Ellen Crosby: The Viognier Vendetta

Her package, whatever it was, was here somewhere. It had to be. Originally I thought she might have hidden it under one of the chairs, but now I realized that was impossible because the rows of seats were set directly on top of a low brick wall. My other thought was the grotto, visible through the grillwork of one of the oval windows. But when I peered outside it was obvious there was no place to hide anything.

What none of the Internet articles I’d read had mentioned was the opening the size of a small hearth on the inside corner of one of the archways. About two feet high and eighteen inches wide, it could be as much as three feet deep if it extended all the way into the wall. It was the only part of the summerhouse whose function wasn’t obvious. Storage, maybe—but for what?

Directly in front of the opening was a deep puddle. I used my cane for balance as I straddled the puddle and bent down to see inside. Nothing but inky darkness. I moved my hand inch by inch over the wet walls and ceiling as far back as I could reach. Except for slime and a few lumps that I didn’t want to identify, there was nothing there—unless she’d crawled inside and left it all the way in the back, though that didn’t seem like Rebecca, who was bigger and taller than I.

My knees began to cramp. I tried to dig my fingers into the mortar between the bricks to keep my balance and I lost my footing on the slick stone. I landed hard on both hands in about two inches of water and muck. I moved one hand inside the opening and felt along the floor. My fingers brushed against something that gave way when I touched it. I pulled it out. A white plastic grocery bag.

A padded brown legal-sized mailing envelope was inside the bag. The envelope was wrapped in more plastic and secured with strapping tape. No writing, nothing to identify it, but this had to be what I was looking for. I turned it over and felt what was inside. Papers and something hard and rectangular. An external computer drive?

Whatever it was, I didn’t want to open it out here in the pouring rain. I moved back to the shelter of the benches and reached in my pocket for my phone to call Kit and David. It was gone. Had I left it in the car? No, I’d made sure to bring it with me. I’d even checked that it was there as I walked across the Capitol grounds.

I found it in the middle of the puddle. It probably fell out of my pocket when I stumbled. I dredged it out with my cane and tried to turn it on. The buttons oozed water.

I shoved it back in my pocket, tucking Rebecca’s package under my soaked jacket. The walk from the summerhouse across the west Capitol lawn was miserable. A cold wind blew up off the open expanse of the Reflecting Pool and slanted the hard rain so it was nearly horizontal, pricking my face like tiny needles. When I passed the statue of James Garfield at the top of Maryland Avenue, I changed direction and headed for the Botanic Gardens to wait out the storm.

An elegant-looking white-haired woman sitting behind the front desk looked up from her book as I pulled open one of the large glass-paned doors and stepped into the warm, dry Orangerie. She took off her glasses and studied me like I was a specimen who belonged somewhere in the gardens. For a moment I thought she was going to ask me to leave. There was already a small puddle at my feet as water dripped off my clothes and my hair.

I decided to take the offensive and state the obvious.

“Hi, there,” I said. “Thought I’d come in out of the rain. I probably look like a drowned rat.”

“A drowned rat,” she said, “would look a whole lot better than you do. Is it coming down too hard for an umbrella? What are you doing out in this? It’s like a monsoon.”

“When I left home it wasn’t raining.”

“You came from Kansas, maybe?”

I grinned. “Atoka. Just beyond Middleburg.”

“You look pretty pitiful,” she said, “if you don’t mind my saying. Where did you come from just now?”

“The Capitol. I feel pretty pitiful. I dropped my cell phone in a puddle. Took me awhile to find it. I thought I might stay here until this downpour ends.”

I could let her think I’d stopped by my office on the Hill to put in some overtime and had gotten soaked searching for the phone.

“You’ve got the place to yourself,” she said. “They’d hate you in the museums, but here if you drip on anything we can skip watering for a day.”

I laughed. “What I really need is to dry off.”

“Use the high-speed hand dryers in the restroom. They’re environmental. We’re all green here. You can dry your hair in two shakes. Just don’t get too close or it will sound like a jet engine taking off next to your ear.”

“I think I’ll try that,” I said. “Everything squishes.”

She took a map out of a display rack and opened it.

“Go to the south lobby on the other side of the conservatory. The ladies’ room is at the back of the Jungle, in between medicinal plants and the desert.”

I took the map. “Thanks.”

“One more thing?”

“Yes?”

“May I see what’s in the bag?”

I pulled the plastic-encased mailing envelope out of the grocery sack. “Just some papers.”

“Thank you.” She shrugged. “Security. You know how it is. I told the guard he could take off early since we didn’t expect anyone else to come by, but I still need to ask.”

I slid the envelope back in the bag.

“You’ve got about forty minutes,” she said. “I’m closing early, before five tonight.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be long gone before then.”

I went through another door into the light-filled Garden Court. The air was warm and tropical and the rain beat incessantly on the glass roof of the conservatory. Panpipe music played in the background and fountains burbled in two pools at either end of the gallery. The air smelled of hundreds of Easter lilies massed in pots around the pools, along with orchids, hydrangeas, ferns, lavender, and bushy Easter broom.

I walked through a second door at the back of the Garden Court with a sign above the door that said simply JUNGLE. The enormous room, meant to be the re-creation of a ruined plantation, was dense with lush foliage, groves of palm trees, a banyan tree dripping with Spanish moss, and other dark greenery and twisting vines that rose at least two stories above my head. A catwalk ringed the entire room. The view from up there was probably amazing. Somewhere a tree frog croaked and fans whooshed, circulating the humid air, though neither sound drowned out the ceaseless pelting of rain on the glass roof. The air was heavy with the fetid, damp smell of decaying vegetation. Everywhere I looked, lacy shadows of palm fronds from dozens of tall trees shrouded the rain-darkened room in an eerie gloom.

I walked quickly down a path that ran along a stream with a series of waterfalls until I reached the south lobby. The moment I walked into the ladies’ room I stripped off my jacket and began to wring it and my clothes out in the sink. The sweet-faced woman at the front desk wasn’t kidding about the hair dryer sounding like a jet taking off as I leaned down to dry my hair. Half-deaf, but drier, I put on my soggy jacket and picked up Rebecca’s package.

Whether it was still pouring or not, I was going to make a run for the car and drive over to Dumbarton Oaks. There Kit, David, and I could figure out what to do next. I walked up the path on the opposite side of the stream and back through the Garden Court. As I pushed open the door to the Orangerie, I heard a man speaking to the woman at the front desk.

“I won’t be long,” he said. “Just thought I’d have a quick look around since I’m only in Washington for the weekend.”

Maybe it was the British accent that captivated her or maybe she was flustered because she recognized him from all the press coverage.