Chapter 18
Ted Robinson looked at the beat-up car he would be driving to Middleburg. No GPS. Crank windows. He hoped the heater worked. He looked at Espinosa and shrugged. “Hey, it has wheels and will get us there. At least I hope so. It’s only forty-five miles or so to Middleburg. With luck, we should make it in about an hour. Punch it in on that supersmart phone of yours and just read me the directions. Keep an eye out to make sure we really did shake our tail.”
Ted sailed up the ramp and roared out of the garage, stunned at the power under the hood of the car he was driving. As far as he could tell, no one was following him. He paid attention to traffic while he listened to Espinosa fire off directions for fifteen minutes before he settled down for the stretch of highway that would take him to the Sandford family farm.
“What’s our plan, Ted? Do we even have a plan?”
Ted grinned. “Sort of. More or less. Key in the local newspapers in Middleburg. I think it’s the Middleburg Life that caters to the Sandfords and their Christmas decorations. Mrs. Sandford wins every year. I’m thinking we can bluff our way through something there. We might have to convince Maggie to let us run some fluff pieces to make it legit. We might need to be extra charming, so work on that, Espinosa.”
Espinosa grunted something that sounded like I’m always charming, to which Ted muttered something that sounded like, in your dreams.
They rode in silence for a few moments, Ted’s eyes on the road and on his rearview mirror, Espinosa’s eyes on the screen of his smartphone.
“Two weeks till Christmas! Hard to believe. Are you planning on buying Alexis a Christmas present?”
Espinosa stopped what he was doing and looked over at Ted. “Is that a trick question? She dumped me. Why would I buy her a present? Are you buying Maggie one?” he asked snidely.
“As a matter of fact, I am. I’m buying her a banana tree. What do you think of that?”
“I think you’re nuts is what I think. At this time last year, we were already invited out to Myra’s for Christmas. I didn’t get an invitation or a call, did you?”
“Nope. I’m thinking it’s just going to be me, you, and Minnie and Mickey this year,” Ted said, referring to his two cats. “I’ll cook if you want to come over. I’m going to pick up my Christmas tree this weekend. Want to help me decorate it on Sunday?”
“Sure. Okay, here we go, five miles as the crow flies, you make a right on Stallion Road, you follow that for two miles, then that should take us to a private road called Sandford Farm Lane, which will take us to the front door. I sure as hell hope this works, but I doubt that it will. I have not read one pleasant thing about that woman.”
“The woman hasn’t been born yet who doesn’t or won’t react to flattery. I learned that from Maggie. We pour on the charm, tell her she’ll be on the front page of the Lifestyle section. That’s big time.”
The duo had ridden in silence for another ten minutes when Espinosa said, “Slow down. See that prancing stallion on the side? Make a right. We’re almost there.”
“Do you think they have any kind of security out here?” Ted asked.
Espinosa shrugged. “The lieutenant governor travels with a carful, but I think I heard a while back or read somewhere that out here in the boonies, he’s just another farm owner, and there’s no need. That might have changed since I heard that.”
“The only time you need security is when you’re doing something wrong. Don’t go jumping down my throat, it’s just my opinion,” Ted said as he maneuvered the motor-pool car over the rough shale road. He could hear the rocks bouncing off his fenders, and the sound irritated him.
“So far so good,” Espinosa said, peering out the side windows, then the back. “I don’t see anyone. That’s the house up ahead. I guess you just drive up to the front, and we walk to the front door and ring the bell. How cool is that?”
“Way too easy, especially after our headlines this morning. I was expecting everything to be battened down.”
“You didn’t mention the Sandford name in the piece you and Dennis wrote. They probably think that guy Marks is not going to give them up. Arrogant rich people think like that,” Espinosa said knowingly.
Ted brought the battered car to a smooth halt. “Here goes nothing,” he said as he settled his backpack firmly in place. “You got everything handy, all your creds? That’s the first thing whoever opens the door is going to want to see. Paste that winning Espinosa smile in place. You ready?”
“I’m ready,” Espinosa said, getting out of the car. He looked around. The place looked deserted to his eye. He also didn’t see much in the way of holiday decorations. He said so under his breath.
“I think it’s all about lights more than statues and stuff. Oooooh, look up at the roof and that wire sleigh and all those reindeer by the chimney, and look over there on the side; damn, there must be at least twenty wire things. Wonder what they are. It’s hard to see them against all the snow piled up. How the hell did we miss all that crap lining the driveway? Bet it all lights up at night. That article did say it was a light show once it got dark. Check out the wreath on the door. It’s not even real. The doodads look kind of worn and tattered to my eye, but what do I know! I’m just a reporter, but I want to say, right here and now, that this crap offends my eyes. You might have to digitally enhance it.”
Ted slapped his head in frustration. “Joe, what was the name of the homeowner who came in second on the decorations? Quick, we might need the name.”
“Ah . . . um . . . Cornelia something or other . . . Wait a minute. Lowden. Yeah, it’s Lowden. Cornelia Lowden. She’s the mayor’s wife. She decorates the mayor’s office, too. She won a prize for that.”
Ted looked up at the ornate door knocker, which was a replica of the prancing stallion on the sign out on the road. He wondered if the Sandfords raised Thoroughbreds out here in Never Never Land. He lifted the ornate knocker and gave it a good bang. He could hear the sound reverberating all through the house. Loud enough to wake the dead or, at least, someone wearing two hearing aids.
The door opened suddenly. Fiona Sandford, dressed in a pink pantsuit with a Popsicle-colored blouse, blasted them before they could catch their breath. “How did you get in here and what do you want? This is private property, and you are trespassing.”
“Ted Robinson, ma’am, and this is Joseph Espinosa. We’re from the Post in D.C. We’ve been trying to contact you for the longest time. We heard about your exquisite Christmas decorations and how you’ve won first prize six years in a row. We want to do a feature story on you along with some other equally talented homeowners. We’ve already scheduled McLean and Leesburg, but we were told they can’t hold a candle to yours. We did send two inquiries to the lieutenant governor’s mansion but never heard back. So, as our deadline is drawing near, we thought we’d take a chance and just ride out here to see if you would be agreeable to letting us show you off a little.”
Fiona Sandford’s talonlike fingers flew to her bee-stung lips in stunned surprise. “Oh, dear, I’m so sorry for greeting you like that. It’s just that no one comes out here unless they’re invited. My manners are atrocious. Please, come in out of the cold. Can I offer you some coffee, tea?”
“No, ma’am, we’re good. We would have called, but your number is unlisted, and rightly so, your husband being who he is and all,” Ted said with a smile in his voice. “So, will you grant us the interview? If you say no, then we’ll have to ask Mrs. Cornelia Lowden as our second choice.”
“Of course! Of course! I can’t let Cornelia one-up me now, can I? We’ve had this . . . little Christmas rivalry going on now for a good many years. All in good fun, of course. Just follow me into the great room, and you can see what I’ve done so far. I’m not finished yet. Actually, it’s a work in progress and never seems to get finished until Christmas Eve, for some reason. I’m sorry my husband isn’t here to speak with you. He loves to get into the season and usually he strings all the lights outside, with the help of our barn manager. We have thousands of lights, just thousands. It really is a light show at night,” Fiona Sandford babbled.
Ted Robinson thought he had seen everything there was to see in the way of Christmas decorations, but his jaw dropped, as did Espinosa’s, when they entered the great room. There was not one inch of space that wasn’t adorned with some ricky-ticky, honky-tonk wall hanging, ornament, or statue. The Christmas tree went all the way to the ceiling and was white and silver, with a mishmash of ribbons, colored popcorn, bangles, and garish ornaments. A tarnished angel graced the top of the tree.
“What do you think? Am I or am I not first-prize material?”
“That you are, ma’am, that you are. Joe, make sure you get it from every angle.”
“I’ve been at this for weeks now,” Fiona said proudly.
Ted was so dumbfounded at all the junk he was seeing that all he could say was, “I can see that.” He risked a glance at Espinosa, who seemed to be having trouble focusing his camera. Either from laughter or pure dismay that he was actually here doing what he was doing.
“A collage would be nice, you know, all entrances, exits, and windows so we get the whole picture,” he said to Espinosa, so he would remember the real reason they were here.
“There’s just so much,” he mumbled.
“It’s taken me all my life to collect everything. Every ornament, every statue, every card, every single decoration has a story behind it. I’m sure you don’t want to hear them, but they mean so much to me.”
“Do you have any decorations made by your children over the years?” Ted asked.
“I do, but I don’t put them out. My children do not share my passion for Christmas, so I don’t bother pretending. Now, if that makes me a horrible mother, then so be it. They aren’t even coming home for Christmas this year. Can you believe that?”
Ted’s ears perked up. “Really. That’s too sad.”
“My mother would kill me if I didn’t show up for Christmas Eve. Christmas Day is different; we each do our own thing. It’s Christmas Eve that is important to my mom,” Espinosa said, clicking away.
“Well, I’m sure you’ll have a houseful of guests if not family. You do want to show off your”—Ted waved his arms about to take in the cluttered, mind-boggling room—“Christmas decor.”
“In years past, yes. Unfortunately, not this year. I’m just devastated, but maybe doing this interview with a high-quality, top-notch newspaper like the Post, and seeing you bringing to life all my treasures, well, it just might make up for it. The lieutenant governor has so much government business on his plate this year that he won’t even be coming here until December twenty-third. I gave my household staff the time off. They all left yesterday and won’t be back till January second of next year.”
Empty house. Great. Jack is gonna love this.
“Well, that’s it for this room,” Espinosa said. “Do you have any other rooms you’d like us to feature?” God, let her say no, he thought to himself.
“Absolutely I do. I decorate the entire house, including all six bathrooms. Just follow me, and I’ll show you. I so have this passion for reindeer. I wanted one when I was a little girl, but my daddy said no. I was brokenhearted. Now I have over a thousand of them. Isn’t that marvelous?”
“It certainly is,” Ted said as he tried to tear his eyes away from a giant, plastic snow globe in the middle of the dining-room table. Inside, fake snow rained down as a fat, miniature Santa tumbled over and over. Gold-plated reindeer were spread over every square inch of the table.
Ted couldn’t help himself when he said, “Guess you’re eating Christmas dinner in the kitchen, huh?”
Fiona Sandford thought that was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. “We’ll eat off trays in the family room. It took me too long to set all this up, and I don’t want to disturb the arrangement.”
“I don’t blame you,” Espinosa mumbled.
“Do you get the Post way out here?” Ted asked, hoping to move things along.
“I read it online every morning. My husband insists I keep abreast of what’s going on. I do like the paper.”
“What did you think of today’s article about what went down in the SE section of the District?” Ted asked nonchalantly as he pretended to admire a fat Santa with a green sack of tiny, wilted-looking packages. He racked his brain to remember where he’d seen a duplicate of what he was looking at. And then it came to him—the Dollar Store.
“Why would you ask me something like that?” Fiona asked, suspicion ringing in her voice.
“Because I’m a newspaper reporter and that’s what we do; we ask questions and hope for feedback. I guess you don’t have an opinion. That’s okay, a lot of people don’t. I’ll tell you who I really feel sorry for; it’s that guy who runs the management company. He’s going to go down, and he’ll take all his slum-landlord clients with him. So, Mrs. Sandford, we’d like to take some pictures of you with all your treasures. We have another thirty minutes if you’d like to change into something . . . festive. Or we can just shoot you as you are. You look lovely, but pink isn’t exactly a Christmas color. The decision is entirely up to you. This article is about you, so it won’t matter if your husband is in any of the shots or not. I’m sure we can dig something out of the archives if we change our minds.”
Fiona suddenly looked angry, frustrated, hopeful in quick succession, as if she couldn’t make up her mind. “What? Did I say something to upset you? Was it that your husband won’t be in the pictures?”
“No, no, not at all. Yes, I would like to change into something more formal. Would you like something to drink before I change? There’s coffee in the kitchen. Help yourselves. What did you mean when you said that person was going to go down?”
“Oh, that!” Ted shrugged. “I’m just going by what that rich guy promised to do, which was go to the ends of the earth to dig up the owners of those slums. He meant business. He’s one of those dog-with-a-bone kind of guys. You’d best hurry, Mrs. Sandford; we don’t have much more time. Do you want us to send you the proofs, so that you can pick the ones you’d like us to put in the feature?”
“Well, of course. That would be lovely,” she said, tottering away on her spike-heeled shoes.
The minute Fiona Sandford was out of earshot, Espinosa hissed, “Tell me this is some damn nightmare, and we’re both going to wake up any second now.”
“I wish I could. Did you get pictures of the locks on the door. I didn’t see any kind of alarm panel anywhere. Did you?” Espinosa shook his head. “Take a picture of the lock on the back door. The locks look pretty ordinary to me. Jack is going to want to see everything.”
“She got a little antsy when you brought up the property-management company.”
“I saw that, but I also saw that the woman is incredibly vain, and this little photo shoot means more than what went down out in the SE. When we leave, and she has time to think about it, it might be a different story. I think we need to nail down where the two kids are going to be for Christmas and verify it. That’s the first thing Jack is going to want to know.”
“Yoo-hoo!” Fiona trilled as she whirled and twirled for their benefit. Ted longed for sunglasses. Espinosa gulped and almost choked. “The pictures will be in color, right? I’ve had this outfit since I was nineteen. It was the first thing I bought with my very own money. The material is called taffeta, in case anyone asks. It’s metallic and is really festive. It more or less blends with the Christmas tree, if you know what I mean. Each year, I have my husband take a picture of me by the tree. The top is all hand-sewn, multicolored sequins. You couldn’t touch this outfit today for under three thousand dollars and mind you it only cost me twenty back in the day. I so treasure it.”
Espinosa had a fit of coughing. He brought up his camera and clicked and clicked. “Smile. Show me some pearly whites.” The bee-stung lips parted in a garish smile. “Okay, now point to that glorious parade of reindeer by the fireplace. Walk over to them, bend down, adjust their collars. Ah, perfect! You’re a wonderful subject to photograph.”
“Thank you for saying that. What about the interview?”
“Tell me if this will work for you, Mrs. Sandford. I’ll type up the questions and send them to you via e-mail. Write as much as you want, and if there’s anything I don’t ask, feel free to include whatever it is you want said. I’m willing to work with you one hundred percent. I just wish everyone was as nice and cooperative as you’ve been. Give me your e-mail address please.”
Fiona rattled it off, and Ted wrote it down. Almost as an afterthought, he asked, “Where will your children be this Christmas if they aren’t coming home?”
Fiona’s face darkened. “Faylan, my daughter, is going to Texas to spend Christmas with her boyfriend’s parents, and Addison is going skiing in Colorado. Sometimes, children are very thoughtless.”
“Yes, that is true. Well, thank you very much, Mrs. Sandford. I’ll be in touch later this afternoon with my interview questions. If I don’t see you again, have a wonderful Christmas.”
“You, too, Mr. Robinson. Thank you also, Mr. Espinosa.”
Outside in the frigid air, Espinosa ran to the car, certain he was going to explode. Ted climbed into the car, turned on the engine, and burst out laughing. “That was a piece of cake. Soon as we get clear of this house, I’m going to text Jack. Start uploading those pictures to him.”
“All of them?”
“Every single one.”
“I hope he made out as well as we did with Mr. Marks,” Espinosa said.
“I’m sure he did. Okay, now key in the location of the mayor’s office. We need to scoot over there and take a few pictures to make this all look legitimate. Then head over to the Lowdens’ home and shoot a few from outside. Then we’re done here.”