The Viognier Vendetta wcm-5

by Ellen Crosby

  The police had questioned Harlan about Rebecca’s disappearance. But so far, it seemed no one suspected his wife. Was she setting things up to protect herself?

  Had Ali just played me to cover up a murder—that she’d committed?

  On Tuesday morning, my cell phone rang as I was pouring a cup of coffee in the galley kitchen in the villa. Another D.C. number, but I didn’t recognize this one.

  “Who is this?” a male voice asked when I answered.

  “You called me. Why don’t you go first?”

  “Don’t I know you?” he said. “I’m sure I do.”

  I disconnected and dropped the phone on the counter as though he could detect my location if I held on to it. He called back twice. Each time I let the call go to voice mail, but he never left a message. Was it a prank caller? Persistent wrong number?

  Shortly before noon, Frankie showed up in my office with the mail. “You might want to take a look at this. I wasn’t snooping, but I couldn’t help noticing it when I was sorting through everything.”

  She set a postcard in front of me. The Lincoln Memorial at night.

  “It’s from Rebecca,” I said. “Postmarked yesterday. I don’t believe this. She’s alive.”

  There was no mistaking Rebecca’s sprawling handwriting: “To err is human, to forgive divine.” And a phone number.

  “She bought this postcard when we were together on Saturday,” I said. “In fact, she bought several. All the same. She made a point of showing them to me.”

  “Is that her phone number?” Frankie asked.

  “No.” I picked up my phone and scrolled through the calls. “It belongs to this guy, whoever he is. He called me three times. I bet he got a postcard with my number on it.”

  Frankie sat down in a red-and-white flame-stitched wing chair across from me and folded her arms across her chest.

  “Do you know who he is? What’s going on? And what’s up with the Shakespeare quote?”

  “I don’t think it’s Shakespeare. I bet it’s Alexander Pope.” I ran my thumb over the postmark. “It was mailed yesterday in Georgetown. What do you bet Rebecca’s alive and hiding somewhere?”

  “It was postmarked yesterday. She could have dropped it in a mailbox on Saturday knowing it wouldn’t get picked up until Monday. Maybe it was sort of insurance in case anything happened to her—which it did.” Frankie’s forehead creased with worry. “What are you going to do? Whatever’s going on, it’s getting dangerous.”

  “I’m going to call the guy who has been calling me and find out what he wants. He didn’t know who I was—and I didn’t know who he was until I got this.” I tapped the postcard and picked up my phone. “Rebecca sent these for a reason. I need to meet him and find out why and what happened to her.”

  He answered in the middle of the second ring. “You finally decided to return my call, did you?”

  “I got a postcard, too,” I said. “What does yours say, besides my telephone number?”

  I heard a long expelled breath on his end. “‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.’ That’s Alexander—”

  “Pope. Mine says, ‘To err is human, to forgive divine,’” I said. “You’re Ian Philips, aren’t you?”

  “And you’re Rebecca’s college friend. Lucie Martin.”

  “Close enough. Montgomery.”

  “I think we should talk,” he said.

  “Where’s Rebecca?”

  “Somewhere in the Potomac River. Haven’t you been watching the news?”

  “What if she’s not?” I said. “I was with her when she bought these postcards on Saturday just before she disappeared. She planned to send them to us. I’m sure of it.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “She’s setting up something—actually, she’s setting us up for something. What if she faked her death and vanished?”

  Frankie’s eyebrows went up and I shrugged. Wasn’t it possible, as the woman at Fletcher’s had suggested? An image of Rebecca, laughing her head off drinking a latte in some exotic café, popped into my head. Right now, it seemed as plausible as any other explanation.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think she sent these as backup, in case anything happened to her.”

  “You mean as insurance?” I said as Frankie nodded her head and mouthed “yes.”

  “Exactly. Look, I don’t think we ought to continue to discuss this over the phone. How’d you like to take a walk around the Tidal Basin and enjoy the cherry blossoms? They’re nearly at their peak today.”

  I looked at Frankie, whose normally untroubled face was lined with concern. Whatever was going on, I wanted to keep it as far away from the vineyard as possible.

  “I can be in Washington by two. Where should we meet?”

  “You know the FDR Memorial?”

  “It’s huge. Spans Roosevelt’s life and the entire three-term presidency.”

  “Since you obviously know it, how about meeting me at the blocks? I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.”

  A set of what looked like life-sized child’s building blocks hewn out of granite. I knew what was carved on them. Roosevelt had initially tried to remain neutral during World War II, but the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor provoked America into finally entering the war.

  “I hate war,” I said. “Those blocks?”

  “See you there,” he said and hung up.

  Chapter 10

  I recognized Ian Philips leaning against the “I Hate” block when I showed up at the FDR Memorial. Unshaven, wearing faded jeans, an untucked shirt, a leather jacket, and the same knotted Burberry scarf he had on the other night, he had an impressive-looking Nikon digital SLR slung over his shoulder. A cigarette hung out of a corner of his mouth.

  He straightened up when he saw me and blew a smoke ring. “We meet again.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  He pointed to my cane. “I didn’t know about that. You weren’t using it the other night.”

  “Don’t worry, I have it on a leash. It won’t bite.”

  He was right about not seeing it on Saturday. I’d forgotten it in the hotel suite in my rush to leave when Olivia Tarrant offered me a lift. In fact, I’d needed it less than I’d expected that evening at the gala—which had been a pleasant surprise.

  He looked startled before his face broke into a smile. “Good, because I don’t have all my shots.”

  I leaned against the block with “War” carved into it. “You ought to do something about that.”

  He took another long drag on his cigarette. “Kidding aside, would you rather just stay here instead of walking around the Tidal Basin?”

  “No,” I said. “I wouldn’t. Would you?”

  He drew his head back as though he were reassessing me.

  “I can see why you’re a friend of Rebecca’s.” It sounded like a compliment. “Okay, then let’s go. How’d you end up needing a cane, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “A boyfriend drove into a stone wall one night in the rain. I was in the passenger seat.”

  “That’s rough.” He dropped his cigarette and squashed the butt under the toe of a highly polished brown oxford. “You bring your postcard?”

  I took it out of my purse. “Where’s yours?”

  He picked up the butt and flung it in a trash can. His postcard was in the back pocket of his jeans. He pulled it out so we could compare. Same bold scrawl, same bright green gel pen.

  “Anybody follow you here?” he asked.

  For a moment I thought he was joking. He wasn’t.

  “I don’t think so. Is somebody following you?”

  “I haven’t spotted anyone. But I have gotten a few warnings, so I figure it’s possible someone’s watching me.”

  I caught my breath. “What kind of warnings?”

  He took my arm. “Try not to look like you’ve come to drop off the ransom money for the kidnapper.” He gave my hand a light squeeze. “We’re here to enjoy the cherry blossoms, okay?”


  “Sure.”

  We walked down a couple of stairs. As sobering and surreal as this meeting was, it was hard not to be enchanted by the lovely tableau of thousands of pink-blooming trees framing the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial as we joined the slow-moving crowd navigating around the Tidal Basin. The afternoon sun glinted off the water, reflecting an azure sky and pale pink flowers that Monet would have painted. The statue of Thomas Jefferson limned by sunlight slanting through the memorial columns reminded me of a relief on a bronze coin.

  Ian and I turned left so that we took the long way around to the Jefferson Memorial, blending into the sea of tourists, lovers, and amateur photographers. I buttoned my coat and turned up the collar as a raw wind gusted off the water. He reached in his jacket pocket and took out a balled-up navy blue knitted cap, pulling it over his reddish-blond hair.

  “What kind of warnings have you gotten?” I asked again.

  He raised his camera and aimed it across the water, firing off a few shots. “Phone calls I can’t trace. Someone waiting on the other end until I finally hang up. They usually call around two or three in the morning.”

  “Have you told the police?”

  He shrugged. “That I’ve got a heavy breather calling? Nah, what could they do?”

  “If someone’s following you, they won’t want to be photographed.”

  “You catch on fast. Keep an eye out, will you?”

  He panned the crowd and snapped more pictures. “Smile,” he said to me. “Pretend we’re having a good time.”

  I obeyed, trying not to grimace. “How come you don’t believe Rebecca is alive? Or that she didn’t set up this meeting between us like some offstage puppeteer?”

  His camera continued to whir as he shifted his lens to the Washington Monument, framed between two gracefully arched branches heavy with cherry blossoms.

  “I didn’t say she couldn’t be alive or couldn’t have orchestrated us getting together,” he said. “But she may have underestimated the people who don’t want me to testify. I don’t plan to make a similar mistake. You’re very photogenic, by the way.”

  I ignored that. “You said people. Are you talking about Sir Thomas?”

  “I’m not talking about the tooth fairy. Sir Thomas is one of them.”

  “Who else?”

  We resumed our stroll. I had forgotten there was no safety railing between the path and the Tidal Basin so that it was possible to lose one’s footing or be jostled, ending up in the water. Ian slipped behind me and maneuvered himself so he was closer to the edge.

  “A lot of people have a vested interest in me keeping my yap shut,” he said. “They need the rest of the world to think everything’s hunky-dory at Asher Investments when it’s not. The company uses feeder funds that his investors don’t know about as a source of cash for his own funds. Asher keeps quiet about it, but it’s made a bunch of small-time investors very rich and their clients superhappy. If only they knew his numbers are bogus. The guy’s faking it.”

  “Come on, who would fall for that in the post-Madoff era?” I asked. “Everyone has wised up.”

  Ian stopped walking and snapped a few more shots of me. “An endangered species,” he said. “I need to take a picture. Are you really that naïve? Catching one slimeball doesn’t put an end to greed, sweetheart. There are plenty more where he came from. Think P. T. Barnum, not Barney the purple dinosaur.”

  “Knock off the sarcasm, okay?” I said. “I didn’t say it couldn’t happen anymore. All I mean is that maybe it’s a lot less likely to happen right now.”

  “Open your eyes, baby. Tommy Asher’s got deep pockets and people like Harlan Jennings watching his back here in D.C. You went to that suck-up gala the other night. Surely you don’t need me to spell it out for you?”

  “All right, then, what are you going to tell that Senate subcommittee when you testify? You have proof to back all this up?”

  He pulled down a low-hanging branch full of blossoms. “These really are pretty, aren’t they? Like pink snowballs.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “As it happens, I don’t have ironclad proof.” He released the branch. “More like a case of ‘where there’s smoke, there’s fire.’”

  Meaning he had nothing. Two days before he testified in front of Senator Cameron Vaughn’s subcommittee he was hanging out on a limb as fragile as the flowers on that branch he’d just examined.

  “Which is where Rebecca comes in? Or came in?” I looked sideways at him. “What happened? Why were you looking for her Saturday night?”

  Ian shrugged and jammed his hands in his pockets. “Rebecca, bonny, bonny Rebecca. We worked together, had a little fling once. Then she found some rich old guy like she always does and that was the end of it. Went to work for Tommy Asher three years ago. I told her he stunk like a rotting corpse and she told me to go to hell.”

  I heard the wistfulness of a jilted lover in his voice. He still carried a torch for her.

  “Rebecca only says things like that to people she cares about,” I said. “She ignores everyone else.”

  He raised an ironic eyebrow. “She never told me about you. Wish she had.”

  “Moving on.” I felt my cheeks go hot. “You were saying?”

  “I was saying. God, I could use a cigarette.”

  “Show a little willpower. Come on, this is important.”

  He grinned like a blue-eyed devil. “You’re a pain but I like you.”

  I looked away. He was enjoying making me uncomfortable. “Can we get back to Rebecca?”

  “Sure thing, baby doll.” He took my elbow and we moved into the crowd again. “Rebecca. You know what they say, ‘No love like an old love,’ especially when you’ve been thrown over. It became sort of a personal crusade to dig up whatever dirt I could find on Sir Thomas and prove to Rebecca that I was right.”

  “You mean to tell me all this is about getting even? A vendetta?”

  “Not with Rebecca.” Now he was the one whose face turned red. “But once I found out what I did, I suppose I wanted Asher to pay for what he’s done. Maybe you’re right and it is a vendetta. Every trader on Wall Street gets compared to Tommy Asher’s whiz kids. After a while you get sick of it, especially once you find out it’s all lies. I wanted to stop him.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He spread his hands and gave an eloquent shrug. “When all’s said and done, he’s running nothing more than a goddamn Ponzi scheme. No arbitrage, no split-strike conversion, nothing complicated or fancy like I originally suspected. Just robbing Peter to pay Paul. Easy-peasy. Works as long as new clients keep feeding the beast and nothing triggers too many people to ask for their money back at the same time.”

  “As simple as that? The whole pyramid thing?”

  “Yup. As simple as that. At least that’s how I figure it.”

  “Which brings us back to the fact that you have no proof,” I said. “If it’s true.”

  “If it’s true?” His voice cracked. “It’s a lonely old world out there, Sancho. So many windmills to tilt at. Thought you’d be right there by my side.”

  “Ian—”

  He dropped my arm. “I figured you were Rebecca’s friend, so you’d at least hear me out. Thanks for your time, Lucie.”

  “Don’t. Wait a minute,” I said. “What did Rebecca say? Did she believe you?”

  “If I don’t get a cigarette I’m going to go nuts.”

  “Okay, okay. But not here.”

  We moved off the path away from the crowd and stood under one of the older trees, its trunk twisted and pockmarked with age, branches reaching toward the sky like the arthritic arms of old men.

  He lit up and eyed me through the flame of his lighter, speaking in a cloud of smoke.

  “Rebecca was furious at first when I told her what I suspected. Didn’t believe it, told me to go to hell, stay out of her life. Yada yada. That was a couple months ago.”

  “She changed her
mind since then?”

  He sucked on his cigarette. “I think I told you she called me and left a message at the beginning of last week. Said she wanted to talk, then never returned any of my calls. That’s why I tried tracking her down at the Willard. And now she’s gone and we get these.”

  He palmed his postcard again.

  “What are you saying?” I asked.

  “I think she was going to pass me information I could use for my testimony,” he said. “And I think she got caught. That’s why she sent the postcards. In case something went wrong.”

  Something had gone wrong. Rebecca was missing. “What about the story that she was robbed and killed by whoever took her jewelry and that wine cooler? What about her folded clothes in the rowboat?”

  “Somebody went to a lot of trouble to cover their tracks. Threw in a little of everything. Let people wonder if maybe it was a robbery or maybe she committed suicide.” He shrugged.

  “She still could have set this up,” I said. “Left you the information you needed and then disappeared because she knew it was like handing over a lighted stick of dynamite.”

  “And be on the lam for the rest of her life? No way. Not our girl. Rebecca’s too high profile, too flash, to ever do something like that. Can you see her working as a waitress in some diner in Podunk to stay off the grid?”

  “Well …”

  Ian’s phone rang from somewhere inside his jacket. He answered and spoke in monosyllables while I tried to remember the name of the piece of music he used as a ring tone. Something my father used to listen to.

  Finally he said, “Yeah, sure. Not tonight, unfortunately. I’m … with someone. How about tomorrow? Right. Later.”

  “What’s that ring tone?” I asked as he shoved the phone back in his pocket.

  He raised an eyebrow. “You like it? It’s Mozart. Dies Irae.”

  Day of Wrath. Judgment Day and the Second Coming. How fitting. I’d nearly forgotten it. Leland had liked it, too.

  “Suits you.”

  He laughed. “How about a drink?”

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “Oh, come on. We still have things to discuss and it’s getting cold. Besides, we’re a team now. Whatever Rebecca wanted me to know, she brought you into it, too.”