The Hunt Club

33

Tamara and Craig held their wineglasses up above eye level, intently peering into the half inch of red liquid. "What are we looking for?" Craig whispered.

"I don't know for sure," Tamara said. "Redness?"

"I see it."

There were three pourers-two men and a woman-at the Manion Cellars tasting room. All of them were young, knowledgeable, enthusiastic. The person who'd poured their wine was a twenty-something would-be matinee idol named Warren, and he waited expectantly for reactions among the dozen people at the bar in front of him before he continued with his spiel.

"First I'm sure you'll all notice the amazing clarity, a deep ruby with a just a hint of amber, or even brick, at the edges. That's natural with an older vintage such as this one, especially with the sangiovese. You'll see this a lot with old chiantis, which I'm sure you all know is the same grape. As you swirl, I think you'll pick up the highlights of the deeper ruby red that tends to characterize this varietal in its youth. And then, as the wine settles back into the bottom of the bowl, check out the incredibly beautiful legs…"

Craig backed a step away from the bar, stole a glance downward. "He's right about your legs," he whispered to Tamara, "but how can he see them from where he is?"

She elbowed him in the ribs, took a small sip, spit it out into the bucket provided, and put her glass down. Warren was rattling on about volatility and alcohol and structure and what to look for, what sensory information to register, when the wine passed the lips and the actual tasting began.

Tamara leaned over to Craig, spoke in her own stage whisper. "No offense, but give me a margarita any day."

"I hear you." Craig didn't even bother to taste this particular wine. He'd already tried sips from three or four other bottles, and the education hadn't had much impact on his initial reaction. He and Tamara didn't much care for the stuff. Either that or they just didn't get it. Who cared if the color was ruby or if it was more garnet? What difference did it make? Was color a flavor component? It all tasted pretty much the same to him, in spite of all this talk about forward fruit with a firm backbone of tannins, of cassis (whatever that was), and currant, perhaps with chocolate and tobacco and saddle-leather notes.

Tobacco? Saddle leather? As opposed to baseball-glove leather? Did Warren think people wanted to taste horse and cigar in what they drank?

Not Craig. Not Tamara. If they were drinking, pour something cold with a kick. If Craig wanted a citrus overtone, he'd suck a lime, thanks.

But this morning they had gotten Wyatt Hunt's urgent call and driven up here with him on his last chance, critical and perhaps even dangerous business, and under orders to draw no attention to themselves, they both feigned the kind of interest they were seeing all around them from their fellow tasters.

Warren was going on. "And now if you'd all like to leave your glasses here, the next part of the tour involves a bit of a climb up to our new caves, but I think you'll see it's worth it. We're incredibly excited about our storage capacity now, almost fifteen thousand barrels, about half-and-half new and old oak, which the limestone holds at a constant temperature and humidity which is the…"-blah and the blah, blah-"so if you'd all like to follow me." He led the way out the side of the tasting room and onto an uphill path that met a semi-paved road that swung right around the edge of the promontory and out of sight.

Their own path continued a bit farther uphill and took them, as promised, to the new caves, which, Craig had to admit, were impressive. Extending for seemingly hundreds of feet back into the solid white rock and lined to the high ceiling on both sides with barrel upon barrel of wine, the caves were a complex labyrinth cut into the core of the limestone hill.

And apparently it remained a work in progress. At regular intervals, unfinished wings fingered off into blackness. The four primary arteries-one leading in from each of the doors-terminated at a vast, dimly lit, double-wide main chamber that in the next few years would come to house a comprehensive wine museum named Fine Art of the Grape, which the Manions hoped would become a valley destination in its own right. Here also was a private dining area and even a stage for drama and musical productions-the acoustics, their guide assured them, were perfect.

Warren and fourteen of the sixteen visitors on this morning's tour gathered around the artist's rendering in the center of the chamber that indicated what the space would eventually look like when all the work was finished.

Two of the visitors disappeared into darkness.

"Manion Cellars. Can I help you?"

"Hi. This is Andy with the Oakville Grocery. Is this the kitchen?"

"No. I'm sorry. You got the tasting room, and we're jamming."

"Okay. Sorry to bother you. Would you mind connecting me to the kitchen, please?"

"I can't do that. This is the public line. We don't connect to the house."

"Perfect. You mind giving me that number?"

"Sorry again. I'm not supposed to give that out."

"Jeez. Who am I talking to?"

"Natasha."

"Well, look, Natasha, I got a problem. Carol Manion called here for something like sixty people coming by the house up there after the auction, and we've got her very expensive and rather particular order all together, but I need to talk to the kitchen to see what we've got to have completely cooked here and what you guys can handle up there. But this number here we're talking on; this is the number Carol gave us."

"I believe it. She is so distracted lately."

"Who isn't? It's nuts week here, too. Anyway, if we're not there on time and with everything cooked just so, the fallout from the explosion is going to render our lovely valley uninhabitable for the next two hundred years, and then where will you and I be? So could you please, just this once, give out the home number? I promise I'll burn it up, and then swallow the ashes twice as soon as I'm done with it."

Natasha gave a little chuckle. "Once ought to be enough, Andy. Hold on a sec. Okay, you ready?" She gave it to him.

"That was too easy," Mickey said. "It can't be that easy."

"Sometimes it is." Hunt wasn't in a joking mood. He had the Manions' phone number, and that's what he'd needed, and now he had his cell phone back at his ear, on with Juhle.

"What is this place?" Devin asked him. " Disneyland? The Epcot Center? I didn't know they made this many cars all told in history, and they're all here right now. I haven't moved a mile in fifteen minutes."

"Where are you now?"

"In traffic."

"I guessed that. You've got to get out of it. I just got word from Amy and Jason. Carol Manion all but admitted she made the call from the Saint Francis."

"What's that mean? All but admitted."

"Didn't deny. Amy mentioned it specifically."

"If that's true," Juhle said, "it may be our first real break."

"It might be," Hunt admitted. "But you've got to hustle. Carol and Ward are on their way home."

"They'll be in this parking lot, too."

"Yeah, but coming from the other direction, and maybe a lot faster. Where are you now?"

"On some freeway somewhere. Twenty-nine."

"Are you through the town of Napa?"

"I think so."

"Okay. You're going to make it. Take your next right."

"Any right? You don't even know where I am."

"You're north of Napa, I don't care. Take your first right, and every chance you get keep going right, toward those hills you see out your passenger window. Got it? The next big road you'll hit is the Silverado Trail, where you'll hang a left. I'm on it now, and the traffic's moving both directions. You'll see Quintessa Vineyards on your left-it's huge, you can't miss it, slow down. Manion Cellars is next on your left, but Mick's got his green Camaro parked on the right side of the road a few hundred feet up, and that's where you'll find us. You shouldn't be another ten, fifteen minutes, which ought to do it."

"Do what?"

"Get you here before they get home."

"And why is that important?"

"Maybe it isn't. But since you wanted to talk to her anyway, humor me, all right? I'm delivering her to you. Maybe badly shaken up and maybe ready to break."

"In spite of your promise that you weren't going to talk to her."

"I never did."

"But you got her shaken up. How did that happen?"

"Magic. I'll tell you the secret later, but for now, your job is to drive, okay? I know you're a cop and it flies in the face of your every belief, but speed if you have to."

"Fat chance," Juhle said.

Juhle drove up the winding driveway, past the "Open to the Public" tasting room and its parking area and continued uphill until he stopped and pushed the button on the box by the wrought-iron gate that straddled the private road. Identifying himself as a police inspector with the San Francisco homicide detail, he waited another five minutes or so until a young man in a dark suit appeared, let himself out of the compound area through another gate in the fence, and came to Juhle's driver's window to verify the credentials.

"But I'm afraid you may have driven up here for nothing. They're not home right now."

"That's all right. I'll wait if you don't mind."

"It might be a while. They're down at the auction."

"What auction?"

"Auction Napa Valley."

"Sorry. I don't know it."

The guy didn't know if he believed Juhle, but he said, "Well, it's a big event up here, and it's been known to go late, with parties afterward."

"Are you telling me you're not letting me come up?"

Long pause. "Sir, you can come up the drive, but I can't let you into the house without explicit instructions from the Manions."

Flashing a smile, Juhle nodded. "Thanks, then. I'll take my chances."

The security guard punched a code into the box, the gate opened, and Juhle drove through. The road climbed steeply for fifty feet and then forked immediately as it leveled slightly, one lane going off to the right, winding through vines, before it disappeared around the side of the promontory. Juhle waited at the fork until the man who'd let him through got to the car. "You want a lift to the top?"

"Sure, thanks. It's farther than it looks from the road."

"Left or right."

"Left."

They drove in silence over another rise, dipped to the right in front of the new caves with their impressively carved heavy oaken doors, climbed a last time and leveled off on a large, gravel-strewn circular parking area with a working fountain in the center and bounded by olive trees in front of the ornate structure of the château itself. Juhle passed two parked dark SUVs and an old Honda Civic and continued around the circumference until he caught up with some shade and stopped within it, telling his passenger that he'd wait in the car.

"It really could be some time."

"If I get stir-crazy, I'll walk around. How's that?"

"Your call, sir, but please don't leave this area in the front of the house." He walked around the car and paused by Juhle's window. "Excuse me, but it just occurred to me. You're with homicide? Is this bad news? I mean, for the family? I do have a number to reach them, but only in an absolute emergency."

"Just routine." Juhle offered nothing else.

After a second or two, the young man shrugged and walked away.

Juhle sat in the car with the window down for a short while, enjoying the warmth and the sunshine. From his vantage point up here, he could see for miles in both directions up and down the valley. The green of the budding vines against the reddish soil, the jagged peaks studded with granite on the eastern slope, the cerulean cloudless sky with a lone turkey vulture circling in a thermal. It was a stunning panorama.

Closer in, he noticed that while the traffic wasn't exactly thin on the Silverado Trail below him, it was moving. If Hunt was correct in his assumptions-and he had been so far-Carol and Ward wouldn't be long.

It eventually got too hot in his seat, so he opened the door, slid out, and walked to the front edge of the parking area where the promontory fell off steeply below him. Here, with the foreground up close, the view wasn't as magical. With something of an effort given the grandeur of the rest of the setting, he reminded himself that vineyards, after all, were basically just farms that grew grapes as their crop.

And, indeed, in a little hollow to the side of the new caves, Juhle caught the jarring note of a truly dilapidated ancient redwood barn surrounded by what seemed to be an inordinate amount of rusting old farm tools, as well as some of the newer heavy machinery that had obviously been used in the recent excavations, gradings, and plantings-a couple of tractors, backhoes and rotary hoes, huge bits and drill parts, shovels and spades, mattocks and rakes. Some were glinting in the sun; most had fallen into hopeless, permanent disrepair. The land itself around the cave entrances was still scratched and stripped of its soil, the bare limestone shining like animal bones in the bright sunshine.

But he'd come here for a specific purpose, and much to his satisfaction, Juhle saw that he wasn't going to have the time to take any more inventory of the château and surrounding grounds up here. Just below him, a black BMW Z4 convertible crested the rise beyond the gate.

Juhle backed up a couple of steps until he was lost to the view of the car's passengers. By the time they cleared the promontory and broke onto the olive-shaded area where he'd been waiting, he'd put on his sunglasses and was walking toward them, his badge extended in front of him, his face locked down into impassivity.

His footfalls crunching noisily on the gravel of the parking surface, Juhle walked directly to Carol's side of the car, spoke before it had rolled to a complete stop. "Mrs. Manion? Inspector Juhle from San Francisco homicide. You might remember me. If you could spare some time, I'd like to have a few more words with you."