Oak and Dagger

by Dorothy St. James

  “You.” Seth rounded on Marcel while I rushed to catch up to Lorenzo. “Monday. Whether the rooms are done or not, you are leaving on Monday. So stop wasting time and get your work done.”

  “Wasting time?” Marcel cried.

  “Monday,” Seth countered.

  “Impossible.” Marcel slashed his hand with an angry swipe through the air. But he seemed to back down almost immediately. “S’il vous plaît, Seth, you cannot expect me to work a miracle. There is still too much to be done.”

  “The sofa shouldn’t be sitting in the damp grass. We shouldn’t be moving the furniture around,” Nadeem groused. But he was only an assistant, a new one at that, and Seth clearly had no plans to listen to him.

  As much as I wanted to hear the end of both of those arguments, I didn’t have time.

  “Lorenzo.” I waved my hands as I closed the distance between us. “Lorenzo.”

  “Casey, did you put him up to this?” Manny asked, his salt-and-pepper mustache quivering.

  “No, I . . .” I furrowed my brows. “Lorenzo, what have you said?”

  “I told him what he needed to hear. I know who killed Frida. It wasn’t Gordon.”

  His loud declaration of knowing the killer’s identity caused Seth and Nadeem to look our way. Marcel continued to oh and ah over the sofa.

  “He didn’t mean it,” I announced to everyone within earshot. “I mean, yes, Gordon is innocent. And I suppose in a way, Manny, I put him up to it.”

  “That’s not true,” Lorenzo protested. He would have said more, but the Palm Room’s double doors swung open at that very moment. Several Secret Service agents, half a dozen East Wing staff members, and the First Lady’s official photographer preceded First Lady Margaret Bradley into the Rose Garden.

  Margaret didn’t notice the commotion going on around the historic sofa in the garden. Her full attention was on the pair of babies I assumed were nestled in the basinet she was carrying.

  Lettie hurried out the door after her sister. She had a baby’s blanket draped over her shoulder and was snapping pictures with a cheap digital camera.

  “You don’t need to do that,” Margaret said.

  “I’m capturing these precious moments,” Lettie said.

  “We have a professional photographer to do that.”

  “It’s not the same thing.” Lettie lifted the camera and snapped pictures of the First Lady crossing the Rose Garden to the antique sofa.

  The First Lady was dressed in a stunning almond-colored dress with a wide sash tied high on her waist. Her sister, in contrast, wore old jeans and the same blouse as yesterday.

  “Lorenzo! Cathy!” Lettie waved when she spotted us, indicating that she wanted us to join her.

  “Casey,” her sister muttered with a note of exasperation.

  “We’re not through here,” Manny warned.

  “Certainly not,” Lorenzo said. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you what’s going on.”

  But Lettie was still waving us over. And the Secret Service agents who had acted as a blockade to the First Family stepped aside to let us enter into their protection zone.

  “Oh! The babies!” I cried with delight and hurried over to meet them.

  Lorenzo, torn between doing what he thought was necessary to help Gordon and his desire to make friends with the First Family, reluctantly followed.

  A pair of red-faced cherubs peered out from a soft blue blanket nest in the basinet. “Hello, Bradley boys.” I wiggled my fingers at them in greeting.

  “Shh . . .” Seth hissed.

  “They’d been crying all morning,” Margaret explained. “They’re so tuckered out I don’t think a marching band would disturb them.”

  “But they’re doing well?” I asked and then puffed out my cheeks and pursed my lips, opening and closing my mouth like a fish might. I was hoping to entertain the babes, but I think they were still too young to get the humor.

  “Oh, yes.” The relief in Margaret’s voice was wonderful to hear. Her face lit up with joy. “The doctors have given my two little sirens a clean bill of health, especially their lungs. That’s one reason why John suggested we take the publicity photos. That, and to head off the controversy with . . .” She trailed off. “Forgive me.” She then quickly corrected herself. “How is Gordon doing?”

  “There’s no change in his condition, which we’re told is a good thing,” Lorenzo said. “But we’re worried about what the police might do to hurt him.”

  “I’m worried, too,” she said.

  “Worried about what?” Lettie asked as she snapped pictures of us.

  “About Gordon,” Margaret said.

  “You don’t have to worry about him. The DA will be pressing murder charges tomorrow. Once that’s out of the way, Lev Aziz will come out of hiding, and everything will work out.”

  “You aren’t supposed to be talking about Aziz,” her sister scolded.

  “Sorry.” Lettie wandered off to take some pictures of Nadeem and Marcel.

  Margaret’s cheeks flared red. “It’s not like that. We’re not trying to rush justice or push a conviction for political gain.”

  She might not be, but I could imagine that some within the administration were doing just that.

  We didn’t get a chance to ask her more about the situation. The photographer was ready to start. The first set of photos was going to be the First Lady with the babies. Later, the President would join them.

  Since we were in the way, the Secret Service directed us back to the colonnade, where Manny was still talking with Thatch.

  “Listen to me,” I whispered in Lorenzo’s ear right before we joined up with Manny again. “Unless you have pictures of Lettie committing the crime, you will lose your job if you accuse the First Lady’s sister. Do you understand me? You will lose your job. And if that happens, I’ll be the one in charge of the gardens.”

  The last part convinced him.

  He straightened.

  “Now, Lorenzo,” Manny said when we returned, “what was it you were saying? You said you had proof? If not Gordon, who killed the curator? And what proof do you have?”

  “I . . . um . . . it wasn’t me. It was Casey,” Lorenzo stam- mered.

  “I figured as much,” Manny said with a nudge to my arm. “You’re a bad influence on the people around you.”

  “I inspire people to seek justice,” I said, and regretted immediately how hokey that sounded.

  “She’s always going off on crazy tangents.” Lorenzo’s voice grew louder. “Just this morning Casey told me that she knows how to find Thomas Jefferson’s lost treasure.”

  Once again everyone, from the photographer to the interior designer, stopped what they were doing to turn and gawk. My cheeks burned with embarrassment. This wasn’t the best way for my plan to unfold. Or the safest.

  But we’d have to make it work.

  Soon, Frida’s killer would hear—if they hadn’t already heard—that someone else had joined them in the race to find Jefferson’s treasure. And, I suspected, that person would feel compelled to act.

  “That’s right,” I said. “I know how to find the treasure.”

  • • •

  “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” Jack burst into the grounds office. “Everyone is talking about how you announced to half the administration that you know how to find Jefferson’s mythical treasure.”

  “I do . . . well, I think I do,” I said.

  “And you made that announcement, why?” Jack asked.

  I glanced at Lorenzo, hoping he’d speak up and take the blame. But what was I thinking? He never took the blame for anything. “I didn’t—” I started to say.

  “It is part of our larger plan,” Lorenzo pointed out. “Find the treasure, find the killer, remember? How will we flush out the killer if no one knows Casey is on the verge of digging up Jefferson’s legacy?”

  “Have the two of you lost your minds?” Jack planted his fists on the drafting table, where I was seated, and leaned dangerously close
to me. So close, I could feel his heat and smell his tangy aftershave. “You’ve put yourself in a very dangerous place, Casey. Do I have to remind you that Frida is dead?”

  “Things didn’t happen exactly like I’d envisioned,” I admitted. If I turned my head, our lips would almost be touching. I resisted the temptation and instead pointed to the schematic on Lorenzo’s drafting table in front of me. “Look here.”

  The schematic was the new one Lorenzo had recently finished re-creating. I’d initially pulled it out to work on relocating the President’s commemorative trees for Seth but had gotten sidetracked by sketching in pencil all the places where Milo had dug.

  “In Dolley Madison’s letter, the one that fell out of Gordon’s archived files, the former First Lady mentioned how the gardener had taken the treasure for safekeeping. And then later, on the article that Nadeem found, Frida had written, ‘It’s still here.’ I think Frida meant the treasure was still on White House grounds.” With my pencil, I drew a circle on the schematic that encompassed everywhere we’d found Milo’s holes.

  “We’ve been busy having to fill in all the holes that Milo has dug in the lawn.”

  “It’s a pretty large area,” Jack noted.

  I nodded, and then drew a tighter circle on the schematic that encompassed the holes Milo had dug after Frida’s death. “See here. It’s a pretty specific area now. I think the killer has been looking for the treasure all along, but didn’t really know where to start until he—or she—got ahold of Frida’s research.”

  Jack leaned over the schematic to study it. “Sounds as if the two of you might be onto something, but—”

  “We need to be smarter than our treasure hunter. So we still need to figure out what this part of the South Lawn was being used for in 1814. Was it a garden? Was it part of Jefferson’s arbor? Or was there a structure here? We need to find a clue that will give us an edge.”

  “I’m going through the archives to see what old plans from that time period show,” Lorenzo said from the other side of the room.

  Jack nodded. “Other than Gordon, I suspect the two of you are the best equipped for puzzling it out. But I’m worried you’ll be making yourselves prime targets. Don’t forget that your treasure thief is also a killer.”

  “Exactly!” I said. “We get that edge, and we’ll force the killer out into the open. We’ll make him—”

  “Or her,” Lorenzo corrected.

  “We’ll force whoever killed Frida into making a mistake,” I finished.

  “I don’t like how that sounds,” Jack said.

  “We’re running out of time,” I reminded him. “The DA is getting pressure from the administration to make a move. That’s why they’re going to press charges tomorrow, isn’t it? Once Gordon is charged, the skittish Lev Aziz will return.”

  “I don’t know why anyone bothers trying to keep secrets around here,” Jack grumbled.

  “You already knew Aziz wouldn’t return until the killer was caught?” I pushed away from the drafting table, away from Jack, and stomped over to my desk. “Of course you knew.” I flipped open the set of Dolley Madison letters Dr. Wadsin had sent over this morning. These were letters from the 1840s. Dolley Madison had been in her eighties at the time. After mounting debt had forced her to sell her property, including her husband’s beloved Montpelier, she moved back to Washington, D.C.

  I doubted the former First Lady would still be thinking about Jefferson’s lost treasure at this point in her life, but copies of these letters were part of the research Nadeem had reported as missing from Frida’s office, so I couldn’t ignore them.

  “I received another death threat from Simone this morning,” I said, hoping to sound as if her threats didn’t bother me. But they did. Not because I was scared of her. But because it seriously ticked me off that Jack hadn’t told me earlier about his crazy ex-girlfriend. What if she had tried to hurt me? He shouldn’t have held back such an important part of his life.

  But then again, I’d been keeping secret the information about my father from him . . . not that he didn’t already know all about my dad. So it really wasn’t the same thing, was it?

  “I know you’re angry with me, Casey, and I’m sorry. But you don’t have to worry about Simone. I spoke with both her parents and Manny this afternoon. She won’t be bothering you again.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and refused to look at him. No wonder jealousy was one of the deadly sins. Just thinking about beautiful, model-thin Simone kissing Jack made my insides burn as if they were on fire.

  “You’d better watch out, Jack-o,” Lorenzo said. “If Casey ever ends up in the same room as Simone, you’re going to have one wicked catfight on your hands.”

  Tired of hearing Simone’s name uttered in my presence, I said a little too loudly, “What are we going to do about Lettie?”

  “Lettie?” Jack sighed. “What’s she up to now?”

  “What has Lettie done in the past to make you ask that?” I demanded at the same time Lorenzo said, “I overheard her on the phone. She’s set up a meeting with a reporter. I think she’s so anxious to prove Gordon is guilty that she wants to make sure it’s the only conclusion anyone will make. She crowed about the impending DA action less than an hour ago. She’s out to destroy Gordon’s reputation.”

  Jack scratched his chin. “Are you sure that’s what she’s planning?”

  Lorenzo nodded. “There was no mistaking her meaning. I overheard her say she couldn’t wait to meet with the reporter and that she’d bring the goods. Casey doesn’t want me to say anything, but I know Lettie killed Frida.”

  “Hm,” Jack grunted.

  My jaw dropped open. If I’d accused Lettie of murder like Lorenzo just had, even if it was only between us, Jack would have blistered my ears from now until sundown.

  “Do you know when Lettie has set up this meeting of hers?” Jack said instead.

  “No, that’s why we need to keep a close eye on her,” Lorenzo said, getting more excited and chummier with Jack than he’d ever been with me. “Perhaps you and I could team up.”

  “We could invite Lettie to help me with tracking down seed savers,” I suggested. “It’d kill two birds with one stone. I’m having a devil of a time finding anyone who knows anything about many of the historic plant varieties we need to grow this spring.”

  “And then when she leaves?” Lorenzo asked. “What do we do? Follow her?”

  Jack cleared his throat. “I might have a solution.”

  He started to lay out his plan, but he hadn’t gotten very far when my cell phone sang the first few lines of Kelly Clarkson’s hit.

  “It’s Deloris,” I said and swallowed hard before answering.

  Deloris didn’t let me say more than hello before she started talking so quickly—her voice garbled with loud sobs—I couldn’t understand a word she was saying.

  “Slow down.” My heart pounded out of control while Lorenzo shouted, “What’s going on?” I pressed a finger against my free ear so I could better hear Deloris. “Please say that again.”

  I prayed we weren’t about to hear the worst.

  Deloris drew a shaky breath. “It’s Gordon,” she said.

  My legs turned all watery.

  “He’s not—”

  “He is,” she cried.

  No. I’d feared this could happen. But it had only been an abstract fear. While the doctors had remained cautious, warning that the worst might yet happen, I had refused to face the pain of losing Gordon.

  I loved him. And he’d loved me.

  How was I going continue working here day after day without him?

  My knees started to buckle and I would have fallen in a heap on the hard concrete if Jack hadn’t caught me. He wrapped his arms around me and held on tight.

  “I’m so sorry,” I rasped into the phone.

  Tears dripped from my cheeks as the world fell apart beneath me.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Clouds and darkness surround us, yet Hea
ven is just, and the day of triumph will surely come, when justice and truth will be vindicated.

  —MARY TODD LINCOLN, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES (1861–1865)

  “SORRY?” Deloris shouted into the phone. “Why on earth are you sorry? Gordon is awake!”

  “Awake?” I whispered, afraid to believe that it could be true. “He’s awake?”

  “Yes, honey. And he’s asking for both you and Lorenzo.”

  • • •

  LESS THAN A HALF HOUR LATER, LORENZO AND I arrived at the hospital. Jack was still on duty, so he agreed to stay behind and keep an eye on Lettie.

  In the hospital lobby, Deloris and I hugged tightly.

  “He’s still weak,” Deloris warned. “But the doctor said he’s turned the corner. He should continue to get stronger.”

  “Thank God,” I said. “Thank God.”

  While we were anxious to get into the room and see Gordon for ourselves, Deloris still remained curiously hesitant to let anyone other than his immediate family enter his room. “He needs to rest. He needs his family,” she insisted as she blocked the door.

  “You need a break, Momma.” Junior, the older of her two sons, hooked his arm with hers. “While Dad’s two favorite gardeners cheer him up, I’m taking you down to the cafeteria. No, don’t argue. You’re going to eat.”

  He flashed us a smile. “I’m glad you’re here. She has refused to leave. She barely eats. She needs this break.”

  “Go, then,” I said. “We’ll keep your dad entertained.”

  “But he shouldn’t be alone,” Deloris protested. “He doesn’t know what—”

  “We’re going. Kevin’s staying.” Junior dragged his exhausted mother down the hallway. “We’ll be back in a half hour.”

  Once they were gone, Kevin pushed open the hospital room’s swinging door. “He’s been asking for the two of you ever since he woke up.”

  I rushed through the door, while Lorenzo remained in the hallway. When I glanced back to see what he was waiting for, I saw that he was wiping his damp eyes with a linen handkerchief. He snarled when he noticed I’d seen his tears and marched into the room as if nothing in this world could touch his prickly heart.