by Ellen Crosby
He sounded huffy and a little self-righteous. Eli and I knew each other so well we could practically finish each other’s sentences. How it was going to go was that next he’d be asking Jasmine on a date. I’d seen the way he looked at her the other night at the dance. He’d been captivated.
“Daddy, what’s wrong?” Hope asked. “You look all puffed-up, like a fishy.”
She made a face like she was about to explode. Eli’s eyes skittered across my face and I managed not to burst out laughing.
“A puffed-up fish? You don’t say? Uh, sweetie, how about some breakfast, a nice toaster pastry? There might be some chocolate ones.” He glared at me. “No comments from the peanut gallery, okay? We’ll have the food pyramid discussion another time.”
I made a face like a fish breathing in and out, then zipped my finger across my lips. He gave me another martyred look as the screen door slammed behind them, Hope’s happy singsong chatter and Eli’s patient answers receding until it was just Pépé and me again.
“Elle est adorable,” he said. “Un trésor.”
“She is adorable,” I said. “I’m glad they’re living here now, even if there are times when Eli and I want to kill each other like we did when we were kids.”
He smiled. “Jasmine—the pretty, dark-haired girl who was helping Dominique at Charles’s and Juliette’s party?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you want her to babysit Hope?”
“I think I’m more worried about her babysitting Eli … which is what I think he has in mind, ultimately.”
Pépé laughed. “Maybe you should let him make that decision for himself.”
It wasn’t often my grandfather pulled me in line.
“Fair enough.” I shrugged. “I’ve talked to her for probably a total of fifteen minutes so it’s not like I know her well. Dominique thinks the world of her, and I guess she’ll be at the Inn this afternoon when we meet Charles.”
Pépé sat back against the cushions of the love seat and stared at the long, low sweep of the Blue Ridge, exhaling dragon-fire smoke.
“Charles,” he said, finally. “He has always been a vain man with a monstrous ego. But I have managed to overlook that—we all have our flaws—because he is also intelligent and very shrewd. He was an excellent ambassador for your country. And, of course, he’s Juliette’s husband.”
“You care for her a lot, don’t you?”
He nodded without looking at me. “She’s not herself these days. I am worried about her.”
“I can tell.”
“You know, I once thought I’d do anything for her. All she had to do was ask. But now there’s one thing I won’t do.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
He turned to me with eyes full of pain. “Save Charles.”
Chapter 20
The Goose Creek Inn is tucked away like a secret in an L-shaped wooded bend on Foxcroft Road, next to the creek that gave the place its name. A rambling, half-timbered building surrounded by native flowering cherry trees and dogwoods, the front entrance has a tranquil Japanese garden with a small waterfall, a terrace framed by flower-filled border gardens, and an ivy-covered springhouse that is a favorite of wedding photographers. At night it is an enchanted jewel, with its graceful low profile and the surrounding trees limned by twinkling white lights like hundreds of tiny stars.
Pépé and I arrived half an hour before we were due to meet Charles so Dominique and I could go over some last-minute items before tomorrow’s One-Hundred-Mile dinner. On Sunday, the day we flew to California, the Washington Tribune ran a front-page story in the Metro section about the economic benefits of shopping locally—focusing on our dinner that showcased only farms, dairies, and small businesses that grew or produced food within a one-hundred-mile radius of the vineyard. Kit had tipped me off about the piece, written by a colleague, but she hadn’t warned me that it would feature us so prominently. Since then, Frankie told me, the phone had rung off the hook and tickets for the dinner were snapped up by Monday at noon.
My cousin led us to a table overlooking Goose Creek, now a thready trickle in a cracked streambed. Earlier in the day the wind had changed direction, wringing the humidity out of the air so that it was pleasant enough to sit outside. The annual summer serenade of the cicadas had bloomed into a full-fledged symphony in the few days since we’d been gone, and somewhere two tree frogs called to each other. A waiter brought out a tray with four glasses and a chilled bottle of white in a cooler.
When he pulled out the bottle I saw the label: California Sauvignon Blanc. I must have looked startled because Dominique said, “What’s wrong, Lucie? Would you prefer something else? Un verre de rouge?”
“No, thanks; white’s fine.”
Why had that spooked me? Dominique knew nothing about my own bottle of wine being found next to Paul Noble’s body, nothing about the Mandrake Society or Charles’s setup, and what I’d been up to in California. Maybe it was just the coincidence and my nerves about the impending meeting with Charles.
“Jasmine will be out in a minute,” Dominique said as the waiter filled three of the glasses. “She and Gilles are taking care of an emergency for a retirement party we’ve got here tonight. The two of them have been running around like children with their heads cut off.”
“Oh, gosh, in that case don’t bother her. I just wanted to give you the latest ticket sales information to make sure we agree on numbers and go over the menu one more time. Frankie told me you changed two dishes because some things weren’t available anymore from a couple of the farmers.”
“That’s right,” she said, “but we could have discussed this over the phone, you know. Not that I’m not glad to see the two of you.”
“I know, but we’re meeting Charles Thiessman at five for a quick drink. He wanted to hear about the California trip since he’s the one who arranged Pépé’s talk, then he’s got to dash off to D.C.”
Dominique’s eyes widened in surprise. “Why didn’t you wait until tomorrow when you’ll have more time to talk? We’re buying heaps of vegetables from Juliette’s garden. She told me they’re both planning to be at the dinner, especially because Pépé will still be in town. How odd that Charles didn’t mention it.”
I avoided looking at Pépé. Obviously he’d found time to call Juliette and let her know he’d postponed his trip home to Paris.
“I’m sure it slipped his mind.” My grandfather calmly picked up his wine and drank. “Juliette’s always been the one to take care of their social calendar. Charles probably forgot.”
Dominique flipped open an overstuffed planner and pulled her cigarettes out of a pocket. “I suppose you’re right. She’s terribly organized but he seems a bit … not there sometimes.”
It didn’t take long to go over the dinner plans. My cousin was born with an ambitious list of goals to accomplish right out of the womb, and she’d remained an overachieving perfectionist ever since. She and I had finally found a way to work well together professionally—the Inn catered all the vineyard’s parties and events—once I learned that getting her to relinquish control or delegate responsibility was probably a tougher sell than if Moses had asked God to reconsider one of the commandments. What surprised me was that she seemed to have ceded some of her power to Jasmine. I’d thought blood was blood and I’d be the first one she’d trust, but Jasmine must have done a hell of a job impressing Dominique to pull that off.
She was stubbing a cigarette butt into an ashtray when the waiter led Charles to our table. He was dressed country-club casual: kelly green Bermuda shorts, pink polo shirt, and boat shoes with no socks, so I guessed he’d need to go home to change before driving into D.C. for his fancy party. He really did expect this to be a quick-and-dirty chat.
For a moment he looked nonplussed to see the three of us sitting there, but Dominique jumped up and set the empty wine bottle and cooler on a tray.
“Please, have a seat. I was just leaving.” She picked up her planner and slid the asht
ray onto the tray. “Luc and Lucie told me they were expecting you, Charles. How nice to see you again. Please, all of you, order whatever you want; it’s on the house. Thomas, will you take care of everyone and get them drinks? Oh, and Charles, I’ll see you and Juliette tomorrow at the One-Hundred-Mile dinner, of course.”
Charles clearly had no idea what she was talking about, but he put on a game face and nodded. “We’ll try to drop by for a bit if we can.”
Dominique froze until she caught my wink and didn’t-we-tell-you look. “Please do,” she said.
Charles sat down and we ordered—sparkling water for Charles and me, another glass of white wine for Pépé.
“I heard about your talk at the Grove, Luc,” Charles said. “Bravo. You got kudos from everyone. Tough crowd to impress.”
“You’re very kind.”
“Not at all. I mean it.” Charles smiled and leaned back in his seat, crossing one leg over the other, a foot ticking back and forth like an overwound clock. “And, Lucie, I heard you made a deal with Brooke Hennessey. Sounds like everything went well.”
“Checking up on us, I see?” I smiled back at him.
“I would be derelict in my duty if I didn’t make sure it all worked out, wouldn’t I?”
Thomas appeared with our drinks and vanished.
“I suppose you would.”
Charles squeezed the lime from the rim of his glass into his fizzy water and said, without looking up, “Well, I’m glad you both had a good time.”
“What happened, Charles?”
He picked up his glass. “What are you talking about?”
“What happened that you no longer seem interested in knowing whether Teddy Fargo is really Theo Graf? Or whether there were black roses growing at Rose Hill Vineyard?”
His smile was tolerant, almost patronizing. “How astute of you to pick up on that. The day before yesterday Teddy Fargo was shot to death in a warehouse in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. Apparently a drug deal that went bad. I guess he moved on to the lifestyle of better living through chemicals.” He rattled the ice cubes in his glass. “What a pity.”
Neither Pépé nor I saw that one coming. I was speechless.
“So were there any?” Charles asked in a friendly tone.
Game, set, and match to him. What a bastard, not to say a word about Fargo’s death until now. “Pardon? Were there any what?”
“Black roses. Were there black roses at his vineyard?”
“No,” I said, “there weren’t.”
He finished off his drink in one long gulp. “It doesn’t matter. It was still Theo. I know it was.”
He stood up. “Thanks for your time. I hope you both had a good trip. I guess we’re done here. Luc, see you on your next visit to the States. Or maybe Juliette and I will hop over to Paris sometime in the fall and we’ll get together there. She missed seeing you when we were there over the winter, but I seem to recall that you were in Russia.”
“Forgive me.” I pulled the envelope with the photos out of my purse and set it on the table. “But we’re not exactly done.”
“Sit down, Charles,” Pépé said. “Please.”
Charles’s eyes went immediately to the envelope. He looked at Pépé and me with the high-strung wariness of a cornered animal sensing a predator. “Juliette’s waiting. I hope this won’t take long.”
He made a fuss about sitting down again, but at least he sat. Looking back, I’m pretty sure he already knew the ground had shifted, that the secret pact of silence he had enforced for so many decades was beginning to implode from the weight of years of guilt just when he’d almost gotten away with it for good. His eyes kept flicking to the envelope. I picked it up.
“Now that Theo Graf, or Teddy Fargo, is dead,” I said, “you’re the only one left who knows about the Mandrake Society.”
A long pause while Charles assessed what cards I might be holding, if this was perhaps a colossal bluff. Finally he said in a cool, dry voice, “That’s not entirely true. Now the two of you know about it as well.”
It sounded faintly like a threat.
“While I was out in California,” I said, “I found out that Mel Racine’s wine vault was for sale down in Half Moon Bay, so I dropped by to see it.”
He didn’t need to know about Quinn. I took out the beach pictures of the gang and laid them on the table. “These were in his office.”
Charles’s jaw went slack with shock and his hand trembled as he picked them up one by one, holding each photo like something fragile that might disintegrate and blow away on the soft summer breeze.
“My God.” His voice was barely a whisper.
“Did you take these pictures?” I asked.
He nodded, still staring at the photos. “With Vivian’s camera. She was the group photographer, but that day she asked me to take a couple of photos of all five of them. We were celebrating Maggie’s birthday that weekend. She turned twenty-four.”
“There were two more pictures among Mel’s things. Not with these.”
Charles looked up, and for a moment I’m sure he was expecting more the-way-we-were happy family snaps. Then I set them down in front of him, one at a time. First, Stephen’s yearbook picture. Then the shot of him having sex with Maggie. I heard his intake of breath, like a sharp pain gripped him somewhere near his heart.
“How dare you?” His mouth compressed into a thin line and two vivid red spots flared on his cheeks. “You have no business—”
“No, Charles,” Pépé said. “You set up my granddaughter, sending her on this errand of yours after inventing a story that suited your purposes. You made it her business.”
“Why did you lie about your relationship with Maggie Hilliard?” I asked.
“I don’t need to explain anything and I believe that concludes—”
Something seemed odd about his reaction. It took a moment until I figured it out.
“You’ve seen that photo before,” I interrupted him. “The one of you and Maggie. You weren’t shocked when you saw it, just by the fact that I had it—and that I found it in Mel’s office.” He didn’t answer, so I kept going. “If Mel had a copy, who else did? Besides you, that is.”
Charles folded his arms across his chest. “How the hell would I know who else had a copy?”
He was lying, but I let it pass for now.
“Who sent you this photo?” I asked. “Vivian took it, didn’t she? You just said she was the group photographer.”
He rested an elbow on the arm of his chair and laid two fingers across his mouth. I couldn’t tell if it meant he wasn’t going to talk or if he was trying to figure out how to play this based on what Pépé and I now knew.
“Excuse me, Lucie?”
We’d been so absorbed in our little drama I hadn’t seen Jasmine Nouri walk across the terrace until she was standing in front of us, the friendly smile on her face fading as she seemed to realize she had stumbled into the middle of an angry private conversation.
“I beg your pardon,” she said. “I thought I was supposed to meet Dominique here with you. Forgive me for being late. I guess I missed the meeting. And I apologize for intruding.”
Pépé leaned forward resting an arm on the table so it covered the photographs. “No intrusion at all, my dear. We were just talking.”
“Don’t worry, it wasn’t a real meeting. We were just wrapping up some last-minute details for tomorrow,” I said.
“I see. I’ll, um, check with Dominique.” She took a step backward. “Can I bring anyone another drink?”
“I think we’re fine,” Pépé said. “Ambassador Thiessman needs to leave shortly.”
“Of course. Nice to see you all again.” She ducked her head goodbye and fled.
There was a moment of stunned silence before Pépé said, “She didn’t see anything.”
“Maybe she heard something.” Charles sounded irritable.
“If she did, out of context it means nothing,” my grandfather said.
“
Juliette has no idea—” he began.
“No one is going to say anything to Juliette,” I said. “And you were about to tell us who sent you the photographs, Charles. And who else has copies—that you know of.”
He gave me a disgusted look. We both knew he hadn’t been about to say anything. “They came in the mail.”
“When?” Pépé asked.
“Around Christmas. The postmark was smeared. I have no idea where they were sent from.”
“Did Paul Noble get photos as well?”
He glared at me without speaking.
“Is that why he killed himself?” I said. “Because someone decided to bring up Maggie’s and Stephen’s deaths after all this time when he assumed they had been forgotten?”
“He didn’t confide in me,” Charles said, “before he put the rope around his neck.”
Pépé and I exchanged glances.
“But you did talk to him,” Pépé said. “Or else you wouldn’t have known he also got the photographs.”
He sat there, stone-faced.
I’d had it. “Oh, for God’s sake, Charles, don’t you have a party in D.C. that you’d like to get to before Labor Day? Can we quit playing twenty questions? Who sent the pictures? Theo?”
He said with some disdain, “That’s my guess.”
“So you sent me to California to check out Teddy Fargo.”
He waved a hand tiredly. “Yes, brilliant. You get a gold medal.”
I ignored that. “Where did Teddy, or Theo, get them, then? Why would he hang on to them for all this time and send them to you, Mel, and Paul all of a sudden?”
“I imagine Vivian took the photo,” he said. “So the picture would have originally been in her possession, don’t you think?”
“But she died of a heart attack last winter, didn’t she?” I asked.
“Yes, that’s right. Look, none of this matters now anyway. So why don’t we just forget it, all right?”
“What I don’t understand,” my grandfather said, “is why Vivian kept that photograph a secret for all these years.”