Prescott Avery had warned me that the secret he was on the verge of revealing was too dangerous to share; my father, who had provided him with a key clue to its existence, had gone to great lengths to make sure no one except Prescott had known about his second safe-deposit box. Plus Leland had even persuaded Seth Hannah to not only violate bank regulations but also turn a blind eye to the fact that removing my father’s papers from his safe-deposit box and storing them in his private safe was just plain wrong.
Five years ago when I came home from France for Leland’s funeral, it had hit me like a physical blow the first time I walked into his office at home and saw his desk strewn with papers and bills, his favorite coffee mug with the Montgomery family crest stenciled on it next to his computer, and the beautiful lapis-and-silver Montblanc fountain pen my mother had given him lying there as if he’d gotten up for a moment and intended to be right back. I found more reminders throughout the house of just how abruptly his life had been interrupted—a half-read biography of Robert E. Lee open on his nightstand, the remembered scent of Floris’s JF, his favorite cologne, on a tweed blazer draped over a chair, a scribbled phone number on a pad next to the telephone in the kitchen for the garage in Aldie where he got his truck repaired and a price quote with five exclamation marks next to it.
He wasn’t done with living. He expected to have more time.
Whatever was in this envelope was also probably only part of a story, something Leland had left for safekeeping and to which he intended to return. Seth had said as much.
But my biggest hope—and the reason I really wanted to know what it contained—was that he’d left a clue to where he’d stored the Madeira. The kind of money Prescott had been talking about could be a substantial financial cushion, something to give us breathing room in the lean years. But would opening this envelope be like opening Pandora’s box?
Even if it was, I was still going to do it.
I waited until I got back to the Jeep to unwind the thread around the clasps so I could slide out the papers. A blast of arctic wind rocked the car until it shook. The sky had turned lead-colored and it felt cold and raw enough to snow, though there was none in the forecast. I started the engine, put on the heater, and pulled out the contents of the envelope.
I went through everything twice—first, quickly, and then, because I didn’t understand what I was looking at, more slowly. That second time it was clear Leland had left no clues about the whereabouts of the Madeira. Nothing. Zero. Rien. Nada. I pounded the steering wheel in frustration. Prescott had been wrong and I’d been counting on him being right. Damn.
As to what I found, none of it made sense or seemed related to the other papers in the packet. Though there were two fragile pamphlets that were possibly of some monetary value—that was something. The first, published in London in 1625, was called A true reportory of the wracke, and redemption of Sir Thomas Gates Knight; upon, and from the Ilands of the Bermudas … July 15. 1610. The second had been published in London in 1613. It, too, appeared to be a description of a shipwreck that involved the island of Bermuda: A Plaine Description of the Barmudas, also called Sommer Islands With the Manner of their Discoverie, anno. 1609 by the shipwrack and admirable deliverance of Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Sommers by Silvester Jourdain.
There were three more items. An original document, a letter written on August 23, 1814, by someone named Hobson Banks, with a return address in the St. Louis district of Middleburg, a part of town that had been an African-American community. Leland had put the letter in a page protector. The handwriting was difficult to decipher and the spelling and grammar were poor, but it was written to an unnamed woman—Dear Madam—and discussed the author’s success at getting “the preschus package” safely from the President’s House to a place of safekeeping located where President Madison did meet President Washington. “I am certin,” he wrote, “that Pres. Jefferson wood aprove.”
In the last paragraph he inquired whether she had received any news on the success of the other mission carried out by the gentlemen from New York in which his friend Paul Jennings had been of some assistance. Banks concluded by wishing her well and praying that God would protect her and the president in this terrible time of war, promising to return as soon as he was able to do so. It was signed, “Your humble servint, Hobson Banks.”
By the time I finished reading, I was sure the letter had been written to Dolley Madison, First Lady and wife of President James Madison. Madison had been president during the War of 1812, fought between Britain and America, but more important, in August of 1814, the month this letter was written and as the war still raged, British troops had marched into Washington, D.C., burning not only the White House and the Capitol, but torching much of the city. Had Hobson Banks removed something from the White House—known in those days as the President’s House—for safekeeping at Dolley’s request? Was he the slave who had managed to flee the city before the British arrived with the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington that Dolley had so famously cut out of the frame?
So what, if anything, did Hobson Banks’s letter have to do with Prescott owning a copy of the Declaration of Independence that Jefferson had written out for James Madison?
I put the letter aside and examined the last two items. Both were grainy photocopies of newspaper photos, one dated 1938, and the second 1992. I looked at the newer photo of three men and a young woman standing around what looked like an archeological excavation site. One of the men was Prescott Avery; the two others were members of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. The young woman, who appeared to be in her early twenties, was identified as Josephine Wilde, a doctoral student in geology at The College of William & Mary and a researcher at the Jamestown Settlement.
Small world—it was the same Josie Wilde I wanted to talk to and ask if we could hire her to help us with our grapes.
The caption under the photo read:
An archeological excavation undertaken by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in conjunction with Historic Jamestowne in November has reached the conclusion that “Francis Bacon’s Vault” is not and was never located in the area excavated at the northwest quadrant of Bruton Parish Church. This excavation lays to rest—permanently—centuries of speculation about its existence.
The 1938 photo showed four men standing around what was apparently the same location.
Church officials at Bruton Parish in Colonial Williamsburg have recently uncovered the foundation for the first brick church built on this site, which was completed in 1683. With an influx of students from The College of William & Mary (founded in 1693), and the relocation of the Virginia capital from Jamestown to Williamsburg after a fire destroyed much of the settlement in 1699, a new church, which is the present-day church, was built in 1715.
Two of the four men identified in the photo were from Bruton Parish Church; the third was a member of the Rockefeller Foundation, which had provided the funding to restore Colonial Williamsburg. The fourth man was Jock Avery, Prescott’s father. Very small world.
Why would two generations of Averys be present at two different excavations more than fifty years apart on the grounds of Bruton Parish? I’d been a student at William & Mary a dozen years ago and I’d never heard of “Francis Bacon’s Vault”—probably because, according to the 1992 story, it never existed.
And what of this “shipwrack” in 1609 that led to the discovery of Bermuda? I pulled out my phone and did a quick search, landing on someone’s blog page.
In 1609 a flotilla of ships set out from Plymouth, England, for Jamestown, Virginia, to bring more settlers and needed supplies to the new English colony. During a storm at sea, the flagship Sea Venture, a brand-new ship on its maiden voyage, was blown off course. Because it was leaking badly, the captain deliberately wrecked it on the island of Bermuda where the approximately 150 survivors spent nine months building two smaller ships with local wood and remnants from the wreckage. After setting sail almost a year after their arrival in Bermuda, the new ships, named Patience and Deliverance, arrived in Jamestown only to discover that most of the settlers from the other ships had died. This dark period in Jamestown’s history became known as the Starving Time. It is widely believed that the story of the Sea Venture’s wreck on Bermuda was the basis for William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest.
I sat back, my mind reeling. Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg, the Jamestown Settlement, and James Madison were somehow all related to whatever my father and Prescott were searching for. Something dangerous. Two-hundred-year-old Madeira—that James Madison was to have drunk—was also part of this puzzle, according to Prescott. And there was a chance that it all had something to do with a secret society.
I had no idea what Leland and Prescott were looking for. No clue how to put this puzzle together.
But it intrigued me and I meant to try.
A CAR PULLED UP next to me and the driver, a woman, pointed a finger at my car and raised her eyebrows, the universal gesture for are you leaving this parking place anytime soon or are you just going to sit there and text? I was so rattled after what I’d just read that I nodded, indicated I was leaving, and angled out of my spot. She zipped in behind me as I pulled out.
I was driving in the wrong direction, away from home, but I kept going. By the time I turned left onto Highway 15, known as James Madison’s Highway—an irony that wasn’t lost on me—I knew I was heading for Leesburg. It was the county seat for Loudoun County, a town with colonial roots, older than Middleburg by thirty years. It was also where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution had been sent for safekeeping during the War of 1812. Had Presidents Washington and Madison met somewhere in Leesburg? I didn’t know, but it was definitely possible.
Right now, though, I had a different destination in mind: Union Cemetery, where I planned to visit Miranda Avery’s grave and to see where Prescott Avery would soon be buried.
Were Miranda’s death thirty years ago and Prescott’s murder two days ago related? I didn’t think so, at least not right now, but it seemed to me there was some link connecting the two of them. I just couldn’t figure out what it was.
The Avery family had its own gated memorial in the middle of what was a historic burial ground that had been established in the mid eighteen hundreds a few years before the Civil War. Although anyone might have thought differently, its name—Union Cemetery—didn’t imply that it was a burial site for Union soldiers. Instead the name came from the united decision of a group of local churches to create a cemetery open to all denominations and faiths on land that, in those days, was on the far outskirts of Leesburg. Now the town had grown up around it.
It was a peaceful, pretty place surrounded by pre–Civil War trees and lanes that wound past rows and rows of weathered granite gravestones. A Confederate War Memorial, where Confederate and Union flags were set out on Memorial Day and Veterans Day, stood at one end. A thirty-foot-tall granite column, which had been designed for a public building in Washington, D.C., had been installed in the 1890s after the builders rejected it when they discovered that it was imperfectly cut. A few years later, a sweet little sandstone chapel was also built on the cemetery grounds.
The Avery obelisk, one of the tallest with a distinctive Celtic cross on top, wasn’t difficult to find. I drove through the main entrance and immediately saw it on a bluff practically in the middle of the cemetery. Jock Avery, it was said, had used the Italian stonemasons who worked on his home to carve the four-sided obelisk’s intricate design and the cross. The family name, which had been embellished with gold, glittered in the bleached-out light on this blustery December afternoon.
The wrought-iron gate to the Avery graveyard unlatched with a complaining creak and I let myself inside. At least half a dozen headstones surrounded the obelisk and there was space for more members of the family when their time came. I found Tommy’s and Miranda’s markers next to their mother’s and wondered if Prescott would be laid to rest beside Rose or whether he and Rose had decided they would be on either side of their beloved children. So far it looked as if there were no plans to prepare for Prescott’s casket to be interred here. But if it snowed and the ground froze, the family would have to wait anyway. Plus the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office still had to release Prescott’s body. The funeral would take place after that.
The unpolished gray granite headstone of Prescott and Rose’s son Tommy was poignant in its stark simplicity. Underneath his name and dates of birth and death, was one word: BELOVED. My mother had told me his parents’ grief had known no bounds; it had nearly destroyed Prescott. Tommy had been young, handsome, carefree, the anointed heir, but also a reckless daredevil. Clayton had never been able to fill the void left by his tragic death. How soul-destroying could it be to realize that, whatever he did, Clay could never be as good, as smart, as popular, as beloved as his half-brother in the eyes of his stepfather?
Not only that, Prescott didn’t like Victoria, Clayton’s almost-fiancée, and he had most likely been about to sell the newspaper Clay had sacrificed his own career to run, once again demonstrating to his family and the world that Prescott himself still ran the show. For Clayton that final decision to publicly undermine him must have been humiliating. Was it possible he’d been so angry he confronted Prescott downstairs in the wine cellar on Saturday and…?
The wind buffeted me again and I moved from Tommy’s marker to Rose’s and Miranda’s headstones, which were also simple unpolished granite stones. On Rose’s, the newest and least worn, was written: I WOULD NOT WISH ANY COMPANION IN THE WORLD BUT YOU. And on Miranda’s was poetry: WE ARE SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON AND OUR LITTLE LIFE IS ROUNDED WITH A SLEEP.
I pulled out my phone and turned my back to the wind, looking up both epitaphs. Shakespeare. The Tempest.
Again. What was it about that play that Prescott Avery had chosen lines from it to eulogize his wife and daughter? It had also been important to my father, who had locked up copies of two diaries from survivors of the shipwrecked Sea Venture in a safe-deposit box—supposedly the play had been based on their stories.
I was done here; I’d found what I’d come for. Quick prayers for Rose, Miranda, and Tommy and then I headed back to the Jeep. A few flakes of snow swirled down from the flat, white sky, melting as they landed on the tops of headstones. The weather report hadn’t mentioned snow. I started the engine and my phone rang. A number flashed on the display with Clayton Avery above it. An electric current went through me as if I’d been caught taking something that wasn’t mine. Clay couldn’t possibly know I was parked in front of his mother’s and half-brother’s and sister’s graves at Union Cemetery.
Could he?
I answered the call, hoping I sounded perfectly normal.
“Lucie, Clay Avery. Hope I didn’t catch you in the middle of something.”
I let out a relieved breath. “No, not at all. I’m over in Leesburg finishing up an errand.”
“Great, as long as you’re out—and you’d practically be driving by here anyway if you’re heading home from Leesburg—I wanted to ask if you would stop by the house. There’s something we need to discuss. It’s rather urgent.”
I knew where this was going. First, I wouldn’t “practically” be driving by Hawthorne Castle. Second, Clay wanted to talk about my conversation with Prescott just before he died. We didn’t need to discuss it; he wanted me to tell him what had gone on.
“What’s this about, Clay?”
“Let’s save it for when we meet,” he said, brushing off the question. “How about in half an hour? Could you be here then? Come by for a drink or coffee.”
“I … sure.”
“Great,” he said. “See you soon.”
I had already told Bobby about my conversation with Prescott over a glass of Madeira in his wine cellar just before he died. But that was after it was determined he hadn’t died of natural causes as everyone had assumed.
Telling Clayton was a different matter. For one thing, he was high on Bobby’s list of suspects, fitting the bill perfectly with motive, means, and opportunity. And killing Prescott in plain sight of more than a hundred party guests, meaning there were so many potential suspects, had been a brilliant, if cruel, move. If Clayton had done it.
Maybe he hadn’t. What if he, like Prescott, wanted to buy Leland’s cache of 1809 Madeira and that’s why he wanted me to stop by? Too bad I was no nearer to knowing where those bottles were today than I had been on Saturday.
I called Quinn as I put on my signal for Mosby’s Highway at the roundabout where it met Highway 15 and told him I was stopping by Hawthorne and why. Quinn was still out in the vineyard trying to figure out what to do about the diseased Merlot vines.
He sounded preoccupied. “Don’t worry about when you get home. Persia already made dinner. All we have to do is heat it up.”
“What’s for dinner?”
“You even have to ask?” he said. “Turkey casserole.”
Comfort food. Again. After this day, I’d welcome it.
“Sounds good to me,” I said. “See you soon.”
But first I had a meeting—a command performance, actually—with Clayton Avery, who was very likely on the top of Bobby’s suspect list for the murder of his stepfather, Prescott Avery.