“Do you think Chastain actually spends time checking out any of the projects he builds?” Vitale persisted. “You should have read the letters I got from his lawyers—
“Ray, I’m sure Lucie needs to get back to work,” B.J. said. “Thanks for letting us spread out here, Lucie.”
“No problem. It’s starting to rain again,” I said. “Call me if you need anything.”
B.J. smiled. “They didn’t have cell phones in those days, my dear. I’m sure we’ll manage. Feel free to stop by anytime.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”
Vitale’s gaze was hypnotic. “I can’t believe you of all people don’t agree with me, Ms. Montgomery. Look what he and his wife did to your father. I heard about his publicity goons taking over and controlling what information was parceled out to the press.”
“We’re out of here,” B.J. said, tugging Vitale’s arm.
After they left I poured a glass of wine with hands that shook.
Maybe Sumner Chastain was a bully. But Ray Vitale, who seemed obsessed by his hatred for Sumner, was a loose cannon.
Chapter 20
Quinn was sitting at the winemaker’s table nursing a beer with his feet propped up when I stopped by the barrel room later in the day. I sat down next to him. His eye was less swollen than yesterday, but it still looked spectacular in shades of red and purple. Some of the puffiness in his face had gone down.
“The Riesling’s finally chilling in the tanks,” he said. “I’ll add the yeast tomorrow and get fermentation going.”
He delivered the news in a dull, flat voice and took a swig from his bottle. Last night’s tension still hung between us like a fog.
“When you’re finished adding the yeast, can you help out at the villa?” I matched his tone. “I’ll probably be spending most of my time at the reenactment site. Gina will need help in our booth. One person can’t handle selling wine tasting tickets to that crowd.”
“That depends on what happens with fermentation. That’s first priority,” he said. “I don’t understand why we can’t sell wine right there at the site like we do at other festivals.”
“Because B.J. and Ray Vitale don’t want alcohol around people who have guns, even if they’re shooting blanks,” I said. “I had to agree with them.”
He tipped his head back and drank more beer. “Your call.”
If he wasn’t going to bring up last night and what happened with Chance, neither was I.
I traced a pattern on the tabletop with a finger. “What are you doing tonight?”
“Babysitting the Riesling.” He set his bottle down. “What’d you expect?”
“Just wondered. Need any help?”
“I got it covered.” He swung his feet around and stood up. “Is there anything else?”
“Nothing at all.”
“See you in the morning.” He walked toward the stainless-steel tanks, which were making quiet gurgling sounds as the glycol coolant circulated between a glass wall and the steel jacket.
I would have preferred an argument to this deep freeze. We’d gotten mad at each other plenty of times, but this was different and I didn’t like it.
I finished his beer, which he’d left on the table, and got up to leave. I had no idea if he heard me pull the door shut hard enough that it slammed, or if he even cared.
Either way, it symbolized the current state of our relationship.
I fell asleep in the hammock to the soft sound of a steady rain that invaded my mind like white noise, blocking out all thoughts. Saturday was supposed to be another dishrag day of wet weather, but the light that woke me early the next morning held out the surprising promise of clear skies and cool temperatures without the humidity we’re so famous for in summer.
I checked my phone. Just past six thirty. I sat up and rubbed at the pattern the rough woven fabric had imprinted on my arm. In the kitchen, I made coffee and toasted pieces of baguette. Eli must have done some grocery shopping because I found a plate of cheese in the refrigerator. He’d bought the usual Brie and Camembert, but also splurged on Pont l’Évêque, Brillat-Savarin, and my favorite, Humboldt Fog. I cut some of each for my bread and left the plate on the counter so the cheese would be room temperature when he finally showed up for breakfast.
After the credit card incident the other day, Eli and I had avoided the subject of whether I needed him to help out today. I hadn’t asked and he hadn’t offered. He’d also told me he finally decided not to take Zeke Lee up on his offer to be a walk-on reenactor for the weekend, though he still planned to show up as a spectator.
After breakfast I showered, dressed, and drove over to the camp. We had Bush-Hogged the field B.J. wanted to use as a parking lot, but he’d been adamant that the battlefield remain unmowed. As he’d pointed out, nobody cut the grass before the two armies showed up at Ball’s Bluff.
I parked on the freshly mowed field at the end closest to the campground. At least fifty vehicles belonging to reenactors who’d arrived last night were parked in ragged rows. In another hour the rest of the participants were due to arrive, so that by ten o’clock all tents would be pitched and the camp in working order when it opened to the public.
I walked past cars and pickups, reading vanity license plates that indicated regiment allegiances or some tie to reenacting. Confederate flags hung across rear windows of pickup trucks along with bumper stickers for the NRA or the Stars and Bars with the slogan “If this flag offends, then study American history.”
A breeze carried the scent of wood smoke and a mockingbird sang nearby. I followed a path of newly matted-down grass along the creek bank. Cattails grew by the water, and elsewhere I noticed clumps of daisy fleabane, lacy white yarrow, and pokeweed, bent heavy under the weight of its eggplant-colored berries.
I didn’t see the massed clusters of low-slung white tents until I crossed the bridge and turned left at a sign with an arrow and “CS Camp” painted in black. The sign for the Union troops—“US of A Camp”—was farther down the path, indicating a campsite in the woods. The Confederates obviously got the preferred real estate since they were in the open field.
Though it was early, the entire Confederate camp seemed to be awake, caught up in the morning routine of dressing, washing up, and cooking breakfast over campfires that blazed next to open-air dining tents. Everywhere I looked men in patched or tattered jackets and trousers, kepis, and rough-looking shoes seemed purposeful and energized in spite of a night camped out in a downpour. The variety of uniforms was striking, but the impoverished South had been too poor to provide clothing and equipment as the war dragged on, so its troops wore homemade versions of the official uniform in a drab rainbow of colors that ran from gray to butternut brown.
There were fewer women and children than men, but they, too, were dressed in period clothing. The boys wore coarse cotton pants and flannel shirts; the women and girls were graceful and feminine in long hoop-skirted dresses or high-necked white blouses and calico skirts with aprons, hair tucked under bonnets or straw hats with flowing ribbons.
A man in a red flannel shirt, gray trousers, and khaki suspenders directed me to B.J.’s regiment, the 8th Virginia, which had set up their campsite at the far end of the field. I spotted Virginia’s deep blue flag, with its warrior woman subjugating a fallen man symbolizing tyranny, next to a faded Confederate flag.
Half a dozen soldiers sat around a pine table under a dining fly talking quietly and drinking coffee.
I greeted them and asked for B.J.
“Behind the tents,” someone said. “With his missus.”
I found B.J. and his wife, Emma, sitting in a pair of low Adirondack chairs. He was in the middle of reading
