Joe Gambaro spent the morning working in the winery, checking barrels of wine for readiness to bottle.
He had decided to avoid drinking his great grandfather’s wine so that he could test the correlation of the
wine with his dreams. His dreams of last night returned to the normal weird dreams, none of them overly
vivid. There were no early morning waking dreams disrupting his morning routine. He further reflected
on the events of the past weekend.
The stories from his youth about his great-grandfather must be true. The stories talked about his
great-grandfather being an alchemist who made special wines, but psychedelic wines? Joe had
avoided mind-altering drugs while in school. He thought about the uncontrollable flashbacks that
he was taught would happen with psychedelic drugs. Remembering the crystals coating the glass he
had drunk from on Friday night, he then had an idea.
While studying for his degree in enology, he had made friends with other students. One of them,
now a chemist who worked at an environmental laboratory and who did some wine chemistry work, was a regular
to the Gambaro Winery tasting room and was a long time wine club member. Would Roger be able to analyze
the crystals?
When Joe finished in the winery that morning, he returned to the office and looked up Roger’s contact
info in the wine club membership list. Unfortunately, most people left their home phones only and were
unreachable when at work. As Joe pulled Roger’s entry, he smiled. Roger had also included his cell
phone number! Now all Joe had to do was concoct a story about the wine glass with the crystals. More
white lies.
Joe dialed the number and listened to the phone ring. “Hello, this is Roger.”
“Hi Roger, this is Joe Gambaro. I didn’t see you at the County Fair Wine Tasting on Saturday
night.”
“No, my daughter had an out of town soccer game that afternoon. It would have been too much
to make it to the tasting.”
“Roger, the reason I am calling is that I need a small favor. Does your lab do drug analyses?
”
“Well, of course. One of our clients is the DEA. Do you have a problem with an employee?
”
“One of my customers, who shall remain nameless for now, thinks that she may have been poisoned.
She asked me to help her in strictest confidence. She thinks someone put something into her wine.”
“What are you getting yourself into, Joe? If this was a date rape, you need to go directly to the
authorities, there are several date rape drugs that can be put into wine.”
“No, nothing like that. She reports having strange visions.”
“Do you have some of the wine for analysis?”
Joe thought briefly for a moment about bringing him some wine. “She left me a glass with a coating
of violet crystals. That is all I have.”
“Doesn’t sound like any of the date rape drugs that I am familiar with. Hey, you know that I bought
a house in the new subdivision only a couple of miles from your winery. Is the club shipment ready?”
“Not officially, but it has been bottled. I can put yours together ahead of the release so that you
can pick it up.”
“I’ll get off early so that I can pick it up today, if that is okay. Is 5:00 PM too late?
”
“Thank you Roger, 5:00 PM today is not a problem. I will see you then. I really appreciate this.
”
Continued ...
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