From the moment Mick and I walked up the sweeping granite staircase of the Library of Congress’s Thomas Jefferson Building, I knew this evening was going to be about money and not philanthropy. Last Saturday at the Pension Building gala the Ashers had been honored like royalty. Tonight the beautiful Italian Renaissance–style library, with its paintings, mosaics, and statuary depicting mythology, legend, and flesh-and-blood icons of poetry and literature, could not have been a more ironic setting to mark the beginning of Tommy Asher’s fall from grace.
As the saying goes, success has a thousand fathers but failure is a motherless child. Mick and I joined the queue to pass through security and enter the Great Hall as the streetlights came on for the evening and, on the other side of First Street, the floodlit Capitol dome looked timeless and serene. While we waited on the stairs I overheard snatches of conversation that made it clear many of tonight’s guests were clients of Thomas Asher Investments—those who desperately needed reassurance that all was well and everyone else who knew the game was up and wanted their money back.
I’d learned which camp Mick was in an hour earlier on the drive from Atoka to Washington. He still believed in Tommy Asher. I also found out why: The alternative was too terrible to contemplate. In the cocoon of his sleek black Mercedes listening to Miles Davis and John Coltrane on the satellite radio, I discovered the real reason Mick had asked me to be his date tonight, why he’d been so persistent—the early morning phone call the other day. He needed me as a business partner. Would I buy the grapes from the ten acres he’d planted and bottle the wine under a new label? The price, he promised me, would be a steal.
“Why?” I’d asked. “This fall would be your first harvest. After all you’ve been through for the past three years, why not make your own wine?”
“I don’t have the head for it. Takes too much of my time and energy. I need to choose between horses or grapes.”
Even I knew that was a Hobson’s choice for Mick. Riding, hunting, polo, and raising horses were in his blood. Growing grapes and making wine had been part of the romantic fantasy he harbored of becoming a gentleman farmer, until he found out how much work it was, how tedious the chores—and, unlike horses, that it wasn’t terribly glamorous or exciting.
“Does this have anything to do with investing with Tommy Asher? How much have you lost, Mick?”
He kept his eyes focused on the road. “More than I’d care to say. Simon tells me it’s going to be okay if I sit tight. Not to be like the folks who panicked after the NASDAQ bubble burst in 2000 or Black Monday back in ’87. Wait it out and ride it up again. He says in six months it’ll all be tickety-boo and everyone who bailed will be holding an empty bag.”
I doubted that. Boo-hoo was more like it. “And you believe him?”
“Yes.” He still didn’t look at me. “I do.”
I wondered whom he was trying to kid—himself or me?
“What about the grapes, Lucie? It’d make sense for you to do this, especially since the land sits on our common boundary.”
I couldn’t think straight.
“I need to talk to Quinn,” I said.
“Can you give me an answer soon? If you turn me down, I’ll go elsewhere, love. Not a threat, but I just need to know.”
He must need the cash urgently or he wouldn’t press me so hard. Maybe he was in danger of losing the horses, too.
I could have told him the last thing I wanted was to expand since we had our own new varietals, like the Viognier, that we were just beginning to introduce. But maybe I could use Mick’s proposal to tempt Quinn to stay on. He’d know I couldn’t handle something this big on my own. Like Frankie said, it was an ill wind that didn’t blow somebody some good.
Mick and I spoke no more about this or about Tommy Asher for the rest of the drive into D.C., but when the music slid into Billie Holiday crooning “Stormy Weather” in her haunting, raspy voice, he reached over and savagely punched the button, turning off the radio.
He parked behind the library on one of the residential streets and we walked to the Jefferson Building. On Wednesday, when I’d met Summer Lowe at the Capitol, I’d entered through the basement carriage entrance. Now the enormous bronze doors at the top of the main staircase, which were usually closed for security reasons, had been thrown open in honor of the evening’s event. Light from the two large outdoor candelabra at the head of the staircase and a golden shaft of light spilling onto the plaza from inside the building gilded the long line of guests in tuxedos and evening dresses as though we were one of the carved marble friezes gracing the exterior of the building.
“I need a drink,” Mick said after we shed our coats in the vestibule where, from every corner, statues of the Roman goddess Minerva, patroness of knowledge and protector of civilization, watched us. More irony. I wondered if Tommy Asher would share any new information tonight or if he’d continue to stonewall his clients. The only person he was protecting now was himself.
We walked through a marble archway into the Great Hall. I’d been here before, but I gathered Mick had not because he stopped, openmouthed, in the middle of the room and stared. A docent tried to hand him a glossy brochure with a black-and-white broadside cartoon depicting the burning of Washington and “The Asher Collection at the Library of Congress” written in swirling calligraphy on the cover. I took the brochure and thanked her.
“First time here, huh?” I said. “It’s pretty spectacular.”
“Reminds me of the opera house in Paris. The Palais Garnier. Have you ever been?”
“I’ve only seen it from the outside when I used to visit my grandparents.”
“It looks like this on the inside.”
A waiter with a tray of glasses offered us drinks. Mick took two champagne flutes and handed one to me. I took a sip. It wasn’t Krug.
“Shall we look around?” I said. “The library owns a copy of the Gutenberg Bible. And we ought to go upstairs to see the Asher Collection.”
Mick nodded. “Crikey. Look at everyone, will you? Every woman is dressed in black, except you. All the men in tuxes. I feel like I’m at a bloody funeral.”
My gown was the color of spring sunshine. He was right. Everyone else was wearing black.
I slipped my arm through his. “Let’s not get into metaphors, shall we? You brought me here. Now at least go see the exhibit with me.”
Two marble staircases on either side of the Great Hall swept up to the second-floor galleries. At the foot of one of them a small knot of people had gathered in a semicircle.
“What do you bet Tommy’s at the center of that scrum? I wonder where Simon is?” Mick said.
“He’s there,” I said. “On the stairs by the statue.”
Simon deWolfe stood next to a bronze statue of a slender-armed woman gracing the newel post at the base of the staircase around which the crowd had gathered. The globe of the torch she held glowed like a small moon above his head as he signaled for everyone’s attention.
“Ladies and gentlemen, though this evening you have been invited to the premier of the fabulous Asher Collection that Sir Thomas and Lady Asher have so generously donated to the Library of Congress, it is apparent that recent events in the press weigh on the minds of many of you. At this time, Sir Thomas would like to make a few remarks.” His stilted speech echoed in the now silent gallery. I wondered if he had rehearsed it or if perhaps Sir Thomas had written it for him.
Voices bubbled up from the group as Tommy Asher and his wife climbed the steps, stopping on a landing decorated with a marble frieze of children at play. Simon and Miranda Asher stepped back as Sir Thomas, ravenlike in his tux, began to speak. Behind him the brilliant Mediterranean hues and rich gilding on the vaulted ceilings and walls of the second-floor gallery glowed like the inside of a Fabergé egg.
“We’re here this evening in this magnificent place—once called the book palace of the American people—for the unveiling of an astonishing collection of maps, paintings, architectural drawings, and documents pertaining to the early history of our nation’s capital, a city built by men who, though they revered classical architecture for its timelessness and beauty, were some of the most visionary and forward-thinking individuals of their time,” Asher said.
For someone who grew up as the working-class son of a driver to the American ambassador to Great Britain, I noticed for the first time that he’d somehow acquired the cut-glass accent of aristocracy. How much of the man was real and how much was fabricated?
“Long ago when many parts of the world were unexplored, cartographers wrote ‘Beyond This Point There Be Dragons’ when they didn’t know what lay at the edge of their maps,” Asher continued. “But explorers, men like Columbus and Magellan, were not afraid to venture beyond what was safe and known. They were daring, courageous—bold. Some of you have been with me for years—decades—trusting me in uncharted waters to steer a prudent course for you and your financial future. I ask that you please continue to give me the trust and confidence I have earned many times over as we work through a difficult time where some now fear dragons. Thank you and I hope you enjoy the evening and the exhibit.”
There was a smattering of applause, barely enough to be polite. Asher looked grim as he surveyed the crowd. Perhaps it was my dress, a splash of sunny yellow in a sea of black, but it seemed to me that Tommy Asher’s gaze lingered on us as we stood apart, next to a bronze bust of George Washington, longer than on anyone else in the room. He leaned over and said something to Simon, who glanced our way as well. Then Asher took his wife’s arm and descended the stairs. I lost sight of him when he plunged into the crowd and it closed around him again.
“Tommy’s absolutely right,” Mick was saying. “You can’t let a few people running scared turn this into a stampede that will take everyone down with them. If we just hang tough we’ll get through this.”
I finished my champagne and thought of Ian and his theories and David Wildman who was now poring over Ian’s notes. Who was Mick kidding? Did he really believe Tommy Asher could bluff his way through this firestorm and stanch the outflow of money so his firm wouldn’t go under?
“You promised me we’d see the Asher Collection,” I said. “How about it?”
“Sure.” He gave me a quizzical look. I hadn’t been subtle in changing the subject. “Why not?”
We had just started up the stairs when Simon called Mick’s name.
“Do we have to?” I said under my breath.
“His brother is our host.”
Mick led me down to where Simon waited for us.
“Tommy spotted you in the crowd, Mick. And your lovely lady. Good evening, Lucie. Don’t you look stunning? I seem to have lost your cousin somewhere in the Great Hall, but she and I would like the two of you to sit at our table for dinner.”
Simon smiled and kissed my hand as his eyes locked on mine. I felt like a butterfly pinned to a museum display.
“We’d love it,” Mick said.
“Excellent.” Simon clapped Mick on the back. “I think Tommy did a lot to calm the waters just now, don’t you? I know you’re going to stay the course, old man. You’ll be glad you did. Tommy’d like a word with you, by the way. You come, too, Lucie.”
My cell phone rang from the depths of my sequined evening purse. I’d turned off the ringer before Mick picked me up but kept the phone on in case David Wildman called. It must have caught on something in my purse and switched back on. Mick looked pained and a flash of irritation crossed Simon’s face.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m sure I silenced the ringer before I put it in my purse.”
“Turn it off, darling,” Mick said.
“It’s caught on something.”
I tugged and the phone flew out of my grasp, clattering on the marble floor. Simon picked it up, his eyes flitting to the display before he handed it back to me.
“Afraid the call’s gone to voice mail,” he said. “Hope it wasn’t important.”
I tucked it back in my purse. “Thank you.”
“Don’t you want to silence that phone, Lucie?” Mick asked.
What I really wanted was to see who called.
“Of course,” I said. “Would you both please excuse me? I need to use the ladies’ room. I’ll turn it off there. And Mick, I’ll meet you upstairs at the exhibit in a few minutes after you men have your talk.”
I started toward the Minerva foyer, but Simon caught my arm.
“Wrong way, love,” he said. “The ladies’ is in the east corridor by the Giant Bible of Mainz. Behind the staircases next to the elevator. We’re walking that way. I’ll show you.”
Mick looked at me like I’d lost my mind as we entered the east corridor through an archway with LIBRARY OF CONGRESS carved in gold above it. Was he right? Already this evening seemed off-kilter, weirdly disconnected from reality after that little pep talk about dragons and cartographers and trust. Then there was Tommy Asher himself now walking purposefully over to the three of us. Who was he, really? A Svengali? The Pied Piper?
He took my hand and held it between both of his.
“Michael,” he said to Mick. “You’re a lucky man. Who is this beautiful creature? Have I met you before, my dear?”
“Lucie Montgomery—” Mick began.
“We met last week at the Pension Building, Sir Thomas,” I said. “Harlan Jennings introduced us.”
Something flickered behind his eyes, which strayed to my cane. I didn’t have it with me last week at the gala and that lightning glance told me he remembered. Had this been a spurious question and I’d taken the bait? Tommy Asher knew exactly who I was.
“Of course.” He turned the full wattage of his smile and charm on me. “How could I forget?”
I felt a draft across my bare shoulders and neck. My evening shawl had slipped down my back and I hiked it up. Rebecca’s spirit suddenly seemed to hang in the air as if I’d conjured her.
Harlan hadn’t linked Rebecca and me when he’d introduced me to Asher, but there were plenty of people in his entourage who knew I’d been her guest. Olivia Tarrant, for example. So far I hadn’t seen her this evening, but I had no doubt she was around somewhere. Had she or anyone else in the Asher inner circle figured out that Rebecca was the one who’d added my name to tonight’s list of invitees? Maybe no one had noticed since I was now here as Mick’s guest—and he was clearly a favored son.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I said, “I was just on my way to the ladies’ room.”
This time no one stopped me. I checked the phone message in the old-fashioned bathroom, which I had to myself. The exchange was one of the Trib’s numbers. Not Kit’s, so probably David’s, meaning he was still at work on a Saturday night. I punched in the access code and listened.
“Hey, Lucie, David here. You’re probably swilling champagne from a glass slipper at the library but I wanted to tell you the ME hasn’t ID’d the body yet.” He sounded tired and I heard him slurp a drink. Probably something caffeinated. “It’s female but the decomp is pretty bad. What he did say is that it’s been there too long to be Rebecca. Also, we’re on for tomorrow at Dumbarton Oaks. Five o’clock, as soon as the place closes. Give me a call if you need to. I’ll be here late.”
There was a pause and I thought he was finished, but then he added in an ominous voice, “Asher ought to be passing the hat to get everyone to pick up the tab for his little soiree. He sure can’t afford it. Hope you brought your checkbook. Heh-heh-heh.”
I disconnected as Alison Jennings pushed open the bathroom door, a large glass of red wine in one hand. Her face, ghostlike against her black-and-ivory gown, was drawn and she looked like she was about to pass out. I shoved the phone in my purse.
“Lucie,” she said, “I didn’t expect to see you here tonight.” Her voice was hazed with pain.
“What’s wrong?” I took her wine, afraid she’d drop the glass on the marble floor. “Ali, are you all right? You look like you ought to sit down.”
She clenched her teeth and put her fingers to her temples, but at least she let me guide her to a wooden chair in the bay of a large window. I set her wineglass on the counter.
“I’ve got the beginning of a migraine,” she said. “I hope I make it through dinner because I’ve got to give that talk.”
“Can I do anything?” I nearly dumped her wine in the sink so I could fill the glass with tap water until I saw the nonpotable sign. “Shall I try to find you a glass of water somewhere?”
“That’s okay. I’ve got something but I hate to take it. Makes me woozy. I never should have had that wine.”
“Shall I get Harlan? I haven’t seen him this evening but—”
“He’s somewhere,” she said. “I think he’s wandering around the exhibit.”
“I’m on my way upstairs to see it. Why don’t I find him and let him know you’re here?”
“It’s okay. I’ll be all right in a minute.” Ali closed her eyes. “Still having Harlan’s party on Tuesday, y’know. Did you forget? I’ve got no wine.”
Her Viognier.
“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry. I’ve been so distracted I forgot to tell Frankie, but it’s no excuse. I promise I’ll take care of it myself first thing tomorrow. You mind a Sunday delivery?”
“Nope.” Her eyes were still closed.
“Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”
She opened her eyes and looked at me. “Harlan says we’ll get through this. I wonder.”
I wondered what “this” she was talking about.
“Did you hear Sir Thomas’s speech?” I asked.
Her laugh sounded like glass shards. “Tommy can woo an audience like no one you’ve ever met, get you to believe he can walk on water. Amazing, isn’t he?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, Lucie, come on.” She waved a tired hand, dismissing me, Tommy Asher, everybody. “He’s hemorrhaging so badly it would take a miracle to salvage that sinking ship. Not that he isn’t expecting one. Neither he nor Harlan wants to admit it. I don’t know how much longer they can hold off their clients, refusing to allow them to make withdrawals from their accounts. The worst of it is—well, for me—that Tommy’s going to have to sell this whole damn collection. He can’t afford to donate it and I’ve already heard from a friend in the librarian’s office that they no longer plan to accept it anyway. It’ll be a temporary exhibit.”
“What does Harlan say?”
Her eyes were bright with tears. “He doesn’t want to talk about it. This isn’t his fault, y’know? Harlan’s a good man, Lucie.”
“Ali—”
“Please. If you could just give me a few minutes alone to pull myself together.”
She fled into one of the stalls, banging the door shut. I heard her hiccupy breaths and thought about waiting until she was ready to come out. But she wouldn’t, not as long as I was still in the room.
“I’ll find Harlan,” I said, but I didn’t think she heard me. The bathroom door creaked on its hinges as I left.
I took the elevator around the corner from the Giant Bible of Mainz to the second floor. The Asher Collection’s glossy brochure contained a map showing the chronological time line by which the exhibit was laid out in the four loggia galleries that overlooked the Great Hall. It began in the north corridor, which ran along the front of the building closest to the Capitol. The elevator let me out in the east corridor, which was three-quarters of the way through the collection, dedicated to the War of 1812 and the rebuilding of the Capitol and the Library of Congress after the fire. A glass étagère striped with red and gold paint depicting flames held the newspaper cartoon that had been on the cover of the brochure. More paintings, watercolors, lithographs, and newspapers showed the city of Washington ablaze on the night of August 24, 1814.
“Nobody but the English would do such a thing.”
I whirled around. My cousin Dominique, regal in a smoke-colored sequin-spattered chiffon gown that perfectly set off her auburn hair, stood on the stairs to the Visitors’ Gallery that overlooked the Main Reading Room. She moved and the sequins glittered like dark diamonds. Behind her was an enormous mosaic of Minerva, her spear in one hand and a long scroll in the other.
The animosity between the French and the British was legendary, dating back to Joan of Arc. Even though Dominique was now an American citizen, my cousin held up her end of the grudge on behalf of the French. She descended the last few stairs, swaying slightly. I wondered if she’d been drinking.
“Do you know why they burned Washington?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. The British were furious at the Americans for attacking their navy and burning the city of York in Canada. The plan was to destroy Washington, not capture it. That way they would humiliate the Americans.”
I took her arm and smelled her breath. She’d been drinking, all right.
“It was a vendetta,” she said. “Revenge on their former colonies. A blood feud that began with the Revolution. That’s les rosbifs for you.”
The Roastbeefs. The French nickname for the British. The British reciprocated with “Frogs.”
“I hope you didn’t use that term around Simon,” I said. “Since he’s English.”
“He’s not really English. His father was French and his mother was Dutch. He just happened to be raised in England while his mother was married to Tommy’s father.”
That laid to rest one mystery why she was seeing him—he wasn’t really British.
“How well do you know him?” I asked.
Dominique hesitated. “I need to tell you something. In private. There’s no one upstairs in the Visitors’ Gallery. We can talk there.”
“Are you okay?” I asked. “How much have you had to drink?”
“Not enough,” she said.
“Or maybe a little too much? Maybe you should knock it off.”
“Come on,” she said.
We climbed the three flights of stairs, the marble treds worn so uneven I needed to hold on to the brass railing. I followed her into the glassed-in corridor that overlooked the immense octagonal Reading Room with its soaring coffered dome. Eight massive arched stained-glass windows with the seal of the United States and the seals of the states gave the room its natural light during the day. Now at night they were opaque, with an occasional glimmer of the jeweled stained glass winking in the dim light. Flanking each window was a carved figure on a pedestal supported by a dusky red Corinthian column. Two stories of arcades with views of book-lined alcoves ringed the perimeter of the room. On the balustrade across from us, eight pairs of bronze statues watched over hundreds of desks arranged below in concentric rows.
“Lucie.” Dominique shook my arm. “I need to talk to you.”
“Sorry, I got distracted. This place is so beautiful.”
“I know. Mon Dieu, I’m like a tiger at the end of my chair. I wish I could smoke. Do you think I could get away with it if I did it here? No one’s around. Just a puff or two?”
“In the Library of Congress? Oh, sure. No problem. There’s only miles and miles of books under our feet and some of the rarest books in the world all around us … Are you out of your mind?”
I grabbed her cigarettes and stuck them in my purse.
“All right, all right.” She sounded peeved. “Well, I need something.”
I thought of Ali Jennings, who probably had the something she needed.
“Calm down and tell me what’s going on.”
“You can’t repeat this to anyone, do you understand?” Her voice dropped to a whisper so I had to lean close to hear her. “This has to stay between closed walls.”
“Okay.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, yes. Between closed walls.”
She played with an antique onyx dinner ring that had belonged to our grandmother.
“It’s Simon. I overheard him talking to someone on the phone tonight. We were at the Inn and he asked if he could use my office while I finished up some things in the kitchen. When I came back the door was ajar. I almost walked in until I heard him talking about your friend Rebecca. Something about seeing to it that she disappeared for good.”
She reached for my hand. Hers felt like ice.
“Lucie, it scared me. I left and went back to the kitchen until he came for me. He doesn’t know I heard.”
I rubbed her hand, trying to warm it, hoping she didn’t notice my rising alarm. “What do you mean, seeing to it that Rebecca disappeared for good?” I asked. “Did he say how?”
“No. I don’t know … I don’t know. Don’t talk so loud. Someone might hear us. All I know is that it sounded like he had some idea where she is. I thought a homeless man killed her, or that Robin Hood person.”
I stared at the lovely carved figures across from us. Allegorical statues representing all that was good and decent in civilization. Poetry, Philosophy, Art, History, Commerce, Law, Science, Religion. Dominique and I were talking about none of these things.
“Is she alive or dead?” I asked.
“I don’t know ,” she repeated. “Simon’s probably looking for me, so I’d better go find him. I’ve been gone too long thinking about this. I don’t want him getting suspicious.”
“Don’t go back to Atoka with him tonight. You can come home with Mick and me. And for God’s sake, don’t drink any more. You know what they say, if you have secrets drink no wine.”
“I have to leave with him, or he’ll wonder what’s wrong. But I’m going to break it off after this. Tell him I’m not ready for a relationship … that I’m too busy with work. He’ll believe it with everything he’s got on his mind.”
“Dominique, if he finds out you overheard him …” I stopped.
What if he already knew? What if he’d seen her shadow on the threshold or heard the floorboards creak in the hall? Before I could speak, she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “He won’t.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“Nothing. Just carry on like everything’s all right. As for the rest of it, I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it. Don’t worry,” she said again. “I can handle this.”
She slipped out of the gallery and left me alone with the silent statues and busts that watched over the Reading Room.
And my fears about what might happen when the two of them were alone together and she burned her bridge.