Free A Tainted Finish: A Sydney McGrath Mystery by Rachael Horn Page A

His dark eyebrows pulled together in a squint. His full lips stretched thin in a face meant for laughing. He swung his leg over the side of the ATV and stood up, staying as far away from her as he could muster for polite conversation. He looked down at his feet.
    “We’re finished now, anyway,” Syd said after a long pause. He nodded at the ground like a soldier waiting for orders. He looked like a young lost boy. “I went up in the vineyard today,” she said. “Do we have leaf roll in the Picpoul?”
    “No. Not leaf roll. Red blotch. It is similar. A cousin virus.” He turned and walked up the hill in big strides and Syd followed. He had the graceful stride of a well-proportioned man, not too much taller than Sydney. His dark hair was curly and shined around a gorgeous brown face with nearly black eyes. She watched him in admiration as he trudged ahead of her. They stopped next to the block that puzzled Syd earlier that day. She was winded and dizzy from the steep climb up the hill, and she steadied herself on his sleeve reflexively. He was breathing normally and smiled as he glanced at her hand on his sleeve.
    “They don't have Stairmasters in Seattle?” he teased.
    “Looks like you could use a Stairmaster here ,” she retorted nodding at his growing belly. Alejandro had easily gained 25 pounds since she saw him last. “You're looking prosperous.”
    “Hey, gordita, mi novia is a good cook,” He clutched his paunch with two hands and jiggled it proudly.
    She smiled at him gratefully. He used to call her gordita as a term of endearment. He was the man who taught her to embrace her curves and size-10 hips and D-cup bra while she lambasted herself in the mirror with the cliché self-torture of young women everywhere. Her hourglass body didn't look anything like the emaciated photoshopped models she saw in magazines. But Alejandro gently taught her about her own rare beauty over the course of a long summer in the hot Airstream under the stars.
    He reached out and plucked a dry, reddish leaf from a vine next to him.
    “No curl, see? The leaf is flat. Also, the veins are red here. With leaf curl, they are green.” His calloused index finger traced the veins in the leaf.
    “What do we do? Pull them out?” She looked down at the entire vineyard. She figured maybe two percent of the vines showed red leaves.
    “It is the only thing we can do. But it won't save us from infecting the entire vineyard. Everybody up here has it. I was up in Ted's lower block this weekend. They have it much worse than we do. But it is only a matter of time before it takes over.” He frowned, his black eyebrows arching together.
    “What are they doing about it?” she asked.
    “ Gringos ? Nada, as far as I can see. But I think they are worried. When I was up in Ted's vineyard I saw a group of them walking around up there. Some kind of secret meeting, you know? A jefe meeting.” Alejandro feigned a half-mocking Chicano accent when he talked about the gringos . They had a long understanding about the differences between Mexican-Americans and white folks in these parts, especially with respect to the vineyards. Alejandro referred to the owners as gringos , and his Mexican and Salvadorian friends as the workers. Ownership was always defined in racial terms. He made no attempt to hide his contempt of the gringos and their lack of expertise with the vines. But Syd knew there was much more to the management of the vines than their health. Ripping out vines meant delayed production, and growers lived on short margins as it was.
    “Why do you think it was a secret meeting?” she asked.
    “They all looked around suspiciously to see if anybody was around. And they parked their Beemers behind the trees. Over there.” He pointed to a copse of Douglas firs that separated the two vineyard blocks from one another a couple hundred yards from the fence line.
    “They didn't see you?”
    “I'm invisible, Grasshopper. I move with the wind.” There