A Sunny McCoskey Napa Valley Mystery 2: Death by the Glass

Author:Nadia Gordon [Gordon, Nadia]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery: Cozy - Chef - Napa Valley, General, Mystery & Detective, Hard-Boiled, Fiction
ISBN: 9780811841801
Google: _vOm_VMVzhYC
Amazon: 0811841804
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Published: 2003-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

14

In her office early the next morning, Sunny felt alert and energized. She’d chosen the quiet of home, a hot shower, and bed over the companionship and probing questions of a dinner at Rivka’s. Dinner was a perfect cup of hot cocoa, her winter obsession, made with milk, cream, sugar, and loamy Scharffen Berger powder. She’d slept hard and dreamed of an accusing face, distorted and menacing, and Dahlia’s pornographically writhing hips.

Sitting at her cluttered desk, she waited until exactly eight o’clock before she dialed the number for the police station. She was transferred to Steve Harvey’s desk, and a female voice said, “Sergeant Harvey’s desk, Officer Dervich speaking.”

Sunny identified herself and they exchanged polite greetings. She explained that Steve had suggested she phone about the bottle of wine found at Nathan Osborne’s home, specifically the color of the topping foil.

“He left a note on his desk this morning, asking me to look into that. Luckily we still had it in evidence. It’s green with a gold M stamped in the top.”

“Are you sure?”

“I looked at it myself just a few minutes ago.”

“We’re talking about the bottle of wine that was broken, the one with the cork still in it, right?” asked Sunny.

“That’s right. The neck of the bottle broke off in one piece. The cork and foil were still in place because it hadn’t been opened. The foil was definitely green. Is that significant to you for some reason?”

“I had a theory, but it sounds like it was wrong,” said Sunny.

“What kind of a theory?”

“Oh, I just had an idea about where that wine could have come from, but I was wrong. Thanks for checking. Any word on the wine he was drinking and where that bottle went?”

There was silence on the other end of the line. Finally Officer Dervich said, “I’m afraid I’ll have to refer you to Sergeant Harvey with any further questions.”

Sunny thanked her and hung up. When she looked up, Rivka was leaning against the doorjamb, watching her and eating gingersnaps out of a plastic container.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“Are you going to eat all of those?” said Sunny, eyeing the container.

“They’re last week’s. You said you were going to talk to Steve yesterday and then butt out.”

“And I did talk to him.”

“But you didn’t butt out. Don’t you remember a certain traumatic incident that I spent about a grand on therapy trying to process? And how you promised never to get involved in that kind of thing again?”

“Yeah, I remember,” said Sunny. “I think it had something to do with one of my best friends not being tried for murder.”

“Point taken, but no one needs rescuing now. How about giving Wildside some of your attention for a change? We haven’t done any of the stuff we talked about at New Year’s. The garden is still a mess, the back fence needs replacing, we haven’t gone out to see the suppliers, and racks in the walk-in need to be rebuilt.”

“We still have plenty of year left.

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