Tess almost gasped as her hire car swung off Louisiana’s Great River Road. She could see Riverview, Meredith’s childhood home, at the far end of the long, oak-lined drive, its full majesty becoming clearer as the car rolled closer. She had swotted up on Riverview’s history on the three-hour flight to Baton Rouge: how it had once been one of the biggest sugar plantations in the Deep South, how Meredith’s family had owned it from the mid-Fifties to the early Seventies, and how it had now been a luxury hotel for over thirty years. The main house, a restored 1808 colonial mansion, was white and imposing, with five long pillars at the entrance and tall windows. It was not dissimilar to Belcourt, if that house had been dipped in chalky paint. As she drove through the grounds, Tess caught a glimpse of a few of the twelve clapboard cottages dotted around the grounds, a grim reminder of the history of the house, although she doubted their present occupants had any clue as to their past. Today, the cottages were deluxe one-thousand-dollar-a-night bolt holes for well-heeled honeymooners and holiday-makers, but back in the nineteenth century, they were slave cabins.
She shuddered, wondering, not for the first time, whether she should be here. In fact, Tess had made the call to Dom before she had time to properly think about what she was doing. He was obviously excited to hear from her, and Tess had felt bad as the hope in his voice quickly died away when he realized Tess’s call was not to arrange a reconciliation.
‘I need you to do something for me,’ she’d told him bluntly.
‘I might have known you’d want something,’ he said sarcastically.
‘Well, what did you expect?’
‘I need a couple of nights at Riverview Plantation,’ said Tess. ‘It’s super-expensive, and I’m not sure I can write it off as expenses. Plus, I need an excuse to ask lots of questions.’
‘Why do you need to go snooping around Riverview?’
‘Don’t ask.’
‘Well, you’ll have to write the story up for me,’ he said.
Tess laughed. ‘Does that mean I can send you an invoice?’ she asked.
‘Does this mean we can be friends?’ he replied.
‘Maybe. One day.’
Tess put the thought out of her mind as she stepped out of the car and pulled her overnight case from the boot. The balmy honeysuckle-scented air was soothing and warm. Checking in at the desk of the beautiful mahogany reception, she was effusively greeted by the manager who introduced himself as Sidney Garner.
‘So you’re from the London Times?’ he said with a thick, deep Southern accent.
‘Chronicle,’ corrected Tess.
‘Well, we’re very pleased to welcome you here, Miss Garrett.’ He motioned to a waiter, who ran over with a tray bearing a mint julep.
Tess shook her head politely. ‘I have to drive again in a little while.’
‘But you only just got here!’ he protested. ‘Riverview is all about relaxation.’
Tess smiled at the way he separated the word into four syllables: ‘re-lax-ay-shun’.
‘Well, I’ll try,’ smiled Tess, ‘but sadly it’s not a holiday.’
Sidney shooed the waiter away. ‘Well, why don’t I show you to your room? You’re in the Dovecote.’
Tess tried to hide her disappointment. She had asked Dom to try and secure bungalow twelve, the guesthouse nearest the river. The one Olivia Martin had stayed in.
They wound down a path that took them through manicured gardens bursting with roses and flowering trees.
‘So, what can you tell me about the history of the house, Mr Garner?’ asked Tess.
‘Sidney, please,’ he blustered. ‘Well, the Portland hotel group bought Riverview from the previous owners three years ago. We’ve spent millions since then remodelling it, keeping the essence of the estate but bringing it into the twenty-first century.’
He led her up to a pretty grey outbuilding and handed Tess a key. ‘The Dovecote is one of our best rooms. Very quiet. I thought you’d prefer that to the rooms in the main house if you wanted to work.’
Tess smiled. ‘Do you mind if I have a look around?’
‘Not at all. Any questions, just let me know.’ He thrust a brochure into her hands. ‘A CD of images, a factsheet on the hotel’s history. It’s all in there.’
‘Is it possible to see bungalow twelve?’
He gave his head a half-shake. ‘Unfortunately not. We’re at eighty per cent capacity this weekend and twelve is occupied. Usually is. It’s very popular with honeymooners doing the River Road trail. We’ve got honeymooners in there now.’
‘See what you can do?’ said Tess, pressing a flirtatious hand on his arm. ‘I only need a few minutes to see the view and so on. I’d be very grateful.’
Sidney’s eyes widened slightly. ‘I’ll try,’ he said, attempting a coquettish look. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
He was just walking away when he turned back. ‘You know, another journalist phoned up a few weeks ago asking the same question. I believe there’s a history to number twelve. Some actress disappeared from a party here in the Sixties, but I’d prefer it if you didn’t put that in the story. Some tourists get a bit spooked by things like that.’
‘Of course,’ smiled Tess. ‘You can rely on my discretion.’
Tess wondered who had called. Alicia? Someone from the Washington Spy? One of Wendell Billington’s people? It hardly mattered. No one had got any further with the story or she would certainly have heard about it by now.
There was a chirping sound and Sidney took his cell phone out of his pocket.
‘Do you mind?’ he said, reading his message. ‘I’m wanted in the restaurant. New chef, I’m afraid,’ he said with a lame wink.
‘Well, I’ll just go and settle into my room if that’s okay. I have a meeting in Vacherie in less than an hour.’
‘Better hurry,’ said Sidney. ‘It’s pretty far out.’
You said it, thought Tess.
Dennis Carson had been a difficult man to track down. Given that Tess only had limited time, she had been forced to ask Becky at the Oracle to help in return for another Brooke and David wedding story, but there was no other way to find the policemen who had been responsible for investigating Olivia’s disappearance. Vacherie was a small, pretty town set just back off the highway. It was mainly a cluster of creole cottages and clapboard buildings surrounding a small white church with a tall pointy steeple. The retired officer lived just behind the general store, and he was out in the garden digging in a rose bush when Tess walked up. Carson was around seventy, with military-short steel-grey hair, a heavy jaw, and dark, alert eyes.
‘Thanks for seeing me,’ said Tess, as Carson led her to a small cane sofa on the porch, sitting on a wooden chair opposite, wiping his brow with a spotted handkerchief.
‘I wasn’t too surprised,’ said Carson. ‘Someone called me up about this business a few weeks ago.’
‘So I keep hearing,’ replied Tess with a smile. ‘Could I ask who it was?’
‘Don’t know. They left a message on my machine, but I’ve been in Oregon for the last few weeks visiting my son.’
Tess nodded, feeling a sense of relief. Perhaps no one else had got to the bottom of this story.
‘So you work for the Asgills?’ he asked.
‘I work for Meredith Asgill, yes. I’m the family publicist. And, as I’m sure you’ll have gathered, the Olivia Martin story has resurfaced.’
Carson shrugged. ‘Bound to happen when her daughter’s marrying that old-money guy. The one from the television?’
Carson smiled at Tess’s surprised reaction. ‘Hey, I’m retired,’ he laughed, ‘I ain’t dead. We get the newspapers here too, you know.’
Tess blushed a little.
‘So can you tell me what happened back then?’
‘Well, I ain’t too sure I’m gonna be able to tell you anything you ain’t already read,’ he shrugged. He rolled his neck and his eyes took on a faraway look. ‘After the wedding dinner, there was a big party out at Riverview. This was the Saturday night. According to witnesses, Olivia Martin was drunk and a little high on something. About half a dozen guests said they saw her glassy-eyed and not too stable on her feet. She’d come to the party on her own and was staying in cottage twelve, I believe. The last people to see Olivia alive were Meredith’s folks, at about eleven p.m., when Olivia came to say thank you for the evening. No one saw her leave or go into her cottage, she just disappeared.’
Tess nodded. That was the version of the story everyone knew.
‘So when was she reported missing?’
‘The Tuesday, almost three days later. The day after the wedding, the Sunday, Meredith’s family threw a brunch for the guests that had stayed overnight at Riverview, in the main house or in those little shotgun cottages around the grounds. Olivia didn’t arrive at the meal, but people assumed she was just sleeping off a hangover. It wasn’t until that evening that one of the maids noticed that all Olivia’s belongings were still in cottage twelve. She reported it to Meredith’s mother, who did nothing about it until the next day.’
‘Why not?’
Carson shrugged.
‘A pretty actress doesn’t come home after a party, I guess you don’t panic immediately. You think maybe she met a guy, went back to his place. Plus, she’s from that Hollywood world, maybe a little erratic – who cares if you’ve left all your stuff at your host’s house? Actresses, models aren’t known as the most reliable people. Anyways, Meredith’s mother called Howard in Capri on the Monday and they decide to call the police if she’s not turned up the next morning.’
‘Which she didn’t.’
Carson shook his head. ‘So we didn’t get to cottage twelve until eleven a.m. on Tuesday morning. Her bedside cabinet is covered with barbiturates and there’s a half-drunk bottle of vodka in the bathroom. And have you seen the proximity of the river to cottage twelve? It’s maybe a hundred yards. The Mississippi is almost a mile wide in this part of Louisiana and the currents are strong. A body has got a fifty-fifty chance of floating out into the Gulf of Mexico and never being recovered.’
‘So you think she fell in?’
‘Fell in, walked in, we’ll never know. We do know Olivia had a history of depression. We know a television contract got cancelled shortly before she went missing. We also know there’s been no activity on her bank accounts or social security number ever since, so it’s unlikely she’s alive.’
‘You say fell or walked into the river. What about pushed? Or thrown in?’
Carson’s eyes searched Tess’s. After a couple of seconds he nodded. ‘Of course that’s possible, but there was no sign of a struggle in the cottage. No one saw or heard anything unusual and we interviewed maybe a hundred guests at the party. We even brought dogs into the grounds, but we got nothing.’
‘What about the rumour that Howard was having an affair with her? He was getting married, Olivia might have started being difficult …’
Carson smiled slightly. ‘Howard Asgill was with his wife all night. Anyway, not one person came to us to say that Howard was having an affair with Olivia. And even if he was, it doesn’t mean to say he killed her.’
He wiped his hands on his handkerchief and Tess could tell that his patience was wearing thin.
‘Miss Garrett,’ he sighed, ‘it’s our job to find out the truth and to bring people to justice and I spent my whole career trying to do that. But sometimes we go looking for things and they just ain’t there.’
Tess nodded. ‘I appreciate that, Mr Carson,’ she said, ‘but it’s also my job to find out the truth, too. I have to know. If you’ve read the papers, you’ll understand just how much is at stake.’
Carson began to massage his neck. ‘Sure, I got that. But you gotta understand that Olivia Martin was a high-profile woman and this case was investigated properly. She wasn’t reported missing for over thirty-six hours, and missing people who aren’t found in the first forty-eight hours are very rarely found at all.’
‘So do you think she’s alive?’
Carson turned up his hands. ‘Some people do manage to drop out of society, but Olivia was well known and people were looking for her; I think she would have been spotted. I do know her sister down in Sacramento got an inquest, but it didn’t go so far as to declare suicide. That’s pretty much impossible when there’s no body.’
‘Did the sister get any money?’ asked Tess.
He shrugged. ‘I’ve heard of a few cases like these. A missing person can be declared dead after seven years. The sister was the only living relative and she would have got any life insurance.’
Tess could tell that she had exhausted her welcome. She could understand it: who wants to keep answering questions about something that happened forty-something years before, especially when there were no answers. Tess picked up her bag and stood up.
‘Thank you for your time, Mr Carson,’ she said, offering her hand. ‘Before I go, can I just ask you what you think happened? Was it suicide? Murder?’
Carson rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Ever heard of Ockham’s Razor?’
Tess shook her head.
‘It’s a principle used in medicine. In layman’s terms, it means that when you have different conflicting theories, the simplest explanation is most likely to be the best, or most true explanation.’
Tess mulled it over as they walked down the steps and into the garden.
‘So the theory that a depressed, drugged-up Olivia Martin takes a walk by the river and then falls in is more likely than the theory that her sister killed her for insurance money or Howard Asgill killed her so she’d keep quiet about an affair?’
Carson opened the garden gate for Tess.
‘I do believe that, yes,’ he said. ‘Especially when witnesses put her sister in Sacramento on the evening of the wedding. And security at that wedding was tight; no one else could have got into that party.’
Tess paused on the sidewalk and looked back. ‘But what about Howard Asgill?’
Carson closed the gate with a click.
‘Miss Garrett, I interviewed Howard Asgill myself,’ he said firmly. ‘In my professional opinion, he wasn’t involved in any way. If someone killed Olivia Martin, it wasn’t him.’
Tess was thoughtful as she drove back to Riverview. She was honestly no wiser as to the truth of the Olivia Martin case, but she found that she was enjoying the process: asking questions, talking to people; it felt as if she was doing something constructive. If she was honest, her confrontation with Alicia Wintrop had upset her more than it should. Alicia’s accusation that working for the Asgills and effectively covering up lies and transgressions – misleading people – was somehow morally suspect had hit a nerve. It was something Tess knew to be true, but had so far managed to ignore. But now, out here, away from the glitter of Manhattan, Tess could see that the truth was actually a little more complicated. Everyone had things in their past that they would rather stayed in the past; everyone made mistakes. The question was which of them should remain buried.
Tess felt a sense of real relief as she turned through the iron gates of Riverview. She hadn’t changed her clothes since her flight down, and was beginning to feel a bit icky. Back in her room, she showered, changed into a long cool dress and headed down to the hotel restaurant. It was busy, but Tess found a quiet table in the corner and ordered a mint julep. She had been thinking about the one she had rejected a couple of hours earlier all the way back from Vacherie.
‘Is everything all right, Miss Garrett?’
She looked up to see an elegant woman of around sixty, whose dove-grey linen slacks were exactly the same colour as her hair.
‘Lori Adams,’ she said, extending a hand. ‘Assistant manager. I believe you’re here from the Chronicle?’
Tess smiled politely. It was par for the course on press trips to be accosted by the management for a tour of the grounds or a detailed briefing on the latest improvements to the hotel. She knew it was the trade-off for getting free accommodation, but she wished she’d called room service.
‘Everything’s fine,’ she smiled. ‘Beautiful, actually. This is a really special place.’
‘May I?’ asked Lori, pointing at the chair opposite Tess.
‘Please do.’
Lori signalled to the waiter to bring her another mint julep. ‘Yes, it is special, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘It’s certainly going to be hard giving it up, I can tell you.’
‘Giving it up?’
‘I retire next week,’ smiled the woman. ‘There’s a lot of memories here; Riverview has been my life. Although perhaps it’s time; things are beginning to change now we’re part of a big corporate business. It wasn’t like that when I started working here forty years ago.’
‘Forty years?’ said Tess, sipping her drink thoughtfully. ‘I didn’t think Riverview was a hotel back then?’
‘It wasn’t,’ said Lori wistfully. ‘I worked for the family who used to own the house.’
‘Meredith Asgill’s family, the Carters?’
‘You’re well informed.’
‘New York’s a small place,’ shrugged Tess. ‘I know Brooke Asgill quite well.’
The older woman’s face lit up. ‘You do? Oh how wonderful. Do you know Meredith too?’
Tess nodded. She had a hunch Lori Adams might be more help to her than Sidney Garner.
‘And how is she?’ asked Lori as she took her cocktail from the waiter. ‘How is Meredith?’
‘A little stressed. Usual mother-of-the-bride stuff.’
Lori gave a little tinkling laugh. ‘That doesn’t surprise me. Meredith always was very particular, very exact. I remember her wedding day – everything had to be just so.’
‘Really?’ said Tess, trying to contain her excitement. ‘You were at the wedding?’
‘I was the Carters’ maid back then,’ said Lori. ‘I worked my way up through housekeeping to a management position. As I said, I’ve been at Riverview all my working life.’
‘So what happened at Meredith’s wedding?’
Lori arched her brow. ‘You mean the Olivia Martin business?’
Tess put down her drink. ‘Oh, don’t worry, this isn’t for the story. I don’t think any of our readers in England would know who Olivia Martin was. I just know that Brooke is curious; you must know there’re still some pretty nasty rumours about her father?’
Lori nodded.
‘Have you been out to see cottage twelve?’ she asked, lowering her voice a little.
Tess shook her head. ‘No, Sidney told me that there was someone in it.’
Lori pointed to a couple holding hands at a table on the far side of the restaurant.
‘That’s them having dinner over there,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘We can go and have a look quickly if you’d like?’
The grounds were quiet after the noise of the busy restaurant, the sky jet black and marbled with starlight. They skirted around the back of the house and followed the lantern-lit path, past a stone fountain and a small Japanese garden, until Tess could hear the low, rumbling sound of water.
‘What’s that?’ asked Tess.
‘The Mississippi,’ said Lori. ‘Folks are often surprised that she makes a little noise, but she’s a grand old lady.’
Finally they saw the cottage, its windows glowing orange. It was certainly private. There were just two other cottages within view. Using her pass-key, Lori let them in. Tess felt a sudden rush of adrenaline, partly from doing something slightly underhand, but also because she felt she was getting closer to the truth. There wasn’t much to the cottage, simply a living space, a bedroom, and a bathroom.
‘It’s all been changed since then, of course,’ said Lori. ‘But the layout is the same.’
Seeing the couple’s clothes and personal items everywhere, Tess began to feel a little awkward.
‘Shall we go back outside?’ she said. They closed the door and stood on the small veranda, leaning against the rail.
‘So what were you doing that night, Lori?’ asked Tess, her voice hushed.
‘Well, I was a drinks waitress. There were hundreds of people here, all very thirsty,’ she laughed. ‘The wedding was at four in the afternoon, then the wedding dinner lasted until about eight p.m., and then there was dancing. There was a wonderful jazz band and at midnight an incredible fireworks display that folks said you could even see in the next county.’
Tess tried to put herself there, tried to imagine it was 1964 and that the party was going on all around her.
‘Where was the firework display?’
‘Everyone crowded around the front of the house to watch it, right by the fountain.’
‘So, when the fireworks went off, this area by the cottage would have been deserted. If Olivia did take a midnight walk by the river and fell in, no one would see it or hear her scream because nobody was around.’
Lori nodded. ‘Yes, I always thought that too. Apparently there was a poker game going on from about one a.m. to four a.m. in cottage ten just there,’ she said, pointing to the nearest neighbouring cottage to cottage twelve. ‘The guests in cottage nine and eleven were also up until three a.m. There would have been far more chance of someone seeing or hearing something then.’
Lori caught Tess’s enquiring look and laughed. ‘You’re wondering how I remember all these details? Because no one talked about anything else for weeks afterwards, months even. It was the biggest thing to happen in these parts for years. I guess we all became little detectives, trying to work out what had happened to poor Olivia.’
Tess felt her mobile vibrate in her pocket.
‘Excuse me,’ she said to Lori, and moved down the steps out of earshot.
‘Tess? Why haven’t you been answering your cell?’
Tess recognized Meredith’s voice immediately. ‘I’m out of the city.’
‘Out of the city?’ she hissed. ‘I need to see you at once. I’ve just had Wendell Billington on the phone about this Washington Spy story. Where are you?’
Tess hadn’t wanted to tell Meredith she had visited Riverview until she had found out more. After all, it could well have been a wild-goose chase. But there was another reason. For all she knew, Meredith could have given Howard his alibi and been covering up his involvement in Olivia’s disappearance for decades. She didn’t want to tell her employer that she was gathering evidence that might send her to jail. Still, there was no reason to pretend and, anyway, it was David who had asked her to get to the bottom of the story. If Meredith had been talking to his father, she might well find out anyway.
‘I’m at Riverview,’ said Tess.
There was silence at the other end of the phone.
‘David asked me to come, Meredith,’ she explained. ‘We need to know what happened. It’s the only way we can kill this story.’
When she spoke, Meredith’s voice was icy. ‘With respect, Tess,’ she said, ‘dozens of police officers couldn’t find out what happened to Olivia and I doubt you’ll have any more luck over forty years later. I would suggest your time would be better spent doing your real job, putting a more positive spin on the Washington Spy story before Wendell starts having serious conversations with David about his bride.’
She sounded furious. Tess could imagine her pacing up and down her Upper East Side drawing room, demanding her maid bring camomile tea and bourbon to calm her.
‘The Billingtons are putting the thumbscrews on Ben Foley to run an apology in the next issue of the Spy. Plus I’ve set up an interview with the New York Chronicle magazine for David and Brooke to run just after the wedding. It will bring up the Olivia Martin case and say that the police have no reason to believe this was ever foul play.’
‘I want you back in the city, Tess.’
‘Just give me twenty-four hours on this,’ pleaded Tess.
Meredith paused for a moment. ‘Very well. I’ll see you in the office on Thursday.’
‘Thank you, Meredith,’ said Tess, feeling a little thrill as she hung up. What was it? Fear? Excitement? And then she remembered: it was the story. It was what she had loved doing on newspapers and what she had missed working for the Asgills. The thrill of the chase. The story. The truth. Whatever that was.