I gave him a rough timeline, explaining that Prescott had invited me for a glass of Madeira to discuss purchasing some of my wine. When we were finished he wanted to stay in the wine cellar for a while, so I went back upstairs to the party.

It wasn’t the whole truth, but it seemed to me there was no point bringing up the tour of Prescott’s secret shrine that paid homage to his Masonic beliefs. He’d hit his head here in the wine cellar, so why mention the other room?

“Was he drunk?” Win asked.

“No.”

“You’re certain? There’s alcohol on his breath. Rather potent, in fact.”

“If he was drunk, I didn’t realize it,” I said. “Actually, he seemed quite lucid. What happened, Win?”

“Possibly a heart attack or a stroke. I’ll know after I do the autopsy. It looks like he tried to reach for the table after he hit his head. If he was conscious I’m surprised he didn’t try to call for help.”

“There’s no cell phone service down here,” I said. “He wouldn’t have been able to reach anyone.”

“Speaking of cell phones.” Quinn fished my phone out of his pocket and handed it to me. Win watched the exchange.

“We came back when I realized I’d lost my phone,” I told him. “If Quinn and I hadn’t shown up when we did, it might have been a long time before someone thought to look for Prescott down here.”

“Why is that?”

“Because he didn’t want anyone to know he’d invited me to his wine cellar,” I said and realized belatedly it sounded as bad as I thought it did. “Didn’t want his family to know, that is.”

That sounded even worse. It was time to shut up.

“Oh?” Win’s eyebrows went up. “Why not?”

“There was talk at the party that he was convening a meeting of the Avery Communications board of directors tomorrow morning, most likely to announce plans to sell the Washington Tribune, as well as several other Avery Communications newspapers that were losing money.”

Win gave me another arched eyebrow look, but before he could reply we heard voices in the hallway. He stood up. “That must be Bobby and Clayton.”

“It sounds like more than just the two of them,” Quinn said.

He was right. Clayton and Bobby entered the room first, followed by Scotty, Bianca, Alex, and Kellie, Scotty and Bianca’s twenty-one year-old daughter.

It was hard to read the expressions on everyone’s faces. Shock? Grief? Relief? There would be no meeting tomorrow to discuss selling the Trib or any of the other newspapers owned by Avery Communications. The timing of Prescott’s death had been convenient, even prescient, for anyone in the family who didn’t want to sell.