Page 59 of The Botanist's Assistant
“Shall we sit outside?” Margaret asks after Joe says that he would love a beer.
When he says the porch would be nice, she tells him she’ll bring out another chair from the kitchen and feels a pang of awkwardness when he insists that he will do it.
“Great house,” he says as he steps into the cottage. “These old floors are amazing and you’ve got really nice light.”
Margaret beams inside. Her weekly floor polishing and regular sweeping have kept the wood in good shape.
He picks up one of the kitchen chairs. “And you have acat?”He nods at Tom’s empty dish, small water bowl and squeaky mouse toy, which Margaret also bought at the store in an attempt to blunt the feline’s hunting instincts.
“A stray. Yes,” Margaret says. “I think someone dumped him off on my property. But he usually doesn’t get home until six fifteen.”
Margaret senses that Joe wants to ask her how a cat can tell time, but he only smiles and takes the chair out to the porch.
They each settle—he on the kitchen chair and her in the rocker. She holds a beer, from which she takes small sips. It has the faint taste of pine, which the clerk had pointed out and which Margaret appreciates. Still, she’s glad she resisted buying a six-pack. She’s not about to make a habit of beer drinking.
They are each silent as they watch the evening shadows creep across the garden.
“I have something else for you too,” Joe says after a time. “It looks like the atropine in Blackstone’s office was for his kid after all.”
“How did you—?” Margaret starts.
“I blocked my caller ID, called the wife and pretended to be from Windsor Compounding and said there’d been a problem with the company’s computer system, which had wiped out a batch of prescription information, and asked if she could provide a prescription number along with the prescribing doctor’s and patient’s names and the patient’s birth date. From there, I called the doc’s office, pretended to be Blackstone, the clueless but insistent dad, and asked to confirm the date of the boy’s next appointment. I’ll tell you what.Blackstone’s wife is a piece of work. I had to listen to her rant about Windsor’s incompetence for ten minutes.”
“Which still leaves the atropine in the lab cabinet,” Margaret says. “And the missing cabinet key, which Blackstone could have taken.”
“True.”
“He doesn’t know I’ve changed the lock. What if I ask him for the key?”
“That might work. You could also ask the campus cop to test for fingerprints on the atropine bottle in the lab.”
Margaret takes a tiny sip of the beer.
“There are two problems with that. One, Officer Bianchi has apparently already complained about me for bothering him and, two, I’m afraid my fingerprints will also be on the bottle.”
She remembers taking the small brown bottle from the cabinet and lifting it to the light to see how much was left. Perhaps if she hadn’t been so intent on proving Dr. Deaver’s murder she would have remembered what good detectives did in her novels and donned gloves before inspecting the bottle so she didn’t incriminate herself.
“I can see where that would be a problem.”
Neither had to say out loud that if Margaret somehow convinced the authorities of Dr. Deaver’s murder, the prints would make her a suspect too.
“I have an idea,” Margaret says.
When she tells him what she has in mind, he says, “You’re getting good at this, Margaret.”
Admiration has a better taste than any beer does.
30
Fail Me Once
Calvin comes into the labMonday morning, trailing the wet-campfire scent of stale cigarette smoke. Margaret decides she will not ask him what happened. There’s no need to wave the flag of failure in someone’s face. He, however, is the one to acknowledge his defeat at nicotine’s hands.
“Need a smoke break,” he mumbles at nine fifteen.
Margaret says nothing.
Halfway to the door, Calvin stops and lets out one of his long sighs. “If you want to know, I went to a bar with a buddy Friday night and we started drinking and, after the fourth vodka tonic, we were suddenly outside smoking and then I got so anxious about how I messed up, I lit up another and, well, after that I thought: why bother, I’m going to fail anyway, and now here I am.”
