The Riesling Retribution wcm-4

by Ellen Crosby

  He tipped his head back and drank more beer. “Your call.”

  If he wasn’t going to bring up last night and what happened with Chance, neither was I.

  I traced a pattern on the tabletop with a finger. “What are you doing tonight?”

  “Babysitting the Riesling.” He set his bottle down. “What’d you expect?”

  “Just wondered. Need any help?”

  “I got it covered.” He swung his feet around and stood up. “Is there anything else?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “See you in the morning.” He walked toward the stainless-steel tanks, which were making quiet gurgling sounds as the glycol coolant circulated between a glass wall and the steel jacket.

  I would have preferred an argument to this deep freeze. We’d gotten mad at each other plenty of times, but this was different and I didn’t like it.

  I finished his beer, which he’d left on the table, and got up to leave. I had no idea if he heard me pull the door shut hard enough that it slammed, or if he even cared.

  Either way, it symbolized the current state of our relationship.

  I fell asleep in the hammock to the soft sound of a steady rain that invaded my mind like white noise, blocking out all thoughts. Saturday was supposed to be another dishrag day of wet weather, but the light that woke me early the next morning held out the surprising promise of clear skies and cool temperatures without the humidity we’re so famous for in summer.

  I checked my phone. Just past six thirty. I sat up and rubbed at the pattern the rough woven fabric had imprinted on my arm. In the kitchen, I made coffee and toasted pieces of baguette. Eli must have done some grocery shopping because I found a plate of cheese in the refrigerator. He’d bought the usual Brie and Camembert, but also splurged on Pont l’Évêque, Brillat-Savarin, and my favorite, Humboldt Fog. I cut some of each for my bread and left the plate on the counter so the cheese would be room temperature when he finally showed up for breakfast.

  After the credit card incident the other day, Eli and I had avoided the subject of whether I needed him to help out today. I hadn’t asked and he hadn’t offered. He’d also told me he finally decided not to take Zeke Lee up on his offer to be a walk-on reenactor for the weekend, though he still planned to show up as a spectator.

  After breakfast I showered, dressed, and drove over to the camp. We had Bush-Hogged the field B.J. wanted to use as a parking lot, but he’d been adamant that the battlefield remain unmowed. As he’d pointed out, nobody cut the grass before the two armies showed up at Ball’s Bluff.

  I parked on the freshly mowed field at the end closest to the campground. At least fifty vehicles belonging to reenactors who’d arrived last night were parked in ragged rows. In another hour the rest of the participants were due to arrive, so that by ten o’clock all tents would be pitched and the camp in working order when it opened to the public.

  I walked past cars and pickups, reading vanity license plates that indicated regiment allegiances or some tie to reenacting. Confederate flags hung across rear windows of pickup trucks along with bumper stickers for the NRA or the Stars and Bars with the slogan “If this flag offends, then study American history.”

  A breeze carried the scent of wood smoke and a mockingbird sang nearby. I followed a path of newly matted-down grass along the creek bank. Cattails grew by the water, and elsewhere I noticed clumps of daisy fleabane, lacy white yarrow, and pokeweed, bent heavy under the weight of its eggplant-colored berries.

  I didn’t see the massed clusters of low-slung white tents until I crossed the bridge and turned left at a sign with an arrow and “CS Camp” painted in black. The sign for the Union troops—“US of A Camp”—was farther down the path, indicating a campsite in the woods. The Confederates obviously got the preferred real estate since they were in the open field.

  Though it was early, the entire Confederate camp seemed to be awake, caught up in the morning routine of dressing, washing up, and cooking breakfast over campfires that blazed next to open-air dining tents. Everywhere I looked men in patched or tattered jackets and trousers, kepis, and rough-looking shoes seemed purposeful and energized in spite of a night camped out in a downpour. The variety of uniforms was striking, but the impoverished South had been too poor to provide clothing and equipment as the war dragged on, so its troops wore homemade versions of the official uniform in a drab rainbow of colors that ran from gray to butternut brown.

  There were fewer women and children than men, but they, too, were dressed in period clothing. The boys wore coarse cotton pants and flannel shirts; the women and girls were graceful and feminine in long hoop-skirted dresses or high-necked white blouses and calico skirts with aprons, hair tucked under bonnets or straw hats with flowing ribbons.

  A man in a red flannel shirt, gray trousers, and khaki suspenders directed me to B.J.’s regiment, the 8th Virginia, which had set up their campsite at the far end of the field. I spotted Virginia’s deep blue flag, with its warrior woman subjugating a fallen man symbolizing tyranny, next to a faded Confederate flag.

  Half a dozen soldiers sat around a pine table under a dining fly talking quietly and drinking coffee.

  I greeted them and asked for B.J.

  “Behind the tents,” someone said. “With his missus.”

  I found B.J. and his wife, Emma, sitting in a pair of low Adirondack chairs. He was in the middle of reading aloud to Emma from a dog-eared pamphlet as she knit something lacy in pale blue and cream.

  Emma saw me first and smiled, setting her knitting in her lap. She wore a brown-and-white sprigged cotton dress and a crocheted hairnet over her white-gold hair.

  “Why, Lucie,” she said, straightening a lace shawl around her shoulders, “how nice to see you, dear. Come join us. Barnaby, pull up a chair for the child.”

  I’d forgotten that B.J.’s first name was Barnaby. He caught my eye and grinned. “Glad you could make it.”

  “How was camping last night?” I sat down in another Adirondack chair.

  Emma shook her head. “We’re getting too old for this. We brought cots and a porta potty for our tent. No more sleeping on the ground. Or latrines.”

  “Emma! You’re supposed to let her think we’re roughing it.” B.J. winked at me.

  “Why don’t you get Lucie a glass of lemonade or a cup of coffee, dear?”

  B.J. seemed not to mind being ordered around by his wife. “What’ll it be?” he asked. “Lemonade’s fresh made from real lemons.”

  I took the lemonade.

  “Are you going to be ready when the gates open?” I asked.

  “Don’t you worry,” he said. “We got all kinds of things planned, besides the usual drilling and some practice on the firing range. I’ll be giving a talk at noon on the battle.”

  “The Black Widow is here,” Emma said. “She’s always a treat.”

  “The who?”

  B.J. chuckled. “A woman who dresses completely in black. Didn’t you see her when you walked through camp? She’s got a knock-your-socks-off exhibit on death and mourning during the Civil War. What she doesn’t know about burials and grieving a hundred and fifty years ago isn’t worth knowing.”

  “Occupational curiosity for a funeral director?” I drank some lemonade.

  He grinned. “You ought to pay her a visit, missy. You might learn a thing or two.”

  “You should hear her talk about the body watchers,” Emma said. “It’s like listening to a ghost story.”

  “The who?”

  “People who sat vigil to make sure the dead person had truly passed.” B.J. shook his head. “Course it doesn’t happen anymore, but those were the days before embalming when they’d put the body on ice. Every so often one of ’em would sit up and scare the bejesus out of folks.”

  He put his thumb and forefinger together so there was no light between them. “Sometimes they’d come that close to burying someone alive.”

  “Barnaby,” Emma said. “Lucie’s gone all pale. Get her some more le
monade, will you?”

  B.J. jumped up and took my tin cup. “Didn’t mean to upset you, honey.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “I never should have brought that up with what you’ve just been through. I’m sorry, dear. It was thoughtless.” Emma picked up her knitting. “How are you coping, by the way? I saw the articles in the paper. One of the tellers at the bank told me the sheriff’s department has decided to close the case. I guess that must be a relief.”

  “Not the way it turned out,” I said. “Especially if everyone in town’s talking about it.”

  “Folks are always going to talk, Lucie,” Emma said. “But they soon forget and life goes on.”

  The sound of a fife floated through the air, followed by the martial beat of a drum. Emma cocked her head to listen as B.J. pulled a cigar out of his pocket and lit up.

  “I always like the music on these weekends,” he said. “Kind of haunts me.”

  We listened to “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.”

  When it had finished I said, “I guess I should be going.”

  The music changed to a sweet, mournful tune I didn’t recognize.

  “I’ll walk with you.” B.J. stood up. “I need to check on Tyler. Make sure he’s okay.”

  “What’s he doing?” I asked.

  “Making his ammunition for tomorrow.”

  “You make your own ammunition?”

  “It’s not hard. Can of gunpowder and a brass loader. It’s basic math. We’re only making blanks, of course. No live ammo.”

  “How can you be sure it’s not live?” I asked.

  “We do safety checks. Don’t worry. There are hardly ever accidents at these events.”

  “BJ. says you might be coming by for the dance tonight with that winemaker of yours,” Emma said. “I know you can’t participate since you won’t be in period clothes, but I think you might enjoy the music.”

  I turned red. That winemaker of mine and I were barely speaking.

  “I’ll try to come, but I don’t know about Quinn. He’s, uh, rather busy in the barrel room at the moment.”

  The music shifted to “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” Great timing.

  “Nonsense,” B.J. said. “Bring him. It’ll do him good.”

  “I hope we’ll see you,” Emma said. “Don’t stay away.”

  Her eyes were bright, but there was something different in the way she looked at me. Was it curiosity? Or pity? Maybe it was both.

  B.J. and Emma knew my parents. I knew what had changed. Everyone in town thought my father was a murderer.

  Quinn called after lunch when I was back at the villa checking on how Frankie and the waitresses from the Goose Creek Inn were coping with the crowds.

  “Don’t expect to see me there today,” he said. “I’m not leaving the barrel room.”

  Yesterday’s chilliness hadn’t thawed, but he also sounded ominous.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been adding the yeast to the Riesling and racking it into new tanks, but I can’t get fermentation to start.”

  That was bad. Without fermentation, we had tanks of grape juice. No wine. Nothing.

  “How many strains of yeast have you added so far?” I asked.

  We had agreed to experiment with three different types of yeast now that it was clear there would be no ice wine. Each one would bring out different esters—the flavors people perceived in the wine—and a different bouquet. Blending them after they fermented would result in a more complex, interesting wine. Or so we hoped. If fermentation didn’t start, something was wrong.

  “Two.”

  I could tell he was worried.

  “Temperature okay?”

  The juice, or must, had just spent a couple of days chilling in the refrigerator truck. Maybe it was still too cold. Until the wine warmed up to a certain temperature, which depended on the strain of yeast, nothing would happen.

  But Quinn would know all that. It was Winemaking 101.

  “I’m going to check again.”

  “Do you think someone could have dumped the yeast into the tank all at once?”

  I racked my brain for all the reasons I could remember why fermentation might not start. Adding the yeast too abruptly was another one. It was like throwing a naked person outside in an arctic snowstorm. The result would be such a bad shock the yeast would die.

  He didn’t sound happy. “If Chance or Tyler had been here I would have said it was a definite possibility. But I’ve got Benny and Javier. They know what they’re doing.”

  “Keep me posted,” I said.

  “When I get a handle on it, you’ll be the second to know.”

  I was glad, at least, he hadn’t said “If.”

  I returned to the battlefield just before two o’clock after Gina called with an SOS that she was swamped at our booth and needed help. A line of cars clogged Atoka Road waiting to get through the south gate, which we had turned into the temporary main entrance for the reenactment. B.J. had arranged for a Scout troop to help manage parking and the sheriff’s department had a cruiser sitting at the gate. I didn’t recognize the officer leaning against his car eating what looked like a pork barbecue sandwich, but he waved me past the backup once I explained who I was.

  Since my last visit, the place had taken on a carnival-like atmosphere. The VFW had set up a canteen-style trailer between the parking lot and the camps, where they sold hot food next to a homemade lemonade and limeade stand run by the Friends of the Loudoun Museum. The business association gave out bottles of water.

  It was a sedate, well-mannered crowd that seemed to consist mostly of families with children. Some were dressed in period clothing, but they moved easily and unself-consciously around the booths as though there were nothing special about their attire. Many congregated at the sutlers’ tents—merchants who traveled from one reenactment to another selling Civil War goods.

  I walked down the alley of large circus-sized tents, peering into open tent flaps at displays of uniforms, tents, cooking utensils, candles, quills, and other old-fashioned items heaped on wooden tables. A lace parasol draped over a tent stay fluttered in the breeze next to a hand-painted sign that read “Virginia Sutlery: Fine Purveyor of All Things Period.” Inside, a table lined with oversized mason jars of bright-colored penny candy caught my eye. Gina had a sweet tooth and she’d been working nonstop. I filled a bag with lemon drops, rock candy, and jelly beans, and was getting out money to pay for it when I heard a familiar female voice. Annabel Chastain.

  “Oh, look. They’ve got licorice sticks,” she said, as I turned and saw her standing in the doorway with Sumner.

  “That’s nice.” He sounded bored.

  What brought them here? I’d thought Sumner had said they were leaving Atoka. Annabel caught sight of me and said something in her husband’s ear.

  “Look, dear, here’s Lucie.” Her smile seemed strained.

  “I didn’t realize you were coming to the reenactment,” I said.

  “I’ll be outside, Annie,” Sumner said, without greeting me. “Come find me when you’re done shopping.”

  “We were visiting your next-door neighbor,” Annabel said. “We saw all the cars as we were driving back to the Fox & Hound. I thought it might be fun to stop by. I didn’t realize it was going to be such a big event.”

  Neither of my immediate neighbors was at home. The Orlandos were in Hong Kong on business. Mick Dunne, my ex-lover, was home in England visiting his ailing mother.

  “Visiting my neighbor?” I said.

  “Mick Dunne. Sumner is looking at one of his jumpers,” she said. “We’re considering purchasing it.”

  I’d forgotten that Tyler had mentioned something about the Chastains looking at a horse.

  “Mick’s in London,” I said.

  “No, he and Selena returned from Cannes about a week ago.”

  “Really?” Selena? His sister? Did he have a sister?

  “Such a beautiful young woman. The
y make quite a good-looking couple. Seem so happy together.” Annabel’s eyes narrowed and she gave me a shrewd look. “Oh, dear. Have I said something inappropriate? I didn’t realize you and Mick had a history—”

  How had she guessed about us?

  “We have a business relationship.” I cut her off. “He’s starting a vineyard and we’ve been helping him out. I’d better pay for this. Excuse me.”

  I turned to the cashier. “How much do I—?”

  Behind me Annabel gasped as though she’d been stabbed by a sharp pain and cried out.

  “You all right, ma’am?” the cashier asked.

  “Mrs. Chastain,” I said. “Annabel. What is it? A heart attack? I’ll get your husband.”

  “No, no—” She clutched her chest with both hands and her eyes were wide with shock. “Don’t.”

  “She ought to sit down,” the cashier said.

  “Can you get her to that chair over there while I find her husband?” I asked. “He’s probably right outside.”

  But as I looked through the tent flap at the passersby, the only person I recognized was Eli, who was talking to someone dressed in a Confederate officer’s uniform. Sumner had vanished into the crowd.

  “Eli! Can you come in here for a minute?” I called to him.

  Behind me, Annabel moaned. “No, please. I don’t need help. Thank you all the same. Not him.”

  “What’s going on?” Eli showed up at my elbow.

  “This is Annabel Chastain,” I said. “She’s not well.”

  “Let’s get her to that chair over there.”

  The cashier transferred Annabel to his stronger arms.

  “It’s okay, ma’am,” he said. “You’re going to be fine.”

  Eli guided her to the wooden chair as the cashier shooed away curious spectators. Annabel still looked pale and she hadn’t taken her eyes off Eli.

  “You’re Leland’s son, aren’t you?” Her voice was soft.

  Eli nodded. “Is there somebody—”

  “No, no. Just give me a minute.”

  As I watched her stare at Eli, I knew now what she’d said a moment ago when she’d cried out. My father’s name. She’d seen Eli before I had. He was a double for Leland, just like I resembled my mother.