Ellen Crosby - The Sauvignon Secret

He swirled his brandy and finished it with his eyes closed. When he opened them he said, “I disbanded the group after that. What choice did I have? They all left, went elsewhere, and it fell to me to clean up. Erase Stephen Falcone’s death. Erase the Mandrake Society altogether. So I did.” He reached over and picked up his empty wineglass. “But I did keep these as a reminder to myself. Not a day passes that it hasn’t haunted me.”

“Did it haunt Paul Noble, too?” I set down my own glass and wished I hadn’t drunk from it. “You must have gotten together from time to time and it came up?”

“Actually,” he said, “we avoided each other. It wasn’t hard to do.”

He got up for more brandy, swaying slightly. Pépé and I exchanged glances.

“I kept track of them all over the years,” he said. “Though we were never in direct contact again, you understand.”

“What happened to everyone?” I asked.

“Theo disappeared … just vanished. I heard that he was killed in a car accident while he was in Europe about twenty years ago. Even saw a copy of a grainy photo in an Austrian newspaper that looked like him.” He shook his head, remembering. “I can’t tell you how relieved I was. Then Vivian died. Heart attack last winter. She’d retired to France. That just left Mel and Paul.”

He ticked off two fingers. “Mel was out in California, the Bay Area. Owned a couple of car dealerships … talk about a lifestyle change. He set up a wine club and rented out temperature-controlled storage to people who needed a place to keep their high-end collections. He bought an old bank building and converted the vault into a cellar. Paul, well, you know what happened to him. But a few years ago when I was out in Monte Rio at one of the Bohemian Grove’s summer campouts, someone brought a couple of cases of wine made by a new winemaker in Calistoga. Named Teddy Fargo. Turned out the guy also grew roses so he named the place Rose Hill Vineyard. Graf spelled backward is F-A-R-G. Theo’s middle initial was O for Octavius. I began to wonder if it could be Theo.”

“That’s the vineyard you recommended to Mick Dunne,” I said. “Told him that he should buy wine from them. But I’m sure Mick said ‘she’ and not ‘he.’ ”

“The new owner is a woman,” Charles said. “About six months ago Theo, or Fargo, sold the vineyard and vanished. A couple months later Mel Racine was found dead. It looked like a heart attack, same as Vivian. He’d been drinking, too. Guess which wineglass the police found in his office, next to his body?”

He stared at both of us. No one said anything.

“Then two days ago, Paul committed suicide. Something drove him to it—or someone,” he said. “I think Fargo is Theo. I think he decided to hunt down the remaining members of the Mandrake Society after all this time. I think he’s kind of flipped and he’s carrying out the threat he made forty years ago.”

“Did Paul Noble know about Mel Racine’s death?” Pépé asked.

“Not from me.” Charles’s morose mood seemed to deepen. “At first I thought it was just what it was. We’re all getting up there in years now … hell, Mel was probably in his mid- to late sixties. I just figured it was a heart attack. But when I heard about Paul and that wineglass, I called in some favors and learned that they found a Mandrake Society wineglass next to Mel, too.”

“What about Vivian? Any wineglass there?”

“I don’t know. I’ve checked with some old French contacts, but I’m still waiting to find out.”

“You think Theo was responsible for their deaths?” I asked. “That he’s this Teddy Fargo person?”

“I do. It would explain finding the wineglasses with Mel and Paul. Theo was a brilliant biochemist,” he said. “He could get away with murder, especially if no one was suspicious about the causes of two seemingly unrelated deaths. The police wouldn’t bother with a tox screen.”

“Paul Noble’s death appeared to be suicide,” Pépé said.

“I still think Theo was involved, though I’m not sure how. And maybe it wasn’t suicide.”

“What does this have to do with Rose Hill Winery—and me?” I asked.

“I need to know if it’s really Theo,” Charles said. “And I’m betting the clue that would confirm it can be found at his old winery. Somewhere on the property, there will be black roses.”

“There’s no such thing as a black rose. They’re just very dark red roses,” I said. “It’s fiction.”

“All the same, they were Theo’s passion. Obsession, really. They’ll be growing there somewhere. No one will wonder if you ask for a private tour of the winery,” Charles said. “Especially if you’re there to buy wine. Trust me, those roses will be in a garden where no one would see them if they were just visiting the tasting room.”

“Why don’t you fly out to Calistoga and take a look? Why me?”

He smiled. “And tip my hand? Not a chance. It’s equally possible I’m barking mad, still haunted by old ghosts. There are days when I wonder myself. Like I told you, I saw a photo of Theo in a newspaper. Supposedly he died two decades ago. To be honest, I feel a bit of a fool even telling you all this.”

I glanced at my grandfather, but he remained mute. My choice. My decision.

“All I’m asking is that you find out whether there is a garden with black roses at that vineyard. That’s it.” Charles’s tone was reasonable, but he was also pleading. “And the wine, I promise you, is first-rate. I’m not worried that you’ll advise Mick Dunne not to buy it. I have that much faith in it. So you see, it’s a win-win situation. You also get to accompany Luc to California, spend more time together.”

Win-win for whom?

“And then what?” I asked. “What if I find these roses?”

Charles sucked in his breath. “Then, I guess, I’ll be one step closer to believing I’m right and that Theo could be alive.”

“Then you’ll go to the police?” Pépé asked.

“I … maybe not the police, but someone. Dragging up Stephen Falcone in this day and age could be like throwing gasoline onto that fire right there,” he said. “Can you imagine opening up the Pandora’s box of an off-the-radar project involving human testing gone wrong, having it show up in some newspaper next to a story on waterboarding or Guantánamo?”

Charles shook his head, without waiting for an answer. “I told you Theo swore he’d hurt someone each of us loved as deeply as he loved Maggie.”

The fiery figures rose up and became more menacing. The room grew hostile, unwelcoming. I resisted the urge to glance at the windows where a ghostly face from Charles’s past might be staring through the glass at the three of us.

Pépé’s voice was hoarse. “Juliette.”

Charles nodded. “Juliette. Who else?”

Of all the mental and moral blackmail Charles could have brought to bear on me that night—and I wouldn’t have thought there was anything—he’d found the path to my heart. He knew Pépé would suffer if something happened to his wife and I’d refused to do one small favor that might change the outcome of this situation, save her somehow.

I stole a look at my grandfather. His hands gripped the sides of his chair and he was staring into the fire, a bleak expression on his face. He wouldn’t ask me outright; it was my decision.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

Even now when I think back on that night in Charles’s lodge, the three of us sitting around an absurdly comforting fire in the middle of July during the hottest summer since they started keeping records, I have a hard time remembering what really happened and what I imagined had taken place. Charles’s tale of Theo Graf—a scientist he’d believed was dead for more than twenty years who suddenly popped up in California and decided to exact revenge for the accidental death of the young girl who’d been his lover almost half a century ago—sounded like the frayed memories of an old man with a guilt-ridden conscience. Or a narcissist who believed that a series of coincidences involving other people somehow revolved around himself.