Pilar’s supply cart was parked outside the apartment next to Faith’s and the door to Roxy’s apartment was wide open. The place had been cleaned out and the muffled sound of a vacuum came from a back room. The hall was deserted and I knew I wasn’t going to walk away without taking a look around. Anyway, I wanted to talk to Pilar.
The nail holes on the walls where Roxy’s paintings and photographs had hung were still there, along with matted-down furniture indentation marks in the plush wall-to-wall carpet, except for one set of shallower marks near the entryway, as though someone had moved something recently. The vacuuming continued, an asthmatic, dull whine. As in Faith’s apartment, there was a coat closet in the little foyer. I stepped through the doorway and pushed open one of the louvered doors. The closet was empty except for an iron on the top shelf.
Roxy’s kitchen was larger than Faith’s, but, like hers, it was adjacent to the sitting room, a half wall with a long marble counter atop it that looked like a bar. Pilar was still vacuuming, so I went into the kitchen and checked the cabinets and drawers, which were all empty. The vacuum cut off and a few seconds later Pilar entered the sitting room. She gave a startled yelp when she saw me. Then she realized who I was and composed herself.
“Why you here?” she asked in a severe voice.
“I’m sorry, Pilar,” I said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. You remember me, don’t you? I was visiting Mrs. Eastman. I knew Mrs. Willoughby, too.”
“Señora Willoughby murió,” she said, frowning. “Nobody here. You no here. You go.” If she’d had a feather duster, she would have shooed me away with it.
Faith had said Pilar spoke almost no English, but I still wanted to ask her about the argument Faith had overheard. “I’ll go,” I said, “in a minute. First I’d like to ask you something.”
She eyed me warily and her gaze kept flicking to my cane. I wasn’t getting far with her.
I pointed to the cane. “An accident. Car. Coche.”
“Lo siento.”
The stilted conversation probably hadn’t done much to build trust between us, especially since she’d caught me snooping, but she’d said she was sorry about my accident, so I plowed on. “Do you remember a day—Tuesday—right before Mrs. Willoughby died when someone visited her and she had an argument with him? Two men, maybe one waiting in the hall?”
Pilar gave me an uncomprehending look. “I don’t know,” she said.
I had a feeling what she meant was that she didn’t understand.
“Dos hombres. Aquí. Con Señora Willoughby. Martes. Two men here with Mrs. Willoughby on Tuesday. Before she murió. Before she died.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said again. “You go. I must work. I no want trouble you here.”
“Of course,” I said. “I’m leaving right now.” I reached for my purse, which was slung over my shoulder, and unzipped it, pulling out the leather case that contained my business cards.
She was still watching me, a suspicious look in her dark eyes. I took out a card and held it out to her. “If you remember anything about those men, please call me, okay? Lucie. Me llamo Lucie. Mi amigo Quinn habla español muy bien. He speaks Spanish. Very good Spanish. You can talk to him if you call, okay?”
“No,” she said. “I no talk. Nothing.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Now you go or I call my boss.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m going. Have a nice day, Pilar.”
She stood there without moving and watched me walk out the door. But as I turned the corner, I tucked my card between some folded towels in her cart, where she’d be sure to see it. I had a feeling she knew something. Either she’d heard the argument or she’d seen Roxy’s visitor. Maybe she’d even recognized him.
It was a long shot.
But right now, it was the only one I had.
* * *
THE GOOSE CREEK INN sits on the banks of the creek that gave it its name, tucked into the bend of a winding country road just outside Middleburg. If you aren’t expecting it as you come around the sharp right-angle corner, it seems to appear out of nowhere, the way children in fairy tales happen upon the house they’ve been searching for in the middle of the enchanted forest. In spring, the flowering cherry and dogwood trees that surround the Inn make it seem as if the pretty half-timbered building is floating on a pink-and-white cloud. But on a bitterly cold February day, the tree limbs were bare and stark, and the snow, glittering like crushed diamonds in the brilliant sunshine, was piled high around the edges of the gardens and the gravel parking lot, where a plow had dumped it. The place looked homey and welcoming as a curl of white smoke puffed out of a chimney into the bright blue sky.
Quinn’s Camaro was already parked near the entrance, but it was the only car that was there when I pulled in just before 10:30, so Gino hadn’t arrived yet. The front door was locked, so I knocked, and a moment later my cousin answered.
I stepped inside to cheery warmth and the smells of lunch being prepared. We exchanged kisses on both cheeks in the French way, and I thought I smelled a faint odor of cigarette smoke. She looked dragged out and tired.
“Thanks for letting us have this meeting here,” I said. “What in the world were you doing awake at three in the morning? Quinn said he texted you and you answered right back.”
She gave me a wan smile. “My White House interview is tomorrow. They’ve asked me to prepare a meal for the First Lady and her staff. Mon Dieu, I’m driving myself crazy trying to figure out what to make.”
“Your interview is tomorrow?” My heart gave a little flutter. “As soon as that? Then they’ll let you know?”
Of course they would hire her, give her the job as White House executive chef. They’d be crazy not to. She’d come up with something brilliant and amazing, as she always did, and everyone would be completely wowed.
She nodded and held out her hand for my coat and scarf. “I only found out yesterday afternoon,” she said as she hung my things in a cloakroom next to the maître d’s stand. “I suppose they want to see how creative I can be on short notice. Preparation for the way it can be every day at the White House.”
“You’ll knock ’em dead,” I said, then realized what I’d said. “I don’t mean literally, of course. Anything you make will be fabulous.”
She smiled. “Merci, chérie. Quinn’s in the bar and there’s a fire in the fireplace. If you ask me, he looks like death hungover.”
“He probably feels that way, too.”
“I asked Hassan to take care of you. Don’t worry, he’s very discreet, I assure you. He wouldn’t be my headwaiter if he weren’t. He took one look at Quinn and immediately brought him an espresso.” She gave me a sideways look. “Quinn told me the third guest is Gino Tomassi.”
I nodded. “He was at the White House last night, a guest at the state dinner with the Italian prime minister. Quinn … um, knows Gino from California.”
“I’d like to meet him,” she said. “We don’t serve any Tomassi wines here. Maybe we could work something out—”
“Dominique?” A woman wearing a chef’s toque poked her head around the corner. “Can you come right away?”
She nodded as someone knocked on the front door. “That’ll be Gino,” I said.
“Come get me when your meeting is finished, so I can meet him,” she said. “Maybe he and I can do business.”
She disappeared and I answered the door. Gino gave me a cool look as I let him in. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” he said. “What’s this about?”
“Nice to see you, too,” I said. “Quinn’s in the bar. We’ll have complete privacy there. The Inn doesn’t open for an hour. Follow me and you’ll find out.”
Quinn was sitting in a high-backed chair that faced the fire, reading the newspaper. When we walked in, he got up and folded the paper in half, but not before I saw that it was the “Lifestyle” section of the Washington Tribune, with the article mentioning Gino.
“Good morning, Gino,” he said. “I see you made it.”
“You said it was important,” Gino said. “So I came.”
“Have a seat.” Quinn gestured to two chairs that were pulled up around a scarred oak table.
They were sizing each other up like two wary animals not certain which one was going to start the fight. I hoped neither of them would bait the other.
“Dominique’s sending a waiter to take our order,” I said, sitting down and giving Quinn a warning glance not to drop any bombshells before we got that out of the way. As if he’d been listening, there was a polite knock and Hassan walked in carrying a full tray.
“I took the liberty of ordering for everyone to save time,” Quinn said as Hassan set down three cups of café au lait and a basket of warm croissants with butter and jam.
Quinn pulled out his wallet, and Hassan said, “On the house. Dominique insists.”
“At least let me take care of the tip,” Quinn said, passing him some money.
Hassan nodded his head, a gesture of thanks. “I won’t disturb you again. If you need something, I’ll be in the dining room.”
After he was gone, Gino said, “Let’s get this show on the road.” He dropped two lumps of brown sugar in his coffee and stirred it.
Quinn pulled a croissant out of the basket and tore it apart. He spread raspberry jam on one of the pieces and said, without looking up, “Why didn’t you tell us Zara was having an affair with Warren Harding?”
Gino’s spoon dinged the edge of his coffee cup, sloshing coffee onto the saucer. “How in the hell did you find out about that?”
“Answer the question and then I’ll tell you.” Quinn bit into his croissant and chewed, watching Gino.
Gino glanced at me. “No comment,” I said.
“It didn’t seem relevant,” he said finally. “It was enough of a goddamn scandal back then as it was. But at least now you know why Angelica forbade any talk of Zara ever again. She was screwing the president of the United States.”
“Was Harding the father of Zara’s baby?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” Gino set down his spoon. He leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. “What else did the two of you find out?”
“Before we get to that,” Quinn said, “who murdered Zara?”
Gino’s head reared back in surprise. “No one murdered her. Her death was an accident. I told you that.”
“No, you wanted us to believe that,” Quinn said, licking jam off a finger. “I happen to think she was murdered. I also think you know what really happened to her.”
“All I know,” Gino said, “is what I told you the other day.”
“Not true,” Quinn said. “You know more than that.”
“Tell me how you found out about the affair and I’ll tell you what I do know. But don’t hold your breath. It isn’t much.”
Quinn eyed me and I got up and got a leather satchel off the bar. When I sat down again, I pulled out the parcel of letters and the two photo albums. Gino watched in silence, a puzzled expression on his face, which convinced me he hadn’t known about the letters.
“The letters are from Harding to Zara,” Quinn said. “Some before she married Johnny, but most of them were written afterward, sent to Bel Paradiso. They’re love letters, Gino. They’re pretty explicit and there’s stuff about inserting part A into receptor B, if you get my meaning. Though it’s quite poetic, if you’re into that sort of thing.”
Gino’s face reddened. “I get it.”
I thought he might pick up the packet and have a look at the letters, but he didn’t touch them.
“They were in a secret compartment in Angelica’s trunk,” I said. “I found them by accident when I was getting the album. I think they’d been hidden away since Angelica put them there. I had to blow the dust off them.”
“And that’s the first you knew about them?” Gino said to Quinn. “All these years the trunk was in your family and you had no idea they were there?”
“That’s right,” Quinn said. “What about you? You wanted to take a look at Angelica’s photo album. You suspected she was hiding something, didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “I wondered. But I didn’t know. I guess Angelica took that secret to her grave.”
“I doubt it,” Quinn said. “I bet she made sure at least one person knew: Johnny. The letters would keep him in line, wouldn’t they? Angelica would make sure she was always his one and only.”
“Even if Johnny did know about them, what of it?” Gino asked.
“Angelica keeping those letters sounds like emotional blackmail to me,” I said. “I thought you said their marriage was happy and that Angelica adored Johnny.”
Gino threw me an irritated look. “She did. But the marriage was complicated.”
“Have you ever heard of someone named Izzy?” I asked. “She was a good friend of Zara’s, someone Zara knew from when she lived in Washington. Zara obviously trusted her, because Izzy knew about the affair and the baby. She even went to California to be with Zara when the baby was due. Angelica saved four of her letters, along with the Harding letters. She must have had a reason.”
“I have no idea who you’re talking about,” Gino snapped at me. “I never heard of anyone named Izzy.”
By now he seemed really rattled, as if Quinn and I had found the map revealing where all the unexploded land mines lay buried, discovering things we weren’t supposed to know. Quinn moved the basket of croissants and got Mick’s album, opening it to the Harding and harem photograph.
“Warren Harding, Zara Tomassi, and friends.” Quinn turned it so it faced Gino. “I presume she was still Zara Ingrasso in that photo.”
Gino folded his lips together and breathed in sharply through his nose. “Where did you get this?”
“The album belongs to my next-door neighbor,” I said. “The former owners used to give parties at their home all the time.”
“So Zara was here?” He sounded as incredulous as both Quinn and I had been. “In Middleburg?”
“Obviously,” Quinn said. “Recognize anyone else in that lineup?”
Gino stared at me and pointed to Lucky. “She’s the portrait of you.”
“She’s my great-great aunt,” I said, as the heat rushed to my face. “I was named for her.”
“I can see why,” he said.
“Other than Lucky Montgomery, I meant,” Quinn said.
“No. No one else.”
Quinn took the folded newspaper with the story of Harding’s death out of Angelica’s album and opened it, laying it on top of the picture of Harding and Zara. “We found this. Angelica kept it.”
Gino glanced down at it without speaking.
“Izzy’s last letter to Zara mentioned that she knew Zara planned to visit Warren Harding when he was at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, right before he died,” Quinn said.
“Go on.” Gino’s face had turned that mottled shade of red that meant he was angry or upset. I caught Quinn’s eye. We had struck a nerve. Gino knew about this, too.
“Did Zara ever make it to the Palace?” Quinn asked. “Harding died August 2, 1923. We have a copy of Zara’s obituary from the Washington Tribune. She died the next day.”
“What are you getting at?” he said.
“What are you covering up? Who murdered Zara?”
“For the last time, all I know is what I told you the other day. She hit her head on a rock and died.” He enunciated every word, as if we were dim-witted children.
Maybe he really didn’t know anything else. “Did you find out anything from Zara’s brother’s grandson when you talked to him?” I asked.
For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer. Finally, he nodded. “Zara met Harding through her father, Victor Ingrasso,” he said. “Her old man hated that Harding was sleeping with his daughter, especially after she was married, but he could hardly make a stink, could he, since by then Harding was the president of the United States? Besides, once Johnny married Zara, Ingrasso worked out a deal to get Johnny’s wines served in the White House. It was all highly illegal, since it was Prohibition, but hell, Congress may have passed the Eighteenth Amendment, making the country dry, but they drank like the proverbial fish and goddamn hypocrites they were. Washington was a pretty wet town, if you knew where to go.”
“Are you saying Johnny turned a blind eye to the affair because he was selling wine to the Harding White House?” I asked. “Along with what he sold to the Catholic Church as sacramental wine?”
“At least Johnny got something out of the marriage.” Gino sounded bitter, even resentful. “All the while Zara’s making a fool out of him. I told you Zara was wild and out of control. Her death—shall we say—solved a lot of problems.”
“Not for her,” Quinn said.
But Gino was right. Her death had benefited a lot of people. Johnny and Angelica were at the top of the list, followed by Victor Ingrasso. Then there was Warren Harding, though by that time he was dead, as well.
“You know what?” Gino balled his napkin and threw it on the table. “I think we’re done here. There’s nothing more to discuss. These secrets stay buried with the family. Do you understand?”
“Only if you cooperate, Gino,” Quinn said. “Because if I find out that you and Dante Bellagio have forced a sale on those two vineyards in Angwin that you’re looking at, I’ll sell these letters to some tabloid, I promise you, and the whole sordid story that goes with it. If Zara’s death wasn’t an accident … well, there’s no statute of limitations on murder. If you want my silence, find some other land for your joint venture. You don’t need to ruin other people’s lives and their businesses.”
Gino stood up, and I thought he was going to go after Quinn. Instead, he picked up the letters in one efficient move and strode over to the fireplace. Quinn was across the room in three quick steps, pinning Gino’s arms behind his back, but not before Gino tossed the packet on top of the blazing logs. Quinn swore and shoved Gino out of the way as I grabbed a pair of tongs from a fireplace tool stand. I knelt in front of the fire and tried to extract the letters, but the logs underneath gave way as the tongs bumped them, and the fire roared to life.
The dry paper burned in a flash, consumed by the bright blaze and disappearing with a wicked hiss. The three of us watched charred fragments float up the chimney, caught in an updraft. For a few horrified seconds, no one spoke.
When I finally found my voice, I was so angry that it shook. “How dare you? How could you do that? You had no right to burn those letters.”
Gino swung on me. “Let me make something very clear. I had every right in the world to protect my family. Do you understand? Nothing and no one is going to stop me. Least of all the two of you.”
“Get out, Gino,” Quinn said. “I mean it, beat it, before I throw you out of here myself.” He picked up Angelica’s album from the table and shoved it into Gino’s gut. “And take this with you. I made copies of those letters, just so you know. What I said before still stands.”
He hadn’t. At least I didn’t think he’d made copies, though I wished we’d thought to do it. But he was bluffing.
“Let me repeat what I told you both the other day,” Gino said. “Neither of you will ever repeat what you know about Zara Tomassi, Warren Harding, or Johnny or Angelica. Anywhere. To anyone. If you do and I find out about it, I will burn you both. I will destroy your business, Lucie Montgomery, make certain you never sell your wine anywhere, not even as vinegar. And Quinn, you’ll be even sorrier.”
“Leave her out of this, Gino,” Quinn said. “You’re nothing but a bully.”
“I’m not scared of you,” I said to him.
Gino’s eyes flicked over to where my cane lay propped against a chair. “Then you’re both very foolish,” he said.
“Get out of here,” Quinn said. “While you can still walk out.”
Gino left, slamming the door so hard, my teeth rattled in my head. A moment later, the front door to the Goose Creek Inn shut with equal force. The shuddering sound reverberated through the entire building, final and absolute.
Then silence.