Ellen Crosby - The Chardonnay Charade

Under cover of the cheering, I leaned over to Kit. “Did you write his speech?”

She grinned. “Honey, I could give his speech. What did you expect him to say?”

“He never mentioned Georgia by name.”

“Yeah, he didn’t waste a lot of time on her, did he?”

Hugo hung around for a while for more back-slapping and politicking. As he got near the doorway on his way out, I happened to catch his eye. We hadn’t spoken since Austin Kendall’s fund-raiser at the vineyard. And I didn’t think he realized I had seen him leave the clinic. His face, for once, was grim as he stared back at me, then turned toward the door.

He may not have killed Georgia Greenwood. But something in the way he’d looked at me made me think that he was anything but sorry she was dead.

“Lucie.” Kit elbowed me. “I just said I’ve got to go. You leaving, too?”

“I’ll stick around for a while.”

Mick Dunne hadn’t shown up yet.

“I’ll call you. I’ve got a hot story and a cold burrito waiting for me.”

But as the evening wore on, I began to wonder if Mick was coming after all. I didn’t have his mobile number, though something told me he wasn’t the kind of man you kept tabs on.

“Hey, cupcake, what’s up? Something bothering you?” Joe Dawson stood at my elbow, holding a glass of champagne. “You want this? Yours is empty. I can get another one.”

“No, thanks. I’m fine. Probably going to leave soon, anyway.”

“Well, cheers, then.” He looked around the room, nodding. “Good turnout for Noah. I bet he can pull it off in November.”

“Hugo Lang just endorsed him.”

“Yeah, I heard. Good career move. Hugo needs to put as much distance between himself and Georgia as he can right now, considering what Ross is up to.”

“You mean moving?”

“What?” Joe looked surprised.

I never should have opened my mouth. Joe wasn’t a Romeo, but he was one of their conduits. “Oh, God. I thought that’s what you meant. I shouldn’t have said anything. Please don’t repeat it.”

“Ross is leaving town?”

“Yes. When this is all over he wants to make a fresh start somewhere else.”

“Smart move.” Joe sounded grim.

“What do you mean?”

“He contacted one of the big auction houses the other day about selling that Jeff Davis letter. And he’s planning to make a stink in the press about it. Says he’s donating the money to the clinic, in honor of his wife. I swear to God some of the Romeos are so mad they’re ready to lynch him.”

“Why’d he do it now? He’s right back in the limelight again.”

“You talking about Ross, sugar?” Mac Macdonald joined us. “The sooner he leaves town, the better, as far as I’m concerned. His behavior has been anything but honorable.”

Mac had overheard, too. Great.

“The only reason he’s doing this now is to embarrass the folks who doubted his innocence,” Mac continued. “With the Middleburg reenactment coming up he means to make us look like a bunch of crackpots.”

In another week—June 17 through 19—it would be the anniversary of the Battle of Middleburg, which had been part of the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign. On those days nearly a century and a half ago, General J. E. B. Stuart valiantly fought a succession of fierce battles along Mosby’s Highway, skirmishing with the Union troops of Alfred Pleasanton in an effort to screen Robert E. Lee’s move north to Pennsylvania through the Shenandoah Valley. Mac was one of the more zealous Romeos who participated in reenacting this and other Civil War battles. This year they’d planned to re-create the engagements at Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville. They’d been talking about it for months.

“He had the letter authenticated?” I asked.

“Says he did,” Joe said.

“Maybe I can talk to him,” I said. “Get him to rethink this.”

“Be my guest,” Mac said. “But I doubt he’ll back down, now he’s gotten this far. And by the way, I’ve been meaning to call you, Lucie. Remember the book of floral prints I was telling you about? Client changed their mind and returned it. So it’s all yours.”

Nice of him to think of me, though of course Mac always did have his eye on the bottom line. “Thank you. I’ll come by to see it.”

“The price is right. Don’t you tarry, though. I’m holding it for you, but I did have someone in today who was asking about it.”

“All right. I’ll be in tomorrow.”

I left after that conversation. Mick wasn’t coming and I had no intention of calling him to ask why.

Jen Seely was climbing out of her car as I walked out to the parking lot. She seemed surprisingly late for her father’s victory party.

I walked over to her. “Hi, Jen. Got a minute?”

She smiled a tight-lipped smile. “Hi, Lucie. Not really. I ought to get inside and be there with my dad.”

“The party’s winding down,” I said. “Are you avoiding anybody in particular or a lot of people in general?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She sounded defensive.

“You don’t want anyone to know you were at my barn the night Georgia was murdered, do you?” I said. “What happened, Jen? What did you see?”

“I wasn’t there.”

“Yes, you were. You sent Randy a bunch of red roses and left him a note in the envelope with the invoice. He was supposed to find it so he’d know you were coming that night. Instead he got waylaid and ended up helping me.” I banged my cane on the ground and she jumped. “You were there and you’ve been lying about it.”

“You can’t prove that.”

“You didn’t know about Georgia until you showed up that night, did you?” I persisted. “When you got to the barn, she and Randy were up in the hayloft. You heard them and figured out what was going on. You were furious.”

She folded her arms across her chest and said coldly, “That’s a pack of lies.”

“I don’t blame you,” I continued. “He lied to you, didn’t he? Of course you were mad. While they were still together you had time to think, to decide what you were going to do about it. That’s when you came up with the methyl bromide. It would completely disfigure Georgia. So you waited until she left Randy’s bed, then you confronted her on the south service road. Then what? Did you go back and have sex with Randy? How did you get him to White’s Ferry?”

Until this moment I realized I hadn’t actually suspected her of killing either of them. But as I pieced together the scenario, it seemed more than a little plausible.

“I did not kill anybody,” she hissed. “You are wrong about everything. How dare you accuse me of something I didn’t do!”

Her eyes flashed.

“But you were there that night.” I wasn’t wrong about everything. Some of this was right.

She wiped her eyes, but the tears came anyway. “I didn’t do anything to anybody. I heard them together and I left. That’s all. They were both alive and…well, alive…the last I knew.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” I asked. “You should have told the sheriff.”

“What’s to tell? I didn’t see anybody. No one knew I was there. Not even the two of them. All I’d do is get mixed up in the investigation. Plus I felt like such a fool for believing Randy. He really was a bastard.” Her anger seemed to shift from me to Randy.

“You’ve been defending him. Helping his sister pack his things. You even told me his relationship with Georgia was all business.”

“Sounded better than all monkey business, didn’t it?” Her smile was bitter. “I didn’t want to get involved. And as for helping his sister…I asked for my letters back. I burned them.”

“Oh.”