Dead to the Last Drop

by Cleo Coyle

  Using the flashlight’s glow, Stan located the next chamber, and another room beyond that.

  “I’m going deeper,” he announced.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t,” I warned. “It might be dangerous.”

  Madame and I noticed a scrabbling sound that made us both nervous. “Do I hear a mouse?”

  “More likely a rat,” Stan replied, unfazed. “And close.”

  It took Madame and me about ten seconds to scramble through the hearth door again. Amazing how the word rat can motivate!

  Stan insisted on exploring a little longer, and we indulged him.

  “I do hope the boy’s careful,” Madame said as he and his flashlight beam vanished around a dark corner.

  “Do you really think this was used as a CIA dead drop?”

  “It’s more Ann Radcliffe than John le Carré, but, yes, I do.”

  We returned to the comfort of the finished area of the basement and waited almost fifteen minutes for Stan to return.

  “I couldn’t get the key to work again,” he reported. “A little WD-40 should do the trick.”

  “What did you find, my boy? A long-lost copy of the Pentagon Papers?”

  “Seven thousand pages would have been pretty obvious, Mrs. Dubois.”

  “Ah! I see the boy knows some history.” She threw me a wink.

  “Not just a boy, ma’am, a former soldier. And every soldier knows that history—or should. Anyway, it’s pretty elaborate down there. Three rooms that connect to an old tunnel, which leads to a city storm drain. I could see light at the end . . .”

  “So it does go to the river!” Madame’s eyes brightened. “That verifies the legend!”

  “That also explains the rats,” I said with a shiver.

  “You should see those rooms,” Stan gushed. “Old rotting beds and lanterns, broken shelves. It’s like something in a museum.”

  “Museum!” I checked my watch. “Thanks for the reminder. The White House courier is going to be here any minute to pick up that package. Then I’m supposed to meet the Curator of the White House later this afternoon. I better hop to it . . .”

  Eighty-seven

  “WELL, what do you think?” I asked Quinn. “Could Abby and Stan have gone into the river and climbed into the storm drain?”

  “It’s extreme,” Quinn replied. “But it’s possible.”

  “Not so extreme,” I said, rubbing my wet hair with one of the yacht’s thick towels.

  “This from a woman who just jumped into the Patapsco River.”

  “Exactly. I did it because I was desperate. And so were Abby and Stan. Think about it—Stan is ex-army and he’s very strong, despite his weak leg and blind eye. He could have prepared for it, too, hid a rope or whatever he needed to make it easy for Abby.”

  “But why would Abby do it?” Quinn rose to make us another pot of coffee. “From what you told me, it sounds like she saw Stan as a friend—not serious husband material. After all, she remained engaged to her fiancé, and the Rose Garden wedding was still on. That doesn’t sound like a young woman ready to run away with a lover.”

  “That’s because you haven’t heard the rest of the story.”

  “Okay, then tell me. Did you see Abby at the White House?”

  “I did, but something else happened first. Something disturbing. And you need to hear that, too . . .”

  Eighty-eight

  MY second trip to the White House was (thank goodness) much calmer than my first. No race down Pennsylvania Avenue. No peeved Secret Service agents prodding me with high-tech scanners and innuendo. Not even a lengthy background review.

  But one thing was the same—I was still worried about Abby.

  A brief security check-in earned me a green guest badge, allowing me to move through the White House complex unescorted. Nevertheless, I was glad to see Carol’s rosy cheeks, blue eyes, and tasteful white bouffant greeting me once again at the East Wing entrance.

  “No apron today,” I said with a smile. This visit I’d had time to don my tailored blue suit with matching heels and sheer hose. I’d even tamed my bad-hair-day frizz into a neat and sleek, preppy-DC ponytail.

  I asked Carol if she wouldn’t mind escorting me to the curator’s office. Part of me feared a wrong-turn collision with a wall of frowning Secret Service agents, but I also needed to ask a favor . . .

  “Would you mind telling Abigail Parker that I’m here?”

  “I don’t mind in the least,” she said in her gracious Virginia drawl. “Ms. Parker is looking forward to your coffee service at her upcoming wedding. We’re all excited about the happy event . . .”

  Once again, Carol and I traveled the yellow brick road rug, paralleling the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden. This led to the ground floor of the main building, where we strolled down the wide center hall with its dramatically vaulted ceiling.

  I glimpsed the library and China Room through opened doors and recognized the closed door to the Diplomatic Reception Room, where I’d had lunch more than a week ago with Abby and the First Lady.

  Finally, Carol gestured to the half-open doorway of the curator’s office.

  “Enjoy your time at the People’s House, Ms. Cosi.”

  As Carol departed, I knocked lightly.

  “Come in!” called a bespectacled young man. “Don’t be shy. We won’t bite—unless, of course, we’ve skipped lunch.”

  The windowless room was large but cramped with white bookcases covering nearly every inch of wall space. From the carpeted floor to the vaulted ceiling, volumes of all sizes were packed into the shelves.

  The young man read my badge and smiled. “I’m Pete and that’s Beatrice, Ms. Cosi.” He gestured to an older woman, also wearing glasses, who briefly waved from her lighted workstation.

  “Nice to meet you both.”

  “Helen stepped out for a minute,” Pete explained, “but she left a file. She said she was anxious for you to review it.” He pointed to a large wooden desk at the far end of the room.

  “What does the curator want me to do?”

  “You’ve been helping her with the White House contribution to the temporary Smithsonian exhibition, right?”

  I nodded. “Coffee and the Presidency—the sidebar for the larger Coffee in America show.”

  “That’s the problem. There’s too much content for a sidebar. I believe she wants your opinion on what to keep and what to cut. The file should have instructions.”

  “Okay. I’ll get right on that . . .”

  I moved to the curator’s desk, settling into her comfortable swivel chair. Books of all sizes were stacked high, their pages flagged with colorful Post-it notes. But Pete didn’t mention books. He said Helen Trainer was anxious for me to review a file.

  Only one sat on her desktop, but it wasn’t marked Coffee or Smithsonian or even Presidential Joe. This lone file was marked with one word, which was also a name. An ancient female name—

  Bathsheba.

  The file contained printed e-mail messages. I riffled through the short stack, but there was no mention of coffee. The e-mails documented a conversation that took place more than ten years ago between President Parker—when he was Senator Parker—and a deputy secretary of the State Department.

  The two men were talking about a third man who’d died in Casablanca, Morocco. One particular paragraph caught my eye.

  . . . I’m also thinking of Beth Noland and her young daughter. Why put them through a prolonged investigation? My friend, I need your help and support to put an end to this now, for everyone’s benefit. I’ll handle the President. It’s important that we keep this between us. If the details ever got out, it could be a PR disaster . . .

  “Beth Noland” had to be Elizabeth Noland Parker, now the First Lady. Her daughter was obviously Abby.

  The senator (and soon-to-be President) was trying to pe
rsuade a highly placed official at the State Department to help and support him on ending an investigation.

  What investigation? I had no idea.

  Some of the conversation was in bureaucratic and diplomatic shorthand. Terms like casus belli, D.C.M., demarche, SFOD-D, and GS-15s.

  To understand it, I would need time to research the references they made, but one thing rang clearer than the Liberty Bell—

  There’s a secret here, a scandal . . .

  These e-mails would cause a public relations “disaster” if they ever got out, at least that’s how our current President saw it.

  So why am I reading them?!

  That’s when I noticed the handbag. The gorgeous leather purse sat on the chair next to the desk. I’d seen this Fen Pouch three times in my life. Once in the Manhattan shop window where its high price forced me to pass it by—and twice more in my own coffeehouse, carried by the impeccably dressed woman I’d seen dining with the late Jeevan Varma.

  As a shiver went through me, a soft commotion at the office door was followed by Pete’s voice—

  “Yes, ma’am, Ms. Cosi’s arrived. She’s sitting at your desk . . .”

  “Very good, Peter. Now I’d like you and Beatrice to start that cataloging work we talked about. All of the items for our sidebar are collected in the China Room. I want them photographed for our records before they’re lent to the Smithsonian. Take your time . . .”

  After Pete and Beatrice left, the White House Curator shut and locked the door. Then she went to Pete’s workstation and activated a media file with a C-SPAN program on the historical significance of presidential nicknames.

  If anyone stood listening at that closed door, they would hear the lighthearted lecture rather than any low conversation taking place farther inside the room.

  Finally, the middle-aged brunette made her way over to me.

  I’d been conversing with this woman by e-mail. We’d spoken a few times on the phone, but this was the first time I’d met her in person, and nothing prepared me for the shock.

  Helen Hargood Trainer, Curator of the White House, was the late Jeevan Varma’s girlfriend.

  Eighty-nine

  MY heart was pounding as Helen Trainer removed her pricey pouch from the chair, placed her posh posterior in it, and fixed me with a withering glare.

  “Ms. Cosi, I want the truth from you. The whole truth. Right now.”

  “What truth?”

  “You’re obviously working with Jeevan Varma. And this is a shakedown of some kind. Did he put you up to this? Or was it the other way around? And who are you to him? A girlfriend?”

  “Me? I thought you were his girlfriend!”

  “I am no such thing! You’re the one who sent me this computer flash drive.” She reached into her bag, pulled it out, and tossed it onto the desk. “The printed e-mails you’ve been looking through were the whole of its contents. So explain yourself.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said with some righteous indignation of my own. “That flash drive is not mine. A member of my staff found it in my coffeehouse. I assumed someone from the White House dropped it on the night of Abby’s performance.”

  Helen sat back, her heated anger cooling to wariness. “Do you trust the staff member who found it?”

  “I’d trust Tucker Burton with my life!”

  “Where exactly did he find it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You need to ask him. Right now. Where’s your phone?”

  I pulled out my cell and gave Tuck a call. Thank goodness he picked up right away. I put him on speaker so Helen could hear him.

  According to Tuck, he and Punch had been adjusting the lights in the star field on the wall, replacing the steady bulbs with ones that would subtly flicker. As he worked, he found a missing bulb. Taped to the socket was this flash drive.

  “It was hidden there?” I asked. “Behind the stars?”

  “Yes. Punch and I didn’t know what to make of it, so we handed it to you . . .”

  I ended the call and Helen’s eyes glazed over. “If the flash drive was found before Abby’s performance, then it was already there when the White House staff came in. And, remember, you seated us all in the center of the room, nowhere near the star field on the wall.”

  “But you sat next to that wall on another night,” I pointed out. “Do you remember? It was the night I saw you with Jeevan Varma. That’s why I thought you were his girlfriend. I was going table to table asking about the menu, and—”

  “You’re right! Mr. Varma and I were sitting against the wall with the star field.” Helen shook her head, astonished with her private revelation. “Jeevan Varma had these e-mails all along! He obviously hid the flash drive in your light fixtures. Wait till I get ahold of him. Ms. Cosi, I’m so angry. I could kill that man!”

  Now I sat back in confusion, until I studied her face and realized—

  “You don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  “Jeevan Varma is already dead.”

  Helen listened in mild shock as I explained what happened the night Mr. Varma was (apparently) attacked.

  “When he rushed into my back door, he smelled of alcohol, and I assumed he was drunk. But the sergeant who responded to my 911 call believes he was murdered. The autopsy found a needlestick in the back of his neck . . .”

  Now at least I knew why Mr. Varma had rushed up to our Jazz Space. He hadn’t come to the coffeehouse to confront the First Daughter. He’d come to retrieve the small computer flash drive that he’d hidden in the light fixtures. Seeing Abby in our club after hours was as much a surprise to him as it was to me.

  But why hide the flash drive in our coffeehouse in the first place?

  “Did he say anything?” Helen asked.

  “Yes,” I said, recalling his slurred statements to me at the back door—and then to Abigail Parker on the second floor.

  “Well?” Helen said, leaning forward. “What did he say?”

  I shifted, uneasy about revealing another word to this woman. For one thing, I was determined to shield Abby and Stan from this mess. Telling her more felt like a risk.

  “Look, this case is in police hands,” I said. “You’re the one who needs to do some explaining. I’m sorry, but I don’t know if I can trust you.”

  Helen’s frown deepened. “Do you think I trust you?”

  For a long moment, we sat in stalemate, staring at each other. The C-SPAN presidential lecture continued in the background, the audience’s occasional outbursts of laughter making us even edgier. Still, we stubbornly sat, neither of us willing to give up a word or clear up a thing, and then—

  Knock, knock . . .

  A light hand at the door was followed by a small voice.

  “Hello? . . . It’s me . . .”

  The voice was Abigail Parker’s.

  Ninety

  HELEN unlocked the door, and the President’s daughter hurried in, closed the door behind her, and stepped out of the way for Helen to relock it.

  The silent choreography was done with such swift ease it appeared they’d done this many times before. But why?

  A few minutes of explanation made things clearer. After Abby sat down and assured Helen and me that we could trust each other, the mood in the room changed. Then I learned a great deal, including the fact that Helen’s position wasn’t attached to any particular administration. She’d served for fourteen years, under three Presidents, which is why it wasn’t until after President Parker took office that Helen and Abby had become friends.

  “But what exactly brought you two together?” I asked.

  “The piano,” Abby said, exchanging a glance with Helen, who went on to explain how the Steinway & Sons company had donated two special pianos to the United States of America. One ended up in the Smithsonian. The other remained on display in t
he White House’s majestic Entrance Hall.

  “The first time I saw Abby, she was gazing at that Steinway with a look of wonder on her face.”

  “And it’s no wonder,” Abby quipped with a shy smile. “It’s a magnificent concert grand.”

  “The design is streamlined deco,” Helen told me, “with carved eagles supporting the cabinet. When I saw Abby circling it, I asked her if she played. And she said . . . A little. So I invited her to try it out. Frankly, I expected ‘Chopsticks.’” Helen closed her eyes. “Abby played an exquisite version of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A Major. It gave me chills. You know, President Harry Truman played that same piece on that very piano. It was one of his favorites . . .”

  According to Helen, President Truman had dreamed of becoming a concert pianist, too. By fifteen, however, he decided that he would never be good enough. So he quit.

  “Like our Abby here,” Helen said, shaking her head. “She never played that beautiful Steinway again, for fear of being overheard, even though I pleaded with her to share her gift. She preferred the privacy of her digital piano in the small music room upstairs. She always wore headphones so no one would know what she sounded like.”

  I turned to Abby. “How did you get interested in playing jazz?”

  “That started a year ago,” she confessed. “We had a guest performer in the White House, Mr. Wynton Marsalis. He spoke with such passion about musicianship that it stayed with me. I looked up his public talks on the Internet. After that, I was hooked. Helen suggested an online master class series from pianist Chick Corea, which I took. Then Helen suggested I work on replicating some of the solos of the great jazz pianists: Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett—”

  “Abby understands what true practice is,” Helen declared. “Not simply playing but working on the sections that are difficult, working until you get them right.” She paused. “My late husband was a concert pianist, Ms. Cosi, so Abby immediately captured my heart.”

  “Then it was you,” I said, gawking at Helen. “You were the one who sent her the invitation to our Jazz Space Open Mike Night.”