The Viognier Vendetta wcm-5 Page 6

  By the time I passed the turnoff for the Snickersville Turnpike, I’d shrugged off Washington like a snake shedding its skin. Out here, Route 50 became Mosby’s Highway in tribute to the Gray Ghost who used to ride through this territory with his band of Partisan Rangers looking for Union soldiers. Dead ahead the Blue Ridge Mountains, with their comforting dowager’s hump profile, appeared on the horizon.

  At Middleburg, I slowed to twenty-five, passing a sign for an upcoming point-to-point sponsored by one of the local hunts. Next to that sign hung another of a cheeky red fox in a hacking jacket lounging next to the words RELAX, YOU’RE IN THE VILLAGE.

  But as I turned down Atoka Road and saw the vines and the split-rail fence that marked the beginning of my land, the image I’d been trying to push out of my mind for the past few hours came rushing back—Rebecca, floating like a limp doll in the Potomac River. Why hadn’t I insisted on going with her to Georgetown? Maybe if I had, she’d still be alive.

  I turned into my driveway as guilt and remorse wormed their unwelcome way inside my head.

  Katherine Eastman called my cell phone while I was getting my bags out of the Mini. Kit and I had known each other for twenty-five years, meeting during a kindergarten recess where we’d built an elaborate sand castle that we gleefully stomped flat as soon as it was finished. Our friendship proved more resilient than that castle, and we’d remained best friends ever since. In all that time, I could count our disagreements on the fingers of one hand.

  I had a feeling this call was about to trigger one of those rare occasions, especially because Kit was a reporter for the Washington Tribune. A few months ago she leaped on a temporary assignment to work on the Metro desk in D.C., leaving her job out here as Loudoun County bureau chief. That meant Rebecca’s disappearance was now her beat.

  I shoved open my front door, cradling the phone between my shoulder and my ear as I wrestled with the bags and my cane and said, “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself. Where’ve you been? I’ve got some news.”

  “Oh, yeah, what?”

  Maybe this wasn’t about Rebecca. Last winter Kit’s fiancé, a detective with the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Department, had been deployed to Afghanistan for a second tour with his reserve unit and Kit finally moved her mother, now descending into the twilight world of Alzheimer’s, into assisted living. Maybe she had something to tell me about Bobby or Faith.

  “It’s about your ex-friend Rebecca Natale,” she said. “You won’t believe this. The police found her clothes in a rowboat on the Potomac this morning with blood on them. They’re searching the river for her right now. I thought you’d want to know.”

  This wasn’t going to go down well.

  “I do know,” I said after a moment. “I’m the one who identified the clothes.”

  The silence on her end of the phone went on so long I wondered if she’d disconnected.

  Finally she said in a quiet voice, “Care to explain that?”

  Kit knew Rebecca. I’d introduced them when she visited me at school, and she’d disliked her from the moment they met.

  When I’d asked why, she’d said, “I just don’t like her, that’s all. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something about her. Something … fake.”

  I didn’t want to say what I really thought: You’re jealous of my friendship with Rebecca. Instead, I tried to get Kit to come around, but she wouldn’t have it. Later, when Rebecca would no longer return my calls or answer my e-mails, Kit said she wasn’t surprised and had seen it coming.

  “She’s only out for herself, Lucie. You’re better off without her. Forget her and move on.”

  Now I said to Kit, “Rebecca called me a few weeks ago and asked me to meet her in town for the weekend.”

  “And you said yes. Jeez, Luce. Why?”

  “I don’t know. Curiosity, I guess.”

  More silence.

  “Are you covering the story?” I asked her.

  “No.” Her voice was flat. “My boss asked, but I knew I couldn’t be objective about this one. I’m sorry she’s missing, but I still think she treated you like dirt all those years ago.”

  “I know,” I said. “Look, it’s complicated.”

  “I suppose you went to that shindig last night for Tommy Asher and his wife since that’s probably why Rebecca was in town?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know Cameron Vaughn is holding a hearing in a couple of days to look into her boss’s questionable business practices. I think he plans to turn over a few rocks and see what crawls out.”

  “I heard.”

  Ian Philips, as far as I was concerned, would be among those crawling out.

  “Look,” she said, “I’ve been at Mom’s all weekend trying to get her taxes in order. I’m not going back to D.C. until tomorrow morning. How about getting together for dinner? Maybe we should talk.”

  “I didn’t get much sleep last night, Kit. I’m kind of beat.”

  “I’ve got the cubicle next to David Wildman in the newsroom, you know. He’s been digging around Asher Investments for the past few months. If half of what he’s uncovered is true, Rebecca was up to her neck in muck,” she said. “And now she’s missing. Sure you don’t want to have dinner at the Inn?”

  She waited.

  “I’ll make the reservation,” I said. “How about seven?”

  “I’ll be there,” she said, “with bells on.”

  Kit’s Jeep pulled into the parking lot of the Goose Creek Inn at seven o’clock sharp just as I was climbing out of the Mini. Though the sun wouldn’t set for another half hour, a path of luminarias along the flagstone walk and fairy lights woven through the branches of a flowering dogwood cast a soft light on the whitewashed half-timbered building so it took on the enchanted aura of a fairy tale.

  I walked up the path and waited for Kit by the front door. She bounded up the walk dressed in skin-tight jeans, a hot pink sweater, a Concord grape corduroy jacket, and a lime green silk scarf. Lately she’d developed a taste for wearing violently hued outfits—the brighter, the better—which she said never failed to get her called on when she raised her hand at a press conference. Since she was also forty pounds overweight, dyed her hair Marilyn Monroe blond, and applied makeup like war paint, she was hard to miss even without the bright clothing.

  “You look like something they forgot to shoot.” She leaned in, giving me an air kiss. “Try aromatherapy, kiddo. Works wonders for me.”

  “Nice to see you, too. New outfit?”

  She grinned. “You like?”

  “Phosphorescent colors look good on you. Does that sweater glow in the dark?”

  She burst out laughing and held the door. We stepped inside to the fragrant aromas of my cousin Dominique Gosselin’s cooking and the comforting sounds of conversation, laughter, and the clink of dishes and glassware. In the forty years since Fitzhugh Pico, my godfather, founded the Goose Creek Inn and Dominique inherited it after he passed away, the place had won every major dining award in the Mid-Atlantic, earning a reputation as the region’s most romantic restaurant. Dominique, who’d seen her share of high-profile clients show up with their “secretaries” asking for a discreet table for a special lunch or dinner, often said she knew more Washington secrets than the CIA and Secret Service put together.

  The mâitre d’ waved us to the front desk and led us himself to the main dining room and my favorite window table with its view of Goose Creek. He promised my cousin would stop by as soon as she cleared up a momentary crisis in the kitchen.

  “Something only she can handle?” I asked.

  He winked as he gave me an elaborate Gallic shrug. “Would she have it any other way? They’re all crises only she can handle. Bon appétit, mesdemoiselles. Gilles will be with you dans un petit instant.”

  We sat and, though the window was closed, I could hear the creek below us as it rushed over rock-strewn rapids on its way to the Potomac. Soon it would be too dark for the police to continue their search. I wondered
whether Detective Horne had already called it off for the day.

  “They still haven’t found her,” Kit said, reading my mind. “I checked with the desk before I left the house.”

  “Bonsoir, ma chère Lucie, Mademoiselle Eastman. Quel plaisir de vous revoir.” Gilles, the headwaiter, lit the hurricane lamp on our table and filled our water glasses. “Cocktails? The usual? Deux kir royals?”

  Usually he and I bantered in French, but tonight I didn’t feel like chatting or drinking champagne. “Bonsoir, Gilles. I’ll just have a glass of white wine, please. The house white’s fine.”

  “I’ll take a vodka martini. Straight up, very dry, with a twist,” Kit said. “Nice to see you, as always.”

  “I’ll bring those right away.” Gilles switched to English and shot me a concerned glance as he left.

  Kit picked up her menu and studied it in silence. I did the same. We ordered dinner and a bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir as soon as our drinks came.

  “May she rest in peace,” Kit said finally as we touched glasses.

  “She’s not at peace, that’s for sure,” I said. “The detective who questioned me this morning about her clothes, Horne, promised to let me know when they find her. If they find her.”

  “Are you talking about Ismail Horne … Izzy Horne?” Kit asked as I nodded. “I know him. He’s a good guy. No nonsense, doesn’t screw around. He’ll find whoever did this, Lucie—if it’s a homicide.”

  “It’s not suicide. I’m sure of it.”

  Kit watched me as she reached for a piece of baguette from the breadbasket and slabbed herbed butter on it.

  “Her underwear was missing,” I said. “It wasn’t with her clothes.”

  Kit hesitated. “Either she kept it on when she went in or, if it was a homicide, maybe he took it. Some sicko with a fetish.”

  I gulped my wine and considered what she wasn’t saying. That maybe Rebecca had been raped, too.

  “Look, until the cops find her, we’re just speculating,” Kit said. “Do you even know what was going on in her life these days? Remember how secretive she was? Evasive? How long did she keep that affair with the chairman of your English department off the radar? A year, wasn’t it?”

  “Nearly eighteen months.”

  “See?” Kit took a large bite of baguette. She said, through a mouthful of bread, “So what’d you two talk about when you got together yesterday?”

  A sommelier opened our wine and poured some for me to taste. I nodded and he filled our glasses.

  “She felt bad about the way she treated me after she left school. Said she wanted to apologize.”

  “Just like that?” Kit was incredulous.

  “That’s what she said.”

  “Then a few hours later she vanishes?” Kit waved her index finger back and forth. “No, no, no. She planned this. Sounds like she was putting her affairs in order before she ended it.”

  “Oh, come on!” I said. “You forget, she was carrying the …”

  I stopped abruptly. Kit didn’t know about the Madison wine cooler. As far as I knew, Detective Horne had kept that information away from the press. No one was aware of it except the police and a few people in Sir Thomas’s inner circle—and me.

  “Carrying what?”

  “A purse with a wallet, credit cards—her identification. She was also wearing a pretty flashy diamond-and-sapphire necklace and earrings. None of that stuff was in the rowboat. She didn’t jump overboard with a Coach purse.”

  “Sweetie,” Kit said, “you do know it’s me you’re trying to con, don’t you? Your nose just grew two inches. Carrying what? Where were you, anyway? I want to hear it all.”

  Gilles arrived with our dinners, wok-charred salmon for me, roast duck with plum sauce for Kit—new Asian dishes on the menu in tribute to cherry blossom season.

  Kit didn’t pick up her fork. “I’m waiting,” she said. “I don’t care if my dinner grows stone-cold, even if it is your cousin’s fabulous duck. Give it up, Luce.”

  Our eyes met across the table. Hers were troubled, and I knew what she was thinking. Where did my loyalties lie?

  In twenty-five years of friendship, Kit had never let me down. Rebecca, on the other hand … well, let me count the ways.

  “All right,” I said. “But you have to swear that you won’t say anything about this to anyone. Not even a hint, especially to your buddy. The one writing the story on Tommy Asher.”

  She crossed her heart with her steak knife.

  “The reason Rebecca went to Georgetown yesterday afternoon was to pick up something for her boss. One of Sir Thomas’s ancestors was a soldier who stole a silver wine cooler from the White House right before the British burned Washington during the War of 1812. Asher apparently had no clue it was in his attic or on some dusty shelf for the past two centuries, but once he discovered it and learned its provenance, he planned to return it to the president and first lady. On Monday.”

  Kit’s mouth hung open. “You’re not making this up, are you? Because that’s an unbelievable story.”

  “Which you can’t print.”

  “I know, I know … but word will get out. You wait and see.”

  “Yes, but I’m not going to be the source of the leak. I’m not even supposed to know about it. The only reason I do is that Rebecca wouldn’t let me go to Georgetown with her. Finally she showed me a photo of the thing on her phone and told me it was a hush-hush errand.”

  Kit dunked a large piece of duck in plum sauce, popping it in her mouth.

  “So you think this was a robbery?” she said, after a moment.

  “Like I said, I don’t think she jumped overboard with a Coach purse. And an eighteenth-century wine cooler,” I said.

  “You really can’t take it with you.” Kit grinned, then saw my face. “Sorry. I’m used to Bobby’s cop humor. I didn’t mean that. But why go to all the trouble of folding the clothes and leaving them in the boat?”

  I shrugged. “For her killer to buy time to disappear? So he could confuse the police and let them think it was a suicide until they figured out differently?”

  “Bobby wouldn’t be fooled for long. No cop would.” Kit’s voice was gentle. “I don’t think Rebecca’s alive, Luce, however it went down. I’m sorry.”

  “She was a good swimmer. Maybe she got away.”

  “The Potomac. April. You know better.”

  I nodded and picked up my wine, staring into the glass. “I know.”

  Gilles reappeared to pour more wine and ask if everything was all right. He left and we ate in silence.

  “There’s still something weird about the timing,” Kit said, wiping up the sauce on her plate with the last piece of bread. “That hearing’s coming up this week.”

  “Do you know anything about it?” I asked. “Some disgruntled out-of-work ex-analyst is going to try to poke Asher Investments and see if anything twitches. That’s like me trying to poke someone in a suit of armor with this dinner fork.”

  “And just how would you happen to know all that? You’re a regular font of information tonight.”

  “The cone of silence has not been raised.”

  “Tough crowd,” she said. “Spill it.”

  “My dinner partner last night at the gala worked for the law firm representing Asher Investments.”

  “Dewey, Cheetham & Howe?” She chuckled at her little joke. “Sorry. Couldn’t help it. So what did he say?”

  “The guy’s fishing with no worm on his line. He’s got nothing.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “I met him. I’d go with ‘maybe not,’” I said.

  “Met who?”

  “Ian Philips. The star witness at the hearing. Dead drunk, looking like a couple of miles of bad road.”

  “Are you going to make me drag this out of you? Met him where, for God’s sake?”

  “At the Willard, after I got back from the gala. He was looking for Rebecca.”

  Her eyes grew big.

  “They used to work
together,” I said.

  “Holy cow.” Her mouth fell open. “This gets more interesting by the minute. Were they supposed to meet?”

  “I don’t know. Ian said he’d heard from her. Apparently he tried to call her back a couple of times, but Rebecca never returned his calls. When I showed up at the hotel around eleven, he was trying to find out our room number. Thank God, the desk clerk refused to give it out. After that he tried to pick me up and wanted me to have a drink with him while we waited for Rebecca. Fortunately, a concierge came to my rescue.”

  “And the next morning—this morning—Rebecca’s gone.” Kit propped her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand. “You think he could have gone off in search of her after he left you?”

  “Anything’s possible, I suppose. But she’d been missing all afternoon and evening. Where would he look—other than the hotel—and where was she?”

  “Well, sometime last night she was down on the Potomac River,” Kit said. “And she probably wasn’t alone.”

  No, she probably wasn’t.

  But who was she with? And why had she been there?

  Chapter 6

  We spoke no more about Rebecca, Ian Philips, or Tommy Asher for the rest of the meal. Kit ordered a slice of the Inn’s legendary chocolate cheesecake for dessert—a sinfully decadent recipe concocted by my godfather—and a cappuccino. I had an espresso.

  “You know, the next time we have dinner together, we ought to do it in D.C.,” Kit said. “Party a little, go clubbing or something. You could spend the night at my apartment.”

  “Sure.” I nodded. “Maybe sometime.”

  “I’m bowled over by your enthusiasm.” She waved her fork at me like a conductor at a symphony. “You are becoming a crashing bore, and if you don’t do something fun for a change, you’re going to forget how.”