Joe Dawson showed up as the concert wrapped up and guests were leaving. He came over to the Ruins and stood there, looking like a train wreck, as he watched me pay the band.
“Want a glass of wine?” I asked. “Or a bottle and straw?”
He gave me a hangdog smile. “Got a minute?”
“Sure.”
I found an open bottle of Pinot and two glasses with our logo etched on them. He took them and helped me climb up on the raised stage, which once had been the first floor of the old house. We sat on the edge with our legs dangling over the side and watched the sun turn into a fireball as it began its descent behind the Blue Ridge.
Joe poured the wine and handed me a glass. “Looks like I need a lawyer. I called Sammy Constantine.”
One of the Romeos, Sam Constantine helped Mia out of a jam last spring. A good man, no bullshit, a straight talker. Hiring him cost a bundle.
“Have you been charged with anything?”
“Not yet. But they linked me to Valerie’s cottage at the Fox and Hound that last night,” he said. “She, uh, invited me back after her talk at Mount Vernon. The cops, uh, found things. Someone must have seen my car.”
I looked into my wineglass. “One of the maids saw you.”
He chewed his lip, nodding. “I should have figured.”
“Couldn’t you have waited, Joe? Why did you have to go right from Dominique’s bed to Valerie’s? You and Dominique have been together for years.”
He held his hands up. “Whoa! Hold it right there, okay? What do you want me to say? It’s done. I’m paying for it, too, aren’t I?”
The sun had moved lower in the sky. It was starting to cool off. He was right. It was over and done with.
I quieted down. “Why do you need a lawyer? You don’t have a motive for killing her—do you?”
He didn’t look happy that I’d asked. “This is where it gets complicated.”
A bad start to a story that already involved sex and lawyers. “What do you mean?”
He drank more wine. “When Valerie was writing her book she needed additional information about Jefferson’s efforts to establish a wine industry in the United States. She asked if I could send her a copy of my dissertation, so I did. You can find it in the UVA library, of course, but I never got around to getting it published anywhere else.”
I knew where this was going. “She lifted parts of your dissertation for her book?”
He shook his head, like he couldn’t believe it himself. “Not just parts. Whole sections, which she didn’t footnote or even acknowledge in the bibliography. You know who else read my dissertation? Ryan Worth. That guy must have a photographic memory because he recognized it. I guess he wanted to share the love because he contacted her editor. And the editor, who got contacted by Bobby Noland, told Bobby.”
“That’s your motive? Professional revenge for plagiarism?”
“That’s what they want to know.”
“Did you ever confront her about it?”
Joe stared at the horizon. “I only skimmed the first chapter. Never got beyond page fourteen. Of course they think I’m lying. But honestly I had no idea about the plagiarism and probably nobody else on the planet would have either, except for frigging Ryan Worth.”
He refilled our glasses.
“Valerie sought me out at Mount Vernon after her talk,” I said. “Told me she knew something about the provenance of one of the wines Jack Greenfield donated for our auction. Kind of taunted me that I didn’t know what I had. Then the guy from her publishing house dragged her off.” I swirled wine in my glass. “Any ideas?”
“Nope. She mentioned it to me, too, but didn’t want to give up any details. Said it would be a bombshell when word got out.”
“You weren’t curious?”
“I didn’t really think about it, you know?”
I looked at him, remembering how Valerie had kissed him in the colonnade at Mount Vernon and the tangled sheets in the bedroom at Cornwall Cottage. “I guess you must have been preoccupied with other things.”
His cheeks turned red. “Okay. She did say she never would have known about whatever it was if she hadn’t retraced Jefferson’s vineyard journey through Bordeaux.”
“Bordeaux? The only vineyard both Valerie and Jefferson visited in Bordeaux was Château Margaux. That’s the Washington wine.” I set my empty wineglass down. “The other place, Château Dorgon, doesn’t exist anymore. The third wine Jack donated is a Domaine de Romanée-Conti—a burgundy.”
Joe hoisted himself off the stage with both hands and landed on the hard-packed ground. “Come here.” He held out his arms. “I’ll help you down.”
“Thanks, I’ll take the stairs.” I knew Joe didn’t kill Valerie, but he was getting dragged into whatever brought her down. Part of me thought he didn’t deserve it, but another part of me thought that we reap what we sow.
Joe seemed to acknowledge the rebuff as he picked up the empty bottle and our glasses. We walked down the path toward the villa at some distance apart.
“I know you’re mad at me because of Dominique,” he said. “Wish I could change things. Or turn back time.”
I shrugged. “You know, Valerie didn’t have much professional credibility with Ryan.”
“I heard his story. She stole his idea. That’s a load of crap. She wrote that book on Jamestown. She got rave reviews.” His voice was hard.
“Ryan said someone handed it to her on a platter.”
“Ryan can go to hell. She told me she ran out of time to get the Jefferson book done so she panicked. Plus she was in a bind financially and that put even more pressure on her. I’ve known her for a long time. Valerie was a good scholar, Lucie.”
“So you think this bombshell, whatever it is, is legitimate?”
“Yeah, I do.”
I banged my cane against the ground in frustration. “Dammit, what am I going to do?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll figure out something. Wish I could help but I got my own fish to fry right now.”
He left me at the entrance to the villa. I watched him walk down to the parking lot and get into his car.
Whatever Valerie knew, now I really had to find out.
They say when you want to dig up some dirt, go find yourself a worm. As it happened, I knew just the worm.
I called Ryan Worth on his cell and caught him on his way out the office door to an evening wine event in D.C.
“What are you doing at work on a Saturday?” I asked.
“Since it’s Columbus Day weekend, the place is quiet. I thought I’d get a jump on the next column so I could take a few days off next week. If I don’t get some down time I’m going to go nuts. What’s up?”
He sounded friendly but guarded.
“Could I ask a favor?”
“What is it?”
“You were right about the national attention your column would bring our auction,” I said. “The winery is getting calls from all over the place. Jordy Jordan told me the day it ran he booked every room at the Fox and Hound for that weekend.”
“Glad to hear it. So what’s this favor?”
So much for trying to butter him up.
“It’s not a local fund-raiser anymore. Now it’s a big deal,” I said. “Before that column ran we accepted any donation we got, meaning wines that came straight out of people’s wine cellars. Bottles they’d gotten as gifts or wine they’d been storing for a while. I haven’t begun to catalog any of it, nor do I have any idea what prices to set for the opening bids. Now I think we’re going to have a savvy, street-smart crowd bidding on them. Nothing like we anticipated.”
“You want me to help catalog your wines?” He blew out a short, sharp breath. “Do you know how much work that is?”