Ellen Crosby - The Viognier Vendetta

“I heard Harlan invested his own money with Asher Investments,” I said. “So he lost out, too.”

Thelma rapped her knuckles on the wooden arm of her rocker. “That boy’s a mile wide and an inch deep. I remember when he was growing up. Always had a taste for the good life, that one.”

“Thelma, he grew up with money.”

“Money, good looks, and that kind of easy aw-shucks charm that suckers folks in. He knows how to use it, too. Only thing he isn’t blessed with is a conscience.”

“That’s pretty harsh,” I said. “Do you really believe that?”

“Somewhere along the way he sold his soul, Lucille. Gave in to greed and temptation and now everybody who threw their lot in with him is paying the price. It’s a damn shame.” Her eyes glittered and I heard bitterness mixed in with the blame.

I got it now.

“Thelma, don’t tell me you invested with him, too? You’re one of the people who lost money?”

Thelma seemed to look through me for a long while, her head bobbing slightly. I couldn’t tell whether it was a tremor of age or an acknowledgment that I was right. Her smile was tinged with regret.

“I thought I did a pretty good job of keeping that information off people’s periscopes. Making out I was smarter ’n everyone else and keeping my hands in my pockets. That I wasn’t tempted by easy money. How’d you guess, Lucille? No, don’t tell me, I know. It’s that extrasensible perception you got going on.”

“I hope you didn’t lose much. I’m so sorry.”

“No one to blame but myself. It was like joining an exclusive club and I couldn’t wait to get in. I’d heard the whispering going around about this surefire opportunity to make steady money. Only an upside, no down. So I went to Harlan and asked him. He said he’d see what he could do because normally the minimum investment was a hundred thousand.” Her cackle echoed in the small store. “Good Lord. I had my mouth open wider ’n a big-mouth bass. He didn’t even have to work to reel me in. Told me he made an exception for me but said I had to be very circumcised about it. You know, keep quiet because it was all hush-hush.”

I had been about to take a sip of coffee. Instead I coughed. “He said that?”

“Yes, indeedy. He threatened to give back my money if I uttered one peep. Now I know he was just trying to keep me from talking to everybody else he made an ‘exception’ for.”

Amazingly, she’d kept her word.

“You weren’t the only one, Thelma. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“Oh, phooey. I was just as big and dumb as the rest of the sheep.”

“You have every right to be angry.”

“What good would that do me, on top of everything else?” She shrugged. “I still got some of my little nest egg put away, plus I own this place. So it’s not like I lost everything the way I suspect some folks did. I know a few of the Romeos who are just fumigating they’re so mad.”

“Well, Tommy Asher’s still saying he’s got everything under control.”

“They said that about the Titanic .” She leaned back and started rocking.

“There’s still the dedication ceremony for the Asher Collection tomorrow at the Library of Congress. Maybe he’s trying to hold things together until then,” I said.

“He can do what he likes. It’s all over but the crying, anyway.” Thelma kept rocking. “You know, plenty of people made money from Harlan and Asher. They always paid with promptitude so you’d just keep on thinking the checks would come in. But lately the economy got so bad folks started needing some of their money to pay bills.” She shrugged. “That’s when Harlan started trolling for little fish like me. People who got in the end, ’cause they needed our cash. Now we’re the ones going to lose the most.”

“I know, I know. It’s horrible.”

“Especially considering one of ’em was Quinn. You must feel awful about that.”

I sat up straight. “Pardon?”

“Your winemaker, child. Rumors goin’ round he invested all that money he got from his mother’s estate with Harlan. Did it right before everything started to fall apart. It’d be a shame about him losing the cash he planned to use to buy his own place, wouldn’t it?”

“Are you sure about this?”

“You’d know better than I would.”

“I, uh …”

“Well, look at me shootin’ off my mouth. I just assumed you knew.” She stopped rocking. “Quinn didn’t tell you. Did he?”

My voice was faint. “I assumed he had investors who lost money because of Harlan and they backed out on him. It never occurred to me that it was his own money.”

“I’m sorry, Lucille. You know, I could be wrong.”

I nodded. She could be. But she wasn’t.

And it explained everything.

For the rest of the day I avoided Quinn. Now I knew why he’d been so evasive about his financial situation. He’d risked all his money just as the ship was sinking.

Like Thelma and the Romeos, he’d been swept along with the tide. Everyone else was making money in Tommy Asher’s exclusive club, so why shouldn’t he? Asher promised modest gains and steady returns, not wild profits. A sensible way to build wealth. Then there was Sir Thomas himself: a title conferring aristocracy; a man who was urbane, intelligent, and generous, donating millions to charity and supporting worthwhile causes through his philanthropy.

What was not to trust? Who would question someone with his credentials and his long-term track record? His clients were wild about him—until they started losing money.

I ate a solitary dinner in the kitchen, though I brought The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope for company and pored over the Epistle to Richard Boyle, highlighting the two passages Rebecca had marked.

I studied the first: Oft have you hinted to your brother peer, / A certain truth, which many buy too dear.

Simon deWolfe was Sir Thomas’s half brother—but did that make him an equal, a peer? Was Rebecca implying Simon knew what was really going on inside Asher Investments? As for “a certain truth, which many buy too dear”—the “many” could be Asher’s clients who were now paying the price for what he’d done. Was Simon—my cousin’s new beau and the muscle for his brother—in on the whole Ponzi scheme, too?

If he was, how deeply was he involved? Enough to commit murder—like drowning a drunk Ian Philips in his hot tub? What about Rebecca? I’d always suspected Simon had been with her on the day she disappeared. Now I knew that he hunted with Mick, who was an excellent marksman. I’d bet money Simon was no slouch, either.

Dominique had seen only one side of Simon, the charming Englishman who’d swept her off her feet. Kit said David Wildman knew his dark, violent side from firsthand experience. How long before my cousin found out about it, too? I knew her well enough to know she’d laugh off my worries. She might even be annoyed or angry with me for saying anything negative about the man she was in love with—enough to go to Simon and tell him what her cousin said so that he could deny it and put her mind at rest.

Then what? For the time being I needed to keep my mouth shut and find what Rebecca had left for Ian. Then maybe I could talk to Dominique.

I went back to the poem and reread the second passage Rebecca had marked.

No artful wildness to perplex the scene;

Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother ,

And half the platform just reflects the other.

The suff’ring eye inverted Nature sees ,

Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees;

With here a fountain, never to be play’d;