Fruit of the Poisoned Tree (9 page)

She leaned over and kissed him again, looking into his clear brown eyes that she thought were so ordinary when she first met him. Why had she thought that? He was the most extraordinary person she knew! “Thank you. I’m really glad you’re in my life.”

“Coincidentally, so am I!” He glanced at the house. “How’s his wife doing?”

“As well as she can.” She told him about the police considering Park’s death a suicide. “She didn’t need that right now. Not that anyone ever does. Why does everything have to be so complicated?”

“You don’t think it’s possible?”

“Not really.” She shrugged, wishing she could be more definite. “But I don’t know. John used to tell me people will do anything if they’re pushed. He saw some terrible things happen to good people. I don’t know all the details yet. But maybe Park was in a bad place. Maybe he felt this was his only way out. I won’t believe it until someone proves it to me, Steve. And I hope it’s not true for Beth’s sake. It’s not just the insurance money either. There’s the stigma she’d have to live with and the unanswered questions.”

“You’re right. No one should have to ask those questions.” Steve shook himself free of the events that hung over them both like the dismal turn the weather had taken. “I guess we’ll all have to hope for the best. That’s all we can do anyway. So. Where are we going now?”

“I need to go back to the shop and close up. Shakespeare is still there, too.”

“I got a call from Rue when you didn’t show up.” He turned right and started down Providence Road. “She was worried about you. I told her what happened.”

“I totally forgot about that! Thanks for covering for me. I’ll call her back and see if I can reschedule.” She glanced at him. “How did you know?”

“Sam told me when I called the shop.”

Peggy sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry he bothered you with this.”

“
Bothered
me?” There was a slight edge to his tone. “You’re an important part of my life, Peggy. This was a major happening in
your
life. I don’t think letting me know would classify as
bothering
me.”

She could tell he was a little riled up over being left out. She hadn’t thought of it that way. “I’m sorry. It’s still very new sharing these things with you. I’ve been alone for a while. That’s my only excuse. And I guess I really didn’t want to let on to Sam about how upset I was. Sometimes they treat me like I’m made of china!”

“Okay. As long as you weren’t excluding me because you thought
I
couldn’t take it. I called the shop to see if you wanted to have dinner tonight. Sam told me what happened. I wish
you
would’ve called me.”

“I know. I promise from now on when really terrible things happen to me, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Good thing. You know what magazines say men are like when they get their feelings hurt. You don’t want to take one of those compatibility tests or anything, right?”

She laughed. “Not right now. But if your offer for dinner is still good, I’d like to do that after we drop Shakespeare off.”

“Sounds good to me. I’ll help you get the shop closed up.”

But when they got to the shop, it was more cleanup than close up. Selena had locked the front door and gone into the back storage area for a few minutes to help a customer load some peat moss. When she came back, Shakespeare had ripped open a few dozen bags of potting soil and dragged them across the old wood floor.

Selena didn’t realize she was playing his game as she chased him across the shop, spreading the mess everywhere as planters, pots, and gardening implements fell down in their wake. She grabbed him around the neck and tried to wrestle him to the floor. Shakespeare thought it was a new game. He rolled with her still holding on to him through the spring garden scene.

That’s where Peggy came in. “What in the world happened here?”

Selena looked up from under the demolished snowman. “It was a dog quake. I tried to stop it, but it was at least a seven on the canine scale.”

Steve picked up a shovel lying across Shakespeare’s back. The dog looked up and wagged his tail. “Don’t try to get on my good side. I’m the one you dragged through the holly bush the other day.”

“We have got to get you those obedience classes.” Peggy frowned at the dog.

He whined and hid his head in his massive paws.

“Bad dog!”

They cleaned up the mess and took Selena home first after they left the shop. Dinner ended up at Steve’s house. Peggy didn’t want to go out. Besides being exhausted mentally and physically, she didn’t want to talk to anyone else yet about her experience with Park. The cocoon wouldn’t last long; only one night. Then the media would have done its job, and everyone would know. But she knew she’d be able to handle it better tomorrow.

Feeling a little like another Southern woman who thought she could handle everything better tomorrow, she apologized to Steve for not being better company when he finally took her home. “Maybe you should’ve let me find my way back without you. All you got for your trouble was a mess at the shop and a lot of silence from me.”

He kissed her good night at her door and told her it didn’t matter. “I love being with you no matter what. Besides, someday I might need you to be there for me. That’s what having a relationship is all about, right?”

“Right. Thank you. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” Neither one of them were surprised when she didn’t invite him in out of the cold night. Peggy watched the headlights from his SUV fade into the darkness.

She let herself in the house and dragged herself up the curving marble staircase to her bedroom. Shakespeare followed. He jumped on the bed beside her, wagging his tail and waiting for her to complete her nightly ritual of washing her face and putting on her nightclothes before he settled down.

The house was familiar and quiet around her. The sounds from the old furnace in the basement reassured her as she closed her eyes, wishing she could shut out the world so easily. Even the prospect of visiting her botanical experiments couldn’t rouse any interest or excitement. She lay under the heavy green comforter, with her arm across Shakespeare’s neck, crying. People, good people, died too soon.

Park’s death brought back all the old memories of losing John. She wasn’t prepared for them, thought they were behind her. But they rose again like terrible specters haunting her, chasing her through the night.

She finally realized she wasn’t going to sleep that night. Her hand hovered over the phone as she thought about calling Steve. Shaking her head, she got up, changed clothes, and splashed some cold water in her face. “You’d better get a grip, Margaret Anne. This isn’t going to help anyone. Especially not
you
!” She studied her red-eyed, blotchy-faced reflection in the mirror over the bathroom sink. “I don’t think you want to see Steve looking like
this
! Let’s go take care of the plants.”

IN THE BASEMENT WORKSHOP of her turn-of-the-century home, Peggy kept a botanist’s laboratory with various experiments going year-round. A large frame of strawberries was in full bloom under the strategically timed grow lights. She checked her notes. It was in these early stages as the plants started making fruit that they needed help. Slugs, white flies, and other pests looked at the feast and got ready to munch.

Her ideas about introducing herbal remedies, including sprays and complementary plantings of mint and borage, hadn’t worked. The fruit ended up tasting like the herb. Her friend at Broadway Farms, who grew two acres of pick-your-own strawberries, tried companion planting to draw the insects and birds to other plants. But the insects were too focused on the juicy red fruit to pay any attention. At the same time, he didn’t want his berries to taste or smell like garlic or other strong, natural repellents. It wouldn’t matter if the insects stayed away; so would his customers.

They’d taken care of the slug problem by putting diatomaceous earth around the plants. The rough edges kept the snails away by snagging on their slimy little bodies the same way ashes or crushed glass work for many home gardeners. A snail won’t cross anything too rough, or its body will tear and it will die. They seemed to understand and stayed away.

For the insect problem, she was working with some different theories from a few colleagues in California. They managed to solve the problem with specially bred “good” insects. These insects were handpicked for their voracious appetites. They ate the offending thrips and mites in massive numbers.

Her friend at Broadway was a little skeptical. Peggy told him she’d test the idea on plants in her lab. Since he was dedicated to using only organic means to protect his fruit, she believed this might work for him. The proof would be in the next few days. The berries on her plants were large, red, and juicy. Yesterday, she dumped some spider mites and thrips on her healthy plants and told them to do their worst. Tomorrow, she’d have the pleasant task of dumping lacewings and ladybugs on the plants to see what their effect would be.

Her friend couldn’t use most pests’ worst enemy, birds, since they were also his enemy. But if the lacewings and ladybugs worked, he could encourage them to stay with small plates of water and a little shelter from the sun and rain among his plants. That way they’d be less likely to run away when they’d eaten the thrips and mites.

In a normal strawberry garden, she’d tell the owner to encourage the ecosystem this way. Peggy’s experiment in her home was limited by a cover to protect the rest of her plants in the lab and by the tiny space she had to work. But if the lacewings and ladybugs did their job here, they’d be effective in the field as well.

Another experiment was in the large pond. The filtration system hummed as recycled water circulated through the six-by-eight-foot tank. Her showy water lilies from Longwood were still there but in a dormant cycle now. She was working instead with some rice plants, helping a colleague from the University of Louisiana to develop a heartier form of rice.

More than half of the world’s population was dependent on the crop for their existence. Certain blights and colder weather had reduced the amount of crop worldwide. If they could get the plants to yield larger amounts of rice in more difficult growing conditions, it would be a boon to everyone.

Her rice paddy, a very recent addition to the pond, was maturing nicely. The fine green shoots were sprouting toward the light source. Some koi she’d introduced were swimming through them and taking a right turn at the tangled water lily roots.

Somehow she’d managed to get a few frog eggs in the mix. They must have been on one of the plants. She thought she got them all out until one night when the sound of a large bullfrog caught her attention, almost startling her into the pond.

He was seated on the edge of the pond, staring right at her as she leaned into the water to plant the rice. She didn’t have the heart to put him out in the cold where he’d die, but she promised him a ticket to the backyard when spring arrived.

She sighed, wet and cold after checking her experiments. But she felt more like herself. She didn’t bother going back upstairs. Most of the night was gone anyway. Instead, she sat in an old chair she kept in the basement and pored over her well-worn garden catalogues. Almost every page was marked with her wants and needs. Mostly wants. Shakespeare yawned at her feet but was still for a while.

She was thinking about acquiring a piece of land to start a fruit orchard. Fruit trees did well in the area, everything from peaches and cherries to apples and pears. It would give a whole other dimension to her work. The basement of the ancestral Lee home was huge but not large enough for trees. Her backyard was filled with hundred-year-old oaks whose thick branches would keep smaller trees from growing. She wasn’t sure where the money would come from yet for the undertaking. It was probably just a pipe dream, but she liked planning it in her mind on nights like this.

She was placing a sentimental order tonight. John had loved sunflowers. He’d talked several times about planting the entire backyard with them. Only Peggy’s assertion that they wouldn’t grow well under the old oaks kept him from his dream. That and taking away his chain saw! It made her smile to think he’d actually cut those ten-foot tree circumferences. He loved the old trees as much as she did. Still, he yearned for a sunflower garden.

When she was approached to help out with the community garden Darmus Appleby’s Feed America group planned for Charlotte in the spring, she went out and bought a hundred pound bag of sunflower seeds. She was having a plaque made up to dedicate that part of the two-acre edible garden to John. She knew it would make her cry when she saw the golden flower heads turned toward the sun, but it would also help her keep his memory alive.