Ellen Crosby - The Sauvignon Secret

“They were brilliant scientists,” he said. “Their country needed them, all that they could offer. Science is research and sometimes things go wrong. It happens.”

“ ‘Things go wrong’?” Juliette said. “My God, Charles. You’re inhuman.”

The tension in the room escalated with an almost audible click as she raised her arm again.

“Juliette,” I said, “please put the gun down. There’s a child—”

She gave me a scornful look. “That time has passed, Chantal.”

Pépé caught my eye. Don’t correct her.

“Before you shoot me, I have a question for Jasmine,” Charles said in a conversational tone. “Did Vivian give you the photo of Maggie and me? Then you mailed it to all of us, along with the photo of Stephen Falcone, didn’t you?”

She nodded. “I wanted you all to know that somebody still remembered. But I never thought you’d kill the others.” Her voice rose. “Except maybe for Paul. I think he must have been the one Maggie called Chicken Little in her diary. The timid one. He hanged himself rather than face what was coming.”

“What a bastard you are, Charles.” Juliette’s voice was cold. “I’ve never told you that, but you always have been. You let that innocent girl die, and you covered up the death of a disabled man who had no idea what he got into. Then you hunted down your former colleagues and killed them to finally silence everyone who knew what happened, to save your own skin.”

She aimed the gun.

“No!” I shouted. “Don’t!”

Jasmine’s hand cradled Hope’s head and as she turned my niece’s face so she couldn’t see what was happening.

“You will suffer,” Juliette screamed at Charles. “Just like that poor boy suffered.”

“You’re out of your mind. What are you talking about?” He threw up his hands like a shield, knocking his wedding ring against his wineglass.

I flinched at the sharp little clink as Juliette’s words jackhammered inside my head. Just like that poor boy suffered .

Stephen died of anthrax poisoning.

I stared at Charles’s wineglass and his dinner plate. He’d been eating a salad whose contents had probably come from Juliette’s garden and drinking a bottle of his own wine. A clever scientist, Noah had said, could change a harmless pesticide like Bt into something that had the genetic makeup of anthrax. Spray it over crops and who would know … until someone ate the deadly meal or drank the poisoned cup. Even then, the reaction wasn’t instantaneous.

Juliette had poisoned Charles. She didn’t need the gun.

“Which is it, Juliette, the wine or the salad? Or both?” I asked. “Where did you get anthrax-laced Bt?”

Charles turned pale. “My God, Juliette, what did you do? Are you insane ?” He, too, stared at the remnants of his meal. “It couldn’t be the wine … but the salad—”

“You have no one to blame but yourself,” she said in a cool voice. “Because my gardener was so busy ferrying your little concubines home at night, he didn’t have time to tend to his duties. So I did my own spraying. With a new pesticide.”

“Christ Almighty, you brought Theo here? Right into my own home?” Charles’s voice rose to a screech. “When? How? He’s dead.”

“So you heard,” she said. “A pity the way it happened, a shoot-out during a drug deal. And no, he never came here, Charles. I wouldn’t be that stupid.”

“Then how—?” He stared at Jasmine. “ You . You got it for her. Theo gave it to you.”

Jasmine shrugged. “Does it really matter where it came from?”

“Juliette,” Pépé interrupted. “He needs to go to the hospital. You can’t let him die like this.”

“Sorry, but he’s not going anywhere,” she said. “If he tries to leave, I’ll shoot him. One way or another, he’ll die.”

“Don’t be an ass, Juliette.” For the first time Charles sounded scared. “You won’t get away with this unless you kill everyone in this room.”

Juliette turned to Pépé and me. “Your timing is really appalling, you know? No one ever would have suspected the real cause of death, even when they did an autopsy. There are hardly any cases in the United States of death by ingesting anthrax, so it probably would have been attributed to something else. A sad but tragic natural death. Why do you want to save him when you know what he has done? Go away and leave us alone. He ought to die … he deserves to die.”

“No,” I said. “No one deserves to die this way. Not even for what he did.”

“Luc,” Juliette’s voice beseeched him. “We could be together finally, after he’s gone. Begin again, the two of us.”

“No,” he said, “we couldn’t.”

“Please …” Her eyes filled with tears.

“Put the gun down, Juliette.” Pépé raised his arm and pointed Leland’s .45 at her as she gasped. “You know I’m an excellent marksman. If I have to pull the trigger, you’ll lose that hand. You’ll never get your shot off in time.”

“You won’t,” she said. “You wouldn’t. You’d never hurt me.”

“I would if you go through with this.”

It will be a long time before I forget the anguished look that passed between the two of them. Then Juliette took a deep breath, almost a sigh, and squared her shoulders.

“Ah, Luc, my darling, then you must forgive me.” She smiled at him and suddenly I saw a shadow of the young, beautiful girl she’d been in that beguiling portrait in Charles’s study.

I knew, then, that Pépé had been there when she sat for that painting. The teasing, provocative look had been meant for him. I caught a glimpse of Charles’s face. He knew, too.

Juliette aimed the gun, but her hand shook as though the weapon had become too heavy to hold.

“Don’t,” Pépé said.

Jasmine whirled around with Hope and ran into the kitchen. Hope started to wail.

“May you rot in hell, Charles.”

Juliette steadied the revolver, this time with both hands. My grandfather flinched, but he kept the .45 trained on her as she tilted her head almost flirtatiously at him.

“Adieu, mon amour,” she said.

“No!” Pépé sounded panicked and I glanced at him in surprise.

Juliette took a step toward Pépé, and for a wrenching moment I thought she was going to shoot him before she killed Charles.

“Pépé, look out!”

“Je t’aime, Luc.” With one fluid movement Juliette brought the gun to her heart and fired.

She moaned and dropped to the ground like a rag doll, the gun bouncing off the carpet with a dull thud and skidding under the table.

My grandfather was at her side instantly, murmuring her name, pleading with her to respond. He looked up.

“Lucie, call 911. Now! Vite! ”

I nodded. “Yes, of course. There’s only a little blood … is she still alive?”

He bent his head so his ear was next to her mouth. “Barely.”

In the kitchen, Hope’s jagged crying had become hysterical as Jasmine frantically tried to calm her down.

“What about me, goddammit?” Charles asked. “I’m dying, too.”

Pépé said, with some contempt, “Don’t worry, Charles. We won’t forget you. I can see how moved you are that your wife just shot herself.”

“Don’t talk to me about how I should feel.” Charles was equally contemptuous. “You of all people. She married me after you exiled her to Washington and left for Belgium. She never stopped loving you. Don’t think I didn’t know it all these years. You’re as responsible as I am for this.”

My grandfather’s face went pale but his voice stayed firm. “Lucie—an ambulance. Call now.”

I started to dial as a door slammed in the kitchen. “Jasmine’s leaving and she has Hope.”