Free Flowerbed of State by Dorothy St. James

teasing out details from my memories that had more holes in them than my grandmother’s old lace handkerchiefs. They were persistent as they tried to pry some little gem loose from my fractured memories.
    Like Mike Thatch, they seemed very interested in the banking protestors gathered in the park as well as in the businessman I’d seen carrying a metal briefcase.
    A few hours after lunch, a sketch artist arrived with a sophisticated laptop computer that she set up on Lorenzo’s desk. Lorenzo still hadn’t returned.
    Gordon had. He hovered and groaned as he listened to the retelling of my attack and subsequent discovery of Pauline Bonde’s body, all the while blaming himself, poor sweet man. “I should have been out there with you,” I heard him mutter more than once.
    When the agents took a break to give the sketch artist time to set up her equipment, I cornered Gordon.
    “What happened at the meeting? Were you able to reschedule?” I whispered. “Was Mrs. Bradley upset? How about the committee members? How did they seem? Should I expect another scathing opinion piece against me and my gardening plans to show up in tomorrow’s edition of Media Today ?”
    Gordon waved away my concerns. “You have no reason to worry about the Grounds Committee or the missed meeting, Casey. Everything will be fine.”
    “Does that mean you were able to reschedule the presentation?”
    Gordon scratched his chin and looked away. “Not yet. The First Lady’s schedule this week is impossible,” he complained, but quickly added, “She did express deep concern about your well-being. How is your head feeling?”
    “I’ve got a throbbing headache, but I’m fine. What’s going to happen with the presentation? What are we going to do if we can’t reschedule?”
    “I don’t know. The committee insists on hearing the full details.”
    I groaned.
    “Don’t worry. I’m sure it’ll work out. I just don’t know how yet.”
    I wished I shared his confidence.
    “Have you seen Lorenzo?” Gordon asked. “He never made it to the committee meeting.”
    “He didn’t?” I explained how he’d rushed from the office in a panic. “What do you think happened to him? Where did he go?”
    Gordon, as concerned as I, had no idea where Lorenzo might have gone or what could have upset him.
    We had just started to discuss where we might go looking for Lorenzo when the sketch artist announced she was ready to get started. Unfortunately, with my fuzzy memories she didn’t have much to work with.
    The man I’d seen carrying that silver briefcase was of average height, average weight, with a face that wouldn’t stand out in a crowd, and that was if I could trust what little I could remember, which I didn’t. Add to that he was wearing a hat, so I couldn’t tell her anything about his hair or even if he had any.
    “I really didn’t get a good look at him. I was more concerned with pulling the vines out of my flowerbed,” I admitted. “I only glanced in his direction once or twice. And I don’t even know if he’s the same man who hit me. Maybe Special Agent Turner saw him?”
    I didn’t mean to make that suggestion. Hell, I’d already figured it would be better if I kept my distance from the Secret Service for the next couple of days, especially from a certain grumpy CAT agent.
    “That’s a great idea!” The sketch artist’s eyes brightened with the prospect of getting her hands on someone who could actually provide her with a workable description. “He’s trained to remember details.”
    After Cooper made a few phone calls, Jack Turner arrived in the grounds offices. He wasn’t carrying a gun, but that didn’t make him appear any less dangerous. I slid down a little in my chair when I noticed the deep red spidery veins threading through his still red-rimmed eyes. It looked painful.
    He wordlessly took a chair, pulling it as far away from mine as the small room would allow. Unfortunately, though Turner had spotted a man running