After Dominique left, I stayed in the Visitors’ Gallery until I was sure enough time had passed that no one would connect us being together. I had told Mick I’d meet him at the exhibit and I’d promised Ali I’d find Harlan.
I walked downstairs past Minerva and the beautiful double marble columns that reminded me of a temple. While my cousin and I had been sequestered upstairs, the loggia had filled up with people touring the Asher Collection. I scanned the crowd but didn’t see Mick, so I pretended to study the contents of a glass cabinet containing a rough-looking cloth bag in case anyone happened to be watching me. I read the display card.
One of the linen bags sewn together by State Department clerk Stephen Pleasanton to transport documents including the original parchment of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, the correspondence of General Washington, the secret journals of Congress, and all treaties of the United States to Leesburg, Virginia, for safekeeping after fire destroyed much of Washington.
It was a source of pride for Leesburg that for two weeks in August 1814 the town had been the “temporary capital” of the United States when Washington was considered too unsafe to keep the country’s most important documents. I looked at the coarse fabric and tried to imagine our entire heritage being shoved into a couple of sacks, thrown on a wagon, and driven off into the night by a lowly clerk who thought it was a good idea to get our national treasures out of town.
I had nearly reached the end of the exhibit. The last few display cases contained drawings and architectural plans for rebuilding the White House and the Capitol after the fire. The very last case contained a drawing of Frederick Law Olmsted’s 1874 plans for landscaping the Capitol grounds.
Not only were the Capitol grounds designed under Olmsted’s direction, he also added the elegant West Front terraces along with a lovely grotto on the Senate side of the grounds where a bubbling spring was to be contained within a sheltered rocky enclosure.
Another fountain, more gardens. But this one was not defunct. Tomorrow we’d look for Rebecca’s package—or whatever it was—by the fountains at Dumbarton Oaks. What if she were still alive? Was she somewhere in Washington? Who would know besides Simon and Tommy?
Harlan?
As though he’d heard my thoughts, I looked up as he slipped through a doorway at the end of the south corridor. I couldn’t tell if he was hurrying toward someone—or away. The banners hanging from the doorways indicated it was a separate gallery containing two exhibits, one on the creation of the United States and another called “Thomas Jefferson’s Library.” I followed him, catching a glimpse of Sir Philip Sidney’s quote written above the doorway: THEY ARE NEVER ALONE THAT ARE ACCOMPANIED WITH NOBLE THOUGHTS.
I lost Harlan in the softly lit mazelike display of rare documents. Apparently he wasn’t here to see Jefferson’s handwritten rough draft of the Declaration of Independence or Washington’s notes scratched on a copy of the Constitution. I found him in the last gallery, a jewel-like circular room of mosaics and frescoes. He was alone, inside a coiled display of glass-enclosed bookcases filled with Jefferson’s original library. The books had been arranged as Jefferson had them at Monticello, into categories called Memory, Reason, and Imagination. In the dim light given off by tiny pinpoint spotlights—to preserve the rare books—it seemed as though we were bathed in the candlelight of Jefferson’s days.
“Harlan?”
“Lucie? What are you doing here?” He looked up like a man coming out of a dream.
“Looking for you. Ali’s downstairs trying to ward off a migraine. She doesn’t want to take her pain medicine because she’s afraid she won’t make it through her talk tonight. She was in the ladies’ room by the Mainz Bible the last time I saw her.”
“Ali?” He looked confused, then his face cleared. “Oh, right. What a shame. She gets those real bad headaches. Hell of a time for this one to come on.”
“Don’t you want to see her?”
“Sure.”
“Harlan, what are you doing here? Everyone’s downstairs or looking at the Asher Collection.”
“Thinking,” he said. “About things.”
“I know how bad it is. Ali told me.”
“You have no idea.” He seemed, just now, like someone who had come unmoored from his soul. “It’s worse than bad.”
All my life growing up I had looked up to him, respected him. Right now I wanted to shake him.
“Are you really surprised?” I said. “Didn’t you know what was going on inside Asher Investments? Or at least guess? Didn’t you ask questions?”
“What the hell do you think?”
I thought the answer was no, because if he had he never would have invested the money of friends and neighbors in a Ponzi scheme, that’s what I thought.
“Tommy told me it was highly sophisticated, too complicated to explain,” he said. “Jesus, Lucie. It was like a gift from God. Who was I to say no when everyone was making so goddamn much money?”
“When did you find out it was all gone?”
“It’s not all gone. Tommy says we’ll be okay if we can get through this. It won’t be like it was before, but it’ll be okay.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Harlan! You still believe anything he says?”
His eyes were bleak. “I have no choice.”
I’d heard that before.
“What about Rebecca? Did she know what was going on? Surely she told you something since you two were—” I broke off, embarrassed.
“Screwing?” He raised an eyebrow. “Is that the word you were looking for?”
I blushed. “Didn’t she say anything to you?”
“Our affair didn’t last long. Rebecca was looking to hook a bigger fish.”
“What are you talking about?” I said. “She came to see you the day she disappeared. To tell you she was—”
The look in his eyes stopped me. He didn’t know.
“She was what?” he said. “Don’t tell me she was pregnant. Was she?”
“I thought—”
“What? That it was mine?”
“Yes.”
His smile mocked me. “You flatter me, my dear. I fire blanks these days. No little surprises anymore. A vasectomy.”
I could feel the color draining from my face. “Then who?”
He shrugged. “Rebecca didn’t confide in me about her latest lover—or lovers. She kept that information to herself.”
“Do you have any idea where she is now? Did she say anything about leaving or going away that day when she came to see you?”
He held out his hands as if trying to ward me off. “I’ve been all over this with the police. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
So much for being accompanied by noble thoughts. Harlan was definitely alone here.
“How do you think I got invited tonight?” I gestured at the book-filled room. “Rebecca put my name on the guest list, that’s how. She wanted me to come. Look, Harlan, if you know what happened to her, please tell me. Her mother is completely distraught, devastated, not to know—”
“No!” He moved closer to me, no longer friendly and suddenly a menacing stranger. I retreated, my back pressed against the glass. “Let it go, Lucie, will you? I have no idea what happened to her. And now if you’ll excuse me I’d better go find Ali.”
I listened until I could no longer hear his staccato footfalls. My face was hot with embarrassment and anger. In the middle of the bookshelf in front of me, a tiny book in Latin lay open. We had been standing in the section called Reason. I leaned over to read the card. A copy of Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, dating from 1555.
Utopia, a perfect world where everything was bliss.
This wasn’t it.
Somehow we all managed to get through the rest of the evening, though Dominique’s nerves showed when she spilled a glass of red wine during dinner, barely missing the Oriental rug in the exquisite private room normally reserved for functions involving members of Congress. I hoped Simon would chalk it up to jitters and the beautiful setting. Fortunately, Harlan and Ali sat at another table. Her talk seemed flat and dispirited, probably a combination of the migraine and the heartbreak of realizing that the collection she had spent so much time putting together was about to be scattered to the winds. As for Harlan, he never looked my way as I watched him down glass after glass of wine. At the end of the evening he was leaning on his wife’s arm and not walking too steadily as everyone moved toward the exit.
Mick, too, had gone quiet, lost in his thoughts on the drive home. I didn’t need to do much to hold up my end of the conversation. He turned the radio on as a buffer, I thought, though this time he chose a classic rock station that had a one-hour tribute to Jackson Browne. Tonight, it seemed, I found irony in everything, including the playlist, “Running on Empty” and “Here Come Those Tears Again,” as though we’d requested them.
Mick noticed, too, and killed the music. At my front door, his voice was hoarse in my ear. “Why don’t I stay tonight? I think we both need it.”
Sex to forget all his problems?
“It’s not what I need, Mick. I can’t do this.”
His lips brushed mine and he left. No doubt he’d find what he was looking for in someone else’s arms. I went upstairs and threw myself on the bed. As evenings went, this had been one I would rather forget.
The overcast skies Sunday morning only added to my gloom and a sense of foreboding that the other shoe was about to drop. Exactly one week ago Rebecca’s clothing had been found in that rowboat on the Potomac.
I made coffee and toasted a piece of baguette with some Brie for breakfast. Then I drove over to the winery. David Wildman’s article on Asher Investments had made the front page of the Washington Tribune. Frankie was in the middle of reading it when I got there.
“How is it?” I asked.
She slid the paper across the bar. “Bad, if your name is Tommy Asher, or maybe Harlan Jennings. Here, read for yourself while I make us a pot of coffee.”
It was bad, all right, but factual and well written, putting together Rebecca’s disappearance, Ian’s death, and the canceled Senate hearing so the puzzle started to look like a picture of cover-ups and subterfuge at Thomas Asher Investments. David had alluded to Rebecca’s frequent visits to Harlan’s office and tied Harlan to Tommy as an old childhood friend from their London days, making it seem implausible that Harlan didn’t know what was going on or at least have suspicions. He left out the romance and stopped short of using the term “Ponzi scheme,” though he did have a couple of investment fund managers from two of the big New York firms on record saying they wondered how Tommy Asher never had a down year, even when the market was in the toilet.
I set the newspaper on the bar. It was the beginning of the end. Or maybe the middle of it.
Frankie came back with our coffee.
“How did last night go?” She set a mug in front of me.
“Like a train wreck where you know you ought to look away but you can’t.” I sipped my coffee. “Which reminds me, Ali told me that we never delivered the Viognier she ordered for Harlan’s birthday party. I said I’d see to it myself first thing this morning.”
“I can’t believe she wants to hold a party for him after all this,” Frankie said. “Anyone else I’d say it was a little tone-deaf, but that’s Ali for you. Standing by her man.”
“She told me none of this is Harlan’s fault. He’s a victim, too.”
Frankie shrugged. “You’re not going to change her mind. As for the delivery, let one of the guys do it. It’s their job.”
“Not this time.”
“At least let someone load the boxes in your car.”
“All right.” I picked up a corkscrew and studied it. “Seen Quinn?”
“Not today. He told me yesterday he was going out last night with a bunch of guys. Then he thought he’d get lost today.”
I spun the worm with my index finger. “Okay.”
“Lucie, let it go. You can’t go on like this. The two of you are tearing each other apart.”
I slapped the corkscrew back on the bar. “Go on like what?”
“Do you act obtuse on purpose, or does it just come naturally? I’m still trying to figure it out.”
“Who’s being obtuse?”
“I give up. Make your delivery. Don’t worry about a thing around here, either. I got it covered. Don’t need you. Don’t even want you. Go away and do something nice for yourself after you drop that wine at the Jenningses’ place.”
I blew her a kiss on my way out the door.
But I did not do something nice after I brought the wine to the Jenningses’ place.