those little ponies.”
“Thanks for the suggestions.” Peggy laughed. “If I name him, it’s only so I can communicate with him. I’m not going to keep him. I don’t have time for a dog. This one howls at night unless I let him sleep in my bed. He follows me all over the house. And he eats a bag of dog food a day.”
“He loves you,” Sam explained. “He slept in your bed?”
Selena couldn’t believe it. “Sounds to me like you must get along pretty well. Maybe you should keep him. Just don’t bring him here anymore.”
Peggy pulled on the gloves and work jacket she kept in the shop. “I think we should go now, Sam. We need to take care of those plants at Bank of America.”
He followed her out of the shop, suggesting different names for the dog. Peggy sighed. It was going to be a long day.
THE POTTING SHED HAD A contract to maintain the plants on the executive floors of the Bank of America Corporate Center. This meant replacing dead plants, pruning back leggy ones, misting, repotting, and fertilizing. It wasn’t a difficult job because the office workers were happy with whatever bit of greenery they could get in the sterile work environment.
Peggy specially chose plants that were hardy and easily maintained: philodendron, a few ficus, and diffenbachia. Even so, she never thought about people pouring their coffee into the pots or shredding the leaves walking by them. The shop made money on the contract, but she hated to see the plants abused that way.
Armed with a small cart that contained everything she needed, Peggy took the elevator to the next floor after dropping Sam off to take care of his part. Fortunately, she kept her pass from her first meeting there. She couldn’t get in with Keeley’s pass. Security was tight in the bank building.
She tsked when she saw the philodendron that Keeley put in less than a month before. The leaves were torn and yellow. Some of the plants had been moved away from the sunlight. They’d become smaller and had less growth to adjust to the change in light.
Carefully, she put the pots back where they belonged. She pruned and fertilized some of the yellowed plants. One was nearly dead. It smelled like an old coffeepot. She transplanted it into a new pot with fresh soil.
Glancing up from her task, she caught a glimpse of Ronda McGee disappearing behind a set of file cabinets. There was only one way to find out what the wife of the senior executive vice president was doing when her lover was murdered. Peggy put down her mister and went to ask her. “Excuse me, Ronda?”
The woman turned around sharply. “No. Is there something I can do for you?”
Peggy couldn’t believe how much the two women looked alike. She recalled the housekeeper’s words about Mark’s secretary. “Oh, I’m sorry. My mistake. You were Mark Warner’s personal assistant, right?”
The woman shrugged. She wore an elegant pink silk blouse and expensive burgundy wool skirt. Her narrow feet were encased in worn but fashionable Gucci shoes. Her shoulder-length brown hair gleamed like sable in the overhead light. “That’s right.” Honey-colored eyes narrowed as she looked at Peggy suspiciously. “Do I know you?”
“Actually, I only saw you from behind,” Peggy confessed. “You look a great deal like Ronda McGee, Bob McGee’s wife.”
She smiled slowly, showing even, pearly teeth. “I suppose we
“I’m Peggy Lee. I own the Potting Shed over in Brevard Court. We do the plant maintenance on this floor.”
“Angela Martin.” The tawny eyes were still uncertain about the connection. “I don’t quite see how you guessed I was Mark’s PA. Did that have something to do with my looking like Ronda?”
Peggy laughed, denying the truth. “Of course not! I think I saw you with him once. You made a very striking couple.”
Angela’s pretty face grew more anxious. She put a manicured hand with long, lacquered red nails on Peggy’s arm. “Let’s step in here.”
Mark Warner’s name was still on the embossed brass plate outside the door. But inside the office, the desk and credenza were bare except for the computer. Boxes stacked along the wall were filled with personal possessions, making way for the new senior executive vice president who would take his place.
Angela’s hand was strong and insistent on Peggy’s arm. The PA closed the oak door and faced her. “I don’t know who sent you, but it was over between Mark and me last year. He kept me on because I have seniority and I’m bitch enough to take him to court if he tried to get rid of me.”
The ending of the affair between Mark and Angela would coincide with what Emma told Peggy. But as long as she had the other woman’s attention, Peggy thought she might as well dig for more information. “Ronda McGee took your place with him, didn’t she?”
“If you want to call the revolving door of women in Mark’s life taking my place, then yes. She started seeing him a few days after we broke up. But I don’t flatter myself that I was the only woman he was seeing. Mark got bored easily. He and I were over before his wife threatened him. Not that he cared about her threats.”
“He was seeing someone else as well as Ronda?”
Angela smoothed her hand down the sleek side of her hair. “You’ll have to ask him that. I only know he’s been with a lot of women. Julie reacts when something comes up that might embarrass her. Otherwise, she lets him do what he wants. She knows one woman isn’t enough for him.”
Peggy decided to go for broke. “Where were you the night Mark was killed?”
“Are you with the police? I thought they already arrested the man who killed Mark.”
“A suspect is in custody,” Peggy repeated the phrase she often heard on the police scanner when John was alive. “That doesn’t mean the investigation is over.”
