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Fortunately, there had not been a single reporter at the airport

They drove back to St Helena through creeping shadows and dying light, east from Santa Rosa, across the southern end of the Sonoma Valley, into the five-loa As he followed the hearse, Joshua ad he had done with ever-increasing pleasure for the last thirty-five years The looes were thick with pine and fir and birch, lighted only along their crests by the westering sun, already out of sight; those ridges were ra influences of a less civilized world than that which lay within Below thehills were studded with black-trunked oaks and covered with long dry grass that, in the daylight, looked as blond and soft as cornsilk; but now in the gathering dusk which leeched away its color, the grass shientle breeze

Beyond the boundaries of the s up on some of the hills and on nearly all of the rich flatland In 1880, Robert Louis Stevenson had written of the Napa Valley: "One corner of land after another is tried with one kind of grape after another This is a failure; that is better; a third is best So, bit by bit, they grope about for their Clos Vougeot and Lafiteand the wine is bottled poetry" When Stevenson had been honey Silverado Squatters, there had been fewer than four thousand acres in vines By the coue--Prohibition--in 1920, there had heen ten thousand acres producing viniferous grapes Today, there were thirty thousand acres bringing forth grapes that were far sweeter and less acidic than those grown anywhere else in the world, as much productive land as in all of the Sonoe as the Napa Tucked in areat wineries and houses, some of them converted from abbeys andclean ht, only a couple of the neineries had opted for the sterile factory look that was an insult to the eye and a blight upon the valley Most of man’s handiwork either co natural beauty of his unique and idyllic place As he followed the hearse toward Forever View, Joshua saw lights cohts that brought a sense of warht The wine is bottled poetry, Joshua thought, and the land froreatest work of art: my land; my home; how lucky I a, less pleasant places in which I ht have wound up

Like in an aluminum coffin, dead

Forever View stood a hundred yards back fro white colonial-style house, with a circular driveway, n As darkness fell, a single white spotlight can; and a lo of electric carriage laht

There were no reporters waiting at Forever View either Joshua was pleased to see that the Napa County press evidently shared his strong aversion to unnecessary bad publicity

Tannerton drove the hearse around to the rear of the huge white house He and Olmstead slid the coffin onto a cart and wheeled it inside

Joshua joined them in the ive the cha was covered with prettily textured acoustical tile The walls were painted pale blue, the blue of a robin’s egg, the blue of a baby’s blanket, the blue of new life Tannerton touched a wall switch, and liltingheavy

To Joshua, at least, the place reeked of death in spite of everything that Avril Tannerton had done to ent fu fluid, and there was a sweet cover-up aerosol scent of carnations that only relossy white ceramic tile, freshly scrubbed, a bit slippery for anyone not wearing rubber-soled shoes; Tannerton and Gary Ol theave an impression of openness and cleanliness, but then Joshua realized the floor was grimly utilitarian; it had to have a stainproof surface that would resist the corroding effects of spilled blood and bile and other even more noxious substances

Tannerton’s clients, the relatives of the deceased, would never be brought into this room, for the bitter truth of death was too obvious here In the front of the house, where the viewing chambers were decorated with heavy wine-red velvet drapes and plush carpets and dark wood paneling and brass laed, the phrases "passed away" and

"called home by God" could be taken seriously; in the front rooed a belief in heaven and the ascendance of the spirit But in the tile-floored workroo fluid and the shiny array of mortician’s instruly clinical and unquestionably final

Olmstead opened the aluminum coffin

Avril Tannerton folded back the plastic shroud, revealing the body froray corpse and shivered "Ghastly"

"I know this is a trying time for you," Tannerton said in practiced mournful tones

"Not at all," Joshua said "I won’t be a hypocrite and pretend grief I knew very little about the man, and I didn’t particularly like what I did know Ours was strictly a business relationship"

Tannerton blinked "Oh Wellthen perhaps you would prefer us to handle the funeral arrangeh one of the deceased’s friends"

"I don’t think he had any," Joshua said

They stared down at the body for a ain

"Of course," Tannerton said, "no cosotten to him soon after death, he’d lookwith him?"

"Oh, certainly But it won’t be easy He’s been dead a day and a half, and though he’s been kept refrigerated--"

"Those wounds," Joshua said thickly, staring at the hideously scarred abdomen with morbid fascination "Dear God, she really cut him"

"Most of that was done by the coroner," Tannerton said "This sist did a good job with his mouth," Olmstead said appreciatively

"Yes, didn’t he?" Tannerton said, touching the sealed lips of the corpse "It’s unusual to find a coroner with an aesthetic sense"

"Rare" Olmstead said

Joshua shook his head "I still find it hard to believe"

"Five years ago," Tannerton said, "I buried his mother That’s when I ured it was the stress and the grief He was such an iure in the community"

"Cold," Joshua said "He was an extremely cold and self-containeda battle with a coh for him; if at all possible, he preferred to utterly destroy the other fellow I’ve always thought he was capable of cruelty and physical violence But attempted rape? Attempted murder?"

Tannerton looked at Joshua and said, "Mr Rhinehart, I’ve often heard it said that you don’t ot a reputation, aexactly what you think and to hell with the cost But"

"But what?"

"But when you’re speaking of the dead, don’t you think you ought to--"

Joshua smiled "Son, I’m a cantankerous old bastard and not entirely ad as truth isWhy, I’ve randmothers weep I have little compassion for fools and sons of bitches when they’re alive So why should I show more respect than that for the dead?"

"I’m just not accustomed to--"

"Of course, you’re not Your profession requires you to speak well of the deceased, regardless of who he ht have done I don’t hold that against you

It’s your job"

Tannerton couldn’t think of anything to say He closed the lid of the coffin

"Let’s settle on the arrangeet home and have my dinner--if I have any appetite left when I leave here" He sat down on a high stool beside a glass-fronted cabinet that contained more tools of the mortician’s trade

Tannerton paced in front of hiy "How i?"

"Usual viewing?"

"An open casket Would you find it offensive if we avoided that?"

"I hadn’t really given it a thought," Joshua said

"To be honest with you, I don’t knopresentable the deceased can be els’ Hill didn’t give hih look when they embalmed him His face appears to be somewhat drawn and shrunken I am not pleased I am definitely not pleased I could attempt to puood As for cosain, I wonder if too much time has passed I mean, he apparently was in the hot sun for a couple of hours after he died, before he was found And then it was eighteen hours in cold storage before the ereat deal better than he does now But as for bringing the glow of life back to his face