by Ellen Crosby
“I’m so sorry, Colette. Jean-Claude is dead. I didn’t want to tell Marta before I had a chance to speak to Toby or Robyn. I just called nine-one-one and someone from the Sheriff’s Office is on the way. Do you have any idea where either of them are?”
“Oh my God, dead? How awful. Where did you … how did you find him? What happened?”
“I’m not entirely sure what happened, but he’s lying in a pool of blood. I stopped by because I needed to speak to Miguel about something. The crush pad door was open and so was the door to the cave in the back of the barrel room,” I said. “Look, I really think we need to find Toby and Robyn and let them know about this. Do you have any idea where either of them are?”
“They’re out for the morning hack,” she said. “Together. The secretary met a friend for breakfast in Leesburg—he left the house around seven. Robyn had an eight-thirty appointment here with your cousin. I overheard Secretary Levine planning to meet Robyn at the stables after he got back from Leesburg so they could ride together. I’ll drive over there right now and give them the news myself. They should be back.”
“I left messages on both of their phones. If they’ve returned from their hack then they might already know.”
She gasped. “I’d better get over to the stables just in case,” she said. “Are you going to stay there until someone from the Sheriff’s Office shows up?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said and then she hung up.
I sat down on a bench and took a look at the soles of my work boots. Jean-Claude’s blood had seeped into the grooves, where it had now congealed.
I threw up in a nearby clump of bushes.
* * *
IT SEEMED LIKE AN eternity before two Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office cruisers pulled up in front of the crush pad, their light bars pulsing red and blue and jangling my already stretched-thin nerves. At least they hadn’t turned on their sirens. Biggie Mathis climbed out of one of the cruisers.
“Ms. Montgomery,” he said. “We have to stop meeting like this. I understand you phoned in a homicide?”
I nodded. “Jean-Claude de Merignac. He’s the winemaker here. Was. The winemaker here.”
“Where is he?”
“Inside,” I said. “There’s a separate wine cellar at the back of the barrel room. In there.”
The deputy from the other cruiser said, “I’ll check it out.”
Biggie nodded and his colleague disappeared inside the winery. I wondered if he, too, would accidentally step in the widening pool of Jean-Claude’s blood and then decided he would not make that kind of rookie mistake. Especially after he saw my footprints.
Toby’s black Mercedes came roaring down the hill, stopping behind the two cruisers with a spray of gravel. Car doors slammed, three quick pops like gunfire, as Toby, Robyn, and Colette flew out and ran toward Biggie and me.
I watched Biggie size up the three of them: Toby and Robyn, windblown and sunburned in riding clothes, and Colette, immaculate in white jeans and a red T-shirt. Robyn looked as if she had been crying and Toby’s face was the color of ashes. Only Colette seemed in control of her emotions.
“Good morning. Are you folks the owners?” Biggie asked. He focused on Toby, as if he were trying to figure out why he looked familiar.
Toby took charge, answering for everyone. “I’m Tobias Levine and I own this winery, Deputy. This is my partner, Robyn Callahan, and my assistant, Colette Barnes. I got a call from Lucie—Ms. Montgomery—that she found my winemaker, Jean-Claude de Merignac, a short while ago … apparently there’s been some kind of accident. I’d like to see him at once, please.”
“I’m Deputy Mathis,” Biggie said. “I’m sorry to tell you this, Mr. Levine, but your winemaker is apparently deceased. We’ve just started our investigation so right now this place”—Biggie gestured to the entire barrel room—“is off-limits to everyone, including you, sir.”
“For how long?” Toby asked, his voice tightening.
The other deputy emerged from the barrel room. “He’s dead, all right, Big. I called the M.E. and the crime scene guys and reported a homicide,” he said to Biggie.
“Homicide?” Toby sounded stunned. “Someone killed Jean-Claude? Who would do something like that?”
“That’s what we intend to find out,” Biggie said. “Now, until I finish interviewing Ms. Montgomery I need you people to wait over there.” He pointed to Toby’s car. “I’ll be speaking with each of you individually in short order.”
“But…”
“Sir.” Biggie took a step toward Toby. “It’s not a request. Please wait where I asked you to.”
“Mr. Secretary,” Colette said, slipping an arm through Toby’s, “we should let the man do his job.”
“Come on, Toby,” Robyn said. “Colette is right. We’ll sort all of this out later.”
Toby didn’t look pleased, but he let Colette and Robyn walk him over to the Mercedes. Biggie turned to me. “Okay,” he said. “What happened? What were you doing here and how did you happen to find Mr.…” He consulted his notes. “De Marinero.”
“It’s ‘de Merignac.’”
“Right.”
I told him, including the fact that he would find my footprints near Jean-Claude’s body and my fingerprints on the door handle.
When I was done he said, “I need you to stick around. You’re not in the database so we need to take your fingerprints since you were there. And an imprint of your boots, after what you just told me. Sit tight while I talk to your friends. I’ll be back.”
Biggie was still speaking with Toby when another car pulled up and parked behind Toby’s Mercedes. Win Turnbull got out of his now-familiar mint-green paneled station wagon. How in the world could he have gotten here so quickly? The deputy had called him less than five minutes ago.
When he saw me, he looked as surprised as I was. “Lucie. What in heaven’s name are you doing here? I was with Yasmin when I got a call that I was needed for a homicide at La Vigne Cellars.”
Win had only been next door at my vineyard. At least that explained his speediness arriving on the scene.
“It’s Jean-Claude de Merignac,” I said. “He … was … the winemaker here. I found him and—”
“Doc?” Biggie’s partner joined us. “This way, please.”
Win placed a comforting hand on my shoulder and said, “Excuse me.”
I still hadn’t been dismissed by Biggie when Bobby Noland drove up in an unmarked car. By now the crime scene van had arrived along with a white van that eventually would be taking Jean-Claude’s body to the morgue once Win finished with his examination. When Bobby didn’t look surprised to see me I knew Biggie had filled him in that I’d be here. Bobby gave me a cursory nod and disappeared inside the barrel room.
When he emerged fifteen minutes later, he came straight over to me.
“I know Biggie took your statement,” he said, “but I need to ask if you have an alibi for this morning.”
“I was at our cemetery with Yasmin Imrie,” I said. “The forensic anthropologist Win Turnbull found for me.”
Bobby’s eyes narrowed as though he were trying to figure out who I was talking about. Then his face cleared. “Right. Until what time?”
“Ten … maybe nine-thirty.”
“Then what?”
“I came here.”
“Why?”
I told him about wanting to speak to Miguel, but left out the part about his papers being stolen from his car.
“Did you see anybody when you got here?”
“No.”
“Any idea who might have wanted Jean-Claude dead?”
You didn’t beat around the bush with Bobby or try to pull a fast one. Sooner or later it would come out that the last time I spoke with Jean-Claude he’d threatened me and we’d argued. Plus there was the fact that I knew that Jean-Claude believed someone at La Vigne was trying to kill him and make it look like an accident.
So I told him. His eyes grew dark and his face becam
e an inscrutable mask. Bobby was my childhood friend and my best friend’s husband, but he was also a Sheriff’s Office detective. I knew how it went. His job trumped our friendship plus it also made it harder for him to deal objectively with me.
“Nobody saw you drive in here?” he asked.
“No. The place was deserted.”
“Can you be more specific about what time you arrived?”
“I think it was around ten. I don’t know.”
“A few minutes ago you said maybe nine thirty. Which is it?”
He was really drilling down on me, lobbing questions like one of those machines that spits out tennis balls for practice.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “Surely you don’t think I killed Jean-Claude. I’m the one who found him. I’m the one who called nine-one-one.”
“You also argued with him the last time you spoke. By your own account it was pretty nasty. And I, uh, saw ‘Around Town’ in the Tribune this morning. You can’t have been too happy with that story, Jean-Claude trashing your wine and your cousin’s restaurant. Maybe you came over here to set the record straight?”
My mouth fell open. “No. Of course not. I came over here to talk to Miguel Otero. I told you that.”
“Okay,” he said. “Calm down. You know I needed to ask.”
I calmed down. “I know.”
“What about what Jean-Claude told you? Did he have any idea who might be trying to kill him?”
I hesitated and he said, “Answer the question, please.”
He was going to find out sooner or later and I knew better than to stonewall him.
“He said he’d had an argument with one of the workers.”
“Which one?”
I took a deep breath. “Miguel Otero. He thought maybe Miguel was trying to sabotage equipment and cause trouble to make him—Jean-Claude, that is—look bad to Toby and Robyn.”
“Detective?” For such a large man, Biggie Mathis knew how to move stealthily. Neither of us had heard him come up behind us.
Bobby turned around. “Yes?”
“I think you’d better come with me. We found something.”
“Be right there.”
Bobby followed Biggie over to where a crime scene technician in a blue jumpsuit held a sealed plastic bag by the edge so Toby, Robyn, and Colette could examine the contents. I was right behind him.
A pair of secateurs, the standard clippers we used out in the field for cutting grape clusters at harvest or pruning vines in the spring, was in the bag. Something that looked a lot like blood coated the blades.
“Where did you find these?” Bobby asked the technician.
“In the room where the body was located,” she said. “All the way in the back behind a row of wine barrels. They could be the murder weapon. We’ll check to see if the blood matches the deceased.”
“Get that taken care of immediately,” Bobby said.
“Copy that.”
Bobby turned to Robyn, Toby, and Colette. “Do you have any idea who these might belong to?”
“Miguel Otero.” Robyn’s voice sounded strangled. “Those are his initials scratched into the handle. M.O.”
Bobby turned to Toby. “I understand he’s one of your employees.”
“My foreman. He’s a good man, Detective, not a murderer.”
Bobby nodded, but I knew it wasn’t because he agreed with Toby. Thanks to me, he already knew about the trouble between Jean-Claude and Miguel, but he still didn’t know that Jean-Claude had tried to fire him. Nor was he aware that yesterday Miguel’s legal documents had been stolen from his car and Miguel suspected Jean-Claude. As soon as Bobby filled in the rest of that picture, it was going to look even worse for Miguel than it did right now.
Win Turnbull emerged from the barrel room and joined our group. “We might have found the murder weapon, Doc,” Bobby said. “Have a look.”
Win examined the secateurs and nodded. “Mr. de Merignac was stabbed repeatedly in the back with a knife-like object and bled to death.” He pointed to the sealed bag. “Those secateurs could have made wounds like the ones I found.”
“Where is Miguel Otero?” Bobby asked Toby.
“I spoke to him right here this morning,” Toby said. “He said he was going out into the field to do some work.”
“Do you know where?”
“He wasn’t specific.”
Bobby turned to Biggie. “Find him,” he said. “Take someone with you and bring him in.”
Eleven
The first thing I did when I got back to my vineyard was go home and get my old work boots. Luckily I’d kept them as a spare pair. I used a garden hose to rinse the blood off my other boots, but somehow I didn’t think I’d ever be able to wear them again.
It was mid-afternoon when Bobby’s car showed up in the winery parking lot. Maybe he had more questions for me, though I couldn’t imagine what he wanted to know that he hadn’t asked already.
I met him in the courtyard. “Hey,” I said. “What brings you here?”
“I’d like to talk to Antonio Ramirez.”
That was a surprise. “About what?”
He gave me a look that said don’t-make-this-difficult. “About Jean-Claude de Merignac.”
“Don’t tell me you suspect Antonio. No way, Bobby. He was out in the field with the men all day. He just got back.”
“I just need to talk to him,” he said. “Do I need a warrant to be here, Lucie?”
He’d never asked me something like that before and for a moment, I couldn’t speak. “No,” I said, finally. “No, of course not.”
“Good. So where’s Antonio?”
“I think he’s in the barrel room with Quinn.”
“Could you call and find out, please?”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to scare him off and I don’t feel like running.”
“Bobby…”
“He’s not under arrest, Lucie. I just want to ask him a couple of questions.”
I phoned Quinn. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Is Antonio with you?”
“Yeah. Why didn’t you call him yourself if you wanted to know where he was?”
“Give me a minute.” I disconnected and said to Bobby, “Please don’t ever ask me to do something like that again.”
It will be a while before I forget the look of betrayal in Antonio’s eyes when Bobby and I walked into the barrel room a few minutes later.
“Afternoon, guys,” Bobby said. “Antonio, how’s it going?”
Antonio wiped his hands on a shop towel and set it on top of a wine barrel. His eyes darted from Bobby to me. “All right.” He gave Bobby a wary look.
“Do you know why I’m here?” Bobby asked.
“No.”
“You probably have an idea, though.”
“Then why did you ask me?”
“Bobby, I told you Antonio was here all day…” I began.
“I need to hear this from Antonio, Lucie. Let him talk,” Bobby said. “Antonio, we’re looking for Miguel Otero. Do you have any idea where he is?”
Antonio didn’t flinch. He looked directly at Bobby and said, “No. Why are you looking for him?”
“We have a few questions for him concerning the murder of Jean-Claude de Merignac,” Bobby said, and this time Antonio did react.
His eyes grew dark. “Miguel didn’t kill anyone.”
“I didn’t say he did. I’d like to hear that directly from him, but unfortunately he’s gone,” Bobby said and my heart sank. “We just want to talk to him as a person of interest in the murder of Jean-Claude de Merignac, is all. It would help if he would come in voluntarily. Do you think you could persuade him to do that?”
“I don’t know where he is,” Antonio said.
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“I don’t know if I could persuade him.”
“Your fiancée and his wife are sisters. He’s practically a member of your family.”
“It d
oesn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
“Because all his papers, his legal documents, were stolen from his car yesterday. He’s scared. He’s got nothing to prove who he is.”
Bobby’s face didn’t give away whether he had learned this piece of information since I spoke to him earlier or if it was the first he’d heard of Miguel’s papers being stolen.
“We could help him with that if he comes in,” he said.
“Unless you arrest him. Or deport him.”
“If he didn’t kill Jean-Claude de Merignac, he has nothing to worry about. I’m giving you my word,” Bobby said in an even voice. “You have a phone. You could call him. Say, maybe right now?”
“You think Miguel killed Jean-Claude because his pruning shears were found covered with blood. Am I right?”
Bobby looked unfazed that Antonio already knew this. No doubt the word had gone around the vineyard workers like wildfire. This conversation between the two of them had been nothing but a game of cat and mouse.
“I don’t know who killed Jean-Claude,” Bobby said, still in that matter-of-fact tone. “I just want to talk to Miguel, that’s all. The longer he stays out, the worse it’s going to be if we have to find him. His car is still at La Vigne Cellars so we believe he left on foot, meaning he can’t have gotten very far … yet. You’d be helping him if you make that call … so will you? Please?”
Antonio pulled his phone out of his back pocket and thumbed through it. Then he tapped a number and put the phone to his ear.
“Could you put it on speaker, please?” Bobby asked.
Antonio obeyed and I held my breath. The phone went to voice mail and a disembodied voice said, “The person at this number has not set up a mailbox. Please try again later.”
Antonio clicked off his phone and looked at Bobby. “He’s not answering,” he said.
“All right,” Bobby said. “Look, Antonio, in times like these, we know people on the run often turn to family for help. If he comes to you, you need to let me know. Understand? Otherwise, you could be charged with hampering a murder investigation.”
Antonio turned pale. “I understand.”
Bobby looked around the room at all of us. “I think I’m done here,” he said. “I’ll see myself out.”