by Casey Mayes
“I was a little surprised myself,” I said as I took a sip of my own coffee. “Would you like to find a place to stop and enjoy this, or are we going to just drive around and drink?”
He shook his head sadly. “Sorry, I’m not myself today, Savannah. I’d be happy to pull over as soon as I find a spot.”
I took a chance and said, “I’m guessing that it must have been tough on you seeing Joanne just before she died.”
Harry looked sharply at me. “Savannah, what did you hear? Has that husband of yours been talking about me?”
“I didn’t hear it from Zach; Joanne told me herself. When we had tea, she said she bumped into you at the café just before I got there.”
He suddenly stopped the truck and hopped out without commenting. Was that going to be the entire sum of our conversation about Joanne? I wasn’t sure what he was doing, but then I watched as Harry sat down at a bench that overlooked Town Square, decorated for autumn with hay bales and stacks of pumpkins. It was charming, there was no doubt about it, but Parson’s Valley held its own share of secrets, regardless of how homey and pleasant it might look to an outsider.
“Were you two that close?” I asked when I joined him, knowing that I was probably pushing it. I really had no choice if I wanted to learn anything new.
“A long time ago we were,” he said, and then took a long sip of his coffee.
“Harry, were you just business associates, or was it something more than that?”
“What makes you ask me that?” He was staring at me with bloodshot eyes, and I had to wonder if he’d been on a drunken bender since he’d heard what had happened to Joanne.
“I understand you two had some business dealings together.”
“Who told you that?” he asked me, not looking in my direction as he spoke, but staring straight ahead now. I felt like he was hiding something, but I didn’t have a clue what it might be.
I answered him truthfully. “I thought everyone knew about it.”
“That’s the trouble with folks around here. Sometimes they just think they know things.”
“So, you weren’t doing any real estate deals together?”
He shrugged. “We owned some property together from time to time. Most of the time we made money, so it worked out fine for both of us.”
“But there was nothing current you were working on?”
He didn’t answer, taking another drink of coffee instead. Finally, Harry said, “Savannah, I know what you’re going through. Folks have been looking at me oddly since they heard what happened to Joanne. You must not have been the only one she told yesterday that she’d seen me. It’s only natural to want to find out what happened to her, but you need to be careful. Not everyone is as forgiving as I am about poking and prodding into people’s business.”
I started to say something when he hoisted his cup one last time, and then abruptly stood. “Thanks for the coffee.”
All I could do was call out, “Anytime,” before he got into his battered old truck and drove away.
That was one of the oddest conversations I’d ever had with anybody in Parson’s Valley.
But I was sure there were more like it to come.
AS I FINISHED MY COFFEE, I KEPT WONDERING ABOUT Harry’s reactions to my questions. He’d deflected or flat-out refused to answer some of them, and didn’t give me any specific details at all, when I thought about it. He was hiding something; I grew surer of that by the minute.
But what?
Harry might not have told me what I wanted to know, but I knew one place where I could get the facts, and not someone else’s shading of them. I walked to the courthouse and took the steps down into the basement where the Register of Deeds was located. I’d been there before, doing my own title search on the cottage we’d bought. It wasn’t to confirm that the property was for sale; our real estate lawyer took care of that. I had been more interested in who had owned it before us, and I’d spent a day there going through the records, tracing the land’s ownership all the way back before the country had even been born. It shouldn’t be that hard to track Harry Pike’s purchases and sales, and see if he and Joanne had anything pending.
When I got there, I was amazed by the change in the place. Gone were the thick green and gray ledgers that had recorded every transaction for generations. In their place was a series of computer terminals, all with colorful screens.
“Hello,” I said as I walked inside.
A young woman with auburn hair and striking blue eyes greeted me. “Good morning. My name is Tina. Is there anything I can help you with today?”
“When did you change all of the records over to computers?” I asked.
“We’ve been tackling it gradually since the start of last year. It’s slow progress, but it’s going to make life so much easier for everyone once we’re finished.”
“Where does your progress stand now?” I asked, not sure that this particular application of technology was a good one.
“We’ve got the last eleven years on electronic file,” Tina said proudly.
That would most likely be enough for me. “Thanks.”
“I’ll be glad to help you with your search. I know it can seem a little intimidating at first.”
I didn’t want anyone looking over my shoulder as I worked, or to even know what I was doing. I had learned early on that living in a small town came with its own set of caveats, just as large cities like Charlotte had, though they were mostly different from each other.
I approached a far terminal with its display swiveled away from the counter, and studied the system. There wasn’t anything romantic about searching these records, at least not compared to reading through spidery writing when I had traced our property’s past owners, but it was a great deal quicker; I had to acknowledge that. I typed in Harry Pike’s name and was amazed by the number of transactions he’d made over the past eleven years. I’d always thought he was a simple nurseryman, growing trees, shrubs, perennials, and annuals for sale, but I was beginning to discover that he was some kind of land baron as well. With his beat-up old pickup truck and his common clothes, it was tough to tell that his net worth was most likely one of the highest in town. There was a synopsis of his transactions that might come in handy, so I hit the print button on the computer. Nothing happened, so I hit it again.
Still nothing.
Tina walked over to me, and I reached out and hit the power button on the display. I wasn’t sure if she was connected to the computer in any way, but I didn’t want to take any chances.
“Did you want both copies?” she asked as she neared me.
“Pardon me?”
Tina smiled. “We have to charge five cents a copy, so when you print a document, it comes to our desk. I held up the printing cycle to be sure you wanted duplicate copies.”
“Can you see what I’m printing?”
She nodded. “We can, but we don’t look at what you’re printing, just the number of documents, and their reference numbers.”
“I just want one,” I said. “Thanks for asking.”
She smiled. “It will be waiting for you up front.”
As Tina walked away, I had even less faith in the system than I had before. It had been foolish to turn my monitor off. If anything, it just gave Tina more reason to snoop. Whether she’d been trained not to notice what I’d been doing or not, I still didn’t like it. Someone looking over my shoulder electronically was somehow worse than if I’d been able to feel her breath on my neck.
I couldn’t stop my hunt, though.
The next search was for Joanne Clayton’s name. Joanne had only three transactions in the past eleven years. She’d bought her home, and she’d sold a little piece of land out in the middle of nowhere, but the third parcel was the one that interested me. The owners listed were Joanne Clayton and Harry Pike, and they’d bought a parcel of land in the heart of Parson’s Valley for nearly half a million dollars. There was no record of a sale after that on the property, which meant th
at the two of them had owned it together on the day Joanne had died.
I hit the print button again, and then kept exiting screens until I was back at the starting position.
Sliding a dime across the counter to Tina, I waited for my copies. She collected them, and then took my money from me. “Would you like a receipt for that?”
“No, I’m good,” I said.
“Come back anytime,” she said.
“Absolutely,” I replied, though I couldn’t imagine the circumstances that would bring me back. I’d found what I’d been looking for.
The only problem was that I had no idea what it meant.
AS I LEFT THE COURTHOUSE, MY PHONE STARTED QUACKING at me, a signal that my husband was on the line. He’d objected to my ringtone from the beginning, but I loved it, and while I had reservations about it from time to time when it announced itself at the most inappropriate moments, I wasn’t about to change it. Whenever Zach took himself too seriously, I reminded him of it, and most of the time, it brought him straight back to reality.
“Hi there,” I said. “I was just about to call you.”
“Did you find something?” he asked. I could tell from the tone in his voice that he was in no mood to joke around.
“Zach, something’s wrong. What happened?”
“We got the toxicology report,” he said. “It was a natural poison, just as the medical examiner suspected. There was an air of almonds around Joanne when they processed the body.”
“What was it specifically? It sounds like cyanide poisoning to me. Can you tell me anything else?”
He lowered his voice. “I’m not really supposed to, but I need your help, so I don’t have much choice.”
“I’ll do whatever I can,” I said. “You know that.”
He lowered his voice, and then said, “I need you to go to Asheville to the Botanical Gardens and ask your friend there about plants that have cyanogenic glycosides.”
“That’s what killed her?” I asked, suddenly chilled by the poisonous agent having an identifiable name.
“Yes, but the lab’s list of plants in nature that possess them is too long to narrow down, at least with my limited resources. We need to know what’s found locally that contains them. Can you do that for me?”
“I’ll get right on it,” I said. “Do they have any idea exactly when she was poisoned? It might help knowing that when I talk to Jay.”
“The report said that most likely it wasn’t before eleven in the morning, and not after two that afternoon, but that leaves a pretty big window of opportunity for someone to slip something in her drink.”
“I’m on my way right now,” I said as I hung up on Zach. I could make it to the gardens in thirty minutes when I got back home to my car, if luck was with me. I just hoped Jay, the garden manager, was there.
HE WASN’T.
“Do you know when he’ll be back?” I asked the volunteer behind the desk at the Botanical Gardens Welcome Center. I’d driven through the big black iron gates and had been lucky to find a parking space near the front.
She frowned, and then leafed through a few papers. “Sorry, but he didn’t say.”
“Will it be today, do you think?”
“Oh, I doubt that,” she said with a shrug. “He had a suitcase with him when he left here two hours ago. Let me make a call.”
She got on a walkie-talkie and asked, “Jim, do you have any idea when Jay will be back?”
“Two weeks,” a voice replied.
“Thanks.”
She looked at me and said, “Two weeks.”
“Yes, I got that. Is there anyone else I can speak with who’s knowledgeable about local poisonous flora?”
She nodded. “Jim is taking over for Jay while he’s gone. He’s from the Botany Department at UNC Asheville.” I knew that the campus for the university was nearby, so I suppose it made sense.
“Is there any chance I might speak with him? It’s important, or I wouldn’t ask.”
“Hang on a second. I’ll check,” the woman said.
After she made the request, Jim told her, “I’m trimming the American beautyberry up on the trail. If she wants to talk to me, have her come over here so we can do it while I work.”
I got directions, thanked the volunteer, and exited the center, heading down the path on the left that I’d taken countless times before. I descended the slight hill and walked over to the concrete table and chairs where I often picnicked when I was in the mood for a touch of nature. Oddly, something crunched underfoot, and I looked down to see a host of broccoli florets, and all for the most part untouched. How odd.
I kept walking on the path, crossed the green wooden bridge, and made a left at the Memorial Rock Outcrop, where many delicate native species were planted. I found a thin, young, bearded man with a pair of garden shears in his hands, studying a bushy plant that had clearly taken a beating recently. It was still quite attractive, despite the carnage, sporting purple-clustered berries along its stems and serrated green leaves emerging from the groups.
“It’s lovely,” I said as I studied it behind him.
“You should have seen it a few days ago,” he said sadly. “Jay and I are trying to decide how to trim it.” He pointed to a shattered tree nearby. “It came down in a storm and nearly took out the entire bush.”
“I have a suggestion, if you’re interested,” I said.
“Anything’s welcome at this point,” he said.
I studied the bush again, and then said, “If it were me, I’d leave it exactly like it is.”
“But it’s damaged,” he protested, as if I’d just suggested he light a match and try to set the remnants on fire.
“Don’t get me wrong; I’d trim the dead branches,” I said, “but I wouldn’t do anything to the overall shape. I never saw this bush before, and I think it’s glorious, no matter how lovely it was before the storm. It’s a matter of perspective, don’t you think?”
He looked at it again, and then shrugged. “You may be right. I’ll leave it alone for now.”
“I have a question for you,” I said.
“I’ll answer it if I can.”
“I saw a lot of broccoli florets on the ground by the stone bench across the creek. Is it some kind of experiment in modern composting or something?”
He grinned. “Nothing so scientific. If I hadn’t been working in the creek nearby, I would have been baffled as well. One of our visual media arts students from the university wrote a script for her class, and she was filming it with her classmates.”
“What was it about, the power of broccoli?”
He laughed, and I loved the easiness in it. Jim sounded like a man completely comfortable in his own skin. “I suppose that’s exactly what it was, in its own way. Emily, that’s the student, showed me a final cut of the film to explain their insane behavior. It was a spoof on the old black-and-white horror movies. Her premise was that the only thing that would stop a zombie attack was broccoli, since nobody likes it. At least that was her punch line. I happen to love the stuff myself, but she had a point. It was all pretty hilarious.” He snipped a dead branch, and then stood back to examine the result before he spoke again. “But I’m sure you weren’t looking for Jay to answer the great broccoli question for you.”
“No, but it’s a delicate subject, and I’m not sure I should involve you in it.”
He scratched his chin. “Well, I’ll say this for you; you certainly know how to build suspense. Tell you what. Why don’t you ask your question, and I’ll decide if I want to answer it or not?”
“That sounds fair,” I said. “It involves a locally available plant or tree that has cyanogenic glycosides in its bark, leaves, or berries.”
He whistled. “That’s some serious poison you’re talking about there.”
“Then you won’t help me?”
“Why not? You can find that information in any library,” he said. “What you do with the knowledge is completely up to you. Let’s see, if I wanted hig
h doses of cyanogenic glycosides, I’d probably use wild cherry or black cherry.”
“They’re really poisonous?”
He grinned as he said, “More than most folks know. In the wrong amounts, the seeds, leaves, twigs, and even bark contain quantities of amygdalin and prunasin.”
“But not cyanogenic glycosides?”
“That’s what they are,” he said, his enthusiasm for death and destruction filling him, for some reason, with great glee. “When they’re ingested, they transform into highly toxic hydrocyanic acid.”
“What would that do to you?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know the outcome of the poisoning.
Jim thought about it, and then finally said, “Let’s see, you could have respiratory failure, spasms, go into a coma, or even die from it.”
“That’s pretty powerful,” I agreed. “Is there anything else that might have the same result?”
He nodded, and then pointed to a nearby harmless-looking plant. “You don’t want to eat any of these leaves, especially if they’ve wilted or have been cut. The same thing could happen with them, and this plant is found nearly everywhere around here.”
“What’s it called?”
“One of the other symptoms I didn’t mention is losing your voice. That may be why they call it chokecherry.”
I WAITED UNTIL I WAS BACK IN MY CAR TO PHONE ZACH. IT just didn’t seem right talking about death among all that beauty. I’d known nature had a bite at times, but it was amazing how deadly a common-looking plant could be. Jim had studied them around the campus extensively, and was writing a paper on the many ways that flora could kill.
“Hey,” I said when Zach answered. “I got word from an expert that the most likely culprit is either wild cherry, black cherry, or chokecherry.”
“Would the dried leaves be dangerous?” he asked.
I remembered Jim’s lecture, and said, “Absolutely.”
“Good job, Savannah. That explains the delivery system. Someone slipped some powdered leaves into her tea. From the sound of it, just about every suspect on our list had access to the poison that killed her.”
