Death of a Political Plant (29 page)

He frowned slightly and she could see the wheels turning. “The name sounds familiar. Wait—now I know. It’s that reporter with the Arlington Herald. Someone called his work to our attention and suggested we hire him; apparently he’s pretty good—a real comer. What’s he got to do with this?”

“He was Jay’s researcher. His leg man.”

“And you think maybe…”

“I’m not sure what I think. Charlie Hurd may be a comer but he’s not very nice. I could suspect anything of him—even of doing a deal with the devil: making an evil compact with whoever wanted that story bad enough to kill Jay, and in the end trying to wrest it away from him. Oh, yes, I have my suspicions, but I know nothing—at least nothing for sure. This murder may never be solved. And I’m just obstructing things
further. What do you think I should do right now? Call Detective Geraghty? Or would you sit on it for a while?”

“If that happened to me?” Roger studied her, leaning tensely forward in the lawn chair as if she might leap out of it at any moment. “I might do just what you’re doing, Louise, concealing the—whatever it is you’ve found in your house. Though have you thought this out carefully? Holding on to something a killer wants so badly may be putting you in terrible danger. In fact, that was just what I was going to warn you about—”

“Warn me?”

“The
Post
had a couple of disturbing phone calls about you late this afternoon.”

“About me?”

“Yes. One was an acquaintance of the reporter handling the story. The other was someone who refused to give their name. Both callers were trying to establish your link with ‘John’ McCormick.”

She straightened in the chair and gripped her primers more tightly. “So what did the Post tell these people?”

Roger shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing, of course. We don’t discuss stories we’re working on. But I’d try not to be too worried about it, since your family’s returning.” He thoughtfully stroked his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “As for the action you should take, I know the best answer. When’s Bill arriving?”

“I’m not sure. His plane’s late.”

“The first thing you should do when he walks in the door is to share whatever it is you have with him. He’ll know what to do.”

Her mouth formed in a little moue. “And what if Bill were not coming in tonight? Do you think I could possibly handle
this on my own?” She could hardly contain her disappointment in Roger. She thought he was an up-to-date guy who knew women were just as competent as men. She felt sorry for his wife, Laurie, who had a mind like a computer and fashion style as well. She ran a flourishing lady’s boutique, but could have just as well run any business. Maybe even a think tank.

Roger, sensing a major blunder, raised two hands in front of him, as if to ward off a small, wild animal that threatened to attack. “Wait, Louise. Don’t get impatient with me.”

“Impatient? I guess I’m disappointed.”

“Okay, okay, I can see how you might have misunderstood me.” Roger was always the expert, and it never occurred to him that he was wrong, only that someone had misunderstood him. “Here’s all I meant. Laurie told me you told her that this Jay was an old boyfriend. That makes me think you may be acting a bit emotionally, instead of completely—rationally.”

“I see,” she said, coldly. “It’s true, women are so emotional. Jay McCormick, however, was my boyfriend for six weeks, and that was more than twenty years ago.”

“Of course,” said Roger, still backpedaling. “The reason for telling Bill, and the reason I think he’s important, is that he and you together are going to make a better decision than you alone. Because more than twenty years or not, there’s still some heavy emotional baggage there. Isn’t there?”

She felt tears forming in her eyes but she wasn’t about to corroborate his theory by crying. She stood and shoved her pruners into a front pocket of her shorts. The action made her feel more powerful. “There’s always emotional baggage when someone you know dies. I thank you for your advice. You are right, of course: Two heads are better than one, and Bill surely will be helpful.”

Roger got up, too. “Louise, I am so sorry. Did I sound like a paternalistic putz? I didn’t mean to. It’s just that you and Bill operate so well together, you with your intuition, he with his finely honed rational approach from years in the stultifying atmosphere of the State Department.”

He meant it as a joke. She smiled faintly up at him. A year or so ago, she would have apologized to the man at this juncture, graciously retreating, citing her fatigue for her testy remarks. But Roger certainly wasn’t standing there thinking he should apologize to her for trying to slot her into every existing stereotype there was for a woman. Intuitive and emotional, yes; rational, not really: Leave that part to Bill.

It would be so nice to see Bill, Bill who really understood and knew how to treat a woman. Her honey, who smelled so warm and buttery when she held him in her arms. Suddenly, she wanted to go home and not think about anything, especially not murder and vicious political scandals—and just curl up and sleep and wait for her family to come.

“’There’s something else, Louise,” Roger was saying. “When you tell me you’ve found evidence in a case like this that could involve the presidential election, you know all my reportorial juices have been released, right?”

“You want the story first.”

He grinned. “Of course. But rest assured: The Post always wants the story first, and usually gets it first.”

Then an idea occurred to her. “Can we sit down again?”

“Sure.”

She slumped back into the metal chair and crossed her bare, booted leg across her knee. “What if your paper could help with this?”

He resumed his seat opposite and said, “Just how would we do that?”

“That political gossip column that you run: How would it be if you plant a little item in there? It could say that someone in the Sylvan Valley neighborhood where the investigative reporter met a mysterious death—a person who had been involved in a prior murder case—had come across his computer disks?”

“Huh,” said Roger. “That would make you guys into sitting ducks.”

“Yes, but we could even bring the police in on it. What the heck, Geraghty deserves to be let in.” She waved her hand. “We’d find some way to make it foolproof.” Then she placed her hand on her breast, “I, personally, have no desire to be the target of some political madman.”

Roger stared through her, thinking. “That’s not a bad idea. Provided it was done with a lot of care and thought.”

She made a half stab at a smile. “Maybe it’s something I should take up with Bill.”

“Louise, will you ever forgive me for that? I wonder. And at the risk of being paternalistic again, I urge you to come out with Laurie and me tonight, just to be safe.” He looked at her earnestly over his glasses. “Those phone calls made me nervous, frankly.”

“Come with you where?”

“We’re going to the big Goodrich extravaganza—heard of it?”

She shoved her disheveled long hair back with a hand; she must look like the wild woman of the West by now. “Actually, I just happened to hear about that. You mean, get dressed, comb my hair”—she laughed and held up a hunk of it, as if this were a hopeless task—“and go all the way to Washington.” She made it sound like one hundred miles, not just eight.

“Yeah, but you don’t have to get that dressed up; just think of yourself as part of the Post press team that’s covering the event.”

Knowing she was far too tired to go through all the required ablutions, she gave her neighbor a smile and shake of the head. “That’s very nice of you, Roger, but I’ll be fine. I’ll lock the house and clutch my phone, and I’ll call 911 immediately if I hear any strange noises outside.”

She pushed herself up out of the chair. “And now, I’m totally beat; I have to go home. The day started early, with the police searching the house and yard. Then I ran downtown and had lunch with Tom Paschen.” She omitted her trip to Great Falls and her emotion-packed encounters with Melissa, the patrolman, and Lannie Gordon. They had taken their toll.

“Tom Paschen? Louise, you’re kidding. How did he have time to take you to lunch?”

“It wasn’t a long lunch, that’s for sure. It was in the members’ dining room; that’s where I saw all those characters, Rawlings, French, even Goodrich. Tom wants something from Channel Five; I’m his conduit.”

“That’s very interesting. Your garden show, of course. The environmental bill, I bet. They want you to showcase it.”

“Naturally, Franklin Rawlings wants me to deep-six it. He told me straight out that Channel Five shouldn’t do it because Fairchild’s bill will all be changed once Goodrich wins the presidency.” She laughed. “It was like two jungle animals, fighting over scraps.”

Roger shook his head. “No, my dear. Media coverage can never be called scraps: It’s too valuable. Tom’s pulling out all the stops, and it’s a terrific idea. Fairchild may have major faults, but you have to remember, he has two things going for him. He’s a moderate who’s kept the economy and foreign
affairs under control, and at home he’s a strong protector of the environment: He knows the public doesn’t want the globe they live on to go to hell.”

“Too bad Rawlings’s campaign is working, and Fairchild’s isn’t.” Her voice was weary, her motor running down now. “But maybe all that will change soon.” She started walking toward her yard, and he accompanied her.

“Louise, you be careful, now. Do you and Bill have a gun?”

She stopped and looked at him, and pulled her breath in with a little noisy gasp. “Do you think I need a gun?” She thought for a moment and remembered. Because he thought he might need it, Bill had taken the gun, smoothing the way somehow through all the airport red tape.

“Uh, there’s no gun in the house right now, Roger. But I’ll be all right.” She smiled up at him, and tried to lighten the conversation. “I’ll return one of these days and help you prune those trees.”

He leaned over and whispered as if the two of them were colluding in a crime, and not trying to solve one. “Once we have these other matters taken care of.”

Doing It Your Way: Hubris in the Name of Gardening Is No Vice

T
HERE IS SOME REASON WHY PEO
ple plant bright red and yellow tulips together; perhaps it’s because the Dutch grow them that way in the fields, and we all have a little Dutch in us. But, voila! The National Arboretum does it a little better. It plants masses of orange-red dahlias next to yellow cannas—but the yellow cannas have red throats to echo the color of their companions. It takes an
artistic sense to combine bright colors, and there are other ways than red with yellow to quicken the eye. We can make a bold statement with either flowers, vegetables, or beguiling combinations of the two.

With thanks to former Senator Barry Goldwater.

When bright primary colors are used, they can be like the flashy movie star who makes all the other players fade into the background. These Day-Glo tints must be managed: Instead of arraying them in a sunny border across the front of the house, put them in drifts in the garden, or sober them by putting near them the quieting influence of gray plants. Or confine them to pots, where they will seem less intrusive. Nothing is more exciting, for instance, than a group of big orange marigolds crowded into a pot with large fuchsia-colored zinnias. Or pot up some dashing purple Heuchera with red salvia, fuchsia-colored dwarf dahlia, and for the eye’s relief, a few plants of fragrant white stock. The color of the pot itself should be neutral when we fill it with fierce color: after all, the eye can only take so much.

Vegetables are a fine and surprising element in flower gardens. Okra, eggplant, and artichoke are handsome flowering plants to accent the border. But most surprising is the beauty of the lowly potato.
Plant a hill near the hollyhocks or asters, and a flutter of white blossoms will reward you. For another elegant infill to the garden, plant the glowing red-violet kohlrabi, Brassica oleracea “Early Purple Vienna.” It is a beautiful construction, its bulbous root only half hidden. When it is the proper size, you dig it up and eat it with a smirk—and think of something to go in the empty space: a sprinkling of Bibb lettuce or mâche seeds, or quick-grown radishes such as “Cherry Belles,” which mature in twenty-two days. You can even raise tomatoes in the border. Lace them over with climbing nasturtiums that will mask the eventual decline of some of the leaves over the summer.

Other cheeky and wonderful plantings and practices:

Combining yellow, rose, and deep purple. You can do it with the sturdy shrub, Spiraea japonica “Goldflame”—brilliant gold-and-green leaves and rosy clusters of bloom. Pair it with a purple-leaved plant with white spires: Cimicifuga racemosa “Atropurpurea.”

The tall, hardy bold red Crocosmia “Firebird” will enliven a throng of paler perennials without harshness. The long-lived
flowers are arranged on stems like wide opening fans. It is without parallel in front of a purple background, such as the hardy smoke bush Cotinus coggygria, or the tropical sword-leaved Cordyline australis, which is safe outside only in southern Florida and California. Gray sea kale or lamb’s ears can add mellow, grounding bass notes to these color symphonies.

Interweave a spiky plant with a dramatic vine. Use Yucca filamentosa or the bronze form of Cordyline australis and twine in another plant: a white clematis, or the delightful crimson starglory (
Mina lobata
), which has dramatic, three-lobed leaves, and interesting orange-and-yellow flowers borne in racemes.

Plant the unstoppable pale pink
Clematis montana rubens
, to clamber around other plants, hang by wires, snake through porch posts, or ascend a pine tree or antique Bourbon rose.

Spiky plants are invaluable, the exclamation marks in any garden. They look particularly good near round-leaved varieties such as
Ligularia
“Desdemona.” Among them is the fine orange-to-yellow colored
Eremurus
“Shelford Hybrids” that grow several feet high.

The variegated yellow-and-green leaves, and its graceful fall, make the Chinese grass, Hakonechloa macra “Aureola” a favorite. Combine it with a long-blooming blue catmint (
which some think as good as a dozen blue delphinium
) and in the foreground place a drift of yellow-eyed white viola or delicate yellow Cosmos “Moonbeam.”

A tall variegated white-and-green-striped grass combines vividly with white Echinacea purpurea “White Swan,” and rusty-red Helenium “Moerheim Beauty.”

Walls of vines, such as English ivy or Virginia creeper, turn brilliant red in fall. Put them at the edge of a porch. Or make a summer wall of vegetables—Malabar spinach (
Basella alba
), cucumbers, or curvaceous-necked Zuccheta, the climbing summer squash. Let a clematis or morning glory sprawl up the same wire structure, to provide flowers through the summer, though Malabar spinach is handsome without them, with its red stems, petioles, and flowers.

The large, ornamental variety of rhubarb,
Rheum palmatum
, with its red fingers of blossoms running up the tall stems,
makes a fine show when planted near a clump of birches or aspen.

A structural form to delight the eye is the Egyptian onion,
Allium cepa viviparum
. It multiplies through the bulbils that form in the flower cluster at the top of the plant, giving it a dramatic silhouette, especially when placed near a drift of English lavender and white, daisylike chamomile.

Deep red chicory, including the centuries-old
Cichorium intybus
“Treviso Red,” gives a beautiful, lush color accent to a garden, and has the additional advantage of being edible. In late season the leaves are cut off and the roots produce a second, smaller head with magenta coloring and white veining. Newer varieties such as “Giulio” and “Medusa” form into heads without the trouble of cutting back the first leaves.