The Merlot Murders

by Billie Holiday? Sure thing, angel. For those of you who’ve just tuned in, this is Greg Knight on WLEE in Leesburg and you’re listening to Knight Moves. I’ll be with you till dawn.”

The last thing I remember was Billie, all honey and gravel, crooning about her man and Greg’s voice wrapping itself around me like smoke and seeping into my mind.

I slept. 

Chapter 12

I woke, crumpled over on the wicker love seat. My empty wineglass was in my lap and the radio was still on, though now it was broadcasting the farm report. Quinn Santori was standing over me holding two mugs of coffee.

“You follow the farm report, do you?” He handed me one of the mugs.

“I’ve been known to.” I set the wineglass on the coffee table. I was still in my dress from the night before.

“Rough night?” He stared at the wineglass.

An excessively cheery voice sang that we were listening to WLEE, “the number-one station for you and me.” I turned it off. “I must have dozed off before I could get upstairs to change. Thanks for the coffee.”

He sipped from his own mug and gestured generally at my hair and clothes. “No problem. I like a woman who doesn’t care what she looks like when she wakes up in the morning. The natural look suits you.”

He walked back into the house, letting the screen door bang shut.

I sat on the love seat and nursed my coffee. He’d been wearing the now-familiar combat fatigues, dirt- stained and wrinkled, yet another Hawaiian shirt—this one with dozens of monkeys eating bananas—and the customary clanking collection of heavy metal around his neck and wrists. His eyes were bloodshot and he hadn’t shaved. Who was he to give fashion advice?

I set down the coffee mug and tried to pat down my hair, which was probably sticking up so I looked like Tintin. Finally I gave up and went inside. Quinn was pacing the floor, an ear attached once again to a mobile phone. I walked past the dining room and he motioned to me. He put a hand over the mouthpiece. “I need to talk to you.”

“Fine, but I’d like to shower and change first.”

“Make it fast, then.”

I banged my cane on the floor more sharply than usual as I climbed the stairs.

I showered and changed into jeans and a yellow T-shirt, twisting my damp hair into a knot to keep it off my neck since it was going to be another scorcher. By the time I came back downstairs, I was sweating.

Quinn was still on the telephone and held up a finger, indicating that I should wait for him to finish his conversation. I pointed toward the kitchen and left.

Dominique had put some of the leftover food from last night’s dinner in the refrigerator. I lifted lids to casserole dishes and foil wrapping on platters. Cold roast pork didn’t appeal for breakfast, so I found a baguette in the bread box, sliced a piece lengthwise and put it in the toaster oven. Quinn joined me as I was spreading Dominique’s homemade gooseberry jam on my toasted bread.

He opened the refrigerator and pulled out the platter of meat. “There’s something I need to ask you.” He set jars of mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup on the counter. Then he took out a tomato, a small dish of leftover green beans and morels, another of fingerling potatoes, and the remnants of a platter of local cheeses. “Is there anymore of that bread?”

I passed the rest of the baguette over to him. “What?”

He sliced the entire piece in half, spread goat cheese thickly on it and began laying slices of meat on top. “Are you people putting the vineyard up for sale? Because if you are, I think I have a right to know.” He dumped the morels, beans, and potatoes on top of the meat and arranged them with his fingers.

I sat down at the kitchen table. “Who said we were selling?”

“How dumb do I look?” He opened a drawer and pulled out a sharp knife. For someone who had only been here a day, he’d sure learned his way around the kitchen.

“We’re not selling.”

“You and Eli gonna work this thing out?” He sliced the tomato and laid it on top of the potatoes.

I finished chewing my baguette. “I said we’re not selling. Okay?”

“That’s not what it sounded like.” He was busy completing his masterpiece with heavy doses of mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup.

“That’s not what what sounded like?” That noise in the garden. It had been a lot of noise for one cat, come to think of it. “Were you here last night?”

“I was in the area.”

“You were eavesdropping!”

“Honey, they could hear you two hollering clear out to Upperville. That was some fight you and Eli had.” He came over to the table and set down a plate with his oversized sandwich on it. It drooped off the edges. “Is that homemade jam? What kind is it?”

“Gooseberry. It doesn’t go well with ketchup,” I said, coldly. “And my conversation with Eli was none of your business. Don’t you have any respect for people’s privacy?”

“If you want to fight in private, go inside and shut the door. You were outside, bellowing.” He sat down across from me and picked up the jar of jam, staring at the label.

“The tenant cottage where you live is nowhere near this house.”

He set the jar down. “I asked your father if it would be okay to use that abandoned summerhouse you’ve got if I repaired the places where the wood’s rotted, and he said it was fine by him. I had no intention of listening in on you and Eli, but it happened I was there when you two started yelling like a couple of banshees.”

“We were not yelling like banshees and if you had any decency, you would have said something so we would have known you were there.”

“It didn’t seem like a good idea,” he snapped. “I’m a winemaker, not a social worker.” He picked up his sandwich and studied it.

“Why are you here?”

“I’m hungry.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“I’m not a mind reader, either.”

“The vineyard. This vineyard. Why did you leave California for Virginia?”

He bit into the sandwich and began chewing placidly, staring into my eyes. He swallowed and said, finally, “Why wouldn’t I? I like the pioneering spirit you Virginia folks have got. I’d like to settle down here, maybe someday buy some land and run my own place. As for this place, it’s a good vineyard. It has potential. You’ve got a lot of acreage you ought to be planting out. There’s some new varietals I think we ought to be trying. I know your former vintner stuck with vitis vinifera, but those grapes aren’t the be-all and end-all. I’ve sent off some soil samples to Virginia Tech and the results are pretty good.”

“They are?”

He took another hearty bite. Ketchup dripped down his chin. He wiped it with the back of his hand. I got up and opened the pantry door and took out a bag of paper napkins. I slapped one down next to him. He looked at it, then went back to eating.

“Mmpfh,” he said. “Thizis bery dub beat.”

“You don’t say.”

He finished chewing and switched back to English. “I was thinking of planting a few acres of hybrids like Vidal, Seyval, or Chambourcin. Maybe even try Norton since it’s a native Virginia grape. I’d like to do some experimenting with blending wines, too, not just the standard stuff you’ve been doing. Use a little creativity for a change.”

Vitis vinifera are the grapes Noah planted after the Flood. These were the seeds found with the mummies of the pharaohs in the pyramids in Egypt, the noble grapes that make some of the world’s