The hunt was definitely on.
The Red Fox Inn had been around since colonial days—or at least, there had been a building on that site for nearly three hundred years. The sign hanging out in front of the building read “ca. 1728.” The inn, which was now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, had been the heartbeat of Middleburg ever since the stagecoach days when it was a midway stop on the road from Alexandria to Winchester. During the Civil War, Colonel Jeb Stuart met the Gray Ghost here. One of the pine bars had once been a field-operating table for an army surgeon serving with Stuart’s cavalry.
I got there before Kit did and was seated at a table next to the stone fireplace in the Tap Room. The fireplace still worked and, like the hand-hewn ceiling beams and the stone and plaster walls, dated back to the 1700s as part of the original structure.
Kit showed up fifteen minutes late, windblown and out of breath. She dropped her satchel on the red leather banquette where I was sitting and sat in the Windsor chair across from me.
“Sorry. I got stuck at the office.” She looked me over. “What happened to you? You get any sleep last night? You look terrible.”
“Thank you. Of course I got some sleep. You know how busy it gets at harvest.” If I told her about Mick, she’d be all over me for details. Kit thought my sex life was like walking on the surface of the moon. Treacherous and full of craters.
We waved away menus and ordered the crab cakes, as usual. Kit asked for peanut soup and a beer. I had a glass of house red.
“I thought we might be breaking out the vodka to celebrate your imminent departure for Moscow,” I said.
She stared at the collection of pewter tankards on the shelves next to the fireplace. “If we break out the vodka, it’s because I could use a little liquid courage to help me decide. One minute I’m fed up with writing about the school board meeting and I feel like life is passing me by. I want to go somewhere and write about something important. A civil war or a world summit. Stuff that matters.” She shifted her gaze and met my eyes. “Then I chicken out and figure I’ll stay because it’s just too damn far from my mom.”
“Just because school board meetings don’t make national headlines doesn’t mean they aren’t important. What they decide matters to lots of people.”
“Yeah. Anyone with a kid in the school system. No one else cares.”
“You finally tell Bobby?”
“I did. He said, ‘You gotta do what you gotta do.’ That’s a direct quote.”
“Sounds like Bobby. Not profound but nevertheless deep.”
“He could have said, ‘Baby, don’t go.’”
“Maybe he knows how you feel about school board meetings and he wants you to be happy.”
“I don’t know anymore. Let’s not talk about it. It’s all I’ve been thinking about and it’s driving me nuts.”
Her soup showed up.
“So what’s the news?” I said. “You said you had something to tell me.”
She picked up a spoon. “You’re not going to believe this. A couple of deputies from the sheriff’s department came by. They confiscated Ryan’s laptop and brought him down to the station for a little chat. At least they didn’t cuff him.”
“The sheriff thinks Ryan killed Valerie?”
“Right now they’re just talking to him. He told me Bobby found an e-mail he’d written her that she’d saved on her computer. Unfortunately he wrote it the night before she died. Sometimes you should hit the delete button after getting something off your chest.”
“What was in the e-mail?”
“A threat. Dumb, huh? You’d think he would have called. No paper trail.”
“A threat like he was going to remove the lug nuts from her wheel?”
She rolled her eyes. “Sure. That’s just what he said. Did you know he’s considering insuring his nose because he uses it professionally? Ryan’s body is his temple. If he’d wanted to kill her, it wouldn’t have involved physical activity. He’d be too worried about cutting up his hands or something. What he did say was that when he got through with her the only thing she’d be writing would be her grocery list.”
“I don’t understand why he showed up at Mount Vernon to introduce her a few hours before he sent that e- mail if he hated her that much.”
“I bet he was being paid.”
I thought about it. “You’re right. He was. Mentioned something about wishing he weren’t such a whore and hadn’t accepted.”
“Because he’s broke.” Kit took a roll out of the breadbasket and helped herself to butter. “Or at least, he’s got money problems. I answered his phone yesterday when he stepped out. His landlord. Told me to tell Ryan his rent check bounced. Again.” She raised her eyebrows and I could see her peach and green eye shadow. Kit applied eye shadow the same way she slathered butter on bread.
“What did he say when you gave him the message?”
“Are you kidding? At first I didn’t want to pass it on because then he’d know I knew, but this guy sounded like such a bad-ass I figured I better do something,” she said. “So I taped a note on a bottle of wine that was on his desk. He didn’t bring it up, and I didn’t either.”
Our crab cakes arrived, steamy and fragrant, and we dug in.
“I wonder how he got into money trouble,” I said. “He drives an old car, doesn’t wear flashy clothes—where does he spend it?”
“Wine. Where’d you think?”
“That’s a business expense.”
“He buys
“Futures?”
“I guess. There’s something else. You were right. Clay was actually thinking about letting Valerie work for us.”
“No fooling? Wonder if Clay read her book. I tried to get through it. It was terrible.”
“Clay’s been lonely since his wife died. I don’t imagine it was a decision he made with his head, especially after I saw her author photo. Blonde. Tan. Young. Clay probably ate her up with a spoon.”
I stabbed a piece of crab cake with my fork. “I don’t think Ryan killed Valerie. He came by the winery the other night to look over the donations for the auction since he’s writing the notes for the catalog. We talked about her. He admitted he was glad she was dead but told me flat-out he didn’t do it.”
“Do you think he would have told you flat-out if he did?”
“Okay. But I still don’t think he’s guilty.”
Our waiter seated two women at the next table. As he handed them menus he accidentally bumped my cane, which clattered to the floor. He picked it up, apologizing.
I took it and tucked it into the alcove near the fireplace. “My fault. I shouldn’t have left it in your way.”
He smiled and cleared our dishes. I ordered coffee and Kit asked for a cappuccino with a slice of chocolate torte.
After he left Kit leaned forward. “Sounds like you have an idea who
“I know this might sound off the wall, but I think Jack Greenfield might be involved.”
“No way. Jack Greenfield has arthritis. He could never have done it.”
“He withdrew the Washington bottle from the auction yesterday. Whatever you do, don’t tell Ryan. Amanda is going to ask Sunny to lean on Jack to let us keep it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Jack asked for that wine back? Why?”
“He says it’s too valuable to let go.”
The waiter set down our coffees and Kit’s dessert.
“How do you connect that to killing Valerie? Sorry, kiddo. This time I agree you’re off the wall.”
“Think about it,” I said. “Valerie knew something about the provenance of that wine and died before she
