Sinfandel by Gina Cresse

didn’t answer.  The stereo was still on and I figured he couldn’t hear me.  In the pantry, I grabbed a couple potatoes and a bottle of Pinot Grigio, which featured “aromas of white peach, nectarine, and spring flowers followed by flavors of lemon, stone fruit, crisp Fuji apple and ripe pear.”  Standing at the sink, I scrubbed the potatoes, sang along with the music and pondered what a stone fruit looked like.
    “I can’t stay for dinner.”  Andy’s voice startled me and I dropped a potato. 
    “Oh,” I said.  I hoped he didn’t hear the disappointment in my voice.
    “I’ll pick you up in the morning.  You have ammo?”
    “One box.”
    Walking toward my door, he said, “You’ll need more.  I’ll bring some with me.”  Then he left.
    I stared at the door for a moment, then shook my head and hollered, “You’re welcome!”
     
    To take my mind off my many fiascos, I decided to dive back into the only predictable part of my life—my work.  Feeling so close to figuring out the “who” part of the mystery, I sat down at my computer and gazed at the list of growers who could have misrepresented their grapes.  The list, though significantly shorter than it was yesterday, was still two pages long and contained close to 100 entries.  At the bottom of the list, a name caught my eye.  Dash Zucker Vineyards had supplied Zinfandel grapes to Venezia Winery.  I scratched my head and tried to remember what variety was growing in the neighbor’s vineyard.  I’d ridden along the fence between our properties but never paid enough attention to know what kind of grapes he was growing.
    The clock said nine and it was dark outside.  Of all the vineyards on the list, Dash Zucker’s was one I could get a closer look at immediately.  I put on my shoes and checked the batteries in my flashlight.  Outside, I rummaged through the gardening shed for a pair of shears and shoved them in my back pocket.  To avoid being spotted snooping on his property, I stayed off the road and cut through the vines on my land.  I hoped I wouldn’t run into the skunk family.
    When I reached the fence, I shined the light through the rails to the other side, looking for clusters hanging in the vines.  I’d seen grape trucks come and go from his property for the past week and wondered if there were any berries left.  Surely they could not have picked every single bunch. 
    Finally, I decided it would be safe to climb the fence to find some grapes.  Since I’d had to fill two hand-dug wells on my own property, I couldn’t rule out the possibility that Zucker’s place had the same hazards.  I didn’t know if he went to the trouble of filling them in, so I had to be careful.  Keeping the light aimed toward the ground, I scanned the dark horizon in the direction of Dash’s house.  I couldn’t see any lights, so either his house wasn’t visible from where I stood, or he had all his lights off. 
    Holding the flashlight under my arm, I combed through the leaves, feeling for clusters.  As I moved toward the road, I wondered if my light was visible to anyone driving by.  My fingers finally landed on a cluster of plump grapes that the pickers had missed.  I removed the shears from my pocket and clipped the bunch from the vine.  Making my way back through my vineyard, I stopped to pick a cluster of my own grapes for comparison.
    Placing them side by side on my kitchen counter, I could not tell them apart by looking at them.  I plucked a berry from Zucker’s bunch and popped it in my mouth.  It was sweet and juicy, like any good grape should be.  Doing the same with one of my grapes, I was prepared for an ah-ha moment when I could point an accusing finger at my neighbor’s vineyard and shriek, “Imposter!”  But I couldn’t.  They both tasted—like grapes.  I dropped the Zucker grapes into a Ziploc baggie and put them in my refrigerator.
      
    Luckily the Rubbermaid container had been spared when the skunks let