The Scarlet Pepper

by Dorothy St. James

“We should take cover,” Francesca said, pulling on my arm.

  According to my training, we should move as quickly as possible to the nearest exit, but I didn’t move. I watched wide-eyed as the agents systematically searched every crevice. Someone had mercifully turned off the piercing alarm, but that didn’t stop the ruckus. Ushers, maids, chefs, curators all came pouring into the hallway to see what was happening.

  “Get back! Get back!” an agent shouted at them. “I need you to stay away from this area.”

  “This is the sensor that was triggered,” Jack said, pointing to a doorway leading out to the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden.

  “Sensor?” I asked.

  Jack and the rest of his team were too busy searching for the bomb to answer.

  “Help me get Jack’s attention,” I said to Francesca. “I need to ask him about the sensors.”

  She didn’t answer. I glanced behind me. She wasn’t there.

  She’d pulled that slippery gardener act on me again. “Francesca?” I called.

  Wilson Fisher, however, came running up, his hard-soled shoes slapping loudly against the stone floor, his long nose twitching with excitement. His voice was labored and breathy. “The sensors are sensitive…electronic…sniffers have been set up at all entrances designed to detect…explosives.”

  Jack turned on his heel. Our eyes met for a moment. His gaze then shifted to the large bags of fertilizer on my handcart. A sick feeling gurgled in my stomach.

  “No one came in this door,” Agent Steve Sallis reported as he jogged up to join the search. “The dogs are being dispatched. Thatch is bringing the handheld bomb detection unit.”

  Another agent held his hands wide and guided the crowd away from the area like a border collie herding sheep. He kind of looked like a border collie, with his alert gaze and long, sleek facial features.

  “Um, Jack,” I said. He kept frowning at the fertilizer bags I’d hauled up from the storage room while a half dozen Emergency Response Team members charged in from outside and fanned out around the doorway, their P90 semiautomatics held at the ready. Panic gurgled in my chest at the sight of all those guns. I started my deep breathing exercises. I was inhaling another deep breath when a uniformed agent arrived with a bomb-sniffing dog.

  I swallowed hard and held my ground at the cart of fertilizer. Wilson Fisher, his nose still twitching, remained at my side. “Casey, we need to get this paperwork to safety. If the bomb blows up, there will be no replicating my forms.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “There’s no bomb.”

  “Not unless you’ve got some gasoline and an electrical source on that handcart,” Jack agreed, looking up at me again. “No bomb.”

  “The paperwork.” Fisher tried to pry the handcart’s handle out of my grasp. “It has to come with me.”

  “Aren’t you listening? There’s no bomb,” I said, my voice louder than necessary. “It’s the fertilizer. It set off the sensors.”

  “The paperwork needs to be saved!” Fisher latched on to the handcart just below its handle and gave a vicious tug.

  “Fisher, stop that.” I tugged the handcart back toward me, struggling to keep the assistant usher from running off with the evidence.

  “I found the problem,” Jack called to the rest of the team. “Just some bags of fertilizer.”

  The hallway fell silent.

  “It’s the ammonium nitrate. They set off the sensors, didn’t they?” I asked even though I already knew the answer.

  “It’s happened before.” Jack then spoke into his radio. “Looks like a false alarm. Just the gardeners and their fertilizers.”

  A large black and tan Belgian Malinois came over to the cart, sniffed, and barked his agreement.

  “You put explosives on the handcart with my files?” Fisher demanded. He jumped as if a nettle had stung him. “My files? There are explosives on top of my files?”

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “You need to be more careful, Ms. Calhoun. Those files cannot be replaced.”

  “Really, the fertilizer’s not volatile. It’s just one component in making a fertilizer bomb.”

  “Well, then.” He straightened his suit coat and regained his nose-in-the-air composure. “I’ll take those boxes.” He called over several of the ushers.

  “Casey Calhoun. I should have known you’d be at the center of this.” Mike Hatch, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Counter Assault Team, arrived, followed by a handful of scowling CAT agents. “Do you know how much trouble your fertilizer has caused the President?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take my files now,” Fisher said.

  Thatch held up his hand. “Nothing on this cart is leaving. The Secret Service will need to confiscate it.”

  “But—but—” I started to protest. My notes and to-do list for Wednesday’s harvest were on the handcart. I needed them.

  “We had to pull the President out of an important budget meeting to evacuate him to a safe location.” Thatch stood too close. I could feel his hot breath on my face. I tried to back up, but he followed.

  “Do you know how much of a disruption you’ve caused? Those are delicate negotiations. I’d hate to think the government shuts down because you carried fertilizer into the White House.”

  “Out. I was carrying it out.”

  “Did you or did you not cause the alarms to go off? You did. So don’t try to wiggle out of the blame.”

  I thought he was done. He’d backed away, but he swooped back in like a bird of prey after a mouse and stuck his finger under my nose.

  “Need I remind you—and everyone here—how miserably you failed your safety training? Next time an alarm sounds, I expect you to get the hell out of the way. That’s all you need to do. Get the hell out of everyone’s way.”

  Jack gave me a pained look before he started to push the handcart down the hall.

  Wait a blasted minute! “My notes,” I called. “My notes for the harvest are on the cart. I need them.”

  I also needed to warn them about the rest of the fertilizer bags in the storage room. “And the fertilizer, there’s more in—” I started to explain. “Jack, wait!”

  “Don’t you think you’ve already said enough?” Thatch said. “Turner, what are you waiting for? Get that stuff out of here!”

  “I just—” I needed to explain about the other fertilizer bags, and I needed my notes.

  “You just cause trouble,” Thatch shot back. “You’ve been a thorn—”

  “Thank you, Agent Thatch.” Margaret Bradley’s appearance stunned everyone. The First Lady, dressed in a dark blue maternity dress, moved with remarkable grace through the throng of Secret Service agents. Milo bounded, all puppy legs and golden fur, alongside her, followed by three harried-looking staff members. “I appreciate the care you take in protecting both me and my husband.” She touched a hand to her swelling stomach. “I sleep soundly at night thanks to your efforts.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Bradley.” Thatch stood a little taller as he faced her.

  “Now if you’ll excuse us, I need to have a word with Miss Calhoun about Wednesday’s harvest.”

  “Of course.” He bowed his head and stepped back, finally giving me room to breathe and to escape.

  “I’m not done with you,” he threatened as I passed.

  “What an inventive way to liven up a Monday afternoon,” Margaret Bradley said after she’d led me out the door and into the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden. With a raised palm, she stopped her staffers from following.

  “I didn’t know the fertilizer would set off the sensors. I didn’t even know the sensors were there. I’m so embarrassed.”

  Milo darted between us and out into the garden. He took a wide circuit around the path, barking at the squirrels, before flopping down on a thick patch of grass. He rolled around on his back, expressing his pleasure with a series of contented grunts and growls.

  Margaret smiled at his puppy antics.
She then took my hand as we strolled toward a pergola lush with budding Concord grape vines. “Mistakes happen. I should know. I’ve been making the lion’s share of them around here lately,” she said as she sat on a white cast-iron bench and invited me to join her. “By the way, the vegetable garden is looking so healthy. I can’t believe how tall the pepper plants have already grown.”

  “Lordy, please, don’t let the press hear you say that. As you know, some joker is telling anyone who’ll listen that we’re sneaking in healthy plants in the middle of the night.”

  “Whether you’re trucking the plants in at night or growing them in the ground, I don’t care as long as I get a chance to eat some of those bell peppers. My mouth was watering this morning. It’s amazing.”

  “It’s not just me. The volunteers have done tremendous work. And all this heat—the peppers love the hot, humid weather. The lettuce, not so much, but they’ll get pulled and eaten on Wednesday.”

  “The volunteers.” She sighed. “Do they seem happy?”

  “I believe so.” Milo, I noticed, had started to nibble on a planting of rosemary. I clapped my hands and clicked my tongue. He looked up at me and stopped.

  “I should have invited the lionesses of D.C. to tea the day after the inauguration. I’m afraid my efforts now are too little, too late.” Margaret shook her head. “It’s just part of the game, though. John’s been playing it his entire adult life. I’m new to it. And right now I’m having a difficult time even caring about D.C.’s endless political and social wrangling.” She rested her hand on her swelling belly. “I simply want to be a good mother.”

  While I could grow a garden, I knew nothing about “birthin’ babies.” So I smiled and nodded and wondered if this was her way of scolding me about causing so much trouble at the White House today, starting with Manny questioning me in connection with Parker’s murder. If I were an expectant mother, my first order of business would be to kick all suspected murderers out of the White House.

  “Griffon Parker,” she said, confirming my worst fears.

  My stomach twisted into a knot.

  I nudged the gravel between the seating area’s pavers with my toe while waiting for the ax to fall. Grandmother Faye and my aunts, Willow and Alba, would welcome me back to Rosebrook with open arms. So I wouldn’t be homeless. It’d take time and hard work to reestablish my landscaping business, but I wasn’t afraid of either of those things.

  “I understand,” I said to save her from having to actually fire me.

  “You do?” She shifted in her seat and looked at me askew. “Then you must be a better investigator than the Secret Service gives you credit for.”

  I struggled not to let my confusion show as I met her gaze and nodded.

  “His investigation was bad enough, but now he’s dead. Poisoned.” Margaret glanced around to make sure none of the Secret Service agents were close enough to hear. “I heard that you found the fake suicide note in the garden. The implication of how it might have ended up among my pepper plants terrifies me. If you happen to find anything else or hear anything about anyone—”

  “You want me to play sleuth?”

  “No. God, no, Casey. Nothing so drastic. You need to guard your reputation and your personal safety. Don’t cause any trouble for John.” Milo’s ears perked up in response to her vehement answer.

  “No, I wouldn’t want to do that.”

  She patted my hand. “I want you to be my eyes and ears in the garden and report back anything you learn or find. The sooner the police catch whoever killed Griffon Parker, the better I’m going to sleep at night.”

  “I—I—” My heart pounded with excitement. She did want my help.

  “If you hear any new whispering about the Dearings in the garden, I hope you’ll let me know about that as well. John stubbornly refuses to distance himself from Bruce, so I need to make sure I’m in a position to protect him. I need to know what’s going on with them. You helped me this past spring. I trust your instincts and your ability to keep confidential matters confidential. Can I trust you to do this for me?”

  How could I refuse her, a worried mom-to-be and First Lady of the United States?

  “Of course you can count on me,” I said. She simply wanted me to ask a few innocent questions, questions I needed to know the answers to as well.

  Chapter Thirteen

  We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.

  —CALVIN COOLIDGE, THE 30TH PRESIDENT OF

  THE UNITED STATES

  IT wasn’t as if I planned to do anything that would put my life in danger. I would ask a few questions. As the First Lady had aptly pointed out, Griffon Parker’s murderer had access to at least the White House garden. This also meant the murderer had to be either one of the gardening volunteers, a pool reporter, or a staff member. What else could explain the appearance of that suicide note?

  Although I felt confident the Secret Service would be checking and rechecking the background of everyone present at the photography session, I was equally convinced the murderer, whoever he or she may be, would have a clean background…save for a secret Griffon Parker had been on the verge of exposing.

  Which brought me back to Francesca.

  I closed my eyes and sighed.

  Francesca was too smart to be so obvious. Why would she kill Parker in the same manner that we’d planned for the murder mystery dinner when too many of her friends already knew the details? Apparently we weren’t nearly as discreet as I’d hoped. Everyone—Jack included—seemed to know all about how we’d been planning the perfect murder.

  Dig a hole and push me in, because I was about to die from embarrassment.

  But I had to wonder, did everyone who had been working in the garden before the fake letter showed up actually know the specifics of our planned “perfect murder” for the dinner party or was that information known to just a select few? That was the first thing I needed to find out. Luckily for me I had the unique advantage of daily contact with nearly everyone who had been on hand during the photo session.

  Asking a few carefully worded questions about a charity dinner party Francesca and I had been planning shouldn’t make the killer nervous.

  I kept following that line of thinking as a means to console my troubled conscience as I left the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden and returned to the scene of “Casey’s great fertilizer bomb debacle.” That was what the Secret Service agents were now calling the false alarm if the two agents I’d overheard laughing outside were any indication. The center hallway had been cleared, leaving no trace of the earlier excitement.

  Francesca had also vanished, a rather irritating talent of hers. I hoped she wasn’t wandering the halls unescorted. I had been her escort and was responsible for her. I didn’t think the Secret Service would appreciate hearing from me with another problem so soon.

  After asking around, I discovered Francesca and Wilson Fisher had started talking and had hit it off. Fisher confirmed he’d escorted Francesca to her husband’s office.

  With that under control, I headed back to the grounds office. Gordon and Lorenzo stood at the door waiting for me.

  “Gordon.” I held my hands up in front of me like a shield. “Don’t say anything. I honestly didn’t know the fertilizer would set off alarms and trigger a bomb scare.”

  “The grounds office is getting quite a reputation,” Lorenzo said. “Before you started work here, we happily flew under the radar.”

  “Which wasn’t necessarily a good thing,” Gordon added, bless his tender heart. He tested out a grin. “On the upside, we’re gaining a reputation for being a bit dangerous. Maybe the kitchen staff will think twice the next time they want to try and take over our storage room.”

  In the silence that followed, Gordon turned a meaningful glance in Lorenzo’s direction.

  Lorenzo cleared his throat a couple of times. “Casey, I apologize for not telling you about the meeting. I should have given you Seth’s message before our lunch meeting sta
rted.” His voice was unusually subdued. “Is there anything I can do to help you prepare for Wednesday’s harvest?”

  “The harvest,” I sighed. “The Secret Service confiscated all of my notes and lists of things that need to be done.”

  “You mean this list?” Lorenzo picked up the overstuffed file folder from my desk.

  “Where did you get that?” I snatched it from him and flipped the folder open. Everything was there, including my five-page to-do list.

  “Jack Turner dropped it off a few minutes ago,” Gordon said. “He thought you might need it, so he made sure to get it back to you ASAP.”

  “Thank you.” I hugged the folder to my chest. “I’ll have to think of a way to thank Jack as well.” It was nearly five o’clock, and it would take several more hours to get through the list of things that needed to get done today. “I hate to ask you to stay late, but I could use help with—”

  “Don’t worry about the time. Let me have a look at what needs to be done.” Lorenzo held out his hand as he stood stiffly beside my desk. I handed over my notepad and pointed out some of the more challenging tasks. With a nod, he ripped off the top two pages from the notepad. “I’ll get these done before I leave tonight. First chance I get tomorrow, I’ll take care of getting the rest of that fertilizer out of storage.”

  “And properly disposed of?” I asked.

  “I’m not a novice,” he shot back. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Hand me a page from your to-do list as well,” Gordon said, grinning as he watched Lorenzo shuffle back to his desk and pick up the phone. “Seth being Seth, I’m sure there are a million last-minute additions.”

  “Not quite a million,” I said, ripping off another page from the to-do list, feeling thankful that I’d taken thorough notes about what needed to be done. “Just let me know if you have any questions.”

  I took a seat at my desk, picked up a pen, and read the first item on my now mercifully shortened to-do list: Deliver a copy of the kitchen garden specs to the First Lady’s social secretary as well as a copy to Frank Lispon, the White House press secretary.