Murder of an Unbridled Winemaker (eBook)

Randolph E. Rogers (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
296 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
9798317818364 (ISBN)

Infos

What was supposed to be a relaxing trail ride trip with locals and businessmen suddenly takes a turn for the worst when Rory McGregor, a local winemaker, is found murdered. The investigation is quick, leading to the arrest of the mayor's son-in-law, but the death of another makes it clear that a cover-up is in play. Private detective Dash Rambler and his cohort, Detective F.J. Evans, become conflicted when wanting to pursue suspects, worried that it may lead to something much darker. Despite this, Dash creates a list and begins the nerve-wracking task of trying to uncover this murder mystery.

Randolph Rogers, a fiction author who grew up in Bad Axe, Michigan, has had a career that spans many different fields. Before he moved to the West Coast, Rogers worked with the Merchant Marines, a civil workforce that operated U.S.-flagged commercial vessels. Additionally, he had a television career that spanned four decades, and while living in Northern California, he penned various food and restaurant reviews for several publications. In 1990, he published his debut novel, 'The Blue Hour,' which has led him to releasing a series of books. 'Murder of an Unbridled Winemaker' is the fifth book in 'The Dash Ramblar Mystery Series.'

---

An annual weekend trail ride with locals and prominent businessmen suddenly turns deadly when Rory McGregor, a local winemaker, is found murdered. With the prime suspect as the mayor's son-in-law, the investigation is quick and sloppy, but when another death is discovered, it becomes clear a cover-up is in play. Private detective Dash Rambler and his cohort, Detective F.J. Evans, become conflicted when wanting to pursue suspects, worried that it may lead to something much darker. Despite this, Dash proceeds with his own investigation, only to be met with many twists, turns, and surprises as the truth unfolds before him. "e;Murder of an Unbridled Winemaker"e; is the fifth installment in the Dash Ramblar mystery series.

Textauszug

Prologue:

Murder in the Saddle

As a favor to the Great Oaks Trail Busters, Victor Vargas let them use his ranch for their annual spring ride. It was his single biggest mistake in his forty-plus years of ranching.

The Vargas Ranch is rich and deep, stretching from Adelaida to the Santa Lucia Mountains in San Luis Obispo County in Central California. The behemoth Hearst Ranch lay on the coast side of the Santa Lucia Range. By comparison, the Vargas Ranch was a meager 4,000 acres; nobody had heard of it, except its neighbors. These forage-heavy ranches were ideal for cattle. They had little to do with their neighbors, who were mostly wine grape growers and wineries. The Vargas Ranch was well known to hunters of wild boar, deer, black bears, and wildfowl, who paid dearly to access the ranch and its abundant wildlife. The hunters provided a steady income to offset the vagaries of the cattle business.

It wasn’t the ride, the campsite, the horses, the gymkhana, the drinking and gambling, but an off-site activity on the ranch that created a shitstorm on the Vargas Ranch. The only way to reach this RV campsite with three lonely trailers was by horseback from the Great Oaks Trail Busters campsite. It was also accessible from the main highway by a hard-packed dirt road.

Plain-speaking folks would call it prostitution, but the trail riders referred to it as fraternization, cowboy tricks, or just “fooling around.” These weren’t high-class hookers from Las Vegas or Los Angeles, but local girls wanting to make some extra money. They had regular jobs, boyfriends, and lives outside of this weekend. They were affectionately called the Vargas Girls by the older riders, an homage to Playboy magazine. The only requirement for the girls was complete and total discretion. When everyone returned to their normal lives, no mention would ever cross the lips of any of the participants. Now, men being boys, they are apt to take a fancy to these girls and want to continue the fun after the camp. This is strictly verboten. Any contact with these girls outside of the camp would ban you for life from the Trail Busters and render you persona non grata in town. This activity had been going on for years with a wink and a nod.

Victor Vargas reluctantly had let the “Vargas” girls park their RVs on his leggy ranch, two miles from the Trail Busters campsite. Normally, the makeshift RV campsite was visited from the onset of the ride—after the camp setup on Thursday—and continued through early Monday morning: four nights and five days. The three girls would each make well over $5000 over the weekend. This year, the activity ended abruptly on Saturday night.

The three girls—Roxie, Katie, and Angel—were well known in Great Oaks and had regular jobs. Roxie was a popular bartender in the town’s leading dive bar. Angel was an accomplished horsewoman and real estate agent. Katie, the least known of the three, worked from home, building and maintaining websites and social media platforms. Roxie, a bosomy redhead, had an over-the-top personality, better suited to running a saloon in the old Wild West. She was tall, as was Angel, who was more at home breaking up bales of hay for her horses than sitting behind a computer in her real estate office. She only worked the ride when real estate sales were off and she needed feed for her horses. Katie was petite, plastered with tattoos, and liked to drink. She was good at her job with social media, but preferred imbibing to working, and was always chasing down her rent money. The clientele was safe because they were mostly married, middle-aged, prominent fixtures in Great Oaks with cash to burn. They had more to lose by exposure than the girls who could always pack up and leave town.

The men in the RV campsite had one thing in common—they enjoyed whiskey and beer. Fortunately, for performance, they also had little blue pills. The men waiting outside the close grouping of trailers—drinking and hollering—provided fertile grounds for boasting and hyperbole. When the men emerged from the trailers, they were met with high fives, and in some cases, for the older guys, applause. When Rory McGregor meekly came out of Roxie’s trailer, the half-dozen onlookers knew something was amiss. Rory’s head was down, and he was red-faced.

“What’s the matter, Rory? Was big red too much for you?” one bystander said.

Rory ignored the question. Another rider was even more direct. “You look like you lost your best friend. Don’t worry, all of us have E.D. (erectile dysfunction) when we’re seventy,” he said, chuckling. “Oops, I forgot, you’re only fifty.”

Rory glared at the rider. He knew all the names and faces of the half dozen men standing around. Rory knew them by name, but wouldn’t socialize with any of them, outside of the trail ride. “Fuck you all. I got what I came for, and you boys can head back to camp. She doesn’t want to see you.”

Joe Blount, the trail boss, was having none of it. “You can’t tell us what she wants. I’d shut my mouth up while you’re still ahead.” The other boys cheered. Rory started heading to his horse line, which was about fifty yards away. “You’d better put another pad under that saddle. You probably are a little tender down under,” Joe Blount said, laughing.

Joe went up to Roxie’s trailer and knocked on her door. “Are you ready for a real cowpoke? No more winemakers out here.”

There was no answer from Roxie, and Joe kept knocking until the door flung open on its own. He walked in and found Roxie, half-naked, lying on the carpeted passageway. She was alive, he could see her breathing, but she was hurting. Her face was swollen, and she was bleeding from the mouth. She’d been hit about the face and was half unconscious, struggling.

Joe let out a roar, yelling to the boys to stop Rory in his tracks. Rory had done the unforgivable—he had beaten up a working girl. There is a cowboy code of honor, which includes respect and tender care for all womenfolk. The corporal punishment for hitting a woman was severe, and the same goes for the ill-treatment of horses. These were not cowboys on the ride, but mostly professionals and businessmen who adopted the code, with help from experienced ranch hands who shepherded the riders and horses. They didn’t completely adhere to the code, which ruled that they must not shave, sleep indoors, or carry firearms during the ride.

As soon as Joe let out a roar, Rory was tackled from behind by the youngest rider, Jed Hanson, who was married to Mayor Terry Brown’s daughter, Stephanie. Jed was a true ranch hand, raised on a working cattle ranch, just east of Creston. Jed held Rory down, as Joe Blount stood over him, as angry as a rancher finding a livestock kill.

“You, sorry son of a bitch. You knocked around Roxie and put the entire ride in jeopardy. Normally, we would deal with infractions at the kangaroo court, but this goes beyond the pale. We should hang you from an oak tree—like they used to do.” The angry crew on the ground at the RV campsite was jawing at the bit. They wanted retribution.

“I didn’t beat her up, I found her that way. Why do you think I was so down in the mouth? I didn’t know what to do,” Rory said, perspiring.

“Now, you’re lying, adding insult to injury. What should we do with him, boys?” Joe asked the assemblage.

Jed had jumped off Rory and went directly to the cooler to fetch a beer. The excitement and chase had left him thirsty. The other boys followed him, all retrieving beer.

Joe huddled with the beer-drinking boys. “We’ve got a problem here. We can’t take a chance with Roxie. I think she’ll be alright—I don’t want this to get public. We need to all step up and close ranks,” Joe said, looking over at Dr. Gillman Carson. “I know you’re a gum surgeon; can you tend to Roxie?”

Dr. Carson was a little unsteady, instantly sobered up, and moved past Joe into Roxie’s trailer. “I’ve got this,” Dr. Carson said.

The others stood around nervously holding their beer cans. The youngest rider, Dexter, like Jed, was an experienced ranch hand. Dexter was no more than twenty-three years old, a ginger, and had a hole in his mouth where a tooth used to be. He was mortified. “What should we say happened to her?”

“You’re not telling anyone what happened here—are we all clear?—nada, nothing,” Joe said, running his finger across his throat.

“They’ll know somebody hit her. Can I tell ’em—Rory beat her up?” Dexter said, looking over toward where Rory was seated under a tree. Rory peered around the makeshift camp. He jumped up and started running toward where the horses were tied up. The boys took off in pursuit, dropping their beer cans as they ran.

When men are drunk, excited, and bickering late at night, no good comes of it. A shot rang out. Rory McGregor dropped like a sack of premixed cement. Everyone yelled. It was pitch dark out, so no one was positive who exactly fired the gun.

Joe went over to Rory, who was already gone. “Dammit, men, this is fucked up. I’m heading back to camp. Don’t anybody touch Rory—leave him lay. Jed and Dexter, stay here with Dr. Carson and the girls.”

Jed looked confused. “What about Roxie and...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.11.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
• ISBN-13: 9798317818364 / 9798317818364