Ellen Crosby: The Riesling Retribution

It took me ten minutes to finish getting dressed and drive to the villa.

“She’s on the terrace,” Frankie said when I walked in. “Good luck.”

Annabel stood at the railing with her back to me. She swung around as soon as I stepped outside. Today she wore no makeup and it looked like she hadn’t slept. She’d aged years since yesterday.

“How much do you want for those letters?” she asked. “I’ll give you whatever you want. I know your vineyard just sustained a huge financial loss after that tornado. So name your price. You don’t have to beat around the bush, either. Let’s just get this over with.”

“Did Sumner send you to do this?” I asked.

“Sumner is being questioned by some deputy because he feuded publicly with that horrid Vitale man.” She sounded bitter. “Did you set them on him? Is this your idea of revenge?”

“No, I didn’t. My guess is the sheriff’s department heard about that argument from B.J. No one asked me anything. As for revenge, I don’t believe in an eye for an eye.” I paused. “Unlike you.”

Her voice was low and guttural. “How dare you?”

“There is no price,” I said. “There are no letters. You said so yourself yesterday. It was a bluff and you were right about that. But now I know the truth. Sumner killed Beau, not my father.”

She hissed like a snake. “You have no proof.”

“That’s right,” I said. “I don’t. Which means he’s going to get away with murder and you’re abetting that crime. Even now, when you have a chance to clear the name of an innocent man.”

“Beau deserved to die,” she said. “He was a despicable man.”

“We’re a society of laws,” I said, “not vigilantes. If everyone took the law into his own hands, we’d have anarchy.”

She looked like she’d been slapped.

“Did Sumner have anything to do with Ray Vitale’s shooting?” I asked.

“I won’t dignify that with an answer,” she said. “You really are Leland’s daughter, you know? Tricking us the way you did.”

She left and I spent a long time staring at the mountains.

Quinn finally called me after lunch.

“Damned if I can figure out why the Riesling stopped fermenting,” he said. “The only thing that makes sense is if the grapes were sprayed with pesticide or sulfur or they got treated with something right before harvest. That would do it.”

“You know what? I’m going to drive by Chance’s place and ask him. I’ve got an errand in Middleburg, anyway.”

“I wouldn’t do that, Lucie. Besides, you think he’d tell you if he was the one who did it?”

I closed my eyes and thought about how Chance had kissed me the other night and that offer to finish what we’d started.

“I might be able to persuade him.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“After that brawl the last time you two were together? You can get more with honey than vinegar.” Or a honeypot. I swallowed. “Stay with the wine. I won’t be long. I’ll come by as soon as I get back.”

“I don’t trust him.”

“I know you don’t. But I might be able to persuade him to tell me the truth. He’s got nothing to lose now.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Charm him,” I said.

Chance lived in a small house that belonged to a series of cottages that were part of a larger estate just off Sam Fred Road. When I got there it had the quiet air of no one at home. I rang his doorbell and listened to the silence for a few minutes before I started looking through windows. The living room contained a sofa, flat-screen television, and cheap-looking coffee table. A rug remnant covered part of the floor.

Maybe he was out job hunting. I walked around to the back of the house. A blackened industrial-sized trash can sat in the middle of the weedy backyard. I peered into it. He’d burned something.

I touched the side of the can. Cold. Why set a fire out here when I’d seen a fireplace in the living room? It looked like he’d burned clothing.

I tried to knock the can on its side, but it was heavier than it looked. By the time I succeeded, my hands were soot covered. I wiped them on the grass and spotted a garden rake propped against the garage. Nice of him to leave it there. I fetched it and used it to drag the blackened lump in the bottom of the barrel out of the can.

Along with the cloth, pieces of plastic the size of small playing cards had melted and fused together in the tarry mess. Nothing on any of them, except a black stripe running across the width of the card.

I swallowed. Like the stripe that contained someone’s personal information on the back of a credit card. One of our customers? Had Chance been swiping credit cards at the winery? How many names could he have collected? I could think of one, probably two. Frankie, and maybe Kit.

I raked through the rest of the ashes. Something dull gleamed and I fished it out.

A button with CSA stamped on it. Confederate States of America.

“You make a habit of going through other people’s trash?”

I stood and palmed the button. Did Chance have a twin brother? The man who stood there had jet-black hair and dark eyebrows. Same voice, though.

“Chance?”

“What are you doing here, Lucie?”

He wasn’t stupid, but maybe he believed I was.

“I stopped by to take you up on your offer.” I smiled. “Finish what we started the other night.”

He smiled his heartthrob smile, but this time it was tinged with regret.

“You might be a little late, sweetheart.”

“It’s never too late, Chance.”

He walked over to me and I stepped back, banging into the overturned trash can and momentarily losing my balance. He grabbed my arm and I dropped the button. It hit the ground and rolled where he could see it. His grip tightened.

“Why’d you have to come here?” He picked up the button and shoved it in his pocket.

“I told you why.”

He started to laugh. The dusky blue eyes grew cold. “Wish you hadn’t done this. I’m on my way out of town. Looks like you’re going to have to keep me company. Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“You’ll know when we get there.”

He pulled out a gun from under his jacket.

“Get moving,” he said.

We took my car. I drove. He kept the gun on his lap where I could see it. At the end of Sam Fred Road, he told me to turn east on Mosby’s Highway. The Blue Ridge was behind us.

“Where’s Bruja?”

“With my girlfriend.”

I’d never heard anything about a girlfriend.

“She know about all this?”

“All what?”

“The credit card scam. Shooting Ray Vitale. That was you, wasn’t it? You must have shown up as a walk-on after you dyed your hair. Somehow you planted live ammunition in Tyler’s cartridge box.”

He leaned against the passenger door, facing me.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. And slow down. I don’t want to get pulled over for speeding.”

We crawled through the village of Aldie doing twenty-five. If we kept going east on this road, we’d eventually end up in Washington, D.C. But when we got to the light at Gilbert’s Corner, he said, “Get in the left lane and put on your turn signal. We’re taking Fifteen.”

Route 15 went north to Leesburg and on to Maryland.

The music of a heavy-metal song startled me. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and smiled as he glanced at the display.

“Hi, baby. Miss you so much.”

I could hear a woman’s voice through the phone. The girlfriend, probably.

“Naw. Change of plans. I got a passenger.” He stroked his gun as he listened. The voice on the other end of the phone screeched. It sounded like Baby thought three was a crowd.