Death in the Vines: A Verlaque and Bonnet Provençal Mystery Read Free

go and Olivier stopped her, holding on to her sleeve.
    â€œWhat is it?” she asked.
    â€œVictor,” her husband said, with a look that was half terrified and half as if he would explode in anger. Élise shuddered. The last time she had seen that look also involved Victor—when he was fourteen and had sneaked their car into the village for fun.
    Ã‰lise now understood her husband’s fear. “Victor? You don’t think? Why would he take those bottles?”
    â€œMoney,” her husband said, shrugging. The fear crept back on his face. “I don’t like some of those kids from Aix he’s been hanging out with; maybe they put him up to it? Maybe he was forced to do it—you know, threatened? He’s always been a follower, not a leader.” He was careful not to add that Clara was the leader in the family.
    Ã‰lise bit her bottom lip, as she always did when she was nervous. “I don’t much like those new friends either, but Victor hasn’t been seeing much of them lately. I think it was a phase. He’s going out tonight to the movies with Jérôme and Thomas.” Jérôme and Thomas Clergue were brothers, sons of the Bonnards’ closest neighbors; the Clergue family also made wine. Jean-Jacques Clergue had bought the land as a gift to himself for his early retirement. He had made a bundle working for Goldman Sachs in London and had “cashed in,” as the locals called it, and retired to Provence at the young age of thirty-seven, when his sons were still toddlers. The two families had become instant friends. Élise had been convinced that Jean-Jacques’s English wife, Lucy, who had been born and raised in London, would last two months in the French countryside. But it was Lucy who showed Élise how to cook apricot pies with shortbread crusts, and it was Lucy who helped Olivier prune the olive trees every winter. And the best surprise of all: after taking an intensive enology course, Jean-Jacques Clergue made fantastic wines. Clergue, along with Olivier’s winemaker Hélène Paulik, and Marc Nagel from the Var, had raised the standards of wines from southeastern France. Other winemakers in thearea learned from the trio, and the local appellations just kept getting better and better.
    Olivier and Élise froze as a pair of black Converse sneakers came pounding down the cellar steps, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake. “Speak of the devil,” Olivier Bonnard muttered to himself.
    â€œHey! I’ve been looking all over for you two!” Victor Bonnard said. “When’s dinner, Mom? The movie’s at eight p.m. in Aix. We have to catch the seven-ten bus.” Victor looked at his mother, who said nothing. He then looked at his father, who also remained silent. The boy’s first thought was that his parents had been arguing. He felt a lump in his throat. Perhaps they were talking about getting a divorce, like his friend Luc’s parents.
    His father turned toward the racks of wines and, with a sweeping motion of his hand, invited Victor to look at the partly empty racks.
    â€œWhat the…?” the boy yelled.
    â€œThat’s exactly what your mother said.”
    Victor Bonnard began running back and forth along the racks, as if he were a panicked animal. Élise looked at her husband with raised eyebrows, as if to say, “You see, he’s as surprised as we are.”
    â€œThe 1929 is missing!
Putain!
” Victor yelled as he continued running alongside the racks, bending down every so often to look for bottles. “Does Grandpa know yet?”
    â€œNo, he’s having his nap. I’m dreading telling him,” Olivier replied.
    â€œWho would do this?” Victor asked, of no one in particular.
    â€œThat’s what I was going to ask you,” Olivier Bonnard replied. The minute the words left his mouth, he regretted it.
    Victor was stunned. “What do you mean, Dad?”