Fruit of the Poisoned Tree

“Wouldn’t they think she gave it to the police?” Paul wondered. “Most people give evidence to the police.”

“They’d know better if they knew your mother.” Steve frowned as he picked up shards of broken glass from the floor.

“I know,” Paul agreed with a thoughtful glance at Peggy, “but that would imply that whoever it is knows her that well, too.”

“That’s scary.” Mai shivered.

The thought sobered them, and no one spoke for a moment. Then Peggy shook her head and stood up, stretching her back and shoulders. “We’re never going to get this done just standing here speculating. It’s late, and we all need to get to bed. Let’s save the scary thoughts for tomorrow, huh?”

15

Lemon Balm

Botanical: Melissa officinalis

Family: N. O. Labiatae

Common name: Balm

This plant grows one to two feet tall and has a strong lemon smell when touched. It also has a strong lemon taste that translates well to tea and mixes well with other herbs. The plant dies down in winter, but the root is perennial and will spread easily. The name is from the Greek word for “bee” because bees also love this sweet plant. It is beneficial for colds with fever and has a calming effect on the nerves.

“THERE’S ONLY ONE PLACE the top of the cane can be,” Peggy said to Steve as they walked up to Isabelle Lamonte’s empty house the next morning. Their breaths came out in frosty puffs of air. Yards of yellow crime scene tape still crossed the porch and doorway. “If I don’t have it and the killer doesn’t have it and the police don’t have it, it has to be here.”

Steve looked up at the impressive brick house with an uneasy expression on his face. “The police already looked for it, didn’t they? How are we going to find it if no one else can find it?”

“I don’t know.” She started to walk around the back of the house. “But it’s got to be in there. The killer must realize it, too, since he or she didn’t find it at my house. We have to find it first.”

“Don’t you think the killer looked here before breaking into your house?”

“Maybe. But not if he or she was convinced I had it. I talked to Mai early this morning. The crime scene teams finished up here late last night. They’ve been in and out a lot since the murder. Maybe the killer couldn’t get back into the house.”

“Shouldn’t you have told Al or Jonas about your theory? Maybe even Paul could check into it.” Steve dragged his feet as he followed her across the brown winter grass.

“I called Al. He said they searched everywhere for it. He doesn’t think it’s here. He thinks the killer has it. But the killer wouldn’t break into my house to look for it if he had it.”

“If the killer broke into your house.” Steve put his hands in the pockets of his dark blue jacket. “That’s just a theory, Peggy.”

“But it makes sense, doesn’t it? Besides, what have we got to lose by looking around? We might even find something else important to the case.”

“Okay.” Steve finally gave in with a sigh. “How do we get inside? I take it you don’t have a key.”

“We used to sneak in here sometimes. It was a long time ago. Park was still living at home. His mother was very strict. We’d wait until his parents went out and sneak in through the basement. I’m sure nothing’s changed. Isabelle probably hadn’t been down there in years.”

“Park had to sneak into his own house?” Steve asked.

“He was still in law school at Chapel Hill, living in a dorm. His parents took away his house key because he had a big party here while they were out of town. We sneaked into the basement and raided his father’s wine cellar for revenge. The Lamontes had very good taste in wine.”

As she spoke, Peggy was pushing aside huge old azaleas and altheas to get to the tiny door in the foundation. When she finally managed to get past the overgrown foliage, she dropped to her knees and looked at the moss-covered wood door. “Here it is. Probably just the way we left it after snatching the Chateau Petrus and drinking it all.”

Steve knelt beside her in the orange Carolina clay. “Was it good?”

“It tasted like old wine to me. Kind of musty.” She shrugged. “The point was that his father paid a lot of money for it at an auction. That’s the only reason we drank it.”

“I’ll bet he loved that.” Steve helped her hold back the plants so she could get her hands on the small door. “We’re going in through there?”

“It’s big enough,” she assured him, trying to move the door. “John was larger than you, and he got through.”

“Well if John could get through . . .”

Peggy looked at him sharply. “I didn’t mean it that way. Just that his hips and shoulders were broader than yours, even when he was younger.”

Steve moved closer to the house and pushed open the warped door in the foundation. He shoved it against the bricks beside it. The doorway behind it was little more than a three-by-three-foot aperture covered in spiderwebs. “I hope you brought a flashlight. I thought we were going in through a real door.”

She brushed past him and turned on the penlight attached to her keychain. “This should be plenty. There’s a light switch on the opposite wall. All we have to do is get to it.” She used the light to peer into the blackness. It really didn’t look like anyone had been down there for thirty years.

“I’m right behind you,” he said as she seemed to hesitate.

“That’s comforting. Watch your knees. You have to crawl through this first part. There are some nails and jagged cement pieces on the ground.”

“Was this part set up to be some kind of booby trap for a would-be robber?” Steve pushed himself in through the hole in the wall behind Peggy. “If so, it’s original, but an alarm system would probably be better.”

“No. There’s an alarm system in the house. Just not down here. Mai told me it was off, so that shouldn’t be a problem anyway. This used to be a coal chute. They closed it off when they switched to gas heat.” Peggy moved awkwardly across the rough ground, mostly feeling her way. She bumped her knee against one of the cement chunks and scraped her hand on a nail. The light from the flashlight bounced on the walls around them. “Thank goodness it’s winter, or those awful cricket spiders would be down here, too. I hate those things. They jump up at you when you least expect them.”

“I didn’t know there was some kind of bug you didn’t like,” Steve said, scratching the palm of his hand on a rough piece of wood that jutted out into his path. “I didn’t think that kind of thing bothered you.”

“Of course,” she countered. “Everybody doesn’t like something.”

Steve grinned. “But nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee?”

“That’s the truth! I wish I didn’t. Thank goodness I ride the bike everywhere. It’s the only thing that keeps me small.”

“That,” Steve grunted as he scraped his knee on some concrete, “and the fact that you never have any food in your house.”

“Where’s that light switch?” She felt around on the wall. “It was right here somewhere.”

“Maybe someone found out about you getting in this way and took it out. How many times would you let someone crawl into your house from the basement before you took care of the problem?”

“Shh!” Peggy unerringly found his mouth with her hand. “Did you hear that?”

“What?” he managed to whisper around her hand.

“Someone’s in the house.”