The Merlot Murders

Chapter 7

“He didn’t quit,” I said. “He threatened to. He’s got a hell of a nerve, blackmailing us like that. What made Leland hire him, anyway? He’ll never replace Jacques. He’s a troglodyte by comparison.”

One of the reasons people bought so much wine from us in the past was because Jacques, with his gracious European politesse and elegant manner, could charm anybody into anything. If Quinn was always this abrasive, we wouldn’t be able to sell water to someone who’d just come through the desert.

“He came cheap,” Eli said. “Leland wasn’t offering what you’d call a competitive salary and he was the only taker. He’s supposedly a decent enologist and a viticulturist, even if he has a few rough edges. The crew likes him. I’m going back to the house. You coming or not?”

I nodded and we walked in silence over to the Jag.

At least Leland had hired someone who was good at both enology and viticulture. Enology is the science of wine making. Viticulture is the science of grape growing. Larger vineyards have enologists, also known as vintners, who are there only to make and blend the wine. They also have viticulturists who are out in the field with the vines, tending them, testing them, and deciding the optimum time for harvest. But at a small vineyard like ours, the two jobs are generally handled by one person.

“Where did he come from before we got him?” I asked as we got in the car.

“California. Some vineyard in Napa.”

“Why did he leave?”

“What is this? Twenty questions? I don’t know. He said he wanted to move on. I don’t think Leland really looked into it much. He was desperate for someone at the time.”

“That’s obvious. Mom would never have hired him.”

“What difference does it make anymore? The sooner we unload this place, the better. It’s been one catastrophe after another lately. I can’t take much more of this.”

We spent the rest of the short drive down the gravel road in silence. Last night Fitz said that he and I were two votes countering Eli and Mia. Now it was two against one. I glanced fleetingly at my brother’s profile and looked away.

He could not…would not…have gone to see Fitz in the barrel room after leaving the wake. He could not be capable of cold-blooded murder.

Or could he? And Leland. Him, too?

We pulled into the semicircular drive in front of the house. A few cars were parked near the old carriage house, which we used as the garage.

I cleared my throat. “Looks like almost everyone’s gone.”

Eli looked at me curiously. “You gonna faint or something? Your voice sounds weird.”

“I’m fine.”

We walked into the house. One of the waitresses who had been collecting dishes in the parlor said Dominique had gone over to the inn to see about dinner.

“I’m going to check on Brandi,” Eli said, heading for the stairs. “It’s warm in here. I hope no one turned the air off.”

“Who is going to tell Dominique about Fitz?” I asked Eli after he came back, reporting that Brandi was still asleep. “And I checked. The air-conditioning is still on.”

“I’ll tell her.”

“I’ll come with you.” We were standing in the large circular foyer. I was holding more plates, still heaped with chicken bones, remnants of dinner rolls, and daubs of color that had once been salads or vegetables.

“You stay here. If Brandi needs anything, you’ll have to take care of her. You can do that, right?”

“Eli.” I set the plates down by the bust of Jefferson, wiped my hands together, and faced him. “I limp because of an injury to my left foot. See these?” I waved my hands. “They work just fine, like they always did. Brain still works, too. Unless Brandi wants me to kick a field goal, I’m probably going to be able to handle anything she might throw my way. Okay?”

He turned the color of a June strawberry. “Jeez, Luce. I get it, okay? But Brandi…you don’t realize how precarious…she nearly lost the baby during her first trimester. It’s been a difficult pregnancy. We’ve got to be very careful.” He cocked his head at the sound of a car roaring up the driveway. “Who’s that?”

I crossed the foyer and glanced out one of the parlor windows. “Mia. Driving like she stole something. Where’d she get the red Mustang convertible?”

“It’s Greg’s. He must have let her borrow it while he’s at work. Wonder what brought her back here?”

“Does she know about Fitz…?” I began.

The front door opened and Mia burst in. “Know what about Fitz?” She sounded breathless. “They finally found him?”

She had changed from her black funeral dress into a pale yellow lace-trimmed camisole and matching shorts. Her blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail and she’d tucked a daisy behind one ear. When she was a baby, my mother called her mon ange—my angel. There was still something fragile and gossamer about her, both physically and emotionally. She lacked the steely stubbornness Eli and I had inherited, and our mental toughness. The news about Fitz—on top of Leland’s death—would crush her. Eli and I exchanged glances.

“Let’s go sit on the veranda,” I said gently. “We’ll talk there.”

With its worn herringbone-patterned wooden floors, white columns connected by arched latticework, and old-fashioned ceiling fan that whirred like a large dragonfly, the veranda was the place where everyone gravitated to read or nap or daydream—and to watch the vividly hued sunsets with their backdrop of the graceful Blue Ridge.

Not surprisingly it was in the same sorry state as the rest of the house. Planters and urns, which had once been filled with flowers, were moss-covered and sprouted weeds. The white wicker furniture looked scarred up and some pieces needed mending. The paint on the columns was peeling and scaly.

I sat with Mia on the wicker love seat, trying to ignore the stains and worn spots on the cushions made from my mother’s favorite Provençal fabrics. Eli sat across from us in the glider, rocking back and forth. Its springs needed oiling.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Mia sounded weary. “First Pop, now Fitz. What happened? Tell me.”

I put my arm around her once again and this time her muscles went tense and rigid. “I’m so sorry, honey,” I said.

Eli shot me a look before he said, “We think he was trying to stop a robbery at the winery. I’m sorry, babe. Someone pushed him into a purged tank.”

She turned white under her suntan and her hand went to her mouth. “I’m going to throw up,” she said and bolted.

Eli got to her faster than I did. He held her shoulders as she stood retching into a flower bed that was now nothing but a mass of weeds. “Get some water, will you?” he muttered to me.

The front door closed as I came back through the foyer. I held a pitcher in the hand I didn’t need for my cane and had tucked a glass between my elbow and my ribs.

Mason Jones let himself in without bothering to ring the doorbell. He’d changed from the expensive-looking dark gray suit he wore at the funeral to an expensive-looking blue-and-white seersucker suit. In all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen Mason in anything but a suit. His shirts were handmade and had discreet monograms on the pockets and all his ties were silk, ordered from London.

“I came as soon as I found out.” He was carrying a zippered butter-soft black leather folder. Also monogrammed. “What are you doing there, Lucie love? Let me help you. You’re going to drop something.” He came over and extracted the glass. “You all right?”

“We just told Mia,” I said. “She and Eli are out on the veranda. She took it pretty hard.”

Mason held the door for me as we went outside. Eli had moved to the love seat. Next to him Mia sat with her elbows on her knees, holding her head in her hands.

“Look who’s here,” I said.

Mia looked up. “Hi, Uncle Mason.” Her voice trembled. Eli handed her the glass of water after I poured it.

Mason sat in an oversized matching wicker chair after first checking out the condition of the seat cushion. He put his leather folder between the cushion and the arm of the chair.

“I’m so sorry, children,” he said. “I don’t know what to say. This is horrible…horrible.”

“Who told you?” Eli asked.

“I was over at the inn when Elvis Harmon came by,” he said. “I was supposed to have dinner with him and a couple of the boys.” He shook his head. “We put it off for another time.”

“Dominique knows, then,” I said. “She’s probably devastated.”

He smiled sadly. “Aw, honey, you know your cousin. She just soldiers on, no matter what. I stayed with her in the kitchen while she cried, poor thing. Then she pulled herself together like she always does. She was terribly distraught though, on account of the way things stood between Fitz and her before…” He faltered. “Well, before.”

“You knew they were having problems?” Eli said.

“You know how word gets around, son.”

“How about a drink, Mason?” Eli asked. He gestured to Mason’s leather folder. “This isn’t strictly a social visit, is it?”

Mason’s smile didn’t make it all the way to his eyes. “As it happens, I do have some business to discuss. I didn’t expect to find all three of you here, but since everyone’s present perhaps we ought to take advantage of the situation, difficult as it is. And I’ll take bourbon and water, if you’ve got it.”

He was an old-school Southern lawyer, silver-tongued and silver-haired, with highly polished manners and old-fashioned gallantry but the killer courtroom instincts of a barracuda. Even though I really wanted to crawl into bed and forget this day, there was something in his voice that implied it was more than a polite invitation. If Mason had something to say, you didn’t turn him down. As a kid I’d called him “Uncle Mason” like Mia still did, but that didn’t change the fact that he handled all our affairs, personal and professional, as though counters behind his eyes were calculating billable and nonbillable hours. The billable hours bought him a lavish horse farm, where the President and the First Lady occasionally came to ride, and a gorgeous wife who frequently graced the society pages of the Washington Post, the Tribune, and Vanity Fair because of her glamorous fund-raising parties for local charities. There weren’t many nonbillable hours.

“Is this about the will? Is there some kind of problem?” Eli suddenly sounded tense.

“Don’t you worry,” Mason said. “Everything’s fine. Let’s all have a little drink and then we can chat about it.”

“I’ll get the bourbon,” I said. “It’s on the sideboard.”

“Stay here. I’ll get everything,” Eli banged into the glass-topped coffee table in front of the love seat as he stood up. Mason’s remark had obviously unbalanced him. He was worried about something. “What are you girls drinking?”

“White wine please,” I said. “Whatever’s open.”

“Nothing for me,” Mia said.

While he was inside I lit the citronella torches in the border garden and set an oil lamp on the coffee table. Eli returned with a tray and the drinks—and Leland’s best Scotch for himself.

He drank Scotch when he was upset.

Mason raised his glass. “To Lee and Fitz.”

After we drank Eli said, “So what’s this about, Mason?”

Mason set down his glass and picked up the leather folder. He pulled out a few papers and reached into his inside jacket pocket for a pair of half-glasses. I could tell Eli was squirming and that Mason was going to take his sweet time about this. “Well, Fitz’s death changes things, children.”

“What do you mean?” One of Eli’s nervous tics was a habit of bouncing one foot up and down like his toes were attached to a spring. Right now his right leg was twitching like an electric current was running through it.

Mason looked at him over the top of his glasses. “Leland left the vineyard to the three of you, just like he always planned.” He’d switched to his courtroom voice. “But he wasn’t sure if y’all would always agree on things, so he named Fitz the director of the corporation that owns it. That would have given him day-to-day control of the business.”

“Who runs it now that he’s gone?” I asked.

“It reverts to the three of you. You each have one vote, except for the person who owns Highland House. This house. That person gets two votes.”

“Who owns the house?” Eli asked.

“Lee couldn’t decide,” Mason said.

“What do you mean, he couldn’t decide?”

“Just that. So he figured rather than play favorites, he would leave it up to the two of you, Lucie and Eli. He wants you to roll dice for it. High score wins Highland House. The other one gets the house in France.” He turned to Mia. “As for you, darlin’, there’s a trust from your momma’s family that passes to you. You can’t have control of the money until your thirtieth birthday, but you will have an allowance. As custodian I can also authorize payment of certain essential expenses like your college tuition, for example.”

“How much…is there?” Mia seemed startled. “I never knew anything about this.”

Mason consulted his notes. “It’s just shy of half a million. You’re well taken care of, child.”

“This is ridiculous,” Eli interrupted. “I mean, I’m glad Mia got the trust money, but everything should be divided equally. I don’t believe this.”

Mia glanced at him wide-eyed.

“That’s not how your daddy set things up,” Mason folded his glasses and set them on top of his papers. “He didn’t want to have to choose who got which house—and there was no way to divide two houses three ways. So he came to this arrangement—on his own, I might add. You know how Lee liked gambling.”

Eli helped himself to more Scotch. “I guess I’d better get the dice.”

“Now?” I stared at him. “You want to do it now?”

“Why not? You can’t practice for this, you know.”

“Very funny. I’m really tired.”

“Let’s get it over with.”

I looked at Mason, who nodded. “Just as well.”

Eli went back inside the house, the screen door banging noisily behind him.

“Do you want another drink?” I asked Mason.

He reached for the bourbon. “I think I will. You having something, too, darlin’?”

“The white wine must be in the refrigerator. I think I could use another drink, too. Mimi, you change your mind? Want something?”

She was sitting on the love seat Indian style, picking the petals out of her daisy and setting them in a pattern on the coffee table. She looked up. “You haven’t called me that in years.”

“Old habits.”

“Nothing, thanks.”

Eli held the dice, clacking them in his hand when I came back to the porch with an open bottle of last year’s Chardonnay.

“These are the only ones I could find.”

“The Monopoly dice,” Mia said. “Where were they?”

“Are those legal?” I asked.

“In the drawer of the telephone table in the foyer,” Eli said. “And dice are dice.”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “Hand them over.”

He clacked them together again.

“He had trick dice when we were kids,” I explained to Mason.

“I was eight.” He slapped them into my open hand. “Oh, all right. Since you’ve got them, you roll first.”

I blew on the dice, closed my eyes, and tossed them. They sounded like pebbles as they bounced on the glass table. Before I could open my eyes, I heard Eli’s voice and the elation was unmistakable. “Three! You rolled a three!”

So he’d won, after all. Now he had the legal right to sell the house and the vineyard and there was nothing I could do to stop him. His two votes and Mia’s in favor of selling stacked up against my lone vote to hang on to it and run the vineyard ourselves. He’d probably have the FOR SALE sign up first thing tomorrow morning. Sooner, if he could find somebody who’d do it tonight.

“Your turn, Eli,” Mason said, after I sat there, mute, staring at my brother.

“Sure.” He scooped up the dice and winked triumphantly. If we’d been younger and Mason weren’t around, I might have done something to wipe the smirk off his face.

But we were older and I’d just lost my home by throwing a stupid three with a pair of Monopoly dice. Now Eli could have a swan swimming around a big fountain in the front yard of some castle he was building in Leesburg. I picked up my glass and drank long and deep.

The dice cracked against the glass table like bullets before ricocheting off the edge and clattering to the floor.

“Nice move,” I said.

“Where’d they go?” Mia asked.

“Over here.” Mason pointed under an end table. He stood up and peered at the spot he’d just indicated. “It’s too dark. Hand me that lantern, will you?”

Mia gave it to him. “Be careful or you’ll get lamp oil on yourself.”

He bent over cranelike and angled the light nearer to the floor. “If that doesn’t beat all.” He stood up and set the lamp back on the table. “Snake eyes.” He pulled a folded handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiped his hands.

“What?” Eli said.

“A two. You rolled a two.” He refolded the handkerchief and stuffed it carefully back in his pocket.

“Lucie won?” Mia sounded incredulous.

“A three beats a two,” Mason said.

“Are you sure it’s a two?” Eli asked. “It’s pretty dark.”

“Check for yourself, son.” Mason looked levelly at my brother and, for a moment, I thought Eli actually might get down on his hands and knees and crawl under that end table. But if he did, it was as good as calling Mason a liar.

He shifted uncomfortably and looked away. “It’s okay. I’m sure you’re right.”

“Well, we’ll talk about all this later, children,” Mason stood and picked up the folder. “I’d best be getting home now.”

“Lucie and I’ll be talking about things, too,” Eli said, glancing at me.

“What’s going on?” Brandi, wide-eyed and alert, stood at the door to the veranda.

“Well, hello there, angel face. Nothing’s going on. Mason just stopped by for a drink.” Eli had jumped up at the sound of her voice. “Did you have a good nap?”

“I’m hot,” she said. “I want to go home.”

“Of course, princess. We’ll leave right away. I’ll bring the car up to the front door so you don’t have to walk too much.”

If he could have, I’m sure he would have driven it right on to the veranda so princess didn’t have to walk at all. I don’t know why it grated on me so much, but Eli’s transformation into the arche-typal touchy-feely sensitive male seemed about as genuine as those publishing house letters announcing you’ve just won $10 million. He hadn’t exactly been in touch with his feminine side when he dated Kit. Back then, his idea of a fun evening was for her to watch him play Formula 1 video games all night with the guys at one of the truck-stop restaurants on Route 29.

As he walked past me, he leaned over and said in a calm, low voice, “You need to be reasonable about all this, Luce. We’ll be talking.”

“I’m always reasonable,” I said quietly, but I could feel the skin prickle on the back of my neck.

“I’ve got to get something upstairs,” Mia said. “Then I’m going, too.”

We walked through the ovenlike house to the driveway. Mason got into a silver Mercedes. Brandi nodded a cool good-bye as Eli helped her into the Jag. A moment later Mia bounded outside.

“What did you get?” I asked curiously.

She blushed and discreetly slid a slim plastic case out of her pocket. Birth control pills. “I, um, forgot the other day. I need to start being more careful. See you.”

She pulled out of the driveway before the others, the red Mustang churning gravel as she sped down the road. I had nearly shut the front door when I heard Mason’s voice. I left it slightly ajar and listened.

“What are you going to do, son?”

“We’re selling.” Eli sounded completely confident. “Lucie was talking some sentimental crap about hanging on to the house, but I’m sure she’ll agree to sell the vineyard. It’s too much hard physical labor, especially for someone in her…well, you know.”

“So she’d still keep the house? You’d have to sell the land in two parcels,” Mason said.

“Nah, don’t you worry. She’ll change her mind. I can talk her into selling this albatross along with the vineyard in return for letting her stay in the place in France. She hasn’t got the money or the stamina to maintain it, especially the way it’s deteriorated. Hell, Doc Harmon told me she was exhausted when she insisted on walking from the cemetery over to the winery after Leland’s funeral. She’s real touchy when you bring it up but just look at her. She’s a cripple now. She needs to deal with it.”

I’d heard enough. Quietly, I closed the door.

It probably wasn’t the smartest decision in the world to try to hang on to the vineyard when Leland had left us nearly bankrupt. Our new vintner seemed like the kind of guy you’d hire as a bouncer at a night club. Eli was right that Highland House, neglected for years, needed repairs that were well beyond our bank balance.

The vineyard had not been a business with a bottom line for my mother and Fitz, as Eli now saw it. It had been a labor of love. It was part of the goût de terroir—the taste of the land. The blend of the tangible—grapes, soil, and sunlight—and the intangible, which came from the passion and personality of the winemaker who created it. People had been trying to grow grapes in Virginia since the Jamestown settlement when the House of Burgesses, the country’s first legislature, required every male over twenty to plant at least ten grape vines. Years later Jefferson wrote that we could make wines to rival the best European ones.

My mother had been excited by the renaissance in Virginia wine making that took place in the 1970s, among the first to see the possibilities of converting some of our acreage from growing hay to growing grapes. To give up now on her dreams, when our vines were just coming into their best production years, was unthinkable.

In France I had learned, of necessity, to take life slower, to measure time by seasons, not deadlines. A life that required me to fit into nature’s schedule, and not the other way around, held great appeal. More pragmatically, I had been educated by Philippe, on the rare occasions when he was home, in the useful skills of carpentry, plumbing, plastering, and tilework. On my own, I’d cleared the land around the farmhouse and replanted the gardens. I was not—as my brother believed—completely helpless or useless.

He’d changed since he married Brandi. That was clear. But less clear was how far he’d go to please her, where his loyalties now belonged.

He was still my brother. We shared parents, genes, a life history. To imagine him tangled in some twisted twenty-first-century version of a Greek tragedy so he could have gold-plated faucets on his bathtub was lunacy.

I went back to the veranda and stared at the star-filled night sky. My Chardonnay was tepid. I flung it into the garden and watched the drops sparkle in the yellow light of a citronella torch. Who else, besides Eli and me, had known Fitz was stopping by the winery last night?

Could he have brought Brandi home, then doubled back and confronted Fitz in the barrel room? He had a motive and opportunity—but also an alibi, thanks to his wife.

I blew out the candles and went inside. Eli was right that the house was uncomfortably warm and anyway, I was now too restless to sleep.

The little key that Fitz had given me last night was upstairs in my bedroom. I went upstairs and got it, running my thumb and forefinger over its notched edge. Like most everyone in Atoka, Fitz never bothered to lock the door to his house. Maybe I’d take a little drive over there and have a look around. He might not have told me everything he knew last night about who was pressuring Leland to sell.

Though if I discovered Eli was connected to this business, then what? I might learn soon enough how far he would go to get what he wanted. Now that the house belonged to me.

I’d just moved to the top of the list of people who stood in his way.