The Viognier Vendetta wcm-5

by Ellen Crosby

  “He’s probably pretty strung out over this whole thing with Rebecca,” Frankie said. “And lost his cool. It happens.”

  A bell went off in the hallway outside my office.

  “We’ve got company,” Frankie said. “I’ll see who it is.”

  She was back a moment later. “Ali Jennings wants to see you. Someone else who looks kind of strung out, if you ask me.”

  “A lot of that going around.” I stood up. “I think she’s here about wine.”

  I found Alison Jennings outside on the terrace with her back to me and gripping the railing so tight her knuckles showed white. I didn’t know her as well as I knew Harlan, though our paths crossed occasionally at parties, community events, or the Middleburg shops. It was known around town that she was the rock of her family, devoting herself to her twin sons after Harlan lost his Senate seat and more or less moved to their Georgetown pied-à-terre so he could build a client list for his new consulting firm. It was Alison who made the long commute to her university job in D.C., coming home each evening to supervise homework, cheer the boys at sporting events, and bake cookies for their school fund-raisers. After the twins left for boarding school, her life increasingly revolved around her teaching and research, but she still remained Middleburg based. I’d heard from Mick that she’d taken up foxhunting again, riding with the Goose Creek Hunt. People said she was a crack shot.

  “Alison?”

  She turned around. Frankie wasn’t kidding. I’d never seen Ali Jennings look anything but smart and pulled together, even if she were only picking up a quart of milk at Safeway. Today without makeup she looked haggard, as though she had aged years since Saturday night. Her beautiful red hair, pulled into an unflattering ponytail, betrayed that she was overdue for an appointment with her colorist and her riding clothes were dingy and shapeless.

  “Can I get you something?” I asked. “Coffee? A glass of water? Wine?”

  “Maybe a glass of water. I’ve got a fierce headache.”

  “Come on.” I held one of the terrace doors open. “Let’s go inside. You’re shivering. By the way, I heard the police found the Madison wine cooler. Sir Thomas mentioned your name at a press conference just now.”

  Her smile was forced as she followed me into the tasting room and sat down on one of the bar stools. “Did he?”

  I slid the glass of water and a bottle of ibuprofen across the bar. “Try this. Are you feeling all right? You could have just called me about the wine, you know.”

  “Thanks, but I thought it would be better to do this in person.” She held the glass with both hands. “The wine is for Harlan’s birthday party next week. A surprise, or at least I hope it is, so please don’t mention it to him. I thought I’d get two cases of your Viognier. He said you raved about it the other night.”

  I smiled. “It won the Governor’s Cup. I didn’t know his birthday was coming up.”

  “I’m having the party out here, so I need to figure a way to lure him from our place in Georgetown.” Her voice seemed to waver. “He spends so much time there now.”

  “I’m a little surprised you aren’t spending more time in Georgetown yourself now that the boys are gone,” I said. “I’d forgotten what a commute it is from Middleburg until I drove to D.C. last weekend. It wasn’t even rush hour—”

  The pain in Alison’s eyes stopped me. Sometimes I should just keep my mouth shut. What had I missed? Were there problems between her and Harlan?

  “It’s the horses. I stay out here for them.”

  “Of course. I forgot about the horses.”

  “I saw you at the gala. Talking to Harlan.”

  Surely she wasn’t hinting about something between her husband and me? I looked her directly in the eyes. “Yes, that’s right. The only familiar face in the crowd.”

  “Except for Rebecca Natale, if she’d been there.” Her voice grew harsh. “I didn’t know you were old friends from college, Lucie. She’s the one who invited you the other night, isn’t that right?”

  It sounded like an accusation.

  “Yes,” I said, “it is. What’s wrong, Ali?”

  Alison drained her glass and set it down on the bar.

  “When you and she were at school together, Rebecca had an affair with the husband of a colleague who happens to be my best friend. Jill O’Brien.” She brushed a tendril of hair off her face with a swift flick of her hand. “She’s Jill Walsh now and she teaches in the history department with me at Georgetown. I’m sure you knew all the sordid details of what happened with Rebecca since the two of you were such good friends. Jill said it was the talk of the campus for months.”

  So that explained why Alison was here in person.

  “I tried to ignore the gossip and, believe it or not, Rebecca and I never spoke about it,” I said. “I’m sorry. I had no idea it involved a friend of yours.”

  “Jill called her a scheming little vixen. Lured poor Connor into the affair and then threatened to expose him if he didn’t continue to see her.”

  She folded her arms and waited for my reply. Ali was sure it was all Rebecca’s fault. But Connor’s dedication to Rebecca in the volume of Pope’s poetry hadn’t exactly read like an older man pushed unwillingly into a relationship with a beautiful coed. Then there was Rebecca’s remark the other day about no one giving a damn what Connor had done to her.

  “I’m sure there are two sides to every story. Even this one.”

  “Rebecca destroyed their marriage. What other side could there be?”

  Ali banged her hand on the counter. Something else was going on here that I was missing. Then she filled in the blanks.

  “I suppose you’ve been seeing her when she came to D.C. on all those so-called business trips?”

  “All what so-called business trips?”

  “Come on, Lucie. I know about it, so you don’t have to pretend, okay? Rebecca’s been traveling to Washington every few weeks because Tommy manages a couple of Harlan’s funds.” Her voice wavered. “Jill warned me what might happen.”

  I got it now. Harlan and Rebecca.

  I opened the small wine refrigerator under the bar and found a half-full bottle of Viognier, splashing it into two glasses. It wouldn’t do much for her headache, but it was her heart that really hurt.

  “I had no idea.” I set one of the glasses in front of her. “Honest to God. The first time I saw Rebecca since she graduated twelve years ago was last Saturday. Were Harlan and Rebecca … seeing each other?”

  Alison threw back her head and drank. Her eyes were anguished.

  “A quaint way to refer to an affair,” she said. “Yes, they were.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “The usual. A note in the pocket of his suit trousers when I was sending it to the cleaners. I still take care of his dry cleaning. So stupid, isn’t it?” she said. “I confronted him and he told me he’d ended it. The note I’d found, about meeting her, was to break it off.”

  “Did he?”

  “Of course. He gave his word.” Alison set her glass down for a refill. “Unfortunately, Rebecca called Harlan Saturday afternoon after she picked up the Madison silver and said she had to see him. Said it was urgent, a matter of life or death. Could he come get her in Georgetown so they could talk? He went to meet her and she told him she wanted to go back to our place.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Alison shrugged. “Harlan says she clammed up as soon as she walked through the door. Wanted a drink so he gave her one. Only one. Then he told her she had to go. He tried to call a cab for her, but she wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “What did she want to talk about?”

  “He has no idea.” She took a long swallow of wine. “Now he feels like he should have pushed harder, made her talk about what was bothering her. He feels responsible for what happened to her.”

  I drank my wine, trying to recall the time line Saturday afternoon after Rebecca left me at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. According to Olivia Tarrant, R
ebecca’s cab driver said he dropped her off in Georgetown and thought she was waiting for someone. He’d been right: Harlan. But then where did she go after she left the Jenningses’ Georgetown home?

  As though she read my mind, Alison said, “After Rebecca left, that’s the last time Harlan saw her. She told him she wanted to walk for a while and clear her head.”

  “Do the police know that?”

  She laughed. I couldn’t tell if it was derision or hysteria.

  “Do they know? Oh, you bet they know. They’ve been to the Georgetown house and searched it with tweezers and a microscope. My God, there was nothing too minute that didn’t fascinate those evidence people. Wait until word gets out about this.”

  “But if nothing happened and Rebecca left—”

  “Harlan had to tell them about the affair, Lucie. He wasn’t going to lie about that, even if—” She looked into her glass.

  “Even if it gave him a motive for murder?” I said.

  She pressed her lips together. Her expression was bleak.

  “Do you have any idea where she went after she left our place? Did she say anything, drop any hint? Please, if you know anything …”

  I shook my head, and the light drained out of her eyes.

  “The police have been all over that with me, Ali. I wish I could help you, but to be honest, I’m still trying to work out why Rebecca called me out of the blue and wanted to get together. That doesn’t make sense, either.”

  “Without something concrete for the police to go on, it’s Harlan’s word against no one’s that she left our place that afternoon. It’s like she vanished into the ether. Except for her clothes in that boat and this Robin Hood, or whoever he is, who handed over her things to that homeless man.”

  “Have the police charged Harlan with anything?”

  “They brought him in for questioning and then released him. Apparently he’s not considered a flight risk.” She drank some more wine. “But they believe he had motive and opportunity.”

  “He didn’t do anything, Ali.”

  “Of course he didn’t. It’s too ridiculous to even consider.”

  I thought about Harlan joking with me at the gala, his little kiss, our banter about his election campaign, and his wistful interest in watching a sunset at the vineyard with Alison. There was no way he was so cold-blooded and calculating that he would show up at a party hours after killing an ex-lover, flirting and acting like he didn’t have a care in the world. At least I couldn’t believe he was capable of doing so—even though his story sounded a little far-fetched. I wondered if Ali thought it did as well but didn’t want to admit it. Though I did believe there was more to what had gone on between Harlan and Rebecca than what he’d told his wife or the police.

  I wondered what Harlan was covering up. I also wondered if Rebecca were alive or dead—and if Harlan knew something about that, too.

  Chapter 9

  Frankie showed up in the tasting room as Alison finished paying me for the Viognier for Harlan’s party. Her eyes flitted between the two of us as I handed Ali her credit card.

  “How are the boys, Ali? I don’t see you so often anymore now that our kids aren’t together at school.” She smiled her serene smile, ignoring the gloomy fug that hung in the air.

  Frankie was the person you wanted on your side in a hostage crisis or a nuclear standoff because she could defuse tension in a room faster than anyone else I knew. It was an inside joke among the tasting room staff that she heard more confessions than the priests at St. Stephen’s in Middleburg—from both customers and employees. Everyone talked to her, trusting the compassion in those clear blue eyes.

  Alison seemed to brighten. “They’re doing great. Boarding school agrees with them. How about yours?”

  “Looking at colleges. Can’t believe we’ll be paying double tuition soon.”

  “I know what you mean. We’re so blessed my father-in-law invested in blue chips way back when and that Harlan inherited his dad’s good head about money,” she said. “Speaking of money and investing, did I hear that Quinn is looking to buy some farmland?”

  Ali was looking directly at me. I saw Frankie’s imperceptible nod out of the corner of my eye.

  “Why, yes, he is,” I said. “What makes you ask?”

  “Harlan and I have some acreage we’d like to sell,” she said. “To the right buyer. It’s adjacent to our property, so we’d like the new owner to continue to use it for agriculture—cattle, horses, farming. If Quinn’s planning to put in a vineyard, that would be even better.”

  Frankie closed her eyes slowly and opened them. Another yes.

  “That’s his plan,” I said.

  “Terrific. I’ll talk to Harlan and make sure he gets in touch with Quinn.”

  The moment the door closed behind Alison, I said to Frankie, “How long have you known about Quinn looking for land?”

  “Lucie, calm down.”

  “I am calm.”

  She pulled out a bar stool for me.

  “Sure you are,” she said. “I can tell. Look, I found out over the weekend. A couple of the Romeos dropped by for a drink just as we were closing yesterday. I’m not sure how they heard about it, but it’s obviously no secret if Ali knows.”

  “Quinn probably dropped a hint someone overheard and brought up over morning coffee at the General Store,” I said. “Meaning Thelma found out and told her partners in crime, the Romeos. Which is why everyone knows about it from here to Richmond—except me.”

  The Romeos, whose name stood for Retired Old Men Eating Out, were the second worst source of gossip in Atoka after Thelma Johnson, who owned the General Store. Between them they vacuumed up every scrap of news—real or imagined—and then spread it to the four corners of the county and beyond.

  “You were out of town,” Frankie said.

  “Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “Maybe he was trying to find the right time.”

  “I knew he inherited some money from his mother after she passed away, but it wasn’t a lot,” I said. “How’s he going to finance something like this?”

  There’s a sad-but-true saying among vineyard owners that the fastest way to make a small fortune growing grapes and selling wine is to start with a large one. Quinn, as near as I knew, didn’t even have a small fortune.

  “Maybe he’s got a couple of partners who are willing to invest with him.”

  I nodded, stunned. “He always said he wanted his own place. I guess I thought we’d combine forces. It would be something we’d do together.”

  “Oh, Lucie.” Frankie’s eyes were full of sympathy. “Don’t beat yourself up over this. You know Quinn and how ambitious he is. It’s sort of a natural progression, don’t you think?”

  Maybe she was right. Maybe it was, but I hadn’t wanted to see it.

  “Sure. Of course it is. Hey, thanks for telling me. At least I found out from you and not the Romeos or Thelma. That would be gossip fodder for a month of Sundays.”

  “He’ll tell you himself, you wait and see.” She picked up her gardening gloves and patted me on the shoulder. “Guess I’d better get back to those beds. Are you going to be all right? When I came into the room, Ali looked like hell and you didn’t look much better.”

  I stood up and went behind the bar. “You know something about that, too?”

  “Not directly, but I can add two and two. Mac Macdonald was one of the Romeos who came in for a drink,” she said. “You know how close he is to his money. Made sure I wouldn’t charge him for a glass of water before he drank it.”

  Mac was a teetotaler and a querulous old dear who owned an upscale antiques store in Middleburg. One of my parents’ oldest friends, his penny-pinching went beyond zealousness. If anyone were going to figure out a way to take it all to the eternal reward that awaited in the afterlife, it would be Mac.

  “He’ll never change,” I said.

  “Did you know Harlan Jennings manages his portfolio?”

  “No,” I said. “I
didn’t. I thought Mac kept his money in his mattress.”

  “Apparently he goes to D.C. regular as clockwork to check up on how his investments are doing.” Frankie gave me a significant look. “He bumped into your friend Rebecca a couple of times. Thought she worked as a secretary for Harlan, who never disabused him of the idea. Then he saw her picture on the news and found out she was Sir Thomas Asher’s golden girl. So he wondered why Harlan didn’t explain who she really was.”

  “Is there something you’re trying to say?” I asked. “Or not say?”

  “Okay,” she said. “You asked. Ali’s got a lot of friends who think she got a raw deal when Harlan abdicated his responsibilities out here and moved to town. All that nonsense about needing to be in Washington because that’s where his clients are. Please!” She waved a hand like she was shooing a pesky fly. “As if she doesn’t make that same drive every day. She loves Harlan so much she’s blind to … well, let’s just leave it at blind.”

  “She’s not blind. But she does love him more than anything else in the world.” I thought of the surprise party she was planning, even after the tawdry situation Harlan had dragged her into over Rebecca.

  Frankie traced a finger around a cabbage rose on one of her gloves. “Ali would go to the ends of the earth for him or the boys. You’re right about that.”

  She went outside, leaving me to mull over what she’d said. Just how far would Alison Jennings go to protect Harlan? What would she do to preserve her marriage and his upstanding reputation in the community?

  She’d been in Washington on Saturday, arriving late to the gala—plus she would have realized Rebecca would be in town for such an important event honoring her boss. An athlete and a good shot, Ali was probably strong enough to take on Rebecca if she needed to do so. How hard would it have been to find out from her historian colleague that Rebecca planned to drop by earlier in the day to pick up the Madison wine cooler?

  And of course, Alison already knew about the affair.