Ellen Crosby - The Bordeaux Betrayal

“The family members who survived the war couldn’t keep it going so they sold it.” He sat back against his crumpled pillow. “Why is this so important?”

“I don’t know. Is there any way you could find out more about that family?”

“I can call someone, if you wish. He spent a lot of time in Bordeaux working with the vineyards in that region once we got funds from the Marshall Plan.”

“That would be terrific.”

He regarded me. “I presume you wish me to make this call now?”

“If you could.”

But his friend wasn’t home, so he left a message.

“What’s going on, Lucie?” he asked.

I told him what Thelma had said about Nicole and the meeting with a woman I guessed was Amanda Heyward.

“What do you plan to do about it?” His eyes were grave. “I hope you’re not going to ask Amanda if she met Nicole?”

“I need to talk to her about the auction,” I said. “I can find an indirect way to ask her about Nicole.”

“Call her.”

“I need to do it in person.”

“Of course you do.” He shook his head. “I don’t think that’s wise.”

I stared at him, arms folded.

“If you insist,” he said at last, “then I’m coming with you. But first I need to take a shower and then I must have some coffee.”

“Take your shower and I’ll make your coffee.”

He glared at me. “I do not want dishwater, especially at this ungodly hour. Thank you, but I’ll make it myself.”

“You sure wake up grumpy,” I said.

“At my age, it is a blessing merely to wake up,” he said. “And now if you’ll excuse me—”

I stood up and grinned. “Of course. I’ll see you in the kitchen.”

The phone in the foyer rang as I came downstairs. Frankie, calling from the villa. I heard her sigh through the phone.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I’m really sorry. I know you don’t need this today and it seems kind of trivial.” She had lowered her voice so I could scarcely hear her.

“What seems trivial? And why are you whispering?”

“Mac Macdonald came by. He wants to leave a donation for the auction. Says it’s a really good bottle of wine, but he wants to give it to you. In person,” she said. “I think he kind of wants to see how you’re doing after finding Nicole yesterday. He’s worried about you.”

Mac owned Macdonald’s Fine Antiques in Middleburg and was one of the Romeos. He’d helped my mother acquire many of the American pieces she’d bought for Highland House over the years and he’d been close to both of my parents.

“I’ll be right over,” I said. Pépé would be a while taking care of his toilette.

“I’m sorry about this,” she said again.

“Don’t worry about it. Can you give Mac a cup of coffee?”

“He’s on his second. I gave him my muffin from Thelma’s, too.”

“You’re a good woman.”

I hollered up the stairs to Pépé that I had an errand at the winery and would be back shortly. Then I got my jacket and car keys.

Frankie had put a couple of pumpkins and a pot of bright yellow mums by the steps to the front door of the villa. One of the pumpkins was darker than the others and the color reminded me of Nicole’s suit. When I got inside, her two carved jack-o’-lanterns—the witch and the werewolf—sat on either end of the bar. Frankie’s smile froze when she saw my face.

“What’s wrong?” She turned and stared at the pumpkins. “I saw these in the barrel room and thought they’d look great over here. Someone did a terrific job with them. They are meant for the winery, aren’t they?”

“Well, hey there, sugar.” Mac Macdonald came out of the kitchen holding a coffee mug. Tall and stooped with a monk’s tonsure of white hair, Mac’s suits usually hung on his thin, bent frame, reminding me of a well-dressed crane. His eyes traveled from my face to Frankie’s. “Something wrong? Am I interrupting—?”

“No, nothing’s wrong.” I caught Frankie’s eye.

Behind Mac’s back she pointed to the pumpkins and raised her eyebrows, mouthing, “These?”

I nodded and went over to kiss Mac on the cheek. “Frankie said you brought a donation for the auction. How thoughtful.”

Mac and his wallet were close and though he swore every time he sold a piece of furniture or a painting that he was barely making a profit, everyone in town knew better. He and a couple of the Romeos had formed a small investment club that beat the market every year since they’d been in existence, plus Mac had his own portfolio rumored to be in seven figures. It still didn’t stop him from peeling uncanceled stamps off envelopes and reading Thelma’s copy of the Trib each morning when he stopped by for coffee and a doughnut. The donation of a bottle of wine was a surprise.

“I’ve got it right here.” He’d left a cotton tote printed with the logo of Blue Ridge Federal Bank on one of the sofas. “It’s supposed to be pretty good.”

He pulled out a bottle and handed it to me. A jeroboam of Château Latour à Pomerol.

“It’s more than pretty good, Mac. It’s fabulous,” I said. “A Latour à Pomerol will bring in a lot of money.”

“Really?” He seemed surprised and for a moment I wondered if he wasn’t going to reconsider. “Well, he said it was worth a lot.”

“Who did?”

“Shane Cunningham.”

“You bought this at Jeroboam’s?”

Mac shook his head. “Shane gave it to me. I just started buying wine futures from him and I purchased a couple of bottles of wine through his Internet auctions. He’s advising me since I’m still a novice, but I trust him.” He shrugged. “Whatever I buy I usually resell through him and it’s made me a tidy little profit. The wine was kind of a thank-you gift after I made a fairly substantial investment.”

Some thank-you gift. “You don’t ever see the wine you buy through those auctions?”

Mac hoisted his coffee mug. “You know I’m a teetotaler. But I do enjoy investing—and it’s fun getting involved in, you know, the world of wine.” He smiled like we were co-conspirators.

I looked at the bottle. Jack Greenfield owned a couple of jeroboams of the Latour—I’d just seen them when I walked through his wine cellar on Sunday. And Shane was taking inventory of what Jack owned since Jack seemed to have lost track.

“When did Shane give this to you?” I asked.

“Couple of weeks ago, maybe a month. Why?”

“Just curious. Thanks so much, Mac.”

“You all right, sugar? I heard about you finding that young woman yesterday.” He put an arm around my shoulder. “What’s this world coming to where you kill a person and dump them like a sack of trash? Who would do something like that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m sure the sheriff will find whoever did it.”

“Used to be so safe around here,” he said. “Now we’ve got all these people coming in from away. Including you bringing ’em in—you’re hiring ’em. I say we ought to send those folks back home where they belong. I’ll bet you one of them did it.”

Fond as I was of Mac, I would never understand his ugly prejudices or his belief that white stood for purity and good. He thought America ought to be populated by Americans, not foreigners, but you could never tell him that the only real Americans had been here for centuries, long before the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery arrived in Jamestown in 1607. When all was said and done, he and all the rest of us were the foreigners.

“If those men didn’t pick my grapes,” I said, “who would? They work hard, Mac. They send money home so their families can have a better life. A lot of them have more than one job.”