Death of a Political Plant

by Ann Ripley

  “Looks like Frankenstein has a few extra gouges beyond the normal,” noted Donna, in a detached sort of way.

  “Let him bleed a little, I say,” commented Barbara.

  Louise cried out to them, “Don’t trust him—bind him with duct tape!” She cocked her head to indicate where it lay on the floor near her chair.

  Tessie picked it up, looked at Louise’s swollen face with its cuts and the clear mark of a hand. She said, “Oh, Louise, honey, what has he done to you?”

  “No,” cried Louise, “don’t bother about me. You must bind him up quickly: He’s strong as an ox.”

  Even from where she sat across the room, she could see the bulky man inching up, trying to sit. But Barbara stood there, five feet ten at least and probably one hundred seventy-five pounds, and as befitted a warrior queen, holding the wickedly sharp hoe poised over his head now, ready to strike. “Stay, you sonofabitch,” barked Barbara, “and hurry, Tessie—get his hands first.”

  Louise noticed, as Tessie worked frantically to secure first his hands in front of him, and then his feet, that Gil Whitson added a formidable but misunderstood presence. He stayed mainly in back of the women, and Louise guessed he was frightened silly. But his face had become very red and his cat’s eyes looked wild. He presented a frightening looking enemy, holding the wicked pitchfork with its three narrow, sharp tines. The masked man probably was terrified that, if he decided to rise up and try to overcome the three women, the lone man, Gil, would administer the coup de grace with that traditional farm implement.

  The intruder was now undergoing a more mummifying experience than Louise. “Do you have enough tape to tie him to the leg of the piano?” Louise asked. The antique Knabe weighed about half a ton.

  “I think so,” Tessie said, and once this was done, they came over and took care of Louise. Tessie cut the duct tape from her arms and her legs, all the while muttering imprecations about the man who had done this. “And we saw it happening through the crack in the drapes. That’s when we grabbed those tools and ran in to get you.”

  “Thanks. What would I have done if you hadn’t come?” She rubbed her legs to try to restore the circulation.

  Barbara laughed. “You’re lucky we’re the sort who never leaves town without saying good-bye to our friends.”

  She resisted her friends’ attempts to dress the bleeding cuts on her face and went over to look at the prone man. “First thing we have to do is find out who this guy is, because he can’t be Frankenstein.” She bent down beside the attacker, ready to rip off the mask.

  Barbara intervened. “Let me do it, Louise,” and with one of her sidearms, a linoleum tool with a curved blade, she sliced down the middle of the plastic face, as the man inside it made an agonized groan, and divested him of his mask as neatly as she might divest a perennial plant of its plastic pot.

  Lying there, tied like a boned roast, was Ted French. Louise let out a little cry. “We meet again, Mr. French.” As if showing off a prize, she stretched a hand toward him and said, “Folks, this is Mr. Ted French, a member of Congressman Lloyd Goodrich’s presidential campaign staff.”

  “No kidding,” exclaimed Gil Whitson.

  French looked up at Louise, his blue eyes blazing. “You—bitch.”

  “Have it your way,” she said calmly, “but maybe it would be better for you if you didn’t piss me off.” She leaned over and methodically went through his jacket pockets, finding his cell phone. She turned to her plant society buddies, now all gathered around. “This is what I was looking for.”

  She leaned back over French, having a great desire to give him a good slap, or maybe a head clubbing with his own phone. But she refrained, not wanting to take on the face of the enemy. She whispered to him. “So first you send a thug out here to my house to spy on Jay McCormick.”

  “Yeah, we did,” muttered French. “He didn’t hurt anybody—you nearly broke his leg with your damned trash cart!”

  “And then you killed my friend Jay.”

  In the background, Donna gasped.

  Tessie said, “A murderer: I knew it.”

  “The hell I did,” contended French. “I don’t know how he died. I just came here to do someone a favor: to get his disks. He was a fuckin’ spy! We gave him a job, and he skulked around after hours and he fuckin’ spied on us. He had no right to whatever story he got. He got it through false pretenses, and we’ll damn well sue.”

  “If you didn’t kill him, who did—Rawlings?”

  French’s expression became instantly guarded. “Hell, how do I know?” he snarled.

  “Tell me more about Jay McCormick,” Louise said, sitting back on her haunches. She looked up at Gil. “Listen carefully, now, to this story.”

  “He called himself John McCormick. He infiltrated our campaign. Wrote Goodrich some damned good speeches. You already know that, since you called campaign headquarters and weaseled the information out of some dumb phone volunteer.”

  “Yes? Go on.”

  Five people hovered around him, and his eyes moved nervously from one to another. It was as tough as any vigilante mob he might meet. “No way. I’m not saying more until I get an attorney.”

  “That’s all right, Ted. We have enough.” Louise handed Gil French’s cell phone. He crouched down beside her. “Why don’t you press the redial button and we’ll see what comes out of the woodwork. Somehow, I don’t believe he’s the principal player in all this.”

  “What will I say?”

  Louise pondered. “Make it a half whisper so it won’t be easy to tell you aren’t really Ted French. Tell whoever answers that everything is safe and under control, that you’ve got the disks, and you need them here. And then ring off, before the person can ask more questions.”

  “Okay.” He looked at the prone man, struggling now against his bonds, and said, “What if he mouths off?”

  “Simple solution,” barked Tessie. She looked like a longhaired avenger as she ripped off a couple more strips of duct tape and slapped them enthusiastically across French’s mouth.

  “And stop wiggling,” commanded Barbara, standing primly now beside French and holding her hoe much like Little Bo Peep held her staff, “or I’ll happily give you a little poke.”

  Gil pressed the redial button. The call was answered quickly, and his eyes widened in surprise. For a few moments he seemed paralyzed. Louise caught her breath; she saw the whole plan dissolving before her eyes. How could she have suspected for an instant this man injured Jay McCormick? Why, he didn’t even have enough nerve to make a phony phone call.

  Then, with a little nervous shake of his head and body, like a dog shaking off water after a bath, Gil rose to action. He spoke the brief message in a hoarse whisper, and a fair imitation of French’s voice. French’s eyes blazed up at him.

  Gil turned off the phone and gave Louise a brilliant smile. “They even answered me. Said, ‘Okay, be there in less than three minutes.’”

  French groaned, a long, hopeless lament. Louise glanced at him coldly.

  “How did the person sound?” she asked.

  “Like me: nervous and whispery,” replied Gil.

  Tessie looked at Louise in disbelief. “Three minutes? Listen, folks, we have a problem: How many more people do we have to subdue tonight? How do we know this guy doesn’t have three other guys with him?”

  Louise jumped to her feet. “You’re right, Tessie. We shouldn’t have done that. Now we have to act fast. We need the police, and while I’m calling, Gil, move your van from in front of the house. Park it far into the Mougeys’ driveway so whoever’s coming can’t see it. And hurry: You don’t want them to get here and see you.”

  Giving her a terrified glance, he ran out the door. Suddenly, Gil was having to do all the gutsy things, and she was pretty sure he was not used to that role.

  She was connected almost immediately with Detective Geraghty, who apparently was working late. Quickly she told him the bare facts about her friends capturing an intruder, and about r
edialing the man’s phone and reaching an accomplice.

  “Had to do it yourself, huh?”

  “I hadn’t intended to.”

  “Since you made that call, there’s no time to debate this, Mrs. Eldridge. I want you to do exactly as I say. And don’t you and your friends try to be heroes, understand?”

  “I understand.”

  Moments later, he rang off and she spoke to Tessie, Barbara, and Donna. “The police want us to turn off some lights and leave just enough on so whoever comes isn’t suspicious.” She looked at them, standing there with their garden weapons. “And they want all of us to ‘safeguard’ ourselves by going into a bedroom and letting them capture the guy.”

  Gil burst back in the front door, his eyes wide with fright. “Should I leave the door unlocked, or should I lock it?”

  “Leave it unlocked, Geraghty says. Let’s go. He wants us out of the way.” She smiled. “But we’ll still get a good view.”

  She led them to the guest room; all of them brought their garden implements in case something went wrong. She slid the window open so they could hear, and the soft sound of the cicadas floated in and reminded them there was a peaceful night world out there. Then, she took Bill’s binoculars from the closet shelf and proffered them to the others. “Does someone want to use these?”

  Barbara took up the offer, training the glasses on Louise’s driveway. Not more than a minute later, she cried, “Here comes a car into the cul-de-sac, but, God, Louise, I haven’t seen any police.”

  “Well, then, we’d better be ready to defend ourselves,” Louise said. Donna patted her back and reassured her. “They’ll be here. You said they’re just a couple of miles away.”

  The car without lights pulled into the driveway, far enough so that it was under the canopy of trees and outside of the immediate sight of passersby.

  Louise had a moment of panic: If the police were delayed, they would have to defend themselves again with primitive tools against what would undoubtedly be guns in the hands of their opponents.

  “Why don’t they get out of the car?” asked Barbara.

  “Shhh,” scolded Tessie, “they might hear us.”

  For almost two agonizing minutes, nothing happened. Louise’s neck ached from her encounter with French. She wished she had accepted her friends’ ministrations—at least a couple of aspirins and a glass of water. Tessie took the opportunity to twist her hair back into its tight little bun and secure it with hairpins. Gil paced nervously in a tight little circle.

  Tension in the guest room grew, until finally the car door opened and out stepped a single figure. Barbara gave a second-by-second report. “Only one so far. Walking into the woods, away from us. Probably wants to avoid the light on the path. He’s nearly out of sight.” She dropped the glasses from her eyes.

  Then, a glare of searchlights clicked on and probed the yard. They quickly converged on the figure, now close to the house. A deep voice shouted through a megaphone: “Police! Stop right where you are!” Louise thought she saw a flash of red. She and her friends rushed from the bedroom to the entrance of the living room, not wanting to go farther until the police gave permission.

  A cadre of officers brought a half-stumbling, handcuffed Lannie Gordon into the house. Geraghty followed close on their heels.

  “My God,” murmured Louise. “I should have known it. So many motives.”

  “Is she the murderer?” asked Tessie.

  In a low voice, Louise answered, “I think so.”

  Lannie looked like a wild woman, her red hair in disarray, her face smeared with dirt, as two officers held her on either side. Although she wore a smart taupe jogging outfit and Mephisto tennis shoes, she probably never had felt so far from the comforts of her private country club.

  What brought the woman to a stumbling stop was the sight of Ted French, lying on the floor, tethered to the piano like a calf at a rodeo. She spat it out: “Idiot!” Then she straightened. Turning to Detective Geraghty, in a shaky voice she said, “I am Lannie Gordon and I am an attorney. You have made a terrible mistake, and you need to release me right now. Otherwise, there’s going to be no end of trouble for the Fairfax police.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Gordon,” said Geraghty, “we’re taking you in for questioning.” Then, Lannie saw Louise. The woman gave her a long look, as if she were pleading with a friend who had shown her sympathy in the past. It seemed as if they were the only two in this crowded house.

  “Louise,” she moaned. Louise’s heart wrenched, and impulsively she took a step toward her. Then the red-haired woman sagged and began sobbing uncontrollably.

  Louise slowly approached. The woman was torn apart by whatever she had done: betrayed her husband to a killer, or murdered him herself, it didn’t much matter.

  Geraghty stepped in front of her. “No, Mrs. Eldridge, please: I don’t want you talking to a suspect,” and with a pointed finger he indicated she should go back across the room.

  Then the big detective turned to Lannie Gordon, reading her her rights as the patrolmen escorted her outside. Once the woman was gone, he returned to the living room and beckoned Louise over with a nod. He looked down at her curiously. “I thought you didn’t know Ms. Gordon.”

  “I didn’t, until yesterday.”

  “So, that was just a rush of sympathy, is that what you’re saying?”

  She looked into Geraghty’s eyes. “I don’t know,” she said bluntly. “Do you believe she killed Jay?”

  “Her showing up here is pretty incriminating.”

  “I think she did it, maybe accidentally, but I’d guess in anger. I’ve got Jay’s computer disk, and when you read his story, you’ll find out she has a motive: She has serious problems with the law.”

  “There you got an edge on me, Mrs. Eldridge,” he said dryly. “You’ve found the disk, huh, and read the story?”

  The guilt came rushing back again: She could have told Geraghty all this much sooner. She took a deep breath. “I’ll turn it right over to you. But I think Lannie did everything for the sake of her career and her daughter. It must have driven her crazy to think one story could ruin her whole life and send her to jail. Now she’s sunk so low—she’ll lose everything, including her daughter.”

  “We don’t know yet whether she killed Jay McCormick,” Geraghty corrected brusquely, “but we can hold her for questioning. And based on what’s gone on here, we’re going to search her Great Falls house. Meanwhile, let’s talk about him.” He turned his attention to Ted French on the floor.

  French was shaking his head, as if to plead for someone to take the tape off his mouth. Geraghty stooped down and with surprising gentleness did so. He asked Louise, “Do you know this man?”

  “He’s Ted French. He works in the Goodrich presidential campaign.” She laughed bitterly. “I saw him only today in the Capitol, eating lunch with Congressman Goodrich.”

  “Looks like he’s wounded. Know if he’s hurt bad?”

  “He has a couple of gashes, that’s for sure.” Her heart was not full of sympathy for Ted French.

  “He broke into your house.”

  “And he was armed. So I guess you call that breaking and entering with the intent to do great bodily harm.” She said that for the man’s benefit; French gave her a walleyed look in response. “His gun is lying right over there.” She pointed to the black weapon that had flipped under a nearby chair. “We all tried not to disturb the crime scene.”

  The tape was off now, and French cried, “I want my lawyer.”

  Geraghty shook his head. “Just a minute, buddy.” He turned again to Louise. “He tied you up, and I see he roughed you up pretty bad, too.”

  She merely nodded, all the time staring at French and remembering how brutal he had been.

  “And those people in there,” Geraghty said, nodding to her P.P.S. friends, now herded into the nearby dining room by a patrolman, “were they all witnesses?”

  Louise looked over at her friends.

  “Yes,” sai
d Tessie, stepping forward in her familiar role as spokesperson. She summarized everything in rapid-fire fashion. “We got here and came around back for reasons I won’t go into now. We could see through a crack where Louise’s drapes didn’t quite meet. We were horrified: We saw him slapping Louise. So we grabbed some garden tools from the nearby shed and raced around as fast as we could to the front door.”

  “How did you get in?” asked the detective.

  Barbara spoke up: “Louise has a key in a fake rock.”

  Geraghty nodded. “Oh, you knew that? Heck, the whole world probably knows that. Well, you did her a darn good turn.”

  “I always said we like to help a body,” declared Tessie.

  He took Louise’s elbow and helped her back to her feet.

  “I’m glad you’re all right; you have good friends there. Better get your face washed first; there’s some abrasions there. We’ll take care of this man French, and then we need statements from you and the others. So, tell your friends to stick around, okay?”

  Louise smiled. “Sticking around is no problem with them.”

  Geraghty bent his white head down toward her. He said, “And I think you have some evidence for me.”

  There Is No End of Uses for Garden Tools

  WE ARE STILL SHARPENING ARrowheads, so to speak. The use of tools has been traced back to the earliest ancestors of man, who have been busy perfecting them ever since. Amateur gardeners love tools, and can be found in the tool sections of stores in record numbers every garden season, mulling over their choices. Gardeners can go cheap or expensive, but these days, many are choosing to go light. They are buying light shovels, light mowers, light cultivators, light grass trimmers, light ladders. It makes sense, since about half of adult Americans complain of a bad back, and many gardeners are women with less upper-body strength than their male counterparts.

  Take the lightweight rototiller, for instance, which can till the soil in a path as narrow as six inches and cuts ten inches deep: It weighs about 20 pounds, instead of ISO to 300 pounds. Of course, the larger tiller is still the favorite of many people, who feel it takes deeper bites and handles better.