The Merlot Murders

ashtray. “Some people are sick.”

“Did you report it to the police?”

She kept stubbing out the cigarette. “Nope.”

“Why not?”

“I occasionally have, uh, friends over after work. I had a guest that night. We shared a couple of joints and I didn’t want the cops around. Obviously I got on the wrong side of some jerk.”

“And you’re running away because…” I paused, trying to figure out how to say it. “Someone broke into your house and didn’t take anything?”

“Oh, please. Whoever it was tried to burn this house down.” She lit another cigarette. “With me in it.”

“Oh my God.” Not Leland. “What happened? When was this?”

“Two nights ago.”

Definitely not Leland. “You stopped him?”

“My friend smelled gasoline. It was three in the morning. We weren’t sleeping, thank God. He went outside. Next thing, I heard him shouting, then a car engine started and someone took off.”

“He didn’t go after him?”

“Not in his birthday suit he didn’t. His wife might have been a little upset if he got picked up for indecent exposure.” She inhaled deeply. “By then whoever it was probably was halfway to Philomont. Or wherever.”

“Do you mind if I have a look around your yard?”

“Knock yourself out. You won’t find anything. I hosed everything down the next morning.” Sara flicked an ash into the fireplace. “I still don’t know why you’re asking all this.”

Neither did I. Except there was some connection between us. I couldn’t figure out what it was. “I found your name and phone number in a file that belonged to my father, Leland Montgomery. Did you ever talk to him? Did he ever come to see you at work?”

She snorted. “There were loads of guys who came to see me at work. You lose track, you know? And, to be honest, when I’m up on that stage dancing, I never focus on the faces. I wear contacts and I take them out when I dance so everyone is a blur. That way I never know who is out there. It’s better that way.”

That explained her tough as nails machismo. “What about the other entertaining you do? They’re not faceless,” I said. “Are they?”

“No.” She flushed. “But it’s over now. I’m out of here. I’m getting so lost in New York no one will ever find me.”

“What about Greg Knight?”

“What about him?”

“He was hanging around you a lot at Mom’s.”

She stared pointedly at my cane. “Don’t tell me you’re still carrying a torch for him. He made you the way you are now.”

My turn to flush. The way I was now. Just what, exactly, was that? “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“So what do you want to know about him?”

“Were you sleeping with him?”

Her laugh made me think of long shards of broken glass. She squashed her cigarette in the ashtray and mashed it down hard.

“Then why was he hanging around you?” I persisted.

“Our fathers were business partners,” she said. “He was looking for a few things that belonged to his old man. Thought I might have them. Rusty took all the stuff from the garage after Jimmy died.”

“What things?”

She shrugged. “I dunno. Papers. Records.” She gestured to the crates. “He came over once and looked through these.”

“Did he find what he wanted?”

“I guess. I don’t know,” she said again. “He was here by himself. It would have been simpler if he took the crates like I told him to. Save me getting rid of them.”

“How long ago did he look through the papers?” I asked.

She looked at the ceiling and frowned. “Two months ago. Maybe a little less.”

“Did he give you money to help you get out of town?”

“What of it?”

So maybe Greg had been telling the truth. Sara was like a kid sister to him and he was helping her out of a jam.

“So where’s yours?” she added. “The money.”

I took it out of my purse and handed it to her. “Can I keep those glasses?”

“I don’t want them.” She stuffed the bills inside her sports bra. “You still haven’t said why you’re asking me all this. You think the old guy might have been your father? Is that it?”

“No!” I said sharply. “These aren’t his glasses.”

“Your fifteen minutes are up.” She shrugged then. “Time to go.”

She held the door as I left and slammed it behind me. I heard the chain slide back in place before I got to the first step.

Most of the grass in her backyard was dead and the garden beds were bare spots and weeds. I walked slowly around the perimeter of the house and saw nothing. The same in the garage, except for two foul-smelling trash bins with flies buzzing around them. I turned my face away as I lifted the lids and then looked inside quickly.

Garbage.

I glanced at the house and saw a curtain move in a window. Sara Rust, spying on me. Unless it was someone else.

I had assumed she was home alone. Maybe I assumed wrong and she was still entertaining.

I had to return Hector’s pickup, so I drove directly to the winery after leaving Aldie. The crush pad had been cleaned and someone had closed the hangar doors to the barrel room. I let myself in through the steel-plated side door. The exhaust fans made their usual heavy thrumming sound as they moved the cooling air around, clearing out the buildup of carbon dioxide. A grapevine thermometer on the wall near the door read sixty-seven degrees. The room needed to be between fifty-five and sixty-five. Jacques had drummed it into me the first time I left the door ajar when I was about six years old that air and heat are the two greatest destroyers of wine.

I moved into the room and saw Quinn through the glass laboratory window. He poured something from a beaker into a row of test tubes, then looked up briefly and nodded at me before returning to his work. Joe and Hector were over by the row of stainless-steel tanks, on their knees straightening out hoses. I joined them, holding up the keys to Hector’s pickup.

“Your truck is in the parking lot. Thanks for the loan.”

“No problem.” Hector smiled, showing even white teeth against caffe latte skin, but he looked tired as he pocketed the keys.

“Where’s the Volvo?” Joe asked.

“Garage.”

“What happened?”

“It wouldn’t start this morning.”

“Tough break.” He leaned a ladder against the tank.

“I’ll do that, Joe,” Hector said as Joe put a foot on the bottom rung. “You take care of the hoses. You do a good job getting the seals tight. This tank and number five need to be racked into number seven.”

“I’ll get the clamps,” I said as Joe fitted the hoses between the smaller three-hundred-fifty-gallon tank, which had the ladder against it, and number seven, one of the large thousand-gallon tanks. I handed him the clamps and he fixed them so there was an airtight seal around the outlets.

Hector climbed the ladder as nimbly as a monkey and popped open the cover so the tank wouldn’t collapse as it emptied. We’d only forgotten to do that once and ended up with something that looked like a crumpled oversized soda can.

Joe turned on the pump. “How was harvest lunch?” he asked above the noise of gurgling wine moving