Death of a Political Plant (22 page)

“Sort of, yes. But you do have to stay on schedule, don’t you?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

When she began to talk about a book she had read about the White House gardens, his mind was safe to drift. He found Louise Eldridge very attractive, but irritating at the same time. For one thing, she asked too many questions about the President’s worst enemies. Why did she need to know about Lannie Gordon? Lannie scared him: She had access to the kind of money that could ruin a candidate in the last two weeks of the campaign, with dirty ads that one couldn’t counter fast enough. Lannie had every reason to see Fairchild lose at the polls. Her very job was on the line, after all the dough that had been plowed into Goodrich’s campaign.

He guessed Louise wanted to know about the “tobacco queen,” as Tom had privately dubbed her, because she had once been married to that second-rate speechwriter who apparently was Louise’s friend back in college. But it was a mystery as to why she needed to know so much about the Goodrich crew. She was particularly interested in where they lived. Hell, he didn’t know where they lived. She probably would have liked it if he had been able to offer her a psychological profile on each one of them. How far did the woman think the President’s chief of staff could reach to find out things about people? Contrary to what he had told her in so pious a tone, he had secretly obtained FBI files on Rawlings as
well as Upchurch and his men. He had sent them back in a prompt, efficient fashion before any damage was done.

As for Louise, there was something a little too forward about the woman. It was high time Bill came home and controlled his wife. If she were his wife, he wouldn’t allow her to barge around asking those kinds of questions. Or at least he would want to be damned sure he knew how she was using the information. Bill had told him once that Louise had a nosy streak; that was evident in the way she had gotten herself in such bad scrapes in the past. Paschen hoped he hadn’t told her too much today. He liked her, maybe too much, and he didn’t want to be responsible in any way for putting her in danger. After all, someone killed that friend of hers out there in the Virginia suburbs, and it was cheek by jowl, apparently, with where Bill and Louise lived.

He wondered: Could the murder have something to do with the Goodrich campaign? Louise had not tipped her hand on that. Damn her, she was just like every other woman, a dissembler. If that was the case, and that half-assed writer had dug something up about the Goodrich campaign and she knew about it, he needed to know what it was. Well, that made two things he would have to keep pressing Louise on. Not bad duty, though, he reflected, and glanced over again at Louise’s attractively flushed face and wavy chestnut-colored hair.

Not many women had appealed to him since his wife left him earlier this year. Women had suddenly become like hand grenades, very hard to handle, very apt to blow up, and then claim him as part of the wreckage. Funny how his family back in Boston had reacted to his separation, after twenty years of marriage. His mother was cool and unsurprised, and so was his sister. “Darling, you just weren’t raised right, and I’m sorry,” said his whimsical mother. “You always were a kind of
a genius, especially at understanding government and things like that. But you have yet to cultivate the skills that ordinary human beings need.” Then she had hugged him close, and told him that she was just making another of her broad jokes. But Tom didn’t think she was kidding; he pretty much agreed with her. He was a lousy specimen of a human being, loving work and loving the game, hating leisure. Probably treating his wife badly over those two decades of marriage. Face it, Paschen, he thought,
you handle a congressional caucus better than you handle a woman.

And it was beginning to get him. The tic in his right eye bugged him a lot. It was like a harbinger of what was to come: maybe high blood pressure next, then a heart attack or stroke.

Too much work and no leisure. He was trying a little leisure right now, though, trying to relax by taking the leggy Louise for a quick tour of the White House gardens. More than anything in a long time, he had enjoyed his little interlude at the Art Gallery last week. The trip up to the tower with Louise, unself-conscious and astoundingly beautiful with her long swath of hair with its red highlights, strolling around in that sexy black pantsuit and high heels and trying to make an art convert out of him.

It was fun, and fun wasn’t something he was good at. If he had a woman like her, he knew he could learn. It wasn’t only her enthusiasm and the way she threw herself into things that he liked: She went after things; and she was smart. Too bad she was married to a man he knew and thoroughly respected.

Anyway, something told him Louise wasn’t available, though there was always movement with women. For instance, it hadn’t taken his own lissome wife very long to make anew alliance. He had heard from reliable sources she was dating the CEO of her firm.

The knowledge made his stomach knot.

They were driving in the White House gates now, and a glance at his companion showed she was on excitement overload. Her excitement unexpectedly communicated itself to him. They were let off at the front entrance, with Tom advising the driver to return in exactly thirty minutes. He told Louise, “He’ll take you right to the subway station.”

They had walked onto the front porch before they heard the limo driver bring the car to a halt with a screech of brakes, and saw him race over to them. “You wouldn’t want to be without this,” he admonished, thrusting Tom’s briefcase at him.

“Thanks,” said Tom, shaking his head. “Can’t believe I did that.”

At the enormous white facade, Louise acted as if she were entering a holy shrine, although he knew she had been here before with Bill at receptions involving Bill’s job with the State Department. “I always love to come here,” she said, smiling at him. He noticed her eyes were pure green now, not just hazel anymore, and decided it was a reflection of what she was wearing.

He dutifully went into his guide mode, for he had taken a couple of people on this little tour, his mother and his sister. “First, we have our usual red geraniums in pots. Lots of pot gardening around here, inside and out.” Guiding her into the residence, he added, “I want to show you the Rose Garden and then we can walk onto the south grounds/It’s more private. The public tours take people through the East Garden, so maybe we won’t go there.” As they entered the residence, uniformed guards greeted them. He introduced Louise, whose visit was expected, then handed one of them his briefcase and asked him to see that it got to his office, and gave another Louise’s packet of papers to hold on to until their return.

They drifted through the first floor and passed an enormous Victorian flower arrangement on a long bronze table. He could hardly get her past it, and he knew there was schedule trouble ahead. If she was going to dally at the very first spot of interest, she would throw his tour schedule down the toilet. Nervously, he glanced at his watch.

“How utterly romantic,” she murmured, circling the table to view the arrangement from every side. He trailed after her. “It’s like a gardener’s dream, all those full-blown pink and yellow roses, the delphiniums and the lavender statice. And those swags of smilax, like ribbons binding it all together.”

He eyed the floral grouping with suspicion. Overdone, in his opinion. “Don’t particularly like it, myself, Louise, but your taste is better than mine. And that’s certainly the current fashion at the White House. But I did hear Jackie Kennedy hated roses like that; liked spring things instead. Anyway, let’s step lively.”

He took her arm firmly and soon hustled her out the south entrance. He could tell she had wanted to spend more time in the residence, but he just didn’t have more time. Then they headed for the Rose Garden. Anchored by huge old magnolias, it was a large green expanse bordered with lush beds. “I never look at the flowers,” he confessed, “because I’m always here with the President for a public ceremony.”

So she told him what the gardens contained. “Those are boxwoods outlining the beds. And in with the roses and the lilies they have placed all those old-fashioned varieties—asters, hollyhock, mullein, black-eyed Susan, phlox. What a wonderful mix.”

“Check out the gardeners,” said Tom, as they approached the far corner of the Rose Garden. “They’re always doing that. A plant barely has time to bloom before these guys come
along and yank it out and plant something else.” The crew was pulling out the summer plants and refertilizing the ground for a new crop of fall flowers that were standing near, ready to take their turn.

They were installing a flower that even Tom knew the name of. He showed off for Louise: “I know what those are: they’re chrysanthemums, topiaries and just plain ones. I like them better than what they’re taking out.”

She smiled. “You like everything neat and tidy, don’t you? That’s more or less the opposite of me. I like everything irregular and wild.”

Then they wandered over to the East Garden, in what was a lull between groups of public visitors, passing trees that were gifts from the early presidents up through Jack Fairchild. He was able to point out a few to his visitor. His eyes lit up.

“Now let’s go to one of my favorite places. Haven’t been there for a year or so, but even dunking about it gives me a little sense of peace and quiet.”

They walked down the lawn toward the southeast corner of the property, and he took her to sit on a cast-iron garden settee resting under a huge oak tree. Tom said, “It’s a great place to come to get away from it all, and get a real feeling for the history of the place. Except I never have time to come here. This bench was bought for Millard Fillmore back in the 1850’s by his gardener. Anyway, that’s what they say.” He looked up at the large bower of leaves above them, “in fall, these leaves are fantastic. They turn bright red.”

She looked up, too. “Scarlet oak, probably. And that’s an old horse chestnut next to it; I bet these two trees have seen a lot of history.”

He smiled over at her. “Nice spot, isn’t it? It would be a great place for a man to propose to his beloved.”

She smiled faintly and clasped her hands together. “I think so, too. For all we know, someone did.”

He shook his head, wondering if he were becoming softheaded. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so maudlin.” He hoisted up his arm and checked the time. “Our twenty-five minutes is nearly up.” His other arm was still on the back of the settee, barely touching her back. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he wasn’t anxious to get back to work. “Louise, I really enjoyed this. Maybe next time you come, I’ll have learned more about the trees and stuff.”

She gave him a warm smile that threatened his resolve to leave. “It was very nice, Tom. I can’t thank you enough.”

Then he leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees, and gave her a knowing sideways glance. He could feel himself slipping out of his relaxed mode back into the controlled frenzy he had adopted as a necessary function of his job. “Oh, you can thank me, all right. And you know how: Just get that show off the ground at Channel Five.”

Pushing her again, pressuring her. He could even see the turnoff in her beautiful green eyes. She was hurt. And she had reason to be. She wasn’t the one responsible for the final decision at Channel Five, so why did he box her into a corner? Why the hell couldn’t he learn to be a human being? And once he was into it a little, why did he have to revert to an uptight bureaucratic prick?