5 Buried By Buttercups (9 page)

“It’s Dr. Beck and the whole thing with being passed over,” Mai answered. “I can’t shake it. I’m angry and I’m not sleeping or eating right. All I want to do is eat jelly donuts. I think I’m obsessed with them.”

“Everyone handles stress differently.” Peggy carefully scrutinized her face. “Maybe you should consider going to the doctor. There might be something else that’s causing more stress than you realize over Dr. Beck’s hiring.”

“Thanks but I’m going to hang tough like the rest of the Lee family. I’ll keep eating jelly donuts until I feel better.”

“Well, there doesn’t appear to be anything else I can do here for now and I have a lecture to give in about an hour. I’ll be back after that.”

Mai unexpectedly stood up and hugged her. Peggy couldn’t remember another time that she had done so. “Be careful,” Mai said. “Don’t take any unnecessary chances.”

“I won’t. Please reconsider what I said about that doctor visit. I’ll see you later.”

Peggy went to her workstation, took off her white lab coat and picked up her pocketbook. Steve had texted her that he’d had a call from a farmer friend of his outside the county. One of the farmer’s cows was having a hard time with delivering a calf. Steve told her to expect him to be gone most of the day.

She checked in with Dorothy before she left. “I wish I had something useful to report. It’s got me flummoxed for now.”

“Sometimes it helps to get away from it for a while. Clears the brain,” Dorothy replied. “No matter how much we want to make progress in this case, we can’t until the evidence comes together.”

“I don’t know if giving a lecture to my first year botany students will clear my brain or wipe it.” Peggy grinned. “Sometimes when I talk to them, I can feel brain cells dying.”

Dorothy laughed. “It wouldn’t be my first choice for de-stressing either. I close my eyes, put on my headphones, and zone out to Bach when I get stumped.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

“This case has everyone baffled right now,” Dorothy confided. “They might decide to call in the FBI. Whoever the killer is, he seems to know what he’s doing. Now with the media following every move and coming up with some ideas of their own, there’s no telling where this will end.”

“I hope it ends soon,” Peggy said. “I don’t like thinking that someone else might die for this person to get my attention.”

Dorothy agreed and the two of them parted company.

Peggy planned to grab lunch on her way to Queen’s University. There was a very good yogurt shop close to the campus.

Outside, the weather had cleared somewhat. The heavy rain had stopped, leaving mist and a watery sunshine. Cooler breezes blew threw the trees.

Her bicycle was wet but it dried quickly with a paper towel. She was taking off the lock when a police car pulled up to the front of the office beside her.

“Professor Lee.” Detective Tanner Edwards leaned out of the window. “Can I give you a lift somewhere? Lieutenant McDonald sent me over when he heard you were leaving.”

“Is he spying on me?”

“No, ma’am. Keeping tabs. He’s worried about you. Dr. Beck told him you were on your way to Queen’s. It’s my job to take you there.”

“That’s silly.” She took the bike from the stall.

“Maybe,” Tanner agreed as he got out of the police car and opened the trunk. “He wants to make sure you’re safe. That’s my job today. Please don’t make me look bad. I only passed the detective’s exam right before these murders started. I don’t need any black marks on my record.”

“I guess if that’s what you’re supposed to do.” Peggy shrugged. “Have you had lunch yet?”

Tanner told her he hadn’t eaten yet. She explained her plan to eat at the yogurt shop. He was happy to oblige.

“I feel terrible taking you away from the investigation.” The yogurt shop was deserted when they arrived. It only took a few minutes before both of them were eating strawberry yogurt with protein powder. “You shouldn’t have to babysit me.”

“You’re at the center of all this. Maybe the killer will change his tactics and come after you. Taking down a serial killer would look good on my record.”

He explained to Peggy that Molly and Dan were looking up stores and manufacturers that could have the equipment the killer would need to create the poisons he was using.

“Those things are available on the Internet too,” she reminded him. “It probably won’t be enough to look around Charlotte. The Internet is more anonymous too. That’s what I’d do if I were trying to avoid being caught.”

He nodded. “The Internet has definitely changed things. I’ll be sure to suggest that to Lieutenant McDonald. Thanks.”

Peggy looked up—directly into a pair of hostile eyes in an unhappy face.

“Excuse me a moment, Tanner. I see someone I know.”

“Not the killer, right?” He grinned and looked around the yogurt shop.

“No. Just someone annoying.”

She walked right up to Mr. Bellows who was seated at one of the white and red tables. “Are you looking for me?”

“Not exactly. This is a public place. I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“I teach at Queen’s,” she explained. His popping up at strange times was beginning to unnerve her. Maybe it was because of the killer. Maybe it was something more.

“And I’m here for a lecture.” He took out a piece of paper and showed her. “The ABCs of Botanical Poison. Are you giving that lecture?”

Chapter Seven

Goldenseal – Hydrastis –
Used popularly as a healing herb in teas for generations. Diminishing stands grown in the wild due to demand and over collection. Identified by dark yellow root. Contains alkaloids which can be poisonous in large quantities.

Peggy’s name was clearly listed on the free lecture. She’d done this particular subject so many times, she thought she could do it in her sleep. It was why she’d almost forgotten the lecture in the first place. She hadn’t prepared for this topic in years. She could speak on it almost without thought.

The title—ABCs of Botanical Poisons—hit her suddenly. Wasn’t that exactly what was going on?

This was the format the killer was using. Her mind raced with the knowledge. The plants in the lecture were different but the idea was the same.

She had no doubt the killer was mocking her. He’d probably heard the lecture before.

Peggy stared at Mr. Bellows. Surely it wasn’t him.

Yes, he was irritating and seemed to want to get rid of her. That was quite a leap from pretending to kill members of her family.

On the other hand, he was at the park and it would’ve been easy for him to put the note into her front door after setting off the alarm.

She realized she knew nothing about Mr. Bellows besides him being her neighbor. He liked peace and quiet. He probably had some money since he’d offered to buy her house and garden shop to try and convince her to move away.

That didn’t make him a killer, she reminded herself.

“I think you know the answer to that question,” she finally replied. “I didn’t realize you were interested in botany.”

“Oh yes. I have a degree in botany from UCLA. I have studied poisonous plants for many years. I didn’t know you were interested in the same field.”

All right. That might change things. That information, added to the other facts, could make him a killer.

Peggy glanced back at Tanner who was still eating his strawberry-protein added yogurt. Should she say something to him? Was this the career-enhancing event he was looking for—his opportunity to save her life and nab a killer?

She needed more evidence. It might be risky, but if Al arrested Mr. Bellows too soon, he wouldn’t be able to make his case.

“Well, I hope you enjoy the lecture,” Peggy said, forcing herself to smile.

“I’m sure I will.”

A possible way of catching him occurred to her. “Afterward, you should stop by my house. I’d love to show you my experiments. We could have tea and talk about our careers.”

His expression brightened. “I would enjoy that very much, Mrs. Lee. Thank you.”

To make her case clearer, she added, “It’s actually Dr. Lee. I would enjoy that as well.”

He looked even more pleased. “Dr. Lee it is then. And I am Dr. Walter Bellows.”

Peggy left him there. She knew scientists almost too well. There was nothing they liked better than to talk about themselves and their careers.

She was glad now that Tanner had been assigned to protect her. Al was much smarter about these things than she was. She might need his help at the house if Dr. Bellows decided to make his move.

On the way across the rain-drenched campus, Peggy explained to Tanner about her next door neighbor.

Tanner took it all in. “It might be better not to try this, Professor. I’m supposed to keep you safe, not further endanger your life.”

“I realize that. Maybe you could call for backup but keep them at a distance until we need them. I believe I’m on to something here. At least I’d like to think so.”

“I know what you mean. I’m tired of this man making fools of all of us too. Let’s be smart and careful about taking him to your house. I’ll call for backup in case we need it. Get information from him but don’t provoke him. Okay?”

She agreed. “I have to run up to my office for my laptop if I want to use my visual aids. You can’t have a lecture without pictures or everyone falls asleep.”

He laughed. “I never found your lectures boring. It amazed me the stuff people don’t know about plants. We take them for granted, don’t we? They can kill or heal. I’ve been fascinated by them since I took your class.”

“Thank you, Tanner. I’m glad that I helped inspire your love of plants. Do you garden at home?”

“No. Not really. I don’t have a big yard like yours. I play around with some indoor plants. I wish I had a farm to work with. That would be great.”

“Maybe someday you will.”

He accompanied her to her office for her laptop. Peggy enjoyed talking to a kindred spirit even if they’d chosen different paths in life. There wasn’t much use for plant lore in police work.

“I remember now that you were an exceptional student,” she told him as she packed up her laptop. “I could tell you stayed awake through my lectures.”

“My parents thought I was crazy taking botany. I told them one day it would make a difference, even though I always wanted to be a cop.”

Peggy and Tanner went into the lecture hall together. He set up her laptop so that the information from her program would be on the big screen behind her.

A large crowd had already gathered. Free lectures were popular for both students and interested visitors from the community. Poison plants were something people never seemed to get enough of.

She’d sometimes wondered if her lectures on this subject were inspiring people to take another look at poison plants or using them for the wrong purposes.

Seeing Dr. Bellows face in the crowd made that all the more apparent. Of course, he probably already had all the expertise he’d needed to kill those three people. He’d used her as a focus for his crimes, but she would be wrong to believe she’d provoked him.

The lights went dark and her first slide came up on the screen.

“Good afternoon. I’m Dr. Margaret Lee. I teach botany here at Queen’s. My specialty field is botanical poisons. Today I’ll be showing you some familiar plants, some of which are deadly poisonous. I’ll be taking questions at the end of the lecture. Please bear in mind that this information is to acquaint yourselves with plants that you might not want to have around children or pets. It is not intended for any other purpose. Thank you for coming.”

The first plant was anemone. The bulb was deadly poison. “Anemone is a common bulb. You see plenty of the white flowers here in the spring. There are many bulbs that are poisonous including hyacinth and daffodil. Tulips aren’t poisonous, and in fact, the Dutch survived a famine many years ago by eating tulip bulbs.”

The next plant was the bleeding heart. “This is another common plant. I’m sure many of you recognize the delicate, heart-shaped flowers. They are a gardener’s delight.”

She saw heads nodding in the audience. The light from the screen illuminated the people closest to her.