A rosy late afternoon sun slanted through the windshield when Georgia pulled up for the second time to Carl Baldwin’s Kalorama home. She’d checked several times, but this time no one was following her. To be safe, though, she parked a block away and walked around the corner. She passed through a wrought-iron fence with one of those fancy curlicue gates. A tightly inlaid marble path led to a huge red door with an ornate brass knocker. The door was flanked by white columns.
Despite the elegance, all the shades were drawn, and the house looked deserted. She rang the bell. It reverberated with a hollow, tinny sound. No one came to the door. She rang again. Nothing.
She made her way around the side of the house, removing her jacket as she did. No wonder the cherry blossoms bloomed in March. It was positively balmy here. She reached a side door, not as elaborate as the front, but solid, with thick rectangular windowpane inserts on the upper half. They wouldn’t be as easy to shatter as an intruder might think. Even if they were, they were undoubtedly tied to an alarm.
She knocked. Nothing. She’d started to work her way to the back of the property when a pale face appeared in the glass inserts. The inserts broke up his face into pieces, and he might have looked clownish, except for his expression, which was troubled. Georgia smiled and waved with what she hoped was a friendly greeting.
He cautiously opened the door. “Who are you and what do you want?”
She introduced herself. Erica Baldwin had already told him she was on the way, because her name registered. His worry lines smoothed out, and he opened the door wider. “Thank God you’re here.”
This had to be the first time anyone involved with the case was glad to see her. “I hope I can help,” she said. “You’re Vic Summerfield, right?”
“The one and only.” He led her through a spotless kitchen equipped with every appliance, gadget, and amenity known to humankind. A manufacturer’s sticker on the oven door told her no one had yet cooked in it. “Did Carl Baldwin just move in?”
Summerfield spun around. “Hell no. Carl’s lived here three years.”
“Oh.”
He followed her gaze to the oven. “He’s not much of a cook.”
“I see.” What a waste. But she wasn’t here to discuss the absence of culinary skills. “So you want to fill me in on what happened?”
“Well, you already know I’m Carl’s assistant. I help him in his lobbying work.”
The way he emphasized “lobbying” made Georgia wonder if there was other work Vic didn’t help him with. They emerged from the kitchen into a huge hall with two offices, one on each side. To the left were columns that separated the offices from an opulent living room, dining room, and foyer.
“Nice digs,” Georgia said.
Vic didn’t reply. Georgia studied him. He had sandy hair, close-cropped military style, unless he shaved his head to hide a receding hairline. He looked too young for that, though; she pegged him in his thirties. Unremarkable brown eyes, same with his nose. But he was well put together. Strong, broad shoulders, slim waist. “You a swimmer?”
“How did you know?”
That’s my job, she thought. But aloud, she said, “Just a guess.”
“Do you swim?” he asked. She heard eagerness in his voice.
She shook her head. “I work out. And I box.”
He shot her an approving look. “Let’s go into my office.”
“Which is Carl’s?”
He pointed across the hall.
“May I take a peek?”
“Of course.”
She crossed the hall and looked in. A spacious room, decorated in Euro-Scandinavian style. An oriental rug on the floor; silver pen set on the desk, inbox and outbox. Beyond that the room was spartan. Three bookshelves were empty except for a photo. Two people on a sailboat, one a young woman in a bikini hoisting a sail, a man smiling benevolently behind her. It was the same photo Dena Baldwin had in her office at the foundation.
“Okay,” Georgia said after they were settled in Vic’s office, a paler imitation of Baldwin’s. “What’s been going on the past seventy-two hours?”
“Well,” he began, “like I said, I came to work two days ago like normal. Sometimes Carl’s at his desk. Sometimes he’s still upstairs.”
“What time do you usually start?”
“Generally about eight. Unless I swim. Then it’s nine.”
“Go on.”
“Occasionally he’s still asleep. If he had a late night.”
“How often does that happen?”
“He often meets with clients at night.”
“Why?”
“It’s the way DC works. If you want to keep your business private, you’re careful.” He hesitated. “No big, splashy lunches or dinners. Usually you meet in small, dark bars. Hotel bars are good.”
“Go on.”
“When he didn’t come down by ten, I called his cell, but it went to voice mail. Then I went upstairs to make sure he was”—he gulped—“okay. He wasn’t there.”
Fear splashed over him. But something was slightly off about it. It seemed as if he’d slipped into character.
She shook it off. “What did you do?”
“I freaked out.”
“You didn’t think he might be shacking up someplace? Or at his gym?”
“Carl has never worked out a day in his life. And if he was seeing a woman, they would stay here. By noon, when there was no call or text, I called Erica.”
“Why her? They’ve been divorced for years.”
He thought about it. “You know, I’m not exactly sure. We were still finalizing a few financial things and, well, because of Dena’s death so recently, I guess I felt she should know.”
“What financial things?”
“Mostly how the estate was going to be handled now that Dena was gone.”
“Got it.”
Underneath his desk Vic crossed his legs, and his foot juddered.
Georgia asked, “Is there a place he goes to get away from it all? Somewhere on the Chesapeake Bay? Annapolis or the Tidewater area? He likes to sail, right?”
“He doesn’t sail anymore. At least not that I know of.”
“What does he do to relax?”
“He doesn’t. He’s here all the time.”
Georgia scratched a phantom itch on her cheek. “How long have you worked for him?”
“A year and a half, and in all that time, he never took more than a day off. And then only when he was hammered.”
“Does he have a drinking problem?”
Vic was quiet for a moment. “Not compared to some in this city.”
“Maybe his disappearance has something to do with reallocating the estate.” She mused. “Maybe he disappeared so Erica couldn’t change it.”
“That doesn’t—well, it doesn’t feel right. To be honest . . . actually . . .” He hesitated again. “Work wasn’t going well for us.”
“Oh?”
“We lost on some important legislation. It was getting so bad he was afraid he might have to close up shop.”