Deadly Devotion

by Sandra Orchard

  “You have to let this go,” Julie cut in.

  “No, I don’t. Detective Parker said if I can give him a reason to reopen the case, he will.” Her hand tingled at the memory of how he’d pressed his business card into her palm and folded her fingers over it. His gaze had been wary, but his touch . . .

  She plucked his business card from her pocket, smoothed the creases, then danced it in front of Julie’s eyes. “He even gave me his cell number.”

  Julie grabbed the card and, staring at it, sank into a chair. “You’re kidding.”

  Kate tilted her head and imitated her mom’s notorious do-I-look-like-I’m-kidding eyebrow arc.

  Julie let out a good-natured snort. “Right, you never kid.” She turned over the card, and her expression morphed into an eye-glowing, cheek-scrunching grin. Her tongue poked out and she caught it between her teeth as if she intended to keep Kate in suspense about what was so wonderful. “Ohhh,” Julie oozed, giving the word an extra three syllables. “He must like you.”

  Kate’s heart jogged. She laced her arms across her chest as though Julie might notice the erratic ka-thump. Liked her? Huh. “Why would you say that?”

  “Cops don’t have time to investigate non-cases.” Julie scrunched her damp towel into her lap, then finger-combed her long blonde waves. “If you watched TV, you’d know that.”

  “This is not a non-case.”

  Julie read the labels on the jars. “How can any of this prove Daisy didn’t kill herself?”

  “I want to make sure everything in the jars is what’s on the label. Parker had the gall to suggest Daisy wasn’t the person I believed her to be. And I intend to prove him wrong.” Kate shoved aside the notion that Edward might not be what he seemed. If Daisy knew Kate suspected her nephew, she’d have a conniption.

  Daisy had loved him, trusted him, believed in him. That ought to be reason enough for Kate to trust him too.

  Unless Daisy’s trust had cost her her life.

  Julie opened a jar of lavender and inhaled. “I read somewhere that statistically men are more likely to kill people by violent means, while women prefer to use pills.”

  “That’s interesting.” Kate jotted the fact in the margin of her suspect list.

  Julie flipped through Daisy’s notebooks. “What are these?”

  “Research notes.” Had Edward given them to her to distract her from the journals? Kate back-stepped into the kitchen. “I’ll just grab a cookie sheet from the cupboard. To empty those jars onto.” Out of Julie’s sight, Kate drew in a deep breath to try to calm the latest attack of jitters.

  Julie’s voice cut through the clatter of metal pans. “Uh, Kate, I think Parker might have a point.”

  Kate poked her head around the doorway.

  Julie held up a dried palmate leaf with sharply toothed, narrow leaflets. “Do you know what this is?”

  “Cannabis. Where’d—?”

  “Are you kidding me? It’s marijuana. Marijuana, as in totally illegal. I’m getting married in three weeks. No way am I going to let you get us arrested for possession.”

  Kate set a cookie sheet on the table and took the leaf from Julie. “Stop overreacting. I know it’s marijuana. Cannabis is its proper name. Was this in one of Daisy’s notebooks?”

  “Yes, and I don’t care what its proper name is.” Julie snatched up Parker’s business card. “I love you like a sister, Kate, but if you don’t call the detective, I will.”

  Kate looked from the marijuana to Julie. “And tell him what?”

  “I don’t know, but I want that . . . that thing out of here.”

  “You’re right, this might be the evidence I need to convince Parker to reopen Daisy’s case. If Daisy stumbled onto an illegal grow-op and the growers found out, that’s a motive for murder. Don’t you think?”

  “Yes, they shoot people who stumble upon their little gardens of pot out in the woods.” Julie held out the card. “Now, call the police and let them handle it.”

  “Not yet. It’s still just a theory.” Kate took the card and placed it on the table. “Until I find out where Daisy found the marijuana, I have nothing.”

  Julie flagged her arms back and forth. “No way. Uh-uh. I’m not going to let you nose around looking for drug dealers.” She grabbed the card and marched out of the room. “I’m calling the cops.”

  Kate chased her down the hall. “Wait a minute. Let’s talk about this.”

  “No.” Julie slammed her bedroom door, and the lock clicked.

  Rattling the knob with one hand, Kate slapped the wood with her other. “Don’t do this. You’ll ruin my investigation. What if Parker confiscates everything?” She curled her fingers into a fist and pounded harder. “The cops had their chance.”

  When Julie didn’t come out, Kate grabbed the notebooks and combed through them as fast as she could, looking for anything out of the ordinary that might indicate where Daisy had been or who she’d talked to.

  Less than ten minutes later, the doorbell rang.

  Kate stuffed the notebooks under a pile of magazines on the bookshelf and fluffed the throw pillows at either end of the sofa.

  An impatient tap, tap, tap came from the door.

  Kate pushed back her hair and peered through the peephole. Parker had lost the tie and suit jacket and looked a whole lot more tired than he had a few hours ago. With any luck, he’d be in such a hurry to get home that he wouldn’t question how she happened to have all Daisy’s herbs sitting on her table. Kate unlatched the deadbolt and opened the door. “Thanks for coming,” she said with about as much enthusiasm as she’d welcome her dentist.

  Parker stepped inside and seemed to take in her, her reemerged roommate, and their miniscule apartment in one all-consuming glance. “I hate to tell you, but your find proves my point. People aren’t what they seem.”

  Kate scowled as she handed him the single leaf, which proved absolutely nothing, except that Parker had a tendency to jump to conclusions about people. “Daisy didn’t use this stuff.”

  “Lots of people use marijuana. She was probably one of those hippies in the sixties.” His voice gentled, as though he might have a heart buried under all that cynicism. “She had arthritis. Could have been medicinal.”

  “Right. That’s why there was only a single leaf in her entire house.” Parker seemed to consider her words, so Kate pressed her advantage. “I think Daisy found a grow-op. If drug dealers caught her snooping, that would be a motive for murder.”

  Parker’s gaze swept over the jars lining the table. “An honest person would report their find to the police.”

  “Maybe they killed her before she had a chance.”

  “Oh?” Humor lit his baby blues. “She invited them over for tea to chat about their indiscretions and they just happened to spike hers?”

  Julie chuckled.

  Kate silenced her roommate with a glare, then planted her hands on her hips and turned that glare on Parker. “Maybe the coroner is in on the operation. I hear there are lots of drug dealers high up.”

  “Trust me. The charge for getting caught running a grow-op is a slap on the wrist compared to murder. No criminal in his right mind would take the risk.”

  “Have you ever known a criminal in his right mind, Detective? Maybe someone didn’t want to lose their job.”

  Julie slouched onto the sofa. “If you don’t look into this, Detective, she’s going to scour the countryside looking for grow-ops just to prove her point.”

  Parker shook his head, but a small smile wrestled the scowl off his lips. “Okay, give me a paper bag for the evidence and I’ll see what I can uncover.”

  Julie jumped to her feet and bounded to the kitchen. “Good, because I can’t afford to lose my maid of honor.”

  Kate called after her. “He’s just saying this to stop me from looking.”

  Parker stepped closer. He was half a foot taller than her, and his nearness seemed to swallow the air, but his gaze telegraphed more concern than she expected. “I promise I
’ll look into this.”

  Julie’s teasing “he must like you” remark flickered through Kate’s thoughts, bringing with it a whole different kind of jittery feeling. She shook out her arms the way a boxer shakes off his tension before starting the next round. Nothing could dissuade her from her mission. Least of all a smooth-talking cop who was too handsome for his own good.

  “Promise me,” Parker added, his voice low and sort of protective. “Promise me you won’t go looking for grow-ops.”

  At seven the next morning, after tossing half the night away mulling over her suspicions and denying her silly burst of attraction to Mr. Promise-Me, Kate cruised into the deserted parking lot of the Agricultural Research Center. Detective Parker may have wheedled a promise out of her not to look for grow-ops, but he hadn’t said anything about not looking for Daisy’s journal. If Edward was on the up-and-up about not knowing its whereabouts, here was the next most logical place to search.

  Climbing from her car, Kate inhaled the fragrance-laden air. The peach and cherry blossoms were at their peak—a stunning array of pinks and creams. She picked up a fallen blossom and traced its delicate petals, trying to ignore the weight pressing on her chest.

  Were there flowers in heaven?

  Daisy had often talked about heaven and how she looked forward to worshiping her King face-to-face. Kate pictured her friend there now. Singing to her King. Maybe even in tune. The thought made her smile, but her heart still ached for answers. She hurried to the front of the building. If she didn’t want her search interrupted, she didn’t have time to waste feeling sorry for herself. She swiped her card through the card lock and tugged open the door.

  Her footsteps echoed in the empty halls, yet another grim reminder of how empty her days would be without Daisy. The demand for natural medicines, coupled with a generous research grant from the Foundation for Herbal Studies, had detoured the research she and Daisy had been doing from the facility’s stated mandate into the realm of herbal remedies.

  Would the foundation pull their funding now that Daisy was gone? When they were on the verge of a breakthrough that could revolutionize the treatment of depression?

  If the board believed Daisy killed herself, they might.

  Kate unlocked her lab, and the sight of the microscopes, test tubes, and Bunsen burners they’d shared steeled her resolve to restore Daisy’s untarnished reputation and bring her killer to justice. She tossed her keys and purse onto the workbench and rummaged through the drawers.

  A shadow slid over the cupboards.

  Kate spun around, but no one stood at the window. She edged closer and peered outside.

  The grounds were empty.

  Must’ve been a cloud shadow. She squinted up at a lone cloud in the clear blue sky. Reining in her overactive imagination, she moved to the storage cupboard and checked each shelf.

  A brusque voice sounded behind her. “What are you looking for?”

  The files Kate held spilled from her hand. She scrambled to reorder the documents. “Darryl, don’t sneak up on me like that.”

  Her supervisor reached under the cabinet for a page she’d missed. “I didn’t realize you didn’t hear me come in. Why are you here so early?”

  “Uh . . .” She’d already told one too many people about the journal. “I’m looking for one of Daisy’s notebooks.”

  Darryl handed her the page he’d retrieved. At six foot four, he stood a foot taller than her, but while most people found him intimidating, she knew he was a teddy bear. “Is the notebook part of your research?”

  “Uh, yeah. That’s right.” Kate stepped back and tapped the pages on the counter. “Um, Darryl, do you really think Daisy killed herself?”

  He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it behind the door. “Not on purpose.”

  “Well, you can’t believe she’d brew herself a cup of toxic tea by accident.”

  Darryl tapped Kate’s medic alert bracelet. “I seem to recall a cup of vanilla hazelnut tea almost did you in.”

  “That’s different and you know it. I’m allergic to hazelnuts. Besides, one cup of the wrong marigold tea wouldn’t kill someone.”

  Darryl picked up the electric kettle and filled it at the lab sink. “One cup might trigger a blood pressure spike.”

  Kate slapped her stack of papers onto the counter. “Enough to kill her?”

  “They don’t call high blood pressure the silent killer for nothing. What else could it have been? There was no sign of trauma on the body.”

  “How do you know?” Kate injected just enough suspicion into the question to suggest he’d seen Daisy’s dead body, but his change in expression told her how utterly ridiculous the accusation sounded.

  “I read the newspaper like everyone else.” He plugged in the kettle, then snapped open his briefcase. “I know you miss her, but she’d want us to carry on.” With a sympathetic smile, he handed Kate a piece of paper.

  “What’s this?”

  “A list of all those infernal interns Daisy took under her wing. You get to follow up on them.”

  A new smidgen of hope took root in her heart as she scanned the list. Daisy had started her first round of visits the day before she died. Following her steps was exactly what Kate needed to do.

  She grabbed her purse and keys. “Good idea, Darryl. I’ll start right away.”

  He staggered backward in mock disbelief.

  She grinned. “Hey, I don’t always disagree with you.”

  Ten minutes later, Kate squeezed her VW into the last parking spot at Landavars Greenhouses and reported to the owner.

  “Please accept my condolences,” he said in a thick Dutch accent and pointed down the main aisle of the greenhouse to a door at the other end. “The intern’s in the cold frame.”

  Kate strolled through the greenhouse, taking time to scan the benches for anything suspicious. Not that she expected to find marijuana plants in the open where anyone could walk by them, but a leaf or two might have fallen when plants were moved in and out.

  By the time she reached the cold frame, sweat beaded her forehead, and despite its name, the cold frame’s air wasn’t much cooler.

  “Hey, Miss Adams. I wondered if you’d be our new supervisor.”

  Kate recognized the plump, dark-haired girl from the night class she’d helped Daisy teach last semester. “Had Daisy been in to see you since you started?”

  “No, I saw her nephew, though.” Patti’s hands fluttered as she talked, her eyes gleaming with the light of a teenage crush. “He was delivering something to Harm.”

  “Probably more of his promotional freebies. They must work. Donations have been way up since he took over our PR department.”

  “It’s his Clive Owen good looks raking in the donations, don’t you think?”

  Kate gave a little shrug and made a mental note to ask Julie who Clive Owen was. Some heartthrob actor, she imagined.

  “I guess you want to know what I’m doing.” Patti banged a plant out of a four-inch pot into a wheelbarrow. “We start seed trials tomorrow, but today, I’m on grunt work. Aren’t I lucky?”

  “Ah, yes. I remember those days well.” Kate peeked over her shoulder to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “Did the police happen to interview you after Daisy’s death?”

  “Sure, for a few minutes. They talked a lot longer with the interns Miss Leacock visited the day she died.”

  Kate’s hopes surged. Knowing which interns Daisy had visited would save Kate a lot of time. She showed Patti the list. “Could you tell me who they are?”

  “Sure. Carol, Ned.” Patti tapped her finger on the name Gordon Laslo. “He’s not around anymore.”

  “Why not?” She managed to ask with a nonchalant tone even though her imagination went wild at the news. Gord might be the student Daisy caught plagiarizing a report. A retaliatory prank turned deadly would explain his sudden disappearance.

  Patti shrugged. “He just up and left a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Are you sure? A f
ull two weeks ago?”

  “At least, yeah. I remember because Ned had to borrow money from me to make their rent payment.”

  “Do you know where Gord is now?”

  “No. No one’s heard from him. He’s not answering his cell phone.”

  Kate returned to her car and pinpointed the location of Gord’s work placement on her road map. Daisy died fifteen days ago, which meant Gord had left around the time she’d succumbed. That either made him innocent or made him guilty of premeditated murder.

  Maybe his boss knew where Kate could find the young man and get some answers.

  Unfamiliar with this part of the Niagara region, she drove slowly on the hilly roads, watching for farm numbers. Jersey cows dotted the landscape, and the smell of manure scented the air. Whenever a white clapboard farmhouse came into view, a farm dog inevitably appeared and raced her car, barking until she’d driven past.

  Soon pastures gave way to bush. She double-checked the address. No, she had it right. Another mile down the road, a faded lot marker dangled from one corner—1250. She braked and peered through the trees. No greenhouse was visible from the road, and no sign advertised its presence. She checked her list again.

  The numbers matched.

  She flipped on her turn signal and entered the drive. Naked locust branches loomed overhead, casting mottled shadows on the winding lane. Deep potholes yanked at her steering wheel, and the farther she rattled along the driveway, the darker it became—not exactly a typical setting for a greenhouse operation. Delivery trucks must hate coming here.

  Four hundred yards in, the driveway widened to a parking lot—empty, except for an old school bus. On the far side sat one long cement building flanked by rows of white plastic–covered greenhouses. The whirr of a generator assured Kate the place wasn’t abandoned.

  Clipboard in hand, she headed for the open bay door. At the entrance, she inhaled deeply. The air was a culinary feast. Endless rows of potted herbs filled the place. Daisy must have been flabbergasted by Gord’s decision to quit such a plum job—if he told her.