Ellen Crosby: The Merlot Murders

Outside the bedroom window a flash of silver light illuminated the silhouettes of trees and bushes. I jumped.

“Calm down. Storm’s a long way off. We won’t get any rain tonight.” As if to validate his statement, distant thunder rumbled like muffled drums. “Not until tomorrow or the day after. Give me your foot, Lucie. I’ve had some training in this.”

I shifted on the bed so that my left foot was tucked underneath my right leg. “If you mean you’ve been practicing back rubs on Angela, thanks, but I’ll pass.” There was no way I was going to let him touch my foot. He’d have to look at it. I managed fine by keeping it hidden under a dress or long pants. To display it, in all its misshapen deformity, made me feel like Superman without the cape and special suit.

“I was talking about medical training. Therapeutic massage.” He reached over and slid my dress up my leg. “Come here. Give me your foot. I won’t hurt you.”

I had to look away while he did it, but he was right. He knew what he was doing.

“Why did you change your name?” I asked abruptly.

On cue, the thunder crashed around us. He looked at me in the washed-out light, his face all angular planes and dark shadows. “What are you talking about?”

“Isn’t your real name Paolo Santori?”

“Legally. But I’m not real big on Paolo. It was my old man’s name.”

There was another crack of thunder, but this one was so close it sounded like a cannon going off in the front yard. I sloshed whiskey down the side of my glass and caught the drip with my finger, licking it.

“What happened in California?” I asked.

He reached for the bottle and poured us both refills. “How’d you hear about that?”

“Leland had a copy of the San Jose Mercury News among his papers. Surely you didn’t think I wouldn’t find out. Why didn’t you say something?”

He walked over to his dresser and opened the top drawer. For some reason, my heart started doing the war drum thing again. Then I saw the box of Swisher Sweets and resumed breathing. He removed a cigar and came back over to the bed. “Hand me that ashtray, will you?” he said.

It was on the bedside table, next to me. I gave it to him. He fished a lighter out of the pocket of his camouflage trousers. He lit up, walked over to the window, and stared outside. Lightning flashed and the lights went out briefly and came on again.

“I never kept it a secret.”

“Did Leland know?”

“Of course. I told him up front.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he appreciated my honesty. Most people would have tried to cover up something like that.”

It was also true that when Leland checked his references, he would have found out anyway. Maybe Quinn was just trying to get in front of a bad situation. Besides, the “honesty” remark didn’t sound quite like Leland, a man who had his own reputation for playing fast and loose with the truth. “Can I ask you something else?”

“Fire away. You seem to be on a roll tonight.”

I ignored that. “Did you know about Leland before you applied for a job here?”

“What about him?”

“His past was a bit…shaky. He had some questionable business partners. And you seem to know a lot about our financial problems.”

He swung around. “Meaning what?”

The lights went out again but this time they didn’t come back on. Quinn was silent.

“I think we just lost power.” My voice sounded small.

There was a metallic click and then a flash of fire. He held his lighter aloft. “Yeah, this time for real. I’ve got candles.” He sounded mad.

He left the room holding his lighter like a torch. I heard the front door open and close. Where did he keep his candles? In the bushes? I sat in the dark as a bead of perspiration ran down my cheek.

The front door opened and closed again. The living room glowed faintly orange and he walked back into the bedroom, shielding a candle against air currents with one hand. “I just tried to call Hector on my mobile. He must have turned his off and the phones are out. I think I’d better go back over there and see if the generator came on. You’re coming, too. I don’t want you here by yourself.”

“I can walk to the car.”

“You can hopscotch for all I care. Come on, let’s go. I’ve got a flashlight by the front door.”

I walked unsteadily to the car. Neither of us spoke on the drive back to the vineyard. The thunder rumbled more quietly now than before and the lightning zigzagged in the distance, toward the west and the mountains. He pulled into the parking lot. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be right back. You’ll be all right for a few minutes. Lean on the horn, if you need me.”

He took the flashlight, then sprinted up the stairs in the direction of the loggia and the barrel room. He disappeared out of the swath of light made by the car headlights and I was alone. I switched on the radio and hit the button until I got to WLEE.

Greg’s voice. “…has been real hard on the local economy. One of the worst droughts on record.”

“Well, it’s too late for me,” a male voice said. “I sold my cattle last week. Nothing for them to eat. They were starving to death.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Ron,” Greg said.

“You and me both.”

“Looks like we’re not going to get a break from the heat any time soon,” he said. “The National Weather Service is predicting more hot, dry weather for the next few days.”

What weather forecast was he listening to? It was big news that we were finally in for some rain. Unless, of course, he’d actually had this conversation with Ron some other time.

He was rebroadcasting an old show.

“I know,” Ron was agreeing. “A hunnert and thirty days with no rain. A record.”

“Look, how about I play something by Art Pepper for you? ‘Here’s That Rainy Day.’ We can always dream, right?”

“You dream, son. But, sure, I like old Art. Dedicate it to Mandy, would you? We’ll be married thirty-four years tomorrow.”

“That’s great, thirty-four years. Okay, Mandy, here’s Art Pepper with Gerry Mulligan playing ‘Here’s That Rainy Day.’ Happy Anniversary from Ron. This is WLEE in Leesburg, Virginia, and you’re listening to Knight Moves .”

I saw headlights in the rearview mirror of Quinn’s car just as the haunting sexy sound of a sax began to wail. The driver wasn’t coming to the winery. It sounded like the car was heading toward the house. There weren’t too many engines that purred like that.

Eli’s Jag.

I slid over to the driver’s seat of the Toyota, put it in gear and backed out of the parking lot. By the time I got to the house, the Jaguar was parked next to the front door. The power was out here, too. Inside the house was black as a coal mine. My flashlight was still in the picnic basket where I’d left it since my trip to the Goose Creek Bridge with Kit. Quinn had taken his with him. I waited until my night vision adjusted to the gloomy foyer. A beam of light played upstairs. He’d come prepared.

I climbed the stairs quietly, holding the railing with both hands since my cane was gone. I heard him in Mia’s room and the sound of opening and closing drawers. I stood in the doorway and watched as he pulled a small bundle of letters out of the drawer to her nightstand.

“Do you mind telling me what you’re doing?”

He let out a yelp as he shot up from where he’d been kneeling in front of the nightstand and whacked his knee on the corner of the open drawer.

“Jesus H. Christ, Lucie! What are you doing, sneaking up on me?”

I walked over to him, limping heavily without my cane. “What’s that?”

“None of your damn business.” He jerked his hand out of my reach and an envelope slithered out of the package he was holding and fell to the ground. He shone the flashlight around our feet. “Damnit.”