I turned off Pennsylvania Avenue onto Fifteenth Street and pulled up to the curb. “Are you going to be all right?”
She took oversized sunglasses and a scarf out of her purse. “I’ll be fine. Thank you for taking me to the arboretum, Lucie. It was a comfort.”
“My pleasure. Will you be staying in Washington much longer?”
“I don’t know.” She tied on her scarf. “It depends on when they find Rebecca.”
I didn’t want to say it, but what if there was no one to find because Rebecca was on the lam? Would she contact her anguished mother and let her know she was alive?
“Please stay in touch,” I said. “You’re more than welcome to come out to the vineyard if you want a break from D.C. I’ve got plenty of room and it’s peaceful and quiet in Atoka. There wouldn’t be any reporters lurking on your doorstep.”
“That’s very kind. I’ll call you.” Linh donned the sunglasses and I had a flashback to Rebecca, the same gesture, almost the same sunglasses, as she said good-bye to me for the last time at the Wall.
Linh touched my cheek and slipped out of the car. No one followed her. I hadn’t thought about her being hounded by the press, but I knew she wouldn’t visit me at the vineyard, nor would she call, in spite of what she’d just said. In her shoes—grappling with the loss of her beloved daughter and the obvious media frenzy the story had generated—I wouldn’t, either.
Before I pulled away from the curb, I turned on my phone. In D.C. it was against the law to talk while driving; the fines were horrendous. Two messages, one from Kit, demanding that I report in on my session with Detective Horne, the other from Frankie, saying someone named Summer Lowe had been phoning all afternoon trying to get in touch with me.
I called Frankie.
“The fourth time I let that woman’s call go to voice mail,” Frankie said. “What an annoying person. Who is she, anyway?”
I told her. “Did she say what she wanted?”
“Yeah. You. And she told you to call her; she didn’t ask,” Frankie said. “You going to talk to her?”
“I think I will,” I said. “I probably won’t be home until later this evening. Can you lock up?”
“Sure.” She paused. “Quinn’s not here, either. He, uh, might have gone over to the Jenningses’ place.”
My stomach churned. Was Quinn ready to make a down payment on their land as soon as he took a look at it? He’d said he figured on being around for two more months. At the speed he was moving, he’d be gone in two weeks.
“He told you that’s what he was doing, didn’t he?”
“Well, yes. I guess he did.” I heard her sigh. “Look, he’s going to be staying in Atoka. It’s not like he’s moving back to California.”
“I know.”
“Don’t worry, Lucie. It’ll be all right. You’ll find a new winemaker and it will work out with Quinn. I’m sure of it.”
“Yeah, everything will be fine. Thanks.” I kept my voice light, but she probably wasn’t fooled.
Frankie was right that I’d have to find a new winemaker. But I wasn’t so sure it would work out with Quinn. We’d drifted apart, not closer. Once he was gone, he could easily turn what was left of our relationship into out of sight, out of mind.
Summer Lowe answered her phone midway through the first ring.
“You’re the Lucie Montgomery I met last night at the Tune Inn with Ian, aren’t you?”
Last night? It seemed like last year.
“Yes, I am. How’d you find me?”
“How else? The Internet.”
“Oh.”
“Look, I need to talk to you about Ian. Could you come by my office on the Hill? Today? It’s important.”
I didn’t care for her officious tone.
“Ian,” I said. “May God rest his soul. You do realize you were one of the last people to see him alive, don’t you?”
“Oh, jeez. I mean, yes. Of course I do. God, what a tragedy. I was so sorry to hear about it … him.”
I wondered if she believed Ian’s death was an accident, or whether it had crossed her mind that maybe it had something to do with sticking his neck out as a whistle-blower who was supposed to testify before her subcommittee. It wasn’t her fault Ian was dead, but couldn’t she at least sound like the permafrost on her words hadn’t yet reached her heart?
“Yes, you sound all broken up.”
I heard her draw in a breath like a hiss. “You have no right to judge me.” Finally, some real emotion. She was mad.
“You called me. Four times. It’s been nice shooting the breeze with you, Ms. Lowe. I’ve got to go—”
“Wait! Please don’t hang up!”
It was the “please” that stopped me. “Why not?”
“I admit I didn’t take Ian seriously,” she said.
“But now you do?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Uh, I’d rather not say on the phone. That’s why I want to meet in person.”
“I’m at the Willard.”
“You could be on the Hill in ten minutes.”
“I have to park.”
“Oh. Well, half an hour, then.”
“Where do I meet you?”
“There’s a desk for Senate visitors at the CVC.”
“The what?”
“Capitol Visitor Center.”
“Wouldn’t this be easier if I came straight to whichever Senate Office Building you work in?”
“We’re not going to be meeting in my office.”
I wondered what she had in mind. “What do I do? Sign in and someone comes to get me?”
“No,” she said. “I’ll be waiting for you. I suggest you take the tunnel from the Library of Congress, the Jefferson Building, because it brings you directly inside the second floor of the visitor center. Otherwise you have to hassle with the crowds in the Capitol plaza and the tour lines in Emancipation Hall. When you come into the library on the street level, the hallway to the tunnel is on the left. If you get to the Senate desk before I do, whatever you do, for God’s sake don’t sign in.”
The parking situation on the Hill was even worse than it had been around police headquarters. I wedged the Mini into a spot on a residential street behind the Supreme Court and walked the few blocks to the Library of Congress. For some people, Washington, the federal city, conjures images of the monuments or the White House or the Capitol dome on the skyline. For me, it’s this place—East Capitol and First streets—where the Capitol, the Library of Congress, and the Supreme Court sit across from one another, their classically elegant façades representing the confluence of law, letters, and justice at a quiet tree-lined intersection.
Security inside the Jefferson Building on the basement level was not complicated—I passed through a metal detector and set my purse and cane on an X-ray conveyor. I retrieved my things and found the corridor to the tunnel just as Summer described it. At the bottom of a flight of stairs the Capitol police had set up their own security checkpoint with more metal detectors and X-ray machines. I nearly asked what they thought I might have acquired to warrant the belt-and-suspenders mentality of double searches within a few hundred feet of each other when I’d never left the library. Maybe it was a territorial thing.
The well-lit marble corridor that led to the Capitol coiled like a snake as it sloped deeper under First Street. At the height of cherry blossom season, I expected this walkway to be cheek by jowl with tourists, Hill staffers, and
