It took her another fifteen seconds to decide, but when she did she sounded positive enough. “Yes. That’s Sandy.”
“And you say she and Mr. Woolfox are due back tonight?”
“That’s right. Originally they were going to stay until next week, but Sandy has jury duty starting Monday.”
“Will she be here at the winery tomorrow?”
“As far as I know she will. Are you coming back to see her?”
“Probably not.”
“Should I tell her you were here?”
“Not necessary. Someone she knows will contact her.”
“Are you sure it’s nothing that will hurt her or Mr. Wool-fox? They’re so much in love...”
“It won’t affect her relationship with him,” I said, and hoped I was right. If Sondra Nelson was Janice Erskine, then it seemed she had in fact kicked her drug habit and built a clean new life for herself here. She deserved as much happiness as she could find after she faced the imminent loss of her son.
Outside again, I noticed that the workman on the forklift was still bringing oak barrels out of the warehouse. By the time I walked up there, he and the lift were back inside. I waited until he reappeared with another load and set it down alongside the others, then approached him.
“Excuse me. Talk to you for a minute?”
He was a fortyish, burly guy wearing Levi’s and a white T-shirt with purple lettering across the front: “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” He looked me over, shrugged, and switched off the lift’s engine.
“What can I do you for?”
“I’ve got a couple of photographs here. Mind taking a look at them and telling me if you recognize the woman?”
“Woman, huh? What kind of photos?”
“One portrait, one snapshot.”
“So she’s got her clothes on? Too bad.” He laughed at his own wit. “Okay, let’s see ’em.”
I passed them over. He took a good look at one, a shorter look at the other. “Sure,” he said, “that’s Sandy. Sandy Nelson. Boss’s fiancée.” He pronounced it “fee-ahn-cee.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive. Hair’s different now, brown and curly, but that’s Sandy.” He favored me with a man-to-man grin. “I oughta know. I’m her best friend’s main man.”
So. She’d designed the label, all the dates seemed to check out, and now I had double corroboration on a photographic ID. Good enough for me. I could go to my client with reasonable assurance that I’d earned my fee and leave the rest of it up to him.
On the way back along Highway 128 I called Tamara on the car phone and told her what I’d found out. She already had a bare-bones report on the Erskine investigation in her computer; she said she’d add the new information and have a printout ready by the time I got back. Then I rang up the St. Francis. Ira Erskine wasn’t in his room, and a hotel page didn’t turn him up; I left a message for him to contact me between four and five-thirty today or first thing in the morning.
At the crossroads I stopped at a deli store for a quick sandwich. What with that and midafternoon freeway traffic, it was three-forty before I walked into the office. And Erskine was there waiting for me. Had been waiting for fifteen minutes. He’d come straight over, he said, as soon as he got my message.
Tamara had already given him the printout. She’d tried to have him wait for me, she told me later, but he’d wheedled her into obliging him. When he saw me he hopped up from one of the clients’ chairs and grabbed my hand in a quick, hard grip. The direct eyes were almost hot with excitement. The pain still burned there, but unless you’d seen it before, felt its intensity as I had on Monday, you might have taken it for a different emotion — something close to joy.
“You’re amazing,” he said. “Three days. I was sure it would take longer... a week, two weeks.”
“Well, we got lucky.”
“The wine label, yes. Of all things. I never dreamed she’d make a mistake like that.”
“Mistake?”
“Commercial art, I mean. She was so serious about her painting.”
“She probably designed the label as a favor to Woolfox.”
“Who? Oh, the winery owner. My God, a winery, of all places. We seldom drank wine, neither of us had a taste for it. But that was the whole idea, of course.”
“What was?”
“Her new life. A completely new existence.”
I sat down at my desk. Erskine remained standing, clutching the report the way a man might hang on to a lifeline. I hadn’t expected him to take the news with this much feeling; he’d been under such tight control during Monday’s interview. He was practically quivering.
“The important thing,” I said, “is that she seems to be off drugs. Straight again.”
“You didn’t see her, did you?”
“No. Doesn’t the report say she’s returning tonight from a trip to L.A.?”
“Oh, that’s right.” He dragged a pack of Marlboros out of his shirt pocket, saw the look on my face, and put it away again. A nicotine hit was the last thing he needed right now. “I’m just wondering how she looks. Did anyone you talked to say how she looks?”
“Only that her hair is brown now, short and curly.”
“Brown. Curly. She had such beautiful blond hair. So soft... Jesus, it was like satin...”
Almost sexual, the way he said that, as if bed memories were dancing in his head. He was beginning to embarrass and bother me a little. I asked him, “Did Ms. Corbin put in the report that Sondra Nelson and James Woolfox are being married in July?”
“Married?” His smile straightened into a flat line. “No, that’s not in here.”
“They’ve been engaged nearly a year. The person I talked to says she’s very happy.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Erskine said.
“Doesn’t matter to you that she’s happy?”
“No, the engagement. I don’t care about that.”
“Look, Mr. Erskine, I realize you still care for your ex-wife. But if you have some idea you can talk her into a reconciliation after all this time, I think you’re letting yourself in for a serious disappointment.”
He said “That’s my business” with an edge to the words.
“And your son’s.” Edge in my voice, too. “That’s the primary issue here, isn’t it? The only reconciliation that really matters right now?”
He stared at me for a count of five; then the fire in him seemed to bank a little and he sat down abruptly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right. Absolutely right. I shouldn’t let myself get so worked up. Tommy... of course Tommy’s the primary issue. But I love Janice, now as much as I ever did, and the prospect of seeing her again... oh Christ, sometimes I feel as though I’m on a roller coaster and I can’t get off. Have you ever felt that way?”
“More than once. But either you manage to stop the ride and get off under your own power, or it’ll end up going so fast it’ll throw you off.”
He nodded. “I know. I’ll be all right. I just need to see her again, talk to her about the boy, and then I’ll be fine.”
“Sure about that?”
“Yes. I’m sure.”
“I’d hate to think you’d try to interfere in Sondra Nelson’s wedding plans. Sondra Nelson now, not Janice Erskine or Janice Durian. Clean and happy in her new life.”
“I won’t interfere,” he said. “I’ll leave for Santa Fe after I see her. Whether she comes along to be with Tommy or not is up to her.”
“That’s the right attitude.”
He nodded again, folded the report in careful thirds and tucked it into his coat pocket, and took out his folder of traveler’s checks. “How much do I owe you?”
“If you’re running short we can send an invoice...”
“No, finances aren’t a problem. I’d prefer to settle now.”