Ellen Crosby: The Merlot Murders

A wispy column of smoke floated upward as I turned onto Sycamore Lane. Was I too late, or would I meet him head on as I drove toward the house? He said he was leaving.

The taillights of Hector’s blue pickup, fishtailing as it churned dust, were disappearing down the road that led to the house as I headed toward the divide at the sycamore tree. At least help was on the way and Hector and the others knew about the fire. In the distance, sirens sounded faintly along with more thunder. But no rain—yet.

Highland House was made of stone and stone doesn’t burn. They’d probably said that when Sheridan’s men burned the Ruins. That fire had left…ruins.

I turned left at the divide toward the winery. Greg’s convertible satin the handicapped spot in the parking lot. He’d put the top up, probably on account of the expected rain. I parked and got out next to his car and saw a gun on the passenger seat. He’d locked the doors.

Wherever he was—the villa, the barrel room—I probably didn’t have much time before he returned. I lifted the golf club over my head and swung hard at the canvas roof. It bounced with such kick-back my arms nearly came out of my shoulder sockets and I staggered backward.

I needed something sharp. Mason’s car keys were attached to a slender silver monogrammed case. I opened the case. A nail file.

I jabbed at the plastic back window and made a small puncture. From small things big things come. I continued stabbing. The sirens grew louder as I worked, until finally the trucks screamed up Sycamore Lane.

The hole in the window was now wide enough to put my arm through. Unfortunately I needed the arms of a chimpanzee to reach the gun. I tried the golf club, angling like I was trying to hook a fish. Then I heard him behind me. He yanked me off the car and threw me to the ground. The golf club remained stuck in the plastic at a crazy angle.

“My car! What did you do to my car?”

I landed hard on my elbows and skidded in the brittle grass. What was it about men and cars?

“Fixed your air-conditioning.” I wasn’t as intimidated by him as I’d been by Mason.

He unlocked the car with his sensor and got the gun. Then he shoved the golf club through the hole so it came at me like a spear. I ducked and it hit the ground next to me. I grabbed it and pulled myself up.

“Move.” He picked up what looked like a metal strongbox that had been on the ground next to him.

“Where are we going?”

He seemed to be thinking. “The barrel room.”

“No.”

“I’m not asking. Move.” He gestured with the gun. “What’s Mason’s car doing here? Where is he?”

“Dead.”

He stopped walking. “You’re lying.”

“Why don’t you go see for yourself?”

“I will,” he said, “when I’m done with you.” This time he shoved the gun into my ribs. “What happened?”

I had known him since I was six years old. We’d played together, studied together, and made love together. Unlike Mason, he’d really killed someone. Fitz. He wouldn’t hesitate to use that gun.

Maybe I could stall for time. Maybe they’d put the fire out right away at the house and someone would come back to the winery. “He fell off the bridge at Goose Creek. What’s in the box, Greg?”

The gun was in my ribs again. “Shut up and get going.”

We had reached the door to the barrel room, which was ajar. When they took off for the house, closing up was probably the last thing on anyone’s mind. He opened the door. “After you.”

We went inside and he frog-marched me down an aisle between rows of stacked wine casks, stopping at the far end by Jacques’s workbench. The tools, usually neatly hanging on a pegboard above the bench, were heaped on the floor. The wine barrel with my mother’s painting of the vineyard’s logo was in pieces, the staves splayed open in a tidy circle.

“Why did you destroy that barrel? That was my mother’s artwork!”

He said nothing, but his eyes roamed over me, then swept the room. He hadn’t figured out what to do with me.

“That strongbox was in the barrel, wasn’t it?” I said. Maybe I could get him to talk and use up more time. “How did you know it would be there?”

“My old man designed the box for your mother. I was there when she asked him to do it.”

“You knew it was here, all these years?”

“Not exactly. Fitz told me.” He paused. “Well, actually he told you.”

The only conversation I’d had with Fitz had been when we were alone, outside on the porch at Hunt’s Funeral Home.

“You couldn’t have heard! You left as I was coming in!”

He shrugged again, looking disarmingly sheepish as he smiled. “Funny, isn’t it? I left my blazer over the back of a chair upstairs. It had my wallet, my key card to get into the studio—everything was in it. I didn’t plan to eavesdrop, but I guess I got lucky.” He laughed lightly. “I practically dove into the bushes when Eli slipped out the front door. You heard me, you know, but you were so intent on what Fitz was saying, and hell, he was half in the bag so he told you it was a cat.”

“So you knew he was going to the winery?”

He spread his hands apart, the gun in one, the strongbox in the other, still smiling with that “boys will be boys” kind of rogue’s pleasure. “What can I say? Lucky break.”

“Not for Fitz it wasn’t.”

“Don’t start with me.” The smile disappeared. His handsome face still reminded me of something from a Roman coin, but now I knew which god he resembled. Janus. The two-faced one. “I guess we’d better get this over with. Give me the key, Lucie.”

“Whatever is in there won’t mean anything to you.”

The strongbox must have been heavy, because he set it down on the workbench. He flexed his fingers, then caressed the barrel of the gun almost lovingly. Those hands had once touched me like that.

“How do you know?” He pointed the gun at me. “Bang. It was the only painting she signed on the back, not the front. She also added the drawing of the vineyard logo and those vines. Her signature was a duplicate for what was on that wine barrel, right down to the logo.” He pointed to the destroyed cask. “Anyone would have figured it was just a fancy way of signing her name. But then I got hold of my old man’s invoices. Your mother told him she needed a box that would protect the contents from damage against damp if it was stored at a constant temperature of around fifty to fifty-five degrees.”

I shuddered. “Here.”

“Bang, bang.”

“Please stop saying that.”

His smile was like an ad for toothpaste. “So I assume what’s in here is that necklace that belonged to Marie Antoinette,” he said, almost casually. “Or else your mother went to a lot of trouble for nothing.”

“Whatever is in there doesn’t belong to you.”

“It does now. Give me the key or I’ll shoot you.”

“No.”

After what he did to Mia, I should have expected what came next. He raised his arm and clubbed me on the side of the head with the butt end of the gun. My brain exploded and I fell against the workbench. He frisked my pockets and pulled out Fitz’s key.

“Why did you make me go to all that trouble, sweetheart?” He sounded genuinely disappointed. “Don’t make me do that again. Now let’s see what we have here.”

The necklace, even more exquisite than I remembered, flashed brilliantly as he pulled it out of the box. “Christ,” he said. “I guess I hit the jackpot. And what else is there?”

He held up a stack of letters tied together with a blue satin ribbon. I’d seen charred remains of a ribbon like that in Fitz’s fireplace.

“Whatever’s in here must be pretty important to hide them away with these rocks. Why would anyone want to hide a bunch of old letters? What’s in them, Lucie? You know, don’t you? Some skeleton in the Montgomery family closet?” He didn’t have to move too many muscles for that smile to turn ugly.