Red-handed in Romanée-Conti (Winemaker Detective Book 12) Page 5

  Benjamin walked around the perimeter, searching for a spot where he could slip in. The rustling of wings reminded him that he was being watched. A pair of buzzards that had settled in as keepers of the abbey slowly circled above him. The winemaker made his way through the brambles and stepped over several planks to finally gain entry. His corduroy slacks suffered some snags, but he hardly noticed. He was too captivated. Even the approaching darkness didn’t dissuade him. He was determined to explore every inch of the ruins.

  He flicked on his flashlight to illuminate one of the cellars. Had Clotilde Dupont been dragged here and raped in this dark and forbidding space? Benjamin shivered. He didn’t want to think about it. Maybe she had arranged to meet someone in the open-air chapel. But who? And why? The winemaker noticed that the weeds invading the apse of the priory had been trampled. The gendarmes had scoured the area in search of clues. According to the news feeds, Clotilde’s clothes hadn’t been found.

  The rustling of the raptors’ wings grew louder. They wanted to return to the ruins where they had taken up residence. Suddenly, Benjamin heard stones tumbling. Startled, he looked in the direction of the noise and saw that part of a wall had collapsed. He heard a moan and footsteps. For a split second, he thought he detected a figure bounding into the woods.

  In the distance, a dog barked. And then another dog on the hillside across the way joined in. A shiver ran down Benjamin’s spine. He no longer felt safe. Why hadn’t he brought Virgile along? He was taking a foolish risk in coming here all by himself.

  His only desire now was to get back to the Château de Gilly as quickly as possible. The pale glow of the distant village reassured him a bit. He just needed to find the path. He searched without turning around to contemplate the ruins silhouetted against the light of the quarter moon. Breathless and disoriented, he stumbled over rocks and almost found himself flat on his face in the sodden heath. He felt like he was being watched and even pursued by the ghosts of this priory, abandoned since the throes of the revolution.

  Then, by some miracle, he found the loamy ground bordering the forest trail once used by the monks. He breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted his car, its windshield reflecting the light of the crescent moon.

  Benjamin reached for the keys in his pocket. His stomach turned when he realized they weren’t there.

  “Jesus!” He searched all his pockets. No luck. He flicked on his lighter and searched the ground. Maybe he had dropped them. Again, no luck. Lost on this hillside, his cellphone still on the passenger seat locked in the car, Benjamin had no recourse but to hike, in the darkness of night, to the nearest village. At best, it was a good fifteen-minutes away. Driven by a last reflex, the winemaker tried to open the door of the Alfa. He banged the car door and heard the sound of metal against metal. In his haste he had left the keys on top of the vehicle.

  “What an idiot I am!” he cursed. “I’m a fool!” He angrily revved the engine and ended up stuck on the still-muddy road. He calmed himself and managed to rock the vehicle free.

  As the beams of his headlights swept past a line of tree trunks covered with moss, Benjamin thought he saw the form he had glimpsed near the abbey ruins. With the same agility, it seemed to bound into the red ferns and sink farther into the steep forest. Benjamin veered to the right in an attempt to direct the headlights toward the form. But was that a ditch just ahead? If only he had brought Virgile along. With his speed, the former rugby player could have taken the phantom down!

  8

  As soon as Benjamin reached the moat surrounding the Château de Gilly, his cellphone—now in the pocket of his Loden—sounded. The synthetic Mozart-inspired ringtone was unbearable. He resolved to change it and let the call go to voice mail. The day had been so fraught with drama, he needed some peace.

  He pulled up to the entrance and got out. “Bonsoir, Gilles,” he said, handing his keys to the same valet he had seen the night before.

  A creature of habit, Benjamin had asked the manager of the hotel to lodge him in the pavilion. At the end of the French garden, alongside the River Vouge, the château’s annex had the eighteenth-century character reminiscent of the lofty façades of Bordeaux. Moreover, Benjamin could come and go unnoticed by any guests likely to comment on the famous Bordeaux wine expert’s presence in Burgundy.

  Virgile had assured him that he would find a ride back to the hotel, and they had planned to meet for dinner. The episode at the Saint-Vivant Abbey would intrigue and even excite his assistant. So why, then, had he insisted on going alone to that pile of ruins? Virgile was sure to feel betrayed and reproachful over being left behind.

  The phone rang again. This time Benjamin glanced at the screen. It was his father. He answered, but all he heard was breathing.

  “Father? Are you okay? Where’s Elisabeth?”

  Finally, Paul William spoke. His voice was hoarse, and his speech was halting. “It’s o… It’s over, Ben…”

  “What’s over?”

  “Over, I said.”

  Benjamin repeated his question, getting loud and prolonged sobbing in response.

  “Lucy… Lucy, Ben… Lucy, it’s over.”

  Benjamin felt relieved. Heartache, a real broken heart at his father’s age, seemed foolish, almost unseemly, but Benjamin would take that any day over a stroke or a bad fall. He tried to find comforting words to ease his father’s pain. Nothing worked.

  “I don’t know if I can go on,” Paul William declared.

  “Stop saying such nonsense.”

  “It’s better to die,” the old man insisted. He hung up.

  Benjamin quickly called Elisabeth, but it went to voice mail. By now, he was pacing, feeling helpless and concerned. The view over the gardens didn’t calm his mind.

  Then came a terse text message from Elisabeth: “I’m on it.”

  “All right,” Benjamin said to himself. “Elisabeth will pour him a cup of tea and talk him down.” She was a lifesaver.

  Benjamin slipped the phone into his pocket and headed outside for some air.

  § § §

  After walking along the river, Benjamin strolled to the parking area to wait for Virgile, who arrived in a red Peugeot 206 driven by a beautiful woman with a full head of tightly curled brown hair. Virgile waved good-bye, flashed a grin, and winked before turning to his boss.

  Benjamin made no comment and waited for his assistant to give him a rundown on the affairs at the estate, which Virgile did succinctly.

  “Everyone’s exhausted. You look the same. Are you okay?”

  Benjamin was trying to hide his anxiety, not about the vineyards, but about his father. It was one thing to lose a girlfriend and another thing entirely to lose the will to live.

  “Is there a problem, boss?”

  “Yes, Virgile. An aging father singing ‘I Fall to Pieces.’”

  “Oh, no. A broken heart can feel just as bad at eighty as it does at twenty.”

  Benjamin looked at the man, whose beauty was indisputable. “Now how would you know that? You’re still young, and it seems to me that you’re the one who’s done the breaking.”

  “That’s not fair, boss.”

  Benjamin realized he had stuck his foot in his mouth. Yes, Vigile had his flirtations, and even liaisons, but the boy was still pining for Margaux. Time and distance hadn’t done the trick—Virgile hadn’t stopped asking Elisabeth about their daughter. Benjamin was glad Margaux was in New York, an ocean away. Virgile lacked the maturity for marriage, but Benjamin couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for him.

  “You’re right, son. Life isn’t fair. But it’s good to see you tonight.” He patted Virgile on the back and led him toward the château’s entrance.

  A light wind had come up, rippling the waters in the deep Gilly moat. The reeds were quivering, and the moon was casting silvery rays on the duckweed. Benjamin almost jumped when a rock plopped into the water. />
  “Relax, boss. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d seen a ghost.”

  § § §

  “Three to four degrees higher by the end of the twenty-first century, I’m telling you.” Benjamin dipped his bread in the creamy blanquette de Saint-Jacques sauce with its white-truffle aroma.

  Virgile didn’t seem to be quite as happy with his saddle of lamb in a crust of minty herbs. But he was clearly enjoying the Fixin blanc from the Clos de la Perrière, stamped with the year 2009. Benjamin was a fan of Bénigne Joliet’s wines, particularly the whites made from chardonnay grapes.

  “What a unique wine,” he had said. “It’s got an intense structure and floral notes, along with an irresistible purity of taste that’s clearly identifiable on the palate.”

  Picking up a scallop, Benjamin continued his discourse on climate change.

  “I’m also convinced that the weather patterns that we see in Roussillon today will prevail in Alsace fifty years from now.”

  “No doubt about it. Yields are falling in Roussillon. Some growers fear it’ll be down by more than twenty-five percent by 2080.”

  Benjamin looked up at the vaulted ceiling in this fourteenth-century room—once used as a wine cellar—before picking up a forkful of his puff pastry. “The higher temperatures accelerate the phonological cycle. That’s the reason for the shorter growing cycle in Roussillon. Night temperatures during maturation are crucial. They affect the tannins and the aromas. Nights that are too warm in August can block phenolic maturation and spike the sugar content. As you know, this leads to a rise in dealcoholization.”

  “Then there’s the problem of the water deficit, boss.”

  “Right you are. And irrigation has its own problems. Water resources are limited. And many growers simply don’t want to do it.”

  Virgile took another bite of his lamb. “So what I’m forecasting, boss, is increased demand for Cooker & Co.’s services. Growers will be looking for different varieties, and they’ll be needing our expertise. Loire Valley growers might even be planting syrah.”

  “Never say ‘never,’ son.” Benjamin wiped his mouth. “But that will depend on appellation d’origine contrôlée regulations. Certainly, AOC classifications will need to evolve.”

  “Ironically, it seems what’s bad for winegrowers is good for us.”

  “When you put it that way…”

  The server presented the cheese trolley with an obsequious bow. Benjamin declined.

  “Dessert, Virgile?”

  Virgile shook his head, and the winemaker ordered two strong cups of coffee and Castarède Armagnac.

  Benjamin silently reflected on the conversation until the server placed the snifter in front of him. The aroma of candied prunes wafted to his attentive nose. It was a beautiful eau-de-vie, completely characteristic of what the old Gascon family discreetly but proudly produced in Mauléon-d’Armagnac.

  “Aged in wood a minimum of ten years,” Virgile observed.

  “The aroma of nuts suggests even more maturity. Twenty years, at least.”

  Virgile sighed. “Twenty years. Clotilde Dupont couldn’t have been much older than that.”

  The two men fell silent.

  “So, boss, are you going to tell me what you were doing after you left the Lemoine estate? Your face and hands are covered with scratches. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few bruises too. Did you get into a tussle with a wild boar?”

  Benjamin swirled his brandy.

  “All right, Virgile. I’ll fess up. I went to the Saint-Vivant ruins. And to be perfectly honest, I can’t forgive myself for leaving you behind. Darkness fell faster than I thought it would. I heard part of a wall fall and a moaning, and then I saw a shadow running into the woods. It gave me a scare. I had quite a time finding my way back to the car. To top it off, I lost track of my keys. When I finally got going, I thought I saw someone moving in my headlights. It wasn’t my finest moment.”

  “You should have taken me, boss. With that mystical side of yours, I’m wary when you go snooping in holy places. You’re not one to let an apparition stop you. My grandmother was like that. She claimed she saw the Virgin Mary the same morning she met my grandfather. ‘A good omen’ she used to say. So tell me more about that shadow.”

  Benjamin teased his nostrils with the rancio aroma emanating from his aged Armagnac. “Well, it was a person, not an animal. He was nimble, with a slim build, and he was incredibly fast!”

  “How was he dressed?”

  “It was nightfall, so it’s hard to…”

  “Excuse me, boss, but how can you be sure the individual you surprised in the ruins and the one you caught in your headlights were the same person?”

  “He had the same way of bounding through the woods. He looked like a gazelle.”

  “Nimble like a gazelle? Can we consider for a moment that it was a woman?”

  “I don’t think so,” Benjamin answered, sipping his Armagnac.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I can’t explain why.”

  “To be more precise, did your nimble gazelle-like creature have the physical traits of, say, Philippine?”

  “You can’t be serious, Virgile. Why would she be hanging around the crime scene?”

  “Well, I suppose I could be asking you the same thing,” Virgile said.

  Benjamin skirted the question. “It wasn’t Philippine. I’m certain of it. This was a svelt, sylphlike figure with—now I remember—glow-in-the-dark sneakers.”

  “So you’re saying it definitely wasn’t Miss Perraudin.” Benjamin couldn’t miss the smirk on Virgile’s face. Would the boy quit it, already!

  “Don’t you trust my eyewitness report, Virgile? I’m certain about what I say. It’s just that Philippine isn’t what I’d call very feminine. Otherwise, knowing you and your reputation as a…”

  “Womanizer?”

  “I’ll leave you to your own self-description, even if it seems rather… Appropriate. Yes, that’s exactly the right word.”

  “Okay, boss, now that you’ve got both Ms. Perraudin and me pegged, let’s get back to the matter at hand. The only clue you seem to be sure of is that your wood nymph was wearing glow-in-the-dark sneakers. They’re all the rage these days. I own a pair myself.”

  Now Benjamin was the one who was smirking. “Do you now? My Lobbs and I are so out-of-step with the times. At any rate, I’m positive that I saw the shoes disappearing into the woods.”

  “And what about when you were driving? Are you sure the person you saw then was wearing glow-in-the-dark shoes?”

  “No, not really,” Benjamin answered.

  “So nothing proves that it was the same person.”

  “Yes, but to be fair to myself, the image I saw when I was driving was fleeting at best, and I would have needed a flashlight, or at least a full moon, to get a good look in the ruins. To tell the truth, what I can’t get out of my head is the long moan when the wall collapsed. It was like the wail of a child in pain.”

  “Obviously it wasn’t his—or her—legs that were hurting. Otherwise the person wouldn’t have been running so fast.”

  “Right,” Benjamin murmured.

  “Boss, why don’t we visit the place together? I like hearing you talk about Latin, Gregorian chants, the Holy Spirit, and all that.”

  Benjamin pursed his lips. “There’s a limit to the teasing I can take from you, Virgile.”

  “I’m not joking, boss. I’d like to go. But right now, I’m getting tired, and bed is the only place I want to be.”

  Benjamin motioned for his check. The Armagnac’s heady fragrance still lined his empty glass. He put his nose to it one last time and told Virgile to do likewise.

  Virgile complied. “It brings to mind the aroma of walnuts from my childhood in the Périgord. I used to pick them with my grandmother—t
he one who claimed she saw the Virgin Mary. There were thick groves near the Dordogne. We never stayed very long, because my grandmother believed the trees were a haven for witches and evil spirits. We used pole pickers to reach the highest branches and quickly got as many as we could. Then we’d sell them.”

  “I can’t imagine that they brought you much money.”

  “I made enough to buy a few treats for myself. I have to say I made more memories than cash. Later on, when I attended wine school, I learned that the walnut aroma in Armagnac comes from the combination of sotolon and ketones. It’s all chemistry. At any rate, I never saw any witches under the walnut trees.”

  “Your grandmother—like the other members of your family—was a colorful character.”

  “You can say that again. I can still picture her in her straw hat. She wore it all year long. And she always used the same two hatpins with pearl beads to keep it in place. She claimed they were real, but I have my doubts.”

  “God rest her soul. As for us, I’m also worn out, Virgile. Let’s call it a day.” Benjamin was overdue for his cigar.

  “Oh, boss, one thing before we head to our rooms. Marcel said he would lend us his car starting tomorrow. So we can turn in the rental car.”

  “Good. Tomorrow morning, take the Alfa to the carwash and return it.”

  “To be honest, I don’t think a quick wash will be enough, boss. And besides, you’re the one who rented the car, and I think you need to be the one returning it. It’s not that I’m trying to get out of it, but…”

  “I understand,” Benjamin grumbled. “I’ll take care of it myself.”

  The men shook hands and said goodnight.

  Benjamin was still annoyed when he crossed the moat to get to his pavilion, but the feeling quickly dissipated. With its landscape lighting, the grounds had a magical glow. A raptor hooted. In the distance, the Vouge River was a wide blanket of misty foam. Near the reeds planted years ago by the monks of Cîteaux, the beavers had vanished, ceding the place to toads, which were croaking and plopping in the water. It was a perfect time and spot to have his Partagas cigar. He lit up and lined his palate with the sweet smoke.