Рита Браун - Sour Puss

"You do have a puzzling mind—I mean, you can often figure things out because you aren't hampered by seeing things as you wish to see them. That's a great gift. Your grandfather certainly had it, which is one of he reasons I fell in love with him. Your mother possessed it, too, and people with this gift can often run afoul of those who wish to view the world through rose-colored glasses. Use your sharp mind to ask, 'Why do people kill?'"

"Love, money, power."

"Exactly. To that I add revenge and to protect one's self."

As they started walking toward the gracious house, Harry whispered as if to herself, "The vineyards. How do the vineyards tie in to love or revenge?"

Aunt Tally, ears good even if her joints weren't, replied, "Money. There's a great deal of money once one is established."

"Enough to kill for?" Harry lifted her shoulders.

"People kill one another in cities for an expensive pair of sneakers, for drugs, for the damnedest, most inconsequential things."

"True," Harry softly answered.

"One of the great virtues of becoming ancient is I have ample time to cogitate and to continue my study of human nature. They call economics the dismal science. I think not. It's the study of human nature. Thousands of years of recorded history and we've learned nothing. Dismal."

That, too, applied to the small gathering at White Vineyards. One by one the people left, until only Fiona, Alicia, and BoomBoorn remained to look over the rolling hills festooned with vines climbing on the wires. In other circumstances this would presage hope. Today it represented loss.

Harry drove her old F-150 back to the farm; since Fair needed to visit his patients, he had attended the funeral driving his own truck. He called the horses his patients. He had a good bedside manner.

Harry resolved to keep tabs on Fiona, she would have, anyway. She also wanted to find out who was calling with checkbook in hand, how long it would take people to show up at the door. Could someone be trying to create a monopoly of local vineyards? But to kill for it—well, that upset her. Just thinking about it made her mad, gave her energy. And she kept thinking, "Could anyone be that greedy? That stupid?"

And she determined to visit local vineyards.

That was a mistake.

35

"Costs twenty-five dollars a plant. That's a hell of a lot better than one thousand five hundred dollars a plant." Dinny Ostermann pushed back his sweat-stained ball cap as he explained a new technique for identifying six common virus infections. "The worm is turning."

"How do you mean?" Harry had dropped by Dinny's small vineyard in Crozet.

Dinny bottled no wine. He picked his grapes and sent them on to whoever gave him the best price each year. As he grew an outstanding Cabernet Sauvignon, the Bordeaux variety of red grape, he enjoyed visits from various vintners' representatives during harvest time.

Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker nosed around. Dinny loved animals, so he laughedas Mrs. Murphy leapt straight up to try and snatch a yellow swallowtail from midair. The gorgeous insect fluttered away, her compound eyes seeing the tiniest movement.

"From Canada to Chile, people are waking up to the profit from wine. Wine consumption will finally overtake beer in our country." He hooked his thumbs in his muddy jeans.

"You really believe that wine will overtake beer?"

"More health benefits, and who gets a wine gut?" He laughed.

"Thought you might come to Hy's funeral."

"No. Hy and I didn't much get on."

"You think he killed Toby?"

"Yeah. They hated each other."

"I've been swinging by as many vineyards as I can in Albemarle and Nelson Counties. Trying to find out if anyone has seen the sharpshooters. So far no one has. What about you?"

He shook his head. "No. Heard you found them on strips in your peach orchard, but you haven't seen any on your grape leaves, have you?"

"No. But I've been thinking that it's kind of cool, rain off and on, and pretty good breeze, too. Maybe they'll show up when it's calm and warmer."

"Let's hope not." Dinny's black hair curled out from under his cap. "Damned queer, though."

"I'm furious that someone used my peach orchard for their experiment."

"I would be, too." He removed his cap, holding it over his eyes as he looked toward the sun. "Should dry out by tomorrow." He laughed. "Boots get heavy with all that mud caked in the treads."

"Don't I know it."

"Hey, gives us good legs. We'll both look good in bathing suits." He smiled.

"What a happy thought." She lifted Tucker up, putting the heavy corgi in the cab. "Dinny, I had an odd thought."

"Only one?"

"Only one that I can share." Mrs. Murphy and Pewter jumped in the cab while Harry closed the door and leaned against it. "You know most all the growers and vintners. Apart from Hy and Toby, is there bad blood between any of them?"

He considered this. "I don't know as I'dcall it bad blood, but if this were a frog-jumping contest, I'd keep my eyes on my frog, 'cause I expect someone would pour BBs down its throat."

"You think anyone is competitive enough to destroy the other guy's crop? Like with black rot or one of those mildews or the sharpshooter?"

He rubbed his chin, dark underneath the shaved skin. "Seems like it would come back on them."

"What if they unleashed something for which they were prepared? I mean, like downy mildew. Forgive me, Dinny, I don't know these diseases and pests like you do, but if spores were wafted over someone else's grapes, the criminal could have sprayed his own grapes."

"You'd have to be rich."

"Why?"

"Because you'd have to have all those sprayers and booms right there to use before you let loose the spores or the bugs. Couldn't be renting them. Too obvious."

"Don't all the big vineyards have them?"

He nodded yes, but added, "There're Plenty of little guys out there with maybe anacre or two in cultivation. They rent the equipment."

"You don't seem surprised by my questions."

"Harry, you belong with those two cats. Curious."

"Guess so. My fear is that I'm trying to find who hates whom. I'm wondering if the killings are over."

"I expect the people who hated one another are dead." His eyebrows lifted. He stepped back up on his small tractor. "Guess you heard that Tabitha Martin donated Toby's body—I should say body parts—to the medical school for anatomy."

"Some sister."

"Yeah. I look on the bright side. Toby's helping science. He liked science."

"He was on to something, Dinny."

Harry drove by Rockland Vineyards, spied Rollie Barnes's truck and a farm truck next to it. She pulled down the drive onto Toby's farm, came up alongside the two trucks, and cut the motor.

"Hello, Harry." Both Rollie Barnes and Arch Saunders greeted her.

"How's it going?" she asked. The cats put their paws on the windowsill, since Harry had rolled down the truck windows. Tucker stuck her head out.

"If the weather cooperates, this is going to be Toby's best yield yet. A real tribute to him." Rollie swept over the vineyards with his right hand.

"I dropped by Dinny Ostermann's and things look good there, too. You know, he was telling me about a new technology called RT-PCR that can pin down six different viruses that infect grapevines."

Arch spoke up. "Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction."

"That's a mouthful." Harry smiled.

"Pretty close to a miracle. Cheap and fast. The old way to identify corky bark and leafroll virus could take up to three years." Arch liked showing off his knowledge in front of his boss. "Costs a fortune, though. RT-PCR costs twenty-five dollars a pop."

"Yeah, that's what Dinny said. Didn't see you two at Hy's funeral—"

Arch interrupted, "Harry, I'm not that big a hypocrite."