Backstabbing in Beaujolais (Winemaker Detective Book 9) Read online

  Benjamin nodded. “We’ve drawn up a list of what needs to be done,” he said. “The manor house can wait. The first order of business is caring for the vines and getting ready to make some wine.”

  Then Benjamin introduced Virgile and asked him to provide Sylvain with all the details.

  “That cousin of Périthiard’s is a man of few words,” Virgile said at the end of the day, as they drove back to Esteban and Mercedes’s home for dinner.

  Benjamin was still trying to shake the awkward introduction. “Or he’s a man with secrets.”

  7

  Benjamin and Virgile decided to stay a few more days and spend their time doing some tastings. Virgile deserved a proper introduction to Beaujolais wines, which his boss organized methodically. Benjamin had a stake in this accelerated learning program. Aware that Virgile was a quick study and an excellent judge, Benjamin intended to have his assistant cover a handful of wines in the appellations of Brouilly, Chiroubles, Moulin-à-Vent, Juliénas, and Fleurie in the next edition of the Cooker Guide.

  A few days didn’t give them enough time for a full tour of Beaujolais, but they would be able to discover some new terroirs and gain a deeper understanding of the gamay grape, whose vigor and subtlety were always surprising. This small purple grape with clear juice—the gamay noir à jus blanc—was especially suited to the soil in Beaujolais and was morphologically different from other gamay varieties that produced red juice, such as those found in Bouze, Chaudenay, and Fréaux in the Loire Valley.

  Between the tastings and Benjamin’s impromptu classes, the two men visited churches and monuments and stopped at local inns to sample the grattons, stews, dandelion-shoot salads, and fresh cheeses. They appreciated these meals all the more because the food at the Esteban-Mercedes residence wasn’t getting any better. Neither host had the time to cook or go to the market. Canned and frozen foods were all they had, and neither cared nearly as much as Benjamin and Virgile about what they ate.

  Nevertheless, Virgile was clearly enjoying himself in the household’s bohemian atmosphere.

  “I’ll be a little sad about leaving the Ambroyos, boss,” Virgile said during one of their drives. “They’re generous people, and I like being with them. Actually I like staying with them better than staying in the fancy château hotels that you choose. No offense.”

  “I fully understand, son. Their artist’s cottage is certainly full of charm. And even if Esteban’s art isn’t what I’m drawn to personally, I admire his talent.”

  “Well, I admire his pieces quite a bit, especially the spiked metal sculptures, the smooth acacia totems, and the cubist pastiches. And their collection of old records and literary magazines from the sixties and seventies is quite impressive. I’d love spending another weekend doing nothing more than going through those magazines.”

  “Is that so, Virgile. You mean a weekend entirely devoted to literary pursuits and no skirt-chasing?”

  “There you go again, boss. You have to get to know me better.”

  “Ah, Virgile, I think I do know you. And I thoroughly admire you anyway.”

  Evenings at the cottage were calm. Benjamin picked and chose from the library. Virgile lingered over the romances and Agatha Christie, but in the end just read from Clochemerle every night. The story had aged well, even though it was written and set in the thirties. The writing was full of life and fury, wisdom and humor.

  “Boss, I found a passage you should quote in the next Cooker Guide.”

  “You love your work, Virgile. You’re always thinking about it. But forget about any overtime pay. Okay, I’m listening.”

  “The quote is a great preamble for our tasting notes. ‘One thing is certain: food lovers and tourists alike know little about Beaujolais, be it the wine or the region, which is sometimes considered the tail end of Burgundy or the trail of a comet. Far from the Rhône, people tend to believe a Morgon is a pale imitation of a Corton. That is an unforgivable and crude error committed by people who drink without discernment, based on a label or the dubious affirmations of a waiter.’”

  “Is that in Clochemerle?”

  “Yep.”

  “That’s something I could have written.”

  “Listen to this: ‘Few drinkers are qualified to distinguish genuine from fake beneath the cork. In reality, Beaujolais wine has special virtues, a nose that can be confused with no other.’”

  “How very true, and it deserves being said loud and clear.”

  In the evening, they shared herbal tea with Mercedes and copious amounts of Cognac with Esteban while listening to heart-wrenching guitar riffs by Muddy Waters and Lightnin’ Hopkins.

  Shortly before eleven on Sunday night, the sharp ringtone of the Ambroyos’ landline broke into B.B. King. Esteban slowly got up to answer and then motioned to Benjamin, who took his time getting to the phone.

  “Who’s interrupting us at this hour? Hello… Yes… No… I mean, not really. I know. I turned off my cell. You were right… Don’t worry. My friends go to bed late and get up early… Really? What happened? Today? I don’t know what to say… That’s not good…”

  Benjamin finished the call and handed the phone back to Esteban. Looking weak, he walked back to his chair and plopped down.

  “Shit.”

  “Bad news?” Virgile asked, knowing full well that something bad had happened whenever Benjamin resorted to one-syllable expletives.

  “Rather… Laurent Quillebaud died this afternoon.”

  “Damn… He died? What happened?”

  “He was shot in the head. A hunting accident.”

  “An accident?”

  “Apparently.”

  8

  Laurent Quillebaud’s death deep in the woods worried the winemaker, but he was still able to get a good night’s rest. Only in the country, Benjamin mused, could you manage to sleep well despite the shock of a sudden death. He met Virgile in the kitchen the next morning, and the two improvised a quick breakfast of crispbread, quince jelly, and hot tea.

  Mercedes had been holed away in her office since four in the morning, trying to finish a manuscript. It was already three months late, and she needed to get it to her publisher by the following week. As much as she wanted to be finished, she still had some cruel and necessary cuts to make. Esteban was off in his workshop, pounding away at a block of marble to the sounds of John Lee Hooker.

  “I hope my laughing didn’t wake you up last night, boss,” Virgile said, inhaling the scent of his bergamot tea. “I couldn’t help myself while I was reading that book. Some of it’s quite humorous.”

  “The walls are too thick to hear anything, and anyway, I was up late too.”

  “Life in the country isn’t so bad. It’s cleansing.”

  “I didn’t think you were in great need of cleansing, Virgile.”

  “No, boss. You know I like the countryside. It’s where I’m from. When I was a boy, we rarely turned on the television. We had plenty to keep us busy, and in the evening, I’d just put on my pajamas, brush my teeth, and kiss my parents and Granny Germaine good night before going to bed. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light.”

  “Funny. It was about the same for me, except we’d drink verbena tea, and my grandmother’s name was Margaret.”

  “Granny made the absolute best duck confit and raised the most succulent rabbits. She slaughtered and dressed them herself, and when she was done, she’d marinate the meat in fromage blanc with mustard and thyme.”

  Benjamin finished his tea and smiled.

  “What?” Virgile asked.

  “We just finished breakfast, and even though your belly’s full, you’re still talking about food.” Benjamin got up and left the room, returning a few minutes later with his Daninos book in hand.

  “Listen to this: ‘The French have such a passion for food that between meals they can have feasts of words. It is an incomparable pleasure for a foreigner to be a contemplative guest at one.’”

  “Yeah. At home, we’d spe
nd entire banquets talking about nothing but food, as if there wasn’t enough on our plates.”

  “Well, you know what they say: eat well, laugh often, and love abundantly, all of which you do with gusto, Virgile.”

  “Yes, and life is too short to drink bad wine. So what’s on the schedule today?”

  “They’ve started some leveling for the new wine cellar, and I believe a shipment of winemaking equipment is scheduled to arrive today. I’d like to check everything and have a word with Sylvain. And perhaps we should think about going back to Bordeaux soon. I called Jacqueline on Friday. She may enjoy having the place to herself, but she did reprimand me for not checking my e-mail.”

  “So we just go on as if nothing happened?”

  “Yes, I think that’s the best course of action. Quillebaud’s death is unfortunate, but we can still do our work.”

  The two men cleaned up their breakfast dishes and headed to the car. Benjamin had to turn the key several times before the convertible would start. He’d get the car tuned up when he returned to Bordeaux. He’d take it to Stofa, the only mechanic he trusted with his baby.

  They wended their way along the hillsides, slowing down to enjoy the sight of any plots that were especially well groomed and criticize those that were neglected. They drove all the way to Belleville to buy the newspaper, which they decided to read at a local café.

  The two walked over to a table at the back and opened La Vie Beaujolaise. Laurent Quillebaud’s death took up part of the front page, and more followed inside. A blurry and pale photo of the man accentuated his thick lips and large neck. He was wearing a dark suit and polka-dot tie and looked larger than Benjamin remembered. The front-page article was a cold regurgitation of the facts. A dozen hunters had been out in the woods, hunting wild boar. They separated, and several hours into the hunt, a gunshot rang out. A certain Marceau, who was a farmhand and talented hunter, had found Quillebaud’s body. The first responders had taken forever to get there, but according to witnesses, the man had died quickly. A 7.65-caliber bullet had perforated his left lung and lodged in his spine. The body had been sent to Lyon for an autopsy, and the investigation was following its usual course.

  “I thought he was shot in the head.”

  “Apparently not. The story changed overnight.”

  “That’s strange.”

  “Indeed, it is.”

  “In another twenty-four hours, we’ll find out that he impaled himself on a sharp object.”

  “In matters like these, rumors spread like wildfire, and everyone thinks they know what really happened. I hope the reporter is getting his facts from reliable sources.”

  Quillebaud’s studies and experience in the wine industry, including his recent acceptance of a job offer from Maison Coultard-Périthiard, were covered in a sidebar. The reporter wrote at length about the man’s time with Dujaray and mentioned that Fabien, the eldest of the Dujaray heirs, had been in the deceased’s hunting party.

  “He’s almost suggesting that this was a crime organized by the competitor,” Virgile said.

  “Yes, it could be interpreted that way, and it certainly raises questions.”

  “That’s not very responsible, if you ask me. People will read between the lines. It won’t take much to turn members of the Dujaray family into suspects.”

  Another local paper, Le Progrès, also covered Quillebaud’s death, but the article was on the third page, and there were no sidebars. Although the reporter confirmed the perforation of the lung and the spine, he didn’t name any of the other hunters. Le Journal de Saône-et-Loire ran the same picture that Benjamin and Virgile had seen in the first paper, but it was smaller. The article contained no new information.

  “I think we’ve gotten everything we’re going to get from the newspapers,” Benjamin said.

  “At least the articles in the second two papers appear to be more factual than speculative,” Virgile said.

  “I have a feeling they’re expecting us at Vol-au-Vent. Let’s head over there.”

  The fifteen-kilometer drive was quick, and at the estate, Benjamin found that his hunch was on the money. As soon as he pulled into the driveway, he spotted Périthiard pacing under a tree. Benjamin heaved himself out of his old 280SL, following Virgile, who had leaped out from the passenger side.

  “My condolences, Mr. Périthiard,” the winemaker said, shaking the man’s hand.

  Périthiard gave Benjamin a strained look.

  “What a story,” Benjamin said, trying to get the conversation going.

  “Yes, Mr. Cooker, I find myself in quite a predicament.”

  “We just read the papers, but I imagine you have more information.”

  “I spent a good half hour with two investigators from the gendarmerie. They asked me a bunch of useless questions, and I gave them a bunch of useless answers.”

  “Did they tell you how the accident happened?”

  “They didn’t reveal much initially, but they loosened up after a few minutes.”

  “It was an accident, right?” Benjamin asked.

  “The investigation has just begun, but for now that appears to be the most likely theory. It seems Laurent was running after the dogs and tripped. According to other hunters, that’s when the shot went off.”

  “Has everyone given the same version of the story?”

  “That seems to be the case, at least with the hunters who are willing to talk. Hunters tend to be like their dogs: guarded.”

  “I’ve seen this kind of accident before,” Virgile said. “He’s right. Everyone clams up. The hunters suspect each other. A bad feeling can spread through a village.”

  “You hunt, Virgile?” Benjamin asked, wondering if there were other things about his assistant that he still didn’t know.

  “No, not at all. But my father, grandfather, brother, and cousin have all been hunters, so you could say I know a bit about it. Between Bergerac and Montravel, the Lanssien family has at least seven sharpshooters.”

  “Funny, I can’t picture you in fatigues, a rifle over your shoulder and dogs sniffing at your boots.”

  “I hate it, actually. The smell of gunpowder, blood, and freshly butchered meat makes me sick. That said, when I was I kid, I went every weekend, and I’ve shot down every kind of animal you can find in Périgord.”

  Benjamin turned to Périthiard.

  “Was Quillebaud a good hunter? Do you know if he had been hunting a long time?”

  “I heard he loved the sport. I imagine he started young, like a lot of people in this region. He was thirty-five, so he must have had some experience, but we never had an opportunity to talk about it.”

  “Is it plausible that an experienced hunter could trip and kill himself?”

  “I really can’t answer that question,” Périthiard said, shrugging. “I suppose it’s possible.”

  “He was a little overweight, perhaps short of breath. Maybe he was having a hard time running in boots. A tree root was maybe a little too high, and just like that—he fell, and his finger slipped on the trigger. Virgile, what do you think?”

  “Sounds like a Tex Avery cartoon, boss, but it’s plausible. Others have died in ways just as idiotic.”

  “I’m bothered by the newspaper articles,” Benjamin said, looking back at Périthiard. “I don’t like the way they’ve told the story.”

  “I read the newspapers too. I was shocked to see that Fabien Dujaray was a member of the hunting party.”

  “Why? Do you have your suspicions?”

  Périthiard bit his lip.

  “Do you think this could have been a criminal act?” Benjamin pressed. “Is someone trying to make a murder look like an accident?”

  “Everyone knows that Fabian hated Quillebaud. He couldn’t stand how Quillebaud had risen in the company. He was quite jealous, even though he thought he wasn’t good enough for the job—or so I’ve heard. None of the Dujaray boys were as talented as Quillebaud, and Dujaray never missed an opportunity to remind his sons of their
shortcomings. All that’s common knowledge. I imagine that Quillebaud’s departure didn’t help family matters. I’m not aware of everything, but I do have a few sources who give me enough information to know what the competition’s up to.”

  “Indeed, if the hunt was actually a pretext—or at least an ideal opportunity to get rid of Quillebaud—we’d have a nasty turn of events on our hands.”

  “I don’t believe it. It’s too twisted. And too simple.”

  Virgile leaped in before Benjamin could respond. “Just think of it—by doing away with your vice president of sales, they could get at you too. A double whammy. Two birds with one shot.”

  Benjamin looked at Virgile and rolled his eyes. He always had to say what was obvious.

  “It’s true that getting rid of Quillebaud could be a way to throw me off balance, but I’ll say it again: I don’t believe it. The Dujarays wouldn’t stoop to that. And they’d need to do more to make me vulnerable.”

  “However it happened and whatever the outcome, a man has died, and that’s unfortunate,” Benjamin said.

  “You’re right, Mr. Cooker. I’m not heartless, and I’ve been very affected by the man’s death. But let’s be honest. He was an employee, and I didn’t know him all that well. I didn’t have enough time to become attached to him.”

  “What’s your strategy now?”

  “I’m hoping you’ll help me move past this obstacle, Mr. Cooker. In the world of Bordeaux wine traders, there must be some top-notch person who’s underpaid and looking for a new opportunity.”

  Périthiard—ever the businessman, Benjamin said to himself. “I’ll think about it,” he muttered.

  “Yes, think about it, but don’t take too long. This is urgent.”

  Benjamin watched as Périthiard glanced at his 1960 gold Breitling.

  For a man like Guillaume Périthiard, the clock was always ticking.