The Scarlet Pepper

by Dorothy St. James

  I also noticed that someone had left a sticky note on my desk with a barely legible “Lispon’s office” scrawled on it.

  “Did you put this here?” I asked Lorenzo. “Do you know what it could mean?”

  Lorenzo shook his head and grunted. Gordon didn’t know about the sticky note, either. “Francesca and Fisher did pop in looking for you. Ambrose passed by as well. Perhaps one of them left the note,” Gordon offered.

  After e-mailing a copy of the press packet I’d put together for Frank, I started to wonder if the note meant that Frank needed to see me. He might have had questions.

  I had questions for him.

  Had he known the details of Francesca’s perfect murder? He’d been in the garden shortly before the fake suicide note appeared. It could have dropped out of his pocket. Griffon Parker must have been a constant thorn in Frank’s side with Parker’s string of damaging “investigative” reports. Had Frank snapped and silenced Parker permanently?

  Also, with all the work we’d been doing lately with the harvest plans, I couldn’t remember when anyone had checked on the plants in the West Wing. The poor leafy darlings were probably in desperate need of water or a trim or something.

  “I’ll be back in a half hour,” I announced. I gathered up the hard copy version of the press packet and a small watering can and headed off toward the West Wing.

  FRANK LISPON’S OFFICE DOOR WAS CLOSED, which surprised me. The press secretary preached and practiced an open-door policy.

  His office served as a clearinghouse of information for the press who covered White House affairs. This time of day, late afternoon, was his busiest time, when reporters would put their finishing touches on stories for the six o’clock news or the late edition of Internet sites and newspapers. Both his cell phone and office phone would be buzzing with calls and text messages as requests poured in for last-minute details or clarification on statements made earlier in the day.

  This evening, with the end of the daily budget meetings, I’d expected his office to be packed with staffers helping to disseminate information.

  Occasionally Frank would pop into the Press Briefing Room unannounced for an impromptu Q&A session if some important news was unfolding. Hoping to find him in there, I headed back down the West Wing’s carpeted hallway.

  Bruce Dearing lumbered toward me.

  “Just the lady I need to speak to.” His voice rumbled. “If you want to have any kind of career in Washington, you’re going to have to start schooling what you say to people around here, especially before you spout wild accusations about me and my wife. Do you understand me? Stay out of matters that don’t concern you.”

  “I haven’t spouted anything that wasn’t true, and I assure you that I have not gone out of my way looking for trouble. It keeps finding me.”

  “Come now, Ms. Calhoun. You have a reputation for sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.” He wagged his meaty finger in front of my face. “Understand this, missy, that pointy thing has no business anywhere near my affairs.”

  My nose wasn’t pointy. I’d been told more than once it was button shaped. And he had no right telling me where I should or shouldn’t be sticking that particular cute-as-a-button appendage.

  “You’re wrong,” I said. Two words I was certain he rarely heard. “When you and your wife suggested to the police that I was responsible for Griffon Parker’s death, all of this”—I gestured with the watering can—“became my business. I’m not going to let anyone destroy my reputation. Not even you. And I’m certainly not going to let a killer escape justice.”

  We glared at each other like a pair of feral cats squaring off to fight. Although Bruce Dearing, with his decades of connections in this town and a reputation for acting as both a kingmaker and an executioner, scared me, I knew I needed to stand my ground or I’d find myself plowed under by his political wrangling.

  He puffed out his already rounded chest. “This isn’t a war you want to fight.”

  “I agree with you there,” I said with a grin, which seemed to surprise him. “I don’t want to fight anyone.”

  “I don’t understand you, Casey Calhoun.” He shook his head, making his thick jowls dance. “Tread with care around my family.”

  “Again, I agree with you. I’m only trying to protect what’s mine. I wasn’t at all pleased to be grilled by the police this morning, especially when they’d been fed half-truths. So I suggest you turn what you’ve just said back around and apply it to yourself. If you stomp through my flowerbed, I can’t say I won’t do the same.”

  He barked a gruff laugh. “I see why my wife likes you. You’ve got a spine. It’s amazing how many don’t around here,” he said as he ambled down the hallway. “The spineless…God bless them. They’re damned easy to climb over.”

  * * *

  DESPITE BRUCE’S WARNING, I WAS STILL DETERMINED to find and talk with Frank. After all, someone had left his name on a sticky note on my desk. When I stepped into the dark blue Press Briefing Room, with my watering can in one hand and press packet in the other, the dozen or so journalists spread out in the theater seats and hunched over laptops all looked up at me like they’d spotted a tasty morsel on a sparsely stocked buffet table.

  “Oh. You’re one of the gardeners,” said Simon Matthews, a twenty-something young man with thick glasses and a laptop that looked as if it had come from a spaceship. He sounded disappointed.

  “I am.” I held up the watering can. “Have you seen Frank Lispon?”

  “Check in the zoo,” Matthews answered and went back to typing furiously on his laptop’s keyboard.

  The zoo, or cube zoo, was what journalists called the cramped cubicles and tiny offices in the adjacent press corps offices. I’d seen it only once: on the efficient, but overwhelming, tour the chief usher had given me on my first day at the White House.

  At the back of the Press Briefing Room, past the bank of electronic equipment the television and radio crews used to broadcast press conferences, I found a door tucked into a corner that opened up into the bustling press corps offices.

  With so many people talking, on phones and to each other, I couldn’t imagine how anyone managed to concentrate in here. After a quick look around, I spotted Media Today’s new solo reporter, Kelly Montague, in a small office near the door. She was talking so loudly on her BlackBerry cell phone I had no choice but to listen in on her half of the conversation while I searched for the press secretary.

  “I will not be bullied into anything,” she rasped. “How did you get this number? I don’t even know who you are.”

  There was a pause as she listened, her entire face darkening.

  “My father?” Desperation, a feeling I knew too well, tightened her voice, raising it an octave as she squeezed out, “Do you know where I can find him?”

  She frowned as she listened.

  “No!” she shouted and disconnected the call.

  “I couldn’t help but overhear your end of the conversation,” I said to Kelly; then I quickly added, “If someone is harassing you, I have friends in the Secret Service who might be able to help.”

  “What?” She gave a startled jerk and quickly covered a stack of papers on her desk with her arm. “The Secret Service? Oh, no. Thank you. No. I’m fine. It’s just a stupid misunderstanding. I can handle it.”

  I watched her, my concern growing as she moved to more fully cover up the papers on the desk in front of her. Her hands were shaking. The media types—like the Secret Service—didn’t rattle easily. Most thrived on conflict. The greater the conflict, the better the story and all that. So I had to wonder what was going on with Kelly that would make her this nervous and yet was not something she felt she could turn into a front-page story.

  “Have you seen Frank Lispon?” I asked her. “I have some information for Wednesday’s harvest to give him.”

  “Frank?” She leaned out her office and looked around, her gaze flitting nervously around the busy room. “I haven’t seen him. No one has.�
�� She huffed loudly. “I need to get a list of figures for tonight’s broadcast, and he’s ignoring my texts. I was told that Lispon was one of the best press secretaries ever to have worked these halls. But so far, I’ve not seen that.”

  “A man was murdered over the weekend, your co-worker,” I pointed out. “This isn’t your typical Monday.”

  “Of course.” Her cheeks darkened again. “You’ll have to forgive me. This is my first full week at the White House, Parker’s no longer around to help me out, and I don’t want to mess up this opportunity. The jackals”—she gestured to the other reporters in the room—“want to see me fail; either that or they want to steal my story. That Simon Matthews seems eager to take over Parker’s role as hard-nosed reporter around here. I can’t let him sabotage me as he tries to climb the rungs. I really do need to get these figures checked.”

  “Try texting Penny in the press office. She should be able to help you.” I gave her the number. Now that I was thinking about her, I realized Penny might be able to help me as well.

  Kelly thanked me for the number. I started to leave but then thought of another question.

  “Did you manage to retrieve the papers Parker took from you?” I asked with a meaningful look at the papers she was clearly trying to hide from me.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Friday night. You were arguing with Parker in Lafayette Square because he’d taken some papers from you,” I said.

  “Right. I’d forgotten that you’d overheard that. I’d rather you didn’t tell anyone about the theft. They weren’t for work.” She glanced down at the papers and pushed them under a stack of newsprint. “They were personal.”

  “White House employees are models of discretion,” I assured her, but then I remembered my conversation earlier in the day with Detective Manny Hernandez. “Shoot. I’m afraid, however, I did tell the police about your missing papers and your confrontation with Parker when they questioned me about what happened on Friday night.”

  “I hope they don’t…” She shrugged and then forced a smile. “It was nothing. Really, nothing. You had to tell the police about what happened on Friday. I wouldn’t want you to lie. I’m sure nothing will come of it.”

  “And did you find them?”

  “Find what?”

  Was she being deliberately dense?

  “The stolen papers. After Parker’s death, were you able to find them?”

  “No. I haven’t had a chance to look. They really weren’t that important anyhow. Now, if you’d excuse me, I really do have a deadline to meet.”

  “Not important?” Then why was she upset to hear that I’d talked to the police about them? And why wasn’t she still looking for them? The reason was as obvious as powdery mildew on a crepe myrtle—Kelly was lying.

  Did she get her papers back from Parker before his murder or after? And who was threatening her on the phone just now?

  “How well do you know Francesca and Bruce Dearing?” I asked her, wondering if she knew about the details of the murder mystery dinner Francesca had cajoled me into helping her plan.

  “I’ve never met them. Sorry,” she answered without lifting her head from her phone.

  While Kelly texted Penny, I did a quick search in the rest of the press corps offices for Frank Lispon. No one had seen him. Most were anxiously waiting for him to return their calls and texts. When I passed Kelly’s office on my way out, she—along with the interesting stack of papers on her desk—was gone.

  I FOUND PENNY IN THE PRESS OFFICE. SHE WAS talking on the office phone while texting on her iPhone.

  “You have the kitchen garden press packet?” she asked me. “No,” she said into the phone, “I was talking to someone in the office.”

  “I do,” I whispered and set the press packet on the corner of her desk. “I’ve also e-mailed a copy.”

  “Thanks,” she mouthed and then added aloud, “Frank’s been looking for this. No, sorry, I was talking to someone in the office again. Yes, I am listening to you,” she said into the phone.

  “Have you seen him?”

  She shook her head. “When I find him—” She pantomimed choking him.

  “Good luck with that,” I said with a laugh. “I found a note on my desk that said ‘Lispon’s office.’ Do you know what that could be about?”

  She shook her head.

  After watering the peace lily on her filing cabinet, I left her office. On my way out, I passed Frank Lispon’s office again. The door, which had been closed, was now slightly ajar.

  Good, I thought, I needed to check on the young Ming aralia, an indoor Asian houseplant with an exotic bonsai look, in his office. It was a thirsty critter, and Frank never bothered to water it. I was certain it needed some tending.

  I’d raised my fist to knock on the door when I heard Frank’s voice say, “What are we going to do about Casey Calhoun?”

  I froze.

  “We?” Bruce Dearing countered. I’d recognize his gravelly voice anywhere. “She’s your problem. I expect you to handle her like you handled Griffon Parker. Only try to be more discreet this time.”

  “I was discreet with Parker.” Frank’s cool voice chilled the blood in my veins.

  “I saw you in the parking garage inches away from slugging the bastard Friday night. Thank God there weren’t any other witnesses. What was that about?”

  “He’d—”

  “He what?” Bruce demanded.

  “Nothing. It’s not important. I’ll take care of Casey. Don’t worry. It’ll be handled before the end of Wednesday.”

  “See that it is. And this time, for God’s sake, don’t let the press get hold of it,” Bruce said.

  Was this the reason Francesca had warned me to stay away from anything involving Parker’s death? Did she know that Frank and her husband might turn their murderous sights on me?

  The door started to swing open.

  I needed to move and fast! I didn’t need to give either man more reason to…to…want to kill me.

  With my heart thudding in my throat, I darted down the hall. I’d rounded the corner when I heard, “Casey?”

  I didn’t care who had called my name. All I cared about was getting as far away from Frank and Bruce as possible. As I blasted through the glass doors leading out of the West Wing and onto the West Colonnade, I ripped my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed Jack Turner’s number.

  “Please, answer. Please, answer,” I prayed, but his phone flipped over to voice mail.

  “Casey?” Frank called as I pushed open the door to the Palm Room. I didn’t look back. I didn’t slow down.

  If two of the top members of the President’s own staff had a hand in Griffon Parker’s murder, I shuddered to think who else might be involved.

  The Secret Service?

  Jack?

  I needed to get away from the White House while I still could.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A regret for the mistakes of yesterday must not, however, blind us to the tasks of today.

  —WARREN HARDING, THE 29TH

  PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

  MY heart was firmly lodged in my throat by the time I reached the White House’s northeast gate. My hand shook as I reached for the gate’s latch. It clanked as it opened. I’d kept my head down. So far no one had noticed me.

  “Casey?” Fredrick popped his head out of the whitewashed guard hut beside the gate.

  I stopped. So did my heart.

  “Y-yes?” I hoped I looked calmer than I felt.

  “Is everything okay? You don’t look so good.”

  “Probably something I ate at lunch. Can’t talk now. I’m in a hurry,” I said and swung the iron gate open with more force than was necessary.

  “Oh, okay, then,” Fredrick said as the gate clanged behind me. “Um…thanks again for bringing the violets for my Lily. She’s going to love them. Have a good evening and good luck on Wednesday.”

  I kept moving away from the White Ho
use at a fast clip, but glanced back over my shoulder. Fredrick stood at the gate with his hands on his hips, watching me and frowning.

  How deep did Frank and Bruce’s conspiracy go? Who else was involved?

  Not Fredrick.

  Not Jack.

  What if Jack was involved?

  Panic surged through me.

  I started to jog when I turned the corner at Seventeenth Street and hurried down the hill toward the Tidal Basin. This path took me farther away from my apartment, a deliberate choice. With Frank and Bruce—two of the President’s most powerful men—targeting me, the brownstone was the last place I’d feel safe.

  Despite the oppressive heat that still hung heavy in the early evening air, the crowds were as thick as I’d ever seen them. A large family, clearly tourists, stepped in my path. The father stopped abruptly in front of me. Bending down on one knee, he pointed out the Washington Monument to his young blond daughter in pigtails. The child squealed with delight.

  My chest tightened.

  Nearby a group of local teenagers practiced in a field in the Ellipse. They kicked a soccer ball from one to the other as they ran down the field while their proud parents watched from the sidelines. A father cheered when a smaller boy sent the soccer ball sailing.

  I hugged my arms to my chest and hurried farther down the hill, weaving my way through a large tour group. With all these people and all this action surging around me, I felt more alone now than ever.

  At least I was safe. I’d gotten away from the White House, and no one had tried to stop me.

  But why would either Bruce or Frank try to hold me against my will? They knew how much of a scene I’d make if they tried to drag me back to the White House. And wasn’t that exactly what Bruce had told Frank to avoid?

  They were smart men. They knew they had me backed into a corner.

  What could I do? Run to the police and say, “Hi, Manny, you’re not going to believe this. Two of the President’s most trusted advisers are murderers. And by the way, they’re also trying to kill me.”

  Manny would probably send me straight to St. Elizabeth’s for a psychiatric evaluation. I didn’t have any proof. I didn’t even understand why the men thought they needed to “handle” me.