Seven Deadly Zins Read online

  “Thanks, so do you,” she said and motioned for me to twirl. “What’s the occasion for the maxi dress? Don’t you usually wear jeans?”

  “Aunt Jemma’s holding a séance and wine night.”

  “A séance? I’ve never been involved in one of those. Is it okay if I come and watch?”

  “You don’t have to just watch,” Aunt Jemma said as she came up behind her. “We’re reaching out to Marion Wells’ father. He always loved a pretty girl. I imagine he would love to come visit if you were here.” She put her arms around Holly and me. “Let’s go start the séance.” She turned to Holly. “My psychic canceled on me, and I’m leading this thing without much outside help. You two lovely ladies will draw every male entity for miles. Surely we’ll be able to get something out of Buddy Jones.”

  “Cool,” Holly said and kissed my aunt on the cheek. “I always wanted to be in on a séance.”

  We walked back into the room. Someone had poured the ladies tall glasses of wine. My nose told me it was likely a zinfandel.

  “The girls are going to really draw the old man back to this dimension,” Aunt Jemma said. “Alright, gather ’round the table and hold hands. Please, let’s all take a deep breath. Breathe in and ouuuuut.”

  We all did as she asked for the next three breaths. Then Aunt Jemma went into séance mode. The routine sounded like something straight out of a movie. At one point, I opened one eye to see if anyone in the room was buying my aunt’s shenanigans. Everyone, including Holly, seemed to be really into the dramatic questions and vague answers. I loved my aunt, but I was pretty sure there were no ghosts in the room.

  “Ladies,” Aunt Jemma said after the last question was asked and answered, “I’m getting a message that you need to go the First National and check a safety deposit box.”

  “Oh, a safety deposit box? Really?” Marion asked. “Wow!”

  “Thank you, Buddy Jones, for taking the time to visit us today,” Aunt Jemma said. “You can go with love. Ladies, breathe in and out.” We did. “Now open your eyes.” Aunt Jemma clapped her hands and brought the lights up. Her guests smiled at each other. “Okay, you can let go of hands and enjoy your wine.”

  The ladies shook off the session and took a swig or two of wine.

  “I have some snacks in the kitchen,” Aunt Jemma said. “Taylor, come help me. We’ll be right back, ladies.”

  We walked out of the library, through the family room, and into the large gourmet kitchen. There were two trays of crackers and cheese on the granite countertop. “Why did you tell them to go to First National Bank?”

  “I called around,” Aunt Jemma said. “There were no accounts in Buddy Jones’s name but there was a Eugene Jones. So I went to the library and did some digging. According to the census of 1920, Eugene Jones had a son named Buddy. I connected the dots.”

  “Won’t they need a key?” I asked.

  “All they’ll need is a death certificate or two,” Aunt Jemma said. “I’ve put them on the trail; now let’s see how they follow it.”

  “You had this rigged from the start,” I said and picked up a platter.

  “What was rigged?” Holly asked. “Oh no, don’t tell me that little show wasn’t real. Oh, I was so looking forward to talking about how cool it was that you channeled that man.”

  “It’s theater,” I said.

  “There are clues for the ladies to chase,” Aunt Jemma said. “I like to think of it as a fun way to give an investigation report.”

  “Oh, are you an investigator?” Holly asked.

  “I’ve done my fair share of research,” Aunt Jemma said. “Plus my psychic friend advised me to do some before a séance. It’s what she does.”

  “Wait—I thought that psychics were able to talk to the dead,” Holly said.

  “A good psychic does talk to the dead,” Aunt Jemma said. “I was lucky enough to know Marion and Susan, and I knew why they wanted the séance.”

  “You knew they wanted to speak to their father?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Aunt Jemma said. “When Sarah—my psychic—called to tell me she was sick, I knew what I had to do.”

  “So she knew that the ladies needed to get the message about the safety deposit box,” Holly said and grabbed a platter of canapés.

  “Yes,” Aunt Jemma said. “So, see? They did get a psychic reading.”

  We walked back into the den.

  “I’m so excited to see if there is a safety deposit box at First National bank,” Marion said.

  “I’m sure there is,” Susan said. “Why else would Daddy tell us to go look for it?” She smiled. “I can’t wait to see what’s in it.”

  “It might be a lotto card,” Jeanne said. “You could be million-dollar winners.”

  “As long as it’s not expired,” Marion said in horror. “What if it’s expired?”

  “I’m sure it’s not a lotto ticket,” I said.

  “Maybe it’s a family heirloom,” Holly said. “Like something from Antiques Roadshow.”

  “I’m sure Daddy wouldn’t keep an heirloom from us for that long,” Susan said. “Would he?” she asked Marion.

  “Daddy could have kept all kinds of cool things from us,” Marion said. “That man was kooky the last twenty years of his life. I swear he had dementia.”

  “Well, you’ll have to call and tell me what you find in the box,” Aunt Jemma said and put her tray down on the table. “For now, how’s the wine? Does anyone need a refill?”

  “I could use one,” Jeanne said. She lifted her empty wine glass.

  I went to the sideboard and grabbed the carafe of zinfandel and poured her half a glass. Then I added more to everyone else’s and sat down. My puppy, Millie, came running into the room just then. Millie was a tan cocker spaniel that Aunt Jemma’s winemaker, Juan, had found abandoned in the far vineyards. Our best guess was she was five months old. I’d had her for two months now and loved every minute of it.

  Clemmie, of course, had other ideas. I think she loved Millie. She definitely loved to pounce on her or sneak up around a corner and bat her on the nose. Millie would give chase, and Clemmie would jump up on the counter and grin at her.

  “Hey, baby,” I said as she jumped on my lap. “Who let you out of your crate?” I had put Millie in her crate while the ladies were here for the séance. I didn’t want anyone to be distracted—by the puppy sneaking under the table and scaring someone. Séances could be touchy things.

  “I let her out,” Holly said. “When I went into the kitchen, one look at those sweet, sad, brown eyes, and I was done.”

  “It’s okay,” Aunt Jemma said. “We were done with the serious part of the evening and on to the party part.” She lifted her wine glass. “Right, ladies?”

  “Right!”

  Chapter 3

  Tim’s winery was on a two-lane stretch of road along with five other little places. When I say little, I mean each had twenty or thirty acres of rolling hills and carefully cultivated grape varieties. Some of the vineyards simply sold grapes to other wineries, but a few had little wine-tasting barns and a lush lawn for people to come and picnic. The road was lined with tall oaks, and the air smelled sweetly of grapes.

  It was Thursday, and I’d brought my tour, as promised, to check out the business of a small winery.

  “All right, everyone,” I said as I drove my trusty VW van down the road, “this is a hidden little area that grows the best zinfandel grapes. The wonderful part about wineries that are smaller is that the wines are small batch, and carefully cultivated and blended to bring out the flavor of the region.”

  This tour was a group of six entrepreneurs who were looking into investing in wineries by buying up small ones, or estimating the value of the business. In other words, these people had money to burn. Oscar Webb, the leader of the group, had a passion for small business and wine, and had found me via my website.

  “What types of events do these small vineyards do to bring in customers?” Oscar asked. “Are tours like yours com
mon?”

  “Good question,” I said. “In order to compete with the larger wineries, they offer events like summer concerts and bring in local bands. They may offer a scenic area for weddings and have connections with local caterers. Others offer seasonal events like hayrack rides in the fall, yoga classes in the summer, and Christmas events during the holidays.”

  “Do they make most of their revenue from the event space or from the wine?” Marsha Scott asked.

  “It depends on the winery,” I said, answering as honestly as possible. After all, the wineries didn’t pay me, although it didn’t hurt to go to the appellations and get their recommendation or endorsements. “The better the wine, the more money they make from it. You will find some of the best winemakers at these small vineyards. You will also find quite a few newbies who are still on the learning curve. The advantage to being on the learning curve is they think outside of the box and create some original blends that boost their brands.”

  “Are there any wineries that are run like start-ups?” Marsha asked.

  “There are two in this appellation,” I said. “Running River Wines and Iron Fist. They’re run by small groups of investors experimenting with lean and agile business models. That said, most wineries are run as farm businesses. They are in the farming category for taxes and other advantages.”

  “Huh,” Sam Heath said from the back of the van. “I didn’t think of wineries as farms. I always saw them as microbreweries. Do any of them have booths at farmer’s markets, fairs, or festivals?”

  “There is a county wine festival in Sonoma,” I said. “It is an opportunity for all the regional wineries big and small to produce samples of their wares. I do know that some of the locals attend farmer’s markets regularly.”

  “Have any of them tried social media to promote their wine clubs? You know, Facebook ads, Instagram, or Twitter?” Robert Gillespie asked from the back seat.

  “That’s an interesting question,” I said. “I’m not familiar with their marketing methods—that would be a great question for Tim Slade, the proprietor. I’ve set up today’s tour at Tim’s so you can see the behind the scenes activity of a small winery.”

  We pulled into Rock Paths Winery. The drive took us over a culver, and half a mile through grapes, to the top of a hill, where Tim’s house stood. Just before you reached the mid-century modern ranch, the gravel drive split off, with a sign saying, “Welcome. Wine tasting this way.”

  “This certainly is a hidden tasting area,” Chandra Crammer said.

  “Tim has plans to move the wine-tasting area closer to the road so that people can see it from the street. But there are issues such as restrooms and water accommodations. Right now this setup encourages private events such as family reunions.”

  “He has a bocce ball area?” Oscar asked as we came around the side of the hill to the parking area.

  “And a picnic area with a horse-shoe-throwing pit,” I said.

  “Does he do weddings?” Chandra asked.

  “No,” I said. “The previous owner was fine with the winery being an event setting, but Tim is looking to take it in another direction.”

  “Does he have any old vines?” Robert asked. “I’m particularly interested in grapes from pre-prohibition.”

  “Yes, he is lucky enough to have some of the only old vines left.” Parking the van, I turned to my group. “This is a great opportunity to see how a small vineyard uses all the resources it can to make small batch wines.”

  As we got out of the van, Tim came down from the main house on top of the hill.

  “Welcome to Rocky Paths,” Tim said. He shook hands as people introduced themselves.

  Oscar was a stocky man in his fifties, with salt and pepper hair and high-end jeans and dress shirt. He wore Italian shoes and oozed money. Marsha was shorter than me and wore chic casual clothing. The diamonds at her ears and fingers left no guess as to what kind of money she had.

  Robert looked like he was from the 1980s, or maybe he just liked the preppy look. He looked around as if unsure how a farm worked. It made me wonder if he’d ever done anything more than drive through the countryside on his way to the beach.

  Peter and Sam were young and thin and barely lifted their eyes from their cell phones. They had hipster beards and dark glasses. Finally, Chandra seemed out of place with her bright red hair and denim dress.

  From my point of view, they all had money to burn. Which made them the perfect word-of-mouth candidates for my tour.

  Tim’s eyes lit up as the group was clearly of investor quality. “Let me give you the grand tour,” he said. “Follow me.” We walked back down the drive to the lines of vines. “The grapes are watered through a drip system that comes from the well on the vineyard. They grow all summer, and we just finished harvesting last week. Next week we’ll take all the fallen leaves and prune the vines back. The leaves and branches will all be chipped into mulch and used to nurture the vines through the winter.” He paused. “Nothing is wasted.”

  “What types of grapes do you grow?” Oscar asked.

  “What varieties work best in this area?” Robert asked.

  “Do you use a press to mash the grapes?” Chandra asked. She smiled at Tim. “Or do you stomp them?”

  He snorted. “We don’t stomp them. When I bought the winery, the main crop was pinot noir. Two years ago, I added fifteen acres of new zinfandel to mix with the old vines. This is my first really productive year for the mixed zins.” We walked around the side of the hill where the house and garage sat, until we were behind the house. “Pretty much all the vines you can see from here are mine. I have a small team come out, and we work long hours to cut the grapes. Follow me to the wine barn.”

  He took us to a huge white barn. To the side of the building, under a covered area, were five or six large white vats that were six feet tall. The air smelled distinctly of grapes and fermentation.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Tim began, “we bring the grapes in from the vines and wash them. Then we sort them to cull any that look wrong, and remove the stems. See these vats? They have been sterilized and made ready for the grapes. Once the grapes are clean and sorted, we put them through a fruit press to release the must.”

  “Must?” Marsha asked.

  “It’s the juice,” I said.

  “We then vat the pressed fruit and juice, add wine yeast and a little sugar and filtered water from the well.”

  “And then?” Robert asked.

  “Well, then we wait while it ferments. We have to open the vats up twice a day and stir them.” He pulled out a stepladder and took a wide paddle off the wall. “It’s usually me who turns the vats. I like a hands-on approach.” He winked at Marsha. “Come in closer—it’s okay. Get a good look, and sniff the vats. You see, we want to turn over all this stuff that floats to the top. I usually turn once at ten in the morning and then again at ten at night.”

  We all edged in close to the vat. I stood on my tiptoes and peered inside as Tim climbed the ladder. He stuck his paddle in and pushed down on the grape skins that floated to the top. Then he stirred, bringing up the denser juice. The second stir took my breath away as I saw something that made me gasp and freeze in horror.

  “Is that a hand?” Chandra asked, her eyes wide.

  “Where?” Robert asked. “Oh, crap!” He jumped away from the vat.

  “There’s a head,” Marsha said with horror.

  Peter and Sam looked up from their phones.

  “It’s a body,” Oscar noted, strangely calm.

  We all looked at Tim. He seemed startled by the man who bobbed up from the bottom of the tank. “Okay,” he said. “That wasn’t a planned part of the tour.”

  Sam snapped photos with his phone while Robert ran out of the vat area to be sick.

  “Do you think he’s alive?” I asked.

  “Mateo,” Tim shouted.

  “Yes, boss?” An older Hispanic man came running up.

  “We need to pull this guy out of the vat,” Tim
said, and he looked as if he were going to climb over the ladder and into the vat.

  “Wait!” I said. “If this is a crime scene, you’ll contaminate the evidence.”

  “I’m not going to sit here and wait while a man drowns,” Tim said. “Mateo, get a ladder.”

  “How are you going to get him out of the vat?” Oscar asked.

  “There’s a scaffolding over there,” Tim said and pointed to the other side of the vat. “Pull it over here.”

  I rushed to the scaffolding. Marsha, Chandra, and I pushed it until it was right beside the vat. Suddenly Tim jumped in the vat, and the grapes and juice spilled and splashed out as Mateo followed Tim.

  “Nine-one-one said the police and ambulance are on their way,” Peter said. “I sent them my GPS coordinates.”

  Tim and Mateo worked together silently, treading juice and turning the man so that his face was above the liquid. Grape seeds and skins stuck to their bodies, coloring everything in the vat purple.

  The scent of yeast and grape juice mixed with a darker scent. I watched in horror as they pushed, pulled, and tugged the man up and out of the vat and onto the scaffolding.

  “I’ll go down to the road and direct the ambulance,” Marsha said. She looked very pale, and I thought it was probably a good idea to get her out of the shed area.

  “Chandra,” I said, “why don’t you go with her?”

  “Okay,” Chandra said with a nod. She entwined Marsha’s arm with hers, and they left through the front.

  When I turned back around, Tim was on the scaffolding. He tilted the man’s head back and cleared his airway before starting CPR.

  “No pulse?” I asked.

  “None,” Tim said grimly and banged on the man’s chest. I helped Mateo out of the grape juice mixture. The man was a few inches shorter than me, but very sturdy. He climbed down the ladder.

  “Do you have any blankets?” I shouted up at Tim.