The Bordeaux Betrayal (8 page)

We held picnics, dinners, and concerts in the courtyard with its breathtaking view of the vines and mountains, and served wine and small meals on the villa’s cantilevered two-story deck. But most of our events took place at Mosby’s Ruins, the remains of an old tenant house near the winery. During the Civil War, it had been a hideout for the Gray Ghost, Colonel John Singleton Mosby, until Union soldiers burned it down trying to flush him out.

On Saturday, McNally’s Army, an Irish rock band from D.C., came to play for the afternoon. Guests brought picnic lunches and sat on blankets and deck chairs on the hill in front of the area we’d converted to a stage. We sold wine by the glass or bottle and light snacks. The Army always pulled in a big crowd. Their music, which I loved, blended Celtic and country and their female vocalist had a voice that could haunt like a lost lover.

Joe Dawson showed up as the concert wrapped up and guests were leaving. He came over to the Ruins and stood there, looking like a train wreck, as he watched me pay the band.

“Want a glass of wine?” I asked. “Or a bottle and straw?”

He gave me a hangdog smile. “Got a minute?”

“Sure.”

I found an open bottle of Pinot and two glasses with our logo etched on them. He took them and helped me climb up on the raised stage, which once had been the first floor of the old house. We sat on the edge with our legs dangling over the side and watched the sun turn into a fireball as it began its descent behind the Blue Ridge.

Joe poured the wine and handed me a glass. “Looks like I need a lawyer. I called Sammy Constantine.”

One of the Romeos, Sam Constantine helped Mia out of a jam last spring. A good man, no bullshit, a straight talker. Hiring him cost a bundle.

“Have you been charged with anything?”

“Not yet. But they linked me to Valerie’s cottage at the Fox and Hound that last night,” he said. “She, uh, invited me back after her talk at Mount Vernon. The cops, uh, found things. Someone must have seen my car.”

I looked into my wineglass. “One of the maids saw you.”

He chewed his lip, nodding. “I should have figured.”

“Couldn’t you have waited, Joe? Why did you have to go right from Dominique’s bed to Valerie’s? You and Dominique have been together for
years.
”

He held his hands up. “Whoa! Hold it right there, okay? What do you want me to say? It’s done. I’m paying for it, too, aren’t I?”

The sun had moved lower in the sky. It was starting to cool off. He was right. It was over and done with.

I quieted down. “Why do you need a lawyer? You don’t have a motive for killing her—do you?”

He didn’t look happy that I’d asked. “This is where it gets complicated.”

A bad start to a story that already involved sex and lawyers. “What do you mean?”

He drank more wine. “When Valerie was writing her book she needed additional information about Jefferson’s efforts to establish a wine industry in the United States. She asked if I could send her a copy of my dissertation, so I did. You can find it in the UVA library, of course, but I never got around to getting it published anywhere else.”

I knew where this was going. “She lifted parts of your dissertation for her book?”

He shook his head, like he couldn’t believe it himself. “Not just parts. Whole sections, which she didn’t footnote or even acknowledge in the bibliography. You know who else read my dissertation? Ryan Worth. That guy must have a photographic memory because he recognized it. I guess he wanted to share the love because he contacted her editor. And the editor, who got contacted by Bobby Noland, told Bobby.”

“That’s your motive? Professional revenge for plagiarism?”

“That’s what they want to know.”

“Did you ever confront her about it?”

Joe stared at the horizon. “I only skimmed the first chapter. Never got beyond page fourteen. Of course they think I’m lying. But honestly I had no idea about the plagiarism and probably nobody else on the planet would have either, except for frigging Ryan Worth.”

He refilled our glasses.

“Valerie sought me out at Mount Vernon after her talk,” I said. “Told me she knew something about the provenance of one of the wines Jack Greenfield donated for our auction. Kind of taunted me that I didn’t know what I had. Then the guy from her publishing house dragged her off.” I swirled wine in my glass. “Any ideas?”

“Nope. She mentioned it to me, too, but didn’t want to give up any details. Said it would be a bombshell when word got out.”

“You weren’t curious?”

“I didn’t really think about it, you know?”

I looked at him, remembering how Valerie had kissed him in the colonnade at Mount Vernon and the tangled sheets in the bedroom at Cornwall Cottage. “I guess you must have been preoccupied with other things.”

His cheeks turned red. “Okay. She did say she never would have known about whatever it was if she hadn’t retraced Jefferson’s vineyard journey through Bordeaux.”

“Bordeaux? The only vineyard both Valerie and Jefferson visited in Bordeaux was Château Margaux. That’s the Washington wine.” I set my empty wineglass down. “The other place, Château Dorgon, doesn’t exist anymore. The third wine Jack donated is a Domaine de Romanée-Conti—a burgundy.”

Joe hoisted himself off the stage with both hands and landed on the hard-packed ground. “Come here.” He held out his arms. “I’ll help you down.”

“Thanks, I’ll take the stairs.” I knew Joe didn’t kill Valerie, but he was getting dragged into whatever brought her down. Part of me thought he didn’t deserve it, but another part of me thought that we reap what we sow.

Joe seemed to acknowledge the rebuff as he picked up the empty bottle and our glasses. We walked down the path toward the villa at some distance apart.

“I know you’re mad at me because of Dominique,” he said. “Wish I could change things. Or turn back time.”

I shrugged. “You know, Valerie didn’t have much professional credibility with Ryan.”

“I heard his story. She stole his idea. That’s a load of crap. She wrote that book on Jamestown. She got rave reviews.” His voice was hard.

“Ryan said someone handed it to her on a platter.”

“Ryan can go to hell. She told me she ran out of time to get the Jefferson book done so she panicked. Plus she was in a bind financially and that put even more pressure on her. I’ve known her for a long time. Valerie was a good scholar, Lucie.”

“So you think this bombshell, whatever it is, is legitimate?”

“Yeah, I do.”

I banged my cane against the ground in frustration. “Dammit, what am I going to do?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll figure out something. Wish I could help but I got my own fish to fry right now.”

He left me at the entrance to the villa. I watched him walk down to the parking lot and get into his car.

Whatever Valerie knew, now I really had to find out.

They say when you want to dig up some dirt, go find yourself a worm. As it happened, I knew just the worm.

I called Ryan Worth on his cell and caught him on his way out the office door to an evening wine event in D.C.

“What are you doing at work on a Saturday?” I asked.

“Since it’s Columbus Day weekend, the place is quiet. I thought I’d get a jump on the next column so I could take a few days off next week. If I don’t get some down time I’m going to go nuts. What’s up?”

He sounded friendly but guarded.

“Could I ask a favor?”

“What is it?”

“You were right about the national attention your column would bring our auction,” I said. “The winery is getting calls from all over the place. Jordy Jordan told me the day it ran he booked every room at the Fox and Hound for that weekend.”

“Glad to hear it. So what’s this favor?”

So much for trying to butter him up.

“It’s not a local fund-raiser anymore. Now it’s a big deal,” I said. “Before that column ran we accepted any donation we got, meaning wines that came straight out of people’s wine cellars. Bottles they’d gotten as gifts or wine they’d been storing for a while. I haven’t begun to catalog any of it, nor do I have any idea what prices to set for the opening bids. Now I think we’re going to have a savvy, street-smart crowd bidding on them. Nothing like we anticipated.”

“You want me to help catalog your wines?” He blew out a short, sharp breath. “Do you know how much work that is?”

“Please, Ryan. I’m begging. It’s for charity. And, uh, one other favor? I’d like you to be the auctioneer. We need a pro now. You’d be terrific.”

I could hear him drumming something on the top of his desk, a pen or a pencil, while he thought about it. The rat-a-tat stopped. “You paying for my expertise?”

“Of course.” I should have seen that coming. “What’s your fee?”

“I’ll cut you a break,” he said, “since it’s for charity. Pay me a thousand and I’ll handle the catalog and raise a bundle for your charity. Deal?”

I wondered what his noncharity price tag was. Everyone else was doing this for free.

“Deal,” I said.

“Okay, get me a list of everything you’ve got and shoot it to me in an e-mail. I’ll start figuring out your floor prices.”

“I’ll get you the list, but do you think maybe you could come over here instead?” I asked.

“Why do I have to come over there?” He sounded ominous. I was on my third favor and thin ice.

“I just want to make sure the donations we’ve got are the real thing. So I’d like you to actually
look
at the bottles.”

“If you want me to do that, I need to ask twelve-fifty.”

I hadn’t even bargained on paying him the thousand, but I couldn’t afford to lose him. “Okay, okay. Twelve-fifty. We’ll pay you after the auction. From the proceeds.”

“Yeah, fine. I know you’re good for it.”

“How about coming by tomorrow evening?”

“Hang on.” I waited, probably while he scrolled through his electronic calendar. “Looks like I could do five.”

“Five’s good. See you then.”

“How come you didn’t corral Jack Greenfield into doing this? Or Shane Cunningham?” he said. “You know Shane’s running Internet wine auctions now. He and Jack do this stuff all the time.”

Shane was Jack’s business partner. I knew about the wine auctions but I’d been too busy with harvest to check out what he was selling. Might as well come clean and tell Ryan the truth before he got here tomorrow.

“Because one of the bottles I’m worried about is the Washington wine and I can’t ask Jack or Shane.”

He barked a laugh. “Well, you can relax about that one. I
did
look that bottle over when Jack had it. I guarantee you, it’s the real deal.”

“You’re sure?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? What’s up?”

“Valerie Beauvais said there was something I didn’t know about its provenance. She was on her way here to look at it the morning she died. I never found out what she knew.”

Ryan snorted. “Valerie—God rest her soul—wouldn’t have known provenance if it walked up and slapped her upside her head.”

When I was silent he said, “Okay, sorry. That was rude. When I’m over there tomorrow, I’ll show you why I’m so sure you don’t have anything to worry about. Satisfied?”

I said “yes” but he’d already hung up.

He seemed to know a lot about Valerie Beauvais. And he’d been astute enough to recognize the source of the plagiarism in her book as Joe’s dissertation—something he’d had to go looking for at the UVA library.

But if it were true that Clay Avery had been thinking of hiring Valerie to write for the
Washington Tribune,
then Ryan couldn’t be too sorry that she was dead and no longer a thorn in his side. And if she were right about the Washington bottle, he’d look like a fool for having staked his reputation on its authenticity.

Which gave him—even more than Joe—more than one motive for murder.

Another big crowd came through the winery on Sunday as the glorious weather continued to hold. It had only been two weeks since the sun moved from the northern to the southern hemisphere on the autumnal equinox, but the longer, lower rays of sunlight already bathed the vines and fields with a gilded light that came only at this time of year.

We had moved the tasting outside to the courtyard to take advantage of the view and the weather. Francesca Merchant had hired a string quartet to play chamber music for the afternoon.

“I know you like this classical stuff, but it just doesn’t do it for me. Frankie says they’re good musicians, but everything sounds like the same guy wrote it. Vivaldi, Beethoven—whoever,” Quinn said to me as we stood in the shade of the loggia and watched Gina hand out tasting sheets and explain our wines to three older men who’d arrived in a limo with three good-looking young women.

The quartet was playing a baroque piece by Telemann.

“There’s a big difference between Beethoven and Vivaldi. You just don’t pay attention.” I fingered the collar of yet another of his Hawaiian shirts, this one with skimpily clad girls in grass skirts and postage stamp bras, swaying, presumably, to a hula. “Couldn’t you have worn a different shirt?”

“Why, is there a stain on this one?”

“Never mind.”

My brother Eli showed up midafternoon without my sister-in-law Brandi and my one-year-old niece Hope. As always he looked a little too dapper and even a bit feminine. I knew why. Brandi now picked out all his clothes, like Barbie dressing Ken. She favored pastels so I was getting used to seeing Eli in sherbet colors like the pale yellow shirt and matching linen trousers he wore now.

“Hey, babe,” he said. “Thought I could sponge off you this afternoon. What’s to eat? The girls went to my in-laws’ for the weekend.”

“Tapas. I’ll make you a deal. Help us out for the next few hours and I’ll send you home with leftovers.”