by Ellen Crosby
The summerhouse—wherever it was—had to be well tucked away on the west lawn of the Capitol because I could see nothing as I approached the grounds. There were two paths—a red-and-gray harlequin-patterned walk that led directly to the west steps of the Capitol, and a curved walkway lined with blooming magnolias and flowering cherry trees closer to the House of Representatives. Both ended at the west steps. I took the flower-lined walk for the brief shelter from the rain provided by the trees arching overhead like a canopy. Soggy clumps of petals lay crushed underneath my feet, covering the ground like pink snow. In the middle of a lawn the color of AstroTurf, a bed of red, pink, and yellow tulips gleamed brilliantly against the sharp green. To the west, more patches of green bordered by the somber-looking buildings of the Smithsonian museums along the Mall. In the distance, the top of the Washington Monument was shrouded in clouds.
I passed one of the two marble staircases that led to the west plaza of the Capitol. Temporary fences blocked it off and security guards watched me from above. I hated how so many public buildings in Washington like the Capitol and the White House had become fortresses, with their concrete barricades, rows of stanchions, and steel plates rising out of the ground like drawbridges being pulled in. That it had become inevitable was a fact of life, but it was still ugly as sin.
Between the staircases, a terraced semicircular garden with a border of yellow, rust, and dark red pansies and miniature trees set in alcoves surrounded a fountain that splashed water over its rim as the rain beat down harder, now an unrelenting downpour. I pushed my wet hair off my face and wiped my eyes. The guards probably wondered what some nut was doing out in the middle of this. Across the street, the Roosevelt Carillon chimed three o’clock.
I passed an ancient willow oak that shaded the curved walkway, the twin of the path I’d taken on the House side, and that’s when I finally saw the summerhouse. Set low into the hillside and surrounded by shrubs and trees, it was built not to intrude on the grand view of the Capitol, which explained why the now mature landscaping nearly completely hid the little building. Clumps of daffodils bloomed in the surrounding rock gardens where barberry, gold dust, Pieris japonica, hypericum, and other plants I couldn’t identify formed part of the screen around it. I walked down two stone steps to a wrought-iron gate that swung open with a creak when I pushed on it.
Inside—or, rather, outside—the summerhouse was the kind of place Rebecca would find enchanting, with its burbling fountain, decorative brickwork, and stone chairs protected from the elements by shelflike orange tile roofs. I threw myself into one of the seats and tucked my legs under me, glad for a temporary shelter from the rain.
If the reason Olmsted wasn’t permitted to build a twin building on the House side was due to congressional concern about “improprieties” in this isolated place, I could see why. That, too, would appeal to Rebecca—an exotic and slightly risky place to meet and engage in just such improprieties with a lover. Say, someone like former senator Harlan Jennings.
Her package, whatever it was, was here somewhere. It had to be. Originally I thought she might have hidden it under one of the chairs, but now I realized that was impossible because the rows of seats were set directly on top of a low brick wall. My other thought was the grotto, visible through the grillwork of one of the oval windows. But when I peered outside it was obvious there was no place to hide anything.
What none of the Internet articles I’d read had mentioned was the opening the size of a small hearth on the inside corner of one of the archways. About two feet high and eighteen inches wide, it could be as much as three feet deep if it extended all the way into the wall. It was the only part of the summerhouse whose function wasn’t obvious. Storage, maybe—but for what?
Directly in front of the opening was a deep puddle. I used my cane for balance as I straddled the puddle and bent down to see inside. Nothing but inky darkness. I moved my hand inch by inch over the wet walls and ceiling as far back as I could reach. Except for slime and a few lumps that I didn’t want to identify, there was nothing there—unless she’d crawled inside and left it all the way in the back, though that didn’t seem like Rebecca, who was bigger and taller than I.
My knees began to cramp. I tried to dig my fingers into the mortar between the bricks to keep my balance and I lost my footing on the slick stone. I landed hard on both hands in about two inches of water and muck. I moved one hand inside the opening and felt along the floor. My fingers brushed against something that gave way when I touched it. I pulled it out. A white plastic grocery bag.
A padded brown legal-sized mailing envelope was inside the bag. The envelope was wrapped in more plastic and secured with strapping tape. No writing, nothing to identify it, but this had to be what I was looking for. I turned it over and felt what was inside. Papers and something hard and rectangular. An external computer drive?
Whatever it was, I didn’t want to open it out here in the pouring rain. I moved back to the shelter of the benches and reached in my pocket for my phone to call Kit and David. It was gone. Had I left it in the car? No, I’d made sure to bring it with me. I’d even checked that it was there as I walked across the Capitol grounds.
I found it in the middle of the puddle. It probably fell out of my pocket when I stumbled. I dredged it out with my cane and tried to turn it on. The buttons oozed water.
I shoved it back in my pocket, tucking Rebecca’s package under my soaked jacket. The walk from the summerhouse across the west Capitol lawn was miserable. A cold wind blew up off the open expanse of the Reflecting Pool and slanted the hard rain so it was nearly horizontal, pricking my face like tiny needles. When I passed the statue of James Garfield at the top of Maryland Avenue, I changed direction and headed for the Botanic Gardens to wait out the storm.
An elegant-looking white-haired woman sitting behind the front desk looked up from her book as I pulled open one of the large glass-paned doors and stepped into the warm, dry Orangerie. She took off her glasses and studied me like I was a specimen who belonged somewhere in the gardens. For a moment I thought she was going to ask me to leave. There was already a small puddle at my feet as water dripped off my clothes and my hair.
I decided to take the offensive and state the obvious.
“Hi, there,” I said. “Thought I’d come in out of the rain. I probably look like a drowned rat.”
“A drowned rat,” she said, “would look a whole lot better than you do. Is it coming down too hard for an umbrella? What are you doing out in this? It’s like a monsoon.”
“When I left home it wasn’t raining.”
“You came from Kansas, maybe?”
I grinned. “Atoka. Just beyond Middleburg.”
“You look pretty pitiful,” she said, “if you don’t mind my saying. Where did you come from just now?”
“The Capitol. I feel pretty pitiful. I dropped my cell phone in a puddle. Took me awhile to find it. I thought I might stay here until this downpour ends.”
I could let her think I’d stopped by my office on the Hill to put in some overtime and had gotten soaked searching for the phone.
“You’ve got the place to yourself,” she said. “They’d hate you in the museums, but here if you drip on anything we can skip watering for a day.”
I laughed. “What I really need is to dry off.”
“Use the high-speed hand dryers in the restroom. They’re environmental. We’re all green here. You can dry your hair in two shakes. Just don’t get too close or it will sound like a jet engine taking off next to your ear.”
“I think I’ll try that,” I said. “Everything squishes.”
She took a map out of a display rack and opened it.
“Go to the south lobby on the other side of the conservatory. The ladies’ room is at the back of the Jungle, in between medicinal plants and the desert.”
I took the map. “Thanks.”
“One more thing?”
“Yes?”
“May I see what’s in the bag?”
I pulled the plastic-encased mailing envelope out of the grocery sack. “Just some papers.”
“Thank you.” She shrugged. “Security. You know how it is. I told the guard he could take off early since we didn’t expect anyone else to come by, but I still need to ask.”
I slid the envelope back in the bag.
“You’ve got about forty minutes,” she said. “I’m closing early, before five tonight.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be long gone before then.”
I went through another door into the light-filled Garden Court. The air was warm and tropical and the rain beat incessantly on the glass roof of the conservatory. Panpipe music played in the background and fountains burbled in two pools at either end of the gallery. The air smelled of hundreds of Easter lilies massed in pots around the pools, along with orchids, hydrangeas, ferns, lavender, and bushy Easter broom.
I walked through a second door at the back of the Garden Court with a sign above the door that said simply JUNGLE. The enormous room, meant to be the re-creation of a ruined plantation, was dense with lush foliage, groves of palm trees, a banyan tree dripping with Spanish moss, and other dark greenery and twisting vines that rose at least two stories above my head. A catwalk ringed the entire room. The view from up there was probably amazing. Somewhere a tree frog croaked and fans whooshed, circulating the humid air, though neither sound drowned out the ceaseless pelting of rain on the glass roof. The air was heavy with the fetid, damp smell of decaying vegetation. Everywhere I looked, lacy shadows of palm fronds from dozens of tall trees shrouded the rain-darkened room in an eerie gloom.
I walked quickly down a path that ran along a stream with a series of waterfalls until I reached the south lobby. The moment I walked into the ladies’ room I stripped off my jacket and began to wring it and my clothes out in the sink. The sweet-faced woman at the front desk wasn’t kidding about the hair dryer sounding like a jet taking off as I leaned down to dry my hair. Half-deaf, but drier, I put on my soggy jacket and picked up Rebecca’s package.
Whether it was still pouring or not, I was going to make a run for the car and drive over to Dumbarton Oaks. There Kit, David, and I could figure out what to do next. I walked up the path on the opposite side of the stream and back through the Garden Court. As I pushed open the door to the Orangerie, I heard a man speaking to the woman at the front desk.
“I won’t be long,” he said. “Just thought I’d have a quick look around since I’m only in Washington for the weekend.”
Maybe it was the British accent that captivated her or maybe she was flustered because she recognized him from all the press coverage.
“Of course,” she said to Tommy Asher. “Enjoy your visit.”
Chapter 28
In a few seconds he would enter the room where I now stood, though she would ask him to use the door on the opposite side, not the exit where I was now. It was no coincidence that he had come here. He had hunted me down and I’d been stupid enough to let myself be cornered inside the Botanic Gardens with no phone, no security guard, and no one other than a septuagenarian docent whom he’d just utterly charmed. How had I missed seeing him? Where had he been?
I quietly closed the door to the Orangerie and fled across the Garden Court to the Jungle. On this side of the conservatory there was not only a staircase to the second story canopy walk but also a glassed-in elevator. The car, mercifully, was waiting on the first floor. I slipped Rebecca’s package underneath a prayer plant and a split-leaf philodendron. Then I stepped in the elevator and smashed the Close Door button and the button for the second floor. Maybe he’d think I left through the south entrance on Independence Avenue. Maybe he’d never look up.
The door slid shut and the elevator hummed. “Go,” I said. “Please. Right now.”
The car slowly began to rise as the door from the Garden Court on the far side of the Jungle opened. Tommy Asher walked in to the steamy stillness. He wore black jeans, a dark all-weather jacket, and a knitted cap. He looked more like an older version of the tough streetwise kid Harlan had described in London than the world-renowned adventurer and investment guru he claimed to be now. And here we were in a jungle where he was the hunter and I was the prey.
I stepped to the rear of the carriage as though I would become invisible as it rose into the air above the rain forest. Below, a mist hung over the waterfall and vividly colored orchids stood out like colorful birds among the tropical dark green foliage. Tommy Asher heard the elevator whir as it lifted me above him. He looked up and a broad smile creased his face as he reached in his pocket. Did he have a gun?
I saw the flash of a blade, and then he bent over a balustrade enveloped by twining jungle vines. From my vantage point, I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I had a sickening feeling he was cutting off a piece of one of the vines. Then he ran up the metal staircase—the man who’d scaled Everest—on the far side of the room as my elevator continued its slow ascent.
I pounded the first-floor button, hoping to reverse direction as he reached the catwalk. He disappeared in the jungle foliage as the elevator stopped at the upper level and the door automatically opened. Before I could close it again, he stepped in front of it, jamming it open with his foot.
“Welcome to the catwalk, Lucie. Lovely view up here.”
“No,” I said. “Don’t do this.”
He grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the carriage.
“You have something of mine. I want it.”
One of his arms locked around my neck as the other, holding the vine, felt me up, trying to find the package. His grip tightened.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have anything.”
“Don’t be stupid,” he said, “or I’ll kill you right here.”
“Like you killed Rebecca and Ian? Looking for the proof Rebecca left that you’re running a Ponzi scheme?”
“Shut up.” He increased the pressure on my throat and looped the vine into a noose. I began to feel light-headed. “Your friend is not so noble, you know. She cared for no one but herself.”
“Then why did she try to help Ian Philips?” I tugged on his arm, trying to loosen his grip. He grabbed my arm and pinned it behind my back.
It hurt.
“Stop moving or I’ll really hurt you,” he said. “As for why she wanted to help that idiot Philips, I have no idea.”
“Ian said something changed her mind.”
At least now I had his interest. He eased his grip around my neck so I could talk.
“And what would that be?” His mouth was next to my ear. The overpowering scent of his cologne made me feel like throwing up.
“I don’t know.” Wasn’t it nearly five o’clock? Wouldn’t the docent be coming in to chase the two of us out soon? How long could I stall? “Unless it was the fact that she found out she was pregnant.”
In the long moment of silence that followed, the whistle of an exotic bird cut through the air, a sweet piercing sound. The rain no longer pounded the conservatory roof. Shadows lengthened.
Rebecca had ended her affair with Harlan awhile ago. Ian said she went after rich, older men. Her latest lover had been the richest of them all—or so she thought. Tommy Asher was the father of her baby.
“Did you know she thought she might be pregnant with your child?” I asked. “You know she was caught on camera leaving a pharmacy with a pregnancy test that Saturday afternoon.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“What happened? Did your wife find out?”
“Shut up.” He moved the noose closer to my neck. “I never should have trusted that double-crossing little bitch. She played me.”
He sounded hurt. The same jilted lover’s voice I had heard from Ian. It was the kind of turn-the-tables revenge she had wanted to exact on Connor.
“She tried to blackmail you?”
“Don’t be naïve.” The rough vine scraped my cheek as he slipped it over my head. “Rebecca wasn’t stupid
. I gave her access to information she shouldn’t have had. She used it to transfer funds to some account God knows where and decided to do a runner. I guess she figured she’d get away with it as long as I went down.”
“So you killed her? Who got to her that afternoon before your gala? Who made up the Robin Hood story? You or Simon?”
“What difference does it make? Simon does whatever I tell him.”
“In a court of law, it makes a lot of difference who the murderer is.”
“Where’s the package, Lucie? You’ve got it somewhere.”
“No.”
He tightened the cord and the palm fronds seemed to dance as they descended from the ceiling, enveloping me in darkness.
“Let me go and I’ll show you.”
“Show me now, dammit.”
“Down … there.”
“Where, damn you?”
For a split second he let go of the vine, peering over the railing of the canopy walk. I still held my cane, and now I brought it up and swung hard. It flew out of my hand but I caught one shoulder and the side of his head. He groaned and staggered backward. I shrugged out of his arms and ran for the stairs, using the railing for support, his vine still wound around my neck. I yanked it off and threw it on the catwalk floor. His shoes pounded on the metal behind me. I headed for the stairs and stumbled. He was right behind me, the knife blade gleaming in his hand.