Stephen Cannell - At First Sight

"Good idea," he said, but he was frowning slightly. "I have a nice red Bordeaux… My wine broker is the same guy who sells to Jack Nicholson. This Chateau Gruaud-Larose is very rare. Supposedly only five cases in L. A. I got three bottles at two thousand apiece. It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Not too oakie… Got a nice little smoky quality to it. What do y'think? Or, I have two bottles of 1997 Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon. Right now, it's some of the hottest wine on Planet Earth. Cost about three grand a bottle."

"Whatever you want, if we can drink while we work."

"Deal."

He went to the bar and started looking around in his built-in wine cooler for the bottles. Then he pulled one out and uncorked the Screaming Eagle Cab. "You're supposed to let it breathe for half an hour first, but let's cheat and have a glass now." He poured some into two wine goblets, then picked his up and swirled it around, watching it hang on the side of the glass, doing the whole wine connoisseur thing. "Good consistency." He sniffed the glass. "Great nose, not too sweet or acidic… A great little wine for three grand a pop."

He handed me a glass and clinked against mine. "To new beginnings."

Shit, I thought. New beginnings? What the hell does that mean? We'd both just lost our spouses. For me, it was hardly a beginning. It was a vast, unacceptable ending. But I held myself in check, didn't respond, and took a small sip of the wine, which was remarkable. Then I looked up at him. "Let's see the list."

"I'm sorry?"

"The list. Let me have a look."

He seemed puzzled.

"The list of things your sister-in-law wanted you to find for Evelyn's mother."

He reached into his pockets and started pulling things out. "I know I have that damn list someplace." He grinned and started patting his pockets like a guy trying to dodge a dinner check. Then he looked at me sheepishly and shrugged.

No list, I thought. Great.

My panic alarms were all blaring. If there was no list, then the whole trip up here was bullshit.

I was now beginning to think I might actually be in some physical jeopardy, when he suddenly snapped his fingers and crossed the room, picked up the car keys on the hall table, and opened the door.

"Left it in the car," he said as he walked outside.

I stood there wondering what I should do next. The elk and bears hanging on the walls glared down at me. Since they were former victims, they offered no sympathy.

After a few minutes he returned, list in hand. "Got it," he smiled. "I forgot, I stuck it up under the visor while I was driving over to the hotel to pick you up. Come on, most of this stuff is out in the garage."

He picked up the wine bottle, then led the way through the house into a large game room, where more stuffed animal heads hung on the walls.

"Bagged that big guy over the fireplace in Oregon last year," he said conversationally, gesturing toward a huge dusty-looking elk head. "Mmm… " I answered.

He continued through the kitchen, opened the door to the garage, and turned on the light.

The garage was almost floor-to-ceiling junk. I'd rarely seen a space with so much discarded stuff piled randomly. There were boxes jammed up on the rafters, stacked in precarious disarray. The shelves contained more labeled boxes: old linens, tools, and household goods. Discarded furniture and scraps of broken lumber were stacked in both parking stalls.

"I told you it was going to be a big project," he said brightly. "My God, Chick, what is all this stuff?"

"We redecorated last year. This is what we didn't keep. I wanted to just throw it all away, but Evelyn wanted to clean it up and donate it to the homeless shelter down in Longview. That was Evelyn, always looking out for the less fortunate." He sipped his wine and smiled. "Boy, this really is smooth. Hard to believe it's a California red. I bet it's almost decanted by now. Let me pour you another and see if we can spot any difference."

"I'm fine. Let's get started."

He looked down at his list. "A box of her baby and high school pictures from the summer house in Michigan. Should be up there, somewhere."

He pointed to a shelf full of boxes, then found a stepladder, carried it over, and climbed up. "We brought a lot of this stuff up here when we ran out of storage space in town," he said, starting to pull out cartons and hand them down.

As I took the first box, I glanced out the window and noticed a shed of some kind behind the garage, which I hoped wasn't full of more junk. I placed the box on the floor behind me.

We worked steadily for an hour. Chick had opened the second bottle and kept topping off my glass. Even though I was trying hard not to drink, I have to admit it was a great wine, and after a glass or so, I was feeling much better. The more we worked, the more harmless it all seemed.

When we had taken quite a few boxes down, we started going through them and pulling out the things he wanted to load into the trunk to take back to L. A. Then we carried those items out of the garage and stacked them on the kitchen counter. Once we got organized, it went quicker than either of us had imagined. After an hour and a half, we were almost finished.

Chick was up on the ladder, pulling out a big box of Evelyn's journals. I picked up the list that he had left next to the wine bottle. I read the last item: "E's paintings?'

"I didn't know Evelyn was a painter:' I said to Chick, who was up on the ladder with his back to me.

"Yeah, she wasn't real accomplished, like you are, but she used to like working with watercolors. Still lifes mostly. She said painting relaxed her. There's a slew of them up here somewhere?'

I glanced down at the list, and then turned it over to make sure there were no more items on the reverse side. That's when my heart froze. The list was written on the back of an invoice from the Fawnskin gas station. The date on the top was today's. It was the receipt he'd just gotten for putting the chains on the Mercedes.

The list was less than three hours old.

I SET THE PAPER DOWN AND TOOK A STEP BACKWARD, trying not to let my voice convey anything. "Find the paintings yet?" I asked.

"Yep, right here. Got 'em." He pulled a box out and climbed down the ladder backward, then turned and carried it into the kitchen, setting it down with the others.

"That's all of it. Come on in and we'll uncork the French Bordeaux to compare and celebrate. This is thirsty work."

I moved into the kitchen and stood as far away from him as I could.

He must have noticed my stiff posture because he asked, "Something wrong?"

"I forgot to tell you, but I need to call Peter Ellis. We're redoing some things with the learning foundation. Peter's attorneys need to know where I am. They're working through the weekend because we have to file all this stuff with the Corporations Commission on Monday. I'm supposed to check over some of the redrafts this evening. Since the phones are working now, I'd better give them your number."

"First, let's crack another bottle:" he persisted, blocking my way to the phone in the living room as he opened the bottle of Bordeaux. He refilled my glass without asking me.

"To a job well done:' he said, clicking rims.

I pressed the glass to my mouth and let the wine run up to my lips, but didn't swallow. I didn't want any more alcohol. I was now in a full panic.

"So what was the deal with you and Chandler anyway?" Chick suddenly said, leaning back and studying me, a sly smile playing at the corner of his mouth. "I've been meaning to ask you about that."

"What was the deal?" I said, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you guys seemed so different is all. I could never quite figure what that was all about-how it worked with you two. He didn't seem to have your ambition, your sense of adventure:'