“Sure I can. I’m just going to ask her flat out if I can look around again,” I said. “Besides, I’m bringing my secret weapon. You. You’ll charm the socks off her.”
His smile was fleeting. “Even if you are right that doesn’t prove Shane stole it. Or that Nicole had anything to do with it.”
“A lot of people we know are buying wine from Shane through his auctions and his futures. Mac’s never seen a single bottle of wine that he’s bought. What if it’s all just a sham? A Ponzi scheme?”
“Lucie.” Pépé shook his head. “I’m telling you, this is dangerous. Nicole was murdered and that other woman died because someone tampered with her car. Look in the wine cellar if you must, but then we should talk to your friend Bobby. This is no business for us.”
I turned into the Greenfields’ driveway. The sun had finally come out and the sky was clotted with clouds. I pulled up and parked in front of the house.
“Looks like they’re both gone,” I said. “No cars.”
“Don’t forget your folder.” Pépé handed it to me as we got out of the car. “If you came to talk about the auction, you should have your papers with you.”
“Good point.” I rang the doorbell. “I don’t think anyone is home. Maybe we should try the wine cellar.”
“First, let’s check the house more thoroughly. I’ll go around back. You wait here in case someone’s home after all,” Pépé said.
He disappeared and I peered through one of the sidelights. The house was quiet.
“Lucie!” Pépé gestured for me to follow him. “Come take a look.”
A split rail fence, with a morning glory twining through it, marked the boundaries of their half-acre backyard. There was a brick patio with the lawn furniture still set out and a small pond with a weeping willow along one side of the property line near the path to the cottage where the wine cellar was located. In the center of the pond, a large white clump of something floated like an ungraceful lily pad.
“What is that?” I asked. “It looks like paper.”
“It is paper. Wait a minute.” Pépé walked over to the barbecue grill on the patio and unhooked a long meat fork and metal spatula that were hanging on the side.
He handed me the spatula. “Let’s see if we can find out what it is.”
We splashed the water with our tools like a couple of kids, stirring it up until the mass of paper finally drifted within reach. Pépé speared it with the fork, but by now I could tell it was wine labels. A lot of them.
“All Château Dorgon,” I said. “You think the bottles are in the bottom of the pond?”
“It would be logical. Whoever did this did not think about the glue dissolving and the labels rising to the surface.”
“But why put the wine here? Why not drink it or dump it out, if you wanted to get rid of it?” I asked.
“Because someone did not want to get rid of it. They merely wanted to hide it temporarily,” he said.
“Sunny told me that Valerie accused Jack’s father of stealing wine from the French when he was stationed in Bordeaux during the war,” I said. “But Sunny said it was just the opposite and that Jack’s father risked his life helping the local vineyard owners. Do you suppose Valerie was right—that this wine really was stolen from Château Dorgon during the war and Jack has been lying for his father all along?”
“Or it’s possible Jack told the truth as he knew it,” Pépé said. “Maybe he believed that his father really did help the French. Then Valerie showed up and told a different story of a man who was not so noble. You know, some of the vineyard owners were sent to the concentration camps.”
“Oh God! What if he did something like that and Valerie found out and threatened to blackmail him?” I said. “So he tampered with her car, or had someone do it for him.”
“Possibly.”
I gestured to the labels. “But Jack wouldn’t hide this wine. He’d want to destroy it once he knew the truth. Someone else did this.”
“Shane, perhaps,” Pépé said. “Or maybe Sunny?”
“Sunny? Would she?” I stared at him. Maybe that’s what Shane and Sunny had been talking about the day I saw them together at the Point-to-Point. “Come on. Let’s see if we can get into the wine cellar.”
“I guess we could take a look around.”
A slate path bordered on either side by azaleas and rhododendron led from the pond to the small building. The door still hadn’t been repaired and there was a new-looking padlock through the hasp. I tugged on it. Locked.
“Give me the paper clips from those pages in your folder,” Pépé said. “I’ll unlock it.”
“You’re going to pick the lock?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Uh, no. It’s just that I had no idea you knew how to do that.”
“I’ll teach you sometime,” he said. “It’s not so hard.”
He opened one of the two paper clips and pulled the wire at a ninety-degree angle.
“Can you hold this, please?” He handed it to me and opened the second paper clip, doubling it back on itself.
I watched as he jammed it in the keyhole, putting his ear next to the lock. As he jiggled the paper clip, he moved his tongue from side to side as though it were following the zigzag trajectory past the lock pins.
After a moment he said, “Please give me the other paper clip.”
A few seconds later, he pulled on the lock and it opened.
I rolled my eyes at the satisfied smile on his face. “Ladies first. But let’s be quick. This is breaking and entering. Have your look around, then let’s get out of here.”
I flipped on the lights and Pépé whistled. “Nice, isn’t it?” I said.
“Someone spent a lot of money.”
“Look. The Washington bottle,” I said. It was in a small alcove above the bar on its own, caught in the soft wash of a low-wattage spotlight. “So Nicole didn’t get it, after all. I guess Jack or Sunny must have moved it back here after the break-in.”
“Let’s go see where you found the Latour,” Pépé said. “And then I think we should leave.”
The tiny twinkling spotlights shining on the dark walls and slate floor made the place seem moodily theatrical. We walked past the stair-stepped freestanding wine racks to the rows of shelves and their floor-to-ceiling racks containing bottles of wine. I led Pépé down what seemed like endless mazelike rows until we came to the Bordeaux. The jeroboams were in a separate location since they didn’t fit in the standard racks.
I pointed to an empty space next to a jeroboam of Latour. “I bet Shane took it from here.”
“Okay,” he said. “Now we go to the sheriff.”
The sound of the front door closing—loudly, as though a blast of wind caught it—sent my heart into my throat. Pépé’s eyes met mine and he put a finger to his lips.
“Stay here,” I whispered. “It’s probably Jack or Sunny. I’ll say the door was unlocked and tell them about the auction papers.”
I walked around the corner and stepped into the light pool of a small spotlight.
“Well, well. What are you doing here, Lucie?”
Shane Cunningham stood in the doorway, dressed as though he’d been out riding. He was holding a hunting rifle and he did not look pleased to see me.
Chapter 27
“I came by to see Sunny,” I said. “There was no one at the house so I checked here. It was unlocked so I came in.”
“That’s odd.” He came into the room and closed the door. “I was here earlier working on the inventory and I know I locked up. Sunny’s got a meeting in Charlottesville and Jack is at the store. Sorry about the gun, but I thought maybe whoever broke into the place the other night had come back. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
I laughed, giddily relieved at the reprieve. “Don’t apologize. Sorry I scared you, too.” I walked over to the marble and redwood bar where I’d left the folder. “I brought this for Sunny—”