Page 9 of The Botanist's Assistant
Calvin is two rows behind Margaret and to her left. His right leg jackhammers against the empty seat in front of him and his gaze flits around the room. He looks as if he might bolt at any second.
Zhang, she sees, is slouched in the last row, a hank of hair hanging sloppily over one eye and his index finger tapping against his bottom lip. The undergrad, Emily, sits a few seats from him. Her eyes are swollen and red-rimmed from crying.
The room hums with muted conversations and Margaret scans the seats. If Dr. Deaver had, indeed, been poisoned, who among these people might be capable of it? And why would they want him dead?
The questions are what every detective asks in everymysterynovel Margaret has read. Most people might think a scientist like her would only care for serious books like biographies and tomes on the molecular nature of matter or the phylogenetic approach to plants, but there is something about the mystery genre that draws Margaret in. Especially writers like Agatha Christie, Elizabeth George and Michael Connelly, whom she is reading now.
Maybe it’s because the step-by-step process of solving a crime is not so different from scientific research. Or maybe it’s the fact that there is always a satisfying ending, which Margaret never had in her own life. Whatever it is, each evening at exactly eight thirty, Margaret will switch on her table lamp, settle on the couch and read for one hour. She checks out a new book from the library each week.
Suddenly, there is the machine-gun tap of high heels as Beth Purdy enters from a side door and crosses the auditorium stage. Purdy is blond and petite, the converse of Margaret. How she can totter around on those stilts day after day without spraining an ankle is beyond Margaret.
The crowd hushes.
At the lectern, Purdy adjusts the microphone and announces that cell phones need to be silenced and stowed and that tobacco use of any kind is prohibited on campus except in designated outdoor areas. As if the whole room might suddenly light up Camels and stuff wads of chew against their gums.
“Dean Harold McDonald,” she announces.
The dean looks solemn as he reads the statement: The campus is in mourning and there will be a grief counselor in Biological Sciences room 110A for anyone who needs it. He isin the process of setting up an endowment in honor of Dr. Deaver and all contributions are welcome. He and the college provost are considering next steps after this “terrible tragedy.”
Possible murder, Margaret corrects in her head.
The dean then spends five minutes detailing Dr. Deaver’s accomplishments and the hope that his work will be carried on.
“A mighty oak has fallen,” he concludes. “A warrior of science is no more.” He lifts a finger into the air. “Professor Jonathan M. Deaver is dead.”
At the word “dead,” a giggle, then a snort of laughter erupts from the back of the room.
Margaret turns. It’s Zhang.
Murmurs of disapproval ripple as heads turn. Zhang claps a hand over his mouth and leaps from his seat. The door bangs shut behind him.
Margaret understands that nerves can cause people to break into laughter during solemn occasions, but this laugh felt different, almost gleeful. Zhang had a grudge against Professor Deaver. Could he…?
She pulls out her notebook and records:March 14,11:21 a.m.: T. Zhang laughs at announcement JMD is dead. Suspicious?
Back at the lab, she tries to work but her mind keeps drifting to Zhang and his laugh. She didn’t see Officer Bianchi at the meeting. Perhaps she should call him. But what would she report? An aggrieved colleague giggled when the dean said Dr. Deaver was dead? She imagines the officer’s eye roll, the recitation again that real life is not a TV crime show whereconfessions spring from criminals’ lips without much more than a hard stare from a seasoned detective. Then again,Zhang’s laughter is only an observation until proven by facts. Margaret must dig deeper.
She opens the lab’s budget file with every intention of recording the $180.73 loss of the missent Büchner flasks. Instead, she finds herself searching for Zhang’s Instagram page. She may be old, but she isn’t so out of touch that she doesn’t know social media is where people often bare their souls. Although why you would share your life and innermost feelings with total strangers is a mystery to her. It seems embarrassing and inappropriate. Like those nightmares where you show up for a final exam in your underwear. She had a dream like that once, which is when she started setting out her clothes before bed. No reason to chance a misstep, although plenty of students seem to not care. She’s seen more than a few girls going to class wearing only what appeared to be their bras and a pair of men’s boxer shorts.
Margaret is surprised how quickly she finds Zhang’s page, and she scrolls through pictures of him flashing a peace sign and sticking out his tongue in some club, of him making a face with what appears to be basketball teammates, then of him grinning behind a row of empty beer cans. The next post, however, stops Margaret cold.
Under a photo of Zhang looking serious in a lab coat is the note: “People may stand in my way, but they can’t keep me down. They don’t know the power of Zhang to prevail. Stay tuned for surprises to come.”
Is Zhang’s bungling laziness simply an act to conceal a devious and troubled mind?
She is considering this when Calvin Hollowell arrives.
“I thought you’d be home,” he says, and gives a phlegmy cough.
Margaret clicks quickly back to the budget file.
“Why would I go home? There’s work to be done,” she says, even though she’s spent the last fifteen minutes not doing work. She will add the time to the end of her day.
“It’s just that the dean said we could take the rest of the day off and, well, it feels weird to keep working with, you know, Dr. Deaver not being here anymore.”
“He would want us to continue,” Margaret says, although how could you be sure about something like that? It’s what people say when someone dies, but isn’t it really just a way to make yourself feel better about going on with life when the other person can’t?
Calvin runs nervous fingers through his hair, which turns his unruly mane into a pyramid of tangled spikes. “Well, I’m too shook up to be here or do anything right now. I had to take two Xanax just to get out of bed. Look at my hands.”
