Lorenzo gave one of his trademark shrugs. “Crazy or not, the magazine hits newsstands tomorrow.”
I was shocked, shocked down to my toes that my work would be attacked by my fellow gardeners—organic gardeners at that!
“The article didn’t happen to suggest that the White House let Gillis Farquhar take over, did it?”
Lorenzo clucked his tongue. “Jealousy looks ugly on you, Casey. Gillis is a good guy. He’s spending his own dime and taking time out of his busy schedule to help the White House. And you’re blaming him for an article that has nothing to do with him. I bet if you could, you’d pin your garden troubles and Parker’s murder on him as well.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” I protested. “Wait a minute. You know Gillis?”
“Yeah, I’ve known him for years. I worked on his show when he was just starting out. Talk about a neurotic professional. He expected everyone around him to be as hardworking, nose-to-the-grindstone focused as he was. That was before he went off the deep end and became an econut and all, but you have to respect the guy. He knows his plants, and he’s generous with his knowledge.”
“If it’s not Gillis, then who is feeding lies to the press? Who is trying to hurt the First Lady’s reputation?”
And mine?
“How should I know? Let’s get these planters done. It’s hot as hell in here.”
It took some effort, but I picked my trowel back up and carefully eased the sweetgrass from its plastic pot.
Lorenzo had already turned his focus back on the plants in front of him. Humming that same tuneless note, he tucked another plant into its soil bed.
I carefully pressed the plant into the rich potting soil and then checked my phone. Was this thing working? Annie should have gotten my message and called by now.
My mind kept circling back to what Annie knew about Frank’s involvement in Parker’s death. Why hadn’t she gone to the police? Was she scared for her life? Or trying to protect Francesca?
By lunchtime, Annie still hadn’t returned my call. I tried her again. No answer.
I tried Francesca’s old number. Still out of service.
I tried Jack’s number. No answer.
Lorenzo and I packed the patriotic planters into the van and headed back to the White House. All the way back, I worried for Annie’s safety.
As soon as the van had passed through security, I jumped down from the passenger seat.
“There’s Jerry and Bower. They can help you unload the planters. You don’t mind, do you? I have an urgent errand to run,” I told Lorenzo, who grunted.
No one answered the door at Annie’s house. I knocked again, louder this time, while calling both her cell phone and her home phone.
“She’s not home,” a woman called to me.
“Do you know when—?” I turned around to ask when Annie might return. My mouth stopped working when I saw the woman heading across the road from Burberry Park. “Kelly? What are you doing here?”
“I—I’m not sure.” Kelly Montague stopped at the bottom of Annie’s steps. Although her dark purple suit looked perfect, her dark hair was a mess, as if she’d pulled her hands through it multiple times. “Annie Campbell’s neighbor”—she pointed to the adjacent town house—“said she left this morning and hasn’t returned. I was hoping to ask Mrs. Campbell some questions.”
That last part made my neck muscles tighten. “Is this about an investigative report you inherited?” I had hoped she would prove to be a serious reporter. Not one that just looked for flash.
But why shouldn’t she go for the flash? Going after the sensational stories would bring in the ratings, which in turn would boost her career.
“I know that you lied to me the other day. I saw the papers on your desk you were trying to hide. Not that I’m surprised about it. I heard how all the news organizations are digging around, trying to figure out what Parker was working on when he died. I would understand why you’d want to break the news story before anyone else. After all, the story belongs to Media Today.”
She paled. “I wouldn’t do that. Even if I wasn’t receiving those threats, I would never pursue the story Griffon had…” She glanced down the street. “He stole that story from me. If I had never come to D.C., he’d still be alive. I’m sure of it.”
“You are? Have you told the police this?”
Tears sprang to her eyes as she violently shook her head. “I can’t.”
I led her back toward the park. “Talk to me, Kelly. Tell me what’s going on here.”
She twisted away from me. “I can’t. I can’t talk about it.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“He’s in danger. That’s why. Because of me, he’s in danger.”
“Who is in danger?” I forced myself to ask calmly when I wanted to shake her and scream at her. If someone’s life was in danger, she needed to go to the police. And if the police refused to listen, she needed to keep talking, write articles, and do news reports until she got the help she needed. “Talk to me, Kelly. If not me, you need to talk to someone. If a life is in danger, you have to act.”
Her entire body trembled as she stared at me. Was she trying to decide whether she could believe in me, trust me? I didn’t know what I could say to convince her that I wanted to help her. In this town, it sometimes felt as if everyone was out for themselves, that it was an eat-before-you-get-eaten kind of world.
But while some people in the nation’s capital lived that way, not everyone did, not by a long shot. Being the new girl in town, Kelly had no way of knowing that yet. Nor did she know which of her colleagues and which of her friends she could trust. I understood that.
Heavens, I was struggling with enough trust issues to give a seminar on the subject.
I grabbed Kelly’s hand. “I don’t want to exploit you for a news story. I don’t care what kind of trouble you are in or why. I’m not here to judge you. I know what it feels like to be alone in the world.” More than she could ever guess. “That’s why I want to help you.”
She swallowed deeply.
“Whose life is in danger?” I asked again.
“I don’t know!” she cried.
Chapter Nineteen
I may be president of the United States, but my private life is nobody’s damned business.
—CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR, THE 21ST PRESIDENT OF
THE UNITED STATES
“YOU don’t know?” I demanded. How could that be possible?
“I can’t talk here,” Kelly said and yanked her hand from my grasp. “I’m being watched.”
At that moment her cell phone chimed. She blanched as she glanced down at it.
“Who is it?” I asked.
She showed me the caller ID readout. “Unavailable.”
“It’s the killer.” Kelly glanced around. “And I’m sure we’re being watched.”
I grabbed the phone as it continued to chime. All of the calls I’d received from Francesca had said “Unavailable” on the caller ID. “Let me answer that.”
“No!” Kelly and I played tug-of-war with the phone. I won.
It didn’t matter, though. The call had already been sent to voice mail. I handed her back her phone.
“So what do you want to do? Do you really think you can keep on ignoring this? Do you think doing nothing will stop the killer? It won’t. And can you really let Parker’s murderer go unpunished?”
She shook her head as I asked that last question.
“I can’t do this alone,” she admitted. “You said you had connections with the Secret Service. Do you think someone there could help me? Quietly help me? I don’t want to be the reason anyone else gets killed.”
“I’m sure we can find the right person. Now will you tell me what’s going on?”
“Not here.” She hurried out of Burberry Park.
When I didn’t immediately follow, she whirled back around. “We’re being watched. The phone call is evidence of that. We need to leave. Now.”
I dialed Ja
ck’s number as I followed Kelly. I’d read enough mystery novels to know I needed to tell someone else my location and what was going on. Kelly had been in the First Lady’s garden shortly before the fake suicide letter had been found. Had she dropped it? Also, I hadn’t forgotten how she’d landed Parker’s choice position in the White House press corps after his death.
The threatening phone calls could easily be staged. Why else wouldn’t she want me to answer the phone?
I had to be careful.
Jack’s cell phone went directly to voice mail. Again. I hung up and texted him that I was with Kelly Montague and was leaving Burberry Park.
“What are you doing?” Kelly demanded when she noticed I had my phone out.
“Texting my location to a friend.”
“That friend doesn’t happen to be with the D.C. Police, does he?” Her voice rose. “I told you that I can’t go to the police. If I do I’ll be responsible for someone’s death. You said I could trust you!”
Actually, I hadn’t told her that. Not explicitly. I was having a hard enough time finding trust in my own heart that I wouldn’t ask it of others.
“I’m not contacting the police. I’m doing exactly as I said, texting my location to a friend. There’s a murderer on the loose. I don’t know who the killer is.” Even though I had strong suspicions that Frank Lispon was guilty. “Or what that person is planning.”
“You think that I’m—”
“I think I have to be careful.” I lifted my hand as I clarified. “You should be careful, too. Neither of us should go off without letting someone else know where we are. It’s simple common sense.”
She glared at me as I finished up the text and hit the “send” button.
“Tell your friend that you’re going with me in my car.” She gestured to a shiny black Range Rover parked at the curb. “I need to get away from here. If we drive to the zoo, it’s public, but there are private spots where we can talk.”
“I have a better idea,” I said. “Let’s go to the U.S. Botanic Garden. It’s at the base of the Capitol Building and there are plenty of private niches. Even if we are followed, no one will bother us there.” And I knew the garden like the back of my hand, unlike the zoo.
“I don’t know…Maybe I shouldn’t be seen with you. It might be dangerous.”
“Kelly…” I didn’t want her to run away now. If she knew something about Parker’s murder, she needed to start talking about it. “Put together another short piece about the White House, about its kitchen garden.”
“But a report about the garden and nothing else is so…”
“Fluffy? Yes, yes. That’s what Parker thought, too. He’d only bother with the garden if he could dig up a scandal, which was why I assume you were in the kitchen garden interviewing my volunteers yesterday. You were out there hoping for dirt. Well, here’s a story for you. Someone has been feeding lies and half-truths about the garden to the press. Case in point, there’s an article coming out in tomorrow’s Organic World Magazine that claims the First Lady’s kitchen garden is contaminated with deadly levels of lead. I don’t know where the author of the article got that information, but it’s wrong.”
“Is it?” Kelly’s brows shot up. “That’s a serious charge.”
“Yes! It is wrong. We did the soil tests. They’re available for public review. Yes, there are traces of lead in the soil. This is an urban area. It would be odd if there weren’t some sign of lead in the soil. That’s why we tested for it in the first place. But there’s not enough lead to be dangerous, not by a long shot.” I wondered if the article’s author even bothered to look at the test results. “This isn’t the first negative article. I think someone is acting behind the scenes to discredit the First Lady.” Or me.
“Can I quote you on that?”
“No! Gracious, no.” Now I started to get nervous. I was no longer working with dear old Southern ladies. While what I said in the backyards of Charleston could and did sometimes get repeated and turned around to my detriment, my thoughts and opinions never ended up making the six o’clock news or the morning edition of a national newspaper.
“But there is a story here,” I said. “An explosive story.”
She thought about it for a moment. Her lips relaxed into a smile. “Yes, there is a story. I’ll get my editor to run a teaser on the TV scroll. That should explain to anyone who might be watching me why I’ve been seen with you. Get in.”
The United States Botanic Garden, practically in the shadow of the Capitol dome, sits at the far end of the National Mall. In the middle of the day and at the height of the tourist season, it took forever to find a parking spot. The Metro would have taken less time.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison all had a hand in the development of the Botanic Garden. It had opened on the National Mall in 1820. The facility, with its gardens and glassed conservatory, moved to its present location in 1933.
Several of the horticulturists who worked or volunteered at the Botanic Garden greeted me with excitement and hugs. With everything that had been going on in the First Lady’s kitchen garden, it had been a while since I’d gotten a chance to visit with my friends and colleagues here. I chatted with each of them briefly about their projects—they tend more than sixty thousands plants at the gardens, a staggering amount that never failed to amaze me—and introduced Kelly, telling them that she was researching a story on the First Lady’s garden.
Once the niceties had been taken care of, I found a relatively secluded bench underneath a large cocoa tree in the main glass conservatory. It was a spot where we could watch people passing by. The tree backed up against the greenhouse wall. It would be difficult for anyone to sneak up from behind and listen in on our conversation.
Kelly paced in front of the bench.
“This is difficult,” she said several times.
I watched her in silence. She’d either tell me what she needed to tell me or she wouldn’t.
I hoped she would.
“I know this may sound silly coming from a journalist and all. I mean my job is to publicize the truth, to get people talking about events that are happening. And here I am, anxious to hide what is possibly the most important event of my life. I don’t want people talking about this. It’s private.”
“White House employees are the models of discretion. We don’t go blabbing what we know to anyone. And the Secret Service has ‘Secret’ in their title for a reason. Believe me, they know how to keep what they know to themselves. To a fault. Drives me insane how secretive they can be.”
Kelly nodded.
She swallowed deeply.
And then mumbled something.
“Pardon me?” I leaned forward. “I couldn’t hear what you said.”
She sat down next to me and squeezed her hands between her knees. “I said I’m searching for my father.”
“What would you do that for?” popped out of my mouth before I realized it. I cleared my throat. “Your father, you say?”
She nodded. “That’s why I pushed to get this assignment. I could have had the weekend anchor spot for Media Today’s national morning news. That’s a big position, a step away from the weekday anchor. I turned it down in favor of the White House assignment because I wanted to find my father. I wanted to know if he even realizes I exist.”
“I see.” It was my turn to swallow deeply.
“A few days ago I was convinced I’d found both my father and my mother. Not that I really care to find my mother. She left me on a doorstep in rural Virginia in the middle of the night. I was only hours old. It was winter and snowing. And she leaves me outside? How can I forgive her for that?”
“But you were found? Saved?”
“The neighbors saw a car pull away and investigated. The family who owned the house where I was left were away.” She smiled as she looked into the distance as if peering into a memory. “My adoptive parents were the neighbors who found me. They took me in. They cared for me and loved me as if I b
elonged, as if I were their natural child.”
“You were lucky.”
So was I. My father may have abandoned me, but I had a grandmother and two aunts who loved me like they loved no other.
Kelly nodded. “But no matter how loved I was—how loved I am—at home, the questions about my birth parents never go away. I have long fantasized of the day I would meet my father. Would he recognize me? Would he be surprised to learn I existed? When I started this search I had little to go on, only an investigative reporter’s instincts and a longing to learn the truth.”
“And have you found him?”
“I thought I had. But I was wrong. I thought Bruce Dearing was my father. I even thought his wife, Francesca, could be my mother. I do look a little like her. But look at me.”
“What about you?”
“I’m African American, or at least partially. They’re not. We couldn’t be related. And my blood type and Bruce Dearing’s…it’s not a match.” Her shoulders dropped. “I was so certain. And now…”
“Parker stole the research you were using in your search for your birth parents?”
She nodded. “Parker seemed to know more about all of this than I did. About twenty-five years ago, the presidential election cycle would have been heating up. Ronald Reagan, a two-term president, couldn’t run again, which left the slate of candidates wide open for both parties.
“Parker told me that there’d been a rumor of an indiscretion surrounding one of the popular politicians at that time. He hinted that he was talking about the presidential candidates.”
“Do you know which politicians were vying for the presidency?”
Kelly nodded. “Besides George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, Bruce Dearing had entered the race as a dark horse. Some thought that if he didn’t get the nomination, he’d be a shoo-in for the vice presidency. A young, unattached John Bradley was also running for Congress for the first time. I mention that because when Parker found out about my research, President Bradley was the first person he mentioned.”
The Scarlet Pepper Page 19