The meeting between Uma Lawrence and Gino Tomassi did not go at all as I had expected and lasted less than fifteen minutes. By the time she walked into our office, I figured she’d either been drinking or she was on something. Or else she was extremely nervous.
We were running out of places to sit, so she joined Gino on the sofa after I introduced her to him and to Quinn, who had also never met her. She was wearing jeans, boots, and a light gray formfitting sweater, unbuttoned to reveal a lacy black camisole. Today she wore her luxuriant red hair loose, though she pulled it to one side, so it fell against one shoulder.
She refused coffee or wine, so Gino, who had not taken his eyes off her since she arrived, finally cleared his throat and got down to business.
“Miss Lawrence … Uma,” he said, “you’re here today because it’s very possible we are related. In fact, forgive me for staring, but it’s uncanny how much you resemble photographs of my grandfather’s first wife, a woman named Zara Tomassi. Your grandmother, Roxy Willoughby, was Zara’s daughter. Unfortunately, Zara died in childbirth, so Roxy was adopted by a good friend of hers.”
“Pauline Chase,” Mac said. “My grandmother.”
Uma had clasped her hands together so tightly that her knuckles were white. “Sorry. I don’t understand. Are you saying we might not be related because Roxy was adopted?”
Gino gave her an indulgent smile. “Adoption doesn’t change genetics. I’m not sure there is an easy way to say this, but it’s not certain that the father of Zara’s child—your grandmother Roxy—was Johnny Tomassi, my grandfather. After Zara died, Johnny remarried. His second wife, Angelica, was my grandmother. My father and Quinn’s grandmother were their children. So, yes, we might be related. Or we might not.”
“But if we are, I could inherit a lot of money.”
“Not so fast,” Gino said. “What we need to determine, before this discussion goes any further, is whether you are indeed Johnny Tomassi’s great-granddaughter.”
“And how will you do that?” she asked. “Roxy’s dead. She’s been cremated.”
Gino gave her a tolerant look, though I think he was surprised that she didn’t understand what he was talking about. “Well,” he said, “there’s you, of course.”
“What do you mean?”
“My dear, don’t tell me you’ve never heard of DNA testing? If you’re related to Johnny, we’ll know immediately.”
“No.” She turned pale. “No one’s going to poke and prod me.”
“All you need to do is let someone swab the inside of your cheek,” I said. “It takes five seconds.”
“Forget it.” She stood up, her knee banging against the coffee table and rattling everything on it. Quinn reached for the bottle of wine before it fell over.
“The results would be completely confidential, I assure you,” Gino said. “But at least we’d be certain—”
“I said no.” Uma shook her head. “I have enough money to live on for the rest of my life, thanks to my grandmother, someone I never knew. No one is going to test my DNA and find out whether I’m related by blood to more people I don’t know. I don’t care, Mr. Tomassi, whether I’m your long-lost cousin or not. If my great-grandmother slept around, then so be it. I don’t want to know.”
The blower kicked in and the heat came on with a dull roar, but otherwise the room was silent. Gino looked stunned. Mac just shook his head, and Quinn cut a glance at me. I gave him an imperceptible shrug. Go figure.
“If you’re sure,” Gino said.
“I just said I was.”
“Fine,” Gino said. “I hope you understand that I would like you to put this in writing. For you to sign a legal document stating you relinquish any claim on the Tomassi Family Vineyard should you ever decide to change your mind and submit to genetic testing.”
“Sure, whatever. Just mail me the papers. I’ll sign them.”
He pulled an envelope out of the pocket of his jacket. “As it happens, I took the liberty of having my lawyers draw up a document—”
“If you have a pen, show me where to sign.” She sounded impatient. “Then I need to go. My flight leaves this evening and I have a lot to do.”
Gino slid his business card across the table when she was done. “You’re still related to Johnny’s first wife, my dear,” he said. “I would like to stay in touch with you.”
“Sorry, I’m not good at staying in touch.” She got up without picking up his card. “Good-bye, everyone.”
“I certainly don’t plan to stay in touch with her,” Mac said after we heard the barrel room door slam. “Good riddance, I say.”
He picked up his satchel, which was leaning against his chair, and took out a small packet of letters. “For you, Lucie. Lucky’s letters to Pauline. I don’t want them back. Keep them.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
He gave me a pained look, and I knew if I didn’t take the letters, he was going to get rid of them and their unhappy memories now that the whole sordid story was out in the open.
“Quite sure. Their friendship never recovered after Zara died. You won’t find any correspondence after that happened.” He glanced at Gino. “I have to hand it to you, Gino. That was well played. Of course it helped that she’s not terribly bright.”
Gino gave him a bland smile. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about.” Mac stood and tucked his satchel under his arm. “I’d best be going. The store’s closed, and there’s no one to help out now that Will’s gone, so I need to get back. Lucie, I might not make it to your party tonight. It’s been a rough week.”
After he left, Quinn said, “And that’s why they call you the Silver Fox, right, Gino?”
“You can find Roxy’s DNA in the house she lived in for years and years, obviously,” I said. “You don’t need Uma to swab her cheek.”
“But you just got her to sign away any right to a claim on the Tomassi family fortune, whether she’s related or not,” Quinn said.
Gino gave him an unrepentant look. “So what? I didn’t need to twist her arm, did I? She signed those papers willingly. You saw that.”
Quinn snorted. “Let’s get out of here. It’s time to go meet Father Niall. And then you and me, Gino, we’re done.”
* * *
WE SPLIT UP IN the parking lot, Quinn and Gino leaving in two cars to drive over to Veronica House, while I headed to the villa to see how Frankie was holding up. The place, which had been made over into a Prohibition speakeasy, looked fabulous. She looked utterly defeated.
“I went to Mass at St. Mike’s this morning. Niall said it,” she said. “Then I took him out for breakfast. He confessed to borrowing the money.” She sounded resentful. “Though I suppose you already know that.”
“I didn’t know, but I did guess he might have. I’m sorry.”
“He always meant to pay it back. To be honest, he was expecting Roxy to leave him something.”
“And she didn’t,” I said. “What in the world did he do with it?”
She shrugged. “The town house in D.C. needed repairs and some renovations.”
“A quarter of a million dollars’ worth?”
“He … also bought a small condo in Palm Beach.”
“A condo in Palm Beach? Frankie—”
“I know,” she said. “There’s no justification for that. He’s going to sell it and repay what he owes. He said real estate is crazy expensive there and he’ll make a good profit.”
“Why?” I said. “Why did he do it?”
“He said he was just trying to take care of his future. It wasn’t about the money or being rich.”
“’The rich are different from you and me,’” I said. “According to your friend Scott Fitzgerald.”
Frankie gave me a twisted smile. “‘They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are…’” She shook her head. “I don’t think Niall thought that. He’s not jealous or resentful that there’s so much wealth and affluence around here, if that’s what you’re implying.”
I frowned. “I thought the next line was ‘They have more money.’”
“Nope. It’s from a short story Fitzgerald wrote called ‘The Rich Boy.’ Look it up,” she said. “I’m pretty sure I’m right.”
My phone rang and I pulled it out of my pocket, expecting the call to be from Quinn. Instead, the display read M. Dunne. Mick, probably calling about tonight.
“Sorry, I’d better take this.”
“Go ahead.”
I hit Accept and walked into the kitchen. “Mick,” I said. “I’m glad you called. There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“Before you say anything, love, I’m afraid I’m going to have to cancel our date tonight. I’m terribly sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said, and hoped the relief didn’t show in my voice “You sound upset. Is anything the matter?”
“A business deal I’m involved in has turned into a complete dog’s dinner. I’m flying to Florida tonight.”
“Turned into a what?”
“Sorry. Weird British expression. It means an utter mess, a total hash of things,” he said. “I’ll ring you when I get back, okay? Have fun tonight, darling.”
A dog’s dinner. Thelma had overheard Uma talking about a dog’s dinner on her phone and took it literally, thinking that she was referring to a woman who cared for her dog in England, feeding it hash for dinner.
Uma wasn’t talking about a dog at all. She was telling the person she was speaking to that she didn’t want someone—a woman, presumably—making a mess of things. And that she was leaving town as soon as she got her money.
Then this morning, she had walked away from Gino Tomassi’s offer of a DNA test to find out if she was a potential heir to the Tomassi Family Vineyard, which made no sense. Even Gino had been stunned at how easily Uma had signed the paperwork relinquishing any claim on a possible inheritance.
After Mick hung up, I called Mac. He answered, sounding peeved. “I don’t want to talk about those letters I gave you, if that’s why you’re calling.”
“It’s not,” I said. “Did you send Will Baron to your house the other day to drop off some of Roxy’s furniture from Foxhall Manor?”
“He picked the last of Roxy’s furniture up from the Manor, but I had him put it in storage,” he said. “Why do you ask?”
“Just trying to figure something out.”
“Lucie? What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’ll get back to you.”
Uma had lied about the reason Will dropped by Mac’s house, but she hadn’t lied about having dinner with him. And she had just flatly turned down Gino when he wanted her to undergo a DNA test to find out if she was related to Johnny Tomassi.
I was starting to wonder whether the reason was that she knew she’d fail the test. Not only would it prove she wasn’t related to Johnny Tomassi; it would also reveal that she wasn’t related to Zara Tomassi, either.
No one in town had ever met Uma Lawrence before she showed up here the other day. How hard would it be to fake her identity if she knew enough about Uma’s family history and a few salient facts about Roxy Willoughby? The only person who had delved into Roxy’s background with any thoroughness was Vivienne Baron, and now she had died under suspicious circumstances that possibly involved her husband. Vivienne had even had a photo of Roxy that had been taken when she was in England during the war, given to her by Olivia Cohen, which she had no doubt shown to Will.
Now the woman who claimed to be Uma Lawrence was leaving town for good, and so was Will Baron, supposedly because he was so cut up with grief about his wife’s death. Same day, same time.
The only thing I couldn’t figure out was how Will Baron had known that Roxy Willoughby had changed her will in favor of Uma, cutting out Mac and her charities. Otherwise, I was fairly certain I was right: Uma Lawrence was an imposter and Will Baron had orchestrated the scam for her to show up in Middleburg and collect Roxy’s granddaughter’s share of her inheritance money.
And they were about to get away with it.
Almost.