The Chardonnay Charade (6 page)

“That was fast.” I took the papers. “Can I get you the check tomorrow? I’m going to the bank anyway to pick up the cash to pay the crew.”

“Sure, fine. But I have to have it tomorrow.”

I flipped through the papers he’d handed me. “I forgot how many new varietals you wanted to grow. Petit Verdot, Syrah, Malbec, Seyval, Viognier, Cabernet Franc, and Norton.” I glanced up. “You sure this isn’t too ambitious?”

He threw the tennis ball up in the air and caught it. “I told you I’m going to put this place on the map. You gotta be bold, Lucie. Take a few risks.”

“It might be too much—” I began.

“Look,” he interrupted, “I did the soil samples and we talked about all this. Don’t get cold feet on me now.”

“After what happened last night I’m wondering if we shouldn’t be more cautious. There’s not a single grape on this list that we’ve grown before. What if none of them take, despite the soil samples? Why couldn’t we put in more Pinot Noir? We know that does well. Or more Riesling?”

“Look, if you’re going to second-guess me…”

“I’m
not
! You say that every time I have a different opinion from yours.”

“Let me run this place, Lucie. I’m good. I know what I’m doing. If we stay with the safe wines you’ve always made, we’ll be stuck in a rut. I can’t work like that. I’m talking about wines with different labels, wines we market more aggressively. Wines that will win awards.”

“You want to change our labels?”

“Honey, I want to change everything.”

“I can’t let you have carte blanche. We have to work together.”

He pointed to the papers. “I want to order all of this. Yes or no?”

I have never liked ultimatums and I can be stubborn, too. “I guess so,” I said stiffly. “I’m late. I’d better get going.”

“Yeah, and I’m heading down to the lab.” He stood up and added sarcastically, “By the way, thanks for the vote of confidence.”

I left without responding.

With the June primary election only two weeks away, you couldn’t swing a cat in Loudoun and Fauquier Counties without whacking someone’s vote-for-me roadside campaign sign. Actually, you’d be more likely to take out a few dozen, since they were either clustered together in an ugly clump at intersections or else placed along the roadside so close they reminded me of dominoes ready to fall. I drove to Ross’s house after picking up groceries at the Middleburg Safeway and counted the number of signs for Georgia Greenwood that still littered Mosby’s Highway. Now that she was dead, I wondered who would have the task of removing them.

Though Ross had settled in Virginia more than twenty years ago after a residency in Washington, D.C., he was still known around town as “the new doctor.” He had family money and didn’t need to work a day in his life if he didn’t want to, but he’d put in long hours at Catoctin General and also joined with two other doctors in a family practice until he took the low-paying job as senior physician at the free clinic.

I once asked him why he put in such grueling hours when he could have taken life easier. After all, how many doctors still made house calls? His answer surprised me.

“I suppose it’s because I see something that’s broken and I want to fix it.” He’d smiled ruefully. “Though you don’t have to look too far to figure out where that came from. I’m an only child. Grew up in boarding schools and on summer trips with other rich kids because my parents were too busy with their own lives to spend time with me. So I had no one and because I was small I got picked on a lot. I guess I’m what you call a ‘wounded healer.’”

When he came to the region with his first wife, Ross had bought an old plantation house in Fauquier County that Stephanie kept as part of the divorce settlement. Georgia was already in the picture as “the other woman” so the split with Stephanie had been acrimonious. Shortly before they got married, Ross and Georgia bought a large estate in Middleburg. This one had an even richer provenance, since it had been built by a descendant of Rawleigh Chinn, the first settler on the land that later become the town of Middleburg. The place was known simply as “Ashby” because it was located on Ashby’s Gap Turnpike, the colonial name for Mosby’s Highway. Generations of owners had added somewhat haphazardly on to the main house so it now resembled a sprawling country manor.

In the midst of renovating the place to suit Ross and Georgia’s extravagant taste, a construction worker uncovered a cache of Civil War documents concealed in the brick fireplace wall in the library, including a letter from Robert E. Lee to Stonewall Jackson, written just after the local battle at Goose Creek Bridge and a few days before Gettysburg. Though Ross had offers from collectors and museums who wanted to buy the letter, he decided to keep it.

Now it hung in a special archival frame next to its former hiding place—the first document in what grew to be a substantial collection of Civil War papers impressive enough to attract the interest of major museums and historians. Increasingly Ross spent his free time haunting estate sales and auctions, often turning up a significant find.

“He’d rather be with a bunch of dead soldiers than with me,” Georgia had complained morosely to Kit and me one night when we’d accidentally run into her alone at the Goose Creek Inn bar. “They’re so goddam dull.”

“Yeah, but they’re a lot lower-maintenance than she is,” Kit murmured after we excused ourselves and went to our table. “I hear she drops a bundle every month at Lord & Taylor and Nordstrom’s and he never says a word, just pays the bill.”

Georgia’s flashy Mercedes Roadster was the only car in the drive when I pulled in to Ashby. Ross opened the front door when I rang the bell, looking haggard but composed.

“What have you brought?” He smiled tiredly as he kissed me. “Here, give me those. You wearing perfume? Smells kind of musky.”

“It’s probably ‘eau de burned tire,’” I said. “We had another hard freeze last night in the vineyard. And this is dinner. Siri says you’ve been eating Chinese food for two days. Time for a change.”

I followed him into the pristine kitchen and put the perishable items in the refrigerator. There was plenty of room. Nothing else in there except a bottle of Oregon Chardonnay, four beers, and some moldy cheese.

“You went to too much trouble,” he protested.

“I went to Safeway. It isn’t much, really. I got strawberries for dessert and asparagus to go with the steaks since they’re both in season. Are you growing your own penicillin in here?”

He smiled that tired smile again. “Georgia and I didn’t eat at home much lately. She was always out campaigning and I…” He trailed off and looked at his hands. “I still can’t believe it.”

“I have an idea,” I said briskly. “Why don’t I fix us a cup of tea?”

“I have a better idea. Why don’t I fix us a drink? Come on. Stuff’s in the library.”

The “stuff” looked like he’d gone to the state-run ABC store and bought one of everything. “What would you like?” he asked.

“If it’s not too much trouble, a glass of that Chardonnay that was in the fridge. I’ll get it.”

“I’ll get it,” he said. “You’re limping more than usual. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about a brace for that foot. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. And prop your foot up.”

“I’m not limping,” I said. “And I don’t need a brace. Thanks, but I manage just fine.”

He shook his head. “When you make up your mind about something, there’s no changing it, you know? I’ll get your wine.”

Georgia had decorated the library, which doubled as Ross’s office, completely in black and white, including a faux zebra rug on the floor. The lone exception was the mahogany desk, which had a silver-framed cover-model photo of Georgia on one corner and an intriguing modern sculpture of a caduceus on the other. The rest of the desk was piled with medical journals, file folders, brochures from pharmaceutical companies, a stack of publicity announcements for the fund-raiser, and half a dozen dusty-looking books whose titles all related to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. In the middle of the desk blotter was a plastic-encased piece of paper. Another Civil War document?

I walked around and sat in his desk chair. The plastic sleeve contained a letter, written in pencil, but with the characteristic flourishes and swirls that belonged to a bygone era. One short paragraph on thick cream-colored paper, dated April 14, 1865.

Ross walked into the library with the opened bottle of Chardonnay while I was still at his desk.

“I-I’m sorry,” I stammered, and stood up. “I couldn’t help reading it. Is this really a letter from Jefferson Davis?”

He looked exasperated, but he didn’t seem too surprised that I’d snooped. “Yes, it is. Now go sit on the sofa and put that foot up. Here’s your wine.”

He handed me the glass, then started fixing himself a martini at the bar. I had a feeling it wasn’t the first one today. Normally Ross wasn’t much of a drinker, but he’d been through a lot. Maybe if I got him talking about the letter it would get his mind off Georgia for a while.

“Do you think ‘Judah’ is Judah Benjamin?” I asked. “Jeff Davis’s Secretary of War? I know Dahlgren was the Yankee who tried to blow up Richmond. I forget who Harney was except I think he was on our side.”

Ross’s mouth twitched. His ancestors hadn’t been on our side.

“Even after all these years I’m still impressed by how well Virginians know their history,” he said. “You’re mostly right, but by the time Judah Benjamin received that note, he was no longer the Confederate Secretary of War.” Ross emphasized the word “Confederate” ever so slightly. “He was Secretary of State. And Thomas Harney was a Confederate explosives agent sent to Washington to bomb the White House.”

“Not until
after
the Yankees tried to destroy Richmond,” I said, “now that you mention it.”

He picked up the cocktail shaker that he’d filled with vodka and a splash of vermouth, a wry expression on his face. “Supposedly Harney was following direct orders from Davis and Benjamin. By then Richmond had fallen, Davis had fled to Mexico, and Lee had already surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. The war was officially over.” He paused to shake his concoction. “Unfortunately for Harney, he was caught before he got near the White House. John Wilkes Booth heard about it and that’s supposedly what tipped him over the edge and made him decide to kill Lincoln himself.”

“What about Dahlgren? Where does he fit in? He was already dead.”

“Exactly. Killed while trying to stage that attack on Richmond.” Ross strained his martini into a glass, then dropped an olive into it. “But he had papers on him when they found his body. Orders to kill Davis and his entire cabinet, then burn the city. The Confederates knew Lincoln was so desperate to end the war he’d try anything. So they figured these were direct orders from Old Abe himself.”

“I’ve heard that story,” I said. “That Lincoln had something to do with a plot to assassinate Jefferson Davis.”

Ross sat down next to me and clinked his glass against mine. “Until now nobody’s ever been sure Davis didn’t want an eye for an eye. There’s always been speculation that he might have been involved in Lincoln’s assassination. This letter proves that he was. Especially if he got the news from Mary Surratt.”

It was a major historical coup. If it were genuine.

“No way,” I said. “Jeff Davis would never be involved in something like that. He wasn’t that kind of man.”

“Lucie,” Ross said firmly, “he was.”

I got up and went over to his desk, staring at the penciled note written on fine, thick paper. It looked old, all right. But it couldn’t be authentic. Could it?

“I thought they had ink in those days.”

“Of course they did. But Davis liked pencil.”

“Look,” I said. “Mary Surratt was hanged for her role in Lincoln’s assassination. She had every reason in the world to confess that there was a plot. But she didn’t. Neither did anyone else who was hanged along with her. Same goes for John Wilkes Booth, who could have made a deathbed confession after those Union soldiers shot him at Garrett’s farm.”

Ross fished the olive out of his glass. “None of that negates the fact that the letter proves Davis knew about the plot. At the very least.”

“Have you told any of the Romeos about it? You’re really going to stir up a hornet’s nest, you know? Especially since a lot of them are Sons of Confederate Veterans or historical reenactors.”

“Not yet,” he said. “Except for Siri and me, you’re the only other person who’s seen it. I’m sorry you’re so upset. But this is quite a historical find, you know.”

I knew. “Where did you get it?”

“An estate sale in Manassas. Behind a framed photograph of Mosby. I bought the photo and when I got home, I took out the picture to clean the glass. There it was. That’s why the paper looks so pristine. It obviously hasn’t been exposed to light for years.”

“Ross,” I said, “are you absolutely positive that it’s the real thing? Jeff Davis was a good man who was just trying to do right by the South. Heck, when they came to his house to tell him that he’d been elected president of the Confederacy, he was pruning bushes in his rose garden. He didn’t want the job, but he did it for the South.”