Page 47 of The Botanist's Assistant
“Also, Dr. Blackstone said that you’ve been poking your nose into business that isn’t yours. That you disrespected him by saying that he was sloppy and apparently your postdoc told him you wanted to know all about Dr. Deaver’s marriage and were looking up stories about wives who poisoned husbands. Did you see the movieLethal Vows? It’s based on a true story about a husband at a university poisoning his ex-wife. Do you think Dr. Deaver’s wife poisoned him? She was a chemist, you know.”
Purdy has unknowingly veered close to the truth of Margaret’s investigation and yet there are enough discrepancies to allow her a denial.
“Dr. Blackstone has an ax to grind with me. He makes things up.”
“I know,” Purdy breathes. “He did the same to me.” She looks around the empty lobby as if someone might overhear. “A few months ago, he said that my clothes were inappropriate in a university setting and said I needed to dress more conservatively. Like he wants the place run by nuns.” She clucks her tongue. “When I asked him if he knew this was 2024 and not 1954 and to grow up, he went to the dean and claimed I exposed my breasts to him on purpose when I dropped a pen and bent to pick it up. As if! He should stop looking at my chest if he didn’t want to see what’s there. Then, right after that, he complained that I’d purposely left hisname off the guest list for the reception with Roger Levian.” Levian was the founder of a successful biotech company. “He wanted it noted in my performance review. What a jerk.”
Another glance around the room. “I told the dean it was a computer error, but guess what—I did leave his name off the list. Don’t tell anybody.”
“I won’t,” Margaret agrees, although whom would she tell? Certainly not Blackstone.
“That’s why I’m letting you know,” Purdy says. “Blackstone is a woman hater. That’s pretty clear.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “And, if you want, after the dean signs the termination form, I can send it to Anita Allshouse in HR. Her husband left her for her younger sister four months ago, if you can believe that, and all she does is sit in her cubicle and sob. Eight hours a day. She’s got two kids too. Everybody says she’s a complete mess and behind in her work, but her supervisor can’t do anything about it because it’s a mental health issue, and if I get your form on her desk—which I can do—you’ll have at least a month to figure things out. Maybe more. Anybody else will have it processed in two weeks.”
How does Purdy know about heartbroken office workers and their cheating husbands on the other side of campus?
“Well, thank you, Beth. I would appreciate that.”
“We women have to stick together. Girl power, right?”
“I guess so,” Margaret says, despite the fact that the diminutive “girl” seems to dilute the word “power.” Wouldn’t it be better to use the right term for what she and Purdy are? “Woman power” or “female power.” She doesn’t correct Purdy, even though the temptation is there.
“So, do you think she did it?” Purdy asks.
The conversation has so many twists and turns, it’s hard for Margaret to keep track. “Do I think who did what?”
“Dr. Deaver’s wife. Do you think she poisoned him?”
Margaret is saved from answering by the arrival of the dean, who pushes through the building’s front doors.
“Beth, I need you in my office now,” he says.
26
Mad Honey
According to Google Maps, it’sa twenty-minute drive in the opposite direction from her home to Dr. Deaver’s house. When Margaret adds that to the time she might spend talking to Veronica Ann Deaver plus the resulting sixty-five-minute commute back home (forty-five plus twenty), she will definitely be late for her dinner. More vexingly, however, she can’t stop thinking that she will also be late to let the cat into the house, and thus expose him to predators like coyotes and mountain lions. The tough feline had been fine before she took it in—capable of hunting and apparently dodging potential killers—so why does it send an arrow of anxiety through her to think of it outside and exposed as darkness fell?
She orders herself to be rational—what are the odds something would happen to the cat in exactly those two hours she will be late—but apparently having an animal under your care sandpapers the edges off reason. Maybe she should install one of those cat doors.
Traffic is terrible so it becomes a thirty-minute drive toDr. Deaver’s house, enough time to realize that, as long as she’d worked for Dr. Deaver, she’d never been to his home. Of the two parties to which she’d been invited (both birthday parties for Dr. Deaver), one had been at a fancy restaurant in town and the other around a country club pool. Everyone had showed up to the pool party in sundresses and shorts and she’d arrived in one of her work outfits, a skirt and the California poppy blouse. She’d spent the whole party sitting by herself under a large patio umbrella.
Deaver’s home is an attractive, modern-but-not-modern single-story house with interesting roof angles and lots of windows, painted in artistic shades of charcoal and tan. What Margaret notices most, however, is the garden that runs along the side of the structure. Even from where she parks, she can see it bursts with fuchsia, impatiens, hosta, begonia and several varieties of fern under the shade of four tall crepe myrtles. A wonderful example of a shade garden. Is this Dr. Deaver’s doing or does Veronica Ann have a green thumb and an appreciation of plants too?
The answer comes as she gets out of the car and takes a few steps to the left to admire more of the garden, for there is Veronica Ann Deaver bent over a Japanese painted fern with a spray bottle in her hand. She is clad in white jeans and a black T-shirt (who gardens in white jeans?) and her dark hair is pulled back in a long ponytail.
The woman is alarmingly thin, either from training for the race Dr. Deaver mentioned or from the stress of all that has happened to her recently. Divorce and death will do that to a person. For a moment, Margaret feels a wave of shame for what she is about to do. Seeking truth is one thing, rubbingsalt into wounds is a whole other deal. She thinks of her mother at the end of her life—gaunt, incontinent, shivering, mistaking Margaret for her ex-husband, Gordie—and decides no one should have to go through that suffering and if even one person could benefit from the research being done in the Deaver Lab, she must do what is needed.
“Mrs. Deaver,” she calls as she approaches the house.
Veronica Ann straightens. Her brow furrows. “What are you doing here?”
She puts the emphasis on the word “you,” so Margaret knows the hostility is aimed directly at her and not at a general dislike of solicitors, polltakers and unannounced guests.
“I need a very important favor from you. One that can save uncounted lives.” Margaret continues to advance toward Veronica Ann, who now holds the spray bottle as if it were a weapon. Margaret hopes the bottle is not filled with insecticide. Maybe she should tell Veronica Ann there are alternative ways to get rid of pests. Beneficial insects like ladybugs and green lacewings, for instance. The look on Veronica Ann’s face quickly dissuades her from that idea, however.
“Go away,” Veronica Ann says.
“I just want…,” Margaret starts, but the sentence dissolves as she more carefully appraises the long garden, which stretches into the backyard. There are lilies of the valley, azaleas and, beyond that, a patch of foxglove. There are castor bean plants, oleander and a swell of rhododendrons.
