by Ellen Crosby
“Excellent,” I said. “In that case, I think this conversation’s over.”
Quinn and I walked them to Amanda’s Range Rover.
“We’re not quite done,” Quinn said. He walked over to the carriage house and opened the door. When he came out he was holding the plastic bag with Freddie’s remains in it. “This is yours. And this.”
He handed her the bag and her studded collar.
Kyra took them silently, her eyes downcast. She held the collar like it was made of something heavy. I knew she realized that was how she’d been caught.
“That stuffed animal was the last gift you got from your grandfather before he died, Ky,” Amanda said. “Put the bag in the trunk and wait in the car.”
She obeyed, still quiet.
“I apologize again for my daughter,” Amanda said. “Like I said, her father and I will discipline her.”
“I think she’s been punished enough,” I said. “Hopefully she’s scared now, too. I’m sure it won’t happen again. See you tomorrow for the meet?”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
“I’ll open the south gate first thing in the morning,” Quinn said. “That way you and the rest of the hunt don’t have to ride through the main entrance if you don’t want to.”
“No one knows about Freddie but us,” I said. “As for the paint at the front gate, if anyone asks, it was probably someone’s idea of a pre-Halloween prank.”
“You don’t have to do that but I’m grateful.”
She got into her car and drove off.
“I think that put a definite chill in our friendship,” I said.
“Well, she better get over it,” Quinn said. “She’s got her hands full with that kid.”
“I know. Hey, you were good at that bad cop thing,” I said. “You terrified me.”
He looked pleased. “That was nothing,” he said. “I wasn’t even warmed up.”
Pépé showed up at eight o’clock the next morning just as I was leaving for the villa. We met in the foyer. He looked a little worse for the wear, his bow tie charmingly askew, smelling of cognac and tobacco and someone’s heavy, old-fashioned perfume. Thank God he hadn’t been driving.
“You want a cup of coffee? I just turned the pot off, so it’s still pretty hot,” I said, kissing him on the cheek. “How was it?”
“Formidable,” he said. “But I am a little tired.”
“Maybe you should go to bed.”
He nodded. “I think I will.”
“I’ll be back this afternoon to pick you up,” I said. “Maybe around three or four? Unless you want to sleep longer and we can go to the cemetery tomorrow.”
“No, no,” he said. “I want to go today. If that’s still agreeable with you.”
“Of course,” I said. “I’ll see you later.”
I watched him climb the stairs. He took his time. Eighty-two years old and out all night partying like he was twenty-eight. I blew him a kiss that he didn’t see and left for the vineyard.
I was the first to arrive at the villa. Quinn came later after opening the south gate for the Goose Creek Hunt.
“Did they show up?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah. Blowing that foxhorn, doing all the stuff they do. Came through the south gate like we figured they would.”
“Many horse trailers?”
“A few. Most of them rode their horses. Hacking, or whatever it’s called.”
“It’s called hacking. You see Amanda?”
“Yup.”
“Shane?”
“Him, too. With all the hounds, yapping up a storm. He said it’s going to be a good day with no wind and cool air. The fox’s scent will lie right there close to the ground. Easy for the pack to follow.”
“Good. Mick there, too?”
He put his hands on his hips. “Maybe I should have taken roll. Yeah, Mick was there, too. Sunny, Ryan. All the usual suspects.”
“I just asked.”
“You should have asked about Mick up front. Though I would have thought he would have told you himself. Especially since you’re sleeping with him again.”
“Don’t you have work to do?”
“Not before I get a cup of coffee. Is it made yet?”
“I haven’t had time.”
“I guess I have to do everything around here, don’t I?”
I followed him into the kitchen. “How’d you know about Mick and me?”
“Went by the General Store this morning. Thelma was feeling chatty.”
I’d been filling the coffeepot with water. I turned sharply and water splashed onto the floor. “When Thelma doesn’t feel chatty, she will no longer have a pulse. Do you mean to tell me it’s making the rounds at the General Store that I spent the night at Mick’s place?”
“You slept there? She wasn’t sure who bunked with who.” He took the pot from me and poured the water into the reservoir.
I wiped up the floor as the coffeemaker started to gurgle. “Don’t share that, okay?”
He got a carton of milk from the refrigerator. “So you are back together?”
“No. And I don’t want to talk about it.”
He leaned against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “Okay, fine.”
I reached for the sugar bowl and spooned some into my coffee. “Any idea if Nicole’s left town yet?”
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know. She called Sunday morning and left a message but I never called her back. You going to have any coffee with that sugar?”
“Huh? Oh. You make strong coffee. It needs extra sugar.”
“You’re mad Mick hired Nicole.”
I picked up the carton of milk. “Okay, so I am. You know something? I’ve finally realized everything’s about business with him—even when it seems like it’s not. His whole life revolves around work and winning and owning the best of everything.” I stirred my coffee until it became the color of liquid caramel. “Nicole’s got a great reputation, so of course he had to hire her. The thing is, he never seems satisfied or happy. He’s always restless. Bored.”
I thought about what Frankie said about him the other day. It was all about the thrill of the hunt with him.
“That include you?” Quinn asked.
“Yes.” I blew on my coffee. “How come you didn’t call Nicole back?”
He picked up his mug and held the swinging door open for me. “I don’t know.” We both walked into the tasting room as the door swung so hard the hinges creaked. “Guess we both have things we don’t want to talk about,” he said.
The hunt, which had allowed the new puppies entering the pack and the younger horses to be tested in the field, ended just before noon. It was the more informal season known as cub hunting and lasted from September through November. Even the dress was more casual because the members wore lightweight tweed jackets instead of the formal black jackets they’d use once the regular season began in November.
Amanda called just after twelve to say thanks and let me know everyone had left after a short tailgate.
“Any good runs?” I asked.
“A couple of good ones,” she said. “This time we stayed mostly in the western part of your farm. Beyond the pond.”
“That’s new for you, isn’t it?”
“Shane wanted to keep the pack well away from the Orlandos’ property,” she said. “We’ve got some unruly pups. Didn’t seem like it made any sense to tempt fate.”
“Everything look okay when you were out there?”
“Fine.” Her voice turned chilly. “Kyra will be by later today, of course.”
“Thank you. Look, Amanda, I hope everything’s okay between us. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all settled.”
“Why wouldn’t it be okay?” she asked, but I could tell it wasn’t.
Pépé was dressed and sitting in the library, reading old copies of the Washington Tribune when I got home around three-thirty.
“Ryan Worth’s columns?” I asked, kissing him on the cheek. Ryan had s
ent me a package a few days ago. “You’re finally reading them?”
“Eh, bien, I promised him I would.”
“What do you think?”
He set them on the coffee table. “He seems to drink a lot of wine that is ‘flirty.’ Or ‘muscular.’ Also a wine that grabs you by the throat and won’t let go.” He looked at me over the top of his reading glasses and put his hands around his throat in mock strangulation.
I laughed. “I think he’s trying to describe wine in ways that people can relate to.”
He shook his head. “I guess I am old school. I like to know about the taste, the finish, the nose. I do not want to know if the wine wants to wrestle with me.”
“Come on,” I said. “I’ll take you for a ride. Are you ready to go to the cemetery?”
“Yes. But first I must get something. It’s in the kitchen.” He returned with a bouquet of mums, daisies, and sweetheart roses in the rusts and golds of autumn. “I was keeping them in water until you came.”
“They’re beautiful! Where did you get them?”
“Your friend Thelma arranged it. She had them delivered a few hours ago.”
“Thelma doesn’t sell flowers.”
“Oh…? She does to me.”
“I think you’ve definitely got yourself a girlfriend,” I said.
He straightened his collar, looking pleased with himself. “What is the expression in English? A ladyslayer?”
“Ladykiller.”
“C’est moi.”
“Come on, Casanova. Get your coat and let’s go.”
The weather had turned cooler in the last few hours so I put the top back up on the Mini and drove my grandfather to the brick-walled cemetery where my ancestors had been buried for more than two hundred years. My mother used to love to come here to paint because of the breathtaking view of the Blue Ridge and the light, which she said was magical. I often came with her as a little girl, playing among the gravestones. After she died, I used to sit by her headstone and talk to her. When I took over running the vineyard those conversations became pretty regular. Since harvest, though, I hadn’t been by much because of all the work.
Pépé held the wrought-iron gate for me. The flowers I’d placed at my parents’ graves on Labor Day were black with rot and the vases lay on their sides. I picked up the flowers and threw them over the wall, wishing I’d thought to come by and do that before bringing my grandfather here. He took a rose from my mother’s bouquet before laying her flowers on the grassy spot where she was buried. If I knew him, he’d tried to place them above where he guessed her heart would be. Then he set the rose at Leland’s grave. I admired him for doing it. He’d known that my father had given my mother a bad time during their marriage, what with Leland’s eye for the ladies and his penchant for gambling and bad business deals, and I knew it grieved him still.
I left him at my mother’s grave and walked among the tombstones of generations of Montgomerys, brushing away fallen leaves and pulling weeds. In the next few days maybe I could persuade Eli to come back with me and do more clearing up. Soon it would be the Feast of All Saints and the Feast of All Souls. We would leave flowers for everyone then—and flags on Veterans’ Day for those who fought in wars.
Pépé joined me as I finished picking up stray leaves that had clumped against the headstone of Hugh Montgomery who had fought with Mosby during the Civil War.
“I would also like to visit her cross,” he said.
I had placed a small cross at the site where my mother died in a meadow on the south side of the farm beyond the old vines. Last spring we’d planted new varietals nearby, so now there was regular traffic passing by the place, which had once been relatively isolated. Quinn had seen to it that the area around the cross was left pristine and untouched so it looked as it had when she’d ridden there, except for the footpath we’d worn from years of visits.
I drove down the service road, pulling off at the edge of the field near her marker. The wind had picked up in the last half hour and the light had turned milky at the end of the day. The crickets’ serenade had quieted down, occasionally drowned out by the random cry of birds and the steady rush of the breeze in our ears. Several turkey vultures circled overhead, probably eyeing a deer carcass.
I slipped my arm through my grandfather’s and walked with him to the memorial. He held a long-stemmed yellow rose in front of him like he was carrying a vigil candle. When we got there Pépé laid the rose down and his lips moved. I squeezed his arm and left him alone to pray.
Overhead the vultures wheeled and swooped, crying out that our presence interfered with their meal. I walked over to see what it was. Sometimes—not often—the people who came to pick apples at our orchard would heave a bag of picnic trash out the car window into the woods if they were too lazy to take it home and throw it out there. Quinn swore if he ever caught anyone in the act he’d make them eat the contents while he watched.
If we didn’t clean it up, the vultures and other animals would scatter the trash, leaving a mess of inedible cardboard, plastic, and paper. As I got closer the stench of something rotting came at me like a wave. Human flesh. Bobby Noland described it to me once in unforgettable terms. I pulled the lapel of my jacket over my nose and took a few more steps.
I could not see the face from where I was standing, but I did recognize the gorgeous russet suit Nicole Martin had been wearing the day I met her.
Chapter 23
I jammed my hand into my mouth, staring at Nicole’s body as I processed the fact that not only was she dead, but she’d been murdered and dumped here on my farm. My stomach heaved and I leaned over and threw up in some weeds. Whoever put her body here must have figured it was no-man’s-land and she wouldn’t be found for a long time, if ever. Besides, Nicole supposedly left town. Who in Atoka would miss her?
Who in Atoka would do this?
“Lucie!” Pépé waved at me. “Tu vas bien?”
I couldn’t speak so I waved back and started walking toward him. He should not see what I’d just seen. I had to get him back to the house and call 911.
And tell Quinn. God, how was I going to do that?
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “You look so pale. What happened?”
“Nothing,” I said. “We should go home now.”
“Are you going to tell me or shall I look for myself?” He waited. “There’s something over there where the vultures are.”
I shivered as one of the birds screeched above us. “It’s Nicole Martin. Someone killed her and left her body there.”
“Mon Dieu.” He put his arm around me. “Show me.”
“I’m not sure you should see—”
“Ma petite,” he said, “I have seen more than you can imagine in my lifetime. Let’s go.”
Like me, he pulled the lapel of his jacket over his nose and mouth when we got close enough to the putrid smell. He knelt by Nicole and examined her.
“She’s still fully clothed so it seems she was not raped,” he said, “but she was certainly beaten.”
I shuddered. Nicole was tough, though she looked like an angel. I bet she’d fought back at her killer. “We need to call 911. But first I have to tell Quinn.”
“First you must call the sheriff.” He sounded firm. “Before you tell anyone.”
“Quinn’s her ex-husband. He should know—”
“Lucie! You know as well as I do he will be a suspect.”
“Quinn did not kill Nicole, Pépé. He did not! I have to tell him about this—in person. Otherwise he’ll find out from the sheriff and he’ll know I didn’t come to him first.”
Pépé moved his tongue around in his mouth like he was probing for a toothache. His eyes never left my face. “You care very much for him, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do. He works for me.”
“You know that is not what I meant.” His stare was unwavering, but I wasn’t going to budge. “All right. Tell him. But I will stay here with this poor woman while you do that. She should n
ot be left alone as carrion for the vultures.”
I called Quinn as I drove toward the winery. “Where are you?”
“Barrel room. Why?”
“Meet me in front of the villa, will you?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
I hung up without answering. It was going to be hard enough to face him in person.
“What is it?” he said when he saw me. Something flickered in his eyes and for a moment, I wondered if he didn’t already know what I was going to say and Pépé had been right to be suspicious.
I told him in simple words. His eyes grew dark but they stayed locked on mine. “My grandfather is with her. I wanted to tell you first but we need to call the sheriff right away.”
I didn’t know what reaction I expected from him—grief, rage, shock. Whatever he felt, he sealed it inside himself and said in a monotone voice that unsettled me more than if he’d been angry or violent, “Then let’s call and get back to your grandfather.” He took my arm. “I’ll drive. You call. Let’s go.”
I hooked my cane on my free arm and pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket again. “You all right?”
“Yup.”
I called 911.
When we got there he jumped out of the Mini and ran ahead of me to where Pépé still watched over Nicole. He knelt, then touched his fingers to his forehead like he was beginning to make the sign of the cross or else shielding his eyes from the horrific sight. By the time I reached the two of them, he was standing again and speaking in a low voice to my grandfather. Still emotionless.
“I appreciate you telling me before the sheriff shows up,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll have a few questions for me. The ex is always a suspect.”
Pépé’s eyes met mine briefly.
“You didn’t do it,” I said. “They’ll find whoever did.”
The wind had a knifelike edge to it in the waning daylight hours. Clouds whited out the mountains so they were nearly invisible against the colorless sky. Pépé tucked his hands under his armpits and I turned up my jacket collar. As near as I could tell Quinn, lost in his own world, wouldn’t have noticed if it started raining locusts.
In the distance came the wail of sirens.