With that she turned to serve another customer.
Another name to add to the list of suspects if anything happened to the much-loathed Genette. I walked slowly down the aisle and found Mother in the Jeffersonian end, where she was supervising Michael’s attempts to rearrange some vines so they climbed more gracefully up a white-painted trellis, and then hung more elegantly over the tables and chairs in a nearby booth. The boys were sitting at the table, clutching enormous wineglasses in their tiny hands. Jamie was holding up his glass, which was filled with red liquid, and peering through it to see what the world looked like with a rosy tint. Josh had just taken a sip from his glass and was swishing it around in his mouth with a thoughtful look on his face, in a spot-on imitation of what I’d seen adult connoisseurs do.
But what were the boys doing swilling down wine?
“Don’t worry,” Mother said, following my glance. “It’s organic.”
The winemaker held up the bottle for me to see—organic grape juice.
“More, please.” Josh held out his glass.
“Genette’s not there,” Mother said. “But I can see her booth from here.”
“Good,” I said. “We really need to keep an eye on her.”
“Why?” Mother forgot about the vines and stepped out into the aisle so she could look at Genette’s booth. “What else is she doing now?”
“Nothing that I know of,” I said. “But these people really hate her. If I were her, I’d keep my back to the wall and I wouldn’t drink any wine I hadn’t poured myself. From a freshly opened bottle.”
“Shh!” Mother glanced around as if afraid of someone overhearing. “Don’t let any of them hear you say that. I can’t imagine any of these nice people poisoning someone with their own wine. Or any other nice wine, before you suggest that.”
“They could use her wine,” I said. “I haven’t heard anyone suggest it was particularly nice.”
“Nice wine.” Jamie said, holding up his glass.
“Find out if any of them make Malmsey,” Michael suggested. “That’s how the Duke of Clarence was killed in Richard III. Drowned in a butt of Malmsey.”
“Is Malmsey wine?” I asked. “I always assumed it was beer.”
“It’s a kind of Madeira,” Mother said as she refilled both boys’ glasses. “And I’m sure none of them would do that, either. If one of them did decide to kill her, I’m sure they could find lots of perfectly suitable methods that don’t involve wine at all. Thank you, Michael; I think that’s fine now.”
With that she wafted off to the other end of the tent.
“I heard that.” It was Dorcas, the winemaker whose booth was so near Genette’s. “And she’s right. None of us would ever kill someone by poisoning their wine, and we wouldn’t kill her in your mother’s pavilion.”
“I’d use some other kind of poison,” suggested the winemaker whose booth Mother and Michael had been improving. “I doubt if there’s a vineyard in the state that doesn’t have some kind of nasty fungicides lying around. Probably on a back shelf, because the stuff’s been outlawed, and we haven’t figured out how to dispose of it safely and legally. Why not dust a little on her fried dough?”
“Fried dough now?” Josh suggested.
“Fried dough soon,” I said.
“Have some raisins,” Dorcas said, offering a bowlful. “Organic,” she added to me.
That proved a popular suggestion. Both boys grabbed handfuls and began devouring the raisins.
“Could we kill her with her own speakers?” Dorcas said. “Tie her up, put her in a soundproof room with them, turn up the volume, and see if sound can kill.”
“It doesn’t.” The other winemaker shook his head. “Just makes you crazy, and she’s already that. But yeah, you could use the speakers. Just drop one on her. But not here. Do it at that fair she’s putting on next month.”
“What fair?” I asked.
“I can’t do it at her fair,” Dorcas said. “Because there’s no way I’m going to her trashy event. Here.” She handed me a mustard-yellow flyer. “I only took one because I thought maybe you folks would like to know about it.”
The flyer was for something called the “Virginia Agricultural Exposition,” “a statewide celebration of the agricultural riches of the Old Dominion.” It was hard to read and not very professional looking, which probably meant that she’d used the same so-called cutting edge graphic designer who’d done her wine labels and her booth.