Harvest of Secrets

by Ellen Crosby

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” I said.

  We left the barrel room, Bobby’s heavy shoes and my work boots crunching on the courtyard gravel. “Miguel’s really gone?” I asked.

  “In the wind,” he said.

  “That doesn’t make him guilty of murder.”

  “I know that. But running isn’t helping him.”

  “He’s scared and he has no papers. Maybe someone’s trying to frame him, make it look like he did it.”

  “Who and why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  We reached Bobby’s car. He rested his hands on my shoulders, but it felt less like a comforting gesture than his own need for support. He knew what he was doing, what he had to do, but he also knew how divisive this was going to be in his own backyard.

  “I’m not any happier about this than you are, Lucie, but I need to find out who killed Jean-Claude. And my guess is it’s someone who knew him, not a stranger who wandered in. He hasn’t been the winemaker at La Vigne that long so the odds are good it’s someone we all know around here.”

  “Am I on your list?” I said half-jokingly. “Do you think I did it?”

  “Lucie.” He gave me a world-weary look. “There, but for the grace of God, go any of us. You. Me. Anyone. You don’t know what you’re capable of doing in a moment of extreme anger, when you’re really provoked and you just totally lose it. If you did, it might surprise and scare you. How many times have I heard someone say ‘I didn’t mean it’ or ‘I never meant it to go this far’ or ‘I don’t know what happened’ just before they confess that it was an accident. They still believe they shouldn’t be punished because they’re a good person who got trapped in a bad situation.”

  He opened the car door. “I’d better get going. I’ve still got a bunch of paperwork to take care of back at the office.” He climbed in and started the engine, powering down his window. “And, no, you’re not on my suspect list. But I will be looking for anyone with a motive. So if you know anything or think of anything, give me a holler. Okay?”

  “I will,” I said. “Be seeing you.”

  He drove off and I watched him go. If he was right—and I knew he was—the murder of Jean-Claude could have been a crime of passion that anyone who worked at La Vigne Cellars could have committed. And being the international celebrity that he was, with his family’s name known worldwide, his sensational death at a small Virginia vineyard was going to attract a lot of soap opera media attention.

  It wouldn’t take long before the press would show up. I was already dreading that.

  * * *

  ANOTHER SET OF FOOTSTEPS crunched on the gravel behind me. I turned around. Antonio, his eyes flashing with anger, strode up to me.

  “Miguel didn’t do it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I know him.”

  “Antonio, Bobby questioned me as well. Even though I’m the one who found Jean-Claude’s body and called nine-one-one. It’s part of the normal routine in a murder investigation. They need to ask questions, find out who saw what. Who had a motive for wanting the victim dead.”

  “Come on, Lucita, Bobby never thought you did it for a moment.” He folded his arms across his chest and gave me a challenging look. “Miguel, he’s another story. Right? He’s not American. He’s not one of you. That’s already one big strike against him.”

  Antonio was an American citizen, just like I was, but he didn’t say one of us. I didn’t want to have this conversation with him, but in my heart I knew he was right.

  My cheeks felt hot. “You’re not being fair. Look at this from Bobby’s perspective. Miguel’s bloody secateurs look like the murder weapon and now he’s gone. What’s Bobby supposed to think? What would you think?”

  Antonio shook his head, his eyes locked on mine. “Valeria is home crying her eyes out. We’re supposed to get married in ten days and Miguel is supposed to be my best man. Isabella’s baby is due any day now and she’s scared what might happen to Miguel with no papers and, like you said, his clippers looking like what killed Jean-Claude. What if her baby has to grow up with a father who goes to jail? Or what if he gets deported?”

  “I’m so sorry. I mean it, Antonio. I’m really, really sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say you’re gonna help.”

  “Of course … we’ll figure out something for the wedding—”

  “Not that,” he said. “I’m not talking about the wedding. The wedding is off until this is over.”

  “You can’t be serious. You can’t cancel—”

  He steamrolled on. “I want you to find out who really killed Jean-Claude. Because, I’m telling you, it wasn’t Miguel.”

  I held up both hands like I was trying to push back, to stop him from saying anything else, though it seemed pointless against his gale-force insistence. “Whoa. Wait right there. The Sheriff’s Office is doing that. They’re going to find out who killed Jean-Claude.”

  “You think they’re going to keep trying to find someone else when they’ve already got Miguel’s secateurs with blood on them? They’ve got their suspect. Your family and Jean-Claude’s family go way back,” he said. “You two talk in French all the time … talked in French. Miguel heard some stories about Jean-Claude, things that happened in France that got him in trouble. He told me about it a few weeks ago.”

  “What things? Heard about them from whom?”

  “I don’t know … something he did. But I bet you could find out. Maybe it has something to do with why he was killed.”

  “Antonio…”

  “I’m telling you this, Lucie. The guys are all scared. You think you had trouble getting pickers to come before this happened? Wait until you see who shows up when you want the Cab Franc picked. Nadie. No one. Somebody has to stick up for the immigrant community. If you have faith in me, if you trust me, I’m telling you to believe me that Miguel is innocent. I just need you to help prove it.” He still stood there, arms folded, still that implacable force of nature. “Then the others will trust you if you stand up for one of us.”

  He had just thrown down a gauntlet that he expected me to pick up without asking any questions. The audaciousness of his demand nearly took my breath away. He hadn’t said it, but I knew this was true as well: I’ll trust you, too.

  I hated ultimatums. I hated being backed into a corner. Usually I said no, just on general principle even if it meant doing something I already knew I’d regret later. Quinn said it was my Scottish stubbornness.

  “I can’t interfere with a police investigation, Antonio. And if you know where Miguel is, Bobby wasn’t kidding. You’ll be in trouble.”

  “I’m not asking you to interfere. I’m asking you to ask some questions, find out things Bobby Noland probably isn’t interested in finding out right now because he’s too busy looking for Miguel.”

  “That’s a cheap shot. Bobby’s a good detective.”

  “Miguel is an innocent man.”

  He waited me out.

  “Okay,” I said, finally. “I’ll do what I can. But I’m not getting in trouble with the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, not getting in their way. Are we clear on that?”

  “Yup.”

  “Do you know where Miguel is right now?”

  He laid a hand over his heart. “Palabra de Díos. Word of God. I do not. Trust me, Lucita.”

  We locked eyes again and Antonio gazed into mine without flinching. He knows something. Maybe he didn’t know exactly where Miguel was at this second, but he had some idea where he might be. And Antonio certainly knew where he wasn’t. If I pressed any further, we were both going down the slippery slope.

  “Okay,” I said. “I trust you.”

  But we both knew I didn’t.

  Twelve

  Antonio left for the barrel room after our stormy conversation, leaving me to my roiling thoughts. Now what? How was I going to find out who killed Jean-Claude?

  And on a purely practical level, Antonio had just called off
his wedding until Miguel was cleared of a murder charge. I needed to tell Frankie so she and Nikki could put the brakes on all their carefully made plans. I was on my way to the villa when my phone rang. Perfect timing. My caller ID showed Frankie’s name.

  When I answered she said, “Stay where you are.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I can see you out my office window,” she said. “There’s a reporter in the tasting room. She just showed up with a cameraman and she’s looking for you because the word is apparently out that you were the one who found Jean-Claude this morning at La Vigne. I told her you weren’t here and made up a story about a meeting you had in Delaplane. She still hasn’t left. You need to disappear before she sees you.”

  The last thing I wanted was some reporter asking me to describe my emotions when I discovered Jean-Claude lying in a pool of blood this morning. What do they think you’re going to say, anyway?

  I said, with fervent gratitude, “Thanks for covering for me.”

  “No problem. It’s the reporter who gave you so much trouble when Jamie Vaughn’s car crashed into the front gate last spring. The one who kept bugging you about holding back information.”

  “Pippa O’Hara?”

  “Yup. In person.”

  “I’d rather face a Rottweiler than that woman.”

  “I remember. Look, maybe you should just take the rest of the afternoon off. You’ve had a hell of a day.”

  Some days I wondered if Frankie remembered I owned the place. “There’s something I need to tell you,” I said. “Why don’t you ask Nikki to close up this afternoon and you can meet me at the house for a drink?”

  “Nikki didn’t come in today, remember? She went out to that flower farm in Culpeper to start looking into prices and what’s available for the wedding flowers. Are you okay? You don’t sound so good.”

  I had a feeling Frankie didn’t know about any of the developments surrounding Jean-Claude’s murder, including Miguel’s secateurs being found at the scene covered in blood and that Miguel was now on the run. She certainly didn’t know Antonio had just called off the wedding until his future brother-in-law was cleared of murder. Until I figured out who killed Jean-Claude or somehow exonerated Miguel.

  “It’s about the wedding,” I said “It’s off.”

  “What? You can’t be serious. It’s in ten days. Everything’s all planned, all ordered. Don’t tell me Antonio chickened out.”

  “It’s a lot more complicated than that,” I said.

  “This better be good. He can’t leave Valeria standing at the altar, you know. They have a little girl to think of.”

  And then I told her.

  * * *

  ON THE WAY HOME my phone rang again. This time it was Kit, calling from her office in Leesburg. This would be a business call, not personal.

  “I’m so sorry you were the one who found Jean-Claude, Luce. How are you doing?”

  I could tell by her tone of voice that she was circling around to asking me to tell her what happened.

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m still in shock.”

  “Could you tell me about it?”

  “You mean, for the Trib?”

  “Well … yes. Your story is the only piece of the puzzle that’s missing.”

  “There’s nothing to tell that you probably don’t already know from your husband.”

  “Can’t you take me through it?” she asked. “Please?”

  “I don’t want to be quoted and have my name in the news, Kit. I just got rid of Pippa O’Hara … actually Frankie did.”

  “That woman wouldn’t waste her time asking you to turn around so she could stab you in the back if you were in her way. She’d just stab you in the chest and step over you. Did you talk to her?”

  “Of course not.” I pulled into the driveway and shut off the engine.

  “What if I don’t quote you? You could just be an informed source. No names.”

  “All right. But that’s it.”

  “Great. So tell me.”

  “There’s not much to tell. I went over to La Vigne looking for Miguel Otero this morning. When I got there, the crush pad door was wide open and the place was deserted. I found Jean-Claude in the cave in the back of the winery where they keep their reds in barrels.”

  “You mean you didn’t find him in the barrel room itself?”

  Damn. She hadn’t known that fact. “No. Remember my name is out of this.”

  “Sure, sure. So how did you find him? I mean, how did you come across his body?”

  “The door to the cave was ajar. He was lying right there, just inside the door.”

  “Right.” I could hear the faint click of her computer keys and her lightning-fast typing. “Then what?”

  “Then I called Toby and Robyn and left messages on their voice mail. Finally I reached Colette Barnes, Toby’s secretary, at the house and she said they’d gone out for their morning hack. All three of them showed up in Toby’s car right after Deputy Mathis arrived.”

  “How did they seem?”

  I thought for a moment. “Shocked. As you’d expect. Colette seemed a little more in control, but she’d just started working for Toby recently so she wouldn’t have known Jean-Claude that well.”

  “Right.” More typing. “Why were you looking for Miguel?”

  “We’re short-handed and I wanted to ask him if he could work for us this weekend.”

  “Guess that’s not going to happen with him disappearing.”

  “Nope. My turn to ask. Does Bobby think Miguel killed Jean-Claude?”

  “I’d be the last person he’d tell. You know that. Bobby bends over backward to make sure I have to work harder for any information I get than anyone else, so it doesn’t look like favoritism.”

  I did know that. “You’ve been putting the puzzle pieces together, as you said. What do you think? Did Miguel do it?”

  She didn’t answer right away, which I took as a good sign. Finally she said in a thoughtful voice, “I don’t know. It seems he had means, motive, and opportunity, which doesn’t rule him out. What about you? Do you think he’s guilty?”

  I said immediately, “No.”

  “Well, that’s certainly emphatic. Why not?”

  “Gut feeling.”

  “Right.” She sounded dubious. “Okay, I guess that’s about it unless there’s anything else you can tell me. Anything more about the crime scene?”

  There was no way I was going to say that I’d stepped in Jean-Claude’s blood and I didn’t think I’d ever wear those work boots again.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Thanks, kiddo,” she said. “I owe you.”

  “I know.” I got out of the Jeep. “Don’t worry, I plan to collect.”

  * * *

  PERSIA HAD LEFT A note in the kitchen explaining how to reheat the dinner she had prepared for Quinn and me as if we were a couple of inexperienced teenagers. Eli phoned as I was preheating the oven.

  “Change of plans, Luce. Hope and I are staying at Sasha’s for the night,” he said. “I saw a Channel 3 news van in the winery parking lot when I got back to the studio a while ago and didn’t want Hopie asking any questions. Word must be out that you’re the one who found Jean-Claude.”

  “It is. I just hung up from a call with Kit.”

  “Are you going to be okay? It must have been pretty gruesome.”

  Eli was squeamish when it came to seeing blood or even talking about it, so I kept my answer as sanitized as possible.

  “I can’t get the image out of my head of seeing him lying there and realizing he was dead. And then the crime scene technician finding Miguel Otero’s secateurs a few feet away in the wine cellar.”

  “It was the lead story on the news a little while ago. Even ahead of Lolita. I heard it as we were driving over to Sasha’s. I turned it off since Hope was in the car, though I caught enough to know they’re looking for Miguel.”

  “Antonio swears he’s innocent.”

  “Yea
h, but it doesn’t look so good for Miguel if he’s on the run,” Eli said. “Occam’s razor, Luce. The simplest answer is usually the right one. Miguel and Jean-Claude didn’t get along and Miguel’s secateurs look like they were the murder weapon. Now Miguel’s gone.”

  I told him about Antonio’s ultimatum. “Antonio also told me Miguel knew Jean-Claude was in trouble for something that happened in France. After what Dominique said last night I searched the internet looking for information about an Algerian wine scandal and the de Merignac wines.”

  “And found nothing, I bet.”

  “Nothing worthwhile.”

  “The old man—Baron de Merignac—can pay off anyone he needs to in order to keep family secrets from getting out. Besides, that Algerian wine scandal happened years ago.” My brother sounded dismissive. “I can’t believe something so far in the past would be a motive for murdering Jean-Claude now. I mean, why wait so long? I’m sorry, but my money is on Miguel. He just … lost his temper and did something in a moment of rage. Killed someone in a fit of anger.”

  I didn’t want to believe Eli or Bobby or anyone else who thought Miguel was guilty, in part for Antonio’s sake, but also partly—and somewhat selfishly—for mine. I couldn’t afford to have our crew boycott us and refuse to work during harvest. But Eli was right: it didn’t look so good for Miguel.

  Before he hung up, Eli told me he wanted to walk the land where he planned to build his new home first thing tomorrow morning. “I’ve been thinking about moving the site,” he said. “Don’t worry, it’s in the same area we’ve been talking about.”

  “I thought you were happy with the site you picked. Your drawings are finally finished and you were ready to sign a contract with a builder. What happened?”

  “I just want to be one hundred percent sure before anyone brings a Bobcat in and starts digging the foundation.”

  “Weren’t you one hundred percent sure last week?”

  “I tweaked the design last night so the back of the house gets full western sunlight like Highland House. I might need to shift the location.”

  When Eli went into perfectionist mode, I’d learned my lesson years ago. Just say okay.

  “Okay,” I said. “But please let me know what you decide.”