Sharpshooter by Nadia Gordon Page B

his father was shrewd, he was conniving. Where Al was tough, he was mean.”
    “To the point, please,” said Rivka, striking a match and lighting a cigarette.
    “The point is, Madam Smoker, that I could make a list of at least twenty people who had good reason to put a few pins in their Jack Beroni voodoo dolls, ranging from insult to injury to underhanded business practices, but I can’t imagine any of them killing him.”
    “That’s almost exactly what Steve Harvey said today,” said Sunny. “But of course it did happen, so somebody is capable of more than we think they are. I never knew everyone hated him somuch in the first place.” She motioned to Rivka, who handed over the cigarette. Sunny took one drag. She didn’t allow herself whole cigarettes anymore, just one puff now and then after dinner.
    “Not hate, more like quietly but persistently loathe,” said Monty, “and not everyone.”
    “What about his sexy girlfriend?” said Rivka.
    “Larissa? Why would she want Jack dead?” said Monty.
    “From what I’ve heard, he wasn’t exactly faithful to her. And he dated her for five years without asking her to marry him.”
    “I truly hope that is not justification for murder,” said Monty.
    “If she was desperately in love with him and he kept yanking her chain,” Rivka said, “it could be if it went on long enough. At the wine auction last year, he put his hand on my backside like he owned it. This was while Larissa was standing about ten feet away.”
    “And?” said Monty, smirking.
    “Don’t give me trouble, Lenstrom. You know you can’t handle me.”
    “Napa’s most eligible bachelor comes on to you and you didn’t respond?” said Monty.
    “I don’t date other women’s boyfriends. And he wasn’t my type. Too pretty and too sleazy. I like a boy with dirty hands and a clean heart.”
    “I have the dirty hands at least,” said Monty.
    “I meant dirty from working outside,” said Rivka.
    “Oh,” said Monty. “The construction worker complex again. It’s pervasive. When are you girls going to get over the he-man thing?”
    “It just shows that you never really know the whole story about a person,” said Charlie. “You think you do, but then there’s all this behind-the-back stuff going on.”
    Rivka gave him a look and stabbed into the roast chicken on her plate, spearing a bite.
    Charlie stopped and blushed slightly when he realized the double entendre. “I mean, he seemed honest and straightforward, but maybe he forgot to pay somebody, maybe he got in somebody’s way.”
    “I don’t know about that,” said Monty. “The Beronis have always been thoroughly legitimate. They maintain plenty of influence up in Sacramento, but they don’t have the criminal ties like some of the old families did before the corporate wave came in, back in the eighties. The Beronis make overpriced, mediocre wine and throw big fancy parties and that’s about it, as far as I can tell.”
    “It wouldn’t have to be the Mafia,” said Charlie. “It could be anything. Drugs, gambling, the wrong kind of friends.”
    “This is all speculation,” said Sunny. “The truth is, we have no idea what happened and probably never will. Somebody shot him and walked away.”
    Monty spent some time aligning an errant spear of asparagus with the others on his plate. “It’s terrible,” he said, “but my first thought when I heard about the murder wasn’t sympathy for Larissa or Al and Louisa. My first thought, I’m ashamed to admit, was that Beroni Vineyards had lost its heir. Jack was Al and Louisa’s only child, and he wasn’t married and didn’t have any kids. The only other family is Ripley Marlow, and she’s a cousin through Al’s mother, so she’s not even a Beroni. There may be other cousins or distant relations somewhere, but I’ve never heard of them. I can’t even imagine what Beroni is worth, and now there is nobody to inherit it, no one to take over running it when Al retires, which