The Courage Tree - Diane Chamberlain [109]
“Oh, yes.” Joe had nearly forgotten about the call he’d made to Monticello that morning. It seemed so long ago.
“The name they gave me was Lucas Trowell,” she said. “T-r-o-w-e-ll. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I think there’s been a mistake,” she said. “We have no record of anyone by that name working here.”
“He wouldn’t be working there now,” Joe said. “He’s a former employee.”
“We have no record of him ever working here,” she said.
This was not what Joe had expected. He thought he might hear that Lucas had been an irresponsible worker at Monticello, as he was at Ayr Creek. He even thought he might hear something regarding Lucas’s abnormal interest in young girls. But he had certainly not expected to hear that Lucas had never worked there.
“Uh, he would have worked there in the late nineties,” Joe said. “He was a gardener. A horticulturist.”
“I’ve been the human resources director here for fifteen years,” the woman told him. “I could tell you the names of all of the gardeners, landscape architects, et cetera, who worked here during that time. Lucas Trowell is not one of them.”
“But someone there gave him a glowing reference when he was applying for his job at the Ayr Creek estate in northern Virginia,” Joe said.
The woman was quiet for a moment. “Are you sure he didn’t work at Mount Vernon or one of the other historical properties?” she asked.
“I’m sure.” Joe felt his jaw tighten, and his head was beginning to ache. He let go of the steering wheel for a moment to rub his temple. “Listen,” he said. “Thanks for your help.”
“I don’t think I was really much help,” the woman said.
“Yes, actually, you were.”
He closed the phone and laid it back on the console, then glanced at Paula. She was studying him intently.
“Well?” she asked. “What was that all about?”
Joe tightened his hands on the steering wheel. “Something’s rotten in the tree house,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, it appears that Lucas never worked at Monticello.”
“What made you think he had?” Paula asked.
“He told the Ayr Creek Foundation that he’d worked there. Frank told me that they gave him a very high recommendation.”
“I don’t understand. Who were you just talking to?”
“The woman who’s the head of the human resources office at Monticello. She said no one by that name has ever worked there.”
“Why would she call you about it?”
“Because I called her. I wanted to find out the real scoop on what sort of employee he’d been. There’s something not right about that guy.” He looked at her again. “I spied on him a bit last night.” This seemed to be his evening for confessions.
“You what?”
“I wanted to know why, if he cares about Janine so damn much, he refused to go back to West Virginia with her last night. So, I went to his house. I expected to find him with another woman.”
“And?”
“I could see him inside the tree house, working at the computer.”
“Ooh.” Paula’s voice was teasing. “How very incriminating.”
“Right. And who knows, maybe I was too early—or too late—to catch him with another woman. But then I looked through his recycling at the curb and I—”
“Joe!”
“Don’t give me a hard time, okay?” He was in no mood for Paula’s moralizing.
Paula sighed. “So, what did you find in his recycling?” she asked.
“Kiddy porn.”
“Oh, God. Ugh!” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Are you kidding?”
“I wish I were,” he said, although the truth was, he was beginning to take a sadistic delight in getting the goods on Lucas Trowell.
“You mean, you found magazines or what?”
“I only saw one. It fell open to a picture of a nude child. A girl. That’s all I needed to see. I called Monticello, because I wanted to know if he’d left there of his own accord, or if maybe he was actually fired. I never expected to find out that he hadn’t worked there at all. I have to tell Janine.” He would call her the second he got home.
Paula was quiet a moment. “I don’t think you should tell her,” she said.
He looked at her in surprise. “Don’t you think she has a right to know?” he asked. “Wouldn’t you want to know that the guy you’re sleeping