Poisoned Petals

“Got a spare pair of gloves?”

“Always.”

She took her little truck to the Potting Shed, where they hitched up the trailer and loaded the magnolia tree, seven white rosebushes, twelve gardenia bushes, two white angel’s trumpets, plus shovels, rakes, pine bark, and mulch.

She also added a statue she found that she thought Mrs. Turnbrell might like in the garden dedicated to her mother. It was a mother and child carved in white marble. It was large enough to see but not ostentatious.

“That’s beautiful,” her father exclaimed after she checked in with Selena. “Why don’t they do father and child statues?”

“I don’t know. Artists celebrate the mother-child bond.”

He glanced at her as she backed out of the Potting Shed parking lot. “That’s what I mean! Mothers like your friend, Rosie, go off and raise their children alone. People make statues of mothers and children. What about the father figure? Like that comedienne always used to say, fathers get no respect!”

Peggy laughed. “Maybe that could be your cause for the next thirty years.”

Her phone rang. It was Al, finally returning a call. She explained to him about the cottonseeds she’d found in both offices, Darmus’s claim that he was drugged, and reiterated Holles Harwood’s intense interest in becoming the director of Feed America.

“Peggy.” Al sighed, long-suffering. “None of those things are relevant. We have the records from the group showing substantial withdrawals before Luther took it over.”

“Holles had access to those,” she argued. “He was Darmus’s assistant. And Holles is a botanist. It would have been simple for him to zap that hyacinth.”

“Why not kill Darmus if he was willing to kill? Why drug him?”

“Maybe he thought he could control him that way. Maybe he didn’t think about Darmus giving the group to Luther.”

“Which brings us back to Darmus.”

“Why are you being so stubborn about this?”

“Once in a while, you should turn on the news. That’s why people have TVs. Darmus confessed to killing his brother and stealing the money from Feed America this morning. He’s back in custody and has waived his right to trial. He’s guilty, Peggy. I’m sorry. I have to go back to work now.”

She said good-bye and closed her phone.

“What’s wrong?” her father asked.

She told him what happened. “What would make Darmus do that?”

“You mean besides a guilty conscience?”

She pulled the truck into Mrs. Turnbrell’s yard, wishing now she hadn’t promised to do the job so she could spend the day finding out what happened to Darmus. But she was committed, and her customer was already out in the yard, waiting for them.

Ranson waved to Mrs. Turnbrell. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to lay in this garden, Dad. Then I’m going to find out what happened.”

Peggy had plenty of time to think as she started digging in the yard. Holles had to be at the bottom of this. He had contact with Darmus now that he was out of jail. He might even have found a way to introduce more fly agaric into Darmus’s bloodstream.

She kept turning over the soil in the large, undulating spot they’d chosen for the white garden. Darmus sounded lucid to her when she saw him last, but that could change quickly with the right amount of hallucinogen.

Or was it rational? In her experience, there was only one thing that could make a man do insane things. He was trying to protect someone. She needed some advice on what to do next, so she put in a call to Hunter Ollson.

Thankfully, the dirt in the yard was well turned already. Down through the hundred years the house had been there, the hard, orange clay had been replaced by soft, black dirt. And Mrs. Turnbrell had already asked her lawn care service to dig up the spot she liked for the garden. All Peggy and her father had to do was lay it out and fill it in.

Mrs. Turnbrell, Denise, as she insisted, didn’t like the idea of Peggy and her father out there alone working, so she put on some scrub clothes and gloves to lend a hand. They debated over the placement of the magnolia tree the most, since it would grow tall and broad and could hurt the rest of the garden by making it too shady. Finally, they agreed to put it in a corner.

Denise made lemonade and cucumber sandwiches on white bread and brought them out while they all exclaimed over the white statue. “Wouldn’t a white fountain be nice, too?”

“It would add a nice touch,” Peggy agreed.

Hunter came up as they were finishing lunch. She took off her six-inch heels to walk across the thick, wet grass to get to Peggy. “Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner. What’s up? You sounded frantic on the phone.”

Peggy told her about the new development in Darmus’s case. “I don’t know if he’s still out of his head or not.”

“Maybe his lawyer should plead diminished capacity.”

“Could he do that?”

“You said the police knew Darmus had the mushroom in his bloodstream.” Hunter unwrapped a rosebush