The Sauvignon Secret wcm-6

by Ellen Crosby

  I got in a long line at a place called SFO Java and called Mick.

  “How did it go? What’d you think of the wine?” he said.

  “You’ll be happy. It’s very good. Quinn and I agreed on the blend yesterday. You just need to call Brooke Hennessey and set it up.”

  “If it’s that good, maybe she’d be willing to sell more than we agreed on,” he said.

  “Ask her.”

  “Be a love and take care of it for me, will you?”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Damn, there’s my other line. Look, darling, it’s a chap I’ve been trying to reach for two days. He’s calling from London and I’ve got to take this. Ring me back after you speak with Brooke, all right?”

  He hung up and I moved to the front of the coffee line. While I waited for two cafés au lait, I found Brooke’s number and called.

  She answered after a few rings, sounding sleepy. “’Lo?”

  “Brooke, it’s Lucie Montgomery. I’m sorry, is this a bad time?”

  “No … wait, hang on a second, will you? I just need to throw on a pair of jeans.”

  “You can call me back—”

  I heard the male voice in the background asking something, then her giggle and a murmured reply.

  “Two cafés au lait.” Someone called my order and set the coffees on the bar.

  I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “Sorry, I’ve got to go. My flight’s leaving and I’ve got to get back to the gate. Mick Dunne will call you to sort this out.”

  I disconnected before she could reply and grabbed the cardboard carton with the coffees, nearly tipping one of them over as I did. A man next to me reached out and saved the cup just in time.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, fine. Thank you so much.” I stuffed a bunch of napkins into the carton and fled.

  The male voice on the other end of the receiver had been muffled, but of course I recognized it.

  Quinn.

  Chapter 19

  I didn’t even make it to the gate when my phone rang again. This time it was Quinn. I had no intention of taking that call. Not now, not ever.

  He hated commitment, any commitment, so he had done what he always did when he felt the walls closing in. Found some sweet young nymph and had a quick roll in the hay to prove he was still free and unfettered. I knew all his girlfriends; he always picked someone who wanted to have fun without getting serious. No strings attached, no hard feelings when it ended.

  The phone beeped that I had a message. Pépé looked up from his reading and I handed him his coffee.

  “Quelque chose ne va pas, chérie?” he asked. “Tu as l’air troublée.”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I said. “I’m fine. I spilled one of the coffees, so it was a mess. That’s all.”

  He nodded and went back to his papers. I walked over to the window where I watched our plane pull up to the gate and deleted the message without listening to it. Then I drank my coffee and waited to board our flight back to Virginia.

  Pépé and I finally talked about Teddy Fargo on the plane, cocooned in the relative privacy of our first-class seats, our quiet voices inaudible to anyone sitting near us above the noise of the engines. My grandfather pressed his hands together in front of his lips as though he were praying as I took out the blurry photographs of the Mandrake Society and laid them on his tray table.

  I waited while he studied them, wondering what he’d finally say, since I’d colored way outside the lines, bringing Quinn in on this, tracking down Allen, and searching Mel Racine’s wine vault.

  “Whoever this guy was—Fargo or Graf—apparently he was into drugs. He was growing marijuana in the hills behind his vineyard and he was dealing,” I said. “That’s why he disappeared. Charles got it all wrong.”

  “But Charles was right that Teddy Fargo was Theo Graf, wasn’t he?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

  “You are sure. I can tell. You just don’t have proof, any more than Charles did.”

  I pulled out the last two photos.

  “Stephen Falcone.” I set down the yearbook portrait.

  My grandfather focused on it, nodding.

  “And this one.” I placed the explicit photo in front of him. “Charles never said a word about his affair with Maggie Hilliard, who was Theo’s girlfriend. I wonder why he lied about it. I also wonder if he lied about being at the beach house the night she died.”

  Pépé’s expression shifted from shock to disgust. He flipped over the picture and shoved it to a corner of the tray table.

  “Where did you get that?” His voice was sharp. “Juliette must never see it.”

  “Mel Racine had it.”

  “You took it to blackmail Charles?”

  I blushed. “I took it because it proves he lied.”

  “And what do you expect to do with it?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “But I think Charles lied about a lot of things.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as, if he was keeping track of everyone in the Mandrake Society, wouldn’t he know that Teddy Graf disappeared because of the drugs? Especially if he thought Graf was really Theo?”

  “Maybe he didn’t know about the drugs.” My grandfather still sounded angry. “As for why he said nothing, Charles operates on a need-to-know basis with everyone, including his wife. Surely you’ve figured that out by now?”

  “Please, Pépé, don’t shoot the messenger. Whose side are you on?”

  “Yours,” he said, “but I am thinking in the same calculated manner Charles would.”

  “I’d like to know why he lied about the affair with Maggie. It would have been useful to know he was involved with Theo’s girlfriend before he sent me off to California to check out whether Theo was still alive and living under an alias.”

  “It probably never occurred to him you’d find out about it.”

  “Well, I did.”

  “Charles’s womanizing, his petites amies, has always been an open secret. It destroyed his first marriage. Juliette knew about it, but she believed she could change him, and, of course, she was wrong. His infidelities hurt her deeply, even if he is discreet.”

  Charles was discreet, all right. A private lodge in the woods and a groundskeeper who drove guests home after hours and kept his mouth shut.

  “You don’t like him, do you?” I said.

  “He is the husband of a very dear friend. If I want to see her, I have to spend time with him, n’est-ce pas?”

  He’d avoided the question. But that was Pépé, a gentleman who would never behave improperly toward another man’s wife, who believed in the sanctity of marriage, that the traditional vows—for better or worse, ’til death do us part—meant what they meant.

  A flight attendant set down our menus and began taking drink orders for the first-class passengers at the front of the cabin. I scooped up the photos and tucked them into my purse.

  “Since I presume you are going to show Charles this photo, or at least make him aware of it, suppose he admits the affair with Maggie?” Pépé said. “What of it?”

  “I’m betting he knows what really happened the night she died.”

  Pépé steepled his fingers and I wished I could read his mind. So far our conversation had been like a lawyer gently cross-examining a nervous witness, giving no hint that the hammer was about to come down.

  “And you believe he will make a confession to you? Lucie, don’t be naïve.” He leaned back in his seat. “He won’t say a word.”

  The rebuff stung, even if it was probably true. “If Charles had any culpability in Maggie’s death, he’s managed to get away with it a very long time. I think he’s worried Theo discovered something that could incriminate him and the truth will finally come out,” I said.

  “Theo is gone and Charles won’t talk. Nothing will come out.” Pépé sounded just like Quinn. “You don’t need to get involved. And you haven’t told me why you are so sure this man Fargo is Theo
Graf.”

  “Teddy Fargo had training as a chemist. He set up a lab where Brooke said he made his own organic pesticides.”

  “You saw it?”

  “No. When he left, he destroyed it and a greenhouse. He also burned a field and put barbed wire around it. What do you bet he grew marijuana on that land?”

  “What did I tell you? You can’t prove anything, not even the drugs.”

  “No.”

  “Then forget about it, ma belle. It’s finished. Why bother now, after all this time?”

  “Because if Maggie had lived she would have made sure Stephen Falcone’s death wasn’t swept under the carpet. After she died no one was left to speak up for him anymore. Charles erased Stephen like he was a lab experiment gone wrong.”

  My voice cracked and Pépé laid a hand on my arm. Now I was the one who was angry. “People who are handicapped don’t get a break in life, you know? You’re treated as less than a whole person, not quite good enough because you’re deformed or, if you’re mentally disabled, you’re slow and stupid. Or your behavior is bizarre. Somehow it’s your fault, or else you’re too dumb to realize how different you are so people think they can talk in front of you the way they talk in front of a pet. You don’t have emotions or feelings like ‘normal’ people—”

  I couldn’t stop talking, trying to make him understand the harsh twilight universe of the disabled where everyone rushes past you—all those perfect people—and you just can’t keep up, though you want to so badly. Stephen’s world wasn’t my world exactly, and my very minor disability paled in comparison to what he lived with, but I understood it well enough to be outraged at how he had been taken advantage of and used.

  Pépé covered my hand with his. “Chérie,” he murmured. “It’s okay.”

  My voice had grown steadily louder and more ragged. The woman across the aisle glanced up from her copy of Cosmopolitan, a look of surprise and annoyance flashing across her face. Any moment I was going to start crying like a child for someone I never knew who died more than four decades ago. It was crazy.

  Pépé pulled a neatly folded linen handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to me. I dabbed my eyes and blew my nose.

  “All right, tomorrow we’ll call Charles,” my grandfather said, in the voice he used when I was a child who’d skinned my knee or been tormented by Eli and his friends, “and pay him a visit. I can stay on for an extra day or two until this is resolved.”

  “Something to drink? Sir? Miss?” Our flight attendant stood next to us.

  “Champagne,” Pépé said. “For two.”

  It was just past noon Pacific time; three hours later at home.

  “Why champagne?” I asked.

  “Because, as Napoleon said, in victory you deserve champagne and in defeat you need it,” he said. “After what you just told me, I believe a glass of champagne would be a good idea, though I can’t decide whether it’s because we deserve it or we need it.”

  “Maybe a little bit of both,” I said. “Either way, it’s still a good idea.”

  But it was Charles who called first. He didn’t waste any time, phoning Pépé the next morning as we were finishing breakfast on the veranda. I was on my third cup of coffee, lounging in the glider and still groggy from so little sleep the last few days. My grandfather had astonished me by rising before noon. He sat across from me, smoking a Gauloise in the love seat where he could watch the mountains change color as the early-morning sky deepened behind them.

  I heard the faint buzz of his cell phone vibrating. He pulled it from his pocket, frowned at the display, and answered. I knew at once who it was by the tightening of his lips. Their conversation, in French, lasted less than a minute.

  My grandfather disconnected and said in a disgusted voice, “Quelle cochonnerie.”

  “What do you mean, ‘what rubbish’? Are you talking about Charles?”

  “I don’t understand him. He agreed to join us for a drink at five o’clock this evening at the Goose Creek Inn, only because I insisted on a face-to-face meeting. He can’t stay long because he and Juliette are attending a political fund-raiser in Georgetown.”

  I raised an eyebrow and sipped my coffee. “That’s awfully cocky of him. I would have thought he’d want another clandestine meeting in his lodge as soon as possible.”

  “Actually, he didn’t want a meeting at all.”

  Pépé lit another Gauloise with sharp, jerky motions. It took me a moment to realize he was really angry.

  “You’re kidding? What did he say?”

  “He asked how the trip to the Bohemian Grove went and whether we had a good time in California.”

  “That’s it? Nothing about Teddy Fargo?”

  “He said, ‘Oh, that. Don’t give it another thought, Luc.’ Like it was something I was concerned about. What a nerve he has.”

  I was stunned. “What’s going on?”

  He blew out a cloud of smoke. “I guess that’s what we’re going to find out later today.”

  He was still upset. I opened my mouth to say something that would calm him down, but from inside the house I heard footsteps clattering down the grand staircase, followed by Eli’s deep voice and Hope’s giggles and squeals. Pépé met my eyes, a tacit agreement. End of conversation.

  “Daddy, Daddy! Noooo! I don’t want to walk. Carry me. Now!”

  Eli laughed and there were more happy shrieks from Hope as the screen door banged and the two of them came outside. He was carrying Hope dangled over his shoulder; my brother unshaved and tousle headed, his daughter’s long, dark hair swirling around her like a cloud, baby doll pretty in pink shorts and a ruffled top. Her chubby hands clutched his shirt.

  Pépé stubbed out his cigarette at once, a smile creasing his face, and I held up my arms for my niece.

  Eli and Hope had moved in while we were in California. When we got home last night just after midnight, I’d been startled to find her rocking horse in the middle of the foyer—I thought a fox had gotten inside until I turned on the light—and the contents of a dollhouse had been strewn throughout the room. The child herself was snug in her new room where she’d been asleep for hours, but Eli had come padding downstairs in a pair of shorts and a Virginia Tech T-shirt to join us for a nightcap.

  “Here,” Eli said to me now, flopping Hope onto my lap. “I’ve got a delivery for you. A sack of potatoes. Watch out, though. It wiggles.”

  “Da-dee! I’m not a sack of’tatoes, am I, Aunt Woozy?”

  “No, you most certainly are not.” I hugged her tight, kissing her soft cheek and rocking the glider back and forth with my good foot. “Give Beppy a kiss, too, angel. We missed you when we were in California.”

  She jumped up and obeyed.

  “You two are up early,” Eli said. “What’s up, Wooze?”

  I made a face at him. “There’s coffee in the pot for you, sunshine. Frankie must have dropped off croissants for our breakfast late yesterday because they were fresh, unless you went by Thelma’s?”

  “Uh, you can thank Frankie,” he said, coloring a little. “We, uh, had a couple with our dinner. Last night was the first time we actually ate here.”

  “I hope you got takeout. I don’t think there was much in the fridge.”

  “I found some mac and cheese in a box in the pantry.”

  “Good Lord, you didn’t! I was going to throw that stuff out. Did you check the sell-by date? Frankie and I cleaned out the kitchen in the winery last week. Everything in that box was Quinn’s. It looked like he was getting ready for the aftermath of Armageddon with all the provisions he had stored there. Most of it was junk food.”

  “I guess that explains the ten packages of beef jerky and all those boxes of toaster pastries.”

  “What,” Pépé asked, “is a beef jerky?”

  “Dried, cut-up shoe leather,” I said. “Comes in different flavors to disguise the actual taste.”

  “It’s guy food,” Eli told him. “Women don’t appreciate it. I bet it doesn’t have a
sell-by date, either. It’s good for years.”

  “Right, and it probably doesn’t break down in landfills if you ever throw it out. It’ll be around in the next millennium when aliens land on Earth to study the extinct human race, which died out from a diet of hydrogenated fat, processed white flour, and refined sugar.”

  Eli rolled his eyes. “I take it you won’t mind if I move Quinn’s box into the carriage house? I’ve nearly got the place set up as an office. You have no idea how long I can keep going at one in the morning with a couple of Twinkies, a can of Red Bull, and a package of chipotle-flavored beef jerky.”

  “Gross, that’s just so gross, Eli, but be my guest.” Hope left Pépé’s side and came back over to climb onto the glider. I stroked her hair and pulled her to me. “What are you going to do today, sweet pea?”

  “Play with Daddy,” she said, smiling. “And my dolls.”

  Eli scooped her up. “First we’re going to have breakfast,” he said. “And then Daddy will play with you. But after that, I have a new friend for you. Her name is Jasmine. You’re gonna like her, honey. She’ll play with you this afternoon while Daddy has a meeting for his work. Okay?”

  Eli caught my surprised look. “Hey, Luce, chill, okay? I talked to Jasmine and she agreed to babysit if she was free. Cheaper than day care, and she’s a sweet kid. I think it will work out fine.”

  “Uh-huh. My, what big teeth you have, Grandpa. You could have asked me to babysit.”

  “You were in California.”

  “I’m here now.”

  “It’s all worked out with Jasmine,” he said. “She’s babysitting for a couple of hours this afternoon before her shift at the Inn. Tomorrow she’s going to be here from two o’clock on to set up for that Hundred-Mile dinner you and Dominique have got going on, so she said Hope can spend some time with her while I check on a job site. She might help me out on the weekend, too. After that, we’ll see how it goes.”