Part 29 (1/2)
No matter how much I wanted to believe justice was being served and everyone was getting what was coming to them, it couldn't right the wrong, heal the hurt, or bring closure for me. What made it worse was that I knew Kevin would have forgiven everybody. He would have quoted Luke to me: Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
But I was a long way from forgiveness.
At the end of August, three weeks before the ceremony at L'Enfant's grave was scheduled to take place, Perry asked me to fly over and help out in the bureau since he was down to a skeleton staff with people still on holiday or out sick. It was good to be back in London. By that time my American journalist colleagues had learned about the tantalizing mystery of the two-hundred-year-old seeds missing from the White House and their storied provenance, and it had unleashed a deluge of media interest. In my profession, it's never good when a journalist becomes the story; at least in London, I was able to drop out of sight for a while.
A few days before I flew home, I visited Zara Remington at the Chelsea Physic Garden, where she told me that Will Tennant was at Wormwood Scrubs prison in London awaiting trial for the murder of Alastair Innes. As I'd suspected, David Arista had been the American who had shown up at the garden asking about hyssop, and Will had lied in his description to throw me off. David had lucked out when he met Will, who not only also volunteered at the Millennium Seed Bank but was also in deep trouble trying to repay gambling debts and more than willing to accept a bribe in return for information about the project Alastair was working on with Kevin.
According to Zara, Will's ID badge had been used on the swipe pads leading to the storage area the day Alastair and I were locked in the vault. Eventually Will had been arrested and charged with Alastair's murder after a neighbor identified him as the man she'd seen leaving Alastair's garage the night before his car went into the ravine and the police found Alastair's phone in his home.
On my last night in London, Perry got tickets to the BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall, the world-famous series of cla.s.sical music concerts that begins each year in mid-July and lasts until mid-September. As it happened, it was American music night-Gershwin, Copland, and a mixture of jazz, blues, and country music. After it was over and we were leaving, Perry nudged me.
”Isn't that Victor Haupt-von Vessey across the aisle?” he asked. ”And I recognize the woman he's with. Her father is the Earl of Chelmsford.”
I turned in time to get a glimpse of Victor with his arm around a pretty redhead who reminded me of Yasmin. They were laughing at something with the intimacy of an established couple, and their body language suggested that they were more than just acquaintances.
”It is,” I said. ”I'm glad he's moved on, though she does look like Yasmin's double.”
”Want to say h.e.l.lo?”
I shook my head. ”I think I'd better not.”
”You're still not over all this, are you?”
”I don't know how I could be until they open the safe next to Pierre L'Enfant's grave. I just hope the seeds are there and that Kevin was right. Or that I'm right about what I think he found.”
Perry squeezed my hand. ”Come on, Medina, don't be so hard on yourself. The Franciscans have Kevin's book, and it looks like they're going to loan it to the Library of Congress, at least for a while.”
”I guess Edward Jaine thought it was a good public relations move to say that he'd bought it but out of charity he'd given it to Kevin and the Franciscans,” I said. ”It offset some of the horrible press after he got caught covering up that he was exporting toxic electronic waste to the Third World and pa.s.sing it off as good equipment.”
”Maybe it's why he got off with only a big fine and avoided jail,” Perry said. ”And the guy's smart. He'll rebuild his financial empire.”
”No doubt. Yasmin Gilberti is going to be his new personal a.s.sistant.”
”You still sound down in the dumps. Let's get a drink. Look at it this way. A week from today it will be all over. They're going to open that safe and you'll know for sure. Plus you get a world exclusive. That's why I've always loved you, Medina. You don't do anything by half measures.” He gave me his best cheesy smile. ”Go big,” he said, ”or go home.”
The day scheduled for opening the strongbox would have been Kevin's fifty-fifth birthday, a deliberate choice and posthumous tribute. The Park Service had set up a large white events tent around the L'Enfant grave with an enormous window at one end that looked out on the city and the Potomac. With the exception of Chappy and me as the two official photographers, and Grace, and a reporter from International Press Service, all the other media had been required to stay behind a rope line and were camped out on the steps of Arlington House.
The biggest concern was the condition of the seeds after two centuries, their fragility and preserving whatever package or container they were in. In addition to Ryan, Thea, Olivia, and Logan, along with a handful of VIPs from Monticello, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, and the White House, the only guests were people I'd asked to be there: Nick, Jack, Xavier, Max, and Bram Asquith. A locksmith hired by the Park Service would drill out the lock, but it had been decided that Ryan would be the one to look inside the strongbox.
Ryan surprised me by asking Xavier to say a prayer before we began, so we all bowed our heads while he asked for G.o.d's blessing on us and on Kevin. Then he quoted Genesis, a gentle reminder of what we might find inside the box: For dust thou art and unto dust thou shall return.
The locksmith was good, but it took a few minutes before he drilled through the lock.
”Are you all right?” Nick said in my ear. ”You look like you've stopped breathing.”
”I could be wrong. What if I'm wrong?”
He leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. ”Don't second-guess yourself. Everyone here thinks you're right.”
I nodded and raised my camera.
”Okay, this is it.” Ryan sounded tense. He reached into the safe and for a long moment, he was silent.
The only sounds were the shutters clicking from my camera and Chappy's as now everyone seemed to be holding their breath. What if someone had been there already, or something else had been stored there and we'd got it wrong, or . . .