by Ellen Crosby
“That might be a bit optimistic,” Toby said, smiling. “As they say, the difficult takes a little time. The impossible takes a bit longer.”
“He’s being modest,” Robyn said. “Toby’s a miracle worker.”
“Thank you, darling.”
“You’re welcome, darling. Though there is one minor thing,” she said.
“What’s that?” Toby asked.
“Apparently we have a thief in our midst. Miguel said his car was parked by the barrel room and the only people who were around that part of the vineyard work for us.”
“Maybe I ought to have a word with Jean-Claude,” Toby said.
“I’ll handle it,” Robyn said, giving him a meaningful look. “I’ll speak with him tomorrow morning while you’re making your calls.”
“As you wish,” Toby said in a cool voice. “You talk to Jean-Claude.”
“We should go,” Quinn said.
* * *
ON THE DRIVE OVER to the Goose Creek Inn, I said to Quinn, “What did you make of that?”
He shrugged and put on his signal to turn onto Mosby’s Highway. “It’s a good thing Miguel works for Toby and not us. That boy has some serious connections in high places. He’ll get everything straightened out.”
“Not that,” I said. “I meant that last exchange between Robyn and Toby about her talking to Jean-Claude. Didn’t their conversation seem a little strained to you?”
“Between the darlings? I told you what the gossip is.”
“I really don’t want to believe it. Toby’s a nice man.”
“He is.”
“Robyn’s very attractive.”
“She’s okay.” He concentrated on staring out the windshield at the darkened road. “If you like that type.”
I jabbed him in the ribs.
“Ouch. What?”
“Nothing.”
“I also told you Jean-Claude’s not a very nice guy,” he said.
“I have a confession to make,” I said. After everything that happened this evening, it was time to ’fess up and tell him the truth.
“You’re having an affair with Jean-Claude, too?” he asked in a mild voice.
“Jesus, Quinn. Of course not!”
He waited.
“When I called Jean-Claude this morning to ask about hiring Miguel, he told me he needed to talk to me. In private.”
“And?” His voice was still measured, calm. But I saw a muscle move in his jaw and I knew he wasn’t going to be happy once he heard what I had to say.
I told him all of it; how Jean-Claude thought someone was trying sabotage him and stage so-called accidents that were potentially fatal. I also said that Jean-Claude thought Miguel was behind it because he’d tried to fire Miguel until Robyn intervened and Toby put a stop to it.
“What are you saying?” Quinn asked. “That Jean-Claude might have stolen the documents to get Miguel in trouble with ICE and the law?”
I threw up my hands in frustration. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine Jean-Claude rifling through Miguel’s glove compartment. It seems so … petty. He’s the next Baron de Merignac, for God’s sake. His father is the tenth wealthiest man in France.”
“While his son is working as a winemaker at a small vineyard in Virginia. Look, it does sound like Jean-Claude might have known about the papers. And maybe he saw Miguel put them in the car.”
“I know. You could be right.”
“So he could have taken them.”
“I suppose. Now what do we do? Tell Robyn and Toby?”
“Based on what you told me, they already know about the bad blood between those two. And Robyn is going to talk to Jean-Claude tomorrow.”
“That’s true.”
“Let them handle it, sweetheart,” Quinn said. “They’re smart. They’ll figure it out. You don’t want to wade into this. No one will thank you and you’ll end up with everyone pissed off at you.”
“I’ve already made a start on that,” I said. “My little chat with Jean-Claude ended with the two of us shouting at each other. The last thing I said to him was ‘go to hell.’”
“Whoa, hold on. Back up a minute. You said what?”
I left out Jean-Claude’s remark about Quinn’s—and my—competence in running the vineyard, but I told him everything else, including Jean-Claude’s threat to destroy our vineyard if I opened my mouth about his past in France and his current suspicions someone was out to get him.
When I was done, Quinn looked like he wanted to punch someone in the face, presumably Jean-Claude. “I told you the guy is trouble,” he said. “Let him try to come after us. I’ll take care of him.”
“Okay, now you hold on. You don’t need to be spoiling for a fight.”
“What if I am? Do you believe any of what he told you about sabotage and attempted murder?” Quinn sounded scornful. He twirled a finger next to his ear. “Maybe the guy’s looney tunes. Maybe that’s his problem.”
“I just don’t understand why he would cry wolf.”
“And try to pin it on Miguel. Who, by the way, doesn’t seem like the vindictive type,” he added. “He’s a solid guy. Something’s not right about all of this.”
“I agree. But, for the sake of argument, let’s say there is some truth to Jean-Claude’s claims. If Miguel’s not behind it, then it has to be someone else, right?”
“If there is some truth to it,” he said. “But who?”
“I have no clue. Jean-Claude got really upset when I brought up his past in France. Supposedly his father paid off enough people to make whatever he did go away.”
“What’s your plan? Call Daddy Warbucks in France? Ask him?”
“Nope. But there is someone else we can talk to right now who might know something about what happened. And who has no love lost for Jean-Claude,” I said.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
“My cousin. Dominique.”
* * *
THE GOOSE CREEK INN sits in the bend of a curve on Sam Fred Road on the outskirts of the village of Middleburg, like an island marooned in a vast expanse of ocean. If you happen to come upon the half-timbered building at night bathed in spotlights and surrounded by fairy lights strung through the surrounding trees, it could seem as if you’d taken a detour that brought you to the middle of an enchanted forest. When my godfather opened the place more than thirty years ago, local lore went that everyone told him the location was awful and he’d never be able to compete with the established restaurants in town. No one would drive out to the back of beyond for lunch or dinner.
But my godfather, a maverick, an iconoclast—and a Southern gentleman—firmly told his critics to go to hell, although being a Southerner he’d probably added please. He was certain that the wooded estate he’d just bought, with its sprawling, ruined 1920s Tudor manor house on the banks of Goose Creek—another tributary of the Potomac River, although smaller than the Occoquan—could be turned into a romantic country inn that would attract folks who would drive many miles out of their way to dine there. In warm weather guests would eat outside on the flagstone terrace overlooking the creek, surrounded by mature dogwoods, flowering cherry trees, and fragrant wisteria. In cold weather fires would burn cheerfully in the fireplaces of rooms that would eventually be turned into intimate dining rooms on the first and second floors of the old house.
My French mother helped with the decor, which gave the place its Gallic charm and influenced the menu, and before long, the Inn’s remote location became one of its best assets as a place for discreet getaways and under-the-radar assignations. It was especially popular with members of Congress, cabinet secretaries, and Supreme Court justices, as well as diplomats and fat-cat Beltway lobbyists. But mostly it gained a reputation as the most sought-after place in the D.C. region to propose marriage or for a romantic evening out.
At 8 P.M. on a Tuesday night in September the Inn’s parking lot was still filled with cars, but Quinn angled my Jeep into a spot near the front door that had just been vacated. Insid
e the place was filled, as usual, with the fragrant aromas of cooking, the pleasant buzz of conversation, and the muted clatter of silverware and china. Dominique’s new cookbook, A Year of Favorites: Best-Loved Recipes from the Goose Creek Inn, was displayed on a stand in the lobby, opened to her mother’s recipe for coq au vin with a whimsical watercolor illustration that had been painted by my younger sister, Mia, an artist who worked in Manhattan. A lighted aquarium filled with brilliantly colored tropical fish took up part of a wall across from the cookbook display and the maître d’s stand was occupied by Hassan, who had worked at the Inn ever since he immigrated from Morocco back when my godfather first opened the place.
Hassan kissed me on both cheeks and shook Quinn’s hand. “I’ve put you in the green room so you can have some privacy. Eli’s already there.”
The green room was the Inn’s smallest, most intimate dining room. Dominique often saved it for high-ranking guests, among them a former president and First Lady, who welcomed the privacy and the possibility of not disrupting the meals of other guests with their security details. The room was also conveniently located near a back door to the parking lot.
“Thanks, Hassan,” I said. “Could I ask a favor? Would you mind asking Dominique if she’d join us for a few minutes?”
“But of course.” He handed two menus to a waiter who walked us through the crowded restaurant to a small green-and-gold jewel of a room where my brother sat at a table, nursing a beer and checking his phone.
Eli looked up when he saw us. “Hey,” he said. “I was about to text you.”
“We’re not that late.” I gave him a defensive look. “Ten minutes. It’s only seven fifty-five.”
He held up his phone, which showed the time on the display. “Seven fifty-six.”
Eli was punctual to a fault, which could drive me nuts, especially if I was involved in his plans. I will concede, however, that his obsession with numbers and accuracy was one of the attributes that made him such a good architect, in addition to his gift for visualizing and designing a client’s concept of what kind of home or building they wanted—or thought they wanted—and turning it into reality. But his pickiness over my occasional tardiness—I’m really not that bad—did get on my nerves.
Quinn and I sat down across from Eli and gave our drink orders to our waiter. One of the reasons we were ten—okay, eleven—minutes late was that the two of us had sat in the Jeep in the parking lot discussing how we were going to ask Dominique about Jean-Claude’s past in France without revealing anything he’d said to me at the cemetery.
“I’ll tell you how,” I’d said. “With everything that happened today I nearly forgot. The reason Kit came by tonight was to give me a heads-up that ‘Around Town’ has something in tomorrow’s Trib about Dominique throwing Jean-Claude out of the Inn last week because he pitched a fit saying how awful his dinner was.”
“Are you kidding me?” Quinn pounded his fist on the steering wheel, sounding gleeful. “Damn. She should have sold tickets. I would have paid to see that. How did the Trib find out?”
“One of their reporters was sitting at the next table and took notes. The waiter didn’t recognize Jean-Claude so he fetched Dominique. It went downhill from there. And he was drinking a bottle of our Cab Sauv.”
Quinn groaned. “Oh, God. That’s all we need,” he’d said and then we had gone inside to meet Eli.
Our waiter returned to our table with our drinks—a beer for Quinn and a glass of Argentinian Malbec for me—and the three of us ordered dinner.
“I stopped by the cemetery today,” Eli said, slabbing Dominique’s garlic-and-herb butter on a thick piece of homemade miche. “What’s left of the fieldstone shed is covered with a tarp so I couldn’t see anything. Did Antonio and Jesús only find a skull? What happened to the rest of … everything?”
“The rest of her,” I said. “Yes, just the skull. The new county M.E. found a forensic anthropologist who is coming over tomorrow morning to finish excavating the site and see if there’s … more.”
“I wonder who she was,” he said, licking butter off his finger. “Let’s hope we don’t find any more skeletons when we break ground for the new house. We’re getting to be like a body farm.”
Quinn suppressed a smile, but I said in a severe tone, “Don’t even joke about that. It’s only the second time we’ve found a body on our property. It’s not like it’s a regular occurrence.”
“Speaking of your house, what’s happening?” Quinn asked, steering the subject away from a potential sibling poking match. “You haven’t said anything about it for a while.”
Two years ago after Eli went through a bitter, messy divorce and lost his job, he and his now four-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Hope, moved back into Highland House. Though we had our share of moments of brother-sister friction, it worked out surprisingly well to have him back home, plus I absolutely adored my niece.
Then Quinn moved in last spring after we got engaged, and soon Eli and Hope were spending more time at the home of his new fiancée and her son. Partly to be with Sasha and Zach, but I think the real reason was to give Quinn and me some space and time alone. Still, Eli was at the house nearly every day since he had converted our old carriage house into an architectural studio and gone into business for himself. A month ago I finally persuaded him that it made sense for him to design and build a home for himself, Hope, Sasha, and Zach at Highland Farm. We had walked the land together one weekend and he and Sasha picked out a site that was less than a quarter mile from Highland House. We’d need to put in a new road, but that was easily taken care of.
There was a part of me that had always fantasized about all of us living together at the farm again, including Dominique and Mia. It was my own version of a Hallmark happy family movie, where everyone gets along and everything always works out perfectly. Already, thanks to Eli, we had converted one of our barns into apartments for Jesús and his wife and Benny and his girlfriend. Antonio and Valeria lived in the property manager’s cottage near the winery. And for now, the winemaker’s house where Quinn used to live sat empty.
“I haven’t had time for the house plans or even another visit to the site. I’ve been too busy with a husband and wife who are slowly driving me crazy,” Eli said to Quinn. “She wants a McMansion. He wants Fallingwater.”
“Do they agree on anything?” I asked.
“It has to have walls and a roof.”
“Good luck with that,” Quinn said.
Eli made a grimace. “If they don’t kill each other, the fee will easily pay half a year’s income.”
“I forgot to tell you that when Quinn and I arrived I asked Hassan if Dominique could drop by for a minute,” I said to him. “Kit came by tonight for a drink to let me know about a story that’s appearing in ‘Around Town’ in tomorrow’s paper.”
Bringing up Kit Noland was another series of landmines for Eli and me. Years ago Kit and Eli had dated and it had been serious. Then Eli met his future wife and the breakup with Kit had been acrimonious. To this day they still didn’t get along.
“The gossip page?” he said. “Well, it figures that now she’s writing gossip.”
“Don’t be mean. And she didn’t write the story.” I told him about Dominique throwing Jean-Claude out of the Inn and caught the knowing look that passed between him and Quinn.
“I saw that smirk, you two,” I said. “What’s going on?”
Eli shrugged. “Jean-Claude had been spending a lot of time here, mostly in the bar chatting up women. At least it explains why he hasn’t been around lately.”
“How do you know how much time he spends in the bar chatting up women?”
“I hear things.”
“Truce, you two,” Quinn said. “Here comes Dominique.”
“Maybe we should have this conversation in a room with padded walls,” Eli said in a warning voice. “She’s going to explode when she finds out.”
The family story about my petite, auburn-haired, and boyishly slim cous
in was that she was Saturday’s child from the Mother Goose nursery rhyme: she worked hard for a living. Or as we also said, Dominique was born without an off switch. A few months ago, to no one’s surprise, she had been offered the job as executive chef at the White House, which had recently become vacant. Then, to everyone’s surprise, she turned it down, though she did agree to help out occasionally for state dinners or other big events. The reason, she told me, was that she realized the price she’d pay for that kind of celebrity status would be to forfeit a personal life for the next few years. I’d wondered if it had something to do with moving into her mid-forties, on her way to fifty and half a century. Either way, she still worked hard for a living, but it was all for the Goose Creek Inn and its catering business, which were her life and her passion.
She exchanged kisses with everyone before she sat down and our waiter returned to take orders for coffee and dessert. Four espressos. A double for Eli. A shared piece of Double-Chocolate-Died-and-Gone-to-Heaven layer cake and four forks.
“Hassan said you wanted to see me,” Dominique said to me. “What’s going on, chérie? You look like the cat that ate the canary’s tongue.”
In spite of the fact that my French cousin had lived in the U.S. for a dozen years and was now a citizen, American idioms still baffled her. Get her upset and the English could go completely out the window.
Eli nudged my foot with his under the table and I resisted the urge to nudge him back.
“A reporter from the Washington Tribune was here the night you threw Jean-Claude de Merignac out of the Inn,” I said. “There’s going to be something about it in tomorrow’s paper in ‘Around Town.’ Kit Noland told me earlier this evening.”
For a moment Dominique didn’t say anything. Instead she stared down at her coffee cup, stirring her espresso with a tiny spoon. I knew her well enough to know that she was angry. Actually, she was furious, as Eli had foretold.
“He was insufferable that evening,” she finally said in a tight, clipped voice. “Nothing suited him. He sent back every dish, two bottles of wine, and had my waiter and sommelier practically in tears. No one should insult another person the way he treated the two of them. They were doing their best to please him and there was nothing wrong with his meal. Or his wine. I think he was just determined to be … the way he can be. Arrogant. Rude. I’m not sorry I did what I did.”