I drove over to the barrel room shortly before noon, after convincing Eli that I felt well enough to do so and that I didn’t expect to be attacked by anyone in broad daylight.
“I think it’s high time,” Eli said, “to install an alarm system in the house. While you were still talking to Bobby, I called a company I’ve worked with a couple of times. They’re sending over someone this afternoon.”
“That’s going to be expensive, installing sensors on all the doors and windows. Maybe we just need to start locking the doors.”
“We’ll all sleep better,” my brother said in a don’t-argue-with-me voice, “with an alarm.”
* * *
THERE IS NOTHING QUIET about bottling wine. Being in the vineyard, especially if you’re alone, evokes the Zen-like tranquillity and reverential silence of a sacred place, but bottling is raucous and noisy and fast-moving. In spite of the cacophony, it’s also incredibly organized. Like a circus performer spinning plates, you can’t take your eyes off what you’re doing, or the process comes crashing to a halt.
I knew Quinn, Antonio, and the crew would take a lunch break at noon to let everyone warm up after a morning of working outside in below-freezing temperatures, so I planned my arrival to be as near to their quitting time as possible. The first time anyone got a look at my face when I stepped onto the crush pad, I knew I’d be a huge distraction in the midst of an operation that needed to run as smoothly as a Rolls-Royce engine.
Unlike growing grapes or making wine, which are heavily labor-intensive jobs, the process of bottling wine is totally mechanized. Wine bottles are put one by one on a narrow conveyor belt, which takes them inside the sterile environment of the bottling truck, where they end up on a rack to be steam-cleaned. Then the clean, dry bottles are filled with wine before moving on to the next station, where the cork is inserted. Another piece of equipment puts a foil wrapper, known as a capsule, over the cork and seals it; the last stations are where the front and back labels are put on, and, voilà, you’re done.
After that, it’s a matter of quality control, with someone checking to make sure the labels are on straight, the corks are inserted correctly, and the bottles are filled to the proper level as the they rattle by in a tidy, precise column. Then they leave the truck and travel down the conveyor belt to where they’re packed in cases, upside down to keep the corks wet, by whoever is waiting outside in the cold. Finally, the boxes are sealed, labeled, and placed on a pallet, where they’re eventually moved on a forklift to our bonded cellar. On a good day, with no hitches, we can bottle two hundred cases in an hour, or 2,400 bottles of wine. None of this happens without pulse-pounding rock music blaring through the sound system above the din of the truck and the clattering bottles, a sound track chosen by Quinn to motivate you, keep you moving so that you forget just how damn cold it is.
I made sure he saw me before anyone else did when I stepped outside—he was driving the forklift—and watched him signal to Antonio to let everyone inside the truck know it was time for a lunch break. One by one, they all came over to me with condolences and hugs, whispered words of concern and expressions of shocked disbelief as they took in my bruises, until I felt like I was in a receiving line at my own funeral.
“The guys and me,” Antonio said in my ear, “we’re going to ask around, see if anyone knows anything. I got friends who owe me favors.”
I nodded. There was no point telling him or Benny or Jesús not to get involved because they’d just ignore me.
“If you find out anything,” I said, “promise me you’ll tell Quinn or me, and we’ll get Bobby over here, right, Antonio? Let the police handle this.”
Antonio gave me a heavy-lidded look that reminded me of Gino Tomassi when he’d stood in the barrel room only a few days ago and I suggested he tell the police about his blackmailer. Later I’d have to remember to ask Quinn what the Spanish version of omertà was called.
“No te preoccupes, Lucita,” he said. “Don’t you worry. We’ll take care of this.”
Frankie hung back until last, her face as white as death when she saw me. “Quinn told me what that man did to you.” Her voice vibrated with rage. “I don’t have any words for it, except that it’s a miracle you’re alive.”
“The front door was unlocked, which was stupid, and Hope came downstairs and found me almost immediately, which is the reason I’m here,” I told her. “Bobby dropped by the house this morning. They’re looking for the guy who did it right now.”
“Quinn says it might have been someone who worked for us.” She gave me a worried look. “The guys are upset, especially that he seems to be Hispanic. It’s almost like they feel responsible, and they’re taking it personally. It’s been a pretty weird morning around here.”
Her eyes shifted to Benny and Jesús, who were readying boxes of empty wine bottles for the afternoon session. I followed her gaze. Antonio was somewhere in the barrel room with Quinn, probably getting the hoses ready for the next tank to be emptied.
“I’ll help out after lunch,” I said. “The best thing to do is get life back to normal.”
“Are you out of your ever-loving mind?” Frankie gave me an incredulous look. “You’ll do no such thing. We’re fine. We’ve got enough people for this, even without you and Vivienne Baron.”
“What happened to Vivienne?” I asked. “I saw Will last night when he came to my house to deliver a grandfather clock I bought from Mac MacDonald. He said she’d be here and that she was looking forward to it.”
“Nope,” Frankie said. “He called the villa first thing this morning and said she was sick and wasn’t going to be able to make it.”
“Sick, huh?” I said. “That’s funny, because when we talked about it yesterday he made a point of mentioning how we weren’t paying her to help out today. Maybe the sickness was just an excuse for her to gracefully get out of showing up.”
“Maybe,” Frankie said. “I hope I can count on her for Saturday. She is getting paid for that. I’ll call her at the end of the day and see what I can find out.”
“Let me know,” I said.
“I will. In the meantime, let’s get some lunch. I’m starved and it’s freezing.”
We started to head inside as my phone rang in my pocket. I pulled it out and looked at the display. Kit Noland.
“You go ahead,” I said to Frankie. “Kit’s going to chew me out because I forgot to call her after Bobby left, and I’d just as soon get my head handed to me in private.”
Frankie gave me a feeble smile. “For someone who’s been through what you have, you’re acting surprisingly normal. See you in the villa.”
I climbed the stairs from the crush pad to the mezzanine and walked down to our office door, clicking my phone to answer Kit’s call.
“Don’t yell at me. Please.” I opened the door and flipped on the lights. “I know I should have called. It’s been a crazy morning.”
“Damn straight you should have called. I have been beside myself with worry. Bobby said you look like you went a couple of rounds with the world heavyweight champion before he took you out with a knockout punch. Your right eye is practically swollen shut.”
“No, it’s not. He exaggerated.” I lowered myself onto the sofa. Everything had started to ache again. Time for more Tylenol.
“My husband never exaggerates. If anything, he minimizes things.” She still sounded outraged, but I knew it was because she was scared to death about what had almost happened.
“I’m going to be good as new once the bruises heal. At least I didn’t need stitches, so there won’t be any scars,” I said. “Look, Bobby’s going to find the guy. You know he is. His people have been all over my house and the vineyard with magnifying glasses and tweezers. They found boot prints on the veranda and traced them to a place by the Ruins, where he probably left his car.”
I could hear her shudder through the phone. “Luce, you could have died.”
“But I didn’t. It was a minor miracle that Hope found me so quickly after he dumped me outside and a major miracle that he didn’t stick around to wait for me to freeze to death and find her, as well,” I said. “So I’m feeling lucky and blessed.”
“I need to write about this for the paper,” she said. “We’ll use a file photo of the vineyard, so we won’t be sending anybody over to your place. I’ll just do it as a phone interview.”
“You’re going to write the story?”
“I’ve got a couple of people out sick. I swear to God, the flu shot this year was like getting a placebo.”
“Frankie told me Will Baron called her this morning and said Vivienne was sick, too. So she didn’t show up for bottling.”
Kit groaned. “Please God, not Vivienne. She’s my best reporter. Wait until you read her piece on the history of the women pilots in World War Two, in the Sunday magazine. She did a terrific job. I’m going to submit it for a Pulitzer; it’s that good.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yup. Her interviews with Roxy Willoughby and Olivia Cohen were outstanding. Mac gave me a photo of Roxy in her pilot’s uniform, sitting in the cockpit of a British Spitfire, and Viv got a photo of Olivia. We’re using them on the cover.”
“You know,” I said, “Mac said Roxy wasn’t arguing with him before she died, but your mom is absolutely certain she was arguing with someone, claiming she wanted to know the truth. I wonder if it had anything to do with her baby and the affair. She changed her will not long before she died in favor of her granddaughter. If anybody would know about that period in Roxy’s life, it would be Olivia.”
“Viv said Olivia clammed up after she mentioned Roxy’s affair during the war. I doubt she’d say anything more on the subject.”
“Roxy was still alive when Vivienne talked to Olivia,” I said. “Now she’s not. What’s to lose by trying to talk to her again if it could bring peace of mind to your mom? Look, I’ve been banned from my own vineyard today as walking wounded, so I’m going to call her and ask if I can drop by.”
“Bobby says you look kind of scary at the moment,” she said. “How are you going to handle that?”
“I’m going to be my most charming self,” I said. “Beauty is only skin-deep anyway.”
“Good luck with that,” she said. “Lay the charm on really thick.”
* * *
SKYE COHEN ANSWERED THE phone when I called a short while later and explained that I wanted to talk to her grandmother about Roxy Willoughby.
“I don’t know, Lucie,” Skye said. “Grandma and Roxy had a falling-out years ago and they never patched it up. I don’t think she wants to talk about her to anyone anymore.”
“Couldn’t I just ask her myself? Please?”
I could hear Skye sigh through the phone. “I can put her on,” she said. “But I don’t think she’ll agree.”
Olivia Cohen had a high, querulous voice and seemed to think I was Vivienne Baron calling back.
“Please, Mrs. Cohen, wouldn’t you just reconsider? I’m asking for a dear friend who was Roxy’s next-door neighbor. She’s worried Roxy died with something weighing on her conscience. Whatever you say would be private, but it might help my friend to be a little more at peace.”
“If you’re not a reporter like the other one,” she said, “then who are you?”
“My name is Lucie Montgomery,” I said for the third time. “I own a vineyard.”
“A vineyard?” she said, brightening up. “You mean you make wine?”
“I do.”
“Is it any good?”
“It’s very good,” I said, surprised. “A lot of our wines have won awards.”
“Would you bring me some?”
Now we were getting somewhere. “Absolutely,” I said. “What do you prefer, red or white?”
“Bring ’em all,” she said. “Especially the award-winning ones. And I’ll talk to you about Roxy.”
* * *
OLIVIA COHEN LIVED IN a one-story stone cottage on Wirt Street in the historic district of Leesburg. Frankie packed up a gift box of wine for me after I told her I was taking it to Skye’s grandmother. Half an hour later, I parked on the street in front of Olivia’s house and put on the sunglasses before I got out of the car.
Skye met me at the door. She had added a few streaks of red to the purple hair, and her bloodred lipstick had left a big kiss mark on the rim of the coffee mug she was holding.
“I heard about your intruder last night,” she said. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Word travels fast,” I said. “Who told you?”
“Frankie called Veronica House this morning and told Niall. I heard from him. Come on in,” she said. “And tell me how you persuaded Grandma to talk to you.”
I held up the box of wine. “This.”
She smiled and shook her head. “I should have guessed.”
“Do you live with her?”
“No, but I come by and help out my mom from time to time if she needs to get out and the home helper isn’t available,” she said. “Let me tell her you’re here. I’d also better warn her about your accident before she sees you, so she won’t be freaked-out. Wait here a minute.”
She disappeared down a narrow hallway to the back of the house. When she returned, she gave me a wry look. “You may approach. She’s ready for you.” As I followed her down the hall, she said, “And I hope you’re ready for her. Grandma’s a pistol.”
Olivia Cohen sat in an enormous carved Victorian throne chair, wearing a brilliant magenta, saffron, and violet silk kimono, an orange turban, and gold brocade elf slippers with curled-up toes. She looked like a dowager empress awaiting the arrival of her subjects. Half a dozen rings glittered on her fingers, her long nails were gold-tipped and painted the color of old blood, and a gold and amethyst amulet hung around her birdlike neck. Her face was deeply lined and her makeup made me think of Japanese Kabuki. It would not have seemed out of place to curtsy.
The walls of the room were a deep burgundy, and the small space was cluttered with fussy furniture, framed photos, and antique collectibles on every tabletop and filling two curio cabinets. She had eclectic taste—colorful glass paperweights, snow globes with elaborate scenes, Lladro figurines, Wedgwood candy dishes—and a particular fondness for carved pigs and roosters. It was also as hot as the inside of a clothes dryer.
“Mrs. Cohen,” I said, taking off my jacket and wishing I hadn’t worn a heavy turtleneck, “I’m Lucie Montgomery.”
“I know,” she said. “You’ve brought the wine.”
As if she had been waiting outside the door, Skye appeared with a tray, two wineglasses, and a corkscrew. “Grandma likes a little drink in the afternoon,” she said. “She believes it has medicinal benefits. Enjoy.”
“Why don’t you pour, Lucie?” Olivia said. “Red, of course, since I presume the white isn’t chilled. And then we’ll talk. You’ll drink with me, of course?”
It was a command, not a request. I poured her a small glass of Merlot and an even smaller one for myself.
“To Roxy,” Olivia said, holding up her glass. “May she finally rest in peace.” We drank to Roxy, and she said, “This is rather nice. You do make good wine, dear.”
“Thank you,” I said, “and what did you mean about Roxy finally resting in peace?”
“Why, her affair, of course,” she said. “I think it haunted her all her life. She loved him, you know. I believe he was the great love of her life. She married Willoughby on the rebound. Of course it didn’t hurt that he was as rich as Midas and old enough to be her grandfather.”
“Did you know the man she had the affair with?”
She nodded. “Before the Americans let women fly noncombat missions during the war, the Brits were allowing it. A couple of us who were determined to do our bit went to England and volunteered for the ATA, the Air Transport Auxiliary. They trained us, you see, and we flew the Royal Air Force’s frontline aircraft.” She paused to drink more wine and her voice grew dreamy with memory. “Those were incredible times, so exciting. You have no idea.”
“What was Roxy’s pilot like?”
“Group Captain Thomas Van Allen. Tommy. My God, but wasn’t he a dreamboat. He and Roxy were such a gorgeous couple. There wasn’t a girl in the squadron who didn’t envy her. And, of course, you could guess how it was going to end up.”
“With Roxy getting pregnant?”
Olivia drank more wine. “Pregnant and scared what could happen to her if the word got out. We were good friends back then—roommates, actually. I was the only one she told, and between us, we managed to camouflage her baby bump so no one guessed. She was a little bit of a thing anyway. Never really looked pregnant. Later I think that was the reason she dropped me, because I knew her secret, knew she gave the baby to Tommy’s sister and her husband after Tommy was killed.”
“You never kept in touch?”
Olive gave me a tight smile. “Roxy moved on. She was that kind of girl. Ambitious, you see. And then she married a very rich man and started moving in different circles.”
“When was the last time you saw her?” I asked.
She fingered her amulet. The light of a nearby table lamp caught the amethyst as she turned the stone, and it flashed like a sly, winking eye. “To talk to? It was years ago. At a charity dinner dance in Washington. She was with her husband and, ho-ho, let me tell you, she wasn’t pleased to see me.”
“Because you knew about the affair?”
“And what happened to the child.” She sat up straighter in her regal chair. “She never wanted anyone to know about it.”
“My friend’s mother was her next-door neighbor at Foxhall Manor,” I said. “She overheard Roxy talking to a man shortly before she died. According to Faith, Roxy kept insisting that she wanted to know the truth. Do you think that might have had something to do with her affair? Or something that happened in England?”
Olivia laid an index finger against her lips and sat there for a moment as if lost in old memories. Finally, she sighed and said, “If it does, I’m afraid I couldn’t help you with that. Roxy was a wild one when I knew her. She’d had a bad time with her family back home, terrible arguments with her mother. I’m fairly sure she went to England to get away from them.”
Mac had said something similar the other day, how his grandmother and Roxy had fought constantly.
“Did she ever talk about her family?”
“Never,” she said. “But when she found out she was pregnant, it made things even more difficult for her. She was Catholic and she had no one to turn to in America. I think it only hardened her will to give the child away, because she knew what would happen if she went back as an unwed mother.”
She reached over and picked up an envelope on a small table next to her chair. It had been sandwiched between a Lladro ballerina and a brass piggy bank. “Would you pour us a drop more wine, dear?”
I filled her glass and added another splash to mine. She appeared not to have noticed that I hadn’t really drunk anything.
Olivia waved the envelope at me. “Have a look.”
The envelope contained a black-and-white photograph of Roxy with a man who had to be Group Captain Tommy Van Allen, and a third person, a curly-haired blonde vamping for the camera, who, I realized with a shock, was Olivia. They were standing in front of what looked like a stone plinth with two enormous signs wrapped around it. I could just make out what they said: CARRY ON LONDON and SALUTE THE SOLDIER. Though the three of them had their arms around one another, you could tell there was something special between Roxy and Tommy, the way she was tucked into his arm and the tilt of their heads together.
But what struck me the most was the uncanny resemblance between Roxy and Uma Lawrence. Anyone who’d seen the photo of Lucky Montgomery in Mick’s album had noticed how alike we were, but looking at Roxy was eerily like looking at Uma.
“What a wonderful picture,” I said. “You all look so happy.”
“We had a rare day off and the weather was glorious,” Olivia said with a smile. “So we walked from the Embankment and the Houses of Parliament down Whitehall to Trafalgar Square. That picture was taken at the base of Nelson’s Column. As you can see, there were patriotic signs everywhere.… The Blitz was such an awful time in London, bombing and destruction everywhere. And, of course, later we found out that if the Germans had invaded London, Hitler would have carted the column off to Berlin as a war trophy.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said. “Where did you get the photograph?”
“One of Tommy’s friends took it,” she said. “He and I were dating at the time, but it never came to anything. He sent it to me about twenty years ago, along with the one I gave that reporter. He figured I’d know how to get in touch with Roxy, and that I’d be the best person to pass the pictures along to her.” She shrugged. “By then I’d seen her at that fund-raiser and she’d snubbed me every time she saw me after that, so I just kept them.”
“You gave Vivienne Baron another photo like this? With the three of you in it?”
She nodded. “She promised to return it when she finished writing her story. I said she could borrow it as long as she didn’t mention Roxy’s affair with Tommy, and she gave her word.”
Though Kit had told me Vivienne’s story was appearing in the Trib’s Sunday magazine, I figured it was Vivienne’s place to tell Olivia that news, not mine.
“I heard,” Olivia went on, “that Roxy’s granddaughter is in town and that Roxy left her quite a generous inheritance.”
“How did you find out about that?” I asked.
“Skye heard from Father Niall. I gather he met her.”
“That’s right, he did. Her name is Uma Lawrence. She and Father Niall met at my vineyard, actually,” I said. “She looks so much like her grandmother, especially that red hair.”
“Funny,” she said. “Because Roxy’s daughter—Uma’s mother—was the portrait of Tommy. Nothing of Roxy in her. Mind you, I only saw her when she was an infant, but still, you could tell.” She waved a bejeweled hand at me. “Give it to Uma. If anyone should have it now, it’s Roxy’s granddaughter. I’ll keep the other picture as a souvenir, but Uma should have this one of her grandmother and grandfather together.”
“She’s leaving for London this weekend,” I said, “but I’m sure I can get in touch with her. Or Mac MacDonald can.”
“Yes, see to it, won’t you? And now I’m tired and it’s time for you to go.” She said it unceremoniously and in such an abrupt manner, I wasn’t sure if I’d heard correctly. “My granddaughter will show you out.”
Either Olivia had a hidden buzzer somewhere or Skye had been listening on the other side of the door, because it suddenly opened and she walked in.
“I hope you two had a good chat,” she said.
I slipped the photo into the envelope and stood up, pulling on my coat. When I looked over at Olivia Cohen to bid her farewell, her head was lolling against the back of her chair and her eyes were closed. In the past thirty seconds, she had fallen asleep and was now snoring gently.
At the front door, Skye said, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you about Grandma. Wine always puts her to sleep. It’s like a knockout drug.”
“I won’t,” I said. “When she wakes up, please tell her I said thanks and good-bye.”
“My mom should be back any minute, and I need to get back to Veronica House,” she said. “I’ll tell Mom to pass on your message to Grandma. Good-bye, Lucie. See you Saturday night at your party.”
* * *
I DECIDED TO TAKE the back roads home to Atoka, something I always did when I needed time to think. Though the plows had been through since the storm two days ago, the smaller country lanes weren’t as well cleared as the highways, so there were icy patches where the road dipped or ran through the woods. But the Jeep had four-wheel drive and I knew what to do if I went into a skid.
At the intersection of Lime Kiln Road and Delta Farm Lane, the road made a sharp right-angle turn around a blind corner. I hadn’t seen a car for the last seven or eight miles, so the red Subaru, flipped over and jutting into the road like a crooked tooth, seemed to come out of nowhere. I swerved and slammed on the brakes—the worst thing to do, but there wasn’t time to avoid hitting it—and spun onto the shoulder. The other driver must have taken the corner too fast and lost control. It looked like the Subaru had also spun around—more than once, judging by the skid marks on the road—and then flipped over before landing on its side. At some point, it had crossed the road, where it had struck a large oak tree and plowed into a low stacked-stone wall. The hood was so badly smashed in, the car looked like a crumpled soda can, and most of the windshield was missing.
I grabbed my phone and got my cane from the backseat, picking my way across the ice-rutted road. There was a gaping hole in the windshield.
Vivienne Baron, who didn’t drive in snow or ice because she was too inexperienced, who needed her husband to pick her up and drop her off everywhere she went, and who had been too sick today to show up at the vineyard, lay slumped over the steering wheel, her hands still clenched tightly around it. Her long dark hair was loose and covered her face. I reached through the windshield and said her name, brushing her hair away from her pale cheek. For a moment, I thought she was wearing bright red lipstick, until I realized her mouth was covered with blood. She lay in what looked like a crystal pool of pebble-size pieces of glass from the shattered windshield, and her eyes were wide open, as though something had startled her.
I turned away, afraid I was going to throw up right there, and called 911. But I already knew it was too late. Vivienne Baron was dead.