Ellen Crosby - The Chardonnay Charade

“You wouldn’t lie to me?”

“We’re safe as houses,” Mick assured me. “There are FAA standards about how little fuel you can have left before you’re required to land. Relax, love. We could fly to Richmond with what we’ve got left.”

We touched down, surprisingly gently, about ten minutes later. I refused to get out of the helicopter until the blades stopped turning. Then Mick lifted me into his arms and set me down before retrieving my cane.

After he paid Chris, we drove to the main gate.

“I suppose you could convert those stables into a tasting room,” I said as it closed behind us

“The horses would hate it.”

“You’re planning on raising horses and running a vineyard?”

“Not single-handedly. But yes. I guess I didn’t get around to telling you that I used to play polo. At university in the U.K., then more recently in Florida.”

“So what, exactly, did you do for this pharmaceutical company in Florida?” I asked.

“Ever heard of Dunne Pharmaceuticals?”

“Oh, my God. Yes, of course. That’s you ?”

“Was me. I sold to Merck.”

“Why?”

“I got bored.” He put his foot on the accelerator and we sped past a pickup truck. “I wanted to do something different.”

“Like own a vineyard?”

“Precisely.”

We finished the drive back to Atoka in silence with only our GPS friend interrupting occasionally to tell him to turn right or left. When we got to my house, he turned off the engine and came around to open my door.

“That was an extravagant way to see your new property,” I said. “Why did you do it?”

“I wanted you to see it that way. I did it for you.” He kissed me as I knew he would. No peck on the cheek this time. “I still owe you dinner,” he murmured. “What are you doing tonight?”

I said breathlessly, “Working. A jazz concert and a wine tasting.”

“Tomorrow?”

His persistence was making me dizzy. “Can I let you know? We’ll be busy all day. I’m not sure when I’ll be through.”

After he left I went inside and thought about that kiss. Was he trying to start something? And why me? Somehow I didn’t think I fit the prototype of the other women he’d been with. I figured him falling for the tall, leggy knockouts who spent their days caring for themselves so they glittered at night for the men who owned them. Rich, exotic, privileged—just like he was. Not someone who got her hands dirty—literally. And whose only experience with pampering was a physical therapist’s muscular massages as she rubbed my deformed foot in hopes of discovering even one nerve that wasn’t dead.

The phone rang while I was still in the foyer. Siri, sounding distraught.

“Lucie.” Her voice shook. “They’ve arrested Ross. He’s been charged with Georgia’s murder. He just left the clinic in handcuffs.”

I calmed Siri and told her to call Sam Constantine. He’d know what to do. He’d straighten out a horrible mistake. After I hung up with her, I called Manolo.

“Did you have any luck tracking down Emilio and Marta?” I asked. “Please say yes.”

“I got an address last night from someone.” He didn’t sound happy about it. “I don’t know if it’s still good.”

“It’s better than nothing.”

But when he told me, I didn’t recognize the Leesburg address.

“The new place. You know, the toilet bowl?” he asked.

“Pardon?”

“That’s what the kids call it,” he explained. “The arch over the entrance to the main building’s shaped like a toilet bowl. I think it was supposed to be a horseshoe, but that’s not what anybody calls it now. When you see it you’ll know what I mean.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I owe you.”

“For this,” he said, “you do. You don’t want to know what I had to do to get it.”

My next call was Quinn. Granted, we weren’t on the best of terms at the moment. But I trusted him and I knew he wouldn’t let me down. Besides, this was for Ross. I’d already gone on my knees to Manolo. I was getting used to the view.

“I might need an interpreter,” I told him. “Please, please say you’ll come.”

“Yeah, I’ll come.” He sounded just like Manolo, that same hard, flat voice. “I don’t want you wandering around there by yourself. Even in daylight.”

“You know this place?”

“Everybody knows the toilet bowl,” he said ominously. “You can buy anything you want there. Women, drugs. Tough crowd.”

“I’ll pick you up in ten minutes,” I told him.

“You will not. I’m not getting in that windup toy today. I feel like a sissy riding in it, and besides, someone will probably pick it up and carry it off while we’re talking to them,” he said. “I’ll be by to get you. We’re taking the El.”

On the drive over to Leesburg he asked me about my helicopter ride.

“How did you know about that?”

“Mick stopped by after dropping you off. Wanted to talk some more about siting his vines. Sounds like you two had quite a time. I thought you were scared of heights.” He seemed to be concentrating intently on the road, even though we had it to ourselves.

“You know I am,” I said. “He told me he wanted me to see his new property. Didn’t bother mentioning I’d be looking down at it from twelve hundred feet until we got to the airport. There was no getting out of it then.”

“Pretty expensive date. He likes you.” He was driving the El with one palm on the steering wheel, his arm extended ramrod-straight, the other arm out the window, fingers tapping out a rhythm on the car door.

“Don’t be ridiculous. It wasn’t a date. We’re going to be sharing a common property line. It’s good he likes me. We’re neighbors now.”

He glanced at me with a face like granite, hard and maybe a little cold. “We’re almost there.”

Manolo was right. The minute I saw the main building with its oddly shaped pea-green arch, I knew why it was called what it was called.

Emilio and Marta’s condo was a walk-up on the third floor of one of the many rabbit-warren complexes built around a series of large interconnected parking lots whose visual focal points were overfull dumpsters. Music, televisions, arguments, children crying. Any language but English. We heard it all as we climbed the stairs. Except in front of the door to Marta and Emilio’s place, where there was silence. Quinn leaned forward to listen, then knocked on the door.

No answer.

“Say we’re friends of Ross’s,” I whispered. “Maybe they’ll open up. If they’re there.”

“¡Emilio, Marta! Somos amigos del doctor Greenwood. Él nos ha enviado. Por favor, abre la puerta.”

“Ross did what?” I asked quietly.

“Sent us,” he hissed. “I said we were Ross’s friends and that he sent us. And to open up.”

A moment later the door cracked open slightly and a man stared out. In his late thirties, probably. Jet-black bedhead hair, a handlebar mustache, compact and lithely built. He wore the kind of sleeveless scooped-neck undershirt Leland used to refer to as a wife-beater and a pair of faded jeans.

“Emilio?” I asked. “We’re friends of Ross Greenwood’s. Can we talk to you and Marta, please?”

“No están,” he said.

“¿Quién?” Quinn asked.

“Marta y los niños.”

“He says—” Quinn began.

“That Marta and the kids aren’t here,” I said. “That much I got. Can we come in and talk to him, at least?”

Quinn translated. Emilio shook his head and my heart sank. Then Quinn said something low and rapid that I didn’t catch. Whatever it was, it worked, and Emilio opened the door wide enough to let us inside.