The Chardonnay Charade wcm-2

by Ellen Crosby

  “I figured you were there. How come you didn’t pick up the first time? I know you don’t have caller ID. You ducking calls? I hope you’re not avoiding me.”

  I had known Katherine Eastman since we played together in the sandbox. Avoiding her—then, as now—was like trying to avoid gravity.

  I rubbed my eyes. “Why would I be avoiding you? And I’m not ducking calls. At least, not yet.”

  “I’m writing one of the stories about Georgia. You found her.”

  Kit, a reporter with the Washington Tribune, had been an ascending star on the national desk, destined for the White House beat, until her mother had a stroke. The doctor didn’t pull any punches about how much care Faith Eastman would need. The next day Kit put in for a transfer to the rural Loudoun Bureau, the journalistic equivalent of asking to be moved from the express lane to the parking lot. If she minded the free-fall consequences to her career, she never complained or said she regretted her decision to be there for her mother.

  “One of the stories? How many are you guys writing?”

  “It’s big news. Jerry Roper covered the crime scene. I’m supposed to write the feature—you know, the human-interest story,” she said. “How’d you happen to find her out there? Jerry said she was completely disfigured.”

  “We’d been out all night with the grapes because of the freeze and I was driving home. Did Jerry see her? God, she looked awful. Her face was covered with open sores and blisters like she’d been burned.” I could hear the tap of Kit’s computer keys. “Are you writing this down?”

  “Of course. What else? Any idea who was with her last night?”

  “The whole town was with her last night. Your boyfriend asked for our guest list, along with everyone who was working there.” Kit and Bobby Noland had been seeing each other for the last nine months. Any day now I wondered if I’d get the invite to be a bridesmaid. “You get any information out of Bobby?”

  “You know he can’t talk. You, on the other hand, can. How about dinner? I’ll pick you up. We can go to the Inn.”

  She’d been brusque when she mentioned Bobby. If there was trouble in paradise, it was news to me. “What’s up with you love-birds? Did I say something?”

  “Nothing’s up.” Terse, again.

  Which meant there was. “Why don’t we eat here? There’s not much in the fridge, but you’re welcome to what I’ve got. Besides, don’t you have to get home to your mom?”

  “My aunt is in town for a visit, so she’s looking after her. She thinks my social life is stagnating, so I’m supposed to go out every night while she’s here.”

  “That’s a nice offer.”

  “Yeah, but I can’t get in before midnight or she’s disappointed. I’m too beat at the end of the day to take myself out to a movie or hit a bar. Some nights I just work later.”

  “I’m sure that wasn’t what she had in mind. And why are you going out by yourself? Did you and Bobby break up and you didn’t tell me?”

  “Have dinner with me,” she pleaded. “We can talk then.”

  “Come here and I’ll cook.”

  “No offense, but I want more than the rabbit food you usually have on hand. Let’s go to the Inn.”

  “I’m really grimy. I need a shower.”

  “So take one. I’ll book us a table. Pick you up in forty-five minutes.”

  I got out of bed and retrieved my clothes off the floor. My mobile phone fell out of my jeans pocket, landing on the bed. Dead as a doornail.

  I plugged it in to the charger next to the answering machine downstairs as I was on my way out the door. Then I called Ross. A woman answered.

  “Greenwood residence.”

  “Siri?” I should have figured she’d be there looking after him. She was devoted to Ross, in awe of the way he’d been turning the clinic around ever since she’d persuaded him to take the job as chief physician. “It’s Lucie.”

  “Hi, honey.” She sounded weary, but relieved. “The press has been calling nonstop, hounding him. Ross is absolutely shattered. He’s asleep, so I’m manning the fort.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Nothing, nothing. Thanks for asking. The best thing now is to leave him alone and give him some time to deal with what’s happened. He might be better tomorrow, but tonight he’s…well, it’s pretty bad. I’ll let you know when he’s ready to see friends.”

  “Sure. I’d appreciate it.” I said goodbye and hung up.

  Siri had lost her husband to lung cancer three years ago. It had been only a few weeks from the time Karl Randstad was diagnosed, after complaining of chest pains when he returned from his daily three-mile run, until he passed away. He hadn’t touched a cigarette a day in his life. No one could believe it.

  Karl and I had been patients at Catoctin General Hospital at the same time, though he was in the oncology wing and I was, by then, in a general ward. Siri made a point of stopping by to see me each day for a few minutes when she wasn’t keeping vigil at Karl’s bedside. We didn’t know each other well, but I was Ross’s patient and she had just opened the clinic and was in the process of persuading Ross to come work for her.

  I suppose I will always remember when Karl died, for the irony of it. He was scheduled to begin chemo the next day. That afternoon Siri stopped by to see me as usual, and for the first time since they found out about the cancer she’d sounded upbeat and hopeful.

  I couldn’t make it to his funeral, but Ross told me later there wasn’t a dry eye in the church. I lost touch with Siri when I moved to France, but when I came home to Atoka, I’d been stunned the first time I saw her. Her once-glossy shoulder-length dark brown hair was prematurely streaked with gray and the worry lines around her eyes and her mouth belonged on someone much older.

  Kit’s khaki-colored Jeep pulled into the driveway just as I finished dialing Quinn. His phone went to voice mail.

  “If you’re getting this message, I’m not available. You know what to do. Here comes the beep, so do it.”

  “Hi. Me. I’m going out to dinner with Kit,” I said. “My cell phone’s dead, so leave a message at the house if you need me. Otherwise I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  Kit pulled a map book and some papers off the dashboard and crumpled a large empty chip bag as I opened the door to the Jeep, tossing it all in the backseat.

  “Climb in.” She picked up a cloth satchel from the passenger seat and flung it over her shoulder. “I’ve made room.”

  The floor was littered with copies of the Trib, a battered tissue box, a water bottle, and a greasy bag in a Styrofoam tray that held the remains of a meal. Not today’s.

  “Where am I going to put my feet? You don’t have to keep this stuff in perpetuity, you know. That’s why they make garbage cans.” I moved the tray with the tip of my cane and sat down. “I just stepped on something squishy.”

  “So that’s where the bubble-wrap mailer went.” She sounded cheerful. “Hand it to me, will you? My mom bought something from one of those home shopping channels and I’m sending it back.”

  I slid an envelope out from under a file folder and gave it to her. “What’d she buy? Must have been tiny, to fit in here.”

  “A lace teddy. Cost a fortune.”

  “Good for her. Why can’t she keep it? Too expensive?”

  “Too small. She thought she ordered a size twenty, but a size two showed up.”

  “Oh, brother. Hey, do me a favor? Go through the parking lot at the winery and take the south service road. I want to see what the police and the hazmat guys did to the place. We had every cruiser, fire truck, and emergency vehicle in two counties here this morning.”

  “You don’t have to ask me twice. I’m dying to see it.” She glanced at me. “You know I didn’t mean that.”

  When we got there, she stopped the Jeep and we got out of the car. The ground where Georgia’s body had lain was still waterlogged. Ross hadn’t been kidding about the decontamination process.

  Kit read my mind. “I heard they had to turn
the fire hoses on Georgia to wash that pesticide off her.”

  I nodded and touched my fingers to my lips.

  “You okay, Luce?” Kit squeezed my shoulder. “You look like you’re going to lose your cookies.”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “What kind of sicko would do something like this?”

  “Someone who knew about the methyl bromide being left out in the field. Or saw it when we were setting up for the fund-raiser.”

  “Well, it had to be premeditated. Man, I heard about that stuff not being locked up. That is such bad news.”

  “I know.” I shivered. “Okay, I’ve seen enough. Let’s get out of here while there’s still daylight left. It’s getting cold again, too.”

  Kit drove too fast as usual, one hand on the wheel and the other gesticulating as she talked. By tacit agreement, we avoided discussing Georgia’s murder, my EPA woes, or her relationship with Bobby. Instead she asked about Chris Coronado’s helicopter and last night’s freeze and I answered halfheartedly. I needed food. And a drink.

  The Goose Creek Inn sat on a quiet country lane about ten minutes from the center of Middleburg. For anyone who didn’t know exactly where it was—meaning the nonlocals—it seemed to materialize suddenly out of the woods around a sharp bend in the road. A pretty half-timbered ivy-covered building whose silhouette was now outlined by tiny white lights, it glowed softly in the gathering twilight as if plucked out of a fairy tale. Kit pulled into the parking lot as waiters illuminated electric candles in the arched picture windows. We found a space at the far end of the nearly full lot. When we got out of the Jeep, the cathedral-like canopy of trees overhead hushed all sound except for rushing water where Goose Creek tumbled through a boulder-filled ravine nearby.

  “Too bad it’s too cold to eat outside. It’s nice sitting on the terrace so you can hear the creek,” Kit said.

  “At least it won’t be as cold as last night,” I said. “The temperature’s supposed to stay above freezing, thank God.”

  A wreath of dried flowers and rushes hung on the fire-engine-red front door. I pushed against the latch and it swung open. My late godfather, Fitzhugh Pico, had opened the Inn many years ago and it had won every dining award in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., region. My cousin Dominique, Fitz’s former business partner, now owned the place and wisely changed nothing when she took over, so guests still felt like they were dropping by for dinner at the home of good friends.

  The large foyer was full of dark-suited men and pretty women. Fitz had consulted my French mother on the Inn’s décor and as a result, the place resembled a comfortable auberge with its whitewashed walls, quarry-tiled floor, and eclectic collection of gaily hued oil paintings and vintage posters advertising French alcohol, cigarettes, and travel. At night the staff wore tuxedos, so the three men who hovered near the maître d’s stand debating the seating plan reminded me of a small flock of well-groomed penguins.

  “Lucie.” The head maître d’ bussed me on both cheeks. “Ma pauvre. Dominique told me what happened. I’m so glad you came to see us. We’ll take care of you.” He nodded to Kit. “Bonsoir, Katherine. Always a pleasure having you here. Your table is nearly ready. Would you like to wait in the bar un petit instant while we finish setting it?”

  A buzz of conversation above the clatter of dishes and the clinking of silverware seemed vaguely comforting. I could see through the warren of interconnected rooms that all the tables appeared to be taken.

  I said, “No, thanks” as Kit said, “Yes.”

  Kit’s eyes narrowed. “Why not? You could use a drink, if you ask me.”

  “I could, but I just saw a couple of the Romeos in the bar. You know they’re going to hit me up for every detail about what happened. I don’t think I can handle it right now.”

  The maître d’ swiftly picked up two menus. “I have a table available right now. In the main dining room, not where you usually sit, and not terribly private. Will that be satisfactory? Otherwise…”

  Kit nodded as I said, “Perfect.”

  “I’ll let your cousin know where you’re sitting. Enjoy your dinner.”

  Kit got her earlier wish—almost—as our table was next to a window overlooking Goose Creek. A necklace of Japanese lanterns strung along its banks shone serenely in the darkness. I could no longer see the water except in places where it glinted, shiny and black as coal in the lantern light, nor hear it above the din of voices.

  Our waiter took drink orders, but it was my cousin who showed up with two glasses. Not what we’d asked for.

  “Kir Royal. On the house.” Dominique set the flutes of raspberry-colored champagne in front of us. “How are you, ma puce?” She brushed a spiky strand of auburn hair out of her eyes and leaned down to kiss each of us on both cheeks.

  Before Dominique became the full-time owner of the Inn, she ran a catering company that she’d nurtured from a startup when she moved here from France to look after Mia when my mother died. Before long she was putting in Washington-type sixty-and seventy-hour weeks and business was booming. Everyone figured she’d get an assistant once she added the Inn to an overfull plate, but by then she’d been named Loudoun County’s businesswoman of the year and you don’t stomp on superwoman’s cape, to loosely paraphrase the song.

  A few months later she came down with pneumonia brought on by exhaustion and finally decided maybe she could use a little help. She went through three assistants in three months and had just hired her fourth. Fortunately, my cousin hadn’t been around at the time or she probably would have micromanaged God into taking only five days instead of seven to get the ball rolling creation-wise.

  “I’m all right,” I said. “Thanks for the Kir.”

  “I heard about Georgia from Sam Constantine,” she said. “Mon Dieu, how awful!”

  “How did Sam know?” I asked.

  “He was with Ross at the sheriff’s office.”

  Sam was one of the Romeos, even though he was still a year or two away from retirement.

  “Ross needed a lawyer?” I had been reaching for my champagne glass and nearly knocked it over. Dominique rescued it before it tipped. “Sorry,” I apologized. “Ross is home now. I just spoke to Siri Randstad. She’s answering his phone and trying to keep the press at bay.” I glanced at Kit, who made a face. “I didn’t mean you. Anyway, Siri didn’t mention that Ross had been charged with anything.”

  “He wasn’t,” my cousin said. “Sam was just there making sure nothing happened to Ross’s Second Amendment rights.”

  Dominique was finally getting her U.S. citizenship and was hoping to be sworn in just before Flag Day, after she took a test in civics and American history.

  “The Second Amendment,” Kit said, fishing a raspberry out of her champagne flute with her finger, “is the right to bear arms.”

  “Merde. One of the other ones, then.”

  “Ross has the best alibi in the world,” I said. “He delivered twins last night. Got the call before the fund-raiser ended. When I reached him this morning to tell him about Georgia, he was just driving home.”

  “The police always check out whoever is closest to the victim first,” Kit said. “You know that.”

  “I’d better get back to the kitchen.” Dominique glanced over her shoulder. “They probably need me there. By the way, the pastry chef made Fitz’s Double Chocolate Died-and-Gone-to-Heaven Cheese-cake.” She glanced at Kit. “In case you’re interested.”

  Kit rolled her eyes. “I couldn’t. Okay, I shouldn’t.”

  “Go on back to work, then,” I said to my cousin. “We won’t keep you. I’ll call your assistant in a day or two to go over the plans for Memorial Day.”

  “What number assistant is this?” Kit asked when we were alone. “Eight?”

  “Four. Dominique swears she’ll let this one handle the catering business, but for now she’s got her on a short leash.”

  “The only leashes she owns are short. Speaking of which, is she ever going to marry Joe?”r />
  Joe Dawson taught history at a private girls’ high school in Middleburg and occasionally helped out at the vineyard. He’d been going out with Dominique for years.

  “Who knows? They’re engaged, but I think the wedding’s on hold for a while. She’s too busy to plan anything at the moment.”

  “You know, it ought to be against the law to make that cheesecake. The diet starts tomorrow. I mean it.”

  Kit had gained at least twenty-five pounds during the two years I’d been in France. Every day the diet started tomorrow.

  I smiled as her mobile phone, which was lying on the table next to her bread plate, started to vibrate. She picked it up and stared at the display. “Well, will you look at that? Quinn Santori. I bet it’s for you.”

  Kit opened the phone and said, “She’s right here. Hang on.”

  I stood up, reaching for my cane. “I’ll take this outside. Excuse me.”

  He was none too happy at waiting on me. When I said hello, he snapped, “I’ve been chasing you all over two counties. I finally called Faith Eastman and got this number. Where are you?”

  “You had to track me down through Kit’s mother? I’m at the Goose Creek Inn. What’s up?”

  “Unfortunately, nothing is up. I just checked the sensors in those low-lying fields. The temperature’s dropped pretty fast in the past hour. Harry Dye’s going to turn on his turbines again tonight. I can’t get hold of Chris Coronado, so it’s just you, me, Hector, and anyone else we can round up to try to deal with this. You need to get back here right now.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said, stunned. “It’s going below freezing again?”

  “Yup. Another killing frost. And this time we’re not ready.”

  Chapter 4

  Kit looked like I’d stabbed her through the heart when I told her I had to leave immediately. She was only slightly mollified when our waiter boxed our meals to go and included an extra-large piece of cheesecake for her. I gave him an outrageous tip and we left.