The minimum donation was $10,000. Depending on the size of the contribution, the organizers wanted to express their thanks. An all-expense-paid weekend at the Greenbriar. Box seats at the Kentucky Derby. Four days and three nights in Vail during ski season. A week in Tortola at a private villa. It was a safe bet we weren’t members of the consortium.
I could see through the paper that there was writing on the back so I turned it over. Doodling.
Mason’s name, with an elaborately embellished box around it. Two phone numbers at the bottom—outside the box—neither of which I recognized.
I reached for the bedside phone and dialed the first number. After a few rings an answering machine kicked in.
“Hi, it’s Sara. I’m not here. Leave a message and have an awesome day. Here’s the beep.” A singsongy girlish voice like a teenager. If she’d written the message, there would be little hearts instead of dots over the i’s. I hung up.
The second number rang half a dozen times then someone answered.
“Gas-o-Rama, whacanidoforyou?” He sounded Hispanic.
“Uh, nothing. Sorry, wrong number.” A gas station.
Whatever Leland had been up to before he died, he hadn’t left any obvious clues about who wanted to buy the vineyard. I reached in the pocket of my jeans for the little key Fitz had given me. I’d been carrying it around like a talisman, trying it out on anything in the house with a lock on it. The mantel clock in the parlor. The elaborately carved chest with its mother-of-pearl inlay containing the Bessette family silver in the dining room. Even the old bread box.
It would be just like my mother to leave whatever the key opened here in this room and Leland to never find it. I walked over to her mirrored dressing table, pulling open the drawers. They were empty. The drawer and cabinet of her matching bedside table were also empty. Under the bed was a different story. Besides the now-familiar basketball-sized dust bunnies were more newspapers and magazines. I used my cane like a hook and pulled some of them out so I could see them. Old copies of the Wine Spectator, the Post, the Tribune, along with the Loudoun and Fauquier regional newspapers, plus a robust collection of hard-core porn magazines with busty nudes in naughty or teasing poses on the covers.
The magazines needed to return to utter darkness where they came from—or some gutter—but when I tried to shove them back under the bed, something blocked the way. I knelt down and pulled out a shallow box that probably once held a case of beer but now was filled with papers.
More bills, these from months ago. Also a copy of the San Jose Mercury News from last January. The lead article on the front page explained why Leland had kept the paper. Next to the headline SOUR GRAPES: WINEMAKER JAILED was a photo of Quinn Santori and two other men. The subheading read BIOTERRORISM SCARE REVEALED FRAUD.
The jailed winemaker was not Quinn but a man named Allen Cantor, who had been the senior winemaker at Le Coq Rouge Winery in Calistoga, California. He’d been adulterating wine—with tap water, no less—and selling it under a different label to distributors in Eastern Europe and Russia. He’d gotten away with it for several years, making millions of dollars under the table, until someone analyzed a bottle of Chardonnay at a competition. The Homeland Security people got involved, suspecting possible bioterrorism and instead they uncovered fraud and embezzlement. Assistant winemaker Paolo Santori had not been charged, but the owner, Tavis Hennessey, fired him anyway.
Cantor’s personal financial records showed a man who was heavily in debt and on the verge of declaring bankruptcy. Authorities suspected he’d merely moved money to an offshore bank and were pursuing the matter. A photograph taken in the wine cellar of Le Coq Rouge showed Tavis Hennessey, Allen Cantor, and Paolo Santori in happier times with their arms around one another’s shoulders. The last sentence quoted Hennessey who said he expected to close the winery.
Though he had a ponytail back then and he wasn’t wearing a Hawaiian shirt, it was clearly Quinn. I called directory assistance and got the phone number for Le Coq Rouge. An automated voice announced, not surprisingly, that the number was no longer in service. There was no forwarding number.
How long had Leland known about this? Had Quinn given him the article himself, been up front about his past? Had Leland decided to hire him, anyway? Someone with this kind of dicey background wouldn’t bother Leland in the least. Hell, people like that were his business partners. They probably got along like a house on fire.
It was also possible Leland hadn’t known anything about this. Maybe Quinn caught a lucky break when his new employer skipped the background check in a rush to find a winemaker after Jacques’s sudden departure. Obviously, though, Leland found out somehow about what happened in California.
Then what? Had Leland threatened to expose him? Dismiss him? In that case, Leland’s death had been convenient, even helpful, for Quinn. Not to mention he’d freely admitted going back to the Merlot block and cleaning up all traces of what had happened, even down to looking for the bullet that had killed Leland. Out in the vineyard this morning he’d tried to bully me, saying he was going to run things his way, listening to my opinion but doing what he pleased. With Leland out of the picture, Quinn probably figured now he had carte blanche, with no one to stop him from doing just that.
Which meant he, too, had a motive for murder.
Chapter 14
The phone rang while I was still holding the newspaper.
It was Dominique and she sounded elated. “You’ll never guess what Quinn has done.”
“I can’t imagine.”
“He went by the sheriff’s office this morning. They’re taking down that yellow tape. Can you get over here? We’re moving the buffet and the wine-tasting back to the villa. Isn’t that great?”
“He’s full of surprises, isn’t he?” So Thelma had been right about his whereabouts. “Give me twenty minutes.”
I drove to the winery after I’d changed into an off-the-shoulder white knit top and a long gauzy gypsy-like skirt. What would I say when I saw him? “So, how’s the wine market in Eastern Europe? Do they drink a lot of lite wine over there? I’d like to hang around if you do any blending.”
But I would keep my mouth shut and play it cool. Besides, maybe he and Leland had already worked out a deal about his past. All I’d do is get him stirred up if I confronted him without knowing the facts. Then he’d threaten to quit. Again. If he walked out on us just as harvest started, I might as well hand the keys over to Eli.
Dominique was in the courtyard, conferring with two waitresses. Unlike the house, the winery still looked like somebody cared for it. The halved oak wine barrels my mother had set out as planters along the loggia’s curved perimeter were filled with lacy red geraniums and trailing variegated ivy, which overflowed the containers and spilled onto the ground. Her collection of vintage wine-making equipment placed between the planters was clean and still looked in working order. The one exception was the Civil War cannon, now strictly decorative, which reportedly had been used at the battle at Goose Creek Bridge when Confederates delayed Union forces, allowing Lee’s Army to march north to Gettysburg.
Dominique turned at the sound of my footsteps and the tap of my cane on the gravel. “You’re just in time.”
“The place looks lovely. The flowers are gorgeous.”
“You can thank Serafina. Leland let her do whatever she wanted after Jacques left. He didn’t really care much.”