Ellen Crosby: The Riesling Retribution

Mathis nodded, but the expression on his face said he’d heard that one a million times before.

“We’re certainly going to check that out,” he said. “And I appreciate your cooperation.”

“We need to rope off the crime scene,” Fontana said. “That means you and any of your employees, and that dog, have to stay away from the area until our investigation is finished.”

“Do you have any idea how long that might take?” I asked.

Mathis tucked his gloves in his pocket. “As long as it takes. Two, three days. Maybe longer. Depends what we find.”

“After all this time what could you possibly find?” I asked. “Surely it’s been too long?”

“You’d be surprised,” Mathis said. “Locard’s principle doesn’t usually let me down.”

I took the bait. “What’s that?”

“A killer always leaves something at the scene of a crime or else takes something away with him.”

“Always?”

He nodded. “Always. That’s why it’s Locard’s principle. Make no mistake, Ms. Montgomery. There’s no statute of limitations on murder, if this turns out to be a homicide. So if there’s anything else you want to tell us, now would be a good time.”

“Do I need a lawyer?” I asked.

When had the dynamics shifted, transforming me from a helpful public citizen to someone trying to spin what Mathis seemed to imply was an improbable tale: that I really had no idea how a dead body ended up on my farm?

Now that the storm had passed, the woods were again filled with the pleasantly discordant symphony of birdsong and the cicadas’ gentle whirring. A breeze like a warm caress rustled the leaves, carrying the unmistakable baked-earth smells of summer. The tornado seemed like it had happened a lifetime ago.

Mathis and Fontana stood there and watched me.

“You tell us,” Fontana said finally. “Do you need a lawyer?”

“I…no. I don’t.”

Mathis shot Fontana a look that seemed to tell him to back off.

“You’re not being charged with anything,” he said, warming up that rich voice a little. “But if you know something and we find out about it later, you could find yourself in real hot water. Understand?”

“There’s nothing you’re going to find out because I don’t know anything.”

Fontana’s cell phone chirped.

“It’s Noland,” he said. To me he added, “Can you give him directions to this place?” I nodded and he handed me the phone.

Bobby Noland knew the layout of my farm almost as well as I did since he’d spent so much time here when we were growing up. He and the medical examiner showed up in a Jeep with the sheriff’s department logo on the door a few minutes later. Unlike the deputies who were in uniform, Bobby wore khakis and a black polo shirt with “LCSD, Homicide Division” on it. His badge was clipped to his belt. Though he was only two years older than I, his face had settled into the heavyset demeanor of someone who has seen too much evil and cruelty in his work and understands the burden of keeping that knowledge locked away from the rest of us.

The medical examiner, deeply tanned, fiftyish, and lanky, wore a broad-brimmed leather hat trimmed with what looked like a crocodile band and carried a black leather bag. Up close I could see the result of years in the sun in the age spots on his face and exposed forearms, but there was a youthful spark of animation and interest in his eyes as he looked us over.

Bobby pulled a pack of gum out of his pocket and offered it all around. Only Fontana accepted.

“Hey, Biggie. Hey, Vic. Friedman’s coming from the CSU but she’ll be awhile. Junie, you know these guys.” Bobby stuffed gum into his mouth and said to me, “Lucie, this is Junius St. Pierre. The county medical examiner.”

We shook hands. “Nice to meet you.”

“Same here.” He drawled “heah” with a Down Under accent—either Australia or New Zealand, I couldn’t tell. Like Mathis, he pulled a pair of gloves out of his pocket and went over to examine the skull.

“I guess this is what they mean when they say ‘his jaw dropped.’” Junie grinned at Bobby, whose mouth turned up in a small ironic smile. “Poor chap. Wonder what happened to the mandible.”

Mathis and Fontana smiled as Junie winked at me.

“No disrespect intended to this fella, you understand,” he said.

I nodded, used to morgue humor after listening to Bobby talk about his work. “You can tell it’s male? I mean, that he’s male?”

“I can’t be a hundred percent certain until I see the pelvis, but based on the skull I’d say it was an adult male. Probably Caucasian.”

“How do you know all that so fast?” I asked.

“Come here.” I obeyed and squatted next to him. So did Bobby. Junie moved his gloved index finger along the forehead, hovering just above the bone. “In general, males have a heavier browridge over the eyes. It’s called the supraorbital ridge. And the orbits, or eye sockets, tend to be smaller and more square than a female’s, with rounded edges. Males also have more pronounced markings where the muscle used to be attached to the bone, like this one here.” He indicated a rough-looking bump that ran down the forehead above one of the eye sockets.

“How long do you think he’s been here?” Bobby asked.

“Roughly…I’d say less than forty years. Maybe only thirty.”

“Will it take you long to find out who this is?” I asked.

Junie glanced at Bobby. “Could be easy, could be tough. Depends.”

“On what?”

“Whether anyone ever reported him missing or not,” Bobby said. He stood up and brushed imaginary dirt off his khakis. “People vanish for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes nobody says anything because maybe they wanted the person to disappear.” He blew a bubble and popped it. “If that’s what happened to this guy, we got our work cut out for us.”

It was just after seven when I drove back to the winery parking lot. Bobby told me they’d probably start excavating tonight and would return in the morning. He also said I should expect a cruiser at the vineyard with someone babysitting the grave site.

“Why do you need to do that?” I asked. “It’s completely isolated. No one’s going to go there.”

“Chain of custody,” he said. “You get screwed if you can’t account for evidence every single second from the moment you bag it until you go to trial. Since we’re not recovering all of it tonight, I need someone to make sure nothing happens to that crime scene.”

I climbed the flagstone steps to the porticoed courtyard, which connected the ivy-covered brick building where we sold wine to the semi-underground barrel room where we made it. The whine of a car engine coming down the road broke the evening stillness. A van with “Mobile Crime Scene” stenciled on it barreled toward the south service road. Probably Friedman, the crime scene investigator Bobby mentioned earlier. She seemed to know where she was going as her lights fishtailed and disappeared from view.

After so many years, could they really find some shred of evidence that tied the killer to the victim? Mathis seemed to think so, but I wondered.

First, though, they had to identify the man with the missing jaw. I wondered about that, too. How long would it take? Who had died out there on my land?

The fan-shaped gravel courtyard was littered with bright blotches of color. Geraniums and pansies, which had overflowed cut-down wine barrels, were crushed and broken on the ground wherever I looked. The hanging baskets had been stripped of the impatiens and fuchsia that had filled them this morning. Their blossoms glowed like jewels in the fading daylight, some clinging to the white portico columns like starfish, others carpeting the ground. By tomorrow we’d have a sodden mess of bruised brown petals to sweep up.