Pretty Poison (34 page)

“I didn’t realize I had such a devious reputation.” She held up the plate. “Cookie?”

He refused. “Not devious. Just too smart for your own damn good. Someday you might be sorry you played us along this way. Your friend could really be a killer, and she could turn on
you
.”

“That’s the least of my worries.” She took a bite of a cookie and told him about Julie’s visit to the Potting Shed. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have my digital camcorder set up to catch all of it. But I won’t leave home without it again.”

“What she said couldn’t really be construed as a threat, Peggy.”

“You weren’t there, Al.” The kettle began to whistle, and she turned off the stove.

“Have I mentioned how stubborn you are?” He picked up a cookie and followed Jonas into the house.

Thirty minutes later, they were gone; a cup of tea in their hands and cookies in their pockets. Peggy fed Shakespeare and went upstairs to get dressed.

 

 

SAM, SELENA, AND HUNTER were already at the shop when Peggy arrived. Sofia and Emil hurried over with tea and bagels when they saw her. Everyone had visits from the police looking for Keeley.

“We didn’t know what to say,” Sofia exclaimed. “You should tell us when something like this happens. What’s the story?”

Peggy explained a little, leaving out the part about Keeley going to her aunt’s house. The Balduccis didn’t need to know, and she didn’t want to ask them to lie.

“It’s only a matter of time,” Hunter said when they were gone. “She can only hide for a few days, then Janice will advise her to turn herself in.”

“Do we have any other leads proving Mrs. Warner did the deed?” Sam asked as he moved back and forth in the rocking chair.

“Not as far as I know.” Peggy turned on the computer. “The videotape was my last idea. We’ve got everything except the proof. Who’d have thought two people I know would be charged with the same murder.”

“It’s weird, I suppose.” Hunter picked up her jacket. “Except when you consider the DB was found right here.”

“DB?” Selena asked.

“Dead body,” Hunter explained. “I have to go. I have a drunk driver in court this morning. Whatever you do, don’t contact Keeley. The chances are all of our phones are bugged. Hopefully, they didn’t get one in here, too.”

Selena and Sam glanced around the shop, looking for listening devices.

Peggy laughed. “Like they have the budget for that! I’ll talk to you later. Thanks, Hunter.”

Sam left right after his sister. The twin of the blue spruce in the shop was scheduled to be planted in Claire Drummond’s front yard that morning. “Let me know if you hear anything. Or if you think of anything else we can do.”

Peggy promised she would, but she knew she was out of plans. Everything she’d tried worked, but it wasn’t enough. Julie stayed one step ahead. And now that she was aware the police could be looking for evidence, she was bound to make sure there was nothing for them to find.

Keeley’s mother called and thanked Peggy for her help. From her tone and her carefully stilted words, Peggy knew Hunter already warned her about wiretaps.

“Don’t worry, Lenore,” Peggy said, mindful of her friend’s paranoia about her daughter. “We’ll think of something. Take care of yourself.”

The shopping crowd was brisk all morning. Peggy didn’t know if it was early Christmas shoppers or people happy to see the warm, sunny weather. Whatever, she was glad to take in the extra money. She thought again about another assistant to help at the shop. It would be nice to have someone she could call if there was an emergency.

Al called her after lunch. She’d been dreading the call all day. It meant they’d found Keeley and taken her into custody. “Can you meet me at Carolinas Medical?”

That
surprised her. Was Keeley injured? Surely she wouldn’t resist arrest. What if she was shot? “Of course. How is she?”

“She? Oh, you mean Ms. Prinz. She’s not here. We haven’t found her yet. This is something else. Can you come?”

Peggy agreed to be there as soon as she could. She hung up the phone and looked around the crowded shop. What could she do? Sam and Selena were both busy. Dawn was out of town, and Brenda was taking Keeley’s place cleaning and watering plants at the Overstreet Mall.

If there wasn’t so much traffic, she might be able to get Sofia or Emil to watch the shop for a while. But she knew they were busy, too. She racked her brain to come up with an alternative. Without letting herself stop to question the wisdom of her actions, she dialed Steve’s number.

Twenty minutes later he was there, putting on an apron. “I take the money and give them a receipt, right?”

“Yes. If they have any questions, refer them to the gardening encyclopedia at the end of the counter. If that doesn’t work, get their name and number. I’ll call them back as soon as I can.”

“Okay. Would you like to take my car? I know you’re in a hurry.”

Peggy wrestled with her conscience. She swore she wouldn’t drive another internal combustion engine machine again. But letting people drive her around in them was just as bad. She took his keys and promised herself she was going to work on the Rolls. “Thanks, Steve. You’re a lifesaver.”

“You owe me dinner.” It was all he had a chance to say before a woman in a bright red suit cornered him to ask about growing tulips on her patio.

Peggy left before she got caught in the middle of it. Al wouldn’t call her unless he had a good reason. If it wasn’t Keeley, she couldn’t imagine what it could be. She felt sure he’d tell her up front if it was Paul. She thought about a dozen more reasons he might call her on the way there. Then she parked the Saturn in the visitors’ parking lot and hurried into the hospital.

Al was waiting at the side entrance from the parking lot. “I think this may be the break you’re looking for. Lieutenant Rimer is on his way over. I wanted you to hear this first, but let’s speed it up. He might not understand me calling you.”

They went up on the elevator to the third floor. “For goodness sake, Al, tell me what’s going on.”

“A doctor gave me a call this morning. It seems he got the test results back on one of his emergency room cases. The man was poisoned by anemonin.”

Peggy’s eyes widened. “Really? How did it happen?”

“His name is Dwayne Johnson. He’s got a rap sheet for drugs as long as your arm. Anyway, this time he picked up some capsules he found in a trash can on Queens Road. Free drugs are the best drugs, you know.”

“How is he?” she asked, excitement building in her chest.

“Sick as a dog. But the doctor says he’ll be fine. I’ve got two officers picking up the rest of the capsules from his house. If it turns out the way I’m thinking, we may have to change that arrest warrant. Johnson identified a photo of the Warner house. He says that’s where he got the drugs.”

“I’m sure Jonas will love that.” She laughed as the elevator stopped.

“Yeah, he’s just peachy about it.” Al smiled at her. “I think you did good on this, Peggy. Even if you should’ve stayed out of the way.”

“Thanks, I think. Why did you ask me to come up, besides telling me this?”

“As awkward as it may be, I’d like you to come with us when we search the Warner house again. I don’t know what the hell we’re looking for over there. What do you make poison out of?”

She nodded. “I’ll give Steve a call and go with you. Does the position pay?”

He scratched his chin. “I’m sure we can get you a small stipend. And you’ll have the satisfaction of finding out if you were right or wrong.”

“That sounds appealing. Where do I sign up?”

 

 

THE CRIME LAB FOUND TRACES of anemonin in the rest of the capsules at Dwayne Johnson’s home. Most of them were mutilated and only contained traces of the poison. The quest for the perfect capsule to give Mark seemed to be the only reason Dwayne was alive.

Peggy went with Al to search the Warner house. The judge issued the warrant on the strength of Johnson’s bedside affidavit that he picked up the capsules from the Warner trash can. Julie’s lawyer argued anyone could’ve put them there. But since the bank video showed Julie bringing in a pharmacy bag and the poisoned capsules matched the medication she brought Mark, the judge allowed the search.

Julie stayed in the house. Her eyes promised retribution when she saw Peggy.

Peggy shivered, but she straightened her spine and went ahead with the officers. The warrant allowed them to look for anything that could have been used in the commission of Mark Warner’s murder.

“There’s so much in here,” Peggy said to Al. “How are we going to go through it all?”

“Just remember, I only want you to look for the kind of paraphernalia that could be used to create the poison. Let us take care of the rest.”

With the Warner children crying in the kitchen, Peggy looked everywhere else first. There was no sign of anything she recognized as useful. Al asked Julie to wait upstairs with the children so they could search the kitchen. Peggy was grateful for his intervention but still couldn’t find anything.

“I think she had too much of a lead, Al,” she told him. “If there was anything here, she got rid of it. Maybe we should search the dump.”

“Great.” He glanced around the kitchen. “We’ll never get another warrant for this. They found a long dark wig upstairs in Mrs. Warner’s closet. That could help us make the case for the police in Columbia.”

“But not if we can’t find a beaker or anything that the poison was in.” Peggy thought about the cat being poisoned. If it was an accident, Julie had to be out in the open somewhere in the house. If not in the kitchen . . . “What about the basement? This house must have a basement.”

Al looked for a door, enlisting the aid of the officers as they finished searching the rest of the house. “If there’s a basement, she must have to climb in through an outside window.”

“Some of these older houses had cellars instead of basements.” Peggy began stomping her foot on the floor in the kitchen. “If there’s a door cut in the floor, it should sound different.”

Al and the officers joined her in stamping their feet across the floor. Peggy took a moment to smile at the sight, then she stomped down hard on a spot near the pantry. “I think I found something.”

The door cut into the oak tongue-and-groove floor was hard to see. They didn’t need a rug to hide it. The carpenter who’d created it did an excellent job. The lines between the different cuts in the wood were so thin as to appear almost invisible. Peggy found a spatula and used it to pry up one end of the door. It opened smoothly and quietly. She pushed back a new steel support brace that held the door open.

Al instructed two of the officers to stay upstairs with the Warner family. “We’re so close. I don’t want to have to look for Mrs. Warner like I’ve had to look for Ms. Prinz.”

“Have you found Keeley yet?” Peggy asked as she started down the narrow stairs.

“No. But I expect you knew that.”

The space under the house was more a cellar than a basement. It was crudely wired. One naked lightbulb hung over a rough workbench. A large Bunsen burner was pushed back from the edge. Various sizes of glass beakers and bottles stood on shelves.

“Holy smoke.” Al couldn’t believe his eyes. “Richards, get down here with that camera. Nobody touch anything until CSI gets here.”

Peggy poked around in the shadowed corners. Close to the workbench was a smaller table. It was covered by yellow scarves. Five jars of honey, five small pumpkins, and five oranges adorned it. On the wall behind it was a small picture of a beautiful black woman dressed in yellow scarves. She appeared to be dancing.

“What is that?” Al asked.

“Oshun,” Peggy told him. “That explains the yellow scarf around the cat. She’s part of the Santeria religion. And from what I hear, she can get
very
angry.”

“The
what
?”

Peggy left the cellar as she heard Emma come in the back door. The housekeeper put her bags of groceries on the table and rushed toward Julie as the officers were putting handcuffs on her. Her children were crying and clinging to her.

“No, no,” Emma was muttering. “Oshun wouldn’t let this happen.”

“It was you,” Peggy said in amazement. “It wasn’t Julie, was it?
You
killed Mark. You did it out of love for Julie and the children, of course. You killed Molly because she had the nerve to come here, face Julie, and threaten her. You tried to kill me because I was asking too many questions.”

Julie stared at Peggy, then swept her tearful gaze toward her housekeeper. “Emma? Is that true? You wouldn’t, would you?”

“You’re better off without him,” Emma told her. “And his disrespectful whore deserved to die, too.”

Jonas and Al glanced at each other. Al shrugged his hefty shoulders. “Don’t ask me.”

“Are you saying Mrs. Warner
didn’t
kill her husband?” Jonas asked Peggy.

“
I’m
not.” She nodded at the housekeeper. “But I think
she
is. Emma’s a believer in Santeria. They have a lot of basic knowledge about plants and poisons. I think when you dust for fingerprints in the cellar, you’re going to find Emma’s prints, not Julie’s.”

While Julie cried, a defiant Emma proudly confessed to the murders. Peggy slipped out the door. She’d done her part. She didn’t want to hear the rest. Two more squad cars joined the group, and a Channel 3 news van pulled smoothly up. She was glad Steve’s car was parked on the street.

Her cell phone rang. “Peggy?” Steve’s voice sounded desperate. “There’s a man here who wants to order two hundred tulip trees. I don’t even know what the hell a tulip tree is. Are you coming back soon?”

She laughed. “I’m on my way. Don’t let him leave the shop.”

 

 

FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE John Lee died, the blue spruce in Peggy’s house was decorated for Christmas. She decided to do it in grand style by inviting half of Charlotte to help her. The drop-in party was so large that the police sent complimentary officers to help with parking and traffic.