Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [53]
I made a note to call my friend Amanda Landry, who was also the volunteer attorney for the folk art museum, to see if I could finagle her into loaning me her investigator, Leilani, for a day to see what kind of history she could find on Giles Norton, his family, and his extracurricular activities.
“Can I help you with something, Benni?”
The man’s voice startled me, and I turned, laughing nervously, to face Chase Brown. His face was already flushed with the explosive red color of a habitual drinker. Like his picture in the portrait above us, his lips smiled, but his eyes remained blank. He held a glass of dark red wine. “Are you here for a tasting?”
I shook my head no. “I came to watch Bliss work with the horses, but she’s not here, or at least the groom doesn’t know where she is. I was going to go on up to the house, but I decided to walk over and see the wine-tasting room and garden since I missed it the other night . . . ” I paused, suddenly aware that a small group of people were inching closer, listening to us.
“Why don’t we go outside?” he said in a low voice, taking my elbow. I tried pulling away politely, having always hated that controlling gesture, especially in men I didn’t know well. He let go when we got outside. “People are bottom feeders,” he said, taking a big gulp from the wineglass.
“I guess it’s been hard on everyone,” I said.
“You said it,” he said, gesturing toward the tasting room with the wineglass. A bit splashed out, staining his hand. He impatiently wiped it on his dark slacks. “Giles was basically a pain in the ass when he was alive, and he’s proving to be even more so now that he’s dead.”
I didn’t answer, hoping he’d continue. It was a well-known fact that Chase was half drunk most of the time, and there was no better place to get information than a partially drunk, irritated person.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said, looking down at me out of red-veined eyes. “We had us some good times, me and Giles. The guy could shoot, no doubt about it. And hold his whiskey. He could hold his friggin’ whiskey.”
I nodded, as if agreeing that it was indeed a legacy to be proud of, the ability of one’s liver not to completely collapse while drowning in alcohol.
“But he was pushy,” Chase said, “and didn’t know when to take no for an answer. The man hated the word no.”
“I heard he wanted to take the winery international,” I said, trying to make it sound like casual chitchat.
“You heard right. Would’ve been a real coup for Seven Sisters. Lots more money. Lots more prestige. I could see the advantages better than some people.”
“So,” I said, hesitating only for a moment before barging in with my question, knowing this might be the only time I’d ever get a chance to ask. “You were going to vote in favor of the merger?”
He drank from his glass again, emptying it. “Where are my manners? Did you want any wine?”
“Not this early for me, thanks.”
He laughed and twirled the stem of the glass in his thick fingers. “There’s no cocktail hour for wine, honey. Why, there are places in Europe where people drink it for breakfast.”
“Well, I’ve never claimed to be a sophisticate. About the merger . . . ”
“It pissed off the Amazon queen, no doubt about it. But the last few days he had her almost convinced to vote for the merger. Willow and Etta, too. Don’t know how he got the queen to even think about changing her mind, but he did.”
“The Amazon queen?”
“My dear mother, Capitola, herself. That’s what we call her. Not to her face, of course. The queen and her consorts. Giles and I did have our laughs. He was the only man who’d come into this family in a long time who wasn’t ball-stripped and beat into compliance by the women in this spider’s web. Caused him a good deal of grief, and if I had some wine, I’d toast him.” He held up his empty glass.
Before I could answer, a twentyish woman in tight red Wranglers and a silky print blouse walked up to us. “Chase, someone wants a taste of the ’92 Merlot, and you said no one’s supposed to pour that but you.”
“Be right in, honey,