Dead to the Last Drop (33 page)

“Well?” Helen said, leaning forward. “What did he say?”

I shifted, uneasy about revealing another word to this woman. For one thing, I was determined to shield Abby and Stan from this mess. Telling her more felt like a risk.

“Look, this case is in police hands,” I said. “
You’re
the one who needs to do some explaining. I’m sorry, but I don’t know if I can trust you.”

Helen’s frown deepened. “Do you think I trust you?”

For a long moment, we sat in stalemate, staring at each other. The C-SPAN presidential lecture continued in the background, the audience’s occasional outbursts of laughter making us even edgier. Still, we stubbornly sat, neither of us willing to give up a word or clear up a thing, and then—

Knock, knock . . .

A light hand at the door was followed by a small voice.

“Hello? . . . It’s me . . .”

The voice was Abigail Parker’s.

N
inety

H
ELEN unlocked the door, and the President’s daughter hurried in, closed the door behind her, and stepped out of the way for Helen to relock it.

The silent choreography was done with such swift ease it appeared they’d done this many times before.
But why?

A few minutes of explanation made things clearer. After Abby sat down and assured Helen and me that we could trust each other, the mood in the room changed. Then I learned a great deal, including the fact that Helen’s position wasn’t attached to any particular administration. She’d served for fourteen years, under three Presidents, which is why it wasn’t until after President Parker took office that Helen and Abby had become friends.

“But what exactly brought you two together?” I asked.

“The piano,” Abby said, exchanging a glance with Helen, who went on to explain how the Steinway & Sons company had donated two special pianos to the United States of America. One ended up in the Smithsonian. The other remained on display in the White House’s majestic Entrance Hall.

“The first time I saw Abby, she was gazing at that Steinway with a look of wonder on her face.”

“And it’s no wonder,” Abby quipped with a shy smile. “It’s a magnificent concert grand.”

“The design is streamlined deco,” Helen told me, “with carved eagles supporting the cabinet. When I saw Abby circling it, I asked her if she played. And she said . . .
A little.
So I invited her to try it out. Frankly, I expected ‘Chopsticks.’” Helen closed her eyes. “Abby played an exquisite version of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A Major. It gave me chills. You know,
President Harry Truman played that same piece on that very piano. It was one of his favorites . . .”

According to Helen, President Truman had dreamed of becoming a concert pianist, too. By fifteen, however, he decided that he would never be good enough. So he quit.

“Like our Abby here,” Helen said, shaking her head. “She never played that beautiful Steinway again, for fear of being overheard, even though I pleaded with her to share her gift. She preferred the privacy of her digital piano in the small music room upstairs. She always wore headphones so no one would know what she sounded like.”

I turned to Abby. “How did you get interested in playing jazz?”

“That started a year ago,” she confessed. “We had a guest performer in the White House, Mr. Wynton Marsalis. He spoke with such passion about musicianship that it stayed with me. I looked up his public talks on the Internet. After that, I was hooked. Helen suggested an online master class series from pianist Chick Corea, which I took. Then Helen suggested I work on replicating some of the solos of the great jazz pianists: Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett—”

“Abby understands what true practice is,” Helen declared. “Not simply playing but working on the sections that are difficult, working until you get them right.” She paused. “My late husband was a concert pianist, Ms. Cosi, so Abby immediately captured my heart.”

“Then it was you,” I said, gawking at Helen. “You were the one who sent her the invitation to our Jazz Space Open Mike Night.”

“Me?” Helen looked confused. “Heavens, no. I assumed Abby wanted to keep her music private, and I respected that . . .”

I sat back, still bothered by the mystery of that first invitation. Somebody wanted her to play at our coffeehouse. The question of
who
remained unanswered. But I was finding answers to other questions; and as the two friends continued to talk, I finally learned why Helen first contacted Jeevan Varma.

“Abby asked me to use my expertise as a historian to find out what happened to her father—her real father.”

N
inety-one

“Y
OU have to understand, Ms. Cosi. My dad died overseas in a bombing. That’s all I was ever told. He didn’t marry my mother, and she never wants to talk about him, not even to me . . .”

She leaned forward. “Then a few months ago, my mother finally let something slip. She said if the truth ever got out about my father, it would be a terrible scandal. I had no idea what she meant—and when I pressed her, she refused to say anything more. That’s when I went to Helen and asked her to research the truth about him.”

Abby paused and looked down at her hands in her lap. “I still remember the day . . . right after my dad died, going into my room and finding all of his photos missing. I was only eight years old. I cried and cried . . .”

“That’s so cruel . . .” I whispered.
How could anyone do that to a little girl?

“I can barely recall what my dad looked like, sounded like. But I remember that he was a loving man and a very good musician. He taught me to play the piano. Do you know the first song I learned?”

“‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’?”

A sad smile came over her. “That was the second song. The first was ‘Chopsticks.’”

I studied her a moment. “Is that why you played ‘Chopsticks’ on national television?”

She nodded. “I was furious with my mother for forcing me to perform alone on that show. Then she announced my wedding. And out marched Preston! I didn’t see any of it coming.” She wrung her hands. “It was my
own little rebellion, playing ‘Chopsticks’ like that. And I let loose on my mother, too. But it cost me.”

“Cost you?” I frowned. “How did it cost you, Abby?”

“My mother said my behavior proved that I was ‘unstable’ again. She decided that all the publicity I got because of my performance was now a security risk. So I’m not allowed to go back to class. I attend from the White House, using Skype, and I’ll be taking my final exams here, too. My mother even hired a nurse.”

“For what?”

“Medications. I take them three times a day, like clockwork. If I don’t, Mother’s threatened to send me back to the hospital—the one that took care of me after I . . .” She held up her wrist, the one with the terrible scars.

I leaned toward her. “Stan is worried about you, Abby. He wants to see you.”

“I know, but Stan can’t come here. Preston works in the West Wing. If he saw Stan’s name on the daily guest list, it would be a disaster. I’ve tried to tell my mother about my feelings for Stan, but she says I’m talking crazy. She says, ‘You don’t marry boys like Stan. You
play
with them, sure, but you don’t marry them.’ She says Preston is devoted to me, but Stan is just infatuated with the idea of being with a President’s daughter. She says I’ll be very sorry if I betray Preston and throw him out for some ‘drummer boy.’ She says musicians aren’t interested in being saddled with a wife and kids—and the truth is, Ms. Cosi, I do want to be married and have children. I want a family of my own.”

“Whoa, hold on,” I said. “How do you know Stanley McGuire isn’t interested in those things, too?”

“He never talks to me about things like that. I mean, he says he wants me to be happy. But
everyone
says that, and . . .” Once again, she stared at the scars on her wrist. “I’m not sure I even know how.”

“Of course you know how. You’re happy when you play music. I’ve seen it. And you looked
very
happy onstage with Stan ten days ago. When you kissed him, you were beaming.”

“That’s because I love him. But I love my family, too, and I have a duty to them . . .”

There it is again
,
the Stepford Abby voice.

“I understand what you’re saying,” I assured her, “and it’s noble of you to think of your family. But I believe they’re taking advantage of you. I also
know how difficult it is to watch your child make her own decisions. But that’s what adulthood is, Abby, making choices for yourself, standing up for who you truly are, not what others bully or manipulate or guilt you into being. Adulthood is filled with trials and burdens and hard decisions. But you’ll never find peace and happiness, you’ll never meet your true self or free your full potential if you’re hobbled by what people think, or define your limits by what others prescribe for you.”

Tears welled in Abby’s eyes. “I know you’re right, Ms. Cosi . . . but with my past . . . and my mother . . . and the army of security . . . and the medications . . . you don’t understand what I’m up against . . . I’m feeling so confused . . .”

I took her hand, the one attached to that scarred wrist, and held it in both of mine. “Would it help you to sort out your feelings if you could see Stan again, face-to-face? Spend a little time with him?”

“Are you kidding?” Her foggy eyes instantly brightened. “I would die to see Stan!”

“Then come to the Smithsonian party next Saturday night. He’ll be there.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Then I’ll be there, too. I won’t miss it!”

A loud
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK
made us all jump.

“Ms. Parker? Are you in there?”

The tone was deep and authoritative. Even through the thick door and the drone of the C-SPAN lecture, I recognized the voice of Agent Sharpe of the United States Secret Service.

N
inety-two

L
IKE a rabbit caught in the hunter’s sights, Abby froze, dark eyes wide.

Helen moved to answer the door, but Abby grabbed her arm.

“I’ll go,” she said.

A few steps later, the President’s daughter turned and whispered, “Thank you, Ms. Cosi, for helping me and Stan. Thank you . . .”

“It’s almost time for your next class, Ms. Parker,” Agent Sharpe informed her in the doorway. “And Mr. Emory has been looking for you—”

“Honey-bunny, there you are!”

Preston Emory’s golden good looks moved into the frame. He hooked Abby’s waist, pulled her close, and kissed her cheek. She smiled blandly.

“What are you up to in there, my darling?” He peeked in at us.

Abby quickly pulled him away. “You know I enjoy visiting with Mrs. Trainer,” she said, voice diminishing as they moved down the majestic hall. “She knows so much about history. I
always
learn something when I stop by her office . . .”

Helen rose to reclose the door, jumping slightly when she found Agent Sharpe still lurking there.

Like Preston, the Secret Service agent peered into the room, but his gaze was more than curious. He looked openly suspicious.

“Hello again, Ms. Cosi,” Sharpe said. “What are you up to in there?”

“We’re working on a contribution to a Smithsonian exhibition,” Helen quickly replied, frozen smile in place. “And we must get back to it. Thank you, Agent Sharpe!”

Helen closed the door, practically in his face. Then she stood, ear against wood, until Sharpe’s steps receded.

With a frustrated shake of her head, she went to Pete’s computer and selected another online lecture—

The Oval Office is the official office of the President of the United States. Located in the White House’s West Wing, the office has a unique elliptical shape. Join us now, as we will explore the history and meaning of that shape . . .”

Helen’s frozen smile melted as she strode back to me and sat down.

“Get this flash drive out of here,” she rasped.

I picked up the small, plastic rectangle and moved it toward the jacket of my little blue suit.

“Not in your pocket,” she whispered. “Somewhere safer.”

My eyebrows rose as she pointed down her neckline.

“You want me to hide it in my . . . ?”

She nodded.

With a shrug, I did as she asked. Then I asked her to tell me everything she knew about Abby’s father and Jeevan Varma—

Two dead men.

N
inety-three

“A
NDY Aamir Ferro, that was the name of Abby’s real father,” Helen began. “She remembered her mother calling him Andy in this country and Aamir when they visited him in Morocco.”

“What was he doing over there?”

“From what I’ve been able to dig up, he was a young professor at a local university. His own mother was an American who taught at several schools in France, including the Sorbonne. His father was a French national of Arabic descent. Both are deceased. Andy/Aamir was born in Virginia, making him a U.S. citizen. But he quickly became interested in world music, and he studied in France, Spain, and Morocco, as well as here in DC.”

“How did he die?”

“He was killed in the 2003 bombings in Casablanca, the worst act of terrorism in Morocco’s history. There was a hearing about the death of Andy/Amir and I reviewed some redacted testimony by a deputy secretary of the State Department—”

“Redacted? You mean . . .”

“Anything deemed classified was blacked out.”

“I see.”

“But what bothered me was the terseness of the deputy secretary’s testimony. It was in such shorthand that I knew he’d had offline discussions before he’d come to the hearing room. So I decided to review his e-mail correspondence with the head of the committee—Senator Parker. I used an FOIA request to look up the deputy secretary’s archived e-mails for the entire month before the hearing—”

“FOIA?”

“Freedom of Information Act—it’s used by journalists, historians, and citizens to request documents from the government and review the work of our public officials. I wanted to learn more about the deputy secretary’s testimony, but guess what? When the archived e-mails arrived, there was a black hole, a terribly suspicious one. Rose Mary Woods suspicious . . .”