Sour Grapes

straight to Savannah.
    “Oh, my god! I can’t believe it. That poor girl!” She glanced around the scene, at the coroner’s wagon, at the Search and Rescue team members who were packing their equipment into their van. “Where is she? I mean, where is the body?”
    “They’ve already recovered her remains from the hillside,” Savannah told her. “Dr. Liu has her in the wagon now, and she’ll be taking her away in just a few minutes.”
    “But what do you think happened to her? Do you suppose she went for a walk out here in the dark and fell off the cliff?”
    Savannah considered telling her about the tape bindings, but under these circumstances she had often found that the less said the better.
    “We don’t know exactly what happened to her yet, Mrs. Villa. The doctor will perform an autopsy on the body and that should give us some answers.”
    “This is just so terrible. We’ve never had anything like this happen around here. I’m sure as soon as the press hears about this, they’ll be all over... and with Tony’s candidacy. Oh, dear, this is just such an awful time to have something like this happen.”
    Savannah took a deep breath and gathered what little of her patience remained. “Yes, Mrs. Villa, it’s perfectly dreadful. But then, there’s no convenient time for someone to be murdered.”
    Catherine hesitated a long time before answering. She, too, appeared to be marshaling every ounce of courtesy that she could muster. “I realize, Savannah, that my comments may sound somewhat insensitive to your ears. But Tony and I have worked hard and long for him to win this senate seat. We’ve invested everything we have, financially, emotionally, so you’ll just have to forgive me if I seem to be overreacting to this situation.”
    “Murder is always serious, tragic business,” Savannah said. “It would be difficult for anyone to overreact to a young woman losing her life this way.”
    “ Murder? Is that what you said? You actually think someone killed that girl?”
    Catherine Whitestone-Villa was turning so pale that Savannah was seriously considering the best way to catch her when she fainted.
    “It may be a homicide,” Savannah said, “and maybe not We’ll see, once Dr. Liu has completed the autopsy.” ‘This is so awful! I wish we had never sponsored this pageant. Then none of this would have happened.”
    “Well, as I said, we’ll know more later. So there’s no need to speculate at this point.”
    Catherine shook her head, disbelief and shock registering in every aristocratic line of her face. “And what are they doing over there... on the ground?” she asked.
    “They’re taking a plaster cast of a tire mark there in the dirt.”
    “It’s true then—the police are treating this as a homicide?”
    “Not necessarily. They’re just making sure to cover all the bases. By the way,” Savannah said, “can you tell me where this road leads?”
    “It winds, north to south, across the back of the vineyards along the eastern edge of our property, then turns west and intersects the main highway, several miles south of our front gates.”
    “Who uses this road?”
    “We all do: our friends and family, the workers, delivery people, everybody. Why?”
    “Just asking... trying to get a mental picture.” Catherine Villa’s eyes narrowed. “No, you’re not just asking. If you think someone at Villa Rosa hurt that girl, you’re wrong. I know every person who works for me, and they are wonderful people. We’ve had many of our cellar workers and even seasonal workers for years. Many of them worked for Tony’s father, and some even for his grandfather. None of them would ever do anything like this.”
    “I never said any of them did.”
    “If someone murdered one of the beauty contestants, it was somebody she brought with her, someone who came to Villa Rosa because she was here. I’m absolutely certain of that. Do you understand me, Savannah?”
    Savannah sighed and felt the fatigue of the past twenty-four hours sweep over her. “I understand that you are absolutely certain, Mrs. Villa. On the other hand, I can’t say that I’m sure about anything... except... that if I don’t get some sleep pretty soon, I’m going to fall down dead in my tracks, and they’re going to be carrying me out of here in a body bag.”

    * * *

    An hour later, when Savannah returned to Villa Rosa’s visitors’ center, she passed through the courtyard and found Marion Lippincott standing