The Merlot Murders (7 page)

Kit and I had been friends since we used to play in the sandbox together and she’d been my brother’s girlfriend until Brandi showed up. The split between Kit and Eli had been volcanic. Kit told me later that she finally understood the truth in the saying about the fine line that existed between love and hate, that it was absolutely possible to go from loving someone so much you would die for him to hating him so much you could kill him. Two years later it looked like the bitterness between them had hardened to mutual contempt.

“Where have you been?” I asked. “I tried to reach you.”

“At my mom’s. The home helper was sick. You know we can’t leave her alone anymore. She sends her apologies about missing the funeral and the wake. She’s having a tough time at the moment.”

“Tell her I’ll be by to visit, when she’s up for it.”

“She’d like that.” She glanced over Eli’s shoulder. “So what happened? Do they know anything yet?”

“About what?” Eli said. “What are you talking about?”

“When the police scanner’s not working,” Kit said, “we get our information from jungle drums.”

She was a reporter with the
Washington Tribune,
an ascending star who’d been working in D.C. on the national desk until her mother had a stroke. From one day to the next she asked to be assigned to the regional bureau in Leesburg to be closer to home.

A lot of people thought it was a demotion, criticizing her for what they said was a self-inflicted wound that was going to stall out her career. Kit told them to go to hell.

“One of our guys found Fitz inside one of the stainless-steel tanks. It had been purged,” I said.

“Oh my God.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a reporter’s notebook. “Put that away,” Eli said. “This is a private matter.”

“Like hell it is, Eli. Fitz was a nationally prominent chef.”

“You’re doing a story?” I asked.

“Yeah. For the National desk. Metro’s pretty ticked off because they wanted it, but, hey, like I said, Fitz was well known. And, um, cause of death is, well…”

“Get out of here, Kit,” Eli said. “You’re trespassing.”

Kit walked over to him and fingered the collar of his polo shirt. “Peach, hunh? New color for you. Kind of feminine, but it suits you.”

The sound of the barrel room’s large hangar door opening behind us cut off Eli’s reply. Two paramedics wheeled out a stretcher with a body bag strapped to it. Bobby walked behind them, looking grim. No one spoke as they crossed the courtyard and loaded Fitz into the waiting ambulance.

I pulled out Eli’s handkerchief yet again. Kit put her arm around me and the coil of her reporter’s notebook dug into my shoulder.

Bobby walked over to us after the ambulance moved slowly off in the darkness. “Hey, Kit,” he said. “You here on business or as a friend of the family?”

“Both.”

“Public affairs will have a statement. Probably tomorrow morning.”

“I need something tonight, Bobby.”

He chewed his gum for a moment, like a cow ruminating. “Sorry. No can do.”

She closed her notebook. “Off the record? Come on. Fitz was a friend.”

He chewed some more, then said, “Your word?”

Kit nodded.

“I wouldn’t tell her anything,” Eli said stiffly.

Bobby stared at him, then flipped open his own notebook. “Looks like Fitz might have surprised someone in the middle of a robbery. One of the workers didn’t show up today. A couple of the men say he left the camp they have near Winchester and no one’s seen him since last night. Santini said he had the payroll money in a safe in that lab he’s got next to the barrel room since today is payday. Picked it up from the bank yesterday because he didn’t want to mess with it on the day of Leland’s funeral. A couple of the guys from the crew were there when he locked it up, including the guy who’s missing. Name of Zeus.” He looked up.

“So how did Fitz end up in the tank?” I asked.

“I’m getting to that part,” he said. “Don’t rush me.”

“Sorry.”

“We think someone might have forced him into the tank,” he said. “The guys are checking for prints and going over everything. One of your hammers is missing from that pegboard you got with all your tools. Neat idea to draw an outline of everything so you know where stuff belongs.” He sounded approving. “Could be it’ll turn up somewhere and someone just forgot to put it back, but we found evidence of blunt trauma to the head. The hammer could have been used as a weapon, but that’s just speculating.”

“Oh my God,” I said.

“Enough of a blow to kill him?” Kit asked. “Do you think he was dead before someone put him in the tank?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. The ME will let us know when they do the autopsy.”

“Who would want to do that?” I asked. “Why Fitz?”

“Sounds pretty random to me,” Eli said. “Wrong place, wrong time.”

“I’m going to Winchester.” Bobby closed his notebook and stuck his pen behind one ear. “I’ll see you folks later.”

“I’m taking off, too,” Kit hugged me again. “I’ll call you tomorrow. We need to talk. Lunch, maybe?”

After they left, Eli said, “That woman is a parasite.”

“You didn’t always think so.”

“I saw the light.” He folded his arms across his chest. “You know, I don’t understand you anymore. If she writes some lurid tabloid story, it’s going to affect you, too.”

“How can you expect this not to come out in the press?”

“Yeah, I suppose we could get ahead of the curve and advertise it ourselves. How about this? ‘We’ll knock you dead at Montgomery Estate Vineyard. Try our full-bodied Merlot.’”

“That’s disgusting!”

“No fooling. That’s why I’m trying to tell you that the last thing we need now is more bad press. Do you know what it’s going to do to the value of this place now? It’s going to tank. We’ll probably have to
pay
somebody to buy it.”

“We’re not selling, Eli.”

He looked scornful. “Says who?”

“I do.”

“We outvote you, babe. Mia and me. We’re selling.”

“Family discussion?”

We both jumped. Quinn Santori stood there holding an unlit cigar that he caressed with his fingers. He looked at me the way men in bars stare at women who walk in alone.

“A little chat,” Eli said. “We were just finishing. What can I do for you, Quinn?”

He pulled a pack of matches out of a pocket of his camouflage trousers, bent his head, and concentrated on lighting the cigar. After a few puffs he said, “Well, we’re shut down, it’s harvest, and you got yourself a group of pickers nervous as bunch of barnyard turkeys at Thanksgiving because one of ’em is apparently a prime suspect in a murder. What do you people want to do?”

“It might not be for long,” I said.

He looked at me. “Ma’am?”

“I said, we might not be shut down for long. I’m sure we can work something out with Bobby to speed up the investigation so we’ll be back in business in a few days.”

He stroked his chin with the thumb of the hand that held the cigar. “You think so, do you?”

I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. “Yes.”

He puffed on the cigar. “Well then, I’ll need to set up some place temporarily in the meantime. I figure the big house would be the best bet. I’d like to move over there as soon as possible.”

“You can move in tomorrow morning,” I said. “We can talk about how we’re going to handle things then.”

“Pardon?” he said. He flicked an ash off his cigar and looked at me like I’d just sprouted another head. “We?” He glanced over at Eli and cleared his throat. “Eli?”

Eli cleared his throat, as well. “Uh, Lucie. Why don’t we let Quinn take care of business the way he wants? We don’t know what in the hell we’re doing here.”

“What are you talking about? Of course we do. We’ve helped with harvest since we were old enough to walk,” I said. “It’s our vineyard.”

“Look, babe,” he said, “I’m an architect. I’ve got a day job that pays the rent and feeds the wife and kid-to-be. I can’t work here. Mia doesn’t want to work here. As for you…” He stopped. If he was going to say something about me being handicapped, he changed his mind. “You’ve been selling perfume the last two years.”

I glanced over at Quinn. He looked relieved, and even a little amused.

“I didn’t
sell
perfume,” I said. “I worked as a tour guide at the International Perfume Museum in Grasse.”

“Okay, so you talked about perfume,” Eli said.

“I’ve spent plenty of time helping out with harvest. I worked with Jacques that last summer before…” I didn’t finish.

Eli put his arm around me and it felt like a vise. “You’ll have to excuse her. She’s a bit jet-lagged,” he said to Quinn. “I think we’d better finish this conversation back at the house, hadn’t we, Lucie, and let Quinn get on with whatever he needs to do?”

If Eli and I were going to have it out, then I didn’t want Quinn as a spectator, either. I removed his arm from my shoulder, keenly aware that he had just done a first-rate job of sandbagging me in front of our winemaker.

“There’s nothing more to discuss,” I said. “See you tomorrow, Quinn.”

Quinn’s eyes went back and forth between Eli and me. They were hard and black like coal. His voice was hard, too. “You’d better get this worked out, folks. When Leland hired me he promised me free rein to run the place. No one standing over my shoulder and telling me what to do. If you’re going to move the goalposts, or if you don’t even know where the goalposts are anymore, I want to know it.”

“Jacques never had carte blanche to run the vineyard,” I said. And he never talked back like this smart-mouthed guy, either. “He and my mother always worked closely together.”

“What someone else did is no concern of mine,” he said. “You know, this vineyard could have its best harvest ever this year. The drought’s been great for the crop and your vines are coming into their peak producing years. Seems to me you’ve got enough on your plate with no access to your equipment and your wine cellar. If you’re going to start fighting among yourselves, then you can also find a new winemaker.”

He flicked another ash off his cigar and strode past us to a beat-up Toyota in the parking lot. He couldn’t get the engine to catch right away but when it did, he did a rubber-burning three-point turn and zoomed off into the night.

“Well, well.” Eli glared at me accusingly. “You certainly turned the old killer charm on him, Luce. I think he just quit.”

“He didn’t quit,” I said. “He threatened to. He’s got a hell of a nerve, blackmailing us like that. What made Leland hire him, anyway? He’ll never replace Jacques. He’s a troglodyte by comparison.”

One of the reasons people bought so much wine from us in the past was because Jacques, with his gracious European politesse and elegant manner, could charm anybody into anything. If Quinn was always this abrasive, we wouldn’t be able to sell water to someone who’d just come through the desert.

“He came cheap,” Eli said. “Leland wasn’t offering what you’d call a competitive salary and he was the only taker. He’s supposedly a decent enologist and a viticulturist, even if he has a few rough edges. The crew likes him. I’m going back to the house. You coming or not?”

I nodded and we walked in silence over to the Jag.

At least Leland had hired someone who was good at both enology and viticulture. Enology is the science of wine making. Viticulture is the science of grape growing. Larger vineyards have enologists, also known as vintners, who are there only to make and blend the wine. They also have viticulturists who are out in the field with the vines, tending them, testing them, and deciding the optimum time for harvest. But at a small vineyard like ours, the two jobs are generally handled by one person.

“Where did he come from before we got him?” I asked as we got in the car.

“California. Some vineyard in Napa.”

“Why did he leave?”

“What is this? Twenty questions? I don’t know. He said he wanted to move on. I don’t think Leland really looked into it much. He was desperate for someone at the time.”

“That’s obvious. Mom would never have hired him.”

“What difference does it make anymore? The sooner we unload this place, the better. It’s been one catastrophe after another lately. I can’t take much more of this.”

We spent the rest of the short drive down the gravel road in silence. Last night Fitz said that he and I were two votes countering Eli and Mia. Now it was two against one. I glanced fleetingly at my brother’s profile and looked away.

He could not…
would
not…have gone to see Fitz in the barrel room after leaving the wake. He could not be capable of cold-blooded murder.

Or could he? And Leland. Him, too?

We pulled into the semicircular drive in front of the house. A few cars were parked near the old carriage house, which we used as the garage.

I cleared my throat. “Looks like almost everyone’s gone.”

Eli looked at me curiously. “You gonna faint or something? Your voice sounds weird.”

“I’m fine.”

We walked into the house. One of the waitresses who had been collecting dishes in the parlor said Dominique had gone over to the inn to see about dinner.

“I’m going to check on Brandi,” Eli said, heading for the stairs. “It’s warm in here. I hope no one turned the air off.”

“Who is going to tell Dominique about Fitz?” I asked Eli after he came back, reporting that Brandi was still asleep. “And I checked. The air-conditioning is still on.”

“I’ll tell her.”

“I’ll come with you.” We were standing in the large circular foyer. I was holding more plates, still heaped with chicken bones, remnants of dinner rolls, and daubs of color that had once been salads or vegetables.

“You stay here. If Brandi needs anything, you’ll have to take care of her. You can do that, right?”

“Eli.” I set the plates down by the bust of Jefferson, wiped my hands together, and faced him. “I limp because of an injury to my
left foot
. See these?” I waved my hands. “They work just fine, like they always did. Brain still works, too. Unless Brandi wants me to kick a field goal, I’m probably going to be able to handle anything she might throw my way. Okay?”

He turned the color of a June strawberry. “Jeez, Luce. I get it, okay? But Brandi…you don’t realize how precarious…she nearly lost the baby during her first trimester. It’s been a difficult pregnancy. We’ve got to be very careful.” He cocked his head at the sound of a car roaring up the driveway. “Who’s that?”

I crossed the foyer and glanced out one of the parlor windows. “Mia. Driving like she stole something. Where’d she get the red Mustang convertible?”

“It’s Greg’s. He must have let her borrow it while he’s at work. Wonder what brought her back here?”

“Does she know about Fitz…?” I began.

The front door opened and Mia burst in. “Know what about Fitz?” She sounded breathless. “They finally found him?”

She had changed from her black funeral dress into a pale yellow lace-trimmed camisole and matching shorts. Her blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail and she’d tucked a daisy behind one ear. When she was a baby, my mother called her
mon ange
—my angel. There was still something fragile and gossamer about her, both physically and emotionally. She lacked the steely stubbornness Eli and I had inherited, and our mental toughness. The news about Fitz—on top of Leland’s death—would crush her. Eli and I exchanged glances.

“Let’s go sit on the veranda,” I said gently. “We’ll talk there.”

With its worn herringbone-patterned wooden floors, white columns connected by arched latticework, and old-fashioned ceiling fan that whirred like a large dragonfly, the veranda was the place where everyone gravitated to read or nap or daydream—and to watch the vividly hued sunsets with their backdrop of the graceful Blue Ridge.

Not surprisingly it was in the same sorry state as the rest of the house. Planters and urns, which had once been filled with flowers, were moss-covered and sprouted weeds. The white wicker furniture looked scarred up and some pieces needed mending. The paint on the columns was peeling and scaly.

I sat with Mia on the wicker love seat, trying to ignore the stains and worn spots on the cushions made from my mother’s favorite Provençal fabrics. Eli sat across from us in the glider, rocking back and forth. Its springs needed oiling.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Mia sounded weary. “First Pop, now Fitz. What happened? Tell me.”

I put my arm around her once again and this time her muscles went tense and rigid. “I’m so sorry, honey,” I said.

Eli shot me a look before he said, “We think he was trying to stop a robbery at the winery. I’m sorry, babe. Someone pushed him into a purged tank.”

She turned white under her suntan and her hand went to her mouth. “I’m going to throw up,” she said and bolted.

Eli got to her faster than I did. He held her shoulders as she stood retching into a flower bed that was now nothing but a mass of weeds. “Get some water, will you?” he muttered to me.

The front door closed as I came back through the foyer. I held a pitcher in the hand I didn’t need for my cane and had tucked a glass between my elbow and my ribs.

Mason Jones let himself in without bothering to ring the doorbell. He’d changed from the expensive-looking dark gray suit he wore at the funeral to an expensive-looking blue-and-white seersucker suit. In all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen Mason in anything but a suit. His shirts were handmade and had discreet monograms on the pockets and all his ties were silk, ordered from London.

“I came as soon as I found out.” He was carrying a zippered butter-soft black leather folder. Also monogrammed. “What are you doing there, Lucie love? Let me help you. You’re going to drop something.” He came over and extracted the glass. “You all right?”

“We just told Mia,” I said. “She and Eli are out on the veranda. She took it pretty hard.”

Mason held the door for me as we went outside. Eli had moved to the love seat. Next to him Mia sat with her elbows on her knees, holding her head in her hands.

“Look who’s here,” I said.

Mia looked up. “Hi, Uncle Mason.” Her voice trembled. Eli handed her the glass of water after I poured it.

Mason sat in an oversized matching wicker chair after first checking out the condition of the seat cushion. He put his leather folder between the cushion and the arm of the chair.

“I’m so sorry, children,” he said. “I don’t know what to say. This is horrible…horrible.”

“Who told you?” Eli asked.

“I was over at the inn when Elvis Harmon came by,” he said. “I was supposed to have dinner with him and a couple of the boys.” He shook his head. “We put it off for another time.”

“Dominique knows, then,” I said. “She’s probably devastated.”

He smiled sadly. “Aw, honey, you know your cousin. She just soldiers on, no matter what. I stayed with her in the kitchen while she cried, poor thing. Then she pulled herself together like she always does. She was terribly distraught though, on account of the way things stood between Fitz and her before…” He faltered. “Well, before.”

“You knew they were having problems?” Eli said.

“You know how word gets around, son.”

“How about a drink, Mason?” Eli asked. He gestured to Mason’s leather folder. “This isn’t strictly a social visit, is it?”

Mason’s smile didn’t make it all the way to his eyes. “As it happens, I do have some business to discuss. I didn’t expect to find all three of you here, but since everyone’s present perhaps we ought to take advantage of the situation, difficult as it is. And I’ll take bourbon and water, if you’ve got it.”

He was an old-school Southern lawyer, silver-tongued and silver-haired, with highly polished manners and old-fashioned gallantry but the killer courtroom instincts of a barracuda. Even though I really wanted to crawl into bed and forget this day, there was something in his voice that implied it was more than a polite invitation. If Mason had something to say, you didn’t turn him down. As a kid I’d called him “Uncle Mason” like Mia still did, but that didn’t change the fact that he handled all our affairs, personal and professional, as though counters behind his eyes were calculating billable and nonbillable hours. The billable hours bought him a lavish horse farm, where the President and the First Lady occasionally came to ride, and a gorgeous wife who frequently graced the society pages of the
Washington Post,
the
Tribune,
and
Vanity Fair
because of her glamorous fund-raising parties for local charities. There weren’t many nonbillable hours.

“Is this about the will? Is there some kind of problem?” Eli suddenly sounded tense.

“Don’t you worry,” Mason said. “Everything’s fine. Let’s all have a little drink and then we can chat about it.”

“I’ll get the bourbon,” I said. “It’s on the sideboard.”

“Stay here. I’ll get everything,” Eli banged into the glass-topped coffee table in front of the love seat as he stood up. Mason’s remark had obviously unbalanced him. He was worried about something. “What are you girls drinking?”

“White wine please,” I said. “Whatever’s open.”

“Nothing for me,” Mia said.

While he was inside I lit the citronella torches in the border garden and set an oil lamp on the coffee table. Eli returned with a tray and the drinks—and Leland’s best Scotch for himself.

He drank Scotch when he was upset.

Mason raised his glass. “To Lee and Fitz.”

After we drank Eli said, “So what’s this about, Mason?”

Mason set down his glass and picked up the leather folder. He pulled out a few papers and reached into his inside jacket pocket for a pair of half-glasses. I could tell Eli was squirming and that Mason was going to take his sweet time about this. “Well, Fitz’s death changes things, children.”

“What do you mean?” One of Eli’s nervous tics was a habit of bouncing one foot up and down like his toes were attached to a spring. Right now his right leg was twitching like an electric current was running through it.

Mason looked at him over the top of his glasses. “Leland left the vineyard to the three of you, just like he always planned.” He’d switched to his courtroom voice. “But he wasn’t sure if y’all would always agree on things, so he named Fitz the director of the corporation that owns it. That would have given him day-to-day control of the business.”

“Who runs it now that he’s gone?” I asked.

“It reverts to the three of you. You each have one vote, except for the person who owns Highland House. This house. That person gets two votes.”

“Who owns the house?” Eli asked.

“Lee couldn’t decide,” Mason said.

“What do you mean, he couldn’t decide?”

“Just that. So he figured rather than play favorites, he would leave it up to the two of you, Lucie and Eli. He wants you to roll dice for it. High score wins Highland House. The other one gets the house in France.” He turned to Mia. “As for you, darlin’, there’s a trust from your momma’s family that passes to you. You can’t have control of the money until your thirtieth birthday, but you will have an allowance. As custodian I can also authorize payment of certain essential expenses like your college tuition, for example.”

“How much…is there?” Mia seemed startled. “I never knew anything about this.”

Mason consulted his notes. “It’s just shy of half a million. You’re well taken care of, child.”

“This is ridiculous,” Eli interrupted. “I mean, I’m glad Mia got the trust money, but everything should be divided equally. I don’t believe this.”