Peril in Paperback: A Bibliophile Mystery

mentioned before, visible blood marks and I didn’t mix well.
    “Easy, babe.” He examined the bloodstains up close. “Looks caked on. Must be Fowler’s. He had a gash on the side of his head that probably bled here.”
    “Yeah, I saw it.” My stomach rolled again and I fought the reaction. “Did he say how he hit his head? The fall onto the chute was painless. No sharp edges anywhere. And this balloon pillow couldn’t have hurt him.”
    “He was whining that someone attacked him.” Frowning, Gabriel added, “Someone could’ve hit him over the head upstairs, then pushed him down the chute.”
    And who could blame him?
I thought, then chastised myself. Stephen Fowler, for all his foulness, didn’t deserve any of this. “Maybe he was attacked once he got down here.”
    I worked out both scenarios in my head and neither made a lot of sense. “I don’t suppose you noticed any blood on the chute.”
    “It was a pretty quick trip,” he drawled, then turned serious. “My guess is that he was attacked in the upstairs hall, then pushed down the chute. When he woke up severalhours later, it was dark. He was disoriented and couldn’t find his way back upstairs until this morning.”
    “That makes the most sense, for what it’s worth.” And since Stephen wasn’t talking, for whatever reason, all we had to go on was our guesswork. But it still didn’t make me feel much better. “How do we get out of here?”
    Gabriel turned and pointed. “That door over there leads to Grace’s wine cellar.”
    “Really?” I raised my eyebrows. Coming from the Sonoma wine country, those were magic words. And in my own defense, let me just say that after falling through a trapdoor and sliding down into a dungeon, anyone would have wanted a glass of wine. “Let’s check it out.”
    I found a book in the wine cellar.
    The underground room was even more cavelike than the bouncy-bounce room had been. The walls here were carved out of the bedrock stone beneath the house, too. But the ceiling was even lower, adding to the dark, cold feel of the long, narrow room. Gabriel found the light switch and turned it on, revealing a stone floor and row after row of wooden wine bins, all filled with dusty bottles of red wine.
    Having grown up surrounded by vineyards, with parents who co-owned a winery and who had instilled in each of their children an appreciation of fine wines, I was always excited by the prospect of exploring a wine cellar. It felt like I was going on a treasure hunt. I never knew what gems I might unearth.
    “Let’s see what we have,” I said, and pulled a bottle from one of the dusty slots. “Holy cow. I haven’t seen a Kosta Browne pinot in over a year.”
    “Bring it upstairs,” Gabriel advised as he scanned another row of bins. “We’ll drink it at dinner.”
    “I will.” I pushed back on the trickle of guilt I felt over raiding Grace’s wine cellar. After all, everyone at the party would be partaking of our bounty. Plus Grace had at least two cases of Kosta Browne down here. Youcouldn’t find that wine anywhere. My father would be giggling and dancing in the street.
    “I think we should drink one of these.”
    Gabriel looked up. “Take it with us.”
    “Okay.” I pulled one bottle out and held it close. Then I scanned more bins and pulled out several more bottles, not to take but merely to identify the wineries. They were all excellent wines. “She’s got great taste in wine.”
    “Yeah, she does.”
    I was almost finished with my hunt when something odd caught my attention. “No way.” I reached inside one of the slots and pulled out a book. A
book
? Had someone actually stashed a book in a wine bin?
    “This is getting ridiculous.” I held up the book for Gabriel to see. “Who would be reading a book in a cold, dank wine cellar?”
    “A book lover?”
    “Very funny,” I said, scowling as I studied the small book, a nicely bound volume of poetry called
The Open Road
. “If it had been a real book lover, he wouldn’t have shoved it in a wine bin and left it to mold. He’s lucky it’s not covered in parasites.”
    “Babe, you’re giving me the creeps.”
    “Really? That may be another first.” I stuck the book in my pocket to examine more closely in the brighter light of the library.
    A minute later, Gabriel held up two more bottles of wine. “I just discovered two Jordan cabs I’m taking upstairs. Now let’s get out of here.”
    “I’m with you.”
    An hour later, I