cellar as he took inventory. Since he’s setting up the database, he can make sure it matches what’s on hand. Besides, Jack has thirty thousand bottles. That’s a lot of wine.”
“So why the robbery, if he has been stealing wine quietly and not getting caught? Or at least, until now when you made the connection with the Latour,” Pépé said.
“Maybe Nicole pushed Shane to do it,” I said. “Though I don’t think she was there during the robbery. She had dinner with Mick until nine and afterward went over to Quinn’s for the rest of the night. Quinn said she arrived around ten or ten-thirty.”
“And between nine and ten?”
“Sunny didn’t know what time the break-in occurred. All she knew was that when she went looking for Jack it was after midnight. That’s when she found him unconscious in the wine cellar—alone. The earliest he could have gone there was after eleven because she went to bed and left him watching the news.”
“Perhaps Nicole showed up just to make sure all was in order,” Pépé said. “Then she drove over to be with Quinn.”
I frowned. “Could she have done that in an hour? Drive from Mick’s to Jack’s to Quinn’s place?”
“She could have met Shane elsewhere. Or called him.”
“You know, their affair was over. I think Nicole’s the one who ended it. The timing seems odd.”
Pépé smiled. “Perhaps it does to you, but I suspect they did not let their feelings get in the way of committing a crime together.”
“Or they did get in the way and after the robbery Shane killed Nicole.”
“Lucie,” he said, “we really ought to go to the sheriff with all this.”
“We will, once I check out whether there’s a missing jeroboam of Latour in Jack’s cellar.”
“How do you plan to do that? I knew you were not planning to drop off any so-called papers with Sunny.”
“Of course I am. That’s the reason we’re going over there. And they’re not ‘so-called papers,’” I said. “It’s the artwork for the cover of the auction catalog. We’re using one of Mom’s paintings of the vineyard. Sunny’s taking care of getting the catalog printed, so she needs this.”
Pépé’s face grew soft. “May I see which painting you chose?”
I reached into the backseat and got the folder. The photograph of the oil painting, one of my favorites, was of the vineyard in autumn. It was one of her last works during a period when she’d been experimenting with bold, brilliant colors and a more impressionistic style.
He stared at it for a moment and closed the folder. “You haven’t answered my question. How do you plan to look around the wine cellar? You can’t tell Sunny what you want to do.”
“Sure I can. I’m just going to ask her flat out if I can look around again,” I said. “Besides, I’m bringing my secret weapon. You. You’ll charm the socks off her.”
His smile was fleeting. “Even if you are right that doesn’t prove Shane stole it. Or that Nicole had anything to do with it.”
“A lot of people we know are buying wine from Shane through his auctions and his futures. Mac’s never seen a single bottle of wine that he’s bought. What if it’s all just a sham? A Ponzi scheme?”
“Lucie.” Pépé shook his head. “I’m telling you, this is dangerous. Nicole was murdered and that other woman died because someone tampered with her car. Look in the wine cellar if you must, but then we should talk to your friend Bobby. This is no business for us.”
I turned into the Greenfields’ driveway. The sun had finally come out and the sky was clotted with clouds. I pulled up and parked in front of the house.
“Looks like they’re both gone,” I said. “No cars.”
“Don’t forget your folder.” Pépé handed it to me as we got out of the car. “If you came to talk about the auction, you should have your papers with you.”
“Good point.” I rang the doorbell. “I don’t think anyone is home. Maybe we should try the wine cellar.”
“First, let’s check the house more thoroughly. I’ll go around back. You wait here in case someone’s home after all,” Pépé said.
He disappeared and I peered through one of the sidelights. The house was quiet.
“Lucie!” Pépé gestured for me to follow him. “Come take a look.”
A split rail fence, with a morning glory twining through it, marked the boundaries of their half-acre backyard. There was a brick patio with the lawn furniture still set out and a small pond with a weeping willow along one side of the property line near the path to the cottage where the wine cellar was located. In the center of the pond, a large white clump of something floated like an ungraceful lily pad.
“What is that?” I asked. “It looks like paper.”
“It is paper. Wait a minute.” Pépé walked over to the barbecue grill on the patio and unhooked a long meat fork and metal spatula that were hanging on the side.
He handed me the spatula. “Let’s see if we can find out what it is.”
We splashed the water with our tools like a couple of kids, stirring it up until the mass of paper finally drifted within reach. Pépé speared it with the fork, but by now I could tell it was wine labels. A lot of them.
“All Château Dorgon,” I said. “You think the bottles are in the bottom of the pond?”
“It would be logical. Whoever did this did not think about the glue dissolving and the labels rising to the surface.”
“But why put the wine here? Why not drink it or dump it out, if you wanted to get rid of it?” I asked.
“Because someone did not want to get rid of it. They merely wanted to hide it temporarily,” he said.
“Sunny told me that Valerie accused Jack’s father of stealing wine from the French when he was stationed in Bordeaux during the war,” I said. “But Sunny said it was just the opposite and that Jack’s father risked his life helping the local vineyard owners. Do you suppose Valerie was right—that this wine really was stolen from Château Dorgon during the war and Jack has been lying for his father all along?”
“Or it’s possible Jack told the truth as he knew it,” Pépé said. “Maybe he believed that his father really did help the French. Then Valerie showed up and told a different story of a man who was not so noble. You know, some of the vineyard owners were sent to the concentration camps.”
“Oh God! What if he did something like that and Valerie found out and threatened to blackmail him?” I said. “So he tampered with her car, or had someone do it for him.”
“Possibly.”
I gestured to the labels. “But Jack wouldn’t hide this wine. He’d want to destroy it once he knew the truth. Someone else did this.”
“Shane, perhaps,” Pépé said. “Or maybe Sunny?”
“Sunny? Would she?” I stared at him. Maybe that’s what Shane and Sunny had been talking about the day I saw them together at the Point-to-Point. “Come on. Let’s see if we can get into the wine cellar.”
“I guess we could take a look around.”
A slate path bordered on either side by azaleas and rhododendron led from the pond to the small building. The door still hadn’t been repaired and there was a new-looking padlock through the hasp. I tugged on it. Locked.
“Give me the paper clips from those pages in your folder,” Pépé said. “I’ll unlock it.”
“You’re going to pick the lock?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Uh, no. It’s just that I had no idea you knew how to do that.”
“I’ll teach you sometime,” he said. “It’s not so hard.”
He opened one of the two paper clips and pulled the wire at a ninety-degree angle.
“Can you hold this, please?” He handed it to me and opened the second paper clip, doubling it back on itself.
I watched as he jammed it in the keyhole, putting his ear next to the lock. As he jiggled the paper clip, he moved his tongue from side to side as though it were following the zigzag trajectory past the lock pins.
After a moment he said, “Please give me the other paper clip.”
A few seconds later, he pulled on the lock and it opened.
I rolled my eyes at the satisfied smile on his face. “Ladies first. But let’s be quick. This is breaking and
