Chapter 34 An Important Cleanup #2
“Hey, what are you doing in here?”
Margaret’s steps quicken and she peers around the corner toward Dr. Deaver’s office.
There is the cart in the hallway and Joe is at the open office door.
A woman’s voice returns the question: “What are you doing here?”
Purdy?
Margaret hurries forward, no longer caring who sees. She pushes the custodian cart aside and looks around Joe’s shoulder.
There is Purdy standing next to Dr. Deaver’s desk wearing a tight navy-blue skirt and a military-style jacket.
Sunlight falls from the windows and touches the top of her head, revealing what Margaret had not realized.
Purdy is not a natural blond. A streak of darker hair at the part line gives it away.
What else does Margaret not know about her?
Purdy must feel the same because she gasps at the sight of Margaret in the doorway. “How are you here?” she asks.
Before Margaret can ask why her presence seems to be such a miracle, Joe says, “She’s got the notebook.”
Sure enough, Dr. Deaver’s missing research notebook is tucked under Purdy’s arm. The date is visible.
“I’m just returning it for the dean.” Purdy lifts her chin. “He asked me to put it back.”
“I think you’re lying,” Margaret says.
“How would you know whether I’m lying or not? I do all kinds of important work for the dean. I’m not some glorified den mother–slash–cleaning lady like you.”
“A research assistant II is not a den mother nor a cleaning lady, although cleanliness is important. And the reason I know you’re lying is because we were there when you snuck in and took the notebook.
” Margaret remembers the quick-footed thief and gets an image of the gym bag and sneakers in Purdy’s car.
Who would have thought she was athletic or wore anything besides towering heels?
Purdy frowns and Joe raises an eyebrow at what Margaret now realizes is a confession of their own break-in.
“Who cares what you think you saw?” Purdy snaps. “I didn’t sneak in. I had the dean’s key, and why would you care if I took the book anyway? There’s nothing interesting in it even though you told the dean that Jon journaled. It’s just science stuff.” Purdy tosses the notebook onto Deaver’s desk.
Now it’s Margaret’s turn to frown—until she remembers asking the dean for Dr. Deaver’s research notebooks and that he called them journals, which Purdy must have mistaken for the modern tendency to call diary writing “journaling.”
Purdy looks at Joe. “And why are you dragging the janitor into this?”
“He’s a janitor but he’s also a journalist. He won awards. I checked,” Margaret says.
Now Joe looks surprised.
“What’s that in your hand?” Margaret asks.
“Nothing,” Purdy says defiantly, even though her fingers with their long, manicured pink nails are clearly curled around something.
“You can either let us see or I could help you let go of what you’re holding.” Joe’s voice is calm, which makes his words sound even more threatening.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Who knows? A man like me.” Joe turns his face slightly so Purdy can see the scar more clearly.
“Fine.” Purdy opens her hand. Something clatters onto the desk.
Margaret’s stomach drops. The key to the locked cabinet.
Margaret would recognize it anywhere. It’s attached to a goofy redwood-tree key chain that one of Dr. Deaver’s admiring students had given to him.
You’re Burly, reads the inscription, a play on the bulging burls found on redwood trees. Dr. Deaver had loved it.
“You took the key to the cabinet from Dr. Deaver’s desk,” Margaret says. “Then you took the atropine and made it look like Dr. Deaver had checked it out.”
Even as Margaret says it, pieces of the puzzle begin to click into place: the looping handwriting on Purdy’s note, which was similar to the initials “JMD” written in the cabinet log book, the empty soda bottles and fast-food wrappers in Purdy’s car (she didn’t see a specific Diet Coke label but soda was obviously her drink of choice), the tight purple dress Margaret had seen in Purdy’s vehicle and now remembers as the outfit Purdy wore to the reception for the philanthropist/inventor who’d snubbed Margaret.
The memories rise like shoots from daffodil bulbs: Purdy standing a little too close to Dr. Deaver that night and touching his sleeve in an intimate way.
Her fetching drinks for him. Dr. Deaver looking glassy-eyed, then disappearing from the room with Purdy in his wake.
Purdy coming back through the ballroom door later with her dress slightly askew and a self-satisfied look on her face.
Why hadn’t she seen it until now?
“You slept with Dr. Deaver,” Margaret says. “It was you who sent him that text.”
“I loved him,” Purdy says.
“But he didn’t love you,” Joe says. A good deduction in light of the threat Dr. Deaver received, which, Margaret now realizes, hadn’t come from any chemist. Dr. Deaver had been covering his earlier indiscretion from his new love, Rachel Sterling. Such a tangled web he’d woven.
Purdy’s eyes narrow. “He said what happened between us was a mistake, but it wasn’t. How could our passion be a mistake? Once I came into his office and we made love right on his desk.”
Uncomfortable and, also, very unhygienic, Margaret thinks.
“He told me I was nothing like his wife, that she was so rigid and uptight. Then, suddenly, he tells me we need to call things off. He says he won’t leave Veronica Ann.
She’s stood by him and done so much for him, et cetera, et cetera.
” Purdy waves a hand dismissively. “So, I figured, what if she left him instead? That’s when I phoned the little wifey-wife and told her that her husband had been unfaithful.
I gave her time and place. I even texted a selfie I took of the two of us in bed when Jon fell asleep. I’m sure she told you about that.”
At the surprised look on Margaret’s face, Purdy says, “I followed you to her house in my car. You were carrying a journal like this one. You two looked all chummy.”
A “fling,” Veronica Ann had called it, but it wasn’t Rachel Sterling’s relationship with Dr. Deaver that Veronica Ann referred to. It was Purdy’s.
“Jon was furious that I called her, but instead of the battle-ax throwing him out, he threw me out,” Purdy continues. “Like I was a piece of garbage or something. Nobody treats me that way.”
“Then you poisoned him,” Joe says.
“Of course not.”
Another puzzle piece drops.
“You found out he’d filed for divorce after all, but when you went to him…” Margaret lets the sentence hang.
“He said he was in love with someone else.”
“And you were really hurt.”
“Wouldn’t you be? Oh, wait, I forgot. No man would look twice at you, so how would you know what it felt like? You and your stupid blouses and your horse face.”
“My blouses aren’t stupid.”
“You broke into his office, got the key to the cabinet and poured atropine into his scotch bottle,” Joe says. “Then you watched him die.”
“Nice try,” Purdy says. “Nobody can prove I was there.”
“Oh, yes we can.” Margaret takes a step closer to Purdy. “Check the top button on your jacket.”
Margaret knows it’s a long shot. She must try, however.
Purdy looks down. “There’s no button there.”
Margaret reaches into her skirt pocket and pulls out the navy-blue fastener. “Exactly. That’s because we found it under the couch in Dr. Deaver’s office after he died.”
Joe takes his cue. “You made some excuse to go to his office. He was drinking a glass of scotch like you knew he would be, and you sat down to watch him die.”
“I told him I heard he had some good news and wanted to congratulate him. I knew he liked to celebrate his successes. At first, he tried to hustle me out of there. Said there was nothing for us to talk about. Then I told him I also wanted to apologize for causing problems with him and Veronica Ann. I said I understood that sometimes things don’t work out and he said he was glad.
He even thanked me for my apology. Men are so gullible.
I reminded him how good we were in bed but then he goes and says that didn’t make it right and that he regretted what he did.
By then, he was starting to sweat and get red in the face.
I told him to just open the windows. It was fun to watch the poison work and him trying to figure out what was wrong.
“I told him how his rejection hurt because of the way my first husband left me, which gave me trust issues and blah blah blah. He said he was sorry but what happened was still a mistake, which is a terrible thing to tell somebody he’d treated like a piece of trash.
Then he started saying how thirsty and hot he was.
I gave him my Diet Coke to drink. He unbuttoned his shirt.
He looked a little green around the gills and said he felt terrible.
I told him he should feel terrible for what he’d done to me.
Then he starts going on about how I needed to leave him alone and that he’s starting a new life and he’s glad because he’ll never have to see me again and that he’s feeling really sick and maybe needs to go to the doctor.
That’s when I tell him what I’d done and that no doctor could save him.
You should have seen the look on his face. ”
Purdy’s description of Dr. Deaver’s suffering makes Margaret feel sick.
“Then, all of a sudden, he’s lunging across the desk and grabbing me like some kind of wild animal, and he looks like he wants to kill me.
I manage to get away but then he starts staggering around and crashing into things and shouting for help, and I look out the window and there’s this FedEx truck pulling up just outside, and it was like a bad movie, you know: him moaning and shouting. I thought atropine worked faster.”
“It depends on the dose and the person’s size,” Margaret says, wondering why she’s educating a poisoner about atropine’s toxicity levels.
“He starts to come for me again and I know I’m in trouble, but, suddenly, he just grabs his chest and keels over.
Then, there’s blood and I hear a door slam from the FedEx truck and I think someone might be coming so I grab the glass and get out of there.
I go to my car because I’m a little panicked and there’s one of those parking cops checking license plates, so I drive off. ”
“You didn’t come back to get rid of the scotch bottle?” Joe asks.
Purdy looks at Joe like his burn scars extend into his brain.
“They can track your cell phone, you know. I figured it was better to stay away and let people think it was his heart. Besides, even if they found the scotch bottle, the suicide thing would throw people off.” She stabs a finger toward Margaret.
“Then, this one here starts poking around and raising a fuss and asking about who had keys and such. I knew I had to keep her close so I could counter whatever she found out.”
“Which is why you’re putting back the cabinet key,” Margaret says.
“I’m not some ditzy blond airhead like everybody thinks I am.”
“Yes, but you just told us everything,” Margaret says.
“Who’s going to believe you? Some burned-up janitor and a crazy lady who runs around saying people were poisoned?
A weirdo who accused the dean of lying to get a grant?
” Purdy says. “The cops thought you were a wack job before. Why would they believe you now? I’ll just deny I said anything and since there’s no evidence besides your stupid button—which is pretty pathetic—it’s your word against mine. ”
Margaret’s heart sinks. Purdy is right.
“Well, not exactly. It’s your word against your own words,” Joe says and pulls his phone from his jeans pocket. “I recorded our whole conversation.”
“You can’t record someone without their consent,” Purdy sneers.
“That’s illegal. The cops can’t use it in court, and I can always say you threatened me into saying what I did.
Plus, there’s no evidence. I took care of that, and his wife took care of the rest when she had Jon cremated. There’s no way to test for poison now.”
“Not true,” Jon says. “I’ve covered a few trials in my day, and I believe the medical examiner always draws blood during an autopsy.
It would be easy for the police to ask to have it tested.
They just need a reason, which they didn’t have before because nobody listened to Margaret, but now, they do. ”
“They still can’t prove it wasn’t suicide,” Purdy says. “His initials are on the sign-out sheet, and he was under a lot of stress with the divorce and the grant and stuff. There won’t be any prints to point to me. Like I said, I’m not dumb.”
“But you’re messy,” Margaret says.
“So what?” Purdy says.
“So, I’ll bet if they check your car, they’ll find the cocktail glass with your prints on it, which puts you at the scene, and Veronica Ann will show them the photo of you and Dr. Deaver in bed and testify how he broke it off with you, which would give you motive and opportunity.
Who knows, they might even find the scotch bottle in your car, which could still have traces of atropine. ”
Purdy glares at her. “You old witch. You should have eaten the cupcake.”
For a moment, Margaret is confused.
Then: “Calvin!” she shouts, and runs from the room.