The Scarlet Pepper (26 page)

“Can I quote you on that?”

“No! Gracious, no.” Now I started to get nervous. I was no longer working with dear old Southern ladies. While what I said in the backyards of Charleston could and did sometimes get repeated and turned around to my detriment, my thoughts and opinions never ended up making the six o’clock news or the morning edition of a national newspaper.

“But there is a story here,” I said. “An explosive story.”

She thought about it for a moment. Her lips relaxed into a smile. “Yes, there is a story. I’ll get my editor to run a teaser on the TV scroll. That should explain to anyone who might be watching me why I’ve been seen with you. Get in.”

The United States Botanic Garden, practically in the shadow of the Capitol dome, sits at the far end of the National Mall. In the middle of the day and at the height of the tourist season, it took forever to find a parking spot. The Metro would have taken less time.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison all had a hand in the development of the Botanic Garden. It had opened on the National Mall in 1820. The facility, with its gardens and glassed conservatory, moved to its present location in 1933.

Several of the horticulturists who worked or volunteered at the Botanic Garden greeted me with excitement
and hugs. With everything that had been going on in the First Lady’s kitchen garden, it had been a while since I’d gotten a chance to visit with my friends and colleagues here. I chatted with each of them briefly about their projects—they tend more than sixty thousands plants at the gardens, a staggering amount that never failed to amaze me—and introduced Kelly, telling them that she was researching a story on the First Lady’s garden.

Once the niceties had been taken care of, I found a relatively secluded bench underneath a large cocoa tree in the main glass conservatory. It was a spot where we could watch people passing by. The tree backed up against the greenhouse wall. It would be difficult for anyone to sneak up from behind and listen in on our conversation.

Kelly paced in front of the bench.

“This is difficult,” she said several times.

I watched her in silence. She’d either tell me what she needed to tell me or she wouldn’t.

I hoped she would.

“I know this may sound silly coming from a journalist and all. I mean my job is to publicize the truth, to get people talking about events that are happening. And here I am, anxious to hide what is possibly the most important event of my life. I don’t want people talking about this. It’s private.”

“White House employees are the models of discretion. We don’t go blabbing what we know to anyone. And the Secret Service has ‘Secret’ in their title for a reason. Believe me, they know how to keep what they know to themselves. To a fault. Drives me insane how secretive they can be.”

Kelly nodded.

She swallowed deeply.

And then mumbled something.

“Pardon me?” I leaned forward. “I couldn’t hear what you said.”

She sat down next to me and squeezed her hands between her knees. “I said I’m searching for my father.”

“What would you do that for?” popped out of my mouth
before I realized it. I cleared my throat. “Your father, you say?”

She nodded. “That’s why I pushed to get this assignment. I could have had the weekend anchor spot for
Media Today
’s national morning news. That’s a big position, a step away from the weekday anchor. I turned it down in favor of the White House assignment because I wanted to find my father. I wanted to know if he even realizes I exist.”

“I see.” It was my turn to swallow deeply.

“A few days ago I was convinced I’d found both my father and my mother. Not that I really care to find my mother. She left me on a doorstep in rural Virginia in the middle of the night. I was only hours old. It was winter and snowing. And she leaves me outside? How can I forgive her for that?”

“But you were found? Saved?”

“The neighbors saw a car pull away and investigated. The family who owned the house where I was left were away.” She smiled as she looked into the distance as if peering into a memory. “My adoptive parents were the neighbors who found me. They took me in. They cared for me and loved me as if I belonged, as if I were their natural child.”

“You were lucky.”

So was I. My father may have abandoned me, but I had a grandmother and two aunts who loved me like they loved no other.

Kelly nodded. “But no matter how loved I was—how loved I
am
—at home, the questions about my birth parents never go away. I have long fantasized of the day I would meet my father. Would he recognize me? Would he be surprised to learn I existed? When I started this search I had little to go on, only an investigative reporter’s instincts and a longing to learn the truth.”

“And have you found him?”

“I thought I had. But I was wrong. I thought Bruce Dearing was my father. I even thought his wife, Francesca, could be my mother. I do look a little like her. But look at me.”

“What about you?”

“I’m African American, or at least partially. They’re not. We couldn’t be related. And my blood type and Bruce Dearing’s…it’s not a match.” Her shoulders dropped. “I was so certain. And now…”

“Parker stole the research you were using in your search for your birth parents?”

She nodded. “Parker seemed to know more about all of this than I did. About twenty-five years ago, the presidential election cycle would have been heating up. Ronald Reagan, a two-term president, couldn’t run again, which left the slate of candidates wide open for both parties.

“Parker told me that there’d been a rumor of an indiscretion surrounding one of the popular politicians at that time. He hinted that he was talking about the presidential candidates.”

“Do you know which politicians were vying for the presidency?”

Kelly nodded. “Besides George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, Bruce Dearing had entered the race as a dark horse. Some thought that if he didn’t get the nomination, he’d be a shoo-in for the vice presidency. A young, unattached John Bradley was also running for Congress for the first time. I mention that because when Parker found out about my research, President Bradley was the first person he mentioned.”

“Do you know why?”

“When I asked, Parker got all twitchy and secretive. Said there’d been a scandal that had been hushed up at the time. ‘It’s an explosive story I wanted to tell, but I didn’t have all the details, and my editor pulled the plug on me,’ he said. He then stole my papers. And then was found dead in that park the next morning.”

“That makes you a suspect,” I pointed out.

“I know. The police keep asking me questions about what I was doing Friday night. But I had no reason to want Parker dead. I never wanted his job. I simply want to find
my father. And yet I’m sure my searching for him caused Parker’s death. So doesn’t that make me guilty of something?”

“I don’t know. Everyone in D.C. wanted to see Parker gone.”

“You’re right about that. Every day I meet someone new who loathed Parker. Actually, I wasn’t convinced about the connection between my research and his death until I started to get the threatening phone calls.”

“Can you tell if the caller is a man or a woman?”

She shook her head. “The voice is gruff. Muffled.”

“You need to tell the police about the phone calls. It could be the big break Detective Hernandez needs to catch the killer.”

“No! I can’t! You don’t understand. The caller is telling me that if I talk to the police my father will be murdered! Murdered before I can find out who he is!”

Several people turned to stare.

“Oh, God.” Kelly jumped up. “What if the killer followed us here? What if he heard me?”

I glanced around. Frank Lispon and Bruce Dearing weren’t anywhere in sight. “I’m sure it’s fine. Sit down.”

“No! I shouldn’t have come. I’ve put my father’s life in danger by talking to you.” She ran out of the conservatory. I chased after her.

I made it through the heavy double doors and had caught her arm when a black town car—a common sight in D.C.—screeched around the corner at a most uncommon speed.

“Look out!” I screamed as the car jumped the curb.

I dove out of the way, dragging Kelly with me.

Too late. Too late.

Kelly’s arm tore from my grasping fingers as the sedan slammed into her. Her head cracked against the sedan’s windshield before she was thrown onto the sidewalk.

The car sped away. Kelly lay in a crumpled heap like a broken doll. A pool of blood formed a halo around her head.

*  *  *

“TWO REPORTERS DEAD.” SPECIAL AGENT IN
Charge Mike Thatch grimaced. His gaze dropped to the hospital’s linoleum floor.

Manny Hernandez nodded gravely.

“Kelly’s not dead,” I said.

She was in the ICU unit at the end of the hall on life support. The car’s impact had fractured her skull along with several ribs and her right arm, and it had punctured a lung, but she wasn’t dead.

Thatch ignored me. “Both reporters were White House correspondents for
Media Today
. This is clearly an attack on a specific media outlet. Naturally we’ll increase security for the press at the White House. Bryce has already sent out an investigative team to coordinate with your men on what happened.” William Bryce was the Secret Service’s assistant director in charge of protective operations.

As soon as Jack had received my many text and voice messages, he’d rushed over to the hospital still dressed in his black CAT fatigues. Unfortunately, in order to leave his post he’d had to request time off from his supervisor, Mike Thatch. When Thatch heard I was involved with the accident, he’d insisted on accompanying Jack to the hospital.

“The attack on Ms. Montague changes the focus of our investigation into Parker’s murder. Any assistance you can provide with names of known threats would be appreciated,” Manny said.

“You’re welcome to our data. The FBI will have information as well.”

“I’ve already contacted them,” Manny said.

“Then it’s handled. It’s a shame, really.” Thatch glanced down the hall. “She was so young.”

“Kelly’s not dead,” I repeated.

He turned toward me. His expression hardened.

“Don’t you have plants to tend?”

I did.

The sky outside the window was showing the first signs of morning gray. I’d gone to the hospital with Kelly and even though I wasn’t allowed to see her, I didn’t have the heart to leave, not until her adoptive parents arrived.

I glanced at my watch. Five o’clock. The First Lady’s harvest was to begin in a few hours. Whether I had the heart to leave or not, I’d run out of time. I had to get ready for work. Manny had already headed for the bank of elevators. I jogged to catch up to him and caught his sleeve.

“Are you going to follow up on what Kelly told me about her search for her father?” Despite my vow to keep silent about what she’d told me, I couldn’t keep this information from Manny. Too many lives were at stake. Manny needed to know.

“I will pull her caller history,” he said. “I’ll do what I can, but honestly, Casey, I can’t see how Kelly’s searching for her birth father could have acted as a trigger for someone to murder Parker.”

“You’ll believe it once you talk with her. She was terrified, not for her own life, but for her father’s life.”

“I hope I do get a chance to talk with Kelly.” He glanced down the hall and at the double doors that led into the ICU ward. “I sincerely hope she wakes up.”

I’d heard the doctor’s assessment. Her chances for survival were grim.

That didn’t mean any of us needed to give up hope.

“You will get to talk to her,” I insisted. “She’s strong. She’s going to survive this.”

Manny patted my shoulder and smiled indulgently. “I hope so. If we find the folder you described with her research in it, I’ll assign an officer to follow up on that information as well.”

“You haven’t found it? Are you saying it’s gone?”

“It’s still early in the investigation,” was all he’d tell me.

“And Annie? Have you found her yet? I still haven’t been able to get in touch with her.”

Manny shook his head. “We don’t even know that Annie is missing, Casey. All we know is that we have two attacks
on two reporters who work for the same news organization. One is dead. One may not survive the day. As I told you before, I have to go where the evidence leads me. And the evidence is not taking me to missing fathers or murderous press secretaries.”

“But—”

Manny’s cell phone buzzed. He held up a hand and answered with a curt, “Tell the chief I’d be able to get some damn work done if he’d stop having dispatchers call for progress reports.”

His face grew scarlet as he listened.

“
What
?” I breathed.

The string of curses that followed made me blush. He jogged toward the elevators and slammed his fist against the “down” button. The violence of his actions startled me.

“What? What’s happened?” I demanded as the elevator doors slid open.

Manny stepped into the elevator and slammed his fist against the “door closed” button several times. When I tried to follow, he blocked me. “I don’t need a damned gardener nipping at my heels. Get Jack and go home.”

“What’s going on?” I called out as the doors started to close.

“Another White House reporter has been found dead. Looks like—” The thick elevator doors clanged into place.