The Riesling Retribution

“I’ll help you with these,” I said. “Where’s Gina?”

“Late.” Frankie brushed tendrils of strawberry blond hair off her face. Her cheeks were pink and she was perspiring.

“You look like you didn’t get much sleep,” she said. “Want coffee?”

“Real coffee? I’d kill for it. Where’d you get it? The General Store?”

“You think I’d let myself get grilled by Thelma about what’s been going on around here? Please. I’d rather climb into a tank of piranhas.” She headed for the kitchen and called over her shoulder. “We got our power back at home. Came on around three a.m. I brought in a thermos.”

She returned, handing me a mug. We sank into patio chairs.

“I got here early and brought all the crews’ coolers home so I could fill them with ice water since it’s going to be a scorcher.”

“You’re an angel. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

She smiled a serene, knowing smile and crossed her legs, swinging a sandaled foot that showed off a perfect pedicure and stylish neon pink polish on her toes.

“Oh, don’t you worry,” she said. “There will be payback.”

I burst out laughing. “Whatever you want.” 

She cocked an eyebrow as she sipped her coffee. “You think I’m kidding.” 

I didn’t know much about Frankie’s past but I did know her children were grown and her husband worked for a D.C. law firm with hours so long he often slept at work. She’d taken this job to keep from going stir-crazy at home. I’d bet money when her kids were growing up she probably ran the PTA and never missed a sports game, concert, bake sale, or field trip. She was probably one of the stalwarts at school fund-raisers, the kind of person everyone counted on because she never let anyone down. Like now. 

“I think we should have a backup plan for the weekend,” I said. “In case we don’t get our electricity back.” 

“I thought I’d work on that today,” she said. “After I get this place cleaned up.” 

Twenty years ago this weekend my parents had sold their first bottle of wine. We’d been planning our anniversary celebration for months. 

“You going to talk to Dominique?” I asked. 

My cousin Dominique Gosselin owned the Goose Creek Inn, a small auberge founded by my godfather forty years ago that had become one of the region’s most popular and well-loved restaurants. Over the years it increasingly attracted Washington’s high and mighty who liked its cuisine, romantic charm, and distance from the nation’s capital. Dominique probably knew more secrets than the CIA about off-the-radar trysts and furtive romances. Many nights when I dined there the Secret Service hung around being visibly invisible, keeping an eye on some guest and his or her “friend.” 

“I thought I’d go over to the Inn for lunch, if that’s all right with you. Get things sorted out.” She grinned. “Your treat.” 

The Inn’s waiters and waitresses often helped us out on weekends serving wine in the tasting room or working at our dinners. Goose Creek Catering, which Dominique also ran as part of the Inn’s expanding franchise, handled all our big events. 

“You meant it about the payback, huh?” 

The landline phone on the bar rang and I stood up. 

“Let me,” she said. “You don’t want to take that.”

I heard her end of the conversation. “Sorry, no comment…no, she’s not available. We sustained a lot of damage from that tornado yesterday and she’s got her hands…no, we’re closed for the foreseeable future until our power is restored…the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Department might be able to answer that…would you like the number?…no?…no problem…good-bye.”

She came back and flopped down in her chair. “I’ve lost count how many of those we’ve gotten.”

“Reporters?”

“You want to see the messages?”

I shook my head. “Who called from the Trib? I would have thought Kit would have tried to reach me directly.”

Kit Eastman was my best friend since we’d played together in the sandbox and, for the past two years, she’d been Bobby Noland’s girlfriend. A few months ago she’d been named Loudoun bureau chief for the Washington Tribune. A story like this would be a big deal for her paper. If it didn’t make the A section, it would at least be above the fold in Metro.

“From the Trib?” Frankie wrinkled her forehead. “Some guy. I think he’s new because I didn’t recognize his name. He got the standard reply. Maybe Kit’s going to drop by and ambush you here.”

“Maybe Bobby already told her all there is to know, which is nothing.”

Frankie stood up. “Speaking of Bobby,” she said, “he’s coming up the front walk. Looks like he’s got some papers. What’s that all about?”

I took a deep breath. “Search warrant.”

“Oh.”

Bobby looked like he’d slept better than I did, but he still looked tired. Frankie offered him coffee and he accepted. She left to get it and he handed me the paper.

“I’m sure you know what this is,” he said, leaning against the bar.

“Yep. I’ve got nothing to hide, Bobby.”

“I know. We’re just doing it nice and legal, that’s all.”

“What are your plans for today?”

Frankie returned with Bobby’s coffee, then busied herself sweeping the terrace.

“We’ve got guys out there with metal detectors right now looking for bullets or anything else like that.” Bobby picked up his mug and drank. “Might clear out some of your brush, too, if we need to expand our search. We’ll bag the remains and send them back to the lab. That’s the first priority.”

“You mean you’re taking him apart?”

“What do you suggest? Levitate him? There’s nothing to hold him together, no flesh.”

“Then you put him back together again in your laboratory?”

“Just like Humpty Dumpty.”

“Funny. More like a human jigsaw puzzle.”

There were 206 bones in an adult male. I’d found most of the skull and Bruja had unearthed one of the long bones—maybe a tibia or a femur. How many would Bobby and his crew find?

“It’s the only way to find out who John Doe is and how he got there.”

“So what happens next?” I asked.

Bobby squinted at me like he was weighing how much to reveal. “Take it easy, Lucie. I’m sure we’ll be talking. This guy has probably been here since before you were born. It’s someone else’s story.”

“But you and your deputies already think it has something to do with my family.”

He expelled a long breath and stared at the tapestry as though he might find the answer woven through the threads. “It isn’t engraved in stone, but there are a few things that happen so often in cases like this that you can almost predict how it’s gonna turn out.”

“Such as?”

“Such as fifty percent of the time, the victim is found on property owned or controlled by the perpetrator.”

“And the other fifty percent he’s not.”

“True.” He laid a hand on my shoulder. “Look, you’ve got nothing to worry about. You’re not in trouble.”

“All the same, I’m betting it’s the other fifty percent,” I said.

“You could be right.” He finished his coffee and set the mug on the bar. “Off the record, I hope you are.”

After Bobby left I helped Frankie move the rest of the furniture outside and then drove over to help Quinn and the crew with the cleanup. Whether I was just plain tired or distracted—or both—within ten minutes I sliced up my index finger with my pruning shears like a rube picker.