Usually Mick Dunne’s housekeeper, an attractive young Hispanic woman with a sunny smile, opened the front door, but today Mick opened it himself even before I rang the Westminster chime doorbell. A wreath of dried pale blue hydrangeas hung on the door and I remembered with a small shock that Historic Garden Week had only been last week and that Mick’s house had been one of the houses on the tour.
Virginia’s Historic Garden Week is the oldest home and garden tour in the country. It goes on for eight days and is advertised as “America’s Largest Open House” because it features more than 250 homes, gardens, and historic landmarks throughout the Old Dominion. Organized by the Garden Club of Virginia along with fifty local garden clubs, the money raised goes to restore our many historic sites, including the gardens of numerous presidents and founding fathers—Washington, Jefferson, Madison, George Mason, Woodrow Wilson, to name a few. We are spoiled for beauty and history here in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Because Historic Garden Week was always held early in April when only the first spring flowers had bloomed, it was actually more of a home tour featuring indoor arrangements—spectacular, creative displays of flowers and greenery—from the gardens of club members as well as the host’s home. The Garden Club of Atoka had decorated Wicklow, Mick’s nineteenth-century Georgian estate, and Elena Vaughn, who was a master gardener, was its president. I’d heard she had not only persuaded Mick to take on the considerable expense of opening his home to hundreds, if not more than a thousand, visitors, she had also staked her claim to provide the flowers as part of the deal. Although I’d bought tickets since it was a charity we always supported and the winery had been one of the venues where folks could pick up copies of the free program guide, it had been an exceptionally busy week for us with so many visitors in town that I never managed to get by to see any of the houses in our area.
Mick opened the door wider. “Come in,” he said. “I’ve been expecting you.”
He was unshaven and disheveled, looking as if he’d been up all night with a bottle of something keeping him company. I shouldn’t have come by without calling first. He pulled me into his arms and crushed me to him like a drowning man clinging to a lifeline.
I’d never seen Mick fall apart, and if that’s what was about to happen, I wasn’t prepared to deal with it. Not Mick, the kind of macho guy who could be a prototype for an action character in a computer game—a military commander in an epic battle, an assassin with a mission to take out a dictator or drug lord, or an outlier in a dystopian universe playing hide-and-seek with the evil enemy. Someone who was always stronger, faster, smarter, and tough as nails. And always in control of his emotions.
He tilted his head and his lips were so close to mine I had a dizzy feeling he was about to kiss me. He was in no shape for this—definitely hungover—and neither was I. I needed to stop things before he went any further. The familiar scent of his cologne and the laundry soap he used were triggering too many memories.
“Mick.” I wiggled out of his embrace. “Are you okay?”
Behind him an enormous silver urn filled with lilacs, viburnum, hydrangeas, and spirea sat on a mahogany oval table in the middle of his marble-tiled foyer. The arrangement was stunning. That would definitely be Elena’s work. I went over and stood next to it, putting some physical distance between us.
“These are gorgeous.”
The distraction worked. He stared at me as though he were coming out of a fog and then he half smiled. “Yeah. Elena and her gang did amazing work, didn’t they? And I apologize for practically mauling you when you walked in. I’m still trying to deal with … Jamie. It’s still such a bloody shock that he’s gone.”
“I know. And no apology necessary.”
“So what brings you here?” he said. “You don’t usually drop by like this anymore.”
My cheeks turned red. “Like this” meant when we were still together, a couple. “I was hoping to talk to you about something.”
He gave me a sharp-eyed look, but I met his eyes and hoped mine revealed nothing but innocent concern. When he spoke, his voice was cordial.
“Why don’t we go into the library then? Would you care for a coffee?”
“Coffee would be lovely. You look like you could do with a cup as well. Or maybe even a whole pot. How much sleep did you get last night?”
He gave me another rueful smile. “I don’t know … not much. I was over at Elena’s until after midnight. When I got home I was absolutely shattered, but I just couldn’t fall asleep. How about you?”
He put a brotherly arm around my shoulder and we walked down his long hall lined with oil paintings of bucolic English country scenes that I always thought looked as if he’d plucked them from the Constable and Turner rooms in the National Gallery of Art.
“We’ll have coffee in the library, please, Maria,” he said to the maid who reappeared. “And some of those scones.”
Maria left for the kitchen.
“Quinn gave me a sleeping pill,” I said, answering Mick’s question. “I passed out.”
“I saw you on the telly this morning,” he said. All these years in America and he still slipped easily into Britishisms. “That Pippa what’s-her-name was looking for raw meat to throw to her audience and she obviously zeroed in on you.”
“She thinks I’m covering up what really happened to Jamie,” I said as we walked into the library.
A few years ago when Mick bought Wicklow, he’d hired a mutual friend to redecorate the place and gave her carte blanche. His only requirement was that she had to remain true to the bones and history of the house, which left him free to focus on his passion: his Thoroughbreds and polo ponies and the expansive stables and training pavilion which his staff kept in immaculate condition. The vineyard had been an afterthought—the pride of having his name on a bottle of wine served at his own dinner parties, grapes grown on his soil. Finally, he realized it was too much like farming, rather than a romantic hobby, and turned it over to a professional winemaker and property manager to run.
The house itself had been redesigned in the early twentieth century by Nathan Wyeth, the architect of the Oval Office and the White House West Wing, and reminded me more of a museum than a home. Mick had spared no expense for historically correct details and furnished the rooms with fine American and English antiques. The library, its bookshelves lined with his collection of first editions and leather-covered books with worn gilt titles that gleamed in the lamplight, was my favorite, and that room, too, was filled with flowers. On either end of the broad fireplace mantel two celadon temple jars spilled over with freesia, lisianthus, delphinium, and roses. Though there was no fire in the stone fireplace, the room smelled faintly of woodsmoke overlaid with the strong sweet peppery perfume of freesia.
We sat on a green leather sofa and faced each other. “Lucie,” Mick said. “Elena and I don’t want you dealing with any more journalists or media inquiries. I just got off the phone with her. We want you to turn them over to Garrett. He’s a pro. He’ll handle it so you don’t get broadsided the way you did this morning.”
Garrett Bateman, Jamie’s vice president of everything. Fixer of all problems. Garrett, who was fiercely protective of Jamie, took no prisoners, and would be more than a match for Pippa O’Hara.
It sounded like an order, not a request. Still he was polite, making it seem as if it were for my own good. I shook my head. “I appreciate that, Mick, but it only makes it look worse, like I’ve really got something to hide. Garrett wasn’t even there yesterday.”
“He’s the family’s spokesman. We don’t want to muddle the message with conflicting stories.”
Or perhaps the truth. And Mick kept saying “we.” Not “Elena and Owen and Oliver.” Or just “Elena.”
“And what is the message?”
There was a knock on one of the French doors, and Maria entered carrying a silver tray with our coffee and a basket of scones, along with jam, butter, and a small pitcher of what I knew would be clotted cream. You can take the boy out of England … Mick got up and took the tray from her. After she left, he fixed our coffees and passed me a scone on a blue-and-white Wedgwood plate.
He pushed the jam and clotted cream closer to me. “Help yourself. What would you like?”
“An answer to my question. And I’ll take both, please.”
His smile twisted and he gave me a knowing look. “What we’d like is your discretion. And to let Garrett handle this.”
“Meaning?”
“Jamie was going through a rough patch after the election. He was taking antidepressants and he’d also started drinking more than he should have done, especially considering the medication,” he said. “If we can keep that from getting out … well, Elena would be terribly grateful.”
We’d been all over this yesterday. I dug my fork into a warm scone smothered in strawberry jam and a dollop of thick, golden-yellow cream. “Something was bothering him, Mick. Are you going to tell me what it was? Why would the last thing he said be to ask forgiveness of someone named Rick?”
Mick stirred milk and sugar into his coffee until I thought his spoon would melt. “I told Elena about that. She says it’s someone who donated money to the campaign, a lot of money. He and Jamie had a falling-out, plus—like I said—Jamie felt he let down the people who helped him, both financially and as volunteers. Elena and Garrett will take care of talking to him, so you’re off the hook.”
“A campaign donor? Seriously?”
“There’s some history there. It’s complicated.”
“Jamie asked me to do it, Mick. I gave him my promise. I’m kind of honor bound to keep it.”
“Elena wants to handle this, Lucie. Besides, Rick wouldn’t know you from Adam’s house cat. It’s already difficult enough for the family to deal with Jamie’s death. The crash, the fire … please. I’m asking as a favor, but the family really wants to take care of this on their own. What difference does it make who tells him?”
He wasn’t going to back down. “All right.” I held up my hands, surrendering. “Tell me something, though. Do you think Jamie deliberately drove his car into my wall?”
Mick set down his plate and looked at me with a stare that could have pinned me to the opposite wall. “Jamie did not commit suicide.” He enunciated each word as if I might not understand him otherwise. “He wasn’t himself when he got behind the wheel of that car yesterday. You yourself said you smelled alcohol on his breath. Possibly mixed with drugs … medication.”
“Yes.”
“I can tell you for an absolute fact that Jamie had no intention of deliberately taking his own life. First of all, there was no note, no letter he left behind for his family. Second, he was on his way to a meeting with your cousin at the Goose Creek Inn to discuss the Jefferson Dinner. He was looking forward to that dinner, showing off the bottles of Norton from the shipwreck. What happened was an accident. There’s no logical explanation otherwise for why his car hit that wall and he died in such a horrible way.”
Unless it was because Jamie’s real estate business was in trouble and he’d diverted campaign money for personal expenses, which Mick either didn’t know or didn’t know I knew. Had Rick—apparently a deep-pockets donor—found out about the misused money and threatened to expose Jamie?
“Maybe because he was depressed about losing the election,” I said. “And he had some staggering campaign debts to repay.” I wasn’t giving away anything Kit had told me last night or that she had confronted Jamie about it the day before he died.
“Yes, but he was dealing with both of those things. That’s why he was on medication. And the fund-raiser Saturday night is to start tackling the debts.” Mick shook his head in frustration. “Let it go, Lucie. Enough people have been hurt already. Don’t make it worse. He had a life insurance policy in place for years, so the company is still going to pay out. The only situations they wouldn’t cover are an act of terrorism or if Jamie had been in a war zone, neither of which happened.”
Mick had doubled down on this, and I felt as if I’d been run over by a steamroller. Maybe it was time to change the subject.
“All right. You win. But I do plan to drop by and see Elena to express my condolences. Either today or tomorrow.”
“I’m sure she’d appreciate that. I’ll let her know.”
I stood. “I ought to go. Thank you for the coffee and the scone.”
He got up and his lips brushed my cheek. “I know I am asking a lot, Lucie. You’re so bloody loyal to your friends and you want to do right by everyone. I’ve always admired that about you. So I appreciate you agreeing to let Garrett handle the press.”
We both knew he wouldn’t have relented until he wore me down and I gave in. I gave him a who-are-you-kidding look.
“I’m sure we’ll see each other at the wake and the funeral,” I said.
He nodded. “Elena asked me to be one of the eulogists. We all go back a long way together. It’s going to be rough, this funeral. Come on, I’ll walk you to your car.”
I checked my rearview mirror as I drove away. Mick was leaning against one of the columns on his front veranda, his arms folded across his chest, watching me with a contemplative look on his face. He hadn’t told me the whole truth about Jamie and there were missing pieces in his story. Was claiming that Rick had been a campaign donor who’d had a falling-out with Jamie one of them?
Something about that just didn’t ring true. Mick and I knew each other too well. I didn’t believe him even though I’d feigned agreement.
And he knew it, too.
* * *
AT THE BOTTOM MICK’S long, winding driveway, my phone rang. The Bluetooth display showed “Home.” Persia.
I pushed a button and said, “Hi, Persia. What’s up?”
“My little lamb is having a bad day, Lucie. She knows something is going on and she’s out of sorts. She’s been fussing and weepy all morning. It’s so unlike her.”
As much as we’d tried to shield Hope from what had happened yesterday, she still had a child’s uncanny sixth sense for picking up—and absorbing—the tension of the adults around her.
“She hasn’t seen anything on television, has she?” I asked. “Or overheard something on the radio?”
“She didn’t need to. Apparently she heard the commotion of all those trucks and reporters in the driveway this morning. I told her someone wanted to talk to you, is all, and now they’re gone and everything is okay. But she’s not buying it.” Persia sounded perturbed. “So I was wondering if you might run by the General Store and pick up a blueberry muffin for her. Maybe two. I’m ready to resort to bribes.”
The General Store was just about the last place on the planet I wanted to go right now. Thelma Johnson, the sweet grandmotherly-looking octogenarian who owned it and looked as if she’d blow away in a mild breeze, could wangle information out of anyone who dropped by with the deft, relentless skill of a military interrogator who needed to know the enemy’s plans. You never saw the blood until it was over. She even had her own intelligence-gathering network known as the Romeos, which stood for Retired Old Men Eating Out, a somewhat cantankerous group of senior citizens who swooped into every watering hole and restaurant in two counties to not only supplement her information but also spread the latest news—some would call it gossip—far and wide. Like the kids’ game of telephone, it usually meant stories changed, sometimes unrecognizably, in the retelling.
Thelma would already know everything there was to know about Jamie’s accident, but I’d still get the third degree the minute I walked through her front door. “Maybe I could get Hope a couple of cow puddles from the Upper Crust instead,” I said to Persia.
“She wants blueberry muffins. From the General Store.”
I sighed. “Okay. She shall have them.”
“And don’t worry about Thelma,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”
“I’ll bet someone said that to Napoleon just before Waterloo,” I said, and heard her rich chuckle as we both disconnected.
* * *
TEN MINUTES LATER WHEN I walked into the General Store, Thelma was standing behind the cash register counter, absorbed in a magazine that I knew would be one of her beloved soap opera weeklies. Thelma always dressed with the va-va-voom flair of a Broadway diva whose best days are behind her, preferring colors strong enough to vibrate and outfits so provocative that, if she’d been a teenager, would have gotten her grounded or at least sent to her room to change. Today was no different. She wore a too-short, too-tight dress with stiletto peep-toe heels, but what I didn’t expect was that she was dressed completely in black, the color of mourning.
“Why, Lucille,” she said, her reedy voice more subdued than usual, “come on over here, child. I’ve been expecting you.”
I stopped in midstep. Mick had said the same thing. “Did Persia call and ask you to save two blueberry muffins for Hope?”
“No, she did not. You’re in luck, though. I’ve got two left.” Thelma tapped her right temple with a bony index finger. “How do you think I knew you were coming? It’s my extraterrestrial psychotic perception. The spirits from the Great Beyond talk to me, Lucille, you know that. And today they’ve been speaking to me loud and clear about you.”
Thelma swore by the power of her Ouija board and claimed she could communicate with those who’d gone over to the other side, including my mother and Leland. I wondered if she’d already had a chat with Jamie Vaughn. Then I decided maybe I’d rather not know.
“About me? What exactly have they been saying?” Sometimes you didn’t know whether to abandon reason and believe what Thelma said or go with clear-eyed logic and common sense. Maybe she was listening to voices inside her head that only she could hear.
“It’s a long story,” she said. “Why don’t you have a cup of coffee with me and we can talk about it? I’m sure you’re plumb wrung out after what happened yesterday. I’ve been watching the news, especially that reporter from Channel 3 flouncing around accusing you of hiding the truth about how Jamie died. Don’t journalists have to abide by a code of ethnicity or something?”
“Uh … I don’t think so,” I said. “I think anyone’s fair game. Especially someone like Jamie since he ran for president. He’s a public person.”
Thelma took off her thick trifocals and pulled a tissue out of a box on the counter, dabbing her eyes. For the first time I noticed that her makeup, which usually looked as if she applied it with a garden trowel, was blotchy and uneven and her mascara was smeared. This wasn’t the first time today she’d been near tears.
“Oh, Thelma … are you okay?”
She sniffled. “That poor man. God rest his soul. It’s just so turrible the way it happened. Folks should leave him his dignity, not prowl around like they’re going through a trash bin.” She blew her nose. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to tell that woman what really happened.”
Here it was. The slippery slope. “I’m not hiding anything,” I said in a firm voice. “Just like I told Pippa O’Hara.”
“Lucille, you’re just like your sainted momma. She never could lie, either.” Thelma gave me a knowing look. “Help yourself to a cup of coffee, child. On the house. Today’s Fancy is Abracajava. Kind of peppy. I think you’ll like it.”
Thelma kept three coffeepots labeled “Plain,” “Fancy,” and “Decaf” on warming plates on a table next to the glass cabinet that held her fresh-baked muffins and doughnuts. A cup of coffee on the house meant she was definitely going to grill me.
“You know, I should probably just pay for the muffins and be on my way.”
“I wouldn’t if I were you.” She gave me a severe look. “There’s something you need to know. It’d go down a lot easier with a cup of coffee.”
My stomach did an uneasy flip-flop. “About Jamie?”
“About you.”
We fixed our coffees in silence, and I followed her to a small alcove where a couple of mismatched rocking chairs were pulled together in a semicircle around a small wood stove that warmed up the place in winter. Thelma took the Lincoln rocker, her usual seat, and I sat in the bentwood chair next to her.
She sipped her coffee and fixed her eyes on me. “So, tell me, what really happened yesterday?”
Thelma didn’t beat around the bush. I wasn’t going to get out of here until she heard something that sounded vaguely like the truth.
I shrugged. “Jamie was speeding. I think he must have lost control of his car because I had to swerve to avoid him. I was coming from the opposite direction when he crossed into my lane and I ended up on the shoulder on the other side of the road. The next thing I heard was him crashing into the pillar at the vineyard entrance.”
Thelma’s head bobbed gently as if she suffered from palsy, a faint uncontrollable tremor. Somehow I had a feeling she already knew this part of the story. “Then what?” she asked.
Past this point I would not go.
I drew in a ragged breath. “It’s hard to talk about.” Which was the truth.
Thelma set her coffee cup on top of the stove with a hand that shook. “Did he suffer?” Her voice shook, too.
Our eyes met. “Oh, my Lord,” she whispered and pulled the crumpled tissue out of the sleeve of her dress as tears ran down her face. “Oh, my dear, sweet Lord.”
“The fire was … almost instantaneous. So it was quick.”
She nodded, the tissue now at her lips. “I suppose that’s a small mercy.”
“Yes.”
I wasn’t going to tell her anything else. Nothing about Jamie’s dying request, no explanation why Mick and I couldn’t—didn’t—save him. Not one word about any of that, not even the slightest hint that I thought that crash was deliberate. Not an accident. I needed to change the subject fast because it felt like all the air was being sucked out of the room and I could barely catch my breath.
“Are you wearing black because of Jamie?” It was a peculiar thing to ask, but I’d never seen that color on her unless she’d been at someone’s funeral.
She blinked. “I am.”
“I didn’t realize you two were so close.”
“Not in the way you might think, not as if we were close friends,” she said. “But I did it out of respect for a good man.”
There seemed to be more to her story, so I waited.
“Years ago I needed to refinance the mortgage on this store,” she said after a moment. “The roof was leaking and the heating system wasn’t going to make it through the next winter. Jamie ran into me the day I was at the bank, Blue Ridge Federal, waiting for my appointment. We chatted and then he went his way and I went mine. Thing is, my application got turned down because I’d bought the store during the real estate bubble bath market when folks were crazy enough to pay a fortune for something that wasn’t any bigger or sturdier than a kids’ tree house. Now I was looking for money … what did that loan officer say … when I was upside down. I owed more on the store than it was worth.”
“I didn’t know this.”
“No one knows. But Jamie found out … I have no idea how. So you know what he did? He sent one of his construction crews over and they not only fixed my roof, he had them put in a brand-new heating system. Wouldn’t take a dime for it, either, and told me it had to be our secret.”
“What a generous thing to do.”
She picked up her coffee mug and rubbed at the ring it had left on the top of the stove with her other hand. “I have my ways of finding things out, Lucille. I’m not the only person around here he helped on the quiet.”
Her chair creaked in a comforting rhythm as she started to rock back and forth. I finished my coffee. “I’m not sure what this has to do with me.”
She stopped rocking and studied me. The look in her eyes told me that whatever she said next was going to be something I wasn’t expecting to hear.
“I thought long and hard about telling you this, Lucille. Especially after Jamie’s accident yesterday, and the spot where that crash took place. The same wall, the exact same place as you and Gregory Knight all those years ago,” she said. “But if it was me, I’d rather know than not know.”
My veins felt like ice water was congealing in them. Why was Thelma bringing up Greg? “Not know what?”
She folded her hands in her lap. “I had a visitor in here the other day … Friday, it was. Hunter Knight.”
“Who’s … Hunter Knight?” The question died on my lips. I’d heard what she’d said, but I didn’t believe her. “Greg’s older brother? He’s a minister, I think. He lives somewhere in Central America or South America doing missionary work.”
“He used to. And he worked for that organization that helps folks out when their inhuman rights have been violated. Amnesiac International. Anyway, now he’s moved home to help his younger brother.”
“I think you mean Amnesty International.”
“That’s what I said, didn’t I?”
“Uh … yes. But how’s Hunter going to help Greg?” I said. “He murdered a man. He’s in jail.”
“He was asking about you, Lucille. Hunter, that is. Wondering how you were doing.”
“I hope you didn’t tell him anything. I don’t want to see him or his brother. Ever. I mean it, Thelma. Ever.”
“If he shows up again I’ll make sure he knows.”
“You do that.” My voice quivered with anger. I didn’t think hearing Greg’s name or that a member of his family wanted to reach out to me would upset me this much. “Thelma, no and no and no.”
“Oh, dear, I shouldn’t have said anything to you, should I? I’m sorry I upset you so.”
I wanted to tell her it was okay, to behave like a sane, rational person who could handle this like an adult. I had rebuilt my life knowing Greg was somewhere where I would never have to see him or hear from him for a very long time. But I never thought that his older brother would turn up and try to insert himself into this corner of Virginia, my home, where I wanted to feel safe again.
“What in the world was he doing here? What brought him to Atoka?”
“He said he came to visit someone. Clammed right up when I tried to find out who it might be. Just told me he was trying to help out a friend, is all. Him being a man of the cloth I suppose a body’s got to respect what people tell him in confidential absolution.” She gave me a sideways look. “So I guess the person he wanted to visit wasn’t you?”
I glared at her, and she said, “I didn’t think so. We’ll discuss it no more, Lucille.”
“Does anyone else know he dropped by?”
“I might have mentioned it to the Romeos.”
She might as well have taken out an ad in the Trib. “So everyone in northern Virginia knows.”
“Whoever he went to visit is still a mystery. The Romeos get around, you know,” she said in a mild voice. “Aren’t you the least bit curious to find out who it was, what brought him here?”
“No,” I said. “I … I don’t know.”
“I thought you might be,” she said. “I promise you, I’ll find out, child. And when I do, you’ll be the first to know.”
I stood up. “I’d better be going. Thank you for the coffee, Thelma.”
She walked me to the front door. “I stopped by the entrance to your vineyard last night,” she said. “So many people leaving candles and flowers and whatnot. It was a lovely tribute to him. But you know what else?”
“What?”
“His spirit was there, too. Jamie still hasn’t crossed over to the other side.” She leaned close to me, her eyes boring into mine through her thick glasses. “And do you know why?”
Because I haven’t fulfilled his dying request to ask forgiveness of a stranger named Rick. “No. I don’t.”
She wagged a finger, admonishing me. “He is not at peace, Lucille. Not at all at peace. He’s going to haunt us all until he is. Mark my words.”
I nodded, mute, and fled.