Ghost Image, page 14
“It’s based on the original silver peace medal Jefferson had the mint make for Lewis and Clark to trade,” Ryan said as I knelt to photograph it. “The marker commemorates the two hundredth anniversary of the day he wrote Congress asking for funds for their trip.”
He waited until I got up, and then went on. “That trip was a really big deal in its day, the modern-day equivalent of traveling to the moon. No one knew what Lewis and Clark would find, but Jefferson was passionate about exploring the new territory he’d just acquired and establishing an American presence there. So Jefferson, who thought botany was the most useful of the sciences, told Lewis and Clark to collect as many plants as they could, learn about them from the Indians, and send or bring as much as possible back to Washington.”
“Including the pressed plant in Adam in Eden,” I said.
“You’re getting ahead of the story. You’ve got to let me tell this my way. Come on. Now I’m going to show you the garden.”
We walked down the sloping lawn to the lower garden, which was cut like a terrace into the side of the hill. Directly in front of us was Jefferson’s spectacular thousand-foot-long garden, stripes of pale green grass dividing large patches of tilled earth, many of which sprouted new plants pushing out of the clay soil or the straw-colored remnants of something that would be renewed in spring. Perched as if it were sitting on the edge of a cliff, where the terrace dropped away to a lower level, was a small brick pavilion with arched windows and a view of the Piedmont countryside stretching to the horizon, as wide and blue as an ocean.
“What you’re looking at was a lot more than a place to grow vegetables for Thomas Jefferson’s dinner table. It was a laboratory where he experimented with new crops, including vegetables Lewis and Clark brought back with them. See those markers?” Ryan pointed to a row where a small sign with the initials TJ also indicated it was planted with French artichokes. “Those are Jefferson’s seeds. Anything with an LC marker, many different kinds of corn, beans, squash—vegetables the Indians cultivated—came from Lewis and Clark.”
I looked at where he was pointing, row after row of neatly labeled plants.
“What made the Lewis and Clark seeds so important and exciting to Jefferson was that these were plants and vegetables the rest of the world had never seen. For the Founding Fathers, the potential economic and commercial opportunities of so many new native American species, especially trading with Europe, was huge.” We had started walking along the perimeter of the garden, and Ryan went on. “Don’t forget, all those men were farmers who believed the economic future of their new country would be as an agricultural nation. One of the things they did to encourage that—and Jefferson probably more than the others—was swap seeds among themselves, enclosing seed packets of new plants they’d come across in their letters to each other. Later they’d compare notes about what grew and what didn’t on their various plantations.”
He knelt next to a small garden bed that butted up against the hill where half a dozen planks lay in a row on top of the soil. He lifted the first one and grunted in satisfaction.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Checking the peas.” He lifted the other planks. “It didn’t freeze last night, but it came awfully close.” He said with a grin, “Don’t worry, the peas aren’t expected to grow through the wood. We take it off when the weather warms up. Come on, let’s go up to the house.”
He stood and brushed the dirt off his hands. “The letter you brought me is important,” he said as we retraced our steps, “not only because of the misidentified plant—and I’ll get to that after I show you something in the mansion—but also because it talks about Washington and Jefferson actually doing something to establish a national botanic garden.”
“What do you mean?”
“A few years before George Washington died in 1799, he wrote to the commissioners for the brand-new capital of Washington and suggested that a botanical garden be incorporated into the design plans for the city. He even proposed a few locations for it, along with the idea the garden could also be part of a national university. The next time anything happened was 1820, when Congress approved funding for the project, and James Monroe, who was the president, agreed the garden could be established on a tract of land near the Capitol.”
“Where the Botanic Garden is located today.”
“Nope, not exactly. They moved it later to where it is today, and let me tell you, there was blood on the carpet when that happened because of all the trees that had to be destroyed.”
By now we had reached Jefferson’s mansion. Ryan climbed the steps to the columned portico two at a time as though there were some urgency in what we were doing, and I followed.
“Francis Pembroke’s letter, which was written in 1807, talks about Washington and Jefferson having already selected plants, or seeds, for a national botanic garden,” I said as he held the door for me.
“That’s right, and that’s what I’m going to show you.”
We stepped inside Jefferson’s spacious light-filled two-story entrance hall, part museum, part art gallery with classic busts and sculptures from Europe alongside a wall with a display of Native American artifacts from Lewis and Clark’s expedition. For the first time, we weren’t alone, and Ryan touched a finger to his lips and motioned for me to follow him down a corridor to a steep, narrow staircase that wound to the second floor like a tight coil. To my left was a doorway that led to the balcony overlooking the entrance hall. We turned right and entered a small octagonal room.
It was a bedroom, simply furnished with a bed tucked into an alcove, a chest of drawers, and a chair. There was also a fireplace and the rectangular windows were all at floor level.
“This is what I wanted you to see.” Ryan pointed to what looked like a large pine armoire. “Thomas Jefferson’s seed press, made here in the Monticello joinery. He kept all his seeds in it, in vials that were hung on hooks attached to the wall or in tin canisters. Originally it was downstairs in his private suite, the rooms he called his Cabinet.”
“It’s very interesting,” I said, “but why are you showing it to me?”
“Because it dates from 1809, after Jefferson returned to Monticello at the end of his second term as president, two years after the Pembroke letter. But here’s what’s interesting: We have a written account of a woman, a friend of Jefferson’s who knew him in Washington and visited Monticello, who said Jefferson also had a portable seed press, which he used for carrying around seeds when he worked in his garden. It’s gone, completely vanished, and we have no idea what it looked like except for her description: a wooden stand with some truss hooks and more corked vials of seeds. According to the woman, the portable press was able to hold at least one hundred different kinds of seeds, so it wasn’t some little contraption.”
I didn’t understand where he was going with this. “Are we still talking about Francis Pembroke’s letter?”
“I’m getting to that.” He sounded testy. “Hold your horses. Pembroke’s letter stated that Washington and Jefferson had selected seeds, or plants, for the botanic garden as you said. From what Fairbairn wrote to Pembroke, it appeared that Jefferson added many of the plants discovered by Lewis and Clark to that list, plus he was also going to incorporate an herb garden into the national garden. Pembroke, who was something of an amateur artist, intended to document those plants, which would have been why he wanted the copy of William Curtis’s Flora Londinensis that John Fairbairn sent him, so he could see how Curtis did the same thing for the plants and flowers found in and around London.”
“So there should be a book of Pembroke’s drawings somewhere,” I said.
“I’ve never come across it, but after reading that letter I plan to make some inquiries in case it’s still out there. So I appreciate your making us aware of it.”
“Kevin’s the one who discovered it,” I said. “But I don’t understand how this seed press fits in with your story.”
Was that what Kevin was looking for? Francis Pembroke’s drawings of the plants that were meant to go in the national botanic garden?
Ryan ran his hand along the edge of the old worn cabinet as though he were channeling Jefferson. “The other thing we’ve always wondered,” he said, “was whether Thomas Jefferson had a second seed press like this one, or perhaps another portable press, in the White House. It seems logical since he would have kept the many varieties of seeds that Lewis and Clark brought him. But, you see, we’ve always assumed that any seeds he might have had at the White House were eventually intended for Monticello, or else to share among friends.” He turned to me. “Maybe we got this wrong. Maybe Jefferson was storing seeds for the national botanic garden, seeds that he and George Washington collected together. The Pembroke letter is another puzzle piece that would seem to validate that theory.”
“What happened to the seeds?”
“The British burned Washington during the War of 1812. Almost nothing in the White House survived, including the furniture, most of which had belonged to Jefferson.”
“You think the seeds were destroyed in that fire?”
He had started pacing back and forth in the little room, as though he were trying to work this out. “That’s the thing,” he said, almost to himself, “maybe they weren’t.”
“So where are they?”
“I have no idea. But I wonder if Kevin did. Dolley Madison made sure a lot of irreplaceable items like the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were moved to Virginia for safekeeping, barely getting them out of Washington before the British showed up for their bonfire. It’s possible the seeds were already stored in labeled packets, which was common in those days, meaning it wouldn’t have been hard to gather them up, even if you were in a hurry, and put them in some sort of pouch. Dolley would have known how much those seeds represented to Washington and Jefferson.”
“Kevin told me he’d discovered something that was more or less hiding in plain sight. Or, at least, he thought he did. That’s why he was keeping this quiet until he could find out if he was right,” I said. “Do you think he knew what happened to the seeds?”
Ryan’s eyes were bright with interest and his cheeks were flushed. When he spoke, I could hear the growing excitement in his voice. “If he did, that would be quite a historical coup. There’s a letter from Dolley Madison to Jefferson after the White House burned in which she mentioned something about ‘the presidents’ seeds’ being safe. I always thought it was a grammatical error because she referred to presidents in the plural.”
“Even if there was a seed pouch somewhere, that was over two hundred years ago. After so much time, wouldn’t they be dust?”
He shook his head. “Stored under the right circumstances, they could still be viable. In other words, you could plant them and you might be able to grow something.”
“That would be amazing.”
He nodded. “Seeds from plants that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson themselves collected, probably from Mount Vernon and Monticello, plus the original seeds of plants discovered by Lewis and Clark? There would be a huge amount of interest among historians, as well as in the scientific community, especially if some of the species were extinct.”
Ryan still didn’t know how valuable Kevin’s copy of the book was, and it seemed as if Kevin might not have realized, either. So if he had been murdered, had it been because of these seeds?
“Just how valuable would the seeds be?” I asked.
Ryan’s eyes met mine. “To the right people—not just historians but also pharmaceutical companies or agribusinesses—they could be extraordinarily valuable because of the potential for new drugs or new crop species. Especially if you’re the one who finds them. They’d be priceless.”
I nodded, wondering if the plant in Adam in Eden that apparently had great potency in restoring memory was one of the species that had become extinct. If so, it would be, as Kevin had said, potentially worth millions. Maybe more.
I stared at Thomas Jefferson’s seed cupboard and tried to take in what Ryan had just told me. Because if he was right, there were two things Kevin had discovered that might have cost him his life.
First the book.
And now these seeds.
ELEVEN
Ryan walked me to my car after a detour through Jefferson’s rooms, the beautiful suite he called his Cabinet and his sanctum sanctorum. I told him I was leaving tomorrow night for a week in London and had written to the general information address at the Chelsea Physic Garden, asking to meet with someone to discuss the Fairbairn letter.
“The person you want to see is Zara Remington, the curator. She’s good people. I can write her on your behalf, if you’d like. In return, I’d like to be kept in the loop of anything you find out.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “So, what about you? Do you have any ideas where these seeds might be?”
“No, but I certainly intend to start looking.”
“And in return, you’ll keep me in your loop.” I gave him a bright smile. “If you find anything, I’d like to be the photographer who gets the first pictures. I owe it to Kevin. It’s his story, you know.”
He nodded. “Now I understand why he was keeping this so quiet.”
I got in the Mini and rolled down the window. “If someone killed him, he wasn’t keeping it quiet enough.”
He looked startled. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Be careful.”
He reached through the window and patted my shoulder. “You be careful, too.”
Sole Brothers Shoes was located on Columbia Road, the main commercial drag in the colorful, noisy heart of Adams Morgan. Years ago the store had been an elegant French patisserie called Avignon Frères, in the middle of a largely immigrant Hispanic community. The Sole Brothers, whose surname was Weinstein, had managed to keep the Old World emporium charm when they renovated the place, and now the shoe store had become as popular a destination spot as the bakery had once been. That they were closing for a morning for “a private event” was a big deal, and as one of the brothers told me, “The good publicity don’t hurt us, neither. Everybody in the neighborhood has been in, buyin’ shoes and showin’ their support. Plus, we’ve had a bunch of donations. We got at least another two hundred bucks for you just in the past three days.”
The children arrived in shifts beginning at nine o’clock, by grade, the littlest ones first, or else we figured the store would turn into a mob scene. Grace, Tommy, and I had arrived earlier, along with every teacher in the school and the entire staff of Sole Brothers. Though I would have loved to take pictures as souvenirs for the kids, I left my camera at home. Not everyone was in the country legally and we didn’t want to scare any of the parents away. The goal was for every child to leave the store with a new pair of shoes.
My phone rang halfway through the third wave of kids, the fifth and sixth graders. I had been reaching for a shoe box on a high shelf for a ten-year-old girl with a sweet smile and big dark eyes who looked enough like me that we could have been related. I answered the phone and looked down to see who was calling. A D.C. number I didn’t recognize.
“Hey,” a male voice said, “it sounds like you’re in the middle of Union Station. I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time.”
“Who’s this?”
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s David Arista.”
I handed the box to the little girl and walked to the end of the aisle where the shoe sizes were too big for any of the kids so it was quieter.
“Actually, I’m in a shoe store,” I said, “and I’m kind of busy. What can I do for you?”
“I never get in the way of a woman on a shopping mission,” he said with a grin in his voice. “Especially when it involves shoes. I’ll be brief. My friend at the Arts and Industries Building is willing to meet us next week and you can photograph the inside of the building to your heart’s content. I was just wondering what day would work for you.”
I leaned against the end of a tall shelf and closed my eyes. “Thank you, but unfortunately I’m not available next week.”
“Sophie?”
I looked up. Grace stood at the end of the aisle and beckoned me. I held up a finger to indicate I’d be a moment.
“You’re not free any day next week? Can’t you rearrange something?” he was saying. “He’s making an exception to let you in. I’m not sure I can pull this off again.”
“It’s very kind of you, but I won’t even be in the country. I’m going to London for the week. What about the following week?”
He made a noisy, unhappy sound. “I got the mountain to come to Mohammed, but I’ll see what I can do. You’ll have e-mail while you’re away, right?”
“Yes. I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to go.”
“All right. Cheerio. I’ll let you get back to your Jimmy Choos and Manolo Blahniks. Sounds like they’re giving them away if that din is anything to go by. Where are you, anyway?”
“It’s a private event and actually they are giving them away,” I said. “Goodbye, David.”
I joined Grace, who said, “We’re almost done. The older kids knew exactly what they wanted, so once that big line at the cash register is finished, that’s it. I thought we could stick around and tidy up so the place doesn’t look like a war zone and then I’ll buy you lunch.”
“Yes to everything, but I need to pass on lunch. I haven’t packed for London, plus I’m going to try to make five thirty Mass at the cathedral before Tommy comes by to take me to Dulles.”
“You have a sweet brother.”
“I know. He was going out to Middleburg anyway since he’s on spring break and the house will be empty. He figured he’d get a lot of uninterrupted studying done.”
Tommy left, telling me he’d see me later, and Grace and I stuck around with several of the teachers to restock boxes that had been left in piles like snowdrifts and pick up tissue paper and cardboard shoe inserts flung about like haphazard decorations. It was just after twelve thirty when we left, both on foot, since I lived about twenty minutes from the store and Grace’s house was around the corner. We exchanged hugs at the intersection of 18th Street and Columbia Road, where we went in different directions.
