Quinn was out in the field when I arrived at the villa an hour later. Frankie gave me one of her all-knowing looks the moment I walked into the kitchen so I realized she’d been clued in about my new bodyguards—though I couldn’t tell whether she knew or guessed that Quinn had taken his assignment to a more intimate level.
“Sleep well?” She handed me a cup of coffee.
“Why am I the last person around here to find out everything?” I said. “Were you part of this scheme of Antonio and Quinn’s?”
She smiled and raised an eyebrow. “What scheme?”
“So it was your idea, huh?” I said after a moment.
“It was everyone’s, Lucie. With you staying by yourself in that big house, no alarm, no nothing for security, it just seemed like a good idea to have the guys keeping an eye on things for a while.”
Things. She meant me.
I added sugar and milk to my coffee. “Someone should have told me.”
“You would have nixed it if we did.” She sipped her coffee. “By the way, Books & Crannies called. The book you ordered is in.”
“That was fast. Guess I’ll go into town and pick it up. You need anything while I’m there?”
“All set, thanks.” She eyed me. “What’s wrong?”
“I talked to Quinn. I think he got caught up in the Asher mess. He wouldn’t say, but it sounds like his investors might have backed out on him.”
“He wouldn’t tell me anything, either,” she said. “I found him reading the Trib when I got in this morning, looking like he was ready to put Sir Thomas through the destemmer. His picture is on the front page, looking like Charlton Heston when he played Moses just before he parted the Red Sea. Calm and in control in the face of looming disaster. You’ve got to hand it to the man. How does he do it? Yoga? Meditation? He ought to be a mess.”
“Self-delusion. Where’s that paper?”
“The bar. Calm down, Lucie.”
How many times had she said that to me lately?
“I am calm.” I set down my mug and sloshed coffee on the counter.
Frankie picked up a sponge and wiped up the spill. “Go on. Go and read it. You won’t be happy until you do.”
I found the paper folded so that Tommy Asher stared back at me. Somebody—Quinn, probably—had childishly given him a devil’s horns, a tail, and a pitchfork. But Frankie was right about the photo. Asher looked serene as though he didn’t have a care in the world. Where did he get that kind of chutzpah? Maybe it came from telling the same lies for so long that eventually he believed them and so did everybody around him. I wondered what he saw when he looked in the mirror. Maybe he never looked anymore.
I sat down on one of the sofas by the fireplace and skimmed the article. David Wildman’s byline. Kit’s colleague.
Investors woke up this morning to a potential tsunami in the financial markets as billionaire investment guru Sir Thomas Asher continued to plead for patience while authorities investigate his allegation that Rebecca Natale, Asher’s former star protégée who went missing five days ago and is presumed dead, embezzled millions of dollars from his clients by falsifying trades, creating dummy accounts…
I kept reading. Wildman must have worked Summer Lowe over pretty good, because he knew all about Harlan leaning on Senator Vaughn to make Ian’s hearing go away now that Ian was dead. By the time I finished reading it was clear David Wildman had Tommy Asher in his journalistic crosshairs. I hoped his life insurance was paid up. People who took on Asher Investments seemed to come to a bad end.
Turned out I was more right than I knew when I called Summer Lowe. Her terse voice mail message was a polite version of “Go to hell.”
“You’ve reached Summer. I’m no longer working at the Senate and I’m not taking any calls at this time. Thanks.”
Stunned, I hung up. Harlan and Asher had successfully strong-armed Cameron Vaughn into canceling the hearing—but had they also gone after Summer and made her the scapegoat? Was that supposed to be a lesson to any other Senate or House staffer who decided to probe Thomas Asher Investments? Unless she was also being punished for talking to David Wildman. The information in that article could only have leaked from her. I wondered if she’d talked to him in Vaughn’s Capitol hideaway like she had with me.
I had no other number for Summer, no idea where she lived or where she might have gone. I wondered if David Wildman knew. Tomorrow I’d ask him. Maybe he wanted to meet me but, increasingly, I wanted to meet him, too.
With Rebecca and Ian gone and Summer now out of the picture, it seemed there were only two of us left who were still players in whatever great game Rebecca had set up before she disappeared. I liked our odds less and less.
I picked up the book of Alexander Pope’s poetry at the bookstore later that morning and stopped by the General Store on my way home. If there was anyone in Atoka who would know everything there was to know about how deeply Tommy Asher and Harlan Jennings had reached into the bank accounts and investment portfolios of friends and neighbors, it was Thelma Johnson.
Just as all roads once led to Rome, all news in Atoka—that is to say, gossip—eventually ended up at the General Store, where it was rinsed and spun through Thelma’s quirky worldview before being rereleased as something that belonged in a supermarket tabloid. I figured it was her addiction to soap operas that made her find drama and evidence of at least one—and usually more—of the seven deadly sins in every corner of our sleepy little village.
She was sitting by the space heater in her favorite spindle-back rocking chair reading one of her soap magazines when I arrived. Though seventy was probably in the rearview mirror, Thelma always dressed with the giddy joie de vivre of a teenager whose parents hadn’t seen her before she left the house on a date. Too much makeup and not enough fabric. At her age, the effect could be more Halloween scary than vampish flirt. Today she was dressed entirely in lilac—short skirt, plunging V-neck sweater, matching stiletto mules, and a mauve and lilac scarf tied around her carrot-colored mop of curls. Though I expect the effect was meant to be stylishly chic, the ends of the scarf flopping on either side of her head reminded me of Bugs Bunny.
She set her magazine on a small table next to the rocker and adjusted her trifocals, beaming when she realized who I was. I knew that look well enough. Thelma could get a monk who had taken a vow of silence to talk. If she thought I knew something, I wouldn’t leave until she knew it, too.
“Why, Lucille, honey! Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”
She jumped up and scooted around to the vintage enamel-top table where she kept three kinds of coffee brewing in pots labeled “Regular,” “Decaf,” and “Fancy.”
“Looking a mite tired, aren’t you, child? How about a nice cup of coffee? I got the usual, but you look like you could use an extra bit of pepping up. Today’s special is ‘Java Good One.’”
“I’ll take your special, thanks,” I said. “I could use a good one.”
Thelma never wasted time beating around the bush. “So what’s all this about you being with that young woman who went missing in the Potomac River?” She clicked her tongue. “What’s this world coming to, anyway, finding everything but her skivvies in that rowboat?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but she motored on as she handed me a large cup.
“Here you go. Fixed just the way you like it. One sugar, a little cream. Pull up that rocking chair, will you, child, and set a spell.” She gave me a significant look over the top of her glasses as I obeyed. “Rebecca, that’s her name, wasn’t it? Now that Asher fellow is saying she stole folks’ money. And then there’s that other hanky-panky I heard about. That affair.”
The Inquisition had commenced. Next would come the questions. Had Thelma found out about Connor, or was she referring to Harlan?
I drank some coffee, feeling my cheeks grow warm. “Wow, you’ve really ferreted out a lot of information, Thelma. Plus you have such an amazing memory for details.”
She smiled, looking pleased with herself. “Well, I tend to put things under a sharper microscope than most folks, Lucille.”
I kept a straight face. “I know that.”
“So, tell me.” She crossed one leg over the other and leaned forward as though we were coconspirators. “What kind of person was she? I know you know the truth about her. I promise, what you say won’t leave this room.”
Of course it wouldn’t. It didn’t need to go anywhere since everyone in Atoka would drop by the General Store and hear it right here from Thelma. I gave her the answer I’d given everyone from Detective Horne to Ian to Summer Lowe, knowing full well she wouldn’t be satisfied with it.
“I hadn’t seen her in twelve years and she didn’t confide any details about her personal life to me in the hour or so we spent together,” I said. “But I don’t believe she stole that money the way Tommy Asher said she did.”
Thelma nodded. I could tell I hadn’t convinced her, either, but she moved right along to the next subject.
“Well, then, what about the affair? You may as well come clean, Lucille.”
“Rebecca didn’t say anything to me about her love life.” Technically, she hadn’t. Everything I knew I’d learned from other people.
Thelma let one of her mules dangle flirtatiously off her foot. “Aren’t you the sly one? I can’t believe you don’t know about it.”
“About what?”
Her eyes searched my face through her thick lenses. Thelma knew better than anyone when I was holding back. “You know, you’re like me, child. We share that same psychotic ability when it comes to figuring out other people. We can sense the truth about what’s going on. Your sainted mother was like that, too. You know perfectly well that your friend was carrying on with Harlan Jennings, don’t you?”
I gave in. “I knew, but Rebecca didn’t tell me. How did you find out?”
“Oh, I’ve known for a while Harlan was having an affair. I just didn’t know it was your friend until the other day.”
“But how …?” I said, surprised.
She took off her glasses and rubbed them absently against her head scarf. “Why, because of Ali, of course. She’d come in here after driving back from Washington and teaching all day. She seemed so … melancholy, I guess. The boys were away at school and I know what buying dinner for one looks like.” She pressed her lips together. “You want to say something when you know someone’s heart is aching, but she’s got her pride—and a person’s got to respect that.”
“Oh, Thelma, how sad.”
I’d seen Ali’s outrage. Thelma saw through to her loneliness and hurt. Maybe she did have those psychotic sensibilities she talked about.
“What I don’t understand is how someone so book smart could be that blind to what’s going on right in front of her nose,” she said. “Him moving into town and setting up his little love nest. Why in the world did she put up with that?”
“Because she adores him,” I said. “And the boys.”
“Well, she’d certainly do anything to protect him, wouldn’t she?”
It hung in the air as Thelma waited for my reaction. Sure, Alison hated Rebecca. And I’d had my suspicions about just how far she would go to get rid of Rebecca and save her husband’s reputation. But I didn’t want to believe Ali would actually commit murder, nor did I want to admit any of this to Thelma.
“Define ‘anything.’”
“Whether Ali was involved in your friend’s disappearance.” Thelma put her glasses back on and watched me.
“I just can’t believe … she wouldn’t.”
“I don’t believe it, either, Lucille. It’d be a turrible waste of a good person. Just turrible. I mean Ali, not Harlan. I won’t say murder’s not on folks’ minds, but Harlan’s the one everyone wants to skin alive. The Romeos are madder ’n hornets they took up with him and let him pass all their money on to Tommy Asher.”
“I heard Harlan invested his own money with Asher Investments,” I said. “So he lost out, too.”
Thelma rapped her knuckles on the wooden arm of her rocker. “That boy’s a mile wide and an inch deep. I remember when he was growing up. Always had a taste for the good life, that one.”
“Thelma, he grew up with money.”
“Money, good looks, and that kind of easy aw-shucks charm that suckers folks in. He knows how to use it, too. Only thing he isn’t blessed with is a conscience.”
“That’s pretty harsh,” I said. “Do you really believe that?”
“Somewhere along the way he sold his soul, Lucille. Gave in to greed and temptation and now everybody who threw their lot in with him is paying the price. It’s a damn shame.” Her eyes glittered and I heard bitterness mixed in with the blame.
I got it now.
“Thelma, don’t tell me you invested with him, too? You’re one of the people who lost money?”
Thelma seemed to look through me for a long while, her head bobbing slightly. I couldn’t tell whether it was a tremor of age or an acknowledgment that I was right. Her smile was tinged with regret.
“I thought I did a pretty good job of keeping that information off people’s periscopes. Making out I was smarter ’n everyone else and keeping my hands in my pockets. That I wasn’t tempted by easy money. How’d you guess, Lucille? No, don’t tell me, I know. It’s that extrasensible perception you got going on.”
“I hope you didn’t lose much. I’m so sorry.”
“No one to blame but myself. It was like joining an exclusive club and I couldn’t wait to get in. I’d heard the whispering going around about this surefire opportunity to make steady money. Only an upside, no down. So I went to Harlan and asked him. He said he’d see what he could do because normally the minimum investment was a hundred thousand.” Her cackle echoed in the small store. “Good Lord. I had my mouth open wider ’n a big-mouth bass. He didn’t even have to work to reel me in. Told me he made an exception for me but said I had to be very circumcised about it. You know, keep quiet because it was all hush-hush.”
I had been about to take a sip of coffee. Instead I coughed. “He said that?”
“Yes, indeedy. He threatened to give back my money if I uttered one peep. Now I know he was just trying to keep me from talking to everybody else he made an ‘exception’ for.”
Amazingly, she’d kept her word.
“You weren’t the only one, Thelma. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“Oh, phooey. I was just as big and dumb as the rest of the sheep.”
“You have every right to be angry.”
“What good would that do me, on top of everything else?” She shrugged. “I still got some of my little nest egg put away, plus I own this place. So it’s not like I lost everything the way I suspect some folks did. I know a few of the Romeos who are just fumigating they’re so mad.”
“Well, Tommy Asher’s still saying he’s got everything under control.”
“They said that about the Titanic.” She leaned back and started rocking.
“There’s still the dedication ceremony for the Asher Collection tomorrow at the Library of Congress. Maybe he’s trying to hold things together until then,” I said.
“He can do what he likes. It’s all over but the crying, anyway.” Thelma kept rocking. “You know, plenty of people made money from Harlan and Asher. They always paid with promptitude so you’d just keep on thinking the checks would come in. But lately the economy got so bad folks started needing some of their money to pay bills.” She shrugged. “That’s when Harlan started trolling for little fish like me. People who got in the end, ’cause they needed our cash. Now we’re the ones going to lose the most.”
“I know, I know. It’s horrible.”
“Especially considering one of ’em was Quinn. You must feel awful about that.”
I sat up straight. “Pardon?”
“Your winemaker, child. Rumors goin’ round he invested all that money he got from his mother’s estate with Harlan. Did it right before everything started to fall apart. It’d be a shame about him losing the cash he planned to use to buy his own place, wouldn’t it?”
“Are you sure about this?”
“You’d know better than I would.”
“I, uh …”
“Well, look at me shootin’ off my mouth. I just assumed you knew.” She stopped rocking. “Quinn didn’t tell you. Did he?”
My voice was faint. “I assumed he had investors who lost money because of Harlan and they backed out on him. It never occurred to me that it was his own money.”
“I’m sorry, Lucille. You know, I could be wrong.”
I nodded. She could be. But she wasn’t.
And it explained everything.