by Diana Palmer
“She’s a native of Ashton, a little town south of Atlanta,” he replied, thumbing through a file. “She has excellent credit, references from some, uh, odd people, but she checks out.”
“What sort of odd people?” came the abrupt reply.
“One of her character witnesses is a former revolutionary from a third world country. Another is the minister of a very large Protestant church in Atlanta—he’s on television every Sunday, by the way. And the third is a rather notorious television anchorman in New York City who used to be managing editor for a newspaper in Chicago.”
Curt was lost for words. The woman was even more mysterious now that he knew a little about her. Greg wouldn’t tell him anything else, although he was grinning outlandishly when he ignored the probing questions about her profession. So Curt thanked him with barely contained sarcasm and wandered downtown to the local police station.
The town’s police chief, Jack Mallory, had been in his graduating class in high school. They shook hands and Jack chuckled when he found out what Curt was doing for a living.
“FBI, huh?” the other man said, shaking his head. “I never figured you for a Bureau man. You’re too unorthodox.”
“They like unorthodox,” he returned with a grin. “Ask anybody.”
Mallory pursed his lips. “Weren’t you with the Secret Service?” he mused aloud. “And wasn’t there some sort of scandal about you that got you sent to the Okefenokee Swamp to guard the vice president?”
“I volunteered!” Curt said shortly. “I love swamps!”
Jack grinned. “Really?”
“Never mind about that. Listen, there’s a woman across the street from my mother growing illegal plants,” he added. “Right on the road, for God’s sake!”
Jack was serious now. “What sort of illegal plants?”
“Third world agriculture,” came the dry reply.
Jack picked up his hat. “Let’s go see.”
Curt went along with the police chief in his unmarked squad car. They pulled up in Mary Ryan’s driveway. She stood up from her kneeling position, with dirt-covered knees and smears of mud on her face from her weeding. She gave the police car a curious, but not worried, scrutiny.
“You’re too late,” she called to Jack. “I confessed to speeding only last week and they let me off with a warning.”
“It’s not about speeding,” Jack said. He glanced at the flower bed and gave her a speaking look. “Do I really have to tell you to pull those up, and why?”
“But they’re only…!” she began.
“They’re illegal. And you know it.”
She sighed. “But they’re so pretty,” she sighed, her big brown eyes poignant. “And I raised them from seed.”
“The law is the law. Don’t make me send men out here to pull them up for you.”
“Okay,” she said, saluting. “I’ll do the dirty work. But I wouldn’t know how to process them,” she continued.
“Neither would any of us,” he confessed. “But they’re still illegal. If you don’t believe me, ask Jeanette,” he added, nodding toward a house two doors down. “We made her pull hers up, too.”
“I’ll do it,” she said heavily. She stared at Curtis Russell and scowled. “He made you come out here, didn’t he? I’ve noticed him standing at his mother’s picture window, glowering at me. Is he the garden police?”
Jack had to bury his face in his hand. Curt wasn’t amused.
“You were breaking the law,” he said shortly. “And doing it blatantly. I’m with the FBI,” he added deliberately.
“Yeah. The Flower Bureau of Investigation.” She smiled haughtily.
He wasn’t blushing, he wasn’t blushing, he wasn’t…
He got back into the police car and slammed the door. He refused to even look at her. That didn’t faze her. She was still smiling when Jack, choking on laughter, backed out of her driveway.
It didn’t take long for the grapevine to serve the encounter up to his mother. She came into the den where he was watching television that night and sat down beside him on the sofa.
“Working for the DEA now, are you?” she asked.
He shot her a glance. “Excuse me?”
“Making women pull up flowers. Honestly!”
“They weren’t flowers,” he pointed out. “They were marijuana.”
“You’re sure about that?” she persisted.
“I’ve seen pictures of it,” he shot right back.
“Julie Smith has a little Japanese maple in her front yard. It’s almost bald now because some idiot told a friend it was marijuana. Teenagers sneak into her yard at night to rip off leaves to smoke.” She grinned. “I’d love to know what effect smoking maple leaves has on them.”
He laughed, too. “Okay, maybe mistakes get made. But she didn’t deny it, and Jack recognized what it was, too. He told her it was illegal and that she had to pull up every stalk.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know how I’ll ever face Mary again,” she said with a sigh.
“You didn’t go after her, I did,” he reminded her. “Besides, everybody likes you.”
“That’s because I have a sense of humor,” she said, giving him a meaningful look.
“I have a sense of humor,” he informed her.
“Right.” She got up and left him with his television program.
He got up the next morning, had breakfast, and went barefoot in his jeans and T-shirt to the front door to get the newspaper.
He looked across the street and his temper exploded.
Those damned marijuana plants were still there!
He didn’t even think. He just marched right across the street and jerked the first plant he came to out of the ground.
“You stop that!” came a furious voice from inside the house.
A minute later, a little blond tornado exploded out the side door in a white bathrobe, rushing straight toward him. She was barefoot, too, and the ground was rough, but she kept coming.
He started to speak. She ran into him at top speed, grabbed for the plant in his hand, and managed to knock them both to the ground. They rolled around in the dirt, fighting for possession of the vegetation.
“You give…me…that!” she exclaimed, and punched him in the stomach, hard.
He jerked her arm behind her and pinned her to the ground, his breath coming as unevenly as hers. She had the most beautiful skin, he thought irrelevantly as he looked down at her. And her mouth was just perfect…
She kicked him. He groaned and while he was helpless, she tore out of his grasp, jerked up her plant and moved back a couple of steps, fuming.
“Don’t you touch my plants! This is trespassing. This is vandalism. It’s tomato assault! I’ll have you up before a circuit judge before you can say ‘criminal prosecution’!” she raged.
“I’d like to see that,” he said sarcastically as he got to his feet and faced her. His immaculate white T-shirt was now brown and white striped, and his jeans had patches of mud. It had rained the night before.
“Would you? Well, you certainly can!” She grabbed a cell phone from her pocket and dialed a number. “Hello, this is Mary Ryan at 123 Cherry Boulevard. I’ve got a vandal here. He’s destroying my property! I’ve made a citizen’s arrest. I want you to send a squad car to pick him up, right now!”
“Send one for her, too, she’s growing marijuana in her front yard!” he yelled at the phone.
She closed it and gave him a shocked stare. “I am not!”
“You’ve got it in your hand!” he argued.
“This?” She held up the mangled vegetation. “This is one of my prize tomato plants I grew from seed!” She gave him a hot glare. “And if you can’t tell the difference between a tomato plant and a marijuana plant, you should leave drug detection to the experts!”
He pulled himself up to his full height. “I belong to the FBI,” he reiterated.
“Oh, lucky them,” she drawled. “Wait until they see tomorrow’s headlines!”
“The police officer told you to pull those plants up yesterday,” he continued, hating to lose ground.
“He did, and I have,” she almost shouted. “I pulled up poppies. Poppies, Mr. hotshot FBI agent, not marijuana!”
His lips compressed. She sounded as if she was certain that was the truth. He glanced at her garden. Flowers had been pulled up and piled at the end of a row. She said he’d pulled up a tomato plant. It couldn’t be true.
“You just wait until I get you into court,” she continued, cradling her broken plant. “My poor tomato plant. I’ll have your badge for this!”
“You and whose army? And just what do you do for a living, if one might ask?” he shot back.
“I’m a deputy district attorney in the county next door,” she said with pure pleasure.
His face went very still. “You’re kidding.”
“You’ll wish I were,” she returned. “I came up here from Ashton where I was with legal aid, to take up my new job. I expected it to be a step up. Boy, was I wrong! I think I’ve moved to Stupidville.”
“I am not stupid!”
“Tomato assassin!” she accused.
“It doesn’t look like a damned tomato plant!” he yelled back.
They didn’t notice that neighbors were pouring out their doors into their front yards. They didn’t notice the police car pulling up in the driveway, either.
It would have to be Jack, Curt’s old friend, who answered the call.
“Not again,” Jack groaned as he joined the antagonists.
“He pulled up one of my tomato plants!” Mary raged, pointing at him. “He thought it was a marijuana plant! How did he ever get a badge? He must have stolen it!”
“It looks like a marijuana plant!” Curt defended himself.
“I want him arrested, for trespassing and vandalism,” Mary demanded.
Jack moved closer and lowered his voice, mindful of the neighbors. “Can the two of you imagine how Judge Wills would react if this case went to his circuit court?” he asked them. “Miss Ryan, you don’t want your first term of office to end in public disgrace, now, do you?”
She hesitated.
“And Curt, you don’t really want to have to explain to a judge why you were pulling up a neighbor’s tomato plants? Frankly, Judge Wills would rather have a tomato sandwich than a steak. I can’t imagine how he’d react to a tomato plant killer. He grows prize tomatoes himself.”
Curt grimaced.
“So, suppose we just mark the whole episode down as a learning experience,” Jack suggested gently, “and go back to our respective houses and—” he cleared his throat “—have a nice, calming shower.”
They were both extremely dirty. Mary’s white bathrobe was mostly brown. Curt’s white T-shirt was filthy, not to mention splatters of mud on his jeans. His feet were covered in it. So were Mary’s.
Curt glared at her through narrowed eyes. She glared back at him.
“We can settle the whole matter right here,” the officer persisted. “I’m sure Special Agent Russell would be more than glad to replace the, uh, damaged plant. Right, Curt?” he added with a deliberate stare.
Curt cleared his throat. “Certainly.”
“I raised them from seed,” she said haughtily.
“I’ll grow you a replacement from seed and sit on it myself until it hatches,” Curt volunteered.
The glare got worse.
“The gardening center out on Highway 23 has bedding plants,” Jack said quickly. “All sorts, from hybrids to those yummy Rutgers tomatoes that my wife and I always plant.”
“I won’t be cheap about it, either,” Curt assured her. “You can have two Rutgers tomato plants. In fact,” he added, with a formal bow, “I will plant them for you myself.”
“Six feet deep and in somebody else’s yard, no doubt,” she said with dripping sarcasm.
“You could sit in the dirt with it, since you’re so attached to the things,” Curt shot back.
“I’ll tell you where you can sit…!” she exclaimed.
Jack held out both hands. “Lady and gentleman,” he said. “If this escalates any further, I will have no option but to arrest both of you for a domestic disturbance. That will require me to take you both into custody in your present conditions. A reporter comes by my office first thing every morning to check the arrest record,” he added with almost visible glee. “What a photo opportunity he would have. Wouldn’t he?”
They looked at each other and then at themselves. Mary Ryan bit her lower lip hard.
“Two Rutgers tomato plants. Today,” she added firmly.
“Two,” Curt replied reluctantly.
“Then I’ll settle for that and withdraw my request that you arrest him,” she told Jack.
“And I’ll withdraw my request that you arrest her for assault with a deadly weapon.”
“Assault?” she burst out. “With what deadly weapon?”
“Biological agent,” he returned, indicating the mangled tomato plant in her hands.
“It’s a tomato plant!” she almost screamed.
Curt drew himself up to his full height. “And how can I be assured of that?” he demanded. “God knows what sort of things are crawling around inside that thing. We all know that genetically altered plants are popping up everywhere today! There could be biological weapons concealed in its stem!”
Jack clapped him on the shoulder. “Quit while you’re ahead,” he advised urgently.
Mary Ryan was fuming quietly.
Curt shrugged. “Okay.”
Mary didn’t say another word. She carried her tomato plant into the house and slammed the door.
Curt went back across the street, past his staring, shocked mother, and straight into his own house.
Jack got back into his police car and closed the door quietly. And he’d expected a dull routine morning on the job. He had a feeling dull was not a word he would be using often while Curt Russell was on vacation.
After delivering two tomato plants to Mary’s yard, and planting them himself, Curt showered and dressed and came back out into the living room, in clean jeans, a clean shirt, a sports coat and nicely polished black shoes. But he didn’t get past his mother.
“All right, let’s have it,” Matilda said at once. “What happened?”
He groaned inwardly, but there was no way out except through her. He’d never make it.
“I pulled up a tomato plant and she attacked me.”
She eyed him warily. “Why did you pull up a tomato plant?”
“I thought it was marijuana.”
“A tomato plant?” she asked.
“Well, how should I be able to tell the difference without a photo to compare to it?” he defended himself uncomfortably. “Anyway, Jack was with me yesterday and he told her to pull up the illegal plants and she said she would. Neither of them mentioned that they were talking about opium poppies.”
She grinned, because he sounded absolutely disgusted. “Opium poppies? Imagine that! Well, they are very pretty,” she added. “But they’re illegal, just the same.” She gave him a long look. “Tomato plants aren’t.”
“Oh, rub it in!” he groaned.
“Okay, I’ll stop. What else happened?”
“I had to go and buy her two Rutgers tomato plants,” he muttered. “I just planted them. This way she drops the vandalism charge and I drop the assault charges.”
“She assaulted you?” she exclaimed.
He straightened indignantly. “She assaulted me with the tomato plant,” he replied.
She turned away, apparently about to choke. “I have a, uh, committee meeting later. Can you get lunch out?”
“Sure. You okay?”
“Yes. Just a cough.” She made coughing noises. They didn’t really sound convincing. “A bad cough!” She sounded as if she were choking instead of coughing.
“Well, I’ll be in later. I have to check in with the district FBI office anyway.”
“I’ll see you for
supper, then.”
“Sure. Have a good day.”
“You, too, son.” She spared him a glance and looked quickly away before he could see how amused she really was.
He left, climbing into his sedate gray sedan with panache and without glancing across the street, just in case the garden commando opposite happened to be watching. He started the car and whizzed backward down the driveway, whipping out into the street.
There was a screeching of tires and a loudly blown horn behind him. He looked out the rearview window. There she sat, Mary Ryan, in her pea-green little VW glaring at him for all she was worth, where he’d stopped about an inch shy of her front bumper.
He waved at her in the rearview mirror and smiled brightly. She blew her horn again.
He took off slowly, not burning rubber because he belonged to the justice department. He made sure he did the speed limit right out onto the main highway.
She passed him like a shot when they reached the divided four-lane that led to the large city about twenty miles down the road. It was the seat of the three-county district court and apparently where Ms. Ryan worked. It was also headquarters for the district office of the FBI. Curt had a terrible feeling that both offices were going to be under the same roof.
And, sure enough, they were. He had to go through a metal detector, a nitrate scanner, and put the contents of his pockets in a tray before he got into the courthouse at all.
He had to check his sidearm. This required him to display his FBI badge. As he was doing it, the Tomato Plant Empress in a trendy gray suit with a short skirt and high heels passed him by with a haughty smile. The security guard grinned at her and let her right through. Curt bristled from head to toe as he watched her sail right by.
He finished with the search-and-seizure guy and wandered on down the hall to the local FBI office. The secretary had him sit down and wait because the special agent in charge was taking a long-distance phone call.
He didn’t have to wait long, though. Barely two minutes later, the woman smiled and told him he could go in.
The special agent in charge gave him a grin that made him feel as if his feet were melting. He didn’t even have to ask if news of the tomato raid had reached here.