by Ellen Crosby
“Beautiful day, huh?” His voice was ironic. “Guess we ought to savor them when we can. Because you never know—”
“No,” I said. “You don’t.”
“I’ll call you some time, cupcake.”
The carved wooden door with its fancy iron scrollwork closed with a loud clunk behind him. There was no spring in his step this time as there had been when he had come down the stairs to meet me.
I wanted to feel sorry for him but I couldn’t. There was something odd about the rushed intensity of his relationship with Valerie. Something odd about her accident, too.
I drove home and wondered what she wanted to tell me about the Washington wine Jack Greenfield donated and why she’d been so sure I didn’t know about its provenance. Before the auction took place at the end of the month I needed to find out—even if it was nothing more than a wild goose chase.
Chapter 3
Quinn was in the lab just off the barrel room when I showed up at quarter past three. I’d changed into a baggy sweatshirt and loose pair of pants. He looked me over like yard sale merchandise the sellers ought to be paying you to take. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
“If I was, I’d just lie there and think about how much it hurts. Anyway, I’m too restless, especially since we still have to bring in the Cab. Did you do the field tests yet?”
“I’m about to. Want to come along?”
“Sure.”
The only grapes left to harvest this year were Cabernet Sauvignon, the most celebrated red wine grape in the world. The best-known and most sought-after Cabs come from Bordeaux, a place God created on His best day, granting it a perfect climate, sun-drenched days, and the kind of rocky soil vines thrive on.
Unlike the French, Americans name wines by grape varietal rather than region, but a French Bordeaux, an American Cabernet Sauvignon, and what the English call “claret” are all the same wine. Most of these are blends of more than one grape—usually Merlot or Cabernet Franc, though sometimes a little Petit Verdot or Malbec is added as well. The trick, for a winemaker, is figuring out how much of which grape to add to get the perfect wine—though by law, the “other” grapes can’t be more than 25 percent of the blend, or it can’t be labeled Cabernet Sauvignon.
Quinn was a born fiddler and I knew he was already pondering our blend even though we hadn’t yet picked the grapes. We’d brought the Merlot in a few weeks ago, putting most of it in barrels, but keeping what we planned to blend with the Cab in stainless-steel tanks.
“Let’s buy some PV this year,” Quinn had said at the time. “A few tons. It’ll give the wine a nice garnet color.”
“We’re not buying someone else’s Petit Verdot. I don’t want a different terroir in our wine. You know we always use only our own grapes,” I’d said.
Terroir was the indefinable “X” factor in a wine—literally it meant “the taste of the land” and made each wine distinctive from the next. Changing the soil or the region meant changing the wine. Last spring we planted fifteen acres of new varietals, including a few acres of Petit Verdot—but it would be three years before we got a harvest from those grapes.
“Stop being such a purist,” he’d said. “I’m talking about five percent. It’ll make all the difference in the wine, but it will still be our terroir. You know I’m right. You’re just digging in your heels because that’s how your mother did it.”
It still hurt that he’d once called my plan to run the vineyard as my mother had done “professional suicide.” I was proud of what she and Jacques had accomplished—with little help from Leland—to build our reputation. Giving Quinn carte blanche to do as he liked meant he’d change everything—use shortcuts and take advantage of the tricks he could play with modern technology.
“The wines she and Jacques made were some of our best vintages,” I’d said, angry that he’d invoked my mother to make his point. “It’s thanks to them we’ve got such a good reputation today.”
“Were some of the best vintages,” he’d said. “We’ll do better.”
I gave in, but I was adamant the grapes had to come from Virginia. I knew a few vineyards that bought grapes from California and, as a result, had to call their wine “American wine.” We made Virginia wine—I wasn’t ever giving ground on that.
“I’ve got the refractometer. If you get everything else, I’ll bring the Gator around to the crush pad,” he said to me now. “Pick you up in five.”
He pulled up in the Gator, an all-terrain vehicle that looked like a cross between a golf cart and a tractor, and I climbed into the passenger seat. The breeze felt like a warm caress against my sore body, the sky was a limitless blue, and the sunshine sharp and clear. In the distance the soft-shouldered Blue Ridge Mountains seemed to have fused with the sky so it was hard to tell where one stopped and the other began.
Quinn turned down the south service road. “Bonita called while you were out,” he said. “From Mexico.”
He’d been living with Hector’s daughter for the past few months until her father died. Hector and his wife Sera liked Quinn well enough, but they were traditional parents who didn’t approve of their twenty-one-year-old daughter living with a man nearly two decades older than she was. Especially one who didn’t plan to make an honest woman of her.
“Did they finally have Hector’s funeral?” I asked.
Though I’d offered Sera a plot in my family’s private cemetery with its view of the mountains he loved so much, she wanted to take him home to Mexico. Bonita made all the arrangements. They left two weeks ago.
I drove them to the airport and watched Sera, frail as a bird, strong-willed as a bull, and Bonita, all girly sensuousness and seduction, pass through the security checkpoint at Dulles Airport. When Bonita’s eyes met mine just before they disappeared into the passengers-only labyrinth, I knew I’d probably just said good-bye to both of them for good. I’d never told Quinn.
“Yeah, they had some big Catholic shindig with all the family.” He took a corner too sharply and I grabbed the edge of my seat. “I don’t think they’re coming back.”
We had reached the large apple orchard. The trees were full and heavy and the Virginia creeper, which twined around the split-rail fence, had already turned ruby-colored.
He could have been talking about the weather or he could have been talking about someone who just broke his heart. With Quinn it was hard to tell.
“Did she say they weren’t?” I asked.
“Nope. Didn’t say much of anything.”
“I don’t think they’re coming back, either,” I said. “You okay with that?”
“You mean, because of Bonita?”
“I don’t mean because of Sera. She was ready to skin you, boil you, and hang you out on the fence for the coyotes to dine on.”
“She was, wasn’t she?” He grinned. “I dunno. First Angie moves out on me, now Bonita. It wasn’t really working. You were right about it not being a good idea to get involved with someone you work with.”
I’d nearly forgotten about Angie, a former high school classmate of mine who worked as an exotic dancer at a local club. That relationship hadn’t lasted long, either.
He pulled up at the first marker for the Cabernet block and cut the ignition.
“Was I?”
Though the sunlight was behind him, he squinted at me like he was having a hard time focusing. But his eyes lingered on mine and I saw in them—as I know he saw in mine—the unspoken acknowledgment about the occasionally precarious state of our own relationship.
“Yes,” he said. “You were.” He climbed out of the Gator and said, “Let’s do this.”
He took the refractometer, the telescopelike instrument we used to measure Brix, out of his shirt pocket. I got the other things we needed—resealable plastic bag, small bucket, graduated cylinder. As we walked down the row of vines, he pulled out a switchblade and cut random grapes from clusters and dropped them in the bag I held open.
“Dammit.” He knelt by the bottom trellis
wire. “The groundhogs are eating the lower clusters. I thought the guys knew they were supposed to cut them off.”
“Talk to Manolo,” I said. “Get him to remind the crew. They forget.”
He brushed away a soporific yellow jacket already drunk on fermenting juice.
“We’ve got enough for a sample,” he said, taking the bag and mashing the grapes. When it was full of juice, he emptied it into the cylinder. “Manolo’s head isn’t in his job the way it used to be.”
“He’s worked for us since he was a kid. Started practically the day he arrived here from Mexico. I’ll talk to him.” I poured a few drops of juice onto the measuring prism of the refractometer.
Quinn held the eyepiece up to the sunlight. “Twenty-one point two. It should be twenty-two by Monday since this Indian summer weather is supposed to hold. Here, see what you get.”
Brix was the most important field test we did because it measured the amount of sugar in the grapes, which, in turn, determined when they were ready to be picked. It also allowed us to calculate what the percentage level of alcohol would be once we made the grapes into wine. Because the federal government set strict standards for how much alcohol was allowed in each varietal, it wasn’t something we wanted to screw up.
I watched the refractometer level float up and down before settling on twenty-one point two. “I get the same thing you do.”
“Let’s sample some more clusters near the Merlot block,” he said. There Brix was higher though still below twenty-two so he decided we’d pick there on Monday and finish the rest on Tuesday.
On the way back to the winery he said, “You’ve been kind of quiet. I know you had a rough day. I could swing by your house and drop you there, if you want.”
“I’m all right. It’s just that I can’t stop thinking about Valerie Beauvais. I wish I knew what she wanted to tell me.”
“Tell you about what?”
“She said something last night at Mount Vernon about the wine Jack Greenfield donated for the auction. Asked me how I managed to get him to give us the Margaux. Then after dinner she told me I didn’t know what I’d got and that it had something to do with the provenance.”
“What about it?”
“I don’t know. She wasn’t going to tell me until she came by.”
“And now she can’t.” He swung the Gator around by the equipment barn and parked. “The phone’s been ringing off the hook ever since Ryan’s column ran in the Trib. Everyone and his grandmother wants to know about the auction and the Washington wine now.”
I chewed my lower lip. “How would Valerie know something about Jack’s wine that he wouldn’t know?”
He climbed down from the Gator and handed my cane to me. “Ask him.”
“If I did he’d be insulted. Ryan said she was a phony.”
“Then I’d believe Jack and forget about it.”
“I guess so.”
He gave me the look that said he knew I didn’t plan to and headed for the barrel room. I got the Mini and drove over to the Fox and Hound.
I stopped at the turn on Atoka Road where Valerie’s car had gone into the creek. The tall grass was matted and the bushes were broken and beaten down at the place the sheriff’s cruisers and the emergency vehicles had parked earlier. The asphalt was torn up in a long strip where it looked like the axel of her car and the undercarriage had dug into the road after her wheel came off. The marks—ugly as a scar—ended where her SUV had left the road, probably beginning to roll over until it landed in the middle of the creek.
I put my hand over my mouth and wondered if it had seemed like a slow-motion nightmare to Valerie, or if it had been so fast she never realized what was coming. It looked like the wheel had fallen off in the worst possible place—in the middle of an elbow-bend turn—and she’d lost control. No doubt the sheriff’s department or CRU had already found the wheel, which would help them piece together the rest of the scenario.
On any other day, the woods and the creek were pretty and peaceful—the kind of scene that would have made an appealing photo for a travel brochure. I said a prayer for Valerie and got back in my car. Three minutes later, I was in the parking lot of the Fox and Hound.
Even without knowing that the owners, Grace and Jordy Jordan, were Anglophiles, the red telephone box with “EIIR” and the London cab parked by the entrance were dead giveaways. The Jordans visited Britain every year for one of Jordy’s historical sightseeing jaunts, but they also brought home antiques, English china, and fine art to furnish the rooms and cottages of their elegant bed and breakfast.
I found Jordy in his office off the foyer. Grace had recently redecorated the entrance in shades of sage, cream, and butternut after falling in love with some William Morris textile prints on her last visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Oil paintings of English hunting scenes lined the walls. A large Portmeirion vase on the console table held dried flowers that smelled of cinnamon and cloves.
Jordy was in his early sixties, gray-haired, avuncular, and comfortable as a favorite reading chair. He set down a copy of Majesty magazine when he saw me. He looked tired.
“Hello, my dear. Have a seat. Move those newspapers off that chair, will you, and hand them to me?”
I picked up a pile of The Guardian and The Times from a chintz-covered Queen Anne chair and gave them to him before I perched on the edge. The ibuprofen was starting to wear off and the cuts on my back throbbed once again.
“The place has been in a state all day,” he said. “A couple of guests checked out early, what with the sheriff’s department here for most of the afternoon, carting off that poor woman’s belongings from Cornwall Cottage. Our guests expect privacy and discreet service.”
“She was on her way to see me when her car went off the road,” I said. “Any chance I can take a look at that cottage?”
Jordy shook his head. “The sheriff strung up crime scene tape around the place like Christmas garland. I can’t even take a look at it.” He folded his arms across his belly. “We had a couple who booked it beginning tomorrow. I called them this afternoon and explained that we needed to move them down the path to Devon. Just as nice and bigger. They asked why, so of course I told them the truth. You know what? They canceled their reservation.”
“Crime scene tape? The sheriff doesn’t think it was an accident?” I asked. What else had they found at the creek? Or in Valerie’s car?
“Apparently not,” he said. “Of course I’m sorry she’s dead, but that tape will upset our guests until it comes down. So disturbing. Though we did get a lot of calls all day on account of that auction you’re having at the end of the month. Place is full up for that weekend thanks to you. We’ve even got a waiting list in case of cancellations. I read the column in the Trib about that bottle of wine Thomas Jefferson bought for George Washington. An amazing story. Very generous donation from Jack Greenfield.”
“I know,” I said. “Jordy, Valerie Beauvais was on her way to the vineyard to look at that bottle of wine before she gave a talk at Middleburg Academy.”
He made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Such a shame. I heard you found her and pulled her out.” His eyes strayed to my hospital-issue cane. “You all right, Lucie?”
“I got banged up when I slipped in the creek, but I’ll be okay. You mind if I take a look around here, anyway? I’ll stay away from the crime scene tape.”
He steepled his fingers. “What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know. Probably nothing.”
“Something to do with that bottle of wine?” He leaned back in his desk chair and regarded me.
“Valerie wanted to talk to me about something. Whatever it was, she never got a chance to do it. I guess I’m just scratching an itch, that’s all.”
Jordy and Jack Greenfield played poker with a local group of men known as the Romeos. It stood for Retired Old Men Eating Out and they could spread gossip faster than a strong wind could spread a fire in a dry spell. I’d just aroused his cu
riosity and he knew I’d been deliberately vague. The topic would come up for sure at the next poker game.
“Help yourself.” His smile was bland. “Don’t imagine you’ll find anything, but you’re welcome to look.”
“Thanks.” I stood. “I see you’ve got a copy of her book.”
His chair squeaked as he swung around to retrieve it from a gate-leg maple table. “Here. Take it, if you’d like. Put it in the wine library in your tasting room.”
“Don’t you want it?”
Jordy looked embarrassed. “My dear, I’m sorry to speak ill of the dead, but it’s unreadable.”
I took the book and thanked him. He walked me to the front door.
“Did you see her leave this morning?” I asked.
He shook his head. “She didn’t even show up for breakfast. Surprising since Gracie put out one of her award-winning English spreads.” He patted his stomach. “One of those will keep you until dinner. Tomorrow’s dinner.”
I kissed him good-bye and he closed the door. But as I walked toward Cornwall Cottage I saw the lace curtain in his office flutter and drop back into place. Jack Greenfield would definitely hear about my visit.
In the waning afternoon light the crime scene tape around the cottage gleamed. I walked up and clamped my hands around my eyes like goggles and peered through the windows. Luckily the curtains hadn’t been drawn.
The living room was immaculate as though ready for new guests. The bedroom was a different story. Covers thrown back on the king-sized bed with the sheets tangled and twisted. An antique quilt lay in a heap on the floor. I moved around to the kitchenette window. A can of nuts and a couple of empty bottles of wine sat on the counter. There was half a pot of coffee in the coffeemaker.
That was it. Jordy had been right—there was nothing to find, especially after the sheriff’s department had cleaned the place out. I started back down the flagstone path toward the parking lot.
The rubber tip of my cane came down on something hard wedged in a crevice between two stones. I looked down. It was a piece of metal—something round and dull-looking. I bent down and almost picked it up.
