The Morgan County sheriffs turned out to be a paunchy, gray-haired investigator and an eager, young black officer, both in spick-and-span powder blue uniforms. Austin was expecting shades of In the Heat of the Night, but the two sheriffs were professional and courteous. Captain Thompson, the senior partner, greeted Jeff by name and invited him to accompany them downstairs, asking the rest of the family to wait in the parlor.
“Well!” Auntie Eudie remarked after Jeff and the sheriffs disappeared down the hallway.
“I told you there’s something not right about him,” Cormac said triumphantly.
“Where did you say you know that young man from, Carson?” Roark demanded.
“We went to the same high school, Daddy. Jeff was starting quarterback the two years the Bulldogs won the league championships.”
“I thought he moved to Savannah,” Cormac said. Clearly, he felt Jeff should have stayed in Savannah.
“He did, silly. To go to college. He came back.” Carson was smiling at her brother; a smile both teasing and understanding. It seemed to appease Cormac in some indefinable way. The resemblance between them was really striking. Not just brother and sister, Austin thought. Fraternal twins.
Confirming his thoughts, Carson ruffled her brother’s hair. She said to Austin, “Corrie is the baby of the family.”
“By ten minutes!” protested Cormac, flushing.
“Jefferson Brady!” Auntie Eudie exclaimed. “I thought I recognized him. He has the Brady eyes. A very distinct color. Myrtle green,” she informed Austin. He nodded politely. “Yes, there have been Bradys in Morgan County as long as there have been Cashels. Maybe longer. I expect Jefferson came home after his daddy died. Such a tragedy.”
“What was?” Austin asked. He couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t curious about Jeff Brady.
“Richmond Brady killing himself like that. He shot himself right beneath the portrait of old Gideon Brady.” Austin must have been looking blank, because she added helpfully, “The general.”
“Eudora, nobody gives a rat’s ass about Jefferson Brady’s family,” Roark informed her.
Eudora’s cheeks went pink. “Mr. Gillespie does.”
“It’s none of Mr. Gillespie’s business,” Roark returned. “You shouldn’t be discussing our friends and neighbors with a Yankee wine merchant.”
It was so outrageous that Austin nearly laughed. With the exception of Jeff and the sheriffs, they were all like something out of a play. Though more along the lines of While the Lights Were Out than A Streetcar Named Desire.
“Now, Daddy.” Carson came to join Austin, perching gracefully on the arm of the old sofa.
Roark ignored her. “Did you find those bottles?” he demanded of Austin.
“The Lee bottles? Not yet.”
“They’re not there,” Roark said with bitter satisfaction.
“You’ve looked for them?”
“Of course not. They were never there.”
Something about the way Roark said that didn’t quite ring true. Was that because he feared the bottles had never been a reality or because he knew what had happened to them? “You know that for a fact?” Austin inquired.
“Daddy,” warned Carson.
“Don’t Daddy me. You know as well as I do your granddaddy’s warped sense of humor. He’s laughing in hell right this minute at the notion of us thinking our fortunes are saved because of those damned wine bottles.”
“If those bottles are real, they’re worth a fortune,” Austin told him.
“Those bottles are a myth. Robert E. Lee was not a drinking man. Anyone who knows anything about him knows that much. Lee understood the Southern gentleman’s duty to present an example at all times.” Roark drained his glass and set it on the cabinet. He dropped into a spindle-legged chair upholstered in faded silver grape leaves and directed a challenging look Austin’s way.
“Lee was a man of temperate habits. That’s true,” Austin said. “I’ve done a lot of research on him in the past weeks. He kept a fully stocked wine cellar, as befitted his rank and position. We know that for a fact because we have the letters his wife wrote him regarding moving the contents of the cellar before the Federal occupation of Arlington House in the spring of 1861.”
“Take that, Daddy.” Carson’s fingers lightly played with the hair at the back of Austin’s collar. He started at that playful graze of fingertips. She winked. “Your collar was turned inside out.”
Cormac said suddenly, “I’ve been reading your ‘Message in a Bottle’ column.”
“Oh?” Everything Cormac said was in that same intense, semibrooding manner, so Austin had no clue whether that was a compliment or a prelude to vivisection.
“I want to be a writer too.”
“You should read Cormac’s stories. They’re wonderful,” Carson said. Austin’s collar was still not right. He tried not to jump this time, but it was weird, right? This tickling the back of his neck in a room full of people?
“Cormac is such a clever boy,” Auntie Eudie sighed. “Although I do wish everyone didn’t die or go mad in his stories.”
“I want to write novels,” Cormac said, scowling as though he expected someone to object.
“That’s great,” Austin said. “I only write nonfiction.”
“Yes,” Cormac said grimly, obliquely.
Who knows where that might have gone, because Jeff and the sheriffs tromped back in.
“Folks, the crime-scene people have arrived, and we’re going to let them get down to business,” Captain Thompson stated. “Meanwhile, we’re going to interview each of you privately.” His gaze fell on Austin.
Pick me, pick me. He wanted out of this nuthouse posthaste. It was obvious he wasn’t going to be doing a cellar appraisal anytime soon, so the faster he got back to Maryland and his endangered job, the better. He didn’t trust whatever machinations Whitney might be up to in his absence.
But after that considering appraisal, Captain Thompson said, “Why don’t we start with the ladies. Ma’am?” That was addressed to Auntie Eudie, who rose all aflutter, tugging nervously at her woolly pink cardigan and touching her hair as she led the sheriffs to a room where they could “set up camp.”
Jeff took her place on the sofa beside Austin.
“How’re you holding up?” He offered a glimpse of that spectacular smile, although his eyes were serious.
“Fine. Good.” Austin realized he was nervously tugging at loose threads on the sofa arm and stilled his hand before the last of the upholstery unraveled.
Jeff started to speak, but Faulkner appeared in the doorway.
“Shall I serve sandwiches and coffee here in the parlor, Miz Carson?”
“Oh!” Carson looked perplexed. Austin saw the dilemma. They needed to eat, but sitting down to luncheon with a murder investigation going on around them was a tad socially awkward. Sandwiches on a tray was probably the ideal solution, although the idea of food sent his own stomach somersaulting.
A loud snoring interrupted Carson’s response. They all glanced to the corner where Roark slumped in his chair, sleeping. His mouth was slightly ajar, his face twitching as though he was still arguing in his dreams.
“That would be lovely, Faulkner,” Carson said with the perfect self-possession developed by generations of Southern beauties in the face of flood, famine, and Civil War. “I guess you better serve those sheriffs something to eat too. We don’t want them to get in a bad mood and arrest somebody.”
Faulkner nodded graciously and withdrew.
“Where are you staying tonight?” Jeff quietly inquired of Austin.
“The Stonewall Jackson Inn in Madison.” Why were they practically whispering? Austin wasn’t sure, but he was increasingly confused by Jeff Brady’s signals. Assuming they were signals and not just Southern discourse.
“Very nice,” Jeff commented.
Austin nodded. The hotel was nice. Nineteen individually themed, luxury guest rooms’ worth of nice. Distractedly, he checked his watch. One thirty. He couldn’t believe how late it was. He mustn’t forget to phone Ernest.
“I guess you’ll be driving back tomorrow morning?” Jeff persisted.
“I suppose so. Assuming they don’t arrest me.”
Jeff chuckled.
Auntie Eudie returned with sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks. She looked like she’d been having a wonderful time.
“They want to see you next, honey,” she said to Carson.
Carson left the room. Jeff rose so that Auntie Eudie could take his place on the sagging sofa. He sauntered across the room and leaned against the wall beneath a gold-framed portrait of a dashing-looking Confederate officer. There was, Austin thought wryly, a marked resemblance, although presumably Jeff wasn’t aware of it. Folding his arms, he studied the others without seeming to pay them much attention.
“It was very exciting,” Auntie Eudie informed Austin. “They showed me a snapshot of the dead man and asked me if I recognized him.”
“Did you?”
“No. He does have the Williams eyebrows. I wonder if he might be a relation.”
Jeff asked, “Did you ever see him around here?”
Roark spluttered in his sleep.
“No.” Miss Eudie was definite. “I’ve never seen him before.”
Cormac said suddenly, roughly, “I was wondering if you’d like to take a look at my work.”
Austin realized he was being addressed. “Now?”
Cormac nodded, scowling.
“I don’t think we’re supposed to wander around till we’ve been interviewed, do you?” Austin was asking Jeff. Possibly because Jeff seemed like the only normal person in the house. Although that was stretching a point.
“Naw. Nobody gets to leave till everyone has been questioned.”
Cormac said accusingly, “You were wandering around!”
Jeff shrugged.
“He was wandering around,” Cormac informed Austin. Was Austin supposed to take sides?
Faulkner reeled into the room, bearing an enormous silver tray, and just managed to lug it to the table in the corner without overbalancing.
“Thank you, Faulkner,” Auntie Eudie said vaguely. “I suppose we ought to feed those police persons too.”
Faulkner gave her a speaking look and departed.
“Why are you so tight with the police anyway?” Cormac asked Jeff. “Are you a cop?”
“Naw.” Jeff pushed lazily away from the wall and went to the table where Auntie Eudie was examining the insides of sandwiches and making pleased noises.
“Ham or turkey?” Jeff asked Austin.
Austin consulted his stomach and decided turkey was the lesser of two evils.
He rose as Auntie Eudie asked, “How do you take your coffee, Mr. Gillespie?”
“In a Starbucks cup, I bet,” Cormac said.
“I don’t drink Starbucks.” Austin nearly added or wine from a box, but that really was snobbery. Besides, he’d had some decent boxed wines. He took a cup from Auntie Eudie. “Turkey, please,” he told Jeff.
Jeff started to hand him a plate with a sandwich.
“Now that’s woman’s work!” Auntie Eudie exclaimed, and Jeff reddened and dropped the plate as though it were on fire.
“Corrie, they want you now,” Carson said, returning to the room.
Cormac swore.
“It’s not so bad, honey.” Carson came straight to the table where the others stood exchanging plates and cups. “Well, what do you think?” she said to Jeff.
Jeff seemed to be studiously avoiding Austin’s gaze. “What’s that, honey?”
“The dead man is Dominic Williams.”
“I knew I recognized those eyebrows,” Auntie Eudie mumbled through a mouthful of ham sandwich. “But I don’t recall a Williams boy named Dominic. Who is he?”
“Among other things, he’s the master sommelier at Old Plantation House.” Carson was looking directly at Austin. “Now what do y’all think of that?”
“The master sommelier?” Austin repeated uneasily.
“What is a sommelier?” Auntie Eudie inquired.
“A wine steward with a fancy title,” Jeff replied. He was studying Austin too, his expression unrevealing.
“That can’t be a coincidence,” Austin said slowly.
“Nope. I’d say not.”
“Did you know Dominic?” Auntie Eudie asked Austin.
“Me? No.” At least…he didn’t think so. It was always possible he’d run across Williams professionally at a wine tasting or a workshop or some other industry event. It was hard to judge by the one glimpse he’d had of him.
“The sheriffs sure don’t think it was any coincidence,” Carson said. She selected a ham sandwich. “I must say it was a terrible shock seeing Dom like that.”
“How exactly did you know this gentleman? You never brought him here.” Auntie Eudie turned to Austin. “You’re not eating anything, Mr. Gillespie?”
Austin picked up a sandwich and tried to look like he was between bites.
“Dom and I used to run into each other now and then.” Carson was blushing.
Jeff gave a wicked chuckle, and Carson laughed, but she still looked uneasy. “I just don’t see why Dom would be in our cellar.”
“Maybe he missed you?” Jeff teased. “Maybe he was hoping for a midnight assignation.”
Carson seemed to give this serious thought, chewing contemplatively.
“Or maybe he was searching for those wine bottles.” Jeff was looking at Austin as though he thought Austin might have a theory.
“If the plan is to auction off the cellar, maybe he was trying to get a firsthand look at the inventory,” Austin offered. It seemed unlikely the sommelier of a fine restaurant would have to resort to sneaking through his neighbors’ cellar, but then everything that had happened since he’d arrived in this house seemed unlikely.
“Maybe.”
Carson said, “If he wasn’t in our cellar, I’d say Henry knocked him off.”
“Henry?” Austin looked from Carson to Jeff, who had started to speak but instead took a bite of sandwich.
“Henrietta. The current Mrs. Williams. I never met a more jealous hag than Henrietta Williams. We were at school together.”
Cormac returned, looking grouchier than ever. “Daddy!” He shook his father awake. “Daddy, the sheriffs want to talk to you.”
Roark came awake blinking and mumbling, “The light was green when I entered the intersection.”
“You’ll never guess who the man in our cellar is,” Cormac informed them. “It’s that good-for-nothing lowlife Dominic Williams. The one who was sniffing around Carson all this winter.”
Roark took his hand from his face and snarled, “Why, I told that bastard if I saw him around here one more time, I’d fill him full of lead.”
Jeff suddenly laughed. Austin looked at him. “Your expression,” Jeff said. “You look like you think you wandered into a Flannery O’Connor story.”
“All that’s missing are the peacocks.”
“We used to have peacocks,” Auntie Eudie said. “Faulkner’s nephew shot them all with his BB gun when he was thirteen, bless his heart.”
“They’re saying they think Williams might have fallen and hit his head outside. He could have crawled into the cellar and died,” Cormac said. “The storm doors are unlocked.”
In the peculiar silence that followed, Roark rose unsteadily and left the room.
Though no one had argued, Cormac insisted, “It could have happened like that.”
“Hit his head on what?” Jeff was frowning.
“On…anything. On the brick path. On the corner of the house. Hell, on a rock in the road. Who cares?”
“Why are the storm doors unlocked?” Jeff persisted.
“’Cause somebody unlocked them,” Cormac shot back.
Austin took his sandwich back to the sofa, the better to hide the fact that he wasn’t eating and wasn’t likely to start anytime soon. The sheriffs would summon him any minute, and he could tell his story and get out of there. There was no reason to feel so nervous. No one could seriously think he had anything to do with this accident, or whatever it was.
Jeff believed it was murder.
Austin wasn’t sure how he knew that, especially since he didn’t know Jeff from Adam, but he could tell Jeff wasn’t buying the theory of Dominic Williams’s conveniently knocking himself out and then staggering into the Cashels’ cellar to quietly die. And he wasn’t sure the Cashels themselves bought that theory, although if they didn’t, they seemed to take homicide in stride.
That was the only alternative, right? If Williams hadn’t met with a fatal accident, someone in this house had killed him. Well, perhaps not in the house, but close enough that hiding him in the Cashels’ cellar seemed a good plan. Austin couldn’t fault the logic. In the normal course of things, Dominic Williams could probably have mummified down there with the oversize spiders and withered potatoes—no one the wiser.
But was that true? There was no reason to think Austin’s visit was a secret. Didn’t that support the idea of a tragic accident? Unless someone had wanted Williams’s body to be discovered.
“Maybe the colonel killed him,” Auntie Eudie remarked.
Carson giggled nervously.
“The colonel?” repeated Jeff.
“Colonel Sterling Cashel,” Auntie Eudie said proudly. She gestured to the gold-framed oval painting on the wall of the Confederate officer in full regalia. “According to the family legend, the colonel will rise from his grave when the Cashels most have need of him.”
“Where’s he been the last fifteen years?” Cormac inquired sourly.
“I just can’t see why anyone, including the colonel, would want to bash poor old Dom’s head in,” Carson said with what Austin thought was remarkable indifference for a former lover. “It’s not like he ever did anyone any harm.”
“He was a gambler, a womanizer, and a lousy driver,” Cormac retorted.
“Oh, that’s true. You did have that fender bender with him.”
“He damn near took the front of my pickup off. And then he tried to claim I rear-ended him.”
Austin felt someone’s gaze. He looked up, and Jeff was studying him intently. Their gazes tangled, and Jeff looked away, his expression self-conscious. For some reason that awkward moment brought warmth to Austin’s face and an unexpected stirring in his groin.
This was getting weirder and weirder. Given the little he knew about the South, he did not want to misinterpret curiosity for interest. That might get him lynched.
“The Williams women were always teched,” Auntie Eudie commented. “But I never heard anything about the men.”
“Well, if Henrietta was Dom’s sister instead of his wife, I guess that would make sense,” Carson said. “She’s more than teched.”
They fell silent at the sound of raised voices down the hall. A few seconds later Roark returned, flapping his arms impatiently, although no one appeared to be accompanying him. “I don’t need any help!”
The rest of the Cashels observed him with polite interest.
Roark headed for his chair again. His bleary gaze fell on Austin. “They want to see you now.”
Austin set his plate aside and went into the hallway. The young sheriff stood in an open doorway a few yards down. “This way, sir.”
Austin followed him into what had once been a large ballroom. It was the length of three large rooms. The floors were of dark wood. Three huge pink-and-amber chandeliers studded the pale blue ceiling. The ceiling was decorated with ornate white plaster moldings and medallions of classical scenes: centaurs chased nymphs, nymphs chased centaurs, warriors battled warriors.
At the far end of the of the room, next to long windows covered by dark blue draperies, sat Captain Thompson at a small writing desk. He looked up at Austin’s approach.
“Sit down, Mr. Gillespie.”
Austin sat on a fragile-looking, lyre-backed chair.
“How you doing?”
“Okay.”
“You’re probably wondering why we’ve kept you till the last to talk to.”
“Sort of.”
“Jeff Brady tells us you’re a stranger to this house and this family, and we thought your observations as an outsider might be interesting.” At Austin’s blank look, Captain Thompson added, “Or maybe not. I guess we’ll see.” He studied his notes.
“Why don’t we start with who you are and what you’re doing here?”
Austin went quickly through the basics.
“And what exactly does a master of wine do?”
Short answer: masters of wine were the industry leaders in all aspects of the global wine business, but Austin could just imagine how that answer would go down. “It’s a professional qualification. It basically means I’ve completed the Institute of Masters of Wine’s two-year program.”
“But what do you do? Do you just drink wine all day?”
This was starting to feel like one of those all-too-familiar family-dinner discussions. Austin was very proud of his master-of-wine status. He was not only one of the few American masters of wine; he was one of the youngest, period. It was a notable achievement, but to people outside the industry, it probably seemed as useless as a degree in basket weaving.
“Masters of wine do a variety of things. Some are vintners, some are winemaking consultants, some work in the restaurant-and-hotel business, some are educators. I buy and auction wine for Martyn, North, & Compeau, which is one of the oldest and most respected wine shops in North America. I host wine tastings, I contribute articles to magazines, I write a weekly blog on wine and a syndicated monthly column for several newspapers…”
Thompson and the other sheriff looked singularly unimpressed.
“I do a lot of things,” Austin finished lamely.
“And do you make money at that? Drinking wine and talking about it?”
“I…make enough. My family is…”
“Rich?” supplied Captain Thompson when Austin stalled out.
“Comfortable.”
“Seems like a job for a rich man,” Captain Thompson remarked. It wasn’t particularly critical, just an observation. “So you came down here from DC to inventory old Dermot Cashel’s wine cellar. Seems like a long way to travel. How come the Cashels didn’t get someone local to do the job?”
Like Dominic Williams? Austin said carefully, “Martyn, North, & Compeau is very well-known and very well respected within the industry. It’s not like having someone from Bev Mo show up and count bottles.”
“No need to take offense,” Thompson said easily.
“I’m not offended. It’s just… My job is more important than it sounds.”
“Sure,” Thompson said kindly. “We all like to think we’re making a difference. I like to think what I do makes a difference.” He looked at his notes again. “So why don’t you tell me in your own words exactly what happened after you arrived at this house?”
It didn’t take long to run through the events of the morning.
Thompson and the other sheriff exchanged a few glances but heard Austin out in silence.
“And did anyone do or say anything that seemed out of the ordinary to you?” Thompson inquired when Austin had wound down his recital.
“Uh…”
The young sheriff laughed. Thompson said easily, “I guess we Southerners all seem foreign to you Northerners. Let me phrase it this way: did anyone seem guilty or nervous?”
“No.”
“Did anyone suggest you shouldn’t work in the cellar?”
They had already been through this. “No. They had a work space set up for me. The butler, Faulkner, was downstairs spraying insecticide.”
“Yeah, you mentioned that.” The captain made a note on his pad. “What about these famous wine bottles? The ones that were supposed to belong to Robert E. Lee? Are they for real?”
“They could be. I didn’t see them, but I didn’t have very long to look. They were listed on the inventory sheets sent to us by the family. The list was pretty informal, but it is possible that the bottles are here.”
“Really?” Thompson was politely disbelieving. “Wine bottles belonging to General Robert E. Lee?”
“It’s possible. They’re described correctly on the inventory list: handblown dark green glass and capped with a rough seal of thick red wax. The year 1822 is etched into the glass along with the initials R-E-L. The words Blandy Madeira can be read at the base of each bottle.” Austin shrugged. “If they exist, they’ll be easy to spot.”
“And you think there’s a chance they survived all this time? Survived the war between the states?”
“Madeira is a long-lived wine, so…yes. Barring some accident to the bottles. We know that Mrs. Lee moved the Arlington House wine cellar to the Ravensworth estate. There’s evidence to support that the contents of the cellar were left at Ravensworth after she fled farther south. The house burned in 1926, but by then most of its contents had been dispersed among the Lee descendants.”
Thompson nodded thoughtfully. “And if these Lee wine bottles had survived, what would they be worth?”
“The Lee connection makes them priceless.”
“Worth killing for, would you say?”
Austin said reluctantly, “It’s possible, I guess. Is that what you think happened? That Dominic Williams was murdered?”
“We don’t know. That will be up to the forensics people to determine. It’s possible Williams could have fallen, fractured his skull, but still climbed down into the cellar. That was one helluva rainstorm last night. A man disoriented by a blow to the head might simply grab on to the first door he came to. We can’t say for sure yet. Of course, either way it doesn’t explain what he was doing on the Ballineen grounds at night in the middle of a rainstorm.”
“Did you find his car?” Austin wasn’t sure why he asked that when he dearly wanted this all to go away so he could get back to inventorying the cellar, but Captain Thompson smiled approvingly.
“Nope. That’s the trouble. We can’t find Williams’s car. Or his keys. So it looks like either he walked fifteen miles in the pouring rain at night in time to get knocked over the head, or someone drove him out to Ballineen, or someone took his keys after he was hit over the head, and drove his car away.”
Austin sincerely wished he had not asked.
Captain Thompson continued to browse his notes and nod to himself. At last he looked up and smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Gillespie. You’ve been most helpful. You have a safe trip home now.”