by Ellen Crosby
“Not ‘nowhere.’ Near the place my mother died.”
Thelma worked hard at achieving eternal youth, but mentioning my mother—whom she’d adored—softened her features until the web of lines and wrinkles deepened with sympathy and memory. “I did not know that.”
I finished my blueberry muffin and folded the crumbs into my napkin in a tight, neat square.
“You must have gone there with Luc,” she said. “I know how he misses his daughter.”
“Thank you for getting him those flowers,” I said. “My mother would have loved them.”
Thelma touched the back of her lacquered hair with one hand, ever the coquette. “I’d do anything for that man,” she said. “Did you know every time he comes into the store he kisses my hand? I just plumb love it when he does that. Hold out your hand to any other man around here and he thinks you want to show him your age spots.”
“Really?”
“I only tried it two times, but that was enough.”
I laughed.
“Some of those Romeos could take a page from his book, if you ask me. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, Lucille, but I’ve been studying French for a while. Audio tapes. Works real good. How’s this sound? Mon chapeau est sur ma fesse.”
“You have a good accent,” I said. “But you just said something like ‘my hat is on my ass.’”
“Lordy.” Her color deepened to match her dress. “Maybe I need new headphones.” She paused. “I’ll miss Luc when he leaves. I’d sure like to visit Paris some day.”
She took off her glasses and looked away but not before I saw the longing in her eyes.
“You never know,” I said. “And he’ll be back to visit.”
“Sure he will.” She forced a smile. “So he was with you when you found Nicole Martin. What kind of sick person would leave a body out there for all the animals to find?”
“Someone who didn’t think she’d be discovered for a while. Did you ever meet her?”
“Why, sure I did. She was in a few days before she…passed. On the phone the whole time. So annoying. She could have waited two minutes until she was outside before making those meeting plans, couldn’t she? Instead she’s yakking away right under my nose, just as rude as you please.”
“What day was that?”
Thelma had an encyclopedic memory. “Sunday. ’Bout eleven o’clock.”
“Any idea who she was meeting or what it was about?”
“I’m pretty sure it was a woman.” She tapped her forehead. “Feminine inhibition, you know. At first I thought maybe they were meeting for lunch because she was all dressed up real fancy in a nice-looking suit. Then she said something about ‘being over there’ as soon as she left the store so I guess she was driving to the other woman’s house.”
“What color was the suit?” I asked.
“Reddish-brown. Not one of my colors. Makes my skin look sallow. Why?” She turned pale. “Good Lord, Lucille. That’s what she had on when you found her, isn’t it? That poor woman. Goin’ from my store to her death.”
“It’s also possible she had her meeting and went somewhere else.”
Thelma picked up her glasses and polished the lenses on her sleeve without looking at me. “How’s Quinn taking this? I heard he wasn’t too happy she came to town.”
I didn’t know whether to answer her directly or indirectly. Quinn didn’t kill Nicole and I needed to eliminate that idea from Thelma’s repertoire of possibilities before it went any further.
“He once loved her enough to marry her. So he’s taking her death like you’d think he would. He’s devastated.”
Thelma adjusted her glasses and surveyed me through trifocals. “I don’t suppose you heard about Hamp Weaver,” she said. “He’s moving into the postfuneral planning business.”
Hampton Weaver was a local carpenter who ran a fireworks company—Boom Town Fireworks—on the side. “Post-funeral?”
“It’s kind of a new thing. But I’m sure it’ll catch on real big. For those folks who want to give their loved ones an extraterrestrial experience. A wonderful send-off to their next home.”
I must have looked startled because she said, “Oh, don’t you worry. It’s very tasteful. And Hamp knows his fireworks. He sees it as a different kind of way to spread the ashes of your loved one. Everyone’s going to want to do it. You can even choose the favorite colors of the deceased. You know, personalize the display for that final send-off. There’s lots of possibilities for creativity.”
“Fireworks?”
She stood up. “Most everyone has that reaction, Lucille. It surprises the heck out of you but once you think on it, it’s pretty clever. Let me get you his new business card. You can slip it to Quinn when you think the time is right.”
Which would be never. “I ought to be getting home, Thelma. Thanks for the coffee and I’ll pay you for the muffin. I also need some coffee beans and a loaf of that homemade sourdough bread for my grandfather.”
She caressed the paper bag that held the bread as she put it in a plastic carrier. “You tell Luc I sent this with my love, you hear me? And tell him don’t be a stranger, either. I know he likes red.” She smoothed her dress. “I’m wearing this just in case he drops by today.”
“He does,” I said. “And I’ll tell him.”
“Au revoir,” she said. “And you can also tell him that I’ve got a nice cross-ant waiting here special for him. Dans ma poitrine.”
I knew she meant vitrine, which was the large glass case where she kept all the baked goods, including her croissants. No point mentioning she’d told me instead that she was keeping it in her breast.
So Nicole Martin stopped by the General Store on her way to a meeting with a woman. Dressed in the suit she was killed in.
I drove home, making a mental list of possible candidates. It was pretty short.
Chapter 25
I called the winery on my way back to the house. Frankie answered and said a couple of reporters had phoned about Nicole.
“What’d you tell them?” I asked.
“No comment.”
“Good for you. I just turned my phone on. Looks like I’ve got a bunch of messages.”
“Listen only if it’s someone you know,” she said. “I asked Gina to come in today. Hope you don’t mind, but I thought the boss could use a day off. We can cover anything that comes up.”
I smiled. “The boss wouldn’t mind a day off. Have you seen Quinn?”
“Jesus Lord.”
“Guess that’s ‘yes.’”
“He looked like hell.”
“He needs some sleep. I hope you told him to take a day off, too.”
“I tried. He went to the barrel room to get away from everything. A reporter showed up on his doorstep and wanted to talk to him,” Frankie said.
“What happened?”
“Quinn threw him off the property, then called his hunting buddy to come over and patrol the place. He’s supposed to be shooting crows and what have you, but I think he’s also supposed to put the fear of God into trespassers.”
“The spot near my mother’s cross is still a crime scene, Frankie. The sheriff’s department is coming by to search the place, too.”
“They’ve been here already,” she said. “I think they’re out by where you found Nicole now. Look, why don’t you let me handle all this? Go home and turn your phone off. Take your grandfather out for a drive or just get lost somewhere. There must be something you’d like to do.”
“As a matter of fact,” I said, “there is.”
When I got home around nine-thirty Pépé was still sleeping. I sat across from the bust of Jefferson in the foyer and listened to the messages on my phone. The only call I returned was Kit’s.
She answered on the first ring. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been looking for you everywhere. No one answers at your house and your cell goes straight to voice mail.”
“My grandfather wouldn’t wake up if an army marched through his bedr
oom. I’ve been out.”
“Are you okay, Luce? I heard you two found Nicole.”
“We were visiting my mother’s cross. Whoever killed her left her body near there.”
“Bobby said she was beaten and strangled.”
“I know.”
“How’s Quinn taking it?”
“Like you’d think. He’s in the barrel room trying to work.”
“Look, I’m on my way to a briefing at the sheriff’s department so I’ve got to dash. Why don’t I call you this afternoon?”
“Sure. You’re writing the story?”
“Everybody in the bureau’s working on it.”
“You make any decision on the Moscow job yet?”
She hesitated and my heart sank. She was going to take it. “Yeah,” she said, “as a matter of fact I did. I turned it down.”
I smiled into the phone. “I’m really glad. What changed your mind?”
“Maybe it’s not so bad writing about school board meetings after all,” she said. “And Bobby finally said, ‘Baby, don’t go.’”
“Really? Things must be getting serious.”
“Yeah, sure. Mr. Speedy when it comes to romance. Like watching a glacier melt.” She chuckled at her own joke. “What are you doing today?”
“Errands.”
“Keep your mind off everything, huh? Take care of yourself. Talk to you later, kiddo.”
“Sure.”
I hung up and wrote Pépé a note about the coffee, adding a “p.s.” about Thelma and the bread—though I left out the red dress. My grandfather was sweet and chivalrous to every woman he met because that was his nature, but my grandmother had been the one and only love of his life. Deep down, I think Thelma knew that.
I put the morning newspaper on the coffee table in the library where he liked to read and emptied his ashtray. He’d left a neat pile of copies of the Washington Tribune containing Ryan’s columns. I gathered them up to put in the recycling bin on my way to the car.
If Nicole Martin had a meeting with a woman, there was one other woman—besides me—who didn’t want her leaving town with the Washington wine. Amanda Heyward. Had she tried to stop Nicole? Our relationship had cooled because of Kyra’s vandalism and the fact that I’d made her daughter clean my stone pillars. Quizzing Amanda about Nicole after her body had been found at the vineyard wouldn’t be much of a fence-mender.
I opened the side door to the carriage house and stuffed the copies of the Trib into the recycling bin. The newspaper on top had been folded open to Ryan’s column—the one he wrote about the Washington wine. I picked it up and read it again.
Ryan hadn’t only written about the Margaux, though that was the centerpiece of the article. He’d also mentioned the Domaine de Romanée-Conti and the Château Dorgon. Joe Dawson said Valerie had been upset because of something she’d learned in Bordeaux. I’d always assumed it had been the Margaux since both Valerie and Thomas Jefferson had visited that vineyard. The DRC was a Burgundy—but that also left the Dorgon. A vineyard that no longer existed.
The other night I’d finished reading Jefferson’s European travel diary. It had been a meticulously kept account of everything he saw, down to such mundane observations as the size and composition of bricks found in buildings along the Garonne River. Unlike me, he missed no details.
I went back inside and knocked on the door to Pépé’s bedroom. He answered, sounding sleepy.
“I’m sorry to wake you, but it’s important,” I said.
“Entrez.”
His blue-and-white-striped pajama top had a button undone, revealing a small triangle of pale white skin. His gray hair stuck up in tufts. Seeing him like this instead of dapper in a worn but elegant suit made him seem somehow vulnerable. My throat tightened and I leaned down to hug him, kissing his wrinkled cheek.
“What’s wrong? Sit, ma puce.”
“Do you want to come downstairs for coffee?” I asked. “Thelma sent you some fresh bread, too. In case you change your mind about eating breakfast.”
“You woke me at—” He leaned over and picked up his alarm clock, holding it close to his face so he could read it without his glasses. “Mon Dieu. Nearly ten a.m., to ask me if I wanted breakfast?”
“No, no. I’m sorry. It wasn’t that. I wanted to ask you about the wine Jack Greenfield donated to the auction. Not the Margaux. The other Bordeaux—the Château Dorgon.”
“What of it?”
“Do you know why that château went out of business?”
“The family members who survived the war couldn’t keep it going so they sold it.” He sat back against his crumpled pillow. “Why is this so important?”
“I don’t know. Is there any way you could find out more about that family?”
“I can call someone, if you wish. He spent a lot of time in Bordeaux working with the vineyards in that region once we got funds from the Marshall Plan.”
“That would be terrific.”
He regarded me. “I presume you wish me to make this call now?”
“If you could.”
But his friend wasn’t home, so he left a message.
“What’s going on, Lucie?” he asked.
I told him what Thelma had said about Nicole and the meeting with a woman I guessed was Amanda Heyward.
“What do you plan to do about it?” His eyes were grave. “I hope you’re not going to ask Amanda if she met Nicole?”
“I need to talk to her about the auction,” I said. “I can find an indirect way to ask her about Nicole.”
“Call her.”
“I need to do it in person.”
“Of course you do.” He shook his head. “I don’t think that’s wise.”
I stared at him, arms folded.
“If you insist,” he said at last, “then I’m coming with you. But first I need to take a shower and then I must have some coffee.”
“Take your shower and I’ll make your coffee.”
He glared at me. “I do not want dishwater, especially at this ungodly hour. Thank you, but I’ll make it myself.”
“You sure wake up grumpy,” I said.
“At my age, it is a blessing merely to wake up,” he said. “And now if you’ll excuse me—”
I stood up and grinned. “Of course. I’ll see you in the kitchen.”
The phone in the foyer rang as I came downstairs. Frankie, calling from the villa. I heard her sigh through the phone.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I’m really sorry. I know you don’t need this today and it seems kind of trivial.” She had lowered her voice so I could scarcely hear her.
“What seems trivial? And why are you whispering?”
“Mac Macdonald came by. He wants to leave a donation for the auction. Says it’s a really good bottle of wine, but he wants to give it to you. In person,” she said. “I think he kind of wants to see how you’re doing after finding Nicole yesterday. He’s worried about you.”
Mac owned Macdonald’s Fine Antiques in Middleburg and was one of the Romeos. He’d helped my mother acquire many of the American pieces she’d bought for Highland House over the years and he’d been close to both of my parents.
“I’ll be right over,” I said. Pépé would be a while taking care of his toilette.
“I’m sorry about this,” she said again.
“Don’t worry about it. Can you give Mac a cup of coffee?”
“He’s on his second. I gave him my muffin from Thelma’s, too.”
“You’re a good woman.”
I hollered up the stairs to Pépé that I had an errand at the winery and would be back shortly. Then I got my jacket and car keys.
Frankie had put a couple of pumpkins and a pot of bright yellow mums by the steps to the front door of the villa. One of the pumpkins was darker than the others and the color reminded me of Nicole’s suit. When I got inside, her two carved jack-o’-lanterns—the witch and the werewolf—sat on either end of the bar. Frankie’s smile froze when
she saw my face.
“What’s wrong?” She turned and stared at the pumpkins. “I saw these in the barrel room and thought they’d look great over here. Someone did a terrific job with them. They are meant for the winery, aren’t they?”
“Well, hey there, sugar.” Mac Macdonald came out of the kitchen holding a coffee mug. Tall and stooped with a monk’s tonsure of white hair, Mac’s suits usually hung on his thin, bent frame, reminding me of a well-dressed crane. His eyes traveled from my face to Frankie’s. “Something wrong? Am I interrupting—?”
“No, nothing’s wrong.” I caught Frankie’s eye.
Behind Mac’s back she pointed to the pumpkins and raised her eyebrows, mouthing, “These?”
I nodded and went over to kiss Mac on the cheek. “Frankie said you brought a donation for the auction. How thoughtful.”
Mac and his wallet were close and though he swore every time he sold a piece of furniture or a painting that he was barely making a profit, everyone in town knew better. He and a couple of the Romeos had formed a small investment club that beat the market every year since they’d been in existence, plus Mac had his own portfolio rumored to be in seven figures. It still didn’t stop him from peeling uncanceled stamps off envelopes and reading Thelma’s copy of the Trib each morning when he stopped by for coffee and a doughnut. The donation of a bottle of wine was a surprise.
“I’ve got it right here.” He’d left a cotton tote printed with the logo of Blue Ridge Federal Bank on one of the sofas. “It’s supposed to be pretty good.”
He pulled out a bottle and handed it to me. A jeroboam of Château Latour à Pomerol.
“It’s more than pretty good, Mac. It’s fabulous,” I said. “A Latour à Pomerol will bring in a lot of money.”
“Really?” He seemed surprised and for a moment I wondered if he wasn’t going to reconsider. “Well, he said it was worth a lot.”
“Who did?”
“Shane Cunningham.”
“You bought this at Jeroboam’s?”