Ellen Crosby - The Chardonnay Charade

I covered my mouth with my hands and clamped my lips shut, afraid I would scream.

“What does Abby Lang say?” Eli asked.

“That’s where I’m headed right now.” Sam sounded grim. “Assuming she’s in any shape to talk.”

“What about Mia?” I asked. “Is she going to jail?”

Sam looked at me with eyes that said he’d spent a lifetime talking to people like me after someone they loved had accidentally committed a felony and he was their salvation to make it go away.

“Honey,” he said, “right now I’d say the odds are pretty good that she will. They’re gonna draw blood here at the hospital to see what her BAC is. They’ve agreed to defer her arrest until they get the toxicology report because she’s known in the community and I said she wasn’t a flight risk.”

My throat was dry. “How long?”

“Three to four weeks.”

“Then what?” Eli asked.

He sighed again. “If it’s above point-oh-eight, she’ll be charged with vehicular manslaughter because she was DUI. In that case she’ll do time. Below that level…” He shrugged. “We might get it knocked down to involuntary manslaughter. Suspended sentence and community service. Teach an alcohol awareness class in schools for a year, eighteen months. And go to AA.”

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“Besides wait?” he said. “Well, they’re going to release her shortly. So get her home and chain her to something, because if she so much as puts a whisker out of line before that tox report comes back, they’ll lock her up before you can say jackrabbit.”

“Yes, sir,” Eli said.

“Do you think she did it, Sam?” I asked. “What if she’s telling the truth?”

“She is an unreliable witness,” he said, eyeing me. “But I’m going to talk to the Lang girl.”

“How can we thank you?” I said.

He smiled without showing any teeth. “Oh, don’t you worry,” he said. “There’s a little something I like to call ‘the bill.’ All the thanks I need.”

He left and I looked at Eli.

“God,” I said, “what has she gotten us into?”

Dominique became a U.S. citizen later that afternoon. Joe took her down to the community center in Alexandria where, along with two hundred or so others, she signed her naturalization document in front of the judge, then pledged allegiance to the United States of America. After that, she was an American.

The only people allowed in the crowded room were the newly minted citizens-to-be, so Joe never got to witness the big moment. When they got back to the vineyard, we carried on with plans for a family dinner at the house, though the atmosphere was more like a funeral than a party. No one spoke about what had happened, but it was like trying to ignore a hundred elephants in the room. Fortunately, the presence of a baby—Eli and Brandi had brought Hope—provided a welcome distraction. Mia excused herself when we brought out the cake and Dominique didn’t want us to serve the champagne, but I insisted.

The party we’d scheduled for all of her friends on Sunday afternoon at the villa was now up in the air, especially after the news of the accident made the front page of the newspapers, including photographs of Mia and the two other kids. The last thing anyone felt like doing was celebrating.

“Why don’t we postpone?” Dominique said. “It’s terrible timing.”

“I’m so sorry about this. Maybe in a few weeks we can reschedule,” I said. “But we ordered all the food, so what if we just invite your staff over for a buffet? We can call everyone else. I don’t think we’ll have to explain much. If we miss anyone or someone does show up, they can join us.”

“All right,” she said. “I’ll get a couple of my waitresses to make the calls.”

“I’ve ruined her citizenship party along with everything else I’ve done,” Mia said the next morning as she sat cross-legged on my bed, watching me change into a sundress. “She’s waited years for this. I’m not going, you know, even if it is just the staff from the Inn. Everyone will look at me like I’m a monster.” She pulled a pack of tissues out of the pocket of her jeans, tears streaming down her face. “I can’t believe I killed that boy,” she said. “I just can’t.”

“You don’t remember anything,” I said. “So what makes you so sure you didn’t? You already have a history of drinking and driving. You pushed your luck that you didn’t get caught before. This time you did and you killed someone.” I was so angry with her, but so scared for her, too.

“No,” she insisted. “That’s not true! Okay, I drank. But I never drove, not even after one drink. I’m not stupid. I always went with a DD.”

“You actually thought about a designated driver? What about that ticket?”

“Of course I did. And the ticket was for public drunkenness. Just a fine. Not DUI.”

“Did any of the kids you were hanging out with drink and drive?”

She made a face like she’d just eaten something nasty. “A few.”

“Who?”

“Brad. Abby’s boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. And a couple of the others. I don’t know them too well.”

“I don’t know why Abby didn’t take your keys away from you,” I said. “‘Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.’”

Mia swallowed. “She’s no friend anymore. Not after what she told Mr. Constantine. She was already loaded when I got there, crying about Brad. She found out he slept with someone else. I thought she was gonna kill him. It’s not true that I’m the one who insisted on making those drinks. Anyway, I had a horrible headache when I got there. She gave me something for it and I lay down for a while. When I woke up she handed me a drink.”

“What’d she give you for your headache?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I dunno. I thought it was aspirin. Whatever it was, it worked.”

“Well, the way this is going down it’s your word against hers. Sam said she claimed you took off before she could stop you. Her father said Abby was home when he got in around midnight. In bed. He knew she had been drinking, but she’s not underage. Sam wasn’t sure Hugo wasn’t going to get fined or worse for allowing a minor to consume alcohol on the premises, considering what you did after you left there. The fact that he wasn’t home doesn’t get him off the hook, but it’s probably a mitigating factor.”

She buried her head in her hands. Her voice was muffled. “God, I just don’t know. It didn’t happen like that, I swear.”

“Then how did you end up at the scene of an accident?” I demanded. So far I’d been trying to keep my voice even, but what she said was physically impossible. I ticked things off on my fingers. “You were banged up. You were driving that car. No one else was there except you and the other two kids. What other explanation is there?”

She looked up, her pretty young face ravaged and grief-stricken. “I swear on Mom’s grave, Lucie. I think I got set up. But I don’t know how.”

“Stay here,” I said, “while I’m at the villa. And stay out of trouble. The strongest thing you can drink is coffee. Got that?”

“What should I do?” she wailed. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“I don’t know,” I said, exasperated. “Watch a movie. Watch TV. Read a book. Do your laundry. But do not leave this house under any circumstances.”

She nodded, looking completely broken. I swallowed the lump in my throat and left for the villa. I should have hugged her and told her it would be okay. But it wasn’t okay and she’d been playing with fire. She had taken a life. The newspaper photographs were the high school photos for all three of them. The boy had been a good-looking kid, though the bow tie of his tuxedo was slightly askew and his smile had a bit of the devil in it. But his eyes were intelligent and hopeful and now there would be one lucky wait-listed person who would take his place at Princeton. At least his girlfriend was reported to be in stable condition, thank God.