Ellen Crosby - The Chardonnay Charade

“They’ll never believe that.” He was adamant.

“Could you get them to talk to me, at least?”

“I don’t know. I told you, they’re scared.”

“An innocent man could get convicted of his wife’s murder,” I said. “He took care of them when they needed him. Please, Manolo. I’m begging.”

He parked the truck next to our two green and yellow Gators. Finally he said, “No promises. I’ll do what I can.”

He wasn’t going to budge. “Thank you,” I said.

We both got out of the truck, Manolo giving orders to the crew in staccato Spanish as he pulled on a pair of muddy gloves. “Lucie, you gonna prune the roots, right?” His expression was bland. No more discussing Emilio and Marta.

I nodded and picked up a pair of pruning shears that were lying in the back of one of the Gators, then pulled on my own gloves. Message received.

Until the vines were ready to be planted, we kept them soaking in five-gallon utility buckets filled with water. Between one and two feet long, the vines had thin, straggly roots like a woman’s tangled hair. I unthreaded one from the bulky mass in the bucket and lifted it out of the muddy water, trimming the roots until they were even. Next I handed the vine off to whoever was ready to plant. Slowly the pile of trimmings at my feet grew.

Ever since we’d been in business, we got our rootstock from a nursery near Williamsburg. It was top quality—and we paid for it—because in Virginia we still had a problem with phylloxera. A devastating aphid that fed on the roots and foliage of vines, it changed the world of viticulture forever when, in the mid-1800s, European botanists unknowingly took infected American vine cuttings home with them. The result was a horticultural catastrophe, as millions of acres of European vineyards that lacked the natural resistance of American vines withered and died. Only American rootstock, grafted onto European vines, had saved the industry from obliteration.

As a result, the cuttings we got now were also two different vines grafted together and held in place by a wax nodule—the roots, or rootstock, which was phylloxera-resistant, and the scion, or top of the vine, which in this case was Viognier, the actual vine variety.

Planting vines is the same slow, backbreaking manual labor it’s been since Noah supposedly planted the first vineyard on the slopes of Mount Ararat. For a while, the only sound was the metallic chipping of shovels above the gentle whistling of the wind. The men set the plants in holes about a foot deep, keeping two to three feet between each vine. Other vineyards planted their vines farther apart, but we followed the European way, thanks to Jacques, which meant one strong trunk per vine that grew straight up before spreading out along the top wire. Had we left the canes on the lower wires, they’d be stripped by foxes, groundhogs, raccoons, or geese. Even now we had to put grow tubes—pale blue plastic tubing—over the bases of the young vines to protect them from being eaten.

I stayed out in the fields until early afternoon, then took one of the Gators back to the villa. My bad foot ached from standing so long, but I’d die before I’d admit it to the men. Instead I told Manolo I needed to catch up on paperwork.

He nodded. “We’re okay here. I’ll stop by later and let you know how much we get planted.”

I made myself a pot of coffee in the kitchen, then went back to my office and propped my foot up on my wastebasket. Halfway through calculations for the monthly TTB report—the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax & Trade Bureau—Quinn appeared in the doorway holding an unlit cigar.

“Hey,” he said, “how come you didn’t let me know you were back? I thought you were going to come by the barrel room when you were done in the fields.”

I set down my pen. “Because it’s the end of the month and this report is due.”

He squinted at me. “What’s your problem? I say anything and you bite my head off. Is there something you’re trying to tell me?”

“Nothing I’m trying to tell you,” I said. “How about you? Is there something you want to tell me?”

At first his expression was blank, then the light dawned in his eyes. “Oh,” he said quietly. “I get it. Mick Dunne. You’re upset about that.”

I exploded. “How come you didn’t say anything? Why did I have to hear about it from someone else? I thought you were working for me. Here. At this vineyard.”

He held up a hand. “Whoa, sweetheart. Stop right there. You don’t own me. I am not your property.”

“Of course I don’t own you. That’s a cheap shot and you know it. But you still could have told me that you’re moonlighting…or whatever it is you’re doing…for Mick. The other day you were barely civil to him. Now you’re his new best friend.”

“He pays well,” he said. “And, no offense, but I’m not exactly breaking the bank on the salary I get from you.”

His words hit like a bucket of cold water. But he made perfect sense. Money.

“I see. So he was the high bidder. You should have told me it was an auction.”

“Look,” he said. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I’m just giving the guy advice. He’s paying me for it. You ought to be flattered he thinks you’ve got yourself someone good who knows what he’s doing. He could have asked anyone. Especially with the money he’s throwing around.”

“Did he offer you a job as his winemaker?”

“No.” He looked at me levelly. “I work here.”

“That’s good to know, because I wasn’t sure. I’d better get back to this report. I’m meeting Kit at six and Georgia’s wake is at seven-thirty.” I started punching numbers on the calculator again. He didn’t move or speak.

Finally he said, “You coming here tomorrow before the funeral?”

“I don’t know.” I kept making calculations, eyes fixed on the LED display. “I’ll call you in the morning and let you know.”

“Sure,” he said. “Call me. I got those EPA reports to finish getting ready. Sorry for disturbing you.”

After he was gone I put my head down on my desk and thought about him working for Mick and what had happened last night when I went out to the summerhouse and heard him with Bonita.

I never did get that report done.

Kit was nursing a beer at a table on the terrace when I got to the pub. In the milky light, her face looked washed out and marionette lines framed her mouth. It took a moment before I realized her pallor was due to the fact that she wasn’t wearing any makeup. I wondered if she’d been crying.

“Want a beer?” she said. “Keep me company.”

“Sure.” I sat down. “Talk to me.”

“A Boy Scout troop found Randy. They were working on some merit badge studying woodland sanctuaries.”

“Oh, God. Those poor kids.”

“He was in awful shape, Luce. At least that’s what Bobby said.”

“He must have died instantly from that gunshot wound.”

Kit nodded. “Looks like it, but they’re still doing the autopsy.”

“Did they find anything that tied him to Georgia’s murder besides the note?”

“A yellow hazmat jumpsuit in the trunk of his car,” she said. “And I’m not supposed to know this, but they found a used condom in your barn. A couple of ’em. They’re waiting for the results to see if there’s a match with what they found on Georgia.”

The waitress set down my beer and another for Kit. We clinked glasses.

“Do you believe he killed himself?” Kit swallowed more beer.

“As opposed to what? Someone staged it to make it look like he did?” I asked.

Kit nodded. “There’s one person who wanted them both dead.” She picked up her beer coaster and began rolling it back and forth like a wheel. “Ross.”