“You all right?” I said.
His look said he appreciated my fine sense of irony. “Brix has gone to zero. I’m going to pump out the free run juice, then press.”
Since we apparently weren’t pulling our punches I said, “Someone broke into Jack Greenfield’s wine cellar at his home on Saturday night. Jack showed up in the middle of the robbery and got knocked unconscious.”
Quinn finally showed some genuine emotion. “Are you serious? Is he okay?”
“Mild concussion but he’s home. Eli and I went over there yesterday morning to help Sunny.” I picked up the paper with his calculations on it. Without looking up I said, “Whoever did it knew exactly what they were looking for. They took only the best vintages.”
He took the paper out of my hand. “She didn’t do it, Lucie.”
“She was with Mick Dunne until nine o’clock,” I said. “The break-in was sometime between eleven and twelve.”
“What was she doing with Mick?”
“Having dinner. He’s hiring her to buy wine for him.”
His tight smile said it was news to him. “I wondered how long it would take before they hooked up. Mick Dunne is Nic’s kind of client.” He pointed out the lab window at the fermenting vats. “As long as you’re here, you can help me with the free run juice. We’ll put it in the number-six tank for now.”
He left the lab before I could say anything and wheeled the pump over to one of the vats. I still wasn’t done with our conversation.
I joined him. “What makes you so sure she didn’t leave Mick’s place and drive over to Jack’s?”
“Because she spent the rest of the night with me.” His tone was matter-of-fact but there was still an edge to it. “Get me some clamps, will you?”
I got the clamps. It gave me a few seconds to compose myself even though it felt like he had just wrapped piano wire around my heart and he was pulling it tighter the more we talked. Nicole hadn’t slept with Mick. She’d slept with Quinn.
“If she was with you all night then I guess she couldn’t have broken into Jack’s place.”
He plunged a hose into the fermenting vat. “Guess not.”
“Wonder who did it, then.”
“I’m sure the sheriff will figure it out.”
He put a hose from the other end of the pump into the number six stainless-steel tank. “You think I’m covering for her again, don’t you?”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to. Come here.” He left the hose where it was and led me to the winemaker’s table. “Look at this.”
An elaborately carved pumpkin of a witch flying across a harvest moon. He pulled matches from his jeans pocket and lit the votive candle inside the pumpkin. The flickering orange glow made rippling shadows on a rack of wine barrels. He dimmed the lights and the effect was even spookier.
“Nic did it. And this one.” He got a second pumpkin from his workbench and brought it back to the table.
He lit the candle and suddenly an angry Freddie the Fox glowed eerily at me. I froze momentarily, staring at the menacing eyes and fanged teeth. “My God, Quinn. Why did she carve Freddie the Fox?”
“What are you talking about?” He turned the pumpkin carefully so he could look at it. “That’s no fox. It’s a werewolf. Anyone can see that.”
The blood pounded in my temples. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Lucie. You look like you’re about to pass out. You want me to get you some water?”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.” I stepped back. He was right. It was a werewolf, not Freddie. “Sorry. Of course it’s a werewolf. It’s very good. They both are. I had no idea she was so talented.”
He smiled ruefully. “Ever since she was a kid she loved Halloween. She bought these pumpkins at the farm market and brought them over to carve Saturday night. Figured I’d have the knives and tools she needed to do it.”
“You mind if I ask what time she arrived?”
He stared at me, but answered readily enough. “Ten. Ten-thirty. I don’t know. She just showed up.” He moved the pumpkins so they were next to each other. “She slept on my couch. Apparently it’s over between her and Shane.”
The wire around my heart loosened and I wondered why I seemed to care more whether she had slept with my winemaker than with my sometimes lover.
“What’s she going to do now?” I asked.
“Talk Jack into selling her that bottle of wine and wipe the dust from her feet on her way out of Atoka.”
“You sorry she’s leaving?”
We walked back to the pump. “Hold onto that hose, will you? Am I sorry? You must be joking. Nic still knows how to punch my buttons.” He flipped the switch on the pump and we watched the juice flow from the fermenting vat to the tank. “Hell, I’d buy her ticket home except I know she’s flying first class. The only way she travels now.”
“Nice of you to put her up for the night.” I had to speak up over the noise of the pump.
“Yeah, well, I’m a nice guy.”
“Sometimes.” I smiled at him.
Or maybe he’d been a pushover for her again. Now he was her alibi for the burglary at Jack’s. Was Nicole using Quinn one last time? Wherever she’d been, I still thought she was somehow involved with that robbery.
“What made you think that werewolf was a fox?” He shut off the pump, interrupting my thoughts.
“Someone disemboweled a stuffed animal, poured red paint on him, and left him on my front doorstep Saturday morning. Freddie the Fox—maybe you’ve seen him in the shops in town.”
“I have. Jesus, that’s sick.”
“Whoever did it was probably trying to get me to cancel the Goose Creek Hunt’s meet here tomorrow. Scare me, I guess.”
“Did you tell Amanda or Shane or anyone from the hunt?”
“No. I didn’t want to upset them. By the way,” I said, “Shane’s coming over later this morning to ride their territory. Make sure the fences and jumps are all in order. You didn’t tell your friend he could come by and go deer hunting today, did you?”
He moved my hose to the next vat. “No. Look, Lucie, you should have told Shane. Or someone. What if this nutcase tries to sabotage those jumps? Putting barbed wire around them or digging holes where no one expects them? Someone could really get hurt. Riders. Horses. The hounds.”
The color drained from my face.
“Call Shane,” he said. “Get hold of him before he gets over here. I can handle the rest of these vats. Manolo will be here in a while, anyway.”
But I couldn’t find Shane and he still wasn’t answering his cell phone.
“I’ll call Amanda,” I said. “Maybe she can reach him.”
“Tell her everything,” Quinn said. “She needs to know.”
I got her just as she was getting ready to leave her house for a hospital board meeting. She didn’t speak at all while I told her about Freddie. When I finished she still said nothing.
“Amanda? Are you there?”
“Yes. Yes, I am.” She sounded distracted. “Sorry. Just checking something.”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Of course I did.”
“Can you reach Shane?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll get hold of him. And I’ll do better than that,” she said. “I’ll be over there myself checking things out.”
“Be careful.”
“Count on it,” she said.
