“Yes. But first I must get something. It’s in the kitchen.” He returned with a bouquet of mums, daisies, and sweetheart roses in the rusts and golds of autumn. “I was keeping them in water until you came.”
“They’re beautiful! Where did you get them?”
“Your friend Thelma arranged it. She had them delivered a few hours ago.”
“Thelma doesn’t sell flowers.”
“Oh…? She does to me.”
“I think you’ve definitely got yourself a girlfriend,” I said.
He straightened his collar, looking pleased with himself. “What is the expression in English? A ladyslayer?”
“Ladykiller.”
“Come on, Casanova. Get your coat and let’s go.”
The weather had turned cooler in the last few hours so I put the top back up on the Mini and drove my grandfather to the brick-walled cemetery where my ancestors had been buried for more than two hundred years. My mother used to love to come here to paint because of the breathtaking view of the Blue Ridge and the light, which she said was magical. I often came with her as a little girl, playing among the gravestones. After she died, I used to sit by her headstone and talk to her. When I took over running the vineyard those conversations became pretty regular. Since harvest, though, I hadn’t been by much because of all the work.
Pépé held the wrought-iron gate for me. The flowers I’d placed at my parents’ graves on Labor Day were black with rot and the vases lay on their sides. I picked up the flowers and threw them over the wall, wishing I’d thought to come by and do that before bringing my grandfather here. He took a rose from my mother’s bouquet before laying her flowers on the grassy spot where she was buried. If I knew him, he’d tried to place them above where he guessed her heart would be. Then he set the rose at Leland’s grave. I admired him for doing it. He’d known that my father had given my mother a bad time during their marriage, what with Leland’s eye for the ladies and his penchant for gambling and bad business deals, and I knew it grieved him still.
I left him at my mother’s grave and walked among the tombstones of generations of Montgomerys, brushing away fallen leaves and pulling weeds. In the next few days maybe I could persuade Eli to come back with me and do more clearing up. Soon it would be the Feast of All Saints and the Feast of All Souls. We would leave flowers for everyone then—and flags on Veterans’ Day for those who fought in wars.
Pépé joined me as I finished picking up stray leaves that had clumped against the headstone of Hugh Montgomery who had fought with Mosby during the Civil War.
“I would also like to visit her cross,” he said.
I had placed a small cross at the site where my mother died in a meadow on the south side of the farm beyond the old vines. Last spring we’d planted new varietals nearby, so now there was regular traffic passing by the place, which had once been relatively isolated. Quinn had seen to it that the area around the cross was left pristine and untouched so it looked as it had when she’d ridden there, except for the footpath we’d worn from years of visits.
I drove down the service road, pulling off at the edge of the field near her marker. The wind had picked up in the last half hour and the light had turned milky at the end of the day. The crickets’ serenade had quieted down, occasionally drowned out by the random cry of birds and the steady rush of the breeze in our ears. Several turkey vultures circled overhead, probably eyeing a deer carcass.
I slipped my arm through my grandfather’s and walked with him to the memorial. He held a long-stemmed yellow rose in front of him like he was carrying a vigil candle. When we got there Pépé laid the rose down and his lips moved. I squeezed his arm and left him alone to pray.
Overhead the vultures wheeled and swooped, crying out that our presence interfered with their meal. I walked over to see what it was. Sometimes—not often—the people who came to pick apples at our orchard would heave a bag of picnic trash out the car window into the woods if they were too lazy to take it home and throw it out there. Quinn swore if he ever caught anyone in the act he’d make them eat the contents while he watched.
If we didn’t clean it up, the vultures and other animals would scatter the trash, leaving a mess of inedible cardboard, plastic, and paper. As I got closer the stench of something rotting came at me like a wave. Human flesh. Bobby Noland described it to me once in unforgettable terms. I pulled the lapel of my jacket over my nose and took a few more steps.
I could not see the face from where I was standing, but I did recognize the gorgeous russet suit Nicole Martin had been wearing the day I met her.
Chapter 23
I jammed my hand into my mouth, staring at Nicole’s body as I processed the fact that not only was she dead, but she’d been murdered and dumped here on my farm. My stomach heaved and I leaned over and threw up in some weeds. Whoever put her body here must have figured it was no-man’s-land and she wouldn’t be found for a long time, if ever. Besides, Nicole supposedly left town. Who in Atoka would miss her?
Who in Atoka would do this?
“Lucie!” Pépé waved at me.
I couldn’t speak so I waved back and started walking toward him. He should not see what I’d just seen. I had to get him back to the house and call 911.
And tell Quinn. God, how was I going to do that?
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “You look so pale. What happened?”
“Nothing,” I said. “We should go home now.”
“Are you going to tell me or shall I look for myself?” He waited. “There’s something over there where the vultures are.”
I shivered as one of the birds screeched above us. “It’s Nicole Martin. Someone killed her and left her body there.”
“I’m not sure you should see—”
Like me, he pulled the lapel of his jacket over his nose and mouth when we got close enough to the putrid smell. He knelt by Nicole and examined her.
“She’s still fully clothed so it seems she was not raped,” he said, “but she was certainly beaten.”
I shuddered. Nicole was tough, though she looked like an angel. I bet she’d fought back at her killer. “We need to call 911. But first I have to tell Quinn.”
“First you must call the sheriff.” He sounded firm. “Before you tell anyone.”
“Quinn’s her ex-husband. He should know—”
“Lucie! You know as well as I do he will be a suspect.”
“Quinn did
Pépé moved his tongue around in his mouth like he was probing for a toothache. His eyes never left my face. “You care very much for him, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do. He works for me.”
“You know that is not what I meant.” His stare was unwavering, but I wasn’t going to budge. “All right. Tell him. But I will stay here with this poor woman while you do that. She should not be left alone as carrion for the vultures.”
I called Quinn as I drove toward the winery. “Where are you?”
“Barrel room. Why?”
“Meet me in front of the villa, will you?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
I hung up without answering. It was going to be hard enough to face him in person.
