Oak and Dagger

by Dorothy St. James

  When we reached the other volunteers, I started to pass out paper envelopes and pencils to the five ladies. “Today, we’re going to gather seeds from the bolted lettuce, broccoli, and spinach, but not the radishes. We’re going to plant a couple of different varieties of radishes next year. This one didn’t perform as well as I would have liked,” I said and gave instructions on how to harvest the seeds and mark the date and variety on the envelope.

  On Thursday, which was tomorrow, the grounds crew was scheduled to pull out the fall crops and prepare the soil for the winter garden. That’s right, even in D.C., where snow falls every year, we were going to attempt a winter garden. It was Gordon’s idea. His buddies from the United States Department of Agriculture were coming to assist in installing hoop houses for the winter garden on Friday, the same day Gordon was going to be charged with murder . . . if you believed the rumors.

  Which meant I was running out of time.

  After I finished answering questions and handing out the gardening tools and gloves, I maneuvered over to where Pearle and Mable were collecting seed pods from the tennis ball lettuce. The lettuce was an heirloom variety that had been one of Thomas Jefferson’s favorites. As I helped collect seeds, my gaze traveled to the stand of hardwood trees that lined the northern border of the kitchen garden. The trees acted as a buffer to the Children’s Garden and weren’t many yards away from where Frida was killed. Had someone walked through this garden, past the bolting broccoli, on their way to murder Frida?

  “Helloo!” a high-pitched voice carried across the lawn.

  “Oh dear, not her.” Pearle pulled her straw hat lower on her head.

  “I like her,” Mable said. She rose from the lettuce plot, pulled off her gloves, and smoothed out her velour track suit. “She has a sense of humor.”

  “Since when do you think desperate is funny?” Pearle asked. “Poor Margaret, she’s got her hands full already with her newborn twins. She doesn’t need another baby to nurse.”

  “I thought Lettie was here to help her sister with the twins,” I said. Not that I’d seen much evidence that Lettie was spending any time with her sister and nephews.

  Both Mable and Pearle shook their heads. “From what I’ve heard, she lost her job and her husband in the same week. That’s why she’s here.”

  “There has to be a reason why her life collapsed all at once, a trigger,” I said. And if that was the case, why would a woman whose life was in shambles be so interested in Frida’s work in the bowels of the White House? Unless . . . unless she’d heard about a missing treasure and had a desperate reason to get her hands on it.

  “I hear she drinks,” Mable said.

  “The Secret Service can’t keep up with her,” Pearle said as she snipped off the tops of the bolted lettuce. Her hands moved with the steady grace that could have only been developed through years of experience in the garden.

  “That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Mable said with a twinkle in her eye. “And she’s not afraid to say what she thinks.”

  “That would be fine if she had a thought in that bubble she calls a head,” Pearle replied.

  I shushed them both as Lettie Shaw half stumbled, half trotted down the hill toward the garden. “Good morning, Cathy,” she called.

  “It’s Casey,” I corrected.

  “Bubblehead,” Pearle murmured.

  “Margaret told me that the volunteers come on Wednesdays. She suggested I lend a helping hand. She just loves this garden. When she’s not talking about her twins, she’s going on and on about the garden and what to plant in it next. So”—she set her hands on her hips—“what are we doing today?”

  She grimaced as I explained to her how we were collecting seeds from select plants in the garden. “Wouldn’t it be easier to buy fresh seeds and seedlings next year?”

  Lorenzo had asked me the same question about a month ago. Even though I knew he was just giving me a hard time about my organic program, I’d given him the same answer I gave Lettie now. “There are many good reasons to save seeds. Perhaps the best reason for the White House, besides setting a good example, is that we can harvest seeds from the plants that thrived in this specific location. We’ll then propagate those seeds next year. At the end of the season, we’ll save the seeds from those plants. Over time, we will be planting seeds that are best suited for this location. Your sister has also requested that I collect seeds so she can include White House seed packets in the gift baskets she gives out to visiting dignitaries.”

  “Gifts, yes. Good idea,” Lettie said as if she hadn’t listened to a word I’d said. I’m not sure she had. Her gaze had been locked on the back of the Children’s Garden the entire time. “Yes. I’d like to help.”

  “I, too, would wish to assist in this,” Marcel said as he trotted down the hill to join us. He was dressed in gray trousers, a white shirt, and a bulky dark red winter jacket.

  “Of course,” I said. What else could I have said? Members of the administration and the staff were encouraged to spend time working in the kitchen garden. The chefs and kitchen staff were the most active. Even the President’s press secretary, who had grown up in New York City and had absolutely no idea what he was doing, had spent several hours pulling out newly planted peas in the spring and newly planted carrots in the fall. He had mistaken them for weeds.

  Pulling weeds was a good stress reliever for a staff that was constantly under tremendous pressure to perform. Knowing that, I tried not to complain too loudly when the staff mistakenly pulled out the plants and left the weeds.

  I welcomed all willing hands, even Lettie’s and Marcel’s, into the gardens on Wednesdays. After showing the two of them the plants we were harvesting seeds from, I gave them a pile of envelopes and turned them loose.

  After about an hour, most of the volunteers had completed their work, while I’d managed to plug the holes Milo had dug. In the same hour, neither Marcel nor Lettie had filled any seed packets. Marcel seemed enamored of the color of the soil. He’d spent the entire time wandering aimlessly through the garden, randomly pushing his hands in the dirt. He lifted a handful up to the light as he murmured to himself, probably contemplating rug or drapery colors.

  Lettie, on the other hand, had wandered over to the edge of the kitchen garden. She was standing under a cluster of oaks and little-leaf lindens that created one of the many visual barriers for the Children’s Garden. She seemed keenly interested in one particular area. She kept looking back at the rest of us, as if gauging if she was being watched.

  She was being watched. I made sure of it.

  I hadn’t forgotten the curious phone call I’d overheard shortly before Frida’s murder. It had sounded as if Lettie was in trouble and in need of quick cash. I wondered if her loss of fortune caused her to lose her job and her husband. Or was it the other way around? Had she lost her job and her husband and now, as a consequence, found herself strapped for cash?

  She’d said to whoever had been on the other end of that mysterious call that she had a plan to get it, whatever “it” was.

  While Nadeem was still my number one suspect—a retired trained assassin with an obvious interest in hidden treasures, plus he’d lied to me about leaving the gardens before Frida had entered the Children’s Garden—I couldn’t discount that Lettie had been working with Frida at the time the Dolley Madison research had gone missing. If Frida was as anxious to shoot up the social ladder as Pearle and Mable had claimed, I would imagine Frida would have been more open with her special files with the First Lady’s sister than she’d have been with her brand-new assistant.

  And if Lettie’s reason to go searching for a missing treasure was so strong that she’d kill for it, wouldn’t she also want to cover her tracks? What better way to cover those tracks than to “play sleuth” and discover “evidence” that made Gordon look as if he wanted Frida dead?

  I stood with my hands on my hips, making doubly sure I didn’t allow Lettie out of my sight as she poked around in the bushes. When she
disappeared from view, I followed her.

  I took the path that led through the canopy of trees and connected the kitchen garden with the nearby grounds shed. And as I’d suspected all along, in a wheelbarrow that had been left out in the weather were the missing branches from the Children’s Garden.

  This was it! Proof that Gordon had left the Children’s Garden through one of the gaps in the fencing. Proof that anyone else could have entered the garden the same way.

  I quickly typed a text to Manny, Thatch, and Jack, telling them what I’d found and where I’d found it. I also included pictures of the branches stacked up in the wheelbarrow.

  “What are you doing?” Lorenzo shouted. I jumped. Lorenzo was dressed more casually than usual. He wasn’t wearing a suit coat. His dress shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. And he wasn’t wearing a tie. He also had dark circles under his eyes as if he’d worked through the night.

  “Look!” I pointed to the wheelbarrow. “The missing branches!”

  “Took you long enough to go looking for those things,” he grumbled.

  “I kept getting distracted with other things, like, oh I don’t know, Lettie and her efforts to prove Gordon’s guilt. I’m sending pictures of them to Manny. If that doesn’t convince him that Gordon didn’t kill Frida, I don’t know what will.”

  “This will.” He thrust a file folder into my hands.

  I looked up at Lettie. She was still in the same place. Good. Then I looked down at the folder in my hands. My brows creased as I read what was inside. “I don’t understand. This is a spreadsheet.”

  “It’s not just a spreadsheet. It’s a listing of the files that are in the grounds office’s filing cabinets.”

  “Is the missing South Lawn schematic on the list?”

  “The missing . . . Why are you still harping about that stupid schematic? You misplaced it. Finding it won’t help Gordon.”

  I didn’t agree. I had a feeling that it was as connected to Frida’s murder as the stolen Dolley Madison research. “Well?” I asked as I scanned the spreadsheet.

  “The schematic’s on the list,” he said grudgingly.

  “I knew it!” I clapped my hands.

  “But that doesn’t mean you didn’t lose it.”

  “I didn’t lose it. The schematic was stolen just like—”

  “Focus, Casey.” Lorenzo snapped his fingers in front of my nose. “I’m not working long hours trying to cover your mistakes. This is about Gordon and keeping him from going straight from the hospital to jail.”

  “I’m focused on Gordon, too. Don’t you see the connection? The murderer stole both the Dolley Madison research papers and the schematic. He’s using the schematic like a treasure map to help him look for the missing treasure.”

  “I suppose that could be one explanation. But look here.” Lorenzo had highlighted an entry near the bottom of the spreadsheet. I read it. Startled, I read it again.

  “I don’t understand. Why are Frida’s research files listed on the grounds office’s inventory?”

  “It happened this past summer,” Lorenzo said with a sigh as if I should have already known. “Assistant Usher Wilson Fisher digitized many of the files and recorded everything else.”

  “This is what he was doing? He nearly drove me out of my mind with requests for this and that. But if he recorded that the Dolley Madison folder was in Gordon’s office, how did Frida get her hands on it?”

  “I doubt she did. This is the government, Casey. Anytime someone touches a piece of paper, it duplicates itself. See here. There’s an asterisk and a number after the description.”

  “So?”

  “So the asterisk denotes that the pages are all copies. The number notes the office where the originals are kept.”

  “Oh! So what Lettie handed over to the police was a copy, which explains why Frida’s notes were missing from the folder. The original is—don’t tell me—in the curator’s office. Thank goodness for Fisher and his love of paperwork. This proves Gordon didn’t take Frida’s folder.”

  Lorenzo smiled proudly as he tapped the highlighted line in the spreadsheet. “This spreadsheet proves the folder Lettie found yesterday has been in that drawer since at least this past summer.”

  “Unfortunately, we still need to find out what happened to Frida’s copy of Dolley Madison’s garden notes and letters. I bet someone desperate to find the treasure took Frida’s notes.” I chewed the inside of my cheek as I thought about it a little longer. “Someone in desperate need of money.”

  Lettie was in need of money. Desperately.

  I looked back at the thick stand of trees that separated the kitchen garden from the Children’s Garden, where the First Lady’s sister had been poking around. She was gone.

  That’s when I made a decision.

  “If we’re going to find out who killed Frida, we’re going to have to find that treasure.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  I live a very dull life here . . . indeed I think I am more like a state prisoner than anything else.

  —MARTHA WASHINGTON, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES (1789–1797)

  CRASH.

  Lorenzo and I exchanged glances.

  After completing everything we’d needed to do in the gardens, and seeing the volunteers on their way, we’d gathered around Lorenzo’s drafting table and started work on a master list of everything we’d learned so far. We knew about the well-hidden gap in the Children’s Garden fencing and the location of the branches. We knew Gordon had a copy of Frida’s research, which proved he had no reason to steal her copy. And we knew who else had been in the gardens at the time of Frida’s murder.

  Despite knowing all that, we couldn’t figure out what Lettie had been doing in the gardens this morning. When we’d looked for her, she wasn’t in the kitchen garden or the Children’s Garden. We later learned she’d left the White House to meet a friend. Nor did we have any idea of how to hunt for a treasure that had been lost for nearly two hundred years.

  “I still think the missing schematic is being used as a treasure map,” I said as I added it to our list of stray bits of evidence that still needed to be sorted.

  “You’re just trying to cover your—” Lorenzo started to say as he struck through what I’d just written.

  Smash.

  “What in the world is going on out there?” I asked, rising.

  I hurried down the basement hallway, through a set of double doors, and out onto the East Courtyard. In the sunken area between the North Portico and the White House residence, another series of crashes tore through the space. Lorenzo lagged behind, peeking around my shoulder as if he was using my body as a shield.

  Ambrose Jones, the efficient and utterly proper chief usher who presided over the entire White House staff, tossed a White House plate at the wall. It exploded into several hundred pieces. He picked up another plate. I recognized it as one of Ulysses Grant’s official china platters with a beautiful hand-painted flowering hosta decorating the center. Ambrose didn’t even look down at it before he gave the work of art a toss.

  “Wait! What are you doing? What’s going on?” I cried with no small measure of alarm. Had the pressure of his job finally made Ambrose snap? And why was no one stopping him from destroying the historic plates with immeasurable value?

  “They’re chipped,” he said. “Unusable.”

  “But—but they’re priceless!” I rushed over and saved a delicate dessert plate from his hand.

  “Not anymore,” Lorenzo said. He snatched the dessert plate away from me and handed it back to Ambrose. “To keep chipped presidential china from becoming collectibles or sold on online auction sites like eBay, any piece of china that is no longer usable is destroyed. Smashed,” he explained.

  “The kitchen staff saves up the cracked and chipped bowls, cups, and plates. When someone needs to work off a little stress, the retired china is taken outside and rendered completely unsalable,” Ambrose added.

  I’d heard of the plate smashing,
but even now had trouble picturing a man as proper and, well, as uptight as Ambrose taking part in the tradition.

  “Have you heard the latest?” Ambrose asked as he weighed the elegant green and white dessert plate from Truman’s china collection in his hand. “The police are on a witch hunt. It doesn’t even seem like they’re looking at alternatives. Gordon could never.” He threw the plate at the wall with a surprising burst of anger. “Would never.” He bent down and picked up a bowl with a large chip on the rim out of the plastic storage container beside him.

  “We know,” Lorenzo said, gritting his teeth.

  Ambrose handed him the bowl.

  Lorenzo gave it a toss. The fine china hit the stone wall with a satisfying shatter. “Thank you. That helped.”

  Ambrose nodded gravely. “I wish we could do more than toss the china at a wall.”

  “What did you think about the ongoing tensions between Frida and Gordon?” I asked. “You don’t think Frida could have pushed him over the edge?”

  Ambrose didn’t have to think about my question before answering, “If that were the case, he would have killed her years ago. She’d given him ample reason to stop turning the other cheek, but he never did. He put his job before his ego. Anyone who doesn’t know that doesn’t know Gordon,” he said as he smashed another plate against the wall.

  “We have new information that might help Gordon—Lorenzo discovered it—but we haven’t been able to talk to Detective Hernandez.” Manny even ignored the calls that Lorenzo had placed to him. “He’s clearly avoiding us.”

  Ambrose lowered the plate he was about to toss. His dark brown eyes widened. “You have information?”

  I nodded. “It won’t clear Gordon, but it should undo some of the damage that’s been done so far. He didn’t steal Frida’s files.”

  “Hurry, then! The detective is meeting with the First Lady in her third-floor office, but he won’t be there for long.”

  • • •

  “This isn’t going to work.” Lorenzo dragged his feet like a petulant child. “The Secret Service won’t just let us walk up to the First Family’s private quarters.”