Murder in the Lighthouse (Beachcomber Mystery #4)

16

T hey had a plan and stuck to it. Based on what Brogan had discovered online about the property’s earliest owners, they already had a rough idea of where to look. Before all the recent additions Ken Shepherd had made, the estate had belonged to one family, Martinez Serrano, who planted his first Mission grapes cultivated in Spain two years before California’s statehood. Since then, the land had been split and re-split into sections as children grew into adults and stayed around to work the land. It had taken them years of using the fertile, loamy soil to improve the black, burgundy grapes in hopes of producing the best Bordeaux-style wine. Their dream eventually came true in 1889 after winning a gold medal at the World’s Fair in Paris.

It showed how dedicated the Serrano family was to winemaking. Five generations grew grapes and bottled wine. At the turn of the century, around 1900, they needed an inventive way to store it. They began constructing a massive wine cellar, tunneling their way underground into the side of a hill. It was the ideal place to store their product in optimal conditions . There was low humidity, almost total darkness, and a consistent temperature between fifty-four and fifty-seven degrees with very little vibration except for the occasional earthquake.

While researching the property, Brogan discovered the exact location. She even found photographs taken inside the “vault” during the early stages of excavation. And when prohibition affected all alcohol sales, including wine, their wine cellar became a hidden gem. From 1920 to 1933, the wine industry faltered and all but died. To stay alive, many vineyards kept growing grapes to ship to markets. Across the state, Serrano’s grapes became a welcome commodity in grocery stores. But it didn’t mean they stopped making wine. Bootlegging or rum-running became the easiest way to get their product to the customer. Each night, family members drew straws to see which one would venture out to make the deliveries, bringing wine right to the doors of the speakeasies and restaurants along the coast. Despite the illegal smuggling operation, many wineries closed their doors.

Serrano’s Winery kept going.

A hundred years later, the family eventually ran out of heirs, leaving an opening for Ken Shepherd to become a vintner and switching the name to the trendier Noir Hills Estates label.

The wine vault was still on their mind when Birk and Lucien parked themselves high above the estate, overlooking the grounds for the best vantage point. They waited until just after midnight, when all the lights were turned off in every building on the property, before making their move.

A stingy quarter moon hung high in the sky as the two men dressed in black blended into the shadows, moving through the rows of grapevines, their footsteps muffled by the soft earth beneath them. The only sounds were the gentle leaves rustling in the cool night breeze and the distant hoot of an owl.

Venturing deeper into the heart of the vineyard, they needed to check out four distinct locations, places that Brogan had pinpointed as potential sites. Lucien’s heart pounded as Birk signaled to change direction and veer away from the main house.

Their first stop was a workman’s shed used to store tools and supplies. Birk motioned for Lucien to stay back while he crept forward, his senses on alert. Pressing his back against the wall, he strained his ears for any sign of movement inside. After a tense silence, he pushed open the creaking door and slipped into the interior, his eyes scanning wall to wall before adjusting to the low light. Tools lined the walls, and sacks of soil were stacked in one corner. But what caught his attention was a large tarp draped over an object in the center of the room.

He reached out and pulled back the canvas, revealing a dusty old wine barrel. It looked out of place among the gardening supplies until he realized they were using it to store food-grade glycol for the heating systems they used in the fields.

Lucien appeared in the doorway, signaling he’d found nothing buried around the shed. Birk nodded in agreement, indicating there were no bodies inside.

They hurried on, their eyes scanning the land for any signs of disturbed earth, raised mounds of dirt, or any other signs of a recent burial.

Their second stop was the Serrano family cemetery, a small plot of land surrounded by a wrought iron fence among a swath of tall trees, their gnarled branches gesturing toward heaven. Lucien paused to note the cracked headstones, some leaning, some covered in moss, and the broken crosses blackened with age. The beam of their flashlights revealed the earliest death was an infant who died in 1848, while the last death occurred on April 3, 2011, and belonged to a ninety-year-old man who had never married but had the distinction of being the last Serrano descendant. No grave had been disturbed. No freshly turned soil anywhere. Lucien had no doubt this Serrano graveyard had been the family’s final resting place for a hundred and sixty-two years without disruption.

Birk indicated it was time to move on. As Lucien followed, exiting the cemetery through the back gate, he could only imagine the ghosts watching their every move.

Their next target was the old wine vault. Using Brogan’s hand-drawn map, Birk led the way to a heavy wooden door covered in English ivy and almost hidden from view. He quickly picked the lock before they descended a set of steps into the cool darkness, the beams from their flashlights revealing a tunnel leading underground. They fought cobwebs as the air around them felt thick with the scent of damp earth and fermented wine.

The tunnel opened to a vast chamber lined with rows of wine barrels covered in dust. Some were cracked and leaking their contents onto the ground. Lucien ran his fingers along the labels, noting the dates and vintages.

Birk tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to a corner. Nestled behind a stack of barrels was a small, rusted iron door. Birk knelt down to inspect the lock, his brow furrowed in concentration. With a click, it sprang open, revealing a narrow passageway disappearing into more darkness.

They found more cobwebs and crumbling stone walls. The air grew colder here, a perfect place to hide bodies. Each step echoed off the stone walls, creating an eerie cadence that matched the pounding of their hearts. The passage twisted and turned, leading them further into the unknown depths beneath the vineyard. The frigid air wrapped around them like a shivering embrace, squeezing tight across their chest. They emerged into a larger chamber, their flashlights revealing more old barrels.

Disappointed, Lucien whispered, “We’ve reached a dead end. There’s nothing here except more of those rotting wooden barrels. How far do you think we’ve come.”

“Probably half a mile underground. Let’s head back the way we came.”

They retraced their steps through the dark passageways. The oppressive silence weighed on them, broken only by the resonance of their footsteps and the constant drip, drip, drip of water from the damp walls.

The two were grateful when they found their way back outside. But they had one other place to check.

They hiked in a northerly direction toward the farthest corner of the property. In the distance, they could make out the silhouette of an old, abandoned pump house. They walked past a small pond, crouching down low, scanning the area to ensure no one guarded it. No one was around. In the light, nestled in the grove of trees, stood a brick pump house used as an irrigation station for decades. Made from adobe and cinder blocks, it had seen better days. The windows were shattered, and the door hung precariously on one hinge.

Creeping closer, they could hear the faint sound of water dripping into the pond. Together, they approached the ramshackle building and stood outside the door. Birk ran his fingers along the edges to check for traps or alarms. He shook his head.

“Clear,” he whispered, pushing the door open. It let out a loud creak that rebounded through the night air.

As they entered, the smell of mildew and decay assaulted their senses. Their flashlights illuminated the interior, revealing a small, musty room with a rusted-out pump in the corner.

Lucien shined his flashlight along the dirt floor, its beam cutting through the gloom, revealing a scene that made his blood run cold.

Two shallow graves were hastily dug and crudely covered with dirt, leaf debris, and small branches. Lucien knelt beside the first grave and cleared away the top layer of leaves. With his gloved hands, he dug until he reached the layer of topsoil. With each handful of dirt he removed the shape of a man’s body emerged, contorted in an unnatural position as if he’d been dumped and left to rot.

Birk knelt beside Lucien next to the second grave. His jaw clenched in grim resolve as they moved the dirt together. “I don’t think we should go any further. Look at the hair. It’s obvious we just found Bethany Heywood.”

“What about the other one? It looks male. It also looks as though it’s been here longer.”

“My guess would be Owen Quinn.”

After another thirty minutes of working on the second grave, they unearthed enough of the second body to assure themselves it belonged to a female.

“Photos,” Lucien muttered. “We need pictures to send to Theo and Trish, showing them what we found. And the GIS coordinates.”

“I’ll handle the coordinates and send them a pin,” Birk mumbled. “You take the photos. I haven’t seen anything this morbid since Afghanistan.”

Lucien nodded, his hands steady as he took out his phone to capture the horrific scene. The soft light from the device illuminated the twisted forms of the bodies in stark contrast against the dark, earthen graves. Each photo he took felt like a heavy weight on his soul, a reminder of the darkness lurking beneath the serene face of the fancy winery.

Lucien finished taking the photos just as Birk sent the GPS coordinates to Theo and Trish, along with a terse message about their grisly find.

“Got a response,” Birk said, holding up his phone. “Theo wants us to secure the area and wait. He’s coming in quiet, no sirens. We’re to stay put to make sure no one gets near this place until he arrives around four. We use flashlights to indicate our location when he gets close to the parking lot.”

But Lucien had already moved on to another issue. He traded looks with Birk. “It occurs to me that if Bethany is buried here, where’s her car? She borrowed her mother’s Mazda that morning. It’s gotta be around here somewhere on the property, right?”

“I like the way you think. It would need to be someplace big enough to house a vehicle.”

“Maybe two vehicles,” Lucien pointed out. “Owen Quinn sure didn’t walk here.”

“Good point. When Jade and I were here before, we noticed a Quonset hut adjacent to where they tested the wine. That’s big enough to use as a hangar, large enough to store a couple of airplanes.”

“Perfect. But we can’t leave this place unguarded. One of us has to stay.”

“It was your idea to look for the car. You go.”

“No, you know where it’s located. I’ll stay here and guard the bodies. But I’m not staying inside with the bodies. I already need some fresh air.”

“Okay. I’ll head toward the science lab and text you if I find anything. Try not to get the willies out here alone.”

“You sound like Brogan. I’m not ten. I’ll be fine. Just let me know when you’re back in the area so I don’t accidentally shoot you.”

Birk grinned. “If you do that, Jade will kill you next.”

Lucien chuckled. “Just get back here as soon as you can. I’ll text Brogan to let her know what’s happening.”

On his own now, Birk backtracked toward the bottling line and the science lab. He passed the wine fields and spotted the Quonset hut almost immediately. It was an arch-type prefabricated building made of corrugated galvanized iron measuring sixteen feet wide by thirty-six feet long. It had a bifold door that allowed large equipment to pass through it, two sets of double windows in front, and five single windows along the sides.

He circled the structure first, making sure no one was around. On his second pass, he checked for an alarm system. For all the illegal activity, the winery seemed lax in security. But he took that opportunity in stride as he accessed the back door. Shining his flashlight into the interior, he spotted several vehicles. One was an SUV, a Ford Escape with Nevada plates, and another SUV, an Acura RDX, pearl white in color with California plates. Birk moved among the cars until he spotted the gray sedan, a Mazda, pulled in close to the wall.

He took out his phone and snapped photos of each vehicle and the license plates, sending them to Lucien and Theo. Hearing what he thought were footsteps coming from the concrete footpath, he hightailed it out the back door and sprinted for the pump house.