Page 21 of The Botanist's Assistant
“I can’t believe…,” the dean starts. He draws his hands down the sides of his face, making him resemble a pudgyversion of Edvard Munch’s paintingThe Scream. He drops hishands and stomps over to the window. “Damage control. Damage control,” he mutters.
Then: “OK. This is what we’ll do. I’m going to call Officer Bianchi and tell him this whole thing is a product of shock on your part and there’s no need for a toxicology screen. You were overwrought, hysterical. You work with poisonous plants, so your mind went there.” He snaps his fingers. “Maybe you were hormonal. Menopause and all.”
“Sir!” Margaret objects.
“Right. Right. Human Resources would never go for that. We’ll stick with shock. I’ll have the mess you mentioned in Deaver’s office cleaned up and what you’ll do is get rid of that atropine. I can’t have the provost thinking I let a lab get away with storing hazardous materials like that.”
Did he forget that science labs were full of things that could explode or burn or poison people?
Margaret starts to tell him she doesn’t have a key to the cabinet; however, he hushes her.
“You will speak no more of this, to anyone. Understand? Then you will give me what I asked for—the draft paper, the supporting data, the foundation grant application—and I will pretend this conversation never happened. I can’t have Provost Jackson thinking I’ve lost control of my own department.”
“Turning a blind eye to a possibility doesn’t make it go away, I’m afraid,” Margaret says.
“Did you not understand me, Miss Finch?” the dean snaps. “Frankly, I thought better of you. Perhaps you need some time off to calm this hysteria of yours.”
Margaret lifts her chin and gathers what dignity she canmuster, although she feels sick inside. Another person threatening her with dismissal—this one even more capable of getting rid of her.
“I’m good, Dean McDonald. Besides, I have work to do if you want me to organize and send you the information you want.”
“Very well. Get back to your lab. And close the door behind you.”
As she walks past Beth Purdy’s desk, her pulse racing, the dean’s assistant beckons her over.
“Did I just hear you say Dr. Deaver was poisoned?”
14
Trial by Fire
Margaret has often wondered, ifshe were suddenly transformed into a plant, which one she would be.
There is the giant sequoia, which matches her large and sturdy frame. Its status as the most massive tree on earth, however, seems too prideful to select. The tough saguaro cactus would also fit, although Margaret doesn’t consider herself quite as prickly as the plant’s hard spines would indicate. Certainly, no flowers would qualify.
No, what Margaret considers the plant she would most likely become is the Tecate cypress,Callitropsis forbesii. The bushy bright-green tree grows in chaparral zones in Baja and Southern California and is what’s called an obligate seeder. That means, unlike other plants, the tree welcomes wildfire. Without low-intensity flames, the tree’s cones won’t open and its seeds won’t be released so the next generation of cypress can grow. Margaret has already had one wildfire in her life, which, like the cypress, seeded the person she is now. Too big a firestorm, however, will destroy the Tecate cypress and all itsseedlings. Is that what she’s facing now? A firestorm of jealousy and ambition and deceit? Can she survive?
When Purdy blurted out her question outside the dean’s office, Margaret had panicked. What could she tell the woman that would satisfy her notorious curiosity but also not violate the dean’s orders or set the hounds of gossip loose?
“I only mentioned the possibility of poison because I’d seen certain things in Dr. Deaver’s office that could point to that possibility,” she said. “And, in science, possibilities should always be examined. It was nothing more than that.”
Purdy leaned forward, her low-cut blouse revealing the swell of her breasts. “What things did you see?”
How to answer that?
“Well, I saw an overturned photo on Dr. Deaver’s desk plus a Diet Coke bottle and his leather jacket on the floor like there’d been a disturbance.” Purdy opened her mouth to ask another question; however, Margaret rushed on. “The dean told me, and rightfully so, that those things were merely coincidences, which you can’t use to draw a conclusion. He also reminded me that grief and shock can disrupt rational thought. In short, I may have committed the sin of confirmation bias. I saw what I expected to see.”
Purdy seemed not to have heard a word of Margaret’s attempted denial. She shivered with either fright or thrill. Margaret couldn’t tell.
“Who do you think poisoned Professor Deaver?”
Sweat gathered in Margaret’s armpits. Her mind locked. “Without proof, a conclusion is impossible,” she’d blurted, and rushed away.
Now she sits at the lab’s computer with the CameronFoundation grant application open in front of her. If the lab doesn’t get the grant, the all-important next phase of Dr. Deaver’s research—ferrying an engineered gene from the stinging bush into a more easily grown plant or finding a plant with a similar compound—was in jeopardy, and without a ready supply of the compound, no drug could be made.
Margaret’s mind, however, keeps wandering back to her meeting with the dean and her confrontation with Blackstone, both of whom seemed to think anyone could step into Dr. Deaver’s shoes. (How could an ordinary person don the footwear of a science giant?) She also wonders how she can convince Bianchi to take her seriously. Her thoughts tumble and crash until they resemble a junkyard of twisted metal and broken glass.
Calvin interrupts. “Mind if I grab a smoke? I’m so jumpy I can’t sit still.”
