Blood for Wine Read online

  I started along the south fence line next, working my way through dead blackberry canes and clumps of Oregon grape. Halfway across I found him. He lay next to a gap that had been freshly cut in the chain-link fence. A guttural sound issued from my chest as I dropped down next to him. His eyes were closed, he wasn’t moving, and there was a greasy wad of what looked like vomit on the ground next to his head. I put a hand on his ribs. Was he breathing? I couldn’t tell.

  I scooped up all seventy-five pounds of him, rushed to the garage, and laid him on the backseat of the car. After backing out, I called Winona on my cell. “Come on out. Arch’s been poisoned. We’re going to the vet.” Then I thought of the vomit and nearly ran into Winona as she was coming out the front door. “Wait for me in the car. I’ll be right there.” I dashed into the kitchen, grabbed a plastic bag, and went out the side door to collect a sample of the upchucked material.

  Winona was cradling Arch in the backseat when I returned. “I think he’s breathing, Cal. Hurry.” She still had the handkerchief held to her head, and she’d lost some color. The handkerchief was soaked with blood.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m more worried than hurt, and angry. What about the cops?”

  “Shit. I forgot about them.” I handed her my cell phone. “Call them back. Explain the situation. Tell them we’ll contact them as soon as we can.” I took the next curve too fast and nearly spun off the narrow road. “Then call Hiram Pritchard. He’s in my contacts. Ask him to meet us at the Animal Care Center.” Hiram was a great veterinarian, a good friend, and aside from me and possibly Winona, Archie’s favorite human.

  Hiram met us at the back door of the center, which was on the south end of Dundee. I was carrying Archie, and Winona followed, holding the bloodstained handkerchief against her forehead. Hiram looked at me, Archie, and then Winona. “Oh, my, we have two casualties.”

  “I’m okay,” Winona said. “Deal with Archie first.”

  Hiram spun around. “Follow me. I’m all set up to pump his stomach.” I lugged Arch down the corridor and into a treatment room. “He’s breathing,” Hiram confirmed , “but just barely.” When I gave him the bag of vomit, he smelled it and shrugged. Nothing caustic or acidic. He pulled back Archie’s eyelids. “Pin pricks. He’s heavily sedated.” He had me hold Arch’s mouth open while he worked a clear plastic tube down his throat and into his stomach. The tube had a hand-powered vacuum pump attached at the other end. After several pumps, a chunky, yellowish liquid began to drain out of Archie’s stomach and into the sink. When the flow subsided Hiram gently removed the tube. “Now we wait.” He placed his hand on Archie’s side. “His breathing has evened out some. Let’s hope not too much of what he was given was absorbed into his bloodstream.”

  I felt a surge of hope. “He’s going to make it?”

  “I don’t know, Cal. But he’s a fighter, and he has a lot to live for.”

  Winona clutched my arm, tears streaking her cheeks. I said, “What do you think he ingested?”

  “Impossible to say. Whatever it was, I’m pretty sure it was wrapped in ground beef by the looks and smell of the effluent.”

  “The son of a bitch,” I said under my breath.

  Hiram looked at the bag of vomit. “Vomiting probably saved him. I’ve got to report this, and the police can have it analyzed.” Turning to Winona, he said, “Now, let’s have a look at that lump on your head.”

  After ruling out a concussion with a quick eye examination and cleansing Winona’s wound with disinfectant, Hiram said, “I can close that gash with a butterfly bandage, or you can go to the ER and have them stitch it if you’re worried about a scar.”

  “Can you stitch it?” she said. “I know you’ve patched up Cal more than once.”

  Hiram smiled, crinkling the skin at the corners of his soft gray eyes. “Don’t tell me you share his irrational fear of hospitals?”

  “No. But I’m not going anywhere until Archie comes to.”

  Hiram proceeded to sew up the wound expertly while Winona sat there stoically, without the aid of anesthetic. She didn’t flinch. I wasn’t the least bit surprised. She’s a warrior.

  We settled into the treatment room, huddled around my dog. His breathing was still ragged as far as I was concerned, and with each hesitant breath my heart stopped until the next one came. The time dragged, and it must have been near midnight when he whimpered, a weak, barely audible hm, hm, hm. I got up and stroked his head. “Come on, Archie. Time to wake up, big fella.” He opened his big, copper-colored eyes and tried, but failed, to lift his head off the table. “It’s okay, Arch,” I told him. “Take your time.” Winona stood next to me stroking the thick fur along his side. He tried to move again, this time lifting his head and neck off the table, whimpering more strongly.

  Hiram said, “Lift him off the table. He wants to stand up.”

  I was so elated that he seemed light as a puppy when I picked him up. Holding him around his chest and stomach, I lowered him down onto his extended legs and slowly released him. He stood for a moment before taking a couple of wobbly steps and wagging his stump of a tail. I looked at Winona and beamed, my heart swelling so much I could hardly breathe. Then I hugged my friend, all six foot three of him. “Thanks, Hiram. I’m in your debt. Again.”

  After walking Arch up and down the hall for several minutes, we called the Sheriff’s Department back and were told they had dispatched a patrol car to The Aerie to investigate. As we were leaving I said to Hiram, “Any way you could find out what was in that hamburger? You know, on a fast track? The Sheriff’s Department will take eons to have it analyzed, if they ever bother in the first place.”

  Hiram nodded. “Will do. I want to catch the person who did this as much as you do.”

  When we returned to The Aerie, a Yamhill Sheriff’s cruiser with two deputies waited in front of the house along with an unmarked county car with a single crime scene technician. We gave our statements, which didn’t amount to much. I saw nothing, and the only thing Winona knew was that her attacker was a male, because she heard him grunt when he hit her.

  I showed them my study, which had obviously been searched but not upended. My laptop was on the floor, suggesting the intruder might have dropped it in his haste to get out. The back cover had been removed, but the hard drive was still in place, and it was still operable. I also showed them the point of entry—a window in the laundry room I’d left unlocked—and the hole cut in the fence. The technician dusted for fingerprints inside and out and photographed a couple of footprints in the damp soil near the fence line, the latter made by jogging shoes by the look of the waffle pattern. The imprint was about my shoe size, maybe a little smaller.

  ***

  “It wasn’t a random burglary, was it?” Winona said. We sat at the scarred oak table in my kitchen. Archie lay next to Winona, whose bare feet were partially tucked under his chest for warmth. His head was upright and his eyes alert. He apparently had had enough sleeping for one night. The deputies had left forty minutes earlier, and we had just finished straightening up my study.

  “Nah. Run of the mill burglars don’t bother with places that have big dogs patrolling the perimeter. Whoever did this was looking for something and had thoroughly cased the place.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the deputies that?”

  I shrugged. “I was tired and didn’t want to prolong their stay. I’ll call Hal Ballard in the morning and tell him. He’s the lead detective on Lori’s case.” I shook my head. “Not that it’ll do any good. The last thing they’re interested in is an alternate theory for Lori’s murder.”

  “We left the party at what, eight forty-five? That was early. I think we surprised him.”

  I nodded. “I agree. And that suggests he knew where we were.” I shuddered perceptibly at the next thought. “If we hadn’t come home early, Archie would probably be dead now.”

 
Winona slid a foot from beneath him and used it to gently stroke his flanks. The coyotes yipped a couple of times, and Arch made a grumbling little sound in response. “What do you think’s going on?”

  “Someone’s worried I might know too much.” The irony made me smile. “Turns out, I don’t have anything but a belief Jim’s being set up and some hunches, like maybe the guy who hit you is the same guy looking for Isabel Rufino—”

  “The killer.”

  “Right, of Lori and Delgado. Then there’s Lori’s lover.”

  “You think he could be the killer.”

  “I think she knew the killer, so, yeah, that’s a possibility. I think they drove out there together, and then Lori called Jim on a phone that couldn’t be traced.”

  Winona looked puzzled. “Why?”

  “I can only think of one reason why she didn’t use her cell phone—she thought they were luring Jim out there to kill him.”

  Winona gasped. “Oh, my God. Then the killer turned on her. Oh, that’s cold blooded.”

  I nodded. “Lori was a patient of Richard Amis, and I think he might know who the lover is.”

  “Really?”

  “I caught him alone tonight and asked him flat out. He denied it, but for a psychiatrist he’s not a very good liar. He flunked the eye test.”

  The coyotes yipped some more but from further away. Archie ignored them this time. Winona snuggled her foot back under him. “Why the elaborate frame?”

  “Greed, maybe. Jim gets convicted, or, hell, just indicted, and his winery’s up for grabs.”

  She smiled grimly. “Eddie and Sylvia grab it?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe, or maybe it’s someone else trying to force the land on the market, someone who doesn’t know that they are Jim’s silent partners. Jim told me nobody knows about their arrangement.”

  She nodded. “Or maybe it’s not greed at all. Maybe it’s simple. Someone hates Jim’s guts. After all, he lost his wife and could lose his winery, the two most important things in the world to him.”

  We sat in silence for a while. Winona wrapped her arms around herself, shuddered, and looked at me, her face darkening. “You need to be careful, Cal. We have a name for a guy like this in Sahaptin. He’s a Kw’alali, a monster.”

  I nodded and focused on the discolored, stitched up lump on her forehead for a moment, then looked down at Arch and nodded. “Yeah, it was already war with this Kw’alali, but now it’s personal.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  That night, Winona slept nestled against my back with an arm resting on my hip and her knees crooked into mine. The warmth of her body next to me was a comfort, but I lay awake long after her breathing became rhythmical. Words, images, and fragments of thoughts tumbled in my head like clothes in a dryer, and, every so often, they seemed to coalesce to remind me of what a close call it had been. They’re safe, both of them, I kept telling myself in response. The last thing I heard before I finally drifted into sleep was the hoot-hoot, hoot, hoot of my new neighbor, the great horned owl. He was out there, high up in a fir tree with big, luminous eyes that cut through the darkness. What had he seen?

  The next morning I fortified us with an omelet made with Gruyere cheese, green onions, and smoked Chinook. Then I called Detective Ballard. “I’m glad your dog’s okay,” he responded after I finished describing the break-in. “We’ll check in with the team that investigated the burglary.”

  “Look, Hal. It was a hunt for information. Whoever he was just wanted to creep the place. Nothing was really disturbed.” We went back and forth for a while, a sparring match in which I didn’t land any punches. With the scalp of a cleared murder case on his teepee, Ballard didn’t want to hear that he could have gotten it wrong. And it wasn’t just him. Prosecutor Helen Berkowitz was busy preparing to win an indictment against my client. The heavy wheels of justice were turning, and I knew it was nearly impossible to slow them down.

  Archie and I dropped Winona at her place in the Pearl District and then headed the few blocks to Old Town and my office. Since the situation with Jim broke I’d fallen woefully behind there and welcomed a chance to catch up. It was past noon and I was still grinding away on a mountain of paperwork when my cell phone chirped. It was Lori’s stepbrother, Aaron Abernathy. Using a number Jim gave me, I had called him earlier that morning and left a message, hoping I could meet with him while I was in Portland.

  “Go ahead, I’m listening,” he responded after I explained the reason for my call.

  “This won’t take long, but I’d rather not do it over the phone.”

  “I’ve already given a statement to the police, man.”

  “I know that. I’ve read it along with your mother’s. This is just routine follow-up. It won’t take much time.”

  After a long pause he blew a breath. “I take my break at two. Meet me in front of The Smiling Leaf on Southeast Division, near Thirty-fifth.”

  Once a typical, tight-knit Portland neighborhood of modest homes and quirky businesses, Division Street now sported upscale restaurants, multi-story condominiums, and trendy shops to meet the needs of a hip, wealthier clientele that was streaming into Portland like a millennial tidal wave. I finally found a parking space three blocks off Division and left Arch in the car with the windows cracked.

  The Smiling Leaf was set back from the street in a converted Craftsman, which, according to the signage, was now a medical and recreational marijuana store. Abernathy stood on the sidewalk wearing sunglasses and a bulky coat. His hair was waved up in front and buzz cut on the sides, which lent emphasis to the big silver rings wedged into his sagging earlobes. “There’s a coffee shop across the street,” he said as I walked up. “They’re not busy, and I need caffeine. We can talk in there.”

  After we sat with our coffees, I said, “How’s the cannabis business?”

  He smiled despite himself. “Booming.”

  “What do you do at the Smiling Leaf?”

  “I’m in line for assistant manager.”

  “Nice. Yeah, I read the other day that sales are running way ahead of projections, which is good for the state coffers, right?”

  He smirked. “The taxes are highway robbery, man.”

  I smiled in sympathy. “I heard you want your own store. Can’t blame you.”

  He sat up a little straighter, trying not to look surprised. “Who told you that?”

  “Jim Kavanaugh. He said you asked him for a loan, but he couldn’t swing it.”

  He took a sip of coffee. “Yeah, well, that’s the way it goes. Some people are just cheap.”

  “Oh, so not getting the loan upset you?”

  His jaw muscles flexed a couple of times like he was biting down on something hard. He licked his lips and forced a smile. “I got over it.”

  I drank some coffee and looked at him, wishing he’d take the damn shades off. My best reads came from people’s eyes. “What was your relationship with Lori like?”

  “Fine. We didn’t see each other much, but it was fine.”

  “Had you seen her lately, like the last several weeks?”

  “Once or twice, I suppose, when she looked in on her mom.”

  “Do you know the names of any of her friends, anyone she was seeing after the breakup?”

  He squirmed in his seat a little and nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a finger. “No, not really. She didn’t share shit like that with me.”

  “How about her boyfriend? Did she mention his name to you or your stepmom?”

  His jaw flexed again, and the faint trace of a blue vein appeared on his neck. “You hard of hearing or what?”

  I opened my hands and put some cordiality into my smile. “Sorry. Just trying to do my job. Would your stepmom know anything about Lori’s personal life after the separation?”

  He set his coffee down, got up abruptly, and jabbed a
finger at me. “She just went into hospice care and doesn’t have much time. She lost her only child, and now she’s dying.”

  I lost the smile in a hurry. “I’m sorry to hear that, Aaron.” He spun around and started for the door. I said, “Oh, I forgot one thing.” He hesitated, his hand on the door knob. “Where were you the night Lori was killed?” I knew what he’d told the police, but I wanted to see his reaction.

  He turned around. “I was with my stepmom.” I could feel his glare behind the dark lenses as he added, “Let me ask you something—You’re getting paid to get a killer off. How can you look yourself in the mirror?”

  I didn’t respond to his question, and he walked out without looking back.

  ***

  I took the Ross Island Bridge across the river, and then, after getting off at the I-5 Wilsonville exit, headed west on Wilsonville-Newberg Road. Maybe not the fastest way back to Dundee, but I liked the winding drive along the Willamette River. When I turned off Pacific Highway onto Worden Hill Road, Archie whimpered a couple of times in the backseat. “One more stop and then we’ll go home, Big Boy,” I told him.

  When we arrived at Le Petit Truc, Arch jumped out and followed me into the warehouse, but after sniffing the air a couple of times, he backed out and parked himself at the entrance. I found Jim in the small laboratory located in the far corner of the structure. “How’s the fermentation going?”

  Wearing a white lab coat spattered with purple stains, he looked up from a thick logbook and smiled. He always seemed happier in his element. “We’re close. PH and total acidity are coming into range, and the sugar’s nearly there on most of the fermenters.”

  “What’s next?”

  “In another five or six days we’ll be ready to barrel. We use an old Burgundian trick called sur lie aging.” I raised my brows and he continued. “We rack off the junk but leave the fine dead yeast cells—called lees—in the wine when we barrel it. Gives us a secondary fermentation that adds richness and complexity to the flavor.”