The Villa

clear the way? Reaching, Alex. On the Catholic sin-o-meter, murder edges out divorce."
    "Or somebody does it for her. Cutter's brought in to the company, over Avano. Got to cause some friction. Cutter likes the look of Avano's estranged and soon-to-be-divorced wife."
    "We ran Cutter up, down and sideways. He's squeaky."
    "Maybe, or maybe he didn't have a good reason to get his hands dirty before. Look, we found out Avano was in financial trouble. Unless the widow's an Oscar-caliber actress, I'd say that came as a big, unpleasant surprise to her. So, going with the theory that Avano was keeping his money problems to himself, and wasn't the type to do without his beluga for long, where would he go for a fix? Not one of his society friends," Claremont continued. "Wouldn't be able to show his face at the next charity ball. He goes to Giambelli, where he's been bailed out periodically for years. To the ex-wife, maybe."
    "And following your line, if she agreed, Cutter got steamed over it. If she didn't, and Avano got nasty, Cutter got steamed over it. It's a long way from steamed to putting three bullets in a man."
    Still, she considered. It was something to chew on, and there'd been precious little so far. "I guess we're chatting with David Cutter tomorrow."
     
    David juggled the hours of his workday between the San Francisco offices, his home office, the vineyards and the winery. With two teenagers to raise and a demanding job, he often put in fourteen-hour days.
    He'd never been happier in his life.
    With La Coeur he'd spent most of his time behind a desk. Had occasionally traveled to sit on the other side of someone else's desk. He'd worked in an area that interested him and had earned him respect and a good salary.
    And he'd been bored brainless.
    The hands-on approach he was not only allowed but expected to use with Giambelli-MacMillan made each day a little adventure. He was dipping his fingers into areas of the wine business that had been only theory or paperwork before.
    Distribution, bottling, shipping, marketing. And above all, the grape itself. From vine to table.
    And what vines. To be able to see them, stretching, stretching, wrapped in the fogs and mists of the valley. The linear and the insubstantial that mingled light and shadow. And when the frost shimmered on them at dawn, or the cold moonlight drizzled down at midnight, there was magic there.
    When he walked through the rows, breathing in the mystery of that damp air, and the wispy arms of the vines surrounded him, it was like living in a painting. One he could, and would, mark with his own brush strokes.
    There was a romance in that romance he'd forgotten locked behind steel and glass in New York.
    His home life still had bumps. Theo pushed and shoved against the rules on a daily basis. It seemed to David the boy was grounded as often as not.
    Like father like son, he often thought. But it wasn't much of a comfort when he was in the middle of the combat zone. He began to wonder why his own father, faced with such a surly, hardheaded, argumentative offspring, hadn't simply locked him in the attic until he'd turned twenty-one.
    Maddy wasn't any easier. She appeared to have given up on the nose ring. Now she was campaigning to have her hair streaked. It baffled him constantly how a sensible girl could forever be pining to do weird things to her body.
    He had no idea how to get inside the mind of a fourteen-year-old girl. And wasn't entirely sure he wanted to.
    But they were settling in. They were making friends. They were finding a rhythm.
    He found it odd neither of them had commented on his relationship with Pilar. Normally they teased him mercilessly about his dates. He thought perhaps they assumed it was business. Which was just as well.
    He caught himself daydreaming, as he often did when his mind drifted to Pilar. He shook his head, shifted in his chair. This wasn't the time to indulge himself. He had a meeting with department heads in twenty minutes and needed to review his notes.
    Because time was short, he wasn't pleased to be interrupted by the police.
    "Detectives. What can I do for you?"
    "A few minutes of your time," Claremont told him, while Maguire scanned the office and got the lay of the land.
    "A few minutes is exactly what I can spare. Have a seat."
    Big, cushy leather seats, Maguire noted. In a big, cushy corner office with a kick-ass view of San Francisco through the wide windows. A thoroughbred of offices for a desk jockey, and