Page 44 of So Bleak

“Under your sweater? Hours after tasting is supposed to be over?”

He swallowed again. “Yes.”

“Sounds good. Michael? Call the front desk and let them know that Alex Ferris is walking out with two bottles under his sweater.”

“No! No, why would you do that?”

“Why wouldn’t we? We’re trying to talk to you, and you’re lying to us.”

“But…” His eyes shifted between them. “Look, I didn’t kill them. I wasn’t in the same place as them when they died.”

“Some poisons take a while to work. Especially if the victims don’t open their bottles right away.”

Alex’s brow furrowed. Then his eyes widened. “Oh shit. The wine.”

“The wine,” Michael repeated. “You want to talk to us now?”

“Okay,” Alex replied. “Okay. Just… look, I’ll talk to you, but don’t tell the vineyard about the bottles.”

“We don’t give a shit about wine, Alex,” Faith said. “Unless you used it to kill three people.”

“I didn’t use it to kill anyone. Look, test the wine. You can do that, right? Test it, and it’ll prove there’s no poison in it.”

“Good idea. Michael, call PD and have them search the victims’ belongings again. Tell them we’re looking for any wine with the Paul Revere label on it. It needs to be tested for the poison. Have them send units here to test everything from the same batch.”

“You don’t need to send units here,” Alex said quickly. “I’ll give you bottles from the batch that you can take to your lab.”

“Not good enough,” Faith said. “We’re going to test every bottle from that batch for poison. And I don’t trust you to help us, so Michael?”

Michael looked up from his phone. “Yeah?’

“Have them call the vineyard and determine exactly which batch the wine came from. We’re going to check everything. The bottles, the barrels, everything.”

“You’re going to get me fired!” Alex pleaded.

“That doesn’t seem like much of a loss for the vineyard,” Faith said, gesturing to Alex’s swollen jacket.

“Look…” Alex ran his hands through his hair. “Please. I get it, okay? I know I look like a piece of shit right now for stealing wine, but I promise you, this isn’t something I do all the time.”

“Only takes once.”

“Okay, can you talk to me? Can you at least let me talk? Maybe I can convince you that I’m not the killer without you needing to go through all of this.”

“It’ll be at least an hour and a half before anyone gets here. Probably closer to two. If you convince me you’re not the killer, I’m going to leave, and you might have a chance to clean out your office and head home before upper management finds out you’ve been lifting vintages.”

“Oh God,” Alex moaned. “All right. Okay. Just please give me a chance to explain.”

He opened his vest and removed the bottles, then walked to a counter and set them down. He turned back to the agents and said, “Listen, your victims are renowned food critics. Well, Eleanor Crestwood is renowned, and Harold Grimes is at least respected. As for Lila, she couldn’t tell the difference between wine and gravy without someone to point it out to her, but she’s popular, and the vineyard is trying to attract younger consumers. I was assigned to work with them because I’m the leading sommelier here. I won’t bore you with my qualifications, but I was the only choice when it came to something as high profile as these pairings.”

“Can you describe your interactions with our victims?”

“Professional. To a tee. All three of them.”

“You didn’t have any conflict with them?”

“Of course not. Why would I?”

“Well,” Michael said, dialing the police department. “Eleanor Crestwood left a pretty nasty review of your wine on her website.”

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