“UVA fired her and she was in debt. No permanent address after she came back from France. She lived with various friends in Charlottesville to avoid paying rent.” My cousin stabbed her salad aggressively with her fork. “Promised everyone who loaned her money she would pay them back after she finished writing the Jefferson book, but she never did.”
I watched her eat. “That’s a lot to find out from a few phone calls. What’d you do? Hire a private investigator?”
She tossed her head. “I didn’t hire anybody. You forget I have clients who have known me for years. Maybe I take care of a gentleman who wants a discreet dinner with a lady friend and maybe he’d like to show his appreciation that I provide a private dining room for him and his friend each time they show up and never say a word when he returns with his wife.”
“Oh,” I said. “Payback. A lesser form of blackmail.”
“What goes around comes around.” She smiled sweetly. “I wonder where Valerie thought she’d get the money.”
“Not from book sales, that’s for sure. Maybe she was trying to blackmail Jack Greenfield, though Jack wasn’t the one who fooled around with her car.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know. Nicole Martin is trying to get him to sell her the Washington wine for one of her clients,” I said. “Did you know she and Valerie were friends?”
“Isn’t that interesting?” Dominique rolled her eyes as she sat back in her chair and crossed her legs. “Some friend. Now Valerie’s dead and Nicole gets that bottle.”
“Nicole didn’t come to town until after Valerie died,” I said. “But it’s an odd coincidence.”
“If it’s a coincidence. It seems like there’s still a missing piece to the puzzle,” my cousin said. “Somewhere in the middle of this is a smoking mirror. All you need to do is find it.”
“Sure.”
Unless I was trying to put together the wrong puzzle. I was beginning to wonder about that.
Chapter 20
Claudia and Stuart Orlando lived in a large stone house that had been built in the late nineteenth century from stone quarried on their own property. As I turned in their driveway I noticed they had replaced the white metal mailbox that had been there for years with something large enough to hold mail for an entire condo complex.
Claudia answered the door when I rang the bell. Perfect makeup, impeccable clothes. In the middle of a conversation on a portable phone. She didn’t look overjoyed to see me, but at least she gestured for me to come in.
She put her hand over the receiver and whispered in her raspy New York accent, “I’m just finishing up here. Why don’t you have a seat in the living room?”
I followed the direction of her manicured ruby fingernail and nodded. She strolled into another room which looked like a study or her office.
“Call Hong Kong,” she said into the phone. “Find out if they’ll go along with it.” The door to the room closed. Based on her tone of voice, Hong Kong needed to go along with it.
The living room was modern, with a palette that ranged from parchment to cream. More Claudia than Stuart. The neutral tones reminded me of a beach. Several small artifacts, oriental and quite ancient, sat on a lighted étagère. The paintings were modern, also in restful neutral shades. A black lacquered coffee table and two black-shaded lamps on the end tables provided counterbalance to all the whiteness. On the sofa were Shantung silk pillows with oriental designs in black, white, and scarlet. Not my taste, but I liked the effect.
Claudia entered the room while I was sitting on the cream-colored sofa, admiring her collection of bronzes. I noticed for the first time that she was dressed in black and white, like her room. An ivory and black medallion hung around her neck on a black velvet cord. Her perfume smelled of jasmine.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’ve been trying to put this deal together for weeks.”
“What do you do?”
“Import-export. Almost exclusively Asia. The time difference is a killer. Sometimes I’m up all night and sleep all day.” She clasped her hands together as though she were praying and joined me on the sofa. “To what do I owe the pleasure? I have a feeling it’s not a social visit.”
After the hostilities the other day at the winery, the wariness was justified, but at least she made an effort to be civil.
“I wanted you to find this out from me,” I said. “There’s been some vandalism on my property. I haven’t called the sheriff yet, but I will probably report it later today.”
Claudia’s hand went to her beautiful medallion. She knotted the cord around her fingers. “We left New York to get away from the crime, for God’s sake.”
“Well, it’s—”
She wasn’t listening. “Stuart promised me it’d be safe here. Now I suppose we’ll have to get an alarm system put in.” She looked around the room at her possessions as though they might vanish while we sat here. “At least in New York if you scream, someone will hear you. Here there’s…no one.”
“Claudia,” I said. “Please let me explain.”
She looked blank. “Explain what?”
“What happened at my farm.”
“Oh.”
“On Saturday morning someone left a stuffed animal on my front doorstep. Freddie the Fox. They sell him around here. He was torn apart and there was red paint all over him like blood.”
Her hand moved from her necklace to her throat. “Oh my God,” she said. “How horrible.”
“Today we found more red paint on the pillars at the entrance to the vineyard. I think the same person or persons was responsible for both. Someone doesn’t want the Goose Creek Hunt riding on my property is the way I figure it. They’re trying to scare me. Or possibly threaten me.” I stopped and watched her face. It didn’t take long.
“Have you come here to accuse—?”
“No,” I said. “Absolutely not. But whoever did this knows you are campaigning against foxhunting here. And I bet they know you asked me to close my farm.”
She looked stunned.
“Any ideas?” I asked.
“My God,” she said again. “No, of course not.”
“Once I call the sheriff,” I said, “someone will probably be by to talk to you about this. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I have much choice about whether or not to report it. My winemaker and I are afraid their next move might be tampering with the jumps and fences.”
Her face turned the color of the bone-white fabric on a club chair opposite us. “Someone could get hurt.”
“Yes. Or one of the animals.”
Claudia moistened her lips with her tongue. “I’ll call Stuart. Right away. He’ll come home.”
“Who else have you been talking about this to?” I asked. “I understand you’ve had some meetings.”
She looked surprised that I knew. “We certainly don’t advocate violence. And I don’t think anyone involved with this movement would—” She fell silent.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, “but it looks like someone did. I know foxhunting is an emotional issue for some folks. Like you and Stuart. But the people involved in hunting are some of the staunchest environmentalists and advocates for preserving open space. Why do you think it’s still so beautiful here? No shopping malls, no apartment complexes—no kitschy-themed amusement park. I’m sure it had something to do with the reason you moved to this region, didn’t it?”
Claudia studied her manicure and pursed her lips. “We will not change our minds about the brutality of what you people do.” She stood up, signaling the end of our meeting. “But I appreciate you coming by to talk to me.”
In the front hall I said, “I know it’s a lot quieter here than New York and very different. But it’s also a place where everyone helps everyone else out. We’re a close-knit community. If you need something, your neighbors are there for you. We take care of each other.”
She held the door open. “May I ask you a personal question?”