Death Drops (29 page)

“Put them in the car, Coyle,” Koren said. He pulled me aside. “Why are you here?”

“I thought maybe I could find something out about those two. Please tell me what’s happening! I assume the chief told you my concerns.”

“Yes, he told me.” He blew out a breath, resigned. “Milton
and Polumbo have been running a betting parlor out of Polly’s Peaceful Yoga and that new pet store on Front Street. They’ve been rotating locations.”

I took this in, feeling stunned. So Milton and Polumbo were involved with the pet shop boys? Good news for the animal activists. And that’s what Janice’s payment to Gavin had been about, too. “Are Polly and Janice involved?”

“No comment.”

“But I need to know. Do you have any evidence connecting any of them to Aunt Claire’s murder? Did they shoot Jackson?”

“I have no information on that yet,” Koren said. “But you need to stay out of this. Go home, Dr. McQuade.”

“But . . .” I had so many questions that needed answers.

Koren got into the passenger seat of the cruiser. “Good night, Dr. McQuade,” he said pointedly, closing the door. The car drove off, leaving me standing there, feeling frustrated.

When I got home, Jackson’s
door was partially open and I peeked in. If he was awake, I wanted to give him an update. He was snoring, so it would have to wait. Qigong spotted me, though, and jumped off the bed. He followed me into Aunt Claire’s room, where I found a note from Allie saying that she and Hector had decided to run into New York for a new age expo featuring products they might want to sell to clients. Good idea. They’d stay the night with friends in Brooklyn.

I changed into a T-shirt and shorts and snuggled under the sheets with Qigong at my feet and Ginger and Ginkgo at my back. I was more than ready for a good night’s sleep, but it would have been more fun to have Jackson with me.

I woke up two hours later, when the door to my room opened. My heart started to beat wildly. Had Gavin and Dan
been released and come back to seek revenge? But it was Jackson, who padded across the floor to the bed.

“I thought you were sleeping,” I said. “You snore.”

He rubbed his shoulder. “Pain woke me up. Since I was awake, I just wanted to check and make sure you were okay. How did it go?”

I told him about the cops arresting Gavin and Dan and their connection to the pet shop boys.

“Maybe they’re good for the murder, too,” Jackson said as he sat on the edge of the bed. Qigong jumped on my stomach and licked his face.

“Maybe.”

“Willow McQuade, what are you thinking?” He peered into my eyes.

“My gut tells me this isn’t over. Not by a long shot.”

Jackson thought about this. “For tonight it is.” He leaned over and kissed me. “We both need to rest,” he said, and then sat up and looked around the room. “Hey, where’s Allie?”

“She and Hector went into New York for a new age expo.”

“So Allie’s not here?”

“No,” I said, putting my hand on his face. “Did you take something for the pain?”

He climbed into bed with me and pulled me close. “I thought I’d try the natural approach first.”

Dear Dr. McQuade,

After I eat anything, especially chocolate or potato chips, I get terrible heartburn. What can I do to feel better?

Signed,

Burning Gut

Dear Burning Gut,

As you’ve noticed, heartburn is aggravated by certain foods, especially those with a high fat or acid content. So you’ll want to avoid them. But herbs like dandelion can ease digestion as well, along with probiotics, which populate the intestinal tract with friendly bacteria. Probiotic “pearls” work best, because they dissolve in the gut, where the friendly bacteria are needed, not the stomach.

Signed,

Willow McQuade, ND

I woke up a few hours later. Although Jackson lay on his back and slept soundly, a thought niggled at the back of my mind, keeping me from sleeping. I’d forgotten something. Something important. I pulled on my robe, slid out of bed, and headed downstairs, with Qigong trailing after me. In the office I flicked on the light. But as I stepped in, my foot rolled on Qigong’s red ball and I hit the floor with an
oomph!
Qigong grabbed the ball and brought it to me. Play catch at 2 a.m.? Why not? But as I picked up the ball, something registered. I thought about our game of catch this afternoon and the fact that the ball had landed in the recycling bin. A light went on in my brain. Could it really be that simple?

I hurried over to the desk and wakened the computer from its slumber; then I clicked on the desktop recycling bin. The computer chose this exact moment to run at the speed of a turtle, so I had time to think. If I was right, and I believed I was, Aunt Claire had left the formula in plain sight for someone who had the intuition to find it. I felt a warm swelling in my chest as I suddenly
knew
she had trusted me to find her treasure. I waited as the seconds ticked by, and finally, the application opened. At first I felt discouraged, because the bin contained more than 250 items. But I knew what would help to show me the way. Before I started, I lit a lavender candle, Claire’s favorite scent.

I sat quietly for a moment to center myself, and then I began scrolling through the folder. I found discarded documents and e-mails, all of which I checked but which yielded nothing. Finally, I spotted it at the bottom of the bin, a file named “Fresh Face Formula Final,” dated Friday, June 10, the day of her death. I sucked in a breath. Leave it to Aunt Claire to put her back-up copy in the most unlikely of places. But knowing her and how her mind worked, I realized it had been the safest place to put it.

I clicked it open as my heart thudded in my chest and quickly scanned the document. Yes, this was it. There was an introduction by Claire, and then the list of ingredients and how it was to be manufactured.

Wanting to know more about the development process, because I thought it might give me a clue as to who had killed Claire, I saved it to the desktop, activated Track Changes, and set the document in the Original Showing Markup view. This meant I could see all the comments and suggestions from the development executive, Randy McCarty, and there were plenty. The development process had indeed been tortuous and time consuming, covering everything from the consistency of the cream to its scent.

Next, I turned my attention to the ingredients, hoping to find a clue there. These included organic shea butter, sunflower oil, sesame oil, beeswax, willow bark extract, rosemary extract, borage oil, and not surprisingly, lavender oil. I’d seen several of these ingredients recently, and all in one place, but where? Then I remembered.

“This is crazy,” I said
as I slowly pulled into the parking lot of Helen’s Organics. “You’ve just been shot.” I flipped on the wipers as raindrops pelted the windshield.

“What’s crazy is you thinking I was going to let you come out here by yourself,” Jackson said. Qigong, who sat on Jackson’s lap, remained neutral. “Now that we’re here, what do you want to do?”

“Go into that greenhouse and see if the formula ingredients match the ingredients she has. I have a hunch it just might.”

“I’m not trying to rain on your parade, so to speak, but would that really be so unusual? I mean, this is an herb farm,
Willow. Helen also has admitted that she worked with Claire on the formula.”

“That was months ago,” I said.

“I know you want answers, Willow, but I think you’re grasping at straws.”

“There is organic beeswax in the formula,” I said. “I noticed new beehives when I came here to pay her, and I saw on the honey labels that it was certified organic.”

Jackson shrugged. “Maybe she likes honey.”

“No, she told me she just installed them. That was after the formula was stolen. She must have realized that she would need organic beeswax, so she set up the hives.”

“So she likes really healthy honey.”

I stuck my tongue out at him. “That isn’t helping.”

“I’m just saying.” Jackson shrugged.

“Okay, but there were other unusual ingredients on that list, like lady’s mantle leaf extract and plantain leaf extract. People don’t just have that stuff lying around. There’s no call for it. You have it only if you need it specifically to make something. I just have to check it out.” I got out of the car and immediately wished I had brought a jacket. It was raining harder now. Jackson got out with Qigong and followed me.

When I’d visited before, Helen had been in the third greenhouse, and the hives had been directly across from it, so I headed in that direction. The farmhouse on the hill was dark. The moon was hidden behind a cloud, so we used flashlights to pick our way along the path and then entered the greenhouse. As we did, I turned and pointed my flashlight at the hives. Jackson nodded.

Wiping the rain off my face, I went to the spot where Helen had been working and shone the flashlight on the row of bottles on the potting table. The rain thundered on the roof. I pulled
out the list and handed it to Jackson. “I’ll read them off and you see if they’re included on the list of ingredients.” I pulled a pen out of my pocket and handed it to him. “If they are, check them off, okay?”

“Got it,” Jackson said. “Let’s do this.”

I picked up the first bottle, which was lavender oil, and read the label.

“So far, so good.” Jackson checked it off.

“Plantain oil,” I said.

Jackson ran his finger down the list. “Check.”

I picked up the next two bottles. “Willow bark extract and borage oil.”

“Yes,” Jackson said, marking it on the list.

I rattled off the next dozen bottles, everything from sunflower oil to peppermint extract, and they were all there, every one.

“We just need lady’s mantle leaf extract,” Jackson said.

I picked up the last bottle and smiled. “Lady’s mantle leaf extract.”

“Spot on,” Jackson said, putting the list in his pocket and pulling me into a hug. “Congratulations. I’m proud of you.”

It felt good to be right. I beamed at him. “Helen stole Aunt Claire’s formula for Fresh Face and was testing it here. We got her.”

Suddenly, the overhead lights came on. “Not so fast,” Helen said, entering the greenhouse with a shotgun under her arm. “Hands up, you two.”

Jackson and I put our hands in the air. “Helen, we don’t want any trouble,” I said. “Tell me what happened. I just want the truth. We don’t have to involve the police.” This was a lie but I needed to get her talking.

Helen came over to the worktable and picked up one of the bottles. “I told you what happened. I helped Claire until she decided she no longer needed me. And you know, that made me really mad. So I formulated a plan to take back what was mine. This formula,” she said, pulling a piece of paper out of her jeans pocket, “will be worth a fortune to the right company.”

“I can’t let you do that,” I said. “That was Aunt Claire’s life’s work!”

She motioned the shotgun toward us. “I don’t think you have much choice. As you can see, I’ve got all the ingredients here to make the formula a success. It wasn’t easy assembling all of them, but I did. I’m just putting the finishing touches on it now. A prospective buyer is flying in from Japan tomorrow to meet with me. We’re talking serious bucks.” She motioned around the greenhouse. “With what he’s paying me, I’ll be able to sell all this and move to Hawaii. I’ll be living a life of leisure after over thirty years of tending this farm, first for my old man, then to put my kids through school.” She took a few steps toward the door and yelled, “Stephen! They’re in here!”

Stephen, my erstwhile assistant and Helen’s nephew, ran in. “Hey, boss,” he said, giving me a sly and knowing look.

Qigong, recognizing Stephen, started barking. “Shut up,” Helen said, and pointed the gun at him.

“No!” I yelled. “Qigong, come here.” He came over to me and crawled between my legs.

Helen handed Stephen the gun. “My nephew Stephen is quite a good shot, as you know, Mr. Spade.”

“You shot me?” Jackson said to Stephen.

“It was easy,” Stephen said, sounding cocky. “I went on the bread run, got the gun from my car, and bang. Done. You went down like a sack of potatoes.”

Jackson’s face clenched in anger. “You little bastard.”

“So you killed Aunt Claire,” I said, also simmering with anger.

“Oh, no, Aunt Helen did that.” Stephen smiled, keeping the gun trained on us.

Helen moved over to the potting table and pulled out a bottle of flower essences like the one Aunt Claire had taken. “It was easy. I went to visit her, supposedly to make amends. When she stepped out of the office to attend to a customer, I switched the bottles. You know what happened next.”

I lunged for her. “You heartless bitch!” The rain pounded on the roof of the greenhouse, and thunder rumbled in the distance.

Stephen pointed the shotgun at my chest. “You don’t want to do that. Tell her, Spade.”

“Everybody just take it easy,” Jackson said, giving me a look I couldn’t interpret.

I tried to process what was happening. “So who broke into the shop? You, Stephen?”

“Nichols did that. I hired him, told him to do lawn work to get close to Claire, and then killed him when he was no longer useful. Then you hired me and I had the inside track. Kept us one step ahead.”

“And the sabotage? The brick with the note, the AC, and that fish? You stole the money from the cash register and slashed the tires, too? Was it you who tried to run me off the road? Was it all you two?”

“I handled the sabotage,” Stephen said, sounding proud. “And both of us slashed the tires on your van.”

“But why? Just to make trouble?”

“I’d heard Gavin talking about doing stuff like that to run you out of business, and it just seemed like a good way to keep you on your toes and off the trail of Claire’s murderer.”

“So who was in the truck?”

He pointed at Helen. “That was my dear, sweet auntie.”

“You’re not going to get away with this,” I said, feeling powerless in spite of my words.

“I believe we will.” He swung the gun toward us again and smirked. “We’ll go out back and do some digging. No one will ever look for you there.”