Ellen Crosby: The Merlot Murders

“Come here.” There was a small flash of fire as he lit up. I went out and joined him. “They’re not as spectacular as the aurora borealis, but they’re really something. First, I want you to look up in the sky.”

I obeyed as he sketched with his cigar the outline of the three stars that made up the Summer Triangle above us, then made me look through the telescope at the swath of light, like an explosion, that passed through the band of stars.

“What is it?”

“The Milky Way. Actually all the stars you see in the sky belong to the Milky Way. It’s just that when you look along the edge of the galaxy, you see thousands more stars than by looking above or below it. Now here…look…the Perseids.”

It was, as he said, like watching fireworks. “It’s beautiful. Does it happen often?”

“Every August.”

“Too bad I never saw it in France. There wasn’t much light pollution where I lived. The sky was always full of stars and they seemed so close it was like I could grab a fistful and pull them down.”

“Lucky you. You could have seen the Perseids if you’d looked on the right day and time. A change in longitude doesn’t change the night sky from one place to the next. A change in latitude does. You were about the same latitude in Grasse that we are here.”

He smoked his cigar and we sat, side by side, in silence. Then he said, “I hope Allen Cantor rots in jail. As for what happened to the money he stole, who knows?”

“You had no idea what he was doing?”

“No,” he said. “Though I’m sure you don’t believe that.”

“How could somebody you were so close to deceive you so completely?”

“Happens all the time, sweetheart. What’s the saying? ‘Regret is insight that comes a day too late.’” He stood up. “Come on. It will be light in two hours. We still have harvest in the morning. I think we should sleep.”

He was already awake and dressed when I opened my eyes. “Power’s on. I can see lights coming from the house. I’m going to get some breakfast. You want something?”

I leaned on the golf club and stood up. “I need a shower and a change of clothes.”

We split up when we got back to the house. He headed for the kitchen and I went upstairs. When I joined him later, he’d brewed a pot of coffee and was in the middle of cooking something on the stove.

“What’s that?”

“Omelet. Want some?”

“What’s in it?”

“Whatever you had in the refrigerator. Salsa. Goat cheese. Tuna.”

“Maybe I’ll pass. Is there any bread?”

“Nope. You’re pretty cleaned out. It’s the omelet or nothing.”

It actually wasn’t that bad. While we were eating he said, “I called Hector while you were upstairs. He says everything’s quiet. We only lost power for an hour, so at least the generator wasn’t running all night.”

When we finished eating I took our plates and stacked them in the kitchen sink. “Let’s get over there,” he said. “You ready?”

I picked up the golf club where I’d propped it against the wall. “Yes.”

We walked out the front door. The Toyota was right where I’d parked it. The air felt different and the sky was overcast. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “Car keys?”

“What?”

“You drove here last night.”

“So I did. I left them on the dresser in my room. I’ll get them.”

“No, I’ll go.” He stared at the sky. “It’s going to rain.”

“Feels like it.”

“I’ll be right back. Why don’t you practice your golf swing while you’re waiting?”

“Ha, ha.”

He disappeared inside the house. I swung the golf club absently, then stopped and looked at the dirty white ceiling of low cloud cover in the early morning sky. It was definitely going to rain. We’d have to work fast to get rest of the Chardonnay picked.

“What’s the matter?” He reappeared with his keys. “You look upset.”

“I think I’m starting to get a headache. It’s definitely going to rain.”

“What are you, a human barometer or something?”

“I need some aspirin.”

“Let’s get over to the winery. I’ve got some in my office.” He started the Toyota. We pulled into the parking lot. The only other vehicles there were Hector’s pickup and Bonita’s Corvette. “Why don’t you go see Hector and check things out?” Quinn said. “I’ve got to run back to my place for a minute. These clothes could walk by themselves. I’ll be right there.”

I found Hector, looking sleepy, sitting on a stool in Quinn’s lab in the barrel room. “Morning, Lucita.” He stretched and yawned. “The crew’s on its way. César went to get them. We’ll start picking then, though I’m gonna let César take over for today. I’m going home to get some sleep.”

“Do you know how many men we’ve got coming?”

He picked up a piece of paper and squinted at it. He patted his shirt pocket absently and frowned. I watched him reach for the reading glasses on the counter and put them on.

I’d left those glasses here last night when the power went out.

Hector thought they were his.

“Looks like we got eight men.”

“Those glasses,” I said quietly. “I guess they really help you read, don’t they?”

He looked up from the paper, over the top of the glasses. “Oh, I can still read some stuff real good,” he said. “But not small print. Maps. Menus. Anything with little writing.” He took off the glasses. “These are pretty strong, though. All those drugstore glasses look alike until you put them on.”

“They’re not yours?”

“Nope.”

“Can I have them, please?”

He looked puzzled, but passed them over to me. “What’s wrong, Lucita? Where are you going?”

“To return them to their owner,” I said. “I know who they belong to.”

I left the barrel room and walked along the courtyard loggia toward the parking lot. I knew who. I didn’t understand why.

A man who had everything.

As I rounded the corner I nearly collided with him. He was dressed immaculately as always, even at this hour of the morning.

He looked astonished to see me. “Why, hello, sugar,” he smiled. “I wasn’t expecting to find you here.”

When Eli and I were kids, we used to fry marbles in an old cast-iron skillet, then pour ice water over them. The sudden temperature change would make them crack inwardly. The marbles were broken, but not shattered.

Looking into his familiar eyes I thought of those marbles. “That’s because you thought I’d be in the barrel room, where you left me last night. You’re the one who locked that door and shut off the electricity and the generators,” I said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do, Mason. You tried to kill me and you were coming back just now to make sure I was dead.” I held out the reading glasses. “These are yours, aren’t they?”

His face was like granite. “Where did you get them?”

“From Sara Rust. You must have dropped them when you were searching her house. That’s why you arrived so early at the concert last night. You couldn’t read the small print on your ticket so you thought it started at six thirty, not seven thirty. Why, Mason? Why did you do this?”

He slipped the gun out of a holster under his jacket as easily as if he’d been reaching for his starched handkerchief. “I wish you hadn’t done this, sugar. Now I’m going to have to do something about it. Let’s go.”

Mason went hunting every year with the Romeos. He was a crack shot.

“You wouldn’t.” He’d burped me as a baby, maybe even watched when my mother changed my diaper. I wasn’t fooling him.