Page 30 of The Botanist's Assistant
“If this is how you keep your lab, Margaret, no wonder Dr. Blackstone suspects sloppy data.”
It’s the dean.
“This wasn’t my doing. This was sabotage.” Margaret may have spoken more loudly than she intended.
“First poison, now sabotage?” The dean shakes his head. “I’m afraid you’ve gone off the deep end.”
“I can only report what I see.”
The dean’s face hardens.
“You know what sabotage I see?” He doesn’t wait for ananswer. “The sabotage I see is the email you sent and you refusing to do what I ask. You are undermining me and all my work to put this university on the map. I can’t have you contradicting me about the collaboration between Drs. Deaver and Blackstone. And I certainly don’t appreciate you putting it in writing.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Or is it your stubbornness and need to nitpick everything? Professor Deaver is dead and we have to move on. What if that email gets out?”
“What if I could prove there was no partnership between Blackstone and Professor Deaver?”
The idea had come to her as she cleaned the lab. If she could get hold of Dr. Deaver’s research notebooks—a careful recording of his thoughts, discoveries and processes—she might find proof that it was he who discovered the stinging bush and not Blackstone, which would negate any claim to the research. In addition, if she can get into the locked cabinet, she could determine whether the atropine there was the murder weapon. Anyone using extracts or specimens from the cabinet was required to use a sign-out sheet and record how much they used. It was a system she set up herself. So if the bottle was missing or it was nearly empty without someone signing it out, it could indicate an unauthorized person had breached the cabinet.
“You have proof?” the dean asks.
“Maybe in a few days.”
The dean’s face turns a shade of red seen only in beets and ripe cherries.
“This is exactly what I mean. You get an idea in your head,and you won’t let it go, even when you don’t have any evidence to back it up. You’re doing yourself—and the university—no favors with this nonsense. I want you to do what I say and do it immediately. Otherwise, I may be forced to take action.”
Margaret doesn’t ask what action he plans to take in case it causes him to do it immediately.
“I want you to get that data into Dr. Blackstone’s hands and finish the draft application and stop spreading rumors. You made Miss Purdy very upset with your talk of poisoning.”
“I’m sorry. I tried to deflect her questions like you asked.”
“Well, you only made it worse.”
“Has there been an official cause of death?”
“Let it go, Margaret,” the dean warns.
“A toxicology screen would—”
The dean puts up a hand. “No more. I’ve had it with this craziness.”
A different person might pretend to be contrite, but Margaret is not that person.
“I’ll do what you ask, but I need a favor from you too.”
The dean throws up his hands.
“I need to get into Dr. Deaver’s office to retrieve his research journals. I need some of his notes to finish up the paper.” A half-truth since his research notes about his discovery of the plant might prove her point about the collaboration and, thus, safeguard Dr. Deaver’s work from Blackstone’s meddling.
“His office is closed until we’re able to figure out who hasrights to his papers and download his hard drive. Besides, you said in your email he already left you plenty of notes.”
Margaret scrambles for an answer. She’s worked herself into a corner.
“Well, then, perhaps you have the key to the cabinet where our extracts are stored. I was never issued one. I need to do some confirmatory tests and recalibrate machines and I need what’s in there,” she says just as the dean’s cell phone pings.
