The Riesling Retribution (13 page)

The weekend celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Montgomery Estate Vineyard will be indelibly etched in my memory, but not for reasons I would have imagined. Though we started on a high note with an unexpected celebration, it didn’t take long for things to head south.

Ironically, the weather for the entire weekend couldn’t have been more perfect if we’d ordered it up ourselves. Sparkling sunshine, the vivid blue skies of a Van Gogh painting, scattered thin-ribbed clouds, a soft breeze, and none of the oppressive energy-sapping humidity that was our usual summer fare.

The first people to arrive showed up at the villa before we’d even opened the doors. Kit and Bobby, arms around each other, walked in looking like they’d just won the lottery.

“We wanted to tell you first. Well, second after my mother and Bobby’s folks.” Kit held out her left hand where a small diamond in a plain gold setting sparkled on her finger.

I had started to set a large tiered platter of grapes and assorted cheeses on the oak trestle table when she waved her ring under my nose. The tray tipped sideways as I bent to examine it. Bobby grabbed one of the handles before anything could spill and we set it down together. Everyone laughed.

“Told you Lucie’d be surprised,” Bobby said to Kit, who continued admiring her ring and grinning like a fool. “She thought I’d never do it.”

“Darling,
I
thought you’d never do it.” Kit arched an eyebrow as she ate a grape and looked seductively at him.

We laughed some more and I hugged Kit. “I’m so happy for you.”

I hugged Bobby, too, but his eyes, though smiling like hers, turned grave as he patted me on the back. Something was wrong.

“We have to make a toast,” I said. “To celebrate. The Middleburg Business Association sent a bottle of champagne for our anniversary. It’s chilling in the fridge. I’ll get it.”

“You should save it,” Kit said.

“Nonsense. Just a small glass.”

Kit glanced at Bobby. “I guess we could. Though my fiancé, here, would prefer a beer.”

“Those bubbles give me gas,” he said, “but I suppose I can make an exception.”

I got the bottle and Bobby opened it on the terrace. The cork flew out and the fizzy liquid erupted. We laughed again as I held a champagne flute underneath and he filled it with champagne.

“So when did this happen?” I handed Kit her glass. “Tell me everything.”

“Last night,” Kit said. “We had dinner on that boat that goes down the Potomac to Mount Vernon.”

“You think you were surprised.” Bobby poured two more small glasses of champagne. “Kit nearly went over the railing when I got down on one knee. Got me all worried I might have to call the dive squad to find out if she accepted or not.”

“He lies.” Kit grinned at him and blew him a kiss. Their eyes met, exchanging a coded look.

Bobby set down his glass, from which he’d taken only a couple of sips. “Sorry we can’t stay for your party, Lucie.”

Kit looked like she was confessing a guilty secret. “We’ve both got to work. Things came up. But we wanted to make sure we told you about the engagement in person. That’s why we came by on our way.” She also set down her glass.

I wanted to ask if the murder investigation of Beau Kinkaid had anything to do with the reason they both got called into work on a weekend, but the look in Kit’s eyes asked me not to push it and spoil
the moment. Still, a heaviness had settled over us like a shroud, so maybe I already had my answer.

“At least let me give you a bottle of wine for dinner,” I said.

Kit twisted her engagement ring on her finger, glancing at Bobby.

“We’ll take your wine, but I insist on paying,” Bobby said.

“No, please—”

“Let us pay, kiddo,” Kit said. To Bobby, she added, “I’ll take care of it, honey. Why don’t you talk to Lucie while I do that?” She opened her purse and pulled out her wallet.

“It’s not a bribe,” I said to Bobby. “You know me better.”

“I know. But under the circumstances, it’s just better if we pay.”

I nodded, numb. “Have you talked to Annabel Chastain yet?”

“Sorry, but I can’t say. Look, Lucie, I want to make sure you understand that this isn’t about you. You’re not being accused of anything.”

“It’s my family and our reputation that’s at stake.”

Kit came outside cradling a bag with a bottle of wine in it and holding a credit card receipt. “Chance tried to give me another bottle on the house once he found out the news. He says ‘Congratulations.’” She winked at Bobby. “And he gave me a little kiss. He’s sweet.”

“Yeah, but I’m sweeter. And I better not catch him flirting with my fiancée.” Bobby’s smile was tolerant. “We should be going.”

Kit kissed me good-bye and squeezed my arm. “Enjoy your big party and try not to worry about anything. It’ll all work out, I promise.”

Later I would wonder if that had been a Judas kiss or if she really didn’t expect what would come next.

I didn’t have much time to think about it, though, because after that, people began arriving in waves that never seemed to end. The villa and the terrace filled up and soon everyone spilled into the courtyard where we’d placed additional bistro tables and chairs. Frankie had hired a disc jockey to play songs that had been popular twenty years ago. We had him set up out there so folks could dance if they wanted to, along with eating and drinking. Besides our usual fare of
crackers, cheese, and fruit, we served birthday cake and sold wine at a 20 percent discount.

By noon it was shaping up to be our best day in history with the girls so swamped pouring wine for the tastings that Eli, Quinn, Chance, and I pitched in, serving wine and ringing up sales instead of spending time with our guests. Quinn sent Tyler out to direct traffic and Benny and Javier ferried cases of wine from the barrel room to the tasting room when we ran out of supplies.

“I never expected anything like this,” I said to Quinn when he and I took a break to check on how things were going in the courtyard. “Wish we had more help.”

“I wish the songs of the eighties were better,” Quinn said, as a singer I didn’t recognize sang about being addicted to love with a thudding bass backing him up. “How come your parents couldn’t have founded this place in the sixties? Did you actually like this music?”

“I was in grade school,” I said. “I don’t remember.”

“Why don’t I call Savannah?” he said. “Maybe she can give us a hand. She had something to do this morning but she’s probably free now.”

“Sure.” My heart gave an unwelcome lurch, but I kept my voice neutral. “Give her a call.”

He pulled out his cell phone and turned away for some privacy. I leaned against a pillar in the shade of the arcade. Though the courtyard was overflowing with people, I felt a stab of loneliness that was becoming familiar. A light breeze blew, fluttering the red-and-white-striped umbrellas we’d placed to shade each of the tables. The music changed to a song by Madonna—“Holiday,” with its bouncy dance-tune beat.

“Hey, Lucie.” Seth Hannah, president of Blue Ridge Federal, held a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon in one hand and two wineglasses between the fingers of the other. He was dressed for the occasion in a straw boater, seersucker jacket, pale blue shirt, and khakis. “I was hoping I’d run into you. Great party, sweetheart. Your momma’d be proud.”

“Thanks, Seth. Glad you could come.”

I wondered if he hadn’t mentioned Leland on purpose once
again. In the beginning, my father had been involved in the vineyard along with my mother. Later, she took over running it by herself while he went off on one of his many business ventures.

Seth smiled. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I remember the day this vineyard opened. One of the first in Virginia back then. Saw that slide show you’ve put together in the library in the villa. What a lot of memories.”

“I know. I wish my parents were here to see this.”

“I’m sure you do.” He paused. “I thought you should know. Bobby Noland stopped by the house yesterday wanting to know if I knew anything about that business associate of your father’s.”

“What did you say, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“That I had no recollection of the fellow. Never met him as near as I can remember.”

“That was it?”

“Well, we talked generally, of course. It’s no secret that your father made some bad business decisions, honey. Lost a lot of money. His friends had to bail him out more than once.”

“Is that a roundabout way of saying you think he might be guilty?”

“Now I never said that, Lucie.” Seth adopted the tone of an adult who didn’t expect to be second-guessed by a child. “Bobby’s making the rounds, talking to the Romeos. I had drinks with some of the boys over at the Inn last night. Thought I’d help you out here by giving you a head’s up.”

“Do all the Romeos feel the way you do?”

“I think we agree that Lee had some questionable business associates.” He’d hedged his answer, but his tone was still tough.

“He was your friend, Seth, and now that he’s dead he isn’t around to defend himself. If you’re going to throw him under a bus—”

Seth straightened up and I could see the hardness travel to his eyes. “I resent that, Lucie. No one’s turning against anyone and no one said a word about your father killing that man.”

He walked away abruptly, weaving his way between the tables as the gaily striped umbrellas fluttered in the wind. A pretty tableau on a pretty day. I watched him sit down at his table and knew that I’d angered him. But I also knew something else.

He’d ducked my question about whether or not he believed Leland was a murderer.

Frankie came to me at the end of the day when Quinn and I were cleaning up in the little kitchen off the tasting room. The rest of the staff had gone, including Savannah, who had shown up to help for a few hours and promised to return on Sunday.

“What gives, Lucie? We got calls all afternoon from the Romeos. All of them who were coming to that private barrel tasting tomorrow afternoon canceled. You know anything about that?”

I stopped taking clean wineglasses out of the dishwasher. Quinn put down an empty cardboard box we used to store the glasses and regarded me warily.

“I might.”

“What happened?” Quinn asked. “It’s about Leland, isn’t it?”

“I think I offended Seth Hannah.”

“You think or you know?” he said.

I twisted my dish towel into a knot and Quinn threw up his hands. Frankie looked like she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to wait around to hear what came next or drop through the floorboards.

“Why don’t I call the people on the waiting list and let them know we’ve got space all of a sudden?” Her smile didn’t make it all the way to her eyes.

“Thanks, Frankie,” I said.

“Good idea,” Quinn said. “You know how I hate doing tastings when there’s nobody there.”

“I’d better get right to it.”

The door swung shut as she left. Quinn folded his arms across his chest. “What exactly did you say to Seth to royally piss him off?”

“I didn’t royally piss him off.”

“There’s another expression for it?”

“You don’t understand.”

“You’re right. I don’t.”

I ran a finger around and around the rim of a clean glass. “Bobby’s been questioning all the Romeos about Leland and Beau
Kinkaid. Seth said he told Bobby that he didn’t know anything, but it didn’t stop him from insinuating that Leland probably did it because of the kind of person he was.”

“Bobby’s a big boy. I’m sure he can separate facts from insinuation.”

“You know what? If you repeat something often enough, regardless of whether or not it’s true, after a while people start believing it.”

Quinn set down my glass on the counter and put both hands on my shoulders. “People,” he said, “are going to talk and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Yes, there is.”

He looked at me like I’d already lost not only the battle but the whole damn war.

“No. Not this time.”

“I can prove Leland’s innocent. That’ll stop the talk.”

He let go of my shoulders. “There’s no way you can do that. No evidence, nothing. You can’t go up against Bobby.”

“I can’t let the Romeos imply that because Leland and Beau had a business deal that went bad, he’s the obvious candidate to be the murderer. If that were true, I know a lot of people who’d qualify as potential killers. That includes me and a bunch of the Romeos themselves.”

Quinn finished filling the wine box with clean glasses and closed it up.

“People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones?” he asked.

I folded the dish towel and slapped it on the counter.

“They shouldn’t throw boomerangs.”

Just like Saturday, Sunday’s first crisis erupted right before we opened. Eli’s wife, Brandi, walked through the front door of the villa and the room went quiet.

There are those who spread joy and sunshine because they’ve got such positive, upbeat personalities that people feel good just by being around them. My sister-in-law was not one of these people.