Aaron Elkins - Dying on the Vine

Linda laughed. “You know you love it, honey.”

“I thought the class started tomorrow morning,” Julie said.

“The class, yeah, but there’s an opening reception at seven tonight. You two will be there, I hope. And your friends.”

“Actually,” Gideon said, “John and I haven’t signed up, Luca, so—”

“Oh, please, tonight’s different. No cooking demonstrations, I promise. No lectures. Just some good wine and a few simple appetizers, and a chance for people to mingle. And a few introductions. I’d really appreciate it if you came, Gideon. You’d be a—”

“Cultural ornament,” Gideon said. “I know.”

“Well, that too, definitely, but I was thinking more of an extra body to help out in the kitchen with the heavy labor.” As it often did, a burst of bluff, hearty laughter followed his comment.

“Oh, well now, that’s different, Luca. Of course I’ll be there.”

Nico stood up and finished his wine with a single gulp. “Luca, my man, what do you say we head back to the booth and flog another case or two of Villa Antica plonk to the unsuspecting masses?”

Luca responded in kind. “Watch it, baby brother, you’re speaking of what I love most in the world.”

Linda cleared her throat, loudly and meaningfully.

“Second most, that’s what I meant to say,” Luca amended. He bent to plant a kiss on her forehead. Eyes closed, smiling, she tilted up her face to receive it.

“We’ll see you two later,” Luca said to the Olivers.

“Ciao, pallies” Nico said.

“I’ll be along in a while,” she called after them, and then to Julie and Gideon, with a long sigh: “I really love that man, did I ever tell you that?”

“Really? You’re kidding us,” Gideon said. “I would have thought from those flushed cheeks and shining eyes that you couldn’t stand the guy. Hey, I’m going to get a cappuccino for myself. Watching Julie drink one always makes me want one of my own. Linda?”

“You bet. Don’t tell anyone, though. Having a cappuccino at any time of the day other than with breakfast incurs the wrath of the purists.”

Julie declined, holding up her cup to demonstrate that it was still half full.

Gideon went back to the counter, put the barista through his motions again, and returned with the brimming cups. While he’d been getting them, Linda had gone to one of the colorful little pushcarts and brought back a cardboard carton of zeppole , the sugared, donut-hole-like fritters originally from Naples, but now a fixture at every Italian street fair from Rome to San Francisco. She lifted the lid as he set the coffees down in their saucers, bit into one, and offered them around.

Julie took one. “Linda, a couple of minutes ago you said you used to think Pietro put family above everything. What was that about? If it’s none of our business, just—”

“No, no, that’s okay.” She and Julie had shared many confidences over the years and, in any case, she was one of those cheerfully open, talkative people who didn’t need any coaxing when it came to retailing inside information that more guarded people would keep close to the vest.

“Well, here’s what happened. Last summer, a couple of months before he died, babbo got this amazing offer from Humboldt-Schlager to buy the winery, lock, stock, and barrel. We’re talking megabucks here.”

“Aren’t they a beer company?” Julie asked. “Are they into wines too?”

“This was going to be their entry. Well, babbo liked the idea—he was thinking about retiring anyway—and even if the rest of us weren’t crazy about it, we weren’t dead set against it either. According to their offer, Humboldt would stay out of the internal management of the winery for at least two years with Franco as chief operating officer and also a member of the corporation’s board of directors. The rest of us would stay on in our present jobs at the same salaries we were getting from babbo. And we could keep on living here. Not a bad deal, really.”

“But,” said Gideon.

“‘But’ is right. Babbo took his time about signing, and Humboldt had second thoughts. About a week before he’s going to go up to the cabin, they change the terms. No jobs for the boys or for me, and no place to live either—we’d even have to clear out of our living quarters. No financial settlement either, just good-bye and good luck. And they weren’t open to negotiations. Take it or leave it.” She polished off her fritter and licked the sugar off her fingers.

“Yikes, that must have caused a little consternation,” Julie said.

“Well, it would have if we’d known, but we didn’t. As blunt and straight-talking as babbo was, apparently he didn’t have the nerve to tell us. We only found out a couple of months later when the whole deal went south for good and Severo finally let us in on it. He felt bad about keeping it from us, Severo did, but he’d been honoring babbo’s request. I don’t blame him. It’s a good thing babbo was already dead, though, or one of the boys probably would have killed him.” She began to laugh but cut it off and sobered. “Whoa, that was just a stupid joke. Not for one minute do I think any one of them would ever—I mean, those boys loved —”

“We understand,” Julie said smiling.

“Figure of speech, not a statement of fact,” said Gideon.

He was also smiling, but his mind was chewing over what she’d said. Rocco had said they hadn’t come up with any tenable motives for anybody but Pietro himself. Here, all of a sudden was a lulu of a motive, and three people—four, counting Linda—who shared it. There was a time when he’d have felt guilty and been embarrassed about having such thoughts about friends, but sad experience had taught him not to discount them. It didn’t stop him from hoping (and believing) that there was nothing to them, but Rocco would need to hear this all the same.

“They wouldn’t have wanted to, anyway,” said Linda, still a little defensive. “ Babbo was making up for it by giving them big stipends, more than enough to live on when the sale went through—which it never did, of course—so nobody would have been exactly poor. Even Cesare was going to get one, the same as the other three.”

Julie frowned. “Who’s Cesare?”

Linda frowned back. “Who’s Cesare? Cesare, Nola’s son . . . Luca and Nico’s stepbrother. And Franco’s. You know.”

“No, I don’t know. I didn’t know Nola had a son,” Julie said. She glanced at Gideon, her brows knit: Did you know ?

Gideon hunched his shoulders. “News to me.”

“How could you not know about Cesare?” Linda demanded, as if they’d been remiss in their study of Cubbiddu history.

“I don’t know how we’d know unless you told us,” Julie said, “and you never told us.”

“You mean you didn’t . . . Oh, wait a minute, that’s right; you didn’t meet him when you were here last time. He’d moved out by then, and there was no particular reason to talk about him.” She hesitated. “He . . . well, he wasn’t all that popular, to put it bluntly. He didn’t get along with the brothers very well, and he had . . . issues with Pietro too. I mean . . . you know.”

Gideon didn’t know, but he was suddenly interested. Issues with Pietro? “Like what?” Motives seemed to be popping up all over the place.

“Oh, it wasn’t anything that—”

“Come on, Linda, I’m curious too,” Julie said. “A step-brother—how does he fit into the picture?”

“Oh, all right,” said Linda, lighting up at the prospect of opening up another skeleton closet. She dabbed powdered sugar from her lips and paused a moment to order her thoughts. “Okay, now, you remember that the two of them, Nola and Pietro, came from Sardinia, which is another world to begin with, but you probably don’t know that the particular region they come from is Barbagia, which is the part—”