The Bordeaux Betrayal (6 page)

“Crime scene tape? The sheriff doesn’t think it was an accident?” I asked. What else had they found at the creek? Or in Valerie’s car?

“Apparently not,” he said. “Of course I’m sorry she’s dead, but that tape will upset our guests until it comes down. So disturbing. Though we did get a lot of calls all day on account of that auction you’re having at the end of the month. Place is full up for that weekend thanks to you. We’ve even got a waiting list in case of cancellations. I read the column in the
Trib
about that bottle of wine Thomas Jefferson bought for George Washington. An amazing story. Very generous donation from Jack Greenfield.”

“I know,” I said. “Jordy, Valerie Beauvais was on her way to the vineyard to look at that bottle of wine before she gave a talk at Middleburg Academy.”

He made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Such a shame. I heard you found her and pulled her out.” His eyes strayed to my hospital-issue cane. “You all right, Lucie?”

“I got banged up when I slipped in the creek, but I’ll be okay. You mind if I take a look around here, anyway? I’ll stay away from the crime scene tape.”

He steepled his fingers. “What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know. Probably nothing.”

“Something to do with that bottle of wine?” He leaned back in his desk chair and regarded me.

“Valerie wanted to talk to me about something. Whatever it was, she never got a chance to do it. I guess I’m just scratching an itch, that’s all.”

Jordy and Jack Greenfield played poker with a local group of men known as the Romeos. It stood for Retired Old Men Eating Out and they could spread gossip faster than a strong wind could spread a fire in a dry spell. I’d just aroused his curiosity and he knew I’d been deliberately vague. The topic would come up for sure at the next poker game.

“Help yourself.” His smile was bland. “Don’t imagine you’ll find anything, but you’re welcome to look.”

“Thanks.” I stood. “I see you’ve got a copy of her book.”

His chair squeaked as he swung around to retrieve it from a gate-leg maple table. “Here. Take it, if you’d like. Put it in the wine library in your tasting room.”

“Don’t you want it?”

Jordy looked embarrassed. “My dear, I’m sorry to speak ill of the dead, but it’s unreadable.”

I took the book and thanked him. He walked me to the front door.

“Did you see her leave this morning?” I asked.

He shook his head. “She didn’t even show up for breakfast. Surprising since Gracie put out one of her award-winning English spreads.” He patted his stomach. “One of those will keep you until dinner. Tomorrow’s dinner.”

I kissed him good-bye and he closed the door. But as I walked toward Cornwall Cottage I saw the lace curtain in his office flutter and drop back into place. Jack Greenfield would definitely hear about my visit.

In the waning afternoon light the crime scene tape around the cottage gleamed. I walked up and clamped my hands around my eyes like goggles and peered through the windows. Luckily the curtains hadn’t been drawn.

The living room was immaculate as though ready for new guests. The bedroom was a different story. Covers thrown back on the king-sized bed with the sheets tangled and twisted. An antique quilt lay in a heap on the floor. I moved around to the kitchenette window. A can of nuts and a couple of empty bottles of wine sat on the counter. There was half a pot of coffee in the coffeemaker.

That was it. Jordy had been right—there was nothing to find, especially after the sheriff’s department had cleaned the place out. I started back down the flagstone path toward the parking lot.

The rubber tip of my cane came down on something hard wedged in a crevice between two stones. I looked down. It was a piece of metal—something round and dull-looking. I bent down and almost picked it up.

Fortunately I didn’t, because on closer inspection it looked a lot like a lug nut from the wheel of a car. 

If I was right and it came from Valerie’s car, then someone had tampered with her wheel while she was in the cottage. I reached for my cell phone to call the sheriff before remembering the phone was waterlogged and I’d left it at home. Jordy wouldn’t be happy about the sheriff showing up at the Fox and Hound twice in one day, especially if what I’d found was something that had fallen off a lawnmower. Whatever it was, I left it where I’d found it and headed back to the house.

A young redheaded woman with a scowl on her face came out onto the back porch, slamming the door hard behind her. She muttered something before she saw me and realized I’d been watching. Her face turned scarlet.

“Afternoon, miss.” She spoke with an Irish lilt. “May I help you?”

“No, thank you. I’m just on my way to talk to Mr. Jordan.”

“I believe he’s in his office,” she said. “Sorry about the door. Long day.” She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her purse and fished around until she found a book of matches.

“I’m sure. You work here?”

“I do.”

“I guess you were here when the sheriff showed up?”

“Oh my, yes. Such goings on.” She moved closer and extracted a cigarette from the pack. “Everyone was in a state. Especially Miss Grace and Mr. Jordy.”

I didn’t have to prod much. She was full of the importance of what she knew.

“It must have been difficult.” I kept my voice friendly and noncommittal. “Did you talk to one of the deputies?”

She lit up and dropped the match on the ground, blowing out a stream of smoke. “No, they only spoke to the girls who take care of Cornwall Cottage.” Her smug smile lit up her pale green eyes. “No one asked me, so I didn’t say nothin’. Didn’t want to get him in trouble, he’s such a fine man and all. Tips me nice when I look after one of their guests.”

“Get who in trouble? One of what guests?”

She examined her cigarette and I knew I’d pushed too hard. “Oh. Well, nobody. I shouldn’t be talkin’ this way.”

I slid my purse off my shoulder and took a twenty out of my wallet. “I’d really like to know. Do you think you could tell me?”

She barely contemplated the money. No wrestling with her conscience before she took it and tucked it in her bra. I’d half-expected her to hold out for more.

“Dr. Dawson,” she said. “His school puts guests up here all the time and he comes round a lot.”

“He was here last night?”

She nodded. “With Miss Boo-vase. I’d finished up the dinner dishes and stepped out for a quick fag. Saw his car as he drove past me on the way to Cornwall Cottage.”

“What time?”

“About eleven. Just after she showed up.”

“He saw you?”

She colored again. “I didn’t have the porch light on, so I suspect he didn’t.”

“Did you see him leave?”

“No, but he stayed a while.” I waited and she added, “I overheard a couple of deputies who came into the dining room for coffee. They found…well, he’d been takin’ precautions, you see.”

Mick had been right. Still lovers. “A condom?”

She puffed on her cigarette. “Several.”

“Oh.” It was my turn to blush. “What’s your name?”

“Bridget. Why?”

“You need to tell the sheriff about seeing Dr. Dawson, Bridget.”

“Lord have mercy, no! I cannot!” She dropped the cigarette and stubbed it out under a heavy-soled shoe. “I’ll get in trouble. I’m not supposed to be smokin’ on the job. And Mr. Jordy will think I’ve been spyin’ on the guests.”

No point stating that Mr. Jordy would have been right.

“I’m sorry, but you have to. You won’t get in trouble. I’ll make it okay with Mr. Jordy. Come on.”

“No. Really, I can’t.”

I held out another twenty. “Please?”

She shrugged and took the money, then bent and picked up the cigarette butt and her match. I almost missed the sleight of hand as she tossed them behind a rhododendron next to the house. Probably not the first time.

I rang the doorbell as Bridget squirmed next to me, popping a breath mint in her mouth. Somehow she didn’t seem destined for a long period of employment at the Fox and Hound.

After I’d explained everything, Jordy handed me the phone and eyed Bridget. I called Bobby Noland, whom I’d known since we were kids. Now a detective with the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Department, he’d done a one-eighty since high school when he’d been a regular in the principal’s office. His decision to go into law enforcement surprised everyone except his mother, who claimed it was irrefutable proof that God answered prayers.

Bobby arrived in an unmarked cruiser a short while later, wearing jeans and a black polo shirt with the sheriff’s department logo embroidered on the pocket. He shook hands with Jordy and Bridget and nodded at me. We’d adjourned to the parlor where Grace had brought tea and scones, frowning at Bridget as she left the room.

Bobby took a scone but passed on tea. Then he got right down to it. “There’s crime scene tape all around that cottage, Lucie. What were you doing there? I could haul you in for messing around where you’re not supposed to be.”

If it had been anybody else but Bobby, I probably would have been intimidated. We had too much history together growing up. I knew his weaknesses and he knew mine.

“I didn’t go inside,” I said.

“You still shouldn’t have been there,” he said. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

“Valerie Beauvais was on her way to see me when her car went into the creek,” I said. “She wanted to talk to me about some of the wine that’s been donated for our auction.”

“What about it?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I dropped by—in case she left anything behind. When I found her car this morning in the creek, I thought her accident was an accident. How was I supposed to know you put crime scene tape up?”

“Well, we did. So maybe that should have been your first clue the place was off limits.”

“I found a lug nut.”

“You found what?”

“A lug nut. At least, I think that’s what it is. By Cornwall Cottage.” For his benefit I added, “I didn’t touch it.”

“Let’s go take a look.” He didn’t sound happy.

“Before we go, there’s something else you should know.” I glanced at Bridget. “Go on, tell him. He won’t bite.”

Her cocky confidence had disappeared and her voice was barely louder than a whisper. “Miss Boo-vase had a guest last night. I saw Dr. Dawson’s car drive by on his way to the cottage.”

If they’d found condoms, Bobby already knew Valerie had been with a man. Hard to tell if the identification of her visitor was news or not. His eyes met mine, giving away nothing, then slid to Bridget. “What time?”

She told him. He asked a few more questions and said to me, “Show me that lug nut now. Jordy, Bridget, thanks for your help.”

I set my dishes on the silver tray and nodded at Bridget. Jordy walked Bobby and me out.

“I promised Bridget she wouldn’t get in trouble if she told the truth,” I said. “I gave my word.”

Jordy sighed. “All right.”

“Thank you.”

When Bobby and I got to Cornwall Cottage, I showed him what I’d found. Turned out it was a lug nut, though Bobby said it didn’t mean it came from Valerie’s car. Still, he took photos with a digital camera and bagged it.

“I’ll bet you anything it’s from her wheel,” I said. “What about the other lug nuts? Did you find them?”

“You know I can’t say.”

“You didn’t, did you? That means this one’s really important.”

“No comment.”

We walked back to the parking lot. “Joe didn’t tamper with Valerie’s car, Bobby.”

“What was he doing here last night if he’s engaged to your cousin?”

“The engagement’s off.”

He rubbed a hand across his forehead and closed his eyes like he was trying to excise a headache. “Is that so? You know anything about Joe’s relationship with Valerie Beauvais? Whether or not it was sexual?”

I decided not to mention that Bridget had told me about the condoms. “I saw them together last night at her lecture at Mount Vernon. They kissed a couple of times, but that’s all I saw.”

He still held the bag with the lug nut between his thumb and forefinger. “I wonder if he was the only visitor she had,” he said. “Guess I’ll be talking to your cousin’s ex-fiancé.”

I nodded. More than one lover—I hadn’t thought of that. Either way, it didn’t look too good for Joe.

My answering machine beeped as I walked in the front door of my house just after six o’clock. Three messages. All from Katherine Eastman sounding increasingly irate.

Kit, like Bobby, went back to my sandbox days. Best friends all twelve years of school, we’d finally split up in college—she studied journalism in North Carolina and I went to Williamsburg for history and French. We got back together after graduating, both landing jobs in D.C. She worked in the newsroom of the
Washington Tribune,
a place she used to refer to as “the shark tank.” I got a job with an environmental group that tried to convince policy makers that scientists hadn’t invented global warming to scare the public or obtain more funding.

Three summers ago Kit’s mother suffered a stroke and a few weeks later a car I was in, driven by a now-ex-boyfriend, slammed into the wall at the entrance to our farm as he brought me home one night in the middle of a rainstorm. Kit returned to Atoka to be near her mom, asking for a transfer to the
Trib
’s Loudoun bureau. I spent a few months in Catoctin General learning to walk again before moving to a house my French mother’s family still owned on the Côte d’Azur, where I spent two years adjusting to life with a cane.

The time stamps on the answering machine indicated Kit had been calling for the past three hours. I listened to her last message. “Dammit, how come you don’t answer your cell anymore? I finally tried here. Four times. Where the hell are you? Call me or else.”

I took more ibuprofen and called. “It was only three times. Or else what?”