The Scarlet Pepper

by Dorothy St. James

  Ew! Eww! Ewww!

  I shook that nasty image out of my head and out of my body.

  “Is something wrong?” Francesca asked. “Are you having a fit?”

  “I think I must be. I feel as if I’ve lost my mind.”

  “It’s the stress, dear. It’s getting to you.”

  “Not this time, although I’ll probably have to be peeled off the ceiling if anything else happens today. This was a delayed reaction to something Detective Hernandez asked me. He wanted to know if I’d slept with Griffon Parker on Friday night. Apparently the cranky fellow got lucky before his luck ran out.”

  “Heavens,” Francesca whispered, her hands flying to her lips with genuine surprise. “You must have been mortified. I’m mortified for you.”

  “Manny…er…Hernandez didn’t ask you the same thing?”

  She shook her head. “I would have given him quite a set-down if he’d even suggested I could be unfaithful to my Bruce with a journalist!”

  I grabbed Francesca’s wrist. “How can you be so devil-may-care about Parker’s death? Friday afternoon you told me that you wished you could get away with murder. Then that evening you ran off after insisting we confront Kelly Montague, who is now—conveniently—Parker’s replacement. Where did you go? And why is Detective Hernandez telling me that all the evidence points straight at me? Why are you blaming me for your murder mystery game?”

  “I—I never meant—” Francesca stammered. She waved her elegant hands in front of her as if she were trying to wipe away my accusations. “What is happening to this town?” She didn’t sound at all like a woman capable of murder, but that didn’t mean I was going to let her get away without giving me some answers.

  “What is going on with you?” I asked, but the words had barely made it out of my mouth when Assistant Usher Wilson Fisher, the king of government forms—in triplicate—hurried toward us.

  “Ms. Calhoun!” His sharp voice filled the East Wing’s wood-paneled lobby. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”His hooked nose twitched with every agitated step.

  “I just got out of a meeting and am piled under with the harvest plans right now, Fisher,” I warned.

  “Perhaps I should go.” Francesca tried to pull away from me, even though her security clearance required she stay with an escort when in the White House.

  My grip on her wrist tightened. “No.”

  “Ms. Calhoun, I need those forms,” Fisher said, thumping his finger into the palm of his hand for emphasis. “The digitization process can’t start without them.”

  “What forms?” I had no idea what he was talking about, but then again, I rarely understood any of his formspeak.

  “Didn’t you read my memo? I sent it with form 53-421-A.”

  “I’m sure it’s somewhere on my desk.”

  “I put it in your in-box,” Francesca murmured.

  “Oh, thanks. Apparently it’s in my in-box. I’ll look for it there this afternoon,” I said, hoping he’d leave it at that.

  “Ms. Calhoun”—my name shot out of his mouth like a couple of bullets—“I can’t wait any longer. The memo, if you’d read it, clearly stated my timeline. In an effort to streamline our procurement process, we’re going digital. But in order to do that I need to digitize all of our old purchase orders, which means every office needs to send me their archives. I have everyone’s files except for the grounds office’s.”

  “Can’t this wait until after the harvest?” Fisher always wanted this form or that from me. I honestly couldn’t keep up. He loved his forms with the same passion a mother feels toward her babies. I found it all a bit unnatural.

  “I’ve already waited long enough, Ms. Calhoun. Those forms are vital to the operation of the White House. Are you willing to jeopardize the President’s comfort and safety because you are too busy to do this one thing? Certainly you don’t think you’re more important than the President.”

  “Of course not, but it’s archived paperwork. I can’t see how gathering decades-old procurement forms a week or so late would bring the wheels of democracy grinding to a halt.” I hoped he’d agree with the reasoning in that.

  But no, he started huffing as if I’d suggested we rip out the North Lawn’s historic boxwoods and replace them with invasive privets.

  “If it’s that important, I’ll do it now.” The grounds office kept boxes of old paperwork in a storage closet. Retrieving the boxes wouldn’t take that long and it would give me the opportunity to talk with Francesca in private.

  Francesca and I left Fisher still huffing. We hurried down the center hall, past the curator’s office, and toward the stairs that led down. There were two basement levels beneath the ground floor of the White House.

  The basement mezzanine housed the dishwashers, flatware, and dishes. There were some other miscellaneous storage rooms on that level, but the one assigned to the grounds crew was one level below that, in the subbasement. Both of these levels were added when the White House was completely gutted and rebuilt during the Truman administration.

  Once we were alone in the narrow utilitarian stairwell that descended deep into the bowels of the White House residence, I confronted Francesca again. This time I was determined to get an answer out of her. “You never answered me before. Why did you tell Hernandez that I was responsible for planning Parker’s murder when you know that it’s not true?”

  Francesca stopped near the bottom of the stairs and, after looking to see if anyone was around, whirled toward me. The cold look she leveled in my direction gave me cause to wonder if it was a good idea to go anywhere with her alone. “I didn’t kill Parker,” she said, biting off each word as if it tasted bitter in her mouth.

  “Then why would you want to make it look as if I did?” The occasional metal bangs and constant drone of the mechanical systems filled the stairwell.

  “I didn’t kill Parker,” she repeated.

  “I never said you did.”

  “Didn’t you? Well, missy, I wasn’t the only one who benefited from his demise. He seemed to be ramping up his campaign against your work as well. And then you publicly accused me of the crime.”

  “I never accused you of anything. I wondered, yes. Accused, no.”

  “Didn’t you?” Her breathing grew quick, agitated. “Annie told me how you hissed my name to the detective at the crime scene. And that was before the detective even suspected a crime had been committed.”

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  “You didn’t mean to frame me? He died exactly as you had planned for him to be murdered. I couldn’t hide that information from the police, especially after finding out how you were already working to pin the crime on me. After all I’ve done for you—I saved your precious harvest celebration from ruin—I can’t believe you’d turn on me like this…unless you committed the crime.”

  “Oh, my.” I held up my hands to calm her down. “Annie misunderstood. I don’t even remember saying anything to Detective Hernandez about you. If I did, I’m sure he didn’t take it to mean that I was accusing you, because I wasn’t. No way. No how. And I had nothing to do with Parker’s death. He could have attacked my gardening practices as much as he wanted. I’m doing the right thing. Unless he was ready to out-and-out lie”—which I wouldn’t have put past the weasel—“I don’t see how he could have hurt the work we’ve all been doing in the kitchen garden.”

  “Is this true? You aren’t trying to frame me for murder?”

  “Are you trying to frame me?”

  She closed her eyes. The stress of the past week had taken its toll on her. Her light brown hair hung limp about her face. Her pink linen suit hung as if it were a size too big for her slender frame. And she looked pale underneath her perfectly applied makeup.

  For the first time since I’d known her, Francesca looked wretchedly…human.

  I touched her arm. “Francesca? Are you okay?”

  She jerked away from me. “Why wouldn’t I be? Parker is dead. What could be wrong with that? Al
l of my problems are solved.” Despite her assurances, she sounded absolutely miserable.

  I nodded to an usher who appeared, startled to find us blocking the stairwell.

  “We’d better get going,” I said. We continued down the steps to the White House’s lowest level, the subbasement. This floor housed the laundry facilities, more storage for the kitchens, men’s and women’s locker room facilities for the ushers and maids, mechanical and electrical equipment rooms, and, tucked behind the incinerator, a storage closet designated for grounds crew use.

  In the short time that I’d worked here, I’d witnessed some ugly battles waged over these storage spaces. The grounds office most assuredly had more than its fair share, considering we also had a greenhouse on the roof, a storage shed on the grounds, and a greenhouse facility across town, in addition to this storage closet.

  I pulled a key from my pocket and unlocked the gunmetal gray steel door. The hinges whined as I pushed the heavy door open. With a flip of a switch, the fluorescent lights flickered on. The bulb in the back started to buzz.

  “It kind of makes my messy desk look organized,” I admitted.

  Francesca just shook her head.

  Three seven-foot-tall metal shelves had been crammed inside the storage closet. The packed shelves reminded me of the Island of Misfit Toys, but for gardeners. There were gardening shears in need of repair, ancient bags of potting soil, beautiful ceramic pots that were chipped or stained, bottles of chemicals that I wouldn’t want to touch without rubber gloves and tongs, and the ever-present boxes of old paperwork.

  “When I get some free time, I’m going to organize this closet and toss out over half this junk. Most of it is past its expiration date.”

  The room had the bitter smell of a gardening center’s pesticides aisle. I wiggled my itchy nose and pushed aside a few boxes that hadn’t made it to the shelves as I searched for the file boxes Fisher needed.

  “Look here,” Francesca said.

  She’d squeezed to the back of the closet and was frowning at the bottom shelf, where a dozen or more ten-pound plastic bags with faded labels sat.

  “I can’t believe the Secret Service would allow anyone to bring these bags into the White House,” she said.

  I dusted off the label of one of the bags to read it. “Ammonium nitrate.”

  “Both Annie and I grew up around this stuff. My dad worked as safety inspector in a coal mine back in West Virginia. The miners use ammonium nitrate not for fertilizer, but as a powerful explosive.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  The bags weren’t mixed with other fertilizers, but were pure ammonium nitrate.

  “This stuff wouldn’t explode if we dropped a bag. We’d need to add some kind of fuel and a detonator in order to make it into a bomb,” I said. “Still, it’s a risk storing it down here. I should get rid of it.”

  “I agree. Annie’s dad was killed in a mine explosion. That’s not something you want to fool around with.”

  My disastrous session out at the Secret Service’s training facility replayed in my mind. What should I have done when they’d suspected that a bomb had been planted in the West Wing?

  In the end, I could only come up with one solution: Don’t let a bomb get into the White House in the first place.

  I grabbed a bag and hauled it out of the closet. “It’s not like we’re going to use it on the lawn. These bags look like they’re at least a decade old.”

  The fertilizer, high in nitrogen, had probably been used by the grounds crew in the past to give the lawn a quick burst of green color. While satisfying in the short run, the excess nitrogen often makes grasses grow too quickly, opening the door to disease. Not to mention the need to trim the lawn more often. Don’t even get me started about the problem with runoff and the trouble nitrogen causes in our waterways.

  The constant application of chemicals like these over time could make the grass dependent on the higher level of nutrients, weakening its ability to handle stress and, again, opening the door to disease.

  This past spring, I’d started to implement an organic lawn care plan for America’s first lawn, weaning the tall fescue grass off chemical fertilizers and pesticides. We’d raised the mower height from two and a half inches to three. The taller the leaf blade, the stronger the roots, which meant it’d need less water and be less susceptible to weeds, insects, and disease. We’d also started to water deeply and less frequently, and always on mornings when there was no wind, to give the grass roots the best chance to absorb the water.

  Ammonium nitrate didn’t fit into this plan. No, sir. It had to go.

  After locating all of the boxes for Fisher, I found a handcart next to the freight elevator.

  “Francesca, I need to ask you about something else.”

  “Um…sure, Casey. I guess.”

  “Why did you disappear on me Friday night?” I asked as I rolled the cart to the closet. “I felt stupid when you pushed me into Kelly Montague like that.”

  Francesca shrugged as if it were nothing, but I could tell she felt uncomfortable. Her arms suddenly grew tense and her movements resembled a marching wooden soldier as she followed along beside me. “I had remembered something that I needed to do before I met up with Bruce for dinner.”

  “Do you know Kelly?” I asked, recalling how strongly Kelly Montague had reacted at the mention of Francesca’s and Bruce’s names.

  “I’ve never met the woman.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  She shrugged.

  “She’s taking over for Parker,” I said as I dropped a box onto the handcart.

  “So I’ve heard. She’s beautiful and smart. A real asset to Media Today’s team.”

  “Aren’t you worried she might report what he found out about you and Bruce?”

  “No.”

  “You sound pretty sure of that.”

  Francesca clicked her painted pink nails together. “I’m not sure of anything anymore. Unfortunately I don’t think the rumors will die with Parker. It’ll only be a matter of time before another reporter digs up the story, probably that young know-it-all Simon Matthews, but not Kelly.”

  “How can you say that?” I asked. “How can you predict the actions of a reporter you’ve never met?”

  “You’re right. I can’t. Perhaps Kelly will be my downfall.” She smiled that brittle smile of hers, the one that looked as if she might break. “I think she’s investigating Parker’s death.”

  “I wish her luck. Who better than a reporter to poke around? Perhaps she can find what Manny has obviously overlooked.” Mainly, my innocence.

  Francesca’s expression tightened as she ran her hand along a seam in the cinder-block wall of the storage closet. “I suppose one could look at it that way.”

  “But you don’t.” I bit my lip. “You need to tell the police about this mysterious scandal everyone has been talking about. If Parker knew about it, it might be the reason he was killed.”

  Francesca grabbed my shoulder and turned me toward her. “Casey”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“this isn’t a pretend murder mystery dinner that we’re talking about anymore. A man’s been killed. You need to tread carefully, very carefully. I’ve been in this town for nearly a lifetime. I know how these things play out. You can get away with only a certain level of eccentricity before you find yourself packing your bags and heading home…or worse.”

  “Worse?” Was she warning me? Or threatening?

  “Don’t get involved.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “Don’t get involved.” She refused to say anything else on the matter. Her movements turned quick, mechanical again as she grabbed a box of paperwork and dropped it onto the handcart.

  “So you’ll just whistle into the wind waiting for the scandal to break?” I asked as I picked up another ten-pound bag of fertilizer.

  “No.” She dropped the last box of paperwork onto the handcart. It landed with a loud clang.

  “Then what are you g
oing to do?”

  “Drop it, Casey. I can’t talk about it, okay?” She paused as if reconsidering. “I won’t talk any more about it. Let’s just get this done. I have wasted enough time down here already. I should never have agreed to help you.”

  I tossed several of the ammonium nitrate fertilizer bags on top of Fisher’s boxes of paperwork. “I’ll come back for the rest later,” I said. “I don’t want to waste any more of your time or risk tipping the cart over.” I’d already learned that lesson. A few months earlier, when Lorenzo and I were delivering potted plants to the offices in the West Wing, I’d turned the cart too sharply around a corner. Pots, plants, and soil had gone flying.

  Francesca and I took the freight elevator to the ground level. I tugged the heavy handcart through the hallway in search of Wilson Fisher.

  Before we got very far, a piercing alarm sounded.

  “What’s going on?” Francesca shouted and pressed her hands over her ears.

  “I don’t know.”

  Two Secret Service agents dressed in identical black suits darted out of their nearby satellite office. Come to think of it, that was where that godawful sound was coming from. Jack Turner, along with several other CAT agents, jogged down the hallway toward us.

  “Jack?” I was so glad to see him. “What’s going on?”

  “There’s a bomb on this floor,” he answered as he continued down the hall.

  A bomb? I staggered backward, falling over the handcart of paperwork and fertilizer.

  Chapter Twelve

  Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.

  —ANDREW JACKSON, THE 7TH PRESIDENT OF

  THE UNITED STATES

  GLORY be, this was the disastrous training session all over again! But this time it was for real!

  Francesca and I had walked into the eye of the storm.

  “The bomb must be somewhere over here,” a burly, neckless Secret Service agent barked. He frowned as he scanned the area directly around Francesca and me.