The Merlot Murders

Today the guests included a California congressman and his staff, three D.C. restaurant owners, a wine- tasting club called Les Amis du Vin from Charlottesville, and an event planner from a public relations firm who was looking for a place to host a dinner party for a group of international clients.

Whether it was because I was distracted or due to the constant needling from the California congressman— an unctuous white-haired man in a sharp suit who called me “little lady”—the lunch wasn’t one of our better ones. But Dominique, as usual, had out-done herself with the menu, having gone to the farmers’ market in Frogtown that morning making sure nearly all the produce had been in someone’s garden only a few hours earlier.

After the tour, we ate in the gazebo. It faced my mother’s wild-flower garden, a rioting mass of cosmos, coreopsis, black-eyed Susans, and a spectacular assortment of daylilies, whose colors ranged from sherbet pinks, yellows, and peaches to deeper oranges, golds, and plums.

The congressman, who sat next to me, represented a concrete district in Los Angeles not far from Hollywood. He kept haranguing me about the superiority of California wines. “You know, little lady, I had dinner at the White House the other night and what do you think they served as wines? Every course?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me they were California wines.”

“You bet, honey. They know their wines at the White House. Only the best.”

“Actually,” I said, “the first wines served at the White House were recommended by a Virginian. Thomas Jefferson stocked the wine cellar for George Washington and then for John Adams. And, of course, during his own presidency.”

He’d been chewing on a piece of grilled lamb with a fresh berry sauce. “The wines weren’t from Virginia, were they?” He grinned broadly so I saw the berry seed in his dentures.

“Give us time.” I stared at the berry seed. “Our winemaker came from Napa to work here in Virginia. Our climate is a lot like France and we do a lot of experimenting. I’m sure you know that a number of top restaurants in your district already serve Virginia wines.” I mentioned a couple of names.

“Good Lord.” He seemed visibly peeved, but not enough to refuse my offer of a refill. He also didn’t call me “little lady” or “honey” anymore. When he left, he bought a few bottles of Cabernet and Chardonnay, though he did wink at me and ask for the special “congressional discount.”

I gave it to him. “That’s in return for your promise to take one of these bottles along as a gift the next time you dine at the White House.” I didn’t wink back.

Dominique’s staff cleaned up while I sold more wine to Les Amis du Vin and spoke with the restaurant owners, two of whom wanted to come back and do a comprehensive tasting before choosing the wines for their wine lists. The publicist said her people would speak with my people to make arrangements for their “event.”

“I’ll let them know,” I said. Simpler than explaining that I was “my people.”

After the last guest left, I got in Hector’s pickup and headed for Aldie. The Scottish poet Robert Burns once described my ancestors as “a martial race, bold, soldier featured and undismayed.” The Montgomerys were one of Scotland’s oldest clans, warriors who came originally from Normandy—we were feared and respected. The symbol on our crest was a woman holding an anchor in one hand and a savage’s head in the other. Above it was our motto: Gardez bien.

Watch well. Watch out for us.

Driving down Mosby’s Highway, I glanced constantly in my rearview mirror, in case someone was following me again.

This time I would be ready.

Chapter 20

Sara Rust lived in an old stone cottage on Mosby’s Highway, not far from the famous mill that had given its name to the village of Aldie during the Civil War, when the Gray Ghost and a handful of his Rangers routed two hundred Union soldiers who’d been out looking for him.

I parked on the dirt and gravel driveway and climbed the stairs to the front porch, leaning on the railing, which creaked and swayed under my weight. A couple of cardboard liquor boxes full of newspapers and what looked like heaps of old magazines and papers were scattered haphazardly across the porch. She was cleaning out the place and, by the looks of it, doing it in a hurry. I rang the doorbell but nothing chimed. After a moment, I opened the sagging screen door and used the tarnished door knocker.

The door opened a few inches. Sara Rust had chained her front door shut. The door closed again and I heard metal scraping metal as she released it.

“I’m Lucie,” I said, as she let me into a dingy stone living room. The embedded, stale odor of wood smoke and dampness hung in the air. The only light came from two small windows.

“I know who you are. Did you bring the money?” She had thick Titian-colored hair, which fell in massed curls around her shoulders, alabaster skin, and hazel-green eyes. She seemed familiar enough that I recognized her in the way you recognize people you don’t really know when you live in a small community. It must have been at least five or six years since I’d last seen her, though. Now she was tall and reed-slender, with that same suggestive sexuality about her that I saw in Angela. I wouldn’t have called her beautiful, but there was something about her that would make a man take a second look. Barefoot and dressed in a pair of raggedy jeans with holes in the knees and a sports bra that belonged at the gym, she looked her age until I saw her eyes. Someone had already knocked the sense of wonder out of her.

She also appeared to be scared and dead tired.

“We agreed I’d pay you after we talk.”

“I haven’t got long. I’m leaving in a few hours.” The room was nearly empty except for a floor lamp with a torn lampshade, a dirty beanbag chair pulled next to the fireplace, and two wooden crates full of file folders. The words “Knight & Rust Auto Body” were stenciled in black on the sides of the crate. The air-conditioning was on and the thermostat had been set to “arctic.” I shivered.

Maybe a moving company had already come and taken away her furniture. Or maybe I was looking at the place fully furnished.

“I’d offer you a seat, but…” She gestured vaguely at the beanbag.

“I’m fine.” I leaned on my cane.

“What do you want?”

“Angela told me you quit your job because someone was stalking you.”

She walked over to one of the deep-silled windows and picked up a pack of cigarettes balanced against an overflowing ashtray. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you?” She smacked the small box and extracted a cigarette, lighting it with the fluid movements of a well-practiced habit.

“You’re the one in a hurry.”

Through a blast of smoke she said, “It’s true. What’s it to you?”

“Who was it?”

She was standing almost in profile, caught in a shaft of mid-afternoon sunlight streaming in through the window. It cast her face in shadow and edged her silhouette—especially that russet hair—so she appeared to be backlit like some heavenly apparition. Another deep pull on the cigarette. “I don’t know.”

“Then how did you know it was an old man?”

“Because he left a calling card.” She crossed the room to the fireplace mantel and picked up a pair of eyeglasses. She came over to where I stood and held them out. “Know what these are? Old people’s glasses. You know, when you get old and you can’t read small print anymore? He left them when he tossed my house.”

I looked at the half-glasses and felt guilty relief. They weren’t Leland’s. He’d worn bifocals. “Some old man robbed you? What did he take?”

Sara shrugged. “Nothing. At least, I don’t think anything is missing. He just trashed the place. I mean, he trashed everything.”

“That’s bizarre.”

“He had a good time in my underwear drawer, let me tell you.” She stubbed out the cigarette in the too-full