Multiple Exposure A Sophie Medina Mystery (24 page)

“Okay.” I held up my hands. “Okay.”

“Good,” he said. “I’m waiting.”

“Arkady Vasiliev wants to buy some highly confidential documents that belonged to Crowne Energy, my husband’s former employer,” I said. “They’re well logs, data from a test well Nick and Colin Crowne drilled in Abadistan, and now they’re missing. I told Vasiliev I have no idea where they are.”

“That’s it?”

That was it as far as what he needed to know, and according to St. Augustine—as Jack reminded me last night—even though we should always tell the truth no matter what, silence was okay when the outcome would result in more harm than good. It was a loftier version of Nick’s conviction that you just stopped talking when you got to the end of what you were allowed to say.

But there was one other matter I couldn’t keep from him.

“Not entirely,” I said. “Luke, Ali was in the next room, in Seth’s office. She overheard our conversation.”

“God, Sophie,” he said. “Are you serious? Do you think it has anything to do with why she was killed?”

“I don’t know. Vasiliev didn’t know she was there and I told her not to breathe a word to anyone. But those guys don’t fool around. Nick used to talk about the lawlessness and corruption he dealt with every day . . . stuff that would take your breath away. He always said you can’t buy an Abadi, but you can rent one.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you can get someone to do just about anything you want in that part of the world, however unconscionable, for the right amount of money. But you can never buy his loyalty, or win it, and you never own his trust. Double-crossing is a way of life. They just move on to the next golden opportunity,” I said. “I told both Duval and Bolton all of this. They know everything.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I told you,” I said, “about the ‘other’ other conversation I overheard, remember? And we agreed that I was going to be the one to report it. Except that’s not what happened. Someone jumped the gun.”

“That’s unfair,” he said. “You know it was unintentional, an accident.”

“Yes, you told me,” I said. “Look, we can’t change what happened to Ali. The D.C. police and God knows who else are looking into her death. Maybe it had nothing to do with either of those conversations.”

“Coming back to when you called me last night because you thought Moses sent you a text,” he said. “If it wasn’t Moses, who was it?”

“Someone trying to intimidate me. It didn’t work. I can’t give Vasiliev something I don’t have.” I shrugged. “Duval’s on top of this. Don’t worry.”

“Sophie—”

“Come on. You said Roxanne Hathaway was waiting for us. We should go.”

He gave me a long, hard look. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

*

Roxanne and Scott Hathaway lived a few blocks behind Georgetown University on a one-way street of Tudor Revival homes built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One side of the street backed up against Glover-Archbold Park, a narrow, sinuous strip of land named for a banking executive and an oil heiress who donated the land to the city, and ran from Tenleytown near American University to the Potomac River, just past Canal Road in Georgetown. The Hathaways’ home sat on a hill overlooking the heavily wooded park, which followed the course of a Potomac tributary called Foundry Branch and was the location of one of Washington’s less-well-known nature trails.

The wrought-iron gate to the Hathaways’ driveway swung open after Luke buzzed the intercom and said we were expected. A bronze plaque embedded in a brick pillar next to the gate said
LINDEN HILL, EST.
1889. We followed the winding drive lined with ancient stately-looking trees that gave the house its name and parked the Jeep and Vespa in a cobblestone courtyard next to a van with the name of an upscale party-planning company stenciled on it. The sprawling Tudor house was surrounded by magnolias, dogwood, and flowering cherry trees and reminded me of the mansions at Marlborough Gardens.

“This place is gorgeous,” I said to Luke. “It almost gives Hillwood a run for the money.”

“It doesn’t have twenty-five acres, but it does have a national park for a backyard and the house is listed on the National Register of Historic Buildings,” he said.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“A friend of mine works downtown at their archives. She recommends me for photo shoots when a new building around here gets listed,” he said.

Luke seemed to have a tentacle-like network of friends who connected him to plum jobs.

“Have you ever photographed this place?” I asked.

“Nope. But I do know that Lord Somebody or other, who was related to the first British governor of Hong Kong, built it and never moved in. By the time Roxanne Hathaway’s mother bought it after she divorced her husband, it was a run-down shell from the slum years when Georgetown went downhill after World War I. She restored it and Roxanne inherited it after her mother died. She’s turning it green.”

I squinted at the house. “Green?”

“Green as in sustainable living and leaving as small a carbon footprint as possible. Geothermal heat and solar hot water. That green.”

“Oh.” We climbed the stone steps to the front door and Luke rang the bell.

“Wonder what she wants from us,” he said.

“We’re about to find out,” I said. “Someone’s coming to the door.”

A Hispanic maid in a dark skirt and white blouse let us into a large art-filled foyer with a long central hallway and a wide staircase on the right-hand wall. A grandfather clock at the top of the stairs chimed on the half hour. From somewhere in the house came the quiet sound of bubbling water, like a small fountain, and the air held the faint smell of lavender.

“The señora is expecting you in her study,” the maid said. “It’s the second door down the corridor on your left.”

“Was that Picasso an original?” Luke asked under his breath as we walked down the hall.

“I think so. Next to the original van Gogh.”

Roxanne Hathaway looked up from a Mac laptop on her antique carved desk as Luke and I entered the study. The room was cheerful and feminine: furniture covered in William Morris prints, more original art and antiques, a pair of fiddle-leaf figs in Japanese urns on either side of a blue-and-white-tiled fireplace, and everywhere, silver-framed photos of her husband, three children, and, I guessed, the extended Hathaway and Lane families. A set of French doors stood open, letting in a breeze that smelled of late-summer sunshine and flowers, and the buzzing sound of workers who appeared to be finishing erecting an enormous tent in the backyard.

This was probably why she’d called us: more party pictures.

Roxanne got up and shook our hands. Today she wore her red hair loose, keeping it off her face with a pair of horn-rimmed glasses perched on top of her head. She was casually dressed in ivory silk cropped pants, a tangerine-colored knit top, and tangerine-and-ivory ballet flats. Last night she had seemed cool and standoffish as one of the heiresses of Lane Communications, but here at home she looked relaxed and at ease.

“Thanks for coming by,” she said. “Normally I’d suggest we sit on the terrace, but it’s rather noisy just now.” She gestured to a sofa and two wing chairs pulled around the fireplace. “Won’t you have a seat? Can I offer you something to drink? Maria just made herbal sun tea and there’s honey from our own bees.”

“Sun tea sounds great,” Luke said, and I added, “So does the honey.”

We took the sofa; Roxanne sat across from us in one of the chairs, kicked off her shoes, and tucked her feet up on the seat.

Maria returned with our tea.

“Looks like you’re planning quite a party,” Luke said.

Roxanne nodded. “As a matter of fact, it’s related to why I asked you to come by. I’m hosting a fund-raiser for the Save the Potomac Foundation tomorrow night.” She leaned forward, her hands clasped together. “And before I go on, I’d like to express my condolences about that young girl who worked with you. I saw on the news that her body was found in the river. Seth filled me in on the rest of it. It’s dreadful, simply dreadful.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hathaway.” Luke balanced his cup and saucer on his knee and it wobbled slightly at the mention of Ali. “That’s very kind of you.”

“Please call me Roxanne, both of you.”

We nodded and she went on. “Let me get right to the reason I invited you here. Two months ago I was asked to take over as chair of the Save the Potomac Foundation, to get things kicked into high gear. I don’t know if you are aware that the Potomac has been designated the nation’s most endangered river, which I consider a tragedy, if not a national disgrace. Though it stretches nearly four hundred miles from West Virginia to the Chesapeake Bay, I’ve decided to begin by focusing on the section that flows through Washington, beginning at Great Falls and ending at Mount Vernon. It’s a project people can relate to because the river is so inextricably tied to the nation’s capital and to the history of our country, as far back as the Founding Fathers.”

“You obviously have more in mind than getting folks out with trash bags and gloves to pick up the junk that’s accumulated on the riverbanks,” Luke said.

Roxanne gave him a sly smile. “Oh, it’s much more than that. I’m talking about stopping agricultural and commercial runoff, dealing with polluted rainwater, dead zones for marine life, fish changing sex, larger environmental issues. I’m not under any illusions, Luke. I was asked to take over this project because all I have to do is scroll through the contacts on my phone and make a few calls and big money will start flowing in—at least for a start. I also have an entrée on the Hill to members of the House and Senate who are personal friends, and I can have an impact on getting them to consider tougher environmental laws. The fund-raiser is merely a fun party to make a splash and get us noticed.”

“And you’d like us to take photos at the party like we did at the National Gallery?” I asked.

Roxanne shook her head. “Our press coverage is all taken care of,” she said. “What I want from you two are photographs of the river. I was impressed by your attention to detail the other night and I did some research on both of you. My staff is already combing archives, working with the Library of Congress to find historical photos and records. I’d like you to take the ‘now’ pictures to juxtapose with the ‘then’ photos, but feel free to get a bit creative as you did with the National Gallery photos. We’re completely redoing the STP website and we plan to relaunch the public campaign once we get your pictures.” She held out her hands palms up. “Interested?”

Luke glanced at me and I nodded.

“Definitely,” he said. “Just a suggestion, though: The Potomac has a lot of tributaries that are also polluted. With all due respect—and as you obviously know—Foundry Branch is in your backyard. There’s also the C&O Canal just down the street—getting it built was George Washington’s project, so it ties in with the Founding Fathers and the history angle you’re looking for. What about giving us some flexibility to take pictures of other streams and creeks, as long as they’re in the same geographical area?”

Roxanne’s mouth tightened. “I think not. The Potomac has more than a hundred and twenty tributaries—and that includes rivers like the Shenandoah and Occoquan to streams and creeks like Goose Creek, Rock Creek, and Foundry Branch. You don’t have to tell me how wretched Foundry Branch is—full of street runoff and sewage—and that, too, is a disgrace. At this time of year it’s nearly dry. Years ago when we began dating, Scott had a black Lab named Sombra that I used to think he loved more than me. Sombra died after drinking polluted water from Foundry Branch when the two of them were out for a walk one day. Ever since then, Scott’s avoided that part of Glover-Archbold Park.”

Her voice had grown sharp as though the memory still upset her.

“We’ll have no problem getting the pictures you need of the Potomac,” I said to placate her. “We’ll work with your archivists and historians. I’m sure you’ll be pleased with the results.”

“I appreciate that.” Roxanne sounded calmer. “Obviously I have personal feelings about Foundry Branch, but more important, I think we ought to have one goal and stick to it. It would be too easy to get sidetracked.”

“Absolutely,” Luke said. “As Sophie said, we’ll stick to photographing the Potomac.”

Roxanne set her empty cup and saucer on a small table next to her chair. “Then I’ll have someone from my staff get in touch and set this up. Thank you for coming. Any questions?”

“We’ll wait to hear from your staff person,” Luke said, “and see what the ‘then’ pictures are. I imagine we’ll have questions after that.”

“Before we go,” I said, “would it be possible to use the powder room?”

She nodded. “Of course. Go back to the foyer. It’s down the other hallway, first door on the left, across from Scott’s office.”

The door to Scott Hathaway’s office was wide open and I took a quick look inside. The room, as dark and masculine as Roxanne’s was cheerfully feminine, was lined with bookshelves filled with leather-bound antique volumes—the senator must be a collector—and dark leather furniture pulled around a carved black marble fireplace. Heavy gold drapes framed a set of French doors like the ones in Roxanne’s office and overlooked a swimming pool and lush gardens. I heard the maid’s footsteps at the end of the hallway and slipped into the powder room.

Roxanne and Luke were waiting in the foyer when I joined them a few minutes later. “My husband just called,” Roxanne said. “We’re about to be overrun with cars from the Diplomatic Protective Division of the Capitol Police. Scott’s on his way home with a houseguest. I don’t want you to be blocked in, so you should try to make a fast getaway. I’ll let them know at the front gate to let you go first.”

But the moment Luke and I stepped outside, I knew we were too late to get ahead of something that was already in motion. Maybe the front gate person got his instructions backward or maybe Hathaway’s security convoy overruled him, but as Luke and I walked across the cobblestone drive, a black Lincoln Town Car and a black Suburban whizzed around the corner and pulled up in front of the house. A solid-looking chauffeur in a dark suit got out of the car and held the door for Scott Hathaway, who waited for his guest to follow.