Vincent was so stunned it was weeks before he could think to act on his own. Lupita stayed on and looked after him. Her family came to run the winery full time instead of during the picking season. Before Vincent could learn that he had inherited a half share in the winery he left without saying good bye. He stayed in Sacramento a week and joined the army. He was sixteen years old though his birth certificate said eighteen.
He was alone again and the army was an easy place to hide.
Chapter 9
Teresa drove up Sunland Boulevard slowly, checking the numbers on the mail boxes. She spotted the box by the metal gate and pulled in quickly.
She had dressed with as much care as when she went to visit her mother, then she took everything off and put on her uniform, careful not to examine her motives.
A speaker with a buzzer beneath had been mounted on a post near the gate. The gate was closed and she couldn’t see a house through the iron bars, only fruit trees, flowers and fields of golden buffalo grass. Something wasn’t right. Why did the place seem abandoned?
He probably isn’t home, she thought. I should just forget the whole thing.
She sat in the car for ten minutes trying to get up courage, to make a decision.
Finally Teresa got out of the car, walked around to the post and looked at the buzzer. Indecision made her angry. She jabbed the buzzer one, two, three times angrily.
It was a long count of ten before anyone answered. Then a tinny voice. “Who is it?”
“Sergeant Keely, Burbank Police Department.”
“What do you want?”
There it was. What did she want? She really didn’t know. “ The Peersons,” she blurted it out.
The silence went on for a long time. Then a metallic snap and the gate began to roll back. Teresa got back in the car and drove through the gate. The road onto the property was gravel, well kept. Teresa felt her heart beat faster.
At the top of the first hill she stopped and looked toward the house on the hill beyond. “Jesus! Will you look at that!”
She drove on and parked in an area to one side of the house. The entry way was tucked in between two of the wings radiating out from the central tower.
Teresa didn’t look for the bell. She knocked and waited. Vincent opened the door and looked at her without expression or curiosity.
He dressed neatly in dark slacks, a soft mouse-colored shirt with wide collar open at the neck; black curly hair visible at the top of his shirt. Teresa wasn’t aware of her hands curling reflexively, as if wanting to touch.
He turned and walked into the house without looking back. Teresa followed. Vincent walked across a wide entry space into the atrium. She looked up toward the roof three stories above, then around the room. The sun cast beautiful shadows on the walls and small pool.
A massive, pier glass mirror on the wall reflected the shifting light from the skylight and the small pool. On another wall was a fine copy of Renoir’s Rocky Crags at L’Estaque/Rochers a la L’Estaque. There were other paintings, all impressionist, more landscapes and a few still lifes. None of the paintings contained people.
What’s wrong with all this? Teresa wondered.
To one side a long sectional sofa in pale orange faced a low glass-topped table.
“Will you sit, please?” A deep voice that resonated around the room. “Please excuse me, I’ll be back in a moment.” Without waiting for a reply he left the room.
He sounds like he learned his manners from a book, she thought.
He came back in a moment with a bottle of wine and two glasses. She noted without saying anything that it was the same kind she drank. He put the glasses on the table in front of her. He started to ask something, changed his mind and poured.
Teresa wasn’t supposed to drink on duty, but then she wasn’t really on duty. The uniform made it okay to be where she shouldn’t be.
He stood well away from her holding his glass.
“Is this official?”
She felt herself reacting to his voice and it made her angry that she had so little self control.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I know who you are, not what you are. I watched you last Tuesday. In some ways you fit the profile of a peeping tom. In others you don’t. You were spying on that family, on the Peersons. I want to know why?”
Vincent flushed under her gaze. He turned and walked to a large oval Oriel window facing south west over Burbank. He would not face her.
“I hurt no one.”
“You could, what if the Peersons found out. You invade their privacy.”
He turned and looked at Teresa, his face suffused with anger and confusion, his icy not-thereness broken.
“It’s none of your business, you invade my privacy.”
“Bullshit! The public welfare is my business. Sitting in trees, watching other people live their lives isn’t exactly acting in the best interests of society.” She waited a moment. “Answer my question.”
Vincent’s knuckles were white around the glass of wine. He stared at her and said nothing. The ping of the wine glass breaking shattered the silence followed by the clatter of glass falling on the parquet floor. His mouth moved as he struggled to speak, but no sound came. Blood dripped from his hand unnoticed.
Vincent tried to answer but he could not. Teresa was caught in the struggle. She willed him to say something, anything. She had chosen sides and couldn’t bear that her side—Vincent—might not win.
He opened his hands in defeat. More glass and blood fell to the floor.
Teresa stood abruptly, pulled a handkerchief from her jacket and walked to Vincent. As she came close he shrank back. She took his arm, then his hand and wrapped the handkerchief around it gently.
“Is there a bathroom or a kitchen?”
He nodded in the direction he’d gone to get the wine. She led him through the door into a large, essentially bare kitchen. He followed, unable to resist.
Teresa led him to the sink, ran the water till it was warm, and carefully took the handkerchief from his hand. She placed his hand beneath the water.
“Just hold it there. Do you have a first aid kit?” He didn’t answer. “That’s okay, I have one in my car.”
Teresa didn’t notice that she had become very gentle, very focused on his hurt. Her words were soft, completely different than when she questioned him earlier.
Vincent pointed to the doors beneath the sink. Teresa knelt down, got the first aid kit, laid it on the counter and began removing bandages, tape, antibiotic cream.
“Are you dizzy? I get dizzy sometimes if I bleed. I can bring you a chair if you like? I’m going to run the water a little hotter. If it hurts, tell me, I’ll stop.”
She took his hand from beneath the water and dried it carefully with a towel. She stood too close. Her hair was in braids, the coils pinned to her head in a pile. Vincent looked at the fine gold hair on the back of her pale neck. He took a slow, deep breath, absorbing her smell. He was fascinated and repelled by her closeness.
“I’m going to make sure none of the glass is in your palm. It might hurt.” She looked at him to see if she should go on. He could not return the look.
Teresa bent