6 A Thyme to Die (22 page)

The warmth of his touch and the small smile he gave her when they’d moved back from the table, made her feel less maudlin. It only lasted a moment. Steve went to speak with Al in a corner of the room.

“I think Dr. Lee is on to something,” Dorothy said. “I think we should run some tests on this idea.”

“Even if you prove that the murder weapon was garden snips, there must be thousands of them at the garden show,” Norris said. “I doubt if we can get a court order to have them all checked for blood.”

“Even if you could, that pair of snips could be long gone,” Al added.

“But knowing what weapon was used is important,” Steve said. “Dr. Beck, if you could expedite those tests, we’d appreciate it.”

“Of course, Steve. We’ll get working on it right away.”

“What about Dr. Abutto?” Peggy asked, seeing her ambition of presenting the killer’s name to Tanya and her grandmother slipping away.

“We don’t have anything on that right now,” Al explained. “Let’s continue to re-examine all the evidence, with an emphasis on proving the theory of the garden tool killing Wilder.”

Steve, Norris, and Al were done with the meeting. That left Dorothy, Mai, and Peggy standing in the autopsy room.

“Now what?” Mai asked.

“We send someone to the store to get large garden snips.” Dorothy tucked her hands into the pockets of her white lab coat. “I’m open to any other outstanding ideas. Congrats on that one, Peggy. I think you’re right on the money.”

“Where is all the trace evidence that you found on Dabney?” Peggy asked with a sudden burst of intuition.

“Everything is over here.” Mai walked to the side table. “Or in the refrigerator. There wasn’t much. What are you looking for?”

“Was there anything
in
the wound?”

Dorothy’s eyes widened behind her glasses. “I see where you’re going, Peggy. If the person who killed Wilder had recently used the garden snips for some botanical purpose, there could be trace elements in the wound.”

“Yes. If we can identify the elements, it might be easier to narrow down whose garden snips killed Dabney.”

Mai’s fine eyebrows knit together as she opened the plastic container that held tiny pieces of evidence she’d found on the body.

“I didn’t notice anything unusual in the wound. Could it be something clear?”

“Let’s take another look.” Dorothy put on her safety glasses and gloves. She pulled a drop-down, lighted magnifying glass over Dabney’s body then drew back the sheet again to expose the wound.

The medical examiner pored over the body with Mai standing beside her, trying to spot anything she might have missed.

“I see a little piece of something.” Dorothy picked up a pair of long-handled tweezers and stuck them into the wound.

Peggy winced and swallowed hard but forced herself not to look away.

“What is that?” Mai asked as Dorothy’s steady hand came back with a foreign particle held in the tweezers.

“I’m not sure. But I’m not the forensic botanist around here. Put on some gloves, Peggy. Let’s take a look at this thing.”

Peggy put on a mask and gloves before she took the tweezers from Dorothy. Mai sprayed the small piece of foreign evidence with a preserving solution.

The three women moved to the microscope.

What Dorothy had found in the wound was so tiny that Peggy wasn’t sure she could identify it. It was the color of blood with no particular shape. She hoped it hadn’t degraded past what could be used after being inside Dabney.

“What is it?” Mai asked.

Peggy adjusted the microscope after putting the specimen on a glass slide. “I’m not sure yet. It doesn’t look like much of anything.”

“Yet you recognize it because you’re the best, right?” Dorothy encouraged her. “It has to be something. It’s not part of the normal human body.”

“I’m not sure.” Peggy wondered how many times she was going to have to say it. She turned up the magnification of the lens she was looking through.

Amazed, she saw something she recognized.

“It’s a thyme flower. It’s probably one of the pink thyme flowers from Aris’s grave.”

“Quick!” Dorothy sent Mai to retrieve the samples of the pink flowers.

When Mai brought the other flowers back with her and Peggy had compared them, she knew they were the same.

“So Wilder may have been killed by the same person who killed Abutto.” Dorothy created special containers for the two flowers. “Or at least he was killed by someone who had cut the same flowers.”

Peggy looked up from the microscope. “That’s been part of the puzzle the whole time. There was pink flowering thyme all over the dirt where Aris was buried, but there was no thyme at all in the rest of the flower show.”

Dorothy tapped her fingers on the table. “Maybe this brings us a step closer. I guess the question is—who has the thyme?”

Mai looked at her watch. “I do.”

Peggy and Dorothy laughed.

Mai smirked when she got the joke, and then took Dabney’s body back to the cooler.

“Stay in touch,” Dorothy said to Peggy. “Let me know if you find what you’re looking for. And don’t confront the person if you find him or her. We’re the research backbone of the police department, not the part with the guns.”

“I’ll call if I need help,” Peggy promised. “Let me know if you find anything new about Aris.”

Paul was waiting for her. On the drive back to the flower show, she told him about Dabney’s death wound and what they had found.

“You know, I like working with you,” he said. “I get information right away. Normally, it could be days before I hear something about what the ME found.”

“I like working with you too. I don’t think Captain Sedgwick would like to pay you to follow me around all the time.”

He laughed. “You’re probably right.”

Peggy dropped her bag off at The Potting Shed exhibit. She went immediately to find Adam and let him know that she was back.

He was relieved to see her. “Your assistant has been doing a good job for me. I don’t know how you can handle all the whining from the growers and vendors. That man from Dallas actually asked me to get him something to eat. I told him to get it himself.”

“They can be a problem,” she agreed. She would’ve handled the man from Dallas with the exquisite cactus collection a little differently. A person had to eat, didn’t he?

They walked back to Adam’s exhibit so Peggy could grab Selena and thank her for her help. She really tried to make her feel appreciated. She didn’t know what she’d do without her.

“Wow!” Adam’s eyes got big when he saw the crowd at his display. “It must be the award. I’m
really
glad you’re back now, Peggy. The keys to the convention center are in my blue jacket over there. Would you mind getting them so I can take as many orders as possible?”

“Sure. No problem. Thanks again.” Peggy beckoned to Selena who was in the middle of a conversation with a woman whose hat had to be decorated with every kind of fruit in the world.

She went to get the keys while she waited for Selena. They were in the left hand pocket of the jacket. There was dirt or something in there with them. She dug around until she had the keys.

Something else came out of the pocket with them. The fine dust glittered on her hand.

Peggy glanced up quickly. Adam was totally involved in talking with two men she recognized from a large chain of florists.

He hadn’t seen her.

Heart racing, she pulled an envelope from her bag and deposited the diamond dust she’d accidentally taken out of the pocket. She sealed it and marked where she’d found it and what time it was. For good measure, she used her phone to take a picture of the jacket.

Adam was still engaged, thank goodness.

Paul, who’d been waiting for her on a nearby bench, walked to her side. “What’s going on, Mom? Did you find some evidence for the case?”

“Not here,” she whispered.

“What?” he asked.

“I’m so glad you’re back.” Selena joined them. “This place was as busy as The Potting Shed exhibit has been without Sam to talk to all the people. I’m starving. Do you have anything to eat?”

Peggy gave her some dollar bills for the vending machines and asked her to meet them at The Potting Shed exhibit. “Thanks again for helping Adam.”

“Sure.” Selena’s eyes narrowed. “Is something up that I should know about? You look a little guilty.”

“Not here,” Peggy told her too. “At the exhibit.”

“So, what’s going on?” Paul asked as they walked away from Adam’s space.

“There was diamond dust in his pocket,” Peggy whispered, still too nervous to say it out loud. “I put my hand in there to get the keys and they were covered in diamond dust.”

Paul glanced back at Adam. “Is there any way he could’ve had diamond dust in his jacket pocket without being involved with Dr. Abutto’s murder?”

“I don’t know.” She searched her brain. There had to be some explanation, besides the obvious. “Maybe he found the duffel bag we’ve been looking for. He might not even know what it is.”

“That’s some thin evidence. I don’t know.” Paul surveyed the crowd. “Unless there’s something else to corroborate . . . ”

Peggy was conflicted. Adam was a good friend she’d known for many years. It was hard to imagine that he’d killed Aris or Dabney.

“Maybe we should take a look at his garden snips, if he has any,” Paul suggested.

“I don’t think I can do that,” Peggy demurred, ripped apart for the moment, by the idea that this could have happened.

“Why? We can legally collect evidence. I’m a police officer. It seems to me that we’re at a good place to figure out if Adam is the killer.”

Peggy didn’t know how to explain to her son that it wasn’t that they couldn’t do it legally—it was that she couldn’t find it in her to go after Adam this way. He was always willing to lend a helping hand. He’d given her and Paul a special discount on their wedding flowers. How could she even think that he might’ve killed Aris?

“I’m not comfortable with the situation.” She sat down when they reached Sam and the exhibit. “I’d feel better if Al or Captain Sedgwick handled it. I-I don’t think I can.”

Sam sat down at the picnic table with them. “Out of flyers again. When is Selena coming back? What’s up with the two of you?”

Peggy told him what had happened. “I don’t want to think about Adam hurting anyone. Why would he do such a thing?”

Sam shook his head. “How much did you say those diamonds are worth?”

Chapter Twenty-six

Hollyhock

This plant was once known as holy mallow, so named because the first flowers came from the Holy Land, although their original home was in China. The tall, stately flowers have been planted across the world since the Middle Ages.

“He has had some financial problems,” Peggy agreed. “But so has every other small business in Charlotte. That doesn’t make him a killer.”

“It’s circumstantial,” Paul agreed. “He could even have the duffel and it would be circumstantial.”

“We need more evidence,” Peggy said firmly. “We can’t
suppose
he could be the killer.”

“What kind of evidence?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know.” Peggy worried her lip with her teeth. “Probably his garden snips.”

Paul agreed. “That would do it. Where do we find those?”

“Probably close by where he’s working,” Sam answered.

 “I could get Adam to loan me his garden snips,” Peggy suggested. “I guess this could prove him innocent as well as guilty. I’d rather think about it that way.”

Sam shrugged. “We can always steal them while he’s not looking.”

“Bad idea,” Paul disagreed. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Don’t forget, if what you find isn’t done in the right way, he could’ve killed ten people and it won’t be admissible in court.”

Selena got there with pockets full of candy bars and chips. She glared at Sam when she saw him looking at her snacks. “What? I’m hungry. There’s only junk food in those machines. It’s not like they had an orange machine. Want some?”

“No, thanks,” Sam said.

“I’ll take the sour cream and onion chips.” Paul took a bag. “I like to eat when I’m stressed.”

While he ripped open the bag of chips, Sam and Peggy brainstormed about how they could get Adam’s garden snips.

“What’s the big deal?” Selena crunched some cheese curls. “He keeps them under the table in a bag. You can just grab them.”

“I guess she’s good for something besides making copies,” Sam said. “Oh, yeah. That’s right. Selena, will you go make more flyers?”

“I’ve already made hundreds today,” she complained. “You’re not doing anything. You make them.”

“I can’t.” He grinned. “I have to go with Peggy to get the snips.”

“It would make more sense for
me
to go.” She poked him in the chest. “I can say I accidentally left something there and grab the snips.”

No one could argue with that plan, except for Paul.

“You have to ask him for the snips. Otherwise we have to have a search warrant. I’m sorry. That’s the law.”

“That’s stupid.” Selena picked up the folder with the copy of the landscaping information and trudged to the copying machine.