Flowerbed of State (40 page)

“So you killed her?”

“Not me, Wallace.”

The senator, I was glad to see, had sat up. I reached down to help her to her feet. She looked too weak to manage it on her own. With an irritated grunt, she waved me away. “
Go
,” she rasped. “
Get help
.”

She was right. I needed to get the Secret Service down here. Shouting for help, I made a mad dash toward the walkway.

Richard lunged forward and grabbed my neck before much of a squeak escaped my lips. Those large bunny paws were more powerful than they looked as he squeezed, cutting off the air and blood flow to my head.

“I should have let Wallace kill you.” His grip tightened. “He wanted to, you know. He knew you saw him. But every extra body would only increase the chances he’d be caught.”

“So . . . why . . . now?” I managed to get out.

“Don’t be conceited. I didn’t come here to kill you. It’s the senator I’m after. Thanks to your prodding, she won’t give up on that damn legislation of hers.” He pressed his face to mine. “I never lose.”

My oxygen-starved brain suddenly remembered the pepper spray. I reached up my sleeve searching for the bottle.

“As for you, you’re an afterthought, a footnote. Did you really think I was attracted to you . . .
to you
?” His grip on my neck tightened despite those silly fleece bunny paws covering his hands and my attempts to pry him loose.

“I had hoped we could be friends,” I wheezed.

He laughed. “You’re constantly covered in dirt and mud. I wasn’t dating you. I was keeping an eye on you, making sure you didn’t get your memories back. But I’m glad I get to kill you, because you, Casey Calhoun, repulse me.”

My fingers curled around the small plastic hairspray bottle I’d tucked up my sleeve. With a yank that ripped the sleeve and cracked the egg open, I pulled it out and squirted.

And missed.

I pressed the plunger again. I had to get away so I could get help and save the senator.

The world around me disappeared as I began to lose consciousness.

I kept pressing the plunger, praying he’d let go.

Richard finally shouted an ear-blistering curse and dropped me.

“Some dream guy you turned out to be,” I whispered as I crumbled to the ground, thrilled that the pepper spray had actually worked this time.

Frantically rubbing his eyes with his giant rabbit’s paw, he hopped around blindly. I tried to roll out of his way, but I couldn’t move fast enough. He stumbled and fell on top of me.

His grasping hands grabbed my arms in a bruising hold, pulling me toward him. I kicked and fought, but his determination gave him a maddening strength that was no match for my woozy half-strangled self.

I could feel the cold hand of death in his ever-tightening grip. He’d worked his way up my arms and had grabbed my neck again.

“Die, dammit, die already,” he groaned in my ear.

In a desperate move to protect myself, I hugged my legs to my chest and tucked my head between my knees, to make myself as compact and small as possible. Too late, too late, though. His fingers pressed against my windpipe in a crushing grip.

“Take your hands off the gardener or I’ll blow your damned head clean off your neck,” a low, unnaturally calm voice warned.

Richard’s grip around my neck loosened.

Shivering from head to toe, I slowly uncurled my body and raised my head. The first thing I saw was a shiny black combat boot grinding into Richard’s back, the barrel of an assault rifle pressed menacingly against his temple.

My gaze traveled a little higher.

“Turner,” I whispered. “Thank God.”

His jaw was set. His gaze locked on Richard’s face. His finger held at the ready on his rifle’s trigger.

“What took you so long?” I asked as I wiggled out from under Richard.

“It took some time to chase down and secure the senator’s grandchildren,” Turner explained in his deadpan voice. “And then we had to figure out where you’d disappeared to.”

The entire CAT team flanked Turner, their rifles held at the ready, their expressions as deadly as his. What a wonderful sight.

“Thank you for saving me,” I said to them. My voice sounded as if I’d swallowed a bag of gravel. “Now, could you please get out of the flowerbeds? Y’all are crushing my grape hyacinths.”

A
week had passed since Richard’s arrest. The newspapers still buzzed about his meteoric rise and violent downfall as the SEC took apart his bank’s books piece by piece. As a result of the scandal, Senator Pendergast’s banking legislation sailed through the Senate without much debate and looked as if it’d soon pass the House as well.

Gordon and I silently flanked Lorenzo as we sat in the back row while Pauline Bonde’s family and friends hugged and cried after the graveside service. Gradually, everyone left the cemetery.

Lorenzo remained, so we stayed with him.

“I know she would have never married me,” Lorenzo said. He sat with his hands clasped between his knees and stared at the lightning bolt down the side of his leather shoes. “It was over between us. I knew that, but that doesn’t stop me from loving her or grieving the life we might have had if she hadn’t been married to her job or grasping so desperately for the next powerful man to head her way. But isn’t that what we’re all doing in this town? Grasping for power?”

“Not all of us.” I gave his clasped hands a gentle squeeze.

“Thank you, Casey.” He turned toward me. “Thank you for finding out why this happened. I’m grateful for that.”

I nodded with a lump in my throat.

“Let me take you home,” Gordon said to Lorenzo. “I’ll fix you my secret recipe for macaroni and cheese.”

Lorenzo nodded jerkily and rose from his chair.

“You’re welcome to come, too, Casey,” Gordon said as he stood as well.

“I think I need to be alone for a bit.”

“If you change your mind, you know where I live,” Gordon said. He put his hand on Lorenzo’s shoulder and led him toward the cemetery’s parking lot.

Tears stained my cheeks as I gazed at the open grave and lonely granite marker, an inadequate reminder of the life that had left this world too soon. I’d cried not only for Pauline and for her family, but also for my mother and the questions surrounding her murder that would never be answered.

A piece of me had believed that if I could find Pauline’s murderer, if I could find justice for her, a piece of my heart would be healed and I’d begin to be whole again. And yet on this crisp clear spring morning I felt worse.

This tragedy had only forced the grief I’d buried deep in my heart to bubble up to the surface. It tore at me as raw and real as the day I’d lost my mom. I turned my stinging face to the pale blue sky and inhaled the cool fragrant air.

I needed someone to hold me and to tell me that it was okay to feel lost and alone and frightened. My grandmother, with her gentle wisdom and strong embrace, would know the right words to say to soothe my battered heart. Too bad she was a day’s drive away. Too far.

I should have never left Charleston or the loving embrace of my family at Rosebrook.

The white plastic folding chair the funeral home had set up at the graveside creaked as I stood. When I turned around, I discovered that I wasn’t alone.

Special Agent Jack Turner stood underneath a poplar tree a hundred feet away. Dressed in a black suit and matching tie, he looked trim and professional and not at all like the knight errant image he played so well.

My heart raced at the sight of him. Now that Pauline’s murder had been solved, I’d assumed Turner would disappear back into the shadows with the rest of the secretive CAT agents.

We stood there staring at each other for I don’t know how long.

The corners of his lips kicked up into a half grin.

That got my legs working again. The thick fescue grass swished under my feet as I crossed the distance between us at a careful, measured pace.

“Don’t tell me you’re still on babysitting duty,” I said.

“No reason to be. Everyone who was involved is either dead or in jail. I even heard that Senator Pendergast is now campaigning for your organic gardening program.”

“She was awfully grateful that I’d saved her life.”

He nodded.

“If you’re not on assignment, Turner, what are you doing here?”

“Don’t know. Bad habit, I suppose.” He crossed his arms over his chest and bumped his shoulder against mine. “Do you mind that I came?”

“Not at all.”

“How about I buy you a coffee?”

“That would be . . . would be . . .” A sob tore from my throat.

Why did he have to go and pull this nice act? It was just too much.

Turner pulled me close and wrapped his arms around me. I pressed my cheek against his strong chest and wept. As soon as I felt safe and strong again, I pushed him away and wiped at my eyes, trying my best to pretend that nothing had happened.

“Brace yourself, Casey,” he said as we walked toward the road. “I do have some bad news.”

My muscles instinctively tightened. “What now? Wait, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

We walked a little farther.

“Okay. I can’t stand it. Spit it out. What happened?”

“Milo got into the Rose Garden again this morning. He dug up two more rosebushes.”

“No! I hope whoever was supposed to be watching him gets fired.”

“Now that’s unfair. He
was
being watched.”

“How do you know?”

“Because
I
was watching Milo. I watched him dig up the one bush and then the other.”

“Agent Turner!”

He threw his arm over my shoulder as we headed toward the parking lot. “I think you should call me Jack.”

“Well, Jack, you should be ashamed. Those poor, defenseless roses. I don’t know how they’re going to survive Milo’s puppyhood. I don’t know how
I’m
going to survive it.”

And yet I knew I would survive Milo’s antics, Seth’s nervous ranting, and anything else that might be thrown my way because I loved the excitement of gardening at the White House.

“Aren’t you going to say something about this being the beginning of a beautiful friendship?” Jack asked, interrupting my train of thought.

Our eyes met, and I laughed. “I think you already did.”

 

PLANTING:
Planted 35 varieties of tulips (an even mix of early, mid, and late bloomers to ensure a steady show of colorful blooms). 3,000 bulbs planted in the Rose Garden, bordered by 8,000 grape hyacinths. 8,000 tulip bulbs planted around the South Fountain, bordered by 16,000 grape hyacinths. 4,000 tulip bulbs planted around the North Fountain, bordered by 8,000 grape hyacinths. Next week: Plant tulips and grape hyacinths in Lafayette Square park.

 

SOWING:
Started tomatoes (5 heirloom varieties), green bell peppers (the First Lady’s favorite), and cucumbers in the White House greenhouse.

 

CULTIVATING:
None this week. Hopefully, we’ll be cultivating organically grown beets this time next year.

 

FERTILIZING:
With the warmer weather on its way and the new leaves beginning to appear on the roses, it’s time to start fertilizing. I’ve talked Gordon into an organic alternative this year with a half-and-half mix of alfalfa and cottonseed meals, 10 cups per plant. The fertilizer was carefully mixed into the top inch or two of soil in the Rose Garden. The application will be repeated every 10 weeks.

Applied liquid seaweed using a hose-end sprayer to the South Lawn to give a quick boost of green to the tall fescue turf.

 

PRUNING:
Early spring is the time to prune perennials. Removed old foliage from the perennials in the Children’s Garden, making room for the new growth that’s about to appear. To avoid sour grapes, we vigorously pruned the Concord grape vines in the East Garden, cutting new shoots back to the third or fourth leaf. Next week: Prune roses in Rose Garden.

 

WEATHER:
Warmer days have made everyone anxious to get to work in earnest in all the gardens. Gordon has been reminding us daily that it’s early in the season. There’s still the danger of freezes and frost. It’s been a rainy week. I took a handful of soil in my hand and squeezed. The dirt formed large clumps, which means it’s too wet to work. Soil prep for the First Lady’s vegetable garden will have to wait.

 

NOTES:
Keeping an eye out for weeds. Turned compost pile at the White House greenhouse facility. Ordered diatomaceous earth, a natural barrier against ants and other harmful insects, for use in the spring garden.