Ellen Crosby - The Sauvignon Secret

“Where’s the vault?” Quinn shot me a dirty look that O’Hara couldn’t see. “I understand the owner redid it as high-end wine storage.”

“That he did.” O’Hara grinned. “You’d not be guessing the place has such a large basement as it does, would you? Perfect temperature to store wine, and the adobe foundation keeps it nice and cool.”

Two closed doors were on the other side of the room. I pointed to them. “Do you get to the basement through one of those?”

He nodded. “The one on the left leads to the corridor where the offices are located. The stairway to the vault and another storage area is through the door on the right.”

“Can we see the vault, please?” Quinn asked.

O’Hara pulled out the jail keys again. “Course you can. Right this way.”

I leaned on my cane. “Do you mind terribly if I stay up here? The stairs … I’m sorry … I don’t feel up to … maybe I could check out the office space while you two have a look at the vault?”

O’Hara looked alarmed. “Can I get you a glass of water or something, Ms. Montgomery? There’s a sink in the kitchenette and I’m sure I can find a glass in one of the cupboards. There’s no elevator, I’m afraid.”

“No, no, I’ll be fine. Take your time. Quinn, you’ll tell me all about it?”

“You bet, sweetheart. Just take it easy, okay? I don’t want you to overdo it.” He gave O’Hara a knowing look. “The little woman doesn’t know when she’s pushed herself too hard.”

The little woman was going to kick him in the shins as soon as we left the bank and O’Hara disappeared.

“Are the offices unlocked?” I asked.

“I’ll take care of that for ye.”

He opened the door on the left and began matching keys to doors.

“Keep him downstairs as long as you can,” I said under my breath to Quinn. “Stall, do anything. Talk to him about collecting expensive wine.”

“Look, Nancy Drew, I’ll do what I can, but it’s not like I’m touring Fort Knox. It’s a damn vault. Four walls, floor, ceiling …”

“You know, you could be a little more supportive—”

“Everything all right, folks?” O’Hara asked.

“Fine,” we said in unison.

“Grand.” He made a sweeping gesture toward the door. “All right, then, after you, Mr. Santori.” To me he added, “Sorry, Ms. Montgomery, but there are still items from the owner in those offices. The place is a bit of a mess, I’m afraid.”

Hallelujah. Now if I just had enough time to look around while Quinn chatted up O’Hara in the vault.

“No apology necessary,” I said. “I’ll just have a quick peek at everything.”

He nodded and they clattered down the stairs. A minute later I heard the clank of a metal door opening followed by Quinn’s amazed whistle and his voice, indistinct but nevertheless sounding impressed. The vault must be quite a place. I pulled my phone out of my purse and checked the time. One forty-five. I’d give them five minutes; if Quinn got garrulous and O’Hara was intrigued by cases of wine that cost more than his Mercedes, maybe ten minutes.

The three rooms off the small corridor with its arched ceiling, wrought-iron sconces, and whitewashed walls all had the same fusty, abandoned look about them, as though the occupants had left temporarily, expecting to return but never did. I glanced into each of them, beginning with the smallest, which was nearest to the outside door.

It had been used as an office supply depot—computer paper, printer cartridges, envelopes, invoice forms, a carton of light-bulbs—everything stacked on the floor or piled pell-mell on an otherwise unused desk. Another office belonged to a secretary, judging by the desktop computer bristling with sticky note phone numbers tacked to the monitor, a multiline telephone, and an overflowing in-box. Surprisingly, there were no personal effects, no family photo or calendar with circled dates or corny newspaper cartoons tucked under the desktop glass. Probably removed before the place went on the market. My heart sank. What if Mel Racine had a wife or kids who’d come in and cleared out his personal things, and all that was left was just paperwork related to the Wine Vault?

The largest office had obviously been his, the walls lined with framed posters of vintage cars—Vauxhall, Bugatti, Citroën—as well as brochures and catalogs from his dealerships piled like snowdrifts on a credenza across from his desk. He, too, had a full in-box. I rifled through it, but everything appeared to belong to the wine storage business and his tasting events—leases, catalogs for auctions, wine price lists, an old issue of Decanter , a couple of copies of Wine Spectator . No family photos or memorabilia on his desk, either, except for an expensive silver-framed portrait of an Irish setter with JENNY written in calligraphy on the mat, and a small hand-painted oval frame with a candid snapshot that could have been Jenny or another dog.

I checked my phone again. One forty-nine. I’d been counting on Mel to have pictures from his old life hanging in his office as Charles had done. All he had was two photos of his dog sitting on his desk. I pulled open his top right-hand desk drawer, stifling my guilty feelings. As it turned out, I needn’t have felt bad. Nothing but the usual desk junk in that drawer and the two others below it.

The top drawer was locked. I looked around the room for a place to hide a small key and hoped O’Hara didn’t have it swinging from a key ring. Where—?

One fifty-three. I lifted the blotter and there it was. The drawer, predictably, stuck and I had to yank it open. It banged into the desk chair and my heart thudded against my rib cage. Downstairs had gone quiet all of a sudden. Had Quinn and O’Hara heard the noise and figured I tripped over something in my weary state and fell over? Were they on their way upstairs to check on me?

I went through the top drawer as quickly as I could with fumbling hands. My time was running out. The envelope was all the way in the back, taped to the top of the desk. I unstuck it and pulled out half a dozen faded color photographs. And there they were: the Mandrake Society.

It must have been one of their parties at the beach house, possibly at sunset. The colors had gone a little orangey after so many years, but the rich warm light burnished the five of them like beautiful bronzed statues. They could have been posing for a magazine cover shoot or a Christmas card photo of the perfect family, sitting on sand-rumpled towels and sprawled in beach chairs with the flat horizon line separating the cobalt ocean and the sunlight-and-cloud-threaded sky behind them. What shocked me was how young they were. Charles had said so, but I hadn’t taken in the fact that they were kids, barely out of college.

They’d been a close-knit group, tactile and comfortable with one another, changing the order of who stood or sat next to, or on, whom, but always arms draped over shoulders, someone’s legs in someone’s lap, one of the girls tucked into a protective embrace with one or two of the guys. I couldn’t stop staring; they didn’t look cold and heartless despite Charles’s sybaritic depiction of their drinking and sexual habits. In fact, they looked enviably happy and carefree, as though their futures were something wonderful they held in the palms of their hands.

I wondered when it all changed.

Instinctively I knew who was who, somewhat by process of elimination. I recognized Paul Noble well enough to pick him out. He had the same sharp features, but back then his hair had been dark and glossy and he’d been a lot slimmer and fitter. Mel had to be the one with sandy blond hair and horn-rimmed glasses, looking somewhat professorial and bookish. Theo Graf was the oldest of the group by a number of years and the only one not wearing a bathing suit. Instead, he had on a pair of bleached jeans and a tie-dyed Woodstock T-shirt. Maggie was the dark-haired beauty with an upturned nose and radiant smile. In one photo she sat on Theo’s lap clowning around; the camera had caught them both in profile, heads thrown back in laughter, arms twined around each other. That made Vivian the perky blonde, petite and a little pudgy.