The Chardonnay Charade

Chapter 13

The news about Randy overshadowed everything that was—or wasn’t—going on between Quinn and me. I told him first thing the next morning when we got to the villa.

“Christ, that’s awful.” He was standing in the doorway to my office. “I can’t imagine him wading out into the water…and bang. How do they know it was suicide? Randy doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d do something like that, if you ask me.”

“Kit told me the police fished his gun out of the water at White’s Ferry. He left a note. In his car. All it said was, ‘I’m sorry.’ It makes me sick thinking about it.”

“They have any idea how long he’d been in the Potomac?”

“Long enough to float,” I said, “or they wouldn’t have found him. His body would have sunk at first. Then…the gases…so he’d float. Plus there are so many rocks and falls between White’s Ferry and T. R. Island that his body could have caught on something and got stuck upstream for a while.”

“That’s where he washed up? Teddy Roosevelt Island?”

I nodded. “I’m meeting Kit for a drink tonight at the English pub in Upperville before Georgia’s wake. I’ll get the rest of the story then.”

“Damn shame,” he said. “Keep me posted.”

Yesterday we’d decided he’d spend the day in the barrel room with Bonita and Jesús to finish filtering the Chardonnay and get the bottles washed and sterilized. I’d be in the fields with the rest of the crew, planting rootstock. Today I wasn’t sorry we weren’t going to be in each other’s company. He didn’t know about my near-miss viewing of him and Bonita in flagrante delicto. If I heard him asking her to open and close the ball valve in the tank, I know I’d start thinking about other things and my face would probably show it.

Manolo picked me up in front of the entrance to the villa, Spanish music blaring loudly through the open windows of Hector’s Super-man-blue pickup truck. He turned the music down as I threw my garden gloves and cane on the passenger-side floor and climbed in.

“How many guys have we got?” I pulled on Eli’s old New York Mets baseball cap and tucked my hair into it.

“Ten,” Manolo said. “César’s with a couple of them, digging fence-post holes for the Norton block. The rest are planting.”

“Let’s try to get all the Viognier done today,” I said. “If there’s time, we can start the Seyval. Or maybe a few of the men can help César put up trellis wires.”

He nodded. “We should finish the Viognier, easy. Then we can see how far along César is.”

Manolo had been with us almost since the vineyard opened, though he was a good thirty years younger than Hector. My mother and Hector hired Manolo almost as soon as he arrived from Mexico. He’d told Hector he was eighteen, to which Hector reportedly replied, “Sure you are, and I’m Benito Juárez.” We finally found out he was only fifteen. At first he worked for us during the season and washed dishes for local restaurants the rest of the year. Gradually, as we became more established, we were able to keep him on year-round. For the last few years he’d been the unofficial jefe when Hector wasn’t there and the men respected him. I knew he had a string of girlfriends but no one serious enough to marry. He also liked to hang out in the Hispanic bars around Herndon and Sterling, but what he did on his own time was his business and he never once showed up for work drunk or hungover. Though he wasn’t as steady and methodical as Hector, he had good instincts and a sense of humor. I liked him. He would be a good manager.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

“Sure,” he said easily.

“Do you know Emilio Mendez?”

He didn’t take his eyes off the road, though he could have driven it with them closed. “I heard the cops are looking for him.”

“That wasn’t the question,” I said quietly. “You know him, then, don’t you?”

“No.”

“But you could find out where he is?”

“He’s laying low, Lucie. His girlfriend’s older boy got in with a gang. They don’t want trouble.”

“The police need Emilio and Marta to say that Dr. Greenwood delivered their babies the night his wife was murdered,” I said. “They won’t do anything to the boy.”

“You don’t know that. You’re not the cops.” The easiness had vanished.

“What if I can get Bobby Noland to come here to the vineyard—alone—and talk to them right here? Then they can leave.”

“They’ll never believe that.” He was adamant.

“Could you get them to talk to me, at least?”

“I don’t know. I told you, they’re scared.”

“An innocent man could get convicted of his wife’s murder,” I said. “He took care of them when they needed him. Please, Manolo. I’m begging.”

He parked the truck next to our two green and yellow Gators. Finally he said, “No promises. I’ll do what I can.”

He wasn’t going to budge. “Thank you,” I said.

We both got out of the truck, Manolo giving orders to the crew in staccato Spanish as he pulled on a pair of muddy gloves. “Lucie, you gonna prune the roots, right?” His expression was bland. No more discussing Emilio and Marta.

I nodded and picked up a pair of pruning shears that were lying in the back of one of the Gators, then pulled on my own gloves. Message received.

Until the vines were ready to be planted, we kept them soaking in five-gallon utility buckets filled with water. Between one and two feet long, the vines had thin, straggly roots like a woman’s tangled hair. I unthreaded one from the bulky mass in the bucket and lifted it out of the muddy water, trimming the roots until they were even. Next I handed the vine off to whoever was ready to plant. Slowly the pile of trimmings at my feet grew.

Ever since we’d been in business, we got our rootstock from a nursery near Williamsburg. It was top quality—and we paid for it—because in Virginia we still had a problem with phylloxera. A devastating aphid that fed on the roots and foliage of vines, it changed the world of viticulture forever when, in the mid-1800s, European botanists unknowingly took infected American vine cuttings home with them. The result was a horticultural catastrophe, as millions of acres of European vineyards that lacked the natural resistance of American vines withered and died. Only American rootstock, grafted onto European vines, had saved the industry from obliteration.

As a result, the cuttings we got now were also two different vines grafted together and held in place by a wax nodule—the roots, or rootstock, which was phylloxera-resistant, and the scion, or top of the vine, which in this case was Viognier, the actual vine variety.

Planting vines is the same slow, backbreaking manual labor it’s been since Noah supposedly planted the first vineyard on the slopes of Mount Ararat. For a while, the only sound was the metallic chipping of shovels above the gentle whistling of the wind. The men set the plants in holes about a foot deep, keeping two to three feet between each vine. Other vineyards planted their vines farther apart, but we followed the European way, thanks to Jacques, which meant one strong trunk per vine that grew straight up before spreading out along the top wire. Had we left the canes on the lower wires, they’d be stripped by foxes, groundhogs, raccoons, or geese. Even now we had to put grow tubes—pale blue plastic tubing—over the bases of the young vines to protect them from being eaten.

I stayed out in the fields until early afternoon, then took one of the Gators back to the villa. My bad foot ached from standing so long, but I’d die before I’d admit it to the men. Instead I told Manolo I needed to catch up on paperwork.

He nodded. “We’re okay here. I’ll stop by later and let you know how much we get planted.”

I made myself a pot of coffee in the kitchen, then went back to my office and propped my foot up on my wastebasket. Halfway through calculations for the monthly TTB report—the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax & Trade Bureau—Quinn appeared in the doorway holding an unlit cigar.

“Hey,” he said, “how come you didn’t let me know you were back? I thought you were going to come by the barrel room when you were done in the fields.”

I set down my pen. “Because it’s the end of the month and this report is due.”

He squinted at me. “What’s your problem? I say anything and you bite my head off. Is there something you’re trying to tell me?”

“Nothing I’m trying to tell you,” I said. “How about you? Is there something you want to tell me?”

At first his expression was blank, then the light dawned in his eyes. “Oh,” he said quietly. “I get it. Mick Dunne. You’re upset about that.”

I exploded. “How come you didn’t say anything? Why did I have to hear about it from someone else? I thought you were working for me. Here. At this vineyard.”

He held up a hand. “Whoa, sweetheart. Stop right there. You don’t own me. I am not your property.”

“Of course I don’t own you. That’s a cheap shot and you know it. But you still could have told me that you’re moonlighting…or whatever it is you’re doing…for Mick. The other day you were barely civil to him. Now you’re his new best friend.”

“He pays well,” he said. “And, no offense, but I’m not exactly breaking the bank on the salary I get from you.”

His words hit like a bucket of cold water. But he made perfect sense. Money.

“I see. So he was the high bidder. You should have told me it was an auction.”

“Look,” he said. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I’m just giving the guy advice. He’s paying me for it. You ought to be flattered he thinks you’ve got yourself someone good who knows what he’s doing. He could have asked anyone. Especially with the money he’s throwing around.”

“Did he offer you a job as his winemaker?”

“No.” He looked at me levelly. “I work here.”

“That’s good to know, because I wasn’t sure. I’d better get back to this report. I’m meeting Kit at six and Georgia’s wake is at seven-thirty.” I started punching numbers on the calculator again. He didn’t move or speak.

Finally he said, “You coming here tomorrow before the funeral?”

“I don’t know.” I kept making calculations, eyes fixed on the LED display. “I’ll call you in the morning and let you know.”

“Sure,” he said. “Call me. I got those EPA reports to finish getting ready. Sorry for disturbing you.”

After he was gone I put my head down on my desk and thought about him working for Mick and what had happened last night when I went out to the summerhouse and heard him with Bonita.

I never did get that report done.

Kit was nursing a beer at a table on the terrace when I got to the pub. In the milky light, her face looked washed out and marionette lines framed her mouth. It took a moment before I realized her pallor was due to the fact that she wasn’t wearing any makeup. I wondered if she’d been crying.

“Want a beer?” she said. “Keep me company.”

“Sure.” I sat down. “Talk to me.”

“A Boy Scout troop found Randy. They were working on some merit badge studying woodland sanctuaries.”

“Oh, God. Those poor kids.”

“He was in awful shape, Luce. At least that’s what Bobby said.”

“He must have died instantly from that gunshot wound.”

Kit nodded. “Looks like it, but they’re still doing the autopsy.”

“Did they find anything that tied him to Georgia’s murder besides the note?”

“A yellow hazmat jumpsuit in the trunk of his car,” she said. “And I’m not supposed to know this, but they found a used condom in your barn. A couple of ’em. They’re waiting for the results to see if there’s a match with what they found on Georgia.”

The waitress set down my beer and another for Kit. We clinked glasses.

“Do you believe he killed himself?” Kit swallowed more beer.

“As opposed to what? Someone staged it to make it look like he did?” I asked.

Kit nodded. “There’s one person who wanted them both dead.” She picked up her beer coaster and began rolling it back and forth like a wheel. “Ross.”

“Who couldn’t have done it,” I said flatly. “He wasn’t there. So let’s move on. Georgia left the party with Hugo Lang, but he was on the phone all night making calls after he said good night to Georgia. And he gave a cheek swab for DNA. So he wasn’t the one who had sex with her, though I think he’s nervous about something.”

“Hell, yeah. It’s called the vice presidential nomination,” Kit said. “He needs this kind of tabloid fodder tarnishing his pristine image like a hole in the head. I’m sure he can’t wait for the funeral and everything to blow over.”

I thought about what she’d said and Hugo’s shaking hands. That kind of high-stakes politics—even without all the tawdriness of Georgia’s death and now Randy’s body being recovered—could account for the strung-out nerves. “I guess you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. So eliminate Hugo. You want something to eat? I’m starved.” Kit signaled for the waitress and asked for an order of french fries. Then she said, “So who did it, if you’re so sure it wasn’t Ross?”

“I still think we ought to consider the possibility someone was after Randy, rather than Georgia.”

“You mean besides the Cancún girlfriend?” she asked, and I nodded. “Who’ve you got in mind?”

“Jen Seely seemed too defensive when I asked her about Randy. I think she knows something. Or she’s hiding something. Maybe about Randy.”

The french fries arrived with two plates. Kit picked up the ketchup bottle and went to town. “Are you serious?” she asked. “Sorry, I can’t picture her mixed up in this. She’s not the type.”

“She used to date the drummer in Randy’s band and she’s pretty tight with everyone in Southern Comfort.”

“Maybe we’re knocking ourselves out for no good reason,” Kit said. “It could just be a case of Occam’s razor.”

“What’s that?”

“A principle that some guy named William of Occam came up with. Kind of the KISS theory of the fourteenth century. You know, ‘Keep it simple, stupid’? Occam was a Franciscan friar, so he lived a really simple, spartan life and that’s his theory. Don’t make anything more complicated than it is.”

“What’s the ‘razor’ part?”

“That you should shave off the assumptions that don’t make any difference in the outcome.” Kit picked up a french fry and laid it on her plate. “One. Georgia is found dead at the vineyard.” Another french fry parallel to Georgia. “Two. Randy’s body is pulled out of the Potomac River. Looks like suicide because he left a note.” A third french fry across Georgia and Randy. “But we’re thinking maybe it’s a double homicide faked to be a suicide.” She picked up the connecting french fry and bit into it. “According to Occam’s razor, it’s always the simplest explanation. So it is what it looks like. Randy killed Georgia, then he killed himself. Period.”

She picked up the other french fries. “And that’s probably what the cops are going to go with, unless something else turns up,” she added. “If they can close a case, that’s what they’ll do. They’ve got too many others to solve to start asking a million what-ifs once they get all the ducks in a row. Don’t forget, it’s an election year and the sheriff’s running, too.”

Her explanation was neat and tidy, tying up all the loose ends. Plus, it meant Ross was no longer a suspect. But what was still nagging at me?

Kit wiped her hands on a paper napkin and set it by her beer glass. “Something else bothering you? You seem kind of preoccupied. Is it that thing with the EPA?”

“That’s part of it.” I picked up the saltshaker and studied it. “Mick Dunne hired Quinn as a consultant. He’s looking for land to buy a vineyard.”

Kit traced a pattern in the ketchup on the plate with one of the fries. “That’s no big deal, is it? Just some consulting work?”

“I guess.” I pulled my wallet out of my purse and made a check-writing gesture to the waitress, who immediately set the bill down next to me. I handed her my credit card right away.

“What else?” she asked shrewdly. “It’s not like you to pay without at least looking at the bill.”

I blushed and thought about Bonita and Quinn last night in the summerhouse. This I couldn’t talk about. “Nothing,” I said. “Nothing else.”

She didn’t ask again.

The sensational nature of Georgia’s death and the aura of scandal meant the press was well represented in front of B. F. Hunt & Sons Funeral Home when I arrived shortly after seven-thirty. A couple of cruisers and a handful of officers from the sheriff’s department tried to keep them at bay, but it didn’t stop one woman with a microphone from sticking it under my nose. She knew who I was, too, thanks to the cane, which not only gave me away but also slowed me down so there was no chance of outrunning her.

“Lucie Montgomery,” she said. “The woman who found the mutilated body of Georgia Greenwood on a deserted road on her vineyard. Tell our viewers, Lucie, what you saw and how you felt.”

“I saw a dead woman. I felt horrible,” I said. “Excuse me.”

The carnival-like atmosphere outside had pervaded the funeral home. A crowd already packed the place. I signed the guest book and glanced at the long list of names. Hugo Lang had been one of the first to arrive. Mick Dunne had signed in as well.

Many of my neighbors own farms, so the cycle of life and death is something we live with all the time. But an unnatural death like Georgia’s is something you never get used to. Friends and neighbors had come to pay their respects, but everyone was curious, too.

Georgia’s closed casket, which I nearly ran into as I rounded the corner to the viewing room, was surrounded by flowers. A heart-catching photo of her and Ross in happier times, arms twined around each other and leaning against what looked like a ship’s railing with water and tropical paradise as a backdrop, was propped on a stand next to a large bouquet of white roses. The card, clearly visible, read, “I love you, darling. Ross.” A basket of prayer cards sat next to the flowers. Georgia’s name and the dates of her birth and death were on one side. I picked up a card and turned it over. Ecclesiastes.

I stopped reading. When was it ever a time to kill?

Someone took my elbow.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Mick Dunne said quietly. He wore an expensive-looking charcoal gray pin-striped suit, a sober tie, and a pale gray shirt. Same wing tips as the other day.

“I just got here. I haven’t had a chance to pay my respects to Ross,” I said coolly. “I really ought to go find him.”

He let go of my arm. “Is something wrong?”

“How did it go with the real estate agent?”

“Brilliant.” He looked curiously at me. I’d avoided his question. “I found a place I quite liked.”

“Good for you. Did Quinn like it, too?” I asked. “That is, since you’re paying him to advise you.”

He wore the expression of someone who had just been slapped. “He’s not what you’re thinking,” he said. “Please. Let’s get out of this crowd. I’d like to explain.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“Indeed it is.” This time the grip on my arm was firm as he maneuvered me to an unoccupied corner of the room next to a large silk schefflera.

“First, I apologize for not telling you sooner, but I wanted to do it in person,” he said, his beautiful green eyes gazing down into mine. “I came back to see you after Erica Kendall took me ’round and ran into Quinn, who told me you were out. We started discussing land and vineyards and he gave me some advice.” Mick rubbed a silk leaf. It was dusty and left a dark stain on his fingers. “I told him I’d like to pay him for the help and call on him if I need more. That’s it. That’s how it happened.”

“I thought you might be interviewing him for a job.”

“No.” He removed a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped away the dirt. “I would never do that to you.”

The crowd parted at that moment, so I could see Hugo Lang embracing Ross. They spoke earnestly, then Hugo clapped Ross on the shoulder and moved away. Then someone blocked my view and I lost sight of both of them.

Mick followed my gaze. “I’m keeping you from seeing Ross, aren’t I?”

“Will you excuse me, please?”

He tilted my chin so I had to stare into those depthless eyes. “Only if you tell me that we’re okay now.”

“Sure,” I said finally. “We’re fine.”

He knew a brush-off when he got one. “Glad to hear it. I need to have a word with Austin Kendall, anyway. I’ll be seeing you.”

I watched him cross the room and join Austin Kendall, who was with several of the Romeos. Austin’s daughter Erica now ran the family real estate business, but Austin still put his oar in when the deal was in the multimillions of dollars. If Mick was talking to Austin, then he must be contemplating buying a significant piece of property.

I threaded my way through the crowd and found Ross. A group of dark-suited men were with him, but he nodded when he caught sight of me. As soon as they left, he pulled me to him and hugged me. Despite the air-conditioning, he was perspiring heavily.

“Are you all right?” I asked. “You don’t look too good. Can I get you some water?”

He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his forehead. “The sheriff still thinks I did it, Lucie. He’s going to let me get through Georgia’s funeral, which is pretty decent, then they want me to come in for more questioning. I think Bobby Noland is behind this. He doesn’t seem convinced Randy committed suicide, in spite of that note. Sam’s trying to find out what’s going down, but it’s not looking good.”

His voice shook and that’s when I saw just how scared Ross really was that he might actually be convicted of killing his wife…and maybe her lover, too. All because he had no alibi.

“I talked to Manolo about Emilio and Marta,” I told him. “They’re hiding. Manolo says they’re too frightened to talk to the police.”

Ross grabbed my shoulders so hard it hurt. “Manolo knows where they are?”

“No, but he said he’d try to find out.”

“You’ve got to find them and talk to them. Tell them this.” For the first time since I’d known him, he sounded desperate. “Tell them Dr. Ross says everything will be fine if they tell the police that I was there that night delivering the twins. That’s all they have to say. Nothing else. I will take care of them and their babies and the older boy. Tell them I give my palabra de honor.”

I nodded. “Your word of honor. Okay. I promise. Don’t worry.”

“Good girl.” He kissed my forehead, then pulled back and scanned my face, still apprehensive. “I knew I could count on you. You won’t let me down, will you?”

“No,” I said. “You saved me once. Now it’s my turn.”

I left after that, shaken by Ross’s palpable fear. He said he didn’t do it and I believed him. What evidence did the police have that indicated otherwise? Why weren’t they convinced by the suicide note?

Something wasn’t right.

Later, when I was home alone, I opened a bottle of Gigondas and brought it out to the veranda. No light from the summerhouse tonight.

I lit the citronella candles and torches and sat there in the gilded darkness. “Wine is a perfect cure for heaviness and sorrow,” wrote Seneca, the Roman statesman and philosopher, nearly two millennia ago. Tonight it wasn’t doing anything for me.

I thought of the prayer card Ross had made for Georgia and the verse from Ecclesiastes. We’d used the same verse on Leland’s memorial card nine months ago—though a different interpretation. The version Ross chose talked about “a time to search and a time to give up.”

Maybe it had been prophetic, but I hoped not. As far as I was concerned, it was still a time to search.

It was no time to give up.