The Chardonnay Charade wcm-2 Read online

  “It’s a chemistry experiment?”

  I couldn’t tell if he was surprised or disappointed. “In the lab, yes. Here, it’s the wine to enjoy with our dinner.”

  Someone’s mobile phone rang.

  “Mine.” Ross twisted around to get it off the sideboard and glanced at the text in the window. “Marty. Excuse me.”

  I heard him say, “What’s up?” as he left the room.

  “Who’s Marty?” Mick glanced from Siri to me.

  “One of the doctors from the clinic,” Siri said. “He moonlights for the medical examiner’s office. Ross asked Marty to let him know when the autopsy was finished.”

  “Marty didn’t do the autopsy, did he?” I asked.

  Siri shook her head. “No, the chief ME did it in Fairfax. But Marty was at the crime scene. Ross asked especially for him. He wanted Marty to take care of her.”

  “I thought they already determined the cause of death,” Mick said.

  “Not until they finish the autopsy,” Siri told him.

  No one spoke after that until Ross walked back into the dining room. He picked up his wineglass and drained it. I’d been watching him this evening and, though I didn’t intend to, had been counting how many drinks he’d had. Too many.

  “The ME is finished,” he said, and this time the alcohol leached through into his speech, which was sounding a bit slurred. “The PERK exam showed she had sex before she died. And whoever killed her knocked her out first. They found a bruise on the back of her head. She was struck with something.”

  We were all silent. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Ross.

  Finally Mick cleared his throat. “Any idea what it was she got hit with?” he asked.

  “No.” Ross glanced around the room and his eyes rested on me. They were dull and cloudy with booze. My heart ached for him. “I’m sorry, Lucie, but you’re going to have the sheriff’s department at the vineyard tomorrow morning, tearing the place apart. They’re going to take another look around since they didn’t find whatever it was the first time.”

  I nodded.

  We had five hundred acres of land. A lot of territory. Although it seemed whoever killed Georgia had stayed within the perimeter of the vineyard, rather than venturing into the woods and fields beyond.

  Which meant Ross might be right. Randy Hunter, who’d supposedly been having an affair with Georgia, could very well find himself right in the middle of the sheriff’s crosshairs. Except for one thing.

  He was gone.

  As Ross warned, the sheriff’s department showed up the next morning in full force. Bobby had called the night before after I got home from Ross’s, as a courtesy. “My officers are going to walk the crime scene grid again,” he said. “We’re going to take a closer look at your equipment buildings, places like that. See you bright and early.”

  “Do you know what you’re looking for?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he sighed. “A needle in a haystack. We didn’t find anything first go-round. We might not find anything this time, either. But we gotta look. And I want to talk to your crew again, too.”

  A couple of the officers who showed up the next morning spoke Spanish, but Bobby wanted Hector and Quinn to interpret because our crew looked so scared.

  Afterward I sat with Quinn on the stone wall in the courtyard staring at the comforting view of the serene Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance and the well-ordered rows of vines in the foreground. The cloudless sky was so sharply blue it hurt my eyes and the air was clear and sweet. Hector’s wife, Sera, had just finished planting all the flowers now that the frost danger had passed and the weather had become more springlike. Everywhere I looked, halved wine barrels overflowed with pink, white, and purple petunias, and the mossed baskets, which hung throughout the loggia, spilled over with dark red fuchsia and lacy white geraniums. The courtyard looked lovely.

  “The guys were afraid Bobby was going to yank their green cards. They didn’t believe he only wanted to know about Georgia.” Quinn pulled a cigar out of a shirt pocket. Yet another Hawaiian design, part of the extensive collection that had become his trademark fashion statement. This one, yellow and brown with dancing monkeys and bananas all over it, had to be a favorite, since he wore it so often.

  “The police didn’t find the murder weapon this time, either,” I said. “Maybe Randy took it with him.”

  Quinn unwrapped his cigar. “You really got Randy pegged for this?”

  “Looks like you were right about him and Georgia having an affair. Ross confirmed it. Last night he showed me a note that came back with Georgia’s dry cleaning. Someone asked her to meet up at ‘the usual place’ after the fund-raiser,” I said. “Ross is pretty sure Randy wrote the note. Apparently he came by all the time to deliver groceries. That’s when Ross reckoned it started. The note said something about an apology. I bet it all went south and maybe Randy lost his temper.”

  “Ross has a note from Randy?” Quinn lit the cigar and puffed on it. “Pretty convenient, don’t you think? Deflects suspicion from the husband.”

  “Ross did not kill Georgia,” I snapped. “He was delivering twins that night. Look, I like Randy and I don’t want to believe it, either, but Georgia’s dead and he’s gone.”

  “I thought you told me this morning the medical examiner said she had sex with someone before she died. Not the thing you do before you kill somebody, is it? At least, I don’t.” He tugged on a thick gold chain he wore around his neck. I used to think it was odd he wore more jewelry than I did, but I’d finally gotten used to it.

  I blushed and reached down to pick up a handful of stones from the gravel courtyard, and let them sift through my fingers. “We won’t go there. Maybe it wasn’t consensual. Or maybe it wasn’t Randy and he found out about it and lost his temper.”

  “The fact that she had sex with somebody other than Ross still gives him the strongest motive for killing her.”

  “Then explain why Randy disappeared right after Georgia was murdered,” I countered.

  Quinn shrugged. “Maybe he did go fishing.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “All right, then you explain the methyl bromide. Why not just kill her with whatever she got hit with?” he asked.

  “Because the blow didn’t kill her, so he had to use something else to finish the job. The methyl bromide canisters were right there. Those fields aren’t that far from the barn. Randy knew where to find everything, and besides, he could have kept the protective gear he wore when he put up the warning signs.”

  Quinn shook his head. “Doesn’t sound like Randy, all that premeditated stuff.”

  “You mean the same Randy who told us he was using the barn for band practice and then set it up as a little hideaway for trysts with a married woman?”

  He blew a perfect smoke ring, then watched it vanish. “There’s a big difference between lust and murder.”

  “I don’t know about that. With either one, you get caught up in something that makes you lose your head.” I reached for my cane and stood up. “I’d better get over to Middleburg. We need the payroll money and you want that check for the rootstock. Maybe I’ll stop by Mac’s antique store as long as I’m in town.”

  “And do what?” Quinn stood up, too. “See if Mac knows anything about where Randy’s gone? Honey, I got news for you. Bobby sent somebody to talk to Mac first thing this morning. I heard him. You better not get in the way of a murder investigation, playing amateur detective.”

  “Give me a little credit,” I said. “I’m trying to help a friend.”

  “I take it you mean Ross,” he said, “and that boy is going to need all the help he can get. With no alibi and a damn good motive for murder—better than Randy’s, if you ask me—it doesn’t look so good for him.”

  “I know that,” I said. “Believe me, I know.”

  Chapter 7

  I took care of my banking at Blue Ridge Federal and accepted the offer of an unnaturally bright blue lollipop from the septuagenarian teller.<
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  “What flavor is this?” I pulled off the wrapper.

  “Blue,” she said. “Enjoy.”

  I finished it before I got to Mac’s store. He meant it about no eating or drinking around his antiques. I’d once watched him ask a customer to leave because she was chewing gum.

  Macdonald’s Antiques was located in a graceful old Federal building on the corner of Washington and Jay Streets in the center of downtown Middleburg. The town, founded in the mid-1700s, had once been the midway stop on the main stagecoach road between Alexandria and Winchester—which was how it got its name. Long before that, the area had been the hunting ground of the Sioux Indians.

  More than three centuries later, hunting was still popular, though it was now the gentleman’s sport of fox-hunting. In the early 1900s wealthy Northerners had rescued our sleepy little region from the severe economic hardship we suffered during the Civil War. As more and more people moved to the area, we were back on the map, but this time as the wealthy heart of Virginia’s horse and hunt country.

  A small bell on the front door tinkled as I walked into Mac’s store. He was sitting at the large partner’s desk where he did all his paperwork, talking on the phone. I got a wave, then he twirled a finger to indicate that he’d only be a moment and I should have a look around.

  I could look to my heart’s content, but I already knew everything in the place was way out of my price range, since it had probably belonged to a famous Virginian like Washington, Jefferson, or Stonewall—or one of their kin. I ran my hand across the silky wood of a burled walnut end table with mother-of-pearl inlay, then propped my cane against a chair with a pretty back that resembled a lyre. The price of the table was on the reverse side of a tag decorated with Mac’s familiar hand-stenciled pineapple logo, the colonial symbol for “welcome.” I turned it over.

  “Good Lord.”

  “You interested in that table, Lucie?” Mac asked. I hadn’t heard him hang up the phone, nor come up behind me. He shifted my cane so it rested against the wall instead of his expensive chair.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you, sugar,” he continued. “I can come down a bit on that price. It’s a beautiful piece. Belonged to the Lee family. Wonderful provenance.”

  “Robert E. Lee?”

  “No, not Robert. Someone who was kin to an earlier Lee. Francis Lightfoot Lee. Friend to Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry.”

  Off by nearly a century. Which explained the sum he was asking for it. I turned the price tag back over. “It’s beautiful, Mac. Too rich for my blood, unfortunately.”

  “What brings you here, then? Social visit?”

  “Randy hasn’t shown up at the vineyard the past two days. I was wondering if he said anything to you about taking off for a while.”

  Mac was one of the Romeos, white-haired and somewhat stooped, with a beaky nose and keen eyes, reminding me of a well-dressed crane, since he always wore a suit. He folded his arms and tapped his fingers on his forearms. “I just finished answering that very same question for a nice young fellow from the sheriff’s office. Why are you asking, honey? What’s going on? I assume this is about Georgia Greenwood. You know something, don’t you?”

  The second fastest way to spread news besides telling Thelma Johnson at the general store was to mention something to one of the Romeos.

  I never play poker. My face gives me away every time.

  “I thought you might.” He nodded wisely. “I talked to Sammy Constantine over at the Inn yesterday. He was with Ross when the sheriff’s boys were questioning him. Is Randy a suspect, too? Nice young fellow. I find it hard to believe that he’d be involved with that woman.”

  “You didn’t like Georgia, did you?”

  “I don’t like anybody engages in character assassination to further their own ambitions.” He rapped his knuckles sharply on the walnut table. “The things she said about Noah Seely were hateful.”

  “Harry Dye got pretty upset with her at the fund-raiser the other night, too.”

  “I heard about that,” he acknowledged. “Good for Harry. Georgia lied about Noah being endorsed by that gay rights magazine, the one with those extreme ideas about marriage and legalizing drugs. Sure they supported Noah. Fifteen years ago when he was trying to get Virginia wildflowers planted along highways and roadsides. A whole different ball game.”

  “I remember that wildflower project,” I said. “My mother designed the poster for it.”

  “So she did,” Mac said, “now you mention it. Very classy. Just like your sweet momma, God rest her soul.”

  He laid a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Lucie, but I don’t know where Randy went. That’s what I told the sheriff. Trout are biting, though. Bass, too. He might have just picked up and gone fishing.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Maybe that’s just what he did.”

  “That’s all you wanted? Sure I can’t interest you in making a little purchase today?”

  “If I win the lottery, I’ll be back.”

  He laughed. “Hang on a sec. I got something that might be right up your alley. Just came in, too. Let me show you before you leave.” I followed him over to a trestle table where antique prints were arranged by subject in a row of toile-covered boxes. He went directly to the box labeled “Nature” and picked up two prints from the front of the stack.

  “Beautiful, aren’t they? Fellow just brought them in last week. Native Virginia wildflowers. Just what we were talking about. These two are probably mid-nineteenth century. Look at the colors, though. Still so vivid.”

  “Virginia bluebells! How pretty,” I said softly. “And a columbine! They are beautiful.”

  “Thought you’d like them,” he said. “There was a book, too, but I sold it almost as soon as I bought it.”

  “A book of prints like these? I wish I could have seen it.”

  “I can keep an eye out for something like it, if you want.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” I said. “How much for these?”

  “One-fifty for the pair. I can have them framed if you like,” he offered, adding gently, “I know you lost a lot of your mother’s paintings in the fire.”

  I bit my lip. “We tried to save what we could, but we did lose so much of her work. I think I’ll take them like they are, though. Quinn and I are looking for ideas for new wine labels. These prints would be great, as long as I can find a few others from the same era.”

  Mac looked mournful. “Shame about that book, then. Sounds like just what you needed. I’ll see what I can do for you, sugar.”

  I paid him and as he walked me to the front door, I brought the conversation back to Georgia. “I bet there’s a lot of speculation among the Romeos about who killed her.”

  It was all the opening he needed.

  “She riled a lot of people, Lucie. Including you vineyard folks. It sure would take the shine off your shoes if she’d gotten that dang-fool bill passed about vineyards going through wholesalers to sell their wine. I know she’s trying to keep kids from getting hold of alcohol so easily but I got one word for that. P-A-R-E-N-T-S.” He sounded like a church preacher getting ready to deliver a stem-winder. “Why should she rain on everyone else’s parade? You know that would be the death of the little vineyards. They bring in a lot of revenue from tourism and from selling wine. I rely on that kind of traffic. But then you got the other folks who still think it’s demon alcohol, or whatever, like Prohibition days. She’s talking their language. Or was.”

  “You think her death could have been politically motivated?”

  He folded his arms across his chest once again and drummed his fingers on his forearms. “Honey-child, when this all comes out in the wash, I bet we’re going to find that there was a lot more to who killed Georgia Greenwood than meets the eye.”

  When I got back to the Mini, I checked my phone. One missed call, Dominique’s number. I hit the send button and she answered on the first ring.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “Middleburg.”


  “If you haven’t had lunch, come by. I have your menus for Memorial Day.”

  “I’ll come, but I thought your assistant was handling the vineyard catering.”

  A long moment of silence, then she said, “Well, she would be, but she’s busy with other things. I’m taking care of it this time.”

  “Right. See you in a few minutes.” I disconnected.

  Dominique couldn’t let go of the reins to any of her projects. I wondered how much longer assistant number four would stick around.

  The lunch crowd had thinned out by the time I got to the Inn, so today I got a parking place close to the entrance. I drove by the four designated handicapped spots near the front door, all empty. Ross had been after me to get handicapped license plates, but I told him that they belonged to disabled people who really needed them. Not me. I could walk on my own just fine.

  Harry Dye came out of the Inn as I crossed the flagstone terrace. He looked up and our eyes met. Just as quickly he looked away.

  “Aw, gee, Harry,” I muttered. “Let’s get this over with. You saw me. I saw you.”

  On cue, he changed direction and came toward me. Normally he and I were on the phone, or he talked to Quinn, on a regular basis. We shared information, workers, equipment, and advice, since our vineyards were located within a couple miles of each other. He had not called since the party. It would be good to get this awkwardness behind us.

  “Lucie! How are you?” Harry leaned over for a kiss, sounding hearty enough, but his eyes slid away from mine. A decorated Marine who’d put in his time on the battlefield, he’d spent the last years of his career at the Pentagon. Quinn liked him, especially because he was so level-headed and matter-of-fact. Something really pushed Harry over the edge, for him to take on Georgia at the fund-raiser. An officer and a gentleman didn’t bawl out a lady—as a rule.

  “I’m all right. How about you?”

  He shook his head regretfully. “Still in the doghouse with Amy. I may never get out. And then Georgia…God, Lucie, I can’t tell you how bad I feel about that. It must have been awful, finding her the way you did.”