Page 63 of The Botanist's Assistant
Margaret’s mind scrambles for a foothold.
“Wait. Who’s your father?”
Sterling’s mouth opens, then closes with a small exhale of breath. “Yes, um, well. I don’t go around telling people. Not that I’m ashamed of my dad, but it changes things when people find out who you are. That’s why I use my mother’s maiden name, Sterling. My father is Jack Edwards. He owns Phoenix Pharmaceuticals.”
Phoenix Pharmaceuticals was one of the ten biggest drug companies in the world.
“He offered Jon a senior position in research and development,” Sterling continues. “He was intrigued by the work Jon was doing and, well, as you know, companies like my dad’s have much deeper pockets than universities, which means there’s not a constant need to chase after grants. You can just do your work.”
Dr. Deaver was leaving Roosevelt to join a pharmaceutical company?
“But you…,” Margaret begins.
“I want to establish my credentials before I go to work for Phoenix. I don’t want people crying nepotism. I want to stand on my own accomplishments.”
Silence again fills the room.
“He was going to tell you,” Sterling says finally. “In fact, he wanted to take you with him. He said there was no better lab manager than you.”
Everything Margaret thought she knew is being cracked, dismantled, shredded. Would she have gone?
“We didn’t want to hurt anybody. It just happened so fast. It was all fire and passion between us. Two souls connecting.”
Margaret’s mind spins like a centrifuge. “Wait. When was the lecture where you met?”
“December fifteenth of last year.”
“That was just three and a half months ago.”
“Like I said, it happened fast. In fact, Jon and I had planned to go away to celebrate our anniversary, but then…” Sterling’s voice cracks. “Then he died.”
Sudden tears fill Sterling’s eyes and spill down her cheeks. She bends her head, shuddering with silent sobs. Margaret may not be a fan of crying, but she accepts that other people do it. She reaches across the desk, plucks a tissue from a box and puts it in Sterling’s hand.
Margaret turns her head away to let Sterling compose herself and also to think.
Unless Veronica Ann had a longtime plan to kill herhusband, which didn’t seem likely if she’d been the one to firstsuggest divorce and had a good lawyer, the belladonna in their yard would not have had berries during the time Dr. Deaver and Professor Sterling were having their affair, and thus it was probably not the source. The only other possibility was the atropine in the locked cabinet.
Margaret waits until Sterling brings herself under control.
“Sorry,” she says. “I just miss him so much.”
“So do I,” Margaret says. Although maybe what she misses is the man she thought Dr. Deaver to be and not the man he actually was.
Sterling reaches for another tissue. “I must look like a wreck.”
“You look like someone who has lost a person they loved, Professor. In time, that sadness may fade but you will always bear traces of it, just as you bear the traces of mascara on your cheeks. By the way, do you happen to know if Dr. Deaver’s wife had a key to his office, to the lab?” Margaret asks.
If Sterling is surprised by the sudden conversational shift, she doesn’t show it. She pulls out another tissue and wipes at the small black trails that zigzag down her face. “I don’t know if she had a key, but I doubt it. She disliked the place. As far as I know, she only came here when she had to. Why do you ask?”
“I’m just trying to narrow the options.”
“Maybe you could ask the dean or someone in Human Resources about who had a key.”
“I think I know the right person,” Margaret says.
Sterling’s face is mostly clear now, although clumps of mascara still fleck her thick lashes. She stares at Margaret for a few seconds.
“If I had to guess, I’d say Veronica Ann is one of your two suspects.”
