by Lanyon, Josh
“Where’s he been the last fifteen years?” Cormac inquired sourly.
“I just can’t see why anyone, including the colonel, would want to bash poor old Dom’s head in,” Carson said with what Austin thought was remarkable indifference for a former lover. “It’s not like he ever did anyone any harm.”
“He was a gambler, a womanizer, and a lousy driver,” Cormac retorted.
“Oh, that’s true. You did have that fender bender with him.”
“He damn near took the front of my pickup off. And then he tried to claim I rear-ended him.”
Austin felt someone’s gaze. He looked up, and Jeff was studying him intently. Their gazes tangled, and Jeff looked away, his expression self-conscious. For some reason that awkward moment brought warmth to Austin’s face and an unexpected stirring in his groin.
This was getting weirder and weirder. Given the little he knew about the South, he did not want to misinterpret curiosity for interest. That might get him lynched.
“The Williams women were always teched,” Auntie Eudie commented. “But I never heard anything about the men.”
“Well, if Henrietta was Dom’s sister instead of his wife, I guess that would make sense,” Carson said. “She’s more than teched.”
They fell silent at the sound of raised voices down the hall. A few seconds later Roark returned, flapping his arms impatiently, although no one appeared to be accompanying him. “I don’t need any help!”
The rest of the Cashels observed him with polite interest.
Roark headed for his chair again. His bleary gaze fell on Austin. “They want to see you now.”
Austin set his plate aside and went into the hallway. The young sheriff stood in an open doorway a few yards down. “This way, sir.”
Austin followed him into what had once been a large ballroom. It was the length of three large rooms. The floors were of dark wood. Three huge pink-and-amber chandeliers studded the pale blue ceiling. The ceiling was decorated with ornate white plaster moldings and medallions of classical scenes: centaurs chased nymphs, nymphs chased centaurs, warriors battled warriors.
At the far end of the of the room, next to long windows covered by dark blue draperies, sat Captain Thompson at a small writing desk. He looked up at Austin’s approach.
“Sit down, Mr. Gillespie.”
Austin sat on a fragile-looking, lyre-backed chair.
“How you doing?”
“Okay.”
“You’re probably wondering why we’ve kept you till the last to talk to.”
“Sort of.”
“Jeff Brady tells us you’re a stranger to this house and this family, and we thought your observations as an outsider might be interesting.” At Austin’s blank look, Captain Thompson added, “Or maybe not. I guess we’ll see.” He studied his notes.
“Why don’t we start with who you are and what you’re doing here?”
Austin went quickly through the basics.
“And what exactly does a master of wine do?”
Short answer: masters of wine were the industry leaders in all aspects of the global wine business, but Austin could just imagine how that answer would go down. “It’s a professional qualification. It basically means I’ve completed the Institute of Masters of Wine’s two-year program.”
“But what do you do? Do you just drink wine all day?”
This was starting to feel like one of those all-too-familiar family-dinner discussions. Austin was very proud of his master-of-wine status. He was not only one of the few American masters of wine; he was one of the youngest, period. It was a notable achievement, but to people outside the industry, it probably seemed as useless as a degree in basket weaving.
“Masters of wine do a variety of things. Some are vintners, some are winemaking consultants, some work in the restaurant-and-hotel business, some are educators. I buy and auction wine for Martyn, North, & Compeau, which is one of the oldest and most respected wine shops in North America. I host wine tastings, I contribute articles to magazines, I write a weekly blog on wine and a syndicated monthly column for several newspapers…”
Thompson and the other sheriff looked singularly unimpressed.
“I do a lot of things,” Austin finished lamely.
“And do you make money at that? Drinking wine and talking about it?”
“I…make enough. My family is…”
“Rich?” supplied Captain Thompson when Austin stalled out.
“Comfortable.”
“Seems like a job for a rich man,” Captain Thompson remarked. It wasn’t particularly critical, just an observation. “So you came down here from DC to inventory old Dermot Cashel’s wine cellar. Seems like a long way to travel. How come the Cashels didn’t get someone local to do the job?”
Like Dominic Williams? Austin said carefully, “Martyn, North, & Compeau is very well-known and very well respected within the industry. It’s not like having someone from Bev Mo show up and count bottles.”
“No need to take offense,” Thompson said easily.
“I’m not offended. It’s just… My job is more important than it sounds.”
“Sure,” Thompson said kindly. “We all like to think we’re making a difference. I like to think what I do makes a difference.” He looked at his notes again. “So why don’t you tell me in your own words exactly what happened after you arrived at this house?”
It didn’t take long to run through the events of the morning.
Thompson and the other sheriff exchanged a few glances but heard Austin out in silence.
“And did anyone do or say anything that seemed out of the ordinary to you?” Thompson inquired when Austin had wound down his recital.
“Uh…”
The young sheriff laughed. Thompson said easily, “I guess we Southerners all seem foreign to you Northerners. Let me phrase it this way: did anyone seem guilty or nervous?”
“No.”
“Did anyone suggest you shouldn’t work in the cellar?”
They had already been through this. “No. They had a work space set up for me. The butler, Faulkner, was downstairs spraying insecticide.”
“Yeah, you mentioned that.” The captain made a note on his pad. “What about these famous wine bottles? The ones that were supposed to belong to Robert E. Lee? Are they for real?”
“They could be. I didn’t see them, but I didn’t have very long to look. They were listed on the inventory sheets sent to us by the family. The list was pretty informal, but it is possible that the bottles are here.”
“Really?” Thompson was politely disbelieving. “Wine bottles belonging to General Robert E. Lee?”
“It’s possible. They’re described correctly on the inventory list: handblown dark green glass and capped with a rough seal of thick red wax. The year 1822 is etched into the glass along with the initials R-E-L. The words Blandy Madeira can be read at the base of each bottle.” Austin shrugged. “If they exist, they’ll be easy to spot.”
“And you think there’s a chance they survived all this time? Survived the war between the states?”
“Madeira is a long-lived wine, so…yes. Barring some accident to the bottles. We know that Mrs. Lee moved the Arlington House wine cellar to the Ravensworth estate. There’s evidence to support that the contents of the cellar were left at Ravensworth after she fled farther south. The house burned in 1926, but by then most of its contents had been dispersed among the Lee descendants.”
Thompson nodded thoughtfully. “And if these Lee wine bottles had survived, what would they be worth?”
“The Lee connection makes them priceless.”
“Worth killing for, would you say?”
Austin said reluctantly, “It’s possible, I guess. Is that what you think happened? That Dominic Williams was murdered?”
“We don’t know. That will be up to the forensics people to determine. It’s possible Williams could have fallen, fractured his skull, but still climbed down into the cellar. That was one helluva rai
nstorm last night. A man disoriented by a blow to the head might simply grab on to the first door he came to. We can’t say for sure yet. Of course, either way it doesn’t explain what he was doing on the Ballineen grounds at night in the middle of a rainstorm.”
“Did you find his car?” Austin wasn’t sure why he asked that when he dearly wanted this all to go away so he could get back to inventorying the cellar, but Captain Thompson smiled approvingly.
“Nope. That’s the trouble. We can’t find Williams’s car. Or his keys. So it looks like either he walked fifteen miles in the pouring rain at night in time to get knocked over the head, or someone drove him out to Ballineen, or someone took his keys after he was hit over the head, and drove his car away.”
Austin sincerely wished he had not asked.
Captain Thompson continued to browse his notes and nod to himself. At last he looked up and smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Gillespie. You’ve been most helpful. You have a safe trip home now.”
Chapter Four
A hot shower, a good meal with a better wine, and an early night—that was Austin’s plan as he walked into the Stonewall Jackson Inn and went up to his room—named, as each room was in this lavishly appointed hotel, for one of the town’s antebellum mansions. Anything more energetic than that was out. Never mind the seven-hundred-mile drive from DC; starting the day with finding a dead body and ending the afternoon with a police interview was guaranteed to wear anyone out.
Austin closed the hotel door, let his suitcase fall forward, and set his laptop case on the low table. The room was elegantly furnished in soothing tones of cream, fawn, cocoa, and sage. A bowl of hydrangeas sat on the fireplace mantel. Two plump and comfortable chairs and a small oval table were positioned in front. The bed was tall, and the fluffy, sand-hued duvet and pillows were down-filled. There was a bookshelf with offerings from a variety of Southern writers. The paintings were all originals by local artists. A small porch looked out over the park.
For a moment Austin stood unbuttoning his shirt, staring across the street at the tranquil view of huge shady trees, old-fashioned lampposts, and gazebos. A tall cast-iron fountain shot sparkling plumes into the soft blue sky.
On second thought, maybe he’d postpone calling Whitney. He’d rather talk to Peter anyway. Peter Compeau was the other half of Martyn, North, & Compeau. The Norths had died out in 1972, well before Austin’s time, and it was just Whitney and Peter now. Unfortunately Peter was beginning to talk more and more seriously about retiring. Austin had always known his position was liable to become precarious after Peter left. He and Whitney had never been simpatico, and now that Whitney was engaged to the very ambitious Theresa…
But he didn’t want to think about that now. Like Scarlett O’Hara, he’d think about it tomorrow. He’d had all the disappointment he needed for one day. In addition to the abrupt termination of the Cashel-cellar appraisal and his failure to find the Lee bottles was the more puzzling sense of letdown that he wouldn’t see Jeff Brady again. They’d said their casual good-byes when Austin had taken his leave of the Cashels, promising to return when the cellar was no longer a crime scene.
“You’re not going now?” Cormac had exclaimed in open disappointment.
Carson had chimed in, inviting Austin to stay longer on the off chance that the sheriffs might reopen the cellar. Austin didn’t know much about homicide investigations, but he knew enough to be confident he wasn’t going to be allowed back into that cellar anytime soon.
He had declined as gracefully as he knew how, and then he’d turned to Jeff, who had smiled into his eyes and told him to drive safe.
It was just… Well, you could tell when someone was interested, and Jeff had most definitely given off that interested vibe. That was the hard-to-figure part, because Jeff had really done nothing. It was just something in the way his gaze lingered on Austin’s, a certain warmth to his smile, maybe something in the tone of his voice. Maybe it was just part of that automatic Southern charm. Or maybe it was pheromones? Whatever it had been, it was over now.
Besides, Jeff, in addition to appearing to be happily, vigorously heterosexual, really wasn’t Austin’s type. The ex-high-school quarterback and local lothario? Although maybe that was the point. There was nothing wrong with having an uncomplicated out-of-towner.
But it hadn’t worked out, and that was probably for the best. Austin unbuttoned his cuffs and shrugged out of his shirt and tossed it to the floor.
The bathroom was black-and-white tile with a roomy rain shower complete with teak stool. In case the whole bathing procedure proved too exhausting? Austin checked out the assortment of spa products and settled for shampoo and soap. There was as much dirt beneath his fingernails as if he’d spent the morning gardening.
After his shower he changed into jeans and a Got Wine? T-shirt, flopped down on the bed, sinking comfortably into the cloud of the duvet, and called Ernest.
“I don’t see why I should have to stay there when they’re located right here in Maryland.” Ernest greeted him as though they had never ended their previous conversation.
“Because living on campus and forming those relationships with other kids is a big part of the school experience. You’re all homesick. You’re all going through all the same things, and it helps form bonds.”
“I don’t want to form bonds.”
“Friendships.”
“I don’t like little kids.”
“They won’t always be little kids.” Huh? Austin heard the echo of that and opened his eyes. He was too tired to do this right now.
“They won’t like me. They’ll think I’m weird.”
Yes, they would most definitely think Ernest was weird. No way around that. They had thought Austin was weird, and Austin wasn’t nearly as weird as Ernest. But Austin had survived. He had occasionally even thrived, and that had been under pretty much the worst possible circumstances: being shuffled off to boarding school after the death of his mother. Of course, in fairness to Harrison, what was he going to do with a grieving child around the house? Harrison had rarely been home in those days, always flying off to some war-torn corner of the world to report the death and disaster to the folks eating supper back home. The point being that if Austin could survive, Ernest, who was about a zillion times smarter and more self-possessed, could definitely do it.
“Listen, Ernesto, you can’t live at home forever with just me and the girls for friends.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not practical and it’s not healthy.” Not to mention the fact that Austin and his sisters were rarely at the house in Frederick.
“Why?”
“Because one day you’re going to work and live in the world, and you need to know how to get along there.”
Ernesto said coolly, “We’re wealthy, Austin. We don’t have to work. We choose to work. I can live at home forever and build my spacecraft.”
Cue the My Favorite Martian theme.
Austin floundered briefly, coming up with, “There has to be more to your life than your work or even your family.”
“I have Buzz and Armstrong.”
Buzz was a springer spaniel, and Armstrong was a Chincoteague pony.
“You need more. You need… Well, you’ll probably want a girlfriend one day.” Yeah, good move. Maybe he should bring up marriage and kids now and go for the grand slam of totally inappropriate advice for a child.
“Maybe I’m gay.”
“Are you?” Austin asked, startled.
Ernest gave one of his rare giggles. “No. I’m nine.”
Austin reserved comment, but he had known at nine, although looking back he wasn’t sure how he’d known. Crushes on playmates? Funny dreams? Somehow he’d known.
“Anyway, you goof, there isn’t any point us debating it, because it’s going to happen. Once Dad’s mind is made up—”
“You could talk to him.”
Austin laughed and hoped Ernest didn’t hear the trace of bitterness that slipped past. “Yeah, rig
ht. You’d have better luck talking to him yourself. You need to try and focus on the positives here.”
“There aren’t any!” Ernest’s voice went high and shrill, a reminder that despite the mighty intellect, he was still a little kid with a little kid’s emotional needs. “What will happen to Buzz and Armstrong?”
“Armstrong will go with you. And Buzz… We’ll think of something for Buzz. I’ll bring him out with me when I come to see you on weekends.”
“Will you come?”
“Of course.”
“Every weekend?”
Austin put the heel of his hand to the middle of his forehead and pushed hard, trying to inject some sense into his tired brain. “As often as I can.”
“I’m not going,” Ernest said and hung up.
Austin moaned and turned off his phone.
Food and sleep. That’s what he needed. He rolled off the bed, hunting around for his Converse Chucks.
Right on schedule the phone rang again. He picked it up. “I can’t promise to come every single weekend, but I’ll come as often as I can.”
There was a pause, and an adult, male voice drawled, “That’s a promise I’ll take.”
Austin swallowed hard, checked the cell phone display. Crap. Not Ernest, in case there was any doubt about that. There wasn’t. His heart had sped up on hearing that deep, attractive voice on the phone, because of course he’d recognized it instantly. In fact, Jeff’s voice already seemed familiar to him. How could that be?
“Oh. Hi.” He pictured it suddenly as a Lolcat caption: Oh…hai!
Jeff chuckled, and the husky, sexy sound seemed to go straight to Austin’s cock.
“Hello, Austin. What are you doing for dinner tonight?”
Just like that. The direct approach. What a relief. What a relief to know he hadn’t been imagining things. What a relief that this was dropping into his lap. Maybe literally. Hopefully literally.
“I was going to grab a sandwich downstairs, but I’m open to suggestion.”
