“What have you got on your mind?" Mel asked suspiciously.
“Just a question and a look at her office. If I'm wrong, I'll shut up. Shelley is sure I'm wrong." "Jane, don't do anything stupid, okay?"
“We won't be in the slightest danger. I prom‑ ise.”
Mike turned up for dinner. "How'd your garden tour go?" he asked.
“Everybody knew it was faked," Jane said. "Have you seen what Katie and her friends have done to the kitchen? What are they mak‑ ing?"
“Black Forest cake. I'm afraid to see so much as a glimpse of the kitchen.”
Mike loved the cake and so did the rest of them. The girls had even cleaned up the splattered batter and the smears of cherry juice they'd spilled down the front of a cabinet. It was a fight to keep Mike from finishing the cake up. Jane had to cut off three little token pieces to take to the Jackson house. Mike begged Katie to make it again over the weekend. "That will really impress Sandra," he said.
Jane resisted, with great restraint, asking who Sandra was. Had he ferreted out Kipsy's real name or was a new Sandra on the horizon?
She called ahead and asked Geneva Jackson if she and Shelley could drop by with a dessert. Geneva was delighted. "We had take-out barbeque for dinner, which we all pretty much hated. We'd love a dessert. I'll start a big pot of coffee.”
Fortunately, Julie was back in her basement office when they got there. "I'll call to her to come up," Geneva said.
“Don't bother," Jane replied. "We'll go down to her.”
When they got to the basement, Jane was pleasant but brisk. "Dr. Jackson, I'm Jane Jeffry. We've met before."
“At the city hall flap about cats on leashes," Julie laughed.
“And this is Shelley Nowack, my next-door neighbor and best friend. We were enrolled in the class you were to give on botany and gardening. I have three questions to ask you if you don't mind.”
Julie looked surprised. "I guess that's all right. I hope I can answer them."
“Okay. First, would you open one of your file drawers?”
Julie, looking a bit like she was concerned for Jane's mental health, pulled a drawer open. Jane nodded, thanked her, and asked the second question. "Here's a list of the people in the class. Do you recognize any of the names?”
Julie studied the list. "Most of them," she said.
“Have you done whatever you do, which I'm sorry I don't quite grasp, for any of them?"
“I was called in to analyze material regarding a patent for these two." She picked up a pencil and checked off two names.
Jane nudged Shelley. "I think I'm right. Thank you so much, Dr. Jackson. There's Black Forest cake and coffee upstairs. Are you feeling well enough to have some?”
Julie smiled. "After nearly five days of hospital food? Of course I am.”
Jane and Shelley made small talk, knocked back a cup of coffee each, and made their escape.
As soon as they were on their way home, Shelley said, "It isn't proof of anything."
“But there is proof. And Mel can get to it if it hasn't been destroyed yet.”
Jane went straight home and called Mel and outlined her case. He, like Shelley, scoffed at her crazy reasoning. But having hashed it out with Shelley and squashed her objections, Jane was ready with her ammunition.
“Jane, I don't pretend to believe this story." "But you'll check it out anyway."
“I guess I have to.”
On Saturday, Jane was never away from the phone, but Mel didn't call. He'd either found a lead of his own, or was still chewing over what she'd said. She knew better than to run him down and ask which it was.
Sunday morning he called and said, "May I run by and take you for a ride? Maybe somewhere out in the country where you can't hurt anyone with your crutches?”
It was a rehearsed line. Meant to be funny, but failing.
She was ready and waiting outside when he drove up. She squashed herself into his little MG, being very careful not to dent it with the crutch. They were well out of town when he finally said, "You were right. He admitted all you imagined, and more."
“You probably won't believe me, but I'm sorry I was right," Jane said sadly.
“You might not be when you hear all of it. You were right about the flowers he gave you. Dr. Jackson explained it all, even though the files were missing from her office. Darlene Waring had nursed along what Dr. Jackson called a 'sport,' a natural mutation of a marigold. Those pitiful plants Arnie gave you were descendants of her seeds. A year before she died, she sent seeds to Dr. Eastman. She'd heard him speak and thought he might be interested in what she'd found. He replied that the plants he'd grown with the seeds were useless. Too sprawling, unreliable colors, too fragile stems, and a bunch of other criticisms. Or words she took to be criticisms."
“But he admitted he'd grown them?" Jane asked. "Yes, and Arnie in his own distinctive way in‑ terpreted it as a devastating insult to her that weakened her to the point that she didn't take care of herself when she became ill. He blamed Eastman for her death."
“That's unreasonable. It's why I doubted what I saw and smelled on my hands when I dropped the vase and handled the plants he'd given me."
“Not unreasonable to him. He's never accepted that she was ill simply because she had a fatal disease. We'll never know, of course, whether she was really as upset as he thought she was. But when he got his computer and started to cruise the Internet, one of the first things he looked up was any references to Dr. Stewart Eastman."
“That's something I hadn't thought about," Jane admitted. "I just thought he was a pretty up-to-date old guy to even have a computer."
“He found lots of references to Eastman's patents. And a piece from a plantsmen's journal hinting that Eastman was working on a marigold."
“Eastman told us nobody developing a new patent plant should ever talk to anyone but a reliable trialler."
“Apparently he hadn't taken his own good advice."
“How did Arnie come to consult with Julie Jackson?"
“She'd had a kitchen fire years ago, and being a good fireman, he went back the next day to instruct her in fire safety. He walked through her house, showing her dangers. That's how he knew her office was in the basement. He asked what she did and she explained her job. Part of it, as you suspected, was giving reports on plants to be patented. She'd worked with Eastman when he got ready to patent his marigold, so Arnie paid her to grow his seeds and compare the results."
“Which weren't favorable, I assume."
“Not at all. She told me a lot of details of the differences, most of which I don't understand, but some other expert would. Something about cell-wall structures and DNA comparisons. It must have cost Arnie a bundle for her tests. And the results showed that even if Eastman had developed his marigold from Darlene Waring's seeds, he'd spent years culling the best and raising a much superior plant, and Arnie shouldn't pursue it in court because he'd surely lose."
“Another insult to Darlene," Jane said.
“So when Arnie learned she was teaching this class, it scared him. This is only a sideline to whatever she normally does, but he thought it was the only thing she did and she might mention it in the class. He knew her house. He knew her office. He mistook her sister for her leaving that morning and thought the house was empty. He swears he was only going to filch the files, but she came out of the little bathroom in the basement and caught him at it. He swears he didn't mean to hurt her, he was only trying to get away from her with the files and she pursued him."
“And then he was angrier than ever at Eastman for putting this over on his late wife. I'll bet he blamed Eastman for making him do such an awful thing," Jane speculated.
“Almost word for word for what he said in the interview room. He'd seen pretty serious injuries in his time that the people recovered from and was afraid she'd tell Eastman about him. So he had to kill Eastman."