Ellen Crosby - The Chardonnay Charade

“Ross has a note from Randy?” Quinn lit the cigar and puffed on it. “Pretty convenient, don’t you think? Deflects suspicion from the husband.”

“Ross did not kill Georgia,” I snapped. “He was delivering twins that night. Look, I like Randy and I don’t want to believe it, either, but Georgia’s dead and he’s gone.”

“I thought you told me this morning the medical examiner said she had sex with someone before she died. Not the thing you do before you kill somebody, is it? At least, I don’t.” He tugged on a thick gold chain he wore around his neck. I used to think it was odd he wore more jewelry than I did, but I’d finally gotten used to it.

I blushed and reached down to pick up a handful of stones from the gravel courtyard, and let them sift through my fingers. “We won’t go there. Maybe it wasn’t consensual. Or maybe it wasn’t Randy and he found out about it and lost his temper.”

“The fact that she had sex with somebody other than Ross still gives him the strongest motive for killing her.”

“Then explain why Randy disappeared right after Georgia was murdered,” I countered.

Quinn shrugged. “Maybe he did go fishing.”

“Oh, come on.”

“All right, then you explain the methyl bromide. Why not just kill her with whatever she got hit with?” he asked.

“Because the blow didn’t kill her, so he had to use something else to finish the job. The methyl bromide canisters were right there. Those fields aren’t that far from the barn. Randy knew where to find everything, and besides, he could have kept the protective gear he wore when he put up the warning signs.”

Quinn shook his head. “Doesn’t sound like Randy, all that premeditated stuff.”

“You mean the same Randy who told us he was using the barn for band practice and then set it up as a little hideaway for trysts with a married woman?”

He blew a perfect smoke ring, then watched it vanish. “There’s a big difference between lust and murder.”

“I don’t know about that. With either one, you get caught up in something that makes you lose your head.” I reached for my cane and stood up. “I’d better get over to Middleburg. We need the payroll money and you want that check for the rootstock. Maybe I’ll stop by Mac’s antique store as long as I’m in town.”

“And do what?” Quinn stood up, too. “See if Mac knows anything about where Randy’s gone? Honey, I got news for you. Bobby sent somebody to talk to Mac first thing this morning. I heard him. You better not get in the way of a murder investigation, playing amateur detective.”

“Give me a little credit,” I said. “I’m trying to help a friend.”

“I take it you mean Ross,” he said, “and that boy is going to need all the help he can get. With no alibi and a damn good motive for murder—better than Randy’s, if you ask me—it doesn’t look so good for him.”

“I know that,” I said. “Believe me, I know.”

I took care of my banking at Blue Ridge Federal and accepted the offer of an unnaturally bright blue lollipop from the septuagenarian teller.

“What flavor is this?” I pulled off the wrapper.

“Blue,” she said. “Enjoy.”

I finished it before I got to Mac’s store. He meant it about no eating or drinking around his antiques. I’d once watched him ask a customer to leave because she was chewing gum.

Macdonald’s Antiques was located in a graceful old Federal building on the corner of Washington and Jay Streets in the center of downtown Middleburg. The town, founded in the mid-1700s, had once been the midway stop on the main stagecoach road between Alexandria and Winchester—which was how it got its name. Long before that, the area had been the hunting ground of the Sioux Indians.

More than three centuries later, hunting was still popular, though it was now the gentleman’s sport of fox-hunting. In the early 1900s wealthy Northerners had rescued our sleepy little region from the severe economic hardship we suffered during the Civil War. As more and more people moved to the area, we were back on the map, but this time as the wealthy heart of Virginia’s horse and hunt country.

A small bell on the front door tinkled as I walked into Mac’s store. He was sitting at the large partner’s desk where he did all his paperwork, talking on the phone. I got a wave, then he twirled a finger to indicate that he’d only be a moment and I should have a look around.

I could look to my heart’s content, but I already knew everything in the place was way out of my price range, since it had probably belonged to a famous Virginian like Washington, Jefferson, or Stonewall—or one of their kin. I ran my hand across the silky wood of a burled walnut end table with mother-of-pearl inlay, then propped my cane against a chair with a pretty back that resembled a lyre. The price of the table was on the reverse side of a tag decorated with Mac’s familiar hand-stenciled pineapple logo, the colonial symbol for “welcome.” I turned it over.

“Good Lord.”

“You interested in that table, Lucie?” Mac asked. I hadn’t heard him hang up the phone, nor come up behind me. He shifted my cane so it rested against the wall instead of his expensive chair.

“Didn’t mean to scare you, sugar,” he continued. “I can come down a bit on that price. It’s a beautiful piece. Belonged to the Lee family. Wonderful provenance.”

“Robert E. Lee?”

“No, not Robert. Someone who was kin to an earlier Lee. Francis Lightfoot Lee. Friend to Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry.”

Off by nearly a century. Which explained the sum he was asking for it. I turned the price tag back over. “It’s beautiful, Mac. Too rich for my blood, unfortunately.”

“What brings you here, then? Social visit?”

“Randy hasn’t shown up at the vineyard the past two days. I was wondering if he said anything to you about taking off for a while.”

Mac was one of the Romeos, white-haired and somewhat stooped, with a beaky nose and keen eyes, reminding me of a well-dressed crane, since he always wore a suit. He folded his arms and tapped his fingers on his forearms. “I just finished answering that very same question for a nice young fellow from the sheriff’s office. Why are you asking, honey? What’s going on? I assume this is about Georgia Greenwood. You know something, don’t you?”

The second fastest way to spread news besides telling Thelma Johnson at the general store was to mention something to one of the Romeos.

I never play poker. My face gives me away every time.

“I thought you might.” He nodded wisely. “I talked to Sammy Constantine over at the Inn yesterday. He was with Ross when the sheriff’s boys were questioning him. Is Randy a suspect, too? Nice young fellow. I find it hard to believe that he’d be involved with that woman.”

“You didn’t like Georgia, did you?”

“I don’t like anybody engages in character assassination to further their own ambitions.” He rapped his knuckles sharply on the walnut table. “The things she said about Noah Seely were hateful.”

“Harry Dye got pretty upset with her at the fund-raiser the other night, too.”

“I heard about that,” he acknowledged. “Good for Harry. Georgia lied about Noah being endorsed by that gay rights magazine, the one with those extreme ideas about marriage and legalizing drugs. Sure they supported Noah. Fifteen years ago when he was trying to get Virginia wildflowers planted along highways and roadsides. A whole different ball game.”

“I remember that wildflower project,” I said. “My mother designed the poster for it.”

“So she did,” Mac said, “now you mention it. Very classy. Just like your sweet momma, God rest her soul.”