The Merlot Murders

about tonight. In spite of everything we still have one hundred and fifty people coming for a sit-down dinner and three hundred more for the opening-night performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I don’t know how we’re going to pull this off.”

“You’ll have to move the dinner to the inn,” I said. “Bobby shut down the winery completely.”

“It’s fully booked.”

“Then maybe we ought to think about canceling.”

She drank some of her coffee and reached for the pack of cigarettes. “Too late for that. Everything’s ordered…and paid for.”

“You’re saying you can’t give people their money back?”

She busied herself lighting another cigarette. “Have you ever heard the expression ‘robbing Peter to pay the piper?’”

“Sort of.”

She took a drag on the cigarette. “I ordered some new equipment for the catering company. The company I bought it from went bankrupt right after I paid for it.”

“Before you got the equipment?” What was it about my family and money? She and Leland weren’t even blood relatives. “So how much money are you talking about?”

“Seventy thousand.”

“You’re out seventy thousand dollars?”

“Closer to seventy-five. I’ve got it under control, though,” she said. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.” Her phone rang a second time and she glanced at it. “Joe. Again.”

She had another monosyllabic conversation, then hung up and rubbed her eyes. “He had some of Hector’s men haul the picnic tables from the orchards to use as buffet tables for tonight. But Hector needed the guys somewhere else so they left all of them sitting in the road over by the Ruins.”

“The men?”

“The tables. What a mess. I’d better get over there and straighten things out.”

“Leave them there,” I said. “Have the dinner right there in the middle of the road. There won’t be any cars coming through since everything is off limits. You could string lights in the trees and use hurricane lamps for the tables. It’ll be like fairyland.”

“That,” my cousin said, “is a brilliant idea.” She stood up and smiled tiredly. “I need to shower and change. Then let’s get over there.”

“You go ahead. I’ll have to join you later. The destemmer’s broken. Quinn needs eight hundred dollars to fix it. Today.”

“And where are you going to get that? Money. It’s always about money.” She picked up the pack of cigarettes and concentrated on rubbing a thumb across the cellophane wrapping. “You know, chérie, no one knows what I just told you, about the money, I mean. Be an angel. Keep quiet about it, won’t you?” She wasn’t really asking and her thin-lipped smile was chilly. “Besides, I’m taking care of it.”

I said uneasily, “Sure.”

She set her coffee cup in the sink as she left. A few minutes later I heard the pipes knocking in the walls and the sound of running water. Had Fitz known about the money? Dominique never explained what they argued about during that last conversation. Eli said they had quarreled over the subject of Fitz retiring.

Now that he was dead she wouldn’t have to explain the seventy-five thousand to him. Nor did she need to persuade him to retire.

Just what I needed. Another family member with a motive for murder.

The door to Leland’s study creaked as I opened it. Someone had closed the curtains and the hot, dark room smelled vaguely mummified. The air-conditioning seemed even feebler in here than in the rest of the house. I flipped on the light switch and saw the stack of yellowed newspapers that had toppled over, covering one of the floor vents. Opening the curtains set off a tornado of dust motes and the gloomy shadows became—wherever I looked—stacks of magazines, books, and newspapers piled carelessly and untidily on all flat surfaces or sticking out of shelves on the floor-to-ceiling cherry bookcases.

When my parents were first married, my mother had redecorated the study and she’d gone a bit mad in her use of the Montgomery tartan. Our ancient tartan was a lovely subdued heathery green-and-blue plaid, but for some reason, she’d decided to use only the modern tartan, a bold red-and-green plaid on a lavender background. She’d put it on the sofa, the recliner, an ottoman, and even the curtains. It was a lot of tartan in one room, even one as high-ceilinged and imposing as this one. Now, though, it was only evident in the faded sunbleached curtains. Everything else was covered with papers and books. The only place to sit was Leland’s desk chair.

I found his appointment book on top of a pile of books on the edge of the desk, opened to the date he died. I shuddered as I leafed through it. He’d never been much for keeping records. A few names—the Romeos, mostly— scribbled on some pages, but that was it. I closed the book and sat down in the chair, sneezing in another storm cloud of dust.

The edge of the hunter-green notebook-style checkbook we used for vineyard business stuck out from under a pile of unopened mail. “Final notice” was stamped in heavy black letters across an alarming number of envelopes. After my mother died Leland had moved the winery’s records from her study to his, and her tidy files and meticulous bookkeeping had quickly disintegrated into chaos. I slid the checkbook out from under the bills. There were dozens of missing checks with nothing written against them in the ledger. Half a dozen unopened bank statements had been stuffed in the back of the checkbook.

No way to tell if we had eight hundred dollars in the account—or eight cents. I reached for the telephone— under a copy of the Wine Spectator—and set it on my lap. We did our banking where everyone in Atoka banked, at Blue Ridge Federal. The private phone number for Seth Hannah, who handled our account, was written in my mother’s handwriting in the flyleaf of the address book, which I found in the top desk drawer. Seth’s secretary put me through right away.

“Lucie honey, there’s just over four hundred dollars in that account as of today,” he said immediately. He sounded friendly, but not happy. “You’re a bit late with your loan payments, as well.”

We had a loan. Wonderful.

“I’ll get it to you, Seth. I promise. But couldn’t you advance us just a little more to get us through harvest?” I asked.

“I’d like to, darlin’, but I’m afraid that dog just don’t hunt anymore. I’ll give you a little extra time to make your payment, though. That’s as much as I can do.” He paused. “I hear you’re going to sell the place, so I reckon we can settle up then.”

This probably wasn’t the moment to tell Seth we weren’t going to sell, so I didn’t. Instead I thanked him sweetly for throwing us a lifeline, although in reality what I’d probably gotten was more rope to hang myself.

Then I called my bank in France. At least I could get the few thousand dollars of remaining insurance money transferred back to the States.

I knew the woman who answered the phone. Gisèle. She sounded flustered and asked me to wait un petit instant. After a few thousand “instants” Bertrand Thayer, the manager, got on the line.

He sounded confused. “Mademoiselle, we closed that account for you yesterday,” he said. “Monsieur Broussard gave me your letter stating that you returned to the États-Unis and wanted him to withdraw the money to send to you. Usually we cannot close an account without the owner being present, but under the circumstances, we did you this favor. Your ami was very persuasive.”

I was silent for a long time.

“Eh, bien,” he said at last. “The letter had your signature on it, even the notaire, so we assumed it was genuine.”

“It probably was my signature,” I said, “knowing Philippe.”

“Désolé,” he said. “I’m terribly sorry. I don’t know what to say. Unfortunately he asked for cash.”

Cash. So like Philippe.