Dead on the Vine: (Violet Vineyard Murder Mysteries #1 (A Cozy Mystery)) Read Free

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    “That’ll be the police,” Victor said. “I’ll take care of Jessica if you’ll talk to them.” He and Jess are very close. With all the late hours we put in at Violet, Victor spends almost as many nights under my roof as he does his own.
    “All right,” I said with a dead-weary sigh. “I’ll talk to the police.” I would rather have stayed with my daughter and made sure she was okay, but the vineyard was my responsibility, not Victor’s.
    I stood, taking one last look at Jess, then stepped back outside. Already the mist had begun to burn off, revealing the patchwork of farms and wineries and the town of St. Helena in the valley below. A hawk screamed in the woods above Violet Vineyards, and another was circling a few hundred feet below, but still several hundred feet above the valley floor.
    The Mexican workers had walked up from the vineyard and were standing at the head the rows, in the shade of a row of twenty almond trees planted to protect the vines from the harsh winter winds. They were looking at a battered gray, mud-caked Jeep Cherokee that had just pulled up.
    It wasn’t the police. It was Samson, my cellar foreman and master wine maker, and the biggest reason that Violet Vineyards cabernet is a respected wine both in Napa and abroad. Only the year before, we had taken a silver medal at the International Tasting Competition, where some of the greatest palates voiced their appreciation.
    Samson arrives every day promptly at 6:30, dressed in one of a number of hopelessly style-less suits complete with 1950’s vintage skinny-tie and a sweater vest. Samson is pop-eyed with a receding chin, a nose like a red horn bulb, a grouchy disposition, and a big place in my heart. He came to Napa straight from Greece in the 1940’s to work in the vineyards. Over the ensuing decades he became a master winemaker working on commission for some of the most prestigious houses in California. But more importantly, he was my father’s best friend and I’m proud to say he’s one of mine. Now, semi-retired, he works solely for me on a percentage-of-profit basis.
    “De Montagne,” he said testily as he climbed out of the jeep. “What are these men doing standing around? If there is no work for them, they should go home.” He is forever watching the bottom line, concerned that I am too generous with the temporary laborers, and the permanent staff of two, including himself. I insisted on our profit sharing arrangement after he refused to take a wage, a percentage of the business or any other form of payment. Samson thinks of himself as my surrogate father and guardian.
    “There’s a problem—” I began, but he cut me off.
    “I know. The nights are not cool enough and the days are too warm, but no reason for men to stand idle. There is work to do,” he added, casting his eyes over the vineyard. “The 2009 cabernet needs racking, but, of course, that is for me to do only. But I cannot do everything. I see that the compost has not been mixed into the soil as I suggested. I see cutting that needs to be done. I see… What is that?” His eyes had fallen on the motionless figure of Kevin Harlan, forty feet away. Samson is old, but there’s nothing wrong with his hearing or eyesight, a fact that many a chastised worker could attest to. “A joke of some foolish kind?”
    “Samson,” I cut in, “it’s Kevin Harlan—“
    “Well, I can see it is Harlan, but what is he doing leaning on the trellis like that? He will break the new canes. If he wants to break canes, he can go to his own vines.”
    “He’s dead, Samson,” I replied. “Murdered.”
    “Murdered?” He spoke the word as if he had never heard it before, but then it was a word neither of us had used in reference to someone we knew. It was a word for gangsters and drug dealers, for the streets of LA or New York, not for a stony hillside vineyard in Napa. “Here?”
    “I don’t know.” I replied honestly, just as a sheriff’s cruiser pulled in