Stirring the Plot

by Daryl Wood Gerber

  My pulse kicked up a notch as I slipped inside.

  The hothouse was expansive, about forty feet by twenty feet. The walls were opaque. Serrated-edged bushes—marijuana, planted in clay pots—were thriving along the left length of the hothouse. Down the middle were beds of tomatoes and mushrooms, the mushrooms blossoming blissfully out of chunks of wood. Along the right side of the hothouse, wooden shelving held dozens of pots of orchids, bromeliads, tropical vines, and African violets. At the far end stood a huge potting table fitted with two wide drawers. Pots, soil, garden tools, and a few vases of flowers sat on top of the table.

  I tiptoed through the garden looking behind plants, but I didn’t see foxglove. Maya wasn’t growing any. Was I wrong? Was she innocent? Did I need to reconsider theories about Emma, Trisha, or Edward being the killer?

  As I was passing a section of orchids, I noticed a grouping of small dainty white flowers arranged along one side of a stalk. A marker named them: Onvallaria majallis. I drew up short. Weren’t they commonly known as lily of the valley? I remembered doing an ad for Lily of the Valley perfume. One woman working on the campaign, a loudmouth with no inside voice, joked that the perfume should really be called Love Potion #9 because lily of the valley was poisonous. Was lily of the valley in the genus of flowers that could produce digitoxin or, as Deputy Appleby advised me, cardiac glucosides?

  I flashed on Maya’s satin witch hat, adorned with lily of the valley. Her business cards had a lily of the valley design on them as well. She was fixated with the flower because her mother had named her Maya Lily: Maya for May, when she was born, and Lily for her mother’s favorite flower, lily of the valley, which bloomed in May. Growing the flowers indoors was the only way to cultivate them in October.

  Pivoting, I surveyed the potting table holding garden tools and more. A beautiful blue porcelain vase, filled with stalks of lily of the valley, was perched on the far corner. Had Maya crushed the petals of the flower to create the poison, or were all parts of the plant poisonous? Would the water they stood in work as a poison?

  I took a quick picture with my iPhone and started for the door, ready to relay my findings to the police, but I hesitated as I was passing the wild mushrooms. No, I didn’t pause so I could admire them. I was recalling an occasion when I had flipped through a cookbook at the shop, on the hunt for a wild mushroom puff pastry recipe made with cream and Parmesan, heavy on the garlic. In the introduction, the author provided all sorts of photographs and instructions on how to grow wild mushrooms. Using a hypodermic needle, she had injected chunks of wood with mushroom spores.

  Did Maya have syringes lying around? Did she fill a mushroom syringe with deadly lily of the valley poison and inject Pearl after she sedated her with zolpidem?

  If I could find the syringe, I would have more than enough evidence to take to Cinnamon. I hurried back to the potting table and scoured through the top drawer. I found plant tags, bags of seeds, green bamboo stakes, and bendable ties, but no syringe. I slid open the second drawer and gasped when I spotted an open package of cubensis syringes. Only three of the four were left, each with a clear pump and silver needle.

  A waft of air cut up the back of my neck. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the door to the main shop opening. I bumped the drawer with my hip to close it and faced front.

  Pepper rushed in. I tensed. What in the heck was she doing here?

  “Aha,” she said, full voice.

  I whispered, “Shh.”

  “I knew it. You’re up to something. I’m calling my daughter.” She pulled a phone from her purse.

  “I thought you left with your friends,” I rasped.

  “That was my intention. I saw you and your aunt slink into the shop, and all the hackles on my neck stood on end. I knew you were up to no good.”

  “Pepper, be quiet. Maya—”

  “I will not be quiet. What are you doing back here anyway?” She scanned the hothouse. When her gaze landed on the marijuana, she gulped. “Is that what I think it is?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s illegal.” She started stabbing numbers on her cell phone.

  Before she pressed four digits, Maya pushed through the marijuana plants wielding a machete, looking for all intents and purposes like a big-game hunter.

  “Pepper,” I yelled and pointed. Too late.

  Swiftly, Maya slung an arm around Pepper’s throat and said, “Jenna, don’t move or I’ll hurt her. Pepper, give me your phone.”

  Pepper handed over the cell phone. Maya flung it behind the marijuana. My heart sank. If only Pepper had been able to connect with Cinnamon.

  Think, Jenna. What can you do? Throwing a pot wasn’t going to disarm Maya, and I might clock Pepper in the process.

  “How did you get in here?” I said, while glancing around the hothouse for some other weapon. Plants, stakes, wire, bags of dirt.

  Maya grinned, but her gaze was feral. “Every building requires a second exit, sugar. Didn’t you know that? Fire safety regulations. This one is hiding behind my stash. What are you doing in here, Jenna? Snooping?”

  “What? No.” I didn’t sound very convincing. I peeked at the tools on the table. The garden spade looked snub-nosed and not hefty enough to battle a machete.

  “Maya,” Pepper said, her voice trembling with fear. “Why are you holding me captive?”

  “Hush,” Maya ordered and clucked her tongue. “Ah, Jenna, you and your aunt. Two peas in a pod.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Looking for you. In the ladies’ room. At least, that’s where I told her you went. Then I locked her inside.”

  Swell. Aunt Vera was going to be heartsick that she hadn’t foreseen where I really was. She was also going to be ticked off that she was trapped. Maybe she would pound on the door like she had when she’d gotten trapped in the bathroom at the back of The Cookbook Nook. What a load of noise she’d made.

  “By the way, Jenna, you left the drawer of the bird feeder open an inch,” Maya clucked her tongue. “Sloppy detective work, sugar. If you’re going to keep up the practice of sleuthing, you’ve got to learn that’s a dead giveaway of your intentions.”

  “Maya,” Pepper tried again. “Let me go. Whatever your beef is with Jenna—”

  “Maya killed Pearl,” I cried. “She poisoned her with lily of the valley.”

  Maya smirked. “So you figured it out.”

  “Lily of the valley is your signature.” I eyed the strand of vegetables down the middle of the hothouse. One of the logs holding the mushrooms might make a good weapon, unless it was rotten from the moisture. “The flower,” I said, vamping. “Is it in the foxglove family? I imagine it has cardiac glucosides.”

  “Good guess,” Maya said. “But why did I do it?”

  “Because you’re suffering from cancer. You needed the Thorntonite because it has similar properties to selenium.”

  Maya looked impressed. “Well, you are cleverer than I imagined.”

  “But Pearl said no. You couldn’t have it.”

  “She was so selfish. I had a private conversation with her that night. After her argument with her daughter. She told me she didn’t like being mean. I said, ‘Prove it,’ and I asked her for the rock. ‘It’s magical,’ I said. ‘It can save my life.’” Maya’s face twisted with hate. “I trusted she would hand it over because she treasured being Pearl the Beneficent. She needed everyone to adore her. I told her with my miraculous recovery, she would get the credit for what her husband had discovered. After all, she was the one who told me what supernatural properties it possessed.”

  Magical. Supernatural. Maya was living in a dream world.

  “But, lo and behold,” Maya continued, “she refused me as she had so many times before.”

  “You’d asked her for help on previous occasions?”

  “Three times to be exact.”
/>   “Why did she refuse?”

  “Because she couldn’t dream of touching her husband’s precious collection, not for something as New Age as my treatment. She said I was crazy to even ask. Crazy. Me.”

  “So you went home and got the things you needed to kill her.”

  “Indeed, I did. I’d been considering doing her in for weeks, but that night I wanted to give her one more chance. I thought with all the good vibes going around during the Winsome Witches events, she might reconsider. I was wrong. She was a vile, selfish fiend.”

  “You returned with zolpidem to lace her drink—”

  “Isn’t that a sleeping drug?” Pepper asked.

  Maya ignored her, her gaze fully on me. “I needed her to be cooperative.”

  “So you could inject her with poison,” I said. The word inject triggered a memory. Seconds ago, Maya said I hadn’t fully closed the drawer of the bird feeder. I glanced over my shoulder at the potting table. As expected, the drawer was open an inch. Bless my bad habit! The empty syringes lay inside. Maybe I could nab one of them. A year out of college, I plunged an EpiPen into a friend who was in anaphylactic shock. She reported later that the pain I had exacted was excruciating. A syringe was no match for a machete, but I had to do something to neutralize Maya. Without turning my head, I walked my fingers down the inside of the drawer.

  “When I came back, I saw Pearl lounging on the patio,” Maya continued. “So I went to the kitchen to fetch some of that yummy Witchy Woman concoction. There was enough for two drinks left in a pitcher. I filled a pair of martini glasses and dosed one with ground-up zolpidem. The drug works faster with liquor.”

  Using my pinky, I drew the syringes forward. The plastic wrapping scraped the bottom of the drawer.

  Pepper coughed loudly. Had she heard the sound? Was she covering for me? Was she finally on my side? If so, I really owed her a good batch of dark chocolate . . . if she would ever speak to me again after being taken captive.

  “Then, thanks to this lovely thing I have”—Maya twirled her finger to signify the disease that had taken hold in her body—“before I approached Pearl on the patio, I needed the loo. I was in the bathroom when Emma showed up.” She snickered. “So I finished my business, and I stole to another room to watch the whole event. I had a ringside seat. It was quite a show, Emma admitting her love to the dear doctor.”

  Pepper drilled me with a look. “Does everyone know?”

  “I didn’t tell anyone,” I said.

  “Neither did I,” Maya said. “If I had, I would have been admitting my presence. Poor Emma. I do hope she can work it out with her husband. He’s such a nice guy. A good dentist, too.” Maya smiled. “Do you like how white my teeth are? Dr. Wright says a whiter smile makes people feel young again. If only I were a decade younger and didn’t have this thing.”

  I pried one syringe from the packet. I wrapped my hand around the empty plunger.

  “Anyway, while I was eavesdropping, Trisha showed up. She didn’t see me. She, too, watched in secret as Emma threw her ring in the fire and Pearl reached to catch it. After Trisha and Emma departed, I realized my opportunity. If necessary, I could pin the murder on either of them. Two for the price of one. As store owners, ladies, you know the value of a good deal.”

  “What happened next?” Pepper said, as if caught up in the story, but I realized she was trying to draw Maya’s attention away from me.

  Kid you not, I was starting to like the woman. She had pluck.

  Maya turned her face slightly. “As Pearl was dousing the fire, I appeared with cocktails.”

  “How did you explain your return?”

  “I told her I’d left my cell phone behind, and then I let on that I’d overheard Emma’s confession. I asked if she wanted to talk about it. She didn’t. Even so, I offered her a drink.”

  “And she drank it, even though she’d been diagnosed with diabetes?”

  “I convinced her it was okay. One cocktail wouldn’t hurt. To celebrate. We talked about the party and the upcoming luncheon. After a few minutes, Pearl grew drowsy. That’s when I attacked. I plunged the hypodermic into her arm. Instantly, she grew nauseated though she didn’t vomit. As she lay dying, I promised her an antidote if she would tell me where to find the key to the mineral display case. She did. She begged to live. She sounded so pitiful that it almost broke my heart. But I didn’t have an antidote. I’d lied. She died in minutes.”

  “You posed her over the cold fire pit to frame Emma,” I said, finishing the saga. “You planted the sapphire in Trisha’s backpack to draw the focus away from the Thorntonite you’d taken.”

  Maya grinned.

  I said, “Is the Thorntonite working?”

  “We don’t know yet. These things take time.”

  “But you’ve run out of time,” Pepper hissed, and like a karate pro, she jabbed Maya with her elbow. Maya, surprised as all get-out by Pepper’s strength and determination, caved inward. Pepper grasped Maya’s forearm and yanked downward. Maya was too weak to hold on. She spun away from Pepper. Desperately, she swung the machete, but she only hit marijuana plants. “Now, Jenna!” Pepper yelled.

  I raced at Maya and thrust the empty syringe into her thigh. Maya fell forward. I stepped on the arm holding the machete and kneeled on her back. I didn’t have many pounds on Maya, but empowered by Pepper’s courage, I had grit.

  The door from the shop flew open. Cinnamon hurried in, gun drawn.

  I said, “How did you—”

  “I dialed 911,” Pepper blurted out.

  Aunt Vera followed Cinnamon in. A clerk and a few customers clogged the doorway.

  As Cinnamon cuffed Maya, I filled her in. On the lily of the valley poison. On Maya’s sneak attack. On how Pepper saved the day with a little help from me. “I believe you’ll find evidence of Maya being at the crime scene. Her fingerprints should be on the chaise. Marijuana leaves from this garden might be among the leaves gathered from the crime scene.”

  Aunt Vera said, “I knew something was bugging me about Pearl’s patio. I’d noticed drag marks from the chaise to the fire pit, but they were gone by the time we returned.”

  “That won’t be enough to convict me,” Maya argued.

  “I’ll bet you coughed that night,” I said. “You’ve been coughing for a long time. Your DNA will be in the area. Maybe even on Dr. Thornton’s body.” I looked to Cinnamon for confirmation.

  She grinned. “Don’t look at me. You’re the expert.”

  Chapter 29

  ON HALLOWEEN DAY, I panicked and decided to hold my party at The Cookbook Nook instead of my cottage. Why? Because around noon, as I was answering question after question about Maya Adaire—yes, she was in custody and not being released on bail, and yes, she had been charged with murder—I had a duh moment. No way was I ever going to be able to cook everything for the party by myself in less than three hours after closing the shop. Sensing my distress, Katie offered to help. I wasn’t stupid. I screamed yes.

  On a break at 3:00 P.M., I flew home and picked up all the ingredients and my costume. When I returned, Katie was at the ready, arms extended. Popcorn balls—a snap. Wart-topped quesadillas with less than five ingredients—also a snap. In addition, Katie had borrowed a half-dozen cookbooks from the shop so she could whip up some adult desserts. All were divine. My favorite was a pumpkin cheesecake laced with maple syrup.

  A half hour after we closed the store, I slipped into the stockroom and donned my Dorothy from Oz costume, which was inspired by the Oz club ladies who had visited the store earlier—a sweet gingham dress, ruffled white shirt, short socks, and ballet slippers instead of Mary Janes. I weaved my hair into two pigtails. Next, I secured Tigger’s witch hat to his head. To my surprise, he sat completely still. What the little scamp wouldn’t do for a few oatmeal tuna treats. Finally, I dimmed the store’s lights, and I toured the shop to light candles and
tweak Halloween decorations.

  “Nice pumpkin you carved,” I said to Bailey. She had used a stencil of a witch riding an airborne bicycle.

  “Thanks. I’m already practicing for next year’s competition.”

  “What’s that?” I said, pointing to a basket that was sitting by the register. It was filled with what looked like homemade caramel-dipped marshmallows. Wire-edged ribbon adorned the handle of the basket.

  “What do you think?” Bailey held it up. “It’s another token from your secret admirer.”

  At that moment, Deputy Appleby ambled into the shop, knocking on the door frame as he entered. “Hiya, heard there was a party.” He was carrying a big bouquet of roses.

  I did a double take on the flowers and the basket on the counter. Uh-oh. I felt warmth flood my cheeks. Please tell me he isn’t my secret admirer. Please, please, please. I said, “You have to be in costume.”

  He grinned. “I am. I’m a floral delivery man.” He pointed to a handwritten sticker on his shirt.

  Tricky but not very imaginative, I mused. I snatched the basket out of Bailey’s hand and brandished it at Appleby. “Is this from you?”

  He shook his head. “Not I.”

  “Oh, really. Who are those flowers for?”

  “Your aunt.”

  “My—” Not believing him on either account, I glowered at the note on the basket. If forced, I would attempt a handwriting analysis test. But then I laughed out loud. “Yoo-hoo, Bailey, did you read this?”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s not for me, it’s for you. It says, ‘To my beautiful Bailey. Will you ever get the hint?’”

  She snatched the basket back. “That’s not Jorge’s writing.”