by Ellen Crosby
“I’ll tell you why,” Austin said. “Because of that woman. The one who worked for Asher and drowned in the Potomac. I heard you knew her. What’d she tell you, Lucie? Now it’s your turn to talk.” He folded his arms across his chest and tapped the rolled-up newspaper.
“She didn’t tell me anything,” I said.
That, at least, was true. What Ian had told me about the Ponzi scheme was another matter and I didn’t want to bring it up with either of them just now—especially without concrete proof. But before this, I’d thought of Tommy Asher’s clients as nameless, faceless individuals who got suckered into something that seemed too good to be true. People who were motivated by the old-as-time irresistible urge to get something for nothing, or nearly nothing. I never thought my neighbors, men who were sophisticated and savvy about money, would get swept up in the tide.
“Look,” Mac said, “I’ve had enough stalling. I’m calling Harlan and getting to the bottom of this. I want my money back today. I don’t want to lose everything.”
There was a moment of ominous silence before every clock in Mac’s store, including a tall grandfather clock by the front door, began chiming the hour in a lovely cacophony. Another uneasy glance passed between Mac and Austin as the clocks finished tolling eleven and the phone rang on Mac’s desk.
“I’m not answering that,” Mac said. “The machine’ll get it.”
His message echoed in the quiet room followed by the voice of Seth Hannah, president of Blue Ridge Federal Bank. Everyone in Atoka banked with Seth, including me.
“If you’re there,” Seth said, “you’d better turn on CNN right now. There’s something you need to be watching.”
Mac picked up the phone and spoke a few terse words before hanging up. Austin found the remote for a small television that sat on a walnut end table. He punched buttons until CNN came on.
I’d almost expected to see Harlan, but it was Tommy Asher, flanked by two sober-faced men in dark suits. He was reading from a piece of paper, half-glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose, more Rock of Gibraltar stolid calm.
“. . . is my unfortunate duty to inform the many people who have put their faith and trust in me that I have been the victim—we all have been victims—of a massive fraud perpetuated by an employee of Thomas Asher Investments. In the past twenty-four hours we have uncovered evidence that one of my employees has systematically moved funds into an as-yet-unknown account or accounts. Let me assure each and every one of my clients that your money is as safe today as it has been for the last two decades. What I need now is your cooperation while we take some measures in the process of getting to the bottom of this. I am temporarily freezing withdrawals from all funds until further notice. It is a prudent precaution to ensure the safety of everyone’s assets and I thank you for your continued faith in me, which I promise will be justified, as it has always been.”
Asher looked up and removed his glasses. He was no longer reading. “On Monday I stood before you, devastated by the loss of one of my most brilliant and talented advisers. Just yesterday I learned that this young woman, Rebecca Natale, is the thief. She is the traitor who betrayed us all.”
Chapter 18
Rebecca? Tommy Asher had to be delusional or lying—or both.
Or else he was as wily as a fox, which was more likely. Why not blame everything on her? The damage was still done—investments gone up in smoke—but now he, too, had been duped along with everyone else, or so he said. Rebecca wouldn’t be the first young rogue trader to take down a financial empire—back in the ’90s, Nick Leeson had single-handedly caused the collapse of the personal bank of the queen of England with his unchecked risk taking.
“What did I tell you?” Austin was saying. “Lucie’s friend. She’s responsible for this. I knew it.”
“He’s lying,” I said. “She didn’t do what he said she did.”
Mac clicked the remote, turning off the television. “Who the hell cares whose fault it is? Did you hear what he said? He’s freezing everything. All my money is with Harlan. Everything. My God, this is a catastrophe.”
“Asher said he’s good for the money. Let’s not panic. Harlan’s never let us down before.” Austin sounded like he was trying to persuade himself, along with Mac and me.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Austin. It’s gonna be a goddamn stampede.” Mac picked up the phone again. “I’m calling Harlan. I want my money today. In cash. Anybody who waits is just plain stupid.”
“All right, maybe you’re right. But let’s be smart about this. Close the store and I’ll drive us into D.C. We’ll talk to Harlan face-to-face. Get to the bottom of what’s going on.” Austin eyed me. “It’s also possible Asher was telling the truth about that woman. That the money’s parked in an account somewhere and they’ll find it.”
I felt numb. “Rebecca didn’t steal any money.”
“How do you know?” Mac’s pale blue eyes were icy and the color had drained from his face. “She’s gone, isn’t she? And no one’s found her.”
He took his pin-striped charcoal gray suit jacket off a hanger on an antique coatrack and put it on with stiff, angry movements.
“Yes, but I know—” I began, then shut up. What did I know?
I’d told Ian that I believed Rebecca had faked her death after leaving behind information—somewhere—that would expose what was going on at Asher Investments. But to be honest, it was possible she had stolen enough money to set herself up so she could live a comfortable life off the grid. Maybe she hadn’t left behind anything for Ian and me to find but an apology … or an explanation.
And what about her pregnancy? How did that fit in?
“Go on,” Mac said. “You were saying?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Except that I can’t believe that Rebecca did what Tommy Asher just said she did.”
“Well, I’m sure she’s grateful for your loyalty.” Austin didn’t bother to hide his sarcasm. “Wherever she is. Come on, Mac. Let’s get out of here and talk to Harlan. Get some straight answers from that boy. Because if Asher is lying about being able to make good on our investments, then all my money—everything I own—just went up in smoke.”
I abandoned my plan to check out the stretch of Mosby’s Highway by Mickie Gordon Park and drove back to the vineyard instead. Frankie took one look at me when I walked through the door and got a bottle of wine from the refrigerator.
“I think we’ll have this with our lunch,” she said.
I looked at the wine. Viognier. How many days had it been since the Ashers’ gala when Harlan and I shared a laugh over the fact that it meant “road to hell”? Today was Thursday. Five days since last Saturday that seemed like five years.
Frankie handed me the bottle. “Here. You’d better open it now.”
The weather had warmed up enough to dine on the terrace. We brought sandwiches, dishes, and the white bakery bag from the Upper Crust to a table next to the railing. Frankie poured the wine as I sat there, numbly staring at the tidy rows of bare vines anchored by the timeless Blue Ridge. Somewhere a tractor motor started up, a comforting, placid thrumming. Probably one of the crew cutting the grass for the first time this year. Spring was definitely on its way.
The seasons would unfold as they always did, beginning with the hopefulness I felt each year at this time when winter was done and gone. In a few short weeks the vines would begin to bud and then they’d be flower-covered and fragrant. Later the grapes would emerge as véraison, the ripening process, played out through the wilting heat of summer. Harvest would begin in August and continue into autumn as we spent hectic days and nights turning the grapes into wine.
Life would go on with its rhythm and cycles, except this year would be unlike any other I’d known. Neighbors and friends could possibly lose everything they’d spent a lifetime working for—in some cases, money that had been in families for generations. No matter the wound was self-inflicted; if it happened, it was going to change Atoka for good.
And I was losing
Quinn.
“You want to talk about it?” Frankie asked.
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Try the beginning.”
I shrugged. Why keep it all inside anymore?
So I told her, except I left out Rebecca’s pregnancy test and my speculation that Harlan was probably the baby’s father. The story was lurid enough as it was.
“You think Rebecca did what Sir Thomas said she did?” Frankie asked. “Stole all that money?”
We finished our sandwiches and shared the cow puddles. She picked up the wine bottle and refilled our glasses.
“I think he’s blaming her for what he did, and she’s not around to defend herself or contradict him,” I said.
“You still think she’s alive, don’t you?” Frankie asked.
“Nothing would surprise me anymore.”
“Lucie.” Her voice was gentle. “Maybe you just want her to be alive because they haven’t found her body.”
“That’s a pretty good reason, don’t you think? Nor has anyone found ‘Robin Hood,’ the mysterious guy who gave the Madison wine cooler and her jewelry to that homeless man. That’s a lot of missing people.”
“All right, assuming you’re right, then who helped her disappear?”
I drank some wine. “I wish I knew.”
“Someone inside Asher Investments? Although they’d probably be in on the scam.” Frankie frowned, working out her own logic. “Wouldn’t they?”
“Not if it was confined to a very small circle that excluded Rebecca. If what Ian said is true, Rebecca didn’t know what was going on under her nose the first time he told her about his suspicions. She told him to go to hell,” I said.
“Then changed her mind and decided to help him once she found out he was right?” Frankie asked.
“I think so. Although that’s the million-dollar question—or billion-dollar question, in this case. What was it she left for Ian to find?”
And who was Rebecca’s ally? Someone I knew? Olivia Tarrant, Sir Thomas’s personal assistant? Simon deWolfe, his half brother? Olivia had purposely excluded Rebecca from her definition of who made it into what she called “the Asher family.” So I doubted she was the one. But what about Simon? He’d been in the perfect position that evening to meet up with Rebecca down by the river.
“You know,” Frankie said, “you might consider the obvious. That Sir Thomas is telling the truth about Rebecca.”
“Frankie, Rebecca did not steal that money.”
“Just because she was your friend—”
“I know she didn’t do it.”
Frankie held up her hands like a shield. “Okay, okay. I give up.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I know you think I can’t be objective, or that I’m just being naïve—but I’m not.”
“It seems to me,” she said in her calm, reasoning way, “that Rebecca left quite a lot at your doorstep. Counted on your loyalty and your integrity to do something she wouldn’t do herself.”
The tractor motor cut off. I let her words sink in as a soft breeze rustled the tree branches and the birds twittered cheerfully. Was she right?
“Unless,” I said at last, “there was some reason Rebecca couldn’t do it herself.”
“What reason would that be? Aside from the possibility that she is, in fact, dead.”
I finished my wine. “I don’t know. But something must have changed. Maybe Rebecca and her partner made a plan, then something went wrong.”
“You don’t have to pick up the pieces, Lucie.”
She stood, lips pursed in disapproval, as she gathered our dishes and the other lunch debris. I grabbed the empty wine bottle and the two glasses as we cleaned up in silence.
In the kitchen she began stacking plates in the dishwasher. “What are you going to do now?”
“See if I can figure out what Rebecca left for Ian. She wanted me to know or she wouldn’t have set it up for the two of us to get together.”
“Lucie!” Frankie crushed the lunch wrappers into a tight ball. “Don’t do this! You don’t have to get involved. Do you want to end up like Ian?”
“I already am involved,” I said. “Whether I want to be or not, someone thinks I know more than I do.”
“Let the police handle it.”
“I tried. That detective … Horne … thinks I’m nuts. Anyway, there’s something else.”
“What?” She threw the papers into the trash.
“If it’s true that Asher Investments is nothing but a Ponzi scheme, people we care about could lose a lot of money.”
“No one held a gun to their heads and made them give their life savings to Harlan Jennings.”
“The Romeos, Frankie. Retired guys who worked in the community and still volunteer around here. They trusted Harlan—and why wouldn’t they? His father was a Romeo, too. One of them.”
She picked up the coffeepot and turned on the tap full force. Water splattered all over the sink. “I wonder if Harlan managed to get his money out in time. If he knew what was going on, then he’s as guilty as Asher is. If he was in the dark, you’ve got to wonder what was going through his head that no warning bells ever went off.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Either way, he loses.”
She filled the pot and wiped the sink. “Walk away before it’s too late.”
I didn’t say anything. Too late was a long time ago. And now there was no one else to find what Rebecca had left behind except me.
Unfortunately my only clue lay buried in the poetry of a man who had been dead for two centuries.
Chapter 19
When I showed up in the barrel room later that afternoon for the Viognier bench trials, Quinn was sitting on a stool in the lab, twirling a pencil between his fingers. His mouth moved soundlessly as he stared into space and ignored the lab book, which sat open on the workbench in front of him.
“You’re talking to yourself,” I said.
“I’m doing mental calculations.” He squinted at me and slapped the book shut. “You look like you can hardly keep your eyes open. When’s the last time you got any sleep?”
“Last night.”
“You are one lousy liar.” He threw down the pencil. “Sure you want to work on the blend?”
I sighed. “Honestly, no. You got a better idea?”
“Why don’t we go somewhere, get lost for a while? Don’t tell the boss. She’s a slave driver.”
“That’s not what I heard. She’s hardworking, benevolent, and not appreciated nearly enough for what she does around here. She also, I might add, pays your salary.”
He grinned and stood up. “Let’s vamoose.”
He’d left the red Mule, one of our ATVs, on the crush pad. We owned two of them—red and green like Christmas. I put my cane on the backseat and climbed in beside him.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing is wrong.”
“No offense, but you weren’t doing mental calculations. When you run out of fingers, you take off your socks. You were talking to yourself when I walked in.”
He started the motor. “Take off my socks. Aren’t you funny.”
“Still avoiding the question.”
He shifted into gear and hit the gas. The Mule lurched forward and I grabbed the dashboard.
“I might have trouble financing the land I want to buy.” He kept his gaze fixed straight ahead.
I watched his profile and saw a muscle tighten in his jaw. Money woes. Him, too? Had one or several of his investors gotten sucked into the miasma of Asher Investments?
“Might or are?” I asked.
“I’m still working on that.”
“Have you talked to Seth? Maybe the bank—”
“It’s more complicated than that, believe me. Seth’s the first one I went to.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Nope. To be honest, I’d just as soon forget the whole thing for now.”
I knew him w
ell enough to hear the clank of a drawbridge coming up, closing off that fortress of privacy he erected around himself. He had just shut me out.
We drove along the outer edge of the south vineyard, passing some of the first vines my parents had planted more than twenty years ago. Quinn seemed to have a destination in mind since he didn’t detour down the rows of Riesling or Chardonnay to check on things like we normally did when we were in the field together.
“Have you seen your mother’s trees lately?” he asked.
At this time of year, I knew exactly which trees he meant. Shortly before she died, my mother had planted a spectacular allée of flowering cherry trees just off the south service road near the larger of our two apple orchards. They reminded her of the trees that lined the drive at the entrance to my grandparents’ summer home in Provence.
“I haven’t been by in the last few days,” I said.
He turned the corner at the end of the Chardonnay block and the trees came into view in a blizzard of lacy pink flowers. Quinn parked the Mule and we got out.
“I love this place,” he said.
“So do I,” I said. “It’s so peaceful here. Nothing like the Tidal Basin. When I was there the other day you could hardly move. Beautiful as it is, it was like being in a packed Metro car.”
“I’ll take your word for it. That’s why they make postcards. I hate being jammed someplace like a sardine, especially when it’s outdoors.”
“Oh, come on. You have to see those trees for yourself at least once in your life. That’s like visiting Napa without stopping at a vineyard.”
He looked at me like I’d stabbed him through the heart. Before he moved to Virginia he’d been a winemaker in Napa.
“Next year we’ll go together,” I told him. “It’s too late this season. They’re past their peak.”
Quinn flung himself onto the wooden bench my brother and sister and I had put here under the trees last year on our mother’s birthday.
“Next year is a long way off. Who knows what I’ll be doing then?” He leaned back with his hands clasped behind his head and crossed one work boot over the other.
