The Bordeaux Betrayal (31 page)

She answered on the first ring. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been looking for you everywhere. No one answers at your house and your cell goes straight to voice mail.”

“My grandfather wouldn’t wake up if an army marched through his bedroom. I’ve been out.”

“Are you okay, Luce? I heard you two found Nicole.”

“We were visiting my mother’s cross. Whoever killed her left her body near there.”

“Bobby said she was beaten and strangled.”

“I know.”

“How’s Quinn taking it?”

“Like you’d think. He’s in the barrel room trying to work.”

“Look, I’m on my way to a briefing at the sheriff’s department so I’ve got to dash. Why don’t I call you this afternoon?”

“Sure. You’re writing the story?”

“Everybody in the bureau’s working on it.”

“You make any decision on the Moscow job yet?”

She hesitated and my heart sank. She was going to take it. “Yeah,” she said, “as a matter of fact I did. I turned it down.”

I smiled into the phone. “I’m really glad. What changed your mind?”

“Maybe it’s not so bad writing about school board meetings after all,” she said. “And Bobby finally said, ‘Baby, don’t go.’”

“Really? Things must be getting serious.”

“Yeah, sure. Mr. Speedy when it comes to romance. Like watching a glacier melt.” She chuckled at her own joke. “What are you doing today?”

“Errands.”

“Keep your mind off everything, huh? Take care of yourself. Talk to you later, kiddo.”

“Sure.”

I hung up and wrote Pépé a note about the coffee, adding a “p.s.” about Thelma and the bread—though I left out the red dress. My grandfather was sweet and chivalrous to every woman he met because that was his nature, but my grandmother had been the one and only love of his life. Deep down, I think Thelma knew that.

I put the morning newspaper on the coffee table in the library where he liked to read and emptied his ashtray. He’d left a neat pile of copies of the
Washington Tribune
containing Ryan’s columns. I gathered them up to put in the recycling bin on my way to the car.

If Nicole Martin had a meeting with a woman, there was one other woman—besides me—who didn’t want her leaving town with the Washington wine. Amanda Heyward. Had she tried to stop Nicole? Our relationship had cooled because of Kyra’s vandalism and the fact that I’d made her daughter clean my stone pillars. Quizzing Amanda about Nicole after her body had been found at the vineyard wouldn’t be much of a fence-mender.

I opened the side door to the carriage house and stuffed the copies of the
Trib
into the recycling bin. The newspaper on top had been folded open to Ryan’s column—the one he wrote about the Washington wine. I picked it up and read it again.

Ryan hadn’t only written about the Margaux, though that was the centerpiece of the article. He’d also mentioned the Domaine de Romanée-Conti and the Château Dorgon. Joe Dawson said Valerie had been upset because of something she’d learned in Bordeaux. I’d always assumed it had been the Margaux since both Valerie and Thomas Jefferson had visited that vineyard. The DRC was a Burgundy—but that also left the Dorgon. A vineyard that no longer existed.

The other night I’d finished reading Jefferson’s European travel diary. It had been a meticulously kept account of everything he saw, down to such mundane observations as the size and composition of bricks found in buildings along the Garonne River. Unlike me, he missed no details.

I went back inside and knocked on the door to Pépé’s bedroom. He answered, sounding sleepy.

“I’m sorry to wake you, but it’s important,” I said.

His blue-and-white-striped pajama top had a button undone, revealing a small triangle of pale white skin. His gray hair stuck up in tufts. Seeing him like this instead of dapper in a worn but elegant suit made him seem somehow vulnerable. My throat tightened and I leaned down to hug him, kissing his wrinkled cheek.

“What’s wrong? Sit,
ma puce
.”

“Do you want to come downstairs for coffee?” I asked. “Thelma sent you some fresh bread, too. In case you change your mind about eating breakfast.”

“You woke me at—” He leaned over and picked up his alarm clock, holding it close to his face so he could read it without his glasses. “
Mon Dieu
. Nearly ten a.m., to ask me if I wanted breakfast?”

“No, no. I’m sorry. It wasn’t that. I wanted to ask you about the wine Jack Greenfield donated to the auction. Not the Margaux. The other Bordeaux—the Château Dorgon.”

“What of it?”

“Do you know why that château went out of business?”

“The family members who survived the war couldn’t keep it going so they sold it.” He sat back against his crumpled pillow. “Why is this so important?”

“I don’t know. Is there any way you could find out more about that family?”

“I can call someone, if you wish. He spent a lot of time in Bordeaux working with the vineyards in that region once we got funds from the Marshall Plan.”

“That would be terrific.”

He regarded me. “I presume you wish me to make this call now?”

“If you could.”

But his friend wasn’t home, so he left a message.

“What’s going on, Lucie?” he asked.

I told him what Thelma had said about Nicole and the meeting with a woman I guessed was Amanda Heyward.

“What do you plan to do about it?” His eyes were grave. “I hope you’re not going to ask Amanda if she met Nicole?”

“I need to talk to her about the auction,” I said. “I can find an indirect way to ask her about Nicole.”

“Call her.”

“I need to do it in person.”

“Of course you do.” He shook his head. “I don’t think that’s wise.”

I stared at him, arms folded.

“If you insist,” he said at last, “then I’m coming with you. But first I need to take a shower and then I must have some coffee.”

“Take your shower and I’ll make your coffee.”

He glared at me. “I do not want dishwater, especially at this ungodly hour. Thank you, but I’ll make it myself.”

“You sure wake up grumpy,” I said.

“At my age, it is a blessing merely to wake up,” he said. “And now if you’ll excuse me—”

I stood up and grinned. “Of course. I’ll see you in the kitchen.”

The phone in the foyer rang as I came downstairs. Frankie, calling from the villa. I heard her sigh through the phone.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I’m really sorry. I know you don’t need this today and it seems kind of trivial.” She had lowered her voice so I could scarcely hear her.

“What seems trivial? And why are you whispering?”

“Mac Macdonald came by. He wants to leave a donation for the auction. Says it’s a really good bottle of wine, but he wants to give it to you. In person,” she said. “I think he kind of wants to see how you’re doing after finding Nicole yesterday. He’s worried about you.”

Mac owned Macdonald’s Fine Antiques in Middleburg and was one of the Romeos. He’d helped my mother acquire many of the American pieces she’d bought for Highland House over the years and he’d been close to both of my parents.

“I’ll be right over,” I said. Pépé would be a while taking care of his toilette.

“I’m sorry about this,” she said again.

“Don’t worry about it. Can you give Mac a cup of coffee?”

“He’s on his second. I gave him my muffin from Thelma’s, too.”

“You’re a good woman.”

I hollered up the stairs to Pépé that I had an errand at the winery and would be back shortly. Then I got my jacket and car keys.

Frankie had put a couple of pumpkins and a pot of bright yellow mums by the steps to the front door of the villa. One of the pumpkins was darker than the others and the color reminded me of Nicole’s suit. When I got inside, her two carved jack-o’-lanterns—the witch and the werewolf—sat on either end of the bar. Frankie’s smile froze when she saw my face.

“What’s wrong?” She turned and stared at the pumpkins. “I saw these in the barrel room and thought they’d look great over here. Someone did a terrific job with them. They are meant for the winery, aren’t they?”

“Well, hey there, sugar.” Mac Macdonald came out of the kitchen holding a coffee mug. Tall and stooped with a monk’s tonsure of white hair, Mac’s suits usually hung on his thin, bent frame, reminding me of a well-dressed crane. His eyes traveled from my face to Frankie’s. “Something wrong? Am I interrupting—?”

“No, nothing’s wrong.” I caught Frankie’s eye.

Behind Mac’s back she pointed to the pumpkins and raised her eyebrows, mouthing, “These?”

I nodded and went over to kiss Mac on the cheek. “Frankie said you brought a donation for the auction. How thoughtful.”

Mac and his wallet were close and though he swore every time he sold a piece of furniture or a painting that he was barely making a profit, everyone in town knew better. He and a couple of the Romeos had formed a small investment club that beat the market every year since they’d been in existence, plus Mac had his own portfolio rumored to be in seven figures. It still didn’t stop him from peeling uncanceled stamps off envelopes and reading Thelma’s copy of the
Trib
each morning when he stopped by for coffee and a doughnut. The donation of a bottle of wine was a surprise.

“I’ve got it right here.” He’d left a cotton tote printed with the logo of Blue Ridge Federal Bank on one of the sofas. “It’s supposed to be pretty good.”

He pulled out a bottle and handed it to me. A jeroboam of Château Latour à Pomerol.

“It’s more than pretty good, Mac. It’s fabulous,” I said. “A Latour à Pomerol will bring in a lot of money.”

“Really?” He seemed surprised and for a moment I wondered if he wasn’t going to reconsider. “Well, he said it was worth a lot.”

“Who did?”

“Shane Cunningham.”

“You bought this at Jeroboam’s?”

Mac shook his head. “Shane gave it to me. I just started buying wine futures from him and I purchased a couple of bottles of wine through his Internet auctions. He’s advising me since I’m still a novice, but I trust him.” He shrugged. “Whatever I buy I usually resell through him and it’s made me a tidy little profit. The wine was kind of a thank-you gift after I made a fairly substantial investment.”

Some thank-you gift. “You don’t ever see the wine you buy through those auctions?”

Mac hoisted his coffee mug. “You know I’m a teetotaler. But I do enjoy investing—and it’s fun getting involved in, you know, the world of wine.” He smiled like we were co-conspirators.

I looked at the bottle. Jack Greenfield owned a couple of jeroboams of the Latour—I’d just seen them when I walked through his wine cellar on Sunday. And Shane was taking inventory of what Jack owned since Jack seemed to have lost track.

“When did Shane give this to you?” I asked.

“Couple of weeks ago, maybe a month. Why?”

“Just curious. Thanks so much, Mac.”

“You all right, sugar? I heard about you finding that young woman yesterday.” He put an arm around my shoulder. “What’s this world coming to where you kill a person and dump them like a sack of trash? Who would do something like that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m sure the sheriff will find whoever did it.”

“Used to be so safe around here,” he said. “Now we’ve got all these people coming in from away. Including
you
bringing ’em in—you’re hiring ’em. I say we ought to send those folks back home where they belong. I’ll bet you one of them did it.”

Fond as I was of Mac, I would never understand his ugly prejudices or his belief that white stood for purity and good. He thought America ought to be populated by Americans, not foreigners, but you could never tell him that the only real Americans had been here for centuries, long before the
Susan Constant,
the
Godspeed,
and the
Discovery
arrived in Jamestown in 1607. When all was said and done, he and all the rest of us were the foreigners.

“If those men didn’t pick my grapes,” I said, “who would? They work hard, Mac. They send money home so their families can have a better life. A lot of them have more than one job.”

“You wait and see,” he said. “When it all shakes out one of those people will be responsible for that woman’s death.”

He said “those people” like he was talking about bird droppings.

“I’m not sure about that,” I said.

He bussed me on the cheek and left his empty cup on the bar. The pumpkins, I noticed, were no longer there.

After he left, Frankie came over to me with her hands on her hips. “I moved the pumpkins out to the terrace because I knew they upset you,” she said, “but I swear, I was that close to throwing one of them at him.” She held up her thumb and forefinger. No daylight between them.

“I wouldn’t have stopped you,” I said. “He’s always been like that. Usually he keeps it to himself.”

“I would have called him on it.”

I shook my head. “Today I just couldn’t.”

“I could tell. Especially when I saw the look on your face when he handed you that wine. And what’s with the pumpkins?”

“Nicole carved them when she was with Quinn the other night,” I said.

Frankie’s hand went to her mouth. “I had no idea. I never should have taken them. What do you think I should do now?”

“Put them back in the barrel room and let Quinn decide.”

“All right.” She eyed the Latour. “Fabulous donation.”

“It is, isn’t it? I’d better get back to the house. My grandfather’s waiting for me.”

“You two going to do something nice together?”

“I think I’m going to drive over to Sunny Greenfield’s place and drop off the artwork for the cover of the auction catalog.”

She looked surprised. “Really? Well, if it will take your mind off everything that’s been going on, then good. The auction has kind of fallen by the wayside ever since Jack asked you to return his wine. We still have a lot to do to get ready, you know.”