The Riesling Retribution

I nodded, grateful he was trying to get things back on track again. 

“I think we lost Eli for the day,” I said. “We’re going to be short-handed again.” 

“We’ll cope,” he said. “Just like we always do.”

The rest of the day was as busy as Saturday had been so it turned out not to be too difficult to banish Eli and his problems from my mind for a few hours and concentrate on taking care of customers and making sure things ran smoothly. The tasting room and terrace buzzed with the conversation of couples and groups of friends who laughed and talked and seemed happy to be with one another for an afternoon. Quinn caught me watching at one point and squeezed my shoulder. 

“Don’t go there. You can’t solve Eli’s problems. He has to work them out for himself.” 

“I’m not going anywhere. I know he does.” 

He patted me on the back like he knew I was fibbing and turned his attention to a good-looking young couple who just stepped up to the bar. 

At noon my sister, Mia, called from New York to say congratulations on twenty years and ask how everything was going. I said everything was going great, just great, and that Eli, with whom she also wanted to speak, couldn’t come to the phone right now but he’d call her later. I also said nothing about Beau Kinkaid or Leland being a possible suspect in his murder investigation.

I hung up the phone feeling guilty for keeping so much from her, but my sister’s obvious happiness at starting a new life in Manhattan after a rocky period following our mother’s death had resonated in her voice. If I’d given off any vibes that anything was wrong she’d been too caught up in her own world to realize, so why spoil it? There would be enough time to tell her later—especially after the sheriff’s department investigation finally wrapped up.

James Joyce was right. What the eye can’t see the heart can’t grieve for.

Besides, my heart was already grieving enough for both of us.

By five thirty the last guests had departed. Frankie, Gina, and I were in the courtyard clearing up wineglasses and dishes and wiping down tables when my cousin Dominique showed up. She hugged me and, without asking, pitched in with the cleanup.

When I was growing up my mother once remarked that it seemed apt that Dominique had been born on a Saturday since, like the old nursery rhyme, she truly was the child who worked hard for a living. Somewhere along the way, though, Dominique crossed over from hardworking to workaholic, becoming Saturday’s child without an off switch. Thin and sinewy as rope, she had hazel eyes and spiky auburn hair that looked like she cut it with gardening shears—which on her somehow seemed fashionable and chic. Though my cousin hadn’t lived in Paris for years, she still possessed that innate French sense of style that turned heads when she entered a room.

“Why didn’t you come earlier for the party?” I asked. “Instead of for the drudgery?”

She lit a cigarette. “Something came up at the Inn.”

Something always came up at the Inn and she was always the only one who could handle it.

“Looks like you had a good day.” She waved the hand with the cigarette to encompass the courtyard. “You must have made money hand over foot.”

I smiled. “We did well. How’d it go with you?”

She sucked on her cigarette and exhaled dragon smoke. “Eh, bien, the Romeos were in drinking at the bar,” she said. “They were talking about your father and that skeleton you found.”

“Seth Hannah told me Bobby’s been questioning all of them about whether they knew him.” I shrugged. “No one did.” 

Dominique picked up two wineglasses, which still had remnants of red wine in them, and dumped one into the other. “Do they know who he is?” 

“Didn’t you hear? A former business partner of Leland’s. Beauregard Kinkaid. He went by ‘Beau.’” 

“Beauregard Kinkaid? Beau Kinkaid?” 

She repeated the name as she flung the wine over the wall in a graceful arc of bloodlike drops. 

She faced me, holding the empty glasses, a puzzled expression on her face. “I don’t want to open a Pandora’s box of worms here,” she said, “but I met Beau Kinkaid. He came to visit your father at the house the summer you were born.”

Chapter 13

“You met Beau Kinkaid?” I asked. “You’re sure?” 

“I’m sure. He was not a nice man. I remember him.” 

I sat down in one of the patio chairs and stared at her. I’d just turned twenty-nine in July. Twenty-nine years ago Dominique would have been thirteen. Could she really be that certain she knew him? 

“The summer you were born my mother came from France to help your mother. She brought me, too.” Dominique expelled more cigarette smoke through her nostrils. “I remember Beau came to visit your father and they had a terrible argument. He was ugly and he scared me, but his name was Beau. It seemed odd.” 

Of course. In French, beau means “beautiful.” 

Still, I wondered how vivid—and accurate—her recollection could be. Even after spending the last few weeks looking through family photos for the vineyard slide show Frankie and I had put together, I’d been hard-pressed to recall long-ago events with any specificity. What memories remained had been as vague and impressionistic as the blurry, out-of-focus photos I’d discarded. 

“Do you remember anything else?” 

She ground out her cigarette on a plate that still had remnants of what looked like melted Brie on it. 

“Sorry, I’m afraid not. You know I didn’t speak English very well back then.” 

She kept grinding that cigarette and didn’t look up. 

“What is it you’re not telling me?” 

“I’m sorry, chérie. It’s not very nice.” Her smile was rueful. “Whatever happened during that conversation, it made your mother cry.” 

I closed my eyes as an image of my mother flashed in my head as clearly as if I’d been with her only yesterday. What Beau said to Leland must have devastated her. My mother didn’t cry often. Children remember those moments—the unsettling discovery that adults aren’t invincible and they can hurt enough to shed tears, too. My cousin’s story was sounding increasingly plausible. 

“You have no idea what they were talking about?” 

Dominique shook her head. “No, but it upset my mother, too. All that shouting.” 

“Who was shouting?” I asked. “My parents?” 

“Non, your father and Beau. We were sitting on the veranda when he showed up. Uncle Leland introduced us. Then he brought Beau into his office right away. After a few minutes, we could hear them hollering at each other.” She sat down across from me and lit another cigarette. “After Beau left, things got sort of crazy.” 

“Crazy, how?” 

“Because of you.” 

There was a half-open bottle of red sitting on one of the serving tables. I got it and found two clean glasses. 

“I need a drink,” I said. 

Dominique took the glass I handed her. “Tante Chantal went into labor with you that afternoon so my mother and your father took her to the hospital. They left me at home to babysit Eli.” 

“You mean Beau came to see Leland the day I was born?” 

Dominique nodded. “I was terrified he’d return when I was in the house all alone so I barricaded the doors with furniture and went to bed. When Uncle Leland and Maman came home from the hospital in the middle of the night, they had to break a windowpane so they could open a window to climb through. I was sleeping upstairs. I never heard them pounding on the front door.”