Page 50 of The Botanist's Assistant
Eye in the Sky
Who was Dr. Deaver’s mistressand how long had that been going on? Had Veronica Ann slept with Neville as tit for tat? Why would she and Dr. Deaver deliberately design a garden full of poisonous plants? Could Veronica Ann have used homegrown belladonna to poison Dr. Deaver?
Margaret stands. Maybe she should let herself into the backyard and look for evidence of deadly nightshade or wolfsbane? Or she could search for bottles of atropine in the house and see if there are Diet Coke bottles in the refrigerator.
Margaret looks around the room, remembering, first, the thrill of burglary when she and Joe initially broke into Dr. Deaver’s office, then the pulse-pounding horror of almost being caught the second time. She pats her pocket. Her phone is there. She mutes it and heads for the kitchen. Perhaps a quick glance through the refrigerator, then under the sink, where people often store harmful things like ammonia, dishwasher pods and bleach, not realizing the dangerous substances are within reach of anybody who can open a cupboard door.
She’s only taken a few steps, however, when she hears arush of water, then a rattling sound from the hallway where Veronica Ann disappeared. If Veronica Ann comes back and finds Margaret rooting around in her kitchen, she will become even angrier and destroy whatever hope Margaret might have of convincing her to email Neville about the leaves—and, despite what another person might think, Margaret still holds on to the tiniest bit of hope.
Hope is what has driven Margaret her whole life. She has never given up on it, even though it has been smashed and mangled and ripped by all the things that have happened to her. It is the slim ray of light in the darkness, the foundation on which dreams are built. Who could be a scientist without hope? The search for knowledge has everything to do with the belief that you will find it. Otherwise, why do anything?
Quickly, Margaret shifts course. She will go through the front door as if she is leaving, then make her way to the backyard to search for incriminating plants. The house snooping will have to wait. She closes the front door behind her, not slamming it but with enough force to let anyone within hearing believe she is leaving, then heads for the side yard.
Dusk is falling.
She hurries across the front of the house, turns the corner and steps quickly through the side-yard garden. She is just about to turn into the wider yard when she spots it out of the corner of her eye: a tiny, blinking red light. There’s a surveillance camera beneath the eaves. Margaret comes to a quick halt. Her heart thumps. Almost caught.
She turns and, to her dismay, there is another blinking light at the front corner of the house, which she didn’t noticebefore. How could she explain her foray into Veronica Ann Deaver’s garden after she’s been ordered to leave?
Of course! A burglar who is a botanist—and not a detective—would only be after one thing. Aware of the camera lens recording her every move, Margaret kneels in front of a tuberous begonia with gorgeous yellow blooms trimmed in red and pinches off two stems. Begonias are easy to root using stem cuttings. Any gardener knows that. Margaret stands and turns toward the camera at the front of the house, making sure the cuttings are visible in her hand. Acting is not Margaret’s strong suit, which is why she often finds herself running afoul of the rest of the world, but she tries to put a sneaky and yet triumphant look on her face and hurries to her car with the purloined stems.
The cat is not on the porch when she arrives at the cottage and Margaret feels a quick pang of worry. Is this her new lot in life? To return home each day with the anticipation of impending loss? Maybe this cat thing isn’t going to work out, but how could she take it to the shelter, where it will most likely be put down or spend the rest of its life in a cage?
She lets herself through the laundry room door into the cottage, quickly takes off her boots and socks and goes to the front door in her bare feet. She flips on the outdoor light and steps out onto the porch. The wood is rough underfoot. She’ll need to sand and restain it before winter.
She peers into the blackness, then calls out: “Cat!”
The only reply is the faint honk of a car horn from the road below.
“Hey, cat,” she hollers, this time louder.
Nothing.
But then, who would come at the shout of a generic name? You can’t expect people to trot over if you yell, “Hey, human,” although both Calvin and Travis used the word “dude” a lot, which seems equivalent.
Margaret squints into the forest. “Tom,” she calls out. Then: “Dinner, Tom!”
On her way home, she’d stopped at the mini-mart where she fuels her truck and bought two tins of cat food ($2.95 per tiny can!).
“Come on out, Tom.”
The forest is quiet. Can you return cat food if there is no cat to eat it? And how would you prove a mistaken cat-food purchase? Could you say you bought the wrong size like you might do with clothing? Suddenly, there is a faint crackle of dry leaves to her left. She strains her gaze into the forest. The cat emerges from the trees, its tail held high.
“There you are,” she says as the cat leaps onto the porch.
The relief in her voice is evident but the cat either doesn’t hear or doesn’t care. He walks past her legs and into the house without even a backward glance. Apparently, she’s just brought one more thing into her life that will ignore her—and an expensive one at that.
Margaret steps inside and closes the door when, to her surprise, the animal turns and comes back. It rubs the length of its small body across the skin of her left ankle. Then he weaves back and skims her right ankle. There’s that soft, snoring purr again and Margaret feels a sudden catch in her throat at the gesture of affection. The experiment is still underway. She will not become attached to this creature.
“I hope you like chicken in fancy gravy,” she tells the cat, “because I’m not going back to the store.”
In the morning, she finds the cat in the kitchen staring at the refrigerator.
“Can I at least make my coffee first?” she asks, but the feline continues to gaze at the door as if willing it to open and the half-full tin of cat food to drop out.
“You’re a stubborn thing, aren’t you?” she says, and retrieves the can, then forks its remaining contents into a bowl. She will need to add a few extra minutes to her schedule if the cat is going to stay.
Later, the cat releases several loud yowls at the front door, demanding to be released.
