Oak and Dagger

by Dorothy St. James

  What if Nadeem had applied for the assistant curator position not because of a burning desire to learn from Frida, or to sabotage the talks with Turbekistan, but because he was searching for lost treasure? His arrival at the White House had marked the start of trouble between Frida and Gordon.

  But if D.C.’s treasures from that time period ended up on a sunken ship, why would Nadeem be searching for Thomas Jefferson’s treasure at the White House?

  “Oh, well. It doesn’t matter anyhow. He wasn’t in the garden at the time of Frida’s death,” I said. “He told me that he’d left her before she entered the Children’s Garden.”

  “What’s that?” Alyssa asked as she dumped the last of her vegetables into the frying pan.

  “Nothing. Just thinking something through.” There was no way I was going to tell Alyssa she’d been right about Nadeem. Encouraging her generally led to trouble.

  So I closed the book and then pulled several wineglasses from the kitchen cabinet’s top shelf. “Have you heard from Barry about . . . this morning?”

  “You mean about the article you refuse to pitch into the trash? Yeah, he called back. He got all prickly about it, too. Wanted to know why I was asking about James Calhoun’s whereabouts and then put his supervisor on. The jerk. I asked him to do me a simple favor, and he turned it into some big federal case.”

  Ah. That was why she was cooking tonight. Guy trouble.

  “So he had no answers for you?” I asked as I filled each wineglass with a little water before setting a carrot top in the water.

  “No. What in the world are you doing?” Alyssa asked as she stirred our dinner.

  “I’m gardening.” She should have known that about me by now. When I had a problem to work through, I needed to keep my hands busy with gardening . . . even if it meant making do with the materials at hand.

  “Gardening in wineglasses? That’s a new one.”

  I lined up the glasses on the plant shelves I’d built in front of the kitchen window. “I’m rooting the carrot tops. When I plant them outside in the spring, the swallowtail butterflies will love their leafy greens.”

  “Okay. And the bottoms of the onions?”

  “Once they dry out a bit, I’ll plant them. They’ll eventually grow new onions.”

  “Only you’d think of that.” Alyssa shook her head. “How’s Gordon?”

  “The same, I’m afraid. The nurse promised that no change was still good news at this point,” I was quick to add. “Is dinner ready yet?”

  “The rice still needs five minutes,” she answered.

  I’d started setting the table when the doorbell buzzed.

  “It’s your turn,” Alyssa said from the stove.

  I wasn’t sure whose turn it was to answer the door; not that it mattered. She was cooking. I wasn’t. My stomach grumbled with every step through the living room and to the front foyer. I peeked out the window and smiled.

  My hunger forgotten, I eagerly swung the door open.

  Jack, dressed in jeans and a black leather coat, leaned against the door frame.

  “Just the guy I was hoping to see,” I said. “Would you like to come inside? I could split my dinner with you.”

  The way he backed away, you’d have thought I’d told him that I’d just armed a bomb. “You—you cooked?”

  “No, Alyssa is cooking. Thai, I think.”

  “Oh.” The corners of his lips hitched up just a smidge. “You had me worried there for a moment. After the last time you tried to cook for me, I now have the fire department on speed dial.”

  I gave him a playful push. “Very funny. Are you coming in?”

  “Alyssa’s in the kitchen?”

  I nodded.

  “Let’s keep what I’ve learned this afternoon between the two of us for right now. Besides, I could use a little alone time with you.” His gaze brushed against me like a tender caress before zeroing in on the entrance to the basement apartment. His shoulders dropped. “So that’s where he lives.”

  “It is,” I said.

  “Is he home?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jack gave a single stiff nod. Clearly he didn’t like my new living arrangements. And I didn’t like an unhappy Jack.

  I grabbed his hand. “Since you’re not interested in coming inside, let’s go for a walk around the block.” The storm had passed, leaving in its wake a brisk evening and a large harvest moon hanging low in the sky. A cold wind gusted down the street.

  “I’ve been thinking about what happened today with Lettie.” I tucked my arm around his and snuggled against his warmth. We fit together nicely. “What’s going on with her?”

  “You know I can’t discuss the First Family,” Jack said.

  “I know, but this is me. I’m not going to run to the press. Is Lettie giving the agents a hard time? They acted as if she had the plague this afternoon.”

  “There have been a few . . .” He shook his head. “I can’t talk about it.”

  “She’s irritating, isn’t she? I get that. Don’t forget that Seth sent her to help in the grounds office. Barely an hour into her task, she stumbles across the missing Dolley Madison research—purely by chance—and she thinks she’s the greatest sleuth ever.”

  Jack stopped and glanced over at me. “Can’t take the competition?”

  “As if,” I huffed. “She thinks Gordon is guilty. Anyone with half a brain can see he’s not.”

  “Detective Hernandez would disagree with you, and he’s a smart guy.”

  “He’s being rushed. He’ll change his mind once he looks at all the pieces.”

  “Unfortunately, no one can seem to find those pieces. That’s why we need to gather them together for him.”

  “I handed over the imprint of that threatening note Frida had written, and Manny barely looked at it. Frida wouldn’t have written ‘I know who you are’ to Gordon. She’d just go and yell at him. It has to be someone she didn’t know well.”

  “Or someone she was afraid of,” Jack suggested. “It’s almost as if she didn’t want the recipient of the note to know she wrote it.”

  He had a point. Frida hadn’t signed the note.

  “Neither of us knows all the details of the investigation,” Jack continued. “Manny’s keeping his mouth shut. He might already have the original note. Or he can’t use what you found because you removed it from where you found it. Anyone could have written that note you discovered. If you find evidence, tell someone about it, but leave it for the professionals to pick up. It’s important to their job and may help Gordon.”

  “You’re right. I should have already known that,” I said. I’d read enough mystery novels to have picked up a thing or two about police procedure. “It’s just Nadeem was watching me, and I got nervous and shoved it in my pocket.”

  Jack drew a slow, controlled breath. “Nadeem. I’m worried about your working with him. The information on his background is locked up tighter than . . . than . . . the White House.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how he got clearance for the assistant curator position. I sure as hell wouldn’t have given it to him.”

  “Most of the time Nadeem acts like a nervous assistant. Are you certain your sources are right about his past? He’s not at all suave and smooth like an international spy.”

  “Believe me, Casey, the movies don’t always get it right. Most of the spies I’ve met act like bumbling idiots. Who would you suspect of espionage—the sophisticated, cool-under-pressure playboy or the dimwitted, jump-at-his-shadow tourist?”

  “The playboy. Oh, I see what you’re saying. Well, it doesn’t matter because I know Nadeem isn’t our guy. After all, he came over and talked with me before Frida entered the Children’s Garden. So he couldn’t have murdered her.”

  Jack was shaking his head as if he knew something.

  “Why? What have you learned?” I asked.

  “That’s what I came over to tell you. This afternoon I watched the surveillance videos of the South Lawn that were reco
rded the day Frida died. I saw Nadeem leave Frida and then circle around toward the kitchen garden.”

  “But he told me that he—”

  “He lied. That’s what guys like him do. They lie.”

  “But why would he—” I started to ask when Jack’s cell phone buzzed.

  He glanced at his phone’s readout and groaned. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Will you be back?” This was the third time Jack had left abruptly in the past couple of weeks. It was becoming as worrying as never getting invited to his house.

  “Probably not,” he said, offering no explanation about where he was headed, or why it was so urgent.

  “You’re not actually married with a wife at home, are you?” I laughed as I said it.

  He didn’t laugh with me. Instead he wrapped me in a hug, rubbing his strong hands up and down my back. For all his faults, he was an expert at hugs. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Sorry?” I wiggled out of his embrace. “Sorry that you’re married?”

  “What? No!” He dredged his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry you think I’m trying to hide something from you. It’s nothing. Really. Nothing. There’s just something I need to work out. It’s not—” He closed his eyes and huffed. “I just have to do this.”

  I wanted to press him to explain himself, but it wasn’t as if I was being completely honest with him. I was still holding on to that article about my father like a child holds on to a security blanket. I don’t know why I couldn’t talk to Jack about it, or about my father’s crimes. I just couldn’t. But keeping Jack out of that part of my life felt dishonest. I needed to trust him. I needed to trust I would be strong enough to hear what Jack might know about my murderous dad. Even so, my heart clenched at the thought of telling him.

  “Are you going to be okay?” he asked after he’d walked me back to my front door.

  I nodded.

  “I’ll let you know what happens with the note you found in Frida’s office. Hopefully Manny will take it seriously.” He brushed a quick kiss across my lips and was gone.

  I was still standing on the front stoop when my cell phone sang the first few notes of Kelly Clarkson’s “Stronger.” At first I thought Jack was texting to remind me to lock the front door. I pulled my phone from my pocket and hit a few buttons.

  My smile faded as I read the incoming message. Like the odd text I’d received shortly before Frida’s death, this one had come from a restricted number. This time I didn’t dismiss the threatening message as a wrong number. The same word as before glowed ominously on my phone’s screen.

  DIE.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I want minimum information given with maximum politeness.

  —JACQUELINE KENNEDY, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES (1961–1963)

  ON Wednesday morning, the ground was still saturated from the previous days’ heavy rains, but the skies were clear save for a few high wispy clouds. The roar of jets from the nearby Ronald Reagan National Airport filled the air as I herded five eager garden volunteers through the security checkpoint at the southeast gate and across the lawn toward the First Lady’s legendary kitchen garden.

  One of my proudest achievements, the kitchen garden was located at the bottom of the South Lawn next to the fountain. The garden was in a spot where it could be viewed by the public but was far enough away from the iron fence that the Secret Service didn’t have to worry about food tampering.

  Just a few weeks ago, a class of schoolchildren helped harvest over four hundred pounds of leafy green vegetables, broccoli, radishes, pumpkins, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peppers, and tomatoes from the fifteen-hundred-square-foot space.

  “Casey.” Special Agent Janie Partners jogged across the lawn to catch up to me. Today she was wearing a dark blue suit with an unusually tame, matching blue scarf. Her short hair was now ebony black. Her eyes were hidden behind the Secret Service’s standard-issue dark sunglasses. “I heard about the threatening text messages.”

  “News travels fast around here,” I said as I continued walking toward the kitchen garden. “Jack insisted on driving me to work this morning. Not that I minded.” Last night I’d contacted both Jack and Detective Manny Hernandez about the texts and had left both of them detailed messages. Manny never called me back but had sent over a uniformed officer to take my statement and look at the phone.

  Quite honestly, I didn’t think much of the threat; not when there was work to be done in the garden.

  Janie disagreed. She stepped in front of me and crossed her arms over her chest like she was blocking an overenthusiastic voter from mobbing the President. “You need to stop.”

  “Go on ahead to the garden,” I called when my volunteers noticed I was being waylaid and had turned their curious gazes onto me. “I’ll catch up in a minute.” I shifted the large sweetgrass basket, filled with gardening gloves, trowels, and hand trimmers, from one hip to the other. “What do I need to stop? The first text message arrived before Frida’s murder. It’s not connected.”

  Janie shook her head. “That’s not what I’m worried about, Casey. You need to stop investigating Frida’s murder. Let the police handle this one.”

  “I can’t. While everyone is rushing to judgment and calling Gordon guilty, he needs someone to prove his innocence.”

  Janie looked decidedly uncomfortable. She tugged on her dark blue suit coat as if it had suddenly shrunk two sizes. “Have you thought about what you might find?”

  “Yes. I’m going to prove that Gordon wasn’t in the garden at the time of Frida’s death.”

  Janie lifted her dark sunglasses. “What if you don’t? What if you learn something you don’t want to hear, Casey?”

  “I won’t.” Slowly, I realized what she was saying. “You think he’s guilty.”

  She bit her lower lip and started shaking her head. “I like Gordon, but some people snap. I don’t know why. No one does. Just take my advice. I know how much you care for Gordon. I don’t want to see this destroy you.”

  “It won’t, because he’s innocent,” I said too loudly.

  The volunteers, who had already started to work weeding in the nearby rows of vegetables, stood up to watch me.

  “He’s innocent,” I repeated. Let the world hear me say it. My voice started to shake. “Manny is wrong. Gordon would never hurt anyone. He couldn’t.”

  “I’ve seen the evidence, Casey. Manny hasn’t missed anything. You were there. You saw it. Gordon had Frida’s blood splattered all over his clothes. He was the last person to see Frida alive. And once Manny dots all of his i’s and crosses all of his t’s, he’s going to charge Gordon for the crime.”

  “You’re wrong. And Manny’s making a huge mistake. If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. Gordon wouldn’t appreciate it if I neglected his gardens. For the past thirty-plus years, this place has been his life. I won’t have him coming back and finding it in shambles. And he will be coming back. As soon as he’s well, he’s coming back.”

  “I hope you’re right. And Casey?”

  “What?”

  “Milo has been digging holes again.” She pointed to a line of upturned earth near the tennis court.

  I groaned.

  • • •

  MY TWO FAVORITE VOLUNTEERS, THE ELDERLY Pearle Stone and Mable Bowls, ambled over to meet me. Pearle, dressed in a velour lavender running suit, led the way with her arms held wide. “Casey, Casey, how are you holding up, my dear?”

  Mable, who liked to prove that because she was six months younger than her eighty-year-old friend, she was that much more nimble, pumped her arms and reached me first. She, too, was dressed in a comfortable velour track suit. But hers was powder pink with glittering white racing stripes down the legs.

  Anyone who’d ever met either woman outside the garden would want to copy their flawless fashion sense. But the two women also had a wicked sense of humor and enjoyed finding the most outrageous outfits for their volunteer time in the kitchen garden. Mable wiggled her skinny hips a
nd smacked her bright red lips.

  “Honey, we’ve got to find a way to bust our hunky Gordon free,” she shouted. I doubted she realized it was a shout. The two ladies were both in denial that they needed hearing aids.

  Pearle, huffing, caught up with Mable, and threw her soft velour-coated arms around me. “Sweetie, anyone who says anything bad about Gordon will be immediately sent to the lowest circle of social hell.”

  “Junior League,” both of them said at the same time.

  I laughed even though I was a longtime member of the Junior League.

  “The poor dear, even her titters are weighted down with melancholy,” Pearle said to Mable.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Her titters look perky enough to me,” Mable replied.

  I laughed again at the pure joy Pearle and Mable brought me.

  Mable leaned close to me and shouted, “I heard that Frida’s shifty new assistant—what’s-his-name—and the First Lady’s sister were both in the gardens when the incident occurred.”

  “Don’t forget, the overpriced blowhard Marcel Beauchamp might have been there, too,” Pearle added.

  Mable nodded. “I hadn’t forgotten. Clearly, one of them saw something.”

  “Or perpetrated the crime,” Pearle finished.

  “I thought Detective Hernandez was keeping a tight lid on that kind of information,” I said, truly amazed by how many details the two knew about the investigation. It sounded as if they knew more about the investigation than some of the members of the Secret Service.

  Mable touched the side of her nose and smiled slyly, which only made me wonder what else they knew.

  I hooked my arm with Pearle’s and led the pair of living, breathing national treasures back to the kitchen garden, where the other three volunteers were waiting. “You wouldn’t happen to know who killed Frida?” I asked.

  “Now, honey, if we knew that, Gordon wouldn’t be in such a fix.” Pearle patted my hand. “But we have faith you’ll come through for him.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “That’s all anyone can ask,” Mable said.