Clarets of Fire Page 21

  “Don’t you try and stop me, little miss perfect.” Isabella stared at me with wide, manic eyes. “I hated when you’d come into the restaurant to keep me company, the pity oozing out of your pores, Halsey. Things were happening for you, a growing business, a house with a pool, this Wine Club, and the upcoming marriage to a good guy. What did I have for working day in and day out? Nothing!” Isabella spat on the floor. “It’s my turn now and I deserve it.”

  She turned. “You admitted that you can’t use anything that I’m saying, Augie, so I might as well have at it. Right? Later tonight I’ll demand to see my lawyer, and you’ll quickly be told that you have no case. So can’t a woman just blow off a little steam?”

  Isabella focused her sights on me again and she lunged forward, intending to hit me hard in the chest with her head. Augie grabbed her just in time, and the officers took over with firm grasps.

  I looked over to Jack and Bardot. Both were ready to defend me.

  Augie nodded to one of the officers.

  “Mrs. Bruno,” the officer began. “You have the right to remain silent . . .” He continued until he’d finished reciting her Miranda rights.

  “You guys can take Mrs. Bruno to the women’s jail,” Augie ordered when the officer was done.

  “Just one more thing before they take her away, Augie, and this should tie a nice bow around your collar.” I was proud of my Law & Order lingo.

  “Andrew, in the vineyard you were using a grape harvest razor. The blade was held in place by a forked, orange piece of plastic and the handle was made of black, corrugated rubber.”

  “Yep, as I told you, Penelope had a bunch ordered for the winery. I wonder what the orange signified, Malcolm.” Andrew grinned at him.

  “When you brought Isabella up here for a tour, did you give her one of those grape razors?” I continued.

  “As a matter of fact, I did. She noticed the one on my belt and insisted that she needed one as a souvenir.”

  “Marisol, you’re still recording, correct?”

  “What else would I be doing, Halsey? You’ve kept us up all night.”

  “In a moment you can hang upside down and go to sleep, Marisol.”

  “I am taking a sealed baggie out of my pocket,” I said . . . for the benefit of the court later. “Inside is a piece of orange plastic about an inch long. There is also a piece of broken-off metal embedded into the forked area. This piece was found among the debris in the attic of the strip mall fire above where the drugstore had stood. Jack, would you like to do the honors with Bardot?”

  “Absolutely.” He took the evidence bag from me, and Bardot immediately sat at attention. “Bardot is being trained with CARA, the California pet and human rescue partnership that is called into service during emergencies and disasters.”

  Marisol hopped on a stool next to the island and got to work on the grapes that Sally had purloined.

  “Bardot is exceptional at scent tracking, and with just the slightest hint of smell from a lost victim off of a personal item that they’ve touched, she can follow the scent to the person no matter how far away, over hills and water.”

  Jack opened the bag to expose the orange piece and let Bardot take a good, long sniff.

  “Got it, girl?”

  She wagged her tail and hopped up and down on four legs with excitement.

  “Track!” Jack said, and Bardot took off. She stopped when she got to the center of the room and lifted her nose to the air. She then ran toward Andrew, sniffed around him a bit, and took in another noseful of air. She then turned and sped over to Isabella, sat, and began her ten-bark sequence.

  “Excellent!” Augie said to us, and nodded for the men to take Isabella away.

  Rico was sobbing.

  “Oh, Rico, you always treated me like I was made of egg shells. I know that’s the way you were brought up, but it made me feel useless. I listened when the guy that sold us our first oven went through how to light it. I could have gotten up early and done that each day, but when you wanted to protect me from fire . . . I figured fine, I get more sleep. And more time to learn about fires and arson on the Internet. It is fascinating to me. Afire needs three things to flourish—fuel, heat, and oxygen—and so do I.”

  “I told you right from the beginning that Bardot’s nose knows. If you’d listened to me then, it would have saved us all a lot of time and I could be having freshly grilled hot dogs with my two best friends.” Marisol gave Malibu Rose and Bardot some ear scratches.

  I stared at her. Marisol couldn’t mean Jack and myself.

  “Bardot and Malibu Rose. By the way you might want to change your sheets before you crawl into bed. I might have left the puppy in your room a bit too long. Night, night.”

  One of these days, Marisol.

  Epilogue

  I don’t know how long we slept, but there was a full sun shining outside when I got up and parted the drapes. Jack groaned and turned over, not quite ready to face the day. Bardot clearly felt the same way and had sneakily crawled into the space on the bed that I had just vacated.

  It took a moment for me to recollect last night’s events, so I went into the bathroom to wash my face hoping that would make a difference. Malcolm and Penelope had outdone themselves on the barn remodel. The bathrooms were mission style but with modern fixtures and a large walk-in shower that I noticed had numerous spouts.

  “I think that we need to test those out,” Jack said, entering the bathroom and catching me staring at the faucets and gauges. “The entire family!”

  Jack waltzed in naked and unafraid followed by Bardot. He fiddled with some controls and water streamed out and pulsed. He grabbed my arm and pulled me in to join them.

  “Jack, I have a T-shirt on!”

  “I’ll take care of that.” He grinned.

  * * *

  Cleaned and dressed for public appearances, we were ready to venture out to find the others and procure some much-needed caffeine and nourishment. As I opened the door to our room, I noticed a note card had been placed under the door.

  “It’s from Penelope,” I told Jack. “She says that everything that we could want in food and love is waiting for us on the patio of the main house.”

  As we left the barn the full impact of the day’s brightness hit us both with cringe-worthy surprise. We’d been looking forward to the harvest for months, but after last night’s ordeal I was afraid that we would be just too worn out to enjoy it. This seemed like much more of a day for eating potato chips in bed and watching movies.

  As we were nearing the main house my phone pinged. It was a text from Liza Gilhooly. I opened it and she’d attached a photo of, I assumed, her hand with a big fat engagement ring on it. The text read, Guess what? Valentin really is my valentine!

  When we reached the patio, I could see a good-size group of people sitting on both sides of the long picnic table.

  “There they are.” Penelope applauded our arrival. “We’d thought that perhaps you’d wandered down to the wine cellar and were conducting a private tasting.”

  Upon hearing that, I saw Peggy, Sally, and Aimee look in my direction. If I could read minds, I would say that we were all thinking . . . Should we? Silly not to!

  “Augie rode back in one of the squad cars last night and Rico drove Isabella’s car and followed them to the women’s jail,” Peggy explained, drinking what looked like a Bloody Mary.

  Seeing that, I couldn’t think of anything that I wanted more in life.

  “I know who tried to run me over with their car behind the mall now,” Marisol announced seated next to Malibu Rose, gorging on scrambled eggs and muffins. When Bardot saw them, she was ready to bolt to her place at the table.

  “Psst.” Jack signaled her, and she stuck by our sides.

  “Okay, who was it, Marisol?” I asked, taking a seat and watching Penelope pour me a Bloody. I am in heaven.

  “It was Isabella. I didn’t recognize her driving, but I wouldn’t forget her car.”

  “Why is
that?” Jack took a seat next to me and reached for the fruit salad bowl.

  “Because it smelled like chicken wings!” Marisol grinned and then went sad.

  “Isabella must have been driving the delivery car,” I told the group. “Marisol, chin up. I noticed a few days ago that there is a chicken place going in next to Vons. I’ll pick some up for you whenever you want.”

  “She’s going to regret saying that,” I heard Sally tell Aimee.

  “So do you think that this case is wrapped up, Halsey?” Aimee asked.

  “The autopsy report should back up Isabella’s story that Roberto suffered a blow to the head, so I would say that, yes, Augie has a pretty tight case.”

  “What I want to know is why? If she was that unhappy and Rico was too proud to admit defeat or ask for help, then why the Sam hill didn’t she just take off?” Peggy was showing some anger at the thought.

  “It’s not that easy for some people,” Andrew began.

  I hadn’t noticed he and Malcolm join us. They must have returned from the harvest because they looked dusty and suntanned.

  “I watched my mom struggle and throw in the towel,” Andrew continued. “Instead, she chose to try and smoke her troubles away. Several of my foster care moms were in the same boat. My lot in life, until recently, was not much better. A guy out of the foster system with no family and nothing much to show for it doesn’t exactly get shown the red carpet when applying for work. But then I realized that I needed to take control of my own destiny, stop letting other people control my fate.”

  Malcolm squeezed his cousin’s shoulder with affection. “Penelope and I have talked about this, and we’d be ecstatic if you would accept our offer of a partnership position at the Abigail Rose Winery.”

  “Wow, I wasn’t expecting this. Hey, man, I’m sorry about the things I said to you last night.” Andrew looked humbled and hung his head down with shyness.

  “What words? You are family . . . we need to take care of each other.” They hugged. “The workers are on the second tier and making great progress,” Malcolm told us.

  “Hear, hear,” Penelope said, joining her men at the end of the table. “And once that’s done and the wine is doing its deliciously miraculous thing, then we can move on to the really big event happening at the Abigail Rose Winery.”

  We all looked at her expectantly.

  “The wonderful marriage of Halsey and Jack!”

  Cheers and applause erupted. Jack and I shared a look.

  Jack gave my cheek a kiss and rose. He wanted to allow plenty of time to soak in the announcement before leaving to retrieve the other men he had agreed to bring to the vineyard later.

  “Halsey and I are so super lucky to have you wonderful folks as our close friends. We are blessed, truly blessed.”

  “Don’t tell me there’s a ‘but’ coming. I’ll worry the horn off a unicorn.” Sally stood and started shaking her hands.

  “Don’t worry, honey, it’s a good thing.” I walked behind Sally, sat her down, and gave her a hug.

  “We’d better open some wine.” Aimee ran into the kitchen.

  “You single again, Jack?” Marisol grinned at him.

  “No!” I shouted, but quickly collected myself. “What Jack is trying to tell you is that with all the bad things going on with everyone, the fire, health scares, accidents, lies, and betrayals, we didn’t want to wait until June to become an official family.”

  “Oh crap,” Marisol said, and went back to eating.

  “So we went to the beautiful historic Saint Vincent de Paul Church in the West Adams district of Los Angeles and spoke to a priest about getting ready for marriage. We were lucky enough to secure the twenty-second of December!” Jack walked over to me and held my hand. “And I am the happiest man alive!”

  We kissed and didn’t stop until we heard the popping sound of champagne corks.

  The Rose Avenue Wine Club girls enveloped me in a tight embrace. I saw Bardot take advantage of the moment to flank Marisol on the other side from Malibu Rose.

  “Absolutely fabulous,” Penelope finally said after the news had registered. “And we can host the reception!”

  People were slapping Jack on the back and congratulating him. Penelope had huddled with the girls, and I could hear them discussing party plans.

  I spotted Marisol, now by herself.

  “Where are the dogs?” I asked, joining her.

  “Typical. When the food was gone, they left me to play.”

  Marisol suddenly looked older—her cheeks had sunk, and her eyes looked sad.

  “Are you upset that the wedding has been pushed up, Marisol? Will you need to be home with family? You may invite anyone you wish.”

  “No.” She began to swing her legs on the bench like a little girl.

  “Then what is it? You seem kind of down.” I gave her a squeeze.

  “For a moment there, just for a moment, I thought that Jack was about to reveal his true love.”

  “He did; you heard him. We’re about to get married.” I started to wonder if Marisol was actually losing it.

  “Yeah, I heard him, and that’s when I knew that our love affair was over.”

  “What are you talking about?!” I shouted.

  “Ha, ha. Got you!”

  Marisol got up and could barely walk she was laughing so heartily.

  I hate you, Marisol . . . okay, I love/hate you.

  WHAT THE ROSE AVENUE WINE CLUB DRANK

  Tooth and Nail the Possessor, Paso Robles

  Helioterra Pinot Blanc, Willamette Valley

  Bonny Doon Clos de Gilroy Grenache, Central Coast

  Argiolas Costamolino Vermentino, Sardinia, Italy

  Heitz Grignolino Rosé, Napa Valley

  Lune d’Argent White Bordeaux Blend, Bordeaux, France

  Piper Heidsieck Cuvée Brut Champagne, Champagne, France

  Coppola Diamond Claret, Napa Valley

  Beckmen Vineyards Purisima Mountain Syrah,

  Los Olivos

  GIFTS THE ROSE AVENUE CLUB HAVE OR WOULD LIKE TO RECEIVE

  Aerator and pourer: Whether you get them with animal heads, golf-themed, or battery-operated, these nifty devices force air to circulate while you pour, allowing the wine to “breathe.” If you have the time and patience (we don’t), you can pour the wine into a decanter and wait about an hour. “I’d better be asleep while this is happening,” Peggy likes to say.

  Bottle holders: Frankly, the Rose Avenue Wine Club’s wines aren’t around long enough to merit a decorative, fancy display holder. But if someone bestowed upon you a bottle of Chateau de Rot Gut for your birthday and you want to make sure it stays out of your drinking rack, here are some options: French waiters, butlers, chefs, a menagerie of animals lying on their backs drinking from a bottle that has been hoisted up by their paws. There are holders in the shape of high heel shoes, baseball players at bat, trains, planes, and automobiles and gravity-defying balancing acts. And then there’s Sally’s favorite, the twelve days of Christmas wine bottle holder. “I get it all set up and then I don’t have to think about what to drink each day!”

  Chillers: Didn’t have time to properly cool your wine? No worries. There are a plethora of accoutrements to assist you: wine pearls, glacier rocks, wine gems, crystals, chilling wands, and marble buckets.

  Corkcicle: Skip the aerator and chiller and have the best of both worlds with a wine chiller and aerator in one! Chill it in the freezer and then pop it into any wine bottle. The pour-through feature aerates while the thermal gel perfectly chills whites and reds. Plus the Wine Club loves saying “corkcicle”!

  Decanter: You’ve all seen them, you may even own one. But how about a personalized duck-shaped decanter? Or a steampunk octopus set? There’s one in the shape of a globe that spins on a stand, and you can find those that are bejeweled, bedazzled, and beguiling (the Lalique Aphrodite decanter). And if you are an enthusiast of a certain subject, ask for a pineapple-, dog-, bull-, guitar-, penguin-, or guitar-shaped bottl
e.

  Purse: Not to be confused with tote bags, these devices are meant to be used for the journey rather than the arrival. A carefully hidden, insulated compartment keeps your wine chilled for hours while to others on the go you look like you are simply sporting a fashionable roomy purse. They even have designer flaps to conceal the spout at the side of the bag. Run into someone you know holding an empty coffee cup? Offer to refresh their drink!

  Shower wineglass holder: The Rose Avenue Wine Club always requires a celebratory birthday lunch and often has us combing the marketplace for unique wine-themed gifts. This gem has suction cups to stick to your shower tiles. We suggest drinking something clean and crisp.

  Wine balloon stopper: For those rare occasions when you aren’t able to finish the entire bottle. Have a plane to catch perhaps? This is basically a balloon, a hose, and a pump. In this case the pump is in the shape of a bunch of grapes. Drop the balloon end into a half-filled bottle and inflate until it covers the inside edges of the bottle. Voilà, you have an airtight place to save your leftover wine. But call the airline before you leave in case your departure may be delayed, in which case you won’t need this device.