The President's Daughter (11 page)

Especially when confronted with a picture of her husband’s mistress. If Simon hadn’t been studying Celeste’s face carefully, he might have missed the way her eyes had narrowed with hatred. The way her nose had turned up as if in memory of an incredibly offensive odor.

Simon was convinced that the former First Lady had been well aware of her husband’s affair with Blythe Pierce and that the years had done little to ease the rage that awareness had evoked.

Even now, almost thirty years later, for just the briefest of moments, Celeste Hayward had looked mad enough to kill.

CHAPTER TEN

Simon stood in the shelter of a small grove of trees that defined the perimeter of a tiny parking area adjacent to a playground and for a long moment studied the house across the street.

It was a tidy little place, a pristine white Cape Cod with dark green shutters, a small wreath of silk pansies on the front door, which was painted to match the shutters, and the number 218 in black wrought iron affixed to the siding. There was a small porch with two rocking chairs, and narrow wooden boxes under the front windows. Blue hydrangeas were painted on the mailbox that was attached to the wall just next to the front door. At the end of the driveway, a dark green Taurus station wagon—several years old—was parked in front of the one-car garage. The yard was defined by white picket that matched the fence that separated it from the neighbors’. All in all, the house looked homey and comfortable and fit right in with all the other houses on the street in this middle-class neighborhood.

Whatever Jude McDermott did with Blythe Pierce’s
money,
Simon thought,
she sure didn’t splurge on a big
fancy house.

Glancing back at the station wagon, he added,
Or on
her wheels.

Modest house, modest car. Simon wondered just what it was that the McDermott woman had spent her $6 or so million on.

“You looking for Jude?”

Simon paused, halfway up the sidewalk. The question came from the opposite side of the fence that separated one tidy house from the other.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Won’t be back till after five.” An elderly woman toddled around from behind a forsythia that was in full bloom. “She’s at work.”

“Oh.” Simon glanced back at the car in the driveway, wondering how the woman had gotten to work if her car was here. If, in fact, that was her car.

“Down to the library,” the woman volunteered.

“Oh. Down in town there?” Simon pointed toward the commercial district he’d driven through that morning.

“That’s right. Just a block off Main. You a friend?”

“A friend of a friend.”

“Well, she’s there till five. If you see her, tell her I brought Waylon over for a spell.”

“Waylon?”

The woman gestured to a sleepy-eyed basset hound that lounged under a lilac that was just coming into bud.

“Waylon doesn’t look too lively this morning,” Simon observed.

“Don’t let him fool you. He’s quick as a whip. When he has a mind to be.”

“Thanks for your help,” Simon replied, smiling at the improbability—Waylon looked anything but quick—and nodding to the helpful neighbor.

Simon opted to walk the few blocks to the town square, which would allow him an opportunity to check out the neighborhood as well as the town.

Three streets down, a neat wooden sign bearing the painted likeness of a redbrick one-story building pointed east and bore an arrow upon which “LIBRARY” had been scripted. Amazing, Simon noted, how easy it is to find things in a small town.

The weather had turned surprisingly warm, and as he walked along Simon unzipped the leather jacket he had worn over a lightweight sweater. In the jacket pocket was an envelope in which he had placed the photograph he’d lifted from Betsy Pierce’s photo album. After today, after he’d chatted with Jude McDermott, he’d pop the picture into the mail and send it back to Betsy with an apology. He’d impulsively pocketed it thinking perhaps Jude might be more inclined to speak with him if he had something he could show to her that would prove he’d been to Betsy’s home.

And it had been of enormous value to him yesterday when he’d met with Mrs. Hayward. . . .

The real truth was that he’d hate to part with the picture. There was something about Blythe’s face that drew him, again and again. The more he looked at it, the more he began to understand why a man would consider risking everything if only such a woman loved him.

Simon briefly considered what Philip Norton would say when he learned that Simon had expanded his investigation to include the death of Hayward’s secret mistress.

He’d deal with that soon enough.

Right now, there were so many pieces of the puzzle still missing. Who else—beside Kendall, Norton, and Celeste Hayward—had known about the President’s affair? And why such secrecy, even now? Would this one indiscretion—assuming of course that there had been only this one—have been such a blight on the President’s reputation? Though the moral climate of the seventies was certainly not as open as was current, certainly other Presidents—before and after Hayward—had had affairs.

Maybe Blythe’s death had nothing to do with her affair
with Hayward.

Right. And maybe that car had backed over Blythe by accident.

Maybe, maybe, maybe . . .

The word pounded into his head with every step he took.

The Henderson Public Library was a one-story redbrick Federal-style building with white pillars and shutters that sat on a small rise overlooking a pretty lake. To the right of the building, a fence had been erected to enclose the entirety of the wide slope that led down to the water. The gate was open, and Simon peered in as he passed by.

Beyond the gate, a path of interlocking cobbled stones led down the slope into a garden that was clearly under construction. From the center rose a gazebo, freshly painted if one were to believe the sign that hung from the door. Newly planted flower beds encircled the gazebo, and paths led out like spokes from a wheel. Simon wandered along several of the paths to find that each led to a different patio-type clearing wherein seating had been arranged in a variety of groupings, some containing several benches, others but a solitary chair. Trees had been strategically planted to provide shade to the seating areas, and here and there, throughout the garden, birdhouses sat atop wooden posts. Numerous potted plants appeared to have been set down and left to one side of one path, and several large bags of mulch lay in a heap on the ground. Simon stepped around them and headed back toward the gate just as it swung open.

A young woman struggled with a squeaky wheelbarrow that was piled high with plastic bags that Simon assumed contained more mulch. Simon hurried to the gate to hold it aside for her.

“Here. I’ll get that,” he said.

“Thanks.” The woman pushed the unwieldy load onto the cobbled path.

Simon might have just nodded a friendly, “You’re welcome,” and continued on to the library that had been his destination. But just at that moment she glanced back over her shoulder and flashed a smile that went all the way to his heart.

There was something about that smile. . . .

When the buzzing in his head began to subside, he followed her halfway down the path, drawn as if on a towline, and asked, “Can I give you a hand?”

She brought the wheelbarrow to a stop in front of the gazebo. “Thanks, but I think I can manage from here.” And she rewarded him for his trouble with one more smile.

Simon stood rooted to the spot and took her in.

She was tall and willow slender and wore dusty jeans and a dustier T-shirt, large, round tortoiseshell sunglasses that hid far too much of her face. Her hair was tucked up under a baseball cap, all but one brave dark strand that hung down the side of her face.

With seemingly little effort, she lifted the top bag of mulch and tossed it onto the ground.

“That bag weighs, what, forty pounds?” Simon asked.

“Fifty,” she replied as she hoisted another and tossed it to land next to the first.

“You must work out on a pretty regular basis.”

“Every day.” She grinned and grabbed another bag.

“You lift?” Simon was obviously impressed.

“Constantly.” The woman appeared infinitely amused by the question.

“You must spend a lot of time at the gym,” Simon observed.

She straightened up, still grinning, and told him, “Gyms are for desk jockeys.”

Simon laughed. “I get it. You’re the gardener here.”

“If you stay in school long enough, they let you call yourself a landscape architect.”

“This all looks new.” Simon gestured around him.

“It is new. Brand spanking new, every bit of it.” She grabbed hold of another bag and lugged it a few feet away before dropping it onto the ground.

“You do all this work yourself?”

“I’m good, but I’m not that good. I had lots of help.” She stopped at the back of the wheelbarrow and appeared to be looking him over. “This was a community effort. I did the design, furnished most of the plantings, but just about everyone in town had a part in its creation in one way or another. The gazebo, for example.” She stepped back as if to admire the structure. “It was designed by a local contractor, but it was built by the carpentry students at the high school.”

She pointed to the stone walks on which they stood. “The stones were donated by a builders supply company and the paths were laid by volunteers.”

“I see what you mean by community effort.”

“Right down to the bake sales and the flea markets that helped pay for the fencing and the lumber. The people in this town did everything to raise money but put on a show in the barn. When it comes to fund-raising for a good cause, never underestimate small-town USA.”

“What’s the cause?”

“The garden was intended to celebrate cancer survivors. A place to come and find a few minutes of peace, of inspiration. A place for contemplation. We’ve planned it as a place where families can gather quietly together.”

“Ah, hence the separate rooms.” Simon nodded and knew there had been no “we” involved in the planning. He’d have bet his Mustang that she’d designed the entire garden—maybe even proposed the idea—herself.

“Exactly. I—we—thought that there should be places that offered privacy, a little serenity. Often badly needed while doing battle with the disease.”

“Sounds as if you’ve been close to the action.”

“My mother is a survivor. It will be five years in May.”

“You did this for her.” It wasn’t a question.

“Watching her struggle made the disease real to me for the first time. Before that, cancer was just an ugly word. My mother’s illness certainly did bring me closer to it than I ever wanted to be.” She spied a handprint of dirt on her jeans and attempted to brush it away. “But the garden . . . it’s really a memorial for an old friend, a high school classmate. She grew up here, came back after college to teach. And she was quite an artist. Everyone in town knew her and liked her. Respected her. This was just a means of honoring her memory.”

A teenaged boy appeared at the gate just as Simon was about to comment.

“Over here, Will.” She stepped to the path and waved.

The boy, in no apparent hurry, lumbered toward the gazebo.

“You’re late, William.” The woman made a show of looking at her watch.

“I, um, got tied up at school,” the boy mumbled.

“Ummmm, let me guess. The girls’ softball team was playing today,” she teased, and the boy’s face reddened. “Okay, Mulch-boy, you start on that side of the gazebo; I’ll take this side. We need to get this done before Saturday.”

She pulled a penknife from her pocket and glanced back at Simon, saying, “This stuff is pretty pungent, if you’re not used to it.”

“I can take a hint.” Simon stepped back good-naturedly. “Good luck with your garden. It’s going to be beautiful.”

“Thank you.” She straightened up, both hands on her hips, as if studying him. “Come back and see it when it’s done.”

“Will I get a private tour?”

“Maybe. If you play your cards right.” There was just a hint of tease in her voice.

“Then I just may have to do that.” Simon paused at the gate, reluctant to leave but knowing that he was overstaying his welcome. She had work to do, and he had work of a different sort to tend to. It was best that he get on with it.

“I’ll see you around, then.” She touched the brim of her baseball cap, flashed that smile again, then turned her attention to the business at hand.

“Count on it,” Simon said under his breath, stealing one more backward glance at the woman before heading into the building and the business at hand.

Simon stepped into the cool of the library and wandered the main floor. Stacks of books reached almost to the ceiling, and he scanned the fiction shelves. All the familiar books were there and some he’d read long ago and all but forgotten. Life had held little time for fiction lately, he noted with some regret. These days, his reading consisted more of nonfiction in general and research material in particular. He picked up a copy of Steinbeck’s
The Red Pony,
recalling the images the book had inspired when first he’d read it, so many years before.

“Did you want to take that out?” a heavyset woman with short dark hair stopped to ask.

“Ah, no, actually, I was looking for Jude McDermott.”

“Oh, she’s not here. Is there something I could help you with?”

“Actually, I was hoping to speak with her. I was under the impression she was working today.” Peeved, Simon looked around the large room, as if he’d recognize the object of his search.