The Merlot Murders

Chapter 24

“What are you doing here?” Quinn’s disembodied voice came from somewhere near the front door. A flashlight swept the room like a semaphore until he spotlighted me. In the unexpected brightness I missed the next stair. My bad foot twisted and buckled.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” He crossed the room and took the stairs two at a time. “You are going to break your stupid neck. What is it with you tonight?” he demanded. “And, no, I don’t mind one bit that you borrowed my car. I enjoyed the moonlight walk over here except for being nearly run over by your brother, who acted like he was driving the home stretch of the Indy 500.”

“I saw Eli drive past the winery while I was waiting for you. I followed him.”

“You are one weird family. What was Eli doing here at midnight with all the lights off?”

“Retrieving something that belonged to Brandi.”

“It couldn’t wait until morning?”

“No.”

“You know, to hell with you.” He sounded furious, all of a sudden. “You can stay here by yourself and wait until the power comes on for all I care. I’m leaving.”

He started down the steps again.

“Wait! Please! Where are you going?”

“The summerhouse. I need some sleep. You probably ought to get some, too. I’m sure your favorite hammock’s free. Here.” He tossed the flashlight to me. “Take this. I don’t need it. No one’s trying to kill me. I’ll be fine. Thanks for asking.”

He strode over to the door to the veranda, flinging it open and disappearing outside. I limped after him but the darkness had already swallowed him up.

“Wait! I’m coming with you!”

No answer. By the time I reached the summerhouse he was standing outside, arms folded, staring stonily at the night sky. He didn’t turn his head or acknowledge my arrival.

At least now I knew why he was spending his nights here. A telescope sat on a tripod, aimed at the skies above the Blue Ridge. On one of our old wooden tables was a collection of magazines. Star Gazer. An astronomy magazine.

“Astronomy? You come here to look at stars?”

“Got a problem with it?” he snapped.

“Uh, no.”

“The leaf canopy’s pretty dense at the cottage. The view is much better here.”

“I guess it would be.”

He held the door for me and we both went inside the summerhouse. “You are one royal pain in the ass sometimes, you know that?”

“I could say the same thing about you.”

I shone the flashlight around the room. When my mother was alive we’d used the place all the time for dinner parties and as a quiet retreat to get away and read. It had been filled with plants and more of her white wicker furniture, but now everything was heaped in a corner and it had become another storage depot for beach paraphernalia, a couple of garden hoses, Leland’s golf clubs, and two graying Adirondack chairs.

Quinn went over to the golf bag and pulled out one of the clubs. “I think something’s probably living at the bottom of that bag, but why don’t you use this temporarily as a cane?” He handed me the golf club.

“Thank you.”

“And now,” he said, removing his shirt, “I’m going to sleep. Good night, Lucie.” I would have expected a tattoo of a hissing serpent or something with thorns woven through it like I’d seen on the beach in France, but he’d stripped off most of the usual jewelry so all he wore was a plain gold cross on a heavy chain. He was no Greg, and of course he was about twenty years older, but he looked good, considering.

He saw me staring. “Now what’s wrong?”

“I hope that’s as far as you’re going to go.”

“Nope.” He unzipped his pants and pulled them off. He was wearing a pair of plaid boxer shorts. He sat down on an air mattress. “This is as far as I’m going to go. See you in the morning.”

“Where am I supposed to sleep? I’m not sleeping in one of those Adirondack chairs. It’s like sleeping on a wooden airline seat.”

“You can have half the mattress if you like. There’s room.” He turned over and closed his eyes. I waited, debating an uncomfortable night of sitting in the chair or part of a musty air mattress with a half-naked man I had practically just accused of trying to kill me. “Aw, for God’s sake, lie down, will you? I don’t bite.”

“All right, but I’m sleeping in my clothes.”

“Honey, I don’t care if you sleep in a suit of armor. Lie down and let’s get some sleep. We’re getting up in less than three hours.”

I settled next to him on the far edge of the mattress, my back to his back. I heard his breathing lengthen and grow more measured.

“Are you still awake?”

“Aw, jeez.” He rolled over on his back. I turned around and faced him, leaning on my elbow. He looked sideways at me. “What?”

“That newspaper article said they’d never recovered any money from the winemaker.”

In one swift movement he stood up and went outside to the telescope. I could see his silhouette through the screen door as he bent over and squinted through the eyepiece. “Ever look at the stars, Lucie?”

“Um…sure. Not through a telescope.”

“I thought I was going to miss ’em tonight, but now the moon has set.” He paused, to adjust one of the eyepieces. “We can see the Perseids.”

“Oh?”

“You know what they are, don’t you?”

“One of the summer constellations?”

He shook his head and rummaged for something on the table near the stack of magazines. “They’re a meteor shower. Yesterday and today are the only days they’re visible this year. They were beautiful last night.” I heard the crackling of cellophane as he unwrapped a cigar.

So he’d been here last night.

“Come here.” There was a small flash of fire as he lit up. I went out and joined him. “They’re not as spectacular as the aurora borealis, but they’re really something. First, I want you to look up in the sky.”

I obeyed as he sketched with his cigar the outline of the three stars that made up the Summer Triangle above us, then made me look through the telescope at the swath of light, like an explosion, that passed through the band of stars.

“What is it?”

“The Milky Way. Actually all the stars you see in the sky belong to the Milky Way. It’s just that when you look along the edge of the galaxy, you see thousands more stars than by looking above or below it. Now here…look…the Perseids.”

It was, as he said, like watching fireworks. “It’s beautiful. Does it happen often?”

“Every August.”

“Too bad I never saw it in France. There wasn’t much light pollution where I lived. The sky was always full of stars and they seemed so close it was like I could grab a fistful and pull them down.”

“Lucky you. You could have seen the Perseids if you’d looked on the right day and time. A change in longitude doesn’t change the night sky from one place to the next. A change in latitude does. You were about the same latitude in Grasse that we are here.”

He smoked his cigar and we sat, side by side, in silence. Then he said, “I hope Allen Cantor rots in jail. As for what happened to the money he stole, who knows?”

“You had no idea what he was doing?”

“No,” he said. “Though I’m sure you don’t believe that.”

“How could somebody you were so close to deceive you so completely?”

“Happens all the time, sweetheart. What’s the saying? ‘Regret is insight that comes a day too late.’” He stood up. “Come on. It will be light in two hours. We still have harvest in the morning. I think we should sleep.”

He was already awake and dressed when I opened my eyes. “Power’s on. I can see lights coming from the house. I’m going to get some breakfast. You want something?”

I leaned on the golf club and stood up. “I need a shower and a change of clothes.”

We split up when we got back to the house. He headed for the kitchen and I went upstairs. When I joined him later, he’d brewed a pot of coffee and was in the middle of cooking something on the stove.

“What’s that?”

“Omelet. Want some?”

“What’s in it?”

“Whatever you had in the refrigerator. Salsa. Goat cheese. Tuna.”

“Maybe I’ll pass. Is there any bread?”

“Nope. You’re pretty cleaned out. It’s the omelet or nothing.”

It actually wasn’t that bad. While we were eating he said, “I called Hector while you were upstairs. He says everything’s quiet. We only lost power for an hour, so at least the generator wasn’t running all night.”

When we finished eating I took our plates and stacked them in the kitchen sink. “Let’s get over there,” he said. “You ready?”

I picked up the golf club where I’d propped it against the wall. “Yes.”

We walked out the front door. The Toyota was right where I’d parked it. The air felt different and the sky was overcast. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “Car keys?”

“What?”

“You drove here last night.”

“So I did. I left them on the dresser in my room. I’ll get them.”

“No, I’ll go.” He stared at the sky. “It’s going to rain.”

“Feels like it.”

“I’ll be right back. Why don’t you practice your golf swing while you’re waiting?”

“Ha, ha.”

He disappeared inside the house. I swung the golf club absently, then stopped and looked at the dirty white ceiling of low cloud cover in the early morning sky. It was definitely going to rain. We’d have to work fast to get rest of the Chardonnay picked.

“What’s the matter?” He reappeared with his keys. “You look upset.”

“I think I’m starting to get a headache. It’s definitely going to rain.”

“What are you, a human barometer or something?”

“I need some aspirin.”

“Let’s get over to the winery. I’ve got some in my office.” He started the Toyota. We pulled into the parking lot. The only other vehicles there were Hector’s pickup and Bonita’s Corvette. “Why don’t you go see Hector and check things out?” Quinn said. “I’ve got to run back to my place for a minute. These clothes could walk by themselves. I’ll be right there.”

I found Hector, looking sleepy, sitting on a stool in Quinn’s lab in the barrel room. “Morning, Lucita.” He stretched and yawned. “The crew’s on its way. César went to get them. We’ll start picking then, though I’m gonna let César take over for today. I’m going home to get some sleep.”

“Do you know how many men we’ve got coming?”

He picked up a piece of paper and squinted at it. He patted his shirt pocket absently and frowned. I watched him reach for the reading glasses on the counter and put them on.

I’d left those glasses here last night when the power went out.

Hector thought they were his.

“Looks like we got eight men.”

“Those glasses,” I said quietly. “I guess they really help you read, don’t they?”

He looked up from the paper, over the top of the glasses. “Oh, I can still read some stuff real good,” he said. “But not small print. Maps. Menus. Anything with little writing.” He took off the glasses. “These are pretty strong, though. All those drugstore glasses look alike until you put them on.”

“They’re not yours?”

“Nope.”

“Can I have them, please?”

He looked puzzled, but passed them over to me. “What’s wrong, Lucita? Where are you going?”

“To return them to their owner,” I said. “I know who they belong to.”