For a man in his midseventies, Win Turnbull had the spry agility of someone at least twenty years younger. I walk fast enough with my cane, but I can no longer run since my accident and that terrifies me. Win slowed his pace as soon as he realized I was having trouble keeping up—and apologized. I hated that he had to do that.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m working on getting faster.”
“I know you are,” he said. “You’ve got grit, Lucie.”
When Win had been in Iraq, he had performed what he called “meatball surgery” under appalling conditions, reattaching limbs where possible and amputating them when there was no more hope. Sometimes on children. He’d seen plenty of grit.
“Thank you for that.”
I led him to the elevator, the basement, and down the maze of corridors. I caught his startled look as he took in the unusual art, but unlike Quinn he didn’t comment. Nor did he say anything when we walked into Prescott’s wine cellar with its opulent medieval French château decor and, through the arched doorway, the rows of wine racks with bottles of rare vintages that stretched into the darkness.
Quinn got up from the sofa where he’d been keeping vigil with Prescott, looking surprised at seeing Win instead of Clayton.
“Hey, Doc,” he said. “Over here.”
“Bobby is going to tell Clayton what happened and bring him down here,” I said.
Quinn nodded and moved out of the way so Win could kneel beside Prescott.
“Rigor hasn’t set in,” Win said after a moment. “It hasn’t been very long since the time of death. Lucie, tell me what happened when you were with him.”
I gave him a rough timeline, explaining that Prescott had invited me for a glass of Madeira to discuss purchasing some of my wine. When we were finished he wanted to stay in the wine cellar for a while, so I went back upstairs to the party.
It wasn’t the whole truth, but it seemed to me there was no point bringing up the tour of Prescott’s secret shrine that paid homage to his Masonic beliefs. He’d hit his head here in the wine cellar, so why mention the other room?
“Was he drunk?” Win asked.
“No.”
“You’re certain? There’s alcohol on his breath. Rather potent, in fact.”
“If he was drunk, I didn’t realize it,” I said. “Actually, he seemed quite lucid. What happened, Win?”
“Possibly a heart attack or a stroke. I’ll know after I do the autopsy. It looks like he tried to reach for the table after he hit his head. If he was conscious I’m surprised he didn’t try to call for help.”
“There’s no cell phone service down here,” I said. “He wouldn’t have been able to reach anyone.”
“Speaking of cell phones.” Quinn fished my phone out of his pocket and handed it to me. Win watched the exchange.
“We came back when I realized I’d lost my phone,” I told him. “If Quinn and I hadn’t shown up when we did, it might have been a long time before someone thought to look for Prescott down here.”
“Why is that?”
“Because he didn’t want anyone to know he’d invited me to his wine cellar,” I said and realized belatedly it sounded as bad as I thought it did. “Didn’t want his family to know, that is.”
That sounded even worse. It was time to shut up.
“Oh?” Win’s eyebrows went up. “Why not?”
“There was talk at the party that he was convening a meeting of the Avery Communications board of directors tomorrow morning, most likely to announce plans to sell the Washington Tribune, as well as several other Avery Communications newspapers that were losing money.”
Win gave me another arched eyebrow look, but before he could reply we heard voices in the hallway. He stood up. “That must be Bobby and Clayton.”
“It sounds like more than just the two of them,” Quinn said.
He was right. Clayton and Bobby entered the room first, followed by Scotty, Bianca, Alex, and Kellie, Scotty and Bianca’s twenty-one year-old daughter.
It was hard to read the expressions on everyone’s faces. Shock? Grief? Relief? There would be no meeting tomorrow to discuss selling the Trib or any of the other newspapers owned by Avery Communications. The timing of Prescott’s death had been convenient, even prescient, for anyone in the family who didn’t want to sell.
And that, frankly, was everyone named Avery who had just walked into this room. All of them were on the board of directors, including Kellie and her older brother. So were Clayton’s ex-wife and Celia, Tommy Avery’s widow, whom Prescott had appointed to be the executive director of the Miranda Foundation after Tommy died.
Bobby’s eyes zeroed in on Win’s and I caught the imperceptible shake of Win’s head. Don’t let them look. It’s bad.
Bobby put a restraining hand on Clay’s arm. “This is not going to be easy, Clay,” he said. “You don’t have to see him this way if you don’t want to. Or any of you, for that matter. There’s no need for an I.D.”
Alex’s eyes flashed. “I want to see him.”
“Sweetheart,” Clayton said in a cautioning voice, “Bobby just warned us this was going to be difficult. Let me do this.”
“Dad.” Alex put all the weight into that word that said don’t stop me and don’t patronize me. “I can handle it.”
Scotty put his arms around Bianca’s and Kellie’s shoulders. “Maybe you two don’t want to see him. Remember him as he was.”
I had been watching Kellie, who had started shaking, a sure sign she was about to burst into tears. She was doing her best to hold it together but after Scotty spoke her face crumpled and she let out a ragged sob, burying her head on his shoulder.
“Poor Pop-Pop. Someone should have been here with him. He shouldn’t have been alone.” Her voice choked with grief and I flinched. That someone could—should—have been me.
Scotty transferred his distraught daughter to his wife’s arms. Bianca moved Kellie away from the rest of us, murmuring consoling words in Portuguese in her daughter’s ear.
“Dad,” Scotty said, “the three of us should do this. We have to.”
Quinn and I exchanged glances and he jerked his head sideways, indicating the door. I nodded. We stepped outside into the cool, fresh air of the corridor, away from the mingled smells of Madeira and death, allowing them privacy for their sad task. I closed my eyes and waited for what I knew would come: their shocked, anguished reactions to Prescott’s body lying in a pool of blood. Even Alex let out an unvarnished cry of grief.
After a moment of respectful silence Win and Bobby took over, talking them through what came next. Eventually I heard Clayton say, “There’s a door around the corner that opens out to a driveway. It’s sheltered and it’s near the orangerie. The ambulance or whoever comes can use that entrance to transport Pres—ah, his body—to the … ah, morgue. There’s a private back road so no one needs to see any vehicles come or go. I’ll show you where it is. I’d like to keep this quiet as long as possible.”
“Dad.” Alex sounded patient but firm. “Word is going to get out. You know that. Nothing stays a secret around here. Everybody in Middleburg and Atoka was at Hawthorne this afternoon and there are still a few folks upstairs who haven’t left. Victoria’s handling them but she has to make up a story about why none of us are there to say good-bye. The family—us—we need to be the ones to control what’s said about how Grandpop died. Grant’s already driving back to D.C. to the newsroom because it’s going to be a bombshell when this gets out.”
“Are you serious?” Scotty, irate, cut her off. “Did you send Grant to D.C. without telling me?”
“Of course I did. Who do you want to handle it, Scott? The overnight shift on Thanksgiving weekend? The newsroom’s probably full of interns, for God’s sake.” Her words crackled with sarcasm. “Everyone who could take the holiday off did take it off. It’s supposed to be a slow news cycle. We’re down to a skeleton crew. Use some common sense.”
Scotty and Alex were yin and yang, dark and light—except they didn’t complement each other, didn’t fit neatly and seamlessly together to make a whole. Instead they were opposites that repelled rather than attracted. He was dark-haired, dark-eyed, the responsible son. The stoic eldest child, stepping up to the plate to help his father at the newspaper, majoring in journalism at Columbia and eventually taking Clay’s place as publisher, knowing his father never wanted the job. Alex was flighty, mercurial, blond and fair-skinned, frivolous, carefree. Spending money she didn’t have and marrying men she quickly tired of. A career in New York as a writer for the now-defunct Village Voice after studying English lit at Brown. A writer of plays and poetry, her latest project was a cathartic tell-all memoir—if rumors were to be believed—that the family managed to make sure didn’t see the light of day. Instead she was brought back to D.C.—thanks to Prescott—as co-publisher of the Washington Tribune alongside her brother. The Avery family version of rehab, meant to help her settle down and keep her close to home. It hadn’t taken long before the fireworks between her and Scotty started and people began using words like dysfunctional and toxic to describe the working environment at the Trib.
“That’s enough, you two,” Clayton admonished them in a sharp voice. “Stop squabbling and show some respect.”
“We should go,” I said to Quinn. “We don’t belong here.”
A shocked silence from the wine cellar followed my remarks and then a murmured conversation. Quinn and I exchanged looks. My voice had carried; they had forgotten about us standing outside the door, unintentionally overhearing their vitriol and that argument.
Quick footsteps and Clayton appeared in the doorway. “Lucie, Quinn—sorry, we didn’t realize you were still here. Please join us for a moment. There are a couple of things we’d like to discuss with you.”
“Of course.”
Quinn and I exchanged knowing glances and followed Clayton into the wine cellar.
The rest of them were no longer standing next to Prescott’s body, which had been moved to the sofa; his face now respectfully covered by Scotty’s blazer. They had migrated to the bar where Scotty had opened a bottle of red and was pouring it into wineglasses. Cumulatively this afternoon we had all probably drunk enough to float an ocean liner. More alcohol in such a volatile atmosphere seemed like it might be tossing a match into a tinderbox—but who was I to say?
Scotty held up the bottle. “You’ll have some, Lucie and Quinn, won’t you? In memoriam? Bobby, Win, you, too?”
It was hard to say no.
“Dad.” Scotty turned to Clayton. “You should give the toast.”
Clayton raised his glass. “To Prescott Warren Avery, who lived a long and full life. May you now be with those you loved most—Rose, Miranda, and Tommy. God bless.”
There was silence while we drank. By unspoken agreement something had changed in the family chemistry and it seemed as if the Averys had closed ranks after their argument. I knew what was coming next, why Clay had called Quinn and me back into the room.
We knew too much.
Quinn and I were the sole source of any potential leak concerning Prescott’s death. The only ones who knew exactly what had happened, outside of Bobby, Win, and the family. Bobby and Win got a special exemption; we did not.
“I am so sorry you two had to be the ones to discover Prescott the way you did,” Clayton said in a smooth, take-charge voice. “I know it must have been a terrible shock. You did the right thing getting Bobby and Win down here. But I must ask you both—in fact, I must insist—that you respect our family’s privacy by not revealing how you found Prescott. That you leave him his dignity.”
Quinn nodded and I said, “We understand.”
“The announcement for public consumption will be that Prescott died in his sleep,” Clayton went on. “A heart attack, a peaceful death. In the bosom of his family, finally joining his beloved Rose.” He looked from Quinn to me. “Is my meaning clear?”
“Crystal,” I said.
“There is no need to … embarrass … him or us with any tawdry details,” Scotty said. “We appreciate your discretion.”
“And I know we can count on you both,” Clayton said. He turned and faced Bobby and Win. “I’m asking the same courtesy of you as well. I see no need for an autopsy, do you, Win?”
Win set down his wineglass. “You don’t want to know the cause of death?”
“He was ninety-five,” Clayton said. “Does it really matter whether he had a heart attack or a stroke—or maybe he tripped after perhaps imbibing a little too much alcohol at a party in his own home?”
“If that’s your wish,” Win said.
“It is.”
“Lucie and Quinn,” Clay said, “you don’t need to stay any longer while we handle … everything. Thank you again for what you did here.”
We were being dismissed.
“Our condolences once again,” I said. “If there’s anything we can do…”
“Thank you, but we’re fine. We’ll be fine,” Alex said. It was the first time she’d spoken since we walked into the room.
“We’ll see ourselves out,” Quinn said.
There was silence as we left. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Halfway across the room the tip of my cane came down on something that crunched as though I’d just broken it. I froze.
“What the—?” Quinn said.
Before either of us could pick it up, Bobby came over and got it. A small—and now destroyed—hearing aid.
“This must be Prescott’s.” He held it up so everyone at the bar could see it.
“It is,” Clayton said. “It must have fallen out when he tripped … or after he collapsed.”
“Wait a minute.” I looked around the room. “Where’s his crystal cane … his magic wand? It should be here somewhere, too.”
“Maybe it rolled under the sofa,” Scotty said.
Bobby went over and checked. “Nope. At least I don’t see it.”
“We’ll find it,” Clayton said. “It has to be here somewhere.”
His eyes met mine. I knew then that he was aware of Prescott’s Masonic shrine—how could he not know?—and the hidden door in the wall. It was the last place I’d seen Prescott when he was still alive. Maybe he’d dropped the cane in there and that was probably what Clayton was thinking.
For now neither he nor anyone else knew that I’d been in that room, nor the secret Prescott didn’t want any of them to know about. I wanted to keep it that way, though I had the uneasy feeling Clayton might have already figured out that I knew something.
“We should be going,” Quinn said. “Good-bye, everyone … and, again, our condolences.”
On my way out, I couldn’t resist one more glance at the bookcase behind which the door to Prescott’s Masonic shrine was located. If you didn’t know a secret door was there, you’d never guess. My glance fell on the Hogarth painting next to it, Ferdinand Courting Miranda. It was askew. Could Prescott have flailed about and knocked into it before he fell?
Quinn tugged my arm. “Let’s get out of here,” he said under his breath.
We didn’t speak until we were back at the elevator and well out of earshot of everyone in the wine cellar.
Quinn said it first. “What the hell just happened in there?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But something’s wrong and it has to do with Prescott’s death. His family is covering up a secret.” The elevator door slid open and Quinn opened the inner door so we could step in.
As the door closed I added, “Whatever it is, we’re now co-conspirators. Except we don’t know to what.”