Ellen Crosby - The Chardonnay Charade

“Sounds like they’re heading toward the winery,” Quinn muttered. “Didn’t you tell them where to come?”

“I think so. I don’t remember. My battery was dying, so I made it quick.”

He gave me his phone. “Call them. And this time tell them to get the hazmat guys here, too.”

“Looks like we can tell them in person.” The first tan and gold cruisers from the sheriff’s department seemed to change direction and now screamed down the service road toward us. “Looks like they found us after all.”

As the crow flies, Loudoun County, Virginia, is only about fifty miles from Washington, D.C.—a city that vies annually for the dubious honor of murder capital of the U.S. Here, though, in the rural affluent heart of horse and hunt country, the crimes are minor—mostly juvenile in nature, pranks gone awry. Toilet-papering some-one’s house at Halloween. Turning street signs around. Graffiti spray-painted on a wall somewhere. Harmless stuff.

A murder was a big deal. This one was about to be an even bigger deal when we told the police what we suspected. A couple of uniformed officers went straight to Ross, who was cradling Georgia in his lap. Another officer approached Quinn and me.

“What happened?” he said. “Do you know who she is?”

“Georgia Greenwood. That’s her husband.” My mouth tasted like I’d just chewed sawdust. “I found her and called him. But there’s something you need to know right off the bat. We treated some nearby fields with a pesticide called methyl bromide yesterday. It’s a gas, but it’s highly toxic. We’ve got tarps over the fields and we posted warning signs.” I glanced at Quinn and continued. “But there’s still some of the stuff here at the vineyard. We’re storing it for the company that applied it for us.”

The officer’s eyes grew big. “ Where here?”

“About half a mile away,” Quinn said. “But those blisters on her face. They could be from exposure to methyl bromide.”

“Holy shit.” He turned and called to the other officers. “We got a hot zone here. Methyl bromide. It’s a pesticide.”

He had their undivided attention.

“Then we better get the fire boys here quick,” one of them said. “I heard the hazmat team was looking for volunteers so they could run a drill. Looks like they got lucky. We got the real thing.”

I lost track of the number of vehicles and uniformed men and women who showed up, but it looked—from a distance—like every cop, firefighter, and EMT in Loudoun and Fauquier Counties was on the scene. While we waited for the hazmat team to arrive, Quinn, Ross, and I were isolated with the officers and Georgia in the area they’d called the hot zone. Two officers escorted Ross over to where Quinn and I stood, though he hadn’t wanted to leave his wife.

Last night he’d been elegant in a tuxedo. Now he looked exhausted in faded jeans, running shoes, and a plaid flannel work shirt over a gray athletic T-shirt. He was sandy-haired, with a fair complexion and pale eyes, and when I first met him as his patient I thought Ross looked like someone who could have been delicate or often sick as a kid—an easy target for bullies. I’d been right, but years of taunting and bullying the child had shaped the man into someone tough as old boots when he needed to be. He’d earned a black belt in karate and ran the Marine Corps marathon every year. And ever since he’d joined the clinic, he’d been tireless in caring for the large local immigrant community. Legal or illegal, insured or uninsured, it didn’t matter.

“I don’t think we’re in any danger ourselves from being exposed to Georgia,” Ross was now saying tiredly. “But I guess the hazmat guys will probably err on the side of caution.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“They may want to decontaminate us, though I doubt it.”

A large black man wearing a bright yellow jumpsuit, a mask, an oxygen tank, and salmon-colored rubber boots came over to us. “What do we got, folks?” His voice, through his mask, sounded muffled.

I opened my mouth to explain, but Ross took the lead. “Possible exposure to methyl bromide.” He spoke now with a doctor’s brisk efficiency. “I’ve treated a number of farmworkers for it. If any of us have been affected, there’ll be signs of respiratory distress, probably in the next four to twelve hours. Otherwise, we’re looking for headaches, dizziness, nausea, slurred speech…and I don’t think we’ve got any of that here. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think you need to keep us in the hot zone.”

Something nearby beeped. “What is that?” I asked nervously. “Is something wrong?”

The firefighter shook his helmeted head. “Calm down, miss. Happens when one of us stands still too long. You hear a beep in a burning building and maybe you got a buddy dead or passed out somewhere.”

“Oh.” My head started to ache, along with my bad foot and just about everything else, but it was probably the lack of sleep and maybe dehydration after drinking so much coffee. And maybe the power of suggestion. Ross said we were in no danger, even if we were being treated as though we might suddenly start glowing.

One of the other yellow-suited men called to our firefighter.

“I gotta look at this. Stay put, folks,” he told us, and left.

“How would they decontaminate us? What do they do? And how do you know so much about it?” I asked Ross.

“I’ve been helping out with the mandatory hazmat training at the hospital,” he explained. “We’re doing terrorism drills just like the police and the fire department. Like I said, I don’t think they’re going to put us through it today. But if they did, first we’d have the gross decon, where they’d make us strip and then hose us down.”

“Hose us down with what?” My heart began thudding against my ribs.

Ross pointed over to the fire trucks. “Those.”

“Oh, my God.”

“You mean strip to our underwear?” Quinn asked.

“Nope. Right down to our birthday suits. Then after the hoses, a second shower or lots more water to remove whatever’s left.”

“I do not need to do this,” I said emphatically, leaning on my cane. “I’m fine.”

Ross had seen my ugly twisted foot often enough, but I never let anyone else get close enough to look. I’d take my negligible chances of chemical poisoning over parading around naked in front of every firefighter and cop in two counties. Stupid, maybe, but we all have our vanities.

“It’s for your own good,” Ross said. “And they wouldn’t ask, either. But don’t worry, it’s probably unnecessary in this case.” His voice shook a little. “On the other hand, they will decontaminate Georgia.”

For a moment I thought he might break down. They would hose Georgia’s body down like they were cleaning a fish on a pier. I said, chagrined, “I’m so sorry. Sometimes I should just keep my mouth shut.”

Our firefighter returned and led us out of the hot zone through a maze of emergency vehicles. It had been less than two hours since I’d found Georgia alone on this deserted road. Now there were easily a hundred people milling around. Ross, Quinn, and I were separated, each of us accompanied by a police officer.

I lost sight of them in the crowd, but I didn’t have much time to speculate where they went before Bobby Noland, carrying a reporter’s notebook with a pen clipped to it, stood in front of me looking none too happy. We’d known each other since I was in the second grade and he was in the fourth. Now he was a detective with the sheriff’s department and caught criminals. He unclipped the pen and clicked it like he was detonating something.

“Hey, Lucie,” he said. “I need to talk to you. First, I’m asking as a formality if we’ve got your permission to be here so we can process the scene. If you say no, I’ll be back with a search warrant.”