Ellen Crosby - The Riesling Retribution

Now she picked up a cream-colored vase filled with hydrangeas that had been sitting on an oak trestle table we used for additional wine tastings when the bar got too crowded.

“I made coffee and bought some croissants at the bakery in Middleburg. If you sit on the terrace, I’ll bring you a tray as soon as I change the water for these flowers. The Trib ’s on the bar.”

“Why are you fussing over me?”

“Who’s fussing? I’ll pour coffee in a mug and slap a croissant on a plate.”

“Gina—”

“Stop arguing. Go on out. I’ll be right there.”

I got the newspaper and went. The day was drenched in sunshine with a sky the limitless blue of a picture postcard. A soft breeze stirred the impatiens and pansies in the planters and hanging baskets and the air smelled of freshly cut grass. Most days it was the kind of glorious weather that made you glad to be alive. I unfolded the paper.

The short article about the body in our vineyard was at the bottom of the front page of the Washington Tribune. Kit Eastman, my oldest and dearest friend in the world, had written it. The paper must have gone to bed before they identified Beau because he was still referred to as an “unidentified victim.” I was in the middle of reading when Gina arrived with the coffee and croissant.

Her eyes darted back and forth between the newspaper and my impassive face.

I folded the paper and set it aside as though I’d been looking at something as innocuous as the weather report.

“Maybe I’ll take this in my office,” I said. “I’ve got bills that need paying.”

She looked puzzled. “Whatever you want. Let me bring it in to you.”

I didn’t bother to insist that I could manage the tray, despite my cane. But as I left I saw her retrieve the newspaper and unfold it. Her hand went to her mouth and I knew she hadn’t known about the article.

When she showed up in my office, I said, “Anyone who walks on eggshells around me is going to be fired. Got it?”

She nodded wide-eyed, then burst out laughing. “Okay. I’m sorry. We’re all worried about you, Lucie.”

“Forget it. I’ve got to deal with it. And no more hiding things from me, okay?”

Her eyes grew big. “Sure.”

Gina couldn’t lie any more than she could keep a secret.

“What else?” I asked. “You know I’m going to find out sooner or later.”

“Chance called awhile ago. Apparently they’ve already had to chase a couple of reporters and a photographer away from the place where you found the grave.”

I groaned. “I didn’t know that. Someone should have told me.”

“Don’t say you heard it from me.”

As soon as she left, I called Chance. “We had reporters on the property?”

“How’d you find out?”

“I tortured someone.”

“Guess I’ll lock up the sharp objects when you come over to the barrel room,” he said.

“So it’s true?”

“Yeah, unfortunately it’s true.”

“I hate to detail one of the guys to babysit, but maybe someone should be out there keeping an eye on things until this quiets down.”

“We sent Tyler. He took his musket. Said he needs the practice before the reenactment.”

I yelped. “Shooting at the press with a Civil War musket? My God, Chance, are you out of your mind? Whose idea was that?”

“Relax. He doesn’t have live ammo. Says he needs to practice loading and reloading so it doesn’t take him twenty minutes each time. He’s not going to shoot at anyone, even if it’s only blanks. Just scare ’em off.”

“Call him and tell him absolutely no guns. You got that? I don’t care if it’s a water pistol. No guns.”

He chuckled. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll drop by and get it.”

“Good. Do it now, please.”

“Sure. But first any chance you might pay the crew this week? It’s Friday and they have this thing about liking to get paid regularly.”

“I wrote a check and left it in the barrel room yesterday. Didn’t you find it? Just cash it as usual and pay them like you always do.”

“I found it. But according to the folks at Blue Ridge Federal, you’re the only person authorized to do anything on that account. That includes cashing checks, especially ones made out to cash.”

“Who told you that?”

“One of the tellers. The lady with the blue hair and the mustache.”

“It’s not a mustache, it’s…down. And I made some changes to my account about restricting the access. I guess they took it to an extreme. Let me call and straighten it out.”

“Thanks. I’ll pay Tyler a visit, then drive back to Middleburg and try to charm old blue-hair one more time.”

“Don’t take that musket to the bank. Drop it off somewhere.”

“Probably have an easier time cashing the check if I did,” he said, and hung up.

I paid the bills and waited until I cooled down before calling Kit Eastman.

“Hey, kiddo,” she said. “I was expecting your call.” She sounded tired.

“The front page of the Washington Tribune?” I said. “Aren’t there more important things going on in the world? Wars? A mortgage crisis? Unemployment? The environ—”

“I’ll make sure you get invited to the next editorial meeting so you can remind us about all those things. I guess we just forgot. We can also discuss the declining readership of newspapers in general, and the Trib in particular, and when our next round of buyouts will come down, how many of us will get offers we can’t refuse. I mean that literally.”

“So you put that article on the front page to sell newspapers?”

“It may surprise you, but that’s our business. Or what’s left of it. Do you have any idea how many people get their news beamed to their cell phones these days? And that’s it, as far as what they read?”

“Okay,” I said, “okay. Sorry about your lousy readership numbers. But that doesn’t mean you had to put that story on the front page.”

“Au contraire. It’s exactly the kind of story that people are interested in,” she said. “A skeleton lying in a shallow grave for nearly thirty years out in tony horse-and-hunt country. Unearthed by a tornado, no less. People are fascinated. They want to know who it is and how he got there.”

“And you’re going to turn it into a lurid tabloid scandal.”

“Look, some poor schmo turns up dead in some godforsaken part of D.C., maybe somewhere in Anacostia, same circumstances, and what happens? People moan about the high crime rate in our nation’s capital and turn the page. One news cycle, the guy’s ancient history. You know as well as I do there’s a prurient interest in what goes on behind closed doors in the lives of the rich and famous. Especially people who play polo and foxhunt and send their kids to boarding school and men have names like Bunny or Fluffy.”

“I’m not rich or famous. As for that stereotype, you live here, too. You know better.”

She sighed. “I gotta go to the nine-thirty staff meeting.”

“It’s ten o’clock.”

“I know. And I’m holding the damn meeting. I know you’re upset, Luce. Why don’t you meet me at the Coach Stop at noon and we can talk about it? I’ve got an errand in Middleburg so I’ll be over there anyway.”

“I guess you know they identified him,” I said.

She knew immediately which “him” I meant. “Beauregard Kinkaid.”

“You know anything about the guy?”

“Not yet, but I will.”

“I’m telling you up front that I never heard of him until Bobby mentioned his name. So I hope you weren’t planning to ask me any questions over lunch.”

“Of course not.”

“You lie worse than I do. See you at noon.”

Before I left for Middleburg, I did an Internet search for Beauregard Kinkaid, which turned up nothing. Same result when I looked for Beau Kinkaid. Annabel Chastain, on the other hand, was a gold mine. Her name appeared as one of the organizers or main contributors at almost every major Charlottesville charity fund-raiser. The hospital. The symphony. A homeless shelter. The library.