The Scarlet Pepper Page 2

  My muscles, tired and bruised from having been tackled from every angle imaginable, screamed as he hauled me to my feet. A sharp pain stabbed me in the ribs when I bent down to scoop up the potted begonia. I bit back a yelp.

  “Okay”—I hugged the cracked ceramic pot to my sore chest. Several more leaves dropped from the hopelessly battered begonia onto the tan carpet—“I’m ready.”

  But no matter what I tried that day, I couldn’t puzzle out how to save myself or the President.

  Chapter One

  People say I am ruthless. I am not ruthless. And if I find the man who is calling me ruthless, I shall destroy him.

  —JOHN F. KENNEDY, THE 35TH PRESIDENT OF

  THE UNITED STATES

  One month later

  “Ican’t imagine a more painful way to die,” the elderly Pearle Stone, lioness of the District of Columbia’s influential social circle, commented as she ambled her way across the White House’s lush green South Lawn.

  “The poor dear,” her silver-haired friend, Mable Bowls, whispered back while dabbing at the sweat on her forehead with a lacy handkerchief. She sounded a trifle more excited than upset. “Do you know the cause?”

  “One can only speculate,” Pearle replied gravely.

  “A mystery to be solved then?”

  “I believe so, my dear.”

  Their conversation was none of my business. And yet I found myself matching their stride as I walked behind the two older ladies dressed in matching light blue stretch polyester pants and flowered tops. My ears were so alert the backs of them prickled.

  Who were they talking about?

  Mercy goodness, Casey, the church made a grave mistake when it overlooked curiosity as a deadly sin. Aunt Willow’s oft-spouted warning slapped me back to my senses. I vow your curiosity has caused more trouble in your life than all the sloth, gluttony, greed, and envy heaped together.

  On the dawning of my fortieth birthday, I believe I had to finally agree with my pearl-wearing, mint julep–sipping Southern belle relative who’d helped raise me. Considering the danger I’d stumbled into this past spring, it was becoming too dangerous not to agree.

  Curiosity could prove deadly.

  I’d promised to change my ways. No more sticking my nose into other people’s business.

  These past several months I’d been excruciatingly careful. Not that it’d been easy. Temptation seemed to lurk around every corner. It came with the job.

  Since the beginning of the year, I’d tended lush lawns, nurtured luxurious flowerbeds, and cultivated the newly planted vegetable garden at the President’s Park, which included the White House and its gardens. Although I held quite an impressive security clearance as assistant gardener, I swear the only murder I wished to become involved with these days was the kind found within the pages of a book.

  Truly, I’m simply a gardener, which by definition means I should lead a quiet, unassuming life. I had no intention of squandering this great opportunity to serve my country and teach others about my passion for organic gardening.

  That morning I’d followed my normal routine. Well, as normal as could be expected when tasked with herding a group of volunteers more interested in gossiping than gardening through the Secret Service security clearance checkpoint at the southeast gate and toward the First Lady’s vegetable garden.

  That was when I’d happened to overhear the ladies’ rather interesting conversation.

  “Do you think we should warn her or just go ahead and start planning her funeral?” the elderly Mable Bowls continued with a titter.

  “It’s not our place to gossip. She’ll learn about it soon enough.” Pearle Stone had the grace not to sound too happy about the budding scandal.

  I had no business listening to them. But, let’s be honest, unless I planned on sticking my fingers in my ears and singing “la, la, la,” it really was impossible to ignore the society matrons’ conversation. The pair suffered from hearing loss so acute that stage whispers carried shorter distances.

  I tried to focus on the fragrant sweetgrass basket I was lugging down to the fifteen-hundred-square-foot vegetable garden at the base of the hill, nearly as far away from the White House as it could get without leaving the South Lawn. I’d wanted the garden right beside the back door—that’s where gardens belong—but the Secret Service had vetoed that idea, citing security concerns.

  So every morning I loaded my basket to the rim with an assortment of tools and gardening gloves and made the trek across the lawn. It was so large and heavy that it took two hands to manage. Even without distractions, I struggled to make my way down the hill without leaving a trail of white gardening gloves like a modern-day version of Hansel and Gretel.

  “I imagine Griffon Parker will publish the story soon,” Mable said, her voice growing even louder. “And it had better be spectacular. I’ve heard he’s about to lose his seat in the press pool.”

  Dread tiptoed down my back at the mention of Parker’s name. I picked up my pace, listening intently again.

  This past spring I’d run afoul of Media Today’s star White House correspondent when he’d attacked my organic gardening proposals. I doubted the weasel could get a grocery list right even if it were written out and handed to him.

  “Do you think Media Today would truly replace him with a television reporter?” Pearle asked.

  “D.C. would certainly change without him around to stir the pot. At least he’s still here now and kicking. I heard the story he plans to write will kill any and all political aspirations the poor dear’s husband has cultivated.” Mable tsked.

  “Bruce’s sights were on the presidency. And now…” Pearle said sadly. “Poor, poor Francesca.”

  Francesca? I whirled around, searching the group of volunteers behind me.

  Francesca Dearing, my most dedicated gardening volunteer, was also married to the President’s hard-nosed—and plump as a ripe eggplant—Chief of Staff, Bruce Dearing.

  Let me tell you, President Bradley didn’t need this kind of trouble. His approval rating had recently plummeted thanks to this spring’s banking scandal. He couldn’t afford to have another erupt so soon.

  Although I didn’t spot Francesca among the dozen or so volunteers trailing me across the South Lawn, the petite Annie Campbell was only a few paces behind me. Francesca and Annie grew up in the same small town in West Virginia and were as close as any two women I’d ever met.

  I held my breath, hoping Annie hadn’t overheard the snide remarks. But how could she not have heard?

  Annie’s gaze met mine. Her shoulders noticeably tightened.

  “Mrs. Bowls, Mrs. Stone,” I called, desperate to get Mable and Pearle’s attention.

  “Is it Bruce or Francesca that Griffon Parker is after?” Pearle Stone wondered quite loudly.

  I picked up my pace to catch up with them. “Mrs. Stone!”

  “Does it matter?” Mable crowed. “Soon the two of them will be forced to pack up their things and disappear back up into the mountains.”

  With a strangled cry, Annie rushed past me. Her hair, cut in a pageboy style and dyed a red that was much brighter than a woman her age could honestly claim, bounced with each agitated step. Her gardening outfit, which looked as if it had fallen out of a high-priced designer’s closet, swished as she went.

  Pearle shook her head as she watched Annie jog the rest of the way to the vegetable garden at the bottom of the hill. “That one would be nothing without Francesca.”

  Mable tsked again. “Didn’t Francesca swear she’d rather die than return to that Hicksville of a hometown?”

  “That she did,” Pearle replied. “Many, many times.” She stopped and turned toward me. Though her stiff movements betrayed her advanced age, her indulgent smile made Pearle look positively angelic. “Did you want something, dear?”

  She looked me up and down with her keen, assessing gaze. Not a single strand of her curly, blue-tinged hair moved.

  “You don’t have your hat,” I said, de
ciding not to mention Francesca. The damage had already been done. Admonishing the pair would only give them cause to keep their focus on the gossip surrounding Francesca.

  “Speak up, dear,” Pearle said.

  “Your hat,” I repeated, louder this time. “Where is it?”

  D.C. had been in the grip of an intense heat wave for the past week. The humid June air already felt warm enough to make a beetle sweat, and the sun had only barely peeked over the horizon. In a few hours this area of Washington, which had once been swampland, was going to feel like the interior of a seafood steamer. I didn’t wish to lose any of my volunteers to heat exhaustion.

  “My word, she’s quite right. Where is your hat? You know how badly you freckle in the sun,” Mable Bowls scolded. She grabbed Pearle’s arm to help support her as several volunteers breezed past us. Mable enjoyed reminding everyone how she was only seventy-nine, a full six months younger than her “ancient” friend, and still as spry as a spring chick.

  “I believe I must have left it back at your house, Mable.” Pearle tapped a slender, neatly manicured finger to her chin. “Yes, I believe I did.” She turned her angelic gaze toward me again. And smiled. “Would you be a dear and—”

  “I beg your pardon,” I said as my cell phone belted out the first few lines to Katy Perry’s bubblegum pop song “Firework.” It was a playful tune that reminded me of the biblical parable that no one should hide their light under a bushel. “I’d better take this.”

  I usually sent my calls to voice mail when I was working. However, if Pearle, who reminded me too much of my grandmother Faye with her genteel smiles and refined manner, finished her request, I knew I’d soon find myself on a wild-goose chase in search of the lady’s garden hat.

  Praying the caller didn’t hang up before I could answer, I dug into my pocket for my cell phone. This wasn’t as easy as it sounded considering how I had to juggle the large sweetgrass basket in order to manage it. Several garden gloves slipped to the grass.

  “The harvest celebration is next Wednesday, and there’s still quite a bit that needs to be done. This phone call might be a question regarding one of the details,” I explained. We’d been coordinating the garden details with the White House chefs, which was the easy part, and with the First Lady’s high-strung social secretary, Seth Donahue, who tended to give me a searing headache.

  As more gloves tumbled from my sweetgrass basket like leaves in the fall, I flashed a self-deprecating grin and turned away from the two sweet, although half-deaf, ladies. “Hello?” I said as I pressed the phone to my ear. “This is Casey.”

  “Casey,” the woman on the other end implored in a raspy whisper. I lowered the phone and glanced at the caller ID display. It gave no number. No name.

  The readout simply read, “Unavailable.”

  “Hello?” Did I know anyone with a blocked phone number? Not even Secret Service Agent Jack Turner blocked his number.

  I don’t know why I picked that moment to think of him. Or why my heart suddenly sped up. He’d not called in weeks, not since my disastrous training session with the Secret Service. And to think I’d started to convince myself that Jack had developed feelings for—

  “Casey.” The raspy whisper turned more urgent. “You have to help me.”

  “Francesca? Is that you?” It sort of sounded like her. “Where are you calling from? Is this about Griffon—?”

  “Don’t say his name! Not even over the phone.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Aren’t you signed up to work today? I could use your help in the garden.”

  “I don’t have time for that right now. You know the charity murder mystery dinner you’ve been helping me plan? I’ve had an idea about it. We need to talk. Can you meet me at the Freedom of Espresso Café in a half hour?”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t. We could talk while we work here, though.”

  “Oh, no, I can’t do that. I’m very busy. I have to deal with”—she sighed loudly—“that reporter. But I need to run an idea by you while it’s still fresh in my mind.”

  “Francesca, I’m at work. I have responsibilities and gardens to tend.”

  “Casey, you don’t understand. I need your expertise with plants.” She whispered the last word into the phone. It came out muffled, as if she’d cupped her hand over the receiver, as if she didn’t want anyone around her to hear. How she spoke that one word, as if she were talking about something dark and sinister, sent a shiver down my spine.

  “Plants?” I asked. But she’d hung up.

  Chapter Two

  If it were not for the reporters, I would tell you the truth.

  —CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR, THE 21ST PRESIDENT OF

  THE UNITED STATES

  “Is something wrong, dear?” Pearle asked as I frowned at my phone.

  “I don’t think so.” I jammed the phone back into my pocket, which caused more gardening gloves to tumble out of the basket and onto the lush fescue. “It’s just that I’m—”

  “Yes?” Pearle leaned forward. Excitement danced in her ice blue eyes as she waited for me to hand her a piece of juicy gossip for her and Mable to chew on.

  “It’s nothing,” I said and forced a broad smile to my lips. “Here.” I handed her my floppy straw hat to wear. “I don’t want you to get overexposed to the sun.”

  I continued down the hill toward the vegetable garden, scooping up gardening gloves as I went.

  “There is something wrong,” Mable pronounced as she and Pearle followed me across the lawn.

  “She does look troubled,” Pearle agreed. She adjusted the straw hat so it sat at a jaunty angle atop her blue-tinged hair.

  “Who was on the other end of the call?” Mable wondered aloud.

  “Someone who clearly doesn’t know our Casey well,” Pearle said. “She’s dedicated to the White House and her plants.”

  I smiled at that. The volunteers, most of whom were old enough to be my mother, if not my grandmother, had adopted me as their own. Even Francesca, in her own self-absorbed way.

  What many people don’t realize is how much the White House depends on its volunteers. With all the regular day-to-day demands pulling its paid employees in several directions at once, the White House’s relatively small staff couldn’t possibly handle running the household plus the numerous special projects—such as decorating the White House for Christmas, organizing daily public tours, opening the garden to the public twice a year, or developing and maintaining a world-class vegetable garden for the First Lady. Volunteers regularly offered a helping hand in the First Lady’s office and in the gardens.

  Although volunteer positions were highly coveted and generally had many more people vying for any given position than was needed, in Francesca Dearing’s case, it had taken a bit of bribery to convince her to come to help out in the vegetable garden.

  But I’d wanted Francesca. Her experience in growing prize-winning vegetables in the D.C. area was well known in the plant community.

  Up until about six months ago, I’d spent most of my career working under the canopy of live oaks thickly draped with Spanish moss in Charleston, South Carolina. While D.C. and Charleston shared deep roots regarding our nation’s history, they existed in very different microclimates with unique problems. I needed to recruit a knowledgeable volunteer with on-the-ground experience, someone like Francesca Dearing.

  Unfortunately Francesca had existing obligations to charitable and political organizations. When I’d asked for her help, she’d politely refused. It wasn’t until she’d learned about how I’d solved a murder this past spring that she’d contacted me.

  In addition to her passion for plants, Francesca devoured murder mysteries. She never missed an episode of Castle or The Mentalist and had read nearly every cozy mystery series in print.

  Although I’d tried to explain otherwise, she fancied that she’d found herself a real-life amateur sleuth. In exchange for her help, I agreed to play along with her fantasy.

  Since there were no crimes for
us to investigate, thank goodness, she invented a game of her own. We would combine our knowledge of mystery plots and…

  Oh, I hesitate to admit this. I promise you my stern but loving grandmother Faye raised me to have better judgment. It was simply that I needed to make the First Lady’s vegetable garden an unquestionable success. To do that, I needed Francesca’s local expertise.

  So, yes, I did agree to play her silly little game. In exchange for Francesca’s assistance in the garden, I agreed to help her plan the perfect murder.

  For charity.

  At a dinner.

  No one was supposed to die.

  No one had died, I reminded myself.

  Not yet, my pesky inner voice chided.

  Just because Francesca had called out of the blue with an urgent need to talk about the charity murder mystery dinner on the same day rumors were swirling about her impending social death didn’t necessarily mean she was planning to host a real murder dinner. That was just my fanciful imagination working overtime…I hoped.

  My cell phone sang its cheery pop song again. I set down my basket at the edge of the First Lady’s vegetable garden and reached into my pocket. Again, the caller ID readout proclaimed, “Unavailable.”

  “You should answer it, dear,” Pearle said as she came to stand next to me.

  “It’s probably important,” Mable agreed as she stood on the other side of me.

  “I doubt it.” If Francesca wanted to talk to me about murder, she knew how to find me. I needed her help in the garden.

  AN HOUR LATER MY CELL PHONE STARTED TO sing again. I paused in tying a young pepper plant to its bamboo stake and checked the caller ID.

  “Unavailable.”

  She’d called at least four other times in the past hour. Not that I’d talked with her. I’d hit the “ignore” button, only to have her call back fifteen minutes later, which only fed my concern that this Griffon Parker business was straining her nerves. It would be wrong of me to turn a deaf ear to her cry for help.