by Ellen Crosby
“I hope you appreciate what you’ve got,” Jean-Claude told Quinn. “Lucie is a precious and beautiful hothouse flower. I had my eye on her for a long time. I knew she would grow up to be a beauty.”
Which was a load of crap, though he winked at me as though we had a conspiratorial secret, some passionate tryst in the long-distant past. And I let hothouse flower go, as if I were some delicate creature that needed pampering. He really didn’t know me at all.
“Believe me, I know just how lucky I am,” Quinn said in a smooth don’t-mess-with-me-or-her voice. “And I know exactly what I’ve got.” He kept emphasizing the word I.
After Jean-Claude had moved on, Quinn said in my ear, “What in the hell is he doing here? Why isn’t he out in Napa at The Flying Squirrel? Something doesn’t add up. La Vigne, a new vineyard with only thirty acres under cultivation, isn’t his kind of place. I wonder what the real story is.”
“Toby knew Jean-Claude and his father when he was the U.S. consul in Bordeaux, long before he became ambassador to France,” I said. “Robyn told me just now. Apparently he and the de Merignacs have been friends for ages. Maybe Jean-Claude is doing this as a favor, sticking around for a year or two until he gets La Vigne going in the direction Toby wants. Toby’s been saying he wants to make world-class wines.”
“Don’t we all,” Quinn said with an edge in his voice that almost sounded like jealousy.
Later that night, Jean-Claude did a good job of answering Quinn’s question himself, saying all the right things about why he had come to Virginia, and specifically to La Vigne Cellars. Besides his family’s friendship with Secretary Levine, he saw Virginia as a challenge, a place where he was excited to put his stamp on relatively unknown New World wines using his Old World clout, expertise, and influence, which he was certain would make the international wine world take note of our terroir. He had joked that like Toby, another American ambassador to France in a different century—who had also been a friend and client of the de Merignac family—had believed in Virginia’s potential, certain that we could make wine as good as anything produced in Europe. Not necessarily better, but doubtless as good. Of course everybody at the party knew he was talking about Thomas Jefferson and Toby had been surprised and flattered by the comparison.
But it soured Quinn on him even more. “So he’s here to be the savior of the Virginia wine industry because the rest of us aren’t up to it,” he said. “Good luck with that.”
From then on, there wasn’t much love lost between the two of them, something Jean-Claude figured out immediately. So telling Quinn that I wanted to ask Jean-Claude if we could hire Miguel for a day to help with harvesting our Cabernet Franc had been like rubbing salt in a wound.
“Oh, come on.” I tugged on Quinn’s arm, pulling him so he turned over in bed and faced me again. “We could use the help, and Miguel and Antonio work really well together. The two of them get as much done as any four other workers we have. Can’t you forget that you don’t like Jean-Claude just this once?”
“He’s a narcissist with an oversized ego. No.”
“Quinn.”
“What?”
“Look, you’re not worried I still have a crush on him, are you? Come on, I was a kid.”
“Of course not. But the guy is a notorious womanizer and you’re a very beautiful woman. I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
I kissed him on the lips. “I love you and I promise you have nothing to worry about. I can handle Jean-Claude. Besides, from what I hear he has a girlfriend. I think he’s seeing Nikki.”
“Our Nikki?”
“Our Nikki.”
“Isn’t she a little young for him? She’s … like twelve.”
“She’s twenty-two.”
Nikki Young was our new events manager. She was young, blond, with a honeyed Southern drawl and pretty, perky cheerfulness: someone you figured could easily have been the head high school cheerleader or every child’s favorite summer camp counselor. Customers loved her, especially her charming way of flirting with our older male customers, who adored her. From what I’d heard, she’d caught Jean-Claude’s eye as well. To their credit, they were discreet, but it was obvious she was as crazy about him as I’d been all those years ago.
“And Jean-Claude’s—what?” Quinn said. “Fifty-five? Old enough to be her grandfather.”
“He’s forty-five, not fifty-five.”
“Old enough to be her father, then.”
“They’re both consenting adults.”
“Yeah, well, I hope she doesn’t think she’s the only consenting adult he’s sleeping with.”
“No one said anything about Nikki sleeping with him.” I sat up in bed and ran my hands through my hair. “Jesus, Quinn. How did we end up having this conversation? How do you know any of this? What are you talking about?”
He pulled me down next to him and cradled me in his arms. “Gossip,” he said in my ear. “Forget I mentioned it.”
“Tell me.”
“Aw, sweetheart, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Well, you did,” I said, now thoroughly wide-awake. “Dammit, he hasn’t changed a bit. Still breaking the heart of every woman who falls in love with him. Including Dominique. She was seeing him the summer Eli and I stayed in France. By the way, don’t bring that up with her. Ever. Jean-Claude dumped her for someone else and never told her. She found out when she saw them together at the Bastille Day fireworks. She was devastated.”
“That’s cruel. I hope he doesn’t hurt Nikki. She’s just a kid.”
“Are you going to tell me who else he’s sleeping with?”
“I don’t know if there’s anything to it,” he said. “I overheard some talk the other night in the bar at the Goose Creek Inn.”
“And?”
I could feel him shrug. “It’s Robyn.”
“Robyn Callahan? Are you serious?”
“’Fraid so.”
“She would never do that to Toby. No. No way. She and Toby have been together for ages and she’s crazy about him. You can tell. He’s crazy about her, too. Those two really love each other.”
“Remember when he went up to New York for that Council on Foreign Relations meeting and dinner with the secretary-general of the UN and she stayed here because she was trying to finish a painting someone commissioned?”
“Oh, come on.” I paused. “Good God. Was it just that once?”
“I don’t know. They aren’t putting out a newsletter.”
“Very funny. Actually, it’s not funny at all. I hope Toby never finds out. If it’s true, it’s awful.”
“I told you the night I met him at Toby and Robyn’s party that he didn’t belong here. For a lot of reasons. I’ve done some checking into his background, asked some old friends out in Napa and a contact in Bordeaux. Jean-Claude’s not a very nice guy, Lucie.”
“What do you mean?”
“His father has been paying people off for years to clean up after his son and keep the family name unsullied. I don’t think he came to La Vigne because he wanted to. I think he’s run out of places where he hasn’t pissed people off or screwed with them.”
He rolled onto his back and we both stared at the ceiling.
I hoped Quinn wasn’t right. But he wouldn’t say things he wasn’t certain were true, regardless of how he felt about Jean-Claude.
“The best thing he could do is leave,” Quinn said. “Before anyone gets really hurt.”
A moment later I heard his breathing, soft and regular, and I knew he’d fallen asleep. Leaving me alone with my own dark and disturbed thoughts.
Four
The house landline rang the next morning precisely at seven-thirty while Quinn and I were downstairs in the kitchen fixing breakfast. I reached for the phone as Quinn shoveled a small mountain of coffee into a filter. It would taste like rocket fuel—or paint stripper—as it always did, although he swore he’d started making it less strong for me. The telephone display showed Detective Bobby Noland’s
private work number.
Bobby and I go back a long way; we grew up together. My earliest memories of Bobby are of him and Eli deciding I needed to be the Union prisoner they captured and locked up in the burned-out old tenant house we now call the Ruins and use for concerts and plays. I was five, they were seven, and the tenant house was dark and damp and scary. The two of them got to be Confederate soldiers who were part of the Partisan Rangers, the rebel militia group that rode with Colonel John Singleton Mosby, otherwise known as the Gray Ghost. As soon as Bobby and Eli took off on their bikes searching for more Yankees, I shimmied out a window and ran home.
Later Bobby went down a different road, barely scraping by in high school and then enlisting and going off to fight in Afghanistan. By the time he came home a few years later, he’d changed. He didn’t want to talk about his Silver Star, nor the Purple Heart he’d been awarded. Instead, he joined the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office as a beat cop, surprising a lot of folks who’d known him before and figured him for being involved with the law—except on the wrong side of the jail cell bars. It wasn’t long before Bobby made detective; last year he married Kit Eastman, my best friend and the Loudoun County bureau chief for the Washington Tribune.
It wasn’t like Bobby to phone at this hour even though he knew Quinn and I were early risers. But there could be only one reason for a call just now: it had something to do with the skull out by the cemetery.
“’Morning, Lucie,” he said. “Hope I’m not waking you up too early.”
“No, not at all.” I stifled a yawn. I’d finally fallen asleep last night but not until after I’d heard the grandfather clock downstairs in the foyer chime two and then three. “What’s up, Bobby?”
“I’ve got good news and bad news about the human remains you found out on your property yesterday,” he said. “I heard from Win Turnbull, the M.E. who caught the case, a few minutes ago.”
Another early bird. “I see. What’s the good news?”
“He’s pretty sure those bones are so old this is no longer a criminal investigation that would involve us.”
“How old does he think they are?”
“He doesn’t know. He says that kind of investigative research is out of his depth. If we want to know anything more he suggests bringing in a forensic anthropologist.”
“I see,” I said again. Win had mentioned that yesterday. I had a feeling I knew what Bobby’s bad news was. “You don’t want to do that, do you?”
“Look, Lucie, we’ve been taking some real hits on our budget this year. Do more with less but don’t pay anyone overtime,” he said. “I’m sorry but we can’t swing the expense of outside expertise on this case. Especially if it’s not something the Sheriff’s Office can justify investigating because it’s too old.”
“Right.”
“However, there is another possibility.” His voice perked up as though he’d just thought of a new idea.
“Are we talking good news or bad news?”
He hesitated. “It depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether you would be willing to pay the expense yourself of a forensic anthropologist examining those bones,” he said. “Doc Turnbull says he can find someone first-rate. He’s got a friend from Iraq who now works for the Natural History Museum at the Smithsonian and owes him a favor. He offered to ask this guy if he’d be willing to come out and take a look at that skull.”
Quinn indicated the coffeepot, which had burbled until it was half-full, and held up an empty mug. I nodded and he fixed my coffee, adding milk and sugar, and set it in front of me. It tasted like burned tar. I blew him a kiss and mouthed, “Thanks.”
“So what do you think?” Bobby asked.
There was no way I wasn’t going to do whatever it took to find out more information about the young woman who’d been dumped outside our cemetery, including her identity, and Bobby knew it. I wondered if he’d gambled that I’d agree to pick up the tab and he’d get the answers he needed without denting his budget.
I let out a long breath and made sure he heard it. “Sure. I’ll do it. I’ll call Win Turnbull today.”
“Actually,” he said in that same chipper tone of voice, “I figured you’d be good to go, so I already told Doc Turnbull to reach out to his Smithsonian buddy. He said to tell you he’ll call you after he hears from him.”
Understanding what makes people tick, how they’re going to react, and what they will do is part of Bobby’s job. It still doesn’t mean that, as my friend, he can’t be annoying at times by presuming things and taking liberties.
“Maybe his Smithsonian friend should just call you and you can let me know what you both decide.”
Bobby’s chuckle sounded self-conscious. “Didn’t mean to overstep. I’m just trying to help you out here.”
I got it then. “Along with the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office as well, right? You want to know what this guy finds out, don’t you?”
He sighed. “I’m sorry, Lucie. But I’d really appreciate it. Damn budget cuts. If it gets any worse we’ll be buying our own ammunition and bringing our own soap and toilet paper for the bathrooms.”
Or asking Loudoun County residents to pay for their own investigations. He hung up, sounding disgusted, before I could commiserate or say thanks.
So the skull was old. Not too far down the road from us off Route 15 was the small Civil War cemetery commemorating the Battle of Ball’s Bluff in Leesburg. Though there were only twenty-five headstones in that little graveyard, which sat in the middle of the former battlefield, there were, in fact, fifty-four Union Army soldiers buried there—or parts of them. According to local legend, at night you could see lights, which were the ghosts of soldiers looking for the rest of their bones so they could have a proper burial. The story had enough truth to it that even deputies from the Sheriff’s Office didn’t like patrolling the park after dark.
Now that we had uncovered new remains at Montgomery Estate Vineyard, I wondered if this woman would haunt us until we found out who she was and why she was buried outside the cemetery.
It had been less than a day since we discovered her, and though I didn’t want to admit it, she was already starting to haunt me.
* * *
I DIDN’T TELEPHONE JEAN-CLAUDE de Merignac to ask him about hiring Miguel on Saturday until later that morning when I was by myself. It was already turning into one of those spectacular late summer–early autumn days when the cloudless sky was the kind of brilliant, lacquered shade of blue that hurt your eyes to look at it and the rows of lush grapevines, lit by slanted sunshine, looked pristine and perfect.
I left Quinn and Antonio in the barrel room cleaning the fermentation bins we would need for the Cab Franc while the juice sat on the skins for a few days before we put it in stainless steel tanks. One of them had turned on music that was blasting through the sound system—Journey, with their anthem-like songs and pulsing beat—and the pair of them were belting out the words, loud and off-key, while they worked.
I caught Quinn’s eye, held up my phone, and pointed to the door. He nodded and I left for the courtyard, which was far more peaceful and quiet, except for the fading metallic chirping of the cicadas. This late in the summer—only a week before the first official day of autumn—the halved wine barrels we used as planters and the baskets hanging from the colonnade that ringed one side of the courtyard were spilling over with geraniums, fuchsia, impatiens, and ivy. What had started out in spring as a carefully designed color palette chosen by Francesca Merchant, who ran the commercial side of the winery, was now a rioting end-of-summer jumble of tangled flowers and greenery. In a few weeks everything would be gone, replaced by Frankie with pansies in the muted harvest colors of gold, yellow, violet, and rust for autumn and winter.
Truth be told, I was glad Quinn wasn’t around to overhear my phone call. What he’d said last night about Jean-Claude—wishing he’d leave Atoka and hinting at a dark past, so troubling that Armand de Merignac was forced to pay som
eone off, plus exile his son from Bordeaux—had kept me awake for hours. I was over my schoolgirl crush, but our pasts were twined together through family friendships that went back generations. I wondered what had happened, what he had done that was so awful—and whether it was true, as Quinn said, that Jean-Claude came to La Vigne, not because he was such a gifted winemaker, but because no other doors were open to him anymore.
Jean-Claude answered his phone on the second ring. “Lucie, mon amour. Comment vas-tu?”
“Bien, merci. How are you?”
“Oh, ça va, ça va. You know how it is.”
“I hope everything is okay?”
He sidestepped the implied question. “It’s good to hear your voice, chérie. I haven’t seen much of you since I arrived.”
“Maybe we can catch up after harvest is finished and things slow down,” I said. “And speaking of harvest, I have a favor to ask.”
“Ah, and I hoped you were calling just to ask about me.” He feigned disappointment and then added, “For you, ma belle, anything.”
“Could you spare Miguel on Saturday? We’re planning to pick our Cab Franc and we’re short of help. We’d like to hire him for the day. He really knows what he’s doing and we could use someone with his experience. Quinn and I are worried Hurricane Lolita might arrive early Sunday so we want to get everything picked in a day.”
“Saturday? Isn’t that too early? Are all your grapes ripe? I thought you had problems with millerandage.”
Millerandage meant the grapes were ripening unevenly. I wondered how he’d found out about that, although Cab Franc is notorious for millerandage. You can have green pellets next to gorgeous, luscious red grapes and then a few rows away, nothing is ripe or everything is ripe. If unskilled pickers are in the fields at harvest, they pick indiscriminately, which means we have to spend extra time at the sorting table making sure the bitter green grapes are eliminated.
“We do have some trouble with it,” I said. “But with all the horror stories about the damage Lolita has done we figure we’d better get the grapes in now. And it’s hard to get enough good pickers these days, you know that. We need to get a crew lined up now.”