A Corpse for Yew

by Joyce; Jim Lavene

  “I don’t know why I’m bothering to tell you at all.” He started running again.

  She followed him, swerving close to the curb. “Because you know you made a mistake and you’re sorry for it. You wouldn’t have left her out there if you’d known what would happen.”

  “No, I wouldn’t. But I suppose you understand her insanity, since you’re a member of the gang. They do some stupid things. Aunt Lois was lucky nothing happened to her before this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Ask your friends. That’s all you’re getting from me today. God knows I could use someone like you on Homicide. You don’t give up. Now get out of the street before I call one of my boys.”

  PEGGY PEDALED QUICKLY THROUGH THE city, her mind going over her conversation with the chief. He obviously felt bad for his mistake in judgment, leaving his aunt alone at the lake. He’d expected her to meet up with the rest of the group, but something happened between that time and her death. Was it accidental? Most plant poisonings were, but this seemed to take on some questionable overtones. Lois probably saw the juicy red berries and decided to have a nibble while she waited. The chief was so angry and hostile. Had anyone else noticed his odd behavior?

  It could just be a terrible mistake, she considered, as she locked up her bike behind the Potting Shed. But it could also be something more. The longer she was involved with this case, the more she doubted it was an accident, despite Mai’s evidence to the contrary.

  She unlocked the back door to the shop, locking it again behind her after she’d entered. This wasn’t exactly a bad part of town, but the shops had problems from time to time with break-ins. Better safe than sorry. She’d thought that axiom was pointless when she was younger. It made sense now.

  Everything in the Potting Shed was in its place. She stocked a few shelves, but it was more for something to do than out of necessity. She didn’t need to check the receipts from yesterday to know it had been a slow day. She looked around the shop that had become her home away from home, and hoped Sam’s idea about drought gardening was brilliant enough to turn things around.

  Her garden club was meeting at the Kozy Kettle that morning. Normally they met on Thursday, but the meeting had been postponed because several members were going to be out of town. It had been just as well for her, with everything she’d done yesterday.

  She looked around at the plants available for her talk. She liked to have a fresh specimen to show the group. Her eyes lit on a pretty French lavender plant that had been in her basement for years. She’d decided to bring it here after redoing the shop. It would be an interesting plant for the club to see and learn about.

  Selena came through the back door a while later and found Peggy going through a plant catalog. She was listening to the Moody Blues, one of her favorite groups from her college years. Her parents had always frowned on their music because they weren’t American. Of course, that made them all the more attractive.

  “Who is this?” Selena asked. “And why are they torturing small animals?”

  “You have room to talk with the music you listen to,” Peggy said. “The Moody Blues was a great band. They may still be. I haven’t kept up with them.”

  “You didn’t have to come in this morning.” Selena grabbed her apron from behind the counter that held the cash register. “You could’ve just come in late for the garden club.”

  “Thanks.” Peggy didn’t look up from her catalog. “Next time, I’ll call you before I come in, and get the lowdown on whether or not I should be here.”

  “You know I didn’t mean it like that. I just thought you’ve been busy and there’s nothing much going on here right now. You could take it easy for awhile. Like an hour or two, anyway.”

  “I’m just kidding you. Did you notice that little lizard that’s taken up residence on the side of the pond?”

  Selena jumped up onto the rocking chair with a screech. “No! Where is it? Maybe Sam can kill it when he comes in. I hate snakes and lizards.”

  “They’re two different things.” Peggy kept her laughter to herself. “Besides, Sam better not hurt it. The little fella is cute.”

  “I’ve worked here through floods, snow, dead bodies, and spiders, but I’m not working here with a lizard. I don’t like them and they don’t like me.”

  “All right. I’ll take it home with me. Will that work?”

  Selena nodded, her gaze focused on the pond as she searched for the terrible lizard. “Can you do it now?”

  “Do what?” Sam strolled into the shop, Jasper and Keeley behind him. All three were wearing incredibly muddy clothes. “Does it involve all of us jumping up onto a chair?”

  “Very funny,” Selena said. “There’s a lizard in the pond. And where did you manage to find enough water to make mud and wallow around in it?”

  “Actually, we installed a pricey rainwater reclamation unit,” Jasper told her. “And we have orders for three more just like it.” He walked up to the chair and gave her his hand. “Let me help you down from there.”

  Selena made a face at Sam. “At least there are still some gentlemen left in the world.”

  “And I’m sure you could find them if you weren’t always relying on the kindness of strangers.” As he spoke, Sam’s voice went up several octaves and became more Southern.

  “Next thing you know, you’ll be wearing a dress made from curtains,” Peggy observed. “So tell me, just how pricey was this rainwater reclamation unit, and what was our cost?”

  Sam and Jasper showed Peggy the plans for the units as well as the cost and profit structure. She was impressed with the numbers and the simplicity of their idea. “It’s basically catching the rainwater from the rooftop and storing it, then using a pump to utilize it in the garden,” she surmised.

  “Exactly.” Sam beamed. “We also sold a few rain barrels out there. I’m thinking we should stock some in the store. Jasper knows a man who’s making them with designs.”

  “Designs?” Peggy tried to picture that, and failed.

  “Yeah. Some of them look like little men with hats,” Jasper explained. “They’re very decorative.”

  Keeley agreed. “They were really cute, Peggy. Wait till you see them.”

  “Okay.” Peggy stood up and put her catalog away. “We’ll take a few and see how they do. This sounds great, Sam. Maybe just what we’re looking for.”

  “That’s why I’m here.” He watched her pick up the French lavender plant. “I take it you have garden club this morning. Let me carry that for you.”

  Peggy wondered if this was a hint that he needed to speak with her alone, and agreed to let him help. “Is something wrong?” she asked as they walked across the courtyard.

  “No. Well, not exactly. I just wanted to make sure this is where you want to go with the landscaping, too. We can pretend this side is all mine, but we’re partners. I don’t want to do this if it seems wrong to you.”

  She smiled at him as the sunlight caught in the golden strands that framed his face. “I think it’s a great idea. Really. You’re brilliant, Sam. You don’t need me to tell you.” But she loved him for asking.

  “Okay. We don’t have regular meetings. I think maybe we should. You know, like regular businesses.”

  “I guess that’s left over from you wanting to be a surgeon. All that organization and things laid neatly in place. You should know by now the garden business isn’t that way.”

  He laughed as he put the lavender on a wrought iron table outside the Kozy Kettle. “At least the plant lady isn’t that organized, huh? Fine. That’s enough new stuff for one day. We’ll work on those meetings later.”

  Sam said good-bye as two members of the garden club saw Peggy. They watched him walk away with gleaming eyes. “Is that your son?” Renee Walters checked out his broad shoulders and slim hips.

  “No. Although I think of him like my son,” Peggy said.

  “How can you think of that hotty as anything but an incredible hunk?” Jessica Martin demanded, st
raightening her pink blouse and tossing her blond hair.

  “I guess I never thought about him that way. He works for me. Sam heads up our landscaping division.”

  Jessica and Renee both took out their Palm Pilots to add his cell number. Peggy smiled as she got ready for her presentation. No reason to tell the two women that they were hardly Sam’s type.

  After the rest of the garden club had assembled outside the Kozy Kettle, Emil came to take orders for drinks and food. It was the reason they’d first come to an understanding about Peggy holding her garden club meetings there. She didn’t have enough room at the Potting Shed, and Emil enjoyed the business on an otherwise slow morning.

  “This is French lavender.” Peggy showed the group the plant. “It’s not the same as we normally think of lavender, because that’s English lavender. This plant began as a weed and eventually ended up in the British Pharmacopeia in the late 1700s. They say Queen Elizabeth the First enjoyed French lavender, but not just the smell; she regularly drank tea made from it to prevent migraines.”

  The group of twenty or so, two of them gentlemen, wrote down what she said and contemplated the gray green serrated leaves of the plant. The two ladies closest to the plant, a mother and daughter from Carmel Road, leaned closer and smelled it. “It smells more like rosemary than lavender,” the mother said. “It seems strange to call it lavender.”

  “True, although it was probably the first lavender,” Peggy told her. “The English lavender we’re used to was bred from this.”

  “How would it be with this drought?” Mary Tillis asked, pencil in hand.

  “It would probably be fine,” Peggy answered. “It doesn’t necessarily need a lot of water. The plant should be trimmed back twice a year, in spring and fall, or it becomes quite bushy. The flower heads can be left on to dry, and you can save the seeds for another plant.”

  “Does the plant dry well to use in an arrangement?” another lady asked.

  “It does,” Peggy responded, holding up one of the branches to show the delicate purple flower. “I used to keep this plant in my basement, but now it lives in the Potting Shed and seems to be happy there. I plan on keeping it in a pot of some kind and bringing it in for the winter.”

  There was a flurry of questions as Emil brought out teas and lattes with bagels and croissants. Peggy answered each one and gave everyone a chance to take a close look at the plant. She cut off small pieces for them to smell, each person deciding if they liked the scent or not.

  “Peggy, talk to us about the drought.” Suzi Harcourt said. “I mean, my roses are looking really bad. I know Sam did a good job planting them, but I don’t have a well and rain hasn’t come often enough. They look like they’re dying. What should I do?”

  “Have you added hydrogel crystals to the soil around the roots?” Everyone’s ears perked up as Peggy asked the question.

  She spent the next few minutes explaining about the crystals, similar to those that hold liquid in baby diapers, and how they could be used to keep moisture around plants for longer periods. “The crystals disperse water as time goes by,” she explained. “They’re probably good for about a month without water before they need to be soaked again.”

  “Do you carry those at the store?” Suzi asked.

  “Some,” Peggy answered. “There wasn’t ever a big demand for them.” But I can certainly carry more if that will get you into the Potting Shed.

  The garden club members lingered longer than the usual thirty minutes, and almost all of them went back to the Potting Shed with her when it was over. There were just enough hydrogel crystals for each of them to have one pack. Selena quickly took orders for at least ten more.

  “Peggy, you need to give workshops on coping with the drought,” Mary told her after paying for her purchase. “I know a ton of people who’re looking for answers to this thing. No one wants to give up their garden. It would be a big help.”

  When all of the garden club had finally left, Selena closed the cash register and let out a whoop. “That’s almost as much as we did all last week! What did you do?”

  Peggy smiled. “Talked about the right thing, I guess. Selena, we should think about helping people survive the drought. Mary may be on to something. Let’s take out an ad in the Observer. Maybe you can get your friend from the TV station to cover a drought workshop for gardeners.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. Maybe this is our turning-around place. It sounds like Sam has the landscaping under control. Maybe we can make some money in the shop, too.”

  Peggy’s mind was flying with a hundred ideas, but she glanced into the pond and back at her assistant. “Where’s the little lizard? You didn’t kill him, did you?”

  Selena shook her head. “Me? Are you kidding? I had Sam take him with him when he left. I’m sure he’ll find a good home for him or Keeley will kill him. You know how she is with anything alive.”

  Peggy was about to agree with her when six solemn-faced women, all of them wearing black, filed into the shop. “We need to talk,” Geneva told her.

  12

  Shamrock (White clover)

  Botanical: Trifolium repens

  The name shamrock comes from the Celtic word for clover, seamrog. It has three leaves and is considered lucky. It is said the Irish saint, Patrick, used the shamrock to illustrate the Holy Trinity to the people of Ireland. There seems to be an ongoing debate about which form of clover he actually used: trifolium dubium, trifolium repens, or trifolium pretense. It is probably a mystery that will never be solved.

  “YOUR MOTHER TOLD US WHAT happened,” Dorothy said. “How could you leave us in the dark that way?”

  Peggy glared at her mother, who shrugged and looked the other way. “I don’t know what she told you, but whatever it was, she should’ve known better.”

  “Lilla told us the medical examiner is going to rule Lois’s death an accident,” Grace charged. “How could you? We trusted you.”

  A customer with a baby in a backpack came into the shop and stared long and hard at the group of women. Peggy took this as a sign and moved them out of the shop. She certainly didn’t need to scare off anyone who might spend money. “Let’s go out and sit down.”

  They sat around the same table the garden club had, but for Peggy, the talk about French lavender was much more enjoyable. She didn’t see where she had much choice but to explain the circumstances of Lois’s death to them. She never should have trusted her mother to keep her mouth closed. Funny, but she had never thought of her that way before. She knew Lilla was desperate to make friends in her new home. It was as good an explanation as any for her breach of trust.

  “So she was poisoned”—Annabelle deciphered Peggy’s brief explanation—“by yew berries?”

  “She had them in her mouth.” Peggy clarified. “Whether or not the poison actually killed her, or if it caused her to have another heart attack, could be up for debate. But there was no sign she was forced to eat them. The ME had to assume she didn’t know what they were, and ate them on her own.”

  “Of course she knew what they were!” Annabelle protested. “She grew up here. I’m sure she has them in her yard. Most of us do.”

  The other ladies nodded, but Geneva spoke out. “But who knew they were poisonous? I thought for sure my cousin in Spartanburg used to eat them all the time.”

  “You can eat the red berry part,” Peggy explained. “But the green seed in the middle is deadly poisonous. Lois had more than one seed in her mouth.”

  “That’s crazy!” Grace declared. “That can’t be all there is to it. I don’t believe it.”

  “It may be difficult to take in, but it appears to be what happened.” Peggy felt sorry for the ladies and wished there was a better answer, although murder didn’t seem to be a better answer to her.

  “What about her quarrel with Jonathon?” Grace demanded. “Maybe he tricked her into eating the berries.”

  “The chances are he was with at least one of you when she died. We know he picked
us up to go out to the lake. He started with you, right, Geneva?” Peggy tried to make them think logically about what had happened.

  “Yeah. I guess that was about six. Maybe sooner.” The sulky tone of her voice said more than her words. Geneva didn’t want to think her friend simply made a mistake.

  “The ME and the police detectives checked everything. There isn’t any reason to believe Lois was killed. She made a mistake thousands of people make every year, but it cost her her life.” Peggy smiled at them. “Believe me, it’s better that she died this way than thinking someone killed her.”

  “She was still alone out there.” Annabelle’s voice wavered.

  “Because her stupid jackass of a nephew didn’t want to be bothered taking her out there at a decent time,” Dorothy said. “It doesn’t hurt that he’s the one who’ll inherit her house.”

  “Please don’t think of it that way,” Peggy encouraged. “Chief Mullis knows he made a mistake. I don’t think it was something he did on purpose.”

  “Easy for him to say,” Mrs. Waynewright accused, her thin lips in a taut line. “She’s gone now and he’s still here. Who knows it wasn’t something subconscious?”

  “I guess, from what Peggy is saying, we’ll never know for sure,” Geneva said. “We all got messages saying Lois’s funeral will be tomorrow. I guess all we can do now is pay our respects.”

  “I think we should give her that designation from the DAR anyway,” Grace said. “She had the oldest ancestor of any of us, as far as we know. He was a major in the Revolutionary War at the age of sixty-six. I think we should see if we can have the sash and plaque buried with her. What good will it do us now?”

  Mrs. Waynewright cleared her throat. “There was always a question about whether my ancestor was older than hers.”