Taylor let the words mingle with the scent of urine. He did not care to hear Michael Voracci’s self-advertisements. He had heard the speech before. It had been well-rehearsed, with much of it taken, nearly word for word, from the marketing pamphlets that were shipped with each case of Tanglewood wine. The family farm and wine operations had been successfully marketed as a longstanding family operation for the last thirty years.
Voracci’s grandfather, Antonio, a potato farmer, had started the winery as a hobby to keep himself busy in the fall and winter months.
His skill with the vines and his love for wine had made him successful.
Voracci’s father, Anthony, had replaced the potatoes with tobacco, planted more vines and turned the modest family business into a small empire that owned leasing properties, a chain of travel agencies, a trucking company and a wholesale distribution company.
When Anthony had retired fifteen years ago, he’d divided his businesses into parcels, giving most of the shares to his two sons, Vic and Michael, and keeping a small portion for himself. The farm was divided down the centre, the orchards and fields going to Vic, the vineyard and winery going to Michael.
The brothers soon began investing their family fortune into several technology companies and a host of other ventures that had very little to do with wine or farm produce, the pillars of the family’s original business. These investments had not fared well when the dot-com bubble of the Nineties had burst, and the brothers had returned their business interests to the family roots. Vic, with the help of some solid federal financing, had begin covering the fields with plastic, and venturing into hydroponic greenhouse tomatoes. This had not been the gold mine he had anticipated, due to increased competition from California, but it had been steadily profitable over the years. The winery thrived as well, Michael Voracci leveraging the family name through intensive advertising and wine competitions in both Canada and the United States. While they were extremely competitive with each other, the brothers operated both the greenhouses and the vineyard under a single joint holding company, through which they shared their equipment, trucks, water, power and warehouse facilities. Even the employees were hired under this holding company, Ben Taylor included, so they could be used each day wherever they were needed most, at the discretion of Randy Caines.
While Michael and Vic enjoyed the glow of their success, Taylor had some inside information few of the other workers would ever suspect—that most of the family fortune had been squandered. While Michael Voracci and his wife still lived on the farm, he spent more time on the golf course and travelling from one wine event to another than he did on the vineyard. Vic had bought a house a few miles away in Andover but spent most of his time in Toronto, enjoying a condo on the waterfront while managing a series of ever-shifting companies few on the farm knew much about. Abe Wagner, whose daughter Anna now lay less than twenty yards away, had once told Taylor it was a typical path of three generations. The first generation starts the business. The second generation builds the business. The third generation squanders the business. However, Abe Wagner had been quick to point out that this was not a hard and set rule. The aging wine master was hopeful this would not be the fate of the Voracci family business. His own livelihood, after all, depended on it.
Shortly after Voracci had finished his speech, Taylor realized this was already the longest conversation he had ever had with his employer. The few times Voracci was in the warehouse, or touring the vineyards with potential clients, he did not interact very often with his employees. He would wink as he passed, or give a thumb up, and call out with a grin, “Keep smiling!” before disappearing into his office. Taylor could not help but clench his teeth each time he saw Voracci smile.
The trademark grin was far away at the moment as Voracci ran his fingers through his stiff black hair and looked over the damage to the pump-house. “I was going to bulldoze it a couple years ago,” he said, “but never got around to it. We could have planted six more trees there.”
“Or some more vines,” Taylor offered without interest, looking down the orchard for signs of the police.
“No, no,” said Voracci, crossing his arms. “I want to keep all the grapes on that side of the lane. Keep this for the fruit trees. Of course, it was all trees in this part when you used to work here, wasn’t it?”
Taylor nodded.
“I remember you,” Voracci said. “You were just a kid. It’s awful strange to see you back here, Taylor. It’s nice, of course. Just strange.”
“You too,” said Taylor. “I’d have expected you to be living in Toronto or New York. Back then you were going to law school, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, but life got in the way. You don’t understand family business, Taylor. Not just our family. Any family business. You just don’t walk away. It keeps you here, tied to the ground.” Voracci forced a smile. “I’ll tell you, it’s a damn good thing I love this land.”
Taylor nodded impatiently through Voracci’s monologue as he watched a white police cruiser quickly make its way up the gravel laneway, approaching slowly. Rising dust formed a small trail behind it. The cruiser stopped behind Voracci’s Dakota. Tom McGrath, the Andover Police Chief, was in the passenger seat. Pat Patterson, one of his six constables, and McGrath’s son-in-law, was driving. Taylor knew them all by sight.
McGrath was sixty-four and looking towards the retirement his body desperately needed and his ego could not face. The Chief closed his door, lifted both arms in the air and yawned loudly. Watching the grimace on the Chief ’s face as he stepped from the car, Taylor understood the yawn was to mask the back pains that came from too many hours behind the wheel of a cruiser, too much weight on his aging spine.
Patterson was in his mid-forties, about the right age to have gone to school with Voracci, Taylor realized, if he had grown up in Andover. Taylor watched the way Patterson would not make eye contact with Voracci or even shake his hand the way McGrath now did, and decided he must know Voracci quite well to warrant such a slight in etiquette. Both officers stood with their hands on their hips, looking over the scene from behind dark sunglasses.
McGrath squinted into a smile behind his glasses, dentures white in the sun. “What’s going on, Mikey?” he asked in an amiable, grandfatherly manner. The tone was well practiced and came easily to the Chief after years of pulling over drunk drivers and moving teenagers from the sidewalk in front of the pool hall.
“We found the girl,” Voracci answered, looking to the ground. He pointed behind him with a thumb. “She’s in there. Anna Wagner.”
McGrath drew a long loud breath. “Hell of a thing. Thanks, Mike. You’d better stay over by the vehicles now. We’ll take it from here.” He did not seem to notice Taylor.
“Of course,” said Voracci.
Patterson looked sideways at Taylor as Chief McGrath disappeared inside the pump-house. The constable did not seem to give Taylor much importance either. He was just another farm worker to them, another set of eyes ogling the scene of a crime.
McGrath stepped out into the sunlight. He pulled a blue linen handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face and neck. The Chief seemed more annoyed with the additional workload than upset for the girl’s fate. Taylor found himself wishing he had covered her body after all.
The Chief nodded at Patterson. “It’s her, all right. Not very pretty. It’s a damn shame.”
Patterson opened the trunk of his cruiser and began rooting around with his equipment. Taylor stepped forward.
“It’s a damn shame,” McGrath said to Voracci. “You have to think he kept the poor girl in there all this time we were looking for her.
Right under our noses. Had anyone looked for her here?”
“I don’t think so,” said Voracci.
“Wasn’t that your job?” Taylor interrupted, glaring at the police chief.
McGrath turned