The Secret Poison Garden

by Maureen Klovers

  “I don’t understand,” Dr. Walker sputtered. “No one here could have anything to do with his death.”

  “Oh, no?” Miss Van Der Hooven said. “I’m sure we all had a motive and Rita, Acorn Hollow’s very own Woodward and Bernstein combined, and Detective Benedetto, a member of Acorn Hollow’s finest, will enlighten us.”

  No one moved. In fact, it seemed to Rita as through no one even dared to breathe.

  “Very well,” Detective Benedetto said, springing to his feet, “let’s take Elizabeth up on her suggestion and solve this case.”

  He stood at the mantle and swept the room with his dark, piercing gaze. “Does anyone wish to confess his or her motive?”

  “Well, I was having an affair with him,” Miss Van Der Hooven offered. “And if I were the jealous, crazy type, maybe I’d decide to do him in before he could marry that cute, simpering, little gold-digger over there.”

  Angelica turned bright red.

  “Anyone else?” Detective Benedetto asked.

  Finding no takers, he went on. “Unbeknownst to most of the town, but of common knowledge to most of the students and staff at the high school, the members of the coach’s football team were notorious bad boys. They used steroids—supplied by Coach Stiglitz, naturally—and treated their female classmates abominably. Sending each other explicit messages about some girls, rating their, er, skills, that sort of thing. Two years ago, there was a particularly raucous party at the coach’s house—this house—during which two minor females passed out. With the coach in the room, several members of the football team lifted up the girls’ skirts, took explicit photos, and emailed them to half the school. The girls were humiliated and psychologically devastated.”

  “That never happened!” Dr. Walker shouted. “That lying little—”

  Rita coughed and wagged a finger in his direction.

  Detective Benedetto ignored Dr. Walker’s outburst and continued. “It did happen, and I have signed confessions from three members of the football team to prove it. The question is, did you know about it and do nothing? And the answer is, I think you did.”

  Through gritted teeth, the principal growled, “No jury will believe that.”

  “We’ll see, won’t we?” the detective said pleasantly. “It’s up to the county prosecutor to decide if there’s enough evidence to build a case against you.”

  Rita looked over at Mary Beth Walker, who had turned very pale. The hand holding her wine goblet was shaking. She made a move to join her husband in the kitchen, but the detective stopped her.

  “Everyone must stay where they are,” he warned her. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes, who else knew about the incident with the two girls? Well, half of the school. But of the people in this room, Vinnie, who was a very good friend of one of the girls, and Miss Simms, in whom the girls confided. Were they angry enough to kill Jay in revenge? Possibly.”

  Miss Van Der Hooven wrinkled her nose. “But it seems rather odd to wait two whole years.”

  “Perhaps. But maybe it weighed on their conscience. Or maybe they re-connected with the girls in question and realized that the psychological toll was far greater than they had originally thought.”

  Now it was Vinnie’s turn to look guilty. Rita reached over and took his hand in hers.

  “And then of course there was the fact that Jessica Russo tried to commit suicide one week before Jay was killed—right after she had a chance encounter with one of the boys responsible,” the detective continued. “So clearly the incident was still fresh for some of those involved.”

  This was news to Rita, but it made perfect sense. That incident was what had provoked Wendy’s outburst at the library. Rita glanced over at Dr. Walker and noticed that he had turned very pale.

  “Well,” Mary Beth offered timidly, “the poison was from Miss Simms’s garden.”

  “Ah, yes, the garden. Yes, we’ll get to that in a moment. But first, let’s finish with the motives.”

  “But detective,” Marion exclaimed, “surely, Sal and Rita and Angelica and I can have no motive!”

  He rapped his knuckles on the mantle. “As far as I know, you have no motive, Marion.”

  She smiled and settled back into her armchair.

  “Unless there’s something you would like to confess?”

  “Oh, no, detective. Please proceed.”

  “Thank you,” Detective Benedetto said. “No, Marion, you are here because of what you witnessed. Rita is here because she played an important role in cracking this case. And Sal is here because, er, Rita wanted him to be.”

  “And what about me, detective?” Angelica’s tone was playful, but there was a hint of malice in her eyes. “Why would I want the man I was going to marry dead?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because he was cheating on you with Miss Van Der Hooven.”

  Angela laughed derisively. “Hardly. She was no competition for me.”

  “Or,” he said, regarding her with a steely gaze, “because you discovered that Jay wasn’t all he was cracked up to be. Namely, Pam Adams happened to bump into Tiffany Miller, the woman Jay paid to make it look as if Craig were cheating on you. She recognized Tiffany from the photos that were left mysteriously on your doorstep, which you showed to Pam. Pam confronted Tiffany, found out that Craig had not cheated on you, and told a few mutual friends, one of whom eventually broke the news to you. You raced up to Saratoga Springs to confront her yourself. So you knew that Jay was not only cheating on you with Miss Van Der Hooven, but also that he lured you away from Craig by trickery.”

  Angelica folded her hands across her chest. “I was still weighing my options,” she said crossly. “The wedding was six months away. Besides, just because I had a motive doesn’t mean I killed him. I couldn’t have killed him, in fact. I was at work until six o’clock on Monday.”

  “That’s true,” he conceded. “At least, that’s what your boss says.”

  She glared at him. “Because it’s true.”

  “That may be. Now I’d like to try a little experiment that Rita proposed to me. I’d like everyone to try and remember the conversation they had with the people next to them at the Athletic Boosters party and then I’d like you to say what you said that night, just like you said it then. Vinnie will take Rose’s place; Rita will coach him through his lines.”

  Everyone except Rita looked confused.

  “Now,” he said, clapping his hands. “All at once.”

  Rita heard Angelica, behind her, engaging Mary Beth in a conversation about their respective interior decorating projects. She had a vague memory that that is what they had been discussing that night.

  “Time to circulate,” Rita said, standing up. She turned to Vinnie, “Now, you’re Rose, so you say, ‘Rita’s a reporter now for the Morris County Gazette. She always needs to be talking to people to get new story ideas.’”

  Vinnie did as he was told. His delivery was wooden, quite unlike Rose’s.

  Playing along, Miss Simms said, “I have a story idea for you.”

  “Oh?” Rita said.

  “Yes, about my poison garden.”

  “Your—what?”

  “Poison garden. Every plant in my garden is poisonous. In some cases, a single drop could kill.” She looked at Rita and frowned. “Did I say something else?”

  “I think you said, ‘Do you think that’s strange?’”

  “Oh, yes. Do you think that’s strange? I guess all science teachers are peculiar. I have a master’s degree in botany.”

  “Well, I think our readers would love it.”

  “Then it’s all settled. Come by after Mass tomorrow for a tour.”

  “Okay, stop!” the detective suddenly shouted, waving his hands.

  The conversations immediately ground to a halt. He pointed accusingly at Sal and Dr. Walker.

  “What did you hear Miss Simms say?”

  “Nothing,” Sal said. “It all just sounded like background noise.”

  Dr. Walker nodded
and shrugged. “I couldn’t hear anything, either.”

  Detective Benedetto swung his pointing finger over to Angelica and Mrs. Walker. “And what did you ladies hear Miss Simms say?”

  Angelica replied, “That she wanted Rita to interview her about a poison garden.”

  “Did you hear that too, Mrs. Walker?”

  She shook her head. “Oh, no. I try not to eavesdrop on conversations. And, as I get older, it’s harder for me to hear.”

  Mary Beth Walker’s voice was confident, but Rita noticed that her wine goblet shook slightly in her hand.

  Detective Benedetto turned to Rita. “Could you tell me why you proposed that experiment?”

  “Because, based on the testimony provided by Miss Simms—”

  “But Miss Simms is a suspect!” Dr. Walker protested.

  “—and”—Rita shot him a supercilious look—“corroborated by her neighbor across the street, the person who snuck into Miss Simms’s garden to collect the poisonous plants entered the garden before a single copy of the Morris County Gazette was delivered on Monday morning. Which meant that the person who took the plants knew of the existence of the poison garden before my article was published. Miss Simms has confirmed that the only people she told that her garden contained poisonous plants were herself, Miss Van Der Hooven, her ex-boyfriend Frank, and her sister who lives in Alaska. But then it occurred to me that all of the people who were in earshot the night before at the Athletic Boosters party also knew about the poison garden. So that would include myself, Rose, Marion, Angelica, and Mary Beth.”

  Rita neglected to mention, of course, that there was one other person who knew about the poisonous properties of Miss Simms’s plants: Vinnie. But he had sworn that he hadn’t breathed a word to anyone, and Rita believed him. She felt no need to mention that whole sordid episode now.

  “Now Rita also uncovered something very interesting,” the detective said, “as she pieced together the coach’s final hours. Specifically, what Mrs. Von Beek told her.”

  Marion leaned forward, trembling with excitement, and said very slowly and distinctly, “The last stall in the woman’s room was locked between at least 2:30 and 3:50 and occupied by a person wearing brown loafers, size seven-and-a-half or so.”

  “Why, that’s about the same size as the footprints in my garden!” Miss Simms exclaimed.

  “Yes,” Angelica interjected drily, “and about the same size as half of the women on the planet. Frankly, I don’t get it. What does it prove?”

  “Nothing,” the detective admitted, “by itself. But then Rita had the inspiration to run a little experiment. She signed in on the hospital’s visitor log, visited a patient, and then noted a ‘sign-out’ time that was completely incorrect. Crane, the security guard, didn’t bat an eye. Which means that the visitor log is not a reliable piece of evidence. So the question is not who signed out when, but who signed in at all?”

  “Angelica,” he continued, “signed in at 8 a.m. However, her whereabouts the rest of the day are well accounted for. Next, Mrs. Walker signed in at 1 p.m. Now her whereabouts are not accounted for later that afternoon—”

  “Stop it!” Mary Beth shouted, trembling with rage. “Stop this charade right now! We all know Miss Van Der Hooven killed him. I saw her coming out of his room—”

  “When?” Detective Benedetto said calmly. “When did you see her?”

  Mary Beth flushed. “Well, I mean, she said she was there.”

  “No,” Detective Benedetto said. “I think you meant exactly what you said. You did see Miss Van Der Hooven leaving Jay’s room. At approximately 3:45. You had been hiding out in the bathroom for over an hour and now you were headed towards his room, in a black wig, a trench coat, oversized sunglasses, and brown loafers, carrying a large handbag containing a poisoned smoothie. When you saw Miss Van Der Hooven, you ducked back into the bathroom, since it was important that no one see you enter or exit Jay’s room. Then when the coast was clear, you re-emerged, tossed the glasses and wig into your bag once you were past the security cameras, went into his room, and offered him the smoothie, which he gratefully accepted. I’m guessing that you deftly bumped his bed so that his call button fell out of reach. Then, as soon as the symptoms began to manifest themselves, you told him that you were going to go find a nurse. Instead, you tossed your wig and sunglasses back on, hurried past the security cameras with your head down, rushed down to the reception area, and entered 2:30 as the time you left even though it was actually 3:58 or so. You were back in the parking garage by the time Susan entered Jay’s room for her normal 4:00 p.m. check and found him in distress. He was dead before you were even home.”

  “That’s preposterous,” Mary Beth insisted. “You have no proof at all.”

  “Let’s see, shall we?” He spoke into his walkie-talkie. “Hey, Tim, have you got the shoes?”

  The response was clear despite the static. “No shoes, but we’ve got a parking garage ticket—“

  Mary Beth suddenly bolted for the door. Detective Benedetto looked completely unconcerned, probably because when she opened the door, Chief D’Agostino was standing there, waiting for her with a pair of handcuffs.

  Deftly, he forced her to her knees and cuffed her.

  “The parking ticket!” she sobbed. “I knew I forgot something.”

  “Stamped at 4:03,” Detective Benedetto said. “And, I’m quite sure, with your fingerprints on it.”

  “But I still don’t understand how you even thought to look!” she wailed.

  “Rita?”

  “Oh, that’s simple,” Rita said modestly. “You had a perfect motive—protecting your husband’s job, and maybe even keeping him out of jail. When Jessica Russo’s mother confronted you, you knew you had to act. And then there’s what the security tapes show—you entered the ward, dressed as yourself, at one o’clock. But you never left, at least not dressed as yourself. And the woman in the black wig is never seen entering.”

  “No,” Dr. Walker moaned. “No, no, no. Honey, you’re confused. You didn’t do anything. Don’t say anything else. I’ll get you an attorney.” He turned to the detective. “It’s the stress talking. She didn’t do anything. I mean, how do you explain the incident that landed Jay in the hospital in the first place? My wife wouldn’t know where to get a joint, much less horse tranquilizer.”

  “Oh, I never said the same person was responsible. No, someone else put ketamine in the coach’s steroid bottle.”

  The chief handed Mary Beth off to a pair of fresh-faced young cops behind him, who escorted her to a waiting squad car.

  Rita watched out of the corner of her eye as Chief D’Agostino began moving slowly and stealthily across the room. No one else noticed him tiptoeing behind them; they were all completely transfixed by Detective Benedetto’s command performance.

  “That person,” the detective continued, “could not believe his—or her—dumb luck when Mrs. Walker finished the botched job for them. In fact, this person was so convinced that their role in this would be unnoticed—and that only the murderer who struck on Monday would take the fall, whose identity in fact this individual did not know—that this person connived with us to set up this little farce.”

  Rita heard a sudden soft thud on the carpet behind her, followed by the click of handcuffs and a feminine little gasp.

  “And that individual,” he said, pointing an accusatory finger behind Rita, “is Angelica.”

  Everyone spun around to find an astonished Angelica kneeling on the carpet, her hands manacled behind her back. Chief D’Agostino was pulling her to her feet while reciting her Miranda rights.

  As he dragged her towards the front door, she said stoically, “This is all a horrible mistake. I didn’t do anything.”

  “If you mean you didn’t succeed,” Detective Benedetto said with gusto, “that is absolutely true. But you did travel to Vermont the weekend after discovering Jay’s lies and pinch a vial of ketamine from your old friend Arnold Jenkins, who was the veterinarian for yo
ur horse Queenie. He reported the theft, but made no connection to you.”

  “So I was visiting a friend in Vermont,” she shot back. “Who happened to have some ketamine stolen around the same time. Anyone could have stolen it. I hear some drug dealers now mix it into their heroin. Besides, why would I kill Jay over some fake photos? I could have just called off the wedding, or divorced him afterwards.”

  “Ah, but then you wouldn’t inherit his wealth. You wanted to be rid of him but not his money.”

  She shoved Chief D’Agostino roughly and stared at the chief, then the detective, with eyes full of rage. “Okay, yes,” she said. “I knew he had changed his will, but that doesn’t mean I killed him. Your case is entirely circumstantial. I’m going to have a parade of character witnesses, and you’re going to have—what? A police report from Vermont that says some ketamine was stolen.”

  With a sinking heart, Rita realized that she was right. There was no physical evidence to tie her to the crime. Without her fingerprints on the vial, or a confession, the case against her was weak at best.

  Shaking his head, the police chief yanked her out the door. “Let’s go.”

  Detective Benedetto followed them out the door. No one said anything as the red flashing lights of the police cruiser receded down the street and then disappeared.

  “I think I’ll be going now,” Dr. Walker said, clearing his throat awkwardly. With a stiff nod good-bye, he departed.

  Sal came over to Rita, kissed her on the top of her head, and wedged himself into a tight spot on the coach between Vinnie and Rita.

  Marion finally broke the silence. “Well,” she said brightly, helping herself to another slice of cake as if nothing had happened, “that Angelica really outdid herself. I think tonight she exceeded even her performance in Our Town.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Rita gave Sam a call on the ride home. “Stop the presses!” she cried.