“Seize on him, Furies, take him unto torment,” June said on their way back to the house.
Cait shook her head. “You got me with that one.”
“I can’t help myself. Tragedy of King Richard III. Richard’s brother, the Duke of Clarence, says that to a jailer in the Tower of London. It relates to a dream in which he drowns, goes to hell, and meets the spirits of those he murdered or betrayed in life.” She smiled. “That tragedy wouldn’t happen to be on the festival’s agenda, would it?”
“No, but maybe it should be.”
“Seriously, Cait, if you need to go to the grocery store, take Jim. Two guns are better than one. You have to protect yourself, not the whole world.”
“I know how to protect myself, but I also have a festival to run, a vineyard to tend to, and a class to learn how to manage it. Which reminds me, I have a class tonight.”
“Cancel it.”
Cait smiled. “I want to go. Before RT left, he arranged for a temporary manager to care for the vineyard. If RT comes back, I want him to know I’m making an effort to learn the wine industry, one class at a time. Tasha and Hilton and RT’s parents were friends. I don’t want to disappoint anyone by neglecting the vineyard.”
“Do it for yourself then, not to please others. What’s this class about?”
“How to operate a vineyard—viticulture practices for spring and summer, pest control, soils, irrigation practices, and a whole lot more. I’m actually enjoying it, but sometimes it’s hard to concentrate while the festival’s going on.”
June touched Cait’s arm. “Jim’s secret passion is to learn the wine industry. That’s why you’ll sometimes find him in the vineyard talking to Kurt Mathews. Maybe he should go to class with you. I’m going to check on the guys to see how they’re coming along with the picnic tables.”
Cait watched June until she disappeared inside the garage where the guys were working. When she entered the house, she heard faint noises from the gift shop and tiptoed down the hall and peeked around the doorframe.
Fumié stood on a small step stool with a dust cloth and was rearranging plaster busts of Shakespeare on the shelf. She didn’t see Cait until she stepped down. “Oh, hi. I hope you don’t mind, but I thought the shelves could use a little reorganizing. Marcus let me in.”
“No problem. There’s something I want to talk to you and Ilia about.”
Fumié brushed her hands off. “I hope I’m not in trouble. I’d work for free just to be part of the festival.”
Cait looked at Fumié’s shiny black hair, her sparkling dark eyes, and porcelain skin and wondered if she would lose her after she told her about the phone calls and the break-in attempt, but Cait knew she needed to warn Fumié to stay alert in case of serious trouble. “It’s nothing like that. Is Ilia around?”
“Yes. He’s taking pictures for his new book.”
“Great. Let’s go in the kitchen. I’ll call him.”
Ilia was peeking in the door window when they walked into the kitchen. Cait opened the door. “I was going to call you. Pull out a stool. I need to talk to both of you.” She took three Cokes from the refrigerator and passed them out. “Someone tried to break in Monday night.”
Fumié gasped.
Cait told them about the alarm, halberd, knife, and the significance of the initials on the blade. “There’ve been phone calls and hang-ups. I want you to keep your phones on when you’re here in case there’s an emergency.”
“My camera is always with me,” Ilia said. “I can take pictures if I see anything suspicious.”
“Just be careful.”
“I grew up on a ranch,” Fumié said. “My dad taught me to shoot when I was twelve. I could borrow one of his guns.”
Cait smiled. “That won’t be necessary, but it may be useful when you become a park ranger. This may go no further than annoying phone calls, but you need to be careful and alert. Detective Rook will have security here this weekend.” She pulled the tab on her Coke and sipped from the can. “Jim Hart and I will also be armed.”
“I know how to shoot,” Marcus said from the office doorway.
Cait hadn’t heard him come in through his office door. “You’re on probation.” The crestfallen look on his face almost broke her heart. Marcus had served time for burglary before Tasha hired him as her administrative assistant. It had taken Cait awhile to bond with him, but now she would trust him with her life. “I need you to make yourself available to the actors and those attending the plays. That’s a huge responsibility.”
He nodded. “You shouldn’t go to that class tonight.”
“I have a business to run, and I can’t do it if I don’t know how. It will be okay.”
“I could take you and wait for you.”
Cait thought Marcus worried too much about her. “Thanks, but that won’t be necessary.” She took a long swallow of her Coke. “Want to walk through the vineyard with me?” She’d been thinking of asking him if he was interested in taking viticulture classes at the local college.
“Sure,” he said.
She opened the door then hesitated. “Ilia, I know someone who would be happy to let you take pictures of his horse to use in your book.”
Ilia looked confused, then grinned. “Sure. Anyone I know?”
Cait tipped her head at Marcus. “He keeps his horse at the ranch.”
“Now why didn’t I think of that,” Ilia said.
“That was cool,” Marcus said when they were outside, “what you said back there.”
“You can thank me when his book comes out,” she said.
A rush of Spanish greeted them when they reached the front of the house. Trailers were hitched to trucks parked in the driveway, while workers filled burlap bags scattered about the driveway and at the ends of several rows in the vineyard.
“Hey, Ms. Pepper,” a man called to her.
Cait held her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. Kurt Mathews, the temporary manager RT arranged to help with the vineyard, caught up with her. “Hi. How’s the vineyard looking?”
“Good. We finished the suckering.”
She smiled. “Someday I’ll know what that means.”
He pushed his ball cap up on his head. “Sorry, ma’am. That’s the removal of shoots that originate on the trunk of the vine and below the ground. They diminish the vigor of the trained position of the vines.”
Oh, boy. “Thanks, but no need to apologize, Kurt. And please call me Cait.”
He smiled. “You’ll only learn if you ask. To prevent mildew we need to keep up the spray schedule to dust the vines with sulfur about every ten to fourteen days. I can get you a copy of the schedule if you’d like.”
She sensed uneasiness between Marcus and Kurt, but couldn’t put her finger on the problem. “I would, thanks. RT did say something about mildew, but I didn’t understand it.”
“Any grower who neglects a spray schedule will pay dearly. The vines will be stunted in growth, the flowers may not go to berries, or the berries will be damaged. Good berries make good wine.”
“Then I better let you get back to business while I study for my viticulture and winery technology class tonight.” She turned away, then over her shoulder asked, “You wouldn’t be interested in a full-time job would you, Kurt?”
Kurt’s eyes flicked on Marcus. “Depends. We can talk about that later.”
As they wound their way in and out of rows where the workers weren’t working, Cait said, “RT said you knew Kurt.”
“Yeah, a long time ago,” Marcus said.
“Were you in school together?”
“Livermore High until I dropped out my junior year. Kurt was part of the in crowd.” He started to walk away. “I better get to work on the picnic tables. Jim’ll be wondering where I am.”
Cait watched him go, shoulders drooped, head down.
Ilia and Fumié were gone when Cait entered the house. She left her unfinished Coke on the counter and looked into the fridge: black olives, sliced cheese and ham, and crackers looked good. She prepared a tray and took it upstairs to the apartment where she settled on the lounge in the bay window and opened her book on viticulture to look up the term “suckering.”
Several chapters later, her eyes closed and the book slipped from her hand. She slept for two hours until the muscles in her neck cramped. She sat up and checked her cell as she picked up the book and discovered it was already after four-thirty.
“I’m going to be late,” she mumbled. She ran to the bathroom. Minutes later, she grabbed a jacket, her shoulder bag, book, and keys, and hurried downstairs. She left a light on in the kitchen, went out the door, and around to the garage, where she found Jim and Marcus staining a picnic table. “I’m late for class.” She opened the middle garage door, jumped in her Saab, and backed out, careful not to bump Marcus’s Jag.
Traffic was heavier than usual as she crossed the overpass to the north side of Livermore. She had to drive around a couple of times until she found a parking space. She hurried into class and found a seat at the back just as the instructor began his lecture.
Cait focused her attention on the instructor and not on the knuckle-cracking guy sitting next to her. She concentrated hard to absorb everything that he presented. She wrote in her notebook and used her yellow highlighter to mark specific words and phrases in her book. They took a fifteen-minute break, and when she returned to the classroom, the knuckle guy was gone. She looked around at the rest of the students in the room and was surprised to see how many were her age or older.
Class ended at seven. Cait dropped her books into her shoulder bag, found her keys, and slipped out of the room ahead of the rest of the students. The sun wasn’t as bright as when she got to class. A couple with their arms around each other walked ahead of her. Their voices drifted back to her in the breeze. Keys clutched in her hand, she looked about as she picked up the pace, anxious to get inside her car. The lot was full; the cars cast shadows down each row. She wove between the cars until she found the row where she’d parked her car.
Over her right shoulder she heard the sound of a car braking as if to make a sharp turn. Her attention had been on finding her car, but she whipped her head around to see a pickup coming toward her at a ridiculous speed.
She threw herself against the car parked next to hers seconds before the speeding pickup flew by, missing Cait by inches.
The couple who had been walking ahead of her ran over. “Are you all right?” the guy asked. “Are you hurt?”
Shaking uncontrollably, she felt her shoulder bag slip to the ground.
“I’m fine,” she said, as she gathered her belongings. “That pickup must have been out of control.”
“Looked to me like he meant to hit you,” the man said. “He was headed right at you.” He pulled out his cell phone. “Want me to call the police?”
“No, whoever it was is long gone. Did you happen to see the license plate?”
“Sorry, it happened so fast.”
“It was black, a Ford I think,” the girl said, “with those big tires.”
Cait thanked them and unlocked her car and got in. She waited a few moments to settle down before starting the car. She wanted to believe it was an accident, a student in a hurry to leave, but couldn’t help wondering who was behind the wheel.