Ellen Crosby - The Merlot Murders

I shouldn’t have been surprised that he wanted to move so quickly, but I was. Probably best to get it over with. “Sure. Fine. I’ve got to be over at the winery so maybe we could take care of the money right now. Then you could stop by any time you want. The door’s unlocked.”

Mac’s face softened. “I haven’t got nine thousand in cash, Lucie honey. I can give you a thousand, though, and the rest in a check. Will that fix you?”

I nodded.

I wandered around his gallery and stayed generally away from the mahogany partners’ desk he used for his paperwork, while he scratched out a check and fetched the money. He put an arm around my shoulders and walked me to the door. “Call me when you’re ready to talk.”

“Okay.” He handed me an envelope, which I shoved into my purse. “Thanks, Mac.”

He kissed me again and this time it was gentle. “Thank you. And, by the way.”

“Yes?”

“Randy will take your things directly to Georgetown. You won’t be seeing them here.”

I bit my lip and nodded. The silvery bell on his door tinkled merrily as it closed.

Enough money to solve all the immediate problems.

I was no longer broke, but I sure felt poor.

Kit was sitting on the battleship-gray wooden swing on the deli’s front porch when I got there. Today she wore a shocking pink sleeveless shirtdress with a gold belt, gold stiletto mules, and more troweled-on makeup. She held up a white paper bag and waved it at me. “You’re late. I ordered. A Reuben with the works for me and a vegetarian on a croissant for you. I also got us each an iced tea, even though what I could really use is a drink.”

“Me, too.”

She squinted at me. “You look like something they forgot to shoot. We don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to. We could go some place more private.”

“Too late for that,” I said. “Thelma must have had the bullhorn out this morning.”

“I, er, heard about you and Eli throwing dice for the house. Wish I’d been there to see his face when he lost.” She grinned. “Congratulations.”

“Who told you ?”

She jerked her thumb toward the door to the deli. “Hazel did, when she was making our sandwiches. She gave me your dill pickle since she remembered you hate them.”

I sat down in the swing next to her and leaned my cane against the porch railing. She handed over my sandwich and the tea and for a split second, time rewound and we were a couple of kids whose feet didn’t touch the ground yet, sitting here exactly like this, doing exactly what we were doing right now. For a flash of a moment I saw us as we had been, filtered through the refracted light that made the grass greener and the skies bluer. A time when life was simple and our problems inconsequential.

If education is what’s left after you’ve forgotten everything you’ve learned, then memories—especially the good ones—are, as someone once said, a second chance at happiness. The swing creaked as it always did and the street noises of Middleburg faded to a peaceful thrumming of blurred summer sounds. We ate in silence.

“I stopped by the inn,” Kit said after a while, “looking for your cousin.”

“She’s over at the Ruins trying to organize this dinner we’re having tonight.”

“The pig roast? You’re going to go through with that?”

I bit into my croissant and nodded.

“She didn’t waste any time.” Kit stuck a straw in her iced tea and sucked on it. “Fitz isn’t even dead twenty-four hours.” She looked sideways at me. “You know Dominique’s got a motive, Luce.”

Had Kit already found out about the money? I said neutrally, “What makes you say that?”

“They had a huge argument the day before he died. She threatened to kill him.” She drank more tea and fiddled with her straw. “I was at the inn having lunch when it happened. On my way to the ladies’ room.”

“They were arguing right there in the lobby?”

“More like in his office.”

“His office is nowhere near the ladies’ room.”

“So sue me. I took a little stroll to walk off a piece of cheesecake.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. You snooped!”

“I guess that means you don’t want me to tell you what she said.” She glanced sideways again when I was silent and grinned. “I knew you’d want to know. She wants to take over running the inn by herself and he told her no way.”

“I already heard that from Eli.”

“Yeah, but did Eli tell you that she said Fitz couldn’t stop her?”

“She threatened him?”

“It sounded like it to me. Too bad I never made it past French 1. She didn’t count to ten or say anything about colors or the days of the week. What does ‘John ate Mark’ mean?”

“John ate…oh, Lord. J’en ai marre. It means ‘I’m sick of it.’”

“Well, she said that a few dozen times.” She lowered her voice. “Then he said something about having her green card yanked for what she’d done.” She narrowed her eyes, which with all the mascara she was wearing made it look like her eyelids had temporarily fused together. “The next thing you know he’s dead.”

“Dominique did not kill Fitz,” I said. “Whatever it sounded like. Besides, you heard Bobby. We were robbed. Fitz surprised that guy Zeus, or whoever it was, in the middle of taking the payroll money out of the safe in Quinn’s lab.”

“The cases of wine Fitz was supposed to pick up that night were in the villa,” Kit said. “What was he doing in the barrel room?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he saw a light or the door propped open and went to check it out.”

“Maybe.” She stood and collected our sandwich wrappers and iced tea cups. “You want dessert? I saw a few pieces of Hazel’s homemade peach pie when I got our sandwiches. The peaches are from her orchard.”

“No, thanks.”

“A latte? With a shot of hazelnut or chocolate syrup in it?”

“Just coffee.” I reached for my cane and started to stand up. “Black.”

“Sit there. I got this.” She opened the screen door to the deli. “Well, it was just a theory. That robbery sounds too pat to me.”

The door banged shut. I leaned my head against the swing and pushed off the floor with my good foot. So maybe Fitz did know about the seventy-five thousand dollars. Dominique hadn’t actually told me what the argument had been about.

Kit returned holding a tray with some whipped cream concoction in a soup-bowl-sized mug, my coffee, and a large slice of peach pie. “I brought two forks,” she said.

“I couldn’t.”

“I can’t finish this myself.” She dug her fork into the pie. “What are you going to do after you sell the vineyard? Go back to France?”

“We’re not selling.”

She said through a mouthful of peaches and crust, “Eli change his mind?”

“Nope. But now that I own the house, I have two votes in the company and I vote not to sell.”

“What did Mr. Control-Freak say when you told him?”

“We didn’t exactly have that talk yet,” I said. “But what can he say?”

“Jesus, Luce. Plenty. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when you tell him. Eli doesn’t lose an argument. You know that.” She picked up her mug and stirred the slurry mixture of chocolate, whipped cream, and coffee. “So who’s going to run the place?”

“I am. And Quinn. And Hector.”

“Quinn,” she said. “Somebody ought to send that man to charm school. He’s a bit tough to take. I never understood how Leland could have thought he would replace Jacques.”

“Eli said he was the low bidder for the job.”

“I believe it.” She paused. “Are you sure you’re capable of taking on something like that? I mean, it’s a hell of a job for a normal person and…” She broke off. “Oh God, I wish I hadn’t said that. I’m really sorry.”