Ellen Crosby - The Merlot Murders

Quinn was still on the telephone and held up a finger, indicating that I should wait for him to finish his conversation. I pointed toward the kitchen and left.

Dominique had put some of the leftover food from last night’s dinner in the refrigerator. I lifted lids to casserole dishes and foil wrapping on platters. Cold roast pork didn’t appeal for breakfast, so I found a baguette in the bread box, sliced a piece lengthwise and put it in the toaster oven. Quinn joined me as I was spreading Dominique’s homemade gooseberry jam on my toasted bread.

He opened the refrigerator and pulled out the platter of meat. “There’s something I need to ask you.” He set jars of mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup on the counter. Then he took out a tomato, a small dish of leftover green beans and morels, another of fingerling potatoes, and the remnants of a platter of local cheeses. “Is there anymore of that bread?”

I passed the rest of the baguette over to him. “What?”

He sliced the entire piece in half, spread goat cheese thickly on it and began laying slices of meat on top. “Are you people putting the vineyard up for sale? Because if you are, I think I have a right to know.” He dumped the morels, beans, and potatoes on top of the meat and arranged them with his fingers.

I sat down at the kitchen table. “Who said we were selling?”

“How dumb do I look?” He opened a drawer and pulled out a sharp knife. For someone who had only been here a day, he’d sure learned his way around the kitchen.

“We’re not selling.”

“You and Eli gonna work this thing out?” He sliced the tomato and laid it on top of the potatoes.

I finished chewing my baguette. “I said we’re not selling. Okay?”

“That’s not what it sounded like.” He was busy completing his masterpiece with heavy doses of mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup.

“That’s not what what sounded like?” That noise in the garden. It had been a lot of noise for one cat, come to think of it. “Were you here last night?”

“I was in the area.”

“You were eavesdropping!”

“Honey, they could hear you two hollering clear out to Upperville. That was some fight you and Eli had.” He came over to the table and set down a plate with his oversized sandwich on it. It drooped off the edges. “Is that homemade jam? What kind is it?”

“Gooseberry. It doesn’t go well with ketchup,” I said, coldly. “And my conversation with Eli was none of your business. Don’t you have any respect for people’s privacy?”

“If you want to fight in private, go inside and shut the door. You were outside, bellowing.” He sat down across from me and picked up the jar of jam, staring at the label.

“The tenant cottage where you live is nowhere near this house.”

He set the jar down. “I asked your father if it would be okay to use that abandoned summerhouse you’ve got if I repaired the places where the wood’s rotted, and he said it was fine by him. I had no intention of listening in on you and Eli, but it happened I was there when you two started yelling like a couple of banshees.”

“We were not yelling like banshees and if you had any decency, you would have said something so we would have known you were there.”

“It didn’t seem like a good idea,” he snapped. “I’m a winemaker, not a social worker.” He picked up his sandwich and studied it.

“Why are you here?”

“I’m hungry.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“I’m not a mind reader, either.”

“The vineyard. This vineyard. Why did you leave California for Virginia?”

He bit into the sandwich and began chewing placidly, staring into my eyes. He swallowed and said, finally, “Why wouldn’t I? I like the pioneering spirit you Virginia folks have got. I’d like to settle down here, maybe someday buy some land and run my own place. As for this place, it’s a good vineyard. It has potential. You’ve got a lot of acreage you ought to be planting out. There’s some new varietals I think we ought to be trying. I know your former vintner stuck with vitis vinifera, but those grapes aren’t the be-all and end-all. I’ve sent off some soil samples to Virginia Tech and the results are pretty good.”

“They are?”

He took another hearty bite. Ketchup dripped down his chin. He wiped it with the back of his hand. I got up and opened the pantry door and took out a bag of paper napkins. I slapped one down next to him. He looked at it, then went back to eating.

“Mmpfh,” he said. “Thizis bery dub beat.”

“You don’t say.”

He finished chewing and switched back to English. “I was thinking of planting a few acres of hybrids like Vidal, Seyval, or Chambourcin. Maybe even try Norton since it’s a native Virginia grape. I’d like to do some experimenting with blending wines, too, not just the standard stuff you’ve been doing. Use a little creativity for a change.”

Vitis vinifera are the grapes Noah planted after the Flood. These were the seeds found with the mummies of the pharaohs in the pyramids in Egypt, the noble grapes that make some of the world’s most fabled wines like Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, or Chardonnay—all of which we grew at the vineyard.

Maybe Jacques had been a bit of a purist, just keeping us in top-drawer French wines, but in his defense, Virginia’s climate is a lot like Bordeaux where he came from and those were the vines he knew best. Still, Quinn was right. Maybe we should try something new.

I ignored the implied jab at Jacques’s abilities as a winemaker and said neutrally, “Where were you thinking of doing this?”

“I’ll show you,” he said. “Come on.”

“Aren’t you going to finish your breakfast?”

“I’ll take it with me.” He held out half the sandwich. “Want a bite?”

“No, not really.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing.” He wrapped the napkin around it. “I brought the Gator over here. My car wouldn’t start this morning. I’ll get the field test stuff in the dining room and meet you outside in a minute.”

He left and I cleaned up. Then I got two bottles of water from the refrigerator and retrieved Eli’s old New York Mets cap from the floor of the front hall closet. The sun would boil us like lobsters out in the fields.

Quinn was waiting in the Gator with the motor running by the time I joined him. I set my cane on the wagon bed and climbed into the passenger seat. There was no sign of the sandwich, just a crumpled napkin shoved in the open glove compartment.

“When are you going to work things out with your brother and sister?” he asked, as he shifted into first gear and we motored down the driveway toward the winery.

“I own the house,” I said. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to work out.”

“It didn’t sound like that to me.”

“We’ve been over this. Why don’t you run the vineyard and let me handle my family, okay?”

As we pulled into the parking lot next to the winery, he said, “I heard you sold your clock and some other furniture to raise the cash for the destemmer motor.”

“How I got the money is none of your business.”

“Your brother and your father were a whole lot easier to deal with.”

“I was just thinking the same thing about Jacques.”

“You know, one of the reasons I came here is because this place is so underdeveloped and there’s a lot I could do. No offense to your buddy Jacques, but he was resting on his laurels,” he said. “I could put this winery on the map. I could produce some award-winning wines that would give the Californians a run for their money. I could get us noticed.”

I, I, I. I like a man who’s comfortable in his skin. Quinn seemed a bit oversized for his, like the Michelin Man untethered, to be precise. Could he really do all that? Or was he just blowing more hot air?