Ellen Crosby - The Riesling Retribution

“And?” My mouth tasted like I’d swallowed nails.

“She passed.”

Quinn found me sitting on the wall after Bobby left.

“I saw the cruiser,” he said. “You want to talk about it?”

I took some deep breaths until I could steady my voice. “They’re closing the investigation. Bobby says they have enough evidence to conclude Leland killed Beau.”

He sat down and put his arm around me, pulling me to him. “I’m sorry.”

I swallowed. “He says it may have been self-defense or not. But they’re not going to look any further since they’re satisfied he’s guilty. Dominique put Beau at our house the day I was born, which corroborates Annabel’s story. Plus Annabel produced a letter Leland wrote asking her to leave Beau. She and Leland were having an affair right before I was born.”

His arm tightened. “This storm will pass. You’re tough. You’ll get through it.”

“I don’t believe he did it.”

“I know, I know—”

“I’m serious. Leland did not kill Beau.”

“It’s probably hard to think straight right now. Give it some time.” His voice was gentle. “It happened a long time ago. Who knows what the circumstances were?”

I lifted my head from his shoulders.

“That’s a good question.” I stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“To talk to someone who might know exactly what the circumstances were.”

He stared at me for a long time. “Be careful.”

In the sweet, nostalgic memories of everyone who pines for the bygone days of small-town America, there is always a General Store. An old-fashioned place that doesn’t necessarily have what folks need, but it does have what they wantsomeone who remembers their brand of tobacco and the kind of motor oil they bought last time, and who asks to see pictures of the new baby or the wedding without being prompted. The inventory is never computerized because it’s erratic and, besides, no one computerizes bloodworms or tomatoes fresh out of the garden of a local farmer. Our General Store had Thelma Johnson, who’d owned the place since God was a boy.

I parked outside the white clapboard building with its hipped tin roof and large picture window with the neon “Open” sign that now read “Ope.” Thelma had tied sleigh bells that sounded like Christmas every time someone entered or left through the front door, and that was her version of security. As always, the place smelled of coffee, baked goods, and some pleasantly undefined essence that came from the patina of age rather than an atomizer of canned wildflowers or spring rain.

In the cramped back room where she did her paperwork, she also kept her soap opera magazines piled high around the recliner where she sat to watch her shows. Talk shows, game shows, reality shows—but her favorites were her soaps because she always fell in love with the good-looking young hunks on the screen.

The bells jangled as I opened the front door. From the other room a quavery voice called, “Coming!”

Thelma was the caricature of a sitcom grandmother with her overdone makeup and too-young clothes. Today she was dressed completely in Robin Hood green—sleeveless polyester sheath dress that fell two inches above her knobby knees, sequined stiletto sling-backs, and star-shaped faux emerald drop earrings. Her eye shadow, which I could see behind her thick trifocals, matched her dress. Her carrot-colored blush and lipstick were the same startling orange as her hair.

“Why, Lucille,” she said. “What a treat! I haven’t seen you in an age! Glad you stopped by. What can I do for you?”

“Just thought I’d come by and say hi. Get a cup of coffee and one of your muffins.”

She placed her hands on her hips and considered me. “Child, my momma may have raised ugly babies but she sure didn’t raise stupid ones. You came by for a lot more than just how-de-do. Why don’t you just set a spell and tell me all about it? I presume you want the usual.”

Thelma knew everyone’s usual. Mine was a fifty-fifty blend of whatever coffee she was brewing in the pot labeled “Fancy” and what she called “Regular.” Enough milk to turn it caramel colored, one sugar.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’ll be wanting a blueberry muffin. The berries are fresh from the farmers’ market in Frogtown.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Help yourself. The Romeos were in this morning extrahungry so you’re lucky I got anything left other than the paper to wrap ’em in.”

She tottered across the room in her stilettos and poured my coffee. I got my muffin from the glass cabinet that held all her fresh-baked pies, cakes, and breakfast items.

“What’s the coffee of the day?” I asked.

She winked. “I couldn’t decide between Jamaican Me Crazy and Sinful Delight, so I made both. How about Sinful Delight for you? A little sinning never hurt anybody every now and again, if you ask me.”

At least we were on the same page. I wanted to talk about a big sin. We sat facing each other in her cream-colored spindle-back rocking chairs. Thelma’s chair creaked comfortingly as she rocked and watched me drink my coffee.

I balanced the muffin in its white glazed paper wrapping on my knees. “These are great.”

“Lucille, honey,” she said, “you’ve been eating my muffins since before you knew how to walk, when Lee or your momma would bring you in here. You don’t have to make small talk with me. You can just cut right to the chase. I can see you’re dyin’ to.”

Thelma liked to boast that she had a mind like a steel trap—or, as she said, a steel trapdoor, which was probably more accurate. I was under no illusion that I would even make it home before everyone in two counties knew about our conversation. It would take either an elephant tranquilizer or direct threats to keep Thelma from reaching out all the way to the smallest roots of her thick grapevine and sharing what she knew—and I had neither.

“I came about my father,” I said. “You probably guessed that.”

“I do seem to have a special way of knowing what folks are thinking. A kind of extrasensible psychotic perception.” She smiled and smoothed her dress. “And of course, my God-given ability to talk to folks’ loved ones after they’ve passed.”

I tried not to look nonplussed at her description of her special powers and nodded. Thelma did have moments where she became temporarily untethered from the real world, especially her conviction that she could get in touch with those who now resided in “the Great Beyond” as she called it, via her Ouija board. Would she really remember events from nearly thirty years ago, or was I grasping at straws?

“I don’t want to talk to my father,” I said. “Just about him.”

“Now don’t you give me a look like you think communicating with the spirits is a lot of hokeypokey.” She wagged her finger at me. “I heard you were over to Ball’s Bluff yesterday. If you didn’t feel the presence of the spirits on those grounds—”

“You know I was at Ball’s Bluff?”

“Course I do. That nice young man, Chancellor, was in yesterday evening. Buys a little something for his dinner on his way home from your vineyard at least once or twice a week. Good-lookin’ fellow, if I do say so. Got a smile that lights up a room. He always has time for me, you know?” Thelma blushed like a teenager and I wondered what made Chance turn his considerable charms on her. “He’s always asking questions about folks around here. I like a person who tries to fit in when he’s new to a place.”

“He’s very personable.”

“Yes, indeedy. You’re lucky to have someone like that working for you.” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, surveying me. “Ask me about your poppa, honey. What is it you want to know?”