A Corpse for Yew (30 page)

“—
Lois’s
house,” Mrs. Waynewright reminded her.

“The house belongs to Chief Mullis now,” Peggy said. “If you go in without his permission, he can have you charged with breaking and entering. If you take anything, it will be stealing.”

Geneva smiled broadly. “That’s why we came to see
you!
”

“You’re a member of the Shamrock Historical Society.” Grace giggled. “But you weren’t there when he talked to us. You could go in and look for the items. Mullis didn’t say anything about arresting you.”

Peggy would’ve laughed at the preposterous statement if she didn’t believe Grace and the others were serious. “It doesn’t matter if he threatened me or not. I can’t go in there without the chief’s permission.”

Mrs. Waynewright sighed. “As you get older, it’s harder to lose things of personal value. They become like members of your family.”

“The museum is missing several items that Lois took home to clean or categorize,” Annabelle explained. “It’s not right for Chief Mullis to sell those. They belong to the museum.”

“You’ll just have to hope she has something in her will to protect those things.” Peggy refused to be drawn into the discussion. “Jonathon, you have to know better than this.”

He shrugged. “I wish there was another way. But what the ladies say is true. Everyone takes a few items home from time to time, to make the job of cleaning them less of a burden on the museum. I don’t know how valuable the artifacts are that she had, but they could be lost at the estate auction.”

“Mullis doesn’t want anything in there to remind him of Lois,” Annabelle said. “He told us the sooner he gets the place cleaned out, the sooner he can tear it down and build a new house.”

“All that history lost.” Mrs. Waynewright shook her head. “Such a pity.”

“We thought maybe you could convince that handsome young son of yours to go with you and pretend you had a legal right to be there,” Geneva suggested. “After all, the two of you work for the police. Mullis might be fooled into thinking you’re there for something to do with the case.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Peggy smiled at them to lessen the harshness of her words. “I wouldn’t involve Paul in any of this.”

“You mean you’d be willing to do it on your own?” Dorothy enthused.

“Thank you, Peggy!” Grace hugged her. “I
knew
we could count on you.”

“I didn’t say I’d break into the house to look for anything.” Peggy tried to get herself out of the position they’d put her in.

“Of course not!” Geneva stepped forward and gave her a set of keys and instructions to disable the alarm system. “We wouldn’t expect you to do that.”

After a series of hugs from all the women, they piled back in the van with Jonathon and squealed the tires leaving the parking lot. Peggy stood watching them with the keys and alarm code, wondering why they’d picked on her.

She pocketed the keys and went into the shop to get Shakespeare. He was asleep next to the pond while a little lizard cavorted through the leaves and across the stones. Selena may have thought Sam got rid of it—or there was more than one.

There was a knock on the front door. Peggy looked up, not sure if she wanted to answer it. She recognized a professor from Queens University. Smiling, she left Shakespeare sleeping and opened the door. “Professor Burris! I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

“That’s because you gave up teaching and went into business,” he told her.

He’d always reminded her of a sharp-tongued Santa with his long white beard and flowing white hair. He was a little rotund as well, to complete the image. But instead of a bright red suit, he always wore gray tweed and smelled of pipe tobacco. He wasn’t a jovial kind of person, voted again and again as students’ least favorite history professor at the university.

“That’s true,” she agreed. “What brings you here today?”

He looked around as though he was uncomfortable. “I have a problem, and I thought you might be the person to solve it for me.”

Peggy couldn’t imagine what that could be or how he would’ve thought of her. “I’ll do what I can to help.”

“My problem deals with a lady friend.” He pointed at her and snarled, “No laughter! And no words of wisdom about older men with girlfriends.”

“I wouldn’t think of it.” She smiled despite herself. “I don’t normally give advice to men with lady problems, but—”

“Don’t be impertinent! I’m here to consult your horticulture skills, Dr. Lee, not your matchmaking abilities! I don’t need your help finding a woman, if that’s what you mean.”

“All right.” She was beginning to regret that she’d opened the door. Professor Burris’s personality left a lot to be desired. She couldn’t imagine who’d want to date him. “Tell me what I can do.”

“I want to grow some plants. I have a sunny window in my apartment. I also have a small balcony that may be appropriate for a pot or two. My lady friend is very partial to plants. She hasn’t visited my apartment yet, but I’ve been to hers and she has plants everywhere. I believe she’ll experience disappointment in me if I don’t have plants.”

Peggy turned her head to keep from laughing. He wanted her to set him up with plants to impress his girlfriend. It was always amazing, the things that could happen in a day. “I’ll be glad to help you out, Professor. Did you want to pot these plants yourself or take home some already in pots?”

“Don’t use all that jargon with me. I need to understand what I’ve brought home. I’m sure my lady friend will expect me to know what I’m growing.”

“Then follow me, and we’ll get started.”

Peggy led him to the workbench she’d had installed, and picked out an aloe plant to start with. “This is aloe. It’s relatively easy to grow. It likes sunlight, and you said you have a sunny window. Here’s a pot that should be the right size. This soil, with a little sand mixed in, should be fine for it. You need to water it once a week or so. It can handle being dry.”

She watched the fastidious professor dig into the soil and pick up the aloe to put it in the pot. It was hard for him to hide his distaste at actually getting dirty. She supposed he’d never gotten that far into a subject before.

When he was finished, she rounded up a large philodendron that was root-bound and needed to be transplanted. “This is a little bigger, but the plant is easy to care for. A philodendron will be happy with lower light and water once a week. Just add some soil to this pot and move the plant into it, then fill in around it until the soil’s firm.”

“Will my lady friend recognize these as beginner’s plants?”

“Not at all. Many seasoned gardeners have these plants as well. I can recommend a book you can read that will tell you more about them, and you can learn as you go.”

“What about my balcony? I assume I’ll need something fairly hardy to survive out there.”

Peggy suggested an agave. “This agave should do well on your balcony. It will be easy to take care of, and doesn’t require much work. It will get bigger before it flowers, then dies back. That means changing its pot again probably in six months or so. Your lady friend should enjoy it. This one is a Weber’s agave. It’s one of the biggest and fastest-growing. See the fleshy, blue green leaves? It’s a gorgeous plant as it grows.”

She helped the professor load his Subaru with his purchases. She’d been surprised that he hadn’t haggled over any of the prices. He’d been a quick learner who was obviously motivated to take good care of the plants. “I hope this works with your lady.”

“I appreciate your time, Dr. Lee. You were always quite talented when it came to living things. I saw in the paper that you’ve recently turned your sights to dead things as well.”

“You mean the forensic botany.” She nodded.

“I mean Lake Whitley. I was out there twenty years ago, during the last drought. It wasn’t as severe as the one we’re experiencing, so our findings were limited. But it was an impressive site.”

“Yes, it is. I only wish the circumstances had been different. Finding a dead woman wasn’t part of the plan.”

“In history, one takes what one finds at face value until one does the proper research.” Professor Burris lifted his chin and looked down his long, straight nose at her. “What was it that woman was killed for?”

“I believe it was a ring.” She thought she might as well be honest with him. “I found it out there, but it’s part of the museum’s collection. No one seems to know where it came from or its value.”

He cleared his throat. “I’d be happy to take a look at it for you. Give me a call at my office when you’re ready.”

Peggy thanked him and watched him drive away with his load of plants. Maybe it would be good to have a fresh opinion.

 

 

ON HER WAY TO LAKE Whitley, Peggy made a detour and ended up at the small, one-story home her parents had purchased in Myer’s Park. It was close to where Paul and Mai lived. Peggy had been worried that her parents might smother the young couple with their attention, but that hadn’t turned out to be the case. Mai and Paul worked unusual hours, and Ranson and Lilla had joined several country clubs along with half a dozen special-interest groups like the historical society.

Peggy found her parents enjoying coffee on the back terrace of the house. They were with another couple, whom Lilla introduced as neighbors. She exchanged pleasantries with the older couple, then pulled her mother into the green and gold kitchen. “I’m giving you these keys and alarm instructions. I’m not going to break into Lois’s house looking for artifacts the society thinks belong to them.”

Lilla frowned as she looked at the keys on the counter. “They’ll be devastated. Those artifacts belong to the group.”

“Was it normal for Lois to take things from the museum?” She was thinking about what Jonathon had said and of the carnelian ring.

“There’s been so much taken from the lake in the last few weeks,” her mother fretted. “Everyone has tried to do their part. We haven’t taken any of the bones, but each of us has some pieces of history we dug up. These haven’t been cataloged for the museum yet. Ask Jonathon, if you don’t believe me. We all just felt like it would be easier to take everything in already cleaned.”

“But you don’t know anything about cleaning artifacts,” Peggy insisted. “Weren’t you afraid you might mess one up?”

Lilla shrugged, her lilac silk blouse falling gracefully across her thin shoulders. “Not really. What’s to mess up? Everything is caked with mud. I’ve just washed them off with water, no detergent. That’s what Jonathon said.”

“Whatever you ladies think is best.” Peggy didn’t want to argue about it. “But I’m not going into Lois’s house, and neither is Paul. And I don’t want you to ask him and jeopardize his job. Okay?”

“I wouldn’t do any such thing!” Lilla drew her petite figure up and glared at her daughter.

“What’s keeping you two?” Ranson peered around the door. “I have only so many interesting farm stories. Are you arguing about something?”

“No.”

“No,” Peggy said, backing down from the conversation with her mother. “I’ll see you at Lois’s funeral. I have to go back out to the lake and cut more yew branches.”

“Be careful out there,” Ranson warned. “Maybe you should take Steve with you. I hear he knows how to handle a gun.” He grinned at his daughter, then shook his head when she didn’t return his humor. “You can’t worry over it the rest of your life, Sweet Pea. Some things happen and no one knows why. I hope you aren’t still mad at the man.”

“We’ve made up,” she explained. “I have to go if I’m going to be back in time for the funeral. I’ll talk to you later.”

“She sure didn’t get my sense of humor,” Peggy heard her father say as she was leaving.

“Good thing,” her mother remarked. “At least she has
some
sensibility.”

Back in her truck, Peggy answered her cell phone. “Hello!”

“Sorry,” Steve said. “Wasn’t I supposed to call if I got done early?”

“Yes. I’m just leaving my parents’ house,” she explained, backing out of the drive. She admired a beautiful young mayapple her father had planted despite the drought, swearing he would keep it alive with the water he caught while waiting for the cold water to turn hot. It seemed to be working.

“That explains it.” Steve laughed. “What are you and your mother arguing about now?”

She told him about the keys and Lois’s house. “Are you home yet?”

“No, not quite. I’m just getting to Eastway. Why?”

“I hate to ask, but since you aren’t busy, how would you like to take another ride out to the lake?”

“I don’t know. The last one didn’t end up so good.”

“I’ll pick you up on the way. You can park your Saturn over at the furniture store until we get back.”

“And how is this supposed to make a difference?”

“I’m driving,” she told him. “Last time, you were driving. It makes all the difference in the world.”

He finally agreed, and Peggy picked him up a few minutes later.

“I can’t believe you have to go back out there again,” he said, pushing Shakespeare to make room in the truck. “How many yew branches does Dr. Ramsey need?”

Peggy explained as well as she could. “The case can’t actually be wrapped up until we know where the berries came from. If I find the yew bush out at the lake, it would make sense of what the police are saying about Snook Holt.”

“Which you don’t believe is true.”

“No. But I don’t have a better answer. Snook was out there. He had Lois’s pocketbook. He had a motive because of the trial where she testified against him. He certainly had opportunity, since she was out there at least two hours before the rest of us.”

“Sounds reasonable to me. What’s your problem with it?”

“It’s all based on Lois eating poison berries Snook gave her. Or that she ate the berries and was near death when he found her. Both seem wrong to me.”

“And if you don’t find the missing yew branches?” Steve asked.