Fruit of the Poisoned Tree Read online

  There were two messages on her answering machine. One was from Paul, warning her there might be snow or ice that night. She sighed as she deleted it. He was a sweet boy, but she wasn’t quite as frail or out of it as he seemed to think. She’d managed to raise him and work for years. But thinking about Isabelle, she supposed it was a nice thing to have someone worry about her.

  The other message was from Sam. A shipment of spider plants was lost in transit. The plants were scheduled to be put in place at eight of the Handy Finance buildings around Charlotte the next day. It was a big contract for the Potting Shed and a lot of money over the next three years. Sam was worried about making a bad impression on their first job.

  Peggy called the distributor, got a firm date for the new delivery, then called her contact at the finance Company to apologize and reschedule. The woman didn’t seem fazed by the news at all. She thanked Peggy for calling and noted the new date for setup.

  Sam was out when she called him back, so she left him a message. It was always something. A hundred different contracts meant a hundred different problems. Shipments were late or didn’t come at all. Wrong plants or dead plants were delivered and couldn’t be used. If they’d managed to get the contract for the new uptown arena, it would’ve been worse. Their bid was too high on the arena for the new Charlotte basketball team, the Bobcats, but they did get the contract on the new mall.

  Despite the problems, Peggy knew she had to keep pushing if she wanted to retire from teaching. It probably wouldn’t happen this year, but her plan called for her to be done with the university in the next five years. The Bobcats’ arena would’ve helped make that dream a reality. But the mall was a nice step forward.

  She glanced at her mail on the floor after the emergency was dealt with. It would happen sooner or later. She loved teaching, but she felt like she was spread too thin. She didn’t want to do a bad job at either Queens or the shop. She only wanted to be sure it was possible to support herself by spending all her time at the Potting Shed. Sometimes it seemed too good to be true. Most people her age were thinking about retiring to a nice community where they could learn to dance and do woodworking. She supposed the Potting Shed was her retirement. Although woodworking sounded interesting, too.

  After some hot soup and a cup of her own cold-preventing tea mixture—dandelion, astralagus, and lemon balm—she sorted through her mail and put in another call to Al. His line was busy, but she left a message to call her on the cell phone. She walked Shakespeare without mishap by tugging hard on the leash and threatening him. All the normal aspects of her life that she took for granted every day.

  She thought about Isabelle, trapped in a cold world of her own making in that big, dark, empty house. She held herself aloof from being involved with her family while Park was alive. With him gone, she was completely isolated. It was better to have Paul call to remind her of the ordinary things than to be that alone.

  Dressed in warmer clothes, Peggy went out again. It seemed ridiculous to call a taxi for a few blocks, and the city buses were unreliable, especially in bad weather. The sky was more ominous, but the freezing rain had stopped. She rode her bike through the slushy city streets toward the university. The storm was still closing in on the city. Headlights and streetlights were already turned on at three p.m., illuminating the gloom.

  She realized as she saw the nearly empty parking lot that there might not be many students to teach, although most of them lived close by or on campus. But the school hadn’t closed down yet. Classes were still scheduled. She assumed she had one to teach.

  A young man passed her, leaving the main campus as she was arriving. He looked familiar even with his head down against the wind and a large black scarf bundled around his neck. It wasn’t until she passed him that she realized where she’d seen him last. It was the scraggly young man in the red T-shirt from Philadelphia.

  Peggy looked back around the corner of the redbrick building when she realized, but he was gone. She was sure it was the same person. What was he doing in Charlotte? Was there an environmental event she didn’t know about? Her friend, Darmus Appleby, usually gave her a call when anything was set. She didn’t always participate, but she gave a donation when she couldn’t give her time.

  “There you are, Peggy!” Maurice Dillman was waiting for her at the double doors. “I was wondering if you’d make it.”

  “Did you see that young man who went out just before I got here?” she asked him.

  “I haven’t seen anyone but you for the last ten minutes.”

  Peggy didn’t press the point, even though she was curious. The young man she recognized could’ve come from anywhere on the campus. She thanked Dr. Dillman for trading class times with her as they walked inside. He was eager to get home and out of the weather. “Watch out,” he warned as he bundled up inside the faculty lounge. “They don’t like to close down until they have to. I dismiss class early if I think it’s bad enough. I might be from Boston, but I get off the Charlotte streets if there’s bad weather. There are maniacs out there!”

  Peggy laughed to herself at his response. She’d lived in Charlotte for thirty years after being raised on the mossy, sun-baked shores of the Atlantic Ocean. They never had snow or ice along the coast. But she’d loved the icy crystals since the first morning she saw them outside her window.

  As for driving, there were maniacs everywhere. The people in Charlotte weren’t as confident or prepared as their colder neighbors when it came to bad weather. But they managed. Everyone bought plenty of bread, milk, and junk food and stayed inside until the storm cleared. It was the perfect thing to do in the cold.

  Dr. Dillman’s first year biology class was waiting restlessly for her. She looked at his planner and followed his instructions for the class.

  It was difficult for the students to concentrate on what they were doing as the darkness settled in outside like a thick blanket around them. Glances out the wide windows for any sign of accumulating snow or ice made normal class procedure difficult. When they finally got through the reproductive cycles of a fruit fly, a large sigh went up from the class.

  That’s when the first snowflake hit the window followed by a flurry of white that began to cover the cold streets. “It’s snowing!” an eighteen-year-old student exclaimed with all the joy of a ten-year-old. They all looked toward the front of the classroom to see what Peggy’s response would be.

  Before she could comment on the weather, class was over. She dismissed her students, reminding them to read their textbook. She gathered her books and coat for the trek home when the classroom was empty. The local weather channel was calling for six inches of snow overnight when she got to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee. So much for no snow in February!

  Already classes and other activities were being canceled around the city. That much snow would paralyze Charlotte. It wasn’t so much that the county wouldn’t send out plows and salt the streets. Most people were afraid to drive on the stuff, knowing if everyone stayed in their homes, snow days became unofficial holidays.

  Keeley called to say she was closing the shop early. Peggy agreed and thanked her as she got ready to leave the school. She almost walked into Al as she came around the corner talking on her cell phone. She told Keeley to be careful going home and put her phone away. “Thanks for coming over,” she said to him. “You could’ve called, you know.”

  “I could’ve,” he agreed. “But this is a pretty serious accusation from Mrs. Lamonte Senior. Think there’s any coffee left in the cafeteria?”

  “There’s at least something hot and dark that resembles it,” she joked, taking his arm as they walked. So much for her plan to keep the Dragon Queen away from the police. “Let’s go down and check it out.”

  “SO WHAT CAN YOU tell me about Park Lamonte that I don’t already know?”

  Peggy sipped her hot apple cinnamon tea as she watched the other people in the cafeteria standing at the windows looking at the snow. It was coming down fast and hard, big flakes wh
itening the leaden sky. “I don’t think what you need to know involves Park. It’s more what I can tell you about Isabelle.”

  “Whatever you can tell me might be helpful. Lieutenant Rimer doesn’t think much of her accusation against Lamonte’s wife, but you know we have to follow up.” Al slurped his coffee, then opened the package of shortbread cookies he bought from a vending machine near the door.

  “I’m surprised Jonas wanted you to get me involved any more than I already am.” She glanced at him. “He doesn’t know you’re here, does he?”

  “No, ma’am.” Al dunked his stale cookie into his coffee. “But since you seem to know the family so well, I thought you might have some answers.”

  “I’ll do the best I can.”

  “We thought the wife didn’t play a part in his death since she was nowhere near the ramp when it happened. I can’t imagine Beth Lamonte climbing around under her husband’s Lincoln and cutting the brake line or anything. But she could’ve paid someone, I suppose.”

  “Didn’t the insurance company check to see if the car was tampered with?”

  Al shook his head. “They checked. But the car is in bad shape. They’re pretty thorough. But not like the ME on a murder case.”

  Peggy nodded. “What about the autopsy?”

  “Despite the grieving widow’s objections, the ME will be doing that over again, too.” He looked up from his coffee. “I told you I thought it was kind of strange when she first said she didn’t want to have it done. Always trust your instincts.”

  “Your instincts are wrong in this case,” she snapped. “Beth had nothing to do with this. Isabelle never liked her. Beth wasn’t from one of the ‘right’ families. Isabelle didn’t want Park to marry her. Her people come from somewhere in Iredell County. Just a bunch of poor farmers. But Park fell in love with her. His first marriage was a disaster, even though his mother handpicked the woman. He was disinclined to listen to her when she told him Beth wasn’t good enough. There’s always been bad blood between them.”

  Al nodded as he sipped his coffee and ate his cookies. “That’s pretty much what I was thinking. Isabelle Lamonte gives anybody who doesn’t have a pedigree a hard time. Especially if they came near Park. The lieutenant doesn’t realize how things have always been with her.”

  “It’s difficult to explain something like that to someone who hasn’t experienced it,” she sympathized. “I don’t know if my agreeing with you makes your job any easier, but I think you’re right about Isabelle.” Peggy told him about the Dragon Queen’s demand that she tell the police the same thing.

  “So the old lady doesn’t really have anything concrete against the wife. She knew we’d have to check it out if she questioned it. And there’ll be a full investigation from her vague accusation. Especially in this case. Park was pretty famous around here. The DA likes to see well-to-do lawyers who are county commission wannabes rest in peace. But he wants to make sure we don’t have to go back and dig up the body.”

  “It’s such a shame about Isabelle. I don’t know what she’ll do without Park. He was her whole life. She doesn’t care much for the children. They’re too noisy and messy, you know. She still had dreams of Park running for governor. They argued about it since he was never all that political.”

  “Unlike his father,” Al reminisced. “The old man ran for everything, didn’t he? Only problem was, he was still stuck back in the Civil War era. He couldn’t understand that people were different. I remember listening to one of his speeches when I was in college. I wondered why someone didn’t tell him that times change.”

  Peggy smiled. “He was a firebrand though, wasn’t he? He didn’t know what he was talking about, but it didn’t matter. He was like a live wire when he got up in front of people.”

  Al scratched his head. “You might have some fond memory of him, but I was scared somebody might listen to him. According to Park Senior, my kind didn’t belong in college. We belonged behind a mule plowing the back forty. That man was crazy.”

  “I agree with you.” She patted his hand and sat back in her chair. “Isn’t it lucky people are smarter nowadays? So what happens now? Has what I said made any difference?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, Peggy. We’ll go through the investigation. We have to. Maybe it will make me feel better about the younger Mrs. Lamonte. I don’t know. I just get this feeling she’s trying to hide something.”

  “Gut feeling.” She nodded with a smile, recalling how many times John told her his hunches. How many times was he right? She knew Al was wrong about Beth. “What will you tell Isabelle?”

  “When it’s all over, we’ll send her an official letter telling her what we found. It might still be a suicide.”

  “I don’t believe that’s true either,” she disagreed. “Park wasn’t the kind of person to kill himself. Beth’s right about that.”

  “Are you saying you think he was killed by his wife?”

  “Are those my only two choices? Couldn’t it have been an accident? They seem to happen to other people all the time.”

  “I don’t know. The insurance company believes there would have been skid marks on the ramp if Lamonte wasn’t trying to kill himself. He lost a lot of money the last two years, and the law firm his grandfather founded has taken some hits. One of his friends told an investigator he was ‘slightly unbalanced’ over those things as well as some problems at home. Know anything about trouble at home?”

  “No! And that’s hogwash!” Peggy said. “He couldn’t stop the car if he fell asleep and didn’t wake up until he hit the pavement. As to the other things . . .”

  “There may be a lot of mitigating factors you don’t understand, Peggy. I’m sorry about your friend. But the case is pretty much closed as far as the insurance company is concerned. His wife can appeal it, and I’d encourage her to do so. Those guys were in and out of here pretty fast. In the meantime, we have to get through this accusation from the elder Mrs. Lamonte.”

  She was frustrated by his answer. “That doesn’t make much sense. I think the insurance company just didn’t want to pay off on a multimillion dollar policy.”

  Al pushed himself to his feet. “I think you’re right, for what it’s worth. There wasn’t a suicide note. He was in a little financial trouble but not as bad as the insurance company made it out to be. I’d like to think it was just a terrible accident, and everyone wants to find someone they can to blame for it, too. I guess we’ll see.”

  She made a snorting sound as she tossed away her paper cup. “Such is the state of society. You can’t even have a decent insurance policy without people thinking you killed yourself for it.”

  “See? I can’t please you.” He chuckled and glanced out the window at the snow-whitened landscape. “Let it go, Peggy. It’ll work out one way or the other. I’m sure the family is all right without the money. Can I give you a lift home?”

  Angry with the protocol, not the man, Peggy took him up on his offer. They drove carefully through the streets filled with cars rushing to get home. The wet Carolina snow made the branches of the oaks that lined Queens Road hang down low enough to scrape the tops of trucks that went by. There was already a layer of ice coating the snow that made the street slippery.

  Al stopped twice to help drivers who skidded off the road. One of them he called in as an accident since the Honda slammed into the side of a parked Toyota. Watching him help people in the street brought back fond memories of John doing the same thing. Sometimes she was impatient with him when stopping to help made them late for a party or some other function. It was funny how time and sorrow could change frustration to a loving memory.

  She got out quickly when Al finally pulled his Ford Explorer into her drive. He helped her get the bike out of the back. They could hear Shakespeare’s excited barking inside the house, followed by the sound of something crashing and breaking. “Sounds like that dog of yours is going crazy in there.”

  “He’s having some adjustment issues.”
Peggy winced as something else crashed.

  Al laughed. “Is that what they call it now? My mom called it an ‘outside’ dog. See you later, Peggy. Stay warm. I’ll let you know what happens with the Lamonte case. Thanks for talking to me.”

  “You’re welcome. I know none of this is your fault. I hope I didn’t sound that way. Thanks for the ride. I won’t ask you to stay since I know Mary is probably waiting at home for you with hot chocolate.”

  “You got it.” He grinned as the snow covered the top of his brown knit hat. “The kind with the little marshmallows, too. Take care. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Peggy let herself in the house. Shakespeare had managed to pull down a set of front drapes that were from the original decorator of the house as well as break a Dave the Slave pottery jug her mother gave her for her wedding. “I think you might need more than obedience classes when my mother finds out you broke an eighty thousand dollar piece of pottery. Go lie down! Bad dog!”

  She was trying to rehang the pale green drapes when the doorbell rang. It was Steve, his arms full of plastic shopping bags. “I just got back. I’m loaded up with munchies, tearjerker movies, and batteries for the flashlight. I thought we could hide from the storm together. You have plenty of fireplaces, and all of yours work, presumably. None of mine can draw smoke. The contractor says they need cleaning out.”

  “Hello to you, too! You’ve made your case.” Her smile was huge as she took a few of the white plastic bags from him and rummaged through them. “White chocolate cheesecake and what DVD is this, hmm, Ghost? I love Patrick Swayze! You know the way to a woman’s heart.”

  “They always say that about men. That thing about the way to a man’s heart being through his stomach? But I know it’s true about women, too.” He produced a container of dipping chocolate and a quart of strawberries. “I tried to think of everything.” He followed her through the trail of debris toward the kitchen to stow the goodies. “Looks like Shakespeare has been playing with your china.”