The Bordeaux Betrayal (30 page)

He scratched behind one ear. “What kind of things? What did I say?”

“That Nicole contacted you after she moved to the Fox and Hound. And that she might have been involved—indirectly—with the break-in at Jack Greenfield’s place.”

“I said that? Jeez. I really must have been loaded.” He shook his head. “I don’t know anything about the break-in at Jack’s. Guess I was running my mouth.”

“You said Nicole left a message for you to call her back, but you didn’t.”

“That I remember.” He began balling and unballing his fists. “Maybe if I had she’d still be alive.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” he said, “I don’t. And that’s why I got so stinking drunk last night. Because I’ll never know if I could have saved her and I’ve got to live with that.”

“Quinn—”

He held up a hand. “Look, I know I’ve been a complete asshole lately and I’m sorry. Once we get done with the Cab I thought I’d take some time off since it will be quiet around here. Get lost and get past all this. Past her.”

“Sure. Fine.” I set down my coffee mug. “I guess I’d better get going, too. I might be in late today.”

“No problem. And, hey, thanks for being a good sport. I apologize for anything else I said or did that I don’t remember.”

“Don’t mention it,” I said and left.

I drove home and felt like I’d spent the night rubbing sand in my eyes. My head ached and, to be honest, my heart ached, too. The sooner I forgot last night, the better.

Pépé was still asleep. I showered and changed, then went downstairs to fix breakfast. Quinn wasn’t the only one out of coffee. Pépé must have gone through both bags of the Ethiopian and Sumatran I liked to blend so that he could make the robust rocket fuel he craved. And we had no bread.

I got my coat and car keys and drove to the General Store. I needed something to eat and Thelma would have home-baked muffins and fresh coffee. She would also have her antennae up and ready to receive any gossip she could extract from me by fair means or foul. But I reckoned that she knew everything that had been whispered about Nicole Martin—and, for a change, maybe I’d be the one to glean new information from her.

I angled the Mini into a place on the chunk of cracked asphalt that Thelma liked to call “the parking lot.” She’d been running the General Store for as long as I could remember; there had been some sort of store on this spot since Atoka was founded in the mid-1800s. Thelma swore Mosby had used the place as a hideout, which probably was true, but she also enjoyed dropping names of other famous people she claimed had frequented her establishment. FDR, when he came through to dedicate the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Kennedys when they’d lived here. Movie stars. Politicians. European royalty.

The silver bells on her door sounded like wind chimes when I entered. During the day Thelma stayed glued to the soaps when she didn’t have any customers, but at this hour of the morning the tabloids, spread out on the counter by the cash register, had her undivided attention. Until she saw me. Her smile made me think of cats and canaries.

The General Store got stuck in a time warp a few decades ago, deciding to let the rest of the world pass it by. No computerized cash register, no bar codes, no mist watering the fruits and vegetables. Thelma fit right in with the bygone era of the decor, dressing for work with a vampy flair that was half Auntie Mame, half Roxie Hart.

She clapped her hands together like a child. “Why, Lucille! What a treat! I haven’t seen you for an age. Come right on in. How about a nice cup of coffee or a muffin? You’re lookin’ a bit peaky.”

She tottered over in stiletto slingbacks, dressed today in fire-engine red a few shades off the current color of her teased helmet of hair. She surveyed me with the practiced eye of a 4-H judge looking over prize livestock.

“Your eyes are all bloodshot,” she said before I could answer. “You get any sleep last night, child? ’Course you didn’t, all those doings out at your farm. I didn’t like that woman much but what someone did to her was turrible. Just turrible.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Sit yourself down in that rocking chair over there and let me pour you a cup of coffee. On the house. You want a muffin?”

“Yes, please.”

“Muffin’ll cost you a dollar-fifty. You can pay me on the way out. I got blueberry or blueberry. The Romeos were in this morning and ate up most everything I had like a plague of locusts come through.”

“Blueberry’s fine.”

She poured my coffee from a pot labeled “Fancy” and handed it to me. “It’s got a little pumpkin and cinnamon spice in it, this one,” she said. “On account of Halloween and all.”

The coffee bordered on cloying but the muffin, filled with tart blueberries, offset the sweetness and the combination hit the spot.

“So tell me all about it.” She sat next to me in another rocking chair like a queen on a throne. The store smelled of fresh-brewed coffee, spices, and homemade pastries mingled with the slightly baked odor of her central heating. Sunlight filtered through an east-facing window making lattice stripes on the floor.

I knew she wanted details—the more lurid, the better.

“I’m sure you’ve heard everything already.” I didn’t want to relive finding Nicole’s body, especially after last night with Quinn, and flattery was Thelma’s weak spot.

“Well, a person does need to keep informed.” Her faced twitched in a smile, accepting the compliment as her due. “Especially if we’ve got a serial killer running loose around here. First that writer, now the ex-wife of your winemaker. He must have taken it hard.”

I ignored the wide-enough-to-drive-a-truck-through opening to talk about Quinn and said, “What makes you think the same person killed them both?”

Thelma leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees. Her eyes, behind thick glasses, showed surprise. “Why, I couldn’t say. It’s just one of my feelings. You know, Lucille, some people believe I have psychotic powers. A God-given ability to know things from…”—she paused for drama—“…the Great Beyond.”

Thelma, like Dominique, had issues with the English language. “You’ve often talked about that,” I said.

“Oh my, yes. And, of course, I always watch those police shows and such on television. A person can learn a lot from them. The way things are really done.” She straightened up. “How’d you happen to find her, anyway? I heard someone left her in a field in the middle of nowhere.”

“Not ‘nowhere.’ Near the place my mother died.”

Thelma worked hard at achieving eternal youth, but mentioning my mother—whom she’d adored—softened her features until the web of lines and wrinkles deepened with sympathy and memory. “I did not know that.”

I finished my blueberry muffin and folded the crumbs into my napkin in a tight, neat square.

“You must have gone there with Luc,” she said. “I know how he misses his daughter.”

“Thank you for getting him those flowers,” I said. “My mother would have loved them.”

Thelma touched the back of her lacquered hair with one hand, ever the coquette. “I’d do anything for that man,” she said. “Did you know every time he comes into the store he kisses my hand? I just plumb love it when he does that. Hold out your hand to any other man around here and he thinks you want to show him your age spots.”

“Really?”

“I only tried it two times, but that was enough.”

I laughed.

“Some of those Romeos could take a page from his book, if you ask me. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, Lucille, but I’ve been studying French for a while. Audio tapes. Works real good. How’s this sound?
Mon chapeau est sur ma fesse.
”

“You have a good accent,” I said. “But you just said something like ‘my hat is on my ass.’”

“Lordy.” Her color deepened to match her dress. “Maybe I need new headphones.” She paused. “I’ll miss Luc when he leaves. I’d sure like to visit Paris some day.”

She took off her glasses and looked away but not before I saw the longing in her eyes.

“You never know,” I said. “And he’ll be back to visit.”

“Sure he will.” She forced a smile. “So he was with you when you found Nicole Martin. What kind of sick person would leave a body out there for all the animals to find?”

“Someone who didn’t think she’d be discovered for a while. Did you ever meet her?”

“Why, sure I did. She was in a few days before she…passed. On the phone the whole time. So annoying. She could have waited two minutes until she was outside before making those meeting plans, couldn’t she? Instead she’s yakking away right under my nose, just as rude as you please.”

“What day was that?”

Thelma had an encyclopedic memory. “Sunday. ’Bout eleven o’clock.”

“Any idea who she was meeting or what it was about?”

“I’m pretty sure it was a woman.” She tapped her forehead. “Feminine inhibition, you know. At first I thought maybe they were meeting for lunch because she was all dressed up real fancy in a nice-looking suit. Then she said something about ‘being over there’ as soon as she left the store so I guess she was driving to the other woman’s house.”

“What color was the suit?” I asked.

“Reddish-brown. Not one of my colors. Makes my skin look sallow. Why?” She turned pale. “Good Lord, Lucille. That’s what she had on when you found her, isn’t it? That poor woman. Goin’ from my store to her death.”

“It’s also possible she had her meeting and went somewhere else.”

Thelma picked up her glasses and polished the lenses on her sleeve without looking at me. “How’s Quinn taking this? I heard he wasn’t too happy she came to town.”

I didn’t know whether to answer her directly or indirectly. Quinn didn’t kill Nicole and I needed to eliminate that idea from Thelma’s repertoire of possibilities before it went any further.

“He once loved her enough to marry her. So he’s taking her death like you’d think he would. He’s devastated.”

Thelma adjusted her glasses and surveyed me through trifocals. “I don’t suppose you heard about Hamp Weaver,” she said. “He’s moving into the postfuneral planning business.”

Hampton Weaver was a local carpenter who ran a fireworks company—Boom Town Fireworks—on the side. “Post-funeral?”

“It’s kind of a new thing. But I’m sure it’ll catch on real big. For those folks who want to give their loved ones an extraterrestrial experience. A wonderful send-off to their next home.”

I must have looked startled because she said, “Oh, don’t you worry. It’s very tasteful. And Hamp knows his fireworks. He sees it as a different kind of way to spread the ashes of your loved one. Everyone’s going to want to do it. You can even choose the favorite colors of the deceased. You know, personalize the display for that final send-off. There’s lots of possibilities for creativity.”

“Fireworks?”

She stood up. “Most everyone has that reaction, Lucille. It surprises the heck out of you but once you think on it, it’s pretty clever. Let me get you his new business card. You can slip it to Quinn when you think the time is right.”

Which would be never. “I ought to be getting home, Thelma. Thanks for the coffee and I’ll pay you for the muffin. I also need some coffee beans and a loaf of that homemade sourdough bread for my grandfather.”

She caressed the paper bag that held the bread as she put it in a plastic carrier. “You tell Luc I sent this with my love, you hear me? And tell him don’t be a stranger, either. I know he likes red.” She smoothed her dress. “I’m wearing this just in case he drops by today.”

“He does,” I said. “And I’ll tell him.”

“Au revoir,”
she said. “And you can also tell him that I’ve got a nice cross-ant waiting here special for him.
Dans ma poitrine
.”

I knew she meant
vitrine,
which was the large glass case where she kept all the baked goods, including her croissants. No point mentioning she’d told me instead that she was keeping it in her breast.

So Nicole Martin stopped by the General Store on her way to a meeting with a woman. Dressed in the suit she was killed in.

I drove home, making a mental list of possible candidates. It was pretty short.

I called the winery on my way back to the house. Frankie answered and said a couple of reporters had phoned about Nicole.

“What’d you tell them?” I asked.

“No comment.”

“Good for you. I just turned my phone on. Looks like I’ve got a bunch of messages.”

“Listen only if it’s someone you know,” she said. “I asked Gina to come in today. Hope you don’t mind, but I thought the boss could use a day off. We can cover anything that comes up.”

I smiled. “The boss wouldn’t mind a day off. Have you seen Quinn?”

“Jesus Lord.”

“Guess that’s ‘yes.’”

“He looked like hell.”

“He needs some sleep. I hope you told him to take a day off, too.”

“I tried. He went to the barrel room to get away from everything. A reporter showed up on his doorstep and wanted to talk to him,” Frankie said.

“What happened?”

“Quinn threw him off the property, then called his hunting buddy to come over and patrol the place. He’s supposed to be shooting crows and what have you, but I think he’s also supposed to put the fear of God into trespassers.”

“The spot near my mother’s cross is still a crime scene, Frankie. The sheriff’s department is coming by to search the place, too.”

“They’ve been here already,” she said. “I think they’re out by where you found Nicole now. Look, why don’t you let me handle all this? Go home and turn your phone off. Take your grandfather out for a drive or just get lost somewhere. There must be something you’d like to do.”

“As a matter of fact,” I said, “there is.”

When I got home around nine-thirty Pépé was still sleeping. I sat across from the bust of Jefferson in the foyer and listened to the messages on my phone. The only call I returned was Kit’s.