“I don’t need to explain anything and I believe that concludes—”
Something seemed odd about his reaction. It took a moment until I figured it out.
“You’ve seen that photo before,” I interrupted him. “The one of you and Maggie. You weren’t shocked when you saw it, just by the fact that I had it—and that I found it in Mel’s office.” He didn’t answer, so I kept going. “If Mel had a copy, who else did? Besides you, that is.”
Charles folded his arms across his chest. “How the hell would I know who else had a copy?”
He was lying, but I let it pass for now.
“Who sent you this photo?” I asked. “Vivian took it, didn’t she? You just said she was the group photographer.”
He rested an elbow on the arm of his chair and laid two fingers across his mouth. I couldn’t tell if it meant he wasn’t going to talk or if he was trying to figure out how to play this based on what Pépé and I now knew.
“Excuse me, Lucie?”
We’d been so absorbed in our little drama I hadn’t seen Jasmine Nouri walk across the terrace until she was standing in front of us, the friendly smile on her face fading as she seemed to realize she had stumbled into the middle of an angry private conversation.
“I beg your pardon,” she said. “I thought I was supposed to meet Dominique here with you. Forgive me for being late. I guess I missed the meeting. And I apologize for intruding.”
Pépé leaned forward resting an arm on the table so it covered the photographs. “No intrusion at all, my dear. We were just talking.”
“Don’t worry, it wasn’t a real meeting. We were just wrapping up some last-minute details for tomorrow,” I said.
“I see. I’ll, um, check with Dominique.” She took a step backward. “Can I bring anyone another drink?”
“I think we’re fine,” Pépé said. “Ambassador Thiessman needs to leave shortly.”
“Of course. Nice to see you all again.” She ducked her head goodbye and fled.
There was a moment of stunned silence before Pépé said, “She didn’t see anything.”
“Maybe she heard something.” Charles sounded irritable.
“If she did, out of context it means nothing,” my grandfather said.
“Juliette has no idea—” he began.
“No one is going to say anything to Juliette,” I said. “And you were about to tell us who sent you the photographs, Charles. And who else has copies—that you know of.”
He gave me a disgusted look. We both knew he hadn’t been about to say anything. “They came in the mail.”
“When?” Pépé asked.
“Around Christmas. The postmark was smeared. I have no idea where they were sent from.”
“Did Paul Noble get photos as well?”
He glared at me without speaking.
“Is that why he killed himself?” I said. “Because someone decided to bring up Maggie’s and Stephen’s deaths after all this time when he assumed they had been forgotten?”
“He didn’t confide in me,” Charles said, “before he put the rope around his neck.”
Pépé and I exchanged glances.
“But you did talk to him,” Pépé said. “Or else you wouldn’t have known he also got the photographs.”
He sat there, stone-faced.
I’d had it. “Oh, for God’s sake, Charles, don’t you have a party in D.C. that you’d like to get to before Labor Day? Can we quit playing twenty questions? Who sent the pictures? Theo?”
He said with some disdain, “That’s my guess.”
“So you sent me to California to check out Teddy Fargo.”
He waved a hand tiredly. “Yes, brilliant. You get a gold medal.”
I ignored that. “Where did Teddy, or Theo, get them, then? Why would he hang on to them for all this time and send them to you, Mel, and Paul all of a sudden?”
“I imagine Vivian took the photo,” he said. “So the picture would have originally been in her possession, don’t you think?”
“But she died of a heart attack last winter, didn’t she?” I asked.
“Yes, that’s right. Look, none of this matters now anyway. So why don’t we just forget it, all right?”
“What I don’t understand,” my grandfather said, “is why Vivian kept that photograph a secret for all these years.”
“I have no idea,” Charles said. “As I was saying, it no longer matters—”
“I know why,” I said.
“What are you talking about?” Charles’s voice was cold.
“I know why Vivian never showed anyone that photograph. Obviously your affair with Maggie had to be kept secret because she was Theo’s girlfriend and you were married.”
“What of it?” He sounded dismissive, but he watched me warily.
“Once Maggie died, if Theo saw that photo he’d have one more reason to suspect that her death wasn’t an accident. Isn’t that why your first wife divorced you? Because of your affairs? You couldn’t afford to have this come out in the paper after Maggie drowned,” I said. “You were there the night she died, weren’t you?”
“No.”
“I think you’re lying.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Vivian, Mel, and Paul knew what really happened that night, didn’t they? Did you leave with Maggie in her car? Maybe the others helped you cover up Maggie’s death, stage it as an accident, in return for your promise that nothing would happen to them because of Stephen’s death?”
Charles stood up, towering over me, his face blotchy and mottled with rage. “This conversation is
His angry footfalls receded on the flagstone, followed by a car door slamming and the whine of an engine as he roared out of the parking lot.
Pépé picked up his wine and downed what was left in the glass in one gulp. “You certainly got him stirred up,
“I’ll bet he knows what happened to Maggie,” I said. “And that her death was no accident.”
“As I said yesterday, there’s nothing you can do to prove it, Lucie,” Pépé said.
“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” I said. “You know what they say: When you want to dig up dirt, go find a worm.”
“And where do you plan to find this worm?” he asked.
I don’t know why the idea hadn’t occurred to me until just now.
“Where else?” I said. “In a garden.”
Chapter 21
Pépé was uncharacteristically irritable on the drive home from the Inn so I dropped the subject of Charles until later that evening when we were sitting outside on the veranda after dinner. The idea to visit Noah Seely, an old family friend and one of the Romeos, at his eponymous garden center had been rattling around in my head ever since yesterday when we got home from the airport. Indirectly, I had Quinn to thank for it. He’d left another message on the answering machine at home. I saw the flashing light the moment I walked through the front door.
“I need to talk to you. Call me or else.”
