“Those reports are thorough, you know. It had information about your parents, specifically about your mother’s—”
“My paternal grandmother and my aunts raised me,” I cut in rather forcefully. Everything that had happened before they took me in to live with them in the stately historic home located in Charleston’s exclusive South of Broad neighborhood was kept securely bolted behind an iron door, never to be opened.
I’d never talked to anyone about what had happened to me or to my mom. Not Grandmother Faye or either of my aunts. Not the soft-spoken child psychologist who sat with me in her office for an hour every Thursday for three years.
But ever since I woke up in the flowerbed two days ago, bloody and confused, memories from that dark time in my past had started to seep around my iron door.
“Have you considered that your need to ask so many questions about Pauline’s murder stems back to what happened to you when you were six years old?”
“My past has nothing to do with what’s happening now. Nothing at all. Do you understand me?”
Turner raised his hands in mock surrender and backed away. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” I snatched my backpack from him, scooped up the coffee he didn’t want, and stalked away.
“Casey.” Turner jogged after me. “Wait a minute.”
I would have ignored him. I was in that much of a snit. But he added a plaintive “please.”
“I’m busy,” I said, though I slowed down a bit.
“I’m worried about you.”
I squeezed my eyes closed. Tears seeped out, which only made me more upset with him.
“Please, stop for a minute.”
I did, but I wasn’t happy about it. He’d touched a sore nerve by bringing up my past. I couldn’t meet his gaze.
He knew. He’d pried into my past and learned of my darkest secret. My deepest fear.
He had no right.
“For whatever reason, you’re not going to stop pushing your way into this investigation. You’re not going to stop asking questions. Not even the threat of ruining your career is going to stop you. Am I right?”
I didn’t say anything.
“This is a serious business you’re getting yourself into, Casey. Why do you think we’re going to such lengths to protect your identity from the press?”
“You don’t want nosy reporters getting in the way of the investigation.” My voice sounded unnaturally high.
“There is that,” he agreed. “But we’re more concerned about protecting you. You saw him, Casey. From the killer’s point of view, that’s a problem. And if he thinks you’re getting close to identifying him, he’ll stop you by any means possible.”
I pressed my lips together and looked away.
“Dammit, I don’t want to see you hurt. Here.” He pulled a pen and a small notebook from a pocket of his flak jacket. The pen scratched noisily as he scribbled something on the paper. He ripped the page off the pad and handed it to me. “It’s my personal cell number. Promise me you’ll call if you ever feel like you’ve gotten yourself in over your head. Even if it’s a hunch, call me.”
“Fine.” My hand shook as I jammed the slip of paper into my coat pocket.
My feet couldn’t carry me fast enough away from him. I muttered angry words to myself as I stomped toward the grounds office, never once realizing that I’d just been handed exactly what I’d wanted.
Turner had agreed to help me.
Chapter Fourteen
“WHAT do you mean, you can’t tell me why my credit card’s been canceled?” My voice quavered as I tried to keep my temper under control. I had more important things to do than to spar with the multinational bank that held my now useless credit card. The tip of my pen tapped a frustrated beat on the desk.
Turner had no right to bring up my past, blindsiding me like that. It had left my nerves badly shaken.
The woman on the other end of the call apologized and politely assured me that the bank never canceled credit cards without a good reason. “Have you recently moved?” she asked.
“About three months ago.”
“That may be it. Please hold.” I heard her typing on her keyboard.
As I waited, Gordon walked by and dropped a newspaper on my desk. The pages had been folded back to an inside section. The headline before the break on that page read: WHITE HOUSE GARDEN EXTRAVAGANCE STIRS OUTRAGE.
“While Congress penny-pinches, White House spending spirals out of control,” proclaimed the article, written by Griffon Parker from Media Today, who probably disliked puppies, growled at children, and weighed down social events like a miserable storm cloud. “The extravagances began with the wholly unnecessary addition of yet another assistant gardener to the White House staff. This new staff member, in a desperate attempt to make herself useful, has developed a complex and costly plan to ‘green’ the White House gardens.”
The article bemoaned several of the proposed gardening practices. He called my proposal to add native plants to the landscape “a complete waste of time.” To my idea that the White House should alter its turfgrass management by replacing repeated applications of petroleum-based chemical fertilizers with compost and nutrient-rich compost tea, the report exclaimed, “A disastrous idea that’ll lead to a yellow-spotted, gangly lawn . . . not to mention the smell. Everyone knows compost is just a polite word for poop.”
And the cherry on top of his vitriolic rant was the reporter’s response to my suggestion that in order to reduce pesticide use, the White House replace the current planting of roses in the Rose Garden with more sustainable varieties. He wrote, “Remove the roses from the Rose Garden? This woman should be shot for treason!”
“You’re twisting my plans around to make them sound foolish. Do you even know anything?” I argued with the article. “If anyone should be shot, it should be jerks like you who can’t get their facts straight.”
“Excuse me?” the woman on the phone from the bank asked rather tersely.
“Sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Please be patient, I’m pulling up your credit report now.”
“Thank you.”
I pressed my lips together and forced myself to finish reading the libelous article. “ ‘The new gardening position at the White House is not only unnecessary, but the organic gardening plan proposed by Cassandra Calhoun is a lavish experiment that will cost hardworking taxpayers money they can ill afford to lose,’ said Senator Edith Pendergast, vowing to block the plans from being implemented.”
My jaw dropped. Senator Pendergast thought my position at the White House was a waste of money? What happened to her keen interest in gardening?
I put my hand over the telephone handset. “How did the reporter get this information?” I asked Gordon. “Do you think the senator talked to him?”
He shrugged.
I offered him the coffee Turner had refused. “It’s Kona.”
Gordon readily accepted the cup, but with none of his usual excitement, which made me even more worried about the damage the article had caused.
“Ms. Calhoun.” The woman from the bank came back on the line. “I’m going to have to transfer you to our delinquent accounts department.”
“But it’s not a delinquent account.”
“I understand, but I can’t do anything for you from here. I have to transfer you.”
“Forget it.” I needed to talk to Gordon and find out what I had to do to combat the bad PR. “Just cancel the card and close the account.”
“That’s obviously already been done,” she cheerfully informed me, and disconnected the call.
It took a great deal of self-control to hang up the phone without repeatedly slamming it against its cradle. I drew a slow, measured breath and, with the poise of a Southern debutante, rose from my desk chair. What extraordinary grace under pressure. I silently congratulated myself . . . until I noticed the crumpled edges of the newspaper inelegantly jutting
at odd angles from between the fingers of my white-knuckled fist.
“This is outrageous.” I shook my fist, rattling the paper. “How—how can this Griffon Parker get away with it? How can the paper get away with printing these lies?” My fingers itched to tear the newspaper into tiny bits and bury the unrecognizable remnants in the compost pile over at the greenhouses, a compost pile that contained no traces of poop or manure. Not that there was anything wrong with manure when used in the proper situation; the White House just didn’t use manure in its compost. Leaves, grass clippings, vegetable food scraps, and yes, even libelous newspapers more than fulfilled the requirements for creating rich organic compost. “Most of what he wrote isn’t even true.”
“Welcome to D.C., Casey,” Lorenzo said as he swept into the office. He looked well rested and very pleased with himself. He dropped several more copies of the newspaper article on my desk. “Nothing in this city is based on truths anymore. Don’t forget this is the same place that just last year killed a program promoting healthy diets for children when a powerful senator called it a socialist takeover of our national school system. It only gets worse.”
“Thanks a lot.”
Was Lorenzo happy about my bad fortune? More likely, he was angry with me. I had anticipated that.
“I brought your favorite coffee,” I said, holding up the cup. “I know it’s not much, but I really didn’t mean to cause trouble for you yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” He took a sip of the coffee.
“I may have mentioned to a member of the Secret Service about your involvement with Pauline.” Even if I hadn’t said anything to Turner, I’m convinced Agent Cooper still would have picked up Lorenzo for questioning, thanks to Isabella’s ranting that he was guilty of the crime. But still, I felt guilty.
“Oh, that.” He took another sip of his coffee. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not. I told Agent Cooper that I’m glad to help out in any way I can. I want to know probably more than anyone else why someone would kill Pauline.”
“So everything’s okay? You’re not a suspect?”
“No.” He laughed. “I think I was for a while. I can understand why. We had a tumultuous relationship. But I also had an ironclad alibi. Yesterday morning, I was dropping off my laundry at the dry cleaners. I have a ticket that proves it. Plus the clerk spilled scalding coffee all over my sleeve, a memorable experience for both her and me.”
“Oh, I’m glad.”
I was also confused. If he wasn’t upset with me about that, why was he acting so damned pleased that the press had skewered my proposal? We were a team, the three of us. Gordon and Lorenzo had been working together for the past seven years. And although I was the new girl in the group, I never got the feeling that I wasn’t welcome.
So why did I have a lump in my throat just now?
“Senator Pendergast has become a powerhouse lately,” Lorenzo needlessly pointed out.
Gordon nodded. “I’d thought last night we’d have no trouble pushing some of your ideas through the committee, but that was before this. The overall proposal is on the verge of turning into a partisan hot potato, Casey.”
“It’s simply a gardening method,” it hurt me to admit. “There shouldn’t be this much controversy.”
Someone had purposefully stirred up trouble for me.
Someone who didn’t want me around.
Special Agent Jack Turner had warned me the killer would want me out of the way, especially if he thought my memories were returning.
Well, I wasn’t going to give up my life’s work that easily.
“What do I do?” I asked, ready to fight for my job and this project. My grandmother didn’t raise a coward. Southern ladies, especially the lucky ones born into the Calhoun family, may appear demure on the surface, but anyone who cares to dig deeper will find a backbone of high-grade steel and a temper as hot and steamy as the long Lowcountry summers.
“There’s nothing you can do,” Gordon cautioned. “The organic garden is the First Lady’s idea. She’s its public face and the only one who can fight for it.”
Margaret Bradley might be the garden’s spokeswoman, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t help build a compelling case for it from behind the scenes.
“Excuse me for a minute.” I scooped up the pile of newspapers and carried them down the hall. Since setting them on fire in the White House’s basement would cause about a trillion times more trouble than attacking a Secret Service agent with pepper spray, I dropped the pile in a large blue recycling bin. That’s when I spotted the other article, the one that got my heart really pounding.
“CASEY?” AMBROSE SAID. “WHY ARE YOU CLIMBING into the recycling bin?”
I ripped the second, and much more interesting, article from the newspaper and carefully folded it in half before dropping back down onto my feet. It was a rather large recycling bin. “I accidentally tossed something in there I needed to keep.” I tucked the page into my pocket.
“He wants to see you,” Ambrose said cryptically.
“Who?”
Ambrose raised his brows and gave me a look as if I’d just asked the difference between grass and a tree.
“Oh. Him.” I still hadn’t gotten used to the rule that the President should always be called “he” and the First Lady “she.” We weren’t supposed to use their actual names. “Oh! Why would the President want to speak with me?”
“You don’t want to keep him waiting,” Ambrose said.
“No, of course not.”
I still didn’t move.
“Do you . . . um . . . know what he wants?”
Was he going to grill me about the pepper spray? Or worse, the newspaper article?
Ambrose put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be nervous, Casey. He’s a busy man. He doesn’t call employees into his office to scold or sack anyone. He has staff members to handle that for him . . . like me.”
I swallowed hard and tried to remember the rules of protocol for dealing with the President that Ambrose had explained in rapid-fire succession during that quick tour of the West Wing on my first day. Although a White House employee might pass POTUS or FLOTUS in the hallway, only a few worked directly with either member of the First Family.
Under normal circumstances, a summons to the President’s office would have made me giddy with excitement. I blamed the dread I was feeling on Turner. He’d planted a bumper crop of doubt in my head this morning with his threats and warnings.
He had no right talking about my mom.
I wiped my suddenly sweaty palms on my khaki pants, which made me notice what I was wearing. The khakis were clean and pressed, but a dress or suit would have been much better. And my top, gracious, why had Alyssa let me leave the apartment this morning wearing a V-neck cream-colored cardigan sweater over a plain light blue blouse? I looked like a female Mr. Rogers.
Unlike everyone else on the staff, the gardeners had a pretty lax dress code. Perhaps I should have followed Lorenzo’s example and dressed as if I worked in an office instead of under the bright sun with dirt caked under my nails.
At least I’d taken extra care with my makeup this morning. The bruising on my temple was hardly noticeable, and my eyelids sparkled with shimmering champagne and honey tones. My hair was another matter.
“Stop tugging at it. You’re making it look worse.” Ambrose wrinkled his nose as he grimaced at the top of my head. Walking with his usual dignified, straight-back bearing, he accompanied me down the North Hall and through the heart of the White House’s busy center.
All the while, I had a devil of a time keeping my hands out of my hair. Every time we passed a window or a piece of furniture with the slightest mirrored surface, I slowed down and, peering at myself in the glass’s reflection, tried to tame the stray strands that had decided to stick straight out to one side or the other.
“Ms. Calhoun!” Wilson Fisher spotted me as we passed the Map Room. His hard-soled shoes clacked on the floor as he hurried after us. “The forms, I need them—�
��
“Later,” Ambrose calmly informed his assistant, without altering his stride. “She has an appointment.”
At the far end of the light-filled Palm Room, Ambrose held open the door to the West Colonnade for me. The vigorous spring gale whipped down the narrow walkway, tangling my hair and completely undoing all the hasty finger-styling I’d done to make my hair look halfway presentable. A nervous giggle snuck out as I headed out into the wind. After the terrible morning I’d had, a little messy hair really didn’t matter.
At the other side of the walkway, I passed through the glass doors that led into the West Wing. Without Ambrose rushing me along, I took a detour to the nearest ladies’ room to make sure I looked presentable.
I opened the ladies’ room door and nearly smacked heads with Senator Pendergast, who had just declared my position at the White House a frivolous extravagance.
“Good morning, Senator,” I said amicably. I’d dealt with enough problem clients in my career to know that the surest path to losing a disagreement was to let your emotions show.
“Oh! Ms. Calhoun, I’m surprised to see you.” Judging by the way her eyes widened and the quick step she took away from me, I’d say she was more startled than surprised. She swiftly regained her composure and narrowed her gaze suspiciously. “Does your work take you to the West Wing often?”
“Not usually. Important business with POTUS,” I said, feeling damn glad the President had summoned me, even though I still had no clue why he wanted to see me.
“Well, I’ll not keep you,” she said.
Mirroring her behavior the other day, I followed along the hallway beside the senator. I wanted to ask her about something I’d read in that newspaper article.
No, not that article, but the other one, the one I’d crawled into the recycling bin to retrieve.
“Perhaps you can answer a question for me,” I said.
“I don’t know,” she returned coolly. “I’m afraid I’m in a hurry.”
“This shouldn’t take long.” I pulled the newspaper article from my pocket. “It’s about this.”
Flowerbed of State Page 14