1 Died On The Vine

by Joyce Harmon

  TWELVE

  Mary was surprised into a giggle.

  Andrew sat back and smiled. “That’s better. And look on the bright side; at least you know who your father was. I haven’t the slightest idea.”

  “Maybe you should consider yourself lucky,” Mary suggested.

  After that they traded childhood horror stories, in an orgy of oneupsmanship. Mary told of being hidden in a crate while a crowd of desperate boat people fought off an attack by pirates in the West Pacific. She spoke in a very matter-of-fact way, but so gripped her audience that when the pirates finally sailed away, we all cheered.

  Andrew told the story, which he couldn’t remember but had been told, of being found as a toddler in a one-room third floor walkup almost a week after his mother had died of a heroin overdose.

  In the middle of this story, Mrs. Griffith arrived with a plate piled high with sandwiches. Andrew smiled at her, the sort of smile any woman would give a lot to be on the receiving end of. “And Mrs. Griffith has been trying to fatten me up ever since, haven’t you, Griffy?”

  Mrs. Griffith put down the plate and folded her arms. “Oh, Mister Andrew, what a mess you were when you first arrived here! And Miss Priscilla says to me, “Griffy, what on earth shall I do with a baby?’ and her only just past her debut. That fancy girls school that finished Miss Priscilla didn’t teach the girls a thing about how to get rid of head lice.”

  Andrew scratched his head thoughtfully.

  Mrs. Griffith nodded her head emphatically and departed noiselessly.

  We dived into the sandwiches and Julia said to Andrew, “We’re told you have political ambitions.”

  Andrew laughed. “It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. Actually, the Democrats were looking for someone willing to go up against Hobart and at least put up a good fight. Not many people want to take the time out of their lives for what they consider a hopeless quest. I thought if I gave it a try, the party would owe me something.”

  “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came,” said Mary ominously around a mouthful of wonderful crab salad.

  “Something like that,” Andrew admitted. “I don’t have a political reputation to lose anyway, so I thought it might be fun, in a sick kind of way.”

  So we talked Virginia politics through the lunch and in that fashion got a reasonably complete account of Andrew’s schedule for the past several weeks.

  He didn’t realize we were fishing for an alibi, at least I don’t think he did. But his schedule was crowded enough that killing Winslow would have required him to have gone without sleep two nights – the night the grave was dug and the night Winslow died. The round trip to Passatonnack County would take six hours, and then there was the time and mess associated with grave digging and surrogate father stabbing.

  And assuming that the murderer followed Winslow to the winery on Sunday, Andrew was in the clear; he was hobnobbing with politicos that afternoon.

  Not that I seriously suspected Andrew anyway. There was something about him, that dreamy Ashley Wilkes quality. I suppose anyone is capable of murder in the right circumstances. But only certain types of murder. Making the plan and sticking to it through a long night of grave digging just didn’t seem like Andrew’s type of murder.

  After lunch, we took our farewell. Andrew was reluctant to see us go, and promised Mary fervently that he’d be in touch.

  As we drove away, Julia said comprehensively, “That was interesting.”

  “I can’t see him as a murderer, if that’s what you mean,” I answered.

  “Me neither,” said Mary. I hoped that was a good sign for Andrew.

  Julia nodded sagely. “No, he was awfully busy running around to political fish fries and what-not. But that freed up a lot of time for someone. And did you notice who witnessed the will?”

  Good old Julia, never misses a trick. I was impressed. “No, I can’t say I noticed.”

  “Well, I have no idea who Greg Albertson is, but the other witness was Lizette Griffith.”

  “As in Griffy?”

  “So I would assume.” Julia looked smug. “So she was at least aware that the estate goes to Mister Andrew.”

  “I don’t know,” Mary said doubtfully. “I’ve never had any Old Family Retainers, so I wouldn’t know the ethics and mores of it, but does family loyalty cover murder?”

  “I’m not saying she did, just that it’s possible.”

  “So what’s our next stop?” I asked.

  Mary spoke decisively. “D.C. We’re going to visit Lest We Forget.”

  “Oh, good. Are we journalists?” Julia wanted to know. I made a mental note to rent the video of All The President’s Men, so I’d know what to expect from Julia’s latest craze.

  “No, you two are my good friends. And I’m the Next of Kin.” Mary looked grim.

  So on we rolled in style and comfort to the trendy environs of Georgetown. Lest We Forget was housed in a storefront between a revolutionary bookstore, where one could purchase the complete works of V.I. Lenin, and what appeared to be a health food store. (At least I think that’s what a “Tofuterie” is.)

  The door was draped with black crepe paper, and there was only one person visible in the shop. She was occupying a desk and talking on the phone.

  “Okay,” we heard her tell someone as we entered, “I’ll fax them my resume. Do you think I should just leave this job out, I mean with the boss being murdered and all? Or should I list the organization’s name and hope they don’t make the connection? Huh? Okay, I’ll do that. Talk to you later.”

  She hung up and turned to us. “Can I help you ladies?”

  “Who’s running things now?” I asked. “What with Mr. Winslow’s death?”

  “You heard about that? Awful, huh? A patriotic guy like that.” She shook her head in a display of regret and lit a cigarette. “Mr. Calgary was the Colonel’s ‘second in command’, like they say, but Colonel Winslow was really the whole show. I don’t know what Mr. C. intends to do.”

  “Mr. C. intends to pay the bills and shut this operation down, which is all that Mr. C can afford to do.”

  We turned to the speaker. He was a small balding man in a three piece suit who had just entered the room from an office in the back. He greeted us with a slight bow. “Emmett Calgary, ladies. And you – ?”

  “I’m Mary Nguyen,” Mary said. “Colonel Winslow’s daughter.” She made the last statement with difficulty.

  Calgary raised his eyebrows. “The daughter! Yes, I heard about the will. That certainly came as a surprise to us. Come on back.” He turned to the girl at the desk. “If anyone calls, tell them that all Lest We Forget activities have been suspended until further notice. Did you cancel the Colonel’s San Diego trip?”

  “Yes, but we won’t get the full price back on the plane tickets.”

  Calgary sighed. “Can’t be helped.” He waved us into the back and led us to a small office crowded with filing cabinets. Julia and I found seats by moving file folders off the two visitor chairs. Mary perched on the radiator.

  Calgary seated himself behind the battered wooden desk and leaned back. “She’s right, you know. I mean Lisa out there. This was a one man show. Can you picture a veteran’s group paying me to fly to San Diego to give a speech?”

  No one answered. We really couldn’t picture it.

  Calgary nodded, as if silence were a response. “Exactly. But I was in Nam too, you know. Spent more time in country than the Colonel did. But he had the presence. He got the donations.”

  Mary leaned forward. “And did you accomplish anything with these donations?”

  “I used to think so. Obie kept saying we were on the verge of the big breakthrough. But most of the money we raised just went to sustain more fundraising trips. I kept the books, so it was hard to hide from me how little of our funds actually went to research.”

  “Research?”

  “Informants, refugees, smugglers. Nothing authoritative, nothing you could take to court.”

 
Julia joined the conversation. “Mr. Calgary, do you think this operation was anything more than a scam?”

  “I did when I started working here. Then I began to believe the Colonel was deluding himself. Lately I’ve started to think he was deluding everyone but himself. I don’t know. I’ve been meaning to quit for some time now. Too bad. If I’d gotten out sooner, I’d have avoided a murder investigation.”

  “Do you have anything to worry about with an investigation?” Mary asked.

  “I certainly do,” Calgary snapped. “I have to worry about anyone being willing to hire an administrative assistant whose previous boss was murdered.”

  “Good point,” said Julia.

  “Thank you. Who are you, by the way?”

  Mary performed the introductions. “Mrs Barstow and Mrs. Rayburn. They’re helping me investigate my father’s death.”

  “What do you want from me?” Calgary asked.

  “Was there anything strange about Winslow lately? Any mysterious visitors?”

  Calgary shook his head.

  “Did he seem worried or preoccupied?”

  “Not worried, but I have to say he did seem a trifle preoccupied for the past few months.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Not a clue.”

  I decided to join the game. “Did his behavior change in any way?”

  There was a long pause. “I don’t know if this is what you’re looking for, but when I was doing the accounts, I did notice that the Colonel was taking fewer long speaking trips than this time last year. I wondered if he was wearing down or losing the faith or something.”

  “Assuming there was any faith to lose,” Mary muttered.

  “Granted. But he was spending more time in the office and at his home. He said he had research to conduct. But about what, I have no idea.”

  Mary had a gleam in her eye. “May we go through the files? Maybe we could find something.”

  Calgary waved us toward the file cabinets. “Have at it. The police have already been through them. But I believe their search was a bit cursory. All they took was some of the financial files and a few letters. Contributor lists, expense statements, and so forth.”

  Without further ado, we dived in. In the catalog of Guilty Pleasures, nothing quite beats rootling through someone else’s file cabinets. With minimal organization, we each grabbed an armful and started flipping.

  Mary seemed drawn to the schedules and payment listings. She pulled a small notebook from her purse and began making cryptic notes.

  Calgary frowned at this and then sighed. “Let me know if you ladies need anything,” he told us, and left us to desecrate the files in peace.

  My stack seemed to be reports from various sources, mostly in the Orient. The reports were written in quasi-military intelligence style, with an appalling number of typos and misspellings. None of them seemed to be very recent.

  Julia had drawn several bulging folders of miscellaneous clippings. Although many dealt with the MIA issue and quite a few were local papers reporting on the speeches by Winslow, there were also some oddballs that seemed to be included for no particular reason.

  Mary looked up from her notes and lighted upon a battered tin ashtray. “Ah-hah!” she exclaimed triumphantly, and lit up.

  She leaned back and released a spiral of smoke toward the ceiling. “These reports are really going to spice up my book. It seems pretty clear that the fundraising was a perpetual motion machine that allowed Winslow to travel in style and speak before adoring audiences. In the past few years, there’s been almost no real attempt to get information out of Viet Nam. I’m starting to favor ‘The Life and Death of a Scoundrel’ for a title. What do you think?”

  Julia looked up. “Huh? Never mind that. Get a load of this!” She held up a clipping. The headline read, “In rural Passatonnack County, a retired bureaucrat recreates Bordeaux.”

  I recognized it at once; there is a framed copy in our tasting room. It was Jerome Wither’s Post piece about the opening of our winery.

  THIRTEEN

  Mary eagerly crowded over, reading the clipping over Julia’s shoulder. Of course, I had read it many times before.

  I pointed to what had to be the operative phrase that must have warranted the piece’s inclusion in the folder. “ – the charming and gracious Mrs. Rayburn, known to her friends as Cissy, tragically lost her first husband in Viet Nam – “

  Mary took the article from Julia and skimmed it rapidly. “Hmm. Two hundred acres, et cetera et cetera, gravelly soil, da da, wonderful old farmhouse. What the hell is a ‘flinty Chardonnay’?”

  “You’d have to taste it, I’m not much good at describing tastes,” I said apologetically.

  “Well,” Mary looked up. “This seems to show us how Winslow heard of you. But we still don’t know why you were targeted. There must be thousands of people in Virginia who lost loved ones in the war.”

  Julia held up another clipping. “Looky here.”

  This one was headlined, “Squatter evicted from national wildlife preserve.” The very article we had earlier discovered in the library.

  While Julia and Mary were looking at the new clipping, I seized a photograph that had been beneath it. “Look, it’s Jimmy!”

  And it was. It was the official photograph from Jimmy’s service record. I felt my throat close around a lump. God! He was younger than Peter is now.

  Julia placed the photograph beside the newspaper picture of Craig Southern. “There is a certain superficial resemblance,” she admitted.

  Mary’s eyes were shining. “Anatomy of a scam! Keep looking. See if there’s anything else that might indicate what he was up to.”

  But we could find nothing else that might indicate what Winslow’s plan had been.

  Finally, about a pack of cigarettes later, Mary sat back. “I think we’ve milked this place dry. Let’s call it a day.”

  “Okay, it’s a day,” Julia agreed.

  As we exited the office, I was behind Julia and Mary. Giving in to a sudden larcenous impulse, I picked up an address book on the desk and slipped it into my purse.

  In the outer office, Lisa was nowhere to be seen. Calgary had his feet up and was reading a magazine. Not Soldier of Fortune, I noticed, but Business Week. The man obviously needed a change of career.

  Mary smiled sweetly, doing the innocent young thing that probably gets her many quotes that sources later regret. “Mr. Calgary, we’d like to take a few of these clippings if that’s alright with you.”

  Calgary nodded. He rose to his feet with keys in hand. He had obviously just been waiting for us to finish so he could lock up and go home. “You take whatever you want, Miss. As far as I’m concerned, Lest We Forget is out of business.”

  In the car driving back, I began to page through the address book. Julia glanced at me in the rear view mirror. “What have you got there, Cissy?”

  “Winslow’s address book,” I answered, unable to keep a trace of smugness out of my voice.

  Mary whirled around. “An address book! Mary, where is your investigator’s nose these days? I can’t believe I missed that. Gimme.”

  I held it out of her reach. “I saw it first.”

  It was a most unenlightening document, to me at least. I’m sure that Mary, with her research background, would glean much more from it. But dammit, I did see it first, and I was going to look at it first!

  Then I did find an interesting entry, in the Ns. “’Li Nguyen’,” I read aloud. “Mary, is this your mother?”

  Mary whirled again. “Jeez, is she in there?” She gave a little shiver. “I find that kind of – creepy.”

  “And Winslow never contacted your mother?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “But this says Fairfax. I thought your mother lived in Tacoma.”

  “She moved out east when I was accepted to J school. Went in with Uncle Dho when he opened a – guess what?”

  Julia and I chorused, “An ethnic restaurant.”

&nb
sp; “Bingo.”

  I handed the little book to Mary. “Maybe you can get something out of this.”

  It was dark when we finally turned off onto River Road. Past Julia’s, I pointed to an unfamiliar sight. “Look, there’s a light in the trailer.”

  “You suppose Craig found his way here?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  We pulled up the dirt track on the far side of the Cabernet Sauvignon. I could see a shadow moving against the light inside. “You two stay here. If it is Craig, I don’t want to spook him.”

  I mounted the step and knocked on the door.

  It was Craig. He opened the door holding a battered copy of Return of the King. Behind him, I could see a pan simmering on the small kitchen range. Chili, my nose said. A small suitcase lay on the old sofa. Craig was in residence.

  “Hello, Miz Rayburn.”

  “Hi, Craig. I won’t bother you. I’ve been gone all day and saw the light on.”

  He nodded. “Your husband let me in. He’s a nice guy.”

  I thought someone as quiet as Jack would appeal to Craig. “Yes, isn’t he? Well, let us know if you have any problems.”

  “Will do.”

  I walked back to the car. “Yep, it’s Craig,” I reported as I got in. “Heating chili and reading Tolkien. Jack let him in.”

  Back at the house, Mary collected her Miata and drove off. After she pulled away, Julia waved me over to the driver’s window. She leaned out and said, “So now we have Mama Nguyen within striking distance. Let’s put that in our pipes and smoke it.” Then she too drove off.

  In the kitchen, a welcome sight greeted me. The blue cheese was sitting on the table under its plastic dome, achieving room temperature. Beside it a bottle of Cissy’s Own Cabernet was shaking off the cellar’s chill. And Tough Stuff was addressing a saucer which contained a few crumbs of blue cheese.

  Jack came into the kitchen and gave me a bear hug.

  I squeezed back and asked, “Are you sure that’s good for him?”

  “I’m sure he really really wanted some, “ Jack answered. “I only gave him a little bit. McCavity too.”