Sophie Medina: Ghost Image Part 12

"How did you meet, if you don't mind my asking? You're a professional photographer and you've spent most of your career overseas with a news agency." His eyes crinkled with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Don't look so surprised. You didn't think I wasn't going to look you up, did you? Your photographs, by the way, are stunning."

"Thank you." I'd looked him up, too. I just hadn't expected him to be this direct. "A mutual friend, a Jesuit priest, introduced us years ago and we became friends. How about you?"

"I saw him when our paths crossed at various conferences over the past few years, but I only started working at Monticello the week before Thanksgiving so I didn't really get to know him until he came here for a month in January." He sipped his coffee and added as if it were an afterthought, "What brought you to me? I mean, besides the letter?"

"I saw your name listed along with Kevin's as one of the speakers at a conference at the Botanic Garden . . . 'Losing Paradise.' Plus I knew Kevin was here in January doing research."

He set down his mug and folded his hands on his desk. "Tell me about this letter."

I realized then that he hadn't known about it before I contacted him and that Kevin hadn't confided in him. But if I expected any help, I had no choice but to do as he asked.

"It's a letter from John Fairbairn, the head of the Chelsea Physic Garden, to a Leesburg doctor named Francis Pembroke," I said. "It was written in April 1807 and it's rather long."

He arched one eyebrow. "Did you bring it?"

"A copy, not the original."

I got it out of my camera bag and pa.s.sed it to him. He picked up a pair of gla.s.ses and read while I drank my coffee and watched him. Though he kept his face neutral, I could see his eyes flicking back and forth over the page as though he was either surprised or startled by what he read, and my own heart started beating faster.

When he had finished, he looked up. "May I ask where the original is?"

"I don't have it."

He smiled like a patient teacher waiting for a student to figure out the right answer to the question. I smiled back.

"Look," he said, "let me tell you something about Kevin. Here at Monticello we're trying to restore Thomas Jefferson's garden to what it was in his day, no mean feat because Jefferson grew three hundred and thirty types of vegetables. You might think a man who kept a detailed Garden Book for nearly forty years and wrote twenty thousand letters in his lifetime would have meticulously recorded the proper names for the plants he grew, but you'd be wrong. Jefferson had a habit of describing plants by their appearance or some identifying characteristic-like 'the flowering pea of the plains of Arkansas'-that has made trying to figure out what he meant something of a botanic treasure hunt. We wouldn't be nearly so far along as we are if it weren't for Kevin, who was tireless in helping my predecessor and, for the last few months, helping me track down some of those lost plants." He leaned forward, palms squarely on his desk, and looked me in the eye. "So if I can do something to repay a debt Monticello owes Kevin, I'd like to do it."

"I see."

He sat back and folded his arms across his chest. "So that's my story. What's yours? And, while I'm at it, how'd you get hold of the letter? Kevin was in touch a few weeks ago asking questions I now realize had to do with it. He didn't say a word about this"-he tapped the letter-"so I figure he had a reason for keeping it quiet. Now he's dead and you show up. Are you working on a newspaper or magazine story maybe?"

The folksiness in his drawl was gone. He thought I was trying to cash in on Kevin somehow.

I straightened up in my chair and looked him in the eye. "No. It's nothing like that."

"Then what is it?"

I told him about finding Kevin the other day in the monastery garden, his fears of being stalked, and my belief that his death was somehow tied to the letter.

When I was finished, Ryan said in a stunned voice, "Good Lord, Kevin thought someone was after him? Who would do something like that?"

"I don't know. But the letter was inside a Solander box with a book. Adam in Eden."

"Are you implying the book also had something to do with his death?"

"I think it's possible. That's why I'm here. I was hoping you could tell me about Francis Pembroke. And about Adam in Eden."

Ryan looked perplexed. "I know the book, of course. The author was William Coles. Jefferson didn't own a copy, but I'm sure he knew about it. He used Philip Miller's Gardeners Dictionary, which was published a century later, as his primary gardening reference. Miller's book was a cla.s.sic, far more than Coles's was. Anyone who was a serious gardener in those days had a copy of Miller's dictionary. Jefferson owned three editions, including the last one in which Miller finally began using the new Linnaean system of binomial nomenclature."

From high school biology I dredged up binomial nomenclature. "The Latin system for naming plants?"

"Actually for naming and cla.s.sifying all living things. Unfortunately, Jefferson didn't use it or we'd know what we were looking for in his garden."

"And who was Philip Miller?"

"Curator at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London during the 1700s. One of the most influential botanists of his time. He was succeeded by William Forsyth-for whom forsythia was named-and John Fairbairn succeeded him."

"Why would the head of the Chelsea Physic Garden be writing to a doctor in Leesburg, Virginia? It was obviously an ongoing correspondence. Who was Francis Pembroke?"

Ryan stood and got the coffeepot, holding it up by way of asking if I wanted a refill.

I shook my head, so he filled his own mug. "Francis Pembroke was a wealthy physician who, as you already know, was a cousin of Meriwether Lewis. Before Lewis and Clark left on their western expedition, Thomas Jefferson, who got Congress to fund this journey, insisted Lewis have some medical training to equip him for whatever might come up in the wilderness. So Jefferson asked Francis Pembroke to train Lewis. In return, and as thanks, Jefferson gave Pembroke many of the new and unknown herbs Lewis and Clark brought or sent back, which would be of obvious interest to a colonial doctor who treated his patients with herbal remedies. Jefferson also asked Pembroke to see whether he could cultivate anything, or what use he could make of these new plants."

"There was a pressed plant in Kevin's copy of Adam in Eden," I said. "It was on the page that described hyssop, the plant John Fairbairn said Francis Pembroke misidentified."

Ryan gave me a thoughtful look, rubbing his fingers across his lips as though he were considering something. He picked up the letter. "I'd like to make a copy of this."

"Go right ahead."

When he was done, he returned my copy and said, "You still haven't told me where the original is. Though, presumably, it's with the book."

"I don't own the book or the letter, so an antiques dealer friend made arrangements for them to be stored in the vault of another dealer whose specialty is rare books. They're quite safe."

"How did you get hold of them in the first place?"

"I had the key to a locker where Kevin kept them."

"And-?"

"And I found the book and brought it to my friend." We were still dancing around, but he'd pushed hard enough. I hadn't told him about the hand-colored prints or that the book belonged to Isaac Newton. But until the th.o.r.n.y matter of who now owned it was sorted out, the fewer people who knew, the better.

"Look," I said, "Kevin didn't get to finish something he started. I want to help out if I can, do something in memory of a dear friend. That's all."

He gave me a long a.s.sessing look. "Let's go see the garden. Afterward I want to show you something in the mansion."

"I'd like that. But does the 'something in the mansion' pertain to the letter? Because you haven't explained to me why it was significant to Kevin."

He gave me an enigmatic smile. "No, I haven't." He pointed to my camera bag. "Take that with you. We won't be coming back here."

I obeyed and followed him outside. Though Charlottesville is a hundred miles south of Was.h.i.+ngton, give or take, the trees were as bare as they were at home and the gra.s.s was the washed-out yellow-green it always is at the end of winter. Thomas Jefferson's beloved mansion came into view, long and low with its octagonal dome and neocla.s.sical lines reflecting his love of ancient Rome and the elegant symmetry of Palladian architecture.

"First we're going over to the west lawn," Ryan said, "the side of the house you see on the back of a nickel, and then to the vegetable garden before we go inside the mansion. By the time we're through, you'll know as much as I do about why Kevin thought the letter was important."

I had seen a few tourists at the gift shop on this damp, gray day as we walked over to the west lawn, but just now Monticello seemed deserted and we had the wide gravel path that Ryan called "the winding flower walk" to ourselves. Today there were only some early heirloom tulips, daffodils, and rosemary in bloom, and the brilliant yellow of the forsythia.

Halfway around the flower walk when the mansion was directly across the lawn from us, Ryan stopped and pointed down. "Look."

A bra.s.s plaque, maybe twelve inches in diameter, was set into the ground. CORPS OF DISCOVERY II-200 YEARS TO THE FUTURE formed a ring around two hands extended in friends.h.i.+p, a peace pipe crossed over a tomahawk, and the words PEACE AND FRIENDs.h.i.+P.

"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 pa.s.sionate about exploring the new territory he'd just acquired and establis.h.i.+ng 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 Was.h.i.+ngton."

"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 gra.s.s dividing large patches of tilled earth, many of which sprouted new plants pus.h.i.+ng 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 b.u.t.ted 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 Was.h.i.+ngton and Jefferson actually doing something to establish a national botanic garden."

"What do you mean?"

"A few years before George Was.h.i.+ngton died in 1799, he wrote to the commissioners for the brand-new capital of Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 s.p.a.cious light-filled two-story entrance hall, part museum, part art gallery with cla.s.sic 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 doc.u.ment 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 a.s.sumed 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 Was.h.i.+ngton collected together. The Pembroke letter is another puzzle piece that would seem to validate that theory."

"What happened to the seeds?"

"The British burned Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Const.i.tution and the Declaration of Independence were moved to Virginia for safekeeping, barely getting them out of Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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.