Ellen Crosby - The Riesling Retribution

“Of course I’m not.”

“You’re a lousy liar, you know that?”

I played with the stem of my wineglass. “I just don’t want Leland to be judged before we have any facts.”

“You know the folks who gossip will say their piece, regardless. Your friends will wait and see what happens. And they’ll stick up for you.” Quinn picked up the bottle and poured the last of the wine into my glass. “Doesn’t the Bible say something about giving wine to those that be of heavy hearts? Come on, drink up.”

I drank, but my heart was no less heavy. The tornado had left its visible mark on the vineyard and it would take a long time for us to recover. But I also feared that by uncovering that grave we hadn’t seen the last of the maelstrom. If I were right, then what was in store would be worse than anything that had happened today.

I fell asleep in the hammock on the veranda. When I woke the next morning I was still in my clothes and the power was still out. The airless house felt like a sealed tomb. Out of habit I headed for the kitchen before remembering no electricity meant no refrigerator and no running water. At least I had a gas stove so I could heat water for instant coffee. The orange juice was nearly room temperature, which meant it wouldn’t be long before everything in the refrigerator went bad. I poured a glass of tepid juice, found a baguette in the bread box, and drank a cup of boiled-tasting coffee.

Upstairs I splashed bottled water on my face and rubbed a damp washcloth over the rest of my body. As I was on my way out the door, Quinn called on the landline to say he’d be in the field with the crew working on cleanup. I promised to join him after checking on Frankie in the villa.

The weather report on my car radio said the temperature would hit the upper nineties but promised low humidity and no rain. A newscaster reported that “only” thirty thousand homes were without power in Loudoun and another ten thousand were in the dark in Fauquier. They were working around the clock but it might take days to get everyone back online. No specifics whether that meant two or ten.

I switched off the radio. A lot of people still didn’t have electricity. Maybe we needed to plan for the long haul. At least the weather was good news. It had been a hot, dry summer so far, which was terrific for the vines. If we could get past yesterday’s setback, we might still have a good harvest with the grapes we had left. Maybe even a great one.

When I arrived at the villa just after eight, Frankie Merchant had already opened the four sets of French doors onto the terrace and was busy moving the wicker patio furniture back outside. Early morning sunshine made pale stripes on the Persian carpets and quarry tile floor. A light breeze ruffled the floor-to-ceiling curtains and the reproduction tapestry from the Musée de Cluny in Paris that showed winemaking and coopering in the Middle Ages. Half a dozen copies of the tasting notes for our wines blew off the tiled bar and sailed to the floor.

I retrieved the papers and put them back, weighing them down with a corkscrew. Most of the patio tables and the chairs with their green-and-white-striped cushions were still inside, stacked everywhere.

“I’ll help you with these,” I said. “Where’s Gina?”

“Late.” Frankie brushed tendrils of strawberry blond hair off her face. Her cheeks were pink and she was perspiring.

“You look like you didn’t get much sleep,” she said. “Want coffee?”

“Real coffee? I’d kill for it. Where’d you get it? The General Store?”

“You think I’d let myself get grilled by Thelma about what’s been going on around here? Please. I’d rather climb into a tank of piranhas.” She headed for the kitchen and called over her shoulder. “We got our power back at home. Came on around three a.m. I brought in a thermos.”

She returned, handing me a mug. We sank into patio chairs.

“I got here early and brought all the crews’ coolers home so I could fill them with ice water since it’s going to be a scorcher.”

“You’re an angel. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

She smiled a serene, knowing smile and crossed her legs, swinging a sandaled foot that showed off a perfect pedicure and stylish neon pink polish on her toes.

“Oh, don’t you worry,” she said. “There will be payback.”

I burst out laughing. “Whatever you want.”

She cocked an eyebrow as she sipped her coffee. “You think I’m kidding.”

I didn’t know much about Frankie’s past but I did know her children were grown and her husband worked for a D.C. law firm with hours so long he often slept at work. She’d taken this job to keep from going stir-crazy at home. I’d bet money when her kids were growing up she probably ran the PTA and never missed a sports game, concert, bake sale, or field trip. She was probably one of the stalwarts at school fund-raisers, the kind of person everyone counted on because she never let anyone down. Like now.

“I think we should have a backup plan for the weekend,” I said. “In case we don’t get our electricity back.”

“I thought I’d work on that today,” she said. “After I get this place cleaned up.”

Twenty years ago this weekend my parents had sold their first bottle of wine. We’d been planning our anniversary celebration for months.

“You going to talk to Dominique?” I asked.

My cousin Dominique Gosselin owned the Goose Creek Inn, a small auberge founded by my godfather forty years ago that had become one of the region’s most popular and well-loved restaurants. Over the years it increasingly attracted Washington’s high and mighty who liked its cuisine, romantic charm, and distance from the nation’s capital. Dominique probably knew more secrets than the CIA about off-the-radar trysts and furtive romances. Many nights when I dined there the Secret Service hung around being visibly invisible, keeping an eye on some guest and his or her “friend.”

“I thought I’d go over to the Inn for lunch, if that’s all right with you. Get things sorted out.” She grinned. “Your treat.”

The Inn’s waiters and waitresses often helped us out on weekends serving wine in the tasting room or working at our dinners. Goose Creek Catering, which Dominique also ran as part of the Inn’s expanding franchise, handled all our big events.

“You meant it about the payback, huh?”

The landline phone on the bar rang and I stood up.

“Let me,” she said. “You don’t want to take that.”

I heard her end of the conversation. “Sorry, no comment…no, she’s not available. We sustained a lot of damage from that tornado yesterday and she’s got her hands…no, we’re closed for the foreseeable future until our power is restored…the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Department might be able to answer that…would you like the number?…no?…no problem…good-bye.”

She came back and flopped down in her chair. “I’ve lost count how many of those we’ve gotten.”

“Reporters?”

“You want to see the messages?”

I shook my head. “Who called from the Trib? I would have thought Kit would have tried to reach me directly.”

Kit Eastman was my best friend since we’d played together in the sandbox and, for the past two years, she’d been Bobby Noland’s girlfriend. A few months ago she’d been named Loudoun bureau chief for the Washington Tribune. A story like this would be a big deal for her paper. If it didn’t make the A section, it would at least be above the fold in Metro.

“From the Trib?” Frankie wrinkled her forehead. “Some guy. I think he’s new because I didn’t recognize his name. He got the standard reply. Maybe Kit’s going to drop by and ambush you here.”