The Scarlet Pepper (30 page)

At the same time, the garden couldn’t be too close to the fence, where someone could potentially tamper with the food the President might consume. After a lengthy back-and-forth, we had finally come to an agreement. The garden would be placed at the bottom of the South Lawn in a niche that protected it from the damaging winds that Marine One stirred up during landings and takeoffs.

It was a location that gave tourists the opportunity to stand outside the iron fence at the edge of the Ellipse and see—but not tamper with—the garden for themselves. So even though the garden’s location wasn’t my first choice, I admit that it was the best choice.

I hoped the outcome of this clash…er…discussion would be just as advantageous and that Frank would be sent to jail.

“I don’t want to alarm anyone,” I said, trying to remain calm myself. “The tomatoes and—”

Thatch held up his hand. “Jack,” he said, his tone sharp, impatient. He wouldn’t even look at me. “The situation?”

Jack’s version took much less time than mine to tell.

William Bryce, who’d listened with much more interest than his CAT counterpart, nodded gravely. “This is a problem. Surveillance should have picked up and alerted our men on the ground to any suspicious activity.”

“But you can go back and check the tapes and review
what happened, right?” I asked. They’d catch Frank red-handed. “You can see who did this, can’t you?”

“We haven’t used
tapes
in decades. But, yes, we can review what happened in the garden. You say the trouble occurred sometime between yesterday evening and early this morning?”

I nodded and gave him the exact time frame along with the time frames for the other two times the garden had been damaged, which Bryce jotted down in a small notebook he’d produced from his jacket pocket.

“You did the right thing calling us, Ms. Calhoun. It’s imperative we act before anyone gets hurt,” Bryce said. “God only knows the dangers those things might present.”

“They’re pepper plants, not a group of marauding protesters,” I said.

The bright red chili peppers bounced as a warm summer breeze pushed through the garden, rattling the leaves around us. The plants were leggy. Their narrow stems looked too weak to hold the peppers’ weight. And the leaves were a pale green. That tended to happen to plants grown inside without enough natural light. Not only would they easily break in a storm, they’d be susceptible to pests and disease.

“I’m going to pull out the peppers and the cabbage,” I told them. “Do you need them for evidence, or would it be okay to dump them in the compost bin? I also need to replace the missing tomatoes. I think I have enough seedlings back at the greenhouse. There’s nothing I can do about the spinach. I don’t know what we’re going to do about this afternoon. The chefs were planning on including it in the salads the kids were going to make for lunch. This is a disaster.”

“Yes. Yes,” Thatch said irritably. “We understand the situation, Miss Calhoun. Plants are missing.”

“Please save the specimens you remove. We’ll want to analyze them,” Bryce said. His gaze narrowed as he surveyed what was left of the First Lady’s kitchen garden. “All of the remaining plants will have to be ripped out as well.”

“What! All of them? The First Lady is counting on me. I can’t let her down.”

“We don’t know what else was done to the garden,” Bryce pointed out. “Is this a prank or something more sinister? If we let you go ahead with the harvest, you’ll be putting the schoolchildren, the First Lady, and anyone else who might eat the food harvested from here in danger.”

I didn’t want that, but to pull out all the plants on the off chance that there might be something wrong with them? No, I couldn’t do it. I
wouldn’t
do it. I paced the length of the garden, desperate for a solution.

Jack frowned as he watched me. “With all due respect—” he started to say, but stopped when Frank Lispon hurried over.

“Will, I couldn’t help but overhear. What’s this nonsense about canceling the harvest?” Frank flashed me a don’t-worry-about-it smile.

For a killer, Frank was damn good at hiding his guilt.

He thumped Bryce’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you, by the way.” They looked like two old college buddies meeting up after years apart. They clearly had a history together, but also wariness, as if Bryce didn’t quite trust the press secretary.

Of course there’d be wariness. Bryce and the members of the Secret Service like him had made a career working at the White House, while Frank Lispon served the President and would leave at the end of this administration’s term.

Yet, those same members of the Secret Service who had weathered many changes in administrations could find themselves demoted and assigned to a turkey farm—a type of career-killing move where the work assignments completely dried up—or worse, fired, if the current President was unhappy with their service.

“I’m sure if we all put our minds together, we can come up with a solution that won’t embarrass either the First Lady or the President. No one here wants that,” Frank said.

“Of course not,” Bryce agreed, “but—”

“I understand there’s a problem with the plants. Some joker changed a few things around,” Frank pressed on as I watched in amazement. If he’d damaged the garden in an attempt to destroy my reputation and career, why was he helping out now?

Could I have misunderstood what I’d overheard two days before about how he was going to “handle” me like he’d “handled” Parker? But what about the following morning and what I saw transpire between him and Annie? And why would he readily admit to wrongdoing if he was innocent?

Frank flashed a smile that showed off his white teeth. Both Bryce and Thatch seemed to shrink back a bit.

“Why don’t you review the security feed and let us know exactly which plants we need to avoid?” Frank said. “We’ll steer clear of those during this afternoon’s harvest. Everyone will be safe, and the First Lady won’t be embarrassed by the Secret Service’s obvious breakdown in security.”

“Now, see here—” Thatch protested.

“I’m not placing blame,” Frank continued smoothly. “Mistakes happen. Even breaches in security, I suppose. The Secret Service can’t be expected to be everywhere at all times. There’s bound to be occasional mistakes. It’s our job to make sure those mistakes don’t interfere with the activities of the First Family.”

Thatch opened his mouth and then closed it again.

“Hell,” Bryce said.

“Well?” Frank asked, his brows raised. “What would you like me to tell the President about this breach in security?”

“Tell him that I’ll see what we can do,” Bryce said.

“We don’t have to cancel?” I asked, not ready to believe it.

“No, damn it, you won’t have to cancel.” Bryce bent down and ripped a pepper plant out by its roots. “I’ll rush a random testing of the harvest through our lab. We’ll call in off-duty agents to help with the investigation. This’ll be
cleared up before the kids arrive. No one gets poisoned on my watch.”

He looked straight at me. “Give us an hour to do what we need to do in the garden and we’ll start checking the surveillance feed from last night. After that, you can do whatever you want in here. In the meantime, stay out of trouble.”

“
D
ON’T
worry.” Isn’t it odd that those two words when put together always seem to have the opposite effect?

I crossed my arms over my chest. Not only did I not trust those two words, I also didn’t trust the mouth that had formed them. “I’m serious, Casey,” Frank continued, his smile as easygoing as ever. “You can handle this. There’s no reason for you to worry.”

I had just returned from the White House greenhouse facility and had climbed out of the grounds crew’s nondescript white van filled with replacement vegetable plants when Frank had grabbed my arm and pulled me aside. Gordon and Lorenzo had nodded in my direction and started directing unloading the van.

“Let me help there, lads.” Gillis, who must have just arrived and was dressed in his flowered kilt as if he were ready to tape his show, rolled up his sleeves and grabbed a tray of plants. I didn’t have a chance to say two words to the celebrity gardener. Frank had already dragged me several yards away.

“If you don’t get your hands off me, I’ll scream,” I warned Frank.

Although there was little he could do on White House property, I wasn’t about to take chances with my life. Despite what Jack thought, I liked my life and intended to keep on living it. “I mean it. I’ll scream loud enough to scare the snipers on the roof.”

Frank released my arm so quickly his movements looked like a blur. “I know you and I don’t see things eye to eye right now, Casey. I know you don’t approve of…what I’ve done, but I need your cooperation. Margaret needs you.”

“Margaret, the First Lady?” I asked with great care. Was she involved in this?

Perhaps if I played along with him, I could catch him making a mistake. One slipup. That was all it would take for me to prove Frank had a hand in Parker’s and Matthews’s murders.

“This afternoon, after the schoolchildren have harvested the vegetables and are working with the chefs to prepare the lunch, I’ve scheduled a small Q&A session with the press. I want you to be the one to answer the questions.”

Okay, I thought, here it comes. The hammer was about to fall.

“Me? I shouldn’t be the one talking to the press. I’m an assistant. The First Lady has always been the spokeswoman for the garden. It’s her garden. And if she isn’t available, Gordon should take the lead. He’s the head gardener.”

“True.” Even though no one was close enough to us to overhear our conversation, Frank lowered his voice. “This has to do with Griffon Parker’s death.”

I knew it! I simply didn’t realize Frank would admit to it so readily.

I leaned forward slightly and whispered, “Go on.”

“As you know, Parker left
your
name in his notebook, not the First Lady’s, not Gordon Sims’s. Your name. I’m sure you’re well aware of the rumors making their way
across the Internet, the ones insisting the garden is a fake—an elaborately staged fake. Those rumors are now connected to you and your organic gardening program. Add to that, this morning the latest issue of
Organic World
came out, and it claims there’s lead contamination in the soil, and it also names you.”

“But none of that is true. The East Wing already issued a statement correcting the
Organic World
article. I wrote that statement last night when I was sitting in the hospital waiting room. And it’s true the garden might not be exactly like a home gardener’s. The White House has a horticultural staff along with an endless supply of off-site experts and volunteers available to answer questions and lend a helping hand. But the organic practices we’ve implemented are simple and can be used in any backyard.”

“Great. That’s what I want you to explain at the Q&A.”

“But why me?” I asked. “Why do I have to be the one to talk to the reporters?”

“It’s your blood the journalists want to taste.”

“And you’re only too glad to hand me over to them? Is that it? Is that the reason you destroyed the First Lady’s garden? To chum the water?”

“What? You think that I—” Frank shook his head. “Why would I want to hurt Margaret or John? That garden is Margaret’s sanctuary, her quiet spot away from the rumors, partisan wars, and budding scandals. I would never take it away from her.”

He sounded so convincing. He’d also sounded convincing two days ago in his office. “I heard you tell Bruce Dearing that you’d handle me like you handled Griffon Parker and that you’d do it by today. And what do I find this morning? The garden in shambles.”

“You thought I was talking about hurting you? I was talking about the negative news reports popping up all over the Internet. I’m all about the message, the image this administration presents, and the positive message that we convey.” With a violent swing of his arm, he thrust his pointed finger toward the garden. “That’s not the message I would ever
want to send out. Ever. Parker’s death caused more trouble for me than it could have ever solved. I could handle one pain-in-the-ass reporter. His death has caused every damn reporter in the press room to act like him and go all ‘investigative’ on me. The wild garden rumors are just one fire in a forest of fires that I’m battling. If I lose control over this one, the reporters will only be more rabid when it comes to the next big problem to hit. So I ask you, Casey, are you a team player? Are you willing to help get Margaret’s harvest back on message?”

What could I say to that? “Of course I’ll do what I can to help the First Lady.”

“I’ll be right next to you. If you stumble on a question I’ll jump right in. This is how the game is played. This is how we win back control of the message.” He patted my arm. “Trust me.”

Trust him?

That was too big a leap for me to take. “I’ll answer the reporters’ questions.” But I sure as hell wasn’t going to trust Frank to have my back. I started to walk away, but Frank called me back.