Flowerbed of State (6 page)

Dr. Stan had returned to his duties after his brief examination, making me promise I’d report to the medical center for a follow-up as soon as Thatch had finished questioning me. Ambrose had left with him.

Gordon had remained, his nerves badly shaken. Worry and stress had deepened the lines on his pale, stricken face. He looked worse than I felt, and that was saying something. When Mike Thatch had directed me to the conference room, he’d stopped Gordon from following us inside.

“I’ll wait for you out here,” Gordon had promised. “I still can’t believe someone tried to hurt you. This has never happened.”

With one eye on the round metal clock above the conference room door, I watched as my meeting with the First Lady grew nearer and nearer.

At eight thirty-eight, a little less than an hour before the Grounds Committee meeting was scheduled to start, Jack Turner slipped into the room.

The assault rifle and sidearm were gone. His eyes weren’t quite as puffy. And his short hair looked damp, as if he’d showered. Without saying a word, he casually reached across the conference table and picked up a file folder with my name on the tab. He then dropped into a chair pushed up against the far wall. After listening for a few minutes, he started to flip through the contents of the folder.

“You’d mentioned you saw a black-and-white leather shoe with a lightning bolt design on the side?” Thatch asked me.

“Yes.” The shoe had an old-fashioned look, like it belonged in a vintage clothing store. The toe was wide and rounded and the soles beefy. On the black leather, the cobbler had used white stitching. And on the white leather, black stitching had been used.

“And the man who attacked you, he was wearing this shoe?”

I rubbed my temples as if trying to conjure a genie. “I think so. Maybe.” If I’d seen them on my attacker’s feet, why only remember one shoe and not a pair? “I don’t know. But I can tell you that the shoe had crushed three pink ruffled tulips.”

Thatch didn’t jot that vital piece of information in his notebook. But he’d written pages about the banking protesters who, for all I knew, hadn’t molested a single tree or plant in Lafayette Square . . . much less have killed anyone.

“Excuse me for a minute.” Thatch rose from the conference table and carried his notebook with him into the adjoining room. With a close eye on the clock, I drummed my fingers on the table.

Gordon stepped through the door Thatch had left open. “Casey, you look pale,” he said. “You’re not going to pass out, are you?” he asked, which caused Turner to look up from his reading.

“I feel fine,” I lied.

“Perhaps I should call Dr. Stan and ask him to come back and take another look at you.” Gordon came into the conference room and crouched down beside me to stare at the large bandage on my head. “I’m worried about you. I think you should go to the hospital.”

And miss the meeting with the First Lady? I didn’t think so. “Really, I’m fine. Give me a shovel and I’ll head over to the White House greenhouses to turn the compost pile by myself.”

Turner raised a brow at that and then returned to reading whatever had so captured his interest in the file with my name on it.

“Your health must come first, Casey,” Gordon said softly.

Touched, I put my hand on his. “I’m shaken, not broken. But I am worried about making it to the First Lady’s meeting.”

Gordon gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze as he rose. “There’s nothing for you to worry about. We can postpone the presentation, reschedule it for when you’re feeling better.”

“No, don’t. Please, don’t. I’m fine.”

Gordon nodded, but creased his brows. “Okay. I need to get to the First Lady’s office anyhow to set up for the meeting. I’ll explain why you’ll be running late. It won’t be a problem, Casey. The Grounds Committee will understand. I’ll make sure they do.”

“Thank you, Gordon. That’ll make me feel better.”

As Gordon left, Thatch hurried back into the room. He reminded me of the movie version of General Patton prepared to charge headlong into battle.

“Let me summarize what we’ve got here.” He flipped back a few pages in his notebook as he sat down. “You remember seeing a man in a suit wearing a baseball cap. But you don’t think he was with the protestors. Is that correct?”

“He didn’t seem to be heading toward them. And he wasn’t dressed in old clothes like they were. I got the impression that he was hurrying to his office or something.”

Thatch nodded. “And you said he was carrying a silver briefcase. He may or may not have been the man who attacked you.”

“What about the security cameras we’ve got out there?” Turner glanced up from the folder in his lap to ask.

Thatch shook his head. “That’s what I was checking just now. I’d hoped they’d be able to give us a good picture of our man. But the best we have is a partial image of a shadowy figure who seemed very aware of the cameras and was doing his best to avoid them.”

“Then not a mugging gone wrong,” Turner said.

“No,” Thatch agreed.

“What aren’t you telling us?” I asked.

Thatch frowned at his notebook longer than I thought necessary before answering. “The murder might be part of a bigger plot against the President.”

“What plot?” I hadn’t heard anything about that.

“We don’t have a clear picture of that. I assure you that if we did, the responsible parties would have been rounded up long before now.”

“If this is something against the President, why kill that woman I found?”

Thatch shook his head. “He might have been after something she was carrying.”

“Then why did he attack me?” I certainly wasn’t carrying anything valuable or important with me.

“That’s what we need to find out,” Thatch said.

Turner had told me earlier that, as a White House employee, I was a link in the chain of security that protected the President. He’d wondered if the attack had caused a security breach.

“But it could have been just a mugging gone wrong, right?” I asked, grasping for an easy explanation. “I mean, maybe he wanted money?”

“A mugger wouldn’t have worried about the security cameras like this guy did. And he wouldn’t have left you with your backpack,” Thatch said.

“Or stuffed our victim’s purse in the trash can with her,” Turner added.

My head buzzed and the room got fuzzy as I pictured the woman’s lifeless face and how her flowered tote bag had been callously tucked against her chest. I gripped the edge of the table as it swayed a bit. “Have you identified her? Was she a White House employee?” I asked, determined not to embarrass myself and faint in front of Turner, who seemed to be watching me too closely.

“We don’t think so.” Thatch tapped his pen against his notebook. “But she might have had White House clearance. We’ll know more as soon as we get a positive ID.”

What if the murderer couldn’t find what he’d wanted to steal from that poor woman? What if he’d attacked me with the hopes he’d get his hands on what he couldn’t get from her? I reached for my backpack and started to riffle through it, looking to see if anything was missing, though I still couldn’t imagine why anyone would think I had something worth stealing.

“What did he use to choke you?” Turner wondered aloud. “If he’d used piano wire or something like that, your neck would have been sliced open.”

I pressed my hand to my throat. “What a gruesome thought.”

“It’s the truth.” Turner got up and crossed the room to me. “It’s the lanyard she wore around her neck that held her security badge.”

“What about it?” Thatch asked.

“That’s what he used to choke her. It was the closest thing on hand.”

“But he didn’t have to take her security card,” Thatch pointed out.

“True,” Turner agreed, but frowned. “I don’t think our killer is a professional, and I don’t think he set out to steal a White House security card.”

“That may be true, but we have to prepare for the worst. We have to operate under the assumption that there’s been a security breach.”

“But no one can use my badge to get into the White House, right?” I asked.

“No. We’ve already canceled all of your security credentials and have issued you a temporary card. It should be ready by now,” Thatch said and hurried out of the room again.

When he returned, he handed me a bright red temporary security pass and turned me loose.

It was too late to worry about trying to do anything with my ruined outfit. But perhaps if I ran back to my office, I could grab my presentation boards and only be a few minutes late to the meeting. Like a bird set free from a cage, I dashed out the door and up the stairs.

I made it as far as the glass double doors leading to the West Wing Colonnade, the most direct route back to my office, when I hit a roadblock in the shape of a hawk-nosed bureaucrat.

“Ms. Calhoun!” Wilson Fisher, Ambrose’s assistant usher, hurried down the covered colonnade toward me, his beady eyes bright with glee. His thin body swayed back and forth, and a stack of papers about as thick as
War and Peace
flapped in his arms with every quick step.

I’d bet dollars to daisies he’d compiled a hefty helping of forms for me to fill out. Wilson’s favorite pastime was to bury me under his endless supply of paperwork that could never, ever wait. I’d never make it to my meeting if he caught hold of me.

“Ms. Calhoun!” He waved the forms in front of him. His shoes tapped a rapid tempo against the colonnade’s stone tiles. “I urgently need to speak with you!”

“
P
RETEND you didn’t see me,” I told Turner, who was coming up the stairs behind me.

“Why? What’s going on?”

“That.” I hooked my thumb toward the colonnade beyond the double doors and the flapping paperwork dervish closing in on us. With the quiet stealth I’d picked up from reading a healthy heap of Miss Marple mysteries and the like, I turned on my heel and took off down the hall in the opposite direction.

With each step, my determination grew stronger. Yes, the meeting was scheduled to begin in less than ten minutes. And yes, my feet were taking me farther away from the First Lady’s office, which was located upstairs in the
East
Wing. But if taking the longer route meant avoiding Wilson Fisher, then that’s what I had to do.

I’d only briefly visited the First Lady’s office once, but I could clearly picture its cheery canary yellow walls, the delicate Chippendale sofa with flowered upholstery that graced the far wall, and the half-dozen comfortable chairs to accommodate long meetings. Margaret Bradley, the President’s soft-spoken wife, was well known for her love of the outdoors and gardening. I’d heard she never closed the blinds on the windows in her corner office that overlooked the intimate Jacqueline Kennedy Garden. If the sun came in too brightly during a meeting, she’d simply move the chairs around.

Gordon and I had taken all of this information, including the angle of the sun, into consideration when planning for this morning’s presentation. Although I knew I’d found a kindred spirit with the First Lady, a few of the proposed changes might be viewed as radical by some of the long-standing members of the White House Grounds Committee who’d be present at this meeting and providing their input. They were the ones I needed to win over.

Past experience had taught me that many traditional gardeners still viewed proponents of organic gardening as those flaky hippie tree-hugger types. To them, we were an unreliable bunch who shouldn’t be entrusted with the future of one of the nation’s most revered gardens. A reporter named Griffon Parker had written those exact words in an op-ed piece published in this morning’s edition of
Media Today
, the print edition of the nation’s largest news outlet.

It didn’t matter that I’d been born in the seventies and had completely missed the hippie era. Forget my years of experience working in some of the most historic gardens in the heart of Charleston, South Carolina. Never mind that I’d never, ever walked away from any job, no matter how challenging. But I’m straying from my main point, which was: Being late or—even worse—not showing up to this crucial meeting would only feed the misconceptions about me.

“Organic gardening incorporates concepts such as balance and harmony. Unlike how many in Washington’s partisan political environment approach their jobs, at the root of organic gardening is the belief that man can successfully work
with
the natural world instead of railing against it. It’s this nonpartisan approach, which echoes the President’s own style, I hope to implement.” That was how I’d planned to start my presentation. Or, I should say, how I
still
planned to start it.

The First Lady had already stressed that she wouldn’t approve any changes without the Grounds Committee’s support.

Now that the Secret Service had finished taking my statement, no one but no one was going to get in the way of my making that meeting. Let Wilson dump his forms on me after the presentation.