand it right over.”

“That’s cute. But what I meant was, do you list it on your Academy emails?”

“Yeah, it’s part of my signature, at the bottom of all my messages.”

Brix raised his hands, palm up. “Then who the hell knows how he got it. Sending email is like putting an open envelope in the mail.”

Vail nodded. She couldn’t argue that.

Brix yawned, threw up a hand to cup his mouth. “I also have an ID on the female we found this morning. Or was that yesterday? I’m so fucking tired I can’t remember anymore.” He forced his eyes open wider, then said, “Name’s Dawn Zackery. Thirty-two, single. And before you ask, no connection to the Georges Valley board.”

Dixon looked at Vail. “I’m beginning to think that board is a dead end.”

Vail stared out at the countryside. “Maybe, maybe not. If we haven’t got anything else to pursue, then we’ll turn over some rocks, see what we can find.”

Brix began bouncing his knee. “I was thinking there was an angle we should look into first, something we kind of overlooked.”

Dixon cocked her head. “And that is . . .”

“There’s a guy,” Brix said. “Someone we questioned early on. Scott actually wanted to bring him back in and talk to him. I resisted.”

Vail brushed a lock of red hair behind her ear. “Why?”

“Well. . . .” He hesitated, then said, “Because he’s an employee of Silver Ridge.” He held up a hand. “I know what you’re gonna say, and before you say it, you’re right. I’ve got a conflict, and I think it colored my judgment on this. I’m sorry.”

Vail waved it off. It wasn’t something to be glossed over, but Brix came clean and there was nothing to be gained making him feel guilty about his error. “So this employee. Who is he?”

“The guy who found the body. Miguel Ortiz.”

Vail leaned back. “I remember him. He gave me his flashlight. He seemed genuinely freaked by what he found. Then again, I didn’t exactly have my guard up. I was on vacation. Could’ve just been an act, to deflect attention off himself.”

Brix held out a hand. “There you go. Does he fit the profile?”

Vail bobbed her head about. “He’s about the right age. Although the vast majority of serial killers are Caucasian, there have been a fair number of Hispanics. I can think of five just off the top of my head. That said, Ortiz is a low-level employee without the kind of access to information and people that our UNSUB’s exhibited. From what I’ve seen, our offender is a much more complex killer.”

“You thought of him, why?” Dixon asked.

Brix’s eyes narrowed. “Not sure. Just a feeling. When I questioned him at the scene, he wouldn’t look at me. He seemed very nervous.”

“Maybe he knew you were one of the owners,” Dixon said, “and he felt intimidated.”

Brix twisted his lips. “Maybe. But he was the one who found Victoria’s body. And Scott did a little checking before he—well, he did a little checking and he found that Ortiz didn’t have an alibi for the other murders up to that point. But Ray thought we were wasting our breath. He just didn’t think this was our guy.”

“Because?”

“He said if there was a murderous Mexican looney on the loose, he would’ve heard about it in his community. He seemed pretty adamant that going after Ortiz was a waste of time.”

“Serial killers are not ‘looney,’” Vail said. “They’re not insane or ‘off their rockers.’ They know what they’re doing. Their actions are very purposeful. And they know murder is against the law. They just don’t care.”

“I checked with the HR person at Silver Ridge. She sees him from time to time when he’s in the cave, rinsing the floors and washing out pails. According to her, he’s always on time, works very hard and sends money back home to his sick mother. And if he needs something, like medical care, he pays for it. He doesn’t live off the state. For what it’s worth, in her words, he’s harmless. A man with a good heart.”

Vail smirked. “No offense to your HR administrator, but let’s leave the threat assessment to us.”

Brix shifted his weight on the bench. “There’s something else about Ortiz.” He paused a moment. “About an hour ago, when Agbayani arrived, I handed him the Ortiz lead and asked him to look into it. As soon as he heard the name, he thought it sounded familiar. Turns out Ortiz was a suspect in the Vallejo murder, Maryanne Bernal.”

Dixon leaned forward. “No shit?”

Brix held up a finger. “Hang on a second. Before you get all excited, it was just an eyewitness account of a big guy with a white pickup. They picked him up and questioned him. He’s got ties to Vallejo, a brother who lives there.”

“An offender may dump a body in an area he’s familiar with,” Vail said.

Brix waved a hand. “Doesn’t matter. It went nowhere. They had nothing on him. And he had no record, not so much as a misde-meanor. And he was one of about forty-five guys they ended up questioning who matched the description.”

“So what did Agbayani think about Ortiz popping up again in connection with a murder investigation?” Vail asked.

“It wouldn’t have been that big a deal. Except that someone fitting Ortiz’s description was seen in the area at the time Isaac Jenkins was killed.”

Vail lifted a brow. “You knew this? Why didn’t you move on him?”

Brix let his gaze linger on Vail’s. “I found out right around the time Scott was killed. We’ve been a little busy.”

Vail held his gaze and didn’t blink.

“Still,” Dixon said, breaking the silent confrontation, “like what happened in Vallejo, a lot of guys fit his general description, so one witness account doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Unless she picks him out of a lineup.”

“She didn’t see his face, only his body.”

“His body?” Dixon sighed. “Make that a poor witness account. Well, it can’t hurt to chat him up. Ask him about the two murders since then.”

Brix shrugged. “It’s probably not worth pursuing.”

Vail slid her legs from beneath the cement table. “You’ve got a feeling about this. And we’ve got questions. I think we should go check it out. I’ll call the AVA board president and tell her we need some more time.”

Dixon rose as well. “Is Ortiz at Silver Ridge?”

Brix pushed himself off the cement bench as if he was lifting a heavy weight. “He’s not working today. But he rents a room from a family off West Spain in downtown Sonoma.”

“The male vic, Jenkins, he was from Sonoma.”

“I’m aware of that,” Brix said.

“How can we be sure Ortiz is going to be there?”

“I called the homeowner and she said Ortiz is home. She thinks he’s sleeping.”

“Does he know we’re coming?” Dixon asked.

Brix shook his head. “If he is our guy—and I’m not ready to say that—then telling him we’re coming by to question him may set him off. No, we’ll go in quietly.”

Vail led the way to the staircase, then glanced up one more time to grab a view of the vineyards. It was so peaceful up here. She hadn’t felt an inner sense of tranquility since the day she and Robby arrived here. Her first visit to the Napa Valley, and it was marred by the rampage of a serial killer. Could she ever visit this place again and not be poisoned by memories of this case? It was a rhetorical thought. She already knew the answer.

“How do you know his landlord didn’t tip him off?” Dixon asked.

Dixon’s voice, echoing in the stairwell, pulled Vail out of her reverie. She realized she had spaced out, staring at the vineyards and mountains, smelling the soil-wet air. As she started down the steps, she heard Brix’s voice somewhere below.

“I explained that we didn’t want to make any trouble for her. But short answer is, we don’t.”

Vail’s “short answer”—to her own rhetorical question—was more visceral. The magical Napa Valley would never be the same for her. The Crush Killer had ruined it. Another reason to catch this bastard. As she thought of all that had gone wrong these past few days, of all the victims this killer had now amassed, Vail realized she didn’t need another reason to want to ratchet down a set of cuffs on his wrists.

THEY TOOK BRIX’S CAR and arrived in Sonoma thirty minutes later. The drive was as picturesque as any of the views they had seen along Highway 29. Vineyards, rolling hills, mountains. And today, the hint of sun burning through the cloud cover.

“Welcome to Sonoma,” Dixon said.

Vail craned her neck around, taking in the small and medium-sized residential homes. “Are there wineries in Sonoma, too?”

Despite the seriousness of their task ahead, Brix and Dixon, sitting beside one another in the front seat, looked at each other and laughed.

“I take it that was a stupid question,” Vail said.

“That’d be a ‘yes’ twice over,” Brix said. “First, it was a stupid question. This entire valley is wine country. Second, Sonoma is considered the birthplace of the California wine industry.”

Vail turned away and looked out at the Readers Bookstore they were passing on the right. “Oh.”

“Up ahead is the downtown plaza,” Dixon said, as Brix turned right onto First Street East. “Besides historic wineries, Sonoma also has some interesting shops and galleries. And lots of good restaurants.”

Vail pointed at a ground-hugging white adobe building with a large cross protruding from its roof. “What did that sign say? Mission San Francisco?”

“Mission San Francisco Solano,” Brix said. “An old church.”

Dixon threw Brix a look. “Give me a break. Calling that a church would be like calling Silver Ridge winery a ‘grape juice manufacturing plant.’” She flicked the side of his head with a finger.

“Hey,” Brix said.

Dixon turned to Vail. “California History 101. There are twenty-one missions. That one’s the last one built—and the first one built under Mexico’s rule, in the 1820s. It’s also where the very first vineyards in the valley were planted. By monks who lived in the mission.”

“Not to interrupt the history lesson,” Brix said, “but we’ve got a mission of our own.” He nodded ahead. “We’re coming up on Ortiz’s house.” He slowed the car.

“Which one?” Dixon asked.

“Wait,” Brix said, braking to a crawl. He leaned forward, peering in the right side view mirror. “He’s right there. Behind us, I passed him.”

Miguel Ortiz was walking the sidewalk, about thirty feet away. Brix pulled over to the curb.

Dixon popped her door. “You sure that’s him?”

Brix shoved the shift into park and got out. He turned toward Ortiz, then caught Dixon’s gaze. “Definitely.”

Ortiz must have recognized Brix’s voice, because he spun around. His eyes found the car . . . the look on Brix’s face, the look on Dixon’s.

And then he ran.

“Shit,” Brix said. “Where the fuck does he think he’s gonna go?” Brix jumped back into the Ford, jammed the gearshift into drive, and accelerated. He swung the car around. Dixon pursued on foot. And Vail unstrapped her seatbelt.

Ortiz crossed the street into the park that sat in the center of the square.

As Brix approached, Vail opened her door. “Let me off!”

Brix swung the car toward the curb and screeched to a stop. “Go.”

Vail spilled out and fell into stride behind Dixon, who was about twenty-five feet off the pace. Ortiz was pretty quick for his size and was headed down the cement tile walk that cut diagonally through the park.

Off to their right lay a playground filled with young children climbing on the structures, mothers out for an early afternoon with their kids. If there was one thing the parents were not counting on when they arrived at the park with their children, it was finding themselves in the middle of a police pursuit.

“Miguel,” Dixon yelled. “Wait up.”

Vail quickly surveyed the kids. She yanked her badge from her belt and held it up, hoping the mothers would see and understand what was going down. Clearly, it had an effect, as a couple of them scooped up their children and swung them away from the approaching—and fleeing—suspect.

Vail to Ortiz: “We just want to talk!”

But he didn’t stop.

A child ran out in front of him. Ortiz skirted the boy, who covered his face and ran back toward his mother, but Dixon was not so lucky—she shifted right, into the child’s path—and went tumbling. She landed on her side amidst scattered sand and hard-packed dirt—narrowly avoiding a collision with a brick water fountain.

“Got him,” Vail shouted, as she passed Dixon.

Dixon got back on her feet and slanted across the grass, taking an angle on Ortiz as he cut right onto the asphalt road that encircled the historic, stone-walled City Hall building. He ran past the structure into the front parking lot, then angled left, back into the park and across the grass.

He’s not going anywhere, Vail realized. He’s just trying to get away. He’s either our UNSUB . . . or he’s done something wrong and does not want to face charges.

Ortiz crossed East Napa Street—eliciting a blown car horn as he skirted by an Infiniti FX’s hood—and ran straight into a narrow alley. No, not an alley—a covered sidewalk. A covered sidewalk that fed storefront shops.

Great. Stores—and who knew what else. Is he cutting through here en route to a hiding place—or does he have a friend in a storefront who’ll take him in and run interference?

“Miguel,” Vail yelled, “we just have some questions! You’re not in any trouble—”

Ortiz ran underneath the ivy-covered archways. Vail followed—but there were no longer footsteps behind her. Where’s Roxxann?

Vail passed beneath a sign that read, 42 Unique Shops & Services, slipped on the slick terracotta tile, then scampered past Chico’s, an assortment of other stores, spas, and boutiques—thinking, That blouse in the window would look good on me. I should come back here someday and browse, get a massage . . .

Actually, Vail was thinking about her knee, which was beginning to balk. She heard her surgeon reminding her she wasn’t supposed to be behaving like Lara Croft for at least another few weeks.

She passed a bubbling fountain, which tinkled splattered water on the slick tile, and she had to catch herself to keep from falling. I’m sure the architect thought that was a nice touch, but he clearly didn’t consider the danger it presented to a cop chasing a suspect on wet tile through an alley—

The walkway dead-ended at a ramp, a salmon-and-pistachio tinted two-story stucco building directly ahead—and an oblong court that spread into a maze of more shops and buildings.

And more fountains. Jeez, this architect is into water. What does that say about his childhood?

Ortiz cut right, around a myriad of square columns that supported the various storefront overhangs, then ran into the two-story building’s stairwell.

Stairs, just what I need. Before I just wanted to question Ortiz. Now I’m not so sure. And where the hell is Roxxann?

Vail followed him up and reached the second floor as her knee began throbbing. The staircase spilled out onto a covered outdoor veranda with doors that led to other shops and offices. He could’ve cut left or right, but he chose to go upstairs. He must know something—or someone. Her footsteps on the hollow flooring reverberated. If she had any thoughts of a stealth approach, it clearly wouldn’t fly up here.

As she turned right, Vail saw Ortiz up ahead, grabbing a doorknob and pulling on it, then slapping the door. “Enrique, abre la puerta!” Open the door!

This is where it stops getting interesting. She pulled her Glock—she had no idea who Enrique was or what he had behind that door. Ortiz glanced back at her and his eyes found her pistol. If he wasn’t scared before, his blood pressure must’ve just climbed a few dozen points . . . which was fine, because hers had now risen well above normal, as well.

But Ortiz abandoned his efforts to enter the store and continued on. Vail passed Enrique’s door—marked Private—and watched as Ortiz turned right again and headed down the stairwell. Vail gave pursuit—and then heard shouting.

“Get down. Down on the ground!”

Dixon’s voice. And she wasn’t very happy.

Vail made it down the two dozen steps and there, spread eagle, face down on the ground, was Miguel Ortiz. Dixon, her SIG drawn and steadied out in front of her, stood fifteen feet away. Behind her, Brix pulled up along the side street and swung into the postage stamp parking lot. Jumped out, drew his weapon.

As Vail took a position to Dixon’s left, Brix came up behind them. “Jesus Christ, Miguel. We just had some questions. What were you thinking?”

“I don’t want to go back. Don’t send me back!”

Vail and Brix shared a look. Brix closed his eyes, then holstered his weapon. “You ran because you’re illegal?” He motioned to Dixon. “Let him up.”

“But—”

“Miguel, get to your feet.”

He stood up, keeping his hands above his head. “I thought you think I had something to do with that woman. In the cave. After we talk the other day, I was worried. I no want to go back home.”

“If you had something to do with that woman in the cave,” Vail said, “we’d arrest your ass. And believe me, you wouldn’t ever see home again.”

Brix stepped closer and banded his arms across his chest. “Miguel, we need you to tell us the truth. Will you do that?”

“Sí, sí.”

Brix nodded at Dixon, who holstered her weapon and did a thorough pat down of their suspect.

She stepped back. “He’s clean.”

“You can put your hands down.” Brix shook his head. “When you run from the police, we think you’re guilty of something.”

“No, no guilty.”

“Okay, then. You haven’t told anyone what you saw in that cave, have you?”

“No, you tell me not to. It was important, no?”

“Yes, that’s exactly right. It’s important. It’s still important.”

“I won’t tell.” He shifted his feet nervously. “Can I go now?”

“In a minute. First, tell us about Isaac Jenkins.”

Miguel’s eyes flittered between Brix, Dixon, and Vail. “Who?”

“What about Dawn Zackery?”

Miguel shook his head. “I do not know these people.”

“Where were you yesterday?”

“In the vineyard, tending to the vines.”

“Where?”

Ortiz pointed at Brix. “In yours. Silver Ridge, the Bella Broxton Cabernet vineyard.”

“Who were you with?” Brix asked.

“Mr. Styles. We were putting sulfur on the vines and working the soil. For the cover.”

Brix turned to Vail. “We sometimes use a cover crop between the rows as an early warning system. If there’s something affecting the vines, the cover will show it first.” To Ortiz: “When were you with Mr. Styles?”

“All day. From six in the morning to sundown.”

“I’m going to ask Mr. Styles, Miguel. Will he tell me you were with him the whole time? Did you ever leave him?”

“We were in different rows of the vineyard. But we were talking the whole time. Yes, he will tell you that.”

“And what about after you left Mr. Styles? Where were you and who were you with?”

Ortiz squinted, looked off at the parking lot behind them. “I went home, had dinner with Enrique. My friend.”

“Anyone else see you?”

“The people in the restaurant. El Brinquito.”

Brix nodded. “I know the place. I’m going to check that out, too. And what time did you leave?”

Ortiz looked down and rubbed at his forehead. “I think it was around eight. I went home. Miss Wright can tell you. And I stay there all night and then went to bed.”

Brix pulled out his phone, flipped it open, and aimed it at Ortiz. The electronic click of a simulated camera shutter sounded. “You can go, Miguel. But next time when you see the police, don’t run. Especially if it’s me.”

Ortiz nodded with an embarrassing shift of his eyes. He walked off, his head down. When he was far enough away, Vail said, “He’s illegal. You knew that?”

Brix pocketed his phone, then lifted a shoulder. “If we got rid of all the illegals in California, it’d bring our economy to a screeching halt.”

Vail watched Ortiz in the distance as he crossed East Napa Street. “If Ortiz were a serial killer, he’d fit more in line with a disorganized killer. Not very sociable, lower education, average intelligence at best, manual labor type job. But like I said before, our offender is more complex. He’s predominantly organized. He brings the weapon with him. He’s purposeful, he plans his kills. He’s intelligent, sharp, and resourceful. Bottom line, Ortiz doesn’t look like our UNSUB.”

“I didn’t think so,” Brix said. “Still, I’ll check out his story, just to be sure.”

“And that means we’re still nowhere,” Dixon said.

Vail turned and headed into the parking lot, toward Brix’s car. “Not nowhere, Roxx. Just not where we want to be.”

THIRTY-SIX

As they settled into Brix’s Crown Victoria, Ray Lugo phoned to tell Brix he was on his way to Sonoma to hand deliver new information. His ETA was ten minutes.

While waiting, Brix emailed Vail his camera photo of Ortiz, and then she and Dixon walked over to the visitor’s bureau, which backed up to City Hall in the square’s parklike center. The interior office space was pleasant, filled with maps, signage for events and area promotions, and brochure racks.

Vail and Dixon showed the staff Ortiz’s picture and asked if they knew him. Both women said they had seen him around, but had never observed any unusual or unruly behavior.

As they left, Vail said, “I didn’t think that’d get us anywhere.”

“You never know when you’re going to run across a victim who escaped alive, someone who’s too scared to go to the cops. Or one guy who heard another guy bragging about his kill.”

By the time they returned to the car, Lugo was pulling alongside Brix, who was leaning against the front quarter panel of his Ford.

Lugo got out, holding a manila folder above his head. “Kevin called me. He was going through Victoria’s things and found her file of board notes.” He handed them to Dixon. “I started to go through them but then remembered you were meeting with the board president today.”

“We were supposed to have already met but we pushed it back to chat with Miguel Ortiz.”

Lugo shook his head. “Let me guess. Waste of time.”

“It was worth a shot,” Brix said with a shrug. “I’ve got some things to follow up on, but yeah. Looks that way.”

Lugo nodded at the folder in Dixon’s hand. “Hopefully that’ll help you out when you meet with that board president.”

Vail consulted her watch. “Speaking of which, let’s get going.”

Vail and Dixon took Lugo’s car, leaving Brix to partner with Lugo, and headed to Wedded Bliss Estate Wines, where the Georges Valley AVA board president served as chief executive. While en route, Vail reviewed the file Lugo had brought them.

After several minutes of struggling to make out the handwriting and abbreviations, Vail stretched her neck and rolled her shoulders.

Dixon tapped the papers. “Anything in there?”

“Some of it’s tough to read. Lots of shorthand and scribbles in the margins.” Vail turned a couple of pages. “One thing stands out. Something about SMB. It says ‘SMB better deal. No: VC, TN, IW. Won’t carry.’”

“‘Won’t carry.’ Sounds like a motion.”

Vail traced backwards through the notes with an index finger. “Yes. Motion by PO. Second DY.” She turned another page, then went back. “Doesn’t say what the motion was.”

“Is there a date?”

Vail flipped back to the prior page. “January fifteenth.”

Dixon nodded. “Okay, we’ll start with that. Keep looking.”

A few moments later, Vail said, “There are notes talking about ‘natural vs. fake. Big difference.’” She looked over at Dixon. “What do you think, are they talking about breasts?”

Dixon smiled. “There’s definitely a big difference, but something tells me that’s not what the board was deliberating.”

“Probably not. But it looks like it was another point of contention according to the margin notes.”

“Good,” Dixon said. “We’ve got some things to discuss with our board president. Let’s see what she has to say.”

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, they arrived at Wedded Bliss Estates Winery. The driveway was long and narrow, and bordered on both sides by a continuous row of wine bottles, mounted single file and upside down, in the top of the wall.

“Neat idea,” Dixon said. “That’s pretty cool.”

As they continued on down the road, Vail realized they hadn’t yet seen the best Wedded Bliss had to offer. She pointed ahead. “Now that’s pretty cool.”

The building was carved into the side of a mountain—but that wasn’t its most unusual feature. Where the mountainside once was, a fifty-foot glass enclosure now stood, forming the entire front of the winery.

“Looks like the mountain has a giant window built into it,” Vail said.

They found a parking spot and headed down the crushed bottle-and-grout walkway that led to the entrance.

“I’ve gotta take Robby here before we head out of town.”

“You’re gonna bring your boyfriend to ‘Wedded Bliss’? He may get the wrong idea.”

Vail chuckled. “You ever been here?”

“I’ve seen pictures and read about it, but this is outside my jurisdiction and tucked away from the main drag. All I know is the building’s won all sorts of architectural awards and the wine consistently scores over ninety points from Wine Spectator and a number of known wine critics.”

They walked through the double wide three-quarter-inch glass doors, which slid apart as they approached. After moving inside, they both stopped—the view was breathtaking. The entire interior was made of glass—or its polymer equivalent. The staircase that spiraled up to each of the four stories, the elevator, the tasting stations . . . all pristine and clear.

“Must be a bitch to clean,” Dixon said.

“Gives new meaning to the saying, ‘I don’t do windows.’”

Dixon pointed at the wall nearest them. “You can see the mountainside, through the glass walls. Like one of those cutaways, a slice right through the side of the mountain.”

Indeed, the mountain was hollowed out to accommodate the large building, and the inner heart of the granite and dirt was visible. This place truly was an architectural marvel.

Vail pointed at something above their heads. “Look at those tree roots.”

“Welcome to Wedded Bliss. May I help you?”

They turned to find a man dressed in a black suit, silver tie, and white shirt.

“Yes,” Vail said. She splayed open her credentials case. “We have an appointment with Crystal Dahlia.” Having said it aloud for the first time, Vail now wondered if that was the woman’s real name. Given the appearance of the winery, she was beginning to doubt it.

They were led up the staircase to the second level, then down a hallway. The floor was made of sand-blasted glass blocks, preserving the building’s look but retaining function. Walking on regular glass would be dangerously slick and the traffic of hard leather and dirt would eventually scratch the surface to hell.

The suited gentleman led them to a room and told them to wait inside, that Ms. Dahlia was finishing up a phone call. He stepped up to a wet bar, removed two glasses, and poured them wine.

“Oh,” Dixon said. “I don’t think we should. We’re on duty—”

“Nonsense,” Vail said. “I came to Napa to go wine tasting. We’ve had a few interruptions . . .” . . . a few murders . . . “but I think we’ve earned this.” She reached forward and took the glass.

Dixon waved him off.

Before Dixon could object further, Vail put the glass to her lips and swallowed a mouthful.

“Haven’t I taught you anything? At least do it right.”

“Oh, yeah. Nose. Smell.” She lifted the glass to her face and sniffed. “Hmm.” Sniffed some more. “Raspberries. Berries. I’m getting berries. That’s it.” She took another drink.

“Small sips,” Dixon said with the tone of a scolding teacher. “Let it float over your tongue. Taste it, swish it a bit.”

“No matter how I do it, this is good.” She took another drink, smaller this time, and let it float, then swallowed. “Yeah, that was a little better. But I’m still only getting berries.”

“Actually, berries is correct. Fruit forward.”

The voice came from behind them. They turned to see an attractive, slender woman in a white dress, a couple of years on the right side of forty.

“A hint of cinnamon,” the woman said. “And a little cherry.”

Vail rose and turned. A little too quickly, as the wine was already giving her a slight buzz.

“You must be Crystal,” Vail said, struggling to keep a straight face.

“Are you Karen or Roxxann?”

“I’m Agent Vail. This is Investigator Dixon.”

Crystal pursed her lips. “I see.” She took their hands with a firm shake, then motioned them to follow her. They walked down the hall to a glass-enclosed suite. The doors slid open and revealed an office with photos of vines and grapes and wineglasses, in clear frames mounted on the wall with suction cups. At the end of the room was a desk. A . . . glass desk.

Crystal held out an open hand, indicating the two rubber-footed chairs at the foot of her desk.

“I’m curious,” Vail said as she took her seat. “About the name.”

“Oh,” Crystal said with a wave and a bright smile. “Everyone asks. Yes, it’s my real name. My parents thought it was cute. Me, I’ve grown to like it. And working here,” she said with a sweep of her hand, “it kind of fits, now, doesn’t it?”

Vail smiled. “Yes, it does. I hadn’t thought of that.” She looked at Dixon, who was squinting at her. “But,” she said, turning back to Crystal, “I was referring to the name of the winery. Wedded Bliss. How does it fit with all the glass?”

Crystal waved a hand again. Grinned broadly. “Very simple, really. You want the winery tour version or the ‘we’re the police and we don’t have time for that crap version’?”

Vail shrugged. “We don’t have time for that crap, and, well, since we are the police . . .”

Crystal looked long at Vail, then nodded. Her smiled faded, but quickly returned. “Yes, of course. Short answer is that all our wines are blends, and we only use the finest grapes from Georges Valley. So it’s a marriage of pure bliss.”

Who thinks up this shit? Vail nodded. “Makes perfect sense. Surprised I didn’t see that coming. One question, though. What’s a blended wine?”

Crystal looked at Dixon.

Dixon scratched her temple. “She’s new to the wine country. That was a serious question.”

Crystal smiled again, wide and bright. “Well. A blend is a mix of two or more types of grapes to produce something of greater value than the parts would individually exhibit. We have an award-winning winemaker who created all our proprietary blends.”

“Is he happily married?”

The smile faded from Crystal’s face. “Is who happily married?”

Vail held out her hands, palm up, as if it were obvious. “The winemaker. Wedded Bliss. Surely he must—”

“We actually have some important questions for you,” Dixon said. She looked at Vail and shook her head.

Is she scolding me? Hey, I haven’t had a whole lot of sleep. I’m punchy. She realized Crystal was giving her a sympathetic look. Did I say that out loud? Shit, Dixon was right. I shouldn’t have had that wine. But it was so good. And I did deserve it.

“Agent Vail?”

“Hmm?” Vail focused on Crystal, but her gaze was a bit unsteady. “What do you put in your wine? It’s strong.”

“The alcohol content hovers around 14 percent. It’s not significantly different from any other fine wine. When did you last eat?”

“Eat?”

Crystal reached over, lifted her phone from its cradle, and asked the person at the other end to bring up some soda crackers to her office.

“Good idea,” Dixon said. She looked disapprovingly at Vail, then turned her attention back to Crystal. “Nice to hear about Wedded Bliss, but we really need info on your board. Georges Valley AVA.”

“Sure. But my term as president is due to expire next month. I’m not sure you want to be talking with me, or with the incoming president.”

The doors behind them slid apart and the black suited gentleman who greeted them earlier entered carrying a silver tray. At Crystal’s direction, he set it down on the desk in front of Vail and then left. Vail leaned forward and examined the spread. Soda crackers, as ordered. Sliced fruit, breadsticks, and cubed cheese.

“Please,” Crystal said.

“Don’t mind if I do. Very kind of you.” Jeez, I need to keep my mouth shut till I get some food in my stomach. She took a napkin from the side of the tray, selected a toothpick and loaded up on cheese and crackers. Within seconds, she was munching away.

“Actually,” Dixon said, “you’re the person we want to talk with.” She reached over and removed the manila folder from Vail’s lap, then opened it. “Victoria Cameron was due to take over as president, right?”

Crystal’s cheerful face hardened. Her eyes misted. “Terrible tragedy, Victoria. I—you just never know, do you? I mean, a stroke at thirty-seven? That’s . . . it’s just shocking.”

“Yes, just shocking,” Vail repeated as she reached for a breadstick and more cheese. Got news for you, Crystal. If you find that shocking, I wonder what you’ll think when you find out what really happened to her.

Dixon sighed. “It was tragic. But with Victoria . . . deceased . . . who’s taking her place as incoming president?”

“Well, it’s all spelled out in our bylaws. Victoria was our VP of Administration—she handled administrative matters the board had to deal with, took minutes, distributed proxies, liaised with the VP of Budget and Finance to ensure we had our statements each meeting, that sort of thing. The Admin VP was next in line for president on a three-year rotation. If the Admin VP isn’t able to carry out those duties, it falls to the Marketing VP. And that’s Alec Crawford.”

“Can we get a copy of your bylaws?”

“I’ll have them emailed over to you, if you’d like.”

“That’d be fine.” Dixon dug out a business card and handed it across the desk to Crystal. “And a list of all the names of the board members, too, with phone numbers and addresses.”

“We’ve got a phone tree I can send you.”

“And a copy of your board’s minutes for the past twelve months.”

Crystal tilted her head. “Now that might be a problem. Our minutes are not public record. There are proprietary secrets discussed at these meetings. And I’m not at liberty to release that information.”

“Well I’m at liberty to get it,” Dixon said. “I’ll have a subpoena issued if you think it’s necessary.”

Crystal leaned back in her chair. “I’m afraid it will be necessary.”

Vail had polished off half the tray. Only the fruit was left—and she was already feeling more lucid. “We’re not trying to be difficult. It’s just information we think may be useful.”

“Useful in what?” Crystal asked. “Is this about Victoria?”

“We’re not at liberty to say.” Vail winced. “Sorry, I’m not trying to be a wiseass.” At least, not right now. “But this is a sensitive investigation and we can’t say what it is that we’re investigating.” Sure sounds like bullshit doubletalk to me, but what the hell, sometimes witnesses buy it.

“Do I need my attorney? Or the board’s attorney?” Crystal asked.

Dixon crossed one leg over the other. “Not unless you or your board has done something wrong. And we have no indication of that, if that makes you feel more comfortable.”

“We’re having some difficulties with our investigation,” Vail added. “It’s got nothing to do with Wedded Bliss or the Georges Valley AVA—but we’re doing our due diligence in trying to cover all the bases.”

“You’re fishing,” Crystal said.

Dixon shrugged. “Kind of.”

“I’ll see what I can do about releasing the minutes to you. I have to contact the executive committee.”

“We appreciate it.” Dixon looked down at the file. “Meanwhile, can you tell us what the abbreviation ‘SMB’ might stand for?”

Crystal held out her hands. “In what context? Sounds like someone’s initials.”

Vail didn’t want to disclose they had Victoria’s notes, and she hoped Dixon was on the same page. “Let’s just say we came across it in our investigation. Something from January.”

Crystal nodded animatedly. “Ah, then that would be Superior Mobile Bottling.”

“Do you or any of the other bottlers who are members of your board use Superior?” Vail asked.

Crystal smiled. “Well, the way our AVA works is a little unusual. Our members pool their purchasing power. Wine making is a business like any other. Our goal is to make money while turning out a quality product. All businesses do well to carefully monitor their expenses. The more they pay out—”

“Thanks for the business lesson,” Dixon said. “But the point is—”

“The point is that the more we order of something, the better our prices. We use the AVA as a means of keeping our bottling expenses low. So we contract with Superior to do the bottling for all our member wineries. And as a result, we get rock bottom pricing.”

“You all use the same bottler?”

Crystal bobbed her head. “For the most part. There are a few who’ve had bottling facilities for years, so they don’t participate, unless they have some specialty wines they need bottled a certain way.”

Vail shook her head. “Let’s back up a second. Bottling includes what, exactly?”

“Gas sparging the bottles, filling them with juice, corking them, applying the labels and capsules, and then boxing them into cases.”

“And this is done at the winery, right?” Vail asked.

“That’s what I was saying. Some larger wineries have the capacity to do this. Many don’t. And many don’t want to do it because it means committing a large amount of space to something that only gets used two weeks out of a year. And they have to maintain and upgrade the equipment every so often to increase capacity, or to accommodate new technology to increase efficiency. It’s a lot of headache and expense. Easier, and usually more cost efficient, to let someone else worry about it.”

Dixon nodded. “So the ‘mobile’ in Superior Mobile Bottling means they come to you.”

“Exactly,” Crystal said. “They have semi trucks that are outfitted with all the equipment. They come to your winery, hook up to your electrical grid, and eight hours later, you’ve got finished cases of wine. A state-of-the-art truck, like the kind Superior has, can do a hundred bottles per minute, about 2,500 to 3,000 cases a day.”

Vail picked up a strawberry from the platter. “Sounds like a nobrainer.”

“One would think.”

“But there are some who don’t get it.”

Crystal slid her chair closer to the desk and leaned her forearms on the glass surface. “Our pricing power is contingent on us hitting certain volume goals. So if you have some who don’t want to get onboard, it can cause some . . . discontent within the ranks.”

Dixon pursed her lips and nodded. “Of course. So who in the AVA didn’t want to get onboard?”

“A very small minority didn’t want to renew the contract we have with Superior. They thought we should invest in building a few custom trailers of our own, that would then move from each of our wineries and do our bottling. But that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. There’s the initial build-out cost—five hundred grand to a million dollars apiece—and you’d still have to park them somewhere in the off-season. Not easy to find parking spots for sixty-five-foot trucks.”

“And it puts you back in the business of maintaining and owning bottling facilities.”

“Sort of. You don’t have permit issues, which is a big deal nowadays. Trying to get permission to build out new space to expand your bottling line is tough, if not impossible. So if we built trailers, we’d get around those issues. Still, there are other things that wouldn’t make sense if we were to own our own trailers. Like some of our members have restrictions on the roads that lead to their wineries, so they’d need to have smaller trucks, which, obviously, have less bottling capacity. Superior takes care of all that for us. They have trailers that can accommodate all our members’ needs.”

Vail swallowed the strawberry she’d been chewing and dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “What about the issue of natural versus fake?” She was trying to be nonchalant with the question, hoping to place less emphasis on it. Because she didn’t really know what she was asking, should it involve something significant, she didn’t want Crystal to feel the weight of the question and attempt to snowball them.

Crystal leaned back. “Well, that was another thing that led to intense debate. I’m not sure that got resolved. I guess we’ll find out where we are at our next meeting.”

“Why such disagreement?”

“What do you know about corks?”

Vail and Dixon shared a glance. Vail’s look said, This is about corks?

“I don’t know a whole lot,” Vail said. “Wineries stick them in wine bottles to seal them. But my guess is there’s a lot more to it than that, isn’t there?”

Crystal smiled again—but this was not her promotional smile. It was a one-sided smirk that conveyed depth and irony. “Your guess is correct. It’s sparked quite the debate in the wine community, and our board is no exception. There are those who are fervent supporters of natural cork, to the point of being fanatics. They claim that not using cork is breaking with centuries of wine-making tradition.”

“What alternatives are there?” Vail asked.

“Synthetic corks or screw tops.”

“Screw tops—like a twist-off on a bottle of soda or tea?”

“Yes. We don’t like that model, for that reason. Screw tops solve a lot of the problems that come from natural or synthetic corks, but they’re cheap looking. They fit more with a cut-rate label than the quality of a Georges Valley wine. There’s something about a twist-off top that just doesn’t fit with a fine bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, or a highly regarded blend such as ours.”

Dixon nodded. “Same could be said about those synthetic corks, right?”

Crystal’s face firmed. “No. Not right. Not in my opinion. You still have the feel of opening the bottle with a corkscrew. The only difference is that the good ones are made of thermoplastic elastomer.” She waved a hand. “That’s not entirely true. There are other differences. Cork comes from tree bark, a very specific oak tree grown in the Mediterranean and Portugal—and the trees can’t have their bark stripped until they’re twenty-five years old. After that, they can only be harvested once every ten years or so. But there are nearly twenty billion bottles of wine produced each year. There just isn’t enough natural cork to go around.”

“So it’s a supply and demand issue.”

“On the surface, yes. But there’s much more to it.”

Dixon leaned back and placed a hand on her chin. “Doesn’t cork allow some air to get into the bottle, which promotes natural aging of the wine?”

“It also allows TCA into the bottle, which causes what’s called cork taint. It ruins the wine, gives it a moldy smell that tastes like wet cardboard.”

“TCA?” Vail asked.

“Trichloro-something. It’s a fungus that grows because of naturally occurring chemicals found in cork. Depending on who you believe, between 3 and 20 percent of bottles are ‘corked.’ Basically, those bottles are ruined by TCA contamination. The winery can avoid that by using the thermoplastic elastomer, or synthetic, corks that I mentioned. Some synthetics aren’t as good, and they actually let more air into the bottle than natural cork. But the ones Superior uses are, well, superior. They don’t have that problem.

“Then there’s also the issue of cost. With our volume pricing, we can get these synthetics at about four cents apiece, compared to fifteen to seventy-five cents for natural cork. Add it up over the millions of bottles our members produce, year after year, and you’re talking real money.”

Vail hiked her brow. “So it seems like the synthetic would be the way to go.”

Crystal grinned—that same deeper-meaning half-smile. “One would think. But there was considerable debate over whether to renew that three-year contract with Superior.”

Dixon shook her head. “What does Superior have to do with the cork issue?”

“They only have one trailer that’s still equipped to handle natural cork. They’ve refitted the rest of their trucks to synthetic-only because they’ve developed custom machinery that allows them to bottle faster with the synthetic.”

“So,” Vail said, “there are a couple people on the board who didn’t want to renew the Superior contract. Did Superior know this?”

“Absolutely not. The business of the board and its member wineries is confidential and we don’t discuss it outside the boardroom. We each sign confidentiality statements preventing us from discussing board business with anyone who’s not a board member.”

Vail wondered if Crystal had herself signed one of these statements—here she was telling them all about the board’s deliberations. But she wasn’t complaining. Still, it made her wonder who might also have thought it was okay to tip off someone at Superior that their contract renewal was in jeopardy.

“Who usually deals with Superior?”

“Our Contracts VP. Ian Wirth.”

“And who’s the board’s contact person at Superior?”

Crystal hesitated. Her eyes moved between Vail and Dixon. “Why?”

“Same reason it was five minutes ago,” Vail said. “We’re investigating something and this information may or may not be germane to the issue we’re looking into.”

“I’m not sure—”

“This isn’t confidential board business,” Dixon said. “It’s just someone’s name at a company. We can call Superior and ask them the same question, but you can save us some time and effort. And we’d appreciate that.”

Crystal reached to the right corner of her desk and removed a file folder from a standing portfolio. She opened it and traced a finger across a page. “César Guevara. He’s their CFO.”

Dixon pulled a spiral notepad from her inside jacket pocket and made a note of the man’s name.

Vail sensed they were reaching the end of the interview. But there was one more piece of information they needed. “Who on your board,” she said, “has the initials TN?”

“Todd Nicholson. Why? What—”

“Active investigation,” Dixon said. “Can’t say.”

Crystal looked to be getting increasingly frustrated by their refusal to answer her questions. Vail didn’t care—truth is, that’s the way it was with the police. They asked the questions, the interviewees answered them and didn’t get the opportunity to ask their own. Crystal clearly didn’t understand the relationship. But she was getting the idea.

“And who on the board has a last name that begins with W?” Dixon asked. “Would that be Mr. Wirth?”

Crystal pursed her lips, clearly debating whether to keep answering these questions—then obviously deciding one more won’t hurt. “Yes,” she said.

“How is Mr. Nicholson?” Vail asked. What she wanted to ask was, Is Mr. Nicholson still alive?

“I spoke to him this morning.”

“Nice guy?”

“Spineless, if you ask me.”

“I just did.” Vail forced a smile. “But if he’s spineless, why did he defy the board and vote against the Superior contract?”

Crystal’s jaw dropped. Before she could ask, Vail said, “You’re not the first person we’ve spoken to about this.” She shrugged. “But you can understand that, from our point of view, that doesn’t fit. A spineless guy doesn’t oppose the others. He goes along. He doesn’t want confrontation.”

“Yes. Well, I suggest you ask him about it.”

“Last thing,” Dixon said. “What’s the status of the Superior contract? If there were only a few who opposed it, did they win the renewal?”

“Actually, no,” Crystal said. “First, that was a preliminary vote. I wanted to see where we were. Second, because it affects everyone’s business, it’s one of the only things where we require a unanimous vote. As I said, this AVA board is very unusual in how it works. I don’t know of any other AVA that works the way we do.” She tried to smile—but it was only a half-hearted effort. “But it’s worked for us.”

Vail was the first to stand. She placed her used napkin on the food tray. “Thanks so much for your hospitality—and for the food.”

Crystal rose from her chair. Dixon motioned her down. “No need to show us out.”

“Yeah,” Vail said. “The way out is pretty obvious. One might say it’s crystal clear.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

As Vail and Dixon walked down the glass stairs, Dixon said, “‘One might say it’s crystal clear’? Were you trying to be funny?”

“I was trying.”

Dixon shook her head. “Try harder.”

They cleared the sliding front doors and headed toward the parking lot and Lugo’s car.

“Three people opposed the vote on Superior’s new contract,” Dixon said. “If César Guevara found out about this, that’s something to kill over. They’d lose millions in business. He does it himself or he hires someone to take out Victoria.”

Vail stopped at the edge of the crushed glass path. “See, this is where this case doesn’t make sense. Serial killers don’t kill for money—I mean, there were a couple of exceptions, and they were women—but we’re talking about a psychopath who’s living out his psychosexual fantasies, which are rooted in a dysfunctional childhood. And what about this Todd Nicholson? He’s still alive and kicking.”

“Maybe he’s the next victim.” Dixon’s phone buzzed. She flipped it open. “Text from Brix. They checked Ortiz’s story. El Brinquito, the restaurant, confirms his alibi. Wants to know if we’re still here. He and Lugo want to meet us here in five.” She tapped out a message to him. Sent it. “What do you say we talk with Todd Nicholson, as well as one of the other board members who was in favor of the Superior contract? See what their take was.”

“Board confidentiality might get in the way.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes a couple of badges opens their mouths.”

They stood there for a bit, alone with their thoughts, before Vail said, “Look. There are five vics attributed to the Crush Killer. There are few commonalities among them. We’ve got Victoria Cameron and Maryanne Bernal, whose wineries were members of the Georges Valley AVA. Victoria was an active board member. Maryanne was a former member. We need to find out more about Isaac Jenkins and Dawn Zackery. Ray was looking into Ursula Robbins, whose winery was in Georges Valley AVA.”

“Do you see the common thread? Georges Valley.”

“We’ll see when we find out more about the other two vics. In one way, it makes sense because of the male vic—Jenkins. This type of killer wouldn’t go after men. But looking at it from a for-profit motive, it doesn’t make sense. That’s just not what drives these psychopaths. I mean, severing sexual organs—like what this UNSUB’s done with the breasts—that could point to an offender with mental health issues. But the rest of his behaviors are very well explained by his psychopathy.” She leaned back against a pillar that separated the small entry plaza from the parking lot, staring out at the glass building, then shook her head. “This case . . . I can’t get a handle on it. Things just aren’t adding up the way they should be. Something’s not right.”

Dixon looked at her phone and pressed a button. “Email from Crystal.” She scrolled and pressed the trackball. “Board roster.”

“So let’s pick someone who wasn’t opposed to the Superior contract and start there. See if he or she talks to us.”

“They’re here,” Dixon said with a nod to the lot’s entrance.

They met Brix and Lugo halfway to their car and watched their reactions as they tilted their heads, taking in the winery. “I’ve read about this place,” Brix said. “Never been here. Pretty impressive.”

Lugo nodded appreciatively. “The photos I’ve seen don’t do it justice.”

Vail’s phone rang: Art Rooney’s number. “I’ve gotta take this.”

“No problem. I’ll brief them on what Crystal told us.”

Vail stepped away and answered. “Art, what a pleasant surprise.”

“Wait till you hear what I have to say. You might not think it’s so pleasant.”

“Go on.”

“I was looking through the file we have here, and dipshit Del Monaco did his usual thorough job.”

“What did he miss?”

“He ran the VICAP search too narrow. So I expanded it and added some stuff, and bingo. I got you another vic to run down. From ’98.”

“Where?”

“Frisco.”

“Yeah, Art . . . I should’ve told you before. They don’t like that abbreviation.”

“Offer my sincere apologies. Meantime, I’ve spoken with an Inspector Robert Friedberg with the San Francisco PD. He’s waiting to hear from you. I just emailed you his direct line.”

“Thanks, Art. This case is really bugging me. Maybe this’ll help.”

“Anything you wanna run by me?”

“If we were in the same room, yeah. I’d sit down with you for a couple of hours and go through everything. Bottom line is nothing’s adding up. Based on what we know, which is incomplete, this UNSUB might have a profit motive. But—”

“But that doesn’t make sense. Not for a male SK.”

“Exactly.”

“Keep looking, Karen. You’ll find something.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have much longer. Gifford wants me home tomorrow night.”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

Vail turned back to Dixon and Brix. “I wish I was as confident about that as you are.”

“Look on the bright side. If you head back tomorrow night, we can sit down in the same room for a few hours and hash this thing out.”

“Thanks, Art. Talk to you soon.” She hung up, scrolled to Rooney’s email, and dialed through to Inspector Friedberg. She mentioned Art Rooney and Friedberg agreed to meet her in the Marin Headlands, just north of San Francisco.

Vail hung up and rejoined Dixon, Brix, and Lugo. “Did you tell them about Superior Mobile Bottling?” she asked Dixon.

Before Dixon could answer, Brix said, “I’m vaguely familiar with Superior. Privately held, family-owned business. Like half of all the other businesses in the valley.”

“Privately held,” Vail said. “Meaning we don’t know much about their operations. Their financing, investors, the people with skin in the game.”

Brix nodded. “That’s pretty much true. But they’ve been around a long time, as long as we’ve been contracting out bottling for Silver Ridge. Like most mobile bottlers, they own a fleet of semis outfitted to do bottling, corking, and labeling on-site at the wineries that contract with them. It’s pretty lucrative, because they can turn out a lot of finished product pretty efficiently, and very reasonably. They make their money on volume. Kind of like the Costco model. Small margins, high volumes. And the wineries don’t have to invest in the equipment themselves, so everyone’s happy.”

Dixon rubbed her eyes. “Any reason to look into them further?”

“Waste of time,” Lugo said.

Brix raised an eyebrow. “Never heard of any complaints. You want more, we can have Agbayani do some checks.”

Lugo shook his head. “I’m telling you. Waste of time. Just like Ortiz.”

Dixon twisted her lips in thought, then said, “Give Eddie a ring, have him do some digging. Meantime, let’s focus our energies on what’s most likely to net us something useful.”

“And on that front,” Vail said, “we might have something. A VICAP hit in San Francisco. I’ve got us an appointment with the detective who’s got a cold case from ’98. Rooney already spoke with him. We’re meeting him in an hour and a half.”

“Then we better get our asses in gear,” Dixon said. “Catch up with you later?”

Brix nodded. “Keep me posted.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

While en route to their meet with Friedberg, Vail looked over the roster of Georges Valley AVA board members. She called three and explained she wanted to drop by to talk with them. All three declined. But the fourth agreed to sit down with her: Ian Wirth, whose home was located near downtown Napa. Vail set a tentative time for their meeting, and told him she would call him when they were thirty minutes away so he had time to leave his winery and get home in time for their arrival.

Dixon, right hand resting atop the steering wheel, pointed out the windshield with her index finger. “Meeting place is just up ahead. We’ll be there in a couple minutes.”

Vail turned another page in the file Kevin Cameron had given them. “Can’t say any of this is helpful, other than the Superior issue we covered with Crystal—which I’m not even sure was helpful at all. Problem is, a lot of this is in shorthand or some kind of abbreviation-speak Victoria devised for herself.”

“We’re not out of ammo yet,” Dixon said. “And we may get lucky. That sit-down with the other board member might lead somewhere. And maybe this detective will have something that’ll put it all into focus.” As the freeway curved, she nudged Vail on the forearm. “Look up. You’re gonna miss the view.”

“Whoa,” Vail said, leaning forward in the seat. The Golden Gate Bridge swung into sight behind, and between, the mountains that sat on both sides of the 101 freeway. “I’ve never seen it in person.”

“Just wait,” Dixon said. “Better views around the bend.”

They drove up the two-lane mountain road and saw a knot of tourists walking along a dirt and gravel path. Dixon hung a left into the turnout parking area and slid her vehicle into the remaining slot.

Inspector Friedberg was standing beside his unmarked car in a black overcoat, a cigarette in his hand, and a chocolate brown woolly pulled down over his head. “Robert Friedberg,” he said, shifting the cigarette to his left hand and offering his right.

“This is Roxxann Dixon and I’m Karen Vail.”

Friedberg returned the cigarette to his smoking hand. “Agent Rooney said you’ve never been here before.”

“Not really,” Vail said. “Not any kind of trip that counts. This was supposed to be it—a vacation.”

“Welcome to the Golden Gate. Come on, we can walk and talk, I can show you one of my favorite views in the state.” He led them down a dirt path that curved and elevated, climbing toward a soil and cement plateau that opened up to a view of the Pacific.

Vail stopped and took in the 180 degree panorama, from the brightly glinting white and gray skyscrapers of San Francisco off to the left, to the scores of small white sailboats listing in the bay, heading back after a day on the ocean. Oh—and there was a huge orange-red bridge splayed out before her. Larger than life, it seemingly grew out of an outcropping of mountain beneath her feet and spanned the bay to her right, landing somewhere on the San Francisco shore at two o’clock. A large cargo ship was passing beneath at midspan, moving slowly but steadily, leaving two parallel, relatively small wakes behind it.

From their perch, they were standing midway up the North Art Deco tower, looking down onto the roadway and the dozens of cars below.

She looked over at Friedberg, who was sucking on his cigarette. A stiff wind blew against her face. “Amazing view. I’ve never stood above a bridge and looked down on it from so high up. That color is so . . . dominating and unusual. Not quite golden, though.”

Friedberg took another long drag, then blew it out the side of his mouth. The smoke caught the wind and rode around his neck. “Golden Gate refers to the strait below us, the entrance to the bay from the Pacific. The color’s called International Orange, whatever that means. They’ve only repainted it once, since 1937. Know how long it took?” He turned to Dixon, who was standing slightly behind Vail. “You’re from around here.”

Dixon shrugged. “Haven’t the slightest.”

“Twenty-seven years.”

Vail nodded. “Job security. And a great view.”

“Now they’ve got an army of thirty-eight painters. Their whole job is touching up the bridge. It’s the salt air. Very corrosive.”

“You know a lot about the bridge,” Vail said.

“A buddy of mine is one of those thirty-eight painters.” He shook his head and laughed. “Marty says the damn thing can sway twenty-seven feet to either side on a windy day. And the roadway can drop about ten feet when fully loaded—”

“Inspector,” Vail said. “I love the view. It’s—” she turned and looked back at the expanse before them—“among the more beautiful I’ve ever seen. But the flip side to all this beauty is the killer Investigator Dixon and I are trying to find. While I’d love to sightsee and get the VIP tour, I just don’t have the time. No offense.”

Friedberg sucked hard on his cigarette. His eyes were riveted to Vail’s. He blew away the smoke, then nodded. “Fair enough. Totally understand. So let me get right to it.” He turned to face the bridge and stood there a long moment without speaking. Finally, he threw down his cigarette and ground the butt into the dirt. “Follow me.”

Friedberg picked up the squished cigarette, then trudged off, away from the bridge, up the inclined frontage to a sunken, below-ground-level concrete complex. A low-slung steel pipe fence surrounded the area, most likely to prevent a kid or careless adult from falling over the edge and landing below on the cement ground.

Friedberg tossed the spent butt into a garbage pail, then led the way down a set of stairs. Directly in front of them was a twenty-foot raised circle of concrete, with an inner ring of thick, rusted bolts protruding from the surface. Off to the right, one level lower, was a central roadway that split barracks-style quarters on both sides. But the inspector headed left instead.

Vail took a step forward to get a better view of the ugly, flat-topped one-story buildings—oddly out of place against the green undulating hills of the mountain peaks behind them. “What is this place?”

“Battery Spencer,” Friedberg said. “A gun battery that was used from the 1840s till World War Two. The military considered San Francisco Bay to be the most important harbor on the west coast. So they stationed three huge rifle guns here to protect the city and the bridge from attack. Right here,” he said, motioning to the large circular platform in front of them, “was the emplacement for Gun 2.” He stepped onto the gun mount and walked ahead. “But that’s not what I wanted to show you. Over here.”

Friedberg stopped in front of a slight overhang, at a cement outcropping that contained a rectangular horizontal iron door hinged at the top.

“A fireplace?” Dixon asked.

“Actually,” Friedberg said, “I’m not sure what it was. It was a military installation, who knows what they did here. February 16, 1998, Marin County sheriff’s office got a call a little after midnight. A terrible smell at Battery Spencer. A deputy sheriff was nearby, so he took the call, even though it was outside his jurisdiction. He followed his nose, which led him here.” Friedberg grabbed the irregular bottom of the iron door with both hands and lifted it. The metal hinge squealed.

“Body dump,” Vail said.

“Body dump. Take a look.”

Dixon and Vail stepped forward and peered in. “Goes down quite a bit.”

“Wasn’t any fun getting the body out, I can tell you that much.”

“How’d you catch the case?” Dixon asked. “This isn’t SFPD jurisdiction.”

Friedberg chuckled. “Jurisdiction around here is a freaking nightmare. Need a scorecard and map to keep it straight. A hundred feet in any direction, jurisdiction could change. Basically, it goes by who owned the land before it became a national park. So where we’re standing is U.S. Park Police. They assigned a Criminal Investigative Branch detective, who ran the investigation and coordinated with the Marin County sheriff’s office. That’s where I came in. This was a couple years before I hooked up with SFPD.” He shook his head. “Let’s just say I regretted working the case from day one. But I kept a copy of the file. I always hoped one day I’d solve it.”

Vail stepped back and Friedberg lowered the cover. “ID on the vic?”

“Betsy Ivers. Bank teller, thirty-three, single.”

“Any connection to the wine country?” Dixon asked.

“None I remember. But it’s been a while since I reviewed the file.”

“Did Agent Rooney go over the unusual things our killer does to the body?”

Friedberg clapped his hands to shake off the dirt. “I went to that FBI Profiling seminar in ’06 that your colleague did, Agent Safarik. I know what to look for. He was really good. Great freaking class. How is he?”

“Doing well,” Vail said. “He retired, but he’s got his own company, still doing profiling, expert testimony, the whole shebang.”

“Well, that’s how I knew to fill out the VICAP form. Every cop in the country should take that course.”

Friedberg led the way back toward the bridge, up the stairs and down the incline to the wood post and cable fence that prevented one from taking a header down the cliff, into the Pacific. The sun was setting and the temperature had dropped another few degrees. Head-lighted cars streamed from the city across the bridge into Marin.

Vail took a deep breath. Cold, damp, sea breeze. Smell of salt riding on the air. “Any suspects?”

“Couple people we were looking at. One was a guy who was working for a local pest control company. I liked him, but he blew out of town after we questioned him. Turns out he used a fake ID, name, address. His whole employment app was bullshit. Couldn’t find him—he vanished like water droplets in the freaking San Francisco fog. But just when we were about to start a goddamn manhunt, this other guy came on our radar. Billy Todd Lundy. Some psycho who’d been in and out of mental health institutions as a kid, went off his meds, and had all sorts of run-ins with SFPD.”

Friedberg had Vail’s attention. Mental health issues. That could fit with the severed breasts. “And what happened with Billy Todd Lundy?”

“We questioned him, there were holes in his story. He was seen around Battery Spencer a couple days before the murder, which fit with the estimated TOD. And he also lived down the block from Ivers’s apartment.”

“Violent tendencies?”

“When he was off his meds, yeah.” Friedberg pulled a pack of Marlboros from his pocket and tapped it. Removed one, lit it. “But that’s where things got screwed up. We didn’t have enough to hold him, so we kicked him loose.” He leaned on the fence’s wood post. Took a long drag of his smoke. Nodded at the Golden Gate. “Did I tell you before about the bridge?”

Vail and Dixon shared a look. “Yeah, we went through all that. Your buddy the painter.”

“No, no,” Friedberg said, shaking his head urgently. “Its less glamorous side.”

Dixon faced him. “I don’t follow you.”

“It’s the most prevalent place in the country to commit suicide. Over twelve hundred a year. And those are just the ones we know about. Because of the dense fog we get here, and, well, times when no one’d see a jumper, like at night, some cops think the number’s much higher.” He pointed at the bridge. “Someone supposedly hooked up motion-detecting cameras that recorded the jumpers. Confirmed the theory that the rate was worse than we thought. Kind of morbid, don’t you think?”

“Inspector,” Dixon said. “The point?”

“Two days after we kicked Lundy, he jumped. Right there, by the north tower.”

“Any chance he survived?” Vail asked.

“Who knows? I think a couple people have lived to talk about it over the years. But let’s say the odds are against it. It’s a two hundred-fifty-foot drop. He’d be going eighty-five miles an hour when he hit the water.” Friedberg took another long puff, then held up his cigarette and examined it. “At least this kills me slowly.”

Vail thought about that a moment, then said, “Yeah, I guess that’s something.”

THIRTY-NINE

John Wayne Mayfield finished “work” early—when Dixon and Vail headed out of town, he felt the risk of following them was too high. If one of them had taken note of his vehicle behind theirs in Napa, and the same vehicle happened to still be following theirs on the highway, thirty or more miles later, the chances of them dismissing it as a coincidence plummeted to unreasonable levels.

So when Dixon and Vail headed out of Napa, entered Vallejo and then Highway 37, Mayfield turned around and headed home. Now, as he settled down in front of his computer, a glass of fine ’02 Cakebread Cellars Cabernet by his side, he had thinking to do—and tasks to complete before he planned his most high profile murders. There was considerable risk involved and there would be no turning back. He could still stop right here and come away clean. With what?

No, as he thought about it, there really was no turning back . . . even if he never killed again—which was just not going to happen.

He sat in front of the keyboard, staring at the screen. Took a sip of wine and let it linger on his tongue, savoring the complex Cabernet borne from Rutherford’s exceptional soil and climate. He swallowed, then woke from his reverie. His task called to him, and though fraught with risk, it required his attention.

Everything had been leading up to this. He had no choice. He had to do it. He wanted to do it.

But wait.

As he sat there, an idea began to form. Perhaps there was another way. He’d give it one more shot, put forth one last effort, before he chose what he considered the “nuclear option.” He thought it through, examining it from all angles, role-playing how it would go down once he contacted the cops.

This might just work—at considerably less risk. He’d take precautions, give them what they wanted . . . so long as he got what he wanted. It was a trade. Equitable. Fair. Just a reasonable business offer.

If he was going to do this, he had to do it right. He made a phone call to gather the particulars, then checked the wall clock. He had barely an hour before this copy was due. Not much time. And he didn’t want to screw up, not this late in the game. Even if this was the path of lesser risk, if he wasn’t careful it could end in disaster. He took a deep breath to calm his thoughts.

Then he opened a new document and started typing.

FORTY

Dixon and Vail had left Robert Friedberg with a copy of his file in hand. They were headed back to

Napa and their appointment with Ian Wirth. At the time prompt from Dixon, Vail had called and given the man the promised thirty-minutes’ notice.

As they pulled into the circular drive of Wirth’s three-story brown brick and stone-faced home, Vail tucked Victoria Cameron’s file beneath the seat and pulled down the sun visor mirror to straighten her hair. The wind at Battery Spencer had done a job on it.

“Why didn’t you tell me my hair looked like I just came out of a wind tunnel?”

Dixon shoved the car into park and turned to Vail. “I was driving. It’s dark. I didn’t notice.” She pulled down her own visor and combed her hair into place. “How come you didn’t tell me mine was a mess?”

Vail looked at her. “Guess we’re even.”

They popped open their doors and strode up the walk. “I’m starving,” Vail said. She pulled her BlackBerry and texted Robby about meeting for a late—very late—dinner.

Dixon rang the bell. Within seconds, the large walnut door swung open.

“Good timing. Just got in a couple minutes ago.” He extended a hand. “Ian Wirth. Come on in.”

Wirth was a shade over six feet with small clear-rimmed glasses and a full head of close-cropped light brown hair. He turned and led the way along the dark wood floor into a paneled library. There was an ornate mahogany desk at the far end of the rectangular room and a smaller matching meeting table nearest the door. He motioned them to pristine glove leather seats. A pitcher of water and a pot of hot coffee sat in the middle of the counter behind them.

“Java?” Wirth asked.

“Sure,” Dixon said. She eyed the freshly brewed coffee and said, “I thought you just got home.”

“I called my housekeeper and had her take care of it before she left.”

While Wirth poured the cups, Vail noticed a large, framed sepia photo hanging behind the desk. “Grandfather?” Vail asked.

Wirth swung his head around, then turned back, a smile broadening his face. “Great grandfather. Józef Wirth. That photo was taken in Bialystok, Poland, sometime around 1725. My grandmother told me that the genealogist who worked on our family history discovered that there were seven families that migrated in a group from Poland in the 1800s. There were others who decided to stay, and they were eventually swept up in the Nazi roundup in 1938. I’ve got a whole book if you want—”

Vail held up a hand. “Not that I don’t find it interesting, Mr. Wirth, but—”

“Please, call me Ian.”

“Ian,” Vail said. “We’ve had a long day”—make that a long week—“and we just have a few questions to ask you. If you don’t mind.”

Wirth dipped his chin. “Of course.” He removed a creamer from the counter and placed it on the table. “You said you had questions about the Georges Valley board.”

Dixon dumped some milk into her mug and stirred it. “We spoke earlier with Crystal and she told us about Superior Mobile Bottling. The vote that turned a little contentious.”

Wirth bobbed his head. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“How would you put it?” Vail asked.

Wirth lifted his coffee, warmed his hands on its sides. “We’ve had some issues lately on the board. I’m really not supposed to talk about this—”

“The confidentiality agreement,” Vail said. “Crystal told us about it. It’s okay. We’re not taking notes. We’re not going to share any trade secrets. We just want some background for our investigation.”

“And what investigation is that?”

Dixon blew on her coffee. “Can’t say. But it’s got nothing to do with wrongdoing on the part of the board or its members. In fact, I doubt it has anything to do with the AVA at all. But we need some background. As Crystal put it, we’re fishing.”

“Just curious,” Wirth said. “What’d you think of her?”

Vail hiked her brows. “Crystal? Nice lady. Very interesting.” Great body. She should be shot.

“She’s my ex-wife. Did she tell you that?”

Vail didn’t know what to say.

“No,” Dixon said, “she didn’t mention it.”

Wirth sat there a moment, lost in thought. Then he shook his head. “Sorry.” Smiled, then nodded at the seat Dixon was occupying. “That was her favorite chair.”

“Right,” Dixon said.

“Don’t worry, it won’t color my answers. What do you need to know?”

“The acrimony on the board.”

“Ah, yes. Well, Crystal probably told you all about the controversy Victoria was stirring.”

“Controversy?” Vail asked. She felt a buzz on her belt. She stole a look at the display. Robby had texted her back:

call me when ur done. i’ll pick a place and text u the address.

“Victoria was the most vocal opponent of using Superior. She was also an aggressive power broker. She was due to take over the presidency, as part of our board’s three-year rotation. She was leading a group of three board members who wanted concessions from the other members of the AVA and they were using this Superior contract as leverage.”

Dixon took a sip of her coffee. “Leverage for what?”

“She and her cohorts would agree to renew Superior’s contract—if the board supported their efforts to convince the government to modify the proposed AVA law that sets forth the minimum grape requirement for our AVA standard.”

Vail held up a hand. “Kevin Cameron told us something about this. The minimum requirement refers to that 85 percent rule?”

“Yes. The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau requires that a minimum of 85 percent of the grapes used in wines that are listed as coming from our AVA have to be from the Georges Valley district.”

“Your minimum is 85 percent,” Vail said, “but Napa’s is 75 percent?”

“Correct.”

“And the purpose is to protect consumers?”

“Well, yes—but it also supposedly protects the Georges Valley brand, because people who buy a Georges Valley wine expect a certain quality that comes from the area’s soil, microclimate, and weather patterns.

“But,” Wirth continued, “there are three higher volume vintners in our group—including me and Victoria Cameron—who want to be excluded from that minimum requirement because our brands existed well before the law was passed. But if they enforce the minimum, our brand, Georges Valley Estate Wines, Victoria’s brand, F&M Georges Valley Family Winery, and one other, Georges Valley Reserve Select, would disappear overnight. Our business models are based on importing quality, but less expensive, grapes from the central valley.”

“But there are no Georges Valley grapes in your wine,” Vail said.

“That’s correct. We couldn’t charge what we charge for our wine and use predominantly Georges Valley grapes.”

Vail set down her mug. “Isn’t that misleading?”

“That’s their argument. Our position is that our brands have been around for twenty years, well before this minimum grape law was proposed. It’s unfair to penalize us—put us out of business by losing our brands—because of an administrative issue that some people have pushed through politically.”

Dixon blew on her coffee. “Why would the government allow that kind of exclusion?”

Wirth shook his head, then held up a hand. “Exclusion isn’t exactly the right term. We want our brands grandfathered in. But if our association doesn’t endorse their application, the government probably wouldn’t want to get involved in our own internal dispute.”

“So,” Vail said, “Victoria was trying to broker a deal in which she and her allies would ratify the Superior Bottling contract, and in turn, the AVA board would endorse the grandfather clause. And what’s in it for the other members who don’t have a stake in this grandfather clause?”

Wirth spread his hands. “They want Superior to get the contract. We’ve been using them for almost three years and they’ve done a good job. They turn out a quality product, they’ve got the best pricing on the market, and they’re a one-stop shop.”

As Vail reached for her coffee, her stomach rumbled. “Sorry.” She threw a hand against her belly. “We haven’t eaten.”

“And we’ve taken enough of your time,” Dixon said. She pulled a card from her pocket and placed it on the table. “If you think of anything else about what we discussed, give me a call.”

Wirth took the card and looked at it. Vail sensed there was more he wanted to say. “Is there something else, Ian?”

“You can’t tell me what the investigation is about, but you’re asking a lot of questions. Questions that, when I put them together with the fact that Victoria is dead, lead me to think that you believe she was murdered.”

“She had a stroke,” Dixon said.

Wirth pursed his lips and nodded. Kept his gaze on the card. “My father was a cop, did you know that?”

Dixon and Vail shared a look. Vail had a feeling she knew where this was going. We may have to come clean with this guy. He sees through this. And if we can convince him it’s in everyone’s best interest to keep it quiet, it might be better than if he were to talk to others about his assumptions . . . or worse yet, start investigating her death himself.

“If the cause of death was not a stroke,” Vail said carefully, “would that change what you’ve told us?”

“No,” Wirth said. “See, I grew up with a father who was a cop, then a detective. In Sacramento. I spent a lot of time with him, I learned how he thought, how he saw people. How he saw the world.” He looked at Vail. “I know to be straight with cops when they come asking questions.”

“Good,” Dixon said. “That’s always best.” She tapped her card with a finger. “Call me if you think of anything else that may be related to Victoria’s stroke.”

They stood from their chairs. “But if you have a theory on Victoria’s death,” Vail said, “I think it’d be best for all concerned if you kept it to yourself.” She looked hard into his eyes.

“You were never here,” Wirth said.

Vail nodded, shook his hand, and left with Dixon.

FORTY-ONE

“Was that smart?” Dixon asked as she pulled out of his driveway.

“A guy like that, if we confide in him, he may confide in us. He understands what we’re trying to accomplish. He may not be a LEO, but he grew up with one. I think he’s an ally. We may now have a set of eyes in the enemy camp.”

As Dixon headed down 29, Vail coordinated dinner plans with Robby. Dixon dropped her at Bistro Jeanty, advertised as “serving classic French haute cuisine” in Yountville, a pleasant town just off the main drag. With art galleries, gift shops, specialty restaurants, bed-and-breakfasts and modest homes, the area was its own little haven sporting an eclectic mix of young newlyweds and middle-aged empty nesters on a weekend getaway.

Vail settled down at a table with her back against the wall, facing the entrance of the restaurant. The place was still busy, despite the late hour. A few moments later, Robby appeared in the front door. His eyes scanned the tables, found Vail, and his face broadened into a wide smile.

He swung his hips through the narrow spaces between tables. He was wearing a long leather jacket, which, once he reached Vail, was slipped off his shoulders by a hostess who offered to hang it for him nearby.

Vail and Robby embraced and he gave her a kiss. His lips were warm.

“When did you get that jacket?”

“When I got us a new wardrobe, at the outlets. I saw it and said, what the hell, I’m on vacation.” He settled into the chair and spread the white napkin across his lap. “This place okay?”

“Looks great.”

They gave the waitress their dinner choices, then ordered wine—Whitehall Lane Cabernet for Vail and Rombauer Fiddletown Zinfandel for Robby.

After the woman collected the menus, Vail reached across the table and took Robby’s hand. “So what’d you do today?”

“What I’ve been doing every day. Visit a winery, taste, have lunch, drive down the road and taste some more. Today I went into Healdsburg. Beautiful drive.” He stopped and looked into her eyes. “Wish I was doing all this with you. I feel bad you’re stuck working.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m just doing my thing, trying to find another killer.” She looked down at the table. “Except . . . I’m not—this one is different. I just can’t get a handle on him. This offender is . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem right. It’s beginning to really bother me.”

She recapped what they knew, and what they had learned about the potential monetary motives. As she finished, the wine glasses were set down in front of them. Robby took a drink from his Rombauer Zin, then nodded his approval. “This is really, really good. Try it.”

Vail took the glass from him, swirled it, then sniffed. “Pleasing nose. Berry jam, I think.” She tasted it, letting it drift over her tongue. Her eyes widened. “Yes, very good.” She thought a moment, then said, “I’d describe it as fruit forward with sweet blackberries. And currants, too.” She handed the glass back to him. “That’s fabulous.”

Robby eyed her. “For someone who’s missed out on a vacation of wine tasting, you seem to have the lingo down.”

“I squeezed in some tasting here and there with Roxxann. While we were out investigating, of course.”

Robby grinned. “Of course.”

Their server, accompanied by an assistant, slid their dinner plates in front of them. “Is there anything else we can get for you?”

“We’re fine,” Robby said. “Thanks.” After the servers turned and left, Robby cut into his côte de porc—pork chop with caramelized onion sauce. “So, this case. Seems to me you’re still missing some information. Maybe you need to dig a little more. Maybe one of the victims that doesn’t seem to be connected to the AVA board is, in fact, connected somehow. A silent partner, someone pulling the strings behind the scenes.” He dabbed at his mouth with the napkin. “Bottom line is, don’t press. You may not be as far from the answers as you think. When you find the missing information, things will quickly fall into place.”

Vail looked down at her wild mushroom pasta. “That’s always the case, though, isn’t it?” She shook her head. “This just feels different. I can’t put a finger on it.” Vail stuck her fork into the pasta and twirled it. “I’d better figure it out soon. Gifford’s sending me home tomorrow night.”

Robby sat back in mid-chew. “When were you going to tell me?”

“I—I guess I forgot. I’ve been kind of busy.”

“What are you going to do?”

Vail shrugged. “Haven’t thought that far. But just because he says I have to leave doesn’t mean I have to. We still have some vacation left.”

“Karen, be honest with yourself. If you’re still here, do you really think you can divorce yourself from this investigation and go driving around wine tasting and sightseeing with me?”

Vail chewed her food and swallowed before answering. In a low voice, she said, “No.”

Robby winked at her, then cut another slice of meat.

THE WAITRESS BROUGHT dessert menus and set them on the table. Robby caught her before she left. “I think we’re going to get something to go.”

“We are?” Vail said.

Robby nodded. “Yes, we are.” To the waitress, he said, “We’ll have the Montbriac. And the check.”

Vail looked at the menu for an explanation: Creamy bleu cheese from the Auvergne region, served with a sundried fruit compote.

Robby handed the waitress his credit card. “Okay?” he asked Vail as the waitress collected the menus.

“Yeah, sure.”

Robby leaned forward and took her hand. “Do you trust me?”

Vail’s body tingled at the warmth of his touch. “Always.”

FORTY-TWO

Robby stopped at the door to their room. Key in hand, he turned and said, “Wait here.”

“Wait? For what?”

“You said you trusted me.”

“I do.”

Robby tilted his head. “Then wait here.” He slid the key into the lock, slipped into the room, and shut the door.

Vail stood there, hands on hips. What the hell is he up to? She grabbed the knob, then withdrew her hand. In the next instant, the door pulled open. A dozen candles flickered around the room’s periphery. They shimmered at the swoosh of air as Robby swung the door closed.

“What’s this?” Vail asked.

“I think it’s our room. Or did I take the wrong key?”

She gave him a mock punch in the shoulder. “I mean—”

“I know what you mean.” He opened the bag containing the dessert and set it out on the table. “You’ve been working hard and haven’t really had any time to just relax, clear your mind.”

“The massage and mud bath—”

“Shhh,” he said, then placed his fingers over her mouth. He removed her jacket and tossed it on the floor. Then he removed her blouse and carried her over to the bed.

The low-level, flickering yellow light from the candles provided barely enough illumination for her to see. He joined her on the bed, took the plastic spoon, and dipped it into the creamy cheese. Slathered it on her stomach . . . followed by the fruit compote, which he drizzled on top.

She giggled.

“You don’t mind if I eat first, do you?”

She closed her eyes and relaxed . . . for the first time in days. “No, I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all.”

FORTY-THREE

The morning came and Robby was lying on top of her—or, just about. They had fallen asleep, the candles had burnt out hours ago, and they hadn’t moved all night.

The room’s clock radio was on—probably set by the prior guest—and it was a good thing. She had not been in the state of mind to fiddle with it when she got into bed last night.

Vail gently rolled Robby over, slid off the bed, and shut the alarm. She would let him sleep in. She showered and dressed, gave Robby a kiss, and he stirred.

“I’ve gotta go. Roxxann is picking me up.”

“See you tonight.”

She winked. “Yes, you will.”

VAIL CLIMBED INTO DIXON’S CAR. Dixon shoved her key into the ignition and turned over the engine. “You know,” Dixon said, “it’s been kind of fun working with you on this case. That sounds bizarrely morose, but when this case is over, I’m going to miss partnering with you.”

“I feel the same way. But there’s something I forgot to tell you. My boss, he wanted me to come home tonight.”

Dixon, who had started backing out of her garage, stepped on the brake. “You—”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m not going. I’ve got the time. I’m still on vacation. I just won’t officially work the case. If push comes to shove, I’ll just be an observer following you around. Okay?”

“Works for me.” Dixon continued backing out, then headed toward 29. “So your boss. You gonna catch heat for this?”

“No doubt about it,” Vail said. “But I’ve had hotter.”

“You’ve . . . what? That doesn’t make sense.”

A few seconds passed. Vail giggled.

Dixon looked over at her. “You okay?”

“I’ve had hotter,” she repeated. “Last night, with Robby. Oh, my god. You wouldn’t believe—”

“You trying to make me jealous?”

“Sorry.” Vail tried to wipe the grin from her face—but Dixon started to laugh, and then they both lost it. Five days of pent-up stress tumbled out in a tsunami of laughter.

Vail rested her forehead on the dashboard as her body convulsed—and then she began coughing. As she fought for breath, Dixon’s phone began ringing.

Dixon cleared her throat to steady her voice, motioned to Vail to be quiet, then pressed the Bluetooth speaker to answer the call. “Dixon.”

“Investigator Dixon, this is Ian Wirth. You told me to call if I thought of something else.”

Vail and Dixon glanced at one another. Vail had to look away to avoid another laughing—and coughing—spasm.

“Absolutely.”

“Can I meet you somewhere? I’d rather talk in person.”

“How about at the sheriff’s department? Do you know where that is?”

“I do. I can be there in fifteen.”

VAIL AND DIXON ARRIVED a few minutes after Wirth, who was already inside, at the second floor rotunda, in front of the glass reception counter.

“Follow us,” Dixon said. She swiped her prox card, then pulled open the thick wood door. Dixon led the way to the break room, where Agbayani and Lugo were seated at a round table sipping cups of coffee.

Dixon nodded at them, then made introductions. “These detectives are on the task force, Ian. They can hear anything you have to say.”

He scanned their faces. “Are you sure?”

Dixon placed a hand on Wirth’s shoulder. “You’re comfortable with law enforcement. I trust these guys with my life.”

Wirth thought a moment, then took a seat. Dixon and Vail followed, filling out all the chairs at the table.

“Thanks for coming down, for calling us,” Vail said.

Wirth glanced again at Lugo and Agbayani, then said, in a low voice, “Isaac Jenkins was talking with an attorney. I don’t know if that’s relevant or not, but I just thought you should know.”

Vail and Dixon both leaned forward. “Isaac Jenkins?” Vail asked.

“Isaac Jenkins,” Lugo said. “He was the male vic—” He stopped himself and looked at Dixon.

“Was?” Wirth looked from Lugo to Dixon to Vail. “Is he dead? Another stroke?”

Vail ignored the question. “How do you know Isaac?”

“Isaac’s with Todd Nicholson. His partner.”

“His partner. In business?”

“Isaac and Todd are a . . . couple. But yes, they’re partners in business, too.”

Vail felt perspiration sprout across her forehead. They were onto something. Just like Robby said last night . . . a connection we weren’t aware of.

“What business?” Dixon asked.

“Isaac’s the main investor in Georges Valley Reserve Select Wines. Todd’s very . . . agreeable. Isaac’s really the driving force behind Todd.”

Vail rubbed her forehead. “Okay, I’m not clear on a few things. Todd was against Superior getting the contract, right?”

“It was more that Isaac was against it. Todd voted the way Isaac wanted.”

“Why—wasn’t it Todd’s winery, too?”

“Todd loves the process, the challenge of growing quality grapes and turning them into reasonably priced, well-respected wine. That’s why he’s such a good winemaker. But he doesn’t know anything about running a business. Isaac didn’t really care about wine. I mean, he likes it, but he’d just as soon buy it than grow it. But it was Todd’s dream, so Isaac, who’s independently wealthy, bankrolled it. And he couldn’t let Todd run the business, he’d drive it into the ground. So that was their arrangement. Todd knew how to make great wine. Isaac knew how to run a great business.”

“Would you excuse us for a minute?” Dixon asked Wirth.

He nodded and Agbayani, Lugo, Vail, and Dixon walked into the hallway.

“This info’s a game changer,” Agbayani said. “We now have three people on this winery board who were against Superior getting this contract renewal. Two of the three end up dead. Although it doesn’t explain the fact that our male vic, Isaac Jenkins, wasn’t on the board.”

Dixon shook her head. “Even though Todd Nicholson was the board member, it might as well have been Isaac Jenkins, because the person who was really calling the shots was Jenkins. So the killer knew this somehow and got rid of Jenkins to clear the way for Superior to get the contract.”

“Whoa,” Vail said, holding up a hand. “You’re jumping to conclusions. We don’t know that.”

“It does look kind of obvious,” Dixon said.

Vail rubbed a hand across her mouth. “No. I mean, yes, it looks obvious. But something’s not right. Something isn’t adding up.”

“What’s the huddle about?”

It was Brix, walking down the hall.

Dixon angled away from the doorway. In a low voice, she said, “We’re discussing some new info we got from a witness.” She canted her head, indicating Wirth sitting in the break room.

Brix’s eyes flicked past her to their witness. “Well, let’s do it in the conference room. I’ve got a techie waiting for us who’s gonna go over texting stuff. I’ve been trying to get her in to talk to us, and she’s billing the department a hundred fifty an hour. So if you’re done with this guy, kick him loose and meet me in there.”

Dixon and Vail rejoined Wirth in the break room.

“Ian,” Dixon said, “we have a meeting we’ve got to get to. But you started to say something about Isaac hiring an attorney.”

“Yeah. I don’t know if it means anything, but he was looking at suing to get Crystal removed from the board.”

“Remove Crystal—why?”

“You’d have to ask him. But I got the sense Victoria was involved with the attorney, too.”

“The attorney’s name?”

Wirth pulled his Windows Mobile Phone from its holster and poked at the screen. He scrolled, poked again, and said, “Marc Benezra. Downtown Napa.”

Dixon wrote down the name. “Okay. Now listen to me, Ian.” She shoved the pad back into her jacket pocket, then looked up at Wirth. “We’re not sure what’s going on here, with your board, and the players involved in its business dealings. But something’s amiss. I can’t say any more. But you seem like a good guy. Keep a low profile for now. Don’t tell anyone you met with us. Don’t say anything to anyone. Okay?”

Wirth looked at Dixon out of the corner of his eye. “Should I be . . . concerned?”

“A little bit,” Vail said. “No one’s said anything to anyone about you specifically. But just . . . be careful.” She glanced at Dixon, then turned back to Wirth. “Ian, if we tell you something, do we have your word you won’t tell anyone? And I mean, anyone. No one.”

Wirth studied her face. His cheeks sprouted sweat. “I’m not sure I like the sound of this.”

“I can understand that,” Vail said. “I need you to summon those cop instincts you developed being around your father.”

He bit his bottom lip and spoke with it sandwiched between his teeth. “Okay.”

Vail leaned forward and held his gaze. “Remember we talked about Victoria’s stroke? Well, Isaac also had a stroke.”

Wirth’s mouth fell open. “Are you saying—”

“I’m saying he had a stroke,” Vail said. “Now, given that information, I want to reiterate that we have no direct information indicating you’re in danger . . . of also having one. Having said that, of the three people who opposed Superior’s contract renewal, two are now dead. Be aware of your surroundings. Be careful. If something doesn’t seem right, you call us. Okay?”

Wirth nodded without saying a word.

“Can we get him a uni to keep an eye on him?” Vail asked.

“I’ll have to ask. I don’t know if the sheriff will go for that.”

“I have private security,” Wirth said. “For the winery. Retired Secret Service. I’ll take care of it.”

Dixon called over to a deputy who was standing across the room at the coffee maker. “Greg, can you escort Mr. Wirth out?”

“Hang on to my number,” Dixon said. “Remember, call if you need anything. Anything.”

Wirth nodded uncertainly, then walked out with Greg.

“You’re worried about the guy,” Dixon said.

“His colleagues have been brutally murdered. And no one knows. The rest of them don’t even know to be careful, that someone might be targeting them. I think we may need to get them all together and level with them.”

“If we do, it’ll be all over the news. If we’re going to do that, let me find a way of using it to our advantage . . . as a way to catch this jerkoff.”

Vail watched as Wirth disappeared into the stairwell. “You’d better think of something fast.”

FORTY-FOUR

Before joining the others, Dixon got Marc Benezra’s phone number and explained to his assistant that they needed to meet with him today. The woman fit them into the attorney’s schedule for ten o’clock, one hour from now.

“We’re all set,” Dixon said.

Vail, a dozen feet down the hall, was tapping out a note to Jonathan. “Excellent. Can you tell Brix I’ll be right in? I’ve just gotta finish this email.”

“Roxxi, you got a minute?” It was Eddie Agbayani, coming down the hall.

Dixon turned. “What’s up?”

Agbayani stopped in front of her and shoved his hands in his rear pockets. He looked down at his feet.

Vail sensed the awkward tension and glanced up from her email.

“When this is over,” Agbayani said, “when we catch this guy, maybe we could have dinner. Talk. Just the two of us.”

Roxxann rubbed at her brow. “I don’t know, Eddie. Yes. Maybe . . .” She shook her head. “Let me think about it, okay?”

“Is that where we’re at? You have to think about whether we can sit down and talk?”

“Eddie, I can’t do this. Not now. Let me—yes. I’m sorry. You’re right, we should talk. As soon as we get some time, let’s have dinner.”

Vail shoved her BlackBerry in its holster, then pushed through the conference room door. The rest of the task force was there—Mann, Gordon, Lugo, and Brix. And a woman they hadn’t yet met; presumably, she was the person they were there to see.

A moment later, Dixon and Agbayani entered and took their seats.

Brix stood at the front of the room by the whiteboard. Their assignments were still laid out in colors. A few had lines through them, while others were encircled because they were still pending resolution. Unfortunately, there were more circles than lines.

In the fluorescent lighting, Brix’s sun-weathered, deeply lined face looked ashen. He resembled a man who was carrying the weight of several deaths on his shoulders—the unsolved murder of his boss’s son and the pressure of going public with the Crush Killer versus the impact of keeping it under wraps. And time was running out before the decision might be made for him. Once that happened, his stress would increase several fold as the media descended on him.

Vail felt the same pressure. Billed as the expert in solving this case—the serial killer tracker, the famed profiler who has helped break the most heinous of crimes—she was impotent to provide useful, hard information that would lead to the apprehension of this offender. Making matters worse, she could not get a handle on what she was missing. And she was undoubtedly missing something.

Brix cleared his throat. “I’ve asked Austin Mann and Burt Gordon to stay on with us a bit longer, even though their work on the arson is largely done. We can use the manpower, and I’d rather not bring in fresh bodies that have to get up to speed. Hopefully we’re closer to catching this UNSUB than we think.” He extended his right arm and indicated the visitor. She rose from her chair and walked to Brix’s side.

“This is Amanda Sinclair from AirCom Consulting. Amanda’s here to explain text messaging, and give us a handle on how we can track, and hopefully apprehend, the UNSUB next time he contacts Karen.” He moved toward his seat. “Amanda.”

The woman, early thirties with frosted brown hair, took the center stage. “I know you’ve all used text messaging, or what we in the industry call SMS, or Short Messaging System. We don’t think much about those little notes we send each other. But they can be useful in law enforcement if we know how to use them. And if the criminal doesn’t. I think it’s important for you to know what we can’t do, as well as what we can do.

“So here’s the crash course. And I’m leaving a lot out, so if you’ve got a question, don’t be afraid to ask.” She opened a file and set out some papers. “The texts that go through a wireless provider’s system are not viewed by the carrier. They don’t read them—they simply store the technical transmission information for varying periods of time. Very few carriers actually store the ‘text’ of text messages. The storage space required, multiplied by the billions of texts exchanged between users, is staggering.”

“How long do they keep this transmission information?” Lugo asked.

“Good question. The answer depends on the carrier. Basically, there are several different systems for storing message information. The two most common are CDR and SMS Center. In CDR, or Call Delivery Records, the information is stored for seven days. These CDRs list information such as the time stamp—year, month, day, hour, minute, second, character length—and a variety of other technical info. The International Mobile Subscriber Identity, or IMSI, is also stored; it’s like a thumbprint for the SIM card that houses all the phone’s user specific information. You all know what a SIM card is, right? It’s a little flash memory chip that fits into certain phones. You pull the card out of your old phone, slip it into a new one, and you’re ready to go, without having to reenter all your contacts and such. With me so far?”

“Go on,” Brix said.

“We also store the IMEI, or International Mobile Equipment Identity, a unique thumbprint for the exact phone equipment that’s used. But it’s got no permanent relationship to the individual subscriber. It’s mainly used to identify valid users of the network, so if the phone is stolen, the carrier can shut off that IMEI and the phone will be a useless hunk of metal and plastic.

“The other commonly used system is the SMS Center, which is the E.164 address that lets everyone know which carrier the SMS is originating from or terminating to, the phone number the message is being sent to, how the digits were dialed, and so on. Here’s an example.” She moved to the overhead projector, set one of her pages on top, and turned it on. A document that resembled an Excel spreadsheet was displayed. A bar at the top read, SMS Center Log Window.

Everyone studied the screen. Vail and Lugo were taking notes as Amanda oriented the task force members as to what they were seeing.

“Any questions?” she asked.

“You said there are other ways of storing messages,” Lugo said.

“Yes. Another common method is called SMSC, or Short Message Service Center. It shows where the messages originate and terminate from a carrier’s system. This info is kept for a period of time based on message capacity. Sometimes, if there’s a lot of messages, they’ll only have the data for a week. Other times they may be able to go back a month.”

Amanda slipped a different page onto the projector, showing a gray table with eleven columns aligned horizontally across the document. “The SMSC printout shows the millisecond messages are submitted from the handset and delivered out of the SMSC to the other carrier. It also shows the destination phone number. Now, it gets more complicated, because some carriers have third party vendors that send their intercarrier traffic for them.”

Agbayani pointed at the screen. “Can we use this to determine the location of a perp who’s transmitting a text message in real time?”

“Yes. If the carrier uses GSM technology, you can triangulate within a seven-to twenty-mile radius.”

“Miles?” Lugo tossed down his pen. “You’ve gotta be kidding.”

“Point is,” Brix said, “we can determine the type of phone used and where he may’ve bought it.”

“That might give us an idea as to where he lives or works,” Lugo said. “But what do we do, watch weeks of surveillance tapes—if the store even has security cameras? We don’t even know who we’re looking for.” He looked around at everyone in the room. “This ain’t gonna help.”

Gordon rocked forward in his seat. “I think we should plot the messages the asshole’s already sent to Vail and set it up so we’re monitoring her cell in real time. If and when this scumbag texts her again, we can at least triangulate on him.” He spread his thick hands. “Better than nothing.”

Amanda said, “Not to make things more difficult for you, but one thing you should be aware of is that the texts sent to Agent Vail’s phone were from different disposable, pre-paid phones.”

Mann slowly shook his head. “I think Ray’s right. Waste of time.”

Brix sighed. “Look, we do what we’ve gotta do. We use the tools available to us. Anyone got a better idea, now’s the time.”

Everyone looked at one another.

Dixon thanked Amanda for her assistance and dismissed her. She then recapped the information she and Vail had learned from Crystal Dahlia, Ian Wirth, and Robert Friedberg. “Karen’s still got a problem with the motive because it just doesn’t fit with how serial killers operate, their whole psychological makeup, and why they do what they do. But I think we should follow the course, see what we turn up.”

“We’re always learning and seeing new things,” Vail said. “So this offender could be a new breed, or just something we haven’t seen before. Right now, I wouldn’t discount anything. I wish I could offer more, but I’ve had a hard time putting it all together.”

“Let’s have you guys stay on it, dig deeper into the AVA board and its players,” Dixon said. “Karen and I have a follow-on appointment in half an hour with the attorney. We’ll keep you posted.”

Brix opened his notepad and flipped pages. “Last order of business. I’ve got something from the Special Investigations Bureau on the prosthesis request Karen had.” He shot a glance at Mann, then Vail, and continued: “This is preliminary stuff, but there were a total of a hundred-fifty-seven males with upper limb prosthetics. Only eleven in the age range Karen specified. Two were alibied, three were out of town and unreachable and the other six are being interviewed, or are scheduled to be interviewed. Just going by their sheets and backgrounds, it doesn’t look promising. But I told NSIB to ride it out. Questions?”

No one spoke.

“Okay, then. Keep at it. You find anything, let us all know.”

FORTY-FIVE

As Vail and Dixon descended the stairs of the sheriff’s department, Marc Benezra’s secretary phoned Dixon and moved their meeting to the nearby Artesa Winery, ten minutes down the road off Highway 12.

“You’re in for a real treat,” Dixon said. “Artesa has one of the more picturesque views of the valley. And judging by the weather and rainfall we had last month, you’re going to get an eyeful.”

Dixon took Highway 121, then turned left onto 12.

“Isn’t this the same way we went to Sonoma?”

“It is. But not nearly as far. We’re gonna turn off 12 in a few minutes, into the Carneros Region. Carneros is known for its Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. But Artesa is one of my favorite places to take guests when they come to visit. It’s like an art museum rolled into a winery.”

Dixon drove up the curving driveway and parked in the visitor’s lot. “We’re early. Let me take you the long way around, show you the view.”

As they walked along the path from the car, they came to a large circular pond with a fountain shaped like a short martini glass. Water cascaded over the edges and landed in the surrounding pool. Large, glistening, silver railroad-spike-shaped sculptures stood erect along its periphery.

“What are those things sticking up?” Vail asked.

“Hell if I know. They’re cool looking, that’s for sure.”

Beyond, the vineyard-blanketed rolling hills stretched for miles in all directions.

“Carneros,” Dixon said, holding a hand against her forehead to shield the sun. “And the Napa Valley. Off in the distance is San Francisco.”

Vail followed suit and brought up a hand as if ready to salute. “Stunning.”

Dixon tapped her on the shoulder. “The view gets better as we go up.” She led Vail up the four flights of cement stairs, which featured a trickling waterfall along its centermost rim. At the crest of the top step was a short landing and another flight of stairs. But just ahead was a cement bridge that featured an expansive pool on both sides, with water jets that shot bursts of narrow water streams at a 45 degree angle.

“Impressive,” Vail said, slowing to watch the water arc through the air.

In front of them was the winery—and their appointment with Marc Benezra. The building was completely enveloped by clumps of wild grasses, save for the glass-walled entrance and a large V-shaped windowed bay jutting out by the left side of the mound.

They walked through the doors and found a richly appointed wood entry with freestanding metal and blown-glass artwork. They moved past the gift shop into the tasting room, an irregularly shaped area sporting smooth columns and floor-to-ceiling windows. Seated at one of the small tables on the far side of the room was a dark-suited man. He rose and buttoned his coat.

They approached and introduced themselves. Benezra was a shade over six two, with horn-rimmed glasses and a sharp-featured face that was all business. “Thanks for switching our meeting place,” he said. “One of the employees here is a client I’m meeting at ten thirty, so this gave us more time to chat.”

Vail took a seat in one of the ultramodern wood and metal chairs. “No big deal. This is my first time here, and if we hadn’t met here, I probably wouldn’t have gotten the chance to see it.”

Benezra took his seat. “Quite the treat, isn’t it?”

Vail looked behind Benezra at the wall of glass and the view beyond.

“We’ve got some questions,” Dixon said. “About Isaac Jenkins and the lawsuit he and Victoria Cameron were discussing with you.”

Benezra’s face widened into a smile. “You must know I can’t talk about that without my client present.”

Dixon nodded, as if she agreed. But then she said, “Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your clients are dead.”

Benezra’s mouth dropped open ever so slightly. “When? How?”

“Very recently. As to how . . . we can’t say just yet. But their deaths are being kept quiet. For now. I’m going to have to ask you to respect that.”

Benezra’s eyes narrowed. “Why? What’s—” He stopped, revelation relaxing his facial muscles.

Vail nodded slowly. He had just put it together. Cops coming around to ask about two clients who are suddenly dead. She figured he had realized there were suspicious circumstances surrounding their deaths. And he’d be right.

“So,” Vail said, “I’d strongly suggest you help us. That’s all I can say.” Benezra still looked stunned by the news. “I still can’t discuss anything to do with Isaac’s business. Does Todd know?” He reached into his inside jacket pocket and removed his phone.

Dixon placed a hand on Benezra’s. “You can’t discuss this with Mr. Nicholson.”

“Excuse me, Ms. Dixon. Remove your hand.”

Dixon kept it there. “This is a very serious matter, Mr. Benezra. Lives are at stake. This is much larger than your deceased clients.”

Benezra sucked on the inside of his cheek, then nodded and dropped the phone back in his pocket. “I’m listening.”

“Actually,” Vail said, “we need to listen and you need to talk—”

“Agent Vail, I told you. I can’t—”

“Let’s do it another way. We’re going to tell you some things and you’re going to nod or shake your head. Don’t say a word.”

Benezra looked away. “This just isn’t right.”

“If I told you your life was in danger, would that change your attitude?”

The attorney’s head whipped back to Vail. They locked eyes. “Are you saying—”

“We need to be asking the questions. First one. You were discussing a lawsuit to remove Crystal Dahlia from the Georges Valley board.”

Benezra sat there a long moment, then nodded.

Vail continued. “You’d also been working with Victoria Cameron on the same issue.”

Benezra’s eyes wandered the room.

Vail rephrased: “You had some discussions with Victoria about this.”

Nod.

“Okay,” she said. “Did Victoria or Isaac say anything that might’ve led you to think they feared for their lives?”

Benezra shook his head.

“Were there any concerns about Superior Mobile Bottling, that maybe they were doing something illegal?”

Another shake.

Vail sighed and looked at Dixon. “Anything you want to ask?”

Benezra leaned forward. “Agent Vail, you’re in the wrong forest. You understand what I’m saying?”

“I do. But I really need you to talk. We need to know what you know. I respect your legal responsibilities. But we’re up against the wall here. We’re trying to save lives. I promise you we won’t disclose where we got this info. We’re not interested in building a case against a suspect. We’re just trying to catch a—a very dangerous person. Before someone else gets hurt. But we just need some answers. Tell us what you know.”

Benezra sat back, then rubbed his face with both hands. A moment later, he said, “Let’s go outside, take a little walk.”

They rose from their chairs and pushed through the nearby glass door, which spilled out onto a long patio with multiple round aluminum tables and matching seats. The vista was clear and the hills rolled on for miles into the distance. A small, blue body of water was visible less than a mile way.

Benezra walked a dozen feet, then stopped and leaned his forearms atop the metal railing. Dixon and Vail did likewise. “I’m not telling you this. Right?”

“Right,” Dixon said.

Benezra nodded slowly, then said, “Isaac and Victoria were very upset because of the AVA issue. You know about it?”

“The 85 percent minimum?” Vail asked.

“Apparently, someone from Congressman Church’s office was involved. He was speaking in favor of the other members of the AVA board, trying to influence the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Trade Bureau. The TTB. Familiar with it?”

“Yeah, it’s come up before.”

“Well, it was improper, to say the least, for the congressman’s office to take sides. It had nothing to do, really, with his district. No reason for him to come down on either side of the issue unless he was politically motivated to do so.”

Vail felt a pang of disappointment. While there could be the seeds of something underhanded—or merely politics as usual—it wasn’t the smoking gun for which they were hoping.

“Interesting,” Dixon said.

But Vail sensed the same emotion in Dixon’s voice that she was feeling herself. Interesting, but not relevant.

“No,” Benezra said. “What’s interesting is what my PI found out. I hired an investigator to look into it. It just smelled foul. I mean, yeah, could’ve just been political horse-trading, but Victoria and Isaac were convinced something wasn’t right. And what my guy discovered was worse than what they’d envisioned.” He stopped, ran a hand across his forehead. “If I tell you what we found, everyone will know it came from me. I really can’t—I need to talk with Todd.”

Dixon pushed away from the railing. “Call him. Keep it short. Just tell him I’m investigating something regarding one of the congressman’s advisors and I’m offering to exchange some information that you think’ll be beneficial to your efforts. That’s all true.”

Benezra dug out his phone. He dialed, spoke with Nicholson, and did as Dixon instructed. He slid the phone back in his jacket. “He trusts me to do the right thing. Am I doing the right thing, Ms. Dixon?”

Dixon locked eyes with Benezra. “If you only knew.”

Benezra sighed deeply. “My PI found payoffs to Timothy Nance, Church’s District Director, in a private account. Two payments of twenty-five grand apiece. We think they came from Crystal Dahlia, which would make sense, but we’re not sure. And it seems the fifty grand was shipped out of the account a couple days later.”

“To where?”

“Don’t know. My PI hasn’t finished digging. It’s . . . sensitive work. We have to be very careful. But it looks like Nance was taking a bribe to influence government legislation regarding the minimum grape requirement for the AVA.”

Vail held up a hand. “Hang on a second. I’m not sure we can reach that conclusion. Those are pretty serious charges. Taking bribes, influence peddling. Corruption, graft.”

Benezra looked away. “Congressman Church is close friends with the director of the Regulations and Ruling Division of the TTB. And they administer AVA designations. Does that change your opinion?”

Vail raised her brow. Yeah, that’d change mine.

“Kind of strange for a man who’s thinking of running for governor to do something like this,” Dixon said.

“Governor?” Benezra asked. “That’s news to me.”

“How deeply involved is Church in all this?” Vail asked.

Benezra shrugged. “I couldn’t say Church is involved in any of this. Nance may’ve simply taken the money with the intent of convincing the congressman to talk with his buddy at the TTB. I wouldn’t be surprised if Church has no idea what Nance is doing.” He turned to face Dixon. “Can I trust you, Ms. Dixon?”

Dixon shoved her hands into her pockets. “I think you already have.”

Benezra nodded. “Fair enough.” He studied Dixon’s face, then said, “One of your law enforcement colleagues also appears to be involved.”

“Who?”

“Scott Fuller.”

“Involved, as in the AVA issue, the bribery?”

“His name came up, more than once. But I’ll leave it to you to look into it further. Fuller wasn’t the big fish, so I told my PI to first concentrate on Nance and Church.” Benezra tipped his chin back. “Now . . . the info you had to exchange?”

“Off the record,” Dixon said. “And not for publication. Fuller, along with a guy named Walton Silva and Nance, were involved in an arson plot. Fuller’s dead. Silva’s in custody. Nance is implicated, but free. I’m not sure that helps you much.”

Benezra considered that a moment. “I think it tells me this might be larger than we’d thought. We need to seriously consider turning this over to the Feds to investigate. Let them sort it out.” Benezra looked down at his watch. “I have to go, my ten thirty.”

Dixon extended a hand. “Thank you. This won’t go beyond us. From our end, anyway, we’ll keep you out of it. If you share this stuff with the Feds—and I do recommend you do that—they’ll obviously want to see everything you’ve got.”

Benezra nodded, bid them good luck, then walked back through the glass door.

VAIL AND DIXON headed to the sheriff’s department in silence, both working through the information Marc Benezra had given them.

“I kind of liked the guy,” Vail finally said. “He didn’t have to tell us shit.”

“Yeah, and what he did tell us . . . it kind of puts things in a different light. I’m now wondering about that arson. Silva and Nance lied to us.”

“If you were taking bribes, would you tell the police? Either that or Silva was kept in the dark and Nance and Fuller kept the money for themselves, figuring the promise about getting a post in a governor’s administration was enough for Silva.”

Dixon cocked her head. “Yeah, but that’s playing with fire. If Silva finds out they were taking money and not sharing it, he could get pissed and start talking.”

“Playing with fire?”

Dixon winced. “No pun intended.”

Vail shook her head. “I don’t think he’d start talking—not only would he blow his chance at a major career boost, anything he’d say would implicate himself. And for what? It wasn’t that much money, especially split three ways.”

Dixon tapped her fingers on the dash beyond the steering wheel. “People have killed for a lot less.”

“The jewel in this ring was the position they’d get in the governor’s administration.”

Dixon nodded. “Okay.”

“So,” Vail said, “let’s back up. Nance and Fuller are concerned with my determination to go public with a serial killer on the loose in Napa. It brings in the media. More Feds. More scrutiny. And that’s clearly something they wouldn’t want because it’d jeopardize their future careers. Not to mention the nice payoffs on the side.”

Dixon slid the car into a spot outside the sheriff’s department. “There might’ve been more money on its way. Could it be the stakes were even higher than we know? Maybe Benezra’s PI only uncovered one root of the tree. This may go deeper and farther.”

“Sometimes a hammer is just a hammer, Roxxann.”

“Either way, it still doesn’t get us closer to the Crush Killer. Unless that tree is freaking huge, and we’re missing more than we realize.”

Vail got that stab in the gut again. “I think that’s what’s been bothering me.”

FORTY-SIX

The rest of the task force was still in the conference room, making phone calls and tossing around theories. Coffee cups and crumpled lumps of paper littered the table. When Vail and Dixon relayed what they had just learned, they all leaned back in their chairs to digest it.

“Just when I think we’re on the right track,” Brix said, “something gets tossed into the mix that makes us rethink everything.”

“You guys come up with anything on Superior Bottling?” Dixon asked.

“Record’s clean,” Lugo said. “None of their employees have ever had any brushes with the law. No complaints with the Better Business Bureau.” He looked down at the pad in front of him. “Chamber of Commerce thinks they’re model corporate citizens. I checked with a bunch of my winery contacts—from growers to vintners—at Oakville Winegrowers Association, Rutherford Dust Society, Stag’s Leap Wine-grower’s Association, Oak Knoll Winegrowers . . . bottom line is, no one had anything bad to say about them.”

“What you’re saying is you didn’t pick up any dirt on the grapevine,” Vail said.

Dixon smirked. “That was bad.”

“And,” Mann said, ignoring Vail’s pun, “I checked with my TTB office. No federal violations on record.”

“Fine,” Dixon said. “Then let’s focus on what’s most likely to give us something.”

“I think we should at least go there, talk with them,” Vail said. “Shake the tree.”

“I agree,” Brix said. He walked to the front of the room and dug through some papers. Pulled out a page and handed it to Dixon. “Here’s some background on César Guevara. But there’s something you gotta know. Silver Ridge uses them. So if you want me to hang back—”

“Why would you hang back?” Mann asked.

Brix put his hands on his hips. “All right, listen up. For those of you who don’t know, I’m a silent partner in Silver Ridge. My brother handles all of its business operations. I have no say in any of it—nor do I want to. For this very reason. Keeps things clean and simple. This hasn’t substantively affected Victoria Cameron’s investigation. Has it, Roxx?”

“No.”

“Anyone got any questions or concerns? Now’s the time.”

No one responded.

“Do you know anyone there?” Dixon asked.

“No, I don’t know anyone there, and no one there knows me. But they’d recognize my last name.”

Vail shook her head. “I think you should stay out of it.”

Dixon bent forward, resting both hands on the table. “But your knowledge could be useful.”

“Look,” Brix said. “I’ve got a lot going on here. Ray’s been as entrenched in the region as I’ve been. He practically grew up on a vineyard and is well versed in all aspects of wine production. Take Ray and you get the benefit of having an insider without the baggage I bring to the table.”

Dixon turned to Lugo. “How about it, Ray?”

Lugo appeared to be shrinking into his seat. “I’ve got a lot to do here, Roxx. I really should stay behind—”

“We won’t be long,” Dixon said. “It’s only a few minutes from here. C’mon.”

Dixon pulled on the door and held it open. Vail walked through and looked back to see Lugo reluctantly pulling himself from his chair.

SUPERIOR MOBILE BOTTLING operated out of a large warehouse in an industrial area of American Canyon, a few miles south of the sheriff’s department. Vail and Dixon left Lugo in the car and walked up to the concrete tilt-up building that featured an oversize gold crest above its entrance, emblazoned with a large seriffed S in the middle, sandwiched between a smaller M and B.

Dixon had decided on a straightforward, direct approach. If Guevara ducked them, they would leave and Lugo would then come in under the guise of a vintner inquiring about their bottling services and fee structure.

Dixon pulled open the glass door and stepped into a small, well-appointed reception room. Tastefully decorated with high-resolution photos of grapes on the vine, it also included industry-specific pictures of buffed stainless steel machinery involved in the various production steps of mobile bottling.

A woman with platinum hair and a face that had seen its share of facelifts walked in through a side door. “I’m Sandra. How can I help you?”

“Roxxann Dixon, Napa County District Attorney’s office. This is my associate, Karen Vail. Is César Guevara available for a brief chat?”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“We were in the neighborhood and were hoping he could help us with a case we’re working on.”

“I’ll go see if Mr. Guevara can meet with you. He was out back doing some maintenance on one of the trailers—”

“Perfect,” Dixon said. “We’ll just go on back ourselves. If he’s in the middle of something mechanical, I’d rather not drag him away from his work. We just have a couple background questions. Around the side of the building?”

Sandra seemed a bit flustered. “I—yes, but I really should—”

“Thanks,” Dixon said.

Vail was already through the door and signaling Lugo with a tilt of her head. Lugo slowly climbed out of the car and joined them as they walked down the asphalt roadway that abutted the long building.

Lugo slowed his pace. “Why don’t I wait out here, have a look around the periphery?”

“We can look around after if we want,” Dixon said, motioning him along. “I think you’d be more valuable with us.”

“Or, I could talk with the front office personnel while you’re in with Guevara. Sometimes they’ll give you more than the main guy.”

“We met her,” Vail said. “I didn’t get the sense she knew anything important.” She gave Lugo a playful shove with her forearm. “You okay?”

Lugo swiveled to look over his shoulder. “Fine.”

“They probably park the rigs indoors,” Dixon said. “With the cost of that equipment, I’d imagine they don’t take any chances with someone hauling off their trailers.”

They walked briskly. Vail was sure Sandra had, by now, notified Guevara of their presence. Whether that mattered or not, she wasn’t sure. It depended on whether Superior had done anything wrong. And all indications were they had not—other than being at the center of a contentious political squabble among business partners.

Dixon, a stride ahead, turned back to Vail and Lugo. “Security cameras.” She indicated small surveillance devices mounted atop steel poles at various points in the lot. They were all aimed at the building.

A few feet ahead was a gray rollup garage door. It was in the up position, revealing three highly polished full-size semis parked alongside one another.

They walked in. A radio was playing music with a Latin beat. Vail knelt down and looked beneath the rigs. She saw two sets of feet a dozen yards away, one male and the other female.

Vail motioned to the others that Guevara was ahead, between the farthest two trailers. They turned left down the aisle between the trucks and saw a man of medium build, strong jaw and prominent forehead. He had a red flannel shirt on with the sleeves rolled up.

He turned to face them as they approached. Vail led the way, followed single file by Dixon and Lugo.

“Mr. Guevara?”

“Who wants to know?”

“I’m Karen Vail.” She held up her credentials. Dixon moved alongside Vail and displayed her badge, then thumbed the area behind her. “And this is Sergeant Ray Lugo, St. Helena PD.”

Guevara had a blue rag in his hands. His eyes narrowed as he moved his head to the side to see Lugo. “Is there a problem?” Guevara asked.

“We just have some questions,” Vail said. “We’re hoping you can shed some light on a few things for us.”

Guevara spread his hands. “Ask away.” His eye caught Lugo, and his gaze lingered there.

Vail turned to face Lugo, then swiveled back to Guevara. Something’s going on. Do they recognize each other from somewhere?

“Why don’t you tell us about your company.”

Guevara stole a look at his watch. “Superior is the leading mobile bottling company in California. We bottle mostly in the Napa Valley, Sonoma, Healdsburg, and Mendocino, but if the price is right, we’ll also do Contra Costa and El Dorado Counties. We’ve got eight rigs, all state of the art. Nobody comes close to the services we offer, the quality of work we do. And no one can match our prices. Simply put, we’re the best.”

Vail added it up. There’s a lot of money tied up in those trailers.

“Now, what did you really come here to ask?”

Dixon lifted her chin. “We’ve been talking with the board of directors for the Georges Valley AVA. We know about the disagreement over renewing your contract. How has your relationship been with the board?”

Guevara’s eyes flicked over to an area behind them. To Lugo. His gaze returned to Dixon and he shrugged. “No problems. We show up, we bottle, box, and offload. Bottle, box, offload. Same every year. They have lots of wineries. We work good with all of ’em.”

“Any problems with any of the board members?”