Page 106 of The Chain House

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AS SOON AS Jennifer and Carl entered the room inside the prison with Leland Mosby, she hugged Sam, hard and strong, and didn’t want to let go.

They wasted no time introducing Mr. Mosby to Sam and Agent Givens and Governor Hawthorne, and by the time Jennifer stepped away from Sam’s warm embrace, Mosby, in complete understanding of their time crunch, had already taken out the stack of books they’d brought from the store and was laying them all face up on the table.

“As you can see,” Mosby said, gesturing toward the books before them, “Luther, even as a boy, had become weirdly fond of all things Italy.” Jennifer quickly perused the table, seeing The Grapes of Wrath, as she had before at the store, but also a book of stories by Edgar Allan Poe, and the rest of the books, just as Mr. Mosby has suggested, had to do with Italy, and in particular, Italian wine making and grapes and vineyards. “He would tell me daily that one day he would live on a vineyard, inside a great stone house, one ripped straight out of Tuscany, he’d say. The boy, you see, had such a horrible childhood that he was forced to spend it imagining something better. This … this was always his better. An Italy he knew only from pictures but had come to adore in his mind.”

Governor Hawthorne said, “So we look for a vineyard. A house that looks like …”

The Russian Revolution and World War I: How War Brought Down the Tsar

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Why the United States Entered World War I: From Neutrality to War in 1917

The Sinking of RMS Lusitania: The U-Boat Attack That Changed World War I

“These,” Mosby said. “Yes.” And then he opened the book of stories by Poe and pointed to a particular one halfway through the volume. “ ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ … have you read it?”

All of them shook their heads, no, except Agent Givens, who said he vaguely remembered it from high school.

“This was one of Luther’s absolute favorites,” Mosby said. “Published in November of 1846. Stripping it down to the bones, the story is about revenge and murder. It takes place in an unnamed Italian city and tells the story of a man named Montresor who takes revenge on a fellow nobleman named Fortunato. He uses the latter’s love of wine to lure Fortunato into his cellar to try his Amontillado. He chains him and then kills him by building a wall around him, sealing him inside.”

As Jennifer took it all in, she noticed Carl, in one of the chairs across the room, texting someone with furious intent, and at the same time keeping track of what Mosby was telling them.

Agent Givens said, “So we need to find a vineyard?”

“But this is horse and bourbon country, not wine,” said the governor.

Agent Givens got on his phone, texted someone, and looked up again. “Anyone? Vineyards?”

“Give me a second,” Sam said, also texting someone.

From behind them, Carl said, “Got it.” When all eyes fixed on him, Carl stood from the chair and showed them a picture. “Martin just sent me this.”

Agent Givens said, “Who is Martin? And what am I looking at? An old wine bottle?”

Jennifer said, “Harold Martin, the reporter. He wrote Mastermind, the bestselling true crime book on Sal Batise and his cult.”

Carl said, “And this picture was from the initial investigations of the ranch after it was raided. It was one of many left out of his book, but he still had access to it. He found it immediately when I asked him about anything pertaining to wine and the Freedom Ranch.”

Agent Givens looked at his watch. “Ten minutes.”

Carl showed them the picture on his phone again. “Look at the bottle. LouTalia merlot. The bottle was found on a counter inside Sal’s main house, next to the stove where they’d found the now infamous stew. It was believed the merlot was used in the cooking of that …”

“Stew,” Agent Givens said. “Yeah, we got it, the human stew, get to the point.”

“LouTalia was a local vineyard that combined the owner’s love of Louisville with Italy. Italia. From all accounts, the wine was not very good. The company, after spending millions on their vineyard, folded after just three years, leaving a huge inventory behind. The farm was bought and sold, bought and sold, and then a fire destroyed the main house there …” Carl paused to read from his phone, and by the sound of the constant vibrations coming from it, Jennifer realized he was still getting texts from Martin as he spoke. His eyes flickered as he quickly read the incoming messages. “The house burned down thirty years ago. For years the property was abandoned and went into decay, until it was purchased twenty-five years ago for nearly nothing by a man …” Carl looked up, not for any kind of dramatic affect but in apparent disbelief. “… a man who went by the name Montresor Amontillado.”