Chapter 22

 

 

A few minutes after four in the afternoon Derrick touches base with Mr. Valentini and gets some good news on that front. His attorney has agreed to go along with Derrick’s request and his family is supporting the game plan as well. So, if Alberto Massarelli can open the door for him with the owners of Mel Del Meglio and if Derrick can convince them to go along with his suggestion this just might give him the time he needs to identify and arrest the people behind the sabotage and the killing of the field hand. Although he hasn’t said anything to Mr. Valentini or Mr. Massarelli, he’s hoping that the delays in the sales of the wineries plus anything else he can think of will frustrate the buyers to the point that they’ll do something more overt, more violent, more careless, that will shed some light on who they are. At this point, all he can do is try to shake things up and see what happens.

 

“Mr. Valentini, before you go, I have a question. How were you contacted with the blackmail threat?”

 

“By phone here at the office. It was a man who called, but his voice was distorted. It sounded like one of those prerecorded electronic ones you get that gives you a list of options to choose from when you call a business.”

 

“Do you remember the day and time you received the phone call?”

 

“I’ll never forget that day. It was earlier this month on Friday the thirteenth. How’s that for irony? It was sometime in the afternoon.”

 

“Okay, I’ll check with the phone company and see if we can track down the number the call was made from. I’ll be surprised if this guy didn’t use a throwaway phone, but used one that can be traced back to him. I don’t think we’ll be that lucky, but we can’t leave any stone unturned. Sometimes these creeps do really dumb things. Keep me abreast of how things go with the stalling tactics.”

 

The next day, late in the morning, Mr. Massarelli calls to let him know that the owners of Mel Del Meglio have agreed to meet with him and have asked that he be included in the meeting. Derrick’s thinking that’s a good sign regarding the possibility of their considering fighting back and not caving in to the blackmail attempt if they’re willing to discuss the threat in the presence of their President/CEO.

 

Mr. Massarelli provided the names of the owners of Mel Del Meglio, Andre and Colette Beauchamp, and their contact information. “Andre and Colette have been married for over thirty years and are the nicest people I have ever known. When it comes to grapes and turning them into the finest wines available anywhere, they are walking encyclopedias with decades of hands on experience to boot. However, when it comes to the business side of things they are a disaster waiting to happen. Fortunately for them and me, they realized that and brought me on to manage the business side of the winery. I can’t imagine anything they might have done that they would want to keep a secret at a cost of giving up everything they’ve worked so hard to achieve.”

 

“Mr. Massarelli, there are very few people walking the planet that don’t have some dirty laundry they would prefer to keep hidden in the hamper, some more dirty than others. Folks aren’t perfect. They sometimes screw up big time.”

 

“Just the same, I just can’t believe they have done anything bad enough to be blackmailed with.”

 

“Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t. Maybe they really didn’t, but believe they did. Hopefully, we’ll get to the truth when we meet with them. You know, it might be better if you set up the appointment with them instead of me? I would prefer to be face-to-face with them during any dialogue we have. That way I can observe those silent communication factors that come into play during any serious conversation. Sometimes they’re more telling than the words spoken.”

 

“Okay, when would you like to meet with them?”

 

“The sooner the better. How about trying to set something up for tomorrow morning now and you can call me back at my office number?”

 

“Okay. Bye.”

 

A few minutes later Massarelli calls him back with the appointment details, ten o’clock tomorrow morning in Massarelli’s office at the winery.

 

Since he’s kind of on a roll, he decides to give Basilio Paganelli a call to see if he’s back from his fishing trip yet and has seen the sketch he left with Mrs. Paganelli. Hopefully, he’ll recognize the man in the sketch.

 

Mrs. Paganelli answers the phone and tells Derrick that her husband and son just got back a few minutes ago and she hasn’t had a chance to show them the sketch yet. “Hold on. Let me get Basilio and show him the picture.”

 

A couple of minutes go by and then the son, Alfonso, gets on the phone. “Sergeant Chandler, my father doesn’t recognize the man in the sketch, but I think I do. It looks like a guy whose girlfriend works for us. I’ve seen him around the trailer court where a lot of the folks who work for us live. She introduced me to him a while back. I think she said his name was Hector Correa.”

 

“What’s the girlfriend’s name?”

 

“Rosa Balcazar. When you include all of the field hands we have working for us, that’s a lot of people and a lot of names to remember which I don’t and never did. I only remember hers because she was the last person I hired before retiring to fill a position in our accounting department. She struck me as being very bright and being very attractive was a plus in my book as well. Hey, I may be getting up in years, but I’m not dead yet.”

 

“Where’s the trailer court located? I’d like to ask her how I can get in touch with Hector. He may have seen something at the Parmentier Winery where the field hand was killed that might give us a clue as to who the killer is.”

 

“Do you think Hector might be the killer?”

 

“No I don’t. The field hand who was killed was a big strongly built man. He died because his neck was broken and someone as small as Hector couldn’t have pulled that off. I just want to talk with him to ask him what he saw and why he ran away from the deputy who was with me when we first visited the crime scene.”

 

Alfonso gives him the directions to the trailer park and Derrick hangs up feeling pretty good about how the day is going.

 

As he begins to review his notes on everything he’s done to date, he starts wondering how the blackmailers obtained the damning information to put the squeeze on Mr. Valentini. “The source has to be someone that was involved in the smuggling operation with Valentini as no one was ever caught doing the deed, so there would be no police or public record of the activities. A private investigator could have been brought in to go through the vetting process under some made up pretense to keep the shamus unaware of what they are really up to. Finding which one would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Even if I found the needle, I most likely would run into a stone wall when it came to getting any information pertinent to the investigation. I won’t rule out a PI search though if I get desperate enough for a meaningful lead.”

 

Turning to Julie he says, “We’re on to meet with the owners of the Mel Del Meglio winery, Andre and Colette Beauchamp, tomorrow at ten in the a.m. at the winery and Mr. Valentini called to let me know that his attorney and his family have agreed to what we’re trying to do.”

 

“That’s great. I wonder if any of the other wineries have been scared into selling out with threats of blackmail.”

 

“I haven’t heard any rumors to that effect. I’m sure Audrey Aragon would have passed them on to me if she had picked up on anything.

 

“Now I have some more potentially good news. Grab your hat. We’re going out to Paganelli Wineries to see a Rosa Balcazar. Alfonso Paganelli identified the person in the sketch, a Hector Correa, who is her boyfriend. We can get Hector’s contact info from her and then pay him a visit. Hopefully, he saw something that will help us with the investigation. I’m thinking he saw something that scared him enough to run away from a deputy sheriff. If she’s not working today, I have the address of the trailer court she lives in and we can try to reach her there.”

 

“Alright, I’ll get the car while you let Bemis know what’s up and where we’re headed.”