The Scarlet Pepper
Read The Scarlet Pepper Online
Authors: Dorothy St. James
“This spunky new romantic suspense series is an obvious pick for readers who enjoy Julie Hyzy’s White House Chef series (
Buffalo West Wing
) but also think of gardening mystery series such as Rosemary Harris’s (
Slugfest
).”
—
Library Journal
One less snake
Beyond the yellow tape, police officers worked as an efficient team around the base of the park’s centerpiece bronze statue. An older man sat slumped on a marble step at the statue’s base. He seemed oblivious to the activity buzzing all around him. His head was bowed as if he’d fallen asleep.
“Even
Media Today
can’t get away with printing out-and-out lies,” Annie reminded me. “Before going into politics Bruce used to work as a trial lawyer. He gave my late husband his first job at his law firm. At the first whiff of libel, Bruce will sue, and the newspaper editors know it.”
“I hope so. Even though Griffon Parker is a snake, his stories seem to sell papers,” I said, feeling my face heat. “He’s won plenty of awards for his investigative reports. I hate what he does and who he hurts. He’s a weasel. A weed. A sorry excuse for a human being. And—”
“
Dead
,” Annie finished for me.
Berkley Prime Crime titles by Dorothy St. James
FLOWERBED OF STATE
THE SCARLET PEPPER
DOROTHY ST. JAMES
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
THE SCARLET PEPPER
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with Tekno Books
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / April 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Tekno Books.
Cover illustration by Mary Ann Lasher.
Cover design by Olivia Andreas.
Interior text design by Kristin del Rosario.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-56161-4
BERKLEY
®
PRIME CRIME
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY
®
PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
For Jim…
the love of my life and my partner in crime.
For Martin H. Greenberg.
Marty Greenberg, the creative force behind Tekno
Books, passed away during the writing of this novel.
Without his insight and dedication to the book
world, this series would never have happened.
May he always be remembered for helping
the underdog and giving new voices a chance.
Acknowledgments
Once again as I immersed myself in the fictional world of Casey Calhoun and her White House adventures, I had the pleasure to meet, interview, and learn from so many wonderful gardeners, journalists, and dedicated bureaucrats.
My dear friend Judy Watts shared her experiences as a newspaper editor. Former
Washington Post
editor and fellow novelist Patricia McLinn patiently talked through Casey’s life and her neighborhood and helped me to mold my Washington gardener into a three-dimensional character. And the incredible Eddie Gehman Kohan, who reports all things food- and garden-related from the White House in her Obama Foodorama blog, offered her insights on what it’s like to report from inside the White House. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate these three talented ladies.
On the gardening front, my gratitude goes out to Amy Dabbs, the Tri-County Master Gardener Coordinator, for sharing her passion for organic gardening, and to Master Gardener and fellow writer Shannon Cavanaugh, for her enthusiasm for her garden and her writing. Keep those newsletter articles coming! And thank you, Kathy Jentz, editor of
Washington Gardener
, for answering my D.C. gardening questions on the fly through Twitter. What a wonderful invention. I don’t know what I would have done without it.
A special thank-you goes to Miranda Kenneally, YA novelist, for showing me the ropes at the State Department. You
turned my latest D.C. research trip into an unforgettable adventure.
Of course, enormous thanks go to Brittiany Koren for offering me the chance to bring Casey Calhoun to the pages of this book. Brittiany, you’re a great friend, a hard-nosed editor, and one of the best cheerleaders in the business. A big thank-you goes to Michael Koren for his understanding and patience during all those times Brittiany locked herself away in her office in order to help me hash out all the details.
Thank you, also, to Rosalind Greenberg, Larry Segriff, John Helfers, and Chuck Wiseman at Tekno Books for your support and to the awesome staff at Berkley Prime Crime, especially Natalee Rosenstein for giving me the chance to continue Casey Calhoun’s story, and Robin Barletta for making the process of publishing a book fun.
Last but not least, I must thank the incredible authors in the Lowcountry chapter of Romance Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and Mystery Writers of America, whose unflagging support has kept me pounding away at my keyboard, especially Nina Bruhns, Julie Hyzy, Margie Lawson, C. J. Lyons, Tracy Anne Warren, and Joanna Wayne for patiently listening and giving advice as I worked out plot problems, figured out promotional efforts, and whined like an annoying little girl while writing this book. Once again, I couldn’t have done it without you!
Prologue
If I am shot at, I want no man to be
in the way of the bullet.
—ANDREW JOHNSON, THE 17TH PRESIDENT OF
THE UNITED STATES
M
y
wary gaze scanned the West Wing corridor. The creamy walls were lined with framed photos of White House events, both past and present. A smiling Richard Nixon shook hands with the Chinese premier on one side of me and John F. Kennedy stood grim faced in the Oval Office during the height of the Bay of Pigs missile crisis on the other side.
No world-changing decisions were scheduled to be made today. I kept my pace steady as I made my way past the steps that led down to the Secret Service’s offices in the West Wing’s basement and toward the Press Briefing Room. It was quiet—too quiet. My shoulders tensed.
The large potted begonia in my arms was missing about a third of its variegated leaves. Several of its canes were broken, and a large crack ran the length of its bright yellow ceramic pot.
Both the pot and the plant desperately needed attention, but I’d been instructed to take the begonia from the vice president’s office, through the twisting, surprisingly
narrow hallway, and deliver it to the Press Briefing Room regardless of how awful it looked.
“Who am I but the assistant gardener?” I grumbled under my breath. The plants in the West Wing, or anywhere else in the White House, for that matter, were kept in peak condition. First Lady Margaret Bradley loved plants almost as much as I did.