Flowerbed of State

by Dorothy St. James

  “I was afraid you were going to bring that up,” she said. “You understand that it’s nothing personal against—”

  “According to this article, you’ve withdrawn your sponsorship of the Banking and Finance Stabilization Bill.” I tapped my forefinger to the headline: BANKING REFORM BELLIES UP ON THE HILL.

  “Oh, that article. What about it?” Bless her heart, her usually tight lips gaped just a bit. She glared at me as if she thought I were half a bubble off plumb. “I don’t see—”

  “The text explains that you pulled your support for the bill after the Office of Domestic Finance’s audits came back with no evidence that any of the banks have shuttled more toxic assets into the derivatives market. Now I know how reporters don’t always get their facts straight. So I wanted to make sure that what I’ve read was true.”

  “I still don’t see how—”

  “Please, indulge me a minute,” I said, feeling every inch like my favorite heroine, Miss Marple. “Wasn’t Pauline Bonde a senior policy accountant with the Office of Domestic Finance? And wasn’t she one of the main auditors working on the banking investigation that spurred you to author the Banking and Finance Stabilization Bill in the first place?”

  “Yes. I believe she was. But I was told that her death had nothing to do with her position at the Treasury Department.”

  “I’d been told that as well. But the article claims that the audits were completed and reviewed by not only Treasury officials, but also by the Senate committee.”

  “That’s true.”

  “How do you know that you had all of the reports when Pauline’s laptop was stolen on the day of her murder?”

  Senator Pendergast shook her head. “No one told me that.”

  “She kept her computer in a silver hard-sided briefcase, which the killer took from her.”

  “But I’d been led to believe that we had all of the completed reports. But if what you say is true . . .”

  I rubbed my bruised temple. “I’m sure it’s true. I wonder what was on her laptop. Perhaps there was information on it that someone didn’t want you to see.”

  “I’d been under the impression that Ms. Bonde’s reports had been recovered. I’ll be sure to look into this.”

  “Good. Oh, and Senator, I do hope you’ll give me the chance to explain in further detail the First Lady’s organic gardening plans. I assure you, the reporter who worked on that story didn’t get even half his facts straight.”

  “About that—” the senator started to say.

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” I cut her off. “The President is waiting.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  I rushed back toward the ladies’ room to check my hair. As much as I hated to keep President Bradley waiting any longer than I had already, I didn’t need the added worry that my hair might be sticking up at odd angles. I was nervous enough just trying to guess why the President of the United States wanted to meet with me and not Gordon or Lorenzo.

  Before I made it halfway down the hallway, Jack Turner, the last person I wanted to see, rounded a corner and put himself directly in my path. Since I was still reeling from our earlier confrontation, his sudden appearance upset my generally unshakable balance. That, and the fact that I’d tripped over one of his black combat boots.

  He caught my arms just long enough to steady me.

  “What do you think you are doing?” he demanded.

  I glanced meaningfully at the restroom door down the hall behind him. “I think that would be obvious.”

  “I mean with the senator.”

  “Senator Pendergast? We met the other day and started talking gardening. She’s a plant nut like me. We’re becoming fast friends.”

  “I’m sure the two of you are like sisters.” He paused a beat. “I read the article.”

  My face heated just a bit. “Reporters are notorious for mangling stories.”

  “True. But I’ve never seen one get a quote quite so wrong. ‘The new gardening position at the White House is not only unnecessary, but the organic gardening plan proposed by Cassandra Calhoun is a lavish experiment that will cost hardworking taxpayers money they can ill afford to lose.’ ”

  He’d memorized the article?

  “Doesn’t sound too friendly to me,” Turner said. “So what were you really doing with the senator, Casey? I hope you aren’t pursuing your unauthorized and unwelcomed investigation right here in the West Wing just a few hours after I’d warned you not to do so.”

  “It’s not what you think,” I tried to explain, kicking myself for getting caught in that little white lie about being friendly with the senator. I’d never had much luck with white lies. Now big whoppers, well, that’s another story.

  “Come on now, just admit you couldn’t stop yourself from talking to the senator about the murder.”

  “How do you know what we were talking about? Are you lurking around corners spying on me?”

  “I assure you I do have better things to do than to follow the gardeners around. But I did happen to hear you tell the senator that Pauline’s laptop had been stolen.”

  “I felt she had a right to know that the killer stole a huge chunk of potentially important information, considering how the banking legislation Senator Pendergast had been drafting relied so heavily on what Pauline and her colleagues had gathered.” I handed him the article that I’d retrieved from the recycling bin.

  Turner glanced at it and handed it back to me. “It wasn’t stolen,” he said.

  “What wasn’t?”

  “The reports. Pauline had downloaded all of them to the Treasury’s server the night before her death.”

  “What?” That didn’t make sense. “Then why did the killer steal her computer?”

  “That’s a puzzle for the experts to solve.” He spun me around toward the hallway that led back to my office. “I’m sure you have soils to test, weeds to pull, roses to spray, or whatever it is you do around here.”

  “As a matter of fact,” I said, “the President is waiting for me in the Oval Office. If you’d let go of my arm, I’d like to check my hair before meeting with him.”

  “Of course.” He released me.

  I dashed into the restroom and hastily tucked my hair behind my ears and patted down an errant curl on the top of my head. It was the best I was going to manage without a comb or hairspray.

  My mind kept circling around the stolen laptop that hadn’t been stolen. Did the killer take the case but not the laptop? That didn’t make sense. Or did the killer take the case, hit me with it, and then return it to where he’d left Pauline’s body? That made even less sense.

  Then again, nothing about Pauline’s death made any sense.

  When I emerged from the restroom, I found Turner waiting for me. He was beginning to remind me of a persistent weed. A strong, healthy, and rather handsome weed with a crooked grin. “Ready?” he asked.

  “In addition to the embarrassing searches at the gate, am I now required to have an armed escort everywhere I go?”

  “I’m just making sure you arrive safely at the Oval Office, if that’s really where you’re heading.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “You’re sure about the reports on her laptop?” I asked him as we headed down the hallway again. “Perhaps she found something important at the last minute that she hadn’t had a chance to download.”

  “Let it go, Casey.”

  “But—but there has to be a reason why the laptop was stolen. It had to be because of the audits.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Let the professionals do their jobs.”

  “But I think you’re missing an important point—”

  “As I’ve told you again and again, you’re not part of this investigation. You don’t know what we do and do not know.”

  “But I do know—”

  “Here we are.” He gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze at the door to the President’s outer office. He opened his mouth to say something else, but stopped himself. “Keep out o
f trouble,” he finally said and walked away.

  I turned the brass handle on the mahogany door that led into the secretary’s office, which served as the gateway to the Oval Office. This outer office had a pair of arched glass garden doors that led out to the Rose Garden. From this angle there was a lovely view of the Jackson magnolia and the south side of the White House beyond.

  Inside the cream-colored walls of the office were two large desks. The President’s personal secretary was seated at the desk closest to the door. Seated at the other desk was the President’s personal assistant. Both men were on the phone. Piles of papers, folders, and notebooks crowded the personal assistant’s desk. Bright yellow sticky notes almost completely covered his computer monitor. The secretary’s desk, in contrast, was the picture of organization with a small pile of paperwork in a clearly marked in-box and a slightly larger stack of papers waiting in the matching outbox. I wondered how the two men managed to share the same workspace.

  On top of a filing cabinet near one of the glass doors that led out to the garden sat a television tuned to a twenty-four-hour news station. As I waited for the secretary to finish his call, I took a seat on the office’s leather sofa and watched the news program. After a lighthearted report on a new dog breed, the news turned to the banking summit. A pretty blond-haired reporter frowned as she explained that without Senator Pendergast’s support of the Banking and Finance Stabilization Bill, she doubted any meaningful reforms would come out of the summit, leaving the American public vulnerable to another financial collapse.

  The camera cut away to a shot of Lafayette Square on one side of the screen and a photograph of a smiling and very much alive Pauline on the other.

  “Pauline Bonde, the Treasury Department employee, had been one of the key investigators working tirelessly to assess the health and stability of our largest banks.” The reporter’s voice took a serious tone. “On the day she was to present her reports to the Congress, her life was cut short by a vicious attack. The FBI and D.C. Police are conducting a joint investigation.”

  “We are looking into the matter from all angles,” Special Agent Cooper said to the two dozen or more microphones that had been thrust into his face on the front steps of the austere Hoover Building.

  “What about Brooks Keller?” one of the reporters shouted.

  Brooks Keller?

  I leaned forward.

  One of the banking wonder twins? What about him?

  “We are looking into the matter,” Cooper repeated and pushed several of the microphones away.

  “Questions remain whether Brooks Keller”—the camera returned to the reporter in the studio—“financial wizard and head of—”

  “Ms. Calhoun.” The President’s secretary had circled around from his desk and blocked the TV. “He’s expecting you.”

  Although I had a mind to shush him and push him out of the way so I could listen to the end of the news story, courtesy won out. “Thank you,” I said and stood, craning as far as I could to the left so I could find out why the press was talking about Brooks Keller.

  “—fervently denies the allegation,” the reporter concluded before the program moved on to a new story.

  “This way,” the secretary said. He crossed the room to a door that sat at an odd angle to the rest of the perfectly rectangular room. He leaned up against the slanted door and peered through a peephole. With a nod, he knocked twice before pushing it open.

  “Mr. President, Ms. Cassandra Calhoun has arrived,” he announced, using my full name as he entered the room. He stepped out of the doorway and gestured that I should follow him.

  The Oval Office struck me as surprisingly . . . oval. Light streamed in from a bank of three windows located behind a very presidential-looking desk flanked by the U.S. flag on the left side and the President’s flag on the right. Personally, I’d have turned the desk around so I could look out over the South Lawn when working. But that was just me.

  With a nod, the secretary returned to his office, closing the door behind him. From inside the Oval Office, the door had been designed to disappear into the room’s surrounding walls. There was no doorframe. The bottom half of the door had the same bright white paneled wainscoting as the rest of the room, and the top half of the door had been painted the same cream color as the walls.

  To my left, a glass door between two large windows with scalloped shell lintels led out to the Rose Garden. Directly opposite, an ornate solid door was located between a pair of built-in shelves with scalloped shell lintels that matched the windows. I wondered where the second door led.

  Two sofas the color of butter and several blue-and-cream-striped armchairs created an informal meeting space in the middle of the room. President John Bradley, dressed in his signature dark gray suit with red tie, sat on one of the sofas with his right ankle propped on his left knee. A fluffy golden puppy with one white leg and a white chest wiggled on his lap.

  Across from him sat Richard Templeton. He was dressed more causally than he had been the other day. Instead of a suit, he wore black pants and a dark gray golf shirt with an asymmetric black-and-red argyle pattern running down the right side.

  At my entrance, Richard glanced in my direction and frowned.

  He’d mentioned that he and the President were old friends. However, at the moment neither man looked particularly friendly nor happy, which I found surprising. The little puppy appeared to be doing his best to entertain the men. President Bradley had had to pry his red paisley tie from the pup’s mouth twice already. Puppies and their antics never failed to make me smile.

  “We’ll talk about this more later,” the President said.

  “We certainly will,” Richard replied sharply.

  A look of tension passed between the two men as they rose to greet me.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. President,” I said, my smile widened. The puppy wiggled even more, its tail beating an excited tempo against President Bradley’s chest as it tried to jump down so it could investigate me, the new person in the room.

  “Hello, Richard,” I said. I wanted to say more, to explain why I’d missed our date, but that wouldn’t have been appropriate.

  “Casey,” Richard replied with a quick nod.

  “Ms. Calhoun, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Margaret is looking forward to implementing the organic gardening plans. That’s why I asked to speak with you. You need to understand how important it is that Margaret gets what she wants. Don’t let politics or personal agendas railroad her work. I’m expecting you to smooth the way for her.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll do my best,” I assured him.

  “You will do what it takes to get the job done,” he corrected and flashed his trademark smile.

  During the campaign two years ago the press had discussed ad nauseam President Bradley’s charismatic personality. It was a trait that didn’t come through in his speeches on TV. Sure, his public appearances were well crafted and delivered with the skill of a trained orator. But I hadn’t understood what had so enamored the press until this moment.

  When the President spoke, it felt as if the air around me hummed with bright energy.

  “I have a suspicion, Ms. Calhoun, you’ll not rest until you win the critics over. I bet you’ll end up breaking new ground at the same time.”

  His vote of confidence ignited a renewed sense of purpose. I drank up his encouraging smile. The President and First Lady were my clients. And my first and foremost duty was to keep my clients happy. “I know just what needs to be done,” I promised him.

  “Good. Good. Ah, here’s Margaret now.”

  The First Lady came through the door on the other side of the room. She looked radiant in a flowing knee-length dress made from a silvery-colored material with a subtle paisley design. She greeted me and then hurried over to the President to kiss him on the cheek. The President, who was clearly in love with his wife, beamed.

  “A puppy, Richard?” She tickled the pup’s fuzzy ear. I detected a hint of
strain in her voice as she addressed her husband’s friend. “You cause us too much trouble.”

  “Every family needs a dog,” Richard insisted, “especially ones with kids.”

  “We’re not talking about that.” President Bradley gave Richard another one of his tense looks.

  “Oh, let’s tell Casey,” the First Lady said. “I think she should know.”

  “Are you sure, Mags?” The President clearly didn’t want his wife to tell me whatever private bit of information they’d shared with Richard.

  “I am, John. Besides, if we wait too long, the newspapers will start to report on how the stress of the office is making me fat. I’m not fat,” Mrs. Bradley turned to tell me. “I’m pregnant. We’re expecting twins.”

  “My word! Congratulations!” Forgetting decorum or that she was the First Lady and not a neighbor back in Charleston, I threw my arms around her in a great big Southern hug. As soon as I realized what I’d done and where I was, I released her and backed off. “That is wonderful news.”

  “After so many years of trying, I’d all but given up.” She gave my hand a squeeze as if we were girlfriends.

  “We don’t plan to go public with the news until next week. I expect you’ll respect our privacy,” the President said.

  “Naturally.” I’d yet to meet a White House employee who wasn’t the model of discretion.

  “Call me a nervous mom-to-be, but I want the White House grounds to be as natural and safe as possible for my little ones when they arrive in the fall. That’s why we brought you here in the first place. I want the organic gardening program to work.” She turned and gazed lovingly at her husband. “And yet, I won’t push the plan if it looks like it’ll hurt John politically.”

  “Honey!” the President cried. “You know you come first.”

  Mrs. Bradley raised her hands in protest. “Still, you don’t need me causing trouble. You’re having a difficult time of it already with these nasty rumors that you’re trying to kill the banking legislation.”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes working behind the scenes to smooth the way,” I offered.