The Merlot Murders (14 page)

We had passed the last of the existing vineyards. I figured he was headed toward a series of old fields rimmed with more dry-stacked stone walls that checkerboarded the landscape. Beyond them, the terrain swept up to the highest point of our property. It was covered with trees and underbrush. If he wanted to use that hill, we’d have the additional expense of clearing it, but then slopes were the best place for siting vines.

He stopped by one of the stone walls and pointed to the hill. “Beginning over there,” he said. “It’s cooler and a different micro-climate from the rest of the vineyard so we could experiment. South-facing slope. Good drainage. It would be above any frost pockets and we’ll take out any impediments to cold-air drainage.”

I’d gotten out of the Gator when Quinn had been speaking and was about to head across the field.

“Umm.”

“Hey,” he said, “are you listening, or am I talking to the crows? Where are you going?”

I hadn’t been to this part of the farm for years, quite deliberately. The vegetation had changed the topography of the landscape, so at first I hadn’t been sure.

“Excuse me for a moment.”

After a few tries I found the small flat cross made of gray field-stones next to the wall. It was nearly buried by tall grass and weeds that I pulled away with my metal cane, using it like a scythe. I’d made the cross years ago to mark the place where my mother had fallen after Orion, her horse, had thrown her. I knelt and was pulling weeds when I heard Quinn’s footsteps behind me.

“I never saw that marker when I was here before.”

“You wouldn’t have. It was covered by brush.”

He grunted. “You bury a dog here or something?”

I finished clearing away debris around the stones and wiped the dirt off my hands on my jeans. I leaned on my cane and pulled myself up. “No.”

“What’s the cross for, Lucie?” he asked as we walked across the field to the Gator.

“My mother. Look, can we please get out of this heat?” I turned away from him.

“Sure,” he said gently. “Let’s go.”

When we got back to the Gator he said, “We don’t have to plant here.”

I shook my head. “She’d like it if we did.”

He chewed on a piece of wild chicory and said nothing.

“You know,” I continued, “my mother thought only the French could make good wine. I wonder what she’d make of you being the vintner here.”

He smiled that half-smile again. “Thomas Jefferson said every man has two countries. His own and France. I figure that makes me a little bit French. Besides, Jefferson’s good friend was Filippo Mazzei. A good
paisano
from Tuscany, just like my phantom father. Jefferson gave Mazzei two thousand acres near Monticello to grow
vinifera
in Virginia and produce some good Italian wine in the New World. So if an Italian vintner was good enough for Jefferson, it ought to be good enough for you. And your mother. Okay?”

I stared at him with my mouth open, as though he’d just spoken to me in perfect Attic Greek. “Well,” I said at last, “I guess so.”

“Good.”

We didn’t speak on the trip back to the winery. Quinn began humming relentlessly, something tuneless and off-key and loud enough to be heard over the puttering Gator. Like white noise, I tried to let it block my thoughts, but without much success.

Producing wine is as emotional a task as it is technical. To drink a glass of a wine you have helped create is to remember the weather that year, the events that happened in the world, and, inevitably, the events in your own life. As a result, I could never drink one of our wines from the year my mother died, for it seemed I always tasted a sadness that had seeped into the finish.

I wondered if it would be the same with wine from this harvest, the year of Leland’s death—whether Quinn would somehow unintentionally infuse it with a sense of loss or whether he could overcome that and instead we’d taste his hopes and the promise of the future as he produced his first vintage in Virginia. I didn’t say any of this to him, because I didn’t want to jinx things.

But after he dropped me off at the house no matter what I did the sterile anonymity of Section A46, Row 4 stayed with me. I thought about Quinn washing away all that blood and the hasty funeral my brother had organized.

Leland hadn’t been out there in the vineyard alone. Someone—someone I knew—had been there with him.

The house at noontime was worse than a blast furnace, and the heat so oppressive it weighed me down like the gravity on Jupiter. I took another shower and dressed without drying off. It helped for ten minutes and then I was as enervated and listless as I’d been before.

I’d been putting off making a trip to the attic, which would be even more suffocating and airless than the rest of the house, to retrieve one of the old fans, but it was getting down to choosing between the lesser of two evils. I rummaged in the kitchen for a flashlight, betting the lights would be burned out in the attic. When I found one, the batteries were dead so I pawed through more junky drawers looking for fresh replacements. After half an hour I quit looking.

I could buy batteries at the general store, which would be quicker than a trip to Middleburg. Besides, Thelma had already squeezed every bit of news about our family out of everyone else in Atoka, so there wasn’t much chance I’d get mugged for new gossip.

There was no one in the store when I walked in, even though three pickup trucks were out front, angled so they filled all the available pavement on either side of the gas pumps, the area Thelma liked to call “the parking lot.” The sleigh bells attached to the front door jingled as I entered. The store smelled, as it always did, of fresh-brewed coffee and pine-scented sawdust. Abruptly, voices in the back room stopped talking and a moment later, Thelma scooted out front. She was small and compact, a woman of “a certain age” as the French say, or, as she put it, “I’m not as young as I look.” She had the tornado energy of a twentysomething, but a lot of the old-timers said she was over seventy if she was a day. She was dressed completely in lime green from the bows in her bright orange hair to the killer pair of stiletto slingbacks. She wore the usual tonnage of makeup, though she’d gotten a bit whimsical drawing in her pencil-line eyebrows. I’d once heard her described as the Mata Hari of Atoka, with her va-va-voom style of dressing and her success at weaseling information out of her neighbors—but with the eyebrows she looked more like Spock from
Star Trek
.

“Lord love a duck,” she said when she saw me. “I swear, that Marissa is some hussy! They’ve just let her out of prison for forgery and already she’s trying to take away poor Katarina’s husband. And he doesn’t recognize her after all the plastic surgery she had after the fire so he believes every word she says. And her pregnant with twins by Diego, that gorgeous prison guard who’s really Dr. Lance Tarantino!”

“
General Hospital? Days of Our Lives
?” I guessed.

“A new one. It’s called
Tomorrow Ever After
. The characters are so
real,
Lucille, they’re practically like family. I just
love
that show.” She put her hands on her hips and studied me. “You know, child, you lost too much weight while you were over there in France. How much do you weigh now, anyway?”

“I don’t actually know. I’m okay, though.”

“Can’t be more than a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet,” she said. “You need to put some weight on, Lucille. I think there’s one blueberry muffin left from this morning’s delivery. Better’n those cross-ants you got in France, too. Hampton Weaver wanted it when he was here earlier, but Lordy, that man must be close to three hundred pounds and lookin’ like a doublewide trailer, so I said, ‘Hamp, you put that muffin back and you get yourself on a diet, you hear me?’ So you take it, now, and you eat it. On me.”

Stiletto heels clacking like castanets on the wooden floor, she crossed the room. The blueberry muffin sat, on its own, in the glass cabinet where she kept the fresh bakery items she ordered every day. She wrapped it in a piece of white paper and handed it to me. “Now eat that.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She picked up a dish towel and polished imaginary fingerprints off the glass cabinet. “I heard that new winemaker of yours is over seeing Bobby Noland right now, trying to get him to speed up the investigation into poor ol’ Fitz’s death so you all can get back inside your winery.”

I coughed on a piece of muffin. “Mmmm.”

She eyed me. “So it’s true, then?”

I swallowed. “I don’t really know where he is right now. Where did you hear that?”

She stopped polishing and touched her hand to the back of her hair. “Why, from him. ’Course he didn’t actually
say
that’s where he was heading, but I know the receptionist over to the sheriff’s office. He’d called there a little while ago.”

“You still know everything about everybody, don’t you, Thelma?”

“Oh, I keep my oar in, Lucille. It’s what keeps me so young. People are so interesting, you know? And, of course, I just plumb love the socialism of my job.”

“I can see that.”

“He left here a few minutes ago,” she continued. “Nice-looking young fellow, except I wish he’d take off that jewelry. Worries me when a man wears a necklace and bracelet. Didn’t waste any time getting himself a girlfriend since he got here though, did he?”

“I beg your pardon?”

She smiled sweetly. “That dancer.”

“What dancer?”

“The one takes most of her clothes off.”

I stared at her. “Are we still talking about Quinn Santori? Our winemaker?”

“Who else?” She resumed polishing. “She works at Mom’s Place.”

“That night club on the way to Bluemont?” The joke about that particular strip joint was that all the men who went there told their wives or girlfriends they were going to “Mom’s,” which saved a lot of grief and questioning—until everyone wised up about their real whereabouts. “How did he meet her?”

“How do you
think
?”

“Oh.” He’d said he was headed over to Bluemont the other day when he took all our leftover food to the soup kitchen. He was probably going over to Mom’s for a little lunchtime…refreshment.

“She’s right pretty.” Thelma said. “’Course I’ve only seen her with her clothes on. She’s about your age, Lucille. I think at her place of work she goes by ‘Angel.’ Just one name, like some of those rock stars. Her real name is Angela Stetson.”

“Angela Stetson? I went to high school with her! She was really quiet. I don’t think I ever heard her say two words.”

Thelma arched her eyebrows, which was not a good idea since they disappeared under her orange fringe of curls. “Still waters, Lucille. Still waters.” She looked sly. “So what do you think about that?”

I’d finished my muffin and crumpled the white paper in my hands. “I think it’s his business who he sees. And hers. Do you have any batteries?”

“’Course I do. They’re over in hardware. What size do you need?”

“For a flashlight. D, I think.”

“Hardware” was all of half a row, just behind camping items, fishing lures, and ammunition. The other half of the row was seeds and greeting cards. You could get anything at Thelma’s, if you didn’t mind the lack of variety. We walked over to hardware.

“Here they are.” She handed me a package of batteries. “As long as we’re on the subject, what’s all this I hear about you and Gregory Knight? Is he trying to start a fire with you again, Lucille? And him sleeping with your sister, too. That boy has no shame. A regular Casablanca, he is, a real two-timer.”

Some government ought to hire this woman for serious under-cover work. Where had she heard
that
? “I don’t know what you heard but there is absolutely nothing going on between Greg and me.”

“Is that so? Well, let me tell you, my sources are the horse’s mouths themselves. I spoke to Gregory when he was in here this morning after getting off work at the radio station. He went redder ’n a tomato when I asked him. If that isn’t an admission of guilt, I don’t know what is.” She clacked over to the cash register leaving me to trail behind her while she rang up my sale in silence. Then she added her denouement. “I have it on good authority that last night he was seen in the throes of passion, kissing you for all the world to see.”

“Oh gosh, Thelma, it’s not what you’re thinking.”

“I knew it! You’re redder ’n a tomato, too, Lucille. You stay away from that boy.” She wagged a finger in my face. “He’s too dang good-looking for his own health and he knows it. I don’t like a person takes advantage of another. It isn’t right.”

“No, ma’am.” I started to move away from the cash register. “Thanks for the batteries and the muffin.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I know you’re looking out for me and I appreciate it. Really.”

“Well. ’Course I am.” Her voice softened and she seemed somewhat mollified. “But there is one more thing.”

“Yes?”

She put her hands on her hips and thought for a moment. “There’s something you need to know, child. I’ve been debating whether or not I ought to keep it a secret, but you know me. I believe it’s best if you just let it all hang out.”

“I know that.”

“You believe in the power of spirits, don’t you, Lucille?”

“As in alcohol? You mean wine?”

“I do
not
mean alcohol. I mean
spirits
. You know, communicating with…” She paused and looked significantly at me. “The Great Beyond.”

It wasn’t too hard to see where she was going with this. Years ago Thelma used to see a psychic over in Delaplane who happened to correctly predict that she would soon meet a tall stranger who had just come into a large sum of money and would ask her to marry him. She met the guy, all right. It’s possible he’s still doing time at some correctional facility in North Carolina for armed robbery.

“I believe in life after death,” I said carefully.

“Now, honey, I’m going to tell you something and I don’t want you to be too upset.”

“Okay.”

She clasped her hands together and leaned toward me. “I can’t be too specifical about details,” she said, lowering her voice, “but I have it on good authority that your mother is absolutely committed, I mean
committed,
to your hanging on to the house and the vineyard.” She straightened up and put her hands on her hips again. “What do you think?”

What horse’s mouth told her that? “How do you know this?”

“Oh, the spirits often use me as their medium. I have excellent psychedelic powers. Your mother told me herself when she paid me a little visit.”

“My
mother
? You’re quite sure it was my mother you were talking to?”

“I am positive. Charlotte and I were very close, Lucille.” I’d forgotten she used to call my mother Charlotte.

“I remember.”

“Though I admit,” she added, “that I was surprised when she called on me. It was the first time I’d heard from her. Since before, well, you know when.”

“When did you two have this discussion?”

“Why, just this afternoon,” she said. “I had my Ouija Board out because Muriel Sims wanted to talk to Henry. She likes to keep in touch pretty regular, you know, since he went over to the other side. And, plain as day after Henry left, there was Charlotte. I knew it was her because I didn’t understand what she was saying at first. I think it was something French. Too bad I can’t remember it now.”

“And she told you she didn’t want us to sell the vineyard?”

“Yes, indeedy.” She frowned, pursing her lips. “You’re sure you’re okay, Lucille? It isn’t too much of a shock? Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”

“I’m glad you did.”

She looked relieved. “Well, that’s a big load off my mind. I might of figured. You know, you’ve got Charlotte’s backbone, child. And you look just like her. She was a beauty, was Charlotte. Shame your daddy didn’t…” She stopped and glanced down at her hands.

“Didn’t what?”

She started fiddling with the lime green bows, spinning them around like tiny propellers. “Oh my, how I do run on!” She looked at her watch. “Time for my next show.” She sidled toward the back of the room.

“Wait!”

She turned around.

“Do you think there’s a chance you might be hearing from Leland on that Ouija Board?”

She looked surprised. “Now, Lucille, this isn’t ‘Dial-a-Spirit’ I got going here. I cannot just summon people up willy-nilly. They choose their moments. And frankly, I don’t figure Lee would come to me with whatever’s on his mind, anyway. The man always did keep to himself. Folks don’t change their stripes, just because they’re dead. Tootle-oo, honey.”

She was back at her soaps before I made it to the door. Whoever was trying to pressure Leland to sell the vineyard had been remarkably discreet if Thelma hadn’t got wind of it. She would have either pumped me for more information or else spilled the beans about what she knew. Even the devil himself would have had a hard time keeping a secret from her. Someone had done a good job of covering his or her tracks.

When I got home, I put the batteries in the flashlight and went upstairs to the attic. Years ago Leland had a carpenter convert half the space into a bedroom for Eli. When I was small, it seemed a remote, distant kingdom, far from the rest of the house, a lighted outpost carved out of the cobweb-filled tomblike darkness. Eli hadn’t liked the room much either, though he refused to admit he believed the stories about dead ancestors’ bones rotting in its far recesses. When he was older, though, the bones stopped bothering him and he realized he could get away with anything in the privacy of his secluded eyrie. I never figured out how Mom didn’t smell the cigarette smoke on him, but by then I’d begun filching unlabeled wine bottles from the barrel room to drink with Kit over at Goose Creek Bridge, so I didn’t begrudge Eli’s tobacco habit.