Killing Weeds (6 page)

Mai pushed her silky black hair back from her face. “He’s going to be on the video dropping off the mink to her.”

Peggy put the food and drink boxes on the ground. “Do you have something from this client who hired you to deliver the box?”

“Hopefully something showing she bought the coat from the fur store and then signed a document saying she wanted you to deliver it,” Mai added.

“I only met her once at Providence Cafe. We had coffee, and she gave me the cash. She already had the box. I got it from her and looked up Ms. Honohan, and then delivered it to her. I already deposited the money in the bank.”

“What was her name—the woman who hired you?” Peggy’s throat felt so tight that she could hardly speak.

“Her name was Hood. Mary Hood. I’ve got her cell phone number here somewhere. I don’t have an address. What’s wrong, Mom? Are you okay?”

Magnolia

The stately magnolia, long considered the epitome of Southern plant life, has been deemed ‘messy and possibly not desirable’ to assist home sales by real estate agents because of the tree’s leaf and fruit litter. Some agents have even gone so far as to advise homeowners to cut down their magnolia trees for faster sales.

Chapter Nine

It was difficult for Peggy to explain what she feared was happening. She couldn’t quite make sense of it in her own mind.

What was it anyway? A woman named Mary Hood pretending to hire Sam to work at her house and then hiring Paul to deliver a lethal mink coat.

What did it mean?

When she’d finished telling Mai and Paul everything, the three of them sat on the bench saying nothing for a few minutes as birds called above them in the magnolia and city traffic raced by on the street.

“I’ll turn myself in,” Paul said.

“You haven’t done anything wrong.” Mai dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.

He smiled at her and took her hand. “You have to turn in my business card as evidence in this case. I’ll be on that video going into the lobby with the box that held the coat and asking for her. The only chance I have is to explain my side of the story right away. The sooner I do that, the more favorably they’ll look at it.”

“I agree with you, Paul.” Peggy’s heart was aching with the necessity of him making this decision.

“I can wait and send all the evidence together at five p.m.,” Mai said. “That way Peggy has time to work on the rest of her theory about the plant matter that killed Ms. Honohan.”

“That’s not going to look good for me either,” Paul said. “My mother is not only a forensic botanist, but one of the leading botanists in her field researching plant poison.”

Peggy put her hand on his arm. “I know. That thought crossed my mind. I’m so sorry.”

“For what? Because I put myself in this position? If I wouldn’t have wanted to play detective, I wouldn’t have delivered that box. We wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Mai hugged him tightly. “I love you. Yes, you were stupid to think you could do this without anyone knowing, but your heart was in the right place.”

“We’ll figure this out,” Peggy promised. “I don’t know why this is happening, but we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

Paul hugged her. “I know. I’ve got to get back. Thanks for the tacos.”

He and Mai shared a passionate kiss before he got back in the cruiser and left the parking lot.

“Do you get the feeling that someone has it in for you?” Mai asked as they watched him leave.

“The thought has occurred to me. It’s crazy, but we can’t ignore it.”

“We can’t prove it either.”

The walked into the ME’s office together, each going in separate directions.

Peggy went back to the lab to isolate as many plant compounds as she could find in the sample they’d taken. It was hard to focus on her work with so much going on.

Was this really about her? She could see why Mai would think that—the shop, Sam’s misdirected job, and now Paul.

Maybe it was all part of some grand scheme, but it could also be random acts that only appeared to be part of the same thing.

Her mind ran around in circles as she searched for answers.

By five p.m., she had listed the poisons that were in the sample. The two biggest compounds were from giant hogweed and a mixture of sumac, oak, and ivy. Together they were a volatile poison.

“So you think this was what killed our victim?” Mai asked in her most professional voice.

“Yes, I do. The reaction to giant hogweed alone would’ve been dramatic and life threatening. Someone managed to make the mixture much stronger than just the normal sap from the plant, and that’s powerful enough. Adding these other poisons made it deadly.”

Mai handed her the standard medical examiner’s form. “If you could sign off here, that will be our official word on it. Thanks for working so quickly.”

“Have you heard from Paul?” Peggy signed the sheet.

“No, not yet. I was trying to get all our evidence together. When I turn it in, I hope to get a look at what else they have. We know Paul’s prints are on the box. We couldn’t get any prints from the mink. Let’s hope there’s something else that the police picked up from Ms. Honohan’s neighbors that will subtract from Paul’s involvement.”

“Let me know if anything changes. I’ll see you later, Mai.”

Peggy put away her white coat and picked up her handbag. Feeling like a zombie, she walked out of the building after saying goodnight to the guard at the entrance and got in her car to go home.

There were two calls on her phone. One was from Eve Malcolm, and the other was from Bobby Dean. Both calls pertained to The Potting Shed when all she wanted to do was think about Paul and a way to help him get out of the situation he was in.

She took a moment to compose her thoughts and called Eve.

“We have a few questions about the vandalism, Peggy. Could you come to the office? We can talk about everything here.”

“Sure. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Thanks for calling.”

Peggy decided to wait to return Bobby’s call until after she spoke with Eve. There might be information that would help her get through the rest of the process to receive her reimbursement.

Eve worked in the same building where John had worked. Even though it had been more than ten years since his death, almost everything looked the same. New people came in, and old people left, but the furniture and surroundings didn’t change. Al’s office was here too.

And she could never resist a peek at the person in John’s old office.

Peggy went inside the brick building. She knew the sergeant at the front desk. He told her he’d call Sergeant Malcolm.

While she waited, she took the dead leaves off a heart-leaf philodendron near the small window beside the door. The constant change of cold and hot air had stunted the growth of the plant, leaving the leaves very tiny, but otherwise it was healthy.

Eve saw her. “Thanks for coming by. Come on back.”

Peggy glanced around at the busy police officers. She wondered if Paul was being questioned somewhere in the building. Would Al stay on the case, or would he recuse himself because of their relationship?

“Take a seat, please.” Eve closed the door to the room where she’d led her.

It wasn’t Eve’s office, as she would have expected on this visit. It was a small interrogation room.

Peggy’s heart rate went up.  “Is there a problem?”

Eve sat opposite her at the new metal table complete with a metal bar to lock handcuffs to. “I’m not going to lie to you or sugarcoat the situation. Homicide is looking at your son, Paul, for Ms. Nita Honohan’s murder. It complicates matters for us that the break-in at your shop happened around the same time.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“I have the list of plants that were destroyed in the break-in at your shop, but there is no mention of the giant hog wart on that list. Isn’t that what killed Ms. Honohan?”

Peggy smiled. “Giant hogweed. Sorry.”

Eve nodded. “Our question, Peggy, is whether or not you had the components for this lethal plant mixture at your shop?”

“Of course not! No one would want to plant hogweed, poison ivy, oak, or sumac in their yards. That would be ridiculous. Garden shops don’t deal in weeds. Besides, you could get the last three ingredients in any forest around here. The hogweed doesn’t grow here yet, but you could get that in Virginia. Why would I have that at The Potting Shed?”

“Homicide believes Paul may have obtained the poison plants from you. It’s what you’re known for, isn’t it—your specialty. It’s what makes you valuable as a forensic botanist with the ME’s office, right?”

“It is what I’m known for,” she agreed. “But I have never stored poisonous plants in the shop.”

Eve tucked a strand of black hair behind her ear as she looked at a list on the desk. “What about hellebore, rhododendron, or lilies? Those are poisonous, aren’t they?”

“If you want to look at it that way, dozens of plants you grow in your house and yard could be used to make poison. Most people don’t know that and wouldn’t know what to do with the information if they did.”

“But a man was found dead in your shop several years ago after being poisoned with anemone, right?”

“Yes, but he wasn’t poisoned with anemone bulbs from my shop. Can you be more specific? What makes you think that I’d help someone, even my own son, poison this woman? I’ve always made it very clear that I won’t help anyone when they ask about poison plants.”

Peggy knew, at least partially, that this line of questioning came from the police looking for answers about the murder. She didn’t like it, but she had to remain calm and answer as precisely as she could.

She wasn’t sure who’d given Eve the plant names. She could tell by the way she read the list that she had no idea what she was talking about. She could’ve simply looked it up on Google. Maybe she was being paranoid, thinking another plant authority could be involved.

But after the day she’d had, Peggy felt entitled to be a bit paranoid.

“The nature of this crime, and your son being involved, makes this difficult for me. We all thought at first that this was a simple, though devastating, vandalism at your shop. Now Captain Hager has taken over the homicide investigation. He believes this break-in is probably personal—that it’s likely that Paul broke into your shop and vandalized it to cover his tracks.”

“No.”

“You received a new shipment of plants the day before the break-in, is that right?”

Eve kept glancing at the mirror on the wall. Captain Hager was probably watching. This had gone from small potatoes to something much larger in a day.

“Yes. I believe my assistant emailed you the list of plants that we’d received.”

Eve nodded. “I have that shipping order here. It was convenient that there was no real buyer for the plants, no paper trail of exactly who paid for these plants or why they were ordered.”

“Convenient? Certainly not for me. To begin with, the company we order from wouldn’t carry hogweed or poison oak in stock.” She stared into the mirror. “If you knew anything about plants at all, you wouldn’t ask me these questions.”

“But you admit that Paul could have added to the order Sam made and then destroyed everything that arrived except for what he needed to cover up the murder.” Eve pushed her ideas behind the conversation.

Peggy took a deep breath. Her fiery red hair might have begun going white, but she still had a temper. “I don’t admit that at all. Weeks go by that Paul doesn’t even visit The Potting Shed. And though I love him dearly, he wouldn’t know the difference between a raspberry bush and a grapevine. He’s not a gardener.”

Eve leaned forward, her black eyes intent on Peggy’s face. “I’ve been to The Potting Shed many times, Peggy. I know Selena keeps the laptop on the counter. Wouldn’t it be possible for Paul to get into the shop and change the order before it was sent out?”

“No. The gardening supply company wouldn’t send poisonous plants in their shipment, and Paul wouldn’t know what to ask for. This line of questioning isn’t going to get you anywhere, Eve.”

“Yet you admitted that this supply company has sent you other poisonous plants in the past.”

“I guess I can’t explain the difference between an ornamental, potentially poisonous plant such as Easter lilies, and a deadly one like hogweed if you know nothing about plants. If you’re going to pursue this, you need an advisor who can tell you the difference.” Peggy got to her feet and faced the mirror. “And that’s not going to be me. If I’m not under arrest, I’m leaving now.”

“I’m sorry this has happened, Peggy.” Eve she stood too. “It’s a difficult situation. I know it must be painful for you.”

“Not painful at all, Eve. It’s ridiculous. I’ll talk to you later.”

Poison Ivy

Not to be confused with English ivy. In 1784, Philadelphia horticulturalist William Bartram sent seeds for poison ivy and sumac home to be used in the United States as garden plants. So the next time you run into a poison ivy plant and are enduring the following rash you know who to thank!

Chapter Ten

Captain Avery Hager was waiting for Peggy when she left the interrogation room.

He nodded to Eve, and she introduced him.

“Dr. Lee. I’ll be taking over this case for Lieutenant McDonald.” He smiled pleasantly. “I’m sorry to meet you under these circumstances. I’ve been to many of your seminars.”

“Captain Hager.” Peggy wasn’t surprised to learn that Al had been removed from the case since their families were so close.

“I want you to know that it doesn’t give me any pleasure to put you through this, Dr. Lee. And I’m sorry about your son. He has an unblemished record with the department.”

Her green eyes flashed her anger. “But none of that matters because you have this crazy notion that Paul killed this woman.”

He nodded. “Good men go bad sometimes.”

“If my son has gone bad,” she questioned, “what was his motive? I know you don’t think he killed her for a thousand dollars. What’s the thinking behind the murder?”

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss that with you, Dr. Lee.”