Chapter 31 Not What They Seem
Not What They Seem
Margaret is at Rachel Sterling’s office door one minute before three the next day, which is when the biochemist’s office hours begin.
She and Calvin have accomplished a fair amount of work today, running frozen cockscomb and kerria leaves through the TissueLyser to grind them into a powder, extracting material with methanol, then allowing it to dry. Tomorrow, they will continue their work.
Calvin, thankfully, seems to have recovered from his smoking setback and says that instead of quitting cold turkey, he plans now to reduce his smoking by one cigarette every other day until he is down to zero, a task that he estimates will take at least six weeks, as he was up to a pack-a-day habit.
“By then I’ll be a blimp, of course,” he says. “Whenever I don’t smoke, my appetite goes through the roof.”
Margaret advises vegetables and fruit.
“How about French fries?” he asks hopefully.
Margaret tells him that while, technically, French fries are vegetables, the cooking method negates any health benefits.
“Perhaps try steaming potatoes.”
“Ugh,” Calvin says. “I’d rather eat cotton balls.”
Margaret looks at her watch—three p.m. exactly—and knocks on Professor Sterling’s door, then tests the knob. It’s locked. Is Professor Sterling one of those faculty whose office hours are a disguise for naps and early commutes home?
The answer comes a few seconds later, when she hears footsteps against the linoleum floor and sees Sterling hurrying up the dim hallway, her arms full of books and a large leather handbag slung over one shoulder.
“Ms. Finch,” she says with surprise when she recognizes Margaret at her door.
“Professor Sterling,” Margaret acknowledges.
“Sorry I’m late. Let me just get the door open.” Sterling shifts the books she carries and retrieves a key from her purse.
She is wearing a blue wraparound dress with red hoop earrings and red sneakers.
Now that she is close, Margaret guesses Professor Sterling is in her early to mid-forties, which the faint crow’s-feet at the corner of her eyes seem to attest. She’s certainly attractive.
What Margaret admires most about the woman, however, is that she is lugging actual books into her office.
Books show concentration. Books show seriousness and a commitment to a subject.
“I just read this wonderful magazine article about a woman chemist in the late nineties,” Sterling is saying.
“It was about her hunting polyfluoroalkyl compounds, forever chemicals, to their source. It turns out she published a memoir about her adventures, which I found in the library. Then I discovered another biography about this female chemist in the 1860s. I can’t wait to dive in. ”
Sterling’s office is neat and sunlit. She sets the books on a corner of her desk and opens the office’s lone window. “How can I help you, Ms. Finch?”
Margaret can see the intelligence in the woman’s eyes. There is a sharpness, a sense that details do not escape her. Misdirection and lies will not work.
“Margaret, please,” she says, “and I’d like to talk to you about Dr. Deaver.”
Sterling stills as if Medusa had suddenly appeared and turned her to stone.
“Oh,” she says, slowly lowering her handbag to the floor.
Margaret feels bad for what she is about to do but knows she will feel worse if a murderer is allowed to go free. “Am I wrong to think you two were close?”
Sterling sinks into her office chair, and Margaret takes the chair at the edge of the desk, which, like Dr. Deaver’s, is not university issued. Mahogany, Margaret thinks.
Sterling presses her lips together. Silence descends.
“It’s all right, Professor Sterling,” Margaret says after a few moments.
“Whatever you say to me will be held in confidence until you’re ready for the truth to be revealed.
I’m taking a risk myself by saying this to you, but I suspect Dr. Deaver did not die of a heart defect but instead he may have been poisoned.
Sterling’s eyes grow wide. “Poisoned?”
“Yes.”
“An accident?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“With what? By whom?” Sterling pales.
“With atropine, Atropa belladonna. Most likely in his scotch, which he drank sometimes to celebrate a success,” Margaret answers. “And the ‘who’ is why I’m here.”
“He was murdered?” Emotions swirl over Sterling’s face.
“That’s what I suspect, although the police have refused a toxicology screen, which would prove my theory.”
Margaret gives Sterling a few moments to let the news sink in. She’s sure that, as a biochemist, Sterling understands that Dr. Deaver suffered a horrible death.
“Shall I tell you what I know?” Margaret asks.
Sterling is staring out the window as if in another place.
“Professor Sterling?”
Sterling shakes herself out of her thoughts. “Oh yes. Of course. Please.”
Margaret tells her everything: Dr. Deaver’s dilated pupils, the disordered room, the unbuttoned shirt and open windows, the note on the computer, the scotch and Diet Coke bottles.
“Jon didn’t drink Diet Coke,” Sterling interrupts.
“That’s exactly my point,” Margaret says.
She notes that Sterling’s knowledge of Dr. Deaver’s habits indicates a relationship beyond work colleagues.
She goes on to describe the missing cocktail glass, the campus police officer’s lazy efforts, the dean’s attempt to cover things up, the availability of atropine in the lab plus the appearance of the wolfsbane stem.
“Sometimes, as they say, the simplest answer is the best, but, in this case, I think not,” Margaret says. “I believe there are two people who might have wanted Dr. Deaver dead.”
“Who are they?” Sterling breathes.
“I slandered someone before and don’t want to do that again. I think your answers, however, might point me in the right direction.”
“Go on, then.”
“Maybe you could start by telling me how you and Dr. Deaver met.”
“If it will help.” Sterling’s lower lip trembles but she brings it under control. “I was just starting here and I saw that he was doing a talk for transfer and reentry students, and I was intrigued.”
Margaret remembers Dr. Deaver mentioning the talk.
It was to be about the early history of plants as medicine, from the Chinese in 3000 BCE who used the ephedra plant (ma huang) to treat fevers to Egyptian physicians in the first and second centuries who dispensed senna pods to cure constipation and which remain part of some laxatives today.
“Usually, professors of his stature don’t do those kinds of things.
They tend to save their lectures for benefactors and big audiences,” Sterling says.
“I decided to attend. He was funny and brilliant and open, and the students loved him. Afterward, I went up to tell him how much I admired what he’d done.
He asked what I was working on and when I told him, he said he’d love to hear more.
We went for coffee and talked for three hours. He was an amazing scientist.”
“Yes, he was,” Margaret says almost to herself. Despite some of the things she’d learned, no one could doubt Dr. Deaver’s science.
“Then, we…” Sterling hesitates.
“Became lovers?” Margaret finishes.
One cannot be a botanist and be a prude. Not after you learn how sunflowers pollinate themselves by curling parts of their pistils around their stamens and that four-wing saltbushes will change genders after a drought or sudden freeze.
“Well, yes,” Sterling says. “But it wasn’t like that. He was going to marry me.”
“After his divorce.”
“Of course. It wasn’t just us, however. He and his wife had been having trouble for a while.
In fact, she was the one who first suggested divorce.
She only got angry when Jon jumped the gun and filed before her.
I told Jon he was risking a long, drawn-out fight and that he should be more generous.
Veronica Ann had hired this barracuda of a lawyer, and I told Jon she would bleed him dry.
Besides, he could afford a lot more alimony, especially after he went to work for my father. ”
Margaret’s mind scrambles for a foothold.
“Wait. Who’s your father?”
Sterling’s mouth opens, then closes with a small exhale of breath.
“Yes, um, well. I don’t go around telling people.
Not that I’m ashamed of my dad, but it changes things when people find out who you are.
That’s why I use my mother’s maiden name, Sterling.
My father is Jack Edwards. He owns Phoenix Pharmaceuticals. ”
Phoenix Pharmaceuticals was one of the ten biggest drug companies in the world.
“He offered Jon a senior position in research and development,” Sterling continues.
“He was intrigued by the work Jon was doing and, well, as you know, companies like my dad’s have much deeper pockets than universities, which means there’s not a constant need to chase after grants. You can just do your work.”
Dr. Deaver was leaving Roosevelt to join a pharmaceutical company?
“But you…,” Margaret begins.
“I want to establish my credentials before I go to work for Phoenix. I don’t want people crying nepotism. I want to stand on my own accomplishments.”
Silence again fills the room.
“He was going to tell you,” Sterling says finally. “In fact, he wanted to take you with him. He said there was no better lab manager than you.”
Everything Margaret thought she knew is being cracked, dismantled, shredded. Would she have gone?
“We didn’t want to hurt anybody. It just happened so fast. It was all fire and passion between us. Two souls connecting.”
Margaret’s mind spins like a centrifuge. “Wait. When was the lecture where you met?”
“December fifteenth of last year.”
“That was just three and a half months ago.”
“Like I said, it happened fast. In fact, Jon and I had planned to go away to celebrate our anniversary, but then…” Sterling’s voice cracks. “Then he died.”