Oak and Dagger

by Dorothy St. James

  “Casey?” he asked. “Is everything okay? Are you okay?”

  He sounded genuinely concerned, which was sweet.

  “I’m fine.” I’d ducked into the Freedom of Espresso Café. The barista waved and started to make my regular mocha cappuccino as I shook off my umbrella. On my way to the checkout, I picked up a bag of organic shade-grown hazelnut blend coffee beans.

  “And Gordon?” Jack asked. “How’s he doing?”

  “No change there.” I paid for my coffee at the counter and took a deep sip. “Actually, I called to ask about Nadeem Barr. Remember him? He’s Frida’s assistant.”

  “I remember.” I could have cut nails with his voice. “He’s your new downstairs neighbor.”

  “Good memory. Alyssa has it in her head that Nadeem is a spy. I know, I know. I already told her she was crazy.”

  Jack remained silent on the other end.

  “But here’s the thing. I might have caught Nadeem with his ear pressed to my back door just now. Well, I didn’t exactly see him at the back door. I saw someone—the back of someone—on the bottom steps that leads to the back door. I don’t know if it was Nadeem, but he went into Nadeem’s apartment. When I knocked, no one answered. If it was him, why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said, his voice still hard. “With everything that happened yesterday, I don’t like it.”

  The “I don’t like him” remained unspoken.

  “I’m not even sure it was Nadeem. The man didn’t seem as tall as Frida’s assistant. But he was wearing a trench coat. Does that mean he’s a spy? Of course it doesn’t. It’s raining.” I took another sip of my coffee. Caffeine zinged through my body like an electric current. “Oh, it’s probably nothing. Forget I said anything. Alyssa is putting weird ideas in my head.”

  “Can’t do that. Not when it comes to your instincts about people, Casey. Not when Frida was murdered yesterday.”

  “I’ve been wrong in the past.”

  “You’ve also been right. Let me see what I can find out about your new neighbor.”

  “Thanks, Jack. You’re a good friend.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Jack? Are you still there?”

  “I hope by now, and after everything we’ve been through, you think of me as more than a friend,” he finally said.

  “Well . . . um . . . um . . . of course you are.” I could feel my cheeks heat with a deep blush.

  “What, no declarations of undying love for me? You wound me, Casey.”

  “I . . . um . . .”

  His deep chuckle made me smile. “You’re blushing, aren’t you?”

  “No, I’m not,” I huffed.

  He went silent again. I felt like a fish dangling on his hook.

  “Okay, I might be blushing . . . a little.”

  “You’re too easy to tease.” His deep, playful voice made my entire body feel all tingly and happy inside. “Drat, I’ve got to go. How about this, I’ll ask you how friendly you want me to be next time we’re kissing?”

  “Or I’ll ask you.”

  “And Casey?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Be careful.”

  • • •

  IN THE WAKE OF FRIDA’S MURDER, THE SECRET Service had tripled security patrols. As I approached the White House, I counted more Secret Service agents and park police officers than tourists. And that was saying something. Despite the persistent rain, crowds lined the iron fence surrounding the White House grounds. Cameras flashed like streaks of lightning.

  Nothing like a murder at a national landmark to lure people off their sofas and into the miserable weather to gawk. Not that there was anything to see from the North Lawn. The Children’s Garden, which had been designed to provide the maximum amount of privacy for the First Family, was located on the other side of the White House on the South Lawn.

  “Vultures, all of them,” a gruff voice growled behind me.

  I spun around to see who had said that and found myself eye to eye with an elderly man dressed in camouflage fatigues and a floppy camouflage hat. He leaned heavily against his cane.

  I knew him in passing only. He was one of the regular protesters who set up day after day in Lafayette Square, the park located directly in front of the White House’s North Lawn. He’d sit in his faded old lawn chair—the kind with the colorful plastic webbing—while holding a sign on his lap that declared: “Everyone deserves a safe workplace.”

  None of the grounds crew knew his name. We all called him “the unfriendly guy,” because unlike many of the regular protestors, who would engage in conversations even if it was just to sell us on what they were railing against, he rarely spoke to anyone.

  I could count the number of times I’d spoken with him on one hand and with most of my fingers folded down.

  “I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised by the crowd. People are curious by nature,” I said to him.

  The unfriendly guy shrugged. “Still, it’s a circus. Of course I haven’t been here as long as Connie.” He nodded to the nuclear weapons protester who had lived outside the White House for years now as she huddled in her tent. Several tourists were hunched down beside her, listening as she spoke with animated gestures. “So what do I know?”

  He placed his timeworn hand on my rain slicker’s sleeve. “I heard what happened. Are you okay?”

  “It’s upsetting,” I admitted, my gaze lingering on where his hand was pressing down on my arm.

  The old man seemed to sense my discomfort. He lifted his hand and backed up a few steps. “I like Gordon. He’s a good man. He’d bring me coffee.”

  “He did?” I didn’t know that.

  The man nodded once, causing the rain that had puddled on the rim of his hat to drip down his nose. “We’d talk sometimes about gardening. I used to garden when I was younger. At my mother’s knee, I tended plants before I learned to walk.”

  “She must have been an amazing lady,” I said, thinking of my own grandmother, who had taught me how to escape my demons by losing myself in the garden.

  “She still is,” he said.

  I handed him my umbrella. “You shouldn’t be out here in this weather. It’s going to be cold and wet all day.”

  “You are too thoughtful.” He held the umbrella over the both of us and walked with me toward the security checkpoint at the northeast gate. His halting gait made it slow going. “I have something here for you,” he said when we reached the gate. He dug around in his large coat pocket. “Here. You’ll see it anyway.” He pushed a soggy newspaper into my hands. “They’ll print the worst kind of gossip to boost their sales. I don’t believe it. Never will believe it.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I dug out a few dollars and handed them to him as well as insisting he keep the umbrella. “Find somewhere warm to go. The tourists will be back tomorrow. They can see your sign then.”

  As I waited in the line to pass through the Secret Service security checkpoint, I unfolded the newspaper the man had handed me. It was the morning edition from the national paper Media Today. The headline printed in an extra large font shouted:

  MURDER AT THE WHITE HOUSE! CHIEF GARDENER MAIN SUSPECT

  Chapter Nine

  Sometimes I feel a little worried as I think of you all alone and this press and annoyance going on but I keep myself outwardly very quiet and calm—but inwardly (sometimes) there is a burning venom and wrath . . .

  —LUCY HAYES, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES (1877–1881)

  I crumpled the newspaper into a tighter and tighter ball until it wasn’t going to get any smaller without altering its molecular structure.

  The article was wrong.

  Wrong.

  Wrong.

  Wrong.

  Gordon was as much a victim in this as Frida.

  How could anyone, especially Detective Hernandez, think otherwise? I’d always considered Manny a smart man. He knew how to read people.

  The newspaper had to be exaggerating. Like the unfriendly guy had sai
d, Media Today was only interested in selling papers. Not the facts.

  It’s not as if this was the first time the media had gotten the story wrong when it came to the grounds office, but this wasn’t a story we could blithely ignore. This story could push Gordon out of a job. And for no good reason. He was not a murderer.

  Manny and the rest of the police investigators would figure that out soon enough. But by that time, the damage may have already been done.

  Since moving to D.C., I’d learned it wasn’t the crime that destroyed a reputation. Just the hint of wrongdoing could sink a career. I needed to do everything in my power to protect Gordon’s good name while he was unable to defend himself.

  Although I could have followed the front drive up to the basement entrance located right under the North Portico and disappeared into the grounds office without passing anyone, I detoured around to the side of the building and entered through the East Wing’s main entrance in order to gauge the White House staff’s reaction to the newspaper’s claptrap.

  The first thing I noticed was that the police had relinquished their makeshift offices back to the First Lady’s staff who worked there. The uniformed Secret Service agent manning the front desk nodded briskly to me and quickly turned his attention back to the security screen in front of him.

  In one day’s time the tone of the White House had gone from bouncing strides and bubbly baby talk to grim silences.

  The few East Wing staff members I passed in the hallway avoided eye contact. I got the distinct feeling they’d all read the news article and were distancing themselves from a department of the White House in profound trouble.

  Worry rumbled deep in my gut.

  Rain beat on the windows lining the length of the East Colonnade like tiny fists. Tiny angry fists. Just yesterday I was on the other side of those windows weeding, pruning, and deadheading flowers in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden and pretending I was the clever Miss Marple listening in on private conversations. Just yesterday, the most pressing concern had been finding the South Lawn’s missing schematic. And the soaking of President Bradley had felt like the worst sort of disaster. How foolish I’d been.

  “You’re late!” Seth Donahue, the First Lady’s social secretary, charged toward me like a silver-haired raging bull.

  Seth had left a lucrative party-planning business that catered exclusively to the rich and famous to work for the First Lady. I suspected he’d been expecting the job to be more glamorous or exciting than it really was. Many of the guests invited to the White House events were rich (but not famous) donors, Washington power players, and common citizens. Very few of the guests would ever merit mentioning on TMZ or Access Hollywood.

  Perhaps a gnawing sense of disappointment kept him in a perpetually bad mood.

  “Is that what you’re wearing?” he said without offering me a good morning or a concerned word about Gordon’s condition or Frida’s death—you know, the kind of polite convention any decent human would follow.

  I looked down at my khaki pants, sensible leather shoes, and colorful ladybug sweater. “What’s wrong with my outfit?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you forgot.”

  “Of course I didn’t forget.” What was he talking about? I scoured my memory for clues and came up with nothing. “What did I forget?”

  “Breakfast with the First Lady. You’re on the schedule to help host this week. The guests are already arriving.”

  “I forgot.”

  “Obviously. Follow me.”

  In an effort to help boost her husband’s favorability ratings, every other Tuesday the First Lady hosted a breakfast for various regional and occasionally national women’s groups. Staff members would act as co-hosts and give a brief presentation to the assembled group about their duties at the White House. Since giving birth to her twins a month ago, Margaret had skipped the breakfasts, relegating hosting duties to the White House staff.

  In light of Frida’s murder yesterday, I was surprised the breakfast hadn’t been canceled. And, I suspected, the questions I’d have to field from the ladies at the breakfast would be . . . difficult.

  “Do I have time to check my messages and drop my backpack in the office?” I asked in an attempt to buy myself some extra time to mentally prepare for the assault.

  “No. I’ll find an usher to take care of your backpack. By the way, the West Wing is anxious to reschedule the tree planting,” Seth said as he hurried down the hallway as if nothing had happened yesterday. “How long will it take to relocate the planting site?”

  “I, um . . .” His question caught me completely off guard when my main focus this morning had been on Gordon and how to help him. “I haven’t thought about—”

  He held up a finger and mouthed, “Wait,” when his cell phone buzzed. Without altering his long-legged stride, he continued up the stairs to the first floor while answering his phone with a brusque, “Go.” After listening for a minute he demanded, “What do you mean she was out all night? We can’t let this happen. First there’s the public anger over the skyrocketing gas prices and now this murder—we’re already at a breaking point. I thought you had a handle on this situation.”

  His gaze narrowed as he listened. “I don’t care. She has to be controlled,” he said. “She will ruin us if—” He grunted as he listened.

  “Yes, I know. Just—” He drew a deep breath. “Just tell me that the press didn’t find her and take pictures.”

  He glared at me as if I was intruding in on his one-sided conversation.

  I smiled back.

  This caused him to lower his voice. “Listen, you keep her behind a locked door if you have to. She will not cause a problem for the First Lady or the President, do you understand me? Well? I can’t—”

  He slammed his phone against his hand and muttered, “I can’t believe he hung up on me,” before jamming the phone into his pocket and turning back to me. “Now then, where was I?”

  “You were talking about the commemorative tree planting.”

  “Right. The West Wing asked me, in Gordon’s absence, to take charge of its planning. As soon as you relocate the planting site, get that information to me for verification. We can’t have any more irrigation lines blowing up.”

  My nails dug into the palms of my hands as I reminded myself Seth was right. The grounds office—namely, me—had royally messed up. I shouldn’t feel as if he was stomping on my toes by stepping up and volunteering to plan the rescheduled event.

  “And the lawn,” he continued. “The grass has been looking shabby lately. Yellow spots. And mole holes. I’m trying to schedule an outside photo shoot of the First Family. I can’t have the lawn looking like that.”

  “It’s not moles. It’s Milo. He’s been busy,” I explained. “But don’t you worry. Lorenzo and I will patch the lawn once it stops raining. Although keeping up with the gardens will be more work without Gordon, it won’t be forever. Gordon will be back.”

  “You really think so?” he asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

  “Yes! He will!” I started to argue that we shouldn’t give up on Gordon just because he was being falsely accused by a newspaper. A newspaper! But we’d reached the East Room.

  Seth took my backpack, wished me luck, and pushed me into the room.

  • • •

  I WASN’T EXACTLY ON MY OWN AT THE BREAK- FAST. Staffers from the East Wing and the West Wing as well as the super-efficient household staff attended to the needs of the women enjoying a gourmet breakfast buffet. And the Secret Service had doubled the number of agents that would be present at such an event.

  The beautifully dressed ladies filling the gilded East Room hailed from various regional garden clubs, which was why I’d been asked to co-host. As I crossed the large room filled with golden chairs and round tables draped in white linens to the crowded buffet table on the far wall, the normal conversations in the room died as all eyes turned toward me.

  Low murmurs filled the space until the room sounde
d eerily like the buzzing of a thick cloud of the annoying no-see-ums that congregate in Charleston’s marshes.

  “That’s her.” “She found the body.” “Do you think it was murder?” “That’s what the news reports say.” “I wonder if it is a conspiracy. A cover-up.” “I read online that the President ordered the curator killed to divert attention away from the skyrocketing gas prices and the plummeting economy.”

  “They’re all idiots,” a voice murmured near my ear. While the lady who’d said it spoke quite loudly, you could tell by her inflection it had been meant as a murmur.

  “Pearle!” I hugged the older woman who had spoken to me. “It’s good to see you.”

  “And it’s good to see you, my dear Casey. Mable? Where did she go?”

  “I’m right here.” Pearle’s dearest friend ambled toward us. Three East Wing staffers followed in her wake carrying plates piled with eggs, bacon, and delicious pastries.

  The elderly Pearle Stone and Mable Bowls were social lionesses who presided over the D.C. area. Political power players served as their royal court. And the two ladies looked like royalty in their stylish fall-colored dresses with short-sleeved sweaters.

  Rumor had it the two of them determined the success or failure of many political careers. Even First Lady Margaret Bradley treated both Pearle and Mable with great care and invited them to the White House often.

  The two old dears were also expert gardeners and generously volunteered their time in the First Lady’s kitchen garden, which was how they knew me.

  “Come.” Mable hooked her arm with mine. “Sit with us.”

  Not more than a few seconds after Pearle and Mable had embraced me, the questioning murmurs faded in the room and were replaced with the rumble of normal conversations again.

  “How is the First Lady faring?” Mable asked once we were seated at a table near the podium in the center of the room.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since the birth of the twins.” I took a bite of a chocolate croissant. I smiled with delight as its rich, dark chocolate flavors teased my senses. “We are all praying for her and her sons.”