Death of a Political Plant (10 page)
Read Death of a Political Plant Online
Authors: Ann Ripley
Tags: #General, #Mystery & Detective, #Fiction
She made a fresh pot of coffee, defrosted some sticky buns in the microwave, and chopped a couple of peaches into big hunks, then brought the food and sat down at the dining room table with him. He rapidly consumed two of the pastries and devoured the peach chunks. Seeming to feel better, he gave her one of his slow smiles. “How can I ever say to you the things I want to say? One of these days—soon—you’ll understand what this is all about.”
“Look, your life is private; we don’t need to know everything. I’m only sorry Bill is gone and won’t be home in time to say good-bye to you, and that you won’t get a chance to meet Janie.”
“But I want our families to meet, and soon. My life is going to settle down, there’s no doubt about it: just Melissa and me in our little house.” He reached out a hand and put it on top of hers and gave it a squeeze, and they sat there companionably, as old friends should.
She hated to spoil the mood by bringing up the subject of the strange man who had intruded upon her yard that morning, and the fact that she had called the police to check him out. When she described him, Jay chuckled. “Mafia, maybe? But seriously, Louise, it probably was what you suspected: a real estate broker. They’re always poking around, and the way you treated him, I doubt he’ll ever make a cold call in this cul-de-sac
again. It certainly hasn’t anything to do with me, I can tell you that. The people who would be looking for me are ‘suits,’ suits who would look mad as hell.”
She drew in her breath in surprise. If that menacing man hadn’t sought jay, who was he after? She would have mentioned the gray car, but now it seemingly had nothing to do with Jay. No, more likely to do with her husband. Bill’s trip to Vienna had plunged them right back into the nervous world of spying.
Later, Jay packed his clothes and computer and she helped load things in his car. She promised that Charlie Hurd would be the only one to know his whereabouts. She watched him drive far into Mary Mougey’s driveway, out of sight of anyone entering Dogwood Court. He left nothing behind in the room, not the smallest scrap of paper.
Then she was left alone for an hour, sans children, sans husband, sans houseguest, free to worry about strangers in the neighborhood and the state of her garden and to clean up the guest bedroom. She was glad her house would be filled with company tonight. It was one thing to confront a pistol-packing stranger by daylight, and quite another to encounter him at night.
W
HEN SHE HEARD THE CAR DOOR
slam out in the driveway, Louise went out to greet her guests. Looking straight through the woods, she was dismayed to see jay McCormick’s jalopy backing out of the driveway across the street. As she walked forward, she caught a glimpse of him. He wore a turtleneck, his hair was slicked straight back, and he had an anonymous expression on his hollow-eyed face. Altogether, this made him resemble
no person she had ever seen before. It reminded her of how her own husband had altered his appearance when necessary. She felt a pang of guilt at having displaced Jay from her guest room. Maybe she should have made the P.P.S. guests double up. Now, instead of staying safely at the Mougeys, Jay was going to Great Falls again, to see that nothing went wrong with his plans.
Then she turned to greet her guests and help them unload their bags. It was a large van, driven by a man that Tessie Strahan introduced as Gilbert Whitson. All three women were somewhere in their fifties. Tessie was about five feet tall, and solid, with dark hair pulled back in a bun, intense brown eyes, and a voice like a machine gun. The throaty-sounding Barbara McNeil was as tall as Louise but fifty pounds heavier, with curly salt-and-pepper hair that reached her shoulders. She looked as if she might have come out of the days of Conan the Barbarian, wielding sword and shield and fighting alongside her man. Donna Moore was a muscular, athletic-looking woman with finely chiseled features under her blunt-cut blond hair. All of them were strong and competent, Louise realized, able to heave around fifty-pound flats of plants and run large nurseries.
All three felt at home with Louise before they ever set a step on her mossy path.
Gil, a garden designer, was different. He watched her warily as they stood in the path together. He was tall and graceful, his graying blond hair balding a little, and his unusual green eyes yellow near the pupils, like a cat’s, His sunburned facial skin seemed excessively wrinkled, and she guessed it was from too much time in the sun. The four had ridden down from the New York/Philadelphia area and apparently were old friends; Gil teased the women constantly as he helped them
gather food packages, luggage, and what would be unneeded coats in Washington’s late July.
“Nice to be here, Mrs. Eldridge.”
“Please call me Louise.”
“These gals intend to camp at your place indefinitely. Don’t believe them when they say they’re checking out in two days.” He hefted a large suitcase that obviously weighed a lot. “Look at Tessie’s suitcase: Just guess how long it will take you to get rid of her.”
“Now, Gil,” said Tessie in clipped tones, her brown eyes flashing merrily, “it’s just the two nights. And who knows? Maybe some other folks will come out to see you tomorrow, Louise.”
“That will be nice,” she said automatically. She thought of Nora’s warnings: She wasn’t at all sure it would be nice to be deluged with strangers after she had spent all day in downtown Washington on a shoot that was already a “wild card,” as Marty called it. This meant she, Marty, John, and crew would be winging it because it was impossible to script in advance. Nevertheless, she continued with her mild prevarications, the automatic impulse of twenty years of training as a foreign service wife: “Everybody’s welcome.”
It was gratifying when the guests exclaimed in delight over the front garden with its blue-berried mahonia and toad lilies, propped up after the stranger’s destructive journey through it. They continued exclaiming as they walked the path through the woods. They were particularly impressed with the pergola.
“Except it’s bare, my dear,” said Tessie. “Why isn’t it planted with vines?”
“I’d wanted grapes—”
“Too shady.”
“Or clematis—”
“Also too shady.”
Louise paused. “And then I was at a loss as to just what else I would like to grow there.”
“Well, honey,” said the tall Barbara, “I can give you several suggestions.”
“But then my husband and I”—Louise threw in husband for further moral support as she noticed a certain ganging up—“decided we very much liked it bare.”
As if the earth had just moved, Tessie stood stock-still under the midsection of the long pergola, and looked up. To Louise, those exposed cross-beams looming against the hugely tall woods were pure poetry. “Like it that way, does he? We’ll have to talk to him about that.”
“Unfortunately, he isn’t going to be here.”
“Oh, what a shame. Where is he?”
“Off on a business trip.” She turned to Gil, who was helping to carry in the baggage before going to Washington to check into the convention. “Gil, what is your specialty?”
“I’m a koi doctor.”
“Coy?” She grinned.
“No, koi, as in fish.”
“Oh. You treat koi, the big carp?”
“Yes,” he said, with a broad smile.
“Gil is not only a koi doctor, but a marvelous designer, and his gardens show it,” effused Tessie.
“But playing doctor to fish is more fun, and it brings in a nice extra income.”
Louise laughed. “I know what you mean about that.”
A flash of recognition passed over his face. “Yes, I’m sure you do. You’re the one who’s the spokesman on those Atlas Mower ads, right?” He gave her a genuine smile that lit up his
face, and it was as if she had passed some ambiguous test of trust.
“How do you care for koi?”
Gil waggled his head a little, a man used to expressing things with his hands, but whose hands at the moment were full. “Very carefully, Louise.” He gave her a conspiratorial smile. “Mostly with over-the-counter drugs. Sometimes I shoot them up with antibiotics that I get from a vet. I don’t want you to think I have a medical degree: I’m one of those entrepreneurs who have come into the field.”
“Hmmm,” said Louise, “are there many koi to doctor?”
“Loads of them. They’re the rage of boomers who don’t know what to do with their money.”
“You sound like the producer of Gardening with Nature. Marty Corbin always says baby boomers are responsible for the upsurge in gardening.”
He laughed. “Aren’t they responsible for the upsurge in everything! They’re the ones who are going out and buying koi, and now there are koi clubs all over the country, did you know that?”
“I’ll have to tell my neighbors. They worry so much about their fish that they could use a fish support group. They have a pond in the yard across the street and I’m currently the caretaker.” An idea was forming: A segment on koi would be perfect for her cohost, John, to handle. “I wish we could do something on this for the program we’re taping tomorrow, but it’s probably too late. We’d need a fishpond handy.”
He looked at her intently. “That’s absolutely doable: There’s a koi pond in the courtyard at the Hilton; I’m sure we could persuade the hotel to cooperate. I could give you a nice interview on how to take care of the fish, what to do if they get sick, and when to consult a vet specialist, who can perform
operations to fix lacerations and torn fins. We would need to arrange with the hotel to let me feed the fish. They’re absolutely spectacular when they all concentrate in a little feeding frenzy.”
Louise thought quickly. After she pumped Whitson as much as she could on the subject of koi, she had to get through to Marty Corbin so he in turn could alert John Batchelder. Somehow, she knew John would love the topic. “How many koi doctors are there, Gil?”
“That’s the trouble,” he said, his eyes shining with sincerity. “There are not enough koi experts for the number of koi around. Sort of like the shortage of physicians in America.” He grinned good-naturedly, and she couldn’t help smiling back at him.
They arranged a meeting time for the next day, and then Gil left. She was kind of sorry to see him go, because she had an inkling that this evening might prove difficult.
T
HE COUNTRY APPEARS TO BE
awash in water gardens. One reason is the serene attraction of flowers floating on water. Another is the good-natured, colorful fish, the koi, that have swum into the hearts of fish fanciers and weekend gardeners alike.
The intriguing nature of these aristocrats of the carp family, the most popular of which are patterned in red, white, and black, has led to a burgeoning of water gardens, to say nothing of koi clubs, koi competitions, and even a national koi convention. One koi fancier carts her fish about in a specially made “koimobile.”
These fish are long-lived: the grandpa of them is said to have died at the age of 215 years in Japan in the 1970s.
For the laid-back gardener, even a simple water garden may seem like more work, and it is: a big step up from the bog garden, for instance, in cleaning and maintenance. But there are many who are willing to make the trade-off. They will dig, line the hole with PVC or a formed pool liner, install filters, and spend large amounts of money buying magnificent water lilies, lotus, iris, and other support flowers to sprawl about on the watery surface.
Adding fish, and especially koi, expands the responsibilities many-fold, for suddenly we must take care of those exquisite swimming creatures, who engage us much like children. They clamor toward us in a stunning display of bright color at the sound of our whistle or the clap of our hands. They will look at us with beguiling eye movements. Then they will gently suck our fingers as we feed them at pool-side, and who else will do that, except certain political consultants?
Since koi have no stomachs, they must be fed frequently, at least twice a day (except in winter), with pellets and live food, such as earthworms. And the pool
itself requires daily maintenance and testing, for all is balance in the fishpond.
Water flower fanciers find that flowers must take second place to the koi. They are rooting fish, and like nothing better than to nose about in plant dirt. Some say that if baby koi are put straight into a pool with plants, they will get used to their presence and leave them alone. Others recommend elaborate underground chimney netting systems to protect the plants. Fortunately, the water lily is one variety with which koi can live in peace. To avoid problems, some clever pool designers simply place a bog garden near the koi pond in order to have plants nearby but out of harm’s way.
Clean water is essential to healthy koi, affecting not only the fish’s health but also its color. Those brilliant swirls and spots of red and black on white can fade and lose their sheen unless given the best conditions. It helps to have the finest biological filtration system, and it doesn’t hurt to be an engineer or a chemist. (An editor of KOI USA, the magazine of the Associated Koi Clubs of America, owner of two dozen koi, was teased about her real motives when it was learned she was marrying a water engineer.) The basic problem is to remove the voluminous wastes of these robust-sized fish without clogging the filter system. As far as the
method chosen, one koi fancier declared it is a choice between paying capital costs at the outset or paying maintenance costs later on. Improvising can lead to problems. Hobbyists should be aware of simple basics such as the gallonage of their pool, for adding too much of anything to the water can endanger the fish’s very existence.
Koi can cost big money, ranging from a few dollars for a small fish without a pedigree, to many thousands of dollars for a fine specimen from Japan. The winner of the all-Japan show will command six figures. The Japanese started this fish craze by breeding these carp back in the 1700s, but did not export them until after World War II. The fish have many names, with Kohako, Sanke, and Showa the most popular breeds. In Japan, koi competitions create a frenzy of interest, and it is no different in the U.S., and particularly California. Unfortunately, as in all competitions, contestants can bicker over the judging, proving koi owners are no different from Little League parents. As one hobbyist said, koi retailers and breeders aren’t the best judges, because they have a natural bias: the best judge, in his opinion, is the hobbyist.
People who get involved in raising koi soon learn to become amateur vets, because
these fish can succumb to a list of diseases that fills thirteen pages in an eight-point-type koi handbook. There is more literature coming out every day in veterinary medicine journals about operating on injured fins and lacerations in the fish’s side. Many hobbyists learn to treat their own fish. Often, antibiotics are put in the water, but sometimes the fish is injected, and bigger fish undergo operations while anaesthetized. This is done by a vet or a trained koi “doctor,” whose numbers are increasing, since all vets don’t choose to toy with koi.
Breeding is another challenge. One seasoned hobbyist said, “Just don’t do it.” Fish sex is not fun for the female koi, as the males tend to bang her against the side of the pool to flog the eggs out of her body. (Could this be a payback because female koi invariably win at koi shows, being rounder and fuller?) One owner had his lovely lady koi jolted clear out of the pool. The 100,000 or more eggs laid, and the males’ chemical reactions to them, create enormous changes in pool chemistry. That’s why those who do breed koi often use separate holding pools. Next comes the job of culling the thousands of koi fry, mainly for color. This is done periodically until specimens with good color potential remain; however,
those full, vibrant colors do not emerge for a while, some at six inches, some not until twenty inches, which is why koi can be so expensive.
And then there are the heron: they love to eat koi, and are a major threat. Keeping them out of pools is an engineering feat. Many a koi pond in California, especially, will be tented permanently with net, with multiple pools in one California yard making it look like the ingenious roof of Denver International Airport.
Once you read up on the responsibilities of raising this fish, your choice might be different: even a water garden with a twenty-foot waterfall may look easier! And some pools are no trouble at all, not even requiring a filter if kept in proper balance with oxygenating plants and an appropriate number of fish. There are other splendid fish besides koi, such as the golden orfe, a pretty, smaller variety that always swims with its buddies in schools, likes to leap in the air for the sheer fun of it, and lives more sedately with water plants. They, too, will come when they’re called and eat out of your hand.
This is, provided that you haven’t already fallen in love with koi.
