would remember to wipe the mirrors for prints. Every day I get on my knees and thank God for stupid criminals.”
I did not see Ross again. There would be no reason for me to testify at his trial. Like he’d told me, he knew about the affair and knew Randy and Georgia were meeting that night. He faked the call from Emilio and Marta and got Georgia to agree to switch cars—he’d already delivered the children the night before. Then he waited until he saw the Explorer head over to the barn. He slipped inside and heard them and that’s when he found the flashlight. Furious, he hid Georgia’s Roadster in the bushes off Atoka Road and jogged back to the vineyard, collecting a canister of methyl bromide. And waited. After he knocked her out, he made sure that his beautiful wife would be so disfigured no man would ever want to look at her again.
After that he needed to set up Randy, making it look like he killed Georgia, then himself. He returned to the barn, pretending to be an intruder. When Randy investigated, Ross’s judo skills trumped Randy’s size. The rest was improvised, but easier than he’d expected. Randy’s car keys were on the lanyard on his belt. Ross put him in his own car and drove to White’s Ferry, where he shot Randy and dumped him in the Potomac.
The trek back to Middleburg was a terrific trial run for someone training for a marathon, though Ross barely managed to get home, shower, and change when my call came in. It wasn’t in the plans for Georgia to be found so quickly. Randy, on the other hand, took far too long floating down the Potomac until he washed up on T. R. Island. And Emilio and Marta screwed things up by disappearing, too.
Now they were going to disappear for good. In return for Emilio testifying against Ross, he would not do jail time, but he and his family were being deported back to El Salvador.
“You know, if Jen had shown up at the wrong time, or even waited around for Randy, she would have seen Ross,” I said to Quinn. “He might not have killed Georgia that night, or Randy, either.”
We were sitting on the terrace at the villa at the end of the day. I’d just returned from the hospital, where my bullet wound had been cleaned and dressed again. Quinn had brought out a bottle of Chilean Chardonnay. “Thought we’d try this. Jen would have been in the way. No telling what Ross might have done.”
“More Chardonnay?” I asked. “Ross managed to get away with two murders. He never could have talked his way out of three.”
“Nearly managed, you mean,” Quinn said. “Bobby never bought that murder-suicide story. Then you figured out about the forgery. And yes, more Chardonnay. Tasting for next year’s vintage. Never too early to start.”
“So you’re staying here, then?”
He uncorked the wine. “I’ve come to the conclusion that you need me more than Mick does.”
“What is
“Take it any way you like.” He smiled. “There’s something else.”
“Yes?”
“Bonita’s moving in with me. I hope you’re going to let Hector and Sera stay at their place for a while, even if he’s retired. Bonita loves her folks, but they drive her nuts, and vice versa. So this seems like a good solution.” He handed me a glass of wine. “Okay?”
I stared into my wine. “Okay,” I said. “How did Mick take it when you turned down his job offer?”
Quinn seemed surprised. “Haven’t you spoken to him?”
“Once, after Ross was arrested,” I said. “He was pretty devastated by the whole thing. Said he had no clue what was coming.”
“I thought you two were…” Quinn didn’t finish.
“Were what?”
“Together.”
“Not really.” I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
He clinked his glass against mine. “There’s a Spanish proverb that goes, ‘With wine and hope, anything is possible.’”
“One out of two isn’t bad.”
“No hope?”
I wrinkled my nose. “No wine. This stuff’s corked. How about another bottle?”
“All right,” he said. “Let’s start over.”
What’s The Difference?
Virginia Wines vs. California Wines
As they say in real estate, the difference between a Virginia wine and a California wine can be summed up in three words: location, location, location. In wine-making the term is
“In California, because they have endless sun, you can get wines that have a higher alcohol content than Virginia wines,” says Juanita Swedenburg, owner of Swedenburg Estate Vineyard in Middle-burg, Virginia. “California wines tend to be more robust and often more heavily oaked, while Virginia wines are more delicate.”
John Delmare of Rappahannock Cellars in Huntly, Virginia, agrees. The favorable growing environment in California is conducive to intense fruit flavors, which he says are the result of ripe, and even overripe, fruit. “When that happens you get a wine that has what’s called a ‘chewy’ taste,” he says.
Delmare owned a vineyard in California before moving to Virginia in the 1990s—and still has strong ties in California wine country—so he’s in a good position to explain the difference in terms of taste and technology. “It’s a lot harder to grow grapes in Virginia where you need to be an expert farmer,” he says. “There’s also a finite selection of grapes that can be grown. But what you get in Virginia are more complex and balanced wines, reminiscent of French or European wines.”
Gordon Murchie, president of the Vinifera Wine Growers Association, points out that California and Virginia don’t grow the same grapes, either. The top five California varietals produced are (in order): Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Merlot, and French Colombard.[1] In Virginia, that list consists of Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Vidal Blanc, and Cabernet Sauvignon.[2]
“We grow a host of French hybrids in Virginia that aren’t grown in California. Three prime examples are Vidal Blanc, Sevyal, and Chambourcin,” Murchie says.
So how can you tell the difference between a California and Virginia Chardonnay, the number-one grape grown on both coasts? Part of the answer is in the barrels used in fermenting.
“Because of the ‘fruit-forward’ taste of a California Chardonnay,” John Delmare explains, “forty to fifty percent of the barrels can be new, meaning they impart a strong oak flavor. In Virginia, we use mostly older barrels because we don’t want to overpower the more delicate fruit with other tastes—especially oak. A Virginia vineyard wouldn’t use more than twenty to thirty percent new barrels.”
It was a Virginian—Thomas Jefferson—who first promoted the idea that the newly formed United States ought to have its own wine industry. Though he’d hoped Virginia would lead the way, he’d undoubtedly be pleased at the way things turned out—according to Gordon Murchie, there are now wineries in all fifty states.
“Jefferson understood that the soil and the climate make the wine,” Juanita Swedenburg says. “When he was ambassador to France, he drank wines from all over Europe, so he appreciated this difference. Today, we can taste wines from anywhere in the world. That’s the fun part—to be adventurous enough to try something new and see if you like it.”
Acknowledgments
It takes a village to make a book, although this one seems to have taken a state (or commonwealth, to be precise)—and that would be Virginia. I am indebted to many people throughout the Old Dominion who have generously helped me with research and fact-checking. As always, if it’s right, they said it; if it’s wrong, it’s on me.
