by Ellen Crosby
“Miguel is all yours if you can get him to work for you,” he said. “Though I’m not as impressed with him as you are.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t think he’s competent. I’ve come across sloppy mistakes and equipment not properly cleaned or put away. I know it’s his fault. He’s careless. In fact, last week I told Toby I wanted to let him go. I would have dismissed him, but Toby told me to give him another chance.”
“I didn’t know about this.”
“Robyn wanted him to stay,” he said. “She pushed Toby into telling me we needed Miguel. I think it was because his wife is expecting a baby in a few weeks.”
“That’s right. Isabella. She’s Antonio’s fiancée’s sister.”
“In France we wouldn’t keep someone like him.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “It’s a different world in France. Plenty of French vineyards advertise for volunteers during the vendage, you know that. You’ll take anybody who’ll pick for free in return for room and board and the opportunity to drink as much fresh grape juice or free wine as they like. No previous experience required.”
It was true: a lot of small vineyards and even some of the larger ones counted on temporary volunteer labor during the intense few weeks of harvest that was so important to the French economy. In fact, it had become something of an international tourist attraction, appealing to those who conjured an idyllic, carefree romp among the vines or had watched too many reruns of the grape-stomping episode of I Love Lucy, or seen Bottle Shock or Sideways. The reality was that it was hard, backbreaking, physically intense work.
“We don’t just take anybody off the street. You know better, or at least you should since your mother’s family still owns a vineyard in France.” He sounded irked, irritated that I had contradicted him. I’d forgotten how he always had to have the last word. Always had to be right.
“It’s a different world in America. In Virginia,” I said, ignoring his pique and hoping that would be the end of the discussion.
“I’m surprised you tolerate it,” he said, and before I could challenge him, he added, “By the way, I heard someone found a body on your land yesterday.”
So the word had gotten out. “It’s a skull, not a body. And how do you know about it?”
“I have my spies.”
I put two and two together. Or one and one—Antonio must have told Miguel.
“Do you have any idea who she is?” he asked.
He also knew it was a woman. “No, but she’s been there a long time.”
“Found near your cemetery,” he said. “Not far from where your mother is buried, n’est-ce pas?”
“Yes.” After so many years I could finally talk about my mother without getting emotional or teary, but Jean-Claude caught me off-guard and my voice tightened. I’d almost forgotten he had known her all those years ago when he was younger and she was still living in France before she married Leland.
“What I remember most was how beautiful she was,” he said, and his voice suddenly grew soft with memory, his prickliness disappearing. “You’re the portrait of her, Lucie. When I saw you that night at Toby and Robyn’s party, it was as if I were seeing Chantal again.”
Over the lump in my throat I said, “Thank you.”
“She had time for everyone,” he went on. “Time to listen to your problems or hear you out if you were in trouble.”
A warning bell went off in my head. What kind of trouble had he confessed to my mother?
“Yes,” I said, “she did.”
“Lucie,” he said. “I need to talk to someone. I need to talk to you.”
“About what?”
He sounded … I couldn’t tell. Worried? Upset? Uneasy?
“I’d rather not say over the phone. Something that’s going on here. I’ll tell you when I see you. What if I came by today? Could we meet somewhere private?”
“Yes. Sure. I mean, of course.”
He’d gotten me completely flummoxed. Where was here? La Vigne? Atoka? And what was “going on”? Something his father would have to deal with? Again? Was he looking for a confidante in me the way my mother had been for him years ago?
“How about three o’clock?” he said.
“Sure. Three o’clock.”
“Where could we meet?”
Somewhere private, he’d said. I’d need to figure out an excuse for slipping away from the winery this afternoon without explaining myself. I said the first thing that came into my head. “My family’s cemetery. No one will be there. Do you know where it is?”
“I’ll find it. Très bien. I’ll see you at three.”
He disconnected and I wondered what was so mysterious and secretive that he wouldn’t tell me what it was over the phone.
Although I’d know soon enough. It was just going on noon.
* * *
JEAN-CLAUDE ARRIVED AT THE cemetery at three o’clock sharp, driving a white pickup truck with the La Vigne Cellars logo stenciled on the side. I was waiting for him, having arrived early so I could sit on the low redbrick wall facing Sycamore Lane and watch him pull up. Still wondering what this meeting was really about.
He gave me a surprisingly cheery wave as he got out of the truck. He wore faded, stained jeans and a T-shirt with Festival des Vins du Kefraya printed on it in French and Arabic. The T-shirt was just tight enough to show off how fit he was, which was something I didn’t need to be thinking about or noticing. He was also carrying a bouquet of pale pink roses. A peace offering? Maybe he’d figured out after all that he’d broken my thirteen-year-old heart in pieces, and that he had been my first love, even though I’d never said a word about it.
Earlier I told Quinn I wanted to stop by the cemetery and check on things, but left out mentioning that I was meeting Jean-Claude. Now I felt vaguely guilty, as if I were doing something wrong or shameful. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all.
“You came,” I said as he reached me and leaned in, kissing me on both cheeks. He smelled of alcohol, cigarettes, and sweat. The remark sounded lame, but being alone with him suddenly made me ill at ease.
“I did.” He laid the flowers on the wall and slid his arms around my waist. “Let me help you down.”
I placed my hands on his chest and gently pushed him away. “You don’t need to do that. I can manage fine on my own, thanks.”
He dropped his arms instantly. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I just … like to do things for myself.” I slid down from the wall and reached for my cane.
His eyes traveled to the cane. We had never discussed my accident, but I was sure he knew the story from someone in the family. He picked up the bouquet of flowers.
“I brought these for your mother’s grave,” he said.
The flowers were for my mother, not me. I should have realized after what he’d said on the phone earlier.
“She loved roses. Especially pink roses.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s why I brought them.”
He opened the wrought-iron cemetery gate and held it for me. The yellow crime scene tape that Biggie Mathis had put around the tarp covering what was left of the shed fluttered in the breeze like streamers at a parade, just visible on the other side of the wall now that most of the tulip poplar was gone.
“What a good memory you have,” I said.
“Chantal was a truly good person, like an older sister to me. Always saw the best in people.” He gave me a rueful smile. “Even me, when I didn’t deserve it.”
Which was why she had stuck by my father through the gambling and drinking and the other women. A saint, my mother. Or maybe a martyr. I don’t know if I could have done what she did—for better or worse, richer or poorer—and right now I didn’t want to be thinking about that or any of the past, especially if it included my parents’ marriage or the Jean-Claude I remembered from nearly twenty years ago.
As if he guessed my uneasy thoughts, he pointed to the yellow tape, changing the subject. “So that�
��s where they found the skull?”
“Yes.”
“It’s all covered up.”
“To protect it against that storm last night,” I said. “Now we’re waiting for a forensic anthropologist to come and finish the excavation.”
“Any idea who it is?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Do you mind if I have a look around your cemetery?”
“Of course not.”
I hitched myself back up on the wall and watched him make a pilgrimage through the cemetery, pausing at each headstone until he found my mother’s. He went down on one knee, laid the flowers next to her grave, blessed himself, and bowed his head.
Afterward he joined me on the wall. “I know it probably sounds strange, but I like visiting cemeteries and reading what is written on gravestones,” he said. “Especially the old ones. It’s sort of a hobby. Reading the epitaph chosen by someone who mourned for a person, someone who loved them. Sometimes you find the most beautiful poetry.”
I said, surprised, “I know. I do it, too.”
“You must miss your mother.”
“Every day.”
He moved closer and I edged away. He gave me a sidelong look.
“Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?” I asked.
A red-shouldered hawk swooped down out of nowhere and dove for something on the ground just outside the cemetery wall—a mouse or a chipmunk. Jean-Claude and I watched it rise into the air, prey dangling from its beak, as it spread its wings and headed for the woods.
After it disappeared he said in a low voice, “I need to be able to trust you about this.”
There was no one here, unless you counted the occupants of the cemetery. This aura of mystery, his secrecy, our off-the-radar meeting, and now these dropped hints felt as if he were piling on the melodrama.
I said, letting my annoyance show, “It seems to me you’ve already made up your mind that you can, or you wouldn’t be sitting here now after telling me on the phone that you wanted to meet me in private to talk about this … whatever this is.”
His smile was pained. “Fair enough.”
I waited.
“I know this is going to sound un peu fou … a little crazy … but I promise—no, I swear—this is true and not something I’m imagining.”
“Jean-Claude, just tell me.”
“All right,” he said. “I will. Someone is trying to kill me.”
Five
I stared at him, half-waiting for his face to crease into a grin. Gotcha.
“You’re serious,” I said. “Someone really wants to kill you.”
“Je ne plaisante pas. I’m not joking, Lucie.”
“I don’t understand. Why? Who?”
“If I knew who it was, believe me, I would do something about it.”
I believed him. I also knew he wouldn’t call in the law once he knew who he was dealing with. He’d handle it himself.
But he had only answered one of my questions: who. He avoided explaining why and I had the uneasy feeling he deliberately chose not to tell me.
“What makes you think someone wants you dead?” I said.
“I don’t think, I know.” He smacked his fist into the palm of the other hand.
If he was trying to scare or intimidate me, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. I said in my blandest voice, “Okay, how do you know?”
He stared at the horizon and the sun-dappled mountains, a brooding, moody look on his deeply tanned face. “Because of things that have been happening at the vineyard. They’re meant to look like accidents, but they’re not.”
“Such as?”
“Such as someone closed the roll-down door to the refrigerator room while I was in there last week and locked it. I pounded on the door until, thank God, Toby opened it. He happened to come by the barrel room to ask me about something and heard the noise. Otherwise God knows how long I would have been in there. The day before yesterday, I put my hand on a counter when I was cleaning around the stainless steel tanks with the power washer. I didn’t see that the power cord had a small hole in it, so the bare wire was exposed.” He shrugged. “The counter was wet.”
“Oh my God.”
“The electrical jolt threw me halfway across the room. I could have been killed.”
He wasn’t kidding. Wineries use a three-phase electrical power supply system, similar to what electrical grids all over the world use because they’re so powerful. Being electrocuted by accidentally coming in contact with one of those live wires—especially if water was involved—happened more often than we care to admit in our business.
“Weren’t you wearing work boots? Something that could at least have grounded you a little?”
He shook his head. “An old pair of leather sandals.”
“That’s crazy. You should know better.”
“I wasn’t expecting the cord to have been tampered with.”
“Maybe it was just old and frayed. Why would someone deliberately put a hole in it? And how could they possibly know that you’d be the next person to use the power washer?”
Plenty of accidents happened at vineyards. It was a lot more dangerous—hazardous—than many people realized. We worked around chemicals, pesticides, and heavy machinery. Both of the incidents he described could have been unintentional, the latter the result of equipment that hadn’t been well-maintained. He was new to La Vigne Cellars, just learning his way around, so he wouldn’t know his equipment as well as Quinn or I knew ours. So what happened could be ruled as careless, definitely. But deliberate?
He gave me a cold stare. “I don’t know. But that’s not all. I keep finding equipment that’s damaged or a part is missing from something. The other day I couldn’t get the shaft of the sprayer to work and there was a broken bearing on the wine press. It’s more than bad luck. I think someone is sabotaging the equipment. Making it look as if I’m incompetent or careless.”
“That’s a serious accusation.”
“It is. It also happens to be true.”
“Who would do something like that?”
“Who do you think?”
“Oh, come on. Not Miguel.”
He nodded and pointed a finger at me like he was cocking the trigger of a gun. “Exactly.”
My eyes wandered over the graves of my ancestors. For a crazy moment I wished I could ask them if we could discuss this matter among ourselves—just the Montgomery family—maybe take a poll. Believe him? Don’t believe him? Was this setting—my family’s cemetery—coloring Jean-Claude’s accusations so they seemed more sinister? Would I feel as spooked and uneasy if he and I were sitting in a well-lighted Starbucks sipping lattes?
The crime scene tape around the storage shed fluttered again in a sudden gust of wind. Jean-Claude’s bouquet of pink roses stood out as a pretty splash of color among the somber greenery and granite headstones of the cemetery. Yesterday Jesús said finding the skull was bad luck and meant there would be another death. Today in almost exactly the same spot, Jean-Claude was insisting someone wanted to kill him.
I tried to make sense out of what he was saying. “So because you wanted to fire Miguel, now he’s tampering with equipment and trying to get you killed. Except it’s supposed to look like an accident. Is that what you believe?”
“I can’t prove it—yet. But it makes sense, don’t you think?”
I didn’t. What I knew about Miguel Otero, mostly from Antonio, was that he was anything but mean-spirited or vindictive. He was a genuinely good person who appreciated the opportunities he’d received since coming to America, worked hard at learning English, and went out of his way to help other immigrants who were down on their luck—needing a place to stay for a few nights or a couple of dollars for food. He was also proud of the fact that he was studying for his U.S. citizenship test, which he planned to take the week after Antonio and Valeria’s wedding. Plus soon he would be a new father. There was no way he would jeopardize his status in the United States, throw away ever
ything he’d worked so hard for by doing something that could get him arrested and thrown in jail. That is, if he wasn’t deported first.
“What’s really going on, Jean-Claude? There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“And what would that be?” he asked in a cutting voice. “Do you think I am inventing this? Why would I do that?”
Well, as they say, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you. I didn’t think he was inventing anything that he said had happened. But something must have tripped a switch to persuade him these incidents were all murder attempts disguised as careless accidents—and not the other way around.
“I think you might be making too much out of coincidences and unfortunate accidents. I also think you’re wrong to pin this on Miguel, who is a good, decent man.”
“Is that so? Tell me, then, who else could it be?”
Maybe no one.
“Why don’t you tell me? I’ve heard rumors … they’re even going around here, in Atoka … that you’ve got skeletons in your closet. Things you don’t ever talk about.” I said it in a deliberate way so he couldn’t mistake the gauntlet I’d just thrown down. Something to do with your past. Something your father had to cover up.
His eyes flashed with anger and he looked at me with contempt. “Quel dommage, Lucie. What a pity. I was foolish enough to hope—actually I expected—that you’d believe me, trust me. Our families go back a long way, ma belle. You know the de Merignacs, who we are in France. You know me.”
He expected my unquestioning loyalty and trust. I hate being backed into a corner or bullied.
“I don’t know you,” I told him. “Not really.”
He cocked an eyebrow and gave me a pitying smile. “Oh, come on. Don’t think I didn’t know you were in love with me that summer when you and your brother came to visit. You were so obvious, chérie. Everyone knew it; we were all talking about it. The way you followed me around. Tried to be wherever you thought I would be.”
My face turned scarlet. So he had known. And apparently he assumed I still carried a torch for him, that I was still that thirteen-year-old lovestruck girl. Even though it happened nearly twenty years ago, it stung that he would taunt me in such an unkind way, try to strip away my shell and prod me, looking for my vulnerable heart.
