by Ellen Crosby
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.”
Chapter 7
“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.”
&n
bsp; 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.”
Mia glanced at him wide-eyed.
“That’s not how your daddy set things up,” Mason folded his glasses and set them on top of his papers. “He didn’t want to have to choose who got which house—and there was no way to divide two houses three ways. So he came to this arrangement—on his own, I might add. You know how Lee liked gambling.”
Eli helped himself to more Scotch. “I guess I’d better get the dice.”
“Now?” I stared at him. “You want to do it now?”
“Why not? You can’t practice for this, you know.”
“Very funny. I’m really tired.”
“Let’s get it over with.”
I looked at Mason, who nodded. “Just as well.”
Eli went back inside th
e house, the screen door banging noisily behind him.
“Do you want another drink?” I asked Mason.
He reached for the bourbon. “I think I will. You having something, too, darlin’?”
“The white wine must be in the refrigerator. I think I could use another drink, too. Mimi, you change your mind? Want something?”
She was sitting on the love seat Indian style, picking the petals out of her daisy and setting them in a pattern on the coffee table. She looked up. “You haven’t called me that in years.”
“Old habits.”
“Nothing, thanks.”
Eli held the dice, clacking them in his hand when I came back to the porch with an open bottle of last year’s Chardonnay.
“These are the only ones I could find.”
“The Monopoly dice,” Mia said. “Where were they?”
“Are those legal?” I asked.
“In the drawer of the telephone table in the foyer,” Eli said. “And dice are dice.”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “Hand them over.”
He clacked them together again.
“He had trick dice when we were kids,” I explained to Mason.
“I was eight.” He slapped them into my open hand. “Oh, all right. Since you’ve got them, you roll first.”
I blew on the dice, closed my eyes, and tossed them. They sounded like pebbles as they bounced on the glass table. Before I could open my eyes, I heard Eli’s voice and the elation was unmistakable. “Three! You rolled a three!”
So he’d won, after all. Now he had the legal right to sell the house and the vineyard and there was nothing I could do to stop him. His two votes and Mia’s in favor of selling stacked up against my lone vote to hang on to it and run the vineyard ourselves. He’d probably have the FOR SALE sign up first thing tomorrow morning. Sooner, if he could find somebody who’d do it tonight.
“Your turn, Eli,” Mason said, after I sat there, mute, staring at my brother.
“Sure.” He scooped up the dice and winked triumphantly. If we’d been younger and Mason weren’t around, I might have done something to wipe the smirk off his face.