The Chardonnay Charade Read Online Free PDF

where Georgia…The hazmat guys don’t need to decontaminate it, do they?”
    Bobby eyed me. “I’ll ask. Stay here.”
    He returned about fifteen minutes later. “You can take your car. They don’t need to do any decon,” he said. “By the way, who uses that old hay barn you got over by the creek?”
    “We let Randy’s band practice there,” I said.
    “Practice what?”
    “Music. What else would they be practicing?”
    Bobby eyed me skeptically. “One of my men just radioed from your barn. He found an open package of condoms in the loft. Some quilts and a sleeping bag, too. You know anything about that?”
    I blushed and said, surprised, “No, I did not.”
    “Any idea what women Randy and his band might have brought there?”
    “No.” I’m a terrible liar. My face always turns red. Bobby’d been watching it do that since I was eight.
    “Lucie?” He waited.
    “Just a rumor about Randy. He, uh, might have brought Georgia.”
    Now it was his turn to look surprised. “Are you kidding me? Randy and Georgia, huh?” He shook his head wonderingly. “You see him leave the party last night?”
    “When it was over and the band packed up. About eleven-thirty.”
    “Was he with anyone?”
    “Nope. Alone. The rest of the band left earlier.” I leaned on my cane. My throbbing left foot felt like hundreds of pins and needles were stabbing it. “Anything else, or can I go now?”
    “As a matter of fact, there is something else,” he said. “I got good news and bad news for you. The good news is that considering the location of the crime scene, we’re not going to make you temporarily close your winery while we do our investigation.”
    “I appreciate that. And the bad news?”
    “The EPA might not be feeling so generous by the time they get through with you. Those boys could slap a big ole fine on you and take your bonded license away for leaving that menthol stuff out by those new fields.” He looked at me severely. “In other words, they could shut you down for good.”

CHAPTER 3
    After I gave a copy of the guest list to the officer who accompanied me to the villa, I dropped off the flashlights at the equipment barn. Another tan and gold cruiser was parked in front of the barn door. Two uniformed officers came out as I pulled up.
    “Can I help you?” I asked. Hardly necessary. They’d already helped themselves.
    “No, thanks, miss,” one of them said. “That door usually unlocked?”
    “No, but we were working last night so we didn’t lock it.”
    “And what brings you here now?”
    I said evenly, “I’m dropping off a couple of boxes of flashlights we were using to mark the fields so the helicopter knew where to go.”
    My answer seemed to satisfy him and they got in the Crown Victoria and drove off. I left the flashlights, locked up, and headed home. Would I find a cruiser there, too? Or maybe someone from the EPA?
    Lord, was Bobby right? Could they really shut us down?
    No car in the driveway. And no sign that anybody had been here, either. Relieved, I parked the Mini and went inside.
    My home, Highland House, had been designed and built by my ancestor, Hamish Montgomery, in the early 1800s after he received five hundred acres from the sixth Lord Fairfax as a reward for distinguished service during the French and Indian War. The house was a pleasing combination of Federal and Georgian architecture, built mostly of locally quarried stone, except for the foundation. Those stones came from Goose Creek, which meandered through two counties—and our property—as it snaked its way to the Potomac River. According to family lore, Hamish had hauled them himself to the highest bluff on our land. There he’d watched the sun set in all its vivid glory behind the low-slung Blue Ridge Mountains, then sited his house so he’d always have that spectacular view.
    Last year a fire had destroyed part of the first floor, but from the outside the place looked like it had for the last two centuries, as