Pretty Poison plgm-1 Read online

  Pretty Poison

  ( Peggy Lee Garden Mystery - 1 )

  Joyce Lavene

  James Lavene

  It's another busy fall day for Peggy. A quick café lecture on African violets is followed by a minor bike accident involving a good-looking Saturn driver. Upon returning to her shop, Peggy discovers one of the wealthiest men in town--and one of the biggest philanderers--sprawled face down across one of her seasonal displays, apparently beaten to death with a garden shovel.

  When the cops pin the murder on a local homeless man, Peggy must rake through evidence and dig up secrets to root out the real killer.

  Peggy’s Garden Journal

  She looked around the shop. Everything was set up for her first customer. Except for the garden spade in the middle of the floor . . .

  The pointed end of the spade was tinged reddish brown. Carolina clay, probably. But this seemed darker. There were traces of it leading toward the warehouse door in the back of the shop. Wondering what happened and who she was going to chew out for it, she picked up the shovel. That’s when she saw him. Her hands went numb, and the shovel clattered to the floor.

  She wasn’t sure how long she stood there looking at the man. Her first impulse was to turn around and run out of her shop, screaming for help. But she was made of sterner stuff. Or at the very least, she was morbidly curious. Years of being a cop’s wife didn’t prepare her for this. But her background as a researcher made her push her emotion aside and take another look.

  The man was facedown in one of her attractive wicker baskets filled with anemone bulbs. It was part of the autumn scene she’d created, complete with scarecrow and pumpkins. He’d obviously fallen forward, dragging the scarecrow from its perch on the oak rocking chair. The straw figure looked forlorn, lying half under the man’s weight like some bizarre teddy bear . . .

  1

  Anemone

  Botanical: Anemone nemorosa

  Family: N.O. Ranunculaceae

  Common names: Windflower, wood anemone

  Anemone is originally derived from the Greek word ánemos, meaning wind. It belongs to the buttercup family. The Chinese called it the flower of death. The Egyptians believed the anemone denoted sickness because of the flush of color on the backs of the white sepals. In Europe, it was custom to hold your breath while running through a field of anemones. They believed that even the air around the anemones was poisonous.

  IT WAS TOO LATE for Peggy Lee to stop when she saw the car. There wasn’t even time to sound the air horn that scared away dogs and small children. It was like being in a slow motion movie.

  The green Saturn Vue pulled out of the parking lot, and her bike glided right into the driver’s side door. The oversized front tire absorbed most of the shock. The impact jarred her but didn’t knock her down. She put out her legs to brace herself and stared belligerently at the man behind the wheel.

  The driver couldn’t open his door with her bike nudged up against it. Instead, he opened his window. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” She removed her helmet and feathered her fingers through her shoulder-length hair that was more white than red. “You could be a little more careful coming out like that. You know, share the road.”

  He squinted into the sunlight behind her. “I wasn’t looking for traffic on the sidewalk. Aren’t bicycles supposed to be in the street?”

  “When the street doesn’t have potholes big enough to swallow them.” She moved her bike to the parking lot, checked the tires and the front fender. Nothing seemed to be wrong with her or the bike. She was lucky.

  The driver parked his car beside the Starbucks coffee shop again. He waited while she looked over her bike. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m sure.” She frowned at her watch. “Except for being late. Of course, that isn’t your fault. The city is tearing up Morehead Street again, so I had to come up East. Unfortunately, all the coffee drinkers seem to come this way, too.”

  He glanced down at the spreading coffee stain on his blue shirt. “Do you ride to work every day?”

  She really looked at him for the first time. He wasn’t too bad. A little ordinary maybe, brown hair and brown eyes. But he had a nice smile. Good teeth. Not that it mattered. She was too old to have those thoughts. She hadn’t been a widow that long. “I’m doing my part for the ozone. Everything seems to be fine. Thank you for stopping.”

  “Wait!” He took a business card from his wallet. “Take this in case everything isn’t fine. Call me if you need anything.”

  She glanced at the card, then tucked it into her pocket. “I will.”

  “NOW THE BEST THING you can do is not to use tap water on these at all,” Peggy said as she held up the attractive, white African violet in the pretty, cobalt blue glass pot. “They’re very sensitive to salt. Rainwater or bottled water is much better for them. If you think you have a salt buildup, as this little lady does, you’ll see the white residue on the pot.”

  She pointed out the rime on the pot’s edge. The women in the audience looked carefully at it. A few took notes.

  “Take the plant out and repot it. If you’re going to reuse the same pot, be sure to clean it thoroughly with about a teaspoon of chlorine bleach in some warm water. Fill the pot with fresh soil halfway, then gently replace the plant and cover the roots. Be sure to water often, before the plant dries out. Then drain the excess to avoid root or crown rot. Only fertilize once or twice a year in the summer and allow the excess to drain completely.”

  “What if it stops blooming?” a voice asked from the group of twelve women in the Kozy Kettle Tea and Coffee Emporium.

  “Then give it more light. These plants are very affected by light. If they stop blooming, it’s more likely you have them in a bad spot than that they need fertilizing. Be patient with them.”

  “Is it true you can only grow them if you’ve gone through menopause?”

  Peggy laughed at the question. “Yes, and you can only dye your hair at midnight during the full moon or the color will run. That’s an old wives’ tale. Julie Warner has a very nice collection at her home, and I don’t think she’s gone through menopause yet.”

  There was some snickering in the audience. Everyone knew who Julie Warner was, of course. Her restored 1902 house was in every Charlotte magazine. Her name and face were in every society column. Her husband was Mark Warner, a senior executive with Bank of America. Of course, she had African violets that bloomed constantly.

  “Any other questions?” When there was no response, Peggy nodded. “Thank you for coming this morning. Good luck with your African violets. Next week, we’ll be talking about planting your bulbs for spring.”

  A light smattering of applause filtered through the group before they began to gather their pocketbooks and jackets to leave. The scent of coffee mingled with the aroma of freshly baked bread and spicy herbs.

  Peggy picked up her tote bag. She smiled at the man behind the counter. “Would you mind if I leave this African violet and potting soil here a little longer? I don’t think I can carry all of this with me.”

  He laughed. “Don’t worry about it. Another cup of peach tea for the road?”

  “No thanks, Emil. I have to get over to the shop. I got here late this morning. Selena called to tell me she was running late, too. I haven’t even opened yet.”

  “It’s barely after ten. You’re not too far behind.” Emil Balducci’s thick gray mustache drooped a little on the right side when he wasn’t smiling. That didn’t happen often.

  He was one of the happiest men Peggy had ever known. With his broad Sicilian features, craggy brows, and shadowed dark eyes, he was quite a ladies’ man. Esp
ecially when his wife, Sofia, wasn’t at the shop. “Thanks again for letting me have the garden club meeting here.”

  He held up his big, callused hand. “I enjoy the talks, and you bring in customers after the morning rush. Maybe you could have a garden club every day, hmm?”

  “When they can clone a couple more of me, we’ll talk. It’s all I can do to keep up with this one. But we’ll be back next Thursday.”

  Claire Drummond, a tall, gaunt woman with very large white teeth, approached her. “I really appreciate the advice, Peggy! I was wondering if you could come over and take a look at my terrarium sometime. It’s developed some mildew or fungus that I can’t get rid of.”

  “If I can’t get there myself, I’ll send someone else out.” Peggy took her appointment book out of her bag and flipped through the pages. “When would be good for you?”

  “Anytime really,” Claire said. “Well, anytime in the next week. Kevin’s out of town until then. He doesn’t care much for dirt being all over. I try to do big projects while he’s gone.”

  “How about day after tomorrow?”

  “That would be great! Thanks!”

  Peggy started toward the door that led into Brevard Court, anxious to open her shop. The autumn morning was gorgeous, with wreaths of mist hanging in the trees. After a hot, dry summer of milky skies and heat lightning, the bright blue Carolina sky was a blessing. The sun was warm despite the chill of November. It was a wonderful ride . . . until she ran into the Saturn.

  Even then, she couldn’t complain. Nothing really happened. Except she found out her heart could still race a little when she was talking to an attractive man. That was more of a surprise than running into the side of his car. Her husband, John, had only been dead two years. She never expected to consider a man as anything more than a friend for the rest of her life.

  She shuffled her keys, looking for the right one that would open the door. Good smells were already emanating from Anthony’s Caribbean Café and China King restaurant. Across the way, the Carolina Expert Tailor shop was busy, and a woman in a tight red business suit was smoking a cigarette outside of Cookie’s Travel Experts.

  Brevard Court was built at the doorway to Latta Arcade. Like a turn-of-the-century minimall, the shops continued along the inside arcade in the restored 1915 office building. The antique light fixtures and parallel rows of shop fronts created the feeling of walking into the past. The overhead skylight, which was part of the original architecture, kept shoppers dry. Its original purpose was to provide natural light for cotton buyers to inspect their goods.

  The rent was a little steep, but Peggy loved the look and feel of the place. The Potting Shed had real heart-of-pine floors that squeaked when she walked across them. It wasn’t huge, but it had a nice-sized warehouse space in the back to keep shovels, potting soil, and other essential items. She did a brisk business, even in the winter. Charlotteans were avid gardeners all year long.

  One of the students who worked for her created a beautiful banner for the big storefront window. Red tulips linked to yellow marigolds. Purple hyacinths entwined with pink carnations. It made her think of spring when she saw it.

  Her shop was the realization of a dream Peggy and John Lee had shared. An urban gardener’s paradise. They saved money religiously toward it for ten years. It was going to be their retirement. They both loved plants and gardening.

  Peggy was the daughter of a South Carolina gentleman farmer. She grew up walking barefoot through cornfields and soybeans in the rich coastal soil. She loved to help out with planting and harvesting. Her career as a botanist was a natural extension of her love of plants. She taught classes at Queens University for twenty years before retiring when she was fifty. She went back to teaching part-time to help offset expenses with the Potting Shed.

  John called working in the yard his getaway. He came home, put his hands in the dirt, and forgot everything he’d seen and heard on the streets of Charlotte. He was amazing with trees and shrubs. He had azalea flowers the size of grapefruit. All of their neighbors were envious.

  He was a police detective for twenty years. Walked a beat for ten years before that. Then he answered a late-night domestic dispute call that ended in violence. It would be two years in December since he was shot and killed on the sidewalk outside a south Charlotte house. The husband killed his wife as well as John Lee. He fled the scene and was never found.

  When John died, Peggy took all the money they’d saved plus his pension fund and opened the shop. Her accountant almost had a heart attack. But there was prime space in the downtown area available. She’d wasted enough time.

  Business was slow at first. There were times she was afraid she was going to lose everything. But the idea caught on as more people began to inhabit the expensive condominiums and apartments being built. Charlotte’s inner city was coming alive, and Peggy’s garden shop was part of it.

  Humming to herself, Peggy took off her purple cape as she walked in the door and tossed her hat behind the counter.

  Traffic was light on Thursdays anyway. Things would pick up around lunchtime when the personal assistants and office managers came out of the uptown buildings. They loved to eat lunch in the courtyard outside her windows where benches and wrought-iron tables and chairs were set. Then they wandered through the shops.

  She switched on the lights and set up the cash register for the day. She was having some trouble with the computer she used for ordering unusual plants and supplies for her customers. But a good swat on the case set that right. The store was ready for the fall planting season but gearing up toward the winter months when most outside work was maintenance. Her seed catalogs were beginning to arrive to fill everyone’s mind with visions of color for spring.

  She looked around the shop. Everything was set up for her first customer. Except for the garden spade in the middle of the floor. Peggy glanced at her watch and wondered how late Selena was going to be as she walked around the counter to pick it up.

  The pointed end of the spade was tinged reddish brown. Carolina clay, probably. But this seemed darker. There were traces of it leading toward the warehouse door in the back of the shop. Wondering what happened and who she was going to chew out for it, she picked up the shovel. That’s when she saw him. Her hands went numb, and the shovel clattered to the floor.

  She wasn’t sure how long she stood there looking at the man. Her first impulse was to turn around and run out of her shop, screaming for help. But she was made of sterner stuff. Or at the very least, she was morbidly curious. Years of being a cop’s wife didn’t prepare her for this. But her background as a researcher made her push her emotions aside and take another look.

  The man was facedown in one of her attractive wicker baskets filled with anemone bulbs. It was part of the autumn scene she’d created, complete with scarecrow and pumpkins. He’d obviously fallen forward, dragging the scarecrow from its perch on the oak rocking chair. The straw figure looked forlorn, lying half under the man’s weight like some bizarre teddy bear.

  She wanted to look away. She had her cell phone open but couldn’t get her fingers to press the buttons. The terrible picture mesmerized her. She felt like one of those people she yelled at who gawked at car accidents. She knew what she should do, but the connection between logic and motor function failed her.

  The man could be a homeless person. Despite the best efforts of the real estate management group who owned Brevard Court, there were usually one or two of them hanging around. Although his clothes seemed too clean and his trousers had a sharp crease down the legs. There was also the little question of how he came to be in her shop.

  The courtyard door was locked when she came in. She locked it after the last customer left yesterday. He didn’t come in that way without a key. The only other way in was through the back loading door. She wanted to check it. But she couldn’t get her feet to move any more than she was able to dial 911.

  He might just be unconscious. Peggy really wanted to think that was the case
. There was only one way to tell.

  She stepped carefully around the man on the floor until she could reach down and touch his neck. There was no pulse. He was as cold as last winter. There was some dried blood on his white shirt collar. It spread down his back to darken his suit coat and reached up into his hairline. There was a thin trickle of it on his right ear. Blood had pooled on the floor around him.

  He definitely wasn’t one of the college students who worked for her. She couldn’t tell who he was with his face buried in the basket. And she knew better than to move him. How many times had John come home complaining about a disturbed crime scene?

  But she couldn’t help noticing some of the same details John used to tell her after coming home from a call at three A.M. Caucasian man. Probably about six feet tall. Fairly athletic build. Light brown hair. She couldn’t tell the color of his eyes, and there were no visible scars. At least not from her perspective. There was a white mark on his outstretched wrist that looked like he was used to wearing a watch. His nails were manicured.