The Merlot Murders wcm-1

by Ellen Crosby

  “Goddamn it!” A tiny vein pulsed in his temple. “Do you know what this is going to do to our asking price when we put the place on the market?”

  I jabbed my index finger against his chest. “Fitz is dead, Eli! Do you still have a heart in there or did you swap it for a cash register? How can you be so cold?”

  “Cold? Give me a damn break. I feel as bad as you do.” He ran a hand through his overgelled hair. “Just because I’m being realistic doesn’t mean I’m not sorry about Fitz.”

  “Sure. I can tell it’s tearing you apart.”

  He had changed from his monogrammed dress shirt and tie into a monogrammed peach-colored polo shirt. There was a time when he refused to wear clothing that had someone’s name printed or sewn on it, even his own. And I’d never seen him wear anything peach.

  “Knock it off. Don’t act so damned sanctimonious, okay? You haven’t got a monopoly on grief, Lucie. This isn’t only happening to you.”

  “I never said it was,” I said. “But you can at least spend a few seconds mourning him before you start talking about money.”

  I smacked my cane against the ground as I walked over to Jesús and sat down. We’d scrapped like a normal brother and sister when we were kids. But this was something more. Eli was driven in a way I didn’t remember—his concern about money, the designer wardrobe, the palace he was building. How much debt was he in, anyway?

  I fanned myself with my hand and unstuck my dress, which clung to me like I’d showered in it. It got this hot in the south of France, but it was a dry heat, cooled and tempered by the mistral and scented with the powerful fragrances of lavender, thyme, and rosemary. Here the air was so thick I could practically see it and the smell was the dank chemical odor of soil and plants and grass decomposing.

  An ambulance showed up, along with a fire truck and two other official-looking cars. Though they didn’t use their sirens, their red and blue strobe lights pulsed in the nighttime blackness, adding to the surreal feeling that was slowly taking hold of me.

  Eli caught up with one of the fireman who walked quickly toward the courtyard to the barrel room. He wore a dirty yellow jacket with orange reflective stripes, overalls, boots, and a helmet. On the back of the jacket, large luminescent letters spelled out “Gleason.” He stopped and shoved the helmet off his forehead, listening to what my brother told him. He shook his head and moved on.

  Eli saw me watching and strode over. “This is absurd. We’re not allowed in our own place.”

  “Let them do their work, Eli.”

  He glared at me but said nothing.

  It was a while before Bobby finished. Jesús had wandered over to the stone wall by the parking lot, leaning against it and chain-smoking. Doc Harmon left on a veterinary emergency. “Maybe I can save a life somewhere else,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do here.”

  Eli and I sat on the villa steps, not speaking. We got up when Bobby finally walked through the courtyard archway carrying a small notebook. He kept clicking his ballpoint pen like he was counting something.

  “Well, Santini says there wasn’t any oxygen in that tank. It was pure carbon dioxide. He says Fitz would have suffocated instantly.”

  I shuddered.

  “Santori,” Eli said. “And he’s right. Jacques was strict as hell about not letting anybody work around the tanks without a buddy when they were cleaning them. Climbing into a purged stainless-steel tank is like climbing into a shark tank. There have been accidents just like this out in California.” He shrugged. “Making wine has its occupational hazards.”

  Bobby blew a bubble and popped it. “Jesus, Eli. Are you trying to pass this off as an accident? You think Fitz took a wrong detour and ended up in your tank of wine?”

  Eli reddened. “Of course not. But when he showed up at Leland’s wake last night he was stinking drunk. He told Lucie he needed to stop here to pick up some wine. I don’t know…maybe he got disoriented or something.”

  Bobby opened his notebook and clicked the pen once more. He started writing. “He said he was coming here, did he?”

  “To pick up some special cases of wine for a wedding,” I said.

  “Santini says there’s a bunch of money missing from your safe,” Bobby flipped back through a few pages. “More’n four thousand bucks. You got some migrant workers here who just show up for harvest. Not the same guys every year. Not the same guys every day, for that matter.” He looked at us. “And someone cut the lock to the barrel room door. You’ll need to replace it.”

  “Robbery?” I asked. “You think he surprised someone trying to rob us?”

  “Dunno,” he said. “We’re talking to all your crew. It’s taking a while, though, because nobody speaks English. Hector just showed up. He and Santini are doing the translating for us.” He blew another bubble. “So when was the last time you all saw Fitz?”

  “Shortly before the wake ended,” I said. “He left when Thelma started singing.”

  “Wise move.” Bobby chewed thoughtfully. “So what time was that, about?”

  “Nine-thirty?” I guessed.

  “Closer to nine-forty,” Eli said.

  Bobby looked up from the notes he’d been writing and frowned. Then his face lightened. “Oh right. You’ve got that nuclear watch. Must come in handy sometimes. So nine-forty, then.” He did some calculating. “That’d put him here about nine-fifty, nine-fifty-five. Kind of late at night to be working, isn’t it?”

  “Restaurants and vineyards don’t work eight-hour day shifts, Bobby. Just like you guys,” Eli said.

  “That so?” Bobby squinted at us. “So where were the both of you last night?”

  Eli looked incredulous. “At Leland’s wake, of course.”

  “I meant afterwards. When did you leave and what did you do?”

  There was something different in his voice that changed him from the kid who had a regular seat in detention hall to a cop who had the authority to pry into the details of our lives. He looked at both of us and, when his eyes met mine, they were opaque and unreadable. A cop’s eyes.

  Eli looked annoyed. “Oh, come on, Bobby. Brandi and I went home. To bed.”

  “You’re saying you didn’t spend any time here? This place or the big house?”

  “Only to drop Lucie off,” Eli said. “Brandi was exhausted. We went straight home after that. To Leesburg.”

  “Did you drive by the winery?”

  “Nope.”

  “What about you, Lucie?”

  “I went to bed after Eli took me home. I had just gotten off a plane from France yesterday afternoon. I was really beat, Bobby.”

  “Who else was there? Mia? Dominique?”

  “Mia stayed with Greg Knight and Dominique slept over at Joe’s,” Eli said.

  “I’ll check that out, too.” He didn’t look up from his notebook, but the bubble he blew this time was lopsided and deflated instantly.

  “Yo, Bobby!” Another uniformed officer stood in the courtyard archway. “We need you.”

  “Coming.” The three of us walked toward him. “You two stay put,” Bobby said. “I don’t suppose I have to tell you that this place is now a crime scene. No one goes in there until we take the yellow tape down. Understood?”

  “Your guys shouldn’t leave the door open like that. The place is climate-controlled.” Eli sounded irritated. “You know, harvest starts next week, Bobby. You can’t shut us down.”

  “Actually, Eli, I’m afraid we can.” Bobby was short. “And the place is gonna stay shut down while we go over everything for evidence. So if anybody gets any cute ideas about sneaking back in and contaminating the site before I give the all clear, you’ll be hearing about it from hell to breakfast. Understand?”

  He left for the barrel room without waiting for an answer, his heavy-soled shoes crunching on the gravel.

  “Damnit,” Eli said. He picked up a handful of stones and pitched them, one by one, at nothing in particular.

  “Why did you have to be so hard on him? Ma
ybe we could have worked something out, if only you hadn’t treated him like he was Barney Fife, straight out of Mayberry.”

  Eli’s eyes were cool. “I’m starting to wonder whose side you’re on, Luce.”

  I heard the car coming before it pulled into the floodlit parking lot. A blonde woman driving a khaki-colored Jeep with the top down parked next to Eli’s Jag.

  “Oh God,” Eli said. “What’s she doing here?”

  Katherine Eastman opened the door to the Jeep and climbed out, a large leather purse slung over one shoulder. She was dressed in a black mini-skirt and clingy red tank top that had either shrunk in the dryer or she was kidding herself. She must have gained twenty-five pounds since the last time I’d seen her.

  “I came as soon as I heard,” she said. She was wearing lipstick to match the fire-engine-red tank top, eye makeup that looked like it had been applied by a road marking gang, and her hair, which had once been a flatteringly warm shade of auburn, was Marilyn Monroe blonde. “Is it really true?”

  “You shouldn’t have bothered,” Eli said. “We could do without the press.”

  “I’m surprised to see you here, Eli. I didn’t realize your leash extended this far.” She hugged me. “Hey, kiddo. It’s good to see you again. I’m so sorry about your dad.”

  Kit and I had been friends since we used to play in the sandbox together and she’d been my brother’s girlfriend until Brandi showed up. The split between Kit and Eli had been volcanic. Kit told me later that she finally understood the truth in the saying about the fine line that existed between love and hate, that it was absolutely possible to go from loving someone so much you would die for him to hating him so much you could kill him. Two years later it looked like the bitterness between them had hardened to mutual contempt.

  “Where have you been?” I asked. “I tried to reach you.”

  “At my mom’s. The home helper was sick. You know we can’t leave her alone anymore. She sends her apologies about missing the funeral and the wake. She’s having a tough time at the moment.”

  “Tell her I’ll be by to visit, when she’s up for it.”

  “She’d like that.” She glanced over Eli’s shoulder. “So what happened? Do they know anything yet?”

  “About what?” Eli said. “What are you talking about?”

  “When the police scanner’s not working,” Kit said, “we get our information from jungle drums.”

  She was a reporter with the Washington Tribune, an ascending star who’d been working in D.C. on the national desk until her mother had a stroke. From one day to the next she asked to be assigned to the regional bureau in Leesburg to be closer to home.

  A lot of people thought it was a demotion, criticizing her for what they said was a self-inflicted wound that was going to stall out her career. Kit told them to go to hell.

  “One of our guys found Fitz inside one of the stainless-steel tanks. It had been purged,” I said.

  “Oh my God.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a reporter’s notebook. “Put that away,” Eli said. “This is a private matter.”

  “Like hell it is, Eli. Fitz was a nationally prominent chef.”

  “You’re doing a story?” I asked.

  “Yeah. For the National desk. Metro’s pretty ticked off because they wanted it, but, hey, like I said, Fitz was well known. And, um, cause of death is, well…”

  “Get out of here, Kit,” Eli said. “You’re trespassing.”

  Kit walked over to him and fingered the collar of his polo shirt. “Peach, hunh? New color for you. Kind of feminine, but it suits you.”

  The sound of the barrel room’s large hangar door opening behind us cut off Eli’s reply. Two paramedics wheeled out a stretcher with a body bag strapped to it. Bobby walked behind them, looking grim. No one spoke as they crossed the courtyard and loaded Fitz into the waiting ambulance.

  I pulled out Eli’s handkerchief yet again. Kit put her arm around me and the coil of her reporter’s notebook dug into my shoulder.

  Bobby walked over to us after the ambulance moved slowly off in the darkness. “Hey, Kit,” he said. “You here on business or as a friend of the family?”

  “Both.”

  “Public affairs will have a statement. Probably tomorrow morning.”

  “I need something tonight, Bobby.”

  He chewed his gum for a moment, like a cow ruminating. “Sorry. No can do.”

  She closed her notebook. “Off the record? Come on. Fitz was a friend.”

  He chewed some more, then said, “Your word?”

  Kit nodded.

  “I wouldn’t tell her anything,” Eli said stiffly.

  Bobby stared at him, then flipped open his own notebook. “Looks like Fitz might have surprised someone in the middle of a robbery. One of the workers didn’t show up today. A couple of the men say he left the camp they have near Winchester and no one’s seen him since last night. Santini said he had the payroll money in a safe in that lab he’s got next to the barrel room since today is payday. Picked it up from the bank yesterday because he didn’t want to mess with it on the day of Leland’s funeral. A couple of the guys from the crew were there when he locked it up, including the guy who’s missing. Name of Zeus.” He looked up.

  “So how did Fitz end up in the tank?” I asked.

  “I’m getting to that part,” he said. “Don’t rush me.”

  “Sorry.”

  “We think someone might have forced him into the tank,” he said. “The guys are checking for prints and going over everything. One of your hammers is missing from that pegboard you got with all your tools. Neat idea to draw an outline of everything so you know where stuff belongs.” He sounded approving. “Could be it’ll turn up somewhere and someone just forgot to put it back, but we found evidence of blunt trauma to the head. The hammer could have been used as a weapon, but that’s just speculating.”

  “Oh my God,” I said.

  “Enough of a blow to kill him?” Kit asked. “Do you think he was dead before someone put him in the tank?”

  He shrugged. “Dunno. The ME will let us know when they do the autopsy.”

  “Who would want to do that?” I asked. “Why Fitz?”

  “Sounds pretty random to me,” Eli said. “Wrong place, wrong time.”

  “I’m going to Winchester.” Bobby closed his notebook and stuck his pen behind one ear. “I’ll see you folks later.”

  “I’m taking off, too,” Kit hugged me again. “I’ll call you tomorrow. We need to talk. Lunch, maybe?”

  After they left, Eli said, “That woman is a parasite.”

  “You didn’t always think so.”

  “I saw the light.” He folded his arms across his chest. “You know, I don’t understand you anymore. If she writes some lurid tabloid story, it’s going to affect you, too.”

  “How can you expect this not to come out in the press?”

  “Yeah, I suppose we could get ahead of the curve and advertise it ourselves. How about this? ‘We’ll knock you dead at Montgomery Estate Vineyard. Try our full-bodied Merlot.’”

  “That’s disgusting!”

  “No fooling. That’s why I’m trying to tell you that the last thing we need now is more bad press. Do you know what it’s going to do to the value of this place now? It’s going to tank. We’ll probably have to pay somebody to buy it.”

  “We’re not selling, Eli.”

  He looked scornful. “Says who?”

  “I do.”

  “We outvote you, babe. Mia and me. We’re selling.”

  “Family discussion?”

  We both jumped. Quinn Santori stood there holding an unlit cigar that he caressed with his fingers. He looked at me the way men in bars stare at women who walk in alone.

  “A little chat,” Eli said. “We were just finishing. What can I do for you, Quinn?”

  He pulled a pack of matches out of a pocket of his camouflage trousers, bent his head, and concentrated on lighting the cigar. After a few puffs he
said, “Well, we’re shut down, it’s harvest, and you got yourself a group of pickers nervous as bunch of barnyard turkeys at Thanksgiving because one of ’em is apparently a prime suspect in a murder. What do you people want to do?”

  “It might not be for long,” I said.

  He looked at me. “Ma’am?”

  “I said, we might not be shut down for long. I’m sure we can work something out with Bobby to speed up the investigation so we’ll be back in business in a few days.”

  He stroked his chin with the thumb of the hand that held the cigar. “You think so, do you?”

  I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. “Yes.”

  He puffed on the cigar. “Well then, I’ll need to set up some place temporarily in the meantime. I figure the big house would be the best bet. I’d like to move over there as soon as possible.”

  “You can move in tomorrow morning,” I said. “We can talk about how we’re going to handle things then.”

  “Pardon?” he said. He flicked an ash off his cigar and looked at me like I’d just sprouted another head. “We?” He glanced over at Eli and cleared his throat. “Eli?”

  Eli cleared his throat, as well. “Uh, Lucie. Why don’t we let Quinn take care of business the way he wants? We don’t know what in the hell we’re doing here.”

  “What are you talking about? Of course we do. We’ve helped with harvest since we were old enough to walk,” I said. “It’s our vineyard.”

  “Look, babe,” he said, “I’m an architect. I’ve got a day job that pays the rent and feeds the wife and kid-to-be. I can’t work here. Mia doesn’t want to work here. As for you…” He stopped. If he was going to say something about me being handicapped, he changed his mind. “You’ve been selling perfume the last two years.”

  I glanced over at Quinn. He looked relieved, and even a little amused.

  “I didn’t sell perfume,” I said. “I worked as a tour guide at the International Perfume Museum in Grasse.”

  “Okay, so you talked about perfume,” Eli said.

  “I’ve spent plenty of time helping out with harvest. I worked with Jacques that last summer before…” I didn’t finish.