Ellen Crosby: The Merlot Murders

I went there first, turning on more lights, to look for the wine Fitz should have collected. It was more likely that it would be here than in the barrel room, which was a bonded wine cellar. We never moved wine out of the cellar until we planned to sell it because we had to pay the sales taxes right away. There was no sliding by that rule thanks to mandatory monthly reports filed with the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

I must have been expecting to see Jacques’s office, with its familiar collection of photographs, awards, vintage silver bottle-stoppers, and the antique map of France during the reign of Charlemagne on the wall behind his desk. Instead the room was bare—a small shock—completely devoid of any personal effects belonging to the new winemaker. Maybe Quinn Santori had decided to use the smaller office next door, which had been my mother’s. I looked in and wished I hadn’t. The room had been turned into a dumping ground for cases of wineglasses used for tastings, rolls of labels for our various wines, and a half-filled box of corks. There were also several opened cases of wine, but none with customized labels.

Perhaps Quinn had left the wine behind the bar. I went back to the main room and found it.

So Fitz hadn’t come here after all. Maybe Eli was right that he went for yet another drink after the wake. Alone, except for whatever inner demons he was carrying around.

I was still behind the bar when the door to the tasting room swung open. The man who entered was probably in his mid-forties, wearing a pair of green and brown camouflage trousers, a loud print Hawaiian shirt, and more jewelry than I was. Two heavy gold chains, one with a cross on it, and a thick gold bracelet on his right wrist. No earring though. His military brush cut was mostly gray and he had “don’t-mess-with-me” eyes that were calculating and unnerving.

“Can I help you?” He wasn’t really asking. He was probably wondering what I was doing behind the bar.

“You must be Quinn,” I said. “I’m Lucie Montgomery. I was looking for some cases of wine that you left for Fitz Pico last night.”

“We found ’em,” he said. He sounded grim.

“The wine? Isn’t this it?” I gestured to the cases on the floor.

“Fitz,” he said. “We found Fitz.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He’s in the barrel room. Call 911, will you?”

I had visions of Fitz, passed out on the floor of the barrel room since last night. “Is he all right? Doc Harmon’s outside…I know he’s a vet, but…”

“Yeah, get him in here, too. I got Jesús throwing up all over the place.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The poor kid was in the middle of transferring the Merlot into one of the purged tanks when he realized it wasn’t empty.”

My heart started pounding like war drums. “What do you mean? What are you saying?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I thought you’d know. I’m saying Fitz is deader ’n a doornail. He was inside that tank. Death by almost instant asphyxiation.”

Some people can deliver disastrous news as calmly as if they’re reporting on the weather, blunting the shock and horror of their words. It took a long moment before I understood what he’d just said.

I said numbly, “There would have been pure carbon dioxide in that tank.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“My God, what was he thinking? I need to go to him. He’s my godfather.”

“He doesn’t need anything from anyone anymore.” He sounded brusque and businesslike. “Call 911 and get that doc over to the barrel room pronto. My cell phone’s dead or I would have done it already. Then I saw this place lit up like a Christmas tree. Now that I know it’s only you, I need to get back there.”

“I’m coming with you.”

He looked up at the ceiling and I could almost hear him count to ten. “Look, I understand how you must be feeling, but I don’t need two people barfing all over the place. Help me out here. Make that call like a good girl, okay?” He turned and walked out.

So this was our new winemaker.

I called 911 like a good girl.

Doc Harmon and I were on the lawn outside the villa with Jesús, who looked pale and scared, when Bobby Noland drove up in a brown-and-gold Sheriff’s Department cruiser. Fortunately he hadn’t turned on the lights and sirens or it would have alerted everyone at the main house—meaning almost everyone in Atoka—that something was happening at the winery. The place would be a mob scene in no time.

Eli was right behind Bobby in the Jaguar.

I’d switched on the outdoor lights, which included floodlights and fairy lights strung in several of the bushes and trees. Bobby walked across the lawn, caught in the wash of light, still with the swaggering bantam way about him that he’d had in high school. I hadn’t seen much of him in the dozen years since he’d graduated.

He started talking from ten yards away. “What happened? The call came in when I was still over at the house. Y’all got enough food there to last you till the cows come home. The dispatcher said someone was hurt bad at the winery.”

He and Eli reached our little group. Bobby pointed to Jesús. “This the guy?” He nodded to me. “Hey, Lucie. Didn’t get a chance to see you earlier. Sorry for your loss.”

Up close Bobby looked like he’d aged more than he should have, but maybe it was the uniform and the holstered gun on his belt. When he took off his cap his sandy hair was short and bristly as a porcupine’s. In high school it used to hang in his eyes sheepdog style, which always made him look like he was hiding something. Now I could see his eyes. He wasn’t hiding anything, including how tired he looked.

I still had Eli’s handkerchief from earlier in the evening, damp again from fresh use. I twisted it around my fingers like a strand of rope. “Thanks, Bobby. It’s Fitz. Jesús here’s the one who found him.”

He’d been unwrapping a piece of bubble gum, which he was about to put in his mouth. He stopped and said, “Fitz Pico? Where is he?”

“In the barrel room.”

“What was Fitz doing in the barrel room?” Eli asked.

“I don’t know. But he was in one of the stainless-steel tanks. It had been purged. Injected with pure carbon dioxide.”

“Oh my God,” Eli made a small choking sound and coughed. Our eyes met for a second before he turned away. He looked upset. But not grief-stricken.

“Fitz was in one of those big silver tanks?” Even in the artificial light, I could see Bobby go pale under his dark reddish suntan. He spoke into a microphone attached to a shoulder strap. “Send backup. Montgomery Vineyard.” He turned away and muttered again into the microphone. Then he said, “Where’s that winemaker of yours? Santini?”

“Santori. Quinn Santori,” Eli said as I added, “In the barrel room.”

“Shit. He better not of messed anything up.” He turned to Doc Harmon. “I could use some help, Elvis.”

“Sure thing. You all right, son?” Doc looked at Jesús, who nodded.

After they left Eli grabbed my elbow, dragging me next to a small border garden of red salvia and white impatiens where Jesús couldn’t hear us.

“Goddamn it!” A tiny vein pulsed in his temple. “Do you know what this is going to do to our asking price when we put the place on the market?”

I jabbed my index finger against his chest. “Fitz is dead, Eli! Do you still have a heart in there or did you swap it for a cash register? How can you be so cold?”

“Cold? Give me a damn break. I feel as bad as you do.” He ran a hand through his overgelled hair. “Just because I’m being realistic doesn’t mean I’m not sorry about Fitz.”