by Ellen Crosby
“Of course, miss. And, Mr. Philips, may I get a cab for you?”
“No, you may not. I’d like to have a drink in your bar, my good man. I just thought Ms. Montgomery would like to join me.”
“Excuse me,” I said. “My elevator’s here.”
I left them in the lobby and, on purpose, pushed the button for the ninth floor in case Ian Philips got clever and watched where I got off. I took the stairs to the seventh floor, looking over my shoulder at the deserted hall until I reached our rooms.
The suite looked as it had when I left, except that the maid had been in to turn down the beds and leave chocolates on the pillows. I sat down on the sofa, kicked off my evening shoes, and rubbed my temples.
Rebecca, Rebecca. Where are you? What in the hell are you doing? I lay back against the pillows, closed my eyes, and fell into a deep dreamless sleep.
The telephone woke me and I sat up, wondering where I was and why I’d slept in my now badly creased evening dress. Thin streamers of sunlight from the gaps in the curtain panels striped the carpet. The phone, across the room on the desk, went to voice mail as I remembered Rebecca and that this was the Willard. I flopped back against the cushions as it rang again. This time I answered before the voice mail kicked in. A deep male voice asked if I was Lucie Montgomery.
“Yes.” I walked over to the bedroom. Neither bed had been slept in. “Who’s this?”
“Detective Ismail Horne with the Metropolitan Police Department. You were with Rebecca Natale yesterday afternoon.”
He knew; he wasn’t asking. I wondered who had told him.
“You found her?” I pushed back the heavy gold-and-scarlet curtains and blinked in the sudden brightness. Stupid question. Why else would he call at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning? “Is she all right?”
“We haven’t found her yet,” he said. “But we have some items of clothing that we’d like you to identify.”
I felt my throat close. “Rebecca’s clothing?”
“That’s what we’d like you to tell us.”
“Where do I meet you?”
“Fletcher’s Boat House,” he said. “On the river.”
Chapter 4
Anyone who’s ever been out on the Potomac River knows Fletcher’s Boat House, which has been around for over 150 years. Located downstream from the tumbling foment of Great Falls and upstream from where the river widens into a serpentine ribbon as it flows past Washington, Fletcher’s is located in a peaceful wooded park where people come to picnic, let their dogs run, throw Frisbees, and sunbathe. If you didn’t know better, you could be deceived into believing that here the waters of the Potomac are calm and placid.
They are not.
Beneath the surface, boulders and steep channels form swirling eddies and powerful currents. In some places, the river is thirty to forty feet deep. One false step while fishing on a rocky outcrop along the banks and even the strongest swimmer will be swept away, unable to fight a current that comes at you like a fleet of trucks.
I’d been to Fletcher’s before, canoeing with friends on the river and on the adjacent C & O Canal, so I knew where the steep one-car-width entrance was located off Canal Road. The little gravel parking lot overflowed with red, white, and blue Metropolitan Police Department cruisers and emergency vehicles, but I found a spot into which I could shoehorn my Mini Cooper.
I got out of the car and looked around. Rebecca had been here last night? Doing what? Was this the site of a rendezvous gone wrong? Some of the stories—rumors, actually—about where she and Connor met for sex were pretty kinky.
As I crossed the footbridge over the canal, the moss green trailer where the boat rental and concession stand were located came into view. Next to it was an A-frame tackle shack where fishermen stocked up on supplies. A new-looking sign stated that Fletcher’s had been taken over by the National Park Service and was now operated by an organization called Guest Services, Incorporated. Good luck getting people to call it that.
Except for a gaudy row of red, orange, and yellow kayaks lined up along the bank of the canal, a blazing yellow forsythia bush, and a clump of daffodils next to the tackle shack, most of the scenery was tinted the browns and dull yellow greens of late winter. Even the sky was a washed-out shade of blue. Occasionally a filigree of pink cherry blossoms or green buds enveloped a lone tree like a mist, but otherwise as far as the eye could see there was only dense brush and skeletal trunks and branches bent toward the light and water. As for the river itself, it was murky and brackish at low tide. Broad mudflats made the boathouse, with its wilted American flag, look as if it were marooned on a small island.
In summer, the place is so lush with vegetation the Potomac all but disappears from view, but today I could see clear to the other shore. An occasional flash of movement at the crest of the steep, wooded ravine several hundred feet above the river came from cars zooming along the George Washington Parkway. Otherwise, that side of the river was not a hospitable place for fishermen—or for anyone to walk or hike. If Rebecca had come here, she had done so the same way I did.
A uniformed officer stopped me as I walked down the gravel path toward the boathouse. When I told him why I was here, he let me pass. On the river, a marine search boat with FAIRFAX COUNTY, VIRGINIA stenciled on the side moved into view. The knot in my stomach tightened. They were looking for Rebecca in the Potomac.
I stepped onto the boat shack gangway, which rocked back and forth so crazily I had to use my cane to keep my balance. Half a dozen red rowboats with FLETCHER’S and numbers stenciled on the sides lay overturned at the end of the pier. It looked like fishing and boating had been canceled for the day.
A female officer told me to wait by a wooden locker filled with oars while she told Detective Horne I was here. She walked over to a tall, slim man with ebony skin, close-cut salt-and-pepper hair, and the bearing of an ex-marine, and spoke to him. He nodded and came over, cradling a cup of coffee the color of the river water. His badge was clipped to his belt next to his gun, and he wore khakis, a plaid dress shirt, and a black all-weather jacket with the department logo embroidered on it. He also looked dead tired, like he might be working his second shift of the day.
“Appreciate you coming,” he said, after shaking my hand and introducing himself. “I understand you’re sharing a suite at the Willard paid for by Rebecca Natale. And one of her colleagues said you were with her yesterday afternoon before she disappeared.”
“That’s right,” I said. “But I have no idea why she’d be here.”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out. Like I said on the phone, we have some clothes we’d like you to take a look at. They’re over here. See if you recognize anything.”
Each item was in its own brown paper bag, neatly laid out in a row on the dock. Horne showed them to me one by one. The shawl. The blazer. The jeans. The silk blouse. Even her shoes. There was something else, too. Blood on the shawl and the blouse.
“Take your time,” he said. “Be sure.”
Thank God I hadn’t eaten anything. I felt like I was going to be sick.
“I don’t need to take any time. These are Rebecca’s clothes. She was wearing them yesterday. Why is there blood on them? Where did you find them?”
“A park service employee discovered them this morning out on the river during a routine check. They were in one of her boats.”
“A boat? Where’s Rebecca?”
Horne cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Ms. Montgomery. We’re looking for her right now. I’ve got officers walking a grid and the marine squad is searching the river.”
As he spoke, two men in wet suits with tanks rolled backward off the side of the police boat into the muddy water, disappearing with a small splash.
“I don’t believe this,” I said.
Horne led me back to the oar locker, away from the evidence bags.
“I have a few questions,” he said. “When you were with Ms. Natale yesterday, did she seem depressed or upset about anything?�
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“No, not at all.”
“She say anything about an argument with someone—boyfriend, coworker, anyone?”
“Nothing. No one.”
“Any reason to believe she might contemplate taking her life?”
“Look, Detective, you’re way off base if you think Rebecca committed suicide. She’s not the type. Besides, when she left me she was on her way to Georgetown to pick up an antique silver wine cooler that belonged to President James Madison. An errand for her boss.”
Horne nodded when I mentioned the wine cooler, so I guessed he knew about it now, too.
“Go on,” he said.
“She was wearing diamond-and-sapphire earrings and a matching necklace and carrying a Coach purse. Where are those things? Plus her identification and credit cards? What makes you so sure this wasn’t a robbery that went bad?”
He studied me. “Right now I’m not ruling out anything. A robbery homicide is one possibility. It’s also been my experience that a woman doesn’t remove her clothes before deciding to take her life, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen—that this isn’t some weird kind of suicide. What about a boyfriend? She have one?”
I thought about the birth control pills back in the hotel. “She didn’t mention anybody.”
“But?” He prompted me.
There was no reason not to tell him. “I hadn’t seen Rebecca in almost twelve years until yesterday. We spent about an hour together doing some sightseeing and then she said she needed to take care of that errand. I saw her birth control pills on the bathroom counter when I got back to our hotel room at the Willard, but I have no idea about a boyfriend.”
“You know if she’s monogamous?”
“I … no.”
“What you’re saying is you didn’t really know her that well,” Horne said.
“I used to. But that was a long time ago.”
He drank some of his dishwater coffee, then flung the rest of it into the river.
“Okay, thanks. That’s it for now. I don’t have any more questions, but I might be talking to you again depending on what happens.” He pulled a business card out of an overstuffed wallet that looked like it was about to split at the sides. “Call me if you think of anything else. And if she gets in touch with you, tell her to call me and make it quick. The chief gets cranky when we spend taxpayers’ money searching for someone who isn’t missing anymore.”
I nodded. “How long will you keep looking?”
“Hard to say. But right now the suspicious circumstances surrounding her disappearance and that missing White House wine holder mean we’ll keep at it for a while.” He paused and scratched his head. “Though I’ll be interested to see what the lab says after we get that blood analyzed.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You learn a lot from blood spatter. Whether it could have come from, say, a gunshot, or whether she merely cut herself and bled on her clothing. Either accidentally or on purpose.”
The implication of what he’d just said sunk in. “On purpose? Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know right now. But I mean to find out. Good day, Ms. Montgomery. Thanks for coming by. I’d better get back to work.”
“Good day, Detective.”
He returned to the group of men he’d been talking to when I arrived. A light breeze rustled the edges of a sheaf of papers attached to a clipboard on top of the locker. Boat rental tickets. Next to the clipboard sat a red plastic coffee can that had been converted into a tip jar. The cheery hand-drawn sign with jumping fish on it read, IT’S TIME TO FISH.
I stared at the coffee can. None of this made sense.
As I left the dock, a woman wearing a gray T-shirt with THE BOATHOUSE AT FLETCHER’S COVE stenciled on it in red sat on a large rock by the path to the boat rental trailer, smoking like her life depended on it. Horne said a woman found the rowboat with Rebecca’s clothes in it.
I changed direction and headed toward her.
She gestured to the dock with her cigarette. “Friend of yours, baby?”
I nodded. “You’re the one who found the boat?”
She wore a bucket hat secured under her neck with a cord that hid her hair and shaded most of her face. I couldn’t guess her age, but her voice was burred with years of smoking and her skin was nut brown and sun weathered.
“Yup. Out this morning around six putzing around when I saw it. Hung up on one of the Three Sisters. This one was weird, though.”
The Three Sisters were an outcropping of rocks downriver. Boaters watched out for them at their peril.
“Weird how?”
“Don’t see too many suicides folding their clothes before they jump.” She pulled a smashed pack of Marlboros out of her back pocket. “And she didn’t leave no ID. You go to all the trouble of killing yourself, you want someone to know. You don’t do it for the hell of it.”
“The clothes were folded?” I’d thought whoever bagged them had done that.
“Yep. Neat as a pin.” She paused to light up. “Didn’t leave her underwear. Maybe she was modest.”
“That detective says women who plan to commit suicide don’t usually take off their clothes,” I said. “Anyway, Rebecca didn’t kill herself. She had no reason to.”
“Don’t kid yourself, baby. People come down her all the time to die. Happens more often than you think.” She shrugged. “People with problems just can’t take it no more. You’d be surprised how many times I’ve found a body.”
I swallowed hard. “There is no body.”
“Yeah, sometimes it happens that way, too,” she said. “I know a couple cases where they never found nothing. It’s real hard on the families. Course this time those divers could get lucky. River’s cold, so it acts like a refrigerator. If she tied something heavy to herself, she’ll sink. She’d be well preserved. Possibility number two is all you get are the bones. They’ll wash up on shore, whatever’s left after the catfish and critters get to her.”
“Please,” I said, “don’t.”
“Sorry, baby.” Her eyes grew soft. “I talked to that detective, same as you. Maybe somebody killed her and made it look like suicide. Could even be one of the homeboys living around here.”
“Living … where?”
“The woods. Where d’you think? I don’t see no hotels, do you? Lots of people set up camps and call it home. Some of these dudes are okay, but some will scare the living crap out of you.” She twirled a finger next to her ear.
“Rebecca had no reason to come here,” I said.
Or did she? I really didn’t know.
“Then there’s the last possibility,” the woman said. “Behind door number three.”
“Which is?”
She let out a stream of dragon smoke. “Maybe she’s fakin’ us all out. Staged the whole thing and ran away somewhere. Sippin’ a latte someplace, laughing her fool head off at all of us.”
Chapter 5
I was most of the way up the one-way gravel road leaving Fletcher’s when a black Lincoln Town Car turned off Canal Road. I waited, but the other car didn’t intend to let me exit. Then I saw the New York license plate: TAI1. Thomas Asher Investments.
I gave in and reversed the Mini, too numb to care about winning a game of chicken. A chauffeur sat behind the wheel of the Lincoln, but I couldn’t make out who the passenger was—or passengers. Possibly Sir Thomas himself. At the bottom of the hill two MPD cruisers backing out of the parking lot boxed in the big car. I scooted around all three of them and zoomed up the drive feeling vindicated.
Of course Horne would question Tommy Asher since the Madison wine cooler vanished when Rebecca did and she was his employee. Once the press got wind of this—Rebecca’s disappearance, her bloody clothes in that rowboat, and the details of the stolen silver intended to be returned to the White House after two centuries—the story would be all over the place in no time. And since Washington leaked worse than a bad sieve and was runner-up for gossip capital of the country
after Hollywood, we were probably talking about hours or even minutes.
When I got back to the Willard, a self-possessed woman in a navy pantsuit met me in the lobby, told me she was the day manager, and accompanied me to my suite. The place had been searched and Rebecca’s suitcase and her clothes were gone. It was all nice and legal; the police showed up with a warrant and the hotel cooperated. The manager assured me she’d been present the entire time.
The first thing I did was check the desk. Rebecca’s planner and the book of Alexander Pope’s poems were missing. The dedication and our private names for each other—Little and Big—would have meant nothing to the D.C. police. But maybe some officer had read the crossed-out love poem from Connor and decided the book was relevant to their investigation.
Connor O’Brien, PhD, currently of Wyoming. Had Rebecca picked up the phone and called him, just as she’d called me, luring him to Washington? Had she met him after she retrieved the Madison wine cooler? And if it had been Connor, how long before he became a person of interest to the police? The bitterness and resentment Rebecca had nursed for twelve years had boiled over yesterday. Had she been angry enough to want payback for an old hurt? Then what happened? Nothing good—Rebecca was missing and her bloody clothes had been found in a rowboat.
I fingered Detective Horne’s business card in my jacket pocket. Rebecca wanted me to have that book of poetry and it now seemed important to get it back. As soon as the D.C. police were finished with it, I would explain to Horne that it was mine. I hoped he’d see things my way—though I had my doubts that would happen.
I put the top to the Mini down for the drive home to Atoka, as much for the weather, which had warmed up, as the need to clear my head. A sweet breeze ruffled my hair and the harsh winter sunshine with its pale shadows had vanished, replaced by the slanted golden light of spring.
Though Atoka is only a little more than an hour’s drive from Washington—give or take—coming home is like traveling to another country. I headed west on Route 50, Lee-Jackson Memorial Highway, as the city and its sprawling exurbs receded. After a while the road dwindled to a winding country lane lined with Civil War–era stacked stone walls and post-and-board fences behind which prizewinning Angus cattle and expensive thoroughbreds grazed.